Obama is moving to the left of Europe.
By Victor Davis Hanson
Thursday, April 2, 2009
‘Yes, we can!” Germans shouted in unison with candidate Barack Obama at their Victory Column in Berlin this past summer.
To judge by the crowds and European media, most Europeans were as ecstatic about the coming of the Obama presidency as they were over the departure of George W. Bush. At last, an American president who praised multilateralism and the United Nations, and seemed sympathetic to Europe’s socialist culture.
Obama’s multiracial, nontraditional heritage seemed sophisticated and cosmopolitan in a European way that Bush’s Texas accent and Christian fundamentalism most definitely were not.
Despite Bush’s efforts in his second term to work closely with the Europeans, and the emergence of conservative governments in France, Germany, and Italy, Old Europe for the most part was all too happy to see him go.
But will Europe always be happy with the Obama it wished for?
Mirek Topolánek, prime minister of the Czech Republic (which currently holds the European Union presidency), just blasted the Obama administration’s stimulus plans as “a way to hell.”
German chancellor Angela Merkel sniffed: “We must look at the causes of this crisis. It happened because we were living beyond our means. . . . We cannot repeat this mistake.”
And just when President Obama announced the dispatch of thousands more troops to Afghanistan, many European leaders confirmed they will withdraw their own contingents over the next two years.
America, meanwhile, may backtrack on missile defense for Eastern Europe in the face of Russian threats. And there is talk of more trade protectionism in the Democratic-controlled Congress. Europeans wouldn’t be happy if either of these things came to pass.
What, then, is going on?
In some sense, the Obama administration will bring a new honesty to European-American relations. For the last eight years, Europeans have had it both ways. Bush took out Saddam Hussein, removed the Taliban from power, hunted terrorists, offered firm security guarantees to the Europeans in their squabbles with the Russians, tried to box in Iran, and ran trade deficits with his free-trade policies. For his efforts, he was caricatured as a cowboy buffoon by European sophisticates.
But now after welcoming Obama, the Europeans are beginning to discover that they must contend with a new administration to the left of themselves. And as we saw with Obama’s recent cavalier treatment of visiting British prime minister Gordon Brown — he was given a packet of DVDs, unviewable in Europe, as a going-away gift — Obama doesn’t seem convinced of any special relationship with Europe. His interests and priorities lie more in Asia, Latin America, and Africa — places that have also been the great sources of immigration to America the last half-century.
So, it will be harder for Europeans to pull off the old two-step of quietly wanting the U.S. to deter threats while loudly deploring our Neanderthal reliance on brute force.
As Afghanistan turns from a joint NATO project into an American war, the Obama administration may well conclude that if we don’t have European allies against the Taliban, we won’t elsewhere. Perhaps NATO will be seen as a Cold War relic, with no place in Obama’s brave new multipolar world.
Given Obama’s plans to emulate Europe’s expensive socialist entitlement system, there may be less money for defense. Ironically, that would mean less American protection abroad of a disarmed socialist Europe — a continent sandwiched between North Africa, the Middle East, and Russia, with millions of unassimilated Muslim immigrants at home.
In matters of foreign policy, Obama likewise has outflanked the Europeans. His calls for talks without restriction with the Iranians; his offer to pour hundreds of millions into Gaza; his outreach to the Syrians; and his popular resonance in South America, the Middle East, and Africa suggest that a leftist America now has more in common with some of these former European colonies than do the centrist Europeans.
It was once easy to slur Bush’s War on Terror as typical American overkill. But now Europeans had better worry that someone in the Obama administration will notice that the renditions, preventative detentions, wiretapping, and summary deportations practiced in parts of Europe were often as authoritarian as anything Bush embraced.
On a number of other issues — expensive legislation to combat global warming, multilateral foreign policy, massive government borrowing, relations with unsavory foreign dictators — Obama is moving to the left of Europe.
The transatlantic alliance we’ve taken for granted for so many years, of course, won’t come to an end overnight. But how ironic will it be if its eventual downfall is someday traced not to a loud George Bush bang, but to a Barack Obama whimper.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Middle East Caricature
Cliff May
Thursday, April 02, 2009
Let's not call the political cartoonist Pat Oliphant an anti-Semite or even an Israel-basher. Let's just be clear about what he is doing: encouraging those whose intentions are genocidal.
Hamas unambiguously falls into that category. The Hamas Charter calls for Israel to be "obliterated." Hamas' founder, Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, said Israel must "disappear from the map." Hamas spokesman and legislator Sheikh Ahmad Bahr has said that both Israel and America "will be annihilated," adding: "Kill them all, down to the very last one." Hamas-owned Al-Aqsa TV has promised: "We will wipe out the people of Zion, and will not leave a single one of them."
Oliphant is not just any opinion monger. He is the most widely syndicated political cartoonist in the world, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and other prestigious awards. The drawing he distributed in late March shows a headless (therefore inhuman) figure representing Israel. The creature wears jackboots and is goose-stepping (because Nazis wore jackboots and goose-stepped). It has a brawny, hairy arm wielding a sword (to suggest it is primitive and bellicose). It is pushing a Star of David (the symbol of both Israel and Judaism) that has a shark's face with an open mouth and long, sharp teeth (no explanation needed). It pursues its victim: a tiny, defenseless mother and child labeled "Gaza."
The symbolism here is unoriginal. Dehumanizing Jews in cartoons is a tradition that dates back at least to Germany in the 1930s and has been maintained in the Arab press ever since. Nor is it novel to equate 21st century Jews with their 20th century executioners. But until now, such images have rarely, if ever, been so legitimized in the mainstream media. A corner has been turned.
Oliphant may not be interested in the context for the conflict between Israel and Hamas, but others should be. There is, for example, the fact that Israel occupied Gaza as a consequence of the 1967 war waged against Israel by Egypt, Syria, Jordan and other Arab states. Prior to that, Gaza was an Egyptian territory. There also is the fact that in 2005 Israel ended its occupation of Gaza. This fact is pertinent too: Many Gazans have supported Hamas knowing full well that the organization's top priority is to wage jihad against Israel.
In recent years, that has meant raining missiles on Israelis, not least on Israeli mothers and children. A few months ago, Israel launched a three-week air and ground offensive in an effort to make Hamas stop.
It is not only Israel's supporters who blame Hamas for the death and destruction that resulted. "The one responsible," said Nimr Hammad, an advisor to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, is "Hamas, and not the Zionist entity, which in its own view reacted to the firing of Palestinian missiles."
