Barack Obama, the great healer, is proving to be the most divisive president since Richard Nixon.
Behind the anger over the Arizona immigration mess, the Ground Zero mosque, the economy, and the new directions in foreign policy are some recurring general themes that reverberate in each particular new controversy. In sum, they explain everything from the tea parties to the wholly negative perception of Congress to the slide in presidential popularity.
1. Two sets of rules. The public senses there are two standards in America — one for elite overseers, quite another for the supposedly not-to-be-trusted public. The anger over this hypocrisy surfaces over matters from the trivial to the profound. Sometimes the pique arises because the spread-the-wealth, we-all-have-skin-in-shared-sacrifice presidential sermons don’t apply to those who do the preaching, as in the president’s serial polo-shirted golf excursions or Michelle’s movable feast from Marbella to Martha’s Vineyard.
More profoundly, an Al Gore, a Timothy Geithner, a John Kerry, a John Edwards, a Charles Rangel — the luminaries who call for bigger government, higher taxes, and more green coercion — now appear to the public as . . . read on
It turned out that the country's problems were not problems of structure but of leadership. Reagan and Clinton had it. Carter didn't. Under a president with extensive executive experience, good political skills and an ideological compass in tune with the public, the country was indeed governable.
It's 2010, and the first-year agenda of a popular and promising young president has gone down in flames. Barack Obama's two signature initiatives -- cap-and-trade and health-care reform -- lie in ruins.
Desperate to explain away this scandalous state of affairs, liberal apologists haul out the old reliable from the Carter years: "America the Ungovernable." So declared Newsweek. "Is America Ungovernable?" coyly asked the New Republic. Guess the answer.
The rage at the machine has produced the usual litany of systemic explanations. Special interests are too powerful. The Senate filibuster stymies social progress. A burdensome constitutional order prevents innovation. If only we could be more like China, pines Tom Friedman, waxing poetic about the efficiency of the Chinese authoritarian model, while America flails about under its "two parties . . . with their duel-to-the-death paralysis." The better thinkers, bewildered and furious that their president has not gotten his way, have developed a sudden disdain for our inherently incremental constitutional system.
Yet, what's new about any of these supposedly ruinous structural impediments? Special interests blocking policy changes? They have been around since the beginning of the republic -- and since the beginning of the republic, strong presidents, like the two Roosevelts, have rallied the citizenry and overcome them.
And then, of course, there's the filibuster, the newest liberal bete noire. "Don't blame Mr. Obama," writes Paul Krugman of the president's failures. "Blame our political culture instead. . . . And blame the filibuster, under which 41 senators can make the country ungovernable."
Ungovernable, once again. Of course, just yesterday the same Paul Krugman was warning about "extremists" trying "to eliminate the filibuster" when Democrats used it systematically . . . read the whole thing
Non-whites and non-males also culpable in turning First Amendment on its back
In 1972, the Federal Communications Commission forced Georgia radio and television stations to air a paid political ad by a candidate for the U.S. Senate which declared: "[The] main reason why niggers want integration is because niggers want our white women."
The candidate, J.B. Stoner, was a self-declared "white racist". I must admit that I find such rare candor in a politician quite refreshing and extremely useful, especially as a voter making a choice.
Yet, in 2010, Wisconsin's Government Accountability Board has refused to allow a qualified independent running for state office to name her party, "NOT the white man's bitch".
GAB spokesman Reid Magney says Ieshuh Griffin was denied because
"Staff determined that her language used on her declaration of candidacy is perjorative (sic) in nature and does not satisfy the requirements of Wisconsin statutes".
Who knew that the anti-federalist demander of, first Liberty or Death and, having won Liberty, demanded a Bill of Rights to protect We the People from the government just created; eschewed political pejoratives? After all, Patrick Henry (pictured) refused to attend the Constitutional Convention of 1787 after he "smelt a rat in Philadelphia, tending toward the monarchy."
Rats, bitches and the N-Word
Aren't rats worse than bitches, but isn't the better question, who appointed government officials to protect voters from the truth about who would govern We the People?
