Nearly 11 years after the September 11th attacks, the man who planned and oversaw the murder of 3,000 people on American soil has come to trial. The first day of the proceedings, the arraignment of Kahlid Sheikh Mohammed and his co-terrorists, ran from 9:23 am well into the night and was marred by the antics of the terrorists and their attorneys, one of whom appeared in a burka and demanded that the other women in the courtroom dress in similar fashion in deference to the religious sensibilities of the murders.
And so more than a decade after the 9/11 attacks, we continue to allow these evil men to inflict pain on the families of the victims and the nation at large--to mock the very system of justice that we extend to them.
To what end? In a usual criminal matter, the accused has the option to enter a plea of not guilty and demand a trial or enter a guilt plea and face sentence. In June 2008, KSM admitted his guilt and asked to enter a plea accordingly. He wanted to be "martyred." Again in December 2008, KSM asked for a hearing so that he could announce his glorious guilt to the world.
So KSM is a confessed terrorists and war criminal who wished to plead guilt. Ergo, justice does not demand that we treat him to any further form of "due process". He has no regard for, or interest in, our justice process, nor are there any material issues in dispute that require a trial to resolve.
"The Court hereby deems your earlier plea as accepted and shall now pass sentence. The sentence of the court is that you be taken hence to the gallows and hanged from the neck until dead. May God have mercy on your soul. Next case."
One of the great disgraces of the present era has been the political madness that infected the way in which we handle intelligence gathering and the administration of justice in the War on Terror. It is ironic that the KSM trial commences immediately following President Obama's obscene self-congratulatory victory tour on the anniversary of the death of Osama Bin Laden.
After all, the president is a man who, in large measure, built his political career by denouncing Guantanamo Bay as evil and accusing his own country of "torturing" terror suspects. As president, his very first act was to announce the closure of Gitmo, followed on by his plan to try KSM in federal court in Manhattan and his proclamation that American does not "torture" on his watch. When he couldn't pull off the civilian trial, he needlessly delayed the military commission action against KSM.
Obama also permitted the Justice Department to conduct a witch-hunt against government lawyers and CIA operatives who had allegedly sanctioned and participated in torture--even after earlier investigations had cleared all suspects. And on and on.
It turns out that only three men were ever waterboarded, and then only briefly under highly controlled circumstances. It turns out that the intelligence gathered from these men, and others subjected to the enhanced interrogation techniques, contributed mightily to our finding Bin Laden so that Obama could give the order to kill him and then parade his head on a pike.
But now we must endure the final insult of KSM and his fellow madmen abusing and twisting "due process", mocking the Court, the victims' families and the nation. This charade could drag on, literally, for years.
In mid-June 1942, eight Nazi spies entered the United States by sneaking ashore on Long Island and in Florida. By June 27th, all eight had been arrest. They were tried before a military commission appointed by President Roosevelt between July 8 and August 4, 1942; all were condemned to death. The president commuted the sentences of two men; the other six were executed on August 8th, four days after their convictions.
President Obama fancies himself a new FDR; as such, he ought to follow his predeccesor's penchant for the swift administration of justice to war criminals and murders.
Sunday, May 6, 2012
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Sally Quinn: Know-Nothing
It must be a difficult task to write about an institution when one knows nothing of the institution's history, culture or development. But the challenge has not stopped the Washington Post's Sally Quinn from opining about the Catholic Church.
Here is the link to her latest offering: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-faith/post/the-vatican-vs-the-nuns-what-would-jesus-say/2012/04/24/gIQA7WzkeT_blog.html
As I predicted in my previous post, it didn't take long for a non-Catholic limousine liberal like Quinn to have a meltdown over the Vatican's decision to investigate and oversee the Leadership Conference of Religious Women ("LCRW"), a coalition of Catholic women's religious orders given to all manner of liberal activism.
Yes, the "hierarchical", male-dominated Church strikes again! In an audacious move, the authorities of a particular religious organization decided to take steps to govern their own institution in keeping with their own tenets and understanding of their own faith. How dare they! Sally Quinn does not approve.
Of course, the "celibate men" of the Catholic Church hate women and have set out to "humiliate" nuns--because nuns are women. Can you believe that someone Sally Quinn knows wanted to "return to the church and go on Easter Sunday", but decided not to go because she didn't want to condone the Church's opposition to "abortion rights"?
Call Vatican III immediately! One of Sally Quinn's fellow-travelers has not "returned" to the Church!
The whole column would be laughable if it were not so offensive. It has long been observed that it is easy to hate and malign a person or thing about which one knows nothing. Sally Quinn and the dinner party moralists she represents view the Church as they would a specimen in a zoo--a bazaar curiosity that gives them a sense of moral superiority when they gaze upon it in all of its shocking backwardness.
