Walking the corridors of history there are seminal historical books that define an era or epoch as ultimate standards of historical insight and clarity – The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbons and The Story of Civilization by Will and Ariel Durant, and a third to complete this trinity of historical works is Democracy in America written by Alexis de Tocqueville.
The two volume trenchant tome of the French aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville, remains today the greatest and most influential study ever written on the United States of America. Democracy in America is a classic work of political science, social science, as well as history. It is assigned reading for American college students majoring in the political or social sciences, and is part of the political theory curriculum at Oxford University.
The profundity of history is best stated by Tocqueville himself, a man whose wisdom is memorialized in a myriad of sagacious quotes – “When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness.” So much for the study of history as being an amalgamation of interminable dates, people and places.
Just how then did this man of French nobility at age twenty five, as an apprentice magistrate at Versailles, embark on a nine month journey to produce a masterpiece of such perspicacity and prescience that it is occupies the lofty status as “the greatest book written by anyone about America?”
The Making of History
The European world that existed in the 19th century was vastly different politically, sociologically, and economically from today. France was a strong America ally. Second only to George Washington, America’s most loved military hero was France’s Marquis de Lafayette, who served as a general under Washington. Throughout Europe, and most of the civilized world, there were three classes within the population – aristocrats, clerics, and commoners. Consequently, The United States arguably a nation of commoners or middle class, was viewed with various levels of curiosity by the rest of the world, and particularly by Europe.
Alexis de Tocqueville was born a child of privilege and title in prerevolutionary France, which included all the accoutrements of wealth, property, education, and most importantly a noble lineage of government and military service. The “de” preceding Tocqueville means “of ” a distinction assigned to nobility in France, i.e. “of Tocqueville family lineage.” A brilliant and energetic young man, Alexis emerged from his study of law in Paris and was appointed as an apprentice magistrate at Versailles. At Versailles, Alexis developed what would become a lifelong friendship with another apprentice magistrate, Gustave de Beaumont.
It is unlikely that Democracy in America would have ever been written by Tocqueville had not a life changing event occur for him in 1830 – in a vertiginous series of draconian decrees, Charles X dissolved the legislature, limited voting, and abolished freedom of the press. In this unsettled political climate, Tocqueville took advantage of the opportunity to accomplish his goal of achieving something great. Tocqueville and Beaumont devised a strategy that would allow them to leave France during the political turmoil while performing official government business.
Tocqueville and Beaumont proposed that they be dispatched to America to study the penitentiaries of this new nation. Prisons in France were nothing more than en masse holding bins with no separation of the sexes, all the while crime continued to rise. America had introduced a new system of large “penitentiaries” where inmates were separated and given productive work to perform. Alexis and Gustave were authorized by the French government to undertake a nine month expedition at their own expense.
To be sure, Alexis de Tocqueville had a much larger vision in mind before sailing to America. “We’re going with the intention of examining, in detail and as scientifically as possible, all the workings of that vast American society that everyone talks about but no one knows.”
A fascinating historical footnote of the journey is the juxtaposition with yet another journey in the same year of 1831. In April, the vessel Havre embarked on a journey that would return nine months later from which the twenty five year old Tocqueville would write his magnum opus on the science of society and government, Democracy in America. In December, eight months after Tocqueville’s departure, the twenty two year old Charles Darwin would embark on a five year journey on the HMS Beagle from which he would write his masterpiece, a theory on the science of nature, On the Origin of Species.
A Brave New World
The unstable France that Tocqueville was sailing from was the antithesis of the comparably stable America. In the previous forty years France had experienced a monarchy, a radical democracy, back to a monarchy, and the current, at the time of sailing, semi-democracy. America had become in less than 100 years the cynosure of egalitarianism, albeit flawed, individualism, capitalism, and of course, democracy surpassing in these areas, all cultures in the previous centuries of western civilization.
Tocqueville the consummate interviewer/writer, traveled by steamboat, keelboat, stagecoach, horseback, canoe, and by foot to traverse 17 of the 24 states of the nation and three territories that would later become the states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and West Virginia. In the process, he interviewed over two hundred people – farmers, bankers, lawyers, Indian chief, prison officials, prisoners, women, rich, poor, the powerful and the powerless in a uniquely American mosaic that included interviews of John Quincy Adams, Daniel Webster, Sam Houston, and Andrew Jackson. Tocqueville considered his foreign status enormously beneficial, “A foreigner often learns important truths at the hearth of his host, who might conceal them from his friends.”