The Constitution certainly did not, McCain-Feingolds and Badger State "government accountability boards" notwithstanding. Thankfully, the U.S. Supreme Court got the message, even if the word hasn't yet reached Madison:
As the Court observed in Monitor Patriot Co. v. Roy, 401 U.S. 265, 272 (1971), `it can hardly be doubted that the constitutional guarantee [of free speech] has its fullest and most urgent application precisely to the conduct of campaigns for political office.' " Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 14-15 (1976).
Wisconsin law allows each political party to have its name/slogan printed on the ballot under the candidate's name. Established parties like the Democratic and Republican parties have their party name under their respective candidate's name. Independent parties are allowed to name their party or be identified as "Independent".
These parameters are quite similar to those the FCC found dispositive in the white racist political broadcast ad featuring the N-word:
Stations can reject ads for any reason from political groups other than candidates. And they may reject ads from allcandidates for a given office. But if they take ads from one candidate, they can’t legally refuse ads from opponents except for technical reasons (such as being too long or short to fit standard commercial breaks, or if the recording quality is poor) or if they are "obscene." Rejecting a candidate’s ad because it’s false is simply not allowed.
So, even if anyone had accused Griffin of being "the white man's bitch", it would not be grounds for denying her choice of slogans. For the record, the independent candidate claims the alleged pejorative refers to submissive female dogs and not human females, and that: "Its not racist, its not a slur...its not pointed to a particular person, in my point of view the average politician is a token" Griffin says.
Again, even if it were racist and a slur, free speech demands that voters be allowed to hear their presumed representatives' political speech.
Brooks Jackson makes the case best here:
The very idea of self-government rests on the idea that voters — given enough uncensored information — can best decide who should be in power and who should not. So free speech applies first and foremost to candidates. As the U.S. Supreme Court said unanimously in a 1971 libel case, "It can hardly be doubted that the constitutional guarantee [of free speech] has its fullest and most urgent application precisely to the conduct of campaigns for political office."
Griffin, for her part, seems ever the candid conservative critic of President Barack Obama and the Democrats when she declares that: "There currently is...an in-depth corruption within our government... SLAVERY, yes SLAVERY has returned in almost every aspect except name".
DeVine Law Factory concludes:
Give us the free political speech Liberty of Ieshuh NOT the white man's bitch Griffin, or give us Death!
Let's take a quick look at the reform of Social Security under Congressman Ryan's Roadmap Plan. First, to quote straight from his summary, these are the highlights of the Social Security Reform:
Preserves the existing Social Security program for those 55 or older.
Provides choice to workers under 55. They can remain in the current
system or invest one-third of their Social Security taxes into a personal
retirement account, similar to the Thrift Savings Plan available to
Members of Congress.
Creates the option of personal accounts that are owned by the individual
and managed by a government board—not a stock broker or private
investment firm. Workers choosing the reformed system will select from a
handful of low-risk, government regulated options.
Improves the Social Security safety net by guaranteeing that individuals
will not lose a dollar they contribute to their accounts, even after inflation.
Makes the program solvent, according to the Congressional
Budget Office, by slowing the growth of benefits for high-income earners
and gradually increasing the retirement age, consistent with Americans’
improving life spans.
OK, I already hear the first objection: “Hey Conterio, didn’t you just say we could close-down Social Security and be rid of it? This sounds like it makes it even stronger! We’ll never get rid of it if we make it solvent!”
Yes I did say we have a chance to get rid of Social Security, but who here really believes that any plan to simply close, or abruptly phase-out Social Security will ever get any votes, go ahead and raise your hands. Yeah, I didn’t think so. George W. Bush actually tried to put through a reasonable reform plan, while Republicans controlled both houses of Congress, and look how far that got.