If the Washington Post wants to run a column or blog on religion, it might consider employing writers who actually practice a religion or, at least, have a modicum of understanding of the institutions they purported to cover and on which they feel entitled to comment.
Here is the link to her latest offering: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-faith/post/the-vatican-vs-the-nuns-what-would-jesus-say/2012/04/24/gIQA7WzkeT_blog.html
As I predicted in my previous post, it didn't take long for a non-Catholic limousine liberal like Quinn to have a meltdown over the Vatican's decision to investigate and oversee the Leadership Conference of Religious Women ("LCRW"), a coalition of Catholic women's religious orders given to all manner of liberal activism.
Yes, the "hierarchical", male-dominated Church strikes again! In an audacious move, the authorities of a particular religious organization decided to take steps to govern their own institution in keeping with their own tenets and understanding of their own faith. How dare they! Sally Quinn does not approve.
Of course, the "celibate men" of the Catholic Church hate women and have set out to "humiliate" nuns--because nuns are women. Can you believe that someone Sally Quinn knows wanted to "return to the church and go on Easter Sunday", but decided not to go because she didn't want to condone the Church's opposition to "abortion rights"?
Call Vatican III immediately! One of Sally Quinn's fellow-travelers has not "returned" to the Church!
The whole column would be laughable if it were not so offensive. It has long been observed that it is easy to hate and malign a person or thing about which one knows nothing. Sally Quinn and the dinner party moralists she represents view the Church as they would a specimen in a zoo--a bazaar curiosity that gives them a sense of moral superiority when they gaze upon it in all of its shocking backwardness.
If the Washington Post wants to run a column or blog on religion, it might consider employing writers who actually practice a religion or, at least, have a modicum of understanding of the institutions they purported to cover and on which they feel entitled to comment.
Monday, April 23, 2012
The Sisters: The Last Piece of the New Evangelization
Last week, the Vatican announced that it had commissioned several American bishops to investigate and oversee an organization known as the Leadership Conference of Women Religious ("LCRW"), a kind of umbrella "trade group" that represents numerous orders of nuns in the United States. The LCRW said it was "stunned" at the Vatican's move. But anyone who has been watching the life of the Roman Catholic Church in recent years would see the action as no surprise.
For the sake of blog-demanded brevity, let us say that life of the Church since circa 1965 has been tumultuous. In the wake of the Second Vatican Council and the changes in the secular culture that flowered in the late 1960s and 1970s, the Church experienced major crises and rampant confusion in doctrine, liturgical norms, sacramental practices and the understanding of vowed religious life.
While the troubles in the life of the modern Church are not over, there has been, in more recent times, a sort of informal agreement on the need for a "reform of the reform." Through the pontificates of John Paul II and Benedict XVI, the Church as begun to live out the "New Evangelization". In short, the New Evangelization is a call for the Faithful to renew their personal commitment to discipleship--to following Jesus Christ and His Gospel--through a renewed embrace of the Church's sacramental and prayer life. There is no question that the present pope, like his predecessor, sees the New Evangelization as, at long last, bringing to fruition the true and proper aims and ends of the Second Vatican Council.
The New Evangelization has taken many forms. It has re-emphasized a devotion to our Blessed Mother and encouraged the prayer of the Rosary. It has returned the practice of Eucharistic Adoration to a commonplace in parishes. It has priests again donning traditional religious garb, such as the cassock. It is responsible for the new edition of the Catechism and the renewed focus on formation. Perhaps most importantly, the New Evangelization is behind the renewal of the Mass, most evident in the new translation into English of the Latin.
Therefore, I believe, the crisis in the life of the Church that followed the Council is over and a new spirit, grounded in tradition, yet enthused with fresh zeal for the Gospel, has taken hold. Yet this project of the "reform of the reform" cannot be completed without the renewal of women's religious life.
The history of women religious, particularly in the United States, is nothing less than awe-inspiring. The achievements of Roman Catholic sisters can hardly be overstated, from the historic founding of countless schools and hospitals to the unrivaled (and vastly under-appreciated) education of tens of thousands of students.
That history, for all practical purposes, ended in the years following the Council. Perhaps no institution in the Church was more damaged and diminished by the mistakes, confusion and foolishness that ran amok in the bad old days. Now, at long last, the Vatican itself has apparently tired of the transformation of women's religious orders from actual religious orders that follow a "rule" and are given over to a particular charism, or mission within the service of the Church, into organizations based around liberal fads and nebulous conceptions of secular "social justice." A quick glance at the website of the LCRW reveals a group with concerns that mirror the hobbyhorses of the Democratic Party, from environmentalism to the wonders of Obamacare.