Wars can never be garden parties but during the recent conflict, far from acting like a headless monster, the Israel Defense Force took extraordinary efforts to limit civilian casualties, including, for example, making phone calls to Palestinian civilians to urge them to leave areas that would be targeted.
By contrast, Hamas took steps to increase non-combatant deaths. For instance, an Israeli armored brigade commander told The New York Times that his troops encountered "a woman, about 60 years old, walking with a white flag and six to eight children behind her, and behind them was a Hamas fighter with his gun. "We did not shoot him," the commander said.
Israeli scholar and author Barry Rubin, in a trenchant analysis of Oliphant's drawing, does not charge the cartoonist with anti-Semitism or even hatred of Israelis. "What is involved here," he writes, "is a lack of understanding," but one that is "so enormous that it will incite hatred; cause violence and death; and block policies needed to help people-including Palestinians who are supposedly the object of [Oliphant's] sympathy but thus doomed to suffer under a repressive regime with a permanent war policy."
Rubin argues, too, that Oliphant's image "represents the mentality that will plague every Western and democratic state in the coming years. Imagine the exact same cartoon but with the Magen David replaced by the Stars and Stripes-the evil America attacking the Taliban or al-Qaida, or Iraq, or Muslims in general."
Which raises this question: Do Oliphant and others like him believe that no people under attack by militant Islamists have the right of self-defense? Or are only Israelis expected to accustom themselves to absorbing punishment indefinitely?
I'm not sure which answer would be the more disturbing.
Thursday, April 02, 2009
Let's not call the political cartoonist Pat Oliphant an anti-Semite or even an Israel-basher. Let's just be clear about what he is doing: encouraging those whose intentions are genocidal.
Hamas unambiguously falls into that category. The Hamas Charter calls for Israel to be "obliterated." Hamas' founder, Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, said Israel must "disappear from the map." Hamas spokesman and legislator Sheikh Ahmad Bahr has said that both Israel and America "will be annihilated," adding: "Kill them all, down to the very last one." Hamas-owned Al-Aqsa TV has promised: "We will wipe out the people of Zion, and will not leave a single one of them."
Oliphant is not just any opinion monger. He is the most widely syndicated political cartoonist in the world, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and other prestigious awards. The drawing he distributed in late March shows a headless (therefore inhuman) figure representing Israel. The creature wears jackboots and is goose-stepping (because Nazis wore jackboots and goose-stepped). It has a brawny, hairy arm wielding a sword (to suggest it is primitive and bellicose). It is pushing a Star of David (the symbol of both Israel and Judaism) that has a shark's face with an open mouth and long, sharp teeth (no explanation needed). It pursues its victim: a tiny, defenseless mother and child labeled "Gaza."
The symbolism here is unoriginal. Dehumanizing Jews in cartoons is a tradition that dates back at least to Germany in the 1930s and has been maintained in the Arab press ever since. Nor is it novel to equate 21st century Jews with their 20th century executioners. But until now, such images have rarely, if ever, been so legitimized in the mainstream media. A corner has been turned.
Oliphant may not be interested in the context for the conflict between Israel and Hamas, but others should be. There is, for example, the fact that Israel occupied Gaza as a consequence of the 1967 war waged against Israel by Egypt, Syria, Jordan and other Arab states. Prior to that, Gaza was an Egyptian territory. There also is the fact that in 2005 Israel ended its occupation of Gaza. This fact is pertinent too: Many Gazans have supported Hamas knowing full well that the organization's top priority is to wage jihad against Israel.
In recent years, that has meant raining missiles on Israelis, not least on Israeli mothers and children. A few months ago, Israel launched a three-week air and ground offensive in an effort to make Hamas stop.
It is not only Israel's supporters who blame Hamas for the death and destruction that resulted. "The one responsible," said Nimr Hammad, an advisor to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, is "Hamas, and not the Zionist entity, which in its own view reacted to the firing of Palestinian missiles."
Wars can never be garden parties but during the recent conflict, far from acting like a headless monster, the Israel Defense Force took extraordinary efforts to limit civilian casualties, including, for example, making phone calls to Palestinian civilians to urge them to leave areas that would be targeted.
By contrast, Hamas took steps to increase non-combatant deaths. For instance, an Israeli armored brigade commander told The New York Times that his troops encountered "a woman, about 60 years old, walking with a white flag and six to eight children behind her, and behind them was a Hamas fighter with his gun. "We did not shoot him," the commander said.
Israeli scholar and author Barry Rubin, in a trenchant analysis of Oliphant's drawing, does not charge the cartoonist with anti-Semitism or even hatred of Israelis. "What is involved here," he writes, "is a lack of understanding," but one that is "so enormous that it will incite hatred; cause violence and death; and block policies needed to help people-including Palestinians who are supposedly the object of [Oliphant's] sympathy but thus doomed to suffer under a repressive regime with a permanent war policy."
Rubin argues, too, that Oliphant's image "represents the mentality that will plague every Western and democratic state in the coming years. Imagine the exact same cartoon but with the Magen David replaced by the Stars and Stripes-the evil America attacking the Taliban or al-Qaida, or Iraq, or Muslims in general."
Which raises this question: Do Oliphant and others like him believe that no people under attack by militant Islamists have the right of self-defense? Or are only Israelis expected to accustom themselves to absorbing punishment indefinitely?
I'm not sure which answer would be the more disturbing.
Europe on the Cheap
Debra J. Saunders
Thursday, April 02, 2009
American voters want -- and President Obama campaigned on a platform of -- European-style government at American tax rates.
Consider the Obama take on GM's and Chrysler's extended hand for another Washington bailout. Obama recognizes that the Detroit automakers are in trouble because of pension and retiree health care costs and quality issues, but his focus Monday was on the failure of GM and Chrysler to manufacture the "fuel-efficient cars and trucks that will carry us toward an energy-independent future." That's the happy conceit of Democrats who -- their own personal driving habits and what you see on the nation's highways every day notwithstanding -- have determined that Americans really prefer driving small, fuel-efficient cars in the style of Our Betters in Europe.
Now, with gasoline in the $2 per gallon range, Obama's brainstorm for a successful business model is to create "the next generation of clean cars." Get it: GM and Chrysler are in trouble because their cars weren't liberal enough.
It helps if you forget that the Big Three cranked out big cars for years because Americans bought them in the days before gasoline hit $4 per gallon.