Look, as the old saying goes, Rome wasn’t built in a day. For that matter, all the government bureaucracy, entitlement programs, cozy union relationships and social engineering plans that the Liberal-Progressives all love so much didn’t happen overnight, either. Do you think the Progressives all looked at Roosevelt’s Social Security plan in 1935 and said “That’s it! We’re done! This program is perfect the way it is!” Heck no, the Progressives recognized they have to be incrementalists if they ever want to accomplish anything. They tried the “Socialism Now!!!” approach, and it got them nowhere. Any little bit of their agenda they can push through, they do, and are happy about it, because they know it moves them one step closer to their utopia.
Don’t look at the Roadmap’s plan for Social Security reform as the end of the argument, look at it as a first-step. A most excellent first-step in fact, seeing as it would be the very first time the program moved in a direction opposite of what the Progressives want. THAT has to be worth something, all by itself. Let’s be honest, we have absolutely zero-chance of ever rolling-back Social Security in one move. But we have an excellent chance of doing it over time, bit by bit. Think about it, after seeing how well the one-third they are investing in the private option does compared to the two-thirds controlled by the government, what do you think people will be saying? They'll be saying "Why can I only put one-thid into the private plan?" At that point, we're well on our way to privatizing the entire program.
Frankly, I think the stars are aligned for this right now. We have Greece falling apart before our very eyes because they were unable to reign-in their social welfare spending. The American People can see this happening, along with other European economies lurching along with the same structural problems. It is dead-simple to connect the dots, and see the very same thing is in store for us unless we reform our system, and what better way than with a plan that guarantees solvency? That, and the guarantee of its imminent failure if we do nothing should make the Roadmap plan pretty easy to both understand and sell.
What do we do after we win?
That is the real question right now. Sure, things are shaping up very nicely for November, and assuming the laws of physics and nature don’t change in some way that suddenly makes socialism work, the Democrats’ fortunes look very bleak. But then what do we do after we win? Or, to put a finer-point on it, what will the Republicans do? (pause for involuntary shudder..) As I pointed-out in The Rider, the triumph of 1994 turned into a bitter disappointment. In 2006, disappointment turned into a rout, and in 2008, it became a disaster.
This time it can be different. This time, we have an opportunity to set our country on the path of redemption, as well as recovery. We have an opportunity to reclaim the vision of our founders, to once more set individual liberty as our fundamental principle. To do this, November has to be about more than just taking power back from Obama, Reid and Pelosi.
Talk has already begun among the punditry, that the Republicans need a “rallying cry,” an idea, a principle. Simply running on the platform of “we suck less than the Democrats” might win, but it won’t win very much. We need to do something with the victory. I believe we need a plan. And I believe Congressman Paul Ryan has provided us with a very good plan.
Paul Ryan’s Roadmap is not perfect. It will not immediately transform our nation back into a society where liberty is prized, and government is but a tool for guarding that liberty. But is a very good step in that direction. It assumes the canceling of Obama’s hated healthcare reform, and provides cures for the most dire of our immediate problems. It re-vamps the tax code, putting an end to the progressive scale used to wage class warfare, sets us on a path to undoing the regulations that have so screwed-up our health care system in the first place, and makes some of our most bloated entitlement programs solvent by introducing reforms based on privatization. It also fixes the budget process, which has caused so much of our problems in the first place. What’s more, Ryan has submitted the Roadmap to analysis by the GAO and CBO, who have verified its projections. We can realistically turn-around our debt crisis, and return to fiscally-responsible government, perhaps for the first time since the time of Harding and Coolidge.
Ryan’s Roadmap has one other thing that makes it interesting: its own legislative package. In 1994, the Republicans swore fealty to the Contract, but in short order began to stray from it. The Contract had no real teeth. With its own legislative agenda, we have a means to measure how well our newly elected Republicans follow-through with the promises that got them elected.
But most importantly, The Roadmap is not just some symbolic, dream-proposal that can never be. The Roadmap is very do-able. When was the last time you deliberated about a real, conservative-proposal that had an honest chance of becoming law? This one is serious. In the current environment, it is clear we cannot do nothing. If we don’t make some serious changes, the collapse of programs like Social Security and Medicare, which will happen if they are not reformed, will drag everything else down with them. We have an electorate that is more aware and concerned about this than ever before. This alone makes the Roadmap very appealing, much more so than any other reform proposal that has come before.
