If there is one reason people are considering supporting former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney for president, it's because he's considered "electable," meaning he has a fair shot to defeat President Obama in 2012.
If there was one thing that hampered Romney's 2008 campaign it was the perception that he was a flip-flopper, a role which earned him the nickname "Multiple Choice Mitt."
While trying to present himself as a conservative, and even winning the endorsement of National Review, Romney was dogged by a very recent and probably very politically calculated switch from pro-choice on abortion to pro-life. This from a man who minced no words in assuring Massachusetts voters during a 2002 gubernatorial debate that he would "preserve and protect a woman's right to choose."
A more pressing issue for the 2012 presidential primaries is the national health care scheme passed by the last Congress. The plan that served as the model for Obamacare infamously bears the signature of Governor Mitt Romney.
Knowing that the Republican nominee in 2012 will have to campaign against Obama's landmark achievement, the president must be licking his lips knowing that a likely opponent of his will have to contort himself in an attempt to effectively campaign against himself. Voters would be sure to be reminded of another Massachusetts presidential candidate who also voted for something before he voted against it.
As of this writing, there is speculation that real estate mogul and reality TV star Donald Trump is running for president. Considering that a reality TV star may be a presidential contender should tell us that the line between reality and fantasy is already blurred.
Like Romney, Trump had always been pro-choice until he thought about running for president. Now "The Donald," a philandering, casino-running, beauty pageant-owning egomaniac has gotten religion. Doing an interview for the Christian Broadcasting Network, one that looks more like The Onion than anything else, Trump is now telling us how much he loves the Bible, how much he loves sending people Bibles, and how great it is going to church.
So now it appears that Trump is doing what Romney has done for years, trying to convince us that he is not what he has always been: an empty suit who will say anything to advance himself.
Last week, a few reports surfaced on the Drudge Report where Trump, on separate occasions, labeled both George W. Bush and Obama has "the worst president ever."
Shortly after the 2008 presidential election, Trump called Bush "evil" and even though he supported John McCain, he felt comfortable with President-elect Obama because he would govern by "consensus" and not rush off to war in a bull-headed manner like Bush. On the one hand, this may only mean that Trump was one among millions snookered by the smooth rhetoric of candidate Obama. But on the other hand, one has to wonder, if Trump believed Bush was bull-headed and rash in going to war, what had he ever seen in McCain's character and temperament that led him to believe the Arizona Republican would have been any different?
Even though Trump has traditionally supported Democrats and before he supported McCain, he preferred Hillary Clinton, which might give us a clue about how "The Donald" feels about government-run health care.
Like much of the current appeal of a Romney candidacy, the reason conservatives seem to be giving for supporting Trump is that he has a chance to beat Obama.
But if Republicans choose Trump, what does that say?
It means that after a lifetime of supporting Democrats and Democratic causes, all a celebrity like Trump has to do is start saying a few of the right things and he suddenly has conservative bona fides.
Are Republicans and conservatives so eager to make a Faustian Bargain to regain control of the White House that anyone, regardless of all the evidence against them, will do so long as they read the right lines?
Time will tell.
Showing posts with label Barack Obama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Barack Obama. Show all posts
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Obama's War of Choice
So now Barack Obama has joined the presidential wars club.
By engaging militarily in Libya without even the veneer of congressional authorization, Ohio representative Dennis Kucinich suggested that the president's actions are "an impeachable offense." He's been derided by members of his own party, but Kucinich is right. If unconstitutionally sending the U.S. military to intervene in another nation's civil war is not an impeachable offense then nothing is.
While there have been no declarations of war since World War II, presidents have routinely circumvented the Constitution's clearly stated clause that only Congress can declare war by calling their decisions a "police action" or getting a watered-down resolution. There is some debate concerning whether the president may order military action in an immediate emergency and then call Congress once the emergency stage has passed. But what's happening in Libya in no way resembles an emergency that requires the president to act unilaterally and without constitutional authority. Instead, the former professor of constitutional law has allowed the UN Security Council resolution to serve as the supreme law of the land.
But the UN Security Council resolution only authorizes that there may be "all necessary measures" to "protect Libyan citizens." If the Authorization for Use of Military Force legislation of 2001 was a blank check for President Bush, then what is this? Just what does "all necessary measures" to "protect Libyan citizens" mean?
Now that Obama has plunged the United States into this civil war, what are our objectives in protecting Libyan citizens?
By intervening in the first place, Obama has assured that the only possible outcome of this conflict means Gaddafi is dethroned. By entering on the side of the rebels, Obama has staked his claim. To offer limited assistance and then pull away is to condemn the rebels to the mercy of Gaddafi.
Why intervene on the side of the rebels unless it is to see them to victory? And if we take them across the finish line, how then does the new government in a fragile, fractious country operate unless it is propped up? What of Gaddafi's fighters? As students of history should know, the losers in a civil war do not often lay down all their weapons and celebrate the peace when the war is declared "over."
So why intervene in the first place? Is it because the UN said it was okay? If so, Obama has done nothing less than cede American sovereignty.
What vital American national interests are involved in who rules a cobbled-together kingdom of the northern Sahara?
Consider this: Moammar Gaddafi seized power over 40 years ago. Why is it that only now he is such a menace to American national interests that he must be confronted? It's been over 22 years since Gaddafi's only successful aggression against the United States, the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. Although 190 Americans died that day there was no military action taken against the "Mad Dog of the Middle East." If no previous president from Reagan to George W. Bush felt the mass murder of American civilians was worth retaliating against Gaddafi, why does protecting the lives of Libyan citizens merit it now?
As the Arab League bails out it becomes increasingly clear that it will only be the United States policing this conflict. Great Britain and France may have led the initial charge to act but countries facing insolvency are not long for occupations.
To invoke General Petraeus in 2003, how does this end?
By involving the United States, Obama makes this his war, regardless of whether Hillary or Samantha Power bullied him into it. If he calls off the whole shebang, he will have made himself into a fool by first declaring "Gaddafi must go," doing nothing for two weeks before reluctantly inserting American firepower, and ultimately leaving Libya with Gaddafi still in power having outlasted the strongest military on the planet with his third-rate army.
So now President Obama has taken us to war. He has taken us to war in a country where no national interests are at stake and he did so without the slightest acknowledgement from Congress. His actions have left the door open for more naked acts of aggression in the future.
Now is as good a time as any for that neglected congress to grow a backbone, reclaim their constitutional authority to declare war and finally put a stop to these presidential wars.
It's time for Speaker Boehner to make a real stand and assert one of his chamber's remaining power: The power to impeach the president for high crimes and misdemeanors.
By engaging militarily in Libya without even the veneer of congressional authorization, Ohio representative Dennis Kucinich suggested that the president's actions are "an impeachable offense." He's been derided by members of his own party, but Kucinich is right. If unconstitutionally sending the U.S. military to intervene in another nation's civil war is not an impeachable offense then nothing is.
While there have been no declarations of war since World War II, presidents have routinely circumvented the Constitution's clearly stated clause that only Congress can declare war by calling their decisions a "police action" or getting a watered-down resolution. There is some debate concerning whether the president may order military action in an immediate emergency and then call Congress once the emergency stage has passed. But what's happening in Libya in no way resembles an emergency that requires the president to act unilaterally and without constitutional authority. Instead, the former professor of constitutional law has allowed the UN Security Council resolution to serve as the supreme law of the land.
But the UN Security Council resolution only authorizes that there may be "all necessary measures" to "protect Libyan citizens." If the Authorization for Use of Military Force legislation of 2001 was a blank check for President Bush, then what is this? Just what does "all necessary measures" to "protect Libyan citizens" mean?
Now that Obama has plunged the United States into this civil war, what are our objectives in protecting Libyan citizens?
By intervening in the first place, Obama has assured that the only possible outcome of this conflict means Gaddafi is dethroned. By entering on the side of the rebels, Obama has staked his claim. To offer limited assistance and then pull away is to condemn the rebels to the mercy of Gaddafi.
Why intervene on the side of the rebels unless it is to see them to victory? And if we take them across the finish line, how then does the new government in a fragile, fractious country operate unless it is propped up? What of Gaddafi's fighters? As students of history should know, the losers in a civil war do not often lay down all their weapons and celebrate the peace when the war is declared "over."
So why intervene in the first place? Is it because the UN said it was okay? If so, Obama has done nothing less than cede American sovereignty.
What vital American national interests are involved in who rules a cobbled-together kingdom of the northern Sahara?
Consider this: Moammar Gaddafi seized power over 40 years ago. Why is it that only now he is such a menace to American national interests that he must be confronted? It's been over 22 years since Gaddafi's only successful aggression against the United States, the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. Although 190 Americans died that day there was no military action taken against the "Mad Dog of the Middle East." If no previous president from Reagan to George W. Bush felt the mass murder of American civilians was worth retaliating against Gaddafi, why does protecting the lives of Libyan citizens merit it now?
As the Arab League bails out it becomes increasingly clear that it will only be the United States policing this conflict. Great Britain and France may have led the initial charge to act but countries facing insolvency are not long for occupations.
To invoke General Petraeus in 2003, how does this end?
By involving the United States, Obama makes this his war, regardless of whether Hillary or Samantha Power bullied him into it. If he calls off the whole shebang, he will have made himself into a fool by first declaring "Gaddafi must go," doing nothing for two weeks before reluctantly inserting American firepower, and ultimately leaving Libya with Gaddafi still in power having outlasted the strongest military on the planet with his third-rate army.
So now President Obama has taken us to war. He has taken us to war in a country where no national interests are at stake and he did so without the slightest acknowledgement from Congress. His actions have left the door open for more naked acts of aggression in the future.
Now is as good a time as any for that neglected congress to grow a backbone, reclaim their constitutional authority to declare war and finally put a stop to these presidential wars.
It's time for Speaker Boehner to make a real stand and assert one of his chamber's remaining power: The power to impeach the president for high crimes and misdemeanors.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
A Serious Tea Party
Under discussion: The Tea Party Goes to Washington by Rand Paul with Jack Hunter, 272 pages, $21.99, Hardcover.
What is the Tea Party? Is it the refashioned conservative movement? Is it the reaction to a new liberal Democratic president? Or worst of all, is the Tea Party just a bunch of astroturfing-Fox News-watching-racist rednecks? In The Tea Party Goes to Washington, Kentucky senator Rand Paul begins to give us an answer.
The Tea Party, according to Senator Paul, is a reaction to the big spending of Washington and a desire to curtail the power of the federal government. The trouble, or virtue, of a movement without a central hierarchy is that there is no unified message or platform. There have been a few attempts to present an official Tea Party message but A Tea Party Manifesto and That’s No Angry Mob – That’s My Mom are mostly relegated to the bargain shelf at Borders.
If there is a difference between earlier attempts at a Tea Party synthesis and Rand Paul’s it's that the current volume is attached to the platform of a victorious candidate. Since winning, Marco Rubio has shunned the Tea Party label he rode to election, exposing himself as the Bush family agent that he always was, while Tea Party losers Joe Miller, Christine O’Donnell, and Sharron Angle are already largely forgotten. So without the competing versions, the Rand Paul incarnation of the Tea Party shines brighter. And considering the contents of The Tea Party Goes to Washington, it’s sure to ruffle the feathers of anyone who would like to see the Tea Party either go away or be co-opted by the Republican Party altogether.
A note is needed first on the aesthetics of the book. The cover art depicts the Capitol Dome being squeezed by a belt, indicative of the diet Washington needs. But what’s most intriguing about the cover is what’s not there: a picture of the author himself. Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, and Newt Gingrich – all presidential contenders – all adorn the covers of their books.
Nor is this unique to politicians. Talk show hosts Mark Levin, Sean Hannity, Keith Olbermann, and Chris Matthews all have their mugs defacing the covers of their books. This is no coincidence. Most of the people hawking books are not actually interested in ideas but only in advancing themselves. Will someone tell me what would be the primary difference between a Huckabee candidacy and a Romney one? What’s in Sean Hannity’s book that’s not in Mark Levin’s? The difference is only in personality and style. The fact that Senator Paul is absent from the front cover (although not the back where he is pictured with his smiling wife) indicates that the book is more about his ideas than about himself personally.
The book itself is charming because it is part autobiography and part agenda. Facing the first page of every chapter is a photo, including pictures from the senator’s childhood as Ron Paul’s son and several with his own family from the campaign trail. While these images and stories from the campaign and his life are affectionate and reinforce the already-present human side of Rand Paul, the most lasting impression in the book is how radical it is. Radical not in the sense that the senator should fear being dragged before Peter King’s inquisition, but radical in how there are real ideas in the book and not shallow talking points.
This radicalism is evident even before the first page of the text. Rand Paul’s selection of a co-author is Jack Hunter, a so-far obscure South Carolina columnist and radio commentator known to many by his alias, The Southern Avenger. This choice of co-author is remarkable because Hunter, a veteran of both the Ron Paul Revolution and the Buchanan Brigades, proto-Tea Party movements, had, like Rand Paul, also never written a book. It is not for nothing that Rand Paul’s collaborator was not an accomplished ghost writer but an authentic voice of the grassroots Right.
The fingerprints of the co-author are everywhere to be found. Chapter 3, “Equal Parts Chastisement, Republicans and Democrats” is vintage Jack Hunter, including a brief introduction to the neoconservatives and treatment of Fred Barnes’ sycophantic 2003 Wall Street Journal article “Big Government Conservatism” where the Weekly Standard veteran condoned and justified George W. Bush’s growth of government. Rand Paul sees the disconnect among Republicans who took this sort of blind eye to the Republican Bush’s growth but are enraged by the Democrat Obama’s growth. “Consider this – what kind of person would talk about how badly the neighbors’ kids behave while ignoring the bad behavior of their own children?” (62) is a phrase Mr. Hunter’s listeners have heard a time or two.
Not to be outdone, Rand Paul reminds Democrats that they are just as guilty of looking the other way when their man does the same crime:
“Contrary to his supporters’ belief, Obama’s agenda has not been a reversal of Bush’s agenda but an extension of it, only more ambitious in scope and even more reckless in spending. Amazingly, and perhaps ironically, even on the issues that once animated the Left against the Republicans – prolonged war, civil liberties infringements, the further empowerment of the executive branch – Obama has basically maintained the same policies as his predecessor, and in some cases has expanded them.” (59)
And this was before Obama reinstituted indefinite detention at Guantanamo Bay. One wonders if waterboarding will be next.
But nowhere is the radicalism more evident than in Chapter 7, “A Conservative Foreign Policy,” and nowhere else is it more evident that Rand Paul is indeed his father’s son.
In this important chapter, the reader is treated to discussions of the neoconservative influence on foreign policy, the long-forgotten Senator Robert Taft, and a call to end nation-building.
Outside of the often insular conservative movement, there is scant attention or even acknowledgement of the existence of the neoconservatives and to find a discussion of this sect of interlopers in a U.S. senator’s book is more than just a breath of fresh air – it is a torrent, especially when there are phrases peppered in like “a Republican Party tainted by neoconservative ideology.”
