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Jan. 22, 2015 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
25:27
2891 State of the Union: Barack Obama Rebutted!

Stefan Molyneux examines and dismantles President Barack Obama’s 2015 State of the Union speech.

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Hi everybody, Stefan Muller from Freedom Aid Radio.
I hope you're doing well.
We're going to dive deep into the tangled narcoleptic web of Barack Obama's recent State of the Union address in the hopes of gleaning some universal truths and wisdom that should arm you against the manipulations that come from all aspects of the political bichromatic rainbow that is American politics.
But it's really important, I think, to understand what goes on in these kinds of speeches and how you are, I mean, somewhat unconsciously led by the nose.
The opening statement is brilliant.
Absolutely brilliant.
So he says, we are 15 years into this new century.
So immediately he is giving you a zoom out.
He's saying, let's zoom out and look at a very giant perspective.
And the reason he does that is to minimize the frustrations, anxieties, and hostilities that have run, like Quicksilver, through the heart of the American people over the financial collapse that occurred 2007-2008 and continues on.
So he's asking you to look back.
And, of course, when you think about, let's say, what were you worried about 15 years ago, the year 2000?
What were you worried about?
It's probably hard to even remember.
Your concerns at the time seem fairly small, and so when somebody gets you to zoom out, they are appealing to your sense of perspective, nay, even nobility, perhaps, and they are giving you the mental cue to minimize your own current discomforts and upsets.
So he says, we're 15 years into this new century, 15 years that dawned with terror touching our shores, that unfolded With a new generation fighting two long and costly wars that saw a vicious recession spread across our nation and the world, it has been, and still is, a hard time for many.
And this is a way of provoking or programming you to herd mentality with leader external forces, right?
So when you summon external dangers, invasions, war, and so on, when you summon external dangers, the natural psychological response for people is to cling together and look for a leader.
So he is positioning himself absolutely beautiful.
I mean, it is an amazing...
Two or three sentences that are going on at the beginning of the speech.
Have a big perspective.
Don't worry about what's going on right now.
Put your concerns in perspective.
There's lots of danger in the world, and I am the comforting leader.
It's wonderful, wonderful stuff.
Not virtuous, in my opinion, but wonderful stuff.
Of course, the pose that is always portrayed by politicians or leaders who are attempting to unify the people with reference to external threats...
Is, stuff just happened.
Stuff just happened to us.
Here we were, peacefully minding our own business, and next thing you know, dragons swoop down upon the Nord people and eat their children.
And the idea that we're terror-touching our shores, here we are, shores is a delineation, like we were just home doing nothing, and terrorists attacked us for no reason.
A new generation fighting too long and costly wars, as if that just happened, as if that wasn't the decision of people in power, including the Democrat Party that he's a part of.
A vicious recession spread across our nation.
Just happened.
No government involvement, no priming of the housing market through forcing banks to loan to underqualified people, no massive federal stimulus reserve packages and so on, no bailouts.
It just happened.
Here we are, fighting this thing that just happened to us.
Again, that's wonderful, wonderful stuff.
So he says, tonight we turn the page.
And that's a way of just saying, that stuff is all behind us.
It's in the past.
Let's not examine it.
Let's not go back.
We move forward.
So he says, tonight, after a breakthrough year for America, our economy is growing and creating jobs at the fastest pace since 1999.
Our unemployment rate is now lower than it was before the financial crisis.
More of our kids are graduating than ever before.
More of our people are insured than ever before.
We are as free from the grip of foreign oil as we've been in almost 30 years.
And. And...
In general, those in the government pretend that they're great fighters because their opponent had a heart attack before even getting into the ring.
Victory!
So, let's look at what does this actually mean.
The economy is growing, creating jobs at the fastest pace since 1999.
Okay, let's say that that's true.
The jobs that are being created are...
Low-rent, low-wage, no-benefits jobs in general.
Part-time jobs are growing, and retail jobs are growing, and the service sector jobs are widening.
This stuff is growing, but it's not the kind of quality jobs that were around before the recession.
I mean, you could ban all farm machinery and claim that you've now restored full employment because everyone has to go out and harvest crops by hand, but that's not necessarily an improvement in the economy.
More of our kids are graduating than ever before.
Well, I wonder if standards have been lowered to help them graduate.
I wonder if teachers have been found across the nation to be doctoring the tests that their students hand in to make sure that they graduate.
And so on.
So what's happening is that the government is now rewarding schools for performance, and so performance is magically getting bigger.
Hey, people respond to incentives.
Isn't that amazing?
We're as free from the grip of foreign oil as we've been in almost 30 years.
The reality is, though, I mean, first of all, America is still the world's largest importer of oil, so saying you're free from it is not exactly valid.