We have a real opportunity in November. By adopting the Roadmap, conservative activists have a tool through which they can clearly communicate their expectations to candidates and sitting congressmen and women. By adopting the Roadmap, Republicans can re-create the power of the Contract in 1994, energizing and exciting support far beyond just “not being Democrats.” And by enacting the roadmap, we can set our country back on the path our founders blazed for us when they wrote our constitution 223 years ago.
There now exists a significant body of scholarship showing that during the administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the United States underwent a fundamental shift away from the classical liberalism of the Founders in favor of a more statist approach.
Amity Schlaes and other economists have helped us understand the effects of government intervention on the duration and intensity (as well as the original cause) of the Great Depression.
Mark Levin has proffered that the actions of FDR and his people, and of the generations of modern "liberals" who have followed, constitute a statist "counter-revolution" against the principles of the American founding.
And Jonah Goldberg has helped place all of it into a larger context. First, that FDR and many his administration cut their teeth in the Wilson administration. Second, that they had begun this shift towards greater statism under Wilson, but it was under FDR that those gains were consolidated and the entire project was expanded and made "permanent." Third, that all of this was a part of an intellectual movement towards statist principles and practices that was taking place throughout the Western world at the time.
There can be no doubt that the ideological current of the 20th century was sweeping the world in a more statist direction. Bismark's Germany. Wilson's America. Mussolini's Italy. Lenin's Russia, Stalin's Russia, and Hitler's Germany. Two world wars. And a post-WWII era that saw Eastern Europe under the iron fist of Soviet statism and the countries of Western Europe adopting a softer, milder statism themselves.
And of course, we have FDR's administration, under which America's slide into statism was accelerated and made semi-permanent.
Were FDR and his people well-meaning—simply swept away by the ideological current of the day? Did they believe that statist solutions really were the answer to the problems of that time? Or, were they knowingly focused on moving us in a more statist direction for statism's sake?
That is an interesting question, and one worthy of discussion. But for our purposes today, it doesn't matter. Recall our definition of insanity: trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results. For our purposes at this moment, we can cut them some slack and say that they were among the first to try, and so they can perhaps be forgiven.
However, now that the failure of their statist solutions has become manifest before our eyes, anyone who keeps trying to repeat the same mistakes really must be considered fairly bonkers.
A record of failure
The monstrosity of the hard tyrannies—the totalitarian statists who perpetrated so much murder, misery, and oppression in the 20th century—should be obvious to all. It is in the softer tyrannies of postwar Europe and the United States where we must make our case, for the slouch towards increased statist tyranny and failure is incremental, and thus, hard for any one generation easily to spot.
The first place that we must look is to big government programs. Social Security, Fannie Mae, the War on Poverty, Freddie Mac, Medicare, Medicaid, Cash for Clunkers, and Obamacare. Here we see the most salient example of failure—and the mania of trying the same thing over and over in hopes that somehow, this time, it will be different.
There's a pithy email forward that has been frequenting our inboxes over the last year on this subject:
Why government-run anything is doomed to fail
The U.S. Postal Service was established in 1775 – you’ve had 234 years to get it right - it’s broke.
Social Security was established in 1935 – you’ve had 74 years to get it right - it’s broke.
Fannie Mae was established in 1938 – you’ve had 71 years to get it right - it’s broke.
The “War on Poverty” started in 1964 – you’ve had 45 years to get it right. $1 trillion of our money is confiscated each year and transferred to “the poor” - it hasn’t worked and our entire country is broke.
Medicare and Medicaid were established in 1965 – you’ve had 44 years to get it right - they’re both broke.
Freddie Mac was established in 1970 – you’ve had 39 years to get it right - it’s broke.
