It's Hard to Write Headlines

Over at First Thoughts, Matthew Franck delves into the minds of the hapless writers who inhabit the offices of the New York Times.  Franck explains the Times' latest show of intellectual skill:

Today [the Times has] a story in the news pages with the following lead: “A bake sale sponsored by a Republican student group at the University of California, Berkeley, has incited anger and renewed the debate over affirmative action by asking students to pay different prices for pastry, depending on their race and sex.”  The College Republicans announced that they planned to charge $2 per pastry to white customers, with declining prices for Asians, Latinos, African Americans, and Native Americans, and a 25 cent discount for women of all races.

Obviously the Berkeley College Republicans (an oxymoron, no?) were highlighting the effectual truth of affirmative action.  They knew that their act would cause mass denunciations, rage, and psychologists and grief counselors being brought in to help those affected.  But with all of the attendant rage, no one could quite explain what wrong the CR's had committed.  But that was whole point.  In order to explain the wrong, the angered students and faculty, the champions of diversity that they are, would have to explain the unjustness of the affirmative action policies themselves.  Brilliant.     

And the best part of this whole story is the headline the Times writers choose for this story:  "A 'Diversity Bake Sale' Backfires on Campus."  Ummm...

Ford Caves

Ford has pulled the ad which featured a mock press conference where Chris, a buyer of a Ford F-150, said the following on Ford and the bailouts: 

I wasn't going to buy another car that was bailed out by our government," he said. "I was going to buy from a manufacturer that's standing on their own: win, lose, or draw. That's what America is about is taking the chance to succeed and understanding when you fail that you gotta' pick yourself up and go back to work. Ford is that company for me.

Daniel Howes from the Detroit News reported that the ad was taken off the air due to questions emanating from officials at the White House.  Howes writes that "Ford pulled the ad after individuals inside the White House questioned whether the copy was publicly denigrating the controversial bailout policy [Ford] CEO Alan Mulally repeatedly supported in the dark days of late 2008, in early '09 and again when the ad flap arose."

Black Americans Should Look to Conservative Policies

Last Saturday night, President Obama addressed the Congressional Black Caucus and asked blacks to care not about themselves but to put all their efforts toward getting himself re-elected.

Here is the president still talking about his non-existent jobs bill:

That starts with getting this Congress to pass the American Jobs Act.  (Applause.)  You heard me talk about this plan when I visited Congress a few weeks ago and sent the bill to Congress a few days later.  Now I want that bill back -- passed.  I’ve got the pens all ready.  I am ready to sign it.  And I need your help to make it happen.  (Applause.)

I wonder at what point this speech will actually converge with reality.

Obama here conflates progress (towards what?) with blacks following in lock step with his administration:

Throughout our history, change has often come slowly.  Progress often takes time.  We take a step forward, sometimes we take two steps back.  Sometimes we get two steps forward and one step back.  But it’s never a straight line.  It’s never easy.  And I never promised easy.  Easy has never been promised to us.  But we’ve had faith.  We have had faith.  We’ve had that good kind of crazy that says, you can’t stop marching.  (Applause.)

Here is Obama with a rousing finish:

I expect all of you to march with me and press on.  (Applause.)  Take off your bedroom slippers, put on your marching shoes.  Shake it off.  (Applause.)  Stop complaining, stop grumbling, stop crying.  We are going to press on.  We’ve got work to do, CBC.  (Applause.) 

I know it's an old point, but what if a Republican had said those lines?   Screams of racism would have been plastered all over the editorials of Paul Krugman and E.J. Dionne.  MSNBC anchors would be in a permanent state of hyperventilation.  Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton would be crusading for impeachment.

Apart from that, it's interesting to note that under Obama's watch, black unemployment has jumped from 12.6 to 16.7.  So much for being your brother's keeper.

Clarence Thomas has also dealt with these same issues in the past, but his language and prescriptions were a little different than those proposed by the president.  Before he was appointed to the Supreme Court, Thomas was Chairman of the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission; and while serving in that capacity, he often gave speeches that the men who typically headed government agencies would never think of giving.  One of those speeches was titled "Why Black Americans Should Look to Conservative Policies," which Thomas delivered at the Heritage Foundation in 1987.  Unlike Obama's speech, Thomas based his treatment of the subject upon the natural law and natural rights foundations of the American Founding.

Here is Thomas:

Those on the Left smugly assume blacks are monolithic and will by force of circumstances always huddle to the left of the political spectrum. The political Right watches this herd mentality in action, concedes that blacks are monolithic, picks up a few dissidents, and wistfully shrugs at the seemingly unbreakable hold of the liberal left on black Americans.

An important critique of the Reagan Administration (and conservativism in general) on civil rights issues:

During my first year in the Administration, it was clear that the honeymoon was over. The emphasis in the area of civil rights and social.policies was decidedly negative. In the civil rights arena, we began to argue consistently against affirmative action. We attacked welfare and the welfare mentality. These are positions with which I agree. But, the emphasis was unnecessarily negative. It had been my hope and continues to be my hope that we would espouse principles and policies which by their sheer force would preempt welfare and race-conscious policies.

Thomas offers a prescription to the ailments of both the Left and Right:

Blacks just happened to represent an interest group not worth going after polls rather than principles appeared to control. We must offer a vision, not vexation. But any vision must impart more than a warm feeling that "everything is just fine--keep thinking the same." We must start by articulating principles of government and standards of goodness. I suggest that we begin the search for standards and principles with the self-evident truths of the Declaration of Independence.

