What Does it Mean to be American?

Much like another man who was born in the wrong place, Charles Cooke, by law a citizen of Great Britain, nonetheless realizes that one, no matter the country of origin, can always learn become an American.  The reason is as follows:

There are a host of similar American propositions, and most of them are fully testable. This is why America has a citizenship test. Would it not be “un-American,” for example, to oppose free speech? One has to understand the axiom and vow to uphold it in order to be naturalized not simply because it is the law of the land, but because it is a foundational principle without which the American idea ultimately cannot operate. This and the other core principles are neatly outlined in the national guidebooks, which include the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Federalist Papers, the Gettysburg Address, and so forth. Such works have made the world intimately familiar with the propositions of the American project and have acted as a magnet to immigrants from all over the globe. In contradistinction, ask somebody what Belgium is for and they will be hard-pressed to answer you — there is no such thing as the Belgian “promise” or the Belgian “dream,” and those who spoke of such things would be looked at with reasonable suspicion.

Anyone can learn to become an American because far from race, religion, or family being the sole determining factor of citizenship, America is built upon philosophical truths that are accessible by anyone capable of reason.  This is brings in some interesting implications, the first and most important being the reverse of the propositions stated above.  Someone born in the geographic location that is within the country called America may not be "American" in the truest sense of the word.  Being American may then, as the Founders would say, be self-evident. 

In a speech on July 10th, 1858, Abraham Lincoln has a long meditation on the significance of what our fore fathers did in setting our nation upon a set of abstract truths, applicable to all men and all times:

We are now a mighty nation, we are thirty—or about thirty millions of people, and we own and inhabit about one-fifteenth part of the dry land of the whole earth. We run our memory back over the pages of history for about eighty-two years and we discover that we were then a very small people in point of numbers, vastly inferior to what we are now, with a vastly less extent of country,—with vastly less of everything we deem desirable among men,—we look upon the change as exceedingly advantageous to us and to our posterity, and we fix upon something that happened away back, as in some way or other being connected with this rise of prosperity. We find a race of men living in that day whom we claim as our fathers and grandfathers; they were iron men, they fought for the principle that they were contending for; and we understood that by what they then did it has followed that the degree of prosperity that we now enjoy has come to us. We hold this annual celebration to remind ourselves of all the good done in this process of time of how it was done and who did it, and how we are historically connected with it; and we go from these meetings in better humor with ourselves—we feel more attached the one to the other and more firmly bound to the country we inhabit. In every way we are better men in the age, and race, and country in which we live for these celebrations. But after we have done all this we have not yet reached the whole. There is something else connected with it. We have besides these men—descended by blood from our ancestors—among us perhaps half our people who are not descendants at all of these men, they are men who have come from Europe—German, Irish, French and Scandinavian—men that have come from Europe themselves, or whose ancestors have come hither and settled here, finding themselves our equals in all things. If they look back through this history to trace their connection with those days by blood, they find they have none, they cannot carry themselves back into that glorious epoch and make themselves feel that they are part of us, but when they look through that old Declaration of Independence they find that those old men say that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal," and then they feel that that moral sentiment taught in that day evidences their relation to those men, that it is the father of all moral principle in them, and that they have a right to claim it as though they were blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh of the men who wrote that Declaration, (loud and long continued applause) and so they are.

That is the electric cord in that Declaration that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together, that will link those patriotic hearts as long as the love of freedom exists in the minds of men throughout the world. [Applause.]

The Truth is Out There

Mark Landsbaum, a columnist at the Orange County Register, has some truths to tell about President Obama, the first of which answers the Obama campaign's accusation that the "you didn't build that" remark was taken out of context:

"Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you've got a business, you didn't build that," he said.

Since uttering those words at a Virginia campaign stop, there has been much backtracking and excuse-making by Obama supporters, scrambling to explain that the president really didn't mean what you heard, that he meant something sort of like that, but different.

They complain that critics took his words out of context. The president supposedly didn't mean that business owners didn't build their businesses. He allegedly meant business owners didn't build bridges and roads. But for that to be true, the golden tongued Harvard Law Review president had to have trampled English grammar and mangled sentence construction.

As the Wall Street Journal's James Taranto noted, "that" necessarily referred to "a business," not to "roads and bridges."

"...[N]ot only because 'business' is more proximate to the pronoun 'that' and therefore its more likely antecedent. The [Obama] Truth Team's interpretation is ungrammatical. 'Roads and bridges' is plural; 'that' is singular. If the Team is right about Obama's meaning, he should have said, 'You didn't build those.'

"... [H]is campaign asks us to believe he is not even competent to construct a sentence."

On the notion that the president's policies have "worked":

The president recently told a campaign gathering that, "[W]e tried our plan – and it worked."

"Worked" apparently means something different to Obama than to, say, working Americans. Did the president mean that it "worked" when U.S. business startups dropped from 554,109 in 1987 to 394,623 in 2010?

When Obama took office, unemployment was 7.8 percent. It is now 8.2 percent. Perhaps Obama's plan worked in the way a U.S. major meant during the Vietnam War when he said, "It became necessary to destroy the village in order to save it."

What are we to make of a president who proclaims with the certainty of a sunrise that, "If I don't get the unemployment rate under 7 percent, I deserve to be a one-term president," then runs for a second term even though unemployment has been above 8 percent his entire tenure? Did he not mean what he said? Or did he mean it in a way we simply don't understand?

The liberal trope about "fairness":

Here's more context: Four years ago Obama told an interviewer that even if raising the capital-gains tax rate resulted in less tax collected, as it has in the past, it's only "fair" to raise the rate because he believes "the rich" should pay more, period. Therefore, taxes aren't to pay for necessary government functions. Taxes "work" when they dish out punitive "fairness," at least in Obama-ese.

And who could forget this old standby:

In that same Virginia speech, the president described government "permitting" private-sector growth. Permitting? We have turned a significant corner when the government must permit private economic growth. It's yet a sharper left turn when we accept that not only is government permission required, but government subsidies and financing, too.

Brain Melt

You might have seen the pictures below sometime this past week regarding the ice melt in Greenland, the picture on the left being what the ice sheet looked like on July 8th and the picture on the right, taken on July 12th, showing the same ice sheet to be almost non-existent.

On its face, this seem like something straight out of the movie "The Day After Tomorrow," the prophecies of Al Gore made real.  Naturally this has been getting a lot of coverag in the MSM.

Steven Hayward takes a look at what actual scientists are saying in a press release sent out by NASA:

"The Greenland ice sheet is a vast area with a varied history of change. This event, combined with other natural but uncommon phenomena, such as the large calving event last week on Petermann Glacier, are part of a complex story," said Tom Wagner, NASA's cryosphere program manager in Washington. "Satellite observations are helping us understand how events like these may relate to one another as well as to the broader climate system."

[...]

"Ice cores from Summit show that melting events of this type occur about once every 150 years on average. With the last one happening in 1889, this event is right on time," says Lora Koenig, a Goddard glaciologist and a member of the research team analyzing the satellite data. "But if we continue to observe melting events like this in upcoming years, it will be worrisome."

As Hayward notes, even the title of this press release is "Satellites See Unprecedented Greenland Ice Sheet Surface Melt."  They must have not even read what they wrote before they sent it out.

On Batman and Political Philosophy

At Postmodern Conservative, Pete Spiliakos looks at Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight Rises" in light of political philosophy and finds some deep teachings within.  Here is Spiliakos on the TDKR and Occupy Wall Street:

But I don’t really buy it as a critique of Occupy Wall Street.  For one thing, Occupy Wall Street came too late in the movie’s writing and filming to be much of an influence one way or another.  Ross Douthat interprets the film as arguing that “a compromised order can still be worth defending, and that darker things than corruption and inequality will follow from putting that order to the torch.”  I think there is something to that, but The Dark Knight Rises is also about the foundings and deformations of democratic polities and the risks a political culture takes when it lies to itself about its past and its present.  Let’s start at the beginning of the Nolan Batman trilogy.

