The C.A.A. will be taking a short break while the editor travels to San Diego to cheer the Wildcats on in the Holiday Bowl.
Regular posts will resume on Thursday or Friday.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Monday, December 28, 2009
Oh, Yes, Copenhagen
Paul Greenberg
Monday, December 28, 2009
The other day a friend asked us if I'd written about the Copenhagen conference on climate change, carbon control, environmental technology, the ecological future of Spaceship Earth, cabbages and kings, and the 101 other Very Important Things covered by that huge, long-awaited and now suddenly fizzled international gabfest.
No, I hadn't written about it. Maybe because it ended not with a bang but with a whimper heard 'round the world: a flurry of non-binding agreements, aka vague misunderstandings. It was the biggest anticlimax since Geraldo the Great Rivera opened Al Capone's vault to find little more than dust. Any actual policies to come out of Copenhagen promise to be as empty.
To sum up the essential deal made at Copenhagen: The developed world sort of promises to give the undeveloped one $30 billion over the next three years -- plus $100 billion a year after 2020 -- in exchange for its separate but equally nebulous promise not to develop too quickly. As with Obamacare, the theoretical benefits are to come first, then the real pain by some always-delayable deadline. It's more convenient that way. Just charge it to some future generation.
Besides the cocksure confidence the delegates displayed in man's ability to reset the world's thermostat, this kind of deal-making in which no one takes the deal made very seriously was the one consistent thread in the tangled web woven at Copenhagen.
There is consolation to be taken in the grand fizzle at Copenhagen. For there is something worse than the conference's failure. And that would have been its success at slowing the world's economic recovery and so dooming still more in the Third World to the bitter fruits of abject poverty: more malnutrition, more disease, and more chaos and instability in general.
Doing nothing has certain advantages over doing the wrong thing, especially on a grand and confusing scale. Besides, the failure of this lavish conference means the delegates can now anticipate many more equally elaborate confabs around the world on the public's tab, complete with equally hyped media coverage and just as inconsequential results. Nice work -- or play -- if you can get it.
Maybe I hadn't written anything of substance about the grand conference at Copenhagen because it proved so insubstantial. My long established policy is, when I have nothing to say about a subject, I try not to say it. Maybe because I've read too many editorials over the years that, having nothing to say, make the grave mistake of saying it. At length. It doesn't exactly make for fascinating reading.
There were doubtless plenty of agreements made at Copenhagen but the major ones were non-binding. Those are the kind of deals that delegates embrace enthusiastically in their speeches but take care not to sign lest their countries be held to their word. They're the kind of oral agreements that the irrepressible Sam Goldwyn, Hollywood mogul and Mr. Malaprop himself, once described as not worth the paper they're written on. Or rather not written on.
Almost coincident with the grand conference at Copenhagen a treasure trove of leaked documents appeared out of the very center of global alarmism over climate change, the Climatic Research Unit of East Anglia University at Norwich, England, which is "widely recognized as one of the world's leading institutions concerned with the study of natural and anthropogenic climate change," according to its Web site. These days it's widely recognized as a center for the suppression of any and all dissenting views about the causes of global warming. If this is science, what would dogma be?
Conspiracies to suppress scientific dissent scarcely ended with Galileo's trial, but at least the church eventually repented and begged pardon. There is little if any sign that the wannabe Al Gores at East Anglia, more politicians than scientists, have been chastened by what's come to be known as Climategate. Instead, they have adopted a variation of the Dan Rather defense: falsified maybe but accurate.
Barack Obama's appearance at the last minute was the final, flashy touch at Copenhagen as he made much ado about much of nothing. The president hasn't demonstrated his diplomatic finesse so convincingly since he went to the same city not long ago to not get the Olympics for Chicago. Which may have been a blessing in disguise, too. (The traffic in the Loop is already bad enough.)
Naturally the president and his handlers came back from Copenhagen declaring a great victory -- Carbon Control in our Time! But surely even they didn't believe it. Certainly the Europeans didn't. As soon as the Grand Conference concluded, the market for carbon-control permits on the European continent dropped dramatically, as if investors were confirming that the countries represented at Copenhagen weren't serious about controlling carbon emissions. No poll is more reliable than the market, where people put their money where their opinions are. It's a great test of sincerity.
The final accord at Copenhagen didn't specify, not in writing, how much big countries like the United States and mainland China are now supposed to reduce their carbon emissions. Nor did the conference decide precisely how much all the other countries were going to sacrifice in order to clean up the world's climate. Just about the only thing the delegates could agree on was to jet off to the next world climate-change conference, which is already scheduled for Mexico City, the one sure effect of which will be to add still more carbon to the Earth's atmosphere.
Monday, December 28, 2009
The other day a friend asked us if I'd written about the Copenhagen conference on climate change, carbon control, environmental technology, the ecological future of Spaceship Earth, cabbages and kings, and the 101 other Very Important Things covered by that huge, long-awaited and now suddenly fizzled international gabfest.
No, I hadn't written about it. Maybe because it ended not with a bang but with a whimper heard 'round the world: a flurry of non-binding agreements, aka vague misunderstandings. It was the biggest anticlimax since Geraldo the Great Rivera opened Al Capone's vault to find little more than dust. Any actual policies to come out of Copenhagen promise to be as empty.
To sum up the essential deal made at Copenhagen: The developed world sort of promises to give the undeveloped one $30 billion over the next three years -- plus $100 billion a year after 2020 -- in exchange for its separate but equally nebulous promise not to develop too quickly. As with Obamacare, the theoretical benefits are to come first, then the real pain by some always-delayable deadline. It's more convenient that way. Just charge it to some future generation.
Besides the cocksure confidence the delegates displayed in man's ability to reset the world's thermostat, this kind of deal-making in which no one takes the deal made very seriously was the one consistent thread in the tangled web woven at Copenhagen.
There is consolation to be taken in the grand fizzle at Copenhagen. For there is something worse than the conference's failure. And that would have been its success at slowing the world's economic recovery and so dooming still more in the Third World to the bitter fruits of abject poverty: more malnutrition, more disease, and more chaos and instability in general.
Doing nothing has certain advantages over doing the wrong thing, especially on a grand and confusing scale. Besides, the failure of this lavish conference means the delegates can now anticipate many more equally elaborate confabs around the world on the public's tab, complete with equally hyped media coverage and just as inconsequential results. Nice work -- or play -- if you can get it.
Maybe I hadn't written anything of substance about the grand conference at Copenhagen because it proved so insubstantial. My long established policy is, when I have nothing to say about a subject, I try not to say it. Maybe because I've read too many editorials over the years that, having nothing to say, make the grave mistake of saying it. At length. It doesn't exactly make for fascinating reading.
There were doubtless plenty of agreements made at Copenhagen but the major ones were non-binding. Those are the kind of deals that delegates embrace enthusiastically in their speeches but take care not to sign lest their countries be held to their word. They're the kind of oral agreements that the irrepressible Sam Goldwyn, Hollywood mogul and Mr. Malaprop himself, once described as not worth the paper they're written on. Or rather not written on.
Almost coincident with the grand conference at Copenhagen a treasure trove of leaked documents appeared out of the very center of global alarmism over climate change, the Climatic Research Unit of East Anglia University at Norwich, England, which is "widely recognized as one of the world's leading institutions concerned with the study of natural and anthropogenic climate change," according to its Web site. These days it's widely recognized as a center for the suppression of any and all dissenting views about the causes of global warming. If this is science, what would dogma be?
Conspiracies to suppress scientific dissent scarcely ended with Galileo's trial, but at least the church eventually repented and begged pardon. There is little if any sign that the wannabe Al Gores at East Anglia, more politicians than scientists, have been chastened by what's come to be known as Climategate. Instead, they have adopted a variation of the Dan Rather defense: falsified maybe but accurate.
Barack Obama's appearance at the last minute was the final, flashy touch at Copenhagen as he made much ado about much of nothing. The president hasn't demonstrated his diplomatic finesse so convincingly since he went to the same city not long ago to not get the Olympics for Chicago. Which may have been a blessing in disguise, too. (The traffic in the Loop is already bad enough.)
Naturally the president and his handlers came back from Copenhagen declaring a great victory -- Carbon Control in our Time! But surely even they didn't believe it. Certainly the Europeans didn't. As soon as the Grand Conference concluded, the market for carbon-control permits on the European continent dropped dramatically, as if investors were confirming that the countries represented at Copenhagen weren't serious about controlling carbon emissions. No poll is more reliable than the market, where people put their money where their opinions are. It's a great test of sincerity.
The final accord at Copenhagen didn't specify, not in writing, how much big countries like the United States and mainland China are now supposed to reduce their carbon emissions. Nor did the conference decide precisely how much all the other countries were going to sacrifice in order to clean up the world's climate. Just about the only thing the delegates could agree on was to jet off to the next world climate-change conference, which is already scheduled for Mexico City, the one sure effect of which will be to add still more carbon to the Earth's atmosphere.
Teach Your Children
Bruce Bialosky
Monday, December 28, 2009
Rampant discussion swirls through our society as to whether or not there has been a degradation of cultural values. The question of whether civility has been sacrificed to the altars of personal convenience and “non-judgmentalism” concerns many Americans who are entrusted to pass this value to future generations. If you want to see the struggle in its full majesty, enter one of our modern theatres of community interaction – the family restaurant.
Since the passage of civil rights legislation in the 1960s, the family restaurant has become a center of shared communality. There may be other places, but nothing allows multiple generations to interact across cultural and economic levels quite like a moderately-priced local restaurant. Unfortunately, the rules of civil behavior seem to be disintegrating before our very eyes. This devolution has manifested itself through our children.
It has become apparent that while today’s parents want to take their children to restaurants, they are often unwilling to instruct their kids how to properly behave in this public forum. It used to be that children would go to a restaurant and stay in their seats. If a child started to misbehave, one parent would take the youngster out of the restaurant until he (or she) settled down. Regrettably, that no longer appears to be standard behavior.
After observing frequent occurrences of children aimlessly walking, climbing over the back of seats and generally disrupting other diners’ peaceful enjoyment of their meals, it was time to consult the professionals and see if standards had really changed.
I started with the servers, and the large majority stated that they had observed a significant change in how parents control their children. Their general impression was that standards have slipped substantially, and they often feel frustrated and helpless as they watch parents allowing their kids to run rampant. Servers must often move through small spaces while carrying large food platters. They prefer – if only for everyone’s safety – that patrons stay out of their pathways. They are reluctant to confront parents because they’re concerned both about what management might say as well as the impact on their tips (which are often a significant portion of their compensation). So they leave the matter to management.
Management feels a little less helpless, but not much. One restaurant manager with 30 years in the industry described how basic manners have deteriorated in the past 15 years. Children, she said, frequently disrupt restaurant operations and the parents too often are unwilling to rein in their behavior. Managers, she continued, were in a difficult position because people don’t like to be told how to raise their kids. If the manager confronts the parent, they risk losing a loyal customer. But if they don’t, it’s the other patrons who start to get upset.
That sometimes leaves it to the customers themselves to make comments. Occasionally this occurs and a war can break out. One manager stated that she recently had to break up an argument between a regular customer seeking a peaceful meal and another patron unwilling to control their child. The manager had to arbitrate the dispute knowing that one of the customers would probably be lost for good. A choice had to be made and, unfortunately, the real loser was the restaurant.
This manager suggested that perhaps this was regional behavior, principally related to the loose interpretation of proper parenting often found in Southern California. But when the same question was asked of restaurant employees around the country, it was found that sadly, the manager was incorrect – in fact, bad behavior appears to be occurring everywhere. Parents appear increasingly unwilling to rope in their children, and fellow patrons are suffering the effects.
The importance of this is larger than one might first perceive. Children have often misbehaved at home, but parents would always make sure they respected others in a public forum. Last week, a friend related a story about his own children. He was told how well-behaved his kids were by someone who saw them frequently. The man replied that he wished they acted that nicely at home. But he didn’t really understand the larger issue – all children are challenging at home, but it’s most important how they act in public environments.
If children of today aren’t given any guidance about proper behavior in public, what will be their guideposts when they get older? How will they act when they go away to college or move away from home? If they aren’t taught by their parents that being considerate of others in public forums is essential behavior for a civil society, where and when will they learn?
Graham Nash wrote a song called “Teach Your Children” that had a different focus, but I suspect he would not have thought that our society would be faced with such basic challenges as controlling young children in public. If we cannot accomplish this as a society, where are we headed?
Monday, December 28, 2009
Rampant discussion swirls through our society as to whether or not there has been a degradation of cultural values. The question of whether civility has been sacrificed to the altars of personal convenience and “non-judgmentalism” concerns many Americans who are entrusted to pass this value to future generations. If you want to see the struggle in its full majesty, enter one of our modern theatres of community interaction – the family restaurant.
Since the passage of civil rights legislation in the 1960s, the family restaurant has become a center of shared communality. There may be other places, but nothing allows multiple generations to interact across cultural and economic levels quite like a moderately-priced local restaurant. Unfortunately, the rules of civil behavior seem to be disintegrating before our very eyes. This devolution has manifested itself through our children.
It has become apparent that while today’s parents want to take their children to restaurants, they are often unwilling to instruct their kids how to properly behave in this public forum. It used to be that children would go to a restaurant and stay in their seats. If a child started to misbehave, one parent would take the youngster out of the restaurant until he (or she) settled down. Regrettably, that no longer appears to be standard behavior.
After observing frequent occurrences of children aimlessly walking, climbing over the back of seats and generally disrupting other diners’ peaceful enjoyment of their meals, it was time to consult the professionals and see if standards had really changed.
I started with the servers, and the large majority stated that they had observed a significant change in how parents control their children. Their general impression was that standards have slipped substantially, and they often feel frustrated and helpless as they watch parents allowing their kids to run rampant. Servers must often move through small spaces while carrying large food platters. They prefer – if only for everyone’s safety – that patrons stay out of their pathways. They are reluctant to confront parents because they’re concerned both about what management might say as well as the impact on their tips (which are often a significant portion of their compensation). So they leave the matter to management.
Management feels a little less helpless, but not much. One restaurant manager with 30 years in the industry described how basic manners have deteriorated in the past 15 years. Children, she said, frequently disrupt restaurant operations and the parents too often are unwilling to rein in their behavior. Managers, she continued, were in a difficult position because people don’t like to be told how to raise their kids. If the manager confronts the parent, they risk losing a loyal customer. But if they don’t, it’s the other patrons who start to get upset.
That sometimes leaves it to the customers themselves to make comments. Occasionally this occurs and a war can break out. One manager stated that she recently had to break up an argument between a regular customer seeking a peaceful meal and another patron unwilling to control their child. The manager had to arbitrate the dispute knowing that one of the customers would probably be lost for good. A choice had to be made and, unfortunately, the real loser was the restaurant.
This manager suggested that perhaps this was regional behavior, principally related to the loose interpretation of proper parenting often found in Southern California. But when the same question was asked of restaurant employees around the country, it was found that sadly, the manager was incorrect – in fact, bad behavior appears to be occurring everywhere. Parents appear increasingly unwilling to rope in their children, and fellow patrons are suffering the effects.
The importance of this is larger than one might first perceive. Children have often misbehaved at home, but parents would always make sure they respected others in a public forum. Last week, a friend related a story about his own children. He was told how well-behaved his kids were by someone who saw them frequently. The man replied that he wished they acted that nicely at home. But he didn’t really understand the larger issue – all children are challenging at home, but it’s most important how they act in public environments.
If children of today aren’t given any guidance about proper behavior in public, what will be their guideposts when they get older? How will they act when they go away to college or move away from home? If they aren’t taught by their parents that being considerate of others in public forums is essential behavior for a civil society, where and when will they learn?
Graham Nash wrote a song called “Teach Your Children” that had a different focus, but I suspect he would not have thought that our society would be faced with such basic challenges as controlling young children in public. If we cannot accomplish this as a society, where are we headed?
Avatar: The Atlas Shrugged of the Left
Nick Rizzuto
Monday, December 28, 2009
For 52 years now, Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged has stood alone as the shining example of political allegory. Rand's novel has long been considered to be essential reading for American individualists and advocates of free markets. The American left on the other hand has not had a work of fiction that definitively embodies their worldview. Avatar might just fill that void. While the two stories are powerful, their messages are diametrically opposed.
Rand and Cameron hold up their protagonists as paragons of virtue and rely heavily on archetypes to get their point across. While these archetypes cause the characters to be somewhat wooden, they are very romantic, making them very attractive to audiences. Rand’s ideals are represented primarily by three characters, inventor John Galt, Railroad mogul Dagney Taggart, and Steel baron Hank Reardon. Cameron’s ideals are embodied by the blue skinned alien race, the Na’vi.
Rand’s protagonists find their virtue in their individuality. Galt, Taggart, and Reardon are all champions of industry, drawing their strength from their dedication to their respective crafts. Each character is an industrial revolutionary of sorts, with their groundbreaking ideas and creations going largely unappreciated in a society that is rapidly collectivizing. Their strict adherence to an individualist moral code drives them to actualize their ambitions in the forms of innovations that improve everyone’s quality of life, despite the collective’s efforts to handcuff them.
Cameron’s protagonists on the other hand find their virtue in their collective identity. The tribal Na’vi are portrayed as an idyllic collective with a distinct lack of individuality. Members of the tribe have little character of their own and are accurately described as a sea of blue.
Cameron exalts the primitivism of the Na’vi. Unlike Galt, Taggart, and Reardon, who seek to physically transform the world around them for the better, the Na’vi merely subside off the land. Their existence is static, unchanged since the days of their ancestors. Meanwhile, according to Cameron, mankind’s industrial pursuit is purely exploitative. Giovanni Rabisi’s character Parker is a heartless and one-dimensional hack for an unnamed earth based company seeking to mine a highly coveted element called Unobtainium. His obsession with material wealth seems to blind him and drive him to commit atrocities. This theme is the classic condemnation of capitalism; that wealth created not through innovation as Rand seems to suggest, but rather through exploitation.
Another stark contrast exists in Rand and Cameron’s chosen settings. As her largest set piece, Rand chose the concrete jungle of New York City. She painted a portrait of a slowly deteriorating city, whose once beautiful architecture had fallen into disrepair due to collectivist dogma. In sharp contrast Pandora, the backdrop of Avatar and home to the Na’vi, is an unmolested utopia. In keeping with the modern “green” fantasy all creatures live in harmony with their surroundings, while it is suggested that mankind has exploited its natural resources to such a great extent that they have left earth with no vegetation. The Na’vi would almost certainly see Rand’s New York as blight upon their lush landscape.
There’s one place where Cameron fails to hold a candle to Rand and that’s in originality. While Rand’s characters were illustrations of a moral system of her own creation, Cameron’s are mostly well worn clichés.
Much of Avatar has an odor of recycled material to it (and not in the green sense.) For example Neytiri, the Na’vi love interest of the main protagonist and the Na’vi character with the most depth, fails to offer viewers anything they haven’t seen before. Her relationship with turncoat marine Jake Sully is a love story that can be found in the vast majority of today’s romantic comedies. Even Cameron’s casting choices seem uninspired and obvious; a veteran Native American actor as the Na’vi tribe’s proud patriarch; an African American woman as tribe’s soulful spiritual leader. It would be safe to say that Cameron’s casting couch didn’t get too much of a workout during Avatar’s pre-production.
One would struggle to find two world views that are more opposite than those of Ayn Rand and James Cameron, but both have found success in crafting stories with very little moral ambiguity. In the end, Atlas Shrugged is a story of the triumph of the individual over the collective, while Avatar is an amalgamation of Hollywood and the liberal left’s collectivist political fetishes. While both works will undoubtedly delight those who are predisposed to their respective ideological tenants, it remains to be seen whether or not Cameron’s Avatar will hold up to the test of time as Rand’s masterpiece has.
