It seems like the current administration thinks its proposed collectivist policies should be exempt from criticism. I get the sense that their position is the same for which they derided President Bush: “If you’re not with us, you’re against us.” Does he expect us to stand behind his proffered policies just because he can orate them slickly from a teleprompter?
Sun Tsu wrote a treatise on how to prevail. As a corollary, we might say his work was about how to cause your opponent to fail. It has been a significant document ever since (2500 years ago), much followed by military strategists over the centuries. More recently it has been openly cited as a source for developing effective corporate strategy in the marketplace.
Is striving to win no longer appropriate?
When you go to a football game and root for your team to win, don’t you want the other team to lose?
When you buy gold and take possession, you must be expecting that it will be a store of value. If its value increases, that implies our currency has lost value. So if you buy gold, are you wishing for the currency to lose value?
If you buy a stock short, are you wishing for a company to fail, or are you betting, based on observable activities in which the company is engaged, that it’s price will fall. It would be silly to think that you are really betting one way, and hoping, say, for the sake of the people who are employed at the company, that it will actually improve its performance.
If you opposed Fidel Castro when he took over Cuba, you probably hoped he would fail. To the extent that he succeeded, Cuba is obviously a failure.
I don’t know whether Obama is trying to hurt America on purpose, but it seems pretty clear that what he’s doing or hoping to do isn’t helping.
In light of that, I want liberty to win, which means, of course, that I too hope Obama fails.
What I do want is to see him dismantle the government stranglehold over healthcare that has created the healthcare problem. I want him to simplify the tax code so it can appear on a post card. I want him to end subsidies, tariffs, tax preferences and tax incentives across the board. I want him to end federal involvement in education and stand behind vouchers for all kids so they can go to any school of their choice.
Do I want America to fail? Of course not. But since I think Obama’s policies will lead to America’s failure, I naturally want to see those policies defeated. That is, I want to see Obama fail.
I’m playing to win. Are you?