However noble their intentions, it is indisputable that many of the members of the LCRW no longer participate in what can fairly be characterized as Roman Catholic religious life, nor is it an overstatement to say that discipleship with Jesus Christ no longer forms the central purpose of a number of these communities. Instead, a politicized Gospel has turned these orders into, essentially, groups of liberal activists.
And their absence from the life of the Church has left a gaping hole in the ability of the Church to build the Kingdom on Earth. Contrary to the leftist polemics about the Church's debasement and marginalization of women, the fact is that women have always been integral to the mission of the Church, from at least the moment that Mary Magdalene encountered the Risen Lord in the garden outside the tomb on the first Easter.
When He spoke her name, she knew Him and knew He was alive! This, not political or social causes of various stripes, is the foundation of religious life and the call of the Gospel.
The Spirit is once more at work in the Church and, through the New Evangelization, the Spirit is renewing the Church in this age, just as it has over and over for the past two thousand years. The Church cannot be whole without vibrant religious life, just as it cannot be whole without a vibrant and active laity. Some will grouse about the heavy-handed Vatican bossing around poor little nuns; in truth, the Church is working to reform and renew women's religious life, to heal it, save it and restore it to its proper and glorious place within the Body of Christ.
For the sake of blog-demanded brevity, let us say that life of the Church since circa 1965 has been tumultuous. In the wake of the Second Vatican Council and the changes in the secular culture that flowered in the late 1960s and 1970s, the Church experienced major crises and rampant confusion in doctrine, liturgical norms, sacramental practices and the understanding of vowed religious life.
While the troubles in the life of the modern Church are not over, there has been, in more recent times, a sort of informal agreement on the need for a "reform of the reform." Through the pontificates of John Paul II and Benedict XVI, the Church as begun to live out the "New Evangelization". In short, the New Evangelization is a call for the Faithful to renew their personal commitment to discipleship--to following Jesus Christ and His Gospel--through a renewed embrace of the Church's sacramental and prayer life. There is no question that the present pope, like his predecessor, sees the New Evangelization as, at long last, bringing to fruition the true and proper aims and ends of the Second Vatican Council.
The New Evangelization has taken many forms. It has re-emphasized a devotion to our Blessed Mother and encouraged the prayer of the Rosary. It has returned the practice of Eucharistic Adoration to a commonplace in parishes. It has priests again donning traditional religious garb, such as the cassock. It is responsible for the new edition of the Catechism and the renewed focus on formation. Perhaps most importantly, the New Evangelization is behind the renewal of the Mass, most evident in the new translation into English of the Latin.
Therefore, I believe, the crisis in the life of the Church that followed the Council is over and a new spirit, grounded in tradition, yet enthused with fresh zeal for the Gospel, has taken hold. Yet this project of the "reform of the reform" cannot be completed without the renewal of women's religious life.
The history of women religious, particularly in the United States, is nothing less than awe-inspiring. The achievements of Roman Catholic sisters can hardly be overstated, from the historic founding of countless schools and hospitals to the unrivaled (and vastly under-appreciated) education of tens of thousands of students.
That history, for all practical purposes, ended in the years following the Council. Perhaps no institution in the Church was more damaged and diminished by the mistakes, confusion and foolishness that ran amok in the bad old days. Now, at long last, the Vatican itself has apparently tired of the transformation of women's religious orders from actual religious orders that follow a "rule" and are given over to a particular charism, or mission within the service of the Church, into organizations based around liberal fads and nebulous conceptions of secular "social justice." A quick glance at the website of the LCRW reveals a group with concerns that mirror the hobbyhorses of the Democratic Party, from environmentalism to the wonders of Obamacare.
However noble their intentions, it is indisputable that many of the members of the LCRW no longer participate in what can fairly be characterized as Roman Catholic religious life, nor is it an overstatement to say that discipleship with Jesus Christ no longer forms the central purpose of a number of these communities. Instead, a politicized Gospel has turned these orders into, essentially, groups of liberal activists.
And their absence from the life of the Church has left a gaping hole in the ability of the Church to build the Kingdom on Earth. Contrary to the leftist polemics about the Church's debasement and marginalization of women, the fact is that women have always been integral to the mission of the Church, from at least the moment that Mary Magdalene encountered the Risen Lord in the garden outside the tomb on the first Easter.
When He spoke her name, she knew Him and knew He was alive! This, not political or social causes of various stripes, is the foundation of religious life and the call of the Gospel.
The Spirit is once more at work in the Church and, through the New Evangelization, the Spirit is renewing the Church in this age, just as it has over and over for the past two thousand years. The Church cannot be whole without vibrant religious life, just as it cannot be whole without a vibrant and active laity. Some will grouse about the heavy-handed Vatican bossing around poor little nuns; in truth, the Church is working to reform and renew women's religious life, to heal it, save it and restore it to its proper and glorious place within the Body of Christ.