Here's the European-government-with-American-taxes angle: If Obamaland believes it is in the interest of America's national security to drive fuel-efficient cars, the only sure route there is to levy higher gasoline taxes -- as they do in Europe.
Look at France, where taxes account for about 70 percent of the price of gasoline, compared to less than 17 percent in the United States. Our Betters in Europe pay some $5 to $6.50 per gallon of gas -- or 2.5 to three times more than Americans pay. That's why Europeans drive smaller cars. And that's why European carmakers design smaller cars.
Instead, Obama plans to push Americans into buying his promised "new generation of clean cars" with -- you guessed it -- lower taxes. This week, he supported "a generous credit to consumers who turn in old, less fuel-efficient cars and purchase cleaner cars." That's on top of an Obama stimulus provision that allows consumers to deduct sales and excise taxes for cars bought between Feb. 16 and the end of the year.
There's a logic deficit to the whole approach.
If the administration truly wants Americans to drive smaller cars, it needs to instill in automakers utter certainty that gasoline prices will rise and stay at very high rates. Short-term tax credits can't do that, as they leave carmakers unsure of what families will buy and afraid of losing the cushy-sized car market.
Raising the gasoline tax gradually but continuously is the only sure way to meet Obama's fuel-efficiency agenda. But Obama won't propose it because there is no way to hide the tax. Every time drivers fill their tanks, they'll see the price tag and know who put it there.
His entire 2008 campaign was based on telling voters they could get more government programs to promote health care, education and his environmental agenda -- but 95 percent of families would not have to pay for it. When asked in a debate with rival John McCain what sacrifices he would ask Americans to make, Obama answered, "There is going to be the need for each and every one of us to start thinking about how we use energy." That's right, his sacrifice wasn't in the pocketbook -- except for families earning more than $250,000 -- his sacrifice was in asking voters to think.
Consider Obama's campaign pledge to deliver universal access to health care. Say this for the French, they pay for their services; they pay a value-added tax of up to 19.6 percent and a 40 percent tax rate for income above some $88,313. But at the 2008 convention, the Democratic platform asserted that under ObamaCare, the "typical American family" would save "up to $2,500 per year." European services, American taxes -- with a bonus.
Who really pays? The future taxpayers of America saddled with rapidly accumulating debt.
There you have the real Obama model -- Europe, but on lower U.S. tax rates. This combo makes for an unsustainable model. Like Chrysler.
Thursday, April 02, 2009
American voters want -- and President Obama campaigned on a platform of -- European-style government at American tax rates.
Consider the Obama take on GM's and Chrysler's extended hand for another Washington bailout. Obama recognizes that the Detroit automakers are in trouble because of pension and retiree health care costs and quality issues, but his focus Monday was on the failure of GM and Chrysler to manufacture the "fuel-efficient cars and trucks that will carry us toward an energy-independent future." That's the happy conceit of Democrats who -- their own personal driving habits and what you see on the nation's highways every day notwithstanding -- have determined that Americans really prefer driving small, fuel-efficient cars in the style of Our Betters in Europe.
Now, with gasoline in the $2 per gallon range, Obama's brainstorm for a successful business model is to create "the next generation of clean cars." Get it: GM and Chrysler are in trouble because their cars weren't liberal enough.
It helps if you forget that the Big Three cranked out big cars for years because Americans bought them in the days before gasoline hit $4 per gallon.
Here's the European-government-with-American-taxes angle: If Obamaland believes it is in the interest of America's national security to drive fuel-efficient cars, the only sure route there is to levy higher gasoline taxes -- as they do in Europe.
Look at France, where taxes account for about 70 percent of the price of gasoline, compared to less than 17 percent in the United States. Our Betters in Europe pay some $5 to $6.50 per gallon of gas -- or 2.5 to three times more than Americans pay. That's why Europeans drive smaller cars. And that's why European carmakers design smaller cars.
Instead, Obama plans to push Americans into buying his promised "new generation of clean cars" with -- you guessed it -- lower taxes. This week, he supported "a generous credit to consumers who turn in old, less fuel-efficient cars and purchase cleaner cars." That's on top of an Obama stimulus provision that allows consumers to deduct sales and excise taxes for cars bought between Feb. 16 and the end of the year.
There's a logic deficit to the whole approach.
If the administration truly wants Americans to drive smaller cars, it needs to instill in automakers utter certainty that gasoline prices will rise and stay at very high rates. Short-term tax credits can't do that, as they leave carmakers unsure of what families will buy and afraid of losing the cushy-sized car market.
Raising the gasoline tax gradually but continuously is the only sure way to meet Obama's fuel-efficiency agenda. But Obama won't propose it because there is no way to hide the tax. Every time drivers fill their tanks, they'll see the price tag and know who put it there.
His entire 2008 campaign was based on telling voters they could get more government programs to promote health care, education and his environmental agenda -- but 95 percent of families would not have to pay for it. When asked in a debate with rival John McCain what sacrifices he would ask Americans to make, Obama answered, "There is going to be the need for each and every one of us to start thinking about how we use energy." That's right, his sacrifice wasn't in the pocketbook -- except for families earning more than $250,000 -- his sacrifice was in asking voters to think.
Consider Obama's campaign pledge to deliver universal access to health care. Say this for the French, they pay for their services; they pay a value-added tax of up to 19.6 percent and a 40 percent tax rate for income above some $88,313. But at the 2008 convention, the Democratic platform asserted that under ObamaCare, the "typical American family" would save "up to $2,500 per year." European services, American taxes -- with a bonus.
Who really pays? The future taxpayers of America saddled with rapidly accumulating debt.
There you have the real Obama model -- Europe, but on lower U.S. tax rates. This combo makes for an unsustainable model. Like Chrysler.
Perils of a Bright Idea
George Will
Thursday, April 02, 2009
Fervent. 1. Hot, burning, glowing, boiling. -- Oxford English Dictionary
WASHINGTON -- "Fervently" is how America will henceforth engage in talks on global warming. So said the president's climate change negotiator Sunday in Germany, at a U.N. conference on reducing carbon emissions. This vow was fervently applauded by conferees welcoming the end of what AP's news story called the Bush administration's "eight years of obdurate participation" in climate talks.