An extraordinary journey in an extraordinary time required an extraordinary writer, beyond the penetrating power of observation, the incisive interviews, it was a probing intellect that was able to pierce the very psyche of America and democracy as no other author had done before or since, “In America I saw more than America; I sought there an image of democracy itself …” As author Leo Damrosch stated, “What Tocqueville eventually created was not an account of “Americans” as a unique national type, but a structural explanation of some profound reasons why democracy, by its very nature, tends to produce certain characteristics in its citizens.” Tocqueville himself was remarkably prescient when he observed, “There is not a country in the world where man takes possession of the future more confidently, or feels with more pride that his intelligence makes him master of the universe, which he can reshape to his liking.”
Comparisons are Critical … to Understanding
A quote that has endured over the centuries despite offering faux wisdom and insight is “comparisons are odious” by John Lydgate in his Debate between the horse, goose, and sheep, circa 1440. Unfortunately, the quote has been perpetuated over the years by writers Miguel de Cervantes, Christopher Marlowe and John Donne. Even Shakespeare, in Much Ado About Nothing, uses the quote satirically as “comparisons are odorous.”
The meaning of “comparisons are odious” is simply that comparison of anything to another, particularly people, is not useful and can have unpleasant consequences, things should be judged on their own merits. An admonition that truncates full analysis and understanding. Comparisons are indeed critical to understanding.
Hardly a thorough analysis of anything is limited only to the thing itself. The Aristotelian tradition of analysis requires comparison and contrast for a fuller understanding of the subject under analysis. Tocqueville understood this from his Aristotelian tutelage – “It is one of the singular weaknesses of our mind that we can’t judge objects and see them in the clear light of day unless we place other objects next to them.” Leo Damrosch, author of Tocqueville’s Discovery of America, said it well, “Always Tocqueville tried to clarify his analysis by posing large concepts - ideal types, as sociologists would later call them – against each other: North and South, America and France, aristocracy and democracy, past and present.”
In France’s Chamber of Deputies, of which Tocqueville would be elected a member, the origin of “left wing” and “right wing” was formed because of where liberals and conservatives sat in relation to the Speaker’s placement in the center of the Chamber. Today, in America one need not know where their congressman or senator sits to know whether they are left wing or right wing, the comparison between their position on issues is critical to understanding their ideology.
Tocqueville observed interesting differences in temperament between Southerners and Northerners, “The Southerner is wittier, more spontaneous, more open and generous, more intellectual, and more brilliant. The Northerner is more active, better reasoned, better educated, and better skilled. John Quincy Adams complained that cotton planters “devote themselves to physical exercise, hunting, and horse racing.” After the Civil War, his grandson Henry Adams remarked that from Southerners “one could learn nothing but bad temper, bad manners, poker, and treason.” It would appear Tocqueville offers the more insightful analysis, while John Q. Adams opinion seems based on resentment or envy, and his grandson’s observation is probably the natural, albeit unpleasant, resultant behavior of a vanquished foe.
An especially prescient comparison by Tocqueville was on the nations of America and Russia: “The American’s conquests are made with the farmer’s plowshare, the Russian’s with the soldier’s sword. To achieve his goal, the former relies on self-interest and permits the strength and intelligence of individuals to act without direction. The latter concentrates, in a sense, the whole strength of society in a single man. For the former the chief means of action is liberty; for the latter servitude. Their starting points are different and their ways are diverse, yet it seems called by a hidden providential plan to hold one day the destiny of one half of the world.”
Democracy’s Apologist and Advocate
Tocqueville declared in his introduction to Democracy in America “In America I saw more than America; I sought the image of democracy itself.”
The genius and paradox of Tocqueville is that as a born aristocrat he was able to view democracy objectively and wrote with a candor rarely seen today, “I have an intellectual attraction to democratic institutions, but by instinct I am an aristocrat, which is to say I despise and fear the crowd. I passionately love liberty, legality, and respect for rights, but not democracy.” As a major French literary historian once said about Tocqueville’s ambivalence, “He got married to democracy with deep reservations; it was a marriage of reason and necessity, not inclination.”