Sunday, April 1, 2012
The Liberal Shock and Awe at the Supreme Court
Much has been written this past week about liberals' surprise at, and sometimes panic over, the serious way in which a majority of the Supreme Court justices approached the constitutional arguments of the parties challenging Obamacare.
For the most part, conservative commentators have explained the liberal shock and awe by noting the fact that liberals often live in an intellectual bubble in which their own ideas are constantly re-enforced and never questioned. Inside this bubble, the shallow prejudice that holds conservatives are greedy, mean-spirited, bigoted and backward idiots is considered a self-evident truth. Ergo, the conservative legal position must be absurd.
And this is all true. But there is another important legal and political reason that liberals initially and consistently dismissed the constitutional attack on Obamacare. In general, liberals conceive of the Constitution not as a concrete legal document, but as an abstraction. Liberals have developed all manner "theories" of the Constitution--the "partial Constitution", the "invisible Constitution", the "living Constitution"--cooked-up by law professors and other so-called "experts."
In short, these "theories" approach the Constitution not as one would ordinarily approach a legal statute, but instead purport to divine the spirit of the document. The liberals have come to see the Constitution not as a legal document to be treated by courts as they would treat any other statute, but as an aspirational document whose "values" are supposed to guide our government in general manner. Their theories deride the those who actually rely on the Constitution's words and historical development as "textualist" or "originalists"--implying that there are competing theoretical conceptions of the Constitution akin to the tension in philosophical schools, like the tensions between Platonic and Aristotelian thought.
This view of the Constitution--that it is a complex, quasi-philosophical document not susceptible to ordinary principles of statutory interpretation--leads to the liberal bewilderment witnessed this past week. For the opponents of Obamacare argued their case not based upon some abstract notion allegedly underpinning the Constitution, but on the actual words in the document and the indisputable historical context in which those words were put to parchment.
And, lo, the justices actually engaged with these arguments--arguments that asked the Court to perform the kinds of statutory interpretation that lower state and federal courts perform as routine business.
The Constitution empowers Congress to "regulate Commerce...among the several States." Is requiring an individual to purchase a product and enter into a contract with a private entity the regulation of commerce?
The Constitution was intended to give specific, enumerated powers to the federal government. Would upholding the individual mandate effectively grant Congress a general police power and destroy the constitutional scheme of a limited federal government?
To anyone who actually reads the words of the Constitution and who has taken an eighth grade American history course, these questions would appear as obvious and legitimate issues for judicial concern. But not so to liberals. Immersed in their theories and the flimsy court decisions of their fellow-travelers from the last century, liberals do not take seriously the plain words of the Constitution or the notion of a limited federal government.
In their view, government is meant to be a problem solver and, as such, the government is inherently empowered to do whatever is necessary to address problems, especially if the power exercised relates to a seemingly well-intentioned program to combat real or perceived economic inequalities.
Whatever the merits of this conception of government, it is not the one for which the Constitution provides. Only those who do not take the words of the Constitution seriously could possibly be shocked by the fact that the justices of the court charged with interpreting those words and their intended meaning actually did so this past week.
For the most part, conservative commentators have explained the liberal shock and awe by noting the fact that liberals often live in an intellectual bubble in which their own ideas are constantly re-enforced and never questioned. Inside this bubble, the shallow prejudice that holds conservatives are greedy, mean-spirited, bigoted and backward idiots is considered a self-evident truth. Ergo, the conservative legal position must be absurd.
And this is all true. But there is another important legal and political reason that liberals initially and consistently dismissed the constitutional attack on Obamacare. In general, liberals conceive of the Constitution not as a concrete legal document, but as an abstraction. Liberals have developed all manner "theories" of the Constitution--the "partial Constitution", the "invisible Constitution", the "living Constitution"--cooked-up by law professors and other so-called "experts."
In short, these "theories" approach the Constitution not as one would ordinarily approach a legal statute, but instead purport to divine the spirit of the document. The liberals have come to see the Constitution not as a legal document to be treated by courts as they would treat any other statute, but as an aspirational document whose "values" are supposed to guide our government in general manner. Their theories deride the those who actually rely on the Constitution's words and historical development as "textualist" or "originalists"--implying that there are competing theoretical conceptions of the Constitution akin to the tension in philosophical schools, like the tensions between Platonic and Aristotelian thought.
This view of the Constitution--that it is a complex, quasi-philosophical document not susceptible to ordinary principles of statutory interpretation--leads to the liberal bewilderment witnessed this past week. For the opponents of Obamacare argued their case not based upon some abstract notion allegedly underpinning the Constitution, but on the actual words in the document and the indisputable historical context in which those words were put to parchment.