The importance of the issues discussed in this chapter have been brought up before in Ron Paul’s books and more academic treatises, but the blessing in Rand Paul’s book is that he makes arguments that got his father booed without incurring the same wrath himself. In other words, Rand Paul takes foreign policy, an issue on which there was no allowable dissent during the Bush years, and presents it in a way that can be accepted by conservatives:
“The great irony is that conservatives preach individual responsibility and reliance domestically but practice policies abroad that create dependence on foreign aid and dependence on foreign soldiers. Where conservatives will ask the domestically unemployed to seek work and become independent of government welfare, abroad we let nations depend on our succor. We don’t demand the same self-reliance internationally that we do domestically.” (131-132)
If there are a couple of faults with The Tea Party Goes to Washington they have to do with the frequent references to his father. Littered throughout the text are phrases like “My father always says . . .” or “My dad believes . . .” but these are only slightly distracting. This is not necessarily Rand Paul’s fault – it just proves he came from a stable home and his father was obviously around enough to influence him – but this may expose the younger Paul to criticism among the uneducated that he is just a clone of his father.
There were also a couple of minor historical errors regarding years. On page 144, Gerald Ford is referred to as the moderate candidate for president in 1974, the year Ford ascended to the presidency, not the year he was a candidate for president, which was 1976. Then on page 154, Neville Chamberlain is said to have signed a peace treaty with Germany in 1939, the “appeasement” of Hitler. The author is probably thinking about the Munich Agreement which was in 1938.
The Tea Party Goes to Washington, with over four pages of recommended books and websites at the end, is undeniably a book about not just ideas, but fresh ideas. The Republican establishment did its best to wall Rand Paul out of the U.S. Senate during the 2010 primary, in much the same way they did to his father at the 2008 Republican National Convention, a sleight that does not go unnoticed by the son.
It's easy to see why.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Know Nothing Party
How things have changed in two short years.*
In November 2008 we were told conservatism was dead and the Republican Party was on its way to Whig status. Ragin' Cajun James Carville boastfully predicted 40 years of Democratic governance.
Maybe not.
Now conservatism is in an ascendancy. The Republicans are back and have learned that the reason they were fired in the first place was because of all that spending. Now that Republicans are back in the House, they can get to work on repealing Obamacare, privatizing Social Security, and ending the welfare state.
Maybe not.
For all the chatter, there isn't anything even broadly revolutionary about this election. There might be a few upsets and a few unapproved candidates might survive running the gauntlet, but this Republican Congress will likely resemble the ones that disappointed from 1994-2006.
The mistake made by rose-spectacled Republicans comes in thinking that a change of majority parties makes much of a difference beyond the name plates and seating arrangements.
Time magazine just put "Party Crashers" Rand Paul, Christine O'Donnell, Marco Rubio, and Meg Whitman on its election issue cover. That Bush Republican Marco Rubio and former eBay CEO and billionaire Meg Whitman are somehow considered "a new breed of Republicans" tells us enough about what is considered "Tea Party" these days.
Too much buzzkill?
The first reason for skepticism is that there has not been a serious philosophical shift, nay even a debate within the GOP.
One might argue that support for the bank bailouts or President Obama's stimulus became a litmus test since it resulted in the scalp of Bob Bennett and the defection of Arlen Specter. But that anyone can support the promotion to Speaker of the House for bailout leader John Boehner suggests that the party leadership won't have to pay for their sins.
The one issue that got Republicans kicked out in the first place, foreign policy and the disastrous experiments in Middle Eastern nation-building, has been a non-issue in this election cycle.
Republicans have convinced themselves and probably convinced a lot of voters that the real reason they got booted was because they spent too much. The party's recent emphasis on economic issues would be a step in the right direction if it was rooted in anything besides partisanship. Like the kid who got spanked for sticking his hand in the cookie jar, these Republicans are only sorry they got caught.
Secondly, there is nothing in this election to suggest confidence in Republicans -- only that Democrats failed and voters had nowhere else to turn.
Republican victories this year are also consistent with historical precedent. In America's duopoly, the ruling party traditionally loses big in the first midterm. One party fails and the other one gets their chance to do . . . something.
In 1954, during Dwight Eisenhower's first term as president and the first such Republican in 20 years, the GOP lost 18 seats in the House. Reagan's Republicans got routed in 1982 while the economy was still sour. Bill Clinton had large majorities in Congress in 1994 before losing a whopping 54 seats. With the memory of 9/11 still fresh, George W. Bush's GOP temporarily broke the trend by adding 8 seats at midterm.
Since the Republicans have gone into exile, there has been no urgency to address issues. Republican identity for the past two years has been wrapped up in opposition to the Democratic president. It's not because he's black. It's because he's a Democrat.
The new Republican ascendance has nothing to do with a re-birth of conservatism or faith in the GOP and everything to do with a Democratic ruling majority that didn't delivery what it promised despite overwhelming majorities.
The Republicans' position as the majority party in Congress doesn't preclude them from relinquishing their title as the Party of No. They can still oppose President Obama at every turn for the next two years but that won't mean they stand for anything.
The Republican Party doesn't need to be restored to power. It needs some fresh ideas and new leaders.
And if Barack Obama can defy conventional wisdom and make a Clintonian move to the Center, who will he and the rest of us have to thank for providing no genuine alternative?
Thursday, August 19, 2010
American Losers
The two sides arguing over the “Ground Zero” mosque could hardly be more hysterical if they were dreamt up by a comic book writer.
Political figures like Sarah Palin and New Gingrich, who would seem to have 2012 aspirations, have weighed in with their invectives on the issue of whether New York City Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf can build (or renovate) a multiple-purpose community center that happens to have a mosque in it as well as a plaque offering condolences for the victims of September 11.
But it's the intransigents on both sides in this argument have made this a no-win situation.
Just what exactly is to be gained by anybody regarding this mosque?
Will terrorism go away if they can’t build this mosque? Will we be unable to mourn those who died a few blocks away on 9/11 if a Muslim prays nearby? And since two New York City blocks from Ground Zero is an affront to the families of 9/11 victims, would three blocks be sufficient to remove the insensitivity of this undertaking? Four? Five? Twenty?
And if Osama bin Laden is able to recruit terrorists to his cause because Muslims around the world perceive the “Overseas Contingency Operations” as a war against their religion, then how does this mosque fiasco not serve his purposes perfectly?
Only in the broadest sense was this ever about religious freedom. There are already over one hundred mosques in New York City. Muslims certainly aren’t denied the freedom to worship.
The reason for the outrage over this “mosque” is obvious and understandable. Almost nine years ago, a few blocks away from the proposed site, mass murders were carried out by people devoted to a fanatical religious and political belief. That Japanese would want to erect a Shinto shrine at Pearl Harbor in 1950 is neither an unfounded nor a completely irrelevant comparison.
But Sufi Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is not the Wahhabi Osama bin Laden and the Cordoba House is not an affiliate of al-Qaeda. To conflate these actors is to certify that Americans, or at least American politicians, know nothing about the faith of over a billion people.
Among the people defending the building are New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and President Obama. The same Michael Bloomberg who discovered he had the authority to ban trans fats and serve a third term as mayor and the same President Obama, who thinks the Constitution grants health insurance to every American, come out of this debacle with the perception that they are the ones with a clearer understanding of the Constitution.
What’s worse is that these multiculturalists on the Left get to hide behind their supposed love for the First Amendment even as they prove themselves less interested in permitting the freedoms of the Second, Fifth, or Tenth Amendments. Why, who in the world would want to deny Muslims the right to worship anywhere they want unless they were Ra-a-a-a-acists! The Left gets to continue its indulgence that we can all just get along and they set up a trap to make the Right look mindlessly authoritarian, to which they eagerly complied.
Regardless of which “side” prevails in this charade one thing can be sure: the only losers are the American people.
Partisans of the Left and Right get to continue indulgence in their fantasies: All the Muslims are coming to kill us vs. We can’t allow somebody to not get whatever they want wherever they want it especially if they’re a minority.
Never mind that this was, at most, a state issue that had nothing to do with the First Amendment’s injunction that the federal government could not impose a state church on Americans. As a local property rights issue, this should not have animated the 99% of Americans who live outside Manhattan.
Never mind also that this one-act play was performed without any real discussion about states’ rights, what effect this “mosque” has in our relations with Muslims already living in our own country, or whether our foreign policy has anything to do with why some Muslims want to murder Americans in the first place.
Then again, isn't it much easier in our idiocracy to abide by the two choices given to us by our masters than to ponder any forbidden third option?
Political figures like Sarah Palin and New Gingrich, who would seem to have 2012 aspirations, have weighed in with their invectives on the issue of whether New York City Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf can build (or renovate) a multiple-purpose community center that happens to have a mosque in it as well as a plaque offering condolences for the victims of September 11.
But it's the intransigents on both sides in this argument have made this a no-win situation.
Just what exactly is to be gained by anybody regarding this mosque?
Will terrorism go away if they can’t build this mosque? Will we be unable to mourn those who died a few blocks away on 9/11 if a Muslim prays nearby? And since two New York City blocks from Ground Zero is an affront to the families of 9/11 victims, would three blocks be sufficient to remove the insensitivity of this undertaking? Four? Five? Twenty?
And if Osama bin Laden is able to recruit terrorists to his cause because Muslims around the world perceive the “Overseas Contingency Operations” as a war against their religion, then how does this mosque fiasco not serve his purposes perfectly?
Only in the broadest sense was this ever about religious freedom. There are already over one hundred mosques in New York City. Muslims certainly aren’t denied the freedom to worship.
The reason for the outrage over this “mosque” is obvious and understandable. Almost nine years ago, a few blocks away from the proposed site, mass murders were carried out by people devoted to a fanatical religious and political belief. That Japanese would want to erect a Shinto shrine at Pearl Harbor in 1950 is neither an unfounded nor a completely irrelevant comparison.
But Sufi Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is not the Wahhabi Osama bin Laden and the Cordoba House is not an affiliate of al-Qaeda. To conflate these actors is to certify that Americans, or at least American politicians, know nothing about the faith of over a billion people.
Among the people defending the building are New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and President Obama. The same Michael Bloomberg who discovered he had the authority to ban trans fats and serve a third term as mayor and the same President Obama, who thinks the Constitution grants health insurance to every American, come out of this debacle with the perception that they are the ones with a clearer understanding of the Constitution.
What’s worse is that these multiculturalists on the Left get to hide behind their supposed love for the First Amendment even as they prove themselves less interested in permitting the freedoms of the Second, Fifth, or Tenth Amendments. Why, who in the world would want to deny Muslims the right to worship anywhere they want unless they were Ra-a-a-a-acists! The Left gets to continue its indulgence that we can all just get along and they set up a trap to make the Right look mindlessly authoritarian, to which they eagerly complied.
Regardless of which “side” prevails in this charade one thing can be sure: the only losers are the American people.
Partisans of the Left and Right get to continue indulgence in their fantasies: All the Muslims are coming to kill us vs. We can’t allow somebody to not get whatever they want wherever they want it especially if they’re a minority.
Never mind that this was, at most, a state issue that had nothing to do with the First Amendment’s injunction that the federal government could not impose a state church on Americans. As a local property rights issue, this should not have animated the 99% of Americans who live outside Manhattan.
Never mind also that this one-act play was performed without any real discussion about states’ rights, what effect this “mosque” has in our relations with Muslims already living in our own country, or whether our foreign policy has anything to do with why some Muslims want to murder Americans in the first place.
Then again, isn't it much easier in our idiocracy to abide by the two choices given to us by our masters than to ponder any forbidden third option?
Monday, July 26, 2010
Racism and Us
What is racism? That’s a good question these days. It might be easier to define the meaning of life in one sentence.
Americans are already overwhelmed about race. Ethnic studies and diversity seminars are as much a part of contemporary university campuses as the football team. Every week our government and media masters inform the peasantry that we require a (new) Conversation on Race and someone the other day told me that we now have our first black president.
What we know about racism is like what George Orwell said about fascism, that it ‘has no meaning except in so far as it signifies something not desirable.’
We have been particularly bombarded with “evidence” of “racism” lately.
There is still smoke emanating from the Shirley Sherrod-firing-rehiring fiasco. New Black Panther Samir Shabazz’s clarion call to kill cracker babies still shocks anyone except those familiar with the New Black Panthers.
Everyday for awhile it seemed like another vulgar recording of Mel Gibson surfaced with Mel using another one of those words.
His rants were more painful than shocking, but they were also words in what was meant to be a private conversation.
This is bandied about by the tolerance-mongers as proof that Mel is a racist. Of course, the faster one denounces Mel and calls him a dirty racist, the more racially enlightened one is, or so the logic would seem.
Even Shirley Sherrod’s case is an exercise in silliness. Although she’s been exonerated, mostly by a liberal press embarrassed to have been snookered by some simple editing from Andrew Breitbart, the infamous video still catches her imputing racism to President Obama’s opponents. Even then, it’s hard to see how her own purported racism would affect her performance as a USDA state director of rural development, a bureaucratic post that should probably be eliminated anyway.
But there is certainly more than thought crimes going on.
A political appointee is about to be rewarded with a lifetime appointment to the highest court in the land and it seems normal. Chris Dodd, one of the chief clowns who both perpetuated and benefited from the housing scam gets to write the “financial reform bill” with nary a peep. Meanwhile, July ends as the deadliest month in a nine year war. Like racism, the national interest in Afghanistan seems to have as protean a definition.
Of particular importance to Americans should be what this all says us.
The sad truth is that charges of racism are not likely to end anytime soon. Not only is it hopeless (and bloody) to attempt perfecting mankind, but because charging someone with racism is simply too valuable, convenient, and probably fun for any of its users to surrender.
The ruling class definitely has no intention of letting racism, real or imagined, fade into memory – to its own benefit.
The fastest way to silence opposition, the race racket gets outright encouragement from our overlords. We contaminate political discussion ourselves when we launch into self-righteous diatribes. Out go questions about constitutionality - in comes whether some minutiae in a speech pandering to Muslims means President Obama is secretly a Muslim.
Democrats, who were once the party of segregation, have been the masters of this but Republicans, and many of their partisans who have joined this highly-received but poorly-written farce, are catching up.
It’s not too surprising. There are few satisfactions greater than getting to assail someone else as a racist. It’s a not-so-thinly veiled pat-on-the-back.
But it is for all these reasons that our ruling class cherishes these squabbles. Instead of Nero fiddling while Rome burned it’s the citizenry.
Maybe Americans aren’t actually interested in citizenship and civic responsibility. Maybe politics and current events are just another form of entertainment and playing the racist game is just everyone’s favorite episode.
As a game, it’s just another way for a dreadfully narcissistic culture to fall further in love with itself and where a Republican or Democrat winning office is no more impactful than which Kardashian sister is dating which sports star.
Instead of issues like the Constitution, natural rights, and peace consuming our creative energies, perhaps this is the republic we actually want.
And get.