And what's really interesting to see, and this is with Abraham Lincoln, right?
So he freed the slaves on lands he didn't control, and he didn't free the slaves on land he did control, which tells you something about his nature.
But the government has land that it controls and land that it doesn't control.
And on the land that it does control, since 2010, oil production on federal lands is down 16%.
Natural gas production is down 24%.
Whereas on private lands, in lands the government doesn't control, well, gas and oil production is way, way up.
So saying that, well, you know, hey, we've done all this great stuff.
We're free.
We're producing more.
We're number one in oil production.
Yes, only in the lands that you don't control.
In the lands that you do control, it's gone down catastrophically.
And the fracking revolution, whatever your opinions are, does take place on private and state lands.
It boosted domestic crude oil production from 5 million barrels per day in 2008 to 9.1 million barrels per day now.
And the fracking, of course, has been opposed by a significant majority of Democrats and so on.
Now, he does talk about middle-class economics and wanting to close the widening gap between rich and poor that is common to most late empires, along with the collapse of the family, bread and circuses, and the debasement of the currency.
The after-tax middle-class household income fell by 1.9% during this so-called recovery under Obama, despite a 25% increase in payment transfers, welfare, basically, and other things.
And The goal of the welfare state, the goal of public education, the goal of the massive, massive welfare or income redistributionist state has been to close the gap between rich and poor.
And it has done quite the opposite.
It has increased the gap between rich and poor.
Now, the reasons for that are manyfold and complicated and so on.
But basically, if you have a program called Let's Make Things...
Let's put everyone in the middle class and you eviscerate the middle class and swell the ranks of the rich, hyper-rich and the poor, that's a failed government program.
But of course, there's never any question of revisiting that.
So later he talks about...
In his speech part about Cuba, you know, something that hasn't worked for 50 years.
I mean, only a crazy person would continue doing that.
You've got to change your thoughts and reverse your position if something hasn't worked for 50 years.
Well, welfare state has been going on for more than 50 years and is a complete disaster.
The military-industrial complex has been going on at least, you could argue, since the Second World War has yet to achieve its goals.
And so, of course, we should reevaluate things that haven't worked for 50 years, but not when it costs you votes, apparently.
So he's saying that from a high of 180,000 troops now, fewer than 15,000 troops remain in Afghanistan and Iraq, that the wars have been, he says ended, although ended to me would be everyone coming home, but that's just because I'm old-fashioned and reality-based.
But why it took so long?
Obama's administration did a huge amount to extend American presence in both countries.
They tripled the troop presence in Afghanistan for a surge that, by most accounts, was a massive failure.
And now there are, of course, drones landing like hailstorms in Yemen, Pakistan, and elsewhere.
And according to one A researcher, a group, innocent targets are hit 28 times for every intended target, and now they're back in Iraq.
America is back in Iraq fighting ISIS without even a declaration of war or a clear plan.
No exit strategy in Iraq.
It's so great how history doesn't repeat itself, repeat itself, repeat itself.
Now, every single time...
Most politicians, but in particular, Obama talks about taxes.
He talks about closing loopholes.
Closing loopholes in the tax code that let some people get away with paying very little in tax.
Closing loopholes is a way of programming your brain to feel like someone is getting away with something.
We have evolved this incredible social calculus, which is really fascinating.
So people who can't do a math problem A complex math problem.
If it's reframed as, you know, there's all these people in a bar and all these people are paying for stuff, but this guy's only paying this, right?
They get, when resources are being allocated inefficiently or unfairly, you don't have to be a mathematician to get that processing deep down in your bones, right?
I mean, we would have evolved that way to aim for egalitarianism.
Because...
Any genes which did not help us ensure the fairly even distribution of goodies in a tribe or Distribution of mother's milk, the mother pig's milk for a baby sow, well, those genes would have died off.
So we have this great mathematical social calculus brain that allows us to know when things are unfair, and we resent it and we want to fix that.
So when he talks about closing loopholes, that is an appeal to your social calculus brain and an appeal to your unfairness.
Most people, of course, don't use tax loopholes and so on, although what a tax loophole is is...
It's sort of ridiculous.
It's like trying to figure out the physics of Dungeons& Dragons magic.
I mean, it's all made up stuff anyway.
So he says, let's close loopholes so we stop rewarding companies that keep profits abroad and reward those that invest in America.
Let's use those savings to rebuild our infrastructure and make it more attractive for companies to bring jobs home.
I don't know what keep profits abroad even means.
If the company is in America, if the head office is in America, then usually profits will accumulate that way.
So keeping profits abroad just sounds like something that somebody who doesn't know anything about business would say.
Closing loopholes increases government power.