And, lo, the justices actually engaged with these arguments--arguments that asked the Court to perform the kinds of statutory interpretation that lower state and federal courts perform as routine business.
The Constitution empowers Congress to "regulate Commerce...among the several States." Is requiring an individual to purchase a product and enter into a contract with a private entity the regulation of commerce?
The Constitution was intended to give specific, enumerated powers to the federal government. Would upholding the individual mandate effectively grant Congress a general police power and destroy the constitutional scheme of a limited federal government?
To anyone who actually reads the words of the Constitution and who has taken an eighth grade American history course, these questions would appear as obvious and legitimate issues for judicial concern. But not so to liberals. Immersed in their theories and the flimsy court decisions of their fellow-travelers from the last century, liberals do not take seriously the plain words of the Constitution or the notion of a limited federal government.
In their view, government is meant to be a problem solver and, as such, the government is inherently empowered to do whatever is necessary to address problems, especially if the power exercised relates to a seemingly well-intentioned program to combat real or perceived economic inequalities.
Whatever the merits of this conception of government, it is not the one for which the Constitution provides. Only those who do not take the words of the Constitution seriously could possibly be shocked by the fact that the justices of the court charged with interpreting those words and their intended meaning actually did so this past week.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Obamacare and the "Healthcare Market"
As the Supreme Court arguments on Obamacare unfold, it is becoming clear that the government's principal justification for the law's constitutionality rests on its characterization of the nature of the healthcare market.
According to the government, the "market" is unique because, at some point in the life of nearly every person, he will need to participate in this "market" in order to procure healthcare services for himself. As such, the government contends, by requiring an individual to purchase health insurance, the government is effectively regulating the "market" in which, sooner or later, the individual will necessarily participate.
There are manifold flaws in this logic, but the core problem lies in the assumption the government makes about the ill-defined "market" it purports to regulate. Because most people pay for medical services via insurance, the government pre-supposes that the insurance-based model is an essential element of the "market"; that is, as a result of the very nature of this "market", one must pay for health services via a third-party insurance company or a fund of some kind.
This, of course, is not true. The present predominant means by which people pay for healthcare is the result, in the main, of longstanding government policies, including the favorable tax treatment accorded employer-provided coverage and the creation of quasi-insurance programs like Medicare and Medicaid.
Employer-based health insurance is an accident of War World II wage controls under which the government prohibited employers from openly competing for scare labor by offering higher pay, but allowed employers to attract labor with the unrestricted ability to provide health insurance and other "fringe benefits."
The government-caused market distortion persisted after the war, leading to the modern system whereby people expect the insurance companies basically to pay their medical bills. By and large, people began to assume that health insurance was inextricably tied to employment and that coverage could only be obtained through their employers. Always eager to help, state governments across the country made it harder for individuals to purchase policies on their own by requiring that all health insurance policies cover an ever-expanding array of services, driving costs sky-high.
But the present system is not the only possible system, and certainly not the most efficient. We could, for example, pay for medical services the same way we generally pay for food, shelter and clothing--out-of-pocket, from our own funds. People could shop around for a doctor's services, just as they tend to ask a lawyer his fees before retaining his representation. If the law permitted individuals and insurance companies to freely negotiate their insurance contracts, individuals could craft policies to suit their needs and economic circumstances.
In short, the "market" is unique only in so far as the government has regulated it into uniqueness. If we tended to pay for our medical services as we tend to pay for most other services, it would seem absurd to assume that an individual must have insurance in order to partake in the market. The Obamacare mandate would seem insane, just as it would appear insane to mandate that all person purchase "food insurance" because, at some point, we will all purchase food.
The fact that the government has already regulated the "market" into an inefficient one dominated by third-party payers does not provide a constitutional basis on which to force a person to enter into a private contract.
According to the government, the "market" is unique because, at some point in the life of nearly every person, he will need to participate in this "market" in order to procure healthcare services for himself. As such, the government contends, by requiring an individual to purchase health insurance, the government is effectively regulating the "market" in which, sooner or later, the individual will necessarily participate.
There are manifold flaws in this logic, but the core problem lies in the assumption the government makes about the ill-defined "market" it purports to regulate. Because most people pay for medical services via insurance, the government pre-supposes that the insurance-based model is an essential element of the "market"; that is, as a result of the very nature of this "market", one must pay for health services via a third-party insurance company or a fund of some kind.
This, of course, is not true. The present predominant means by which people pay for healthcare is the result, in the main, of longstanding government policies, including the favorable tax treatment accorded employer-provided coverage and the creation of quasi-insurance programs like Medicare and Medicaid.
