Honesty

Via Steven Hayward at Power Line, Georgetown Law Professor Louis Seidman this morning comes clean in a New York Times op-ed and says what should be obvious by now:  Liberals don't really like the Constitution that much.  The piece is entitled, "Let's Give Up on the Constitution."

The first paragraph says it all:

AS the nation teeters at the edge of fiscal chaos, observers are reaching the conclusion that the American system of government is broken. But almost no one blames the culprit: our insistence on obedience to the Constitution, with all its archaic, idiosyncratic and downright evil provisions.

Woodrow Wilson was the first president to openly criticize the Constitution and its "auxiliary precautions" in the form of federalism and separation of powers.  FDR, being more politically astute than that austere professor-president, cleverly cloaked his even more radical departures from the Constitution and the principles of the Declaration of Independence during his presidency.  But, contra Wilson, he did this by claiming that his New Deal programs and alphabet soup agencies were in line with the political philosophy of the Founders.  Since the New Deal era, liberals have mostly employed this kind of rhetoric:  acting as though every program and law they pass is an extension of the principles of the Founding applied to solve modern day problems.

I'm glad Professor Seidman has shed this rhetorical veneer and has let us know where he (and most liberals today) really stands.

Just Like Lincoln (Only Better)

This morning on Meet the Press, host David Gregory, fresh off his recent law-breaking crusade, had the following exchange with President Obama:

NBC host David Gregory asked President Barack Obama this morning, "Is this your Lincoln moment?" 

The question came up after Obama invoked the movie Lincoln when talking about Republicans and Democrats coming together to work out a deal on the "fiscal cliff.

"Well, no," Obama said in response to Gregory's question. "Look, a) I never compare myself to Lincoln. And b) obviously the magnitude of the issues is quite different from the Civil War and slavery. The point, though, is democracy has always been messy. We're a big diverse country that is constantly sort of arguing about all kinds of stuff. But eventually, we do the right thing." (Emphasis mine.)

Now, on its face, the bolded portion is a ridiculous claim.  Take a look at an excerpt from a speech he delivered in late 2007 -- in Springfield, Ill. no less -- when he announced his candidacy for president:

By ourselves, this change will not happen. Divided, we are bound to fail.

But the life of a tall, gangly, self-made Springfield lawyer tells us that a different future is possible.

He tells us that there is power in words.

He tells us that there is power in conviction.

That beneath all the differences of race and region, faith and station, we are one people.

He tells us that there is power in hope.

As Lincoln organized the forces arrayed against slavery, he was heard to say this: "Of strange, discordant, and even hostile elements, we gathered from the four winds, and formed and fought to battle through."

That is our purpose here today.

That is why I'm in this race.

Not just to hold an office, but to gather with you to transform a nation.

I want to win that next battle — for justice and opportunity.

I want to win that next battle — for better schools, and better jobs, and better health care for all.

I want us to take up the unfinished business of perfecting our union, and building a better America.

At the time of the speech, Jake Tapper noted that the crowd "allowed Obama to immodestly and continuously compare himself to Lincoln."

Prior to 2007, then-Senator Obama recounted the similarities between himself and Lincoln in an article published in Time magazine in June of 2005.  Here is a relevant excerpt:

What is it about this man that can move us so profoundly? Some of it has to do with Lincoln's humble beginnings, which often speak to our own. When I moved to Illinois 20 years ago to work as a community organizer, I had no money in my pockets and didn't know a single soul. During my first six years in the state legislature, Democrats were in the minority, and I couldn't get a bill heard, much less passed. In my first race for Congress, I had my head handed to me. So when I, a black man with a funny name, born in Hawaii of a father from Kenya and a mother from Kansas, announced my candidacy for the U.S. Senate, it was hard to imagine a less likely scenario than that I would win--except, perhaps, for the one that allowed a child born in the backwoods of Kentucky with less than a year of formal education to end up as Illinois' greatest citizen and our nation's greatest President.

And another very illuminating section:

In Lincoln's rise from poverty, his ultimate mastery of language and law, his capacity to overcome personal loss and remain determined in the face of repeated defeat--in all this, he reminded me not just of my own struggles. He also reminded me of a larger, fundamental element of American life--the enduring belief that we can constantly remake ourselves to fit our larger dreams.  (Emphasis mine.)

 Lincoln's life reminded him of his own.  Very humble.

Also, read the answer Obama gave during a 2011 town hall meeting to a question regarding how he deals with congressional push-back from the GOP:

“Democracy is always a messy business in a big country like this,” Obama responded. “When you listen to what the federalists said about the anti-federalists … those guys were tough. Lincoln, they used to talk about him almost as bad as they talk about me.”

If Obama's detractors called him the same names that were constantly hurled at Lincoln, MSNBC commentators wouldn't simply be complaining about supposed dog whistle-racism.

But to simply recount the myriad ways in which Obama has compared himself to Lincoln isn't enough. As Charles Kesler has noted, a careful reading of Obama should leave the reader convinced that Obama sees himself like the sixteenth president but only a better version of the Great Emancipator.

So Obama really does see himself as another Lincoln but only better.

Beyond Hypocrisy

CNN's Piers Morgan has been lately displaying one of the biggest ironies of modern liberalism:  Talking about "tolerance" and "civility" in theory but then in practice doing the exact opposite of that teaching.  Case in point: Morgan had on Larry Pratt, the Executive Director of Gun Owners of America, shortly after the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut.  Displaying deep understanding and tolerance, Morgan went on to say that Pratt was "sham[ing] your country" and that he was "an unbelievably stupid man" who doesn't care about the gun murder rate in America.

If you think that was bad, read on.

Morgan, not done displaying his ignorance on the national stage, said a week later in an interview with Pastor Rick Warren of the Saddleback Church that the Bible should be amended.  I'm not joking.  Here is the clip:

As Paul Mirengoff points out,

The Bible isn’t like the U.S. Constitution. It does not have the force of govenrment law behind it. If one ignores a particular prohibition or teaching — because it is “out-of-date” or, what is often the same thing, because one would rather not follow it — no government penalty attaches and no government enforcement mechanism comes into play (unless the law contains the same prohibition). But, of course, one assumes all other risks.

Nevermind that believing in a "living constitution" does away the need for amending the Constitution since the Courts essentially function as an on-going constitutional convention.  But, the best part comes at the end of the interview when Morgan says the following about the need for respectful exchanges with people of differing opinions (courtesy of Pete Wehner):

“The debate should always be respectful,” according to Morgan. “By the way,” he added, “it applies to politics, too. The moment it becomes disrespectful and discourteous and then rude and then poisonous, you never achieve anything.”

To call this hypocrisy would do a disservice to the word.  I think a new word needs to be thought up to fully capture what just took place here.

Calculation Error

I hope you all had a good Christmas.

Here is an offering from the cartoon writer at The American Spectator on the confusion-that goes-for-economic-principle Democrats have recently adopted (even JFK didn't buy this one):  That a tax hike necessarily leads to increased revenue.

Hindsight

Late yesterday, it was publicly confirmed that Sen. John Kerry will be President Obama's choice for Secretary of State.  The New York Times has the story.

Maybe Susan Rice would've actually been the better choice...