Monday, December 28, 2009
For 52 years now, Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged has stood alone as the shining example of political allegory. Rand's novel has long been considered to be essential reading for American individualists and advocates of free markets. The American left on the other hand has not had a work of fiction that definitively embodies their worldview. Avatar might just fill that void. While the two stories are powerful, their messages are diametrically opposed.
Rand and Cameron hold up their protagonists as paragons of virtue and rely heavily on archetypes to get their point across. While these archetypes cause the characters to be somewhat wooden, they are very romantic, making them very attractive to audiences. Rand’s ideals are represented primarily by three characters, inventor John Galt, Railroad mogul Dagney Taggart, and Steel baron Hank Reardon. Cameron’s ideals are embodied by the blue skinned alien race, the Na’vi.
Rand’s protagonists find their virtue in their individuality. Galt, Taggart, and Reardon are all champions of industry, drawing their strength from their dedication to their respective crafts. Each character is an industrial revolutionary of sorts, with their groundbreaking ideas and creations going largely unappreciated in a society that is rapidly collectivizing. Their strict adherence to an individualist moral code drives them to actualize their ambitions in the forms of innovations that improve everyone’s quality of life, despite the collective’s efforts to handcuff them.
Cameron’s protagonists on the other hand find their virtue in their collective identity. The tribal Na’vi are portrayed as an idyllic collective with a distinct lack of individuality. Members of the tribe have little character of their own and are accurately described as a sea of blue.
Cameron exalts the primitivism of the Na’vi. Unlike Galt, Taggart, and Reardon, who seek to physically transform the world around them for the better, the Na’vi merely subside off the land. Their existence is static, unchanged since the days of their ancestors. Meanwhile, according to Cameron, mankind’s industrial pursuit is purely exploitative. Giovanni Rabisi’s character Parker is a heartless and one-dimensional hack for an unnamed earth based company seeking to mine a highly coveted element called Unobtainium. His obsession with material wealth seems to blind him and drive him to commit atrocities. This theme is the classic condemnation of capitalism; that wealth created not through innovation as Rand seems to suggest, but rather through exploitation.
Another stark contrast exists in Rand and Cameron’s chosen settings. As her largest set piece, Rand chose the concrete jungle of New York City. She painted a portrait of a slowly deteriorating city, whose once beautiful architecture had fallen into disrepair due to collectivist dogma. In sharp contrast Pandora, the backdrop of Avatar and home to the Na’vi, is an unmolested utopia. In keeping with the modern “green” fantasy all creatures live in harmony with their surroundings, while it is suggested that mankind has exploited its natural resources to such a great extent that they have left earth with no vegetation. The Na’vi would almost certainly see Rand’s New York as blight upon their lush landscape.
There’s one place where Cameron fails to hold a candle to Rand and that’s in originality. While Rand’s characters were illustrations of a moral system of her own creation, Cameron’s are mostly well worn clichés.
Much of Avatar has an odor of recycled material to it (and not in the green sense.) For example Neytiri, the Na’vi love interest of the main protagonist and the Na’vi character with the most depth, fails to offer viewers anything they haven’t seen before. Her relationship with turncoat marine Jake Sully is a love story that can be found in the vast majority of today’s romantic comedies. Even Cameron’s casting choices seem uninspired and obvious; a veteran Native American actor as the Na’vi tribe’s proud patriarch; an African American woman as tribe’s soulful spiritual leader. It would be safe to say that Cameron’s casting couch didn’t get too much of a workout during Avatar’s pre-production.
One would struggle to find two world views that are more opposite than those of Ayn Rand and James Cameron, but both have found success in crafting stories with very little moral ambiguity. In the end, Atlas Shrugged is a story of the triumph of the individual over the collective, while Avatar is an amalgamation of Hollywood and the liberal left’s collectivist political fetishes. While both works will undoubtedly delight those who are predisposed to their respective ideological tenants, it remains to be seen whether or not Cameron’s Avatar will hold up to the test of time as Rand’s masterpiece has.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Health Care, Barack Obama, and the U.S. Constitution
Austin Hill
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Who cares about the U.S. Constitution, when Barack Obama’s vision for America is weighing in the balance?
Don’t count on the U.S. Congress to care.
In the aftermath of the Senate’s passage of an Obamacare bill, Attorney’s General from multiple states have begun to announce that they are launching investigations into the legality, and constitutionality of the Senate legislation. Chief among their concerns is the possibility that that the bill places Americans outside the state of Nebraska at a significant disadvantage, financially and otherwise, to residents of the state of Nebraska.
South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster, along with the Attorneys General in the states of Washington, Michigan, Texas, Colorado, Alabama and North Dakota – have joined forces to consider, among other things, if the Obamacare bill in the U.S. Senate violates the 10th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The 10th Amendment stipulates that powers not granted to the national government nor prohibited to the states by the constitution of the United States , are reserved to the states or the people.
As such, the 10th Amendment may pose constitutional challenges to the Obamacare bill itself. Does the constitution grant to the federal government the “power” to provide healthcare? More curiously, does the constitution grant to the federal government the “power” to mandate that people buy anything - including health insurance (the Senate version of the healthcare reform legislation stipulates both)?
Additionally, state Attorneys General should also be concerned about Obamacare for another reason: it could be in violation of the “equal protection” clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Concerns over the Fourteenth Amendment appear to be present (this is based on what we know of the legislation, which, because of Pelosi and Reid’s secretiveness, is not a lot) in the portion of the Obamacare bill that grants special (and expensive) privileges to residents of the state of Nebraska. In the Senate’s Obamacare bill, the state of Nebraska is afforded special financial advantages from the federal government - to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars every year – for the funding of Medicaid. The reason this provision appears in a Senate healthcare bill, as many readers of this column are aware, is because the bill could not be passed without the vote of Democratic Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska .
Obamacare is strongly opposed by roughly two-thirds of American voters. And according to a survey published less than two weeks ago by the Tarrance Group polling firm, sixty-seven percent of Nebraskans oppose Obamacare, while ninety percent of Nebraskans are happy with the heatlhcare they currently receive and don’t want it to change.
Additionally, the Senate Obamacare bill is vague, at best, as to when and where it funds abortion procedures – and Nebraskans overwhelmingly find the aborting of unborn children to be abhorrent. And for all these reasons, Senator Ben Nelson had every reason to vote against the Obamacare bill.
So, given Senator Nelson’s incentives to oppose the Obamacare bill, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid crafted a special deal to incentivize Nelson to vote in favor of the bill. The “incentives” included special economic incentives for the state of Nebraska , incentivizes that people in the other 49 states don’t receive.
Using the law to single-out certain individuals, or certain groups of individuals, and impart to them either special privileges or penalties that don’t apply to other Americans, is, well – Un-American. And it may very well prove to be un-constitutional in court.
Residents in the other forty-nine states pay taxes according to the same federal taxation structure as do Americans in Nebraska. Furthermore, in as much as we are U.S. citizens, we are all deserving of the same “protections” under the law to which Nebraskans are subject.
But the Senate Obamacare bill sets aside Nebraskans, and makes a special privileged class of them. If this bill becomes law, Nebraskans will be entitled to subsidies from the federal government that those of us who belong in the category called “non-Nebraskans” are not.
This disregard for the U.S. Constitution and matters of “equal protection” do not begin and end with Senator Ben Nelson. Earlier this winter, Senator Mary Landrieu (D-Louisiana) was asked a simple question by reporter Nicholas Ballasy of CNSNews.Com: “What part of the Constitution do you think gives Congress the authority to mandate that individuals have to purchase health insurance?”
In response, Senator Landrieu (who, much like Senator Nelson of Nebraska did, essentially “sold” her vote in the Senate despite opposition to Obamacare in her home state of Louisiana) replied “we’re very lucky as members of the Senate to have constitutional lawyers on our staff, so I’ll let them answer that.”
Yes, of course – “the lawyers clean up all details” as American poet (and “classic rock” star) Don Henley once lamented about his country. The fact is, however, that Senator Landrieu couldn’t answer the question if she tried.
But just like the legal profession itself, our current President and Congress have little regard for the U.S. Constitution, and for the rights of the human individual. Just as it is with the practice of law, the process of “law making” revolves around “leverage” – what can one individual or group force another individual or group to do? What does it take to accomplish what we, the politicians, want to accomplish?
Will any more among the 535 elite Americans in Congress dare to raise any constitutional concerns about this? And how about the Attorneys General of the other 43 states? Does the Constitution matter any more?
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Who cares about the U.S. Constitution, when Barack Obama’s vision for America is weighing in the balance?
Don’t count on the U.S. Congress to care.
In the aftermath of the Senate’s passage of an Obamacare bill, Attorney’s General from multiple states have begun to announce that they are launching investigations into the legality, and constitutionality of the Senate legislation. Chief among their concerns is the possibility that that the bill places Americans outside the state of Nebraska at a significant disadvantage, financially and otherwise, to residents of the state of Nebraska.
South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster, along with the Attorneys General in the states of Washington, Michigan, Texas, Colorado, Alabama and North Dakota – have joined forces to consider, among other things, if the Obamacare bill in the U.S. Senate violates the 10th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The 10th Amendment stipulates that powers not granted to the national government nor prohibited to the states by the constitution of the United States , are reserved to the states or the people.
As such, the 10th Amendment may pose constitutional challenges to the Obamacare bill itself. Does the constitution grant to the federal government the “power” to provide healthcare? More curiously, does the constitution grant to the federal government the “power” to mandate that people buy anything - including health insurance (the Senate version of the healthcare reform legislation stipulates both)?
Additionally, state Attorneys General should also be concerned about Obamacare for another reason: it could be in violation of the “equal protection” clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Concerns over the Fourteenth Amendment appear to be present (this is based on what we know of the legislation, which, because of Pelosi and Reid’s secretiveness, is not a lot) in the portion of the Obamacare bill that grants special (and expensive) privileges to residents of the state of Nebraska. In the Senate’s Obamacare bill, the state of Nebraska is afforded special financial advantages from the federal government - to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars every year – for the funding of Medicaid. The reason this provision appears in a Senate healthcare bill, as many readers of this column are aware, is because the bill could not be passed without the vote of Democratic Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska .
Obamacare is strongly opposed by roughly two-thirds of American voters. And according to a survey published less than two weeks ago by the Tarrance Group polling firm, sixty-seven percent of Nebraskans oppose Obamacare, while ninety percent of Nebraskans are happy with the heatlhcare they currently receive and don’t want it to change.
Additionally, the Senate Obamacare bill is vague, at best, as to when and where it funds abortion procedures – and Nebraskans overwhelmingly find the aborting of unborn children to be abhorrent. And for all these reasons, Senator Ben Nelson had every reason to vote against the Obamacare bill.
So, given Senator Nelson’s incentives to oppose the Obamacare bill, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid crafted a special deal to incentivize Nelson to vote in favor of the bill. The “incentives” included special economic incentives for the state of Nebraska , incentivizes that people in the other 49 states don’t receive.
Using the law to single-out certain individuals, or certain groups of individuals, and impart to them either special privileges or penalties that don’t apply to other Americans, is, well – Un-American. And it may very well prove to be un-constitutional in court.
Residents in the other forty-nine states pay taxes according to the same federal taxation structure as do Americans in Nebraska. Furthermore, in as much as we are U.S. citizens, we are all deserving of the same “protections” under the law to which Nebraskans are subject.
But the Senate Obamacare bill sets aside Nebraskans, and makes a special privileged class of them. If this bill becomes law, Nebraskans will be entitled to subsidies from the federal government that those of us who belong in the category called “non-Nebraskans” are not.
This disregard for the U.S. Constitution and matters of “equal protection” do not begin and end with Senator Ben Nelson. Earlier this winter, Senator Mary Landrieu (D-Louisiana) was asked a simple question by reporter Nicholas Ballasy of CNSNews.Com: “What part of the Constitution do you think gives Congress the authority to mandate that individuals have to purchase health insurance?”
In response, Senator Landrieu (who, much like Senator Nelson of Nebraska did, essentially “sold” her vote in the Senate despite opposition to Obamacare in her home state of Louisiana) replied “we’re very lucky as members of the Senate to have constitutional lawyers on our staff, so I’ll let them answer that.”
Yes, of course – “the lawyers clean up all details” as American poet (and “classic rock” star) Don Henley once lamented about his country. The fact is, however, that Senator Landrieu couldn’t answer the question if she tried.
But just like the legal profession itself, our current President and Congress have little regard for the U.S. Constitution, and for the rights of the human individual. Just as it is with the practice of law, the process of “law making” revolves around “leverage” – what can one individual or group force another individual or group to do? What does it take to accomplish what we, the politicians, want to accomplish?
Will any more among the 535 elite Americans in Congress dare to raise any constitutional concerns about this? And how about the Attorneys General of the other 43 states? Does the Constitution matter any more?
The devil in a red tie
Paul Jacob
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez received enthusiastic applause (and some nervous laughter) at the Copenhagen climate conference. On the podium, he referenced the fact that the president of the United States had spoken there before, and that the area smelled “of sulfur” . . . a reference to the devil.
But, Mr. Chavez, we’ve a saying here in America: He who smelt it dealt it.
Now, at a time when the word “avatar” is on many a lip, it may not seem implausible that the devil would make a personal appearance on the world stage. And, like George W. Bush before him, Barack Obama unfortunately gives too much cause for his enemies to interpret just such an inglorious incarnation.
Or maybe not. A few months earlier, Chavez had proclaimed the UN sulfur-free, and Obama’s own odor to be a wholesome one of hope. (I actually can’t imagine what hope might smell like.) Since then Hugo’s changed his mind. Apparently, it now makes sense for him to malign Obama as well as the U.S., at least when it comes to fighting the alleged human-caused warming trends of the planet. Why the flip-flop? Perhaps it’s to distract the world from his own country’s bizarre policies regarding that dear fuel, petroleum.
Or the reality that, if anyone’s the devil, it’s Hugo.
And if the folk in Copenhagen still applaud this monster, that should be enough for Norte Americanos to choose sides. No Kyoto (which Hugo Chavez encouraged us all to “respect” and “empower”). No “climate change” deal of any kind. There are some sulfuric agencies we need not mix with.
From the beginning, many of us caught more than a whiff of socialism and anti-industrialism about the whole “global warming” scare. Now, after multiple frauds in evidence have risen to besmirch the reputations of the world’s “greatest” climate warming specialists, perhaps we should simply call a spade a spade and use that handy implement to bury this indecent revival of the ultimate indecency: Tyrannical socialism.
Hugo being Hugo, though, doesn’t see in various proposals of a massive new blanket of smothering regulation — to save the planet, of course — anything like tyranny. Instead, he sees the actual, current process of policy-making regarding climate control as an instance of devilish design by capitalists. The backroom dealings on climate change policy, exhibited at the conference, Hugo imputes not to socialism but to capitalism.
I suppose the truth is a bit more mundane. The unfair and undemocratic aspects of the climate control debate are nothing other than government-as-usual. To ascribe it to capitalism is absurd. To ascribe it to socialism is also probably unjust. It’s just government. Big bad government.
But it is the kind of bad government that socialists (and too many environmentalists) habitually prop up, with their constant calls for “something to be done” and their incessant attacks on non-governmental organization.
To some people, the vibrant changes in markets and civilization is a problem to be solved. Period. They don’t like change, they certainly don’t like the dynamic patterns of adjustment inherent in capitalism. Creative destruction? Destructive creation? Whatever we call it, some people will always oppose it. The same attitude has crept into environmentalism. The changes in climates — which have been ongoing since the beginnings of the planet — are now seen by many as a problem to be solved, not a fact of life to be accommodated.
And yes, Virginia, climates change. It’s been cooler than now. It’s been warmer. Maybe it’ll get much warmer. We’ll survive (after all, there are some advantages to a warmer world). But attacking industry and (especially) economic growth in the Third World is no way to save mankind . . . or the planet.
And sure, climates of opinion — they change, too. Within my lifetime it was once thought that socialism would lead the world to progress. Now, the truth is widely known: Socialism is the recipe for the end of progress. It’s the case in medicine. It’s the case in industrial output. And the causes aren’t secret: Disparate and tacit knowledge, perverse incentives, enforced (rather than free) community, grinding bureuacracy — alone these factors ensure that the more government you have, the less progress you get. Together, these factors make the end product of socialism (at best) stasis or (at worst) catastrophic regression.
And it so happens that killing progress is the main focus of too many “progressives,” the folks who ideologically embrace the apocalyptic notion that human civilization is a “cancer on the planet.” Rather than see civilization as a great efflorescence of wealth and freedom, and the best hope for rescuing nature from the sullying power of pollution, they see it as pollution and imbalance incarnate. They demonize the wrong thing.
So it is no wonder, amidst such perverse inversions, that the Copenhagen delegates applauded a self-declared socialist and obvious tyrant, Hugo Chavez. Rather than laugh him out of the room for corkers like labeling capitalism “the road to hell” and charging markets (not government and goons) as the enduring contributor to poverty, they treated him with far more respect than he deserves.
In doing so, they merely flew their true colors.
Their flag isn’t green, though. Or red, like Chavez’s power tie.
It’s yellow. Like sulfur. Brimstone.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez received enthusiastic applause (and some nervous laughter) at the Copenhagen climate conference. On the podium, he referenced the fact that the president of the United States had spoken there before, and that the area smelled “of sulfur” . . . a reference to the devil.
But, Mr. Chavez, we’ve a saying here in America: He who smelt it dealt it.
Now, at a time when the word “avatar” is on many a lip, it may not seem implausible that the devil would make a personal appearance on the world stage. And, like George W. Bush before him, Barack Obama unfortunately gives too much cause for his enemies to interpret just such an inglorious incarnation.
Or maybe not. A few months earlier, Chavez had proclaimed the UN sulfur-free, and Obama’s own odor to be a wholesome one of hope. (I actually can’t imagine what hope might smell like.) Since then Hugo’s changed his mind. Apparently, it now makes sense for him to malign Obama as well as the U.S., at least when it comes to fighting the alleged human-caused warming trends of the planet. Why the flip-flop? Perhaps it’s to distract the world from his own country’s bizarre policies regarding that dear fuel, petroleum.
Or the reality that, if anyone’s the devil, it’s Hugo.
And if the folk in Copenhagen still applaud this monster, that should be enough for Norte Americanos to choose sides. No Kyoto (which Hugo Chavez encouraged us all to “respect” and “empower”). No “climate change” deal of any kind. There are some sulfuric agencies we need not mix with.
From the beginning, many of us caught more than a whiff of socialism and anti-industrialism about the whole “global warming” scare. Now, after multiple frauds in evidence have risen to besmirch the reputations of the world’s “greatest” climate warming specialists, perhaps we should simply call a spade a spade and use that handy implement to bury this indecent revival of the ultimate indecency: Tyrannical socialism.
Hugo being Hugo, though, doesn’t see in various proposals of a massive new blanket of smothering regulation — to save the planet, of course — anything like tyranny. Instead, he sees the actual, current process of policy-making regarding climate control as an instance of devilish design by capitalists. The backroom dealings on climate change policy, exhibited at the conference, Hugo imputes not to socialism but to capitalism.
I suppose the truth is a bit more mundane. The unfair and undemocratic aspects of the climate control debate are nothing other than government-as-usual. To ascribe it to capitalism is absurd. To ascribe it to socialism is also probably unjust. It’s just government. Big bad government.
But it is the kind of bad government that socialists (and too many environmentalists) habitually prop up, with their constant calls for “something to be done” and their incessant attacks on non-governmental organization.
To some people, the vibrant changes in markets and civilization is a problem to be solved. Period. They don’t like change, they certainly don’t like the dynamic patterns of adjustment inherent in capitalism. Creative destruction? Destructive creation? Whatever we call it, some people will always oppose it. The same attitude has crept into environmentalism. The changes in climates — which have been ongoing since the beginnings of the planet — are now seen by many as a problem to be solved, not a fact of life to be accommodated.