His traveling partner, Beaumont remarked, “Alexis de Tocqueville, even though his reason embraced democratic ideas, retained the aristocracy of feelings; now, there’s nothing so aristocratic as contempt for money.” Tocqueville came to admire the ubiquitous entrepreneurship he encountered. “The Americans bring a sort of heroism to the way they conduct commerce.”
Being an apologist and advocate of democracy was a daunting task during Tocqueville’s time, “I’ve tried to show those for whom the word ‘democracy’ is synonymous upheaval, anarchy, despoilment, and murder that it could succeed in governing a society while respecting fortunes, recognizing rights, preserving liberty, and honoring beliefs.”
Tocqueville cut to the core on how and why American democracy works in his doctrine “I’intérêt bien entendu”, (Interest properly understood). “The principle of republics of antiquity was to sacrifice individual interests to the common good, and in that sense one could say they were virtuous. But it seems to me that the principle of this republic is to make individual interest merge with the common interest. A sort of refined and intelligent egotism is apparently the pivot on which the whole machine turns.”
Tocqueville continued, “The doctrine of interest properly understood does not produce great sacrifices, but day by day it prompts little ones. By itself it cannot make a man virtuous, but it shapes a multitude of citizens who are orderly, temperate, moderate, foresighted, and masters of themselves. And if it doesn’t lead directly to virtue through the will, it advances gradually closer to virtue through the habits.”
Hardly a wide eyed intellectual enamored of all things American, the flaws of young America were all too apparent to Tocqueville – the dehumanizing effects of industrialization, the tragic treatment of Indians, dispossessing them of their native land, and the fundamental threat that slavery posed to democracy. But, as no chronicler, writer, author, or journalist, either domestic or foreign, had done previously or since, Tocqueville plumbed the depths of democracy in America revealing the connective tissue of freedom and liberty that is patently the American phenomenon.
The importance of ownership of property was clear to Tocqueville, since most Americans owned property or were expecting to be an owner, “There is no country on earth where the feeling for property is more lively or anxious than in the United States, or where the majority shows less inclination for doctrines that threaten to alter in any way how goods are acquired.” Simply stated, Americans are wedded to their property and desire no redistribution of it or their other possessions.
Tocqueville understood despotism well from his experience in France. “Despotism creates, in the souls of those who are subjected to it, a blind passion for tranquility, a debased liking for obedience, and an incredible kind of self contempt that ends by making them indifferent to their own interests and enemies of their own rights.” Tocqueville sought to describe a “new despotism”, which also has been described as a “soft despotism”, in a manner that was as chilling as anything George Orwell has written:
“Above them rises an immense tutelary power that alone takes charge of ensuring their pleasures and watching over their fate … It is absolute, detailed, regular, farsighted, and mild. It would resemble paternal power if its object was to prepare men for adult life, but it seeks on the contrary to keep them in permanent childhood. It likes citizens to enjoy themselves, so long as all they think about is enjoyment. It labors willingly for their happiness, but it wants to be the sole agent and arbiter of their happiness … The sovereign power doesn’t break their wills, but it softens, bends, and directs them. It rarely compels action, but it constantly opposes action. It doesn’t destroy, but prevents birth; it doesn’t tyrannize , but it hinders, represses, enervates, restrains, and numbs until it reduces each nation to a mere flock of timid and industrious animals, with government as their shepherd.”
As for Socialist theories, Tocqueville declared “a profound contempt for the individual taken in himself, in his condition as man. What characterizes them all is a continuous, changing, and ceaseless attempt to mutilate, cut down, and hinder human freedom in every way. It is the idea that every state should not only direct society but must also be, master of each man … in a new form of servitude.”
Tocqueville concludes, “I shall seek democracy where I have seen it, living, active, and triumphant in the only country on earth where it exists, and where it has succeeded in establishing, up to the present moment, something great and lasting – in America.”
Beyond Connecting the Dots
As an exercise, “connect the dots” is useful in cognitive development; as a metaphor it is useful in identifying the ability or inability, to grasp the “big picture” from a mass of data.