Bork Dies, Toobin Lies

In the wake of the passing of Robert Bork, Jeffrey Toobin, a legal analyst for CNN, takes to the pages of the New Yoker to trash his legacy in a particularly disgusting and pathetic screed.  I won't bother to quote all of it, but here is how it opens:

Robert Bork, who died Wednesday, was an unrepentant reactionary who was on the wrong side of every major legal controversy of the twentieth century. The fifty-eight senators who voted against Bork for confirmation to the Supreme Court in 1987 honored themselves, and the Constitution. In the subsequent quarter-century, Bork devoted himself to proving that his critics were right about him all along.

Toobin goes on to accuse Bork of liking poll taxes and thinking that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a horrible law. (Bork didn't like the law at the time but he later changed his mind; meanwhile Ron Paul never has, but I digress.)  Now when someone dies it's one thing to be fair and not simply create a  whitewashed version of their life.  In my own eulogy of Bork, I was critical of his rejection of a natural law based jurisprudence.  But Toobin's write-up is truly on an entirely different level.  I can't imagine what he would say if a conservative wrote up something akin to his piece if a liberal justice on the Court were to suddenly pass away.  The MSM would be again bringing up that old standby, civility, that has strangely disappeared from the vocabularies of the political class.

Toobin, a liberal who tends to view anything with which he disagrees like a scientists studying some strange organism in a Petri dish, has hit a new low even for him.  If anything could be considered libelous today it is this "piece."  I would say that Toobin should be ashamed of himself but that would require him to have a conscience.

(If you are interested in reading a full take down of Toobin's "piece," please read this long post.)

RIP Robert Bork

Robert Bork passed away today at the age of 85.  He was best known as President Reagan's failed Supreme Court nominee in 1987 (Anthony Kennedy would later be approved to fill the seat by the Senate), but he also should be known as a long-serving law professor at Yale, the U.S. Solicitor General during Watergate, and a judge on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. No doubt, Judge Bork would have a made a fine Supreme Court Justice and, along with Justices Thomas and Scalia, would have certainly been instrumental in turning over some of the worst decisions of the Court in the past forty plus years (Roe comes immediately to mind).

Ever since the jurisprudence of originalism was brought back into the public mind with the original intent debate between former Attorney General Edwin Meese and Justice William Brennan in 1985, Bork, along with other legal conservatives, helped shaped conservative legal jurisprudence for decades.     Bork famously rejected a natural law based jurisprudence--that idea the Constitution can only be properly interpreted by seeing it in light of the principles of the Declaration of Independence--and instead based his jurisprudence mostly on majoritarianism and legal positivism.  The debates Bork had with Harry Jaffa and Hadley Arkes among other scholars on this point was, however, crucial to the opening of the conservative mind to this old method of jurisprudence.  Though Bork was in error in this respect (Arkes argues in fact that Bork's jurisprudence turned out better than he himself knew), he should be celebrated for his accomplishments in circles both legal and political.

RIP Judge Bork.

Christmas Reading

The Claremont Review of Books has just put out their annual Christmas reading list, which is made up from a fine group of noted scholars and conservative thinkers.  Please review the list and make it a point to read at least a couple of the books in the new year.

In the sprit of the CRB's list, here is my own:

I Am the Change:  Barack Obama and the Crisis of Liberalism by Charles Kesler

Kesler, taking his bearings from Leo Strauss, argues that in order to understand Barack Obama, we have to understand him as he sees himself.  The best way to do this, of course, is to read and take seriously his speeches and two published books.  Kesler finds Obama to be nothing new in the political world.  Instead, Obama is continuing the progressive project that began with his intellectual and political heir, Woodrow Wilson.  All is not roses, however, as modern liberalism's destructive core is threatening to tear down the entire project.  This book is by far the best book ever written on Obama and is one of the finest books ever written on liberalism in its modern form.

A New Birth of Freedom:  Abraham Lincoln and the Coming of the Civil War by Harry Jaffa

Jaffa builds on and goes beyond the arguments he laid out in his first work on Lincoln, Crisis of the House Divided:  An Interpretation of the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, and argues that, contrary to his teaching in Crisis, Lincoln's statesmanship was built on the recovery of the Founders' natural law and natural right principles. Both books are two of the greatest books written on Lincoln and the principles of America.  A New Birth is essentially nothing less than a full defense of the American republic.

Natural Rights and Right to Choose by Hadley Arkes

Arkes, one of the main supporters behind the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban (it was signed into law by President Bush in 2003), argues that we have been slowly talking ourselves out of the grounding of our natural rights.  We still talk about "rights" but the substance that used to be there is now stripped away.  With the idea of universal truths being cast aside, we are now unanchored, drifting along under false impressions that we are constantly being granted new liberties and freedoms through the decisions of the Supreme Court.  This story is told through the critical examination of the new freedom the Supreme Court found in 1973, the right to choose.  Arkes find that this new right rests on the same principle on which chattel slavery rested:  the denial of the principle consent and its coeval principle, the natural equality of man.

That'a all for now, but I may expand this list later.  Happy reading.

Thought-free Zones

In my earlier post on the shootings that occurred yesterday, I declined to go into the political backlash that has almost been thrust into the forefront of the coverage by the MSM (I am going by what I read online; I have tried to stay away from watching any coverage on the news networks).  Like clock-work, there have been calls for increased gun control in the form of creating "gun-free zones" or proposals to outlaw private ownership of handguns.  I have seen those on both the Left and Right (though it has mostly been coming from the Left) essentially making these types of arguments.  

For example, Rupert Murdoch, chairman of News Corp, which owns Fox News and the Wall Street Journal, courageously asked if this will finally move politicians to finally ban assault weapons.  Nevermind the fact that assault weapons were not used in the shootings in Connecticut and that there actually is already a ban on fully automatic assault weapons that dates back to the passage of the National Firearms Act in 1934.

Today in USA Today, Glenn Reynolds, professor of law at the University of Tennessee, takes on these types of arguments and finds them wanting.  I will quote his piece in full because it's the shortest and clearest distillation I've read on exposing the myths and fallacies of the anti-gun crowd:

"After a shooting spree," author William Burroughs once said, "they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn't do it." Burroughs continued: "I sure as hell wouldn't want to live in a society where the only people allowed guns are the police and the military." 

Plenty of people — especially among America's political and journalistic classes — feel differently. They'd be much more comfortable seeing ordinary Americans disarmed. And whenever there is a mass shooting, or other gun incident that snags the headlines, they do their best to exploit the tragedy and push for laws that would, well, take the guns away from the people who didn't do it. 

There are a lot of problems with this approach, but one of the most significant is this one: It doesn't work. One of the interesting characteristics of mass shootings is that they generally occur in places where firearms are banned: malls, schools, etc. That was the finding of a famous 1999 study by John Lott of the University of Maryland and William Landes of the University of Chicago, and it appears to have been borne out by experience since then as well. 

In a way, this is no surprise. If there's someone present with a gun when a mass shooting begins, the shooter is likely to be shot himself. And, in fact, many mass shootings — from the high school shooting by Luke Woodham in Pearl, Miss., to the New Life Church shooting in Colorado Springs, Colo., where an armed volunteer shot the attacker — have been terminated when someone retrieved a gun from a car or elsewhere and confronted the shooter. 