Americans are already overwhelmed about race. Ethnic studies and diversity seminars are as much a part of contemporary university campuses as the football team. Every week our government and media masters inform the peasantry that we require a (new) Conversation on Race and someone the other day told me that we now have our first black president.
What we know about racism is like what George Orwell said about fascism, that it ‘has no meaning except in so far as it signifies something not desirable.’
We have been particularly bombarded with “evidence” of “racism” lately.
There is still smoke emanating from the Shirley Sherrod-firing-rehiring fiasco. New Black Panther Samir Shabazz’s clarion call to kill cracker babies still shocks anyone except those familiar with the New Black Panthers.
Everyday for awhile it seemed like another vulgar recording of Mel Gibson surfaced with Mel using another one of those words.
His rants were more painful than shocking, but they were also words in what was meant to be a private conversation.
This is bandied about by the tolerance-mongers as proof that Mel is a racist. Of course, the faster one denounces Mel and calls him a dirty racist, the more racially enlightened one is, or so the logic would seem.
Even Shirley Sherrod’s case is an exercise in silliness. Although she’s been exonerated, mostly by a liberal press embarrassed to have been snookered by some simple editing from Andrew Breitbart, the infamous video still catches her imputing racism to President Obama’s opponents. Even then, it’s hard to see how her own purported racism would affect her performance as a USDA state director of rural development, a bureaucratic post that should probably be eliminated anyway.
But there is certainly more than thought crimes going on.
A political appointee is about to be rewarded with a lifetime appointment to the highest court in the land and it seems normal. Chris Dodd, one of the chief clowns who both perpetuated and benefited from the housing scam gets to write the “financial reform bill” with nary a peep. Meanwhile, July ends as the deadliest month in a nine year war. Like racism, the national interest in Afghanistan seems to have as protean a definition.
Of particular importance to Americans should be what this all says us.
The sad truth is that charges of racism are not likely to end anytime soon. Not only is it hopeless (and bloody) to attempt perfecting mankind, but because charging someone with racism is simply too valuable, convenient, and probably fun for any of its users to surrender.
The ruling class definitely has no intention of letting racism, real or imagined, fade into memory – to its own benefit.
The fastest way to silence opposition, the race racket gets outright encouragement from our overlords. We contaminate political discussion ourselves when we launch into self-righteous diatribes. Out go questions about constitutionality - in comes whether some minutiae in a speech pandering to Muslims means President Obama is secretly a Muslim.
Democrats, who were once the party of segregation, have been the masters of this but Republicans, and many of their partisans who have joined this highly-received but poorly-written farce, are catching up.
It’s not too surprising. There are few satisfactions greater than getting to assail someone else as a racist. It’s a not-so-thinly veiled pat-on-the-back.
But it is for all these reasons that our ruling class cherishes these squabbles. Instead of Nero fiddling while Rome burned it’s the citizenry.
Maybe Americans aren’t actually interested in citizenship and civic responsibility. Maybe politics and current events are just another form of entertainment and playing the racist game is just everyone’s favorite episode.
As a game, it’s just another way for a dreadfully narcissistic culture to fall further in love with itself and where a Republican or Democrat winning office is no more impactful than which Kardashian sister is dating which sports star.
Instead of issues like the Constitution, natural rights, and peace consuming our creative energies, perhaps this is the republic we actually want.
And get.
Friday, June 4, 2010
Race Card Hypocrisy
There has been no shortage of race cards since Barack Obama’s presidency began.
Most are obvious, of course.
The race card has been standard fare for the Democrats since LBJ. The election of a black president and the emergence of a populist movement on the Right only accelerated the claims.
It’s hard to forget Janeane Garofalo’s sanctimonious monologue with Keith Olbermann, “This is about hating a black man in the White House. This is racism straight up.”
Conservatives and Tea Partiers were understandably furious.
The Tea Party movement may have conspicuously risen during the early days of the Obama administration, but to leap to the conclusion that the only possible reason grassroots Republicans could oppose the new Democratic president’s agenda was the occupant’s skin color, required an extraordinary sense of moral superiority.
During the Obama reign, conservatives have been adamant that their opposition to the Obama agenda has nothing to do with his skin color but all about the philosophy.
This would seem true.
There may have been no Tea Party movement during the 1990’s, but the hysteria about a popular, iconic Democratic president drummed up on the Right was similar during the Clinton administration. But admitting that a sizeable number of today’s protesters are simply GOP partisans doesn’t win many points with key Democratic constituencies and it doesn’t make for great TV ratings either.
Conservatives have also been quick to remind the Democrats that they don’t exactly have a pure history of multicultural kumbayah-ocity. Nor do we go very long before someone reminds us that Vice President Biden once said, “You cannot go into a 7-11 or a Dunkin’ Donuts without a slight Indian accent.”
But the point today is not to show how Democrats are hypocrites when it comes to race.
We know that it is not racist to oppose a black man’s agenda. If conservatives really believe in a limited, constitutional government, then there is little in the Obama administration that is worthy of praise. We know that the racist charges are meant to silence dissent.
With that in mind, why are conservatives playing the race card in the aftermath of the Israeli flotilla incident?
Despite claims from the White House that there will be “no daylight between the U.S. and Israel,” and despite accepting a non-binding U.N. resolution that does not actively condemn Israel’s actions, why are conservatives insisting that the Obama administration is “anti-Israel”?
Would we tolerate this sort of hyperbole if this was any nation besides Israel?
Take this recent video from conservative filmmaker Andrew Klavan.
In it, Klavan uses the sound of a honking horn to illustrate when anti-Semitism is being said, to show how it rings out loudly when uttered by a bigot.
This stunt is funny, although in an unintentional way, because it was always my observation that self-righteously condemning someone’s unauthorized opinion was the exclusive domain of liberals.
Here, Klavan demonstrates that conservatives have a chance to club liberals for not being enlightened enough on race (and by taking a quote from Pat Buchanan out of context, Klavan proves that even the mention of Hitler’s name without immediate condemnation equals anti-Semitism).
Klavan:
“We said never again would we stand by and watch such an atrocity [the Holocaust] to occur. And now that the Jews are once again in danger of destruction, we’re not standing by, we’re actually pitching in to help.”
This may have been satire, but it captures the bootlicking required to avoid the anti-Semite epitaph.
After all, did we not just see Rand Paul risk excommunication because the Thought Police assailed him for holding a single philosophical dispute with one point of the Civil Rights Act? Is this any different?
Is it possible to have a difference with policies of the Israeli government without being anti-Semitic?
Is it possible to think the Palestinians should have their own state without being anti-Semitic?
Is it possible to think Israel should be in charge of its own self-defense without being anti-Semitic?
Is it possible to think that the actions of the Israeli government might not be infallible without being anti-Semitic?
Is it possible to disagree with President Obama without being a white supremacist?
Conservatives should know better.
Most are obvious, of course.
The race card has been standard fare for the Democrats since LBJ. The election of a black president and the emergence of a populist movement on the Right only accelerated the claims.
It’s hard to forget Janeane Garofalo’s sanctimonious monologue with Keith Olbermann, “This is about hating a black man in the White House. This is racism straight up.”
Conservatives and Tea Partiers were understandably furious.
The Tea Party movement may have conspicuously risen during the early days of the Obama administration, but to leap to the conclusion that the only possible reason grassroots Republicans could oppose the new Democratic president’s agenda was the occupant’s skin color, required an extraordinary sense of moral superiority.
During the Obama reign, conservatives have been adamant that their opposition to the Obama agenda has nothing to do with his skin color but all about the philosophy.
This would seem true.
There may have been no Tea Party movement during the 1990’s, but the hysteria about a popular, iconic Democratic president drummed up on the Right was similar during the Clinton administration. But admitting that a sizeable number of today’s protesters are simply GOP partisans doesn’t win many points with key Democratic constituencies and it doesn’t make for great TV ratings either.
Conservatives have also been quick to remind the Democrats that they don’t exactly have a pure history of multicultural kumbayah-ocity. Nor do we go very long before someone reminds us that Vice President Biden once said, “You cannot go into a 7-11 or a Dunkin’ Donuts without a slight Indian accent.”
But the point today is not to show how Democrats are hypocrites when it comes to race.
We know that it is not racist to oppose a black man’s agenda. If conservatives really believe in a limited, constitutional government, then there is little in the Obama administration that is worthy of praise. We know that the racist charges are meant to silence dissent.
With that in mind, why are conservatives playing the race card in the aftermath of the Israeli flotilla incident?
Despite claims from the White House that there will be “no daylight between the U.S. and Israel,” and despite accepting a non-binding U.N. resolution that does not actively condemn Israel’s actions, why are conservatives insisting that the Obama administration is “anti-Israel”?
Would we tolerate this sort of hyperbole if this was any nation besides Israel?
Take this recent video from conservative filmmaker Andrew Klavan.
In it, Klavan uses the sound of a honking horn to illustrate when anti-Semitism is being said, to show how it rings out loudly when uttered by a bigot.
This stunt is funny, although in an unintentional way, because it was always my observation that self-righteously condemning someone’s unauthorized opinion was the exclusive domain of liberals.
Here, Klavan demonstrates that conservatives have a chance to club liberals for not being enlightened enough on race (and by taking a quote from Pat Buchanan out of context, Klavan proves that even the mention of Hitler’s name without immediate condemnation equals anti-Semitism).
Klavan:
“We said never again would we stand by and watch such an atrocity [the Holocaust] to occur. And now that the Jews are once again in danger of destruction, we’re not standing by, we’re actually pitching in to help.”
This may have been satire, but it captures the bootlicking required to avoid the anti-Semite epitaph.
After all, did we not just see Rand Paul risk excommunication because the Thought Police assailed him for holding a single philosophical dispute with one point of the Civil Rights Act? Is this any different?
Is it possible to have a difference with policies of the Israeli government without being anti-Semitic?
Is it possible to think the Palestinians should have their own state without being anti-Semitic?
Is it possible to think Israel should be in charge of its own self-defense without being anti-Semitic?
Is it possible to think that the actions of the Israeli government might not be infallible without being anti-Semitic?
Is it possible to disagree with President Obama without being a white supremacist?
Conservatives should know better.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
The Obama Girl
When I first heard of Sonia Sotomayor, it was a few weeks before President Obama nominated her to the U.S. Supreme Court. It was when that infamous video of her first surfaced where she uttered, “The Court of Appeals is where policy is made. . . . I know I should never say that because we don’t ‘make law,’ I know.” As bothersome as that comment was, which she shamelessly tried to cover up, the laughter that it elicited is what said more to me. As I explained in my letter to the local paper, that much probably tells us what Sonia Sotomayor thinks of the Constitution: she disregards the court’s call to interpret the law, attempts to cover up the gaffe with air quotes, and then laughs. How funny.
With this as my initial introduction, I was prepared to utterly detest Judge Sotomayor. Just imagine what sort of judicial activist she must be if she’s this upfront about it. In the end, she appears to have little that resembles a judicial philosophy and despite her gaffes and lack of judgment, it will be all of her personal factors that will make it utterly impossible for the Republicans to mount a serious offensive.
Take, for example, the quote that has easily garnered the most attention: "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."
Oops.
In what would have ended the career of any white man, the perception that Republicans are inherently racist will likely render this Biden moment moot.
Regardless, the administration and its media lackeys wasted no time in playing the “out of context” card. You need to know the whole context to understand what she really meant, they bellowed. As Steel Phoenix pointed out, the context makes the quote even worse. Instead of making an off-the-cuff remark (off-the-cuff, yet somehow scripted), she has not only uttered that statement more than once, but the time in question (2001 at Berkeley) was intended for publication in the La Raza (The Race) Law Review. I’m unfamiliar with the La Raza Law Review, but if it’s in any way affiliated with the National Council on La Raza, it can only be described as anti-white and anti-American and encourages a Reconquista of the American Southwest.
So if this is true and La Raza Law Review is that La Raza, then she was at best pandering to Hispanics, and at worst giving aid and comfort to a group that is openly treasonous. Either way, that is a serious lack of judgment and ethics unbecoming of a justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. Not to mention the notion that her background would help her produce better decisions than say, some white guy.
Now for some of the other issues that are under the radar.
Surprisingly, Judge Sotomayor has a rather vague record on abortion. This is surprising only because the person who nominated her promised Planned Parenthood that Roe v. Wade was going to remain sacrosanct. That makes it difficult to believe that she could possibly be pro-life. But my pro-life brethren needn’t really fret over this issue. If she does turn out to be even the most unshakable of Roe supporters, she is replacing David Souter, not Clarence Thomas. The status quo will remain on this issue.
She has an interesting record on the Second Amendment. Appearing to understand what the amendment means, Sotomayor ruled in Maloney v. Cuomo that the Second Amendment does not pertain to state and local governments. She ruled correctly that the Second Amendment restricts (or is supposed to restrict) the U.S. Congress from infringing on Americans’ right to own a gun. But her ruling indicated that those state and local governments do have the right to restrict people from owning guns. It sounds like she swung both ways on that one: one level of government has the right to take away your right to own a gun, but another patently does not. The point is, you do have the right to own a gun and no government can take it away. Her ruling indicates that it is not a right.
An issue that has not been mentioned among conservatives looking to oppose the nomination is the issue of executive power. Republican appointees John Roberts and Sam Alito and William Rehnquist and Sandra Day O’Connor before them backed the Bush administration’s power grabs rather consistently.
It was disappointing for me that conservatives by and large looked the other way or bought the line that the executive needed additional powers to wage war other than the ones prescribed in the Constitution. How short-sighted was that view? Because George W. Bush exercised extraordinary powers, Barack Obama does too, and only looks to increase them. Now many of those same Bush supporters are aghast that President Obama has such penetrating power. I’m confused as to why it’s so surprising: Bush didn’t take his extraconstitutional power back to Crawford with him. It stayed in Washington ready to be used by the next emperor regardless of whether it was Grampsy or The Chosen One.
So what does Sonia Sotomayor feel about increasing executive power? It’s hard to say. Lewis McCrary of The American Conservative had trouble finding rulings on it. But if we recall her comment about the courts making policy, it’s not hard to imagine she would support additional unconstitutional power grabs that would benefit the man who gave her her new job. As President Obama has assumed more powers over the affairs of the country, how she rules on this matter is what should most concern conservatives.
People are having difficulty finding rulings that would indicate a judicial philosophy that directs Sotomayor. With no clear philosophy, that probably points to judicial activism and it will additionally make it even harder for Republicans to oppose her. That will leave Republicans with little else but to harp on the wise Latina (if they dare) and judicial activism comments, which in and of themselves will get them nowhere.
Plus Obama and his pick have the added advantage that her appointment to the federal district court was from President George H. W. Bush. Republicans won’t be able to claim that she’s just another Democratic operative and political appointee. Republicans with the seniority of Mitch McConnell have the votes to prove it. In this regard, President Obama can justifiably say, “Who are you to oppose Ms. Sotomayor now when you confirmed her in 1992?”