Reducing carbon emissions supposedly will reverse warming, if it resumes after the current period without warming, a period that began, according to statistics published by the World Meteorological Organization, 11 years ago. Regarding the reversing, the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change has many ambitions, as outlined in a working group's 16-page "information note" to "facilitate discussions." For example:
"Tariffs can be lowered to grant special preference to climate-friendly goods, or they can be maintained at high levels to discourage trade in GHG (greenhouse gas)-intensive goods and services." The working group says protectionism "in the service of climate change objectives" might virtuously "shelter domestic producers of climate-friendly goods."
Furthermore, using "border carbon adjustment," a nation might virtuously "impose costs on imports equivalent to that (sic) faced by domestic producers" operating under a carbon tax. Or a nation with a cap-and-trade regime regulating carbon emissions by domestic manufacturers might require foreign manufacturers "to buy offsets at the border equal to that (sic) which the producer would have been forced to purchase had the good been produced domestically."
Cynics will see only potential for mischief by governments, including the U.S. government, using such measures to give a green patina to protectionism. Meanwhile, the U.S. government is having its own problems with one "climate-friendly good" that might not be. Last week The New York Times front page carried this headline: "The Bulb That Saved the Planet May Be a Little Less Than Billed."
The story recounted some Americans' misadventures with the new light bulbs that almost all Americans -- all but those who are filling their closets with supplies of today's incandescent bulbs -- will have to use after the phaseout of today's bulbs in 2014. (You missed that provision of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007?)
A San Francisco -- naturally -- couple emerged from Al Gore's movie "An Inconvenient Truth" incandescent with desire to think globally and act locally, in their home. So they replaced their incandescent bulbs with the compact fluorescents that Congress says must soon be ubiquitous. "Instead of having a satisfying green moment, however," the Times reported, "they wound up coping with a mess."
Although supposed to last 10,000 hours and save, the Times says, "as much as" $5.40 a year in electricity costs, some bulbs died within a few hours. Some experts, reports the Times, "blame the government for the quality problems," saying its push to cut the bulbs' prices prompted manufacturers to use inferior components.
Furthermore, some experts have written a guide saying the new bulbs require "a little insight and planning." The Times says that "may be an understatement."
The bulbs, says the Times, "do not do well in hot places with little airflow, like recessed ceiling fixtures," and some do not work "with dimmers or three-way sockets." And: "Be aware that compact fluorescents can take one to three minutes to reach full brightness. This is not a defect." Well, if you say so. Because all fluorescents contain mercury, a toxic metal, they must never be put in the trash, so Home Depot and other chains offer bins for disposing of dangerous bulbs. Driving to one of these disposal points might not entirely nullify the bulbs' environmental benefits. Besides, the Times summarizes the Environmental Protection Agency's helpful suggestions for coping with the environmental dangers caused when one of these environment-saving bulbs breaks:
"Clear people and pets from the room and open a window for at least 15 minutes if possible. Avoid vacuuming. Scoop up larger pieces with stiff paper or cardboard, pick up smaller residue with sticky tape, and wipe the area with a damp cloth. Put everything into a sealed plastic bag or sealed glass jar. In most cases, this can be put in the trash, but the EPA recommends checking local rules."
Worrywarts wonder what will happen when a lazy or careless, say, 10 percent of 300 million Americans put their worn-out bulbs in the trash. Stop worrying. What do you think? That Congress, architect of the ethanol industry and designer of automobiles, does not think things through?
Thursday, April 02, 2009
Fervent. 1. Hot, burning, glowing, boiling. -- Oxford English Dictionary
WASHINGTON -- "Fervently" is how America will henceforth engage in talks on global warming. So said the president's climate change negotiator Sunday in Germany, at a U.N. conference on reducing carbon emissions. This vow was fervently applauded by conferees welcoming the end of what AP's news story called the Bush administration's "eight years of obdurate participation" in climate talks.
Reducing carbon emissions supposedly will reverse warming, if it resumes after the current period without warming, a period that began, according to statistics published by the World Meteorological Organization, 11 years ago. Regarding the reversing, the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change has many ambitions, as outlined in a working group's 16-page "information note" to "facilitate discussions." For example:
"Tariffs can be lowered to grant special preference to climate-friendly goods, or they can be maintained at high levels to discourage trade in GHG (greenhouse gas)-intensive goods and services." The working group says protectionism "in the service of climate change objectives" might virtuously "shelter domestic producers of climate-friendly goods."
Furthermore, using "border carbon adjustment," a nation might virtuously "impose costs on imports equivalent to that (sic) faced by domestic producers" operating under a carbon tax. Or a nation with a cap-and-trade regime regulating carbon emissions by domestic manufacturers might require foreign manufacturers "to buy offsets at the border equal to that (sic) which the producer would have been forced to purchase had the good been produced domestically."
Cynics will see only potential for mischief by governments, including the U.S. government, using such measures to give a green patina to protectionism. Meanwhile, the U.S. government is having its own problems with one "climate-friendly good" that might not be. Last week The New York Times front page carried this headline: "The Bulb That Saved the Planet May Be a Little Less Than Billed."
The story recounted some Americans' misadventures with the new light bulbs that almost all Americans -- all but those who are filling their closets with supplies of today's incandescent bulbs -- will have to use after the phaseout of today's bulbs in 2014. (You missed that provision of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007?)
A San Francisco -- naturally -- couple emerged from Al Gore's movie "An Inconvenient Truth" incandescent with desire to think globally and act locally, in their home. So they replaced their incandescent bulbs with the compact fluorescents that Congress says must soon be ubiquitous. "Instead of having a satisfying green moment, however," the Times reported, "they wound up coping with a mess."
Although supposed to last 10,000 hours and save, the Times says, "as much as" $5.40 a year in electricity costs, some bulbs died within a few hours. Some experts, reports the Times, "blame the government for the quality problems," saying its push to cut the bulbs' prices prompted manufacturers to use inferior components.
Furthermore, some experts have written a guide saying the new bulbs require "a little insight and planning." The Times says that "may be an understatement."
The bulbs, says the Times, "do not do well in hot places with little airflow, like recessed ceiling fixtures," and some do not work "with dimmers or three-way sockets." And: "Be aware that compact fluorescents can take one to three minutes to reach full brightness. This is not a defect." Well, if you say so. Because all fluorescents contain mercury, a toxic metal, they must never be put in the trash, so Home Depot and other chains offer bins for disposing of dangerous bulbs. Driving to one of these disposal points might not entirely nullify the bulbs' environmental benefits. Besides, the Times summarizes the Environmental Protection Agency's helpful suggestions for coping with the environmental dangers caused when one of these environment-saving bulbs breaks:
"Clear people and pets from the room and open a window for at least 15 minutes if possible. Avoid vacuuming. Scoop up larger pieces with stiff paper or cardboard, pick up smaller residue with sticky tape, and wipe the area with a damp cloth. Put everything into a sealed plastic bag or sealed glass jar. In most cases, this can be put in the trash, but the EPA recommends checking local rules."
