...when we look at his public record we can learn wider lessons about modern liberalism. What that record teaches us is that there are pronounced inconsistencies to liberalism such that it can barely be considered a political philosophy, inconsistencies so drastic that we can see why it failed to stand the test of time.
Had Mr. Kennedy done nothing else in his career, he would justly be remembered as a great American for his work on the Immigration Act and the Voting Rights Act when he first got to the Senate in 1965. These two bills helped to undo the ugliest sort of institutionalized racism that had persisted in America for forty years in the one case and a hundred in the other. In cases like this, he really was a classic kind of liberal, seeking to lift the boot of government off of the neck of discrete groups of Americans who were being treated unfairly because of what they were, not being judged on the basis of who they were. Here he appealed to the very best in the American people, with the demand that we recognize that all men are created equal and are thereby endowed with equal rights.
However, the Senator and liberalism soon went beyond this basic and quintessentially American idealism and--in the form of programs like affirmative action, Title IX funding, hate crimes legislation, pay equity, and the like--insisted on pretty much the exact opposite, that people be treated differently solely on the basis of what they were. Where the original civil rights laws were able to win society wide support because they said that you should not be forbidden to vote or denied access to a public restroom just because you were black, the liberals now claimed that you were entitled to a job or admission to college or whatever if you were black and your competition was white. Standing the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. on his head, Americans were to be judged on the color of the skin or on their gender. Unsurprisingly, this round of the "civil rights" fight proved to be far more divisive, to the point that it is unresolved today but the trend appears to be towards phasing out the special pleadings Kennedy and company depended on. And the fight would have already been decided against liberalism if public opinion prevailed, rather than court rulings.
Nor was the movement from anti-discrimination to "positive discrimination" the most contradictory stance of Ted Kennedy and liberalism.... Go read it all. In case you don't have time to click through, a comment in the penultimate paragraph is important:
The passing of the great man--and I mean that without irony--affords liberals a unique chance to liberate themselves from Ted Kennedy. They can redefine themselves and their politics in a more modern fashion, without all of the retrograde Second Way baggage that Mr. Kennedy carried. They can get back to first principles, opposing discrimination even of the affirmative kind and opposing Islamicism even though it means fighting in foreign countries and embracing free trade even if we have to accept that Uruguay may not have the same workplace protection as we do yet and defending human life with the same steadfastness they do baby seals. This is the real MoveOn moment for American liberals, the opportunity to move on from a politician and a politics that served them well but no longer makes much internal sense.
Posted by: Mike ||
08/27/2009 13:09 ||
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#1
All I can think of is "Good Riddance",
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
08/27/2009 20:47 Comments ||
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With Sen. Ted Kennedy dead at 77, the political iconographers on Wednesday were working feverishly, like alchemists over a fire.
The Kennedy legacy has always been about American royalty and the appetites of kings and the use of myth, and that myth was always Camelot, those shining knights and the idealistic boy who drew the sword from the stone. With the death of the Massachusetts Democrat, finally, mercifully, let's let Camelot go.
The iconographers on the political right, including some who call themselves Christians, were busy damning his soul to hell for walking away from that crash at Chappaquiddick 40 years ago.
He let young Mary Jo Kopechne drown in the Oldsmobile, her body twisting to find pockets of air in that submerged car as he made it to shore, then waited hours to sober up, put his clout together and save his political career.
Some critics hated him for his politics. Others hated him because his only punishment for Chappaquiddick was that he couldn't be president and so was sentenced to the job of senator for life. Most were upset that the media canonized him as a liberal lion and used Camelot to shield him. It doesn't really matter now.
But can you call yourself a Christian and hope that a man's soul be damned?
On Wednesday, many on the political left -- including some made visibly uncomfortable with any talk of souls -- busily ignored Mary Jo, just as they've always ignored her. But they grabbed onto Camelot for one last ride, and used a dead Kennedy to push for nationalized health care.
"They'll use him for sympathy points on the health care thing," a national Democrat told me on Wednesday. "How far they'll use him I don't know. But they'll use him."
With so much Kennedy adulation and hatred in the air, I had the good fortune to read what his sister-in-law once said about myth and history and Camelot.
Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy ignited the Camelot myth in Life magazine just one week after the assassination of her husband, President John F. Kennedy.
To graft Camelot and the Kennedys in the American mind, she needed a partner and chose pro-Kennedy journalist Theodore H. White.
After that interview, the idealism of the boy king who drew the sword from the stone was permanently ceded to the Kennedys, first to John in death, then to his brother Robert, who was later assassinated.
But it protected Ted Kennedy the best.
Camelot was so powerful that even before Ted Kennedy's death, there were clumsy attempts to graft it onto our current president from Chicago. Invariably they'll try again.
What worried Jacqueline Kennedy in 1963 were the historians. She asked White to rescue her late husband from all those "bitter people" who'd write the histories. She beat them to it with Camelot.
According to White's notes of the interview, Mrs. Kennedy repeated again and again how she and her husband loved the musical "Camelot." She said the president especially loved one of the songs.
"I'd get out of bed at night and play it for him, when it was so cold getting out of bed ... on a Victrola, 10 years old -- and the song he loved most came at the very end of this record, the last side of Camelot, sad Camelot, 'Don't let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment that was known as Camelot.'
"There will never be another Camelot again," Mrs. Kennedy told White.
White got the message. He understood her gracious command. And so did the editors of Life. It was the Kennedys and Camelot. It's been that way ever since.
You'll see what's left of Camelot in the news coverage of the senator's funeral over the weekend. It's all been ground together, through the alchemy of modern American politics.
And if there is a Kennedy legacy, it's not his political philosophy so much as the bizarre American yearning for royalty and myth.
During her interview with White, Mrs. Kennedy also spoke of drama and history in those moments before photographers made the iconic pictures on the day the president was assassinated.
"Everybody kept saying to me to put a cold towel around my head and wipe the blood off. Later I saw myself in the mirror, my whole face spattered with blood and hair. ... I wiped it off with Kleenex. ... History! ... I thought, no one really wants me there. Then one second later, I thought, why did I wash the blood off? I should have left it there. Let them see what they've done.
"If I'd just had the blood and caked hair when they took the picture. ... Then later I said to Bobby -- what's the line between history and drama? I should have kept the blood on."
That line between history and drama for the Kennedys was never very thick, like the line between American realism and our yearning for royalty, and for comforting political myths.
#2
He was
less than he should have been. However, no good comes from any Senator until he stops running for President. We may owe MaryJo more than we know.
#5
Yeah, I don't claim to be a Christian, but the concept of Hell's a useful one. Perhaps self-described Christians ought to reclaim it. Modern Christianity need more fire-and-brimstone Kierkegaardian fear-and-trembling, if you ask me. It's all watered down turn-the-other-cheek milquetoast blatherskitery and *understanding* and I rather feel like I want to hurl.
Teddy Kennedy's greatest curse was that no-one around him was willing to subject him to judgment, and thus he never knew shame. Throughout his adult life, he was talented swine, gifted and cosseted and monstrous.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
08/27/2009 13:53 Comments ||
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#6
Well put, Mitch.
Though I'd leave out the "talented" part....
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
08/27/2009 14:39 Comments ||
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#7
On second thought, let's not go to Camelot. It is a silly place.
Posted by: Mike ||
08/27/2009 15:19 Comments ||
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#8
Meh. He was the families beta male.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
08/27/2009 17:44 Comments ||
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#9
Actually, he was the delta male. Joe Jr was the alpha - groomed to be president, until he volunteered for a dangerous mission (to counter the publicity that JFK got for saving his men on PT109) and ended up getting blown up in the process. JFK stepped up and became president. Bobby was running for president when he was assassinated. Ted would have run for president except for Mary Jo Kopechne.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
08/27/2009 19:22 Comments ||
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#10
Ted ran for President in spite of MJK. Even the donks weren't dumb enough to nominate him.
#12
but the concept of Hell's a useful one.
Maybe time to bring up an email that is doing the rounds.
The following is an actual question given on a University of Washington chemistry mid term.
The answer by one student was so 'profound' that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is, of course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well :
Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?
Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law (gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant.
One student, however, wrote the following:
First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in the world today.
Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added.
This gives two possibilities:
1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.
2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.
So which is it?
If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, 'It will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you,' and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number two must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over. The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct...leaving only Heaven, thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting 'Oh my God.'
...The first thing that surprised me about Auschwitz is that it is not as secluded these days as I expected; it is just right there in what seems like the middle of this average small town. It's just...right there. It is jarring. There's a busy parking lot about 50 yards from the "front door," a lot that is filled with buses and cars and noisy tourists. Again. Very jarring.
Admission to what they now call the Auschwitz Museum is free. The "museum" itself is actually, interestingly, contained within several of the old barracks. But first you have to pass through the most infamous gate in history.
It was the most surreal moment of my life so far. There I was, facing this object I've seen in a thousand photographs, something that is attached in my mind to pure abject despair and massive human suffering...and it's surrounded by happy tourists. It was almost like a Disneyland version of hell, just because of all the serene camera-toting tourists. Of which I was one, I know that, but still. It was nothing short of the worst case of cognitive dissonance I think I'll ever experience.
Also, I was surprised by the small size of that gate. I always imagined it much larger, more imposing. As it is, it's even a little creepier than I anticipated. It looks like something a person might put at the entrance to their garden.
Goddamn Hoess. Do you know the origin of the slogan on the gate, Arbeit Macht Frei? Rudolf Hoess, head of the camp, had been in prison himself during the 1920s, and supposedly remembered that the only thing that had gotten him up in the morning during that time was the knowledge that at least he could work. So as he said later, he copied that slogan from the gate at another camp to help ease the experience of the prisoners. Clearly, he was a humanitarian.
I will tell you right now. The entire day was a series of intensely upsetting moments of terrifying and physically sickening clarity, interspersed with tears, laced with disbelief and all surrounded by a general feeling of impotent but genuine strong rage.... Go read it all.
Posted by: Mike ||
08/27/2009 13:15 ||
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#1
I had a similar experience when I went to visit Dachau with my brother about seven years ago.
It was shocking to see how pretty the little spot where the Soviet POW's were executed as soon as they came in (no records were kept of their names or even how many were killed, they were that inconsequential). The sunlight through the leaves was so peaceful, but even there...there were no birds singing. I had seen birds all over Germany, but there were none there. It was like even they realized what happened there and wanted no part of it.
Just like Ms Lucas, we both kept walking through the complex, tears welling up but refusing to fall, angry, disgusted and heartbroken. Once we finished the tour, we couldn't get out of there fast enough. Only after we were "safe" at our hotel outside Stuttgart could we even start talking again.
I don't remember all that much about the rest of my trip to Germany. I'll remember that day forever, though. (Thanks for posting this, Mike.)
BY DAVID WARREN It is insulting to be told an obvious lie; more insulting when the lie is insisted upon, in the face of undeniable facts. Unfortunately, few of our contemporary politicians seem to grasp this, yet they do not always pay for it in the polls. It appears from this distance that at least Gordon Brown, the current U.K. prime minister, will not be returned to office when the British have their next chance to vote, and that his Labour Party will be annihilated. But I wish I could be sure.
Now, Brown had a great deal counting against him even before the British electorate, and media consumers worldwide, got to see the hero's welcome in Libya for the terrorist the British had released on "compassionate grounds." The prime minister apparently thought Moammar Gaddafi -- the Libyan dictator who sent that terrorist on the Lockerbie mission, just before Christmas in 1988, to celebrate Ronald Reagan's retirement -- could be relied upon not to crow at his success in humiliating the British government.
The lie -- that the release of Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi had nothing to do with direct negotiations between Brown and Gaddafi (and others) last month -- has not washed with anyone. To update my Sunday column, it would now appear that Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish justice minister, was the naive character left finding excuses for a deal already cut well over his head. He is, dear fellow, now trying to get Whitehall permission to publish all the documents of the case, which will show, he thinks, that his "compassionate grounds" were preferable to the much smellier prisoner exchange the Brown government was contemplating. Bless his innocence: the fact that his proposed solution was itself a brazen miscarriage of justice, is lost on him.