Employer-based health insurance is an accident of War World II wage controls under which the government prohibited employers from openly competing for scare labor by offering higher pay, but allowed employers to attract labor with the unrestricted ability to provide health insurance and other "fringe benefits."
The government-caused market distortion persisted after the war, leading to the modern system whereby people expect the insurance companies basically to pay their medical bills. By and large, people began to assume that health insurance was inextricably tied to employment and that coverage could only be obtained through their employers. Always eager to help, state governments across the country made it harder for individuals to purchase policies on their own by requiring that all health insurance policies cover an ever-expanding array of services, driving costs sky-high.
But the present system is not the only possible system, and certainly not the most efficient. We could, for example, pay for medical services the same way we generally pay for food, shelter and clothing--out-of-pocket, from our own funds. People could shop around for a doctor's services, just as they tend to ask a lawyer his fees before retaining his representation. If the law permitted individuals and insurance companies to freely negotiate their insurance contracts, individuals could craft policies to suit their needs and economic circumstances.
In short, the "market" is unique only in so far as the government has regulated it into uniqueness. If we tended to pay for our medical services as we tend to pay for most other services, it would seem absurd to assume that an individual must have insurance in order to partake in the market. The Obamacare mandate would seem insane, just as it would appear insane to mandate that all person purchase "food insurance" because, at some point, we will all purchase food.
The fact that the government has already regulated the "market" into an inefficient one dominated by third-party payers does not provide a constitutional basis on which to force a person to enter into a private contract.
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Obama is No Rutherford B. Hayes
President Obama's gas price/energy policy panic continued apace this week, with president's noted remarks depicting Republican proponents of domestic oil production as backward-looking Luddites.
The president's penchant for arrogant and ill-informed sarcasm was on full display, as he declared that oil drilling advocates are the modern equivalent of "flat earth society" members. With haughty disdain, Obama compared those who favor more energy production to his oh-so-pathetic predecessor Rutherford B. Hayes, whom Obama slandered as an anti-technologist who thought that the telephone was a useless invention. "That's why he's not on Mount Rushmore!" Hilarious!
As is so typical of Obama's endless three years of blather, this latest speech is shallow, narcissistic and intellectually false. For starters, press reports immediately debunked his cheap shots at a long-dead president about whom most people know very little. In fact, Hayes enthusiastically installed a telephone at the White House (assigned telephone number "1") and was a friend of Thomas Edison and a supporter of Edison's work. Hayes never questioned the telephone's utility. Obama, rhetorical heir to Cicero, blithely attributed words to Hayes that he never spoke.
And what gall. This from a man who has, more than once, explained our economic troubles by citing the invention of ATMs and airport kiosks--technological advances that put people out of work. One wonders if Obama would have been a fan of Edison, like Hayes, when the light bulb was forcing lay-offs in the lamplighter industry. Certainly not if the lamplighters had a union.
Moreover, the president's general vision for the country is utterly backward looking. He bemoans advances and globalization. He speaks longingly for the days of the unionized, industrial economy of the early and mid-20th century when sons could aspire to have the same assembly-line or steel mill jobs as their fathers held. Dare to dream!
All in all, Obama believes in a 1930s, big government, managed economy--a model that has slowly been abandoned around the world and now, where it exists, is collapsing under its own weight.
Ah, but regardless, the president sees himself as a man of the future. He doesn't favor more production of the substances that actually power homes and automobiles (though, while disparaging production, he simultaneously tells us he has increased it to record levels. So is that good or bad?). He not only favors "green energy", but he insists that the government subsidize and manage its production.
The president seems not to notice or care that his "investments" in solar and wind and algae have flopped. He still maintains that if you oppose larding tax dollars on to unproven companies that frequently go bankrupt, you are a fool and a Luddite. Indeed, why not "invest" in a flying car company or one that is working on a Star Trek-type transporter. We could "beam" millions to work! We wouldn't even need cars--and the government could still keep GM going just for the helluva it! It's iconic! I'm sure Newt Gingrich's moon colony could use a few taxpayer backed loans.
No one is supposed to question Obama's incredible intellect. But the more he speaks, one certainly has to question whether the president has really thought through his positions on various issues. It is increasingly apparent that Obama is blinded by his assumptions and prone to arrogantly dismiss any dissenting view. This narcissism leads him to intellectually confused and ultimately ridiculous positions that, I believe, ultimately will cause the end his presidency this fall.
If only Obama would emulate, rather than mock, Rutherford B. Hayes. After all, Hayes kept his promise not to seek a second term.
The president's penchant for arrogant and ill-informed sarcasm was on full display, as he declared that oil drilling advocates are the modern equivalent of "flat earth society" members. With haughty disdain, Obama compared those who favor more energy production to his oh-so-pathetic predecessor Rutherford B. Hayes, whom Obama slandered as an anti-technologist who thought that the telephone was a useless invention. "That's why he's not on Mount Rushmore!" Hilarious!
