Thursday, September 18, 2008

Things Only Idiots Believe, Part Seven.

Barack Obama is a socialist.

I seriously saw this belief expressed just now in a comment in a debate at Dagbladet online. And sad to say it's not the first time I've come across it.

I can hardly comprehend how ignorant a person would have to be to genuinely believe this. You would have to know nothing about the American political landscape, and not that much about our own either.

In actual fact, the guy is somewhere to the right of the Progress Party.

(I'm all for Obama as US president, but let's not kid ourselves that he's comparable to anyone on the Norwegian political scene. If he was running for office here, I, ahem, don't see myself voting for him any time soon.)

6 comments:

Leisha Camden said...

http://www.dagbladet.no/nyheter/2008/09/18/547256.html

Paz said...

I don't think anyone of the US politicians would get voted into Irish government either.

Mombi said...

Hey Leisha,

Thanks for the comments (and correction) on my blog. I'm glad to have a blogging comrade in Norway. My husband is Norwegian (his link is on my sidebar "The Norwegian Pirate") and he's very into learning about the culture and we'd like to travel there someday. In fact, last week we just watched the Rick Steves travel DVD on Norway.

Anyway, I'm excited to read back into your blog a bit because already this post (and the "Things Only Idiots Believe" theme) make me think we have a lot in common!

Meghan

RHJ said...

Var det ikke Michael Moore som i en bøkene sine tok et oppgjør med hva Clinton/Gore-administrasjon faktisk hadde gjort.

Virket ikke særlig sosialistisk, nei? ;-)

Leisha Camden said...

Paz: V. true. It's only in his natural environment ;-) that Obama seems like a moderate. On the Norwegian political scene he'd seem like rather an extremist.

Good for us, I say!!

mombi: Hi, nice to see you here! I didn't get around to reading a lot of your blog on my first visit (but I'll be back ;-) but I think you're right, we probably do have a thing or two in common. So I hope you'll stop by here again too.

I have to take exception, though, to the claim that your husband is 'Norwegian' ... if he wants to learn about Norwegian culture, and hopes to visit here one day, then he clearly is not. ;-) We call his kind norskamerikanere - Norwegian-Americans - and while we are happy to welcome them among us :-) we will generally not agree that they are Norwegians. Got three or more grandparents who were born & raised by Norwegians in Norway? No? Then you may be of Norwegian descent, but you are not Norwegian. >:-)

I've been blogging about my summer vacation trip to the wild Norwegian mountains recently - and there's more to come - so I hope you and your pirate ;-) will take a look, if you're interested.

RHJ: Det finnes ikke sosialister i USA som har noen som helst form for reell makt på riksnivå. Eksisterer ikke. De som tror det motsatte er bare paranoide ... og ganske uvitende, da samme utsagn faktisk er ganske så korrekt om Norge også. De som høyresiden gjerne avfeier som 'sosialistsvin' o.l. er stort sett sosialdemokrater, som er noe annet. Men det er en nyanse som en del grupperinger ikke er i stand til å ta inn over seg. La oss ikke nevne navn, men. >:-)

RHJ said...

I følge Wikipedia har USA i det minste én sosialist: Bernie Sanders! Sitat: Sanders is the first self-described socialist to be elected to the U.S. Senate.

Det blir nesten som den snart tjue år gamle vitsen forskjellen mellom USA og Russland: - I USA er det et kommunistpari!