*happy sigh* Mr. Warren does have a way with language.
Brown, realizing that the release of this terrorist under any terms would go over poorly with normal people, needed MacAskill as his scapegoat. The question of evil can be taken off the table: MacAskill now stands revealed as a man even stupider than Gordon Brown.
Though not as craven. Americans and others who propose to boycott Scotch whisky should realize that ye Scots had precious little to do with this, beyond their characteristic propensity to elect governments on the motive of class resentment alone. Brown and his government -- recruiting such royal escorts as Prince Andrew to front their trade missions -- were simply trying to do business with the Libyan regime, which is, after all, floating in oil money. Releasing a mass murderer from a Scottish prison likely seemed a small price to pay for all the millions in British business opportunities that remained on ice through Gaddafi's displeasure.
There is a kind of candour in Gaddafi's behaviour that becomes almost attractive in comparison with western business calculations. For the Libyan master terrorist, oil money is important, but only as a means to ends that have nothing to do with economic development. Gaddafi's plain talk, thanking Brown, Prince Andrew, and even our Queen for springing his murderous operative, rings with truth -- confirmed by a glance at the grovelling "Dear Moammar" letter Brown sent him.
Similarly, Gaddafi's open boasting about, for instance, the impending Muslim demographic takeover of Europe, shines with candour in comparison to western essays in political correctness. Like Lenin, Hitler, and every other totalitarian on whom he has modelled himself, Gaddafi long ago realized there was no need to hide his intentions. The "sophistication" of the west is such that if you openly state, "the capitalists will sell us the rope with which we hang them," our diplomatists will go to work explaining this away, while organizing another trade mission.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/27/2009 00:00 ||
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H/T Michelle Malkin This hasn't gotten much attention
The ACLU sneakily photographing CIA officers near their homes, then showing the shots to the imprisoned planners of the 9/11 attacks. A fruitcake fantasy? The government is looking into exactly this.
When the Washington Post three and a half years ago uncovered the CIA's "black prisons" program, in which enhanced interrogation was used against terrorist detainees to foil future atrocities, we forcefully argued that such secret wartime operations ought never be outed.
The Post may have won a Pulitzer for its revelation, but we feel more strongly than ever today. And a new story in that same newspaper gives new facts about the harm it did, and continues to do.
A Justice Department investigation is now apparently investigating whether photos of covert CIA officials surreptitiously taken by the American Civil Liberties Union's "John Adams Project" were unlawfully shown to terrorist detainees charged with organizing the attacks of 9/11.
It's all supposedly part of military lawyers' aggressive defense of their terrorist defendants, on whom enhanced interrogation may have been used. But the Justice probe seems to have given quite a scare to ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero. Refusing to comment on the specifics of his organization's photo activities on behalf of "our clients," Romero complained that the government was not investigating "the CIA officials who undertook the torture."
Has there ever been a more outrageous trading of places? Those behind the attacks that murdered thousands are now the victims? And the courageous U.S. government officials who grilled them for the purpose of preventing further terrorist attacks are now the villains?
Instead of receiving the protection they deserve, they and their family members have apparently been spied on by the ACLU and have had their likenesses displayed to al-Qaida members.
What if these detainees get released -- which the ACLU obviously wouldn't mind seeing happen? Will descriptions of those CIA officers be relayed up the al-Qaida food chain? Will there be "future ops" files on these interrogators and their families somewhere in the mountainous caves of Afghanistan and Pakistan?
The Post story notes that leftist groups here and abroad, European investigators and others "have compiled lists of people thought to have been involved in the CIA's program, including CIA station chiefs, agency interrogators and medical personnel who accompanied detainees on planes as they were moved from one secret location to another."
It says that "working from these lists, some of which include up to 45 names, researchers photographed agency workers and obtained other photos from public records." The ACLU's Romero shrugs his shoulders and calls all that "normal" lawyerly research.
It may be normal for a group that throughout its history has provided aid and comfort to America's adversaries, but compiling a long enemies list and attaching pictures to go with the names should be the least-normal thing imaginable in a free society.