Many conservatives have immediately noted that the ones in the movie who spout rhetoric similar to OWS are all the villians, e.g., Bane, Catwoman (at least until the end), and the mobs.  I was inclined to see this too but I think Pete is getting at something much deeper -- something that goes to the heart of the enduring questions that always exist e.i., the possibility of establishing a regime where justice is the end, establishing the rule of law in a regime with those like the Joker who want to tear down civil society, the role of the noble lie, etc.  

Here is Pete on the great questions Nolan tries to grapple with:

In Batman Begins, Gotham is basically a failed state.  The city’s civic institutions are partly an extension of organized crime and partly just another parasite.  Those decent figures within government either keep their heads down or await their own murder.  The first film is basically an exploration of the challenges of establishing the reign of personal justice in a situation where the rule of law is temporarily impossible.  Batman uses his own power (along with strategic alliances with officer Jim Gordon and assistant D.A. Rachel Dawes) to establish a modicum of public safety, but Gotham still lacks a legitimate and functional government.

The second movie in the trilogy deals with the problem of transitioning from the rule of personal justice to the rule of law under conditions of pervasive and existential threat from the Joker’s campaign of terrorism.  When The Dark Knight came out, there was some commentary that the film was an allegory of the problems of setting up a functional Iraqi government in the midst of a radical terrorist campaign.  I don’t think that is how it works in Nolan’s movies.  Iraq might (or might not) have inspired the central conflict in The Dark Knight, but that doesn’t make Bruce Wayne George W. Bush or the Bin Laden the Joker.  The problem at the heart of The Dark Knight (like the problem of Batman Begins which was what to do with a decadent and collapsed polis) is ancient and human.

The Dark Knight found a solution to the problem of finding popular legitimacy for the transition from the rule of personal justice to the rule of law, but the solution was ironic and unstable.  Bruce Wayne understands that the rule of personal justice can’t last.  Gotham’s symbol of justice must stop being Batman and start being District Attorney Harvey Dent.  As Bruce Wayne says at a fundraiser “I believe in Harvey Dent.”  The problem is that Harvey Dent cracks under the pressure and tragedy of the Joker’s terrorism campaign and becomes a murderer himself.  So the central irony is that the rule of law is preferable to the rule of personal justice, but the man of personal justice turns out to be a better man than the man of the law.  It was decided that this complicated truth was too much for the people of Gotham to bear.  So the lie was concocted that Batman killed Dent.  Dent became a martyr and Batman (willingly) became a reviled fugitive.  The popular legitimacy of the rule of law was founded on a lie.

The Dark Knight Rises is partly a story of how that lie comes apart.  The popular appeal of Bane and his army has more in common with the New Left terrorist groups off the 1960s and 1970s than with Occupy Wall Street.  The New Left terrorist groups weren’t asking for a somewhat more egalitarian distribution of wealth and less student loan debt.  Those terrorist groups viewed American society as poisoned to the root and all of American history as a lie masking radical oppression.  Slogans like “we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal” and “give me liberty or give me death” only existed to obscure slavery, imperialism, and exploitation.  They wanted to tear everything down.

Nolan doesn’t share the terrorist desire to tear everything down.  Nolan clearly loathes the rhetorical tropes of left-wing terrorism and the governing strategies of left-wing totalitarianism (and this has earned him enemies he should be proud to have.)  But that’s not really the most important thing. Some large fraction of Gotham’s public is ready to hear Bane’s message because Gotham’s polity hasn’t come to terms with the reality of its past and present.  An exaggerated sense of the polity’s virtue ends up being a fatal weakness.  When Bane reveals that the founding was based on a lie, it is shattering to public morale.  One can see here a metaphor for America’s coming to terms with the enormity of white supremacy in the 1960s and how the suddenness of this accounting gave plausibility to the indictments of left-wing radicals, but it is more than that a metaphor for a particular time and place.  By the end of the movie, Gotham refounds itself on the basis of something very close to the truth about its past and present.  Nolan suggests that it is safer for a democratic society to honestly face its (inevitably) ambivalent past and present, and that doing so doesn’t open the door to nihilism, but instead makes it easier to defend what is good in the civic order.

This is easily the best thing I have seen written on the subject.  Much better than the typical movie critic drivel in the papers.

What's Wrong with Chicken?

I have not yet commented on the whole politically created "scandal" involving Chick-fil-A, but I think this editorial by the editors at NRO pretty much nails it.  But before I quote that article, here is the section of an interview with Dan Cathy, COO of Chick-fil-A, that started all the controversy:

Some have opposed the company's support of the traditional family. "Well, guilty as charged," said Cathy when asked about the company's position.

"We are very much supportive of the family — the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that.

"We operate as a family business ... our restaurants are typically led by families; some are single. We want to do anything we possibly can to strengthen families. We are very much committed to that," Cathy emphasized.

"We intend to stay the course," he said. "We know that it might not be popular with everyone, but thank the Lord, we live in a country where we can share our values and operate on biblical principles."

Since the time of that interview both the mayors of Boston (Thomas Menino) and Chicago (Rahm Emannuel) have publicly vowed to use their political power to stop Chick-fil-A from doing business in their cities.  As noted below, Mayor Menino has since decided to end his quest to stop issuing business licenses to companies whose bosses aren't in line with Mayor Menino's own personal beliefs.  And with regards to Mayor Emmanuel, even the ACLU of Illinois has called the moves to block Chick-fil-A unconstitutional. 

Here are the NRO editors on the moves by the mayors and the whole "controversy" in general:

Rahm Emanuel has been many things in life — ballet dancer, investment banker, congressman, White House chief of staff, now mayor of Chicago — and he apparently wishes to add another title to his curriculum vitae: Grand Inquisitor. He has denounced the fast-food chain Chick-fil-A and endorsed a Chicago alderman’s plan to block construction of a new outlet because the company’s executives do not share his politics. This is a gross abuse of power: Imagine if the mayor of Provo, Utah, had tried to punish a business for supporting same-sex marriage — the Left would demand his resignation, etc. The powers of government are not to be used for parochial political ends. Even in Chicago.

[...]

Bigotry should be made of sterner stuff. Mr. Cathy did not even target homosexuals, and his reference to being married to “our first wives” indicates that his criticism of the recent decay of marriage is by no means limited to the question of same-sex marriage. But even if it were, it would be worth noting that opposition to gay marriage was until the day before yesterday the official position of President Barack Obama and his administration. It was certainly the position of the administration while Mr. Emanuel served in it — not to mention the position of the Clinton administration when Mr. Emanuel served in it, too. If a Chick-fil-A franchisee is a detestable bigot because his boss — a private-sector CEO — opposes gay marriage, what does that make Mr. Emanuel, whose boss opposed gay marriage as president of these United States?

[...]

It is one thing for private citizens to stage a boycott of a company with associations that annoy them, though the gay lobby’s hysterical demands for absolute conformity to its agenda in all aspects of public life is both unseemly and childish. (The gay lobby is also wrong about the issue of marriage and should be opposed.) As bad as organized homosexuality’s bullying tactics can be, it is a far more serious thing when elected officials appropriate the instruments of government to punish those with whom they disagree. The analogue to the civil-rights movement is a defective one: Whatever indignities homosexuals have suffered in our history, they were not held as chattel slaves or systematically excluded from political and economic life in the way black Americans were, nor is homosexuality categorically comparable to race. Boston mayor Thomas Menino threatened to withhold a business license from Chick-fil-A until somebody reminded him that doing so would constitute an illegal abuse of official power, at which point he withdrew the threat but confirmed his simmering hostility.