And yes, Virginia, climates change. It’s been cooler than now. It’s been warmer. Maybe it’ll get much warmer. We’ll survive (after all, there are some advantages to a warmer world). But attacking industry and (especially) economic growth in the Third World is no way to save mankind . . . or the planet.
And sure, climates of opinion — they change, too. Within my lifetime it was once thought that socialism would lead the world to progress. Now, the truth is widely known: Socialism is the recipe for the end of progress. It’s the case in medicine. It’s the case in industrial output. And the causes aren’t secret: Disparate and tacit knowledge, perverse incentives, enforced (rather than free) community, grinding bureuacracy — alone these factors ensure that the more government you have, the less progress you get. Together, these factors make the end product of socialism (at best) stasis or (at worst) catastrophic regression.
And it so happens that killing progress is the main focus of too many “progressives,” the folks who ideologically embrace the apocalyptic notion that human civilization is a “cancer on the planet.” Rather than see civilization as a great efflorescence of wealth and freedom, and the best hope for rescuing nature from the sullying power of pollution, they see it as pollution and imbalance incarnate. They demonize the wrong thing.
So it is no wonder, amidst such perverse inversions, that the Copenhagen delegates applauded a self-declared socialist and obvious tyrant, Hugo Chavez. Rather than laugh him out of the room for corkers like labeling capitalism “the road to hell” and charging markets (not government and goons) as the enduring contributor to poverty, they treated him with far more respect than he deserves.
In doing so, they merely flew their true colors.
Their flag isn’t green, though. Or red, like Chavez’s power tie.
It’s yellow. Like sulfur. Brimstone.
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Cross the River, Burn the Bridge
Obamacare is the fast-track to a permanent left-of-center political culture.
By Mark Steyn
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Last week, during a bit of banter on Fox News, my colleague Jonah Goldberg reminded me of something I’d all but forgotten. Last September, during his address to Congress on health care, Barack Obama declared: “I am not the first President to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last.”
Dream on. The monstrous mountain of toxic pustules sprouting from greasy boils metastasizing from malign carbuncles that passed the Senate on Christmas Eve is not the last word in “health” “care,” but the first. It ensures that this is all we’ll be talking about, now and forever.
Government can’t just annex “one-sixth of the U.S. economy” (i.e., the equivalent of annexing the entire British or French economy, or annexing the entire Indian economy twice over) and then just say: “Okay, what’s next? On to cap-and-trade . . . ” Nations that governmentalize health care soon find themselves talking about little else.
In Canada, once the wait times for MRIs and hip surgery start creeping up over two years, the government distracts the citizenry with a Royal Commission appointed to study possible “reforms” which reports back a couple of years later usually with recommendations to “strengthen” the government’s “commitment” to every Canadian’s “right” to health care by renaming the Department of Health the Department of Health Services and abolishing the Agency of Health Administration and replacing it with a new Agency of Administrative Health Operations which would report to a reformed Council of Health Policy Administrative Coordination to be supervised by a streamlined Public Health Operations & Administration Assessment Bureau. This package of “reforms” would cost a mere 12.3 gazillion dollars and usually keeps the lid on the pot until the wait times for MRIs start creeping up over three years.
The other alternative is what the British did earlier this year: They created an exciting new “Patient’s Bill of Rights,” promising every Briton the “right” to hospital treatment within 18 weeks. Believe it or not, that distant deadline shimmering woozily in the languid desert haze can be oddly reassuring if you’ve ever visited a Scottish emergency room on a holiday weekend. And, if the four-and-a-half months go by and you still haven’t been treated, you get your (tax) money back? Ah, no. But there is a free helpline you can call which will give you continuously updated estimates on which month your operation has been rescheduled for. I mention these not as a preview of the horrors to come, but because I’ve come to the bleak conclusion that U.S.-style “health” “reform” is going to be far worse.
We were told we had to do it because of the however many millions of uninsured, yet this bill will leave some 25 million Americans uninsured. On the other hand, millions of young fit healthy Americans in their first jobs who currently take the entirely reasonable view that they do not require health insurance at this stage in their lives will be forced to pay for coverage they neither want nor need. On the other other hand, those Americans who’ve done the boring responsible grown-up thing and have health plans Harry Reid determines to be excessively “generous” will be subject to punitive taxes up to 40 percent. On the other other other hand, if you’re the member of a union which enjoys privileged relations with Commissar Reid you’ll be exempt from that 40 percent shakedown. On the other other other other hand, if you’re already enjoying government health care, well, you’re 83 years old and, let’s face it, it’s hardly worth us giving you that surgery for the minimal contribution you make to society, so in the cause of extending government health care to millions of people who don’t currently get it we’re going to ration it for those currently entitled to it.
Looking at the millions of Americans it leaves uninsured, and the millions it leaves with worse treatment and reduced access, and the millions it makes pay significantly more for their current health care, one can only marvel at Harry Reid’s genius: government health care turns out to be all government and no health care. Adding up the zillions of new taxes and bureaucracies and regulations it imposes on the citizenry, one might almost think that was the only point of the exercise.
That’s why I believe America’s belated embrace of government health care is going to be far more expensive and disastrous than the Euro-Canadian models. Whatever one’s philosophical objection to the Canadian health system, it is, broadly, fair: Unless you’re a cabinet minister or a bigtime hockey player, you’ll enjoy the same equality of crappiness and universal lack of access that everybody else does. But, even before it’s up-and-running, Pelosi-Reid-Obamacare is an impenetrable thicket of contradictory boondoggles, shameless payoffs, and arbitrary shakedowns.
That’s why Nebraska’s grotesque zombie senator Ben Nelson is the perfect poster boy for the new arrangements, and not just another so-called Blue Dog Democrat spayed into compliance by a massive cash injection. There is no reason on earth why Nebraska should be the only state in this Union to have every dime of its increased Medicare tab picked up by the 49 others. So either that privilege will be extended to all, or to favored others, or its asymmetry will be balanced by other precisely targeted lollipops hither and yon. Whatever happens, it’s a dagger at the heart of American federalism, just as the bill’s magisterial proclamation that the Independent Medicare Advisory Board can only be abolished by a two-thirds vote of the Senate strikes at one of the most basic principles of a free society — that no parliament can bind its successors.
These details are obnoxious not merely in and of themselves but because they tell us the truth about where we’re headed: Think of the way almost every Big Government project bursts its bodice and winds up bigger and more bloated than its creators allegedly foresaw. In this instance, the stays come pre-loosened, and studded with loopholes. Because the Democrat operators — the Nancy Pelosis and Barney Franks — know that what matters is to get something, anything across the river, and then burn the bridge behind you.
My Republican friends often seem to miss the point in this debate: The so-called “public option” is not Page 3,079, Section (f), Clause VII. The entire bill is a public option — because that’s where it leads, remorselessly. The so-called “death panel” is not Page 2,721, Paragraph 19, Sub-section (d), but again the entire bill — because it inserts the power of the state between you and your doctor, and in effect assumes jurisdiction over your body. As the savvier Dems have always known, once you’ve crossed the Rubicon, you can endlessly re-reform your health reform until the end of time, and all the stuff you didn’t get this go-round will fall into place, and very quickly.
As I’ve been saying for over a year now, “health care” is the fast-track to a permanent left-of-center political culture. The unlovely Democrats on public display in the week before Christmas may seem like just a bunch of jelly-spined opportunists, grubby wardheelers and rapacious kleptocrats, but the smarter ones are showing great strategic clarity. Alas for the rest of us, Euro-style government on a Harry Reid/Chris Dodd/Ben Nelson scale will lead to ruin.
By Mark Steyn
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Last week, during a bit of banter on Fox News, my colleague Jonah Goldberg reminded me of something I’d all but forgotten. Last September, during his address to Congress on health care, Barack Obama declared: “I am not the first President to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last.”
Dream on. The monstrous mountain of toxic pustules sprouting from greasy boils metastasizing from malign carbuncles that passed the Senate on Christmas Eve is not the last word in “health” “care,” but the first. It ensures that this is all we’ll be talking about, now and forever.
Government can’t just annex “one-sixth of the U.S. economy” (i.e., the equivalent of annexing the entire British or French economy, or annexing the entire Indian economy twice over) and then just say: “Okay, what’s next? On to cap-and-trade . . . ” Nations that governmentalize health care soon find themselves talking about little else.
In Canada, once the wait times for MRIs and hip surgery start creeping up over two years, the government distracts the citizenry with a Royal Commission appointed to study possible “reforms” which reports back a couple of years later usually with recommendations to “strengthen” the government’s “commitment” to every Canadian’s “right” to health care by renaming the Department of Health the Department of Health Services and abolishing the Agency of Health Administration and replacing it with a new Agency of Administrative Health Operations which would report to a reformed Council of Health Policy Administrative Coordination to be supervised by a streamlined Public Health Operations & Administration Assessment Bureau. This package of “reforms” would cost a mere 12.3 gazillion dollars and usually keeps the lid on the pot until the wait times for MRIs start creeping up over three years.
The other alternative is what the British did earlier this year: They created an exciting new “Patient’s Bill of Rights,” promising every Briton the “right” to hospital treatment within 18 weeks. Believe it or not, that distant deadline shimmering woozily in the languid desert haze can be oddly reassuring if you’ve ever visited a Scottish emergency room on a holiday weekend. And, if the four-and-a-half months go by and you still haven’t been treated, you get your (tax) money back? Ah, no. But there is a free helpline you can call which will give you continuously updated estimates on which month your operation has been rescheduled for. I mention these not as a preview of the horrors to come, but because I’ve come to the bleak conclusion that U.S.-style “health” “reform” is going to be far worse.
We were told we had to do it because of the however many millions of uninsured, yet this bill will leave some 25 million Americans uninsured. On the other hand, millions of young fit healthy Americans in their first jobs who currently take the entirely reasonable view that they do not require health insurance at this stage in their lives will be forced to pay for coverage they neither want nor need. On the other other hand, those Americans who’ve done the boring responsible grown-up thing and have health plans Harry Reid determines to be excessively “generous” will be subject to punitive taxes up to 40 percent. On the other other other hand, if you’re the member of a union which enjoys privileged relations with Commissar Reid you’ll be exempt from that 40 percent shakedown. On the other other other other hand, if you’re already enjoying government health care, well, you’re 83 years old and, let’s face it, it’s hardly worth us giving you that surgery for the minimal contribution you make to society, so in the cause of extending government health care to millions of people who don’t currently get it we’re going to ration it for those currently entitled to it.
Looking at the millions of Americans it leaves uninsured, and the millions it leaves with worse treatment and reduced access, and the millions it makes pay significantly more for their current health care, one can only marvel at Harry Reid’s genius: government health care turns out to be all government and no health care. Adding up the zillions of new taxes and bureaucracies and regulations it imposes on the citizenry, one might almost think that was the only point of the exercise.
That’s why I believe America’s belated embrace of government health care is going to be far more expensive and disastrous than the Euro-Canadian models. Whatever one’s philosophical objection to the Canadian health system, it is, broadly, fair: Unless you’re a cabinet minister or a bigtime hockey player, you’ll enjoy the same equality of crappiness and universal lack of access that everybody else does. But, even before it’s up-and-running, Pelosi-Reid-Obamacare is an impenetrable thicket of contradictory boondoggles, shameless payoffs, and arbitrary shakedowns.
That’s why Nebraska’s grotesque zombie senator Ben Nelson is the perfect poster boy for the new arrangements, and not just another so-called Blue Dog Democrat spayed into compliance by a massive cash injection. There is no reason on earth why Nebraska should be the only state in this Union to have every dime of its increased Medicare tab picked up by the 49 others. So either that privilege will be extended to all, or to favored others, or its asymmetry will be balanced by other precisely targeted lollipops hither and yon. Whatever happens, it’s a dagger at the heart of American federalism, just as the bill’s magisterial proclamation that the Independent Medicare Advisory Board can only be abolished by a two-thirds vote of the Senate strikes at one of the most basic principles of a free society — that no parliament can bind its successors.
These details are obnoxious not merely in and of themselves but because they tell us the truth about where we’re headed: Think of the way almost every Big Government project bursts its bodice and winds up bigger and more bloated than its creators allegedly foresaw. In this instance, the stays come pre-loosened, and studded with loopholes. Because the Democrat operators — the Nancy Pelosis and Barney Franks — know that what matters is to get something, anything across the river, and then burn the bridge behind you.
My Republican friends often seem to miss the point in this debate: The so-called “public option” is not Page 3,079, Section (f), Clause VII. The entire bill is a public option — because that’s where it leads, remorselessly. The so-called “death panel” is not Page 2,721, Paragraph 19, Sub-section (d), but again the entire bill — because it inserts the power of the state between you and your doctor, and in effect assumes jurisdiction over your body. As the savvier Dems have always known, once you’ve crossed the Rubicon, you can endlessly re-reform your health reform until the end of time, and all the stuff you didn’t get this go-round will fall into place, and very quickly.
As I’ve been saying for over a year now, “health care” is the fast-track to a permanent left-of-center political culture. The unlovely Democrats on public display in the week before Christmas may seem like just a bunch of jelly-spined opportunists, grubby wardheelers and rapacious kleptocrats, but the smarter ones are showing great strategic clarity. Alas for the rest of us, Euro-style government on a Harry Reid/Chris Dodd/Ben Nelson scale will lead to ruin.
Friday, December 25, 2009
National Organization for Irresponsible Women
Mona Charen
Friday, December 25, 2009
Maj. Gen. Anthony Cucolo is in command of 22,000 American combat forces in northern Iraq. Unlike some high-ranking military men who demonstrate exemplary courage in the face of the enemy but collapse like paper umbrellas in the face of political pressure, Cucolo seemed ready for the political firefight he precipitated. At least at first.
Cucolo's provocation was as follows: Pursuant to his powers as a general officer, he issued regulations for soldiers under his command. Some dealt with Iraqi sensibilities (soldiers were forbidden to enter mosques except in cases of "military necessity"), and others with good order and discipline (no gambling or drug use). Additionally, the general directed that soldiers who become pregnant or impregnate someone else while deployed would be subject to courts martial. Uh-oh.
Cue the feminists. "How dare any government say we're going to impose any kind of punishment on women for getting pregnant," fumed Terry O'Neill, president of the National Organization for Women. "This is not the 1800s." Four Democratic senators dashed off a public letter. "We can think of no greater deterrent to women contemplating a military career than the image of a pregnant woman being severely punished simply for conceiving a child," protested Sens. Barbara Mikulski, Barbara Boxer, Jeanne Shaheen, and Kirsten Gillibrand. "This defies comprehension. As such, we urge you to immediately rescind this policy."
But Cucolo was prepared. Asked about the critical reaction, he said, "I appreciate the inflamed -- I got it. Here's the deal. I'm the one responsible and I mean this sincerely and I mean this with -- I hope I'm not sounding -- it doesn't matter. I am the one responsible and accountable for these 22,000 soldiers. The National Organization for Women is not. Critics are not. I appreciate -- I will listen to critics, and they add thought. But they actually don't have to do anything. I have to accomplish a very complex mission, very complex." Don't you particularly like the "I hope I'm not sounding -- it doesn't matter"?
It's true that United States senators don't really have to do anything. But it would be nice if they thought of themselves as representing the interests of the nation from time to time, and not just as compliant mouthpieces for interest groups. Do any of these liberal senators ever lift their sights enough to recognize that an army is not a social welfare agency?
Feminists, above all, should recognize that when a woman takes an oath as a soldier, she has freely undertaken extraordinary responsibilities. If she becomes undeployable and has to be sent home, (the unavoidable consequence of becoming pregnant), someone else must serve in her place. The Army loses a valuable investment, and the unit is left vulnerable. As Cucolo explained, "I need every soldier I've got, especially since we are facing a drawdown of forces during our mission. Anyone who leaves this fight earlier than the expected 12-month deployment creates a burden on their teammates. Anyone who leaves this fight early because they made a personal choice that changed their medical status -- or contributes to doing that to another -- is not in keeping with a key element of our ethos." That ethos -- and forgetful senators can look it up -- includes the following creed: "I am a Warrior and a member of a team. I serve the people of the United States, and live the Army Values. I will always place the mission first."
The general's order was evenhanded. The same punishment applied to men who impregnated someone (though, clearly, it is easier for a man to escape detection if the woman conceals his identity) as to women who became pregnant. It would not apply to pregnancies that were the result of rape.
Though knee-jerk senators and professional feminists would probably faint at the suggestion, there are actually women soldiers who purposely get pregnant to escape service (with an accompanying depressing effect on unit morale). And there are others who are a little careless. Their commanding officer was reminding them (and their boyfriends) to behave as responsible adults and loyal soldiers.
After taking fire, Cucolo clarified that he couldn't imagine putting a woman in prison for getting pregnant. But let's hope the headlines calling this a climb down are overblown. His order was sensible and in a saner world would have been utterly uncontroversial.
Friday, December 25, 2009
Maj. Gen. Anthony Cucolo is in command of 22,000 American combat forces in northern Iraq. Unlike some high-ranking military men who demonstrate exemplary courage in the face of the enemy but collapse like paper umbrellas in the face of political pressure, Cucolo seemed ready for the political firefight he precipitated. At least at first.
Cucolo's provocation was as follows: Pursuant to his powers as a general officer, he issued regulations for soldiers under his command. Some dealt with Iraqi sensibilities (soldiers were forbidden to enter mosques except in cases of "military necessity"), and others with good order and discipline (no gambling or drug use). Additionally, the general directed that soldiers who become pregnant or impregnate someone else while deployed would be subject to courts martial. Uh-oh.
Cue the feminists. "How dare any government say we're going to impose any kind of punishment on women for getting pregnant," fumed Terry O'Neill, president of the National Organization for Women. "This is not the 1800s." Four Democratic senators dashed off a public letter. "We can think of no greater deterrent to women contemplating a military career than the image of a pregnant woman being severely punished simply for conceiving a child," protested Sens. Barbara Mikulski, Barbara Boxer, Jeanne Shaheen, and Kirsten Gillibrand. "This defies comprehension. As such, we urge you to immediately rescind this policy."
But Cucolo was prepared. Asked about the critical reaction, he said, "I appreciate the inflamed -- I got it. Here's the deal. I'm the one responsible and I mean this sincerely and I mean this with -- I hope I'm not sounding -- it doesn't matter. I am the one responsible and accountable for these 22,000 soldiers. The National Organization for Women is not. Critics are not. I appreciate -- I will listen to critics, and they add thought. But they actually don't have to do anything. I have to accomplish a very complex mission, very complex." Don't you particularly like the "I hope I'm not sounding -- it doesn't matter"?
It's true that United States senators don't really have to do anything. But it would be nice if they thought of themselves as representing the interests of the nation from time to time, and not just as compliant mouthpieces for interest groups. Do any of these liberal senators ever lift their sights enough to recognize that an army is not a social welfare agency?
Feminists, above all, should recognize that when a woman takes an oath as a soldier, she has freely undertaken extraordinary responsibilities. If she becomes undeployable and has to be sent home, (the unavoidable consequence of becoming pregnant), someone else must serve in her place. The Army loses a valuable investment, and the unit is left vulnerable. As Cucolo explained, "I need every soldier I've got, especially since we are facing a drawdown of forces during our mission. Anyone who leaves this fight earlier than the expected 12-month deployment creates a burden on their teammates. Anyone who leaves this fight early because they made a personal choice that changed their medical status -- or contributes to doing that to another -- is not in keeping with a key element of our ethos." That ethos -- and forgetful senators can look it up -- includes the following creed: "I am a Warrior and a member of a team. I serve the people of the United States, and live the Army Values. I will always place the mission first."
The general's order was evenhanded. The same punishment applied to men who impregnated someone (though, clearly, it is easier for a man to escape detection if the woman conceals his identity) as to women who became pregnant. It would not apply to pregnancies that were the result of rape.