Worrywarts wonder what will happen when a lazy or careless, say, 10 percent of 300 million Americans put their worn-out bulbs in the trash. Stop worrying. What do you think? That Congress, architect of the ethanol industry and designer of automobiles, does not think things through?
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Liberals' Dirty Shame
Jonah Goldberg
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
In 1996, Milos Forman directed "The People vs. Larry Flynt," the propagandistic film that made a "First Amendment hero" out of the publisher of Hustler, a racist and filthy porn magazine. Frank Rich of the New York Times dubbed it "the most timely and patriotic movie of the year."
Even if you've never seen the movie (or read Hanna Rosin's contemporaneous debunking of it in the New Republic), it's easy to guess why the film was a favorite of people like Rich. It whitewashed Flynt while demonizing conservatives as religious prudes.
Before it was screened in Washington, James Carville -- who played a Comstockian scold in the movie -- said in a speech introducing the film, "Milos Forman lost his parents in the Holocaust." And then he pressed the point home: "The first thing a totalitarian state goes after is pornography, and when they do, the public applauds. It gets worse from there."
This is the sort of statement that is so stupid it almost sounds smart. Cracking down on porn was hardly the first priority of the Nazis or Soviets. More important, if a state is already totalitarian, it has already "gone after" the things that really matter -- like liberty. Banning "On Golden Blonde" is an afterthought.
Now, I'm not in favor of a federal ban on porn (though it's fine with me at the state or local level). But the notion that smut is the canary in the coal mine of our liberties is a profoundly asinine and dangerous myth, and it may be costing us the things that really matter.
The argument from supposedly liberty-loving liberals goes like this: We protect "extreme" and unpopular speech because if that is safe, they'll never get to our core liberties. If they can ban trash, argue the slippery-slopers, what's to stop them from banning criticism of politicians?
One problem: While Frank Rich et al. are preening on their soapboxes for making filth as American as apple pie, the government, under Republican and Democratic presidents alike, has been banning criticism of politicians.
Just last week, the Obama administration argued before the Supreme Court that it has no principled constitutional problem with banning books.
The case before the court, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, involves a documentary-style film, "Hillary: The Movie," that ran afoul of campaign finance laws designed to censor so-called stealth ads as well as electioneering paid for by corporations or unions.
To be fair, the film does amount to partisan advocacy. It's a scorching indictment of the former Democratic presidential front-runner, produced by an unapologetically conservative outfit. It's as one-sided as a MoveOn.org-produced documentary about George W. Bush would be. But, some might wonder, should partisan advocacy ever be illegal in a democracy?
Several justices asked the deputy solicitor general, Malcolm Stewart, if there would be any constitutional reason why the ban on documentaries and ads couldn't be extended to books carrying similar messages. Stewart, speaking for a president who once taught constitutional law, said Congress can ban books "if the book contained the functional equivalent of express advocacy" for a candidate and was supported, even slightly, with corporate money. Such advocacy, Stewart conceded, could amount to negatively mentioning a politician just once in a 500-page book put out by a mainstream publisher.
Virtually every newspaper in America is owned by a corporation; does that mean they can't endorse candidates anymore? To even ask such a question as if it were reasonable shows how close to the heart of our democracy the poison has reached.
When the myth that the Patriot Act targeted libraries -- it didn't -- was all the rage, liberals manned the parapets. When some citizens -- not government officials -- destroyed Dixie Chicks CDs, the collective response from liberals was to channel Martin Niemoller: "first they came for the Dixie Chicks ..." New York Times columnist Paul Krugman compared it to Kristallnacht. When then-White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer made the off-the-cuff suggestion -- in response to some unfunny idiocy from Bill Maher (and a bigoted comment from a Republican congressman) -- that Americans needed to "watch what they say," Rich (again) concluded that Fleischer's comment was as significant for our domestic freedom as 9/11 itself.
But when the Obama administration approves the constitutionality of banning politically relevant books before the Supreme Court, where's the outrage? Yes, there are some sober, responsible editorials. But the soapboxes stand unmanned by the self-appointed paragons of freedom.
But perhaps they're right to be silent. It's not as if anyone is trying to ban Hustler.
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
In 1996, Milos Forman directed "The People vs. Larry Flynt," the propagandistic film that made a "First Amendment hero" out of the publisher of Hustler, a racist and filthy porn magazine. Frank Rich of the New York Times dubbed it "the most timely and patriotic movie of the year."
Even if you've never seen the movie (or read Hanna Rosin's contemporaneous debunking of it in the New Republic), it's easy to guess why the film was a favorite of people like Rich. It whitewashed Flynt while demonizing conservatives as religious prudes.
Before it was screened in Washington, James Carville -- who played a Comstockian scold in the movie -- said in a speech introducing the film, "Milos Forman lost his parents in the Holocaust." And then he pressed the point home: "The first thing a totalitarian state goes after is pornography, and when they do, the public applauds. It gets worse from there."
This is the sort of statement that is so stupid it almost sounds smart. Cracking down on porn was hardly the first priority of the Nazis or Soviets. More important, if a state is already totalitarian, it has already "gone after" the things that really matter -- like liberty. Banning "On Golden Blonde" is an afterthought.
Now, I'm not in favor of a federal ban on porn (though it's fine with me at the state or local level). But the notion that smut is the canary in the coal mine of our liberties is a profoundly asinine and dangerous myth, and it may be costing us the things that really matter.
The argument from supposedly liberty-loving liberals goes like this: We protect "extreme" and unpopular speech because if that is safe, they'll never get to our core liberties. If they can ban trash, argue the slippery-slopers, what's to stop them from banning criticism of politicians?
One problem: While Frank Rich et al. are preening on their soapboxes for making filth as American as apple pie, the government, under Republican and Democratic presidents alike, has been banning criticism of politicians.
Just last week, the Obama administration argued before the Supreme Court that it has no principled constitutional problem with banning books.
The case before the court, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, involves a documentary-style film, "Hillary: The Movie," that ran afoul of campaign finance laws designed to censor so-called stealth ads as well as electioneering paid for by corporations or unions.