Serious Solutions for Serious Issues

On Hardball last night, Chris Matthews found a solution to stopping the next shooting:

MSNBC host Chris Matthews suggested last night on national television that maybe someone like Tom Cruise's character from the movie Minority Report might be able to prevent a future shooting like the one that took place in a Colorado movie theater last week. Matthews made the suggestion when talking to a survivor of the shooting and Dr. Michael Brannon, a forensic psychologist and a director at the Institute for Behavioral Sciences and the Law.

Bravo, Bravo.

Progress, Obama Style

At Liberty Law Blog, Ken Masugi writes on Obama's radicalism in light of his recent attack on the "American work ethic."  And he also brings us back to both TR and Woodrow Wilson and contends that far from being the arbiter of new theories and new ways of looking at things, Obama is simply repeating old Progressive doctrines.  Here is Ken on the similarities between that first professor-president and Obama:

As Woodrow Wilson put it, 100 years ago, “Living political constitutions must be Darwinian in structure and in practice.” And thus we must recognize, Wilson argues, that the Declaration of Independence is not relevant for our time, as we have evolved beyond it. All that we previously valued politically, such as rights, freedom, and equality, must be understood in a new way, Professor Wilson insists.  Professor Obama follows the Wilson argument and redoubles it and more.

Obama obscures what young scholar Woodrow Wilson wrote in an unpublished paper in 1887, in which he argued that there was no fundamental difference between socialism and democracy—for each claimed unlimited power over the definition of the common or public good.  “[F]or  it is very clear that, in fundamental theory, socialism and democracy are almost, if not quite, one and the same. They both rest at bottom upon the absolute right of the community to determine its own destiny and that of its members. Men as communities are supreme over men as individuals.”

And here is some much needed advice on how conservatives should counter Obama's rhetoric:

Thus, in attacking the Obama update on socialism, the focus should not only be on business success, or the success of great entrepreneurs, but on the successful lives of most Americans. Obama is not only out to attack the 1% but transform the 100% in their understanding of the meaning of America and its fundamental ideals. The response to Obama that he’s waging “class warfare” merely plays into Progressive hands—it assumes with Progressivism that there are two warring classes instead of one overarching, uniting principle of individual rights.

Stick to the Movies

One of the most typical manifestations of ignorance in the media occurs when sports columnists and movie critics among other non-political writers feel the need to transcend their sphere and talk about the things touching on the political.  In this manner, they indirectly touch on things good and noble, base and vile.  (The things good and noble of course always seem to be in line with whatever the latest Democrat talking point is, and the things base and vile for the most part includes conservatism in some form or another.)

With all of that said as a backdrop, I now turn to the mass murder that occurred early Friday morning at a theater in Colorado. Roger Ebert, film critic at the Chicago Sun-Times, took to the pages of the New York Times in the Friday edition (boy, that was fast), and makes the case for increased gun control in light of the shootings.

Here is Ebert:

That James Holmes is insane, few may doubt. Our gun laws are also insane, but many refuse to make the connection. The United States is one of few developed nations that accepts the notion of firearms in public hands. In theory, the citizenry needs to defend itself. Not a single person at the Aurora, Colo., theater shot back, but the theory will still be defended.

I will credit Ebert for calling Holmes "insane" (although I'm not quite 100 percent sure from reading his peice it isn't a synonym for conservativism, but I digress).  In any case Ebert faults concealed and carry holders for not taking down the shooter, which in Ebert's mind proves concealed carry laws are useless (this is quite a departure from the usual argument against CCW laws -- that they would bring back the days of the Old West on streets across America).

But there's one problem with this analysis:  the theater has a gun-free zone policy.  Cinemark, which owns the theater, put in place a few years ago a policy that forbids concealed carry holders from bringing firearms into their theaters.

And then there is this aside:

I was sitting in a Chicago bar one night with my friend McHugh when a guy from down the street came in and let us see that he was packing heat.

“Why do you need to carry a gun?” McHugh asked him.

“I live in a dangerous neighborhood.”

“It would be safer if you moved.”

I'm fairly sure that the answer to stemming the violence in that neighborhood wouldn't be having all the people who carry legally move away so that only the people who have weapons illegally will have freer reign.  Just a thought.

A Familiar Philosophy

In reading through various blogs, I found a passage from a famous novel that seems very familiar.  Here is a character from that novel voicing his thoughts on labor and property:

"He didn't invent iron ore and blast furnaces, did he? He didn't invent smelting and chemistry and air compression. He couldn't have invented his Metal but for thousands and thousands of other people. His Metal! Why does he think it's his? Why does he think it's his invention? Everybody uses the work of everybody else. Nobody ever invents anything."

Who said the above lines?  James Taggart, the villain in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.  I haven't yet read that book but I feel like I have heard something like this before...

The Book of Barack

Iowahawk has today's reading from the Book of Barack:

¹ In the beginning Govt created the heavens and the earth. ² Now the economy was formless and void, darkness was over the surface of the ATMs, and the Spirit of Govt was hovering over the land.

³ And Govt said, “Let there be spending,” and there was spending. ⁴ Govt saw that the spending was good, and that it separated the light from the darkness. ⁵ Govt called the spending Investments, and this he did in the first day.

⁶ Then Govt said, “Let there be roads and bridges across the waters, and let dams divide the waters from the waters.” ⁷ Thus Govt made the infrastructure and the patronage jobs for eternity under the firmament from the Potomac which was above the firmament; and it was so. ⁸ And Govt called the firmament Washington. This Govt did on the second day.

⁹ Then Govt said, “Let the regulations and the guidlines under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the Bureaus appear”; and it was so. ¹⁰ And Govt called the Bureaus demigovts, and the gathering together of them He called AFSCME. And Govt saw that it was good.

¹¹ Then Govt said, “Let there be police, and firefighters, and teachers according to their kind, for they will create more jobs”; and it was so. ¹² And then Govt bade the void bring forth crime, and arson, and stupidity, that each would yield seed to bring forth more police, and firefighters, and teachers, and jobs. And Govt saw that it was good. ¹³ So the evening and the morning were the third day.

¹⁴ On the fourth day Govt said, “Let Us make the economy in Our image, according to Our likeness; let it have dominion over the cars of the road, over the appliances of the supercenters, and over the pet groomers of the strip malls, over all the clickthroughs of Amazon and over every creepy thing of the Dollar Stores.” ¹⁵ So Govt created the economy in His own image; services and wholesale and retail He created them. ¹⁶ Then Govt blessed them, and Govt said to them, “Be fruitful and use the multiplier effect; fill the land with jobs; thou have dominion over thy realm, within limits, as long and thou remember to get thy permits and tithe thy taxes, for they are good. Hope to see you at the fundraiser.”

¹⁷ And on the fifth day Govt made an official Govt holiday, and headed off for a 3-day golf weekend at Camp David. But first Govt said to the economy, "you are free to eat from any tree in the garden, except the tree of Knowledge. There is a serpent in that thing, and thy health care does not cover it."

¹⁸ So when Govt was on vay-cay the economy set about the garden, plowing its fields and generating revenue for the glory of Govt. They obeyed the regulations and were not ashamed.

¹⁹ Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the balanced, publicly-funded birds the Lord Govt had made to sing news to the economy. The serpent was on the AM band. He said to the retail sector, “Did Govt really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’? ”

²⁰ "Only yours, serpent," said the retail sector.

²¹ “Don't be a wuss,” the serpent said to the retail sector. ²² “For Govt knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will wise to Govt's scam.”

²³ When she saw that the fruit was pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, and also free to download, she took some and ate it. She emailed a copy to her wholesaler, and he ate it; and then the wholesaler to the manufacturer, and he to the servicer. ²⁴ Then the eyes of all of them were opened, and they realized they were being taxed naked; so they outsourced fig leaves to make coverings for themselves. 

²⁵ Then the economy heard the sound of the Lord Govt returning from vay-cay with the demigovts Osha and Tarp and Irs. It was the cool of the day, and they were hiding their profits from the Lord Govt among the trees of the garden. ²⁶ But the Lord Govt called to the manufacturer, “Where are you?”