In a sense, it was politically golden for President Obama to pick Sonia Sotomayor. She’s Hispanic and a woman, two key Democratic demographics. Republicans are already branded as anti-Hispanic and anti-woman. They don’t need further stigmatization by harping on her wise Latina comment, so expect them to walk on eggshells. And she has a slippery (some might say sloppy) judicial record, even upsetting some liberals, which makes it hard to definitively nail her down.
All the president needs is for one of the Maine Republicans to cross the aisle to confirm a sister.
As far as picking someone to make it onto the high court, Barack Obama probably made the perfect nomination. Now whether she can reliably apply the law is another matter.
In other words, don't expect Sonia Sotomayor to get borked.
(H/T: Steel Phoenix)
With this as my initial introduction, I was prepared to utterly detest Judge Sotomayor. Just imagine what sort of judicial activist she must be if she’s this upfront about it. In the end, she appears to have little that resembles a judicial philosophy and despite her gaffes and lack of judgment, it will be all of her personal factors that will make it utterly impossible for the Republicans to mount a serious offensive.
Take, for example, the quote that has easily garnered the most attention: "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."
Oops.
In what would have ended the career of any white man, the perception that Republicans are inherently racist will likely render this Biden moment moot.
Regardless, the administration and its media lackeys wasted no time in playing the “out of context” card. You need to know the whole context to understand what she really meant, they bellowed. As Steel Phoenix pointed out, the context makes the quote even worse. Instead of making an off-the-cuff remark (off-the-cuff, yet somehow scripted), she has not only uttered that statement more than once, but the time in question (2001 at Berkeley) was intended for publication in the La Raza (The Race) Law Review. I’m unfamiliar with the La Raza Law Review, but if it’s in any way affiliated with the National Council on La Raza, it can only be described as anti-white and anti-American and encourages a Reconquista of the American Southwest.
So if this is true and La Raza Law Review is that La Raza, then she was at best pandering to Hispanics, and at worst giving aid and comfort to a group that is openly treasonous. Either way, that is a serious lack of judgment and ethics unbecoming of a justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. Not to mention the notion that her background would help her produce better decisions than say, some white guy.
Now for some of the other issues that are under the radar.
Surprisingly, Judge Sotomayor has a rather vague record on abortion. This is surprising only because the person who nominated her promised Planned Parenthood that Roe v. Wade was going to remain sacrosanct. That makes it difficult to believe that she could possibly be pro-life. But my pro-life brethren needn’t really fret over this issue. If she does turn out to be even the most unshakable of Roe supporters, she is replacing David Souter, not Clarence Thomas. The status quo will remain on this issue.
She has an interesting record on the Second Amendment. Appearing to understand what the amendment means, Sotomayor ruled in Maloney v. Cuomo that the Second Amendment does not pertain to state and local governments. She ruled correctly that the Second Amendment restricts (or is supposed to restrict) the U.S. Congress from infringing on Americans’ right to own a gun. But her ruling indicated that those state and local governments do have the right to restrict people from owning guns. It sounds like she swung both ways on that one: one level of government has the right to take away your right to own a gun, but another patently does not. The point is, you do have the right to own a gun and no government can take it away. Her ruling indicates that it is not a right.
An issue that has not been mentioned among conservatives looking to oppose the nomination is the issue of executive power. Republican appointees John Roberts and Sam Alito and William Rehnquist and Sandra Day O’Connor before them backed the Bush administration’s power grabs rather consistently.
It was disappointing for me that conservatives by and large looked the other way or bought the line that the executive needed additional powers to wage war other than the ones prescribed in the Constitution. How short-sighted was that view? Because George W. Bush exercised extraordinary powers, Barack Obama does too, and only looks to increase them. Now many of those same Bush supporters are aghast that President Obama has such penetrating power. I’m confused as to why it’s so surprising: Bush didn’t take his extraconstitutional power back to Crawford with him. It stayed in Washington ready to be used by the next emperor regardless of whether it was Grampsy or The Chosen One.
So what does Sonia Sotomayor feel about increasing executive power? It’s hard to say. Lewis McCrary of The American Conservative had trouble finding rulings on it. But if we recall her comment about the courts making policy, it’s not hard to imagine she would support additional unconstitutional power grabs that would benefit the man who gave her her new job. As President Obama has assumed more powers over the affairs of the country, how she rules on this matter is what should most concern conservatives.
People are having difficulty finding rulings that would indicate a judicial philosophy that directs Sotomayor. With no clear philosophy, that probably points to judicial activism and it will additionally make it even harder for Republicans to oppose her. That will leave Republicans with little else but to harp on the wise Latina (if they dare) and judicial activism comments, which in and of themselves will get them nowhere.
Plus Obama and his pick have the added advantage that her appointment to the federal district court was from President George H. W. Bush. Republicans won’t be able to claim that she’s just another Democratic operative and political appointee. Republicans with the seniority of Mitch McConnell have the votes to prove it. In this regard, President Obama can justifiably say, “Who are you to oppose Ms. Sotomayor now when you confirmed her in 1992?”
In a sense, it was politically golden for President Obama to pick Sonia Sotomayor. She’s Hispanic and a woman, two key Democratic demographics. Republicans are already branded as anti-Hispanic and anti-woman. They don’t need further stigmatization by harping on her wise Latina comment, so expect them to walk on eggshells. And she has a slippery (some might say sloppy) judicial record, even upsetting some liberals, which makes it hard to definitively nail her down.
All the president needs is for one of the Maine Republicans to cross the aisle to confirm a sister.
As far as picking someone to make it onto the high court, Barack Obama probably made the perfect nomination. Now whether she can reliably apply the law is another matter.
In other words, don't expect Sonia Sotomayor to get borked.
(H/T: Steel Phoenix)
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
The Lawless Right
Well, that’s what it boils down to, anyway. The arguments made by those on the Right regarding the Bush administration’s use of waterboarding suggests as much and it exposes the moral bankruptcy of what currently constitutes today’s mainstream American Right.
Along with this discussion have been repeated invocations of President Harry Truman’s decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 to end the war in the Pacific. The argument reads: since Japan would never surrender before every man, woman, and child were exhausted to defend the empire, the atomic bombs HAD to be used in order to hasten their surrender. That, of course, ignores the simple fact that even though two atomic bombs were detonated, the Japanese did not fight to every last man, woman, or child.
What this whole discussion of “extraordinary tactics,” be it waterboarding or dropping atomic bombs, reveals is that those who populate the Right, time and again, abandon their principles and the rule of law for pragmatism.
The most compelling argument in favor of waterboarding is that it saves lives. That certainly seems justifiable if waterboarding a suspect means they reveal pivotal information about an impending terror attack.
But what if a waterboarded suspect gives false information because the action being engaged in is indeed torture and he says whatever is necessary to make the pain stop? If that is the case, is waterboarding anything other than torture or sadism?
And what does waterboarding say of us, a country that prosecuted the Japanese for doing the same thing in World War II? Does it say that activities we label “torture” are only torture when it is committed by other regimes? Answering “yes” to that question makes an activity like waterboarding an ethically neutral practice – its morality is determined by who commits it. Japanese waterboarding: evil and a war crime. American waterboarding: good and definitely not torture.
What is truly amazing is the apoplexy of those on the Right regarding the retraction of waterboarding as a counterterrorism measure.
We regularly hear about how waterboarding has indeed saved American lives because the frequently-waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, “the mastermind of 9/11,” revealed that there was another terrorist attack slated for the West Coast. There does appear to have been another attack planned for the West Coast, but the great ignored fact is that it was called off by Osama bin Laden himself before 9/11. So how did waterboarding save American lives if the plot he exposed in 2002 was long-before canceled?
But this illusion marches on and the Right, and even a few on the Left, perpetuate that waterboarding is not torture, it worked, and we should continue it.
It is shrouded under the cover of “National Security,” and we can see how those on the Right readily throw away their convictions in favor of expediency.
The argument regularly heard from those waterboard supporters is that it works and if it meant protecting the American people from a terrorist attack, then we should have no problem pouring some water up a terrorist’s nose for 30 seconds.
The worst part is this excuse-making on the Right. How many times in the past couple of weeks have we heard the talking heads saying that “Well, those people cut off heads, we just pour some water up their noses.”
It is probably time to point out that “At least we’re not as bad as them” is not a real argument based on reason or fact. Neither is “Okay, so we waterboarded a guy a whole bunch of times, but it was never for more than 30 seconds!” And neither is “Well, we haven’t done it since 2003” or “It’s not torture, but even if it was, it was only on 3 people and they were terrorists anyway, so it doesn’t count.” Or “Yes, we did sign the Geneva Convention and the terrorists didn’t, so that technically means we don’t have to accord them the rights under it. That means we can torture!”
All of this makes the argument in favor of waterboarding not really about intelligence gathering but revenge. It’s like saying “Okay, maybe waterboarding really is torture, but come on, these people are terrorists. It shouldn’t matter whether waterboarding is against the law or not. They don’t abide by the rules, so we won’t.”
This defense of waterboarding on the Right has gotten so twisted that NOT supporting waterboarding is “disgusting.”
Another much-regurgitated argument was the rhetorical question posed to anyone who dared to question the wisdom of waterboarding: What if we have a suspect who has knowledge of an impending attack and won’t talk unless we waterboard? Or “President Obama, what if, God forbid, your little girls were kidnapped by terrorists and they wouldn’t tell you where they were? Would you waterboard then?”
Well, aside from the obvious fact that that second situation is far-fetched to the point of absurdity, let’s alter that second argument into something just a little more realistic.
Instead of terrorists doing the kidnapping, let’s say your family has been kidnapped by one person. What if they refused to give back your family, even for ransom? Would you murder the kidnapper to save your family? If you did, would you expect to be prosecuted by the law? Is it not still murder if it’s done to a villain? Is torture not actually torture if we say it’s for good purposes?
At best, what the Right is advocating is a disregard of the law because we don’t like it and, at worst, showing that values are expendable.
An example of this could be found on Glenn Beck’s television program on Friday, May 1, 2009. With a live studio audience, Mr. Beck, who has a strong independent streak, rejected the notion that waterboarding is a crime. For those familiar with Glenn Beck either on television or radio, he frequently excoriates politicians who deliberately ignore the Constitution. Yet this time, when the argument gets framed into matters of national security and the hypothetical ticking time bomb, waterboarding is absolutely necessary. In an exchange with libertarian justice Andrew Napolitano, Mr. Beck questions whether the Constitution is a “suicide pact” because it does not allow for presidents to waterboard.
Notice how easily a usually strong-willed conservative abandons the Constitution for the hypothetical ticking time bomb. In the most far-fetched scenario in world history, civilizational annihilation, the Constitution HAS to be dropped, even in the more hypothetical of situations. Like deficits, I guess laws don’t matter either.
Somehow, I conjecture that much of the rage roaring on the Right has little to do with actually combating terrorism or keeping Americans safe.
I make this estimation because one of the main defenses is that waterboarding has not been used since 2003. Why is that? If waterboarding is the only way we have been able to thwart impending terrorist attacks, does that mean we haven't been safe since 2003? Surely Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's knowledge of contemporary terrorist attacks has been exhausted. Could it really be a coincidence that 2003 was the year that waterboarding officially ended and the invasion of Iraq began?
What about the testimony of Major Paul Burney, who revealed that much of the time spent waterboarding was to find a link between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's Iraq? The possibility that this is true might just unveil the real reason why our country waterboarded: to better justify the invasion of an innocent country.
Since in most cases conservatives defended nearly everything George W. Bush did, we may begin to see why waterboarding is sacrosanct on the Right. Like the liberal mainstream media that have invested heavily in Barack Obama, conservatives have put a major investment in the legacy of President Bush. Any condemnation (or prosecution) of what he did in office is a condemnation of the Right that gave him perpetual cover.
Conservatism thus far in the 21st Century is not concerned with the rule of law or tradition. It is primarily concerned with making Republicans, and especially George W. Bush, look good. Doing so means that conservatives have to ignore the law. And they are.
Along with this discussion have been repeated invocations of President Harry Truman’s decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 to end the war in the Pacific. The argument reads: since Japan would never surrender before every man, woman, and child were exhausted to defend the empire, the atomic bombs HAD to be used in order to hasten their surrender. That, of course, ignores the simple fact that even though two atomic bombs were detonated, the Japanese did not fight to every last man, woman, or child.
What this whole discussion of “extraordinary tactics,” be it waterboarding or dropping atomic bombs, reveals is that those who populate the Right, time and again, abandon their principles and the rule of law for pragmatism.
The most compelling argument in favor of waterboarding is that it saves lives. That certainly seems justifiable if waterboarding a suspect means they reveal pivotal information about an impending terror attack.
But what if a waterboarded suspect gives false information because the action being engaged in is indeed torture and he says whatever is necessary to make the pain stop? If that is the case, is waterboarding anything other than torture or sadism?
And what does waterboarding say of us, a country that prosecuted the Japanese for doing the same thing in World War II? Does it say that activities we label “torture” are only torture when it is committed by other regimes? Answering “yes” to that question makes an activity like waterboarding an ethically neutral practice – its morality is determined by who commits it. Japanese waterboarding: evil and a war crime. American waterboarding: good and definitely not torture.
What is truly amazing is the apoplexy of those on the Right regarding the retraction of waterboarding as a counterterrorism measure.
We regularly hear about how waterboarding has indeed saved American lives because the frequently-waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, “the mastermind of 9/11,” revealed that there was another terrorist attack slated for the West Coast. There does appear to have been another attack planned for the West Coast, but the great ignored fact is that it was called off by Osama bin Laden himself before 9/11. So how did waterboarding save American lives if the plot he exposed in 2002 was long-before canceled?
But this illusion marches on and the Right, and even a few on the Left, perpetuate that waterboarding is not torture, it worked, and we should continue it.
It is shrouded under the cover of “National Security,” and we can see how those on the Right readily throw away their convictions in favor of expediency.
The argument regularly heard from those waterboard supporters is that it works and if it meant protecting the American people from a terrorist attack, then we should have no problem pouring some water up a terrorist’s nose for 30 seconds.
The worst part is this excuse-making on the Right. How many times in the past couple of weeks have we heard the talking heads saying that “Well, those people cut off heads, we just pour some water up their noses.”
It is probably time to point out that “At least we’re not as bad as them” is not a real argument based on reason or fact. Neither is “Okay, so we waterboarded a guy a whole bunch of times, but it was never for more than 30 seconds!” And neither is “Well, we haven’t done it since 2003” or “It’s not torture, but even if it was, it was only on 3 people and they were terrorists anyway, so it doesn’t count.” Or “Yes, we did sign the Geneva Convention and the terrorists didn’t, so that technically means we don’t have to accord them the rights under it. That means we can torture!”
All of this makes the argument in favor of waterboarding not really about intelligence gathering but revenge. It’s like saying “Okay, maybe waterboarding really is torture, but come on, these people are terrorists. It shouldn’t matter whether waterboarding is against the law or not. They don’t abide by the rules, so we won’t.”
This defense of waterboarding on the Right has gotten so twisted that NOT supporting waterboarding is “disgusting.”