Though knee-jerk senators and professional feminists would probably faint at the suggestion, there are actually women soldiers who purposely get pregnant to escape service (with an accompanying depressing effect on unit morale). And there are others who are a little careless. Their commanding officer was reminding them (and their boyfriends) to behave as responsible adults and loyal soldiers.
After taking fire, Cucolo clarified that he couldn't imagine putting a woman in prison for getting pregnant. But let's hope the headlines calling this a climb down are overblown. His order was sensible and in a saner world would have been utterly uncontroversial.
Blind to Bias
Rich Tucker
Friday, December 25, 2009
Some time ago I found myself explaining the value of a flat tax to a liberal.
“You’d be able to fill out your return on a postcard. Put in the amount you earned for the year, write 10 percent of that in the next box, and you’re finished,” I explained. “That would never work,” he said smugly. “Where would you attach the check?”
There’s some logic for you.
Sure, buddy. Let’s keep our tax system, which is so incomprehensible even those who wrote it cannot seem to comply with it (ask Rep. Charlie Rangel). Let’s keep the stacks of forms, the thousands of bureaucrats, the constant intrusions into American’s privacy. Let’s keep all that, because -- while the average middle-class American can never be certain he’s paid the government what he’s supposed to every year -- at least he gets an envelope out of the deal.
That discussion came to mind while reading a recent Thomas Frank op-ed in The Wall Street Journal. Frank boldly opposes one of the most controversial ideas of our time: that newspapers ought to hire a conservative or two. “Ordinarily, such a bad idea would not draw much concern,” he tutts. “But it has now been repeated several times in the great organ of journalistic consensus. Clearly they mean it seriously.”
You think? Actually, it seems more likely that the idea is brought up by newspapermen from time to time specifically because they know it will never go anywhere. Sort of like the balanced budget amendment that lawmakers propose periodically: it’s floated so they can seem serious but never need to actually, you know, balance the budget.
Still, Frank’s opposition is a version of the question about attaching the check. “How is the [Washington] Post supposed to check up on its reporters’ politics?” he wonders. “I’m hoping for loyalty oaths and televised hearings, with stiff penalties for employees who refuse to talk or to name names: It would be the perfect spectacle for the end of the newspaper era.”
Cute, but beside the point.
Newspapers wouldn’t have to test for ideological purity, (although if they did, they might find their staffs are made up completely of liberals). Just having one or two people on hand who think the federal government is too large and intrusive could make all the difference in how a potential story is covered.
For example, day after day the Post carries stories saying the proposed health reform bill would cost (to choose one example at random): “$848 billion over the next decade to extend coverage to more than 30 million additional people.” (“Senate health bill gets a boost,” Lori Montgomery, December 1, 2009).
Does anyone at the paper ever point out that this price tag assumes future Congresses will cut hundreds of billions in Medicare spending? Those cuts will never be made, of course, so the actual tab will be well over a trillion dollars. Somehow that never makes it to the front page.
In some ways, this isn’t even a liberal vs. conservative discussion, though. Frank’s interest in this is rooted in the ACORN scandal. Several months ago The Washington Post’s ombudsman wondered if his paper’s failure to cover that story proved it didn’t “pay sufficient attention to conservative media or viewpoints.”
And indeed, newspapers including the Post and the New York Times basically ignored the story. But it’s astounding that nobody in those newsrooms pointed out that this was a juicy story, likely to interest people and sell newspapers. And isn’t that the point? If photos of Hannah Giles can’t move newspapers, nothing will.
The same thing is true for other ignored stories such as Climategate. Townhall.com readers are certainly up on that one, but those who rely on the self-proclaimed newspaper of record, The New York Times, haven’t seen much coverage of the scandal that shook Copenhagen. Without conservatives in their newsrooms, mainstream media outlets will go right on missing story after story, month after month. You think they’d be tired of that.
In his column, Frank sets up a straw man, yet still fails to knock him down. “Anyone setting out to appease bias-spotters on the right should know that the conservative movement feels that it is plagued by impostors and fakers, and it won’t be satisfied until these RINOs, too, are chased from the newsrooms of the nation,” he writes.
Try us, MSM. I dare you.
Friday, December 25, 2009
Some time ago I found myself explaining the value of a flat tax to a liberal.
“You’d be able to fill out your return on a postcard. Put in the amount you earned for the year, write 10 percent of that in the next box, and you’re finished,” I explained. “That would never work,” he said smugly. “Where would you attach the check?”
There’s some logic for you.
Sure, buddy. Let’s keep our tax system, which is so incomprehensible even those who wrote it cannot seem to comply with it (ask Rep. Charlie Rangel). Let’s keep the stacks of forms, the thousands of bureaucrats, the constant intrusions into American’s privacy. Let’s keep all that, because -- while the average middle-class American can never be certain he’s paid the government what he’s supposed to every year -- at least he gets an envelope out of the deal.
That discussion came to mind while reading a recent Thomas Frank op-ed in The Wall Street Journal. Frank boldly opposes one of the most controversial ideas of our time: that newspapers ought to hire a conservative or two. “Ordinarily, such a bad idea would not draw much concern,” he tutts. “But it has now been repeated several times in the great organ of journalistic consensus. Clearly they mean it seriously.”
You think? Actually, it seems more likely that the idea is brought up by newspapermen from time to time specifically because they know it will never go anywhere. Sort of like the balanced budget amendment that lawmakers propose periodically: it’s floated so they can seem serious but never need to actually, you know, balance the budget.
Still, Frank’s opposition is a version of the question about attaching the check. “How is the [Washington] Post supposed to check up on its reporters’ politics?” he wonders. “I’m hoping for loyalty oaths and televised hearings, with stiff penalties for employees who refuse to talk or to name names: It would be the perfect spectacle for the end of the newspaper era.”
Cute, but beside the point.
Newspapers wouldn’t have to test for ideological purity, (although if they did, they might find their staffs are made up completely of liberals). Just having one or two people on hand who think the federal government is too large and intrusive could make all the difference in how a potential story is covered.
For example, day after day the Post carries stories saying the proposed health reform bill would cost (to choose one example at random): “$848 billion over the next decade to extend coverage to more than 30 million additional people.” (“Senate health bill gets a boost,” Lori Montgomery, December 1, 2009).
Does anyone at the paper ever point out that this price tag assumes future Congresses will cut hundreds of billions in Medicare spending? Those cuts will never be made, of course, so the actual tab will be well over a trillion dollars. Somehow that never makes it to the front page.
In some ways, this isn’t even a liberal vs. conservative discussion, though. Frank’s interest in this is rooted in the ACORN scandal. Several months ago The Washington Post’s ombudsman wondered if his paper’s failure to cover that story proved it didn’t “pay sufficient attention to conservative media or viewpoints.”
And indeed, newspapers including the Post and the New York Times basically ignored the story. But it’s astounding that nobody in those newsrooms pointed out that this was a juicy story, likely to interest people and sell newspapers. And isn’t that the point? If photos of Hannah Giles can’t move newspapers, nothing will.
The same thing is true for other ignored stories such as Climategate. Townhall.com readers are certainly up on that one, but those who rely on the self-proclaimed newspaper of record, The New York Times, haven’t seen much coverage of the scandal that shook Copenhagen. Without conservatives in their newsrooms, mainstream media outlets will go right on missing story after story, month after month. You think they’d be tired of that.
In his column, Frank sets up a straw man, yet still fails to knock him down. “Anyone setting out to appease bias-spotters on the right should know that the conservative movement feels that it is plagued by impostors and fakers, and it won’t be satisfied until these RINOs, too, are chased from the newsrooms of the nation,” he writes.
Try us, MSM. I dare you.
2009: The Year of Living Fecklessly
Charles Krauthammer
Friday, December 25, 2009
WASHINGTON -- On Tuesday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did not just reject President Obama's latest feckless floating nuclear deadline. He spat on it, declaring that Iran "will continue resisting" until the U.S. has gotten rid of its 8,000 nuclear warheads.
So ends 2009, the year of "engagement," of the extended hand, of the gratuitous apology -- and of spinning centrifuges, two-stage rockets and a secret enrichment facility that brought Iran materially closer to becoming a nuclear power.
We lost a year. But it was not just any year. It was a year of spectacularly squandered opportunity. In Iran, it was a year of revolution, beginning with a contested election and culminating this week in huge demonstrations mourning the death of the dissident Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri -- and demanding no longer a recount of the stolen election but the overthrow of the clerical dictatorship.
Obama responded by distancing himself from this new birth of freedom. First, scandalous silence. Then, a few grudging words. Then relentless engagement with the murderous regime. With offer after offer, gesture after gesture -- to not Iran, but the "Islamic Republic of Iran," as Obama ever so respectfully called these clerical fascists -- the U.S. conferred legitimacy on a regime desperate to regain it.
Why is this so important? Because revolutions succeed at that singular moment, that imperceptible historical inflection, when the people, and particularly those in power, realize that the regime has lost the mandate of heaven. With this weakening dictatorship desperate for affirmation, why is the U.S. repeatedly offering just such affirmation?
Apart from ostracizing and delegitimizing these gangsters, we should be encouraging and reinforcing the demonstrators. This is no trivial matter. When pursued, beaten, arrested and imprisoned, dissidents can easily succumb to feelings of despair and isolation. Natan Sharansky testifies to the electric effect Ronald Reagan's Evil Empire speech had on lifting spirits in the Gulag. The news was spread cell to cell in code tapped on the walls. They knew they weren't alone, that America was committed to their cause.
Yet so aloof has Obama been that on Hate America Day (Nov. 4, the anniversary of the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran), pro-American counter-demonstrators chanted "Obama, Obama, you are either with us or with them," i.e., their oppressors.
Such cool indifference is more than a betrayal of our values. It's a strategic blunder of the first order.
Forget about human rights. Assume you care only about the nuclear issue. How to defuse it? Negotiations are going nowhere, and whatever U.N. sanctions we might get will be weak, partial, grudging and late. The only real hope is regime change. The revered and widely supported Montazeri had actually issued a fatwa against nuclear weapons.
And even if a successor government were to act otherwise, the nuclear threat would be highly attenuated because it's not the weapon but the regime that creates the danger. (Think India or Britain, for example.) Any proliferation is troubling, but a nonaggressive pro-Western Tehran would completely change the strategic equation and make the threat minimal and manageable.
What should we do? Pressure from without -- cutting off gasoline supplies, for example -- to complement and reinforce pressure from within. The pressure should be aimed not at changing the current regime's nuclear policy -- that will never happen -- but at helping change the regime itself.
Give the kind of covert support to assist dissident communication and circumvent censorship that, for example, we gave Solidarity in Poland during the 1980s. (In those days that meant broadcasting equipment and copying machines.) But of equal importance is robust rhetorical and diplomatic support from the very highest level: full-throated denunciation of the regime's savagery and persecution. In detail -- highlighting cases, the way Western leaders adopted the causes of Sharansky and Andrei Sakharov during the rise of the dissident movement that helped bring down the Soviet empire.
Will this revolution succeed? The odds are long but the reward immense. Its ripple effects would extend from Afghanistan to Iraq (in both conflicts, Iran actively supports insurgents who have long been killing Americans and their allies) to Lebanon and Gaza where Iran's proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas, are arming for war.
One way or the other, Iran will dominate 2010. Either there will be an Israeli attack or Iran will arrive at -- or cross -- the nuclear threshold. Unless revolution intervenes. Which is why to fail to do everything in our power to support this popular revolt is unforgivable.
Friday, December 25, 2009
WASHINGTON -- On Tuesday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did not just reject President Obama's latest feckless floating nuclear deadline. He spat on it, declaring that Iran "will continue resisting" until the U.S. has gotten rid of its 8,000 nuclear warheads.
So ends 2009, the year of "engagement," of the extended hand, of the gratuitous apology -- and of spinning centrifuges, two-stage rockets and a secret enrichment facility that brought Iran materially closer to becoming a nuclear power.
We lost a year. But it was not just any year. It was a year of spectacularly squandered opportunity. In Iran, it was a year of revolution, beginning with a contested election and culminating this week in huge demonstrations mourning the death of the dissident Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri -- and demanding no longer a recount of the stolen election but the overthrow of the clerical dictatorship.
Obama responded by distancing himself from this new birth of freedom. First, scandalous silence. Then, a few grudging words. Then relentless engagement with the murderous regime. With offer after offer, gesture after gesture -- to not Iran, but the "Islamic Republic of Iran," as Obama ever so respectfully called these clerical fascists -- the U.S. conferred legitimacy on a regime desperate to regain it.
Why is this so important? Because revolutions succeed at that singular moment, that imperceptible historical inflection, when the people, and particularly those in power, realize that the regime has lost the mandate of heaven. With this weakening dictatorship desperate for affirmation, why is the U.S. repeatedly offering just such affirmation?
Apart from ostracizing and delegitimizing these gangsters, we should be encouraging and reinforcing the demonstrators. This is no trivial matter. When pursued, beaten, arrested and imprisoned, dissidents can easily succumb to feelings of despair and isolation. Natan Sharansky testifies to the electric effect Ronald Reagan's Evil Empire speech had on lifting spirits in the Gulag. The news was spread cell to cell in code tapped on the walls. They knew they weren't alone, that America was committed to their cause.
Yet so aloof has Obama been that on Hate America Day (Nov. 4, the anniversary of the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran), pro-American counter-demonstrators chanted "Obama, Obama, you are either with us or with them," i.e., their oppressors.
Such cool indifference is more than a betrayal of our values. It's a strategic blunder of the first order.
Forget about human rights. Assume you care only about the nuclear issue. How to defuse it? Negotiations are going nowhere, and whatever U.N. sanctions we might get will be weak, partial, grudging and late. The only real hope is regime change. The revered and widely supported Montazeri had actually issued a fatwa against nuclear weapons.
And even if a successor government were to act otherwise, the nuclear threat would be highly attenuated because it's not the weapon but the regime that creates the danger. (Think India or Britain, for example.) Any proliferation is troubling, but a nonaggressive pro-Western Tehran would completely change the strategic equation and make the threat minimal and manageable.
What should we do? Pressure from without -- cutting off gasoline supplies, for example -- to complement and reinforce pressure from within. The pressure should be aimed not at changing the current regime's nuclear policy -- that will never happen -- but at helping change the regime itself.
Give the kind of covert support to assist dissident communication and circumvent censorship that, for example, we gave Solidarity in Poland during the 1980s. (In those days that meant broadcasting equipment and copying machines.) But of equal importance is robust rhetorical and diplomatic support from the very highest level: full-throated denunciation of the regime's savagery and persecution. In detail -- highlighting cases, the way Western leaders adopted the causes of Sharansky and Andrei Sakharov during the rise of the dissident movement that helped bring down the Soviet empire.
Will this revolution succeed? The odds are long but the reward immense. Its ripple effects would extend from Afghanistan to Iraq (in both conflicts, Iran actively supports insurgents who have long been killing Americans and their allies) to Lebanon and Gaza where Iran's proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas, are arming for war.
One way or the other, Iran will dominate 2010. Either there will be an Israeli attack or Iran will arrive at -- or cross -- the nuclear threshold. Unless revolution intervenes. Which is why to fail to do everything in our power to support this popular revolt is unforgivable.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
War Against the Wannabe Rich
Why attack the productive classes who want to be rich?
By Victor Davis Hanson
Thursday, December 24, 2009
There is class warfare going on in this country — but it’s not against the established rich. It’s against those who are trying to become wealthy.
President Obama has declared that those who make over $200,000 will pay higher income taxes. Caps on payroll taxes are supposed to come off as well for the upper class. Envisioned estate taxes will take 45 percent of individual inheritances valued over $3.5 million. Many states have also hiked their income taxes on the upper brackets.
Again, most of those targeted are not the already rich — a Warren Buffett or Bill Gates — but millions of the wannabe rich. They may have achieved larger-than-average annual incomes, but they’re not the multimillionaire speculators on Wall Street who nearly wrecked the American economy in search of huge bonuses and payoffs. Most are instead professionals and small-business owners who take enormous risks in hopes of being well-off and passing their wealth on to their children.
Oddly, much of the populist rhetoric about the need to gouge the newly affluent is voiced by the entrenched wealthy, who don’t have to care how high taxes go, given their own vast fortunes.
Take Bill Gates Sr., who is clamoring for higher estate taxes on inheritances. But such advocacy comes easy for him. After all, he is the father of the richest man in the world — someone who clearly needs no inheritance.
Billionaires also often set up charitable foundations to ensure their estates are channeled to their own preferences rather than simply given over to a needy U.S. Treasury. In contrast, moderately affluent business owners or farmers often leave enough property for their heirs to pay death taxes, but not enough to set up tax-exempt charitable foundations.
Warren Buffett also wants higher income taxes on the wealthy. He once confessed that thanks to all sorts of write-offs, he had paid only about 17 percent of his gross income in federal taxes, a lower rate than many employees in his office.
But Buffett, like Bill Gates Jr., is worth many billions of dollars. In truth, he has so much money that no amount of taxes would affect him much. A combined tax bite of 60 percent of his annual income would still leave Buffett each year with millions. Yet the same rate could cripple a business owner making $300,000 in annual income.
Often those in government claim that their tax-increase proposals are simply targeting the affluent like themselves — proof of their own selflessness. President Obama, for example, has complained that the well-off like himself could afford to pay more.
But unlike politicians in Washington, most upscale Americans in private enterprise do not receive free government perks and lavish pensions. Nor are they guaranteed lucrative post-political lobbying and speaking careers.
Focusing tax hikes on those who in some years make between $200,000 and $500,000 makes no sense in a recession for a variety of reasons. They are neither the speculators who caused the panic of 2008 nor the Washington politicians who are bankrupting the country.
Instead, most are small-business owners who hire the majority of the nation’s employees. But faced with the talk of higher taxes, more regulations, and hostile rhetoric, they will remain confused, and so retrench rather than expand.
With the proposed new income, payroll, and health-care tax rates, along with increased state and local taxes, many business owners fear that 60 percent to 70 percent of their income will go to the government. That does not seem a good way to convince small businesses to hire more workers in hopes of greater rewards.
Income is also not the only barometer of affluence. Two-hundred thousand dollars is quite a lot of annual money in Kansas, but does not always go so far in San Jose, where modest houses often cost well over half a million dollars. For those whose children do not qualify for need-based scholarships, a private liberal-arts education can easily set a parent back $200,000 per child over four years.
Why the war against the productive classes who want to be rich?
Maybe it is because they are not as numerous as the proverbial middle class. Perhaps they do not earn our empathy that is properly accorded to the poor. They surely lack the status and insider connections that accrue to the very rich.
Yet continue to punish and demonize them, and the country will grind to a halt — as we are seeing now.
By Victor Davis Hanson
Thursday, December 24, 2009
There is class warfare going on in this country — but it’s not against the established rich. It’s against those who are trying to become wealthy.
President Obama has declared that those who make over $200,000 will pay higher income taxes. Caps on payroll taxes are supposed to come off as well for the upper class. Envisioned estate taxes will take 45 percent of individual inheritances valued over $3.5 million. Many states have also hiked their income taxes on the upper brackets.
Again, most of those targeted are not the already rich — a Warren Buffett or Bill Gates — but millions of the wannabe rich. They may have achieved larger-than-average annual incomes, but they’re not the multimillionaire speculators on Wall Street who nearly wrecked the American economy in search of huge bonuses and payoffs. Most are instead professionals and small-business owners who take enormous risks in hopes of being well-off and passing their wealth on to their children.
Oddly, much of the populist rhetoric about the need to gouge the newly affluent is voiced by the entrenched wealthy, who don’t have to care how high taxes go, given their own vast fortunes.