²⁶ He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid, so I sought a tax shelter.”

²⁷ And Govt said, “Who told you that your profits were yours? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from? ”

²⁸ The man said, “The retailer made me —she has a thing for serpents.”

²⁹ Then the Lord Govt said to the retailer, “What is this you have done?”

³⁰ And she said to the Lord Govt, “Don't take that tone with me, fat boy. And why should I give you my profits?”

³¹ The Lord Govt was in wrath, and said, “For I am the Lord Govt, creator of Eden! ³² I gave unto you the roads and bridges, and schools and cops, brought unto you of gentle showers of Tarp and Stimulus and rivers of Subsidy, I am the purifier of the waters, cleanser of the air, without which you and your profits would not exist. Thus all that thou have created is created by Us. Thus ye shall render unto Govt what is Govt's, and this is the Word of your Lord.”

³³ At these words, Solydra and Gm and Seiu and all the Cronyans and Laborites dropped to their knees in trembling fear and supplicated themselves before the Lord, presenting Him golden gifts of contributions.

³⁴ Then the retailer said to Govt, “And who created you?”

³⁵ In righteous anger did the Lord Govt again rise up and said, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Tri-Delts and the Dekes, I am and have always been! I am the great cosmic turtle on which you and the entire economy rest.”

³⁶ "And on whom do you rest, turtle?" said the retailer in blasheme.

³⁷ "Do not mock me with your knowledge trickery, harlot!" said the Lord Govt. "I am turtles all the way down."

³⁸ So the Lord Govt said to the serpent, “Because you have done this,

“Cursed are you above all livestock
    and all wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly
    and you will eat dust 
    all the days of your life.
39 And I will keep you from tenure
    and grants and the airwaves,
    and condemn you to the bowels of internet." 

⁴⁰ Then the Lord Govt turned the retailer and the manufacturer and the wholesaler and all the servicers, and said,

“I will make your taxes and regulations very severe;
    with painful labor you will give birth to profit. 
You shall be afflicted with plagues of audits,
    the coming of Osha, and the trials of Irs.
By the sweat of thy brow you will earn thy living
    until you return it to Me.
You will suffer the droughts of subsidy and stimulus,
    and will thirst forever. You're welcome."  

⁴¹ And so the Lord Govt banished the economy from paradise, and bade them go outsource to the Far East of Eden. And as the chastened economy slouched out of of Babylon He said unto them,

⁴⁰ "How do you like them apples?"

Twisted

As you know early this morning, 71 patrons at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado during a screening of "The Dark Knight Rises" were injured when a gunman opened fire in front of the theater.  Virtually nothing yet is known about the shooter, James Holmes, a student at the University of Colorado Medical School, but the media from the very first second has already tried to blame the mass murder on the teachings of political conservatism.

Brian Ross, a reporter for ABC, tried to make the claim this morning that James Holmes was the same James Holmes that appeared as a member of a Colorado Tea Party (ABC and Ross later retracted the story as they discovered that the latter Holmes was 52; the shooter James Holmes is 24).  The rush to judgement by the media is nearly identical to what occurred during the shootings in Arizona last year, which took 6 lives.  As with Holmes, the media then tried to connect Jared Laughner to the Tea Party without any shred of evidence to the contrary notwithstanding (this rush to judgment was notably absent regarding the mass murder committed by Maj. Nidal Hassan at Fort Hood). 

Here is Charles Cooke on how we should view this shooting:

What happened in Colorado in the early hours of this morning was not a “tragedy” but a willful act of mass murder. Beyond his age, name, and ethnicity, nobody yet knows who the shooter is, or why he chose to do what he did. In my view, this is a blessing, albeit a temporary one; for, as has been the way in recent years, once his party registration, television-viewing habits, and random scribblings become known to the public, all sorts of hysterical speculation and unlettered accusations will burst forth.

Whole groups will be vilified, blame will be apportioned to those many times removed, and the shooter will be partially absolved of blame by those who prefer to see fault in video games or talk radio or political rhetoric or anything else that can be conscripted to explain why terrible things happen to good people. Few will point out that unless someone commits an atrocity in the name of an ideology — Timothy McVeigh, for example — their political beliefs are wholly irrelevant. Even in cases where a killer is motivated by something specific, to draw general conclusions is most often folly. America is not the land of collective guilt, and mass shootings should carve out no exception. Those few people who have already jumped on the crime to hit out at their boogeyman of choice are fools.

And here is Paul Mirengoff:

Killing sprees are sometimes political acts. The shooting of military personnel at Fort Hood by a Muslim extremist is a good example. But murder doesn’t become political just because the murderer belongs to a political party or movement, or a particular religious group. Thus, without more, it shouldn’t even matter if today’s gunman belonged to the Tea Party or any other large organization or movement.

As David Gelernter, himself the victim of the unabomber, says the fitting response to a terrible crime like today’s is silence or prayer. The appropriate response is not mindless politically-based speculation that only reinforces the fear that our culture and politics both have taken a grievously wrong turn.

As both Charles and Paul point out, the political beliefs of the ones committing the atrocities are truly irrelevant other than if they actually understood themselves to be carrying out a political aim.  And -- this cannot be repeated too many times -- it is beyond absurd to draw a general conclusion about a whole group from an act committed by one person in that group (e.g., former Rep. Mark Foley, a Republican, had sexual liaisons with young pages in the U.S. House; therefore all Republicans are child molesters).  Isn't it better to see the low in reference to the high rather than the other way around?

Politics aside, the response to days like today should most definitely be prayer -- asking God what He wants us to see in this and what our response to it should be moving forward.

The Tide Turns

This New York Times headline had to just send shock waves through their offices:  "Economic Fears Hurting Obama, Polls Say." 

This paragraph may have resulted in several firings:

The new poll shows that the race remains essentially tied, notwithstanding all of the Washington chatter suggesting that Mr. Romney’s campaign has seemed off-kilter amid attacks on his tenure at Bain Capital and his unwillingness to release more of his tax returns. Forty-five percent say they would vote for Mr. Romney if the election were held now and 43 percent say they would vote for Mr. Obama.

We will see what happens in November but the fact that Romney has finally been firing back at the now infamous "you didn't build that" speech (he still has to do something to counter the Bain Capital charges), should make this election all the more interesting.

Transforming a Nation

President Obama's remarks in Roanake, Virginia last Friday are getting a lot of buzz around the conservative blogosphere.  I haven't had time to read through the speech until now (frankly, I didn't want to read it at all).  But here are some of the interesting things said in the speech that are worthy of note:

THE PRESIDENT:  Now, let me say this.  It’s fashionable among some pundits -- and this happens every time America hits a rough patch -- it’s fashionable to be saying, well, this time it’s different, this time we really are in the soup; it’s going to be hard to solve our problems.  Let me tell you something.  What’s missing is not big ideas.  What’s missing is not that we’ve got an absence of technical solutions to deal with issues like education or energy or our deficit.  The problem we’ve got right now is we’ve just got a stalemate in Washington.

The reason for the stalemate of course was the election of 2010, when Republican overtook the House.  Who voted in that election?  The American people.

Let's see what is next:

THE PRESIDENT:  No, no, look -- I mean, we’re having a good, healthy, democratic debate.  That’s how this works.  And on their side, they’ve got a basic theory about how you grow the economy.  And the theory is very simple:  They think that the economy grows from the top down.  So their basic theory is, if wealthy investors are doing well then everybody does well.  So if we spend trillions of dollars on more tax cuts mostly for the wealthy, that that’s somehow going to create jobs, even if we have to pay for it by gutting education and gutting job-training programs and gutting transportation projects, and maybe even seeing middle-class folks have a higher tax burden.

For the breakdown of this section, see this post.  Ultimately, if you don't have time for that, it's a basic straw man that no one actually believes to be true.