Another much-regurgitated argument was the rhetorical question posed to anyone who dared to question the wisdom of waterboarding: What if we have a suspect who has knowledge of an impending attack and won’t talk unless we waterboard? Or “President Obama, what if, God forbid, your little girls were kidnapped by terrorists and they wouldn’t tell you where they were? Would you waterboard then?”
Well, aside from the obvious fact that that second situation is far-fetched to the point of absurdity, let’s alter that second argument into something just a little more realistic.
Instead of terrorists doing the kidnapping, let’s say your family has been kidnapped by one person. What if they refused to give back your family, even for ransom? Would you murder the kidnapper to save your family? If you did, would you expect to be prosecuted by the law? Is it not still murder if it’s done to a villain? Is torture not actually torture if we say it’s for good purposes?
At best, what the Right is advocating is a disregard of the law because we don’t like it and, at worst, showing that values are expendable.
An example of this could be found on Glenn Beck’s television program on Friday, May 1, 2009. With a live studio audience, Mr. Beck, who has a strong independent streak, rejected the notion that waterboarding is a crime. For those familiar with Glenn Beck either on television or radio, he frequently excoriates politicians who deliberately ignore the Constitution. Yet this time, when the argument gets framed into matters of national security and the hypothetical ticking time bomb, waterboarding is absolutely necessary. In an exchange with libertarian justice Andrew Napolitano, Mr. Beck questions whether the Constitution is a “suicide pact” because it does not allow for presidents to waterboard.
Notice how easily a usually strong-willed conservative abandons the Constitution for the hypothetical ticking time bomb. In the most far-fetched scenario in world history, civilizational annihilation, the Constitution HAS to be dropped, even in the more hypothetical of situations. Like deficits, I guess laws don’t matter either.
Somehow, I conjecture that much of the rage roaring on the Right has little to do with actually combating terrorism or keeping Americans safe.
I make this estimation because one of the main defenses is that waterboarding has not been used since 2003. Why is that? If waterboarding is the only way we have been able to thwart impending terrorist attacks, does that mean we haven't been safe since 2003? Surely Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's knowledge of contemporary terrorist attacks has been exhausted. Could it really be a coincidence that 2003 was the year that waterboarding officially ended and the invasion of Iraq began?
What about the testimony of Major Paul Burney, who revealed that much of the time spent waterboarding was to find a link between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's Iraq? The possibility that this is true might just unveil the real reason why our country waterboarded: to better justify the invasion of an innocent country.
Since in most cases conservatives defended nearly everything George W. Bush did, we may begin to see why waterboarding is sacrosanct on the Right. Like the liberal mainstream media that have invested heavily in Barack Obama, conservatives have put a major investment in the legacy of President Bush. Any condemnation (or prosecution) of what he did in office is a condemnation of the Right that gave him perpetual cover.
Conservatism thus far in the 21st Century is not concerned with the rule of law or tradition. It is primarily concerned with making Republicans, and especially George W. Bush, look good. Doing so means that conservatives have to ignore the law. And they are.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
100 Days In
Before handing out awards to congratulate President Obama for being the first black president to host an Easter Egg Roll or the first black president to struggle with his teleprompter, let us look at his real accomplishments thus far, good (yes, some) and bad (plenty).
President Barack Obama has endured a mountain of criticism for his cabinet nominees and members. A number (Geithner, Daschle, Sebelius) have been rightly deemed tax cheats and have embarrassed the president and the ones in charge of vetting candidates. Americans generally have a low tolerance for politicians who get away with something that would land normal folks in heap big trouble. The president’s claim of a "new era of responsibility" gets questioned when an unusual number of his nominees have tax troubles, especially when many Americans themselves are struggling, as well as when the president promises “change” by digging up Clinton-era partisan hacks. However, a compliant media has done much to keep the new president rather unscathed.
Upon the assumption of his office, Barack Obama was faced with an economic crisis not of his doing, but of which he took complete ownership. His method of alleviation was ramming through an economic stimulus bill in the same manner and through the same rhetoric of his much-detested predecessor: this emergency is too catastrophic to wait any longer; if we wait any longer, we will be doomed. The bill is too important to read. Pass it or we will all die. Sound anything like the Patriot Act?
After campaigning against 8 years of Republican corruption and proliferate spending, the president embarked on the aforementioned stimulus bill and the pork-laden omnibus bill, bringing the Obama budget soaring somewhere around $4,000,000,000,000 for fiscal year 2010. While the spending done by the Republicans during George W. Bush’s reign was beyond reprehensible and also worth protesting, the monumental debt already created under President Obama sends the message that Bush-era spending was only the beginning.
In the whole financial debacle, the president insisted that spending would get us out of the recession. That assertion assumes that since a lot of spending and bailouts got us into this mess, lots more spending and bailouts will get us out. It is an assertion that many Republicans share when they are in power that no matter how much short-term success it might generate, the value of the dollar continues to plummet and making the another recession inevitable. It is the same old solution only wrapped in a much bigger box.
One of the most defining aspects of the Bush administration was its "Global War on Terrorism," designed to quash tyranny abroad so that liberty in American can be preserved. Actions such as the Patriot Act and the excesses permitted to agencies like the TSA and others have certainly undermined American liberty at home. An incident at Lambert Airport in St. Louis, MO has already been chronicled here before, but another incident in the Southwest suggests that unarmed and unsuspicious Americans are still harassed by their government, even under the supposed civil liberty-minded President Obama (begin video at 8:01, then here, and here).
On the foreign policy front, President Obama promised change but so far has not delivered much. He quickly announced that American troops would be leaving Iraq by August of next year, that is, excepting the 50,000 "residual" forces that are scheduled to remain until at least 2011. However, as news trickles in that Sunni insurgents don’t play nice when the bribe money starts to dry up and civil war resumes, there will be added pressure on the president to keep troops there to pacify the latest uprising and make John McCain’s suggestion that troops stay there for 100 years sound like it came out of Barack Obama’s mouth.
Farther east, as the president promised, Obama has already escalated matters in the increasingly lawless Afghanistan. With poor supply lines, a disintegrating Pakistan quickly succumbing to the Taliban and more Afghans looking to the Taliban for help, American troops will be either relegated to being person bodyguards for President Karzai in Kabul or left to wander in the desert until they get picked off.
Why? There is nothing to be won in Afghanistan. Bin Laden is nowhere to be found. The Taliban is taking over again and the Afghans, notoriously xenophobic, are not resisting local thugs in favor of foreign armies. So the question must be asked again, why does the president want to wander in this graveyard of empires?
The recent and much-publicized Latin American trip drew a lot of attention, particularly from the president's critics on his right. He was called weak for merely sitting and listening to Nicaraguan Marxist dictator Daniel Ortega delivery an anti-American screed. President Obama was denounced for shaking the hand of Venezuelan thug Hugo Chavez at the same summit. Rather than turning tables over in disgust over the president’s inclination to grin and bear it, perhaps he was acting like a new head of state should act: quietly. None of these Latin American clowns, who have wrecked their countries almost without exception, pose any threat to the United States. Are we supposed to shoot down any foreign head of state that has the audacity to question the God-given right of the American government to do whatever it wants around the world? The American Conservative columnist Daniel Larison rightly points out that there is nothing to fear from these goons: they thrive (or even survive) based on anti-American rhetoric. The president was right to either let them do their schtick or outright ignore them. It was an episode of calm disposition, something sorely lacking under President Bush.
The president’s dealings with the Somali pirates and hostage situation were swift and effective. The situation was rather quickly defused as the abducted captain was rescued and all of his captors were killed or surrendered. He dealt with stateless warriors in the only way that was manageable and despite calls from all corners to confront the stateless Somalia, (bombing them) he has rightfully deflected all pleas thusfar to enter into another tribal fiasco.
It has only been 100 days, but it looks like things are remaining very much the same. The new regime has only repackaged the same old disasters and called it "change." Some things have been good, as those that have been covered here, but the future is not very bright. Debt soars higher than sky-high and the foreign wars look here to stay, even under a Democratic president. As the old saying goes, people get the government they deserve.
President Barack Obama has endured a mountain of criticism for his cabinet nominees and members. A number (Geithner, Daschle, Sebelius) have been rightly deemed tax cheats and have embarrassed the president and the ones in charge of vetting candidates. Americans generally have a low tolerance for politicians who get away with something that would land normal folks in heap big trouble. The president’s claim of a "new era of responsibility" gets questioned when an unusual number of his nominees have tax troubles, especially when many Americans themselves are struggling, as well as when the president promises “change” by digging up Clinton-era partisan hacks. However, a compliant media has done much to keep the new president rather unscathed.
Upon the assumption of his office, Barack Obama was faced with an economic crisis not of his doing, but of which he took complete ownership. His method of alleviation was ramming through an economic stimulus bill in the same manner and through the same rhetoric of his much-detested predecessor: this emergency is too catastrophic to wait any longer; if we wait any longer, we will be doomed. The bill is too important to read. Pass it or we will all die. Sound anything like the Patriot Act?
After campaigning against 8 years of Republican corruption and proliferate spending, the president embarked on the aforementioned stimulus bill and the pork-laden omnibus bill, bringing the Obama budget soaring somewhere around $4,000,000,000,000 for fiscal year 2010. While the spending done by the Republicans during George W. Bush’s reign was beyond reprehensible and also worth protesting, the monumental debt already created under President Obama sends the message that Bush-era spending was only the beginning.
In the whole financial debacle, the president insisted that spending would get us out of the recession. That assertion assumes that since a lot of spending and bailouts got us into this mess, lots more spending and bailouts will get us out. It is an assertion that many Republicans share when they are in power that no matter how much short-term success it might generate, the value of the dollar continues to plummet and making the another recession inevitable. It is the same old solution only wrapped in a much bigger box.
One of the most defining aspects of the Bush administration was its "Global War on Terrorism," designed to quash tyranny abroad so that liberty in American can be preserved. Actions such as the Patriot Act and the excesses permitted to agencies like the TSA and others have certainly undermined American liberty at home. An incident at Lambert Airport in St. Louis, MO has already been chronicled here before, but another incident in the Southwest suggests that unarmed and unsuspicious Americans are still harassed by their government, even under the supposed civil liberty-minded President Obama (begin video at 8:01, then here, and here).
On the foreign policy front, President Obama promised change but so far has not delivered much. He quickly announced that American troops would be leaving Iraq by August of next year, that is, excepting the 50,000 "residual" forces that are scheduled to remain until at least 2011. However, as news trickles in that Sunni insurgents don’t play nice when the bribe money starts to dry up and civil war resumes, there will be added pressure on the president to keep troops there to pacify the latest uprising and make John McCain’s suggestion that troops stay there for 100 years sound like it came out of Barack Obama’s mouth.
Farther east, as the president promised, Obama has already escalated matters in the increasingly lawless Afghanistan. With poor supply lines, a disintegrating Pakistan quickly succumbing to the Taliban and more Afghans looking to the Taliban for help, American troops will be either relegated to being person bodyguards for President Karzai in Kabul or left to wander in the desert until they get picked off.
Why? There is nothing to be won in Afghanistan. Bin Laden is nowhere to be found. The Taliban is taking over again and the Afghans, notoriously xenophobic, are not resisting local thugs in favor of foreign armies. So the question must be asked again, why does the president want to wander in this graveyard of empires?
The recent and much-publicized Latin American trip drew a lot of attention, particularly from the president's critics on his right. He was called weak for merely sitting and listening to Nicaraguan Marxist dictator Daniel Ortega delivery an anti-American screed. President Obama was denounced for shaking the hand of Venezuelan thug Hugo Chavez at the same summit. Rather than turning tables over in disgust over the president’s inclination to grin and bear it, perhaps he was acting like a new head of state should act: quietly. None of these Latin American clowns, who have wrecked their countries almost without exception, pose any threat to the United States. Are we supposed to shoot down any foreign head of state that has the audacity to question the God-given right of the American government to do whatever it wants around the world? The American Conservative columnist Daniel Larison rightly points out that there is nothing to fear from these goons: they thrive (or even survive) based on anti-American rhetoric. The president was right to either let them do their schtick or outright ignore them. It was an episode of calm disposition, something sorely lacking under President Bush.
The president’s dealings with the Somali pirates and hostage situation were swift and effective. The situation was rather quickly defused as the abducted captain was rescued and all of his captors were killed or surrendered. He dealt with stateless warriors in the only way that was manageable and despite calls from all corners to confront the stateless Somalia, (bombing them) he has rightfully deflected all pleas thusfar to enter into another tribal fiasco.
It has only been 100 days, but it looks like things are remaining very much the same. The new regime has only repackaged the same old disasters and called it "change." Some things have been good, as those that have been covered here, but the future is not very bright. Debt soars higher than sky-high and the foreign wars look here to stay, even under a Democratic president. As the old saying goes, people get the government they deserve.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Dangerous Torture
The big news last weekend, other than President Obama's (gasp!) handshake with Hugo Chavez, was that the previously-classified "torture memos" were irresponsibly declassified, revealing state secrets, and forfeiting pivotal information in the long war against "Islamofascism."
No sooner were the memos made public did President Bush's remaining supporters on talk radio and Fox News jump to the microphone in a race to be the first to claim that President Obama was playing politics with America's security. Sean Hannity called it "stupid." Rush Limbaugh called the president "naieve." Bill O'Reilly doesn't want to use guidelines found in the army field manual, while in the same conversation, Karl Rove called the action "lunacy" and "a psychological victory for the terrorists."
All of these outrages reveal the twisted logic that suggests that "enhanced interrogation techniques" actually make the country safer.
As tempting as this view is, it all acts on an assumption that waterboarding, the most controversial of the techniques, saves lives. Apparently saying "Waterboarding isn't torture" enough times makes it true (or deciding that anything said because of waterboarding makes it true as well). Or saying "But waterboarding worked!" enough times, even if it might be a little morally questionable, makes it right. If Machiavelli would have approved, then I guess that's all that matters.
We routinely hear that these techniques kept America safe. After 9/11, we hear, we couldn't take any chances. After 9/11, the government didn't know what to do so they used waterboarding to get to the bottom of the issue and try to prevent another attack. Let's examine that claim.
Before 9/11, Osama bin Laden had declared war on the United States (1996) for stationing soldiers on the sacred soil of Saudi Arabia, supporting its corrupt regime, and offering unconditional support to the Jewish state at the expense of the Palestinians.
In 2000, the naval destroyer USS Cole was targeted for bombing by bin Laden. Conservatives, especially since 9/11, have routinely pointed to the bombing of the Cole as evidence of Bill Clinton's negligence concerning the terrorist threat. In this case, they are right. And since they are right, it undermines the claim that torture or waterboarding works and is necessary in the "Global War on Terror."
This shows that the terrorist threat was bubbling just beneath the surface and that the U.S. government could have begun taking action against terrorists because they were showing themselves to be a threat to the U.S., or at least making the U.S. a target. And put this on top of the fact that the government already knew bin Laden was responsible for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Surely someone could have connected the dots: the Cole, the 1993 bombing, and a declaration, and figured out that something was brewing. For people who were paying attention to U.S. actions around the world, the horrors of 9/11 were not an earth-shattering or earth-changing event, but a predictable event.