To al-Qaida, such a list of names-paired-with-faces might as well be Stalin's list of those targeted for Communist Party purges in the '30s, '40s and '50s -- in other words, a collective death warrant.
This shows just how foolish it is to treat the POWs of the global war on terror as if they were American citizens protected by our laws and Constitution. Morale is already poor within the agency because the heroes within their ranks have been depicted as little better than the Marquis de Sade.
Who in the CIA will be willing to stick their necks out in the future, with prosecutions hanging over their heads, the blowing of their covers by the ACLU, and the physical endangerment of themselves and their families as their thanks? On top of it all, who really believes the Obama Justice Department will at the end of the day do anything to punish those guilty of aiding the enemy?
It's a smutty business from top to bottom, but the most despicable of this sorry cast of characters have to be those who physically snapped the shots. How depraved must you be to violate and endanger the families of those who saved so many American lives?
#1
Is it Time for CIA friends to take photos of ACLU members & post them on websites? Perhaps show them to terrorists as a part of their "routine legal defense" procedures. I am sure ACLU members can explain their arrogance to terrorists when they come calling.
#3
Wait...wasn't the Plame outing the stick of the Donks evil-Hitler-Bushmonkey meme? Isn't this the basis for an independent counsel to trip up members of the inner White House so they could be sent to jail? Shouldn't these people be subject to the same outrage and punishment? ...oh, it's the left. Never mind.
H/T lucianne.com From a comment by VeteranAmerican, "The messiah is my shepherd I shall not want. "
The first seven months of the Obama administration seemingly make no sense. Why squander public approval by running up astronomical deficits in a time of pre-existing staggering national debt?
Why polarize opponents after promising bipartisan transcendence?
Why create vast new programs when the efficacy of big government is already seen as dubious?
But that is exactly the wrong way to look at these first seven months of Obamist policy-making.
Take increased federal spending and the growing government absorption of GDP. Given the resiliency of the U.S. economy, it would have been easy to ride out the recession. In that case we would still have had to deal with a burgeoning and unsustainable annual federal deficit that would have approached $1 trillion.
Instead, Obama may nearly double that amount of annual indebtedness with more federal stimuli and bailouts, newly envisioned cap-and-trade legislation, and a variety of fresh entitlements. Was that fiscally irresponsible? Yes, of course.
But I think the key was not so much the spending excess or new entitlements. The point instead was the consequence of the resulting deficits, which will require radically new taxation for generations. If on April 15 the federal and state governments, local entities, the Social Security system, and the new health-care programs can claim 70 percent of the income of the top 5 percent of taxpayers, then that is considered a public good -- every bit as valuable as funding new programs, and one worth risking insolvency.
Individual compensation is now seen as arbitrary and, by extension, inherently unfair. A high income is now rationalized as having less to do with market-driven needs, acquired skills, a higher level of education, innate intelligence, inheritance, hard work, or accepting risk. Rather income is seen more as luck-driven, cruelly capricious, unfair -- even immoral, in that some are rewarded arbitrarily on the basis of race, class, and gender advantages, others for their overweening greed and ambition, and still more for their quasi-criminality.
"Patriotic" federal healers must then step in to "spread the wealth." Through redistributive tax rates, they can "treat" the illness that the private sector has caused. After all, there is no intrinsic reason why an auto fabricator makes $60 in hourly wages and benefits, while a young investment banker finagles $500.
Or, in the president's own language, the government must equalize the circumstances of the "waitress" with those of the "lucky." It is thus a fitting and proper role of the new federal government to rectify imbalances of compensation -- at least for those outside the anointed Guardian class. In a 2001 interview Obama in fact outlined the desirable political circumstances that would lead government to enforce equality of results when he elaborated on what he called an "actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change."
Still, why would intelligent politicians try to ram through, in mere weeks, a thousand pages of health-care gibberish -- its details outsourced to far-left elements in the Congress (and their staffers) -- that few in the cabinet had ever read or even knew much about?
Once again, I don't think health care per se was ever really the issue. When pressed, no one in the administration seemed to know whether illegal aliens were covered. Few cared why young people do not divert some of their entertainment expenditures to a modest investment in private catastrophic coverage.