Let's see if this will get any better:

THE PRESIDENT:  I love you back.  (Applause.)  But I just want to point out that we tried their theory [on top down economics and rolling back regulations] for almost 10 years, and here’s what it got us:  We got the slowest job growth in decades.  We got deficits as far as the eye can see.  Your incomes and your wages didn’t go up.  And it culminated in a crisis because there weren’t enough regulations on Wall Street and they could make reckless bets with other people’s money that resulted in this financial crisis, and you had to foot the bill.  So that’s where their theory turned out.

There is almost too much in this paragraph even to decipher.  Overall, this is interesting coming from a president who's added another 15 trillion in debt and who famously said that saddling future generations with more debt is "unpatriotic."  By the way, the whole theory that an unregulated Wall Street caused the housing collapse in 2008 is bogus.  The collapse was caused primarily by government failure, not market failure.  Read this post by Ed Morrisey to find out how President Bush in 2003 and Sen. John McCain in 2005 attempted to fix Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- the two government mortgage lenders -- and were met with silence and stonewalling by Democrats.

Let's move on:

And I understand why they wouldn’t want to pay more in taxes.  Nobody likes to pay more in taxes.  Here's the problem:  If you continue their tax breaks, that costs a trillion dollars.  And since we're trying to bring down our deficit and our debt, if we spend a trillion dollars on tax cuts for them, we're going to have to find that trillion dollars someplace else.  That means we're going to have to maybe make student loans more expensive for students.  Or we might have to cut back on the services we're providing our brave veterans when they come home.

To say that tax breaks -- or allowing people to keep more of their money -- would "cost" a trillion dollars is remarkable to say the least.  This is predicated on the idea that the money people earn is not primarily the property of the earner but is provided by the government.  Secondly, the underlying assumption that tax increases necessarily lead to higher tax revenue is, no matter how many time it is repeated, just absolutely false.

Well, this is not looking so good.  Next: 

So I believe in American manufacturing.  I believe in making stuff here in America.  (Applause.)

Well American manufacturing sure isn't looking too good right now.  The rest of the paragraph which I did not quote is an almost incomprehensible dirge about how Mitt Romney supposedly loves to outsource jobs overseas, which I guess makes him richer and probably more evil too.

Now to the best part:

There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me -- because they want to give something back.  They know they didn’t -- look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own.  You didn’t get there on your own.  I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart.  There are a lot of smart people out there.  It must be because I worked harder than everybody else.  Let me tell you something -- there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.  (Applause.)

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help.  There was a great teacher somewhere in your life.  Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive.  Somebody invested in roads and bridges.  If you’ve got a business -- you didn’t build that.  Somebody else made that happen.  The Internet didn’t get invented on its own.  Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.

This is truly outrageous and strikes at the heart not only of the concept of property but at the natural rights foundation of America.  Equality rightly understood -- that we are equal to each other in our natural rights -- sets the proper foundation for the use of our naturally unequal talents and skills.  Paradoxically, inequality understood in this way then is the natural outcome of a regime that is built upon this self-evident truth of equality.  Government is created for the purpose of the protecting the natural rights of the governed.  But the People and the compact they made with each other comes prior to the creation of any government.

The idea implicit in these statements is that government and the People made a compact with each other, with the vast residuum of power presiding with the government; the rights we have being mere exceptions to the general power held by the government.  But this scheme was precisely the reason why we declared independence in 1776 (and it was the reason why initially, James Madison among other Founders was wary of adding a Bill of Rights to the Constitution).  It is a straw man to argue as the president does that the services provided by the government, e.i., schools, hospitals, transportation, etc., means that we owe a debt to government; that without the presence of government -- funded ultimately through tax payer dollars -- we would be a blank slate; that we as human persons would be somehow incomplete without some kind of bond formed with the State.

Let's just hope this speech is used over and over again in the coming weeks to show Obama's true face.    

Did the President Ever Take an Econ Class?

In his latest piece, Thomas Sowell takes apart what President Obama recently said about the need to "tax the wealthy" and admonishing those evil Republicans who "believe that prosperity comes from the top down, so that if we spend trillions more on tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, that that will somehow unleash jobs and economic growth.”

Here is Dr. Sowell on the manifest errors present in the preceding sentence:

Let us begin with the word “spend.” Is the government “spending” money on people whenever it does not tax them as much as it can? Such convoluted reasoning would never pass muster if the mainstream media were not so determined to see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil when it comes to Barack Obama.

Ironically, actual spending by the Obama administration for the benefit of its political allies, such as the teachers’ unions, is called not spending but “investment.” You can say anything if you have your own private language.

But let’s go back to the notion of “spending” money on “the wealthiest Americans.” The people he is talking about are not the wealthiest Americans. Income is not wealth — and the whole tax controversy is about income taxes. Wealth is what you have accumulated, and wealth is not taxed, except when you die and the government collects an inheritance tax from your heirs.

And the biggest error of them all:  that higher tax rates lead automatically to higher revenue:

A Democratic president — John F. Kennedy — stated the issue plainly. Under the existing tax rates, he explained, investors’ “efforts to avoid tax liabilities” made them put their money in tax shelters, because existing tax laws made “certain types of less productive activity more profitable than other more valuable undertakings” for the country.

Ironically, the Obama campaign’s attacks on Mitt Romney for putting his money in the Cayman Islands substantiate the point that President Kennedy and others have made, that higher tax rates can drive money into tax shelters, whether tax-exempt municipal bonds or investments in other countries.

In other words, raising tax rates does not automatically raise tax revenues for the government. Higher tax rates have often led to lower tax revenues for states, the federal government, and other countries. Conversely, lower tax rates have often led to higher tax revenues. It all depends on the circumstances.

Probably the best example I can think of is when Warren G. Harding entered office in 1921, the top marginal tax rate was 75%.  After Harding's successor, Calvin Coolidge, left office in 1929, tax rates were down to around 25% but tax revenues were up 300% from where they were during the end of Woodrow Wilson's presidency.

Throw Down the Kid Gloves

Marc Theissen has some advice for Mitt Romney:

Here is the state of the presidential race in a nutshell: The Obama campaign charges that Mitt Romney might have committed a felony by misrepresenting his position at Bain Capital to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Outraged, Romney fires off this response:

“He sure as heck ought to say he’s sorry.”

Ward Cleaver, call your office.

Not surprisingly, President Obama brushed off Romney’s request and continued to hammer him over the weekend. Obama is playing by the brass-knuckle rules of Chicago politics. Rather than calling for apologies, Romney needs grab a bottle, break it on the bar and start fighting back.

This may not come naturally to Romney, but we know he can do it. Recall that during the GOP primaries Romney initially followed a strategy of staying above the fray. Instead of trying to win, he waited for his opponents to lose. Romney focused on his business experience, while Tim Pawlenty, Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry and Herman Cain imploded in sequential fashion.

And why Romney's current position in the polls ought to worry those who support Romney and/or want to see Obama out of the White House:

Obama is coming off of the worst three months of an incumbent president during an election year in recent memory. Consider the litany of blunders and bad news he has suffered — from his declaration that “the private sector is doing fine,” to his ugly fight with Catholic leaders over his Health and Human Services mandate, to the controversy over his intelligence leaks, to his decision to invoke executive privilege in the “Fast and Furious” scandal, to the string of bad jobs reports that show we are in the weakest recovery since the Great Depression. Yet despite the endless stream of bad news, the president is running even with Romney. In fact, he’s gaining. Three months ago, Gallup had Romney with a five-point lead over the president; today, they are at 46-46.

False Modesty

Paul Mirengoff has a very important aside in a recent post on how conservatives should view the traditional call for "judicial restraint" or "judicial modesty" that has been and continues to be a major part of conservative jurisprudence:

But modesty is an attitude not a philosophy. Although judges should judge modestly, it is not their function to be modest; their function is to decide cases, including constitutional cases, correctly. Thus, while modesty should inform constitutional adjudication, it should not become a judge’s overriding concern. One cannot build a sensible core judicial philosophy around modesty and restraint.