Policies making areas "gun free" provide a sense of safety to those who engage in magical thinking, but in practice, of course, killers aren't stopped by gun-free zones. As always, it's the honest people — the very ones you want to be armed — who tend to obey the law.
This vulnerability makes some people uncomfortable. I teach at a state university with a campus gun-free policy, and quite a few of my students have permits to carry guns. After the Virginia Tech shooting a few years ago, one of them asked me if we could move class off campus, because she felt unsafe being unarmed. I certainly would have felt perfectly safe having her carry a gun in my presence; she was, and is, a responsible adult. I feel the same way about the other law students I know who have carry permits. 

Gun-free zones are premised on a lie: that murderers will follow rules, and that people like my student are a greater danger to those around them than crazed killers. That's an insult to honest people. Sometimes, it's a deadly one. The notion that more guns mean more crime is wrong. In fact, as gun ownership has expanded over the past decade, crime has gone down. 

Fortunately, the efforts to punish "the people who didn't do it" are getting less traction these days. The Supreme Court, of course, has recognized that under the Constitution, honest people have a right to defend themselves with firearms, inside and outside the home, something that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit recently acknowledged in striking down Illinois' gun-carry ban. Given that gun-free zones seem to be a magnet for mass shooters, maybe we should be working to shrink or eliminate them, rather than expand them. As they say, if it saves just one life, it's worth it.

One thing to take away:  Murderers don't follow the law.

Horror in Connecticuit

Regarding yesterday's mass-shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticuit, I don't think there is much more to be said than what has been said already.  My heart goes out to the families who have lost their loved ones at the hands of a murderer ( I will not mention his name) who seemingly wanted to to commit suicide with a bang.

I had hoped--which was sadly short-lived--that some favored political program would not be injected into this horrible scene.  I will comment on this a little later on but this post is not intended for that kind of thing.  

The only thing I will say for now is this:  "The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit."  Psalm 34:18

Color Over Character

This morning on ESPN's First Take, Rob Parker, a former columnist for Detroit News, said the following about Redskins' quarterback Robert Griffin III:

"Is he a brother, or is he a cornball brother," Parker asked. "I keep hearing these things. We all know he has a white fiancée. There was all this talk about he's a Republican."

Oh no!  He may even be a Republican!  Not that!  

I thought we were getting past this kind of racial determinism junk.

There Will Be Blood

The editors at NRO have a well thought out editorial on the right-to-work legislation that was just signed into law by Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder:

Michigan has passed a modest labor reform, and the result has been threats and violence from Democratic elected officials and their union henchmen. While this is deplorable, it is not surprising: Organized labor’s business model is mechanically identical to extortion, and it is in the nature of the extortionist’s trade to resort to violence when frustrated. 

To hear the Democrats tell the tale, you would think that Governor Rick Snyder and Michigan’s Republican-controlled legislature had abolished unions. In fact, the legislation merely prohibits unions from forcing workers to pay dues to them as a condition of employment, which is why such measures are called “right-to-work laws.” The law imposes no limitation on unions’ ability to organize, to engage in collective bargaining, or to strike. It merely forbids them to take money out of the pockets of workers who do not wish to join them. 

In response, Democratic legislator Douglas Geiss declared on the floor of the state house: “There will be blood. There will be repercussions.” And indeed there were: Knife-wielding partisans brought down a tent on representatives from the conservative group Americans for Prosperity — women and children among them — and roughed up bystanders. Fox News contributor Steven Crowder was beaten by the same mob, punched repeatedly in the face. 

Michigan is the 24th state to enact a right-to-work law, and the most heavily unionized state to do so. Even though Michigan is the heartland of the United Auto Workers, only 17.5 percent of the state’s workers belong to unions, and most of the state’s union members are government employees. Indeed, so many government-school employees called in sick to protest the right-to-work bill that some school districts had to be shut down. (Not that Michigan’s schools are doing Michiganders much good: The share of Michigan eighth-graders who perform proficiently in math and science is 29.4 and 16.5 percent respectively, suggesting that very few of them will be ready for the high-tech manufacturing jobs that are the pride of the state’s economy.) Michigan was inspired to pursue reforms in no small part by the example of Indiana, which saw its business-recruiting prospects improve after enacting right-to-work reform. 

Right-to-work laws do not necessarily hobble unions; rather, they force unions to compete for resources and prove their value to their workers. Some unions provide obvious value: In places in which private-sector unions already are strongly established, right-to-work laws have in fact had little effect on union membership. The critical difference is that workers have a choice. This is a principle that should be codified in law in every state, and at the federal level as well. Someday, an ambitious Republican congressional majority should simply repeal the corrosive National Labor Relations Act and be done with it. But until that time, the right will proceed state by state. 

Democrats are panicked by the spread of right-to-work reforms because the mandatory deduction of dues from the paychecks of public-sector employees provides the party’s financial lifeblood. There are not that many UAW members or Teamsters in the country, but there are legions of bureaucrats, school workers, and surly DMV clerks — and, through its relationship with the public-sector unions, the Democratic party has a direct pipeline into the pockets of practically each and every one of them. The shrieking in Michigan isn’t about workingmen’s wages, but campaign coffers. That is why there is blood. 

 I think that pretty much covers it.

 

Fanatical Relativism

I was reading this piece by Fr. James Schall, who just recently retired from teaching at Georgetown, and this section caught my eye:

We live in a time when any notion that truth exists or that it should be pursued is identified with fanaticism. The skeptic will fanatically pursue his own skepticism, while those who pursue the truth he will call “fanatics.” And while the principle of contradiction remains the fundamental philosophical tool, we find that it means little to those who do not mind giving their souls to contradiction in order that they do not have to acknowledge error and change their ways.

This this is hyperbole?  Think again.

Read this from Barack Obama's much heralded Audacity of Hope:

Implicit . . . in the [American Founders'] very idea of ordered liberty was a rejection of absolute truth, the infallibility of any idea or ideology or theology or “ism,” any tyrannical consistency that might lock future generations into a single, unalterable course, or drive both majorities and minorities into the cruelties of the Inquisition, the pogrom, the gulag, or the jihad.

Of course, "locking" future generations into trying live up to the "tyrannical consistency" of the principles of the Declaration of Independence is a very terrible thing indeed.

Doublethink

Steve Conover at the American Enterprise Institute has a good take on what has been forgotten by the media and the Democrats (but I repeat myself) regarding the expiration of the "Bush" tax cuts (also known as the current tax rates) for the top two percent of earners:

With the so-called fiscal cliff approaching, politicians are virtually unanimous that the expiration of the Bush-era tax law presents a clear and present danger to the middle class. According to the White House, the typical middle class family’s taxes would jump by $2,200 per year. The president recently took this message directly to the people: “Tell members of Congress what a $2,000 tax hike would mean to you. Call your members of Congress, write them an email, post it on their Facebook walls. You can tweet it using the hashtag ‘My2K.’” 

Curiously, however, hardly anyone has noticed that today’s sentiment is a flip-flop for just about any Democrat who has run for any political office any time in the past decade — from the presidency on down. Why? First, consider the Left’s decade-long mantra deriding the Bush tax policies as “tax cuts for the rich,” then ask a simple question: how could the expiration of “tax cuts for the rich” hurt anyone but the rich? 