Trillions of dollars were spent in the massive political payoffs called TARP, the “Stimulus”, the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009…. none show any signs of working, although ACORN appears to have found a new source - the American taxpayer.
To set a new record: “Cash for Clunkers” was established in 2009 and went broke in 2009! It took cars (that were the best some people could afford) and replaced them with high-priced and less-affordable cars, mostly Japanese.
So with a perfect 100% failure rate and a record that proves that “services” you shove down our throats are failing faster and faster, you want Americans to believe you can be trusted with a government-run health care system? 20% of our entire economy? With all due respect, are you crazy?
"Are you crazy?"
Whoever crafted this email in the first place, we salute you, for that is an excellent question.
Though not 100% accurate in every regard, this email nicely sums up the problem. It takes some license with the term "broke," but it is, as an overall summation, an accurate depiction of where we stand. Indeed, in some ways, it does not go far enough in describing the risk to our economy from the looming bankruptcy of our social welfare liabilities, especially Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. The collapse of those alone augurs a very grim future.
The content and popularity of this forward also indicates that Americans have a core understanding of the mania we are discussing here:
Big government programs all go broke, and they put our future financial (and even social) stability at serious risk. Why on earth would anyone want to try another one?
Why indeed.
That is the nature of the mania with which we are faced: an intractable ideology on an inexorable push to do things that are guaranteed to fail. And if you oppose them in any way, you are branded a monster who wants to force the elderly to eat dog food.
When people say, "It's a crazy world," they don't actually mean that the earth itself is crazy—they mean that it is filled with a lot of crazy people. And they're right.
As states and citizens wonder about how their own sovereignty will matter in an increasiningly centralized and statist America, there are numerous ideas floated on how to respond. Here is one of them:
Every couple of years the same drearily predictable charade repeats itself. This time we’re really going to limit government! Or so they tell us. We on the Right then dutifully compose our letters to the editor, attend rallies, and vote for candidates without whom, we are breathlessly assured, we shall all revert instantly to barbarism. And no matter who wins, the federal government grows and grows. The Right gets a bunch of pretty speeches, and the Left gets the victories.
The passive approach of crossing our fingers and hoping Washington will follow the Constitution has not worked. The only surprising thing about it is that anyone could have expected it to work in the first place. It is long past time for those of us who want to confine the federal government to its constitutional limits to try something different.
The time has come to revisit nullification, the quintessentially American mode of resistance against federal lawlessness that Thomas Jefferson urged as an essential ingredient of our political system. In the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798, Jefferson insisted that the states needed a way to defend themselves against unconstitutional exercises of power by the federal government. Jefferson’s fear was that if the federal government had a monopoly on defining the scope of its own powers, it would be constantly discovering new ones. Likewise, James Madison urged in the Virginia Resolutions of 1798 that the states were “duty bound to resist” when the federal government violated the Constitution. (The reader will not be surprised to learn that Bill Clinton held no White House soiree in honor of the two hundredth anniversary of these documents in 1998.)
These principles were used for honorable purposes throughout antebellum American history. Virginia and Kentucky used them on behalf of free speech . . . more
Many of today's politicos openly demonize business and condemn wealthy Americans. Economic and racial dissension are subtly, and not so subtly encouraged. With a national debt approaching $14T and a government that is monetizing that debt behind the scenes, significant inflation is probably around the corner. Chrysler and GM have been largely nationalized, unions are lobbying to have their pension plans underwritten by taxpayers, there is a huge ecologic and economic disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, and unemployment of 9.5% is almost certainly understated. We stand on a precipice.
According to the Moody's rating agency, if we step into the abyss, "social cohesion" may be in jeopardy. "Growth alone will not resolve an increasingly complicated debt equation. Preserving debt affordability at levels consistent with AAA ratings will invariably require fiscal adjustments of a magnitude that, in some cases, will test social cohesion," said a Moody's report on sovereign debt.
Historically, it is in these conditions that people seek a "strong leader" to "fix" problems.