If the recent WSJ Poll is any indication, Americans have transcended connecting the dots and have reached a “blinding flash of the obvious.” For a majority of Americans their “perceptual filters” kicked in after eighteen arduous months of distinguishing, recognizing, seeing, picking out, identifying, observing, noticing, taking in, understanding, comprehending, becoming aware of, realizing, or making sense of something … that the democracy in America as described by Alexis de Tocqueville in 1831, is not only at risk through the Obama administration, but under a coordinated and determined assault.
According to the WSJ Poll, for the first time since he was elected, more Americans disapprove of Obama than approve -- with 48 percent giving him a thumbs-down. Only 45 percent approved. Less than half -- 49 percent -- rated Obama as having "strong leadership qualities," an 8-point drop since January and a 21-point plunge from when he was first elected.
Two months after oil began spewing into the Gulf of Mexico, half of those surveyed --including one in four Democrats -- said they disapproved of Obama's handling of the crisis. The survey indicated several troubling signs for Democrats in the midterm elections, as 62 percent of respondents reported feeling the country was on the wrong track.
The past 18 months of the Obama administration have been at once, the most turgid, liberal, and ineffectual (in advancing democracy domestically and abroad) in the nation’s history. The litany of abuses are numbing, some notable examples – organized a cabinet and plethora of czars that are to a person far left to Marxist, implemented a hyper Keynesian economic policy which failed under Hoover and FDR, that has only exacerbated a serious recession, artificially resuscitated the anachronistic unions, nationalized two major auto companies, nationalized health care, passed stimulus bills that primarily aided government union workers with miniscule public sector impact, created record multi trillion dollar debt, introduced Orwellian speak to the American vocabulary calling “terrorism” a “man caused disaster”, created an Afghanistan strategy with insuperable rules of engagement and withdrawal date, sides with the Hamas over Israel, refuses to enforce federal immigration laws, bungled the gulf oil spill to promote a Cap and Trade bill, and the latest banking bill that creates a new government agency and leaves untouched Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, who got the whole recession started through their policies guaranteeing sub-prime mortgage loans to banks and investors and incurred over $138 billion in losses… and should have gone under like the private sector Bear Stearns.
Should anyone really be surprised by a government whose creed and unifying theme is “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste?” This is an administration acting like a regime intent on the deconstruction of the United States democracy through circumventing the Constitution, using every means possible to contravene the will of the majority, led by a President who is supportive of a global government in lieu of a sovereign America. Obama has surpassed the malaise of the forgettable Carter administration with a pervasive anomie.
The Obama administration may be ineffectual in advancing democracy, but it is by design. The President, former Indonesian Muslim, later Black Liberation theology layman, community organizer inspired by Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, a mysterious record less ascension through Occidental College, Columbia, and Harvard Law School, culminating in the Presidency is not your Horatio Alger success story, it is far more sub rosa.
What is being done to American is nothing short of the process of a revolution. As Tocqueville said “the revolution only tells you something that already took place."
President Obama is executing the plan of Columbia professors Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven known as the Cloward & Piven Strategy. Simply stated, overwhelm the U.S. economy creating failure of the economy and social chaos; destroying capitalism in the process - voila, the socialization of America.
The reckless government spending and expansion of entitlements (estimated $117 Trillion in unfunded liabilities) are sufficient to collapse the economy.
A brief look at the numbers and their purpose is chilling: Stimulus Plan and Bail Outs –Hundreds of billions go to leftist organizations including Acorn and its progeny, unions through the GM and Chrysler buyouts, including $125 billion to unionized teachers, creating and saving thousands of government jobs, Amnesty for Illegal Immigrants – Politically Obama is holding Arizona hostage as a quid pro quo for an amnesty bill, border security in exchange for amnesty, 12 million new Democrat voters with all entitlement rights, Nationalized Health Care – Estimated 30 million uninsured now represent 30 million new Democrat voters at the cost of trillions of dollars (collapse the economy), plus unionization of all health care and hospital workers and 20 thousand new unionized IRS workers to enforce the new law, Cap & Trade – Source of revenue for the government and redistributes the wealth by exorbitant taxation on upper income tax payers. Restructure the Tax Burden – Expand voters dependent upon government by raising taxes, on high income taxpayers, small businesses, the top 20% of tax payers, redistribution of wealth to those who didn’t earn it and punishment of the successful at its finest.