An appeal to the natural law arguments of the Declaration is the beginning to getting back on the right track:

[the natural law] approach allows us to reassert the primacy of the individual, and establishes our inherent equality as a God-given right. This inherent equality is the basis for aggressive enforcement of civil rights laws and equal employment opportunity laws designed to protect individual rights. Indeed, defending the individual under these laws should be the hallmark of conservatism rather than its Achilles' Heel. And in no way should this be the issue of those who are antagonistic to individual rights an d the proponents of a bigger more intrusive government. Indeed, conservatives should be as adamant about freedom here at home as we are about freedom abroad.

Instead of belief in Progress and marching in lockstep towards liberalism, black Americans should re-orient themselves by the principles of the American Founding.  Similarly, conservatives must be able to better articulate natural rights arguments and make it clear that those arguments apply to everyone equally, no matter race, gender, or religion.

More on Political Language

Stemming from my earlier post on the importance of political language, I have some more observations that touch on the same subject.

Lately, the President and Democrats have tried to paint Tea Partiers as "extreme" and "rigid" in their political thought.  These types of words to describe one's political opponents in politics are nothing new:  it's just that they used to come with nouns attached.  In modern speech, we have tacitly begun dropping the noun and acting as if the adjective suffices.

For example, what used to be called tyranny is now today called a dictatorship (as if the unjustness of that regime stems from one man dominating all conversations). Also, the change in the meaning of the word culture is very instructive as well (culture used to mean a person with good taste.  A person with tastes in things low, e.i., drugs, prostitution, etc., would obviously not be considered cultured.  We are now taught to value all tastes equally with no ground to tell the high from the low.  As is the common refrain today, "Who are we to put our values on anyone else?").

To say that someone holds an extreme or rigid position does not say anything about the position itself.  Lincoln held rigidly to certain positions, e.g., the unjustness of slavery.  The Founders could be described as both rigid and extreme in their views on what makes government legitimate.  Adolph Hitler's political thought was both extreme and rigid.  The same can be said of the politics of Saddam Hussein.  Obviously this kind of language clouds and distorts more than it helps.  

This drift in language certainly has damaging and degrading effects on our politics, especially on a people that ground their politics on the laws of Nature and Nature's God.

The Wisdom of Harry Jaffa

Harry V. Jaffa, Professor Emeritus of Government at Claremont McKenna College and the Claremont Graduate School, will turn 93 on October 7th.  Professor Jaffa studied with Leo Strauss at the New School for Social Research in the late 1930s and is, next to Strauss, the greatest political philosopher of the 20th century.  Jaffa's crowning achievements are Crisis of the House Divided:  An Interpretation of the Issues in the Lincoln-Douglas Debates and A New Birth of Freedom:  Abraham Lincoln and the Coming of the Civil War, it's sequel published 40 years later.  These two works are the best books ever written on Abraham Lincoln and the American Founding; they are arguably the best books ever written on America next to the Founding documents themselves.

Central to Jaffa's thought is the meaning of equality in the American polity.  Is equality the central axiom from which all minor thoughts in America radiate as Lincoln said or is it a self-evident lie as John C. Calhoun argued?  Is America grounded simply on the mere self-interest of the individual or do it's principles imply duties before rights, reason over passion?   Jaffa always took Lincoln's side, but his understanding of equality, Lincoln, and the American Founding changed dramatically during the 40 years between Crisis and A New Birth of Freedom.  That change in Jaffa's thought is the subject of a Master's thesis written by a student in the Master's American History and Government program at Ashland University.  It is quite long--47 pages--but it is well worth reading.  It is very clear and readable and may be one of the best papers ever written on Jaffa's thought.

Ramirez on Obama's Odd Picture

Here is what Michael Ramirez, easily the best editorial cartoonist out there, had to say on the now infamous photo of Obama blocking a world leader with his hand:

Chemerinsky's Assault on the Constitution

In the Summer edition of the Claremont Review of Books, John C. Eastman  reviews Erwin Chemerinsky's The Conservative Assault on the Constitution and finds it lacking, to say the least.  Chemerinsky, who serves as Dean of the University California, Irvine, School of Law and is an ardent believer in living constitutionalism, takes conservatives to task for supposedly shredding the Constitution of the Framers and ratifiers.

Chemerinsky's argument is that the Founders had intended living constitutionalism all along, and it was FDR's Supreme Court picks along with the Warren Court that were faithful to the Founders' original vision. This is how he is able to argue that conservatives--and Ronald Reagan in particular--are guilty of assaulting the Constitution, because they are continuing to reverse the precedents set by those courts.   But as Eastman notes, Chemerinsky's "tactic is clever: each leftward evolution of the Constitution's meaning becomes a new fixed baseline of constitutional law, and any move to return to the original meaning amounts to a repudiation not of the wayward interpretation but of the Constitution itself."  It quickly becomes clear that Chemerinsky's constitution is simply a series of preferred liberal policy proposals and is therefore a clear rejection of the Founders' original intent.

Among Chemerinsky's more egregious errors is his claim "that Bush ignored the basic constitutional premise that two branches should be involved in all major governmental actions."  Eastman points out that Chemerinsky is simply "forgetting (or worse) that Congress authorized the use of "all necessary force" against the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11."  Also he, along with the Democrats, applauded when the Supreme Court took the unprecedented step of granting unlawful enemy combatants the rights of U.S. citizens under the Constitution.  Throughout the history of Western civilization, dating back to the Romans, there has always been a distinction between lawful and unlawful combatants.  And as Eastman notes "American law dating to the Civil War, and international law dating at least to the Hague Convention of 1907 and repeated in the Geneva Convention of 1949, spell out the distinctions between combatants (lawful and unlawful) and civilians."