In the response to some conservatives who praised Chief Justice Roberts' opinion in the Obamacare case because he did not overturn a duly enacted law by the legislative branch (since when has judicial activism been defined as simply overturning a law enacted by the majority?), this is much closer to the proper way to view these things.   

Man with a Plan

Steven Hayes has a long profile of Rep. Paul Ryan in the most recent issue of the Weekly Standard.  Please take some time to read the whole thing but here are a few takeaways:

Ryan has never been a title-chaser. He’s a guileless, straightforward man who wants to advance the ideas he believes in. It’s not quite accurate to say that he’s not political; he’s an effective politician, as one would have to be to consistently post huge victories in a district that Charlie Cook, of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, has rated in the dead center—No. 218—on his partisan voter index. But if he were driven primarily by political considerations he wouldn’t have spent most of the last five years doing precisely the opposite of what most Republican pollsters and strategists were recommending.

Democratic strategist Joe Trippi on picking Ryan for VP:

If I were advising Romney,” said Trippi, “I’d tell him to pick Ryan. I just can’t see him doing it. But as a Democrat I’d personally prefer to see Romney pick a careful candidate, a clone. A gray suit.”

Trippi says that attacks on the Ryan budget are coming regardless of who is on the ticket. He believes the Obama campaign is focusing on Romney’s tenure at Bain because they need to convince voters that he’s willing to disregard the interests of the poor and the middle class to enrich himself and his friends. But the Bain argument is the beginning of their case, not the end of it. If this were a boxing match, these would be the body blows, the punches that set up the roundhouse.

Though Trippi doesn't mention it, the "roundhouse" is the Obama campaign's argument that under Romney's watch, Bain Capital outsourced jobs oversees.

But the most illuminating thing about Ryan are his townhalls in Wisconsin.  Here is a sample:

Ryan, the seven-term representative from Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District, speaks quickly, as if the coming collapse might happen in the middle of his remarks if he takes too much time. It’s a bracing message. He is saying, in effect, that the American experiment, our 236 extraordinary years of self-government, is on the verge of failure.

And yet Ryan is smiling. It’s not the phony grin of a politician seeking votes, or the half-smirk of a charlatan putting one over on a group of rubes. It’s a real smile—the eager smile of someone excited to share important news. Paul Ryan believes he has the solution to these problems. And after a long and often lonely fight to convince his fellow Republicans that they should be talking about these issues, Ryan is succeeding.

That Ryan shows he understands the capacity for people to reason and understand what is truly going on in Washington is evident.  That he understands that government is built upon the consent of the government but in turn requires not simply consent but enlightened consent is evident as well.  From what I have read in Ryan's speeches and writings, he not only understands founding principles -- the principles most eloquently expressed in the Declaration of Independence -- but he also understands how to realize those principles through the political process.

I count myself with Trippi that Romney should pick Ryan.  Whether he does this or not -- whether he acts more or less like the Republican leadership prior to the 2010 election -- remains to be seen.

Where the Buck Stops

During an interview on Friday with WJLA, a local affiliate in Virginia, President Obama said the following on the whole fabricated "scandal" on whether or not Mitt Romney was still managing Bain Capital after 1999:

SCOTT THUMAN: What about Bain Capital? It's a big issue for the past 24 hours right now. Mitt Romney's campaign says he left in '99, yours says it's 2000, there's a significant difference, is he being dishonest with the American public?

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Well, here's what I know, we were just talking about responsibility and as president of the United States, it's pretty clear to me that I'm responsible for folks who are working in the federal government and you know, Harry Truman said the buck stops with you.

Now, my understanding is that Mr. Romney attested to the SEC, multiple times, that he was the chairman, CEO and president of Bain Capital and I think most Americans figure if you are the chairman, CEO and president of a company that you are responsible for what that company does.

Ultimately Mr. Romney, I think, is going to have to answer those questions, because if he aspires to being president one of the things you learn is, you are ultimately responsible for the conduct of your operations, but again that's probably a question that he's going to have to answer and I think that's a legitimate part of the campaign.

Paul Mirengoff dissects his answer:

For the past three and a half years, Obama has had the power to control the operations of the U.S. government and to make final decisions about what the U.S. government will do. Unfortunately, he has not taken a leave of absence from office. Nor has he devoted 100 hours per week or more to another job.

After early 1999, Romney lacked the power to control the operations and decisions of Bain. He was on a leave of absence. By all credible accounts, he often devoted 100 hours a week or more to the task of salvaging the Olympics.

Thus, Obama’s analogy falls of its own weight, or lack thereof.

[...]

It also means that the president should finally stop blaming George Bush for his failings. After all, Harry Truman didn’t say, “the buck stops with FDR.” 

And ultimately, what all the questions on Bain Capital are really about:

Fourth, this train may already have left the station, but it’s still worthwhile to remember what we’re really arguing about here. Obama isn’t saying that Romney lied about his status at Bain — that’s the question he was asked but did not answer. The supposed relevance of the period in which Romney was absent from Bain is that during this time, Bain was involved in the offshoring of jobs.

But in a rational world, the decisions of private companies, even if they had been made by Romney, to have work certain work performed overseas for reasons of cost and efficiency would be a non-issue. The benefits of offshoring to the average U.S. citizen typically equal or exceed its costs.

And even in the world in the Democrats believe (probably correctly) we live in, the offshoring by the U.S. government of jobs created through taxpayer money is a worse offense than any Bain-related offshoring.

Also, read this post by Kevin Williamson on offshoring vs. outsourcing.  It's very insightful and shows that, frankly, there's nearly zero educating going on by Democrats (or Republicans) on this matter.

First Grade President

In an interview with CBS, President Obama said the following when asked what his biggest mistake in office was to this point:

"When I think about what we've done well and what we haven't done well," the president said, "the mistake of my first term - couple of years - was thinking that this job was just about getting the policy right. And that's important. But the nature of this office is also to tell a story to the American people that gives them a sense of unity and purpose and optimism, especially during tough times."

Mr. Obama acknowledged the dissonance between others' perception of his strength as an expert orator, and his own.

"It's funny - when I ran, everybody said, well he can give a good speech but can he actually manage the job?" he said. "And in my first two years, I think the notion was, 'Well, he's been juggling and managing a lot of stuff, but where's the story that tells us where he's going?' And I think that was a legitimate criticism."

So the biggest mistake is nothing to do with policy (Obamacare anyone?) but everything to do with messaging, the old liberal stand-by that has been trotted out since before the days of Jimmy Carter.  I think this talk of storytelling would sound silly coming from a first grader, not to mention the president.  

Death by SUV

John Hinderaker notes an odd story in the St. Paul Pioneer Press on a SUV that apparently, controlled either by rogue comet or an evil spirit, randomly ran over and killed a teenage child.  As John notes, the headline read "St. Paul teen killed by SUV remembered at her funeral.”

But here is the real story, or what the St. Paul Pioneer Press forgot to mention:

Scott wrote here about the appalling case of a 16-year-old St. Paul girl, Clarisse Grime, who was sitting in the grass at her high school, nowhere near the street, when she was struck and killed by a vehicle that careened out of control and bounced off a fire hydrant. The vehicle was driven by an illegal immigrant who has been in Minnesota for ten years without ever having a driver’s license. He was known to local authorities, having been convicted of drunk driving in 2001 and driving without a license just a few months ago. But the immigration laws are not enforced in St. Paul.

So not only are SUV's destroying the atmosphere with their CO2 emmissions, they have now become self-aware and are starting to kill off the humans (much like how Skynet began in the Terminator series) that pose a threat to their existence. 

Condi as VP Frontrunner

Matt Drudge has just broken the news that former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice is the frontrunner to be Mitt Romney's running mate.  Katrina Trinko at NRO doesn't think this makes much sense (and I agree):

I’m surprised: both Rice’s views on abortion (she has said that she is “mildly pro-choice“) and her years in the Bush administration seem likely to generate controversy, while I’m not seeing any group of voters that she would automatically attract.