So, we should have known that an event like 9/11 was coming. It could have been figured out by following world news through a major national newspaper or reading on the internet. It would not take waterboarding someone to figure out that the country was due for blowback from its foreign policies.
Also consider this: the media habitually tell the American people that the only people who participate in these horrific acts of terror are religious fanatics who desire to die for their faith. Events like 9/11 give credence to this view. So if part of being a terrorist means dying for the cause, why would they reveal anything under waterboarding or torture? Dying is the goal, isn't it? Why would they bother telling anything even if they knew anything if dying is the goal?
I now feel compelled to ask waterboarding defenders this: What did waterboarding 2 people, one of them the supposed mastermind of 9/11, a total of 266 times tell us about the terrorist attacks that curious internet users could not have found out for themselves?
What this boils down to is that torture or "enhanced interrogation" does nothing to make America inherently safer. The real fear that I have regarding these memos is not that by revealing their contents, they make America less safe because terrorists will be able to train for waterboarding. No, the real fear I have is that the contents of these memos will make America less safe because they can be used as a recruiting tool for the terrorists.
Just as the invasion of Iraq fueled terrorist recruiting because it was viewed as the conquest and rape of an innocent Muslim country, these memos will say to the Muslim world "We tortured."
We can debate until Judgment Day whether waterboarding is torture or not but in the Muslim world, they see an imperial power incarcerating Muslims and torturing them. That creates a further incentive for people who might not be inclined to to join the jihad to do so. And that is why this matters.
Our country has made a mess for itself by not understanding our enemy. The waterboarding issue is just another incident of missing the point.
If we want to make the waterboarding issue moot, then we must make the impetus for terrorism moot as well and come home.
No sooner were the memos made public did President Bush's remaining supporters on talk radio and Fox News jump to the microphone in a race to be the first to claim that President Obama was playing politics with America's security. Sean Hannity called it "stupid." Rush Limbaugh called the president "naieve." Bill O'Reilly doesn't want to use guidelines found in the army field manual, while in the same conversation, Karl Rove called the action "lunacy" and "a psychological victory for the terrorists."
All of these outrages reveal the twisted logic that suggests that "enhanced interrogation techniques" actually make the country safer.
As tempting as this view is, it all acts on an assumption that waterboarding, the most controversial of the techniques, saves lives. Apparently saying "Waterboarding isn't torture" enough times makes it true (or deciding that anything said because of waterboarding makes it true as well). Or saying "But waterboarding worked!" enough times, even if it might be a little morally questionable, makes it right. If Machiavelli would have approved, then I guess that's all that matters.
We routinely hear that these techniques kept America safe. After 9/11, we hear, we couldn't take any chances. After 9/11, the government didn't know what to do so they used waterboarding to get to the bottom of the issue and try to prevent another attack. Let's examine that claim.
Before 9/11, Osama bin Laden had declared war on the United States (1996) for stationing soldiers on the sacred soil of Saudi Arabia, supporting its corrupt regime, and offering unconditional support to the Jewish state at the expense of the Palestinians.
In 2000, the naval destroyer USS Cole was targeted for bombing by bin Laden. Conservatives, especially since 9/11, have routinely pointed to the bombing of the Cole as evidence of Bill Clinton's negligence concerning the terrorist threat. In this case, they are right. And since they are right, it undermines the claim that torture or waterboarding works and is necessary in the "Global War on Terror."
This shows that the terrorist threat was bubbling just beneath the surface and that the U.S. government could have begun taking action against terrorists because they were showing themselves to be a threat to the U.S., or at least making the U.S. a target. And put this on top of the fact that the government already knew bin Laden was responsible for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Surely someone could have connected the dots: the Cole, the 1993 bombing, and a declaration, and figured out that something was brewing. For people who were paying attention to U.S. actions around the world, the horrors of 9/11 were not an earth-shattering or earth-changing event, but a predictable event.
So, we should have known that an event like 9/11 was coming. It could have been figured out by following world news through a major national newspaper or reading on the internet. It would not take waterboarding someone to figure out that the country was due for blowback from its foreign policies.
Also consider this: the media habitually tell the American people that the only people who participate in these horrific acts of terror are religious fanatics who desire to die for their faith. Events like 9/11 give credence to this view. So if part of being a terrorist means dying for the cause, why would they reveal anything under waterboarding or torture? Dying is the goal, isn't it? Why would they bother telling anything even if they knew anything if dying is the goal?
I now feel compelled to ask waterboarding defenders this: What did waterboarding 2 people, one of them the supposed mastermind of 9/11, a total of 266 times tell us about the terrorist attacks that curious internet users could not have found out for themselves?
What this boils down to is that torture or "enhanced interrogation" does nothing to make America inherently safer. The real fear that I have regarding these memos is not that by revealing their contents, they make America less safe because terrorists will be able to train for waterboarding. No, the real fear I have is that the contents of these memos will make America less safe because they can be used as a recruiting tool for the terrorists.
Just as the invasion of Iraq fueled terrorist recruiting because it was viewed as the conquest and rape of an innocent Muslim country, these memos will say to the Muslim world "We tortured."
We can debate until Judgment Day whether waterboarding is torture or not but in the Muslim world, they see an imperial power incarcerating Muslims and torturing them. That creates a further incentive for people who might not be inclined to to join the jihad to do so. And that is why this matters.
Our country has made a mess for itself by not understanding our enemy. The waterboarding issue is just another incident of missing the point.
If we want to make the waterboarding issue moot, then we must make the impetus for terrorism moot as well and come home.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
The Fed Did It
Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse, by Thomas E. Woods, Jr.
Last fall the bank bailouts, Wall Street bailouts, and home foreclosure crisis all hit at virtually the same time creating a fiscal disaster for millions and a political disaster for the incumbent party, its president, and his potential successor. People panicked when John McCain, who had been picking up steam, validated his Republican primary assertion that he didn’t understand much about the economy, and anxious voters sitting on the fence flocked to the freshman senator from Illinois.
Talking heads filled the TV screens with each party hack pointing to their adversary, claiming that it was their party’s policies that set up the financial Armageddon. Democrats pointed to the Bush tax cuts and Republican deregulation policies while the GOP said it was the affirmative action-backed Community Reinvestment Act begun under Jimmy Carter and rejuvenated by Bill Clinton that was the real reason for the economic tsunami.
The Democrats claimed that it was all the banks’ fault for the housing crisis. It was because of President Bush’s deregulation of the market that caused banks to loan out money to people who could not pay it back. They used the crisis as the justification for economic regulation because laissez-faire economics, like everything else he touched, had obviously failed under George W. Bush. In fact, George W. Bush did true free marketeers no favors when he made his prime-time television address pleading for the bank bailout and readily conceded that he had to "chuck" his free market principles.
The speech was played perfectly by the Democrats who could point out that even President Bush could concede that his deregulation contributed to the problem. That, however, operates on the assumption that just because George W. Bush said something means it is true.
An alternative reading of recent history is made by historian and best-selling author Tom Woods of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, the prominent libertarian think tank. In his concise, highly readable, but quickly assembled book, Dr. Woods points to an altogether different culprit, one that is neither the Republicans’ supposed deregulation nor the Democrats’ affirmative action feel-good policies.
The author asks, why would so many institutions, in different areas of the business world, suddenly collapse and look like total buffoons all at the same time? Perhaps the variable is something outside of them. Woods’ thesis is that the source of all our money problems is the Federal Reserve.
One of the most neglected components of American life, Woods argues that the actions of the Fed preclude us from having a genuinely free market. The Fed was brought into life to succeed the First and Second Banks of the United States by a legislative act in 1913. For nearly 100 years, the Fed has been a part of American life that has received virtually no scrutiny. Woods believes it is time to scrutinize.
The Federal Reserve, he says, keeps interest rates artificially low by continually injecting dollars into the money supply, creating the illusion that more saving has been done which can thus be used in long-term projects such as home construction. Woods (along with economists Murray Rothbard, Ludwig von Mises, and F. A. Hayek) concludes that these conditions, manipulated by the Fed in an earlier epoch, also caused the Great Depression.
Woods address both sides of the political aisle and indicts both for their hand in the crisis. Woods digs into the history of the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 (CRA), a piece of legislation supported by President Jimmy Carter designed to pressure banks into making home loans to people of all segments of society, regardless of their credit history. The act resurfaced during Bill Clinton’s administration and the spirit of the act was invoked by George W. Bush in his push for an "ownership society."
The CRA resulted with banks receiving threats of lawsuits which ultimately led to the lowering of their lending standards, and a symptom of the crisis becomes evident. A condemnatory passage of the Democrats, Woods relates the story of Clinton HUD secretary Andrew Cuomo patting himself on the back for winning a "discrimination" settlement against AccuBanc Mortgage that ended with the bank being forced to issue loans on an affirmative action basis, which the secretary knew full well would end in a higher number of defaults (20-21).
Far from a real laissez-faire capitalist, George W. Bush threw in his lot with the "home-owning for minorities" scheme that his Democratic predecessors conjured up. He regularly supported regulations, even if not in word, certainly in deed.
Woods unequivocally rejects regulation as the solution for this and any financial crisis. Similar to security restrictions after a terrorist attack, the regulations and restrictions imposed are designed to protect people from yesterday’s catastrophe. Regulations are, in short, counterproductive and miss the current and potentially future crisis.
The answer, Woods insists, is not regulation because it has already been tried and failed.
He points out that regulators are government employees, not business savvy men. Shortly before Enron imploded in 2001, the SEC checked them out and found things A-OK. As we know from the Enron debacle, it was insiders who really knew what was going on and figured it out, which, while certainly late in the game, was still faster than the government discovered it.
Another example of government regulation of the economy is the presence of insured commercial bank deposits. He writes, "Any 'deregulation' of the banking system that permits the banks to take greater risks while maintaining government (that is, tax payer) insurance of their deposits is not genuine deregulation from a free-market point of view," (46).
But all of these examples are really symptoms of the problem. While affirmative action legislation is bad and regulations are unfruitful and government pressure on banks is also bad, they would all go away if only the Federal Reserve was abolished. The Fed is the instrument that powers all of these poor economic activities. The Fed is the lender responsible for the money banks lend out to unqualified borrowers. The Fed is run by unelected men and truly accountable to no one. It prints paper money which, by virtue of no metal backing, can never be exchanged, and is literally, only paper.
A secondary aspect of Woods’ solution is to return to a gold standard monetary system. Since 1971 and the Bretton-Woods accord, the United States has been on fiat money, that is, money that is not backed by any metal, be it gold, silver, or anything else. Since the government never has to worry about people coming in and demanding gold or silver in exchange for their reserve notes, the people are stuck with them. And since there is nothing to restrain the government by way of the people regarding money, they are free to continue printing as much paper money as they want. This, Woods concludes, is what makes bailouts possible.
This, in fact, is one of Woods’ most compelling arguments. If money can truly be printed at will, and there is nothing people can do that would force government to spend responsibly, that makes bailouts not only possible, but likely. A currency that is based on an exchangeable metal is actually a restraint on government. If politicians have to worry about people coming in and demanding gold or silver for their paper money, they will think twice before spending beyond their means. Also, the very existence of a central bank feeds into the bailout mentality as the "lender of last resort," usually means it will ultimately get to fulfill that duty.
All of this supports the famed Austrian Theory of the Business Cycle, a theory which won F. A Hayek the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1974. The theory states that whenever a central bank creates circumstances which create a false prosperity through the printing of money, which lowers interest rates, a bust will inevitably end the boom. This is precisely what happened in America. People who would have otherwise been considered unqualified for loans received loans. Woods says it is similar to a basketball team expanding the roster by two spots. Even though two more people get to be on the team, they would not have otherwise been considered qualified for the team.
The point is that reality eventually caught up with the housing bubble and caused the collapse. It was a predictable but inevitable event. The central bank can try to delay the bust but doing so only makes the bust worse, since there would be more time to manipulate the false sense of prosperity. According to this argument and logic, the Federal Reserve is the institution that made the housing bubble and bust possible.
The only downside of Meltdown is a common one among free market uber alles advocates. Woods writes about the free market as if all problems would instantly vanish without regulations and the central bank. While I cannot help but agree that the country’s financial situation would improve if we really enacted a laissez-faire economic where the government actually kept its hands off the economic system, the reader cannot help but notice the faith rhetoric that is inherent to the free market system.
Take a passage from page 65: "The market gradually weeds out business owners who do a poor job as stewards of capital and forecasters of consumer demand by punishing them with losses and, if their inefficiency persists, driving them out of business altogether. So why should businessmen, even those well established and who have passed the market test year after year, suddenly all make the same error?" Now simply replace "market" with "God" and the reader can get the sense that the free market is supposed to be infallible. If only the market was really free, then all the financial problems of this country would be resolved. One can almost see the biting satire of Stephen Colbert and his claims of Republican "Moneytheism." Yet, that is really the only shortcoming in Meltdown, one of interpretation and the fear of parody.
Now that the recession is in full swing, and by virtue of this book, we have an opportunity to confront the problem. Shall we continue to blame everyone on the other side and point to policies that have made themselves obsolete while an institution, the Fed, remains untouched? If Woods (and his polemical predecessor Murray Rothbard) is correct and the Fed is the main reason for not only the current crisis but the Great Depression, isn’t it time that there was finally at least a debate on the American central bank? Isn’t it time that we at least begin to discuss whether an unaccountable government institution might be the source of our problems instead of some inane bickering about regulations or the CRA?
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
The War Drums Beat On
President Barack Obama was elected last November to bring change to America’s governing establishment and end our senseless foreign wars.
However, Clinton administration retreads populate the Obama administration through and through. There has been no scaling back of the intrusive and controversial government measures the Bush administration enacted such as the Patriot Act or FISA, no less spending, and no less transparency in government. Altogether, the scope of the Obama administration looks remarkably similar to the Bush administration.
The one area where it was suggested that there might be a change is the one area where we see the most consistency: foreign policy.
Despite all the best efforts of the Republican Party hacks and talk radio bobbleheads in 2008, Barack Obama is not an isolationist, not willing to “surrender” in the “War on Terror” and perfectly willing to use the American military with the same aloofness as his predecessor.
Take, for example, President Obama’s pledge to remove American combat troops from Iraq by August 2010. That pledge comes with a caveat: 50,000 are staying. This is not the same as American generals staying in Saigon until the Communists were breaking down the door. This is no residual force.
If as many as 50,000 American troops are staying in Iraq to train the local army and police forces, then they will inevitably be called upon to continue fighting all of the warring elements in Iraq. If post-2010 Iraq descends into rampant violence again, what is to stop President Obama from sending more American troops back to Iraq? By keeping one foot in the door, he leaves open the probability that he will have to bring the other one back in as well. It is not as though American troops are leaving the region.