Chemerinsky repeats the error of Justices Harry Blackmun and William Brennan when he claims that the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of "cruel and unusual punishment" forbids capital punishment.  A quick look at the text of the Fifth Amendment disputes this charge.  The Fifth Amendment recognizes "capital" crimes and implies that with due process, one can be convicted and sentenced to the punishment generally meted out for conviction of a capital crime:  capital punishment.

At it's core, Chemerinsky's constitutionalism is nothing more than a rejection of the Founder's Constitution and the idea of written law in general.  More damaging than his straight rejection of the written text of the Constitution is his disregard of the political philosophy of the Constitution.  Chemerinsky's jurisprudence rejects the natural rights framework of the Declaration of Independence, which the Constitution presupposes.  It does so because, far be it a modern invention, living constitutionalism in another age was considered the very definition of lawlessness.  English Kings, who ruled by divine right, issued and revoked laws as they saw fit with no real consent of Parliament (at least no meaningful consent until the Glorious Revolution in 1688).

The Founders viewed that just government was instituted by social compact, or the unanimous agreement of the those to be governed.  The purpose of government was to protect the natural rights of the governed which, in a state of nature, are insecure.  It is only by setting that unanimous agreement on the basis that all men are created equal--that no man is by nature the ruler of any other man without that other man's consent--that government can be called just (and perfect liberty be realized).  For the Founders, rights were derived from duties; natural rights were derived from natural law.  By recognizing the co-equal authority of reason and revelation (the Laws of Nature and Nature's God), the Founders instituted the first regime in human history where all people would be able to realize both religious and civil liberty more perfectly than at any previous time.  These principles are of course immutable and are not bound by the time in which they were thought or written; they apply the same today as they did in 1776.  By asserting the natural rights basis for American republicanism in the Declaration of Independence, the Founders made the clearest repudiation of divine right monarchy--and living constitutionalism--that one can make.

In the current day, it is of the utmost importance that we return to the Founders' understanding of politics and philosophy not even simply because they are the Founders but because theirs was an understanding that is good and just.

A Picture is Worth A Thousand Words

This single picture sums up the entire Obama Administration.

Mr. President, You've Now Lost David Brooks

It was a clear spring day in 2005.  The trees were swaying the in the breeze, and the birds were singing a joyful song.  The sun crept out behind the veil of clouds and gleamed it's majestic rays across the fruited plain.  And David Brooks and Barack Obama were seen holding hands skipping down a dirt path that cut along the countryside hills...

At least maybe that's how it all started in Brooks' mind.  But the love affair is finally over.  Here is Brooks in his column in last Sunday's New York Times:

I’m a sap, a specific kind of sap. I’m an Obama Sap.

When the president said the unemployed couldn’t wait 14 more months for help and we had to do something right away, I believed him. When administration officials called around saying that the possibility of a double-dip recession was horrifyingly real and that it would be irresponsible not to come up with a package that could pass right away, I believed them.

Brooks goes on to catalog the myriad of ways Obama has not catered to get the vaunted independent vote:

Yes, I’m a sap. I believed Obama when he said he wanted to move beyond the stale ideological debates that have paralyzed this country. I always believe that Obama is on the verge of breaking out of the conventional categories and embracing one of the many bipartisan reform packages that are floating around.

But remember, I’m a sap. The White House has clearly decided that in a town of intransigent Republicans and mean ideologues, it has to be mean and intransigent too. The president was stung by the liberal charge that he was outmaneuvered during the debt-ceiling fight. So the White House has moved away from the Reasonable Man approach or the centrist Clinton approach.

 What is now obvious to Brooks was obvious to most people a few years ago.

But here is the kicker:

The president believes the press corps imposes a false equivalency on American politics. We assign equal blame to both parties for the dysfunctional politics when in reality the Republicans are more rigid and extreme. There’s a lot of truth to that, but at least Republicans respect Americans enough to tell us what they really think. The White House gives moderates little morsels of hope, and then rips them from our mouths. To be an Obama admirer is to toggle from being uplifted to feeling used.

The White House has decided to wage the campaign as fighting liberals. I guess I understand the choice, but I still believe in the governing style Obama talked about in 2008. I may be the last one. I’m a sap.

Brooks, who amazingly used to write for The Weekly Standard and functions as the Times'  in-house "conservative," faults Republicans for being extreme and rigid, but the saving grace for Brooks is that they are at least open about their crazy ideology.  But of course Barack Obama voting down a bill banning partial birth abortions and the overall Democrat stance on abortion is well within the mainstream... 

At least Brooks has finally seen the emperor's clothes.  The scary part is that it took the castle to come crumbling down around him.

Obama Taketh and Taketh and Taketh

Over at The Atlantic, Daniel Indiviglio shows the how the President's proposed "Buffet Rule"--hiking taxes on the wealthiest Americans who already pay much more than their fair share--is nothing more than an old Democrat standby:  class warfare.

Here is Daniel's chart:

As you can see, even if earners in the top income tax bracket are taxed at 100%, there is still 2/3rds of the debt left to make up for this year alone.

When one looks at reality, it's truly amazing that Obama's strategy is to make the Republicans look extreme and not up to the task of dealing with the tough issues.  Where is the tough talk of entitlement reform?  Reforming Social Security?  Reforming Medicare?  We all heard rumors being leaked out of the White House during the negotiations with Republicans about how Obama was open to these kinds of reforms during the summer.

I will leave it to Daniel to explain the obvious:

So this Buffet Rule is a great populist proposal if the president wants to score some political points, but it has little practical value. It might provide the government a little bit of additional revenue, but unless extremely aggressive, it wouldn't make a dent in the nation's deficit problem. To do that, you'll need to cut entitlements and/or raise taxes much more broadly.