As is so typical of Obama's endless three years of blather, this latest speech is shallow, narcissistic and intellectually false. For starters, press reports immediately debunked his cheap shots at a long-dead president about whom most people know very little. In fact, Hayes enthusiastically installed a telephone at the White House (assigned telephone number "1") and was a friend of Thomas Edison and a supporter of Edison's work. Hayes never questioned the telephone's utility. Obama, rhetorical heir to Cicero, blithely attributed words to Hayes that he never spoke.
And what gall. This from a man who has, more than once, explained our economic troubles by citing the invention of ATMs and airport kiosks--technological advances that put people out of work. One wonders if Obama would have been a fan of Edison, like Hayes, when the light bulb was forcing lay-offs in the lamplighter industry. Certainly not if the lamplighters had a union.
Moreover, the president's general vision for the country is utterly backward looking. He bemoans advances and globalization. He speaks longingly for the days of the unionized, industrial economy of the early and mid-20th century when sons could aspire to have the same assembly-line or steel mill jobs as their fathers held. Dare to dream!
All in all, Obama believes in a 1930s, big government, managed economy--a model that has slowly been abandoned around the world and now, where it exists, is collapsing under its own weight.
Ah, but regardless, the president sees himself as a man of the future. He doesn't favor more production of the substances that actually power homes and automobiles (though, while disparaging production, he simultaneously tells us he has increased it to record levels. So is that good or bad?). He not only favors "green energy", but he insists that the government subsidize and manage its production.
The president seems not to notice or care that his "investments" in solar and wind and algae have flopped. He still maintains that if you oppose larding tax dollars on to unproven companies that frequently go bankrupt, you are a fool and a Luddite. Indeed, why not "invest" in a flying car company or one that is working on a Star Trek-type transporter. We could "beam" millions to work! We wouldn't even need cars--and the government could still keep GM going just for the helluva it! It's iconic! I'm sure Newt Gingrich's moon colony could use a few taxpayer backed loans.
No one is supposed to question Obama's incredible intellect. But the more he speaks, one certainly has to question whether the president has really thought through his positions on various issues. It is increasingly apparent that Obama is blinded by his assumptions and prone to arrogantly dismiss any dissenting view. This narcissism leads him to intellectually confused and ultimately ridiculous positions that, I believe, ultimately will cause the end his presidency this fall.
If only Obama would emulate, rather than mock, Rutherford B. Hayes. After all, Hayes kept his promise not to seek a second term.
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Take Pride in the Bailouts, Comrades!
The wisdom and propriety of the Obama Administration's bailout of General Motors and Chrysler is sure to be a significant issue in the fall campaign. As such, the speech that the president gave about two weeks ago in front of the UAW convention in Washington has been on my mind because, I think, it illustrates just how much is a stake in the November election.
This post is not intended as a comment on the merits of the bailouts themselves, though I oppose them, whether initiated by President Obama or his predecessor. Rather, I wish to direct attention to the way in which Obama touts the bailouts as a proud achievement, a central piece of the policy that helped bring about our economic recovery.
Long ago and far away, say three years ago, there seemed to be a consensus across the political spectrum that bailouts are undesirable. Some believed, however, that, during an extraordinary emergency, such as the financial crisis and its immediate aftermath, bailouts of certain industries were a necessary evil to prevent economic calamity. Nonetheless, all agreed that bailouts are unfair and, basically, un-American. Everyone, including President Obama, pledged to end bailouts forever as we emerged from the crisis of 2008-09.
In other words, at best, having the government save, subsidize and quasi-control private industry was regarded as a highly undesirable policy that should be implemented only in a temporary and dire emergency, if at all.
But Obama has since discarded this cramped view of bailouts. Indeed, he is making the quasi-nationalization of GM and Chrysler a centerpiece of his bid for re-election. Now he damns bailout opponents as cowards who simply wanted to let the domestic auto industry fail (never mind that Toyota, BMW and others also make cars here and never sought a dime from the federal government).
Speaking in the first person, in order to take maximum credit, to the union to which he partially sold these GM and Chrysler, he praised the bailouts as a positive good and a sign of his personal commitment to the domestic auto industry, as if he is a (gasp!) Romney-like private investor who staked his personal fortune on turning around two failing giants.
This attitude is deeply troubling--and it ought to disturb observers across the ideological band. It is not exactly in the American tradition to have a president essentially nationalize favored firms and then campaign in front of the very workers who directly benefited from his use of the public fisc on their behalf. This is the stuff of banana republics; there is no question that Obama's words and manner before the UAW would fit in nicely at a sanctioned gathering in Havana or Caracas.
