What is making it difficult for Obama is the fact that he *believes* all the ideas that are causing the problem.

"change is therefore difficult to bring about without a system of trade-offs"
Yes it is but if the President, elected on a popular mandate for significant change, doesn't have the leadership authority, who does? Difficult doesn't mean impossible. The need to uphold the Constitution when faced with the power-plays of vested interests isn't a reason for him not to do his job - it is his job! Even without recourse to Congress, he could make enormous changes by executive order alone - proof of the past slide to unconstitutional government. Nor should we rule out the support of Congress. The very least he should do is seek to persuade them!

But he's not. For example, Ron Paul wants to abolish the Fed, but Obama has opposed even auditing it! Obama recently moved to *increase* the debt ceiling. According to this theory, the whole of the expenditures of the US government are absolutely sacrosanct. There is no way anything could possibly be economised. *All* military expenditure without exception is classified as "non-discretionary*.

So the problem isn't that he is beholden to the power elites. It's that he's beholden to the *beliefs* that are causing these serious dangerous unjust global problems, and which are shared by the orthodoxy on both the left and right wing of politics, Ron Paul excepted. The state knows better than everyone else put together. The state represents the greater good of the community against the selfishness of the individual. If there's any problem, it's because the state didn't do enough, never that it did too much. The Constitution is irrelevant. There are no limits to the power the state *should* have! The state is god.

It's a racket folks! They've lied to you, and have you believed it? Left and right are not opposites, they are two wings of the one predatory class.

Dear Poirot,

I agree with you. President Obama's election gave so much hope to so many people not only in the US but around the globe. Of course it would be extremely naive not to realise that he has to walk a fine line in order to achieve anything. Still, he tries. Whether it's with a new health system, or taking the initiative with the Middle-East conflict. Of course we'd like to see him achieve more - however, he's got strong opposition from the conservatives (Tea-Party mob and others) which make our coutry's opposition look irrelevant.

The whole purpose of theory is to explain and predict reality. So if you had entertained high hopes of Obama, and they have been disappointed, that means your theory is wrong.

Lexi and Quick response persist in hoping that, if only we urge government to use more and more power unconstitutionally, that will surely make for a better society. For where in the US Constitution is the power granted:
a) to "champion the ... right to a reasonable standard of living for billions of people ... overseas"?
b) for "a new health system, or taking the initiative with the Middle-East conflict"?

The problem is, people now project onto government, the expectations for which in former ages they would repose faith in God. My expectations of Obama turned out correct, but I don't have a God-King theory of the state.

There are three basic problems with that approach, apart from its irrationality. Firstly it's unconstitutional, and this obviously doesn't bother you. You advocate arbitrarily violating the freedoms and property of others, knowing it's unconstitutional, only believing it must be good because you *intend* it to be good.

Secondly, once government is enlarged beyond the strict limits provided for it by the Constitution, there's no reason to think it's going to do what you want. And it doesn't - that's what you're complaining about.

Thirdly, when you look on the negative results of your own theory, you don't recognise them as such, and re-urge more of the same measures that caused the problem in the first place.

The *left* needs to understand its part in for the global injustices it condemns.

Let me ask you this: if you could end the American empire, the military-industrial complex, the Fed, the bailouts for billionaires, the wall street cartel, but only at the cost of abolishing all the government departments not *explicitly* permitted by the Constitution, including Education, social security and Medicare, would you be for or against it?

If not, I'm sorry to tell you this, but it's you and your political opinion that's causing the problem.

Peter Hume,

I've just returned back to this thread and read your last post.
My goodness - you certainly assume a great deal about people you don't even know. Frankly, I'm not interested in continuing a discussion when someone stoops to the level of labelling people. That's arguing on an emotional level, and not a mature, intelligent one. I'll leave you to your gruntlement.

Notice how every time the interventionists' advocating aggressive violence as a means to an end is pointed out to them, they act like it's impolite to mention it, or they were entirely innocent of any such suggestions, and immediately personalise the issue?

But you don't want the "new health care system" to be voluntary, do you?

Do you?

You want it to be imposed and enforced, don't you?

Yes? Answer?

And you haven't tried to cite where in the Constitution such action is explicitly authorised, have you? And it's because you know it's not there, isn't it? So you're advocating unconstitutional government, specifically to use aggressive force for redistributions to political favourites, aren't you?

You feel affronted by me for using *words* to point out that the policies you advocate involve *actually and physically violating* the freedom and property of others. If you hadn't thought that that's what you're doing, isn't it time you did? And if you had, isn't it time you re-thought what you stand for?

It is not a long bow to draw to say that those who advocate the welfare state in the USA have only been able to do so by advocating arbitrary and unconstitutional government.

The question is, would you do away with the endless killings, the imperial Caesar, the corruption of the military-industrial complex, the Fed, the banking cartel, and all the high crimes and abuses that flow from unlimited government power, if it could only be done at the cost of your precious handouts?

Peter Hume,

Frankly, I don't know what you're on about. I don't know US politics that well to make all those assertions that you're claiming I made. Asking questions in a discussion should not be taken as an attack of some kind. And I am not an absolutionist on most subjects. I can be persuaded if the arguments make sense to me. Unfortunately, I don't understand what you're on about - so as I stated previosuly - I'll leave you to it.