Take Bill Gates Sr., who is clamoring for higher estate taxes on inheritances. But such advocacy comes easy for him. After all, he is the father of the richest man in the world — someone who clearly needs no inheritance.
Billionaires also often set up charitable foundations to ensure their estates are channeled to their own preferences rather than simply given over to a needy U.S. Treasury. In contrast, moderately affluent business owners or farmers often leave enough property for their heirs to pay death taxes, but not enough to set up tax-exempt charitable foundations.
Warren Buffett also wants higher income taxes on the wealthy. He once confessed that thanks to all sorts of write-offs, he had paid only about 17 percent of his gross income in federal taxes, a lower rate than many employees in his office.
But Buffett, like Bill Gates Jr., is worth many billions of dollars. In truth, he has so much money that no amount of taxes would affect him much. A combined tax bite of 60 percent of his annual income would still leave Buffett each year with millions. Yet the same rate could cripple a business owner making $300,000 in annual income.
Often those in government claim that their tax-increase proposals are simply targeting the affluent like themselves — proof of their own selflessness. President Obama, for example, has complained that the well-off like himself could afford to pay more.
But unlike politicians in Washington, most upscale Americans in private enterprise do not receive free government perks and lavish pensions. Nor are they guaranteed lucrative post-political lobbying and speaking careers.
Focusing tax hikes on those who in some years make between $200,000 and $500,000 makes no sense in a recession for a variety of reasons. They are neither the speculators who caused the panic of 2008 nor the Washington politicians who are bankrupting the country.
Instead, most are small-business owners who hire the majority of the nation’s employees. But faced with the talk of higher taxes, more regulations, and hostile rhetoric, they will remain confused, and so retrench rather than expand.
With the proposed new income, payroll, and health-care tax rates, along with increased state and local taxes, many business owners fear that 60 percent to 70 percent of their income will go to the government. That does not seem a good way to convince small businesses to hire more workers in hopes of greater rewards.
Income is also not the only barometer of affluence. Two-hundred thousand dollars is quite a lot of annual money in Kansas, but does not always go so far in San Jose, where modest houses often cost well over half a million dollars. For those whose children do not qualify for need-based scholarships, a private liberal-arts education can easily set a parent back $200,000 per child over four years.
Why the war against the productive classes who want to be rich?
Maybe it is because they are not as numerous as the proverbial middle class. Perhaps they do not earn our empathy that is properly accorded to the poor. They surely lack the status and insider connections that accrue to the very rich.
Yet continue to punish and demonize them, and the country will grind to a halt — as we are seeing now.
Jesus the Socialist
Cal Thomas
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Apparently not content with his congressional majority that wishes to force Americans on a long march to health care disaster, President Obama has invoked the name of Jesus to broadcast his gospel of spreading the wealth around.
Speaking Monday afternoon to a group of children from the Washington, D.C., Boys and Girls Club, the president delivered a mini sermon on "why we celebrate Christmas." He asked the children if they knew. One piped up and said "The birth of baby Jesus."
One can imagine the reaction of the media and other elites had a Republican president asked such a question. That Republican would have been accused of violating church-state separation and discriminating against those who celebrate Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or nothing. Because the president's Christmas lesson perfectly fit his social goals, there has been no outcry.
The president spoke of what Jesus "symbolizes for people all around the world," which he said, "is the possibility of peace and people treating each other with respect." And then, in the best tradition of a community organizer, the president said Jesus is about "doing something for other people." Even the "three wise men" were invoked to support the president's idea of wealth redistribution: "...these guys ... have all this money, they've got all this wealth and power, and they took a long trip to a manger just to see a little baby."
And what conclusion should be drawn from that journey? The president told the children, "...it just shows you that because you're powerful or you're wealthy, that's not what's important. What's important is ... the kind of spirit you have."
To the president, this means the spirit of government taking from the productive and giving to the nonproductive. To Him, Jesus is a socialist, or perhaps an early Robin Hood. Any first-year seminarian (if the seminary is a good one) could destroy this flawed exegesis.
Jesus of Nazareth was not a symbol. Neither was He just a good teacher as some who do not fully accept His teachings about Himself like to claim. As Paul the Apostle put it, "Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners -- of whom I am the worst." (1Timothy 1:15)
The call of Scripture is to do for other people, as we would like to have done unto us, but that call is personal, not corporate. That's because only people can be compassionate. A government check too often brings dependence and a sense of entitlement. A personal touch builds relationships horizontally with others and vertically with God.
One upside to the current recession is that it has forced people to reconsider their priorities. To paraphrase one of the better-known lines from the film, "It's a Wonderful Life," the recession has given us a great gift: the ability to see what our lives would look like without stuff.
We still have stuff, too much in fact. Letting go of some of it has not caused people to die in the streets -- despite the ludicrous claim by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that someone dies in America every 10 minutes because they lack health insurance.
Anyone young enough to have living grandparents or great-grandparents should take a few minutes this Christmas to ask them what life was like when they were growing up. How many presents did they receive? Unless they came from wealthy families, they didn't get much by today's standards and they were probably more satisfied than we who have more than we need.
That's the thing about stuff: we know it doesn't satisfy, but we gorge ourselves on it anyway hoping the marketers are right and somehow it will bring satisfaction.
What those "wise men" brought were symbols -- gold, frankincense and myrrh. What they symbolized was the grandeur of the baby who would become a man and who, in the words of John the Baptist, would "take away the sins of the world." (John 1:29)
Ponder that this Christmas and every Christmas.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Apparently not content with his congressional majority that wishes to force Americans on a long march to health care disaster, President Obama has invoked the name of Jesus to broadcast his gospel of spreading the wealth around.
Speaking Monday afternoon to a group of children from the Washington, D.C., Boys and Girls Club, the president delivered a mini sermon on "why we celebrate Christmas." He asked the children if they knew. One piped up and said "The birth of baby Jesus."
One can imagine the reaction of the media and other elites had a Republican president asked such a question. That Republican would have been accused of violating church-state separation and discriminating against those who celebrate Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or nothing. Because the president's Christmas lesson perfectly fit his social goals, there has been no outcry.
The president spoke of what Jesus "symbolizes for people all around the world," which he said, "is the possibility of peace and people treating each other with respect." And then, in the best tradition of a community organizer, the president said Jesus is about "doing something for other people." Even the "three wise men" were invoked to support the president's idea of wealth redistribution: "...these guys ... have all this money, they've got all this wealth and power, and they took a long trip to a manger just to see a little baby."
And what conclusion should be drawn from that journey? The president told the children, "...it just shows you that because you're powerful or you're wealthy, that's not what's important. What's important is ... the kind of spirit you have."
To the president, this means the spirit of government taking from the productive and giving to the nonproductive. To Him, Jesus is a socialist, or perhaps an early Robin Hood. Any first-year seminarian (if the seminary is a good one) could destroy this flawed exegesis.
Jesus of Nazareth was not a symbol. Neither was He just a good teacher as some who do not fully accept His teachings about Himself like to claim. As Paul the Apostle put it, "Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners -- of whom I am the worst." (1Timothy 1:15)
The call of Scripture is to do for other people, as we would like to have done unto us, but that call is personal, not corporate. That's because only people can be compassionate. A government check too often brings dependence and a sense of entitlement. A personal touch builds relationships horizontally with others and vertically with God.
One upside to the current recession is that it has forced people to reconsider their priorities. To paraphrase one of the better-known lines from the film, "It's a Wonderful Life," the recession has given us a great gift: the ability to see what our lives would look like without stuff.
We still have stuff, too much in fact. Letting go of some of it has not caused people to die in the streets -- despite the ludicrous claim by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that someone dies in America every 10 minutes because they lack health insurance.
Anyone young enough to have living grandparents or great-grandparents should take a few minutes this Christmas to ask them what life was like when they were growing up. How many presents did they receive? Unless they came from wealthy families, they didn't get much by today's standards and they were probably more satisfied than we who have more than we need.
That's the thing about stuff: we know it doesn't satisfy, but we gorge ourselves on it anyway hoping the marketers are right and somehow it will bring satisfaction.
What those "wise men" brought were symbols -- gold, frankincense and myrrh. What they symbolized was the grandeur of the baby who would become a man and who, in the words of John the Baptist, would "take away the sins of the world." (John 1:29)
Ponder that this Christmas and every Christmas.
Obama Has Failed His Words
Jonah Goldberg
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
On his own terms, President Obama is a failure.
During the presidential campaign, he fought hammer and tongs with Hillary Clinton over the best way to govern. Clinton, casting herself as a battle-scarred political veteran, argued that diligence, dedicated detail work and working the system were essential for success.
Obama, donning the mantle of a redeemer descending from divine heights, argued that his soaring rhetoric was more than "just words"; it was a way out of the poisonous, partisan gridlock of yesteryear. Early on, in New Hampshire, he proclaimed that his "rival in this race is not other candidates. It's cynicism."
Occasionally the Obama-Clinton argument was explicit (such as when they sparred over who was more important to the Civil Rights Act -- Martin Luther King Jr. or Lyndon Johnson), but it was always there, implicit in everything from their body language and stagecraft to position papers and platforms.
The great irony of it all is that it seems they were both wrong.
Obama's rhetoric in fact looks to be the best way to achieve a Clintonian agenda. But a Clintonian agenda is the worst possible way to live up to Obama's rhetoric.
From his 2004 DNC keynote speech onward, Obama rejected the partisan divide. He earned points by insisting that invidious descriptions of political opponents were deleterious to civic health and distracted us from the fact that "we are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America."
In a speech following a June primary victory, Obama said he was "absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children ... this was the moment -- this was the time -- when we came together to remake this great nation."
So, does anyone feel like Americans are coming together?
Obama the outsider hasn't changed the way Washington works; he's worked Washington in a way that only an outsider with no respect for the place would dare.
Consider his signature domestic priority: health care reform. After a year of working on it, his progressive base is either profoundly disappointed with him or seethingly angry. His Republican and conservative opponents are not only furious, they are emboldened. And independents -- who've been deserting the Democrats in polls and off-year elections -- are simply disgusted with the whole spectacle. Most important, an administration that once preened over its people-power roots can't even claim that Americans like what he's doing.
The bill does have its supporters: inside-the-Beltway pundits and Capitol Hill deal-makers, the pharmaceutical industry and the supposedly rapacious insurance companies (don't take my word for it, just ask Howard Dean -- or your stockbroker).
Under the Clintonian paradigm of governance, Nebraska Democrat Ben Nelson's parlaying of his pro-life objections to the Senate bill into a windfall for his state and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders' leveraging of his socialist principles for billions in special deals would be dramatic twists in a conventional story of LBJ-style arm-twisting.
But Clintonian means cannot further Obamaian ends. For the last year, Obama's party has made a mockery of everything Obama was supposed to represent. The tone has gotten worse as his communications staff spent the year demonizing Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Fox News. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer called opponents of their health proposals "un-American." Over the weekend, Rhode Island's Sheldon Whitehouse insisted that Senate opposition is being driven in part by "Aryan support groups."
Everywhere you look, the sizzle doesn't match the steak. He won the Nobel Peace Prize as he (rightly) sent even more men off to war. He promised that the oceans would stop rising but delivered a nonbinding something-or-other in Copenhagen.
In his special health care address to Congress in September, he said, "I am not the first president to take up (the cause of health care reform), but I am determined to be the last." Those were just words, and everyone, including Obama, knew it. Indeed, the only grounds for supporting the bill, according to progressives, is that it is a "first step" or a "starter house" that they'll build on for years, even generations, to come. In other words, the health care debate is not only not going to end, it's going to get uglier for as far as the eye can see.
But here's the point: Obama's rhetorical audacity breeds cynicism, because utopianism always comes up short. Obama has many victories ahead of him, but his cause is already lost.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
On his own terms, President Obama is a failure.
During the presidential campaign, he fought hammer and tongs with Hillary Clinton over the best way to govern. Clinton, casting herself as a battle-scarred political veteran, argued that diligence, dedicated detail work and working the system were essential for success.
Obama, donning the mantle of a redeemer descending from divine heights, argued that his soaring rhetoric was more than "just words"; it was a way out of the poisonous, partisan gridlock of yesteryear. Early on, in New Hampshire, he proclaimed that his "rival in this race is not other candidates. It's cynicism."
Occasionally the Obama-Clinton argument was explicit (such as when they sparred over who was more important to the Civil Rights Act -- Martin Luther King Jr. or Lyndon Johnson), but it was always there, implicit in everything from their body language and stagecraft to position papers and platforms.
The great irony of it all is that it seems they were both wrong.
Obama's rhetoric in fact looks to be the best way to achieve a Clintonian agenda. But a Clintonian agenda is the worst possible way to live up to Obama's rhetoric.
From his 2004 DNC keynote speech onward, Obama rejected the partisan divide. He earned points by insisting that invidious descriptions of political opponents were deleterious to civic health and distracted us from the fact that "we are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America."
In a speech following a June primary victory, Obama said he was "absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children ... this was the moment -- this was the time -- when we came together to remake this great nation."
So, does anyone feel like Americans are coming together?
Obama the outsider hasn't changed the way Washington works; he's worked Washington in a way that only an outsider with no respect for the place would dare.
Consider his signature domestic priority: health care reform. After a year of working on it, his progressive base is either profoundly disappointed with him or seethingly angry. His Republican and conservative opponents are not only furious, they are emboldened. And independents -- who've been deserting the Democrats in polls and off-year elections -- are simply disgusted with the whole spectacle. Most important, an administration that once preened over its people-power roots can't even claim that Americans like what he's doing.
The bill does have its supporters: inside-the-Beltway pundits and Capitol Hill deal-makers, the pharmaceutical industry and the supposedly rapacious insurance companies (don't take my word for it, just ask Howard Dean -- or your stockbroker).
Under the Clintonian paradigm of governance, Nebraska Democrat Ben Nelson's parlaying of his pro-life objections to the Senate bill into a windfall for his state and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders' leveraging of his socialist principles for billions in special deals would be dramatic twists in a conventional story of LBJ-style arm-twisting.
But Clintonian means cannot further Obamaian ends. For the last year, Obama's party has made a mockery of everything Obama was supposed to represent. The tone has gotten worse as his communications staff spent the year demonizing Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Fox News. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer called opponents of their health proposals "un-American." Over the weekend, Rhode Island's Sheldon Whitehouse insisted that Senate opposition is being driven in part by "Aryan support groups."
Everywhere you look, the sizzle doesn't match the steak. He won the Nobel Peace Prize as he (rightly) sent even more men off to war. He promised that the oceans would stop rising but delivered a nonbinding something-or-other in Copenhagen.
In his special health care address to Congress in September, he said, "I am not the first president to take up (the cause of health care reform), but I am determined to be the last." Those were just words, and everyone, including Obama, knew it. Indeed, the only grounds for supporting the bill, according to progressives, is that it is a "first step" or a "starter house" that they'll build on for years, even generations, to come. In other words, the health care debate is not only not going to end, it's going to get uglier for as far as the eye can see.
But here's the point: Obama's rhetorical audacity breeds cynicism, because utopianism always comes up short. Obama has many victories ahead of him, but his cause is already lost.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Democrats Ensure America Will No Longer Be the Last Best Hope of Earth
Dennis Prager
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
As the passage of the bill that will start the process of nationalizing health care in America becomes almost inevitable, so, too, the process of undoing America's standing as The Last Best Hope of Earth will have begun.
That description of America was not, as more than a few Americans on the left believe, made by some right-wing chauvinist. It was made by President Abraham Lincoln in an address to Congress on Dec. 1, 1862.
The bigger the American government becomes, the more like other countries America becomes. Even a Democrat has to acknowledge the simple logic: America cannot at the same time be the last best hope of earth and increasingly similar to more and more countries.
Either America is unique, in which case it at least has the possibility of uniquely embodying hopes for mankind -- or it is not unique, in which case it is by definition not capable of being the last best hope for humanity -- certainly no more so than, let us say, Sweden or the Netherlands.
Indeed, President Obama acknowledged this in April, when asked by a European reporter if he believes in American exceptionalism. The president's response: "I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism."
The president was honest. In his view, as in the view of today's Democratic party, America is special only in the same way we parents regard our children as "special." We all say it and we all believe it, but we know that it is meaningless except as an emotional expression of our love for our children. If every is child is equally special, none can be special, in fact. If every country is exceptional, then no country is exceptional, or at least no more so than any other.
With the largest expansion of the American government and state since the New Deal, the Democratic party -- alone -- is ending a key factor in America's uniqueness and greatness: individualism, which is made possible only when there is limited government.
The formula here is not rocket science: The more the government/state does, the less the individual does.
America's uniqueness and greatness has come from a number of sources, two of which are its moral and social value system, which is a unique combination of Enlightenment and Judeo-Christian values, and its emphasis on individual liberty and responsibility.
Just as the left has waged war on America's Judeo-Christian roots, it has waged war on individual liberty and responsibility.
Hillel, the most important rabbi of the Talmud (which, alongside the Hebrew Bible, is Judaism's most important book), summarized the human being's obligations in these famous words: "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?"
What does this mean in the present context? It means that before anything else, the human being must first take care of himself. When people who are capable of taking care of themselves start relying on the state to do so, they can easily become morally inferior beings. When people who could take care of their family start relying on the state to do so, they can easily become morally inferior. And when people who could help take care of fellow citizens start relying on the state to do so, the morally coarsening process continues.
There has always been something profoundly ennobling about American individualism and self-reliance. Nothing in life is as rewarding as leading a responsible life in which one has not to depend on others for sustenance. Little, if anything, in life is as rewarding as successfully taking care of oneself, one's family and one's community. That is why America has always had more voluntary associations than any other country.
But as the state and government have gotten bigger, voluntary associations have been dying. Why help others if the state will do it? Indeed, as in Scandinavia, the attitude gradually becomes: why even help myself when the state will do it?
Barack Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are right about one thing -- they are indeed making history. But their legacy will not be what they think. They will be known as the people who led to the end of America as the last best hope of earth.
Lincoln weeps.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
As the passage of the bill that will start the process of nationalizing health care in America becomes almost inevitable, so, too, the process of undoing America's standing as The Last Best Hope of Earth will have begun.
That description of America was not, as more than a few Americans on the left believe, made by some right-wing chauvinist. It was made by President Abraham Lincoln in an address to Congress on Dec. 1, 1862.
The bigger the American government becomes, the more like other countries America becomes. Even a Democrat has to acknowledge the simple logic: America cannot at the same time be the last best hope of earth and increasingly similar to more and more countries.
Either America is unique, in which case it at least has the possibility of uniquely embodying hopes for mankind -- or it is not unique, in which case it is by definition not capable of being the last best hope for humanity -- certainly no more so than, let us say, Sweden or the Netherlands.
Indeed, President Obama acknowledged this in April, when asked by a European reporter if he believes in American exceptionalism. The president's response: "I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism."
The president was honest. In his view, as in the view of today's Democratic party, America is special only in the same way we parents regard our children as "special." We all say it and we all believe it, but we know that it is meaningless except as an emotional expression of our love for our children. If every is child is equally special, none can be special, in fact. If every country is exceptional, then no country is exceptional, or at least no more so than any other.
With the largest expansion of the American government and state since the New Deal, the Democratic party -- alone -- is ending a key factor in America's uniqueness and greatness: individualism, which is made possible only when there is limited government.
The formula here is not rocket science: The more the government/state does, the less the individual does.
America's uniqueness and greatness has come from a number of sources, two of which are its moral and social value system, which is a unique combination of Enlightenment and Judeo-Christian values, and its emphasis on individual liberty and responsibility.
Just as the left has waged war on America's Judeo-Christian roots, it has waged war on individual liberty and responsibility.
Hillel, the most important rabbi of the Talmud (which, alongside the Hebrew Bible, is Judaism's most important book), summarized the human being's obligations in these famous words: "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?"