To be fair, the film does amount to partisan advocacy. It's a scorching indictment of the former Democratic presidential front-runner, produced by an unapologetically conservative outfit. It's as one-sided as a MoveOn.org-produced documentary about George W. Bush would be. But, some might wonder, should partisan advocacy ever be illegal in a democracy?
Several justices asked the deputy solicitor general, Malcolm Stewart, if there would be any constitutional reason why the ban on documentaries and ads couldn't be extended to books carrying similar messages. Stewart, speaking for a president who once taught constitutional law, said Congress can ban books "if the book contained the functional equivalent of express advocacy" for a candidate and was supported, even slightly, with corporate money. Such advocacy, Stewart conceded, could amount to negatively mentioning a politician just once in a 500-page book put out by a mainstream publisher.
Virtually every newspaper in America is owned by a corporation; does that mean they can't endorse candidates anymore? To even ask such a question as if it were reasonable shows how close to the heart of our democracy the poison has reached.
When the myth that the Patriot Act targeted libraries -- it didn't -- was all the rage, liberals manned the parapets. When some citizens -- not government officials -- destroyed Dixie Chicks CDs, the collective response from liberals was to channel Martin Niemoller: "first they came for the Dixie Chicks ..." New York Times columnist Paul Krugman compared it to Kristallnacht. When then-White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer made the off-the-cuff suggestion -- in response to some unfunny idiocy from Bill Maher (and a bigoted comment from a Republican congressman) -- that Americans needed to "watch what they say," Rich (again) concluded that Fleischer's comment was as significant for our domestic freedom as 9/11 itself.
But when the Obama administration approves the constitutionality of banning politically relevant books before the Supreme Court, where's the outrage? Yes, there are some sober, responsible editorials. But the soapboxes stand unmanned by the self-appointed paragons of freedom.
But perhaps they're right to be silent. It's not as if anyone is trying to ban Hustler.
Political Courage - British Style
Larry Elder
Thursday, April 02, 2009
The Republicans finally found a leader. Too bad he's a Brit.
Daniel Hannan, who represents South East England in the European Parliament, stood up in that chamber and forcefully addressed Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
"Prime Minister," MEP Hannan said, "I see you've already mastered the essential craft of the European politician, namely the ability to say one thing in this chamber and a very different thing to your home electorate. You've spoken here about free trade, and amen to that. Who would have guessed, listening to you just now, that you were the author of the phrase 'British jobs for British workers' and that you have subsidized, where you have not nationalized outright, swathes of our economy, including the car industry and many of the banks? Perhaps you would have more moral authority in this house if your actions matched your words. Perhaps you would have more legitimacy in the councils of the world if the United Kingdom were not going into this recession in the worst condition of any G-20 country.
"The truth, Prime Minister, is that you have run out of our money. The country as a whole is now in negative equity. Every British child is born owing around 20,000 pounds. Servicing the interest on that debt is going to cost more than educating the child. Now, once again today you try to spread the blame around; you spoke about an international recession, international crisis. Well, it is true that we are all sailing together into the squalls. But not every vessel in the convoy is in the same dilapidated condition. Other ships used the good years to caulk their hulls and clear their rigging -- in other words, to pay off debt. But you used the good years to raise borrowing yet further. As a consequence, under your captaincy, our hull is pressed deep into the waterline under the accumulated weight of your debt. We are now running a deficit that touches 10 percent of GDP, an almost unbelievable figure -- more than Pakistan, more than Hungary, countries where the IMF have already been called in. Now, it's not that you're not apologizing; like everyone else, I have long accepted that you're pathologically incapable of accepting responsibility for these things. It's that you're carrying on, willfully worsening our situation, wantonly spending what little we have left. … In the last 12 months, 100,000 private-sector jobs have been lost, and yet you created 30,000 public-sector jobs.
"Prime Minister, you cannot carry on forever squeezing the productive bit of the economy in order to fund an unprecedented engorgement of the unproductive bit. You cannot spend your way out of recession or borrow your way out of debt. And when you repeat, in that wooden and perfunctory way, that our situation is better than others, that we're 'well-placed to weather the storm,' I have to tell you (that) you sound like a Brezhnev-era apparatchik giving the party line. You know and we know -- and you know that we know -- that it's nonsense!"
The British prime minister's "solutions" resemble those of President Barack Obama, the Democrats and some Republicans -- solving a spending and borrowing crisis by spending and borrowing. Yet Obama brazenly calls his budget "A New Era of Responsibility."
Obama believes that merely raising taxes on the so-called rich will be sufficient to fund all of his programs. He believes that the behavior of the so-called rich will be unaffected by the fact that they will keep a lot less than what they make. He believes that the same government of unfunded liabilities for Social Security and Medicare -- the same government that runs the now-broke post office and "managed" disaster relief after Katrina -- can "create" and "invest" in health care, "green" jobs and education. He does not pay the slightest attention to the founding principles of this country -- a limited government and a maximum of responsibility by its citizens.
On a recent cable newscast, a pundit actually said that "capitalism" no longer works. And he was a former top aide to then-Republican House Majority Leader Newt Gingrich! The future of this country, at least in my lifetime, has never seemed more frightening and uncertain.
While President Obama busies himself changing the very foundation that made America great, he might sign an executive order -- granting immediate citizenship to Daniel Hannan.
Thursday, April 02, 2009
The Republicans finally found a leader. Too bad he's a Brit.
Daniel Hannan, who represents South East England in the European Parliament, stood up in that chamber and forcefully addressed Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
"Prime Minister," MEP Hannan said, "I see you've already mastered the essential craft of the European politician, namely the ability to say one thing in this chamber and a very different thing to your home electorate. You've spoken here about free trade, and amen to that. Who would have guessed, listening to you just now, that you were the author of the phrase 'British jobs for British workers' and that you have subsidized, where you have not nationalized outright, swathes of our economy, including the car industry and many of the banks? Perhaps you would have more moral authority in this house if your actions matched your words. Perhaps you would have more legitimacy in the councils of the world if the United Kingdom were not going into this recession in the worst condition of any G-20 country.