And what exactly is the withdrawal plan for this “residual force” of 50,000 troops? If the plan is for the end of 2011, why keep such a large force there? If I was a cynical guy, I would say that just keeping them there re-opens the possibility that we could be in Iraq for 100 years. What then, would be the difference between President Obama’s plan with these 50,000 troops and John McCain’s plan that would keep some form of military presence in Iraq for 100 years if that’s what it took?
Now let us look at President Obama’s Afghanistan plan. In what could have been as many as 30,000 additional troops, the president settled on sending 17,000 to the graveyard of empires beginning sometime this month.
This plan calls for 17,000 troops, many of whom have already served in Iraq or were trained for duty in Iraq, only to shift them to a completely different theater. Afghanistan, a place probably worse than Iraq, is isolated and highly tribal, whereas Iraq was fairly centralized and comparably united. The military has already acknowledged that Iraq tactics which these soldiers were already trained for will be obsolete in Afghanistan due to the latter's hazardous terrain. Do we have time, in a war about to enter its 8th year, to wage a war by trial-and-error? What will be the reaction of the American people when hundreds of Americans are photographed in flag-draped coffins this year?
And how will the American people react when embattled Afghan president Hamid Karzai, who faces a difficult election this year, might be tempted to cut a deal with a rejuvenated Taliban that controls at least as much of Afghanistan as he does, in order to consolidate power? What will President Obama do then? How will they react when hundreds of young Americans lose their lives for a nation that no longer houses Osama bin Laden but are instead stuck in another inescapable nation-building venture?
If Secretary of War Robert Gates is correct and there is "no military solution for Afghanistan," then why is our military still in Afghanistan?
This does not even cover the drums that are beating for war with Iran. Everyday there is another "new revelation" about Iran’s capability to build the bomb. Everyday there is a new scare tactic employed by the government and the media to convince the American people that there is a nuclear bomb being secretly built in Iran with their name on it. Everyday we are told that our way of life could end in any instant, at the hands of a figurehead in Iran who has no control and barely any support in his own bankrupt country.
Couple all of that with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who as a presidential candidate threatened war on Iran over the security of Israel, is now saying that diplomacy is not likely to work on Iran. What does it mean when the nation’s top diplomat says diplomacy is not expected to work? It’s not that diplomacy might not work on Iran, it’s that it is not even being considered.
Did we really learn nothing from the Iraq debacle? How many "news reports" were we subjected to that Saddam Hussein was behind the anthrax attacks, the 9/11 terrorist attacks or the next nuclear attack?
Hussein at least had weapons of mass destruction in the past, which made the pre-war claims plausible. Ahmadinejad has no weapons, no military, and losing support in his own country. A mountain has been made that they have the capability to launch a satellite. And after all that happened in Iraq, shouldn’t at least an ounce of skepticism be permitted before marching off to war on the drop of a hat?
We have wars that won’t end in Afghanistan and Iraq, we have a war being prepared for in us in Iran, we are firing missiles into Pakistan supposedly intended for Osama bin Laden that kill as many civilians as suspected terrorists.
Considering all the military quagmires, all the negative capital around the world generated from our escapades, the military budget that contributes to the bankrupting of this country, and the fact that bin Laden is still at large, tell me this, what have our military excursions actually done for America?
And what of any of this makes President Obama antiwar?
However, Clinton administration retreads populate the Obama administration through and through. There has been no scaling back of the intrusive and controversial government measures the Bush administration enacted such as the Patriot Act or FISA, no less spending, and no less transparency in government. Altogether, the scope of the Obama administration looks remarkably similar to the Bush administration.
The one area where it was suggested that there might be a change is the one area where we see the most consistency: foreign policy.
Despite all the best efforts of the Republican Party hacks and talk radio bobbleheads in 2008, Barack Obama is not an isolationist, not willing to “surrender” in the “War on Terror” and perfectly willing to use the American military with the same aloofness as his predecessor.
Take, for example, President Obama’s pledge to remove American combat troops from Iraq by August 2010. That pledge comes with a caveat: 50,000 are staying. This is not the same as American generals staying in Saigon until the Communists were breaking down the door. This is no residual force.
If as many as 50,000 American troops are staying in Iraq to train the local army and police forces, then they will inevitably be called upon to continue fighting all of the warring elements in Iraq. If post-2010 Iraq descends into rampant violence again, what is to stop President Obama from sending more American troops back to Iraq? By keeping one foot in the door, he leaves open the probability that he will have to bring the other one back in as well. It is not as though American troops are leaving the region.
And what exactly is the withdrawal plan for this “residual force” of 50,000 troops? If the plan is for the end of 2011, why keep such a large force there? If I was a cynical guy, I would say that just keeping them there re-opens the possibility that we could be in Iraq for 100 years. What then, would be the difference between President Obama’s plan with these 50,000 troops and John McCain’s plan that would keep some form of military presence in Iraq for 100 years if that’s what it took?
Now let us look at President Obama’s Afghanistan plan. In what could have been as many as 30,000 additional troops, the president settled on sending 17,000 to the graveyard of empires beginning sometime this month.
This plan calls for 17,000 troops, many of whom have already served in Iraq or were trained for duty in Iraq, only to shift them to a completely different theater. Afghanistan, a place probably worse than Iraq, is isolated and highly tribal, whereas Iraq was fairly centralized and comparably united. The military has already acknowledged that Iraq tactics which these soldiers were already trained for will be obsolete in Afghanistan due to the latter's hazardous terrain. Do we have time, in a war about to enter its 8th year, to wage a war by trial-and-error? What will be the reaction of the American people when hundreds of Americans are photographed in flag-draped coffins this year?
And how will the American people react when embattled Afghan president Hamid Karzai, who faces a difficult election this year, might be tempted to cut a deal with a rejuvenated Taliban that controls at least as much of Afghanistan as he does, in order to consolidate power? What will President Obama do then? How will they react when hundreds of young Americans lose their lives for a nation that no longer houses Osama bin Laden but are instead stuck in another inescapable nation-building venture?
If Secretary of War Robert Gates is correct and there is "no military solution for Afghanistan," then why is our military still in Afghanistan?
This does not even cover the drums that are beating for war with Iran. Everyday there is another "new revelation" about Iran’s capability to build the bomb. Everyday there is a new scare tactic employed by the government and the media to convince the American people that there is a nuclear bomb being secretly built in Iran with their name on it. Everyday we are told that our way of life could end in any instant, at the hands of a figurehead in Iran who has no control and barely any support in his own bankrupt country.
Couple all of that with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who as a presidential candidate threatened war on Iran over the security of Israel, is now saying that diplomacy is not likely to work on Iran. What does it mean when the nation’s top diplomat says diplomacy is not expected to work? It’s not that diplomacy might not work on Iran, it’s that it is not even being considered.
Did we really learn nothing from the Iraq debacle? How many "news reports" were we subjected to that Saddam Hussein was behind the anthrax attacks, the 9/11 terrorist attacks or the next nuclear attack?
Hussein at least had weapons of mass destruction in the past, which made the pre-war claims plausible. Ahmadinejad has no weapons, no military, and losing support in his own country. A mountain has been made that they have the capability to launch a satellite. And after all that happened in Iraq, shouldn’t at least an ounce of skepticism be permitted before marching off to war on the drop of a hat?
We have wars that won’t end in Afghanistan and Iraq, we have a war being prepared for in us in Iran, we are firing missiles into Pakistan supposedly intended for Osama bin Laden that kill as many civilians as suspected terrorists.
Considering all the military quagmires, all the negative capital around the world generated from our escapades, the military budget that contributes to the bankrupting of this country, and the fact that bin Laden is still at large, tell me this, what have our military excursions actually done for America?
And what of any of this makes President Obama antiwar?
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Try Harder
Well, President Obama got his stimulus.
There is little in the bill that is likely to make the Right giddy. Yet, there seems to be a chorus of disgust coming from Republicans of all ranks. The amount of pork and spending is indeed revolting. Barely less revolting is the transparent disgust of Republicans in the House and Senate.
Until they demonstrate otherwise, Republican clamoring about wasteful spending should be taken as political posturing, nothing more and nothing less.
Someone might be inclined to ask, Why? The Republicans were, with the exception of three senators, completely unified in opposition to the president’s stimulus bill. I would say that that someone is right, the Republicans were extremely unified in their opposition. But why all of a sudden? The Republicans controlled both houses of Congress for six years and didn’t bat an eye at the monumental debt they created.
Even when they were demoted to minority party status after 2006, the Republicans didn’t get much better. When the vote came in the fall for the Wall Street bailout, House Minority Leader John Boehner led the GOP opposition against the bill, which led them to defeat the initial bill, and conservatives everywhere exuberantly cheered.
Hooray! Stopping this bailout and saving the taxpayers’ money is just what we need to retain the White House!
Then the bill got revamped, crammed with pork, and the Republicans, including their presidential candidate, turned around and voted in favor of the bigger bill. And then more Republicans were sent home after the election.
So how are things different now? There’s a Democratic president now, but his philosophy on spending is not much different from his predecessor’s. Both the defense and domestic budgets are bloated. There’s lots of pork and political pet projects. So what’s the difference?
It turns out Republicans are probably only concerned with fiscal sanity when it benefits them politically. They realize that billions in the bill are not “stimulus-related” and the actual stimulus the bill might provide will be marginal and won’t take effect for perhaps a couple of years. They had nothing to gain in voting for it. The stimulus was the initiative of the Democrats, it was loaded with pork and waste, and will probably instigate little growth that is outside the realm of the federal government. We already know that Republicans are just fine with stimulus bills if they are proposed by a Republican president. This is sheer political posturing and the Republicans’ only motivation is to take cover.
This is precisely why the Republicans are still a dormant party. Nobody should take this prodigal fiscal sanity seriously. The Republicans are screaming about how President Obama is spending the country into oblivion and that our children will have to shoulder the weight of this ghastly debt.
That is a very good point. Yet, where was this revulsion when George W. Bush was doing the exact same sort of spending?
And if Barack Obama is the one who sends us spiraling into terminal debt or an unscrupulous burden on our descendants, then it is because George W. Bush set the table for him. Why is President Obama’s spending evil and irresponsible when his predecessor’s was barely more responsible?
* * *
Case in point: Missouri Republican Senator Christopher “Kit” Bond, inserted legislation into the bill committing money to Harley-Davidson motorcycles, a bill that he later voted “no” on.
That seems kind of odd. While I cannot gaze into the man’s heart, to the naked eye, it looks like having it both ways plus one: making sure money gets allocated, voting no on the entire bill, and then getting credit for appearing to care about the motorcycle industry. He doesn’t care about how much is actually in the bill, just how he can best benefit from his “no” vote. Those are not political principles at work, but sheer deception.
* * *
If the slow-moving stimulus really takes some sort of effect by 2010, the midterm elections will be just as disastrous for the Republicans as the last two have been.
If the Republicans wish to get out of their purgatory of minority status, they, like the president’s stimulus, will need some time. They will need it to prove themselves worthy of governing again, after such a dismal record during the Bush years.
But if the stimulus is an historic failure, then that will provide an opening for Republican congressional gains in 2010 and in 2012, our next presidential election year. It will take a new Republican president to determine whether Republicans have really learned their lesson or not. It’s easy for Republicans to oppose a liberal Democratic president with big-spending aspirations when the former’s constituents are seething. It’s quite a different story to oppose your own party’s president when he tries the same thing.
And for Republicans to come back, they do not need to move to the left or try to appease Democrats by dumping the social conservatives. To win elections again, they need to not only move past George W. Bush, but break his mold. No more “compassionate conservatism,” no more amnesty for illegal immigrants, no more LBJ-style domestic spending on prescription drugs, no more undeclared wars and nation-building, and no more they-might-as-well-be-the-51st-state alliance with Israel.
A Republican comeback lays in the somewhat distant future (4-8 years, the distant future in political years).
George W. Bush may be gone and not coming back, but the legacy he left to his party is still here and not going away. It will take a willingness to stand up to a president from their party who is overreaching in his executive power for us to see if the Republicans have really come home.
Of course unless the next Republican president has a record of responsible spending, prudent governance, and fidelity to the laws of the republic (be it Ron Paul, South Carolina governor Mark Sanford, former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson, or someone else of their statesmanship) then it will be much easier for Republicans to lay claim for a new dynasty.
Again, that is for the future.
There is little in the bill that is likely to make the Right giddy. Yet, there seems to be a chorus of disgust coming from Republicans of all ranks. The amount of pork and spending is indeed revolting. Barely less revolting is the transparent disgust of Republicans in the House and Senate.
Until they demonstrate otherwise, Republican clamoring about wasteful spending should be taken as political posturing, nothing more and nothing less.
Someone might be inclined to ask, Why? The Republicans were, with the exception of three senators, completely unified in opposition to the president’s stimulus bill. I would say that that someone is right, the Republicans were extremely unified in their opposition. But why all of a sudden? The Republicans controlled both houses of Congress for six years and didn’t bat an eye at the monumental debt they created.
Even when they were demoted to minority party status after 2006, the Republicans didn’t get much better. When the vote came in the fall for the Wall Street bailout, House Minority Leader John Boehner led the GOP opposition against the bill, which led them to defeat the initial bill, and conservatives everywhere exuberantly cheered.
Hooray! Stopping this bailout and saving the taxpayers’ money is just what we need to retain the White House!
Then the bill got revamped, crammed with pork, and the Republicans, including their presidential candidate, turned around and voted in favor of the bigger bill. And then more Republicans were sent home after the election.
So how are things different now? There’s a Democratic president now, but his philosophy on spending is not much different from his predecessor’s. Both the defense and domestic budgets are bloated. There’s lots of pork and political pet projects. So what’s the difference?
It turns out Republicans are probably only concerned with fiscal sanity when it benefits them politically. They realize that billions in the bill are not “stimulus-related” and the actual stimulus the bill might provide will be marginal and won’t take effect for perhaps a couple of years. They had nothing to gain in voting for it. The stimulus was the initiative of the Democrats, it was loaded with pork and waste, and will probably instigate little growth that is outside the realm of the federal government. We already know that Republicans are just fine with stimulus bills if they are proposed by a Republican president. This is sheer political posturing and the Republicans’ only motivation is to take cover.
This is precisely why the Republicans are still a dormant party. Nobody should take this prodigal fiscal sanity seriously. The Republicans are screaming about how President Obama is spending the country into oblivion and that our children will have to shoulder the weight of this ghastly debt.
That is a very good point. Yet, where was this revulsion when George W. Bush was doing the exact same sort of spending?
And if Barack Obama is the one who sends us spiraling into terminal debt or an unscrupulous burden on our descendants, then it is because George W. Bush set the table for him. Why is President Obama’s spending evil and irresponsible when his predecessor’s was barely more responsible?
* * *
It is precisely because they supported George W. Bush’s every wish and whim and passed everything he wanted that this newfound opposition has to be politically motivated and nothing else.
Case in point: Missouri Republican Senator Christopher “Kit” Bond, inserted legislation into the bill committing money to Harley-Davidson motorcycles, a bill that he later voted “no” on.