Conservatives, of course, loath bailouts as unwarranted, even illegal, expansions of federal power. But the left, too, objects. Liberals disdain bailouts as examples of the unholy conjunction of evil corporate American with big government. Witness Occupy Wall Street and the Naderite tradition in the Democrat Party. Why, then, is anyone, liberal or conservative, comfortable with a president who is so comfortable with the bailouts of large private firms?
The truth is Obama likes bailouts--they aggrandize federal power, give him a fair amount of control over large portions of the economy (build move Volts!) and virtually guarantee a political pay-off from the persons and groups that reap the benefits of federal intervention. Obama is unconstrained by such details and niceties as the Constitution, the division between public and private sectors and a general presumption in favor of a market economy with its implicit right to succeed or fail on one's own merit.
Accordingly, he depicts the bailouts not as the regrettable residue of an extraordinarily difficult moment, but as a hallmark of the brilliance of his centrally-planned economy. Too bad he wasn't president during the last days of the Dumont, Packard, Gimbal's or Pan Am. Then we might have up to four television networks! We'd have cars on the road and even department stores and airlines--all industries that no longer exist due to federal inaction.
So the next time Obama praises himself on the bailouts, hear his words with these thoughts in mind. Does anyone, left or right, really want a president who so proudly proclaims himself as industry savior, who so blithely ignores the lines between public and private, the market and the government? It is this mentality that not only makes Barack Obama a bad president, but a dangerous one.
This post is not intended as a comment on the merits of the bailouts themselves, though I oppose them, whether initiated by President Obama or his predecessor. Rather, I wish to direct attention to the way in which Obama touts the bailouts as a proud achievement, a central piece of the policy that helped bring about our economic recovery.
Long ago and far away, say three years ago, there seemed to be a consensus across the political spectrum that bailouts are undesirable. Some believed, however, that, during an extraordinary emergency, such as the financial crisis and its immediate aftermath, bailouts of certain industries were a necessary evil to prevent economic calamity. Nonetheless, all agreed that bailouts are unfair and, basically, un-American. Everyone, including President Obama, pledged to end bailouts forever as we emerged from the crisis of 2008-09.
In other words, at best, having the government save, subsidize and quasi-control private industry was regarded as a highly undesirable policy that should be implemented only in a temporary and dire emergency, if at all.
But Obama has since discarded this cramped view of bailouts. Indeed, he is making the quasi-nationalization of GM and Chrysler a centerpiece of his bid for re-election. Now he damns bailout opponents as cowards who simply wanted to let the domestic auto industry fail (never mind that Toyota, BMW and others also make cars here and never sought a dime from the federal government).
Speaking in the first person, in order to take maximum credit, to the union to which he partially sold these GM and Chrysler, he praised the bailouts as a positive good and a sign of his personal commitment to the domestic auto industry, as if he is a (gasp!) Romney-like private investor who staked his personal fortune on turning around two failing giants.
This attitude is deeply troubling--and it ought to disturb observers across the ideological band. It is not exactly in the American tradition to have a president essentially nationalize favored firms and then campaign in front of the very workers who directly benefited from his use of the public fisc on their behalf. This is the stuff of banana republics; there is no question that Obama's words and manner before the UAW would fit in nicely at a sanctioned gathering in Havana or Caracas.
Conservatives, of course, loath bailouts as unwarranted, even illegal, expansions of federal power. But the left, too, objects. Liberals disdain bailouts as examples of the unholy conjunction of evil corporate American with big government. Witness Occupy Wall Street and the Naderite tradition in the Democrat Party. Why, then, is anyone, liberal or conservative, comfortable with a president who is so comfortable with the bailouts of large private firms?
The truth is Obama likes bailouts--they aggrandize federal power, give him a fair amount of control over large portions of the economy (build move Volts!) and virtually guarantee a political pay-off from the persons and groups that reap the benefits of federal intervention. Obama is unconstrained by such details and niceties as the Constitution, the division between public and private sectors and a general presumption in favor of a market economy with its implicit right to succeed or fail on one's own merit.
Accordingly, he depicts the bailouts not as the regrettable residue of an extraordinarily difficult moment, but as a hallmark of the brilliance of his centrally-planned economy. Too bad he wasn't president during the last days of the Dumont, Packard, Gimbal's or Pan Am. Then we might have up to four television networks! We'd have cars on the road and even department stores and airlines--all industries that no longer exist due to federal inaction.
So the next time Obama praises himself on the bailouts, hear his words with these thoughts in mind. Does anyone, left or right, really want a president who so proudly proclaims himself as industry savior, who so blithely ignores the lines between public and private, the market and the government? It is this mentality that not only makes Barack Obama a bad president, but a dangerous one.
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