What does this mean in the present context? It means that before anything else, the human being must first take care of himself. When people who are capable of taking care of themselves start relying on the state to do so, they can easily become morally inferior beings. When people who could take care of their family start relying on the state to do so, they can easily become morally inferior. And when people who could help take care of fellow citizens start relying on the state to do so, the morally coarsening process continues.
There has always been something profoundly ennobling about American individualism and self-reliance. Nothing in life is as rewarding as leading a responsible life in which one has not to depend on others for sustenance. Little, if anything, in life is as rewarding as successfully taking care of oneself, one's family and one's community. That is why America has always had more voluntary associations than any other country.
But as the state and government have gotten bigger, voluntary associations have been dying. Why help others if the state will do it? Indeed, as in Scandinavia, the attitude gradually becomes: why even help myself when the state will do it?
Barack Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are right about one thing -- they are indeed making history. But their legacy will not be what they think. They will be known as the people who led to the end of America as the last best hope of earth.
Lincoln weeps.
Apology to a Sociology Student
Mike Adams
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Dear Dr. Adams:
I just wanted to thank you for making this semester the best I've had yet at UNCW. I loved not only the content of the class but also your teaching style, which is the most effective that I have sat under as a student. But most importantly to me, I didn't find myself squirming in my seat, as I have in other classes when certain political comments are made attacking the minority conservative Christian population on our campus. You are truly the best professor I have had to date, and likely the best I will ever have. And for that, I wanted to extend my sincere thanks, and ask you to keep doing what you are doing. I only wish that everyone could have a class with you.
Thank you so much, for everything,
(Name Withheld)
Dear (Name Withheld):
Thank you very much for your kind remarks. I also want to thank you for sending some of your favorite quotes preserved last semester in the notes from your Introduction to Sociology course. I have cut and pasted (below) some of the angry remarks. They are followed by my own (hopefully) humorous rebuttals. As conservatives, we must always respond to liberal anger with humor. I would suggest posting these remarks on http://www.campusreform.org/ to warn other conservatives about what they will encounter in SOC 105:
“Everybody else (other countries) looks at us (USA) like we all own guns and still live like ‘the wild west’ with people just always walking around with holsters. I guess so with all those concealed carry permits you can just go get.”
It is extremely important for you to understand why your sociology professor does not support laws allowing for the issuance of concealed weapons permits. These laws have been shown to lower violent crime rates including rape. Sociology professors are aware that there have been many – the exact number is fifteen – refereed studies showing that concealed weapons permits reduce violence towards both men and women. However, feminists (like your sociology professor) committed themselves to a radical Marxist ideology long before these studies were ever published. They did so because Marxism cannot succeed in an armed society.
When the data began to show that concealed weapons permits protect both men and women from violence she (your professor) had a decision to make: 1) Would she commit herself to protecting women from rape, or 2) Would she commit herself to protecting her ideology from criticism.
She chose the latter. This shows what sociology is and is not. It is a morally bankrupt discipline. It is not a science.
“I've been trying to get the term "freshman" changed to "first-year". ‘freshman’ is such a gendered term.”
I believe there should be a new course called SOC 123 “The Sociology of Irrelevance.” This would be followed by an advanced course called SOC 456 “The Irrelevance of Sociology.” That feminist sociologists actually spend class time fighting against the use of terms such as “freshman,” “mankind,” and “manhole” mandates (woman-dates?) only one conclusion: There is nothing of real importance left for the feminist movement to accomplish in this country.
That conclusion is warranted because America is the best place in the world for a woman to live and work. If feminist sociologists wish to become relevant again they should turn their attention to important issues such as the abuse of women in the name of Islam. Unfortunately, most (nearly all) feminists lack the moral courage to do so.
“The really right-wingers are afraid of ‘losing their country.’ What does that mean? It means they're afraid of losing the white, Christian, conservative dominance.”
The bigotry of such a statement is very easy to dissect. In the 1960s, Christianity – the religion that was the basis for the abolition of slavery – was, once again, at the forefront of the civil rights movement. The idea that Christianity is somehow intertwined with white dominance can be rebutted effectively with the following observation: Martin Luther King, Jr. was a Christian.
Martin was not Jewish. He was not an atheist. He was not an agnostic. He was a member of the most liberating religion in our world’s history.
”It is sad that we subject little boys to running around playing with toy AK- 47's.”
Here, your professor shows her ignorance of firearms. Little boys in America generally run around playing with toy M-16s – the weapon used to combat Marxist regimes. AK-47s are the weapons used to advance her ideology of Marxism. They can be found on Russian playgrounds. They can also be found in the hands of little Muslims all across the world. But those aren’t toys in the hands of Muslim children. They are real. And they are meant to be used to kill Jews. A Jewish professor needs to be aware of these crucial distinctions.
“Nowhere in the constitution does it say we're capitalist, just democratic.”
Nowhere in the constitution does it say “partial birth abortion” or “homosexual sodomy.” I would urge you to give her a copy of that important document as a “holiday” gift.
“(Regarding a picture of her standing in front of the Marx Memorial) - I was going to send it out as Christmas cards, but I thought it was a bit much.”
I disagree with your professor. I’m giving out NRA memberships this year as Christmas gifts. I want to know who all of my communist friends are. A picture of someone standing in front of a Marx Memorial lets me know she’s a communist and should be given a life membership in the NRA. I can think of no better way to fight communism this Christmas than signing Marxists up for the NRA against their will. After all, they have been trying all year to give us national health care memberships against our will.
“Women should have to pay less tuition since their education pays out less in the end.”
Actually, the statistic saying women earn only 77% of what a man makes is misleading – oops!, I mean, MS-leading. That pay differential is accounted for by women who choose to stay out of the workforce to have children. Your professor is not angry about persistent sex discrimination in the workplace. That would be the same as hating unicorns. The object of her hatred simply does not exist. She is angry at women who choose to stay at home and have children.
If anything, white, Christian conservatives should have to pay less in tuition when they take classes from angry sociologists. Based upon your experience, you deserve a full refund.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Dear Dr. Adams:
I just wanted to thank you for making this semester the best I've had yet at UNCW. I loved not only the content of the class but also your teaching style, which is the most effective that I have sat under as a student. But most importantly to me, I didn't find myself squirming in my seat, as I have in other classes when certain political comments are made attacking the minority conservative Christian population on our campus. You are truly the best professor I have had to date, and likely the best I will ever have. And for that, I wanted to extend my sincere thanks, and ask you to keep doing what you are doing. I only wish that everyone could have a class with you.
Thank you so much, for everything,
(Name Withheld)
Dear (Name Withheld):
Thank you very much for your kind remarks. I also want to thank you for sending some of your favorite quotes preserved last semester in the notes from your Introduction to Sociology course. I have cut and pasted (below) some of the angry remarks. They are followed by my own (hopefully) humorous rebuttals. As conservatives, we must always respond to liberal anger with humor. I would suggest posting these remarks on http://www.campusreform.org/ to warn other conservatives about what they will encounter in SOC 105:
“Everybody else (other countries) looks at us (USA) like we all own guns and still live like ‘the wild west’ with people just always walking around with holsters. I guess so with all those concealed carry permits you can just go get.”
It is extremely important for you to understand why your sociology professor does not support laws allowing for the issuance of concealed weapons permits. These laws have been shown to lower violent crime rates including rape. Sociology professors are aware that there have been many – the exact number is fifteen – refereed studies showing that concealed weapons permits reduce violence towards both men and women. However, feminists (like your sociology professor) committed themselves to a radical Marxist ideology long before these studies were ever published. They did so because Marxism cannot succeed in an armed society.
When the data began to show that concealed weapons permits protect both men and women from violence she (your professor) had a decision to make: 1) Would she commit herself to protecting women from rape, or 2) Would she commit herself to protecting her ideology from criticism.
She chose the latter. This shows what sociology is and is not. It is a morally bankrupt discipline. It is not a science.
“I've been trying to get the term "freshman" changed to "first-year". ‘freshman’ is such a gendered term.”
I believe there should be a new course called SOC 123 “The Sociology of Irrelevance.” This would be followed by an advanced course called SOC 456 “The Irrelevance of Sociology.” That feminist sociologists actually spend class time fighting against the use of terms such as “freshman,” “mankind,” and “manhole” mandates (woman-dates?) only one conclusion: There is nothing of real importance left for the feminist movement to accomplish in this country.
That conclusion is warranted because America is the best place in the world for a woman to live and work. If feminist sociologists wish to become relevant again they should turn their attention to important issues such as the abuse of women in the name of Islam. Unfortunately, most (nearly all) feminists lack the moral courage to do so.
“The really right-wingers are afraid of ‘losing their country.’ What does that mean? It means they're afraid of losing the white, Christian, conservative dominance.”
The bigotry of such a statement is very easy to dissect. In the 1960s, Christianity – the religion that was the basis for the abolition of slavery – was, once again, at the forefront of the civil rights movement. The idea that Christianity is somehow intertwined with white dominance can be rebutted effectively with the following observation: Martin Luther King, Jr. was a Christian.
Martin was not Jewish. He was not an atheist. He was not an agnostic. He was a member of the most liberating religion in our world’s history.
”It is sad that we subject little boys to running around playing with toy AK- 47's.”
Here, your professor shows her ignorance of firearms. Little boys in America generally run around playing with toy M-16s – the weapon used to combat Marxist regimes. AK-47s are the weapons used to advance her ideology of Marxism. They can be found on Russian playgrounds. They can also be found in the hands of little Muslims all across the world. But those aren’t toys in the hands of Muslim children. They are real. And they are meant to be used to kill Jews. A Jewish professor needs to be aware of these crucial distinctions.
“Nowhere in the constitution does it say we're capitalist, just democratic.”
Nowhere in the constitution does it say “partial birth abortion” or “homosexual sodomy.” I would urge you to give her a copy of that important document as a “holiday” gift.
“(Regarding a picture of her standing in front of the Marx Memorial) - I was going to send it out as Christmas cards, but I thought it was a bit much.”
I disagree with your professor. I’m giving out NRA memberships this year as Christmas gifts. I want to know who all of my communist friends are. A picture of someone standing in front of a Marx Memorial lets me know she’s a communist and should be given a life membership in the NRA. I can think of no better way to fight communism this Christmas than signing Marxists up for the NRA against their will. After all, they have been trying all year to give us national health care memberships against our will.
“Women should have to pay less tuition since their education pays out less in the end.”
Actually, the statistic saying women earn only 77% of what a man makes is misleading – oops!, I mean, MS-leading. That pay differential is accounted for by women who choose to stay out of the workforce to have children. Your professor is not angry about persistent sex discrimination in the workplace. That would be the same as hating unicorns. The object of her hatred simply does not exist. She is angry at women who choose to stay at home and have children.
If anything, white, Christian conservatives should have to pay less in tuition when they take classes from angry sociologists. Based upon your experience, you deserve a full refund.
Obamacare Hazardous to America's Health
David Limbaugh
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
At least common thieves don't destroy an entire health care system and socialize the American economy when they commit their felonies. Too bad we can't say the same for our illustrious Democratic senators who sold out the nation.
In exchange for criminally unconstitutional favors for their respective states, they voted to pass the Senate health care bill just 38 hours after it had been made available to the public for review.
Everyone knows about Sen. Mary Landrieu's negotiating $300 million for her state in non-guaranteed Medicaid payouts. She was even cocky about her institutionalized larceny.
"But another ... holdout, Sen. Bernie Sanders," Politico reports, "took credit for $10 billion in new funding for community health centers." Millions of those earmarked greenbacks will go to his home state, Vermont, if the president signs the bill. Sanders denies it was a "sweetheart deal," but he threw his support behind a bill he had opposed vehemently just three days earlier.
Sanders and Sen. Patrick Leahy secured additional Medicaid funding for Vermont, while senators from Pennsylvania, New York and Florida achieved Medicare Advantage protections for their constituents even as benefits from this program are being cut nationwide.
And why not? The end always justifies the means for these liberals. And the end, in this case, is their long-held Utopian Marxist dream of socialized health care. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was not only unapologetic but also defiant about these bribes. "You'll find a number of states that are treated differently than other states. That's what legislating is all about. It's compromise," said Reid.
But this wasn't compromise. It was blackmail. And the payoff was at the expense of our bankrupt heirs.
Liberal politicians rationalize judicial rewriting of the Constitution on the basis that great things are accomplished that might not otherwise be possible through legitimate democratic processes. But what we're seeing now is the logical result of this callous disregard for our government charter.
If the Constitution had been treated with respect, this legislative monstrosity passed in the dead of night with the discriminatory application of federal monies would have been invalid on its face. But these days, adhering to constitutional principles designed to separate government powers among the three branches has become arcane -- and almost a lost cause.
You have to wonder, though, when residents of our individual states who were recipients of these pernicious deals will rise up and reject this blood money flowing from the mortal wounds to the nation their senators have inflicted. After all, the bribe money their states are receiving won't do them much good if the nation further disintegrates into bankruptcy.
What's worse is that the foregoing outrages don't begin to address the disturbing provisions, such as the following, in this shameful Senate bill.
Obama brags that the Congressional Budget Office scores the bill as reducing the federal deficit over the next decade. But even if you accept this static analysis, you should be aware that according to The Heritage Foundation, the CBO bases its calculations only on the data the Senate provides. The Senate bill provides that Medicare fees for doctors would be cut by 20 percent beginning in 2011, but "nobody believes these cuts will be allowed to happen." If they don't, just this one change would result in Obamacare's adding $196 billion to the deficit in the first 10 years and $765 billion in the following one.
Obamacare would fare even worse, accountingwise, if it didn't force states to increase Medicaid obligations -- another unfunded mandate that would bankrupt states further.
Health care costs, say Heritage experts, would rise by $234 billion. They also tell us that though Obama promised that no one would be forced to change his health care plan, the CBO confirmed that 10 million Americans would be forced out of their current plans under Obamacare. And the $493 billion in Medicare cuts would force up to 20 percent of health care providers into insolvency.
Finally, Heritage informs us that "Obamacare is funded with over $400 billion in new taxes at a time of double digit unemployment."
National Center for Policy Analysis health care expert John C. Goodman says: "This bill does not curb health care expenses, but it will increase taxes and cost jobs. The end result of this bill: most Americans will wait longer for poorer quality care."
Adding insult to injury, most pro-life groups believe the bill does not ensure that federal funding would not be available for abortions.
After all the dust settles, millions will remain uninsured, which makes this entire bill a grotesque mockery of the American people.
The clock is ticking toward 2010.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
At least common thieves don't destroy an entire health care system and socialize the American economy when they commit their felonies. Too bad we can't say the same for our illustrious Democratic senators who sold out the nation.
In exchange for criminally unconstitutional favors for their respective states, they voted to pass the Senate health care bill just 38 hours after it had been made available to the public for review.
Everyone knows about Sen. Mary Landrieu's negotiating $300 million for her state in non-guaranteed Medicaid payouts. She was even cocky about her institutionalized larceny.
"But another ... holdout, Sen. Bernie Sanders," Politico reports, "took credit for $10 billion in new funding for community health centers." Millions of those earmarked greenbacks will go to his home state, Vermont, if the president signs the bill. Sanders denies it was a "sweetheart deal," but he threw his support behind a bill he had opposed vehemently just three days earlier.
Sanders and Sen. Patrick Leahy secured additional Medicaid funding for Vermont, while senators from Pennsylvania, New York and Florida achieved Medicare Advantage protections for their constituents even as benefits from this program are being cut nationwide.
And why not? The end always justifies the means for these liberals. And the end, in this case, is their long-held Utopian Marxist dream of socialized health care. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was not only unapologetic but also defiant about these bribes. "You'll find a number of states that are treated differently than other states. That's what legislating is all about. It's compromise," said Reid.
But this wasn't compromise. It was blackmail. And the payoff was at the expense of our bankrupt heirs.
Liberal politicians rationalize judicial rewriting of the Constitution on the basis that great things are accomplished that might not otherwise be possible through legitimate democratic processes. But what we're seeing now is the logical result of this callous disregard for our government charter.
If the Constitution had been treated with respect, this legislative monstrosity passed in the dead of night with the discriminatory application of federal monies would have been invalid on its face. But these days, adhering to constitutional principles designed to separate government powers among the three branches has become arcane -- and almost a lost cause.
You have to wonder, though, when residents of our individual states who were recipients of these pernicious deals will rise up and reject this blood money flowing from the mortal wounds to the nation their senators have inflicted. After all, the bribe money their states are receiving won't do them much good if the nation further disintegrates into bankruptcy.
What's worse is that the foregoing outrages don't begin to address the disturbing provisions, such as the following, in this shameful Senate bill.
Obama brags that the Congressional Budget Office scores the bill as reducing the federal deficit over the next decade. But even if you accept this static analysis, you should be aware that according to The Heritage Foundation, the CBO bases its calculations only on the data the Senate provides. The Senate bill provides that Medicare fees for doctors would be cut by 20 percent beginning in 2011, but "nobody believes these cuts will be allowed to happen." If they don't, just this one change would result in Obamacare's adding $196 billion to the deficit in the first 10 years and $765 billion in the following one.
Obamacare would fare even worse, accountingwise, if it didn't force states to increase Medicaid obligations -- another unfunded mandate that would bankrupt states further.
Health care costs, say Heritage experts, would rise by $234 billion. They also tell us that though Obama promised that no one would be forced to change his health care plan, the CBO confirmed that 10 million Americans would be forced out of their current plans under Obamacare. And the $493 billion in Medicare cuts would force up to 20 percent of health care providers into insolvency.
Finally, Heritage informs us that "Obamacare is funded with over $400 billion in new taxes at a time of double digit unemployment."
National Center for Policy Analysis health care expert John C. Goodman says: "This bill does not curb health care expenses, but it will increase taxes and cost jobs. The end result of this bill: most Americans will wait longer for poorer quality care."
Adding insult to injury, most pro-life groups believe the bill does not ensure that federal funding would not be available for abortions.
After all the dust settles, millions will remain uninsured, which makes this entire bill a grotesque mockery of the American people.
The clock is ticking toward 2010.
Monday, December 21, 2009
When Liberal Dreams Collide With Public Opinion
Michael Barone
Monday, December 21, 2009
In the Bella Center on the south side of Copenhagen and in the Senate chamber on the north side of the Capitol, we're seeing what happens when liberal dreams collide with American public opinion. It's like what happens when a butterfly collides with the windshield of a speeding SUV. Splat.
The liberal dreams may have seemed, on those nights in Invesco Field and Grant Park, as beautiful as a butterfly. But they are still subject to the merciless laws of political physics.
Eleven months ago, this did not seem inevitable. It was widely supposed that economic distress would increase America's appetite for big government measures to restrict carbon dioxide emissions and control the provision of health care. Especially when a young dynamic president employed his oratorical gifts to transcend, as he put it, old ideological and partisan divisions.
Barack Obama, who seemed so confident of his powers as he prepared for his inauguration, evidently believed that he could persuade Americans to support left-of-center policies that they had never favored before.
A Democratic Congress rejected Hillary Clinton's health care plan in 1994, and a unanimous Senate rejected the central provision of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. But this time, with a steep recession and a new leader, things would be different.
As snow fell on the global warming alarmists in Copenhagen and a winter storm made a beeline for the Capitol as the Senate was set to begin its round-the-clock weekend session, things don't seem that different at all.
The Copenhagen conclave seems to be unable to produce the promised binding treaty committing 100-plus nations to reduce carbon emissions. It seems likely to kick the can down the road to 2012.
One reason is that the leaders of China and India are unwilling to slow down the economic growth that has been lifting millions out of poverty in order to avert a disaster predicted by climate scientists who, we now know from the Climategate e-mails, have been busy manipulating data, suppressing evidence and silencing anyone who disagrees.
Another is that American voters have shown a growing skepticism of such predictions. The cap-and-trade bill that Obama hoped to brag about in Copenhagen now clearly has no chance of passage in the Senate. Obama talks of giving developing countries $100 billion to pay for emissions reductions. But the ABC/Washington Post poll reports that by a 57 percent to 39 percent margin Americans oppose donating even $10 billion.