The Practical Wisdom of Justice Thomas

This past Friday, Justice Clarence Thomas talked with students in Council Bluffs, Iowa.  Here are some key excerpts:

Justice Clarence Thomas rejects suggestions he’s a follower of originalism in interpreting the Constitution. “I am a follower of get-it-rightism,” he says, bringing laughter from law students at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Thomas says it’s important to understand what is meant in the original document, what the words mean. “It’s a Constitution that’s written in words,” he says. “What, do people think it’s written in symbols? You need to say you’re a textualist. What else am I supposed to do, use a Ouija board, chicken bones?” He says the media pundits’ coverage of the Supreme Court is off-base.

Here is Justice Thomas on media coverage of the Supreme Court and law schools:

“Most of the commentary I find to be irresponsible and not very helpful,” Thomas says. “It’s unfortunate, because what we do, whether you agree or not, is very, very important.” Thomas criticizes elite law schools for leaning left and breeding cynicism. He says his travels, especially in the Midwest, give him hope.

 And lastly, Thomas on the common sense and virtue of regular citizens:

“This is a wonderful place and it’s worth saving,” he says. “This is a wonderful country and it’s worth saving. It is a wonderful Constitution and it’s worth saving.” As for his trip to America’s heartland, Thomas says it’s important to get away from the inside-the-Beltway cynicism of Washington D.C.

Constitution 1, Progressives 0

Just in time for Constitution Day, the Constitutional Accountability Center opened a new website for "constitutional progressives."  Front and center is the  "Whole Constitution Pledge" which pledges signers to the following:

Through the Constitution, “We the People” created the most enduring government charter in world history.

Building on the achievements of the Founding generation, successive generations of Americans have created a “more perfect union” through constitutional Amendments. These Amendments have improved our Constitution by ending slavery, enshrining guarantees of equality and citizenship, expanding the right to vote, and ensuring that the national government has the power and resources necessary to protect the nation, address national challenges and secure civil rights.

Some have advocated repeal of Amendments, including the 14th Amendment, the 16th Amendment, and the 17th Amendment, that make our Constitution better and this country great. Some have even failed to heed the lessons of the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement and have advocated a return to ideas of secession and nullification.

I believe that our Constitution has been improved by the Amendments adopted over the last 220 years.

I pledge to support the whole Constitution.

I guess supporting the whole Constitution is in contrast to the (insert your own adjective here) Tea Partiers who support the repeal of the 14th, 16th, and 17th Amendments.  But wait!  The Constitution has an amendment process in Article V, so supporting the repeal of an amendment with an additional amendment is, in effect, supporting the whole Constitution.  One can support the Constitution and support repeal of a specific amendment without being contradictory.

Let's look and see if Progressives believe in the Constitution.

Here is Woodrow Wilson professing his faith in support of the statesmanship and genius of the Founder's Constitution:

The charm of our constitutional ideal has now been long enough wound up to enable sober men who do not believe in political witchcraft to judge what it has accomplished, and is likely still to accomplish, without further winding.  The Constitution is not honored by blind worship.

And again:

The trouble with the [Founder's] theory is that government is not a machine, but a living thing. It falls, not under the theory of the universe, but under the theory of organic life. It is accountable to Darwin, not to Newton. It is modified by its environment, necessitated by its tasks, shaped to its functions by the sheer pressure of life. No living thing can have its organs offset against each other as checks, and live. 

Oh, wait a minute...nevermind.

The Importance of Political Language

On National Review Online, Daniel Foster touches on a very important point in the never-ending debate between the Left and Right:  vocabulary.  Foster explains this here:

One of the biggest challenges of the Left-Right debate about the proper size and scope of government is that we are, in some fundamental sense, not speaking the same language as the Left — and because Big Government basically won the 20th century, the language of the Left has been internalized to a certain extent by all of us. In a world where the reflexive response is to equate government with society, folks may quite literally lack the vocabulary to understand conservative principles.

This essay on progressivism by John Moser, Associate Professor of History at Ashland University, also highlights the same important point.  Here is a key excerpt:

For liberals, progressivism is a set of policies, from the industrial regulations of the early 20th century through the welfare measures of the Great Society. Such initiatives were attempts to address real problems that emerged in the development of an urban, industrial society. What’s more, they insist, these policies have brought about immense tangible improvements in the lives of ordinary Americans. Only a dangerous extremist, therefore, would want to reverse them.

Conservatives, meanwhile, regard progressivism as an ideology, a set of beliefs developed by men such as Herbert Croly and Woodrow Wilson. According to these thinkers, the ideas of the Founders had no relevance to modern industrial society, and concepts such as limited government, separation of powers and even inalienable individual rights had to be cast aside in order to meet the challenges of the modern world. Moreover, since our society is so complex, day-to-day operations of government had to be taken out of the hands of the people themselves and entrusted to trained experts. All of this led some conservatives to find similarities between progressivism and another political response to the problems of the 20th-century world, namely fascism.

The problem is that both sides are right, but neither seems willing to consider the other’s definition. This is the source of much of the rancor in today’s politics. While using the same words, conservatives and liberals are practically speaking different languages.

Language is a key factor in contributing to confusion on politics today, because both sides have succumbed to using the language of the Left (e.g., the number of conservatives always talking about restoring "traditional family values."  The trouble is is the word values is itself subjective and implicitly denies permanent truths which apply to all people and all times.  Conservatives thereby undercut their own arguments when they use the language of the Left).  This is a major problem, because it is so subtle and most of the time goes unnoticed by both the speaker and listener.

For conservatism to continue to gain ground, conservatives must make language their own again.

Who Do You Love?