In other words, if the Bush cuts actually were just “tax cuts for the rich,” then their expiration couldn’t hurt the middle class. On the other hand, if their expiration would hurt the middle class, then characterizing them as “tax cuts for the rich” was a false message all along.

And here I thought the "Bush tax cuts for the rich" were destroying our economy and our way of life.   Now they are a positive good for 98% of the American people.

Getting Back to Basics

Steve Hayward notes some delicious irony regarding the vote to make Michigan a Right-to-Work state this past week:

But the really big news came out of Michigan this week, with the state legislature’s vote to make Michigan a right-to-work state. No one saw this coming, which is one reason why it succeeded. It is a dagger at the heart of union power. First Wisconsin, and now Michigan. Notice, also, how Democratic legislators walked out of the capitol in Michigan. That’s the face of liberalism today: rather than abide by a democratic election result, walk out and try to prevent the legislature from functioning. And then holler about “secession” talk from conservatives. Heh.

Of course, the exact same thing happened in Wisconsin in 2011 when the legislature voted to reign in the collective bargaining power of the teachers' unions among other public unions.  Just as it happened then, Democrats, knowing that they didn't have the necessary votes, decided to break the democratic principle of majority rule and secede.  Conservatives, however, open themselves up to charges of hypocrisy (which, isn't the worst charge when considering that La Rochefoucauld called hypocrisy "the tribute that vice plays to virtue") when they resorted talk of secession in the wake of the re-election of President Obama.

This section from Lincoln's First Inaugural is what conservatives should take to heart:

If the minority will not acquiesce, the majority must, or the government must cease. There is no other alternative; for continuing the government, is acquiescence on one side or the other. If a minority, in such case, will secede rather than acquiesce, they make a precedent which, in turn, will divide and ruin them; for a minority of their own will secede from them, whenever a majority refuses to be controlled by such minority. For instance, why may not any portion of a new confederacy, a year or two hence, arbitrarily secede again, precisely as portions of the present Union now claim to secede from it. All who cherish disunion sentiments, are now being educated to the exact temper of doing this. Is there such perfect identity of interests among the States to compose a new Union, as to produce harmony only, and prevent renewed secession? 

Plainly, the central idea of secession, is the essence of anarchy. A majority, held in restraint by constitutional checks, and limitations, and always changing easily, with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people, Whoever rejects it, does, of necessity, fly to anarchy or to despotism. Unanimity is impossible; the rule of a minority, as a permanent arrangement, is wholly inadmissible; so that, rejecting the majority principle, anarchy, or despotism in some form, is all that is left.

The majority, however, is only rightful if it is based upon the previous unanimity of agreement on the first principles of the regime, which, in the case of the United State, are the principles of the Declaration of Independence.

Dave Brubeck, American

I have been thinking about the passing of jazz great Dave Brubeck for the past couple days, and I want to say a little more about how he truly lived an American life.  Here is Brubeck from an interview in 2005:

Brubeck believed that jazz presented the best face of America to the world. 

"Jazz is about freedom within discipline," he said in a 2005 interview with The Associated Press. "Usually a dictatorship like in Russia and Germany will prevent jazz from being played because it just seemed to represent freedom, democracy and the United States. 

"Many people don't understand how disciplined you have to be to play jazz. ... And that is really the idea of democracy — freedom within the Constitution or discipline. You don't just get out there and do anything you want."

Brubeck understood with the American Founders that freedom is not the same thing as license.  Jazz, a uniquely American form of music, still had to be composed and played within a certain defined structure.  The same thing goes for the People who came together to create the Constitution.

The Founders based the United States on the coeval principles of equality and liberty, but liberty understood rightly did not mean the "right to do wrong," as Lincoln would later call Stephen Douglas's idea that a majority can rightfully vote for slavery.  As Leo Strauss commented, the People who formed the Constitution were not a band of thieves.  The People were still beholden to working within the moral universe, the universe of the "laws of Nature and of Nature's God."  In this understanding, politics revolved around debate about the means to achieve already fixed ends; the People did not, however, have the right to debate about the ends themselves.

It is important to note that in his life Brubeck never had any drug or alcohol problems and was married to his wife Iola for more than 70 years.  Contrary to the supposed lessons dating back to the 1960s, Brubeck showed that an artist wasn't simply someone who rebelled against the current traditions or more of the culture.  They didn't simply create something ex nihilo.  Brubeck's joining of the Catholic Church in 1980 was an outward signal that he understood these things in a much more advanced way than did many of his contemporaries.

RIP Dave Brubeck

Jazz great Dave Brubeck passed away today at the age of 91.  He is best known for forming the Dave Brubeck Quartet, which got its start in the early 50s.  Their seminal album, Time Out, came out to rave reviews in 1959 and amazingly charted at #2 on the Billboard pop album charts.  The biggest hit of the record, "Take Five," had almost immediate success with audiences.

Brubeck was known for the incorporation of polyrythms and key signatures -- 9/8 in his famous Blue Rondo a la Turk -- that were mainly unknown to Jazz.  His improvisational skills were legendary as Jazz legend Ramsey Lewis, co-headlining with Brubeck's quartet during an early tour, said that he never heard Brubeck play the same song the same way.

Here are few of his greatest hits, starting with Blue Rondo:

And "Strange Meadowlark," my favorite Dave Brubeck piece, from Time Out:

"It's a Raggy Waltz" live at Carnegie Hall in 1963:

Later in life, Brubeck joined the Roman Catholic Church, during which time he wrote several masses and oratorios, reflecting his new faith.  He was a Kennedy Center Honoree in September of 2009, where his sons, among other musicians, played a medley of his works:

I saw Dave Brubeck and his quartet play some years back at Severance Hall in Cleveland.  Even at the advanced age he was, his musicianship was phenomenal; his fingers seemed to be moving across the keys as well as ever.

He and his music will be missed.

UPDATE:  Matt Schudel of the Washington Post has a very well done obituary of Brubeck.  The focus on Brubeck's rejection of segregation is very important to note.

The Spirit of Christmas

This story about Houston Texans' WR Andre Johnson is about as far as you can get from the actions committed over the weekend by a person who formerly played linebacker for the Kansas City Chiefs:

Here's an NFL story designed to warm your heart and terrify your wallet. Texans wide receiver Andre Johnson, one of the league's unquestioned good guys, on Tuesday performed what's becoming an annual ritual for him: a Toys "R" Us shopping spree for at-risk youth in Houston. 

Johnson's Foundation, the Andre Johnson Charitable Foundation, funded the spree, in which 12 children selected by Child Protective Services had 80 seconds to fill up their carts with as many toys as they could. And oh, could they fill those carts.

The total bill for the shopping spree?  $19,000.  This is the story the media should be reporting instead.

Fiscal Cliff Truths

The redoubtable Thomas Sowell has an insightful column today on what's really at stake in the "fiscal cliff" negotiations.  His take on the prospect of "tax cuts for the rich" being our saving grace:

First of all, despite all the melodrama about raising taxes on “the rich,” even if that is done, it will scarcely make a dent in the government’s financial problems. Raising the tax rates on everybody in the top 2 percent will not generate enough additional tax revenue to run the government for ten days. 

And what will the government do to pay for the other 355 days in the year?

The many euphamisms used by President Obama and his administration that go for high political principles:

The very catchwords and phrases used by the Obama administration betray how phony this all is. For example, “We are just asking the rich to pay a little more.” 