John Tabin looks at Drudge's past concerning VP picks and finds him batting below the mendoza line:

Four years ago, Matt Drudge reported that Barack Obama was likely to select Evan Bayh as his running mate.

Eight years ago, Drudge reported that John Kerry was likely to select Hillary Clinton as his running mate.

Twelve years ago, Drudge reported that George W. Bush's likely pick was Frank Keating.

Tonight, Drudge says the Condoleeza Rice is the "frontrunner" in Mitt Romney's veepstakes.

I would suggest that readers treat this scoop with the confidence that Drudge has earned through his track record. (Lest there be any doubt, Erick Erickson tweets: "Multiple assurances from Team Romney tonight that Condi is not happening for Veep.")

Romney Takes a Risk

Mitt Romney yesterday gave a speech to the NAACP (I still wonder why we continue to bestow any kind of respect to the NAACP as an organization) and was roundly booed when he told the crowd that he vows to repeal Obamacare should he be elected in November.  Other parts of his speech were actually well received.  Of course, the MSM is focusing on the fact that he got booed, not on the fact that he did not soften his views in front of an audience that would be hostile to his message (when has Obama gotten in front of an audience not already predisposed to nod in agreement at his every word?).  Republicans traditionally have not done a good job in getting their message out to minority groups, but this is definitely a step in the right direction.  And ultimately, Romney not pandering to his audience strikes at the "group" theory politics that divides people based on contingent properties that have no bearing on them as human persons.

UPDATE:

Mona Charen with an important observation that is not hard to imagine:

Naturally, most of the coverage about Romney’s speech to the NAACP focused on the boos. It reflected badly on Romney, we are meant to understand. Question: Is there any doubt that if a liberal Democrat addressed a gathering of conservatives (I know, impossible to imagine, but stay with me), and was booed for his trouble, that the press narrative would be how badly this reflected on the audience?

Do As I Say (Not As I Do)

Attorney General Eric Holder, fresh from being the very first cabinet-level secretary to be held in contempt by Congress, today railed against racist voter ID laws in a speech to the NAACP.  Of course, in order to get into the room to hear AG Holder's speech, you would have had to show a "goverment-issued photo ID."  You seriously can't make this stuff up:

Shameful

Michael Ramirez on President Obama's completely unoriginal plan to raise taxes for those making over $250,000:

The fact that makes Obama's plan even more deceitful is that even if taxes were raised on the "rich" to 100%, it would only cover a third of the nation's debt for this year.

Reckoning Day

In a post titled "Why Conservatives are Happier," Paul Rahe sums up the chief problem in our politics today in the following two paragraphs:

Our problems are not first and foremost technical problems. Better management is no doubt necessary. But it will not set us straight. At best, it will delay the day of reckoning. Rearranging the deck chairs might have improved life on the Titanic, but it would not have saved the ship. At the deepest level, our problems are spiritual and moral. They have to do with the direction in which we are tending.

Government programs, as such, cannot directly address these problems. It is not within our power to make men good; and, if we tried to do so, we would, like helicopter parents, do them untold harm.

Talk of making the government more efficient and "running government like a business" really misses the boat (this is for you Mitt Romney).  The problem lies not so much with the inefficiencies that bureaucracies foster, which is but a symptom of the larger problem, but with bureaucracy itself.  Ultimately, bureaucracy or administrative government strikes at the heart of the principle of consent of the governed that undergirds (or did) our republic.  This, however,  goes into the realm of moral philosophy, which is today generally cut completely out of our value-free public education.  As the saying goes today, "Who are we to put our values on anyone else?"  This is the crux of the matter.

The Gift that Keeps on Giving

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright is back in the news.  Here is The Daily Caller with more:

Speaking at the 100th anniversary of a Washington, D.C. church, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright knocked President Barack Obama and accused America’s elite academic institutions of instilling racism.

Wright opened up his sermon at the Florida Avenue Baptist Church Sunday by reading from the Book of Isaiah and speaking of the importance of foundational stones. Using that as a metaphor, Wright proceeded to list dozens of names that he suggested were foundational stones for the black community, from Nat Turner to Emmett Till to W.E.B Du Bois.

[...]

Notably absent from Wright’s list of names was the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.

And here is the Rev. Wright we have all come to love:

Wright later went on to suggest that America’s elite universities infect African Americans with “white racist DNA.”

“Take a baby born an African, as an African in the oven,” he said, using Malcolm X’s saying “just because a cat has kittens in the oven, that doesn’t make them biscuits” as a reference point for his riff.

“Take that baby him or her away from the African mother, away from the African community, away from the African experience … and put them Africans at the breasts of Yale, Harvard, University of Chicago, those trinity schools, UCLA or U.C. Berkley. Turn them into biscuits then they’ll get that alien DNA all up inside their brain and they will turn on their own people in defense of the ones who are keeping their own people under oppression.”

“There is white racist DNA running through the synapses of their under-brain tissue,” he continued.

“They will kill their own kind, defend the enemies of their kind or anyone who is perceived to be the enemy of the milky white way of life.”

Lastly, a reference the racism of the Tea Party:

Wright also obliquely suggested that the tea party was some sort of threat to the African-American community.

“This is not a time to romanticize because we have the first African descended president in the White House,” he said. “You see what the tea party is trying to do. This not the time to romanticize or fantasize.”

I don't think you could write better satire than this.

Posner's Problem

Following in the footsteps of Jeb Bush, Seventh Circuit Court Judge Richard Posner, a "conservative" and Reagan appointee, has given liberals even more ammunition in making their case that the Republican Party of today would have thought Reagan too moderate of a candidate.  Here are snippets from an interview he recently gave to Nina Totenberg (her head nodding in approval at every response, I am sure) of NPR:

Posner expressed admiration for President Ronald Reagan and the economist Milton Friedman, two pillars of conservatism. But over the past 10 years, Posner said, "there's been a real deterioration in conservative thinking. And that has to lead people to re-examine and modify their thinking."

"I've become less conservative since the Republican Party started becoming goofy," he said.

And we can't forget this gem:

Posner, who was appointed to the appeals court by Reagan, speculated that the leaks about the deliberations over the national health care law — which are apparently designed to discredit Chief Justice John Roberts' opinion upholding the law — would backfire. "I think these right-wingers who are blasting Roberts are making a very serious mistake," he said.

"Because if you put [yourself] in his position ... what's he supposed to think? That he finds his allies to be a bunch of crackpots? Does that help the conservative movement? I mean, what would you do if you were Roberts? All the sudden you find out that the people you thought were your friends have turned against you, they despise you, they mistreat you, they leak to the press. What do you do? Do you become more conservative? Or do you say, 'What am I doing with this crowd of lunatics?' Right? Maybe you have to re-examine your position."

As Scott Johnson explains, this is all very tortured logic:

So the conservative critiques of Roberts’s opinion are the work of “crackpots.” Again, it would be nice to have some idea whom he is talking about, a coherent criticism of their critiques, or a defense of Roberts’s unusual opinion in substance. Instead Posner simply serves up childish name-calling.

Posner also assumes that the leaks from the Supreme Court came from conservatives at the Court. How does he know? Who are they? If Posner knows, he apparently isn’t saying.

There is nothing unusual or untoward about conservative activists and legal scholars criticizing a Supreme Court opinion, even one by a conservative justice. But it is unusual for a sitting federal appellate judge to criticize his superiors, as Ponser does Justice Scalia in this recent Slate column.

Just to add a few points:  It would be extremely shallow of a justice to change their jurisprudence simply because their allies disapprove of an opinion they authored (maybe this is what Posner does, who knows).  Plus, Chief Justice Roberts didn't think his allies were all "crackpots" to begin with, because much of their arguments were included in his majority opinion, especially regarding the Commerce Clause and the Necessary and Proper Clause.  And to imply, as Totenberg and Posner both do, that there is no valid criticism of Roberts' opinion is lunacy.  Finally, Professor Bainbridge makes the case that Posner never was a judicial conservative in the first place.