"The truth, Prime Minister, is that you have run out of our money. The country as a whole is now in negative equity. Every British child is born owing around 20,000 pounds. Servicing the interest on that debt is going to cost more than educating the child. Now, once again today you try to spread the blame around; you spoke about an international recession, international crisis. Well, it is true that we are all sailing together into the squalls. But not every vessel in the convoy is in the same dilapidated condition. Other ships used the good years to caulk their hulls and clear their rigging -- in other words, to pay off debt. But you used the good years to raise borrowing yet further. As a consequence, under your captaincy, our hull is pressed deep into the waterline under the accumulated weight of your debt. We are now running a deficit that touches 10 percent of GDP, an almost unbelievable figure -- more than Pakistan, more than Hungary, countries where the IMF have already been called in. Now, it's not that you're not apologizing; like everyone else, I have long accepted that you're pathologically incapable of accepting responsibility for these things. It's that you're carrying on, willfully worsening our situation, wantonly spending what little we have left. … In the last 12 months, 100,000 private-sector jobs have been lost, and yet you created 30,000 public-sector jobs.
"Prime Minister, you cannot carry on forever squeezing the productive bit of the economy in order to fund an unprecedented engorgement of the unproductive bit. You cannot spend your way out of recession or borrow your way out of debt. And when you repeat, in that wooden and perfunctory way, that our situation is better than others, that we're 'well-placed to weather the storm,' I have to tell you (that) you sound like a Brezhnev-era apparatchik giving the party line. You know and we know -- and you know that we know -- that it's nonsense!"
The British prime minister's "solutions" resemble those of President Barack Obama, the Democrats and some Republicans -- solving a spending and borrowing crisis by spending and borrowing. Yet Obama brazenly calls his budget "A New Era of Responsibility."
Obama believes that merely raising taxes on the so-called rich will be sufficient to fund all of his programs. He believes that the behavior of the so-called rich will be unaffected by the fact that they will keep a lot less than what they make. He believes that the same government of unfunded liabilities for Social Security and Medicare -- the same government that runs the now-broke post office and "managed" disaster relief after Katrina -- can "create" and "invest" in health care, "green" jobs and education. He does not pay the slightest attention to the founding principles of this country -- a limited government and a maximum of responsibility by its citizens.
On a recent cable newscast, a pundit actually said that "capitalism" no longer works. And he was a former top aide to then-Republican House Majority Leader Newt Gingrich! The future of this country, at least in my lifetime, has never seemed more frightening and uncertain.
While President Obama busies himself changing the very foundation that made America great, he might sign an executive order -- granting immediate citizenship to Daniel Hannan.
Conservatives vs. Liberals: Two Paths to Power
Michael Medved
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
The ferocious fight over the Obama budget exposes some of the deepest differences between liberals and conservatives, contrasting not only their goals for the country but their desires for themselves.
All human beings feel a drive for power, but leftists and right-wingers express that urge with opposing (and often irreconcilable) strategies. They employ very different means in pursuit of power in part because they seek distinctive ends: at the most basic level, liberals want enhanced control through political authority while conservatives crave greater sway through accumulation of personal wealth. Understanding the true nature of this distinction clarifies the most polarizing political disputes that currently divide the country.
The liberal preoccupation with governmental control characterizes every major initiative of the Obama administration. The reflexive response to the financial crisis is to blame it on insufficient regulation and to demand an instant expansion of bureaucratic authority to deal with the emergency. The left places its faith in governmental institutions, and even though most leftists will never personally involve themselves in politics or the bureaucracy, they support and trust those who do.
For instance, recent polling shows that big majorities of Americans want government to require more fuel efficient cars. Of course, the countless sincere citizens who demand such regulations could easily purchase high-mileage vehicles without waiting for some new federal policy, but the demand for sweeping regulations shows that many Americans trust bureaucrats more than they trust themselves.
Thoughtful liberals defend this deep-seated yen for government supervision by affirming that they feel no pressing need for Washington to regulate them, but they do want more rules and bureaucracy to rein in the destructive excesses of their greedy, irresponsible, selfish neighbors. In other words, leftists seek greatly enhanced power for those they consider enlightened and generous and broadminded—best exemplified, of course, by President Obama himself. They seek vastly increased funds for these wise, steady, philosopher-kings who guide the federal government, and sharply decreased money for the wealthiest, most productive private citizens (and, for that matter, for private charities). They believe that society will benefit greatly if progressive leaders define new goals in health care, energy, education and every other field, rather than relying on the often benighted impulses and preferences of the public at large. The great unwashed may enjoy “American Idol” and “Dancing with the Stars,” but if the feds pump enough taxpayer money into PBS, maybe the culture commissars can facilitate the appreciation of higher things. In view of the painfully high cost of health insurance, tens of millions of Americans choose not purchase it – though many of them clearly can afford it. In response, progressives want to force them to get government insurance whether they want it or not, and plan to bill them (and everybody else) with increased taxes. In short, liberals seek power and influence over their fellow citizens by means of a more energetic and intrusive government, with the belief that everyone will benefit from more supervision, regulation, and social workers to administer the new agenda of compassion.
While liberals seek to advance their values and priorities with more bureaucracy and federal spending, most conservatives yearn for a different sort of power: the control and privilege and security that comes from the accumulation of personal wealth. Right-wingers want above all to take care of themselves and the people closest to them – family, co-workers, friends, and fellow members of churches or other affinity groups. Conservatives generally feel less concerned about the welfare of strangers than they do about the fate of those who are close at hand, though they understand that personal success also brings benefits for the whole society. A flourishing business creates new jobs, and those workers can use their paychecks to stimulate the entire economy. Conservatives distrust bailouts, stimulus packages, welfare programs and redistribution of wealth because such initiatives reward the sort of behavior that right-wingers would never want to encourage personally.
The power that conservatives most fervently desire involves self-sufficiency: the ability to control your own circumstances and your future, without depending on government or charity. Accumulating wealth – or at least putting together some modest savings – insures that you’ll be well-treated more effectively than any governmental regulations or guarantees.
The contrast between the liberal and conservative pursuit of power gives the left two big advantages in politics, while providing the right with an even more substantial edge in terms of personal happiness.
In politics, the liberal focus on influencing government and controlling the status of other people allows the left to claim the mantle of superior compassion. Because leftists talk more about the welfare of strangers, they portray themselves as more idealistic and more concerned with humanity at large. By contrast, the conservative emphasis on private institutions – businesses, families, churches – is often derided as selfish and insular.
The left enjoys a second built-in political advantage: because of its emphasis on the importance of public life and governmental activism, the most ambitious and gifted people in the progressive community will often choose politics as a higher calling. Conservatives, with their preoccupation with the private sector, will much more likely choose to emphasize building families, businesses or communities rather than constructing electoral careers.