This is an insult to our intelligence. The government doesn’t “ask” anybody to pay anything. It orders you to pay the taxes it imposes, and you can go to prison if you don’t. 

Then there are all the fancy substitute words for plain old spending — words like “stimulus” or “investing in the industries of the future.”

[...] 

What about “investing in the industries of the future”? Does the White House come equipped with a crystal ball? Calling government spending “investment” does not make it investment any more than calling spending “stimulus” makes it stimulate anything. 

What in the world would lead anyone to think that politicians have some magic way of knowing what the industries of the future are? Thus far the Obama administration has repeatedly “invested” in the bankruptcies of the present, such as Solyndra.

And what Machiavelli would call the "effectual truth" of Obama's current economic path:

All the pretty talk about how tax rates will be raised only on “the rich” hides the ugly fact that the poorest people in the country will see the value of their money decline, just like everybody else, and at the same rate as everybody else, when the government creates more money and spends it. 

If you have $100 and, after the inflation that follows from “quantitative easing,” that $100 dollars will buy only what $80 bought before, then that is the same economically as if the government had taxed away one-fifth of your money and spent it. 

But it is not the same politically, so long as gullible people don’t look beyond words to the reality that inflation taxes everybody, the poorest as well as the richest.

If we only had one person in Obama's Dept. of Treasury who had half the mind of Dr. Sowell's, we would be much better off.

Costas on Guns

I was watching the Sunday Night Football game on NBC, and during halftime, Bob Costas took some time to blame the existence and availability of handguns for the murder-suicide committed by former Kansas City Chiefs Linebacker Jovan Belcher.  Yesterday, Belcher shot and killed his girlfriend and then proceeded to drive to the Chiefs' facility where he committed suicide in front of Head Coach Romeo Crennel and General Manager Scott Pioli.  

Here is what Costas said:

In a typical cliched fashion, he is here arguing for the abolition of all handguns.

As we know, the crime is perpetrated by the gun itself.  The person usually pulling the trigger never has any previous problems, mental or otherwise, prior to the crime they commit.  And I'm sure Bob Costas wasn't already anti-gun before yesterday.  He just came to this realization after some deep thinking and reflection last night...

The politicization of these kinds of things seems to know no bounds.  Sad.

Recovering Our Constitutional Soul

Harvey C. Mansfield, Harvard's lone conservative in the political science department, is interviewed in today's WSJ and has some very perceptive thoughts on the progressive project in the twentieth and twenty first centuries and what conservatives need to do from here on out.  First on the progressive project:

The Obama campaign's dissection of the public into subsets of race, sex and class resentments is a case in point. "Victims come in different kinds," says Mr. Mansfield, "so they're treated differently. You push different buttons to get them to react."

The threat to self-government is clear. "The American founders wanted people to live under the Constitution," Mr. Mansfield says. "But the progressives want the Constitution to live under the American people."

For Mansfield, the main thrust of the progressive project concerns the redefinition of the principle of equality, or, in another way of saying it, the elimination of inequality in public and private life:

American elites today prefer to dismiss the "unchangeable, undemocratic facts" about human inequality, he says. Progressives go further: "They think that the main use of liberty is to create more equality. They don't see that there is such a thing as too much equality. They don't see limits to democratic equalizing"—how, say, wealth redistribution can not only bankrupt the public fisc but corrupt the national soul.

How conservatives should act in the face of this opposition, with specific regard to reining in the entitlement state:

"The Republicans should want to recover the notion of the common good," Mr. Mansfield says. "One way to do that is to show that we can't afford the entitlements as they are—that we've always underestimated the cost. 'Cost' is just an economic word for the common good. And if Republicans can get entitlements to be understood no longer as irrevocable but as open to negotiation and to political dispute and to reform, then I think they can accomplish something."

Mansfield on how conservatives should go about practicing politics:

Then there is the matter of conservative political practice. "Conservatives should be the party of judgment, not just of principles," he says. "Of course there are conservative principles—free markets, family values, a strong national defense—but those principles must be defended with the use of good judgment. Conservatives need to be intelligent, and they shouldn't use their principles as substitutes for intelligence. Principles need to be there so judgment can be distinguished from opportunism. But just because you give ground on principle doesn't mean you're an opportunist."

And finally, a rebuff to all those Republicans who think the electoral problems in 2012 were because of adherence to "outdated" principles:

Nor should flexibility mean abandoning major components of the conservative agenda—including cultural values—in response to a momentary electoral defeat. "Democrats have their cultural argument, which is the attack on the rich and the uncaring," Mr. Mansfield says. "So Republicans need their cultural arguments to oppose the Democrats', to say that goodness or justice in our country is not merely the transfer of resources to the poor and vulnerable. We have to take measures to teach the poor and vulnerable to become a little more independent and to prize independence, and not just live for a government check. That means self-government within each self, and where are you going to get that except with morality, responsibility and religion?"

Mansfield studied with perhaps the most important political philosopher of the twentieth century, Leo Strauss, at Stanford in the early 1960s.  Like Strauss, Mansfield takes seriously the principles of both the American Founding and classical political philosophy and bases his politics around reviving these principles and applying them to the current day.  Conservatives would do very well to heed his advice.

If you are interested, for an extended and provocative take on where Mansfield himself fits into American conservatism, read this essay by Thomas G. West, who currently teaches at Hillsdale College and was a student of Harry Jaffa's at the Claremont Graduate School in the early 70s.

An Offer They Should Refuse

Paul Mirengoff finds that in the current secret negotiations with Democrats (why Republicans continue to negotiate with Democrats in private is still a mystery), President Obama has offered Republicans exactly nothing in terms of concessions.  Here is Mirengoff's assessment of the latest "plan":

Tim Geithner presented John Boehner with the Obama plan for averting the “fiscal cliff.” According to the New York Times, Obama’s plan calls for $1.6 trillion in tax increases over 10 years, $50 billion in immediate stimulus spending, home mortgage refinancing, and a permanent end to Congressional control over statutory borrowing limits. President Obama would also agree to a goal of finding $400 billion in savings from Medicare and other social programs to be worked out next year, but with no guarantees. 

In other words, to quote Michael Corleone, “My offer is this, nothing. Not even the money for the gaming license, which I would appreciate if you would put up personally.”

In his Friday column, Jonah Goldberg has another Godfather analogy:

Almost exactly a year ago, during the famed debt-ceiling negotiations, Speaker of the House John Boehner boasted that he’d forced tough concessions from the Democrats, achieving the first real cut in government spending in ages. He claimed his “real, enforceable cut” amounted to $7 billion for fiscal year 2012. The Congressional Budget Office objected, saying the real savings were closer to $1 billion.  

“Which of these numbers is accurate?” asked columnist Mark Steyn at the time.  Answering his own question, he wrote: “The correct answer is: Who cares?”

And he was right. At the time, the U.S. was spending $188 million of largely borrowed money every hour of every day. So, going by the CBO number, if you started watching the official Godfather trilogy box set right after the deal was cut, the government would have burned through its “savings” before Fredo went on his last fishing trip. If you went by Boehner’s math, you could actually watch the whole trilogy about four times before the “savings” ran out.