Similarly, pollster Scott Rasmussen reports that only 34 percent of Americans say passing a Democratic health care bill is better than passing nothing, while 57 percent say it's better to pass no health care bill at all. That's also the opinion of Dr. Howard Dean, former Democratic national chairman, and the left-wing MSNBC pundit Keith Olbermann.
There is still some chance that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid can corral 60 Democratic votes for whatever health care bill he unveils. But it's looking increasingly unlikely -- and increasingly politically suicidal for some of those 60 Senate Democrats.
Bill Clinton has told those Democrats that they'd be better off politically passing something rather than nothing. But his own job rating swelled only after his health care proposals failed to pass.
"What's really exceptional at this stage of Obama's presidency," writes Andrew Kohut, the Pew Research Center's respected pollster, "is the extent to which the public has moved in a conservative direction on a range of issues. These trends have emanated as much from the middle of the electorate as from the highly energized conservative right. Even more notable, however, is the extent to which liberals appear to be dozing as the country has shifted on both economic and social issues."
From which we can draw two conclusions. One is that economic distress does not move Americans to support more government. Rasmussen reports that 66 percent of Americans favor smaller government with fewer services and only 22 percent favor more services and higher taxes.
The second is that Barack Obama's persuasive powers are surprisingly weak. His advocacy seems to have moved Americans in the opposite of the intended direction.
Obama first came to national attention in 2004 by promising to heal partisan, ideological and racial divisions. Like the other two Democratic presidents elected in the last 40 years, he campaigned in the center and started off governing on the left. In Copenhagen and on Capitol Hill, we are seeing the results. Splat.
Monday, December 21, 2009
In the Bella Center on the south side of Copenhagen and in the Senate chamber on the north side of the Capitol, we're seeing what happens when liberal dreams collide with American public opinion. It's like what happens when a butterfly collides with the windshield of a speeding SUV. Splat.
The liberal dreams may have seemed, on those nights in Invesco Field and Grant Park, as beautiful as a butterfly. But they are still subject to the merciless laws of political physics.
Eleven months ago, this did not seem inevitable. It was widely supposed that economic distress would increase America's appetite for big government measures to restrict carbon dioxide emissions and control the provision of health care. Especially when a young dynamic president employed his oratorical gifts to transcend, as he put it, old ideological and partisan divisions.
Barack Obama, who seemed so confident of his powers as he prepared for his inauguration, evidently believed that he could persuade Americans to support left-of-center policies that they had never favored before.
A Democratic Congress rejected Hillary Clinton's health care plan in 1994, and a unanimous Senate rejected the central provision of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. But this time, with a steep recession and a new leader, things would be different.
As snow fell on the global warming alarmists in Copenhagen and a winter storm made a beeline for the Capitol as the Senate was set to begin its round-the-clock weekend session, things don't seem that different at all.
The Copenhagen conclave seems to be unable to produce the promised binding treaty committing 100-plus nations to reduce carbon emissions. It seems likely to kick the can down the road to 2012.
One reason is that the leaders of China and India are unwilling to slow down the economic growth that has been lifting millions out of poverty in order to avert a disaster predicted by climate scientists who, we now know from the Climategate e-mails, have been busy manipulating data, suppressing evidence and silencing anyone who disagrees.
Another is that American voters have shown a growing skepticism of such predictions. The cap-and-trade bill that Obama hoped to brag about in Copenhagen now clearly has no chance of passage in the Senate. Obama talks of giving developing countries $100 billion to pay for emissions reductions. But the ABC/Washington Post poll reports that by a 57 percent to 39 percent margin Americans oppose donating even $10 billion.
Similarly, pollster Scott Rasmussen reports that only 34 percent of Americans say passing a Democratic health care bill is better than passing nothing, while 57 percent say it's better to pass no health care bill at all. That's also the opinion of Dr. Howard Dean, former Democratic national chairman, and the left-wing MSNBC pundit Keith Olbermann.
There is still some chance that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid can corral 60 Democratic votes for whatever health care bill he unveils. But it's looking increasingly unlikely -- and increasingly politically suicidal for some of those 60 Senate Democrats.
Bill Clinton has told those Democrats that they'd be better off politically passing something rather than nothing. But his own job rating swelled only after his health care proposals failed to pass.
"What's really exceptional at this stage of Obama's presidency," writes Andrew Kohut, the Pew Research Center's respected pollster, "is the extent to which the public has moved in a conservative direction on a range of issues. These trends have emanated as much from the middle of the electorate as from the highly energized conservative right. Even more notable, however, is the extent to which liberals appear to be dozing as the country has shifted on both economic and social issues."
From which we can draw two conclusions. One is that economic distress does not move Americans to support more government. Rasmussen reports that 66 percent of Americans favor smaller government with fewer services and only 22 percent favor more services and higher taxes.
The second is that Barack Obama's persuasive powers are surprisingly weak. His advocacy seems to have moved Americans in the opposite of the intended direction.
Obama first came to national attention in 2004 by promising to heal partisan, ideological and racial divisions. Like the other two Democratic presidents elected in the last 40 years, he campaigned in the center and started off governing on the left. In Copenhagen and on Capitol Hill, we are seeing the results. Splat.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Capitalism Under Fire From Highly Self-Interested Dictators And Diplomats
Austin Hill
Sunday, December 20, 2009
“…our revolution seeks to help all people…socialism, the other ghost that is probably wandering around this room, that’s the way to save the planet, capitalism is the road to hell....let’s fight against capitalism and make it obey us.”
Thus was the conclusion of a roughly half-hour speech – which ran about twenty –five minutes longer than it was scheduled to – from Hugo Chavez, the once freely elected President who is rapidly evolving into the Dictator of Venezuela. The speech was delivered at the United Nation’s Global Warming assembly in Copenhagen last Thursday.
And now, thanks to Comrade Chavez himself, the veil has been completely lifted: the so-called “climate change” agenda has essentially nothing to do with trying to change the climate or “saving the planet,” and everything to do with self-interested politicians trying to control the world’s economic resources.
Last month, this movement was severely discredited by the uncovering of a thousand or so email messages sent or received by global warming authority Phil Jones, of University of East Anglia. Those emails depicted a pattern of ignoring scientific “evidence” that ran contrary to his own global warming theories, as well as a pattern of active “campaigning” for his public policy agenda, rather than a pursuit of “research.”
But as if the global warming movement didn’t already appear sufficiently disingenuous and “hoaxy” before the U.N. gathering, the Dictator of Venezuela showed all the cards in Copenhagen. As blizzard conditions kept people indoors in Denmark Thursday afternoon, Chavez made it very clear that the agenda is not to reverse the “warming” of the planet, but rather, it is to squash the free market economy wherever it exits, and to re-distribute the world’s wealth.
Interestingly, a Chicago Tribune report on Obama’s visit to the U.N. event last Friday was almost as blunt about the economic re-distribution agenda. Noting the lack of agreement among U.N. delegates about a “climate change treaty,” a section of the report notes:
“…Activists and diplomats in Copenhagen say Obama could nevertheless help break the negotiating impasse, particularly if he commits to a set dollar figure on a shared financial aid package from wealthy nations to developing ones, to help the poorer countries adapt to climate change. More than anything, Copenhagen participants say, Obama must tell world leaders that he will push hard for a climate bill in the spring, in time to have a law in place for a potential follow-up summit six months from now…”
So, how much more clear can the agenda be? Here is a major American newspaper acknowledging in its “news” section that so long as the President of the United States agrees to hand-over a certain minimum amount of American money to “poorer nations,” then delegates to the U.N. will be happy once again.
The agenda of alleged “global warming” is in actuality an agenda against free market economics. And the hostility towards the free market is almost universally based on a few specific assumptions: A) In as much as the free market economic system allows for some people to get “rich,” while others remain “poor,” the free market system is itself unjust; B) The wealth accumulation of the rich is necessarily accomplished by unjust means; and C) Economic justice is achieved by re-distributing wealth away from “the wealthy,” and towards those who are poor.
These assumptions are clearly alive and well at the U.N. Yet, despite however passionately people around the world may believe these assumptions to be true, the assumptions themselves lead to a slew of other questions – questions that economic re-distribution enthusiasts generally don’t ask.
If the free market economy has produced “unjust” economic outcomes, what economic system can produce better, more “just” outcomes? If re-distributing money out of the United States and other “wealthy” nations, and in to “poorer” nations is the “right thing” to do, how much money should be taken? To which nations shall it be given? What is the definition of a “wealthy” nation? How does one define a “poor” nation?
Who shall make these important determinations? Should it be the U.N? Can the world trust a “body of dilopmats” from around the world who, while in the process of gathering to set policies that restrain others’ freedom and that re-distribute others’ wealth, nonetheless themselves demand a life of luxury, flying-in to Copenhagen in private jets, utilizing limousines imported from other countries to shuffle them about the city, and so forth?
Or should one individual person be selected to establish “economic justice” throughout the world? And who is so just, so “moral,” so “fair” and so wise that they can know what is “just” for every nation of the world? Is it Hugo Chavez? Barack Obama perhaps?
The loudest opponents of capitalism are quick to decry the self-interests of others. But they are conveniently ignoring their own.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
“…our revolution seeks to help all people…socialism, the other ghost that is probably wandering around this room, that’s the way to save the planet, capitalism is the road to hell....let’s fight against capitalism and make it obey us.”
Thus was the conclusion of a roughly half-hour speech – which ran about twenty –five minutes longer than it was scheduled to – from Hugo Chavez, the once freely elected President who is rapidly evolving into the Dictator of Venezuela. The speech was delivered at the United Nation’s Global Warming assembly in Copenhagen last Thursday.
And now, thanks to Comrade Chavez himself, the veil has been completely lifted: the so-called “climate change” agenda has essentially nothing to do with trying to change the climate or “saving the planet,” and everything to do with self-interested politicians trying to control the world’s economic resources.
Last month, this movement was severely discredited by the uncovering of a thousand or so email messages sent or received by global warming authority Phil Jones, of University of East Anglia. Those emails depicted a pattern of ignoring scientific “evidence” that ran contrary to his own global warming theories, as well as a pattern of active “campaigning” for his public policy agenda, rather than a pursuit of “research.”
But as if the global warming movement didn’t already appear sufficiently disingenuous and “hoaxy” before the U.N. gathering, the Dictator of Venezuela showed all the cards in Copenhagen. As blizzard conditions kept people indoors in Denmark Thursday afternoon, Chavez made it very clear that the agenda is not to reverse the “warming” of the planet, but rather, it is to squash the free market economy wherever it exits, and to re-distribute the world’s wealth.
Interestingly, a Chicago Tribune report on Obama’s visit to the U.N. event last Friday was almost as blunt about the economic re-distribution agenda. Noting the lack of agreement among U.N. delegates about a “climate change treaty,” a section of the report notes:
“…Activists and diplomats in Copenhagen say Obama could nevertheless help break the negotiating impasse, particularly if he commits to a set dollar figure on a shared financial aid package from wealthy nations to developing ones, to help the poorer countries adapt to climate change. More than anything, Copenhagen participants say, Obama must tell world leaders that he will push hard for a climate bill in the spring, in time to have a law in place for a potential follow-up summit six months from now…”
So, how much more clear can the agenda be? Here is a major American newspaper acknowledging in its “news” section that so long as the President of the United States agrees to hand-over a certain minimum amount of American money to “poorer nations,” then delegates to the U.N. will be happy once again.
The agenda of alleged “global warming” is in actuality an agenda against free market economics. And the hostility towards the free market is almost universally based on a few specific assumptions: A) In as much as the free market economic system allows for some people to get “rich,” while others remain “poor,” the free market system is itself unjust; B) The wealth accumulation of the rich is necessarily accomplished by unjust means; and C) Economic justice is achieved by re-distributing wealth away from “the wealthy,” and towards those who are poor.
These assumptions are clearly alive and well at the U.N. Yet, despite however passionately people around the world may believe these assumptions to be true, the assumptions themselves lead to a slew of other questions – questions that economic re-distribution enthusiasts generally don’t ask.
If the free market economy has produced “unjust” economic outcomes, what economic system can produce better, more “just” outcomes? If re-distributing money out of the United States and other “wealthy” nations, and in to “poorer” nations is the “right thing” to do, how much money should be taken? To which nations shall it be given? What is the definition of a “wealthy” nation? How does one define a “poor” nation?
Who shall make these important determinations? Should it be the U.N? Can the world trust a “body of dilopmats” from around the world who, while in the process of gathering to set policies that restrain others’ freedom and that re-distribute others’ wealth, nonetheless themselves demand a life of luxury, flying-in to Copenhagen in private jets, utilizing limousines imported from other countries to shuffle them about the city, and so forth?
Or should one individual person be selected to establish “economic justice” throughout the world? And who is so just, so “moral,” so “fair” and so wise that they can know what is “just” for every nation of the world? Is it Hugo Chavez? Barack Obama perhaps?
The loudest opponents of capitalism are quick to decry the self-interests of others. But they are conveniently ignoring their own.
How To Make Enemies on Health Care
Steve Chapman
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Barack Obama hoped to unify the nation, and he is making impressive progress toward that goal. Last week, he created common ground between Howard Dean and conservatives. They agree on one thing, which is that the health care reform package produced by the Senate and endorsed by the president richly deserves to be voted down.
Conservatives have always opposed ObamaCare because it involves too much government. Now liberals are abandoning the administration's plan because it involves too little. Dean and Co. are bitter that the bills in Congress offer neither a "public option" -- a government-run insurance program -- nor a provision letting those from age 55 to 64 buy Medicare coverage.
It's OK to alienate people at each end of the political spectrum if you please those in between. But the so-called moderates on Capitol Hill are proving no help to the president. On the contrary, they have discovered that the middle of the road is an ideal place to block traffic.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, once thought to be open to supporting the plan, now says she probably won't. Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., got his way when the Senate dropped the government-run options, but even he is not a sure "yes" vote.
Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, denounced attempts to use "artificially generated haste" to get the bill through, which doesn't make her sound like she's on Obama's side. Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., is holding out unless he gets tighter restrictions on abortion coverage.
Even proclaimed supporters make it clear they are settling for a pale facsimile of what they really want. Obama seems to have created a split between those who are critical of his efforts and those who are ungrateful.
So he may not get an overhaul passed at all. If he does, it may cost him control of Congress in next year's elections. In the worst (or best) case, it may help unseat him in 2012. In any case, it won't make him a lot of friends anytime soon.
But Obama has no one to blame except himself. He made the mistake of thinking that because Americans elected him on a promise of overhauling health care, they agreed on what that means. If Americans were unified on a plausible change in the system, however, they probably would have gotten it long ago.
The reality is that either they don't know exactly what they want or they want things that are incompatible -- more benefits and lower costs, more regulation and less government, lower premiums and life eternal. They demand change while demanding the preservation of everything they like about the status quo.
Health care "reform" is hard because a given goal is likely to come at the expense of another. According to a recent George Washington University Battleground Poll, 41 percent of Americans think the main goal should be lowering costs. But they don't really mean it.
Lowering costs is easy: Just reduce benefits. But try that, and you'll be charged with plotting to ration treatment and set up death panels. What people generally mean when they say they want lower costs is that they want to pay less without getting less. Heck, yes.
The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 51 percent of Americans don't want Congress to pass a health care bill this year, with only 44 percent favoring legislation. The longer the debate goes on, the less support there is.
Granted, many of them may have only the vaguest idea of what the legislation would actually do. Ignorance about government programs is often bliss, but in this case, complexity and impenetrability work against change.
Major changes in our economy and social welfare system need a broad public consensus, which does not exist on health care. Given that most Americans are happy with both the quality of care they get and their own insurance coverage, they see more to lose than to gain from any alteration they don't understand. Doing nothing is the default option.
Everyone regards the bill too hot or too cold, too big or too small, too soft or too hard -- never just right. When it comes to changes in health care, Obama is discovering, the average American is not Goldilocks. More like the princess and the pea.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Barack Obama hoped to unify the nation, and he is making impressive progress toward that goal. Last week, he created common ground between Howard Dean and conservatives. They agree on one thing, which is that the health care reform package produced by the Senate and endorsed by the president richly deserves to be voted down.
Conservatives have always opposed ObamaCare because it involves too much government. Now liberals are abandoning the administration's plan because it involves too little. Dean and Co. are bitter that the bills in Congress offer neither a "public option" -- a government-run insurance program -- nor a provision letting those from age 55 to 64 buy Medicare coverage.
It's OK to alienate people at each end of the political spectrum if you please those in between. But the so-called moderates on Capitol Hill are proving no help to the president. On the contrary, they have discovered that the middle of the road is an ideal place to block traffic.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, once thought to be open to supporting the plan, now says she probably won't. Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., got his way when the Senate dropped the government-run options, but even he is not a sure "yes" vote.
Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, denounced attempts to use "artificially generated haste" to get the bill through, which doesn't make her sound like she's on Obama's side. Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., is holding out unless he gets tighter restrictions on abortion coverage.
Even proclaimed supporters make it clear they are settling for a pale facsimile of what they really want. Obama seems to have created a split between those who are critical of his efforts and those who are ungrateful.
So he may not get an overhaul passed at all. If he does, it may cost him control of Congress in next year's elections. In the worst (or best) case, it may help unseat him in 2012. In any case, it won't make him a lot of friends anytime soon.
But Obama has no one to blame except himself. He made the mistake of thinking that because Americans elected him on a promise of overhauling health care, they agreed on what that means. If Americans were unified on a plausible change in the system, however, they probably would have gotten it long ago.
The reality is that either they don't know exactly what they want or they want things that are incompatible -- more benefits and lower costs, more regulation and less government, lower premiums and life eternal. They demand change while demanding the preservation of everything they like about the status quo.
Health care "reform" is hard because a given goal is likely to come at the expense of another. According to a recent George Washington University Battleground Poll, 41 percent of Americans think the main goal should be lowering costs. But they don't really mean it.
Lowering costs is easy: Just reduce benefits. But try that, and you'll be charged with plotting to ration treatment and set up death panels. What people generally mean when they say they want lower costs is that they want to pay less without getting less. Heck, yes.
The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 51 percent of Americans don't want Congress to pass a health care bill this year, with only 44 percent favoring legislation. The longer the debate goes on, the less support there is.
Granted, many of them may have only the vaguest idea of what the legislation would actually do. Ignorance about government programs is often bliss, but in this case, complexity and impenetrability work against change.
Major changes in our economy and social welfare system need a broad public consensus, which does not exist on health care. Given that most Americans are happy with both the quality of care they get and their own insurance coverage, they see more to lose than to gain from any alteration they don't understand. Doing nothing is the default option.
Everyone regards the bill too hot or too cold, too big or too small, too soft or too hard -- never just right. When it comes to changes in health care, Obama is discovering, the average American is not Goldilocks. More like the princess and the pea.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Global Wealth Can Heal the Planet
Free-market nations are better at protecting their environments than statist regimes.
By Jonah Goldberg
Friday, December 18, 2009
As the Copenhagen climate summit comes to a close, it seems fair to say that rarely has a gathering of so many doing so little gotten so much attention. But Copenhagen does have its uses. For starters, it reminds us that environmentalism continues to be a cover for uglier agendas.
Bolivian president Evo Morales was interviewed by Al Jazeera television while in Copenhagen. “The principal obstacle to combating climate change is capitalism,” he explained. “Until we put an end to capitalism, it will continue to be a big obstacle for life and humanity.”
Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe proclaimed in a speech: “When these capitalist gods of carbon burp and belch their dangerous emissions, it’s we, the lesser mortals of the developing sphere, who gasp and sink and eventually die.”
Right. That is, unless Mugabe kills them first.