This means that those observers who perceive superior political ability on the liberal side of the spectrum are probably correct. Moreover, it’s a structural imbalance, and not a temporary aberration – a reflection of the fact that the left sees government as a source of enlightenment and accomplishment, while the right views government as a locus of corruption and potential tyranny. It’s not surprising that those who look on bureaucracy and political power most favorably will choose disproportionately to involve themselves in those pursuits.
Conservatives, meanwhile, enjoy a mirror-image structural advantage when it comes to personal happiness. It is obviously much easier to control your own circumstances than to secure the welfare of society at large. It’s inherently more possible and more satisfying to influence yourself and your intimates than to impact millions upon millions of utter strangers.
In other words, it’s easier to change yourself than to change the world. It’s therefore only logical that conservatives would report far higher levels of contentment and personal happiness than liberals, according to Syracuse University’s Arthur Brooks (author of “Gross National Happiness”), and everyone else who’s studied the subject.
Both conservatives and liberals pursue power, but the left wants to influence other people and society at large while right-wingers want enhanced control over their personal circumstances. That contrast may give liberals the edge in many political scraps, but conservatives will still have a better and more satisfying time in the process.
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
The ferocious fight over the Obama budget exposes some of the deepest differences between liberals and conservatives, contrasting not only their goals for the country but their desires for themselves.
All human beings feel a drive for power, but leftists and right-wingers express that urge with opposing (and often irreconcilable) strategies. They employ very different means in pursuit of power in part because they seek distinctive ends: at the most basic level, liberals want enhanced control through political authority while conservatives crave greater sway through accumulation of personal wealth. Understanding the true nature of this distinction clarifies the most polarizing political disputes that currently divide the country.
The liberal preoccupation with governmental control characterizes every major initiative of the Obama administration. The reflexive response to the financial crisis is to blame it on insufficient regulation and to demand an instant expansion of bureaucratic authority to deal with the emergency. The left places its faith in governmental institutions, and even though most leftists will never personally involve themselves in politics or the bureaucracy, they support and trust those who do.
For instance, recent polling shows that big majorities of Americans want government to require more fuel efficient cars. Of course, the countless sincere citizens who demand such regulations could easily purchase high-mileage vehicles without waiting for some new federal policy, but the demand for sweeping regulations shows that many Americans trust bureaucrats more than they trust themselves.
Thoughtful liberals defend this deep-seated yen for government supervision by affirming that they feel no pressing need for Washington to regulate them, but they do want more rules and bureaucracy to rein in the destructive excesses of their greedy, irresponsible, selfish neighbors. In other words, leftists seek greatly enhanced power for those they consider enlightened and generous and broadminded—best exemplified, of course, by President Obama himself. They seek vastly increased funds for these wise, steady, philosopher-kings who guide the federal government, and sharply decreased money for the wealthiest, most productive private citizens (and, for that matter, for private charities). They believe that society will benefit greatly if progressive leaders define new goals in health care, energy, education and every other field, rather than relying on the often benighted impulses and preferences of the public at large. The great unwashed may enjoy “American Idol” and “Dancing with the Stars,” but if the feds pump enough taxpayer money into PBS, maybe the culture commissars can facilitate the appreciation of higher things. In view of the painfully high cost of health insurance, tens of millions of Americans choose not purchase it – though many of them clearly can afford it. In response, progressives want to force them to get government insurance whether they want it or not, and plan to bill them (and everybody else) with increased taxes. In short, liberals seek power and influence over their fellow citizens by means of a more energetic and intrusive government, with the belief that everyone will benefit from more supervision, regulation, and social workers to administer the new agenda of compassion.
While liberals seek to advance their values and priorities with more bureaucracy and federal spending, most conservatives yearn for a different sort of power: the control and privilege and security that comes from the accumulation of personal wealth. Right-wingers want above all to take care of themselves and the people closest to them – family, co-workers, friends, and fellow members of churches or other affinity groups. Conservatives generally feel less concerned about the welfare of strangers than they do about the fate of those who are close at hand, though they understand that personal success also brings benefits for the whole society. A flourishing business creates new jobs, and those workers can use their paychecks to stimulate the entire economy. Conservatives distrust bailouts, stimulus packages, welfare programs and redistribution of wealth because such initiatives reward the sort of behavior that right-wingers would never want to encourage personally.
The power that conservatives most fervently desire involves self-sufficiency: the ability to control your own circumstances and your future, without depending on government or charity. Accumulating wealth – or at least putting together some modest savings – insures that you’ll be well-treated more effectively than any governmental regulations or guarantees.
The contrast between the liberal and conservative pursuit of power gives the left two big advantages in politics, while providing the right with an even more substantial edge in terms of personal happiness.
In politics, the liberal focus on influencing government and controlling the status of other people allows the left to claim the mantle of superior compassion. Because leftists talk more about the welfare of strangers, they portray themselves as more idealistic and more concerned with humanity at large. By contrast, the conservative emphasis on private institutions – businesses, families, churches – is often derided as selfish and insular.
The left enjoys a second built-in political advantage: because of its emphasis on the importance of public life and governmental activism, the most ambitious and gifted people in the progressive community will often choose politics as a higher calling. Conservatives, with their preoccupation with the private sector, will much more likely choose to emphasize building families, businesses or communities rather than constructing electoral careers.
This means that those observers who perceive superior political ability on the liberal side of the spectrum are probably correct. Moreover, it’s a structural imbalance, and not a temporary aberration – a reflection of the fact that the left sees government as a source of enlightenment and accomplishment, while the right views government as a locus of corruption and potential tyranny. It’s not surprising that those who look on bureaucracy and political power most favorably will choose disproportionately to involve themselves in those pursuits.
Conservatives, meanwhile, enjoy a mirror-image structural advantage when it comes to personal happiness. It is obviously much easier to control your own circumstances than to secure the welfare of society at large. It’s inherently more possible and more satisfying to influence yourself and your intimates than to impact millions upon millions of utter strangers.
In other words, it’s easier to change yourself than to change the world. It’s therefore only logical that conservatives would report far higher levels of contentment and personal happiness than liberals, according to Syracuse University’s Arthur Brooks (author of “Gross National Happiness”), and everyone else who’s studied the subject.
Both conservatives and liberals pursue power, but the left wants to influence other people and society at large while right-wingers want enhanced control over their personal circumstances. That contrast may give liberals the edge in many political scraps, but conservatives will still have a better and more satisfying time in the process.
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