With friends like these....

The Imperial Presidency

In his Friday column, Charles Krauthammer gets in this knock-out punch:

During the Bush-43 years, we were repeatedly treated to garment-rending about the imperial presidency, to major hyperventilation about the “unitary executive.” Yet the current administration’s imperiousness has earned little comparable attention.

Perhaps because President Obama has been so ineffective. It’s hard to call someone imperial who’s failed so consistently. Or maybe not. You can surely be imperial and unsuccessful. Waterloo comes to mind.

But here is the take-away sentence:

And there’s the rub: the Obama administration’s inability to distinguish policy from law.

Wow.

 

Blaming the Past

Yesterday President Obama told a crowd in Poland, OH that the dismal jobs numbers that just came out (only 80,000 were created and the national unemployment number stayed at 8.2%) were a "step in the right direction."  Here is his fuller statement on the issue:

But it’s still tough out there.  We learned this morning that our businesses created 84,000 new jobs last month, and that overall means that businesses have created 4.4 million new jobs over the past 28 months, including 500,000 new manufacturing jobs.  That's a step in the right direction.  (Applause.)  That’s a step in the right direction.

But, as Obama told supporters, it's still not his fault.  In fact, it's no longer just the fault of George W. Bush either:

So again, our mission is not just to get back to where we were before the crisis.  We've got to deal with what's been happening over the last decade, the last 15 years -- manufacturing leaving our shores, incomes flat-lining -- all those things are what we've got to struggle and fight for.  And that's the reason that I'm running for a second term as President of the United States.  I want to move this country forward.  (Applause.)  I want to move this country forward.

Wow, if Bill Clinton was mad about Obama before, he will be furious about this.

Dumb on the Fourth of July

Chris Rock, that subtle and thoughtful comic overflowing with witty sayings, tweeted the following on July 4th:

"Happy white peoples independence day the slaves weren’t free but I’m sure they enjoyed fireworks"

Now, I am sure that Rock will say that he meant this in jest, and I am sure that people calling out Rock on this will be getting slammed as neanderthals who can't take a simple joke.  But those hurling down condemnations too easily forget that comdey is just another form to communicate something to an audience, just as is drama.  But this argument -- that anything said under the name of comedy should never be taken seriously (Jon Stewart I am talking to you) -- stems from nothing other than nihilism.  But I digress.

Getting back to the "substance" of what Rock said, let's turn to a source with a far better and reasoned view on all of this:  Frederick Douglass.  Here is an excerpt from a speech Douglass gave in 1852 on slavery and the 4th of July:

On the 2d of July, 1776, the old Continental Congress, to the dismay of the lovers of ease, and the worshipers of property, clothed that dreadful idea with all the authority of national sanction. They did so in the form of a resolution; and as we seldom hit upon resolutions, drawn up in our day whose transparency is at all equal to this, it may refresh your minds and help my story if I read it. "Resolved, That these united colonies are, and of right, ought to be free and Independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown; and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, dissolved."

Citizens, your fathers made good that resolution. They succeeded; and to-day you reap the fruits of their success. The freedom gained is yours; and you, therefore, may properly celebrate this anniversary. The 4th of July is the first great fact in your nation’s history—the very ring-bolt in the chain of your yet undeveloped destiny.

Pride and patriotism, not less than gratitude, prompt you to celebrate and to hold it in perpetual remembrance. I have said that the Declaration of Independence is the ring-bolt to the chain of your nation’s destiny; so, indeed, I regard it. The principles contained in that instrument are saving principles. Stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost.

From the round top of your ship of state, dark and threatening clouds may be seen. Heavy billows, like mountains in the distance, disclose to the leeward huge forms of flinty rocks! That bolt drawn, that chain broken, and all is lost. Cling to this day—cling to it, and to its principles, with the grasp of a storm-tossed mariner to a spar at midnight.

The coming into being of a nation, in any circumstances, is an interesting event. But, besides general considerations, there were peculiar circumstances which make the advent of this republic an event of special attractiveness.

The whole scene, as I look back to it, was simple, dignified and sublime.

The population of the country, at the time, stood at the insignificant number of three millions. The country was poor in the munitions of war. The population was weak and scattered, and the country a wilderness unsubdued. There were then no means of concert and combination, such as exist now. Neither steam nor lightning had then been reduced to order and discipline. From the Potomac to the Delaware was a journey of many days. Under these, and innumerable other disadvantages, your fathers declared for liberty and independence and triumphed.

Fellow Citizens, I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic. The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men. They were great men too—great enough to give fame to a great age. It does not often happen to a nation to raise, at one time, such a number of truly great men. The point from which I am compelled to view them is not, certainly, the most favorable; and yet I cannot contemplate their great deeds with less than admiration. They were statesmen, patriots and heroes, and for the good they did, and the principles they contended for, I will unite with you to honor their memory.

They loved their country better than their own private interests; and, though this is not the highest form of human excellence, all will concede that it is a rare virtue, and that when it is exhibited, it ought to command respect. He who will, intelligently, lay down his life for his country, is a man whom it is not in human nature to despise. Your fathers staked their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, on the cause of their country. In their admiration of liberty, they lost sight of all other interests.

They were peace men; but they preferred revolution to peaceful submission to bondage. They were quiet men; but they did not shrink from agitating against oppression. They showed forbearance; but that they knew its limits. They believed in order; but not in the order of tyranny. With them, nothing was "settled" that was not right. With them, justice, liberty and humanity were "final;" not slavery and oppression. You may well cherish the memory of such men. They were great in their day and generation. Their solid manhood stands out the more as we contrast it with these degenerate times.

How circumspect, exact and proportionate were all their movements! How unlike the politicians of an hour! Their statesmanship looked beyond the passing moment, and stretched away in strength into the distant future. They seized upon eternal principles, and set a glorious example in their defense. Mark them!

Rock should really take some time and read some of what Douglass had to say.

The Final Authority

Mitt Romney recently said the following in an interview with CBS's Jan Crawford on the Supreme Court's ruling in NFIB v. Seblius, the Obamacare case:

GOV. ROMNEY: Well, the Supreme Court has the final word and their final word is that Obamacare is a tax. So it’s a tax. They decided it was constitutional. So it is a tax and it’s constitutional. That’s the final word—that’s what it is. Now, I agreed with the dissent. I would have taken a different course, but the dissent wasn’t the majority. The majority has ruled and their rule is final. It is a tax.

But as Paul Mirengoff notes:

The Supreme Court’s mandates are binding — they control what happens going forward — but that doesn’t mean that citizens such as Mitt Romney must agree with the Court’s reasoning or its characterizations.

And Abraham Lincoln would agree more with Paul than with Romney on this question.  Here is Lincoln from his Speech on the Dred Scott decision:

We believe, as much as Judge Douglas, (perhaps more) in obedience to, and respect for the judicial department of government. We think its decisions on Constitutional questions, when fully settled, should control, not only the particular cases decided, but the general policy of the country, subject to be disturbed only by amendments of the Constitution as provided in that instrument itself. More than this would be revolution. But we think the Dred Scott decision is erroneous. We know the court that made it, has often over-ruled its own decisions, and we shall do what we can to have it to over-rule this. We offer no resistance to it. 

Romney does not have to go the extra mile and assert that whatever the Supreme Court says is the final say on the Constitution. (The Supreme Court was never understood by the Founders to be the final arbiter of the Constitution; that "principle" was established much much later in Cooper v. Aaron in 1958.)  Lincoln, Andrew Jackson, and the Founders understood that each branch has the duty to interpret the Constitution as they see it.  They also understood that ultimately, the People are truly the final arbiters of the Constitution.