The big name in the anti-capitalism club was, of course, Hugo Chávez, the Venezuelan national-socialist strongman. In a typical stem-winder, he belched: “Capitalism is a destructive model that is eradicating life, that threatens to put a definitive end to the human species.”
I don’t know how to say “chutzpah” in Spanish, but you’ve got to hand it to the leader of the world’s No. 5 supplier of oil for bemoaning the system that keeps his regime afloat by buying his product.
Now, I know that nice, moderate progressive types are rolling their eyes at my cynical effort to associate their noble activism with support for socialism and thugs. Fair enough. Let us concede that many, perhaps even most, proponents of draconian restrictions on carbon emissions have no sympathy for socialist dictators and do not want to chuck capitalism in the dustbin of history. But surely it should trouble these responsible greens that they’re in bed with a Star Wars cantina of villains and monsters.
Also, if environmentalists want to avoid the “watermelon” charge (“green on the outside, red on the inside”), maybe the delegates and activists in the audience shouldn’t have given Chávez such a loud and boisterous round of applause? Perhaps the folks who gave him a standing ovation didn’t help either?
The simple truth is that hostility to freedom (i.e., economic liberty and political democracy) and fondness for non-democratic statism suffuses much of the environmental movement. I will confess to having a minor obsession with the New York Times’s Thomas Friedman, who consistently writes of his confessed envy for China’s authoritarian regime. But I am trying to wean myself off Friedman-bashing lest he get a restraining order.
So consider instead Diane Francis, a ballyhooed Canadian pundit. In a recent Financial Post column, Francis wrote that the “‘inconvenient truth’ overhanging the U.N.’s Copenhagen conference is not that the climate is warming or cooling, but that humans are overpopulating the world.” She insists that “the only way to reverse the disastrous global birthrate” is to implement a “planetary law, such as China’s one-child policy.”
Population control has always been at the heart of the progressive project, so it’s no surprise that it’s in fashion once again.
But Francis’s proposal is particularly disgusting, not least because Francis has two children. I think the hypocrisy charge is overused in political debate these days, but when you tout a totalitarian police state’s population policy of, among other things, forced abortions, you might try harder to practice what you preach. Think globally, act locally and all that.
But Francis’s argument is also stunningly stupid, as are virtually all of the complaints about capitalism being the root of the problem.
The historical record is clear: Democratic free-market nations are better at protecting their environments than statist regimes for the simple reason that they can afford to. West Germany’s environment was far cleaner than East Germany’s. I’d much sooner drink the tap water in South Korea than North Korea.
Mugabe rails against capitalism as if he has a better idea of how to run things. That’s almost funny given that Mugabe has destroyed what was once a great cause for hope in Africa, in large part by abandoning capitalism and democracy. Zimbabwe now has the highest inflation rate in the world and one of the lowest life expectancies. Let’s hope nobody was taking notes when he was giving out advice.
Moreover, capitalism, and the wealth it creates, is the best means of bending down the population curve. Don’t take my word for it. The U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change acknowledges that “affluence is correlated with long life and small families” and that growing prosperity will cause world population to decline even further.
Want to know the best way to heal the planet? Create more rich countries. Want to know the best way to hurt the planet? Throw a wet blanket on economic growth.
By Jonah Goldberg
Friday, December 18, 2009
As the Copenhagen climate summit comes to a close, it seems fair to say that rarely has a gathering of so many doing so little gotten so much attention. But Copenhagen does have its uses. For starters, it reminds us that environmentalism continues to be a cover for uglier agendas.
Bolivian president Evo Morales was interviewed by Al Jazeera television while in Copenhagen. “The principal obstacle to combating climate change is capitalism,” he explained. “Until we put an end to capitalism, it will continue to be a big obstacle for life and humanity.”
Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe proclaimed in a speech: “When these capitalist gods of carbon burp and belch their dangerous emissions, it’s we, the lesser mortals of the developing sphere, who gasp and sink and eventually die.”
Right. That is, unless Mugabe kills them first.
The big name in the anti-capitalism club was, of course, Hugo Chávez, the Venezuelan national-socialist strongman. In a typical stem-winder, he belched: “Capitalism is a destructive model that is eradicating life, that threatens to put a definitive end to the human species.”
I don’t know how to say “chutzpah” in Spanish, but you’ve got to hand it to the leader of the world’s No. 5 supplier of oil for bemoaning the system that keeps his regime afloat by buying his product.
Now, I know that nice, moderate progressive types are rolling their eyes at my cynical effort to associate their noble activism with support for socialism and thugs. Fair enough. Let us concede that many, perhaps even most, proponents of draconian restrictions on carbon emissions have no sympathy for socialist dictators and do not want to chuck capitalism in the dustbin of history. But surely it should trouble these responsible greens that they’re in bed with a Star Wars cantina of villains and monsters.
Also, if environmentalists want to avoid the “watermelon” charge (“green on the outside, red on the inside”), maybe the delegates and activists in the audience shouldn’t have given Chávez such a loud and boisterous round of applause? Perhaps the folks who gave him a standing ovation didn’t help either?
The simple truth is that hostility to freedom (i.e., economic liberty and political democracy) and fondness for non-democratic statism suffuses much of the environmental movement. I will confess to having a minor obsession with the New York Times’s Thomas Friedman, who consistently writes of his confessed envy for China’s authoritarian regime. But I am trying to wean myself off Friedman-bashing lest he get a restraining order.
So consider instead Diane Francis, a ballyhooed Canadian pundit. In a recent Financial Post column, Francis wrote that the “‘inconvenient truth’ overhanging the U.N.’s Copenhagen conference is not that the climate is warming or cooling, but that humans are overpopulating the world.” She insists that “the only way to reverse the disastrous global birthrate” is to implement a “planetary law, such as China’s one-child policy.”
Population control has always been at the heart of the progressive project, so it’s no surprise that it’s in fashion once again.
But Francis’s proposal is particularly disgusting, not least because Francis has two children. I think the hypocrisy charge is overused in political debate these days, but when you tout a totalitarian police state’s population policy of, among other things, forced abortions, you might try harder to practice what you preach. Think globally, act locally and all that.
But Francis’s argument is also stunningly stupid, as are virtually all of the complaints about capitalism being the root of the problem.
The historical record is clear: Democratic free-market nations are better at protecting their environments than statist regimes for the simple reason that they can afford to. West Germany’s environment was far cleaner than East Germany’s. I’d much sooner drink the tap water in South Korea than North Korea.
Mugabe rails against capitalism as if he has a better idea of how to run things. That’s almost funny given that Mugabe has destroyed what was once a great cause for hope in Africa, in large part by abandoning capitalism and democracy. Zimbabwe now has the highest inflation rate in the world and one of the lowest life expectancies. Let’s hope nobody was taking notes when he was giving out advice.
Moreover, capitalism, and the wealth it creates, is the best means of bending down the population curve. Don’t take my word for it. The U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change acknowledges that “affluence is correlated with long life and small families” and that growing prosperity will cause world population to decline even further.
Want to know the best way to heal the planet? Create more rich countries. Want to know the best way to hurt the planet? Throw a wet blanket on economic growth.
Climate Hypocrites
Island nations underwater, and offsetting princes.
By Mark Steyn
Saturday, December 19, 2009
The best summation of the U.N. climate circus in Denmark comes from Andrew Bolt of Australia’s Herald Sun: “Nothing is real in Copenhagen — not the temperature record, not the predictions, not the agenda, not the ‘solution.’”
Just so. Reuters, for example, carried a moving account of the speech by Ian Fry, lead negotiator for Tuvalu, the beleaguered Pacific island nation soon to be underwater because of a planet-devastating combination of your SUV and unsustainable bovine flatulence from Vermont farms. “The fate of my country rests in your hands,” Fry told the meeting. “I make this as a strong and impassioned plea. . . . I woke this morning and I was crying and that was not easy for a grown man to admit,” he continued, “his voice choking with emotion,” in the Reuters reporter’s words. Who could fail to be moved?
My country, ’tis of thee
Sweet land near rising sea
Of thee I choke!
Alas, nowhere in this emotionally harrowing dispatch was there room to mention that Ian Fry’s country is not Tuvalu but Australia, where he lives relatively safe from rising sea levels, given that he’s a hundred miles inland. A career doom-monger, he’s resided in Queanbeyan, New South Wales, for over a decade while working his way, in the revealing phrase of his neighbor Michelle Ormay, to being “very high up in climate change.” As to whether the emotion-choked lachrymose pleader has ever lived in “his” endangered country of Tuvalu, his wife told Samantha Maiden of The Australian that she would “rather not comment.” Like his fellow Copenhagen delegate Brad Pitt, Ian Fry is an actor: He’s not a Tuvaluan, but he plays one on the world stage.
Whether he’s an Aussie or a Tuvaluan, Fry’s future king is Welsh, since under the British Commonwealth’s environmentally responsible king-share program, the Prince of Wales is simultaneously heir to the thrones of Britain, Australian, Tuvalu, and a bunch of other countries. His Royal Highness was also in Copenhagen last week, telling delegates that there were now only seven years left to save the planet. Prince Charles is so famously concerned about the environment that he’s known as the Green Prince. Just for the record, his annual carbon footprint is 2,601 tons. The carbon footprint of an average Briton (i.e., all those wasteful, consumerist, environmentally unsustainable deadbeats) is 11 tons. To get him to Copenhagen to deliver his speech, His Highness was flown in by one of the Royal Air Force’s fleet of VIP jets from the Royal Squadron. Total carbon emissions: 6.4 tons. In other words, the Green Prince used up seven months’ of an average Brit’s annual carbon footprint on one short flight to give one mediocre speech of alarmist boilerplate.
But relax, it’s all cool, because he offsets! According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the prince will be investing in exciting new green initiatives. “Investing” as in “using his own money,” you mean? Not exactly. Apparently, it will be taxpayers’ money. So he’ll “offset” the cost of using up seven months of an average peasant’s carbon footprint on one flight by taking the peasant’s money and tossing it down some sinkhole. No wonder he feels so virtuous. Oh, don’t worry, though. He does have to pay a personal penalty for the sin of flying by private jet: 70 pounds. Which is the cost of about six new trees, or rather less than the bill for parking at Heathrow would have been.
So just to recap: The Prince of Wales, a man who has never drawn his own curtains, ramps up a carbon footprint of 2,601 tons while telling us that Western capitalist excess is destroying the planet. Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, the railroad engineer who heads the International Panel on Climate Change and has demanded that “hefty aviation taxes should be introduced to deter people from flying,” flew 443,226 miles on “IPCC business” in the year and a half before the Copenhagen summit. And Al Gore is a carbon billionaire: He makes more money buying offsets from himself than his dad did from investing in Occidental Petroleum.
All of the above are, as that ersatz Tuvaluan delegate’s neighbor would say, “very high up in climate change.” But what about all the non-high-ups? Not just the low-level toadies like Associated Press “science” reporter Seth Borenstein, who dutifully pooh-poohed the idea that the leaked Climategate e-mails were of any significance and, for his pains, was rewarded by having to stand in line with thousands of other no-name warm-mongers for seven hours in the freezing streets of Copenhagen. All because the IPCC accredited 45,000 delegates to a space that accommodates 15,000 — but don’t worry, when it comes to recalibrating the planet’s climate, I’m sure they’ll run the numbers more carefully.
But forget Borenstein and other hangers-on. Even making allowances for the stupidity of youthful idealism, the protesters in the streets of Copenhagen seem especially obtuse. Far from sticking it to the Man, they’re cheerleading for the biggest Man of all: They’re supporting a new globalized feudalism in which Prince Charles, Prince Al, Prince Rajendra, and others “very high up in climate change” jet around the world at public expense telling the rest of us we need to stay put. A British parliamentarian recently proposed that everyone be issued with an annual “carbon allowance” that would be drawn down every time he booked a flight, or filled up his car, or bought a washer and dryer instead of beating his laundry on the rocks down by the river with the village women every week. You think the Prince of Wales or any other member of the new global elite will be subject to that “allowance”?
If you’re young and you fall for this, you’re a sap. Indeed, you’re oozing so much sap the settled scientists should be measuring your tree rings. Remember that story a couple of weeks ago about how Danish prostitutes were offering free sex to Copenhagen delegates for the duration of the conference? I initially assumed it was just an amusing marketing cash-in by savvy Nordic strumpets. But no, the local “sex workers’ union” Sexarbejdernes Interesseorganisation was responding to the municipal government’s campaign to discourage attendees from partaking of prostitutes. The City of Copenhagen distributed cards to every hotel room showing a lady of the evening at a seedy street corner over the slogan “BE SUSTAINABLE: Don’t Buy Sex.”
“Be sustainable”? Prostitution happens to be legal in Copenhagen, and the “sex workers” were understandably peeved at being lumped into the same category of planet-wreckers as Big Oil, car manufacturers, travel agents, and other notorious pariahs. So Big Sex decided they weren’t going to take it lying down. Yet, in an odd way, that municipal postcard gets to the heart of what’s going on: Government can — and will — use a “sustainable” environment as a pretext for anything that tickles its fancy. All ambitious projects — Communism, the new Caliphate — have global ambitions, but, when the globe itself is the cover for those ambitions, freeborn citizens should beware. Nico Little, a Canadian lefty at the Rabble website, distilled the logic into a single headline:
“Hookers Are Killing Polar Bears And Now You Can’t Water Your Lawn.”
Write that down. And next time the Prince of Wales, Al Gore, Dr. Pachauri, or the delegation from Tuvalu give an “impassioned” speech, keep it handy as a useful précis.
By Mark Steyn
Saturday, December 19, 2009
The best summation of the U.N. climate circus in Denmark comes from Andrew Bolt of Australia’s Herald Sun: “Nothing is real in Copenhagen — not the temperature record, not the predictions, not the agenda, not the ‘solution.’”
Just so. Reuters, for example, carried a moving account of the speech by Ian Fry, lead negotiator for Tuvalu, the beleaguered Pacific island nation soon to be underwater because of a planet-devastating combination of your SUV and unsustainable bovine flatulence from Vermont farms. “The fate of my country rests in your hands,” Fry told the meeting. “I make this as a strong and impassioned plea. . . . I woke this morning and I was crying and that was not easy for a grown man to admit,” he continued, “his voice choking with emotion,” in the Reuters reporter’s words. Who could fail to be moved?
My country, ’tis of thee
Sweet land near rising sea
Of thee I choke!
Alas, nowhere in this emotionally harrowing dispatch was there room to mention that Ian Fry’s country is not Tuvalu but Australia, where he lives relatively safe from rising sea levels, given that he’s a hundred miles inland. A career doom-monger, he’s resided in Queanbeyan, New South Wales, for over a decade while working his way, in the revealing phrase of his neighbor Michelle Ormay, to being “very high up in climate change.” As to whether the emotion-choked lachrymose pleader has ever lived in “his” endangered country of Tuvalu, his wife told Samantha Maiden of The Australian that she would “rather not comment.” Like his fellow Copenhagen delegate Brad Pitt, Ian Fry is an actor: He’s not a Tuvaluan, but he plays one on the world stage.
Whether he’s an Aussie or a Tuvaluan, Fry’s future king is Welsh, since under the British Commonwealth’s environmentally responsible king-share program, the Prince of Wales is simultaneously heir to the thrones of Britain, Australian, Tuvalu, and a bunch of other countries. His Royal Highness was also in Copenhagen last week, telling delegates that there were now only seven years left to save the planet. Prince Charles is so famously concerned about the environment that he’s known as the Green Prince. Just for the record, his annual carbon footprint is 2,601 tons. The carbon footprint of an average Briton (i.e., all those wasteful, consumerist, environmentally unsustainable deadbeats) is 11 tons. To get him to Copenhagen to deliver his speech, His Highness was flown in by one of the Royal Air Force’s fleet of VIP jets from the Royal Squadron. Total carbon emissions: 6.4 tons. In other words, the Green Prince used up seven months’ of an average Brit’s annual carbon footprint on one short flight to give one mediocre speech of alarmist boilerplate.
But relax, it’s all cool, because he offsets! According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the prince will be investing in exciting new green initiatives. “Investing” as in “using his own money,” you mean? Not exactly. Apparently, it will be taxpayers’ money. So he’ll “offset” the cost of using up seven months of an average peasant’s carbon footprint on one flight by taking the peasant’s money and tossing it down some sinkhole. No wonder he feels so virtuous. Oh, don’t worry, though. He does have to pay a personal penalty for the sin of flying by private jet: 70 pounds. Which is the cost of about six new trees, or rather less than the bill for parking at Heathrow would have been.
So just to recap: The Prince of Wales, a man who has never drawn his own curtains, ramps up a carbon footprint of 2,601 tons while telling us that Western capitalist excess is destroying the planet. Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, the railroad engineer who heads the International Panel on Climate Change and has demanded that “hefty aviation taxes should be introduced to deter people from flying,” flew 443,226 miles on “IPCC business” in the year and a half before the Copenhagen summit. And Al Gore is a carbon billionaire: He makes more money buying offsets from himself than his dad did from investing in Occidental Petroleum.
All of the above are, as that ersatz Tuvaluan delegate’s neighbor would say, “very high up in climate change.” But what about all the non-high-ups? Not just the low-level toadies like Associated Press “science” reporter Seth Borenstein, who dutifully pooh-poohed the idea that the leaked Climategate e-mails were of any significance and, for his pains, was rewarded by having to stand in line with thousands of other no-name warm-mongers for seven hours in the freezing streets of Copenhagen. All because the IPCC accredited 45,000 delegates to a space that accommodates 15,000 — but don’t worry, when it comes to recalibrating the planet’s climate, I’m sure they’ll run the numbers more carefully.
But forget Borenstein and other hangers-on. Even making allowances for the stupidity of youthful idealism, the protesters in the streets of Copenhagen seem especially obtuse. Far from sticking it to the Man, they’re cheerleading for the biggest Man of all: They’re supporting a new globalized feudalism in which Prince Charles, Prince Al, Prince Rajendra, and others “very high up in climate change” jet around the world at public expense telling the rest of us we need to stay put. A British parliamentarian recently proposed that everyone be issued with an annual “carbon allowance” that would be drawn down every time he booked a flight, or filled up his car, or bought a washer and dryer instead of beating his laundry on the rocks down by the river with the village women every week. You think the Prince of Wales or any other member of the new global elite will be subject to that “allowance”?
If you’re young and you fall for this, you’re a sap. Indeed, you’re oozing so much sap the settled scientists should be measuring your tree rings. Remember that story a couple of weeks ago about how Danish prostitutes were offering free sex to Copenhagen delegates for the duration of the conference? I initially assumed it was just an amusing marketing cash-in by savvy Nordic strumpets. But no, the local “sex workers’ union” Sexarbejdernes Interesseorganisation was responding to the municipal government’s campaign to discourage attendees from partaking of prostitutes. The City of Copenhagen distributed cards to every hotel room showing a lady of the evening at a seedy street corner over the slogan “BE SUSTAINABLE: Don’t Buy Sex.”
“Be sustainable”? Prostitution happens to be legal in Copenhagen, and the “sex workers” were understandably peeved at being lumped into the same category of planet-wreckers as Big Oil, car manufacturers, travel agents, and other notorious pariahs. So Big Sex decided they weren’t going to take it lying down. Yet, in an odd way, that municipal postcard gets to the heart of what’s going on: Government can — and will — use a “sustainable” environment as a pretext for anything that tickles its fancy. All ambitious projects — Communism, the new Caliphate — have global ambitions, but, when the globe itself is the cover for those ambitions, freeborn citizens should beware. Nico Little, a Canadian lefty at the Rabble website, distilled the logic into a single headline:
“Hookers Are Killing Polar Bears And Now You Can’t Water Your Lawn.”
Write that down. And next time the Prince of Wales, Al Gore, Dr. Pachauri, or the delegation from Tuvalu give an “impassioned” speech, keep it handy as a useful précis.
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