Warnings that Canadians already have their health care rationed, wait in long lines, and are denied timely and critical procedures also did not seem to matter. And no attention was paid to statistics suggesting that, if we exclude homicides and auto accidents, Americans live as long on average as anyone in the industrial world, and have better chances of surviving longer with heart disease and cancer.
That the average American did not wish to radically alter his existing plan, and that he understood that the uninsured really did have access to health care, albeit in a wasteful manner at the emergency room, was likewise of no concern.
The issue again was larger, and involved a vast reinterpretation of how America receives health care. Whether more or fewer Americans would get better or worse access and cheaper or more expensive care, or whether the government can or cannot afford such new entitlements, oddly seemed largely secondary to the crux of the debate.
Instead, the notion that the state will assume control, in Canada-like fashion, and level the health-care playing field was the real concern. "They" (the few) will now have the same care as "we" (the many). Whether the result is worse or better for everyone involved is extraneous, since sameness is the overarching principle.
We can discern this same mandated egalitarianism beneath many of the administration's recent policy initiatives. Obama is not a pragmatist, as he insisted, nor even a liberal, as charged.
Rather, he is a statist. The president believes that a select group of affluent, highly educated technocrats -- cosmopolitan, noble-minded, and properly progressive -- supported by a phalanx of whiz-kids fresh out of blue-chip universities with little or no experience in the marketplace, can direct our lives far better than we can ourselves. By "better" I do not mean in a fashion that, measured by disinterested criteria, makes us necessarily wealthier, happier, more productive, or freer.
Instead, "better" means "fairer," or more "equal." We may "make" different amounts of money, but we will end up with more or less similar net incomes. We may know friendly doctors, be aware of the latest procedures, and have the capital to buy blue-chip health insurance, but no matter. Now we will all alike queue up with our government-issued insurance cards to wait our turn at the ubiquitous corner clinic.
None of this equality-of-results thinking is new.
When radical leaders over the last 2,500 years have sought to enforce equality of results, their prescriptions were usually predictable: redistribution of property; cancellation of debts; incentives to bring out the vote and increase political participation among the poor; stigmatizing of the wealthy, whether through the extreme measure of ostracism or the more mundane forced liturgies; use of the court system to even the playing field by targeting the more prominent citizens; radical growth in government and government employment; the use of state employees as defenders of the egalitarian faith; bread-and-circus entitlements; inflation of the currency and greater national debt to lessen the power of accumulated capital; and radical sloganeering about reactionary enemies of the new state.
The modern versions of much of the above already seem to be guiding the Obama administration -- evident each time we hear of another proposal to make it easier to renounce personal debt; federal action to curtail property or water rights; efforts to make voter registration and vote casting easier; radically higher taxes on the top 5 percent; takeover of private business; expansion of the federal government and an increase in government employees; or massive inflationary borrowing. The current class-warfare "them/us" rhetoric was predictable.
Usually such ideologies do not take hold in America, given its tradition of liberty, frontier self-reliance, and emphasis on personal freedom rather than mandated fraternity and egalitarianism. At times, however, the stars line up, when a national catastrophe, like war or depression, coincides with the appearance of an unusually gifted, highly polished, and eloquent populist. But the anointed one must be savvy enough to run first as a centrist in order later to govern as a statist.
Given the September 2008 financial meltdown, the unhappiness over the war, the ongoing recession, and Barack Obama's postracial claims and singular hope-and-change rhetoric, we found ourselves in just such a situation. For one of the rare times in American history, statism could take hold, and the country could be pushed far to the left.
That goal is the touchstone that explains the seemingly inexplicable -- and explains also why, when Obama is losing independents, conservative Democrats, and moderate Republicans, his anxious base nevertheless keeps pushing him to become even more partisan, more left-wing, angrier, and more in a hurry to rush things through. They understand the unpopularity of the agenda and the brief shelf life of the president's charm. One term may be enough to establish lasting institutional change. And this is the worry of many Americans
Obama and his supporters at times are quite candid about such a radical spread-the-wealth agenda, voiced best by Rahm Emanuel -- "You don't ever want a crisis to go to waste; it's an opportunity to do important things that you would otherwise avoid" -- or more casually by Obama himself -- "My attitude is that if the economy's good for folks from the bottom up, it's gonna be good for everybody. I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."