The logic contained in these lines bears repeating:

You could confiscate 100 percent of income over $1 million, and it would cover about a third of the deficit (and crush the economy in the process). You’d still have to deal with spending, particularly entitlement spending.

That, if anything, shows the unserious nature of the Democrats in dealing with the deficit.  And the last thing Republicans should do is count on the supposed future cuts in spending.  Shame they never seem to materialize.

The American Mind

If you are interested in serious, principled conservatism, the Claremont Institute (if you don't know about the quarterly Claremont Review of Books they publish, please click here) has a new video series that is geared towards the restoration of "the principles of the American Founding to their rightful, preeminent authority in our national life."  (This is the mission statement of the Claremont Institute.)

The name of the new venture is entitled, "The American Mind."  Great title.  I wonder where they came up with it....  They (and I) were inspired by a letter that Thomas Jefferson wrote to Richard Henry Lee on the meaning of the Declaration of Independence.  The letter includes the following pertinent section:

When forced, therefore, to resort to arms for redress, an appeal to the tribunal of the world was deemed proper for our justification. This was the object of the Declaration of Independence. Not to find out new principles, or new arguments, never before thought of, not merely to say things which had never been said before; but to place before mankind the common sense of the subject, in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent, and to justify ourselves in the independent stand we are compelled to take. Neither aiming at originality of principle or sentiment, nor yet copied from any particular and previous writing, it was intended to be an expression of the American mind, and to give to that expression the proper tone and spirit called for by the occasion. All its authority rests then on the harmonizing sentiments of the day, whether expressed in conversation, in letters, printed essays, or in the elementary books of public right, as Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, Sidney, &c. ...

Steven Hayward, one of the main bloggers for Power Line, was himself a student at CGS and helped in the formation of the Claremont Institute.  In a long post published earlier today, he gives a "Behind the Music-like" take on the history of the Center.  A sample:

...the Claremont community was so different from most graduate courses of study in politics, and the approach behind which the differences over our understanding of the place of Hobbes and Locke in understanding America dissolve. Claremont was heavy on biography because that’s the best way of illuminating the real problems of politics and the intersection of thought and action.

And:

There is something subversive about the Claremont Project to the broader conservative movement, though. The kind of political engagement Claremonsters embrace stands in contrast to the apolitical aloofness of libertarianism, the anti-political disdain of certain brands of traditional conservatism, and the compromising ambivalence of some aspects of neoconservatism. American conservatism—and its primary vessel, the Republican Party—have their grave defects and limitations, but the fate of the world depends on their health and success, so it is necessary to be part of the fight to make both more wise and effective. The Claremont Institute is about as remote from Washington as you can be and still be in the continental U.S., and while “Claremonsters” are not closely involved in the daily Beltway strategy sessions, when you survey the alumni of the Institute and its programs you find senior aides to Cabinet secretaries, Senators and Congressmen, and corporate CEOs.

The Claremont Institute is exactly what conservatism needs now more than ever.

The Truth Hurts

Take a look at this newly-released Gallup Poll:

Democrats have positive views of capitalism and socialism at almost equal levels.  Not surprisingly, they have an overwhelmingly positive view of the federal government (75%).

Republicans overall have positive views of capitalism (72%) and very negative views of the federal government (27%) .

The main question I have:  Who are these Republicans (or the leaners) who don't have a positive view of capitalism or who view socialism as a good thing?  They must be the same ones who want Chuck Hagel to get back into politics.

Theologian in Chief

A favorite line of President Obama's is that we are all supposed to be "our brother's keepers."  The effectual truth of this logic seems to imply that government in some capacity should be stepping in and taking on parental duties (remember, for some government is just another word for the things that we all do together).  Quin Hillyer, noting the phrase again in Obama's latest Thanksgiving Day proclamation, takes Obama to task on the constantly repeated but logically and historically fallacy that for Obama goes for high theology.  

For one, it's interesting to note who in the Bible actually says the words Obama seems to hold up as the zenith of all biblical principles:

The phrase comes from the story of Cain and Abel, after Cain has murdered his brother, when God asked him where Abel was. Cain dismissed the Lord, asking rhetorically, "Am I my brother's keeper?"

And:

In not a single place in the Bible is it ever written that we are indeed our brothers' keepers. (Look it up!) And for good reason: To be a "keeper" of another person is not necessarily to help the other but instead to control him. An Internet site called "Cup of Wrath" explains it well: "No one is their brother's or sister's keeper, unless that person is incapable of taking care of him or herself . . . Loving thy neighbor as thyself doesn't mean being your neighbor's keeper or overseer. Instead it means taking his or her best interests to heart."

The true teaching:

Again, the command from Christ is not to act for others, but to serve others - to love the brother as an equal, not in loco parentis. To assert parental responsibility for a brother is to assume a role - to wrongly assume it - that God has reserved for Himself. Even if undertaken with the best intentions, to be a brother's keeper is to commit a sin akin to vainglory by putting oneself above one's proper station.

Playing the Rice Card

William Jacobson has some thoughts on the whole "controversy" that is brewing over the Republicans' growing concerns about Susan Rice, who looks to be the successor to Hilary Clinton as Secretary of State:

Everytime I think the Democratic race card players could not get more vile, more deranged, more patronizingly demeaning to blacks, someone manages to defy even my vivid imagination. 

This time, it is the Editorial Board of The Washington Post, which issued a truly amazing screed(h/t Gabriel Malor) claiming that critics of U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice are motivated by race and sex, as demonstrated by the facts that most are male and a significant percentage come from former confederate states (emphasis mine):

Could it be, as members of the Congressional Black Caucus are charging, that the [97 Republican House] signatories of the letter are targeting Ms. Rice because she is an African American woman? The signatories deny that, and we can’t know their hearts.What we do know is that more than 80 of the signatories are white males, and nearly half are from states of the former Confederacy. You’d think that before launching their broadside, members of Congress would have taken care not to propagate any falsehoods of their own.

The WaPo Editorial Board must have forgotten the opposition to Condoleezza Rice’s confirmation, which was led by former Klansman Robert Byrd and a guy who left a girl to die:

Leading the charge against Rice on Tuesday were Democratic Sens. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, Robert Byrd of West Virginia and Barbara Boxer of California.

Boxer, one of two Democrats to vote against Rice’s nomination in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Rice’s answers to her questions were “completely nonresponsive” and raised more issues about her credibility than they answered.
Rice, Condoleezza, received fewer favorable votes in her Secretary of State confirmation than any nominee in almost 25 years and more negative votes than any nominee in 180 years. Twelve of the thirteen votes against Rice were from White Males, including the aforementioned former Klansman. 

Boxer accused Rice of lying about Sadaam Hussein’s WMD program, and Rice pushed back that they relied on the available intelligence, among other things.

[...] 

The Democrats’ often personal attacks on Rice, Condoleezza, continued unabated (Kerry Pickethas more). Liberal cartoonists at major publications played on crude racial stereotypes in going after Rice, Condoleezza. 

You get the point. 

The criticisms of Rice, Condoleezza, on policy grounds were within the legitimate political realm, as are the criticisms of Rice, Susan. 

In the criticisms of Rice, Susan, we have not seen from Republicans anything approaching the vitriol and crude racial and sexist comments directed at Rice, Condoleezza. 

Does the Editorial Board of The Washington Post even belief what it writes? I doubt it. It’s all part of their race card game.