Over at Ricochet, George Savage notes an interesting passage from some remarks President Obama delivered to his supporters on Wednesday.  This passage is quite similar to another perhaps less famous passage: 

Jesus Christ:  (John 14:15) "If you love me, keep my commandments."
Barack Obama:  "If you love me, you got to help me pass this bill."

The Right of Conscience and Eternal Truths

In his latest column, Hadley Arkes notes that the continued claims to the right of conscience in the current day are, at bottom, meaningless, because they are untethered from unchangeable, objective truths.  Today, under the banner of conscience, people can claim a whole host of different beliefs, no matter the reasonableness of those beliefs themselves.

But that is precisely the problem.

We tend to relegate things that once could be judged right or wrong, justified or unjustified, to the realm of mere belief.  This creates a system in which, in the words of Justice Scalia, "each conscience is a law unto itself."  We forget that the law can judge on the legality of a widow throwing herself onto a funeral pyre because of religious obligations.  Could one reasonably kill one's own child and be protected from the force of law simply because they claimed to act out of religious duty?

Arkes explains here the original grounding of the right of conscience for the Founders:

 The law had a firmer clarity when it could simply take its bearings from James Madison’s understanding of religion:  “the duty which we owe to our Creator and the manner of discharging it.” That Creator was of course the God of Israel, and the duties were bound up with the Laws that sprang from that Lawgiver.     

With that understanding the law was anchored, not merely in beliefs, but in truths held with conviction about the Author of the Laws of nature and the moral force of those laws. The problem before us now is just what claims of “conscience” mean when they are detached from that body of truths.

Arkes closes by observing that those who are against abortion are not simply "forcing their beliefs on everyone else" as the saying goes.  In an odd paradox, those who claim the banner of private belief are the secularists in this debate.  Those who are pro-life are "planting in the law the premise that the right to abortion has been founded in the most grievous errors of reason." They are claiming that abortion is a wrong for anyone, regardless of any personally held belief; that it is a denial of the rights given to us by our Creator.

Nordlinger on Last Night's Debate

I watched portions of the debate last night, but I was distracted by Monday Night Football.  It was a great game, and to witness Tom Brady throw for 517 yards was amazing (even though I am a die-hard Browns fan).

Here are some assorted thoughts by Jay Nordlinger on the debate:

• Perry and Romney, the two leading candidates, positioned next to each other. Deliberate?

• Are you allowed to have the national anthem on CNN?

• CNN and the Tea Party co-hosted a debate? Proof of the old adage “Politics makes strange bedfellows.”

• Newt should have run in ’96 — that was his time, that was his year.

• Perry’s line about making Washington as inconsequential to you as possible? I’m reminded of how Phil Gramm campaigned. He’d shake a man’s hand and say, “I’ll try to keep the government out of your wallet.”

• I wonder if Bachmann got to go first — got the first question — because of the impression that she was shortchanged in the last debate.

• Bachmann said that Obama “stole” from Medicare — a strong word. Far too strong, I think. Almost fringy.

• In general, she is a very good seller of herself — very good.

• When Perry said “slam-dunk guarantee,” I couldn’t help thinking about George Tenet and Saddam’s WMD. (I didn’t mean for that to rhyme.)

• What Perry is now saying about Social Security? How it will be unchanged for current retirees and those nearing retirement, but that younger people will have flexibility and options? Exactly what Candidate George W. Bush said, way back in 2000.

• Romney was not very good when being pesky, when badgering Perry. He looked small.

• That said, why shouldn’t Perry be made to answer whether he stands by his claim that Social Security is unconstitutional? I mean, that is not an insignificant claim. Isn’t Perry’s great strength supposed to be his candor, his straight talk, his lack of varnish? Well?

• Charming guy, Cain. Might there be room for him in a future Republican administration?

• Santorum kept talking about all the “courage” he had shown in his political life — “I had the courage to” do this, “I had the courage to” do that. Ay, caramba, Rick. That’s for others to say, not you.

• When Newt talked about all the “waste” in government, and how getting rid of it would take care of our budget woes, I almost ralphed. Every bad, dim, or dishonest candidate has said this since the beginning of time: waste, fraud, and abuse. And going after tax cheats. Newt knows so much better.

• Romney pounced on this, saying, Waste, schmaste — we have to cut spending, seriously and structurally. It was just about the most adult moment of the campaign.

• I enjoyed Ron Paul’s answer on executive orders — very good.

• His view of the War on Terror is essentially the same as Michael Moore’s or Noam Chomsky’s. Shouldn’t they be allowed to participate in Republican presidential debates, too? They articulate that view much better.

• Huntsman keeps saying things like, “I want all of you to understand . . .” When he does so, he comes off as condescending and snide, in my opinion.

• Cain said he’d bring a sense of humor, because “America is too uptight.” Huntsman was up next. He should have smiled and said, “I resemble that remark.”

 Also, not to be missed is the NRO symposium on the debate here.

The Conscience of a Shameful Coward

Paul Krugman, a Nobel Prize-winner in economics and columnist for The New York Times, unapologetically dished out his thoughts on 9/11 this past Sunday, the tenth anniversary of 9/11.  I will him quote him in full so that it may soak in:

Is it just me, or are the 9/11 commemorations oddly subdued?

Actually, I don’t think it’s me, and it’s not really that odd.

What happened after 9/11 — and I think even people on the right know this, whether they admit it or not — was deeply shameful. The atrocity should have been a unifying event, but instead it became a wedge issue. Fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush raced to cash in on the horror. And then the attack was used to justify an unrelated war the neocons wanted to fight, for all the wrong reasons.