So we move at breakneck speed in order not to miss this rare opportunity when the radical leadership of the Congress and the White House for a brief moment clinch the reins of power. By the time a shell-shocked public wakes up and realizes that the prescribed chemotherapy is far worse than the existing illness, it should be too late to revive the old-style American patient.
#1
To "covet your neighbor's property" was condemned as a sin thousands of years ago. Recognized as evil, along with murder & lying. No plans based on the systematic violations of the 10 Commandments is going to end well.
#3
There is one more, perhaps most insidious possibility. The unleashing of this massive, borrowed tidal wave of cash will produce the largest onset of inflation ever seen in American history. Debt is a fixed amount based on face value of the instruments, but actual money is not really face value, but purchasing power, often best represented by the theoretical basket of goods. Massive inflation will literally result in the diminuation of the national debt in terms of real value, what economists call monitizing the debt. Essentially printing more money and essentially stealing the actual value of every private holding in America through lost real value. This is the solution to Medicare and Social Security, since you can still make the payments, just know that they have less real value. The trick will be the adjustment of the inflation affected tax rates without corresponding cost of living markers in the entitlement laws/regulations.
Seeing them remove the links will be the proof of this.
Hope I'm wrong, because it will end very badly...
#4
#3 - I think inflation is kind of low on the ladder of risk this country is on. The US has to borrow about $3 billion a day just to keep functioning. An unknown number of US banks are insolvent, kept alive only by accounting trickery & federal bailouts. The FDIC, which was created to protect society from deposit runs, is no longer able to fulfill its mission because the biggest banks have grown far beyond its grasp. The amount FDIC has to back up the deposits it supposedly insures is a small fraction of the deposits actually at risk. This can't go on forever. The US economy is not as resilient as VDH seems to think.
Move over, Hollywood, Bollywood and all the rest of you glitterati. The world has entered the age of the Celebrity Tyrant. Hardly a week goes by without the exploits of some despot or other snatching the headlines--whether it's North Korea's Kim Jong Il hosting Bill Clinton for dinner and a detainee pickup; Muammar al-Qaddafi celebrating the parole of one of his Lockerbie-bombing terrorist agents; or Burma's Than Shwe milking the hostage-politics racket for a house call from Senator Jim Webb.
Not that despots are anything new. But about a generation back, they were a lot less bold and a lot less rich in cachet....
...Were this all some piece of ancient history, it would be fascinating to follow the adventures of these despots, complete with their social schedules, mutual back-scratching, signature apparel and stage appearances. But however enlightened the world around many of us may appear, this is happening now. The social circuit for this crew is also a conduit for deals, alliances and a kind of gangland solidarity that makes it ever more difficult to shut any one of them down.
These are celebrities who answer to no law and no electorates. They are increasingly in the business of eroding rules of conduct that are vital to any civilized world order. They are riding much too high these days, and while it may be human nature to watch them with interest, it would be folly to forget for even a moment that all that glitter, wealth and showmanship--from Bedouin tent to designer shoes to creamy stationery--comes from the barrel of a gun.
Posted by: Mike ||
08/27/2009 13:28 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
It is insulting to be told an obvious lie; more insulting when the lie is insisted upon, in the face of undeniable facts. Unfortunately, few of our contemporary politicians seem to grasp this, yet they do not always pay for it in the polls. It appears from this distance that at least Gordon Brown, the current U.K. prime minister, will not be returned to office when the British have their next chance to vote, and that his Labour Party will be annihilated. But I wish I could be sure.
Claudia Rosett, Forbes Magazine
These are celebrities who answer to no law and no electorates. They are increasingly in the business of eroding rules of conduct that are vital to any civilized world order. They are riding much too high these days, and while it may be human nature to watch them with interest, it would be folly to forget for even a moment that all that glitter, wealth and showmanship--from Bedouin tent to designer shoes to creamy stationery--comes from the barrel of a gun.