Looks like there still is a party with race problems.

Our Lord and Savior

Last night at the BET Soul Train Awards Jamie Foxx got on stage and told the audience the following:  "It's like church over here. It's like church in here. First of all, give an honor to God and our lord and savior Barack Obama...Barack Obama."

In case you don't believe me, here is the video:

After you watch the video, just let this sink in:  Foxx was not speaking in hyperbole (neither was Iowahawk in this now almost prescient post).  Calling on Dr. Seuss, he meant what he said and said what he meant.

Republicans are Racist and Other Stories

In his Impromtus column, Jay Nordlinger has an extended take on, among the things, the griping from some corners on the "tone" of the Republican Party.  Here is Jay:

Over the last couple of weeks, there has been great concern, whether sincere or fake, over the Republican “tone.” I find all this kind of dumb. 

Is there a great tuner in the sky, with a bass control, a treble control, and so on? Does some unseen, all-determining Republican hand twist these knobs? 

The Republican party is composed of millions of people and hundreds or thousands of politicians. These are all human beings. They could not possibly have the same tone. We are individuals, speaking in our individual ways, though we have common beliefs and aims. 

Take the governors: Susana Martinez, Chris Christie, Mike Pence, Rick Perry . . . Each is an individual, and each has his own “tone.” 

Or many tones! Do you have just one tone? Of course you don’t. A person has as many tones as a pipe organ. I’m liable to use different tones in the same paragraph — or in the same sentence. Anybody with a speck of artistry in him does, even a speck of humanness.
The Left likes to say that Rush Limbaugh screeches and bellows and huffs. Sometimes he does. He has other tones too: playful, thoughtful, sarcastic, sentimental, ebullient. He is a performer, and a man in full. 

The Republican party should not be conformist or monotonal. It should be its diverse and star-spangled self. 

Have you noticed that it’s the Republicans’ “tone” that is always spoken of? Never the Democrats’? Shall we have a discussion of their “tone”? 

I think one of the worst things about Obama and Biden is their “tone.” Think of Obama’s angry, accusatory “you didn’t build that” speech. Think of Biden’s “They’re gonna put y’all back in chains!” Think of Harry Reid, charging that Mitt Romney had refused to pay his income taxes. 

Think of Stephanie Cutter, suggesting that Romney is a felon. Think of Obama’s claim that Romney delighted in stripping Americans of their jobs, and shipping those jobs overseas. Think of Biden’s comportment in the entire 2012 vice-presidential debate. Think of Obama’s cry of “Romnesia!” Think of his ad proclaiming, “Mitt Romney. Not one of us.” 

Oh, what lovely tones those Democrats produce! 

How about those angry, bellowing, semi-mad men on MSNBC? I see clips of them, once in a while. Why doesn’t anyone ever talk about the Democratic or Left tone? 

If I were the Republican party — there’s a funny concept! — I wouldn’t take this tone bait. Don’t fall into the tone trap. What I think Republicans should do, and people should do, is say what they think, in the best way they can. And let the chips fall where they may.
What else can you do? It is certainly unreasonable to ask millions of human beings to speak in the same tone. Undesirable, too.

And I thought Democrats were champions of diversity.

Jay on the faux patriotism expressed by those who say that they are "proud of their country" after the re-election of Barack Obama:

I’m so proud of my country.” How many times have you heard that since Election Day? When people say, “I’m so proud of my country,” they mean they’re proud of it for reelecting Obama. 

This is Michelle Obama territory. You remember what she said, more than once, when her husband was picking up steam in the 2008 Democratic primaries: “For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country . . ." 

And if a relative handful of votes, in this great big country, had gone the other way on November 6? These people saying how “proud” they are would be singing a different tune: They’d be condemning America as racist. 

The conditionality of their pride is a little unsettling to me. Obama wins, we’re innocent — and they’re proud. Obama loses, we’re guilty — and they pin the scarlet R on us, for “Racist.” 

Well, nuts to that.

Jay really is a national treasure.  Seriously.

Lessons in Littles

At the Liberty Law Blog, Ken Masugi reviews Steven Spielberg's Lincoln and finds it to succeed in "intrsuct[ing] us in prudence—the virtue of choosing what is truly good insofar as it can be realized. In giving this invaluable lesson, the film displays the high and the low of statesmanship of liberty and equality—in particular, we see how the low can be in service of the high, without corrupting what is high."

In summation:

[Screenwriter Tony] Kushner and Spielberg produce a complex but loveable Lincoln who can still unite the country. To be sure, those aware of the director’s and the screenwriter’s politics might see the movie as yet in another series of attempts to appropriate Lincoln to the political agenda of the left. Theodore Roosevelt made an early attempt to hijack Lincoln for the Progressive cause. But if it has any immediate political effect, Lincoln will end any the oafish comparisons between Lincoln and Barack Obama.

And Carl Scott at Postmodern Conservative gives a very favorable review to the film as well.

I am very surprised at just how good the movie was, considering who made it and where it originated.  In a post a while back, I wondered if Abraham Lincoln:  Vampire Hunter would be more accurate.  Boy, was I wrong.  I think I may even have to see Lincoln again before it leaves theaters.

Unhinged, Cont.

Mickey Kaus, a liberal, takes Paul Krugman to task over his latest column (my post on it is here) and his assertion that in order to turn the economy around, we just need to go back to the 1950s when the highest marginal income tax rate was 91%.  Here is Kaus:

Did this super-rich hundredth-of-the-1% in the ’50s really a) pay anything near those super-high 91% marginal rates, or did they b) employ accountants and loopholes to avoid them (as the conventional tax-reformer wisdom would have it)? If you read Krugman’s paragraph you’d probably conclude (a)–high income tax rates really sock it to the rich! But the truth is closer to (b). 

According to this CRS study, that 91% marginal rate produced an effective income tax rate on the top o.o1 percent of only about 45%. Krugman himself appears to be relying on Piketty and Saez–but they come in with an even lower figure, 31%. They only get to 70% by including corporate taxes, which Krugman mentions, and estate taxes–which he doesn’t mention at all. (emphasis in original.)

And Kaus on Krugman's main argument:

We had powerful unions and more progressive taxes in the 1950s and the country prospered. Therefore we can have powerful unions and more progressive taxes now and prosper again! I can’t be the only one to point out that this does not follow. What if something important about the economy has changed in the meantime? Say, trade has opened up a global market in which American workers must compete with cheaper foreign labor (so any union that extracts above-market wage hikes is quickly undercut). And advances in technology have reduced the value of unskilled work, quite apart from trade-while requiring businesses that can make lots of changes very quickly (without worrying about work rules) and workers who can shift jobs frequently.

If unions having more control equals a more prosperous country, then how would Krugman explain what happened concerning Hostess?

Non-Judgmental Judgmentalism

Rich Lowry on presidential Thanksgiving Day Proclamations from years past:

If Abraham Lincoln released his October 1863 Thanksgiving proclamation today, it would be panned by all sides. In the statement that is considered the beginning of the unbroken annual tradition of presidential Thanksgiving proclamations, Lincoln said that God had dealt “with us in anger for our sins.” He recommended “humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience.” 

The words “sin” and “perverse” would set off the left as overly judgmental and embarrassingly archaic. The right would bristle at national self-criticism from the country’s commander-in-chief (at a time of war, no less). 