A lot of other people behaved badly. How many of our professional pundits — people who should have understood very well what was happening — took the easy way out, turning a blind eye to the corruption and lending their support to the hijacking of the atrocity?

The memory of 9/11 has been irrevocably poisoned; it has become an occasion for shame. And in its heart, the nation knows it.

I’m not going to allow comments on this post, for obvious reasons.

 I am not even going to take time to comment.  The idiocy should already be self-evident.

Ten Years Later

Sunday marks the 10th anniversary of the horrible events of September 11, 2001.

Four planes, taken over by terrorists with box cutters, shocked the world that morning.  Two planes hit their intended targets, taking out both of the World Trade Center Towers, one hit the Pentagon, and the fourth plane crashed into a field in rural Pennsylvania because of the courageous and heroic acts of the passengers on board.

Since that time, many editorials have been written and many news anchors have reported that things have fundamentally changed and that we are venturing, as a nation, onto a new frontier.  Perhaps.  But what that day really showed was the unchangeable and unalterable course of human nature; that men are not always angels and some really are devils; that there is evil in the world; and that virtue, honor, and justice can still prevail.

Those who attacked us tried to rip the virtues of what it means to be American from us.  Unfortunately, the rise of the administrative state and modern progressivism did, in a sense, make this task easier for them.  As Thomas G. West notes in an NRO symposium:

The FAA disarmed pilots in 1987. Passengers and crew were ordered to submit quietly to hijackers’ demands. In the name of safety, government banned the very thing that could have prevented the murder of thousands: the Founders’ agenda of self-help, self-defense, and gun rights. 

We no doubt have become a less self-reliant people and a people less capable of self-government over the past 70 years.  But even with these intellectual and political assaults, we still proved capable of rising to the challenge to act in the face of evil.  We awoke from our long slumber that morning.   

Those who took over the airplanes came from regimes whose laws were said to come directly from God.  They hate Americans because they hate what we represent:  a regime based on natural law principles.  St. Thomas Aquinas said that the natural law is the rational creature's participation in God's law.  This principle, radical for its time and still radical to this day, means that the Catholic no less than the Muslim has the same natural rights by nature.  Natural rights are not sectarian and are self-evident for any being capable of reason.  When Lincoln spoke of government of, by, and for the people, he was speaking of the principle of consent based on equal natural rights; that no man has any right to rule any other man without that other man's consent.  This of course flies in the face of those who believe that the governing class speaks directly for God and that their laws are not to be questioned.

Soon after that day, we went after the terrorists in Afghanistan and later in Iraq.  The rule of law has triumphed thus far but we are by no means out of the woods yet.  We must continue to keep the flame of that manly spirit that was rekindled on 9/11 alive and glowing bright. 

God bless the United States, and I pray that she may continue to live a long and happy life.

Thus Sayeth the King

Yuval Levin sums up the lecture that was just delivered to us, the serfs, by President Obama:

Spend $450 billion dollars now, it will create jobs, and I’ll tell you how I’m going to pay for it a week from Monday. If you disagree, you want to expose kids to mercury.  That about sums up the Obama years.

 

Debate Thoughts

First off, NRO has a great symposium on the debate here.

Some thoughts on the debate last night:

- Rick Perry did fairly well in his first debate--especially with being the punching bag of the other candidates for almost half of it.  He will have to do much better on global warming questions though.  He did not back down on the quotes from his book, Fed Up!, and he did a good job in framing the Social Security question not as a debate on the issues we faced 70 years ago but on current day challenges.  Perry still needs to supply us with reasons why Social Security is currently a Ponzi Scheme.  Repeating that it is so over and over again is not an argument. 

- Some further questions I have for Perry on Social Security:  1) Is social security in principle at all compatible with a republic based on natural rights and consent of the governed? 2) How can it be reformed today so that it can be constitutional if, in its current form, it is not?

- Romney was his usual, smooth talking self, and I thought he still was able to deflect questions on Romneycare fairly well.  He successfully played the Newt card by rising above everyone else during the questioning on Perry's executive order on HPV vaccinations.

- Ron Paul's solution to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?  Take away air conditioning for the troops.

- And Paul's fear that border fences will be used to keep us in is, shall we say, crazy.  Is it simply the presence of fences that make regimes tyrannical?  Someone should investigate whether Paul has a fence around his own home. 

- Bachmann seemingly took Rick Santorum's place from the last debate-virtually an after thought.  Surprising considering that she won in Iowa.

- Both Santorum and Newt did well.  Cain did pretty well too, but he did feature typical clean-up-the-bureaucracy language that politicians have been saying for fifty years.

- NBC took the liberal obsession with diversity to its logical conclusion:  they dragged out a Telemundo anchor to ask a question on immigration.

- During the MSNBC post debate panel moderated by Rachel Maddow featuring Lawrence O'Donnell, Al Sharpton, Ed Schultz, Eugene Robinson, Robert Gibbs, and a raving Chris Mathews, they all voiced concerns that the candidates are "alienating the moderates."  The irony is so thick, it's ridiculous.

- And last and certainly least, Huntsman had some decent answers, but the little good will I developed for him crumbled with his final answer regarding global warming and evolution.  If his answer would have been taped and played for people on the street, 98 out of 100 responses would have identified Huntsman as trying to beat Barack Obama in the Democrat primary. 

- And Jonah Goldberg is right.  Huntsman looks exactly like the Merovingian from the Matrix trilogy. 

Ron Paul: Meet the 14th Amendment

In the Palmetto Freedom Forum this past Monday (which I discussed earlier here), Professor Robert George asked all the candidates who participated if they as president would propose to Congress legislation, under the fifth clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, that would protect human life in all forms.  Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, and Herman Cain all said that they would support such legislation.