See, when you talk about closing loopholes to businesses, what happens is those businesses come and kiss your ring to make sure that their loopholes get kept or maybe expanded or shifted somewhere else.
So when you talk about closing loopholes, people come, like for specific groups, they'll come and kiss your ring, they'll donate to you, they'll...
They won't criticize you and so on.
But if you talk about repealing legislation, then instead of creating false friends, you create real enemies.
Because when you repeal legislation, all of those who've adapted to and are benefiting from that legislation, they, well, they dislike you.
And I mean, all this talk about raising and lowering taxes is to some degree smoke and mirrors.
It doesn't matter how much you raise taxes, your tax revenues remain about the same.
If you lower taxes, there is some laugh-a-curt indications that when you lower taxes, your tax revenues increase.
But if you raise taxes, you really don't get any more money.
People just do the intelligent thing and, you know, like Bono the ex-socialist, get their money out of the reach of the taxman.
And of course, if Obama was really interested in bringing jobs and profits to America, How about starting with the corporate tax rate, which is the highest in the world among the developed countries?
And America's even more freaky in that it taxes corporate earnings on a worldwide basis.
So it means that you pay this very high tax rate on what your overseas branches make.
And nobody else, almost nobody else, does that kind of thing.
And it's one of the main reasons why companies get out So,
he's not serious about any of that stuff.
And just in general, there is...
This strange thing that politicians have.
It's not strange in the world of politics.
It's strange in the world of reason and evidence.
And what these politicians do is when they say that the price of something is too high, then the sensible and moral and reasonable thing to do would be to stop, to remove whatever barriers are restricting the supply of whatever it is.
So if healthcare costs are too high, then you need to lower the restrictions for people to enter the healthcare field.
And then you will drive the price down through allowing the free market to produce more of whatever good or services is too high, and that's how you deal with that.
Because that's reducing government power, right?
That's reducing government power.
So, for instance, if you have, like, a third of Americans currently require government permission and a license to do what they do.
And this, of course, is really tragic for the poor who are shut out of this kind of stuff.
Feel like brewing beer in your own home?
Can't do it.
Feel like cutting your neighbor's hair?
Can't do it, right?
Messiah?
You can't do it, right?
So these barriers really restrict the entrance of people.
And, of course, having an open entrance to a particular field drives down the prices.
So lowering government power, repealing restrictions, repealing licensing, and so on, that would be a way to drive down prices.
But that creates real enemies rather than, as I said before, fake friends.
And so what they do is they say, this is sort of the equivalent, it's like, well, we're only going to allow two hairdressers in this 10-block city radius.
Only allow two hairdressers, that's it.
No more licenses for hairdressers.
And then people complain because they say, the price of my haircut is too damn high.
Well, I always feel that for obvious reasons, but the price of my haircut is too damn high.
And they say, well, don't worry about it.
We'll give you subsidies for your haircuts.
You know, we will pay for half of your haircut.
Now, we repeal the licenses and let people come in and drive down the price of haircuts, and that would solve it.
But again, that would make enemies of the haircutters who are currently giving you money.
So, just to give you that analogy, that's how...
It works in politics.
Obama's solution to every single rising price is subsidize the purchase, healthcare, education, whatever it is.
But when you subsidize something with tax dollars, you're just going to increase the prices, and you're going to increase the spending on it.
And when he's talking about high-quality childcare, he's talking about the same thing.
So he says that...
Folks, you know, I hate that word.
I really do.
Folks, you know, whenever he says folks, just think like useful idiot slaves.
Because, I mean, not that that's what everyone is, but just basically folks.
It's just one of these gross words that has you harken back to a nicer time.
And it's folksy, I dare say, and friendly.
And it's just one of these...
Again, programming things.
Like hard-working.
Hard-working families and so on.
This is pretty funny coming from a guy who seems to golf and go to Hawaii for a living for the most part and tell a prompter falsehoods for a living.
But this is...
When he talks about the middle-class squeeze and he's basically saying, well, you know, people, they have to have a two-parent income in order to make ends meet.
Well, first of all, the question is why?
And the answer is taxes, regulation and inflation, right?
So taxes take away a larger amount of people's income and they have to go out to work to maintain their prior lifestyle.
Regulation drives up the price of everything.
And inflation, the Federal Reserve creating huge amounts of currency, drives up the prices of things, and therefore people feel they have to go out to work.
Now, the idea that you would reduce your standard of living, especially if you have children, is unthinkable for a lot of people.
We always think that's progress.
You get to the next thing, go forward, go up, no matter what.
But the reality is that, you know, I mean, in wartime, people vastly reduced their standard of living.
And so when he's talking about giving free daycare to people, what he's basically talking about is to subsidize an unnaturally high standard of living given the current circumstances.