The people promised "peace and bread" by Lenin and his Bolshevik party could not have foreseen the harvest of sorrowThe Gulag Archipelago was not intended. Very few, if any, imagined that upwards of 20 million people would die at the hands of their own government.
Similarly, it's unlikely that the majority of Germans anticipated, or intended the extermination of Jews. They were desperate to change a system in which inflation had made money nearly worthless and joblessness was a fact of life. Hitler arose out of the people's desperation and his own abilities to manipulate public opinion. The promises of National Socialism included:
The right to a job:
We demand that the state be charged first with providing the opportunity for a livelihood and way of life for the citizens...
Equal rights for all citizens:
All citizens must have equal rights and obligations.
Pensions for old age:
We demand an expansion on a large scale of old age welfare.
Education for the State:
The state is to be responsible for a fundamental reconstruction of our whole national education higher education and subsequently introduction into leading positions... The comprehension of the concept of the State must be striven for by the school [Staatsbuergerkunde] as early as the beginning of understanding.
Then, as now, people heard what they wanted to hear and ignored the rest. Other provisions were:
The nationalization of heavy industry:
We demand the nationalization of all (previous) associated industries (trusts).
The death penalty to those who's activities were injurious to the "general interest" of society:
We demand struggle without consideration against those whose activity is injurious to the general interest. Common national criminals, usurers, profiteers and so forth are to be punished with death,...
Control of the press:
We demand legal opposition to known lies and their promulgation through the press... Publications which are counter to the general good are to be forbidden. We demand legal prosecution of artistic and literary forms which exert a destructive influence on our national life, ...
Freedom of religion (as defined by the State):
We demand freedom of religion for all religious denominations within the state so long as they do not endanger its existence or oppose the moral senses of the Germanic race. It (The National Socialist Party) ... is convinced that a lasting recovery of our nation can only succeed from within on the framework: The good of the state before the good of the individual.
The famous "25 Point Plan," became the political platform of the Austrian National Socialist Party in the 1920s. This was well before Hitler came to power under the auspices of the enabling act of 1933. Hitler quickly determined he would "not let a serious crisis go to waste." He used the burning of the Reichstag, (which he orchestrated) six days prior to the election, as an excuse to establish dictatorial power.
However, people willingly accede to the demands of government only up to a point. After that, obedience must be required. Lenin said it is necessary to break eggs to make an omelet. When the end justifies the means, there are no limits to what will be required.
History teaches that the power of governments must be restrained. The rule of law is a restraint. The separation of powers is a restraint. Morality is a restraint. Public scrutiny is a restraint. Candidates for public office campaign on those precepts because the electorate values them. But promising transparency prior to election, does not mean it won't be contravened afterward. Examples include using presidential appointments to avoid disclosure of appointees' views and records. Dr. Donald Berwick's recess appointment to the agency that will determine the future of health care in America is, at least to date, the most egregious. Even Senator Max Baucus, Democratic Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee objected, "Senate confirmation of presidential appointees is an essential process prescribed by the Constitution that serves as a check on executive power."
But that, as Senator Baucus might have figured out before now, is exactly the point. This executive does not believe his power should be checked by the Constitution or the electorate. The passage of the Health Care bill, despite widespread opposition, was an exercise in raw power, with more to come. John Fund of the Wall Street Journal warns that if election results in November imperil the president's agenda, party leaders could use the lame duck session to cram through Cap and Trade, Card Check, and more spending and taxes before the new Congress is seated. His will, not our's, will be done.
And, lest we forget, members of this administration have spoken openly about the need to redistribute wealth. In their ideology, economic success is its own inditement. The Peter they wish to rob to pay Paul has it coming. Economic justice, not freedom is primary.
Two centuries ago, Alexis de Tocqueville understood that the two cannot coexist.
Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom, socialism restricts it. Democracy attaches all possible value to each man; Socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.
Since de Tocqueville's time, history has amply demonstrated these truths. There is no need to prove them again.
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was not intended. Very few, if any, imagined that upwards of 20 million people would die at the hands of their own government.