Mitt Romney voiced concerns over the "constitutional chaos" that would ensue if Congress were to disregard Supreme Court precedent on this matter (one wonders his opinion on Supreme Court precedent regarding partial-birth abortion bans).  He instead advocated that he would appoint Supreme Court Justices who believe in strictly following the Constitution.  He would ultimately return this question to the states, although he did somewhat ambiguously leave the door open to possible legislation in the future should circumstances change.

Representative Ron Paul also advocated that the decision be left to the states, and he openly worried that this reading of the Fourteenth Amendment would trump both the Ninth and Tenth Amendments (the Ninth Amendment reads "The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people," and the Tenth Amendment reads "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.").

The relevant part of the Fourteenth Amendment reads "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."  The fifth section states that “The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.”

The Fourteenth Amendment was ratified to overturn the Dred Scott ruling and base the protection of one's life, liberty and property--a clear link back to the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment and, ultimately, to the Declaration of Independence--on person hood (this countered Chief Justice Taney's assertion that blacks had no rights which the white man was bound to respect).  The original intent of the Fourteenth Amendment was designed to make it unconstitutional for states to have distinctions in citizenship, where some would have more rights and others less rights.  State citizenship was thus to be derived from federal citizenship--not the other way around as it had been prior to the Fourteenth Amendment.

The Fourteenth Amendment is designed to limit a state action that strikes at the heart of the natural rights principles of the Founders--between things legitimate and illegitimate.  The Ninth Amendment safeguards the natural rights retained by the people by asserting that a listing or enumeration of rights--such as the Bill of Rights itself--is not an exhaustive listing of every natural right retained.  In a government of delegated powers, it is simply not the duty of any branch to enumerate rights retained by the people.  Underlying the Tenth Amendment is the recognition that the people retain their rights and delegate only the exercise of certain powers to the government (Article I lists only eighteen powers that can be legitimately exercised by the Legislative branch).  The importance of the Tenth Amendment lies in the fact that the Founders did not want to imply that a reservation of rights meant that the government held a general grant of power.  Originally, the Ninth and Tenth Amendment were combined together as one amendment, further leading to the idea that rights and powers are two sides of the same coin (Edward J. Erler has a great essay on this topic here).

Now, with the history of the Fourteenth Amendment in mind, we can revisit Congressman Paul's logic as described above.  Paul thinks there is a conflict where there clearly is not.  Prior to the Thirteenth Amendment, the federal government had no power to eradicate slavery from the states in which it had already taken hold (this was Lincoln's position).  The Fourteenth Amendment was adopted so that the states no less than the federal government would not be able to violate the natural rights of the governed.  Paul is still living in antebellum America.

The real reason Ron Paul sees problems with this is because he views the Constitution as form only; he does not see the substance of it.  For Paul, choice seems to be primary, and he does not seem to care as much about the ends that that choice is directed towards.

Here Comes Ignorance

In a soon-to-be released memoir titled Here Comes Trouble, Michael Moore credits himself for lifting the veil and showing the rest of the world the true evils perpetrated by the bloodthirsty Bush after 9/11.  The unshaven man in the grubby hat also calls out President Obama for coming "in as Neville Chamberlain, wanting to appease the Republicans."

But that's not even the best part. 

Here is what he says about the current crop of GOP hopefuls during an interview with Newsweek:

Moore hasn’t even decided whether he’ll vote for Obama again in 2012; he likes Jon Huntsman on the Republican side, saying "it’s crazy time over there" and Huntsman is the only "sane candidate." "If the Republicans were smart, they would nominate [him]."

Talk about an albatross around the neck of the Huntsman campaign.  But I guess this is what you get when your campaign strategist calls Republicans "a bunch of cranks."

The New Patriotism

John Podhoretz notices a frankly appalling talking point that has become a new theme-of-sorts in President Obama's rhetoric:  "Country Before Party."  This line showed it's ugly head in the debt ceiling debate, and I am sure it will once again rear itself in the speech on Thursday.

I agree with Obama that country should always be above party, but this certainly isn't the effectual truth of his words.  He is really asking Republicans to compromise on their principles and join in whatever he and the Democrats are proposing (e.g., prior to the debt ceiling debate, Obama proposed a clean raise of the debt ceiling without any cuts whatsoever).  The implication of this motto is that whenever Republicans disagree and go against the president, they are not only being "obstructionist" but they are now un-patriotic and un-American.  Patriotism has now been redefined to how closely one adheres to the Democrat Party platform.

But for Barack Obama, patriotism used to mean something different entirely:

That is why, for me, patriotism is always more than just loyalty to a place on a map or a certain kind of people. Instead, it is also loyalty to America's ideals - ideals for which anyone can sacrifice, or defend, or give their last full measure of devotion.

In the same speech, Obama later approvingly cited Mark Twain who said, "But when our laws, our leaders or our government are out of alignment with our ideals, then the dissent of ordinary Americans may prove to be one of the truest expression of patriotism."

Hmmm.   Remember some years ago when dissent was the highest form of patriotism?  Where did those times go?

Some Opinions on Obama

I was reading through an opinion piece online today, and I thought I might share some interesting excerpts.  The writer writes the following on Obama and his hopes of being re-elected:

Obama’s re-election chances depend on painting the Republicans as disrespectful. So why would the White House act disrespectful by scheduling a speech to a joint session of Congress at the exact time when the Republicans already had a debate planned?

And again:

And it wasn’t exactly Morning in America when Obama sent out a mass e-mail to supporters Wednesday under the heading "Frustrated."  It unfortunately echoed a November 2010 parody in The Onion with the headline, "Frustrated Obama Sends Nation Rambling 75,000-Word E-Mail."