He's going to tax people who don't have kids and give it to people who do have kids so that they can maintain their 3,000 square foot home and two new cars.
All kinds of nonsense.
And he gives all of the...
Well-programmed false dichotomies, right?
He says, Will we accept an economy where only a few of us do spectacularly well?
Or will we commit ourselves to an economy that generates rising incomes and chances for everyone who makes the effort?
Will we approach the world fearful and reactive, dragged into costly conflicts that strain our military and set back our standing?
Or will we lead wisely, using all elements of our power to defeat new threats and protect our planet, you know?
Like there's some solution, right?
There's no solution to these things fundamentally.
There's just costs and benefits.
So these false dichotomies are, again, just a rhetorical device that are just well worth being aware of.
So he says, we've seen the fastest economic growth in over a decade.
Our deficits have been cut by two-thirds, a stock market that has doubled, and healthcare inflation at its lowest rate in 50%.
Well, I mean, one of the reasons the deficits ended was because these massive $800 billion-plus bailouts were done.
One of the reasons why the economy is growing is because this Fed stimulus is driving stock market prices through the roof.
And, I mean, if you're high on cocaine, you don't feel like you need therapy.
Doesn't mean it's true.
In the authorization for war, I think this is a very, very important aspect of things, which I think is really, really important.
So he's saying, you know, well, I intend to go to Congress for approval for military action against ISIS, but going to Congress after the fact, that doesn't cure this president's repeated violation of the elemental constitutional requirement For congressional approval to initiate a war.
In 2007, the then-senator said, the president does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.
Of course, ISIS does not represent that at all.
He launched a military, and it's not the first time he launched a military intervention in Libya in 2011.
And I'll put all the references to this below.
Liberal constitutional law scholar Bruce Ackerman points out Obama's violations to the Constitution go far beyond anything by George W. Bush.
And a Democratic senator from Virginia, Tim Kaine, lack of congressional authorization makes the war against ISIS illegal.
And he talks a lot about how great his foreign policy has been.
Well, so what?
I mean, you get out of Iraq, and ISIS pretty much runs the country, left Afghanistan, the Taliban are making a comeback, and Russia, and so on, right?
Now, his focus on how great the economy is doing is, again, just a bunch of smoke and mirrors.
For the first time in 35 years, there are more businesses shutting down in America than starting up.
This is the top of the arc.
This is the top of the arc before we go down.
And if you use the same data to evaluate employment as you did just before Obama entered the White House, the unemployment rate would be over 10% instead of the 6% as is claimed, and there's $18 trillion in unsustainable debt and so on.
So I don't really think that's a particularly healthy way to look at things.
It's not an accurate way to look at things.
So, as I mentioned, Cuba, he says, well, you know, if something doesn't work for 50 years, you try something new.
Well, the welfare state transfers more than 14% of gross domestic product to its recipients.
More than a third of Americans are taking what are called need-based payments, not things like you get whether you're rich or poor, but things based on needs.
Transfers of benefits to individuals through social welfare programs increase from less than one federal dollar in four 24% in 1963 to almost 3 out of 5 or 59% in 2013.
So that is a very significant increase.
It more than doubled.
In the last half century, entitlement payments were the fastest growing source of personal income.
They grew twice as fast as all other real per capita personal income.
It's probable that as of 2013, the majority of Americans would seek and receive payments under these systems.
More than twice as many households receive anti-poverty benefits than receive Social Security or Medicare.
Between 1983 and 2012, the population increased by almost 83 million people, and people accepting means-tested benefits increased by 67 million people.
So, for every 100-person increase in the population, there was an 80-person increase in the recipients of means-tested payments.
Food stamp recipients increased from 90 million to 51 million, which is more than the combined population population.
Of 24 states, and as I've argued on this show before, the rise of the welfare state is the rise of the single-mother state, where mothers decide not, or women decide not to have a husband provide for them while they're taking care of their children, but instead turn to the state as the stand-in husband.
The...
From 1964 to 2012, the percentage of children born to unmarried women increased from 7% to 41%.
And for many women, children, even working-age men, the entitlement state is now the breadwinner of the household.
In the past 50 years, under this wonderful economic miracle, in the past 50 years, the fraction of civilian American men between the ages of 25 and 34 who were neither working nor looking for work Approximately quadrupled, went up 400%.
A fraction of civilian men, 25 to 34, who were neither working nor looking for work, quadrupled.
So, that is the actual state of the disunion.
And the last thing that I'll say about this, which I think is really a telling statement...
President Obama said, my only agenda for the next two years is the same as the one I've had since the day I swore an oath on the steps of this Capitol to do what I believe is best for America.
Well, actually, Mr.
Obama, Mr.
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