Lincoln had good reason to speak of perversity, of course. He was knee-deep in blood in a Civil War precipitated by half the country leaving the Union so it could protect slavery. But his proclamation was firmly within the American tradition. 

The Thanksgiving proclamation at Charlestown, Mass., in 1676 referred to God’s “sore displeasure against us for our sins.” The founding generation of presidents struck similar notes. 

In 1789, George Washington urged that we “unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions.” John Adams in 1798 recommended that religious congregations “acknowledge before God the manifold sins and transgressions with which we are justly chargeable as individuals and as a nation.” 

This line carried through into the 20th century. Dwight Eisenhower spoke of the need to “bow before God in contrition for our sins.” Both Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush quoted George Washington on “our shortcomings and transgressions.” But any suggestion of national failings, let alone sin or perversity, has gone missing from the Thanksgiving proclamations of recent decades (and so has much of the majesty).

And how this tradition squares with proclamations of the present day:

Not surprisingly, President Obama’s Thanksgiving proclamations have been particularly pedestrian and perfunctory. 

God is lucky to get a mention or two. In his 2009 proclamation, the only reference to God came in a quote from George Washington. If his proclamation of “America Recycles Day” (“we rededicate ourselves to building a more sustainable future”) invoked the divine providence somewhere it wouldn’t be so different in tone or content from his Thanksgiving proclamations. 

What God has lost in prominence in Obama’s statements has been gained by the American Indians, in a bow to multicultural pieties. His 2010 proclamation described how a spirit of Thanksgiving “brought together the newly arrived Pilgrims and Wampanoag tribe — who had been living and thriving around Plymouth, Mass., for thousands of years — in an autumn harvest feast centuries ago.” 

His proclamation last year urged the country “to remember the ways that the First Americans have enriched our Nation’s heritage, from their generosity centuries ago to the everyday contributions they make to all facets of American life.” Near the end, that proclamation included the ringing, “Let us pause to recount the simple gifts that sustain us, and resolve to pay them forward in the years to come.” 

From Lincoln’s “fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation” to Obama’s “pay it forward” is a long way down.

But, in the spirit of modernity, we don't want to "put our values on other people."  That would be judgmental, or so we are told.

Giving Thanks and Praise

A Thanksgiving Proclamation from President George Washington:

Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor, and Whereas both Houses of Congress have by their Joint Committee requested me "to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanks-giving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness." 

Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th. day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be. That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks, for his kind care and protection of the People of this country previous to their becoming a Nation, for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his providence, which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war, for the greatest degree of tranquillity, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed;– for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted;– for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge;– and, in general, for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us. 

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions;– to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually, to render our national government a blessing to all the People, by constantly being a government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executived and obeyed, to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as have shown kindness unto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord. To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the encrease of science among them and Us, and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best. 

Given under my hand, at the city of New-York, the third day of October, in the year of our Lord, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine. 

(signed) G. Washington

And another from President Lincoln:

By the President of the United States of America.

A PROCLAMATION.

The year that is drawing toward its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watching providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and provoke their aggressions, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised not hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and Union. 

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed. 

Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the Eighty-eighth. 

By the President: 

Abraham Lincoln 

William H. Seward,
Secretary of State

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.

Unhinged

Paul Krugman's answer for jumpstarting the US economy?  Raise the highest marginal tax rate to 91%! Yeah, that'll make everything better...

And he says the following about Republicans, conservatives, and generally anyone with whom he disagrees:

There are, let’s face it, some people in our political life who pine for the days when minorities and women knew their place, gays stayed firmly in the closet and congressmen asked, “Are you now or have you ever been?” The rest of us, however, are very glad those days are gone. We are, morally, a much better nation than we were. Oh, and the food has improved a lot, too.

Wait, what happened to civility?

Lincoln's Prudence

On Saturday I saw Steven Spielberg's much anticipated movie Lincoln, which is largely based on Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals.

Overall I thought it was very good but not great.  What was great, however was the performance of Daniel Day-Lewis as Abraham Lincoln.  It will no doubt be talked about for years to come, and it should all but guarantee him the Oscar for Best Actor.  Day-Lewis became Lincoln in such a way that I thought was impossible -- partly because of the daunting task for any actor to play such an intellectual and political giant like Lincoln but also because of the difficulty, especially in today's world, in trying to understand a character as they saw themselves.  In a world where disagreement on the important things is often taken to mean that there is no fixed standard of judgement or principles that are always true for everyone; that law is simply the majority voting in their preferences or value judgements, Lincoln's politics stood in stark contrast.  And Day-Lewis's Lincoln seemed to understand this (surprisingly, the writers did for the most part too).

Lincoln's politics was based around the natural law principles of the Declaration of Independence.  He saw the Declaration as an "apple of gold" ensconced in the "picture of silver" of the Constitution.  For Lincoln, the Declaration announced the principles of the regime -- principles that were true for every human being regardless of race, religion, or ethnicity -- and the Constitution was the republican structure built on the foundation provided by the Declaration.  Lincoln, in agreement with James Madison, saw the end of government as justice, but he saw that in order for justice to be attained, the means had to be commensurate with the ends.  This is where political prudence, or practical wisdom, comes into the fold.

The theme of prudence in politics is seen throughout the movie, which is focused on the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment.  From early January 1865 to Lincoln's assassination in April, the movie explores how Lincoln, Secretary of State William Seward, and some less-than-respectable fellows helped shepherd the Thirteenth Amendment through the House of Representatives.  I won't spoil how it ends (I think you already know anyway) but it's fairly compelling nonetheless.

Tommy Lee Jones's portrayal of Thaddeus Stevens also deserves much praise.  Near the end of the movie, Lincoln, with some help, teaches Stevens, a Radical Republican, the lesson of prudence and how moral absolutism in the means often more than not destroys the ends.  Stevens was finally able to parry the attacks of the Democrats on the House floor by saying that although blacks were not equal to whites in all things, they were nonetheless equal to them under the law.  This statement mirrors one of the main arguments Lincoln voiced during in the Lincoln-Douglas debates in late 1858.  From the first debate:

I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and the black races. There is a physical difference between the two, which in my judgment will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality, and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong, having the superior position. I have never said anything to the contrary, but I hold that notwithstanding all this, there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. [Loud cheers.] I hold that he is as much entitled to these as the white man. I agree with Judge Douglas he is not my equal in many respects--certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowment. But in the right to eat the bread, without leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man . [Great applause.]

As Harry Jaffa has pointed out, Lincoln so qualified the first sentence that it leaves open the possibility that in the future, he would not publicly be opposed to political and social equality between the races (though it is doubtful that he privately wasn't already in full support of such measures).  After all, in Lincoln's estimation, since government rests on public opinion and knowing the opinion that much of the public held regarding blacks, it would not have been wise to come out in full-throated support of full equality at that point.  As Jaffa succintly put it, "Lincoln knew at the time that only the seeds he planted could lead to results consistent with the principles of the Declaration of Independence."  Again, it's not enough to simply have the ends in mind.  Statesmanship is the knowledge of both the means and ends and to have the forecast and prudence to achieve the ends given the circumstances.

Spielberg's Lincoln captured this complicated but important teaching quite well.