And finally:

Obama is still suffering from the Speech Illusion, the idea that he can come down from the mountain, read from a Teleprompter, cast a magic spell with his words and climb back up the mountain, while we scurry around and do what he proclaimed.  The days of spinning illusions in a Greek temple in a football stadium are done. The One is dancing on the edge of one term.  The White House team is flailing — reacting, regrouping, retrenching. It’s repugnant.

In case you were wondering, this op-ed is not from Ann Coulter or Michele Malkin.  It is by Maureen Dowd, and it was published in the Sunday edition of The New York Times.

More on Perry's Constitutionalism

Adam White, a lawyer in Washington D.C. blogging for The Weekly Standard, finds a surprising partner in agreement with Rick Perry on his idea to add an amendment to the Constitution which would give the Congress the ability to overturn Supreme Court rulings by a two-thirds majority:  the Progressive Party of 1912.

White explains more:

In 1912, one of the party's major platform planks was the referendum, empowering voters to overturn state court decisions. And while the party's platform proposed the referendum to supersede state courts, its presidential candidate, Teddy Roosevelt, more than hinted that they should apply to the federal judiciary as well.

He goes on to lambast Ruth Marcus, who disingenuously argued that Perry's plan would have caused Brown v. Board of Education to be overturned by Congress in 1954.

Referendum, recall, and other like measures initiated by progressives early in the twentieth century greatly weakened the structure of federalism and increased the importance and power of the federal government.  For progressives, this fit into their project of fundamentally transforming politics so that it would center on following the will of the governed.  The administration of politics was left to administrators in the bureaucracy who would be insulated from partisan opinions.  Government then was seen as the primary mover and instigator in bringing about change at a rapid pace.  The Founders' ideas on separation of powers, federalism, and a written constitution were seen as impediments to quickly enacting policies demanded by the public will.  This is why Woodrow Wilson argued in his early years to restructure Congress as a cabinet, or parliamentary, system of government.

I know Perry obviously does not base his political proposals on the foundations described above, but it should give one pause to wonder if his well-intentioned proposals are truly compatible with founding principles.   

A Serious Forum for Serious Thought

On Monday, Professor Robert George of Princeton will be co-moderating a forum with two stalwarts of the tea party movement, Senator Jim DeMint and Rep. Steve King.  Robert Costa from National Review has the story here.

Much like the forum at Saddleback Church hosted by Pastor Rick Warren, this forum will be about asking serious questions.  This forum will be centered on deep discussions on the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.  Professor George hopes that through these kinds of discussions, the candidates will demonstrate an understanding of statesmanship:  an understanding of founding principles and how to govern by those principles in practice.

George sums up the purpose of the forum with this statement:

I think people are aware that things are not right.  They are not technical problems to be solved by choosing the best technocrat. . . .People have a sense that the problems run deeper than that, that they have to do, in a very significant measure, with a loss of fidelity over the years, a falling away from our own principles. . . . They are looking for a conversation that goes deeper.

This is a great step in the right direction for those who want to again be guided by higher principles and not hear more brain dead "This or That" questions from CNN's John King.   

Please Mr. President, No More

For the first time since 1945, no jobs were created last month.  In reaction to the news, the Dow fell 2.2% today.  The scary part is this:  Obama may argue next week in his speech that, contrary to all logic and sound reasoning, the government bail outs weren't enough to foster job creation and more spending is needed right away.

Lincoln and Modern Conservatism

While reading through my email during lunch today, an email from the Patriot Post caught my eye.  The Patriot Post is a conservative news letter that is normally very good on most issues, but in regards to the Civil War in general, and Abraham Lincoln in particular, they repeat many of the same arguments found in Southern editorials from 1860-1865. 

The following is what Mark Alexander, the editor of the Patriot Post, wrote today about Lincoln:

"...the War Between the States which cost 600,000 American lives and annulled the authority of our Constitution's mandate for Federalism. Unfortunately, today's "Republicans" tie their lineage to Abraham Lincoln, the man who engineered that frontal assault on states' rights."

But the "states' rights" arguments from the South only saw the light of day after the Civil War.  Before the war, John C. Calhoun argued that slavery was a "positive good," and Alexander Stephens, who served as Vice President of the Confederacy, argued that both science and revelation agreed on the great truth of the natural inequality of the races.

On the other hand, Lincoln was so careful to abide by the Constitution that he always argued that without amendment, he did not have the power to extinguish slavery in the states in which it had already taken hold.  The Emancipation Proclamation was issued as a war time measure and was limited to the states in rebellion.  I would argue Lincoln preserved the Constitution in a crisis greater than that which George Washington faced.

I will have much more to say about this issue in the future, but I will leave with this:  these kinds of arguments are inherently at war with the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.  It is a shame that many conservative news source and books put forth these kinds of arguments to an unknowing general public only interested in recovering founding principles.  In a country now trying to once again orient itself by founding principles, this is a debate worth having.

Obama to Boehner: Ok, I will

In follow up to the post last night, the White House issued a statement saying that President Obama will now give his much talked about jobs lecture on September 8th.  As I mentioned last night, this speech will now most likely conflict with the first game of the NFL season between the Packers and Saints, a match up of the last two Superbowl winning teams.

I would highly suggest to watch this game instead, because we will hear nothing new from the President.

On a related note, Solyndra, a California based company that manufactures solar panels, has just filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy and is in the process of laying off 1,100 employees.  In 2010, Obama touted Solyndra as an example of the growing jobs market (Solyndra also received a generous $535 million loan from the federal govenrment).  This is what happens when Obama focuses his sights on job creation.