That seems kind of odd. While I cannot gaze into the man’s heart, to the naked eye, it looks like having it both ways plus one: making sure money gets allocated, voting no on the entire bill, and then getting credit for appearing to care about the motorcycle industry. He doesn’t care about how much is actually in the bill, just how he can best benefit from his “no” vote. Those are not political principles at work, but sheer deception.
* * *
If the slow-moving stimulus really takes some sort of effect by 2010, the midterm elections will be just as disastrous for the Republicans as the last two have been.
If the Republicans wish to get out of their purgatory of minority status, they, like the president’s stimulus, will need some time. They will need it to prove themselves worthy of governing again, after such a dismal record during the Bush years.
But if the stimulus is an historic failure, then that will provide an opening for Republican congressional gains in 2010 and in 2012, our next presidential election year. It will take a new Republican president to determine whether Republicans have really learned their lesson or not. It’s easy for Republicans to oppose a liberal Democratic president with big-spending aspirations when the former’s constituents are seething. It’s quite a different story to oppose your own party’s president when he tries the same thing.
And for Republicans to come back, they do not need to move to the left or try to appease Democrats by dumping the social conservatives. To win elections again, they need to not only move past George W. Bush, but break his mold. No more “compassionate conservatism,” no more amnesty for illegal immigrants, no more LBJ-style domestic spending on prescription drugs, no more undeclared wars and nation-building, and no more they-might-as-well-be-the-51st-state alliance with Israel.
A Republican comeback lays in the somewhat distant future (4-8 years, the distant future in political years).
George W. Bush may be gone and not coming back, but the legacy he left to his party is still here and not going away. It will take a willingness to stand up to a president from their party who is overreaching in his executive power for us to see if the Republicans have really come home.
Of course unless the next Republican president has a record of responsible spending, prudent governance, and fidelity to the laws of the republic (be it Ron Paul, South Carolina governor Mark Sanford, former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson, or someone else of their statesmanship) then it will be much easier for Republicans to lay claim for a new dynasty.
Again, that is for the future.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Abraham Lincoln's Birthday
Unless someone has been comatose or was just released from a gulag, I am sure everyone is vaguely aware that Thursday, February 12, marks the 200th birthday of our 16th president, Abraham Lincoln.
It has been 200 years since the birth of “The Great Emancipator” yet I find little to celebrate on this occasion. Perhaps that is why I am dedicating this essay today not to the greatness of Lincoln, but to the horrors that the proceeded from his reign.
There have already been hagiographic tomes heaped on Lincoln’s cold body and I am sure there are plenty more to come, but they are really becoming more than I can bear.
To listen to the epithets, one might think that Abraham Lincoln was a combination of Moses, Jesus, Buddha, and this dispensation’s messiah, Barack Obama.
Judging from the adulations heaped on him, Abraham Lincoln foretold the coming civil rights movement and the work of Martin Luther King, he was the savior of the black race, his words of wisdom are constantly repeated to justify any government program or initiative, as if they were the words of Holy Scripture. By this point, any rational person should be tired of everything being said about our 16th president, if for no other reason, no one can possibly be that saintly.
The words of praise are so over the top. I can’t even estimate how many times I have read newspaper editorials and letters to the editor that find some way to incorporate both Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama. There appeared cartoons of the specter of Lincoln standing next to Mr. Obama while the latter took the oath of office. It is simply crass and beyond the scope of reality.
If only more people knew that Lincoln’s war was not so much about slavery but about centralizing his power. If only more people knew that despite graceful anti-slavery rhetoric, Lincoln was just fine with the institution of slavery as long as he could prevent the southern states from successfully seceding. If only more people knew that Lincoln thought blacks were inferior to whites. If only more people knew that once the slaves had been freed, Lincoln intended to ship them back to Africa because peaceful coexistence between the two races was an impossibility in Lincoln’s mind. I cannot speak for dead men, but taking those considerations into account, I would find it hard for Lincoln to be deliriously overjoyed at the election of Barack Obama.
Everybody, it seems, is trying to get a piece of Lincoln during this “historic” time. Liberals like Mario Cuomo still think Lincoln matters because he was a great liberal himself while National Review is trying to turn the big government warmonger into a conservative (which National Review has made a habit of doing in recent years).
Abraham Lincoln, who suspended the writ of habeas corpus, jailed the Maryland state legislature, issued an arrest warrant for the octogenarian Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, and unilaterally shut down opposition newspapers in the North, was perhaps not really the 16th president of the United States, but its 1st dictator.
But didn’t he actually free the slaves? Many people (including myself at one time) still think so. He is credited as “The Great Emancipator” because he issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. But students of history know that the Emancipation Proclamation did nothing to actually free a single slave. It was a deft piece of propaganda that purported to free slaves in states that were still in rebellion, even if he had no control over those states. However, slaves were not freed in states where the rebellion had been quelled, like Louisiana. So, to answer the question, who actually freed the slaves, we must look to the 13th amendment, passed eight months after Lincoln died.
This may be startling news for typical Lincoln-worshipers. What may be more startling is that besides being admired by today’s Republican and Democratic parties, Abraham Lincoln was admired by Adolf Hitler and communists everywhere. Why? Because Lincoln dissolved the Union as a compact of states and turned it into one unified nation under a centralized government. Hitler valued Lincoln’s crushing of the seceding states because it meant that the central government had power over all the other territories and states. Lincoln destroyed the concept of divided sovereignty, something that existed in America until that time, and brought every state under his control. Hitler enthusiastically endorsed Lincoln's actions of crushing the seceding states and forcibly unifying a country under the rule of one central government. Germany, like the United States before the Civil War, was a country that before 1871 was decentralized whose disparate provinces and territories were sovereign over their own affairs. Ensuring that divided sovereignty, the principle that each state was sovereign, was a thing of the past, Hitler could have dictatorial control over the Teutonic lands. It worked the same way 70 years before during the American Civil War.
The ultimate consequences of Lincoln’s war was that it crushed the old republic, one that was a voluntary union, embodied in the 10th amendment, stating that the individual states were sovereign. The Civil War, which itself did not end slavery (again, it was the 13th amendment that accomplished that) but did end the concept of a voluntary union. The victory of the North over the seceding southern states made the federal government supreme over all matters, nullified the 10th amendment for all intents and purposes, and made the state governments little more than satraps for the central government.
There can be more said about Lincoln’s actions as president but such a discussion could turn this blog into book form. Instead, I would recommend Thomas DiLorenzo’s book Lincoln Unmasked, a passionately written book that deals with both the economic and political consequences of Lincoln’s actions and how those actions did not always match up to his pious rhetoric. (DiLorenzo is an economics professor, not a professional historian, but his book is a decent introduction to the darker side of Lincoln)
What does all this mean, anyway? I’m sure this will come off as cranky to some readers. But, with so many tributes and eulogies coming out about Abraham Lincoln, I think more people should know that there is more to Mr. Lincoln than what is spoon fed to the public by the government and its schools. Many of these aspects have been covered up, because they are too blunt and politically incorrect.
So, when we celebrate the birth of this man, we should take careful note of just who and what we are celebrating. There are many conservatives today who are wailing over the expansion President Obama is making regarding the federal government. These conservatives should know that Republicans have been among the greatest expanders of the federal government. Whether it was the most recent Republican president or the first, Republicans have a lot of blame to put on themselves for the expansion of government. Conservatives who bemoan that federal growth, should keep in mind that Abraham Lincoln was one of the main movers and shakers of big government. And conservatives need to reconcile those ideas of loving Lincoln while hating big government because the two go hand-in-hand.
So on this day, I do not plan to celebrate. I only mourn, not for the slain man, but the old American republic which perished shortly before he did.
Afterword: I like picking on National Review, the one-time flagship of American conservatism (which in many ways it still is) and this piece is no different. Their February 23, 2009 issue is entitled “The Conservative Lincoln.” The summary of their cover story claims that Lincoln “was a torchbearer for free markets, individual liberty, and economic mobility, the rule of law, natural rights, and prudence in governing.” This is a remarkable statement considering Lincoln was a supporter of tariffs, which are an intrusion into the purely free market. He might seem like a stalwart of individual liberty because of his anti-slavery rhetoric, but even if he could have freed the slaves, it was only to ship them back to Africa. This is also the man who unconstitutionally suspended the writ of habeas corpus and absolutely ignored the Constitution altogether which makes it hard for me to say that he was prudent in governing. In my opinion, he is the man who most abused power during his time as president - far more than George W. Bush ever exceeded his authority. And such is the way conservatism has declined among the likes of the National Review crowd. This is actually a good lead-in to what will likely be my next piece: the fascism of Rush Limbaugh.
It has been 200 years since the birth of “The Great Emancipator” yet I find little to celebrate on this occasion. Perhaps that is why I am dedicating this essay today not to the greatness of Lincoln, but to the horrors that the proceeded from his reign.
There have already been hagiographic tomes heaped on Lincoln’s cold body and I am sure there are plenty more to come, but they are really becoming more than I can bear.
To listen to the epithets, one might think that Abraham Lincoln was a combination of Moses, Jesus, Buddha, and this dispensation’s messiah, Barack Obama.
Judging from the adulations heaped on him, Abraham Lincoln foretold the coming civil rights movement and the work of Martin Luther King, he was the savior of the black race, his words of wisdom are constantly repeated to justify any government program or initiative, as if they were the words of Holy Scripture. By this point, any rational person should be tired of everything being said about our 16th president, if for no other reason, no one can possibly be that saintly.
The words of praise are so over the top. I can’t even estimate how many times I have read newspaper editorials and letters to the editor that find some way to incorporate both Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama. There appeared cartoons of the specter of Lincoln standing next to Mr. Obama while the latter took the oath of office. It is simply crass and beyond the scope of reality.
If only more people knew that Lincoln’s war was not so much about slavery but about centralizing his power. If only more people knew that despite graceful anti-slavery rhetoric, Lincoln was just fine with the institution of slavery as long as he could prevent the southern states from successfully seceding. If only more people knew that Lincoln thought blacks were inferior to whites. If only more people knew that once the slaves had been freed, Lincoln intended to ship them back to Africa because peaceful coexistence between the two races was an impossibility in Lincoln’s mind. I cannot speak for dead men, but taking those considerations into account, I would find it hard for Lincoln to be deliriously overjoyed at the election of Barack Obama.
Everybody, it seems, is trying to get a piece of Lincoln during this “historic” time. Liberals like Mario Cuomo still think Lincoln matters because he was a great liberal himself while National Review is trying to turn the big government warmonger into a conservative (which National Review has made a habit of doing in recent years).
Abraham Lincoln, who suspended the writ of habeas corpus, jailed the Maryland state legislature, issued an arrest warrant for the octogenarian Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, and unilaterally shut down opposition newspapers in the North, was perhaps not really the 16th president of the United States, but its 1st dictator.
But didn’t he actually free the slaves? Many people (including myself at one time) still think so. He is credited as “The Great Emancipator” because he issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. But students of history know that the Emancipation Proclamation did nothing to actually free a single slave. It was a deft piece of propaganda that purported to free slaves in states that were still in rebellion, even if he had no control over those states. However, slaves were not freed in states where the rebellion had been quelled, like Louisiana. So, to answer the question, who actually freed the slaves, we must look to the 13th amendment, passed eight months after Lincoln died.
This may be startling news for typical Lincoln-worshipers. What may be more startling is that besides being admired by today’s Republican and Democratic parties, Abraham Lincoln was admired by Adolf Hitler and communists everywhere. Why? Because Lincoln dissolved the Union as a compact of states and turned it into one unified nation under a centralized government. Hitler valued Lincoln’s crushing of the seceding states because it meant that the central government had power over all the other territories and states. Lincoln destroyed the concept of divided sovereignty, something that existed in America until that time, and brought every state under his control. Hitler enthusiastically endorsed Lincoln's actions of crushing the seceding states and forcibly unifying a country under the rule of one central government. Germany, like the United States before the Civil War, was a country that before 1871 was decentralized whose disparate provinces and territories were sovereign over their own affairs. Ensuring that divided sovereignty, the principle that each state was sovereign, was a thing of the past, Hitler could have dictatorial control over the Teutonic lands. It worked the same way 70 years before during the American Civil War.
The ultimate consequences of Lincoln’s war was that it crushed the old republic, one that was a voluntary union, embodied in the 10th amendment, stating that the individual states were sovereign. The Civil War, which itself did not end slavery (again, it was the 13th amendment that accomplished that) but did end the concept of a voluntary union. The victory of the North over the seceding southern states made the federal government supreme over all matters, nullified the 10th amendment for all intents and purposes, and made the state governments little more than satraps for the central government.
There can be more said about Lincoln’s actions as president but such a discussion could turn this blog into book form. Instead, I would recommend Thomas DiLorenzo’s book Lincoln Unmasked, a passionately written book that deals with both the economic and political consequences of Lincoln’s actions and how those actions did not always match up to his pious rhetoric. (DiLorenzo is an economics professor, not a professional historian, but his book is a decent introduction to the darker side of Lincoln)
What does all this mean, anyway? I’m sure this will come off as cranky to some readers. But, with so many tributes and eulogies coming out about Abraham Lincoln, I think more people should know that there is more to Mr. Lincoln than what is spoon fed to the public by the government and its schools. Many of these aspects have been covered up, because they are too blunt and politically incorrect.
So, when we celebrate the birth of this man, we should take careful note of just who and what we are celebrating. There are many conservatives today who are wailing over the expansion President Obama is making regarding the federal government. These conservatives should know that Republicans have been among the greatest expanders of the federal government. Whether it was the most recent Republican president or the first, Republicans have a lot of blame to put on themselves for the expansion of government. Conservatives who bemoan that federal growth, should keep in mind that Abraham Lincoln was one of the main movers and shakers of big government. And conservatives need to reconcile those ideas of loving Lincoln while hating big government because the two go hand-in-hand.
So on this day, I do not plan to celebrate. I only mourn, not for the slain man, but the old American republic which perished shortly before he did.
Afterword: I like picking on National Review, the one-time flagship of American conservatism (which in many ways it still is) and this piece is no different. Their February 23, 2009 issue is entitled “The Conservative Lincoln.” The summary of their cover story claims that Lincoln “was a torchbearer for free markets, individual liberty, and economic mobility, the rule of law, natural rights, and prudence in governing.” This is a remarkable statement considering Lincoln was a supporter of tariffs, which are an intrusion into the purely free market. He might seem like a stalwart of individual liberty because of his anti-slavery rhetoric, but even if he could have freed the slaves, it was only to ship them back to Africa. This is also the man who unconstitutionally suspended the writ of habeas corpus and absolutely ignored the Constitution altogether which makes it hard for me to say that he was prudent in governing. In my opinion, he is the man who most abused power during his time as president - far more than George W. Bush ever exceeded his authority. And such is the way conservatism has declined among the likes of the National Review crowd. This is actually a good lead-in to what will likely be my next piece: the fascism of Rush Limbaugh.
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