It all adds up to a limitless Socialist government where changes are not only in government but the structure of society into three classes: Majority of citizens dependent on big government, privileged class of all government workers, and selected members of government become the ruling class at the top of the pyramid.
A democratic society cannot be sustained when almost 50% of the population pays no taxes. Tocqueville, the master of illuminating comparison declared, “Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.”
How did we get ourselves in such a mess? Some say it was eight years of George W. Bush and that the electorate was looking for something new. Possibly, but it appeared that a rabidly left leaning media, including the taxpayer funded NPR, took every opportunity to degrade Bush and marginalize Republican candidates while sycophantically deifying Barack Obama, which ultimately tipped the scales in the Democrat’s favor.
Tocqueville understood all too well the influence of the media (press) in his day, “After the people themselves, the press represents the most irresistible power that exits in America.” At the risk of an egregious incongruity, Ozzy Osbourne had it right in the lyrics of Crazy Train, “One person conditioned to rule and control, the media sells it and you live the role.”
There is ample evidence to suggest that the nation was caught up in the hysteria of electing the nation’s first black President. Dr. Walter E. Williams, distinguished black economist said it best, “white liberals who voted for Obama … received their one-time guilt-relieving dose from voting for a black man to be president.” Whatever the reason, the media failed miserably in doing its research on Barack Obama and the voters for their indifference to the facts, but instead being swayed by the mellifluous speech of Obama. Tocqueville had a particular antipathy for this type of speech, those “who reason badly and speak well.” Thomas Jefferson offered sage advice with, "Error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it."
Is there sufficient reason remaining or have we become too conditioned to a big central government? Tocqueville presented an ominous concern, “The scope of central power expands imperceptibly in all directions, even though everyone wants it restrained. A democratic government, therefore, increases its power by the mere fact that it continues to exist. Time is on its side. Every chance event works to its advantage. The passions of individuals assist it without their own knowledge, and one may say that the older a democratic society is, the more centralized it becomes.” Tocqueville understood politicians role in this dynamic, “It is easy to see that most of the ambitious and able citizens in a democratic country will work relentlessly to expand the social power, because they hope to control it themselves one day. It is a waste of time to try to prove to them that too much centralization can be harmful to the state, because it’s for themselves that they are centralizing it.”
One is left to hope that the quote of an author falls on the side those supporting a socialist government and society versus those supporting a democratic government and society, “The infinite sadness of unfulfilled desire.”
Monday, June 28, 2010
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Requiem for the Republic?
A Tale of Two Ideologies
The tumultuous period of the French Revolution is succinctly captured in Charles Dickens classic historical novel A Tale of Two Cities, offering readers, arguably, the most famous opening sentence in all of literature…….” It was the best of times; it was the worst of times...”
Today, acolytes of the Constitution, freedom, liberty, limited government, and American exceptionalism find it to be “the worst of times”, an opinion that became crystallized with the 219-212 passage of the Health Care Bill, Sunday. Supporters of a democratic republic - a government in which power is explicitly vested in the people, who in turn exercise their power through elected representatives, stands in stark contrast to the President Barack Obama and the Democrat administration.
History’s greatest form of government, represented by the United States of America, now finds itself literally teetering precariously at the precipice of, take your pick, - Statism, where government centralizes extensive economic, political, and related controls at the cost of individual liberty; Socialism, where the government vests ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole, and according to Marxism, the stage following capitalism in the transition of a society to Communism - all demonstrably failed systems of government.
It is sobering and at once shocking, to reflect on just how far we have drifted as a nation to the point where the will of the people is secondary to the agenda of the ruling party in Washington. Simply stated, we at a place where government has been dangerously, and most likely irrevocably expanded, where all elements of individual liberty and commercial freedom are entering the first concentric circle of the republic’s death spiral.
The Democrat ideology is shamelessly a system of Statism/Socialism, where government is determined to be the best solution for the management and control of the affairs of its citizens. This system in which entitlements are expanded to fiscally and ethically irresponsible levels, results in citizens becoming dependent upon the government as wards of the state.
The ideology of Republicans and most independents is one that holds the Constitution as the foundation for the U.S. government where individual freedom and liberty, limited government, and free enterprise are the hallmarks of the republic.
Quite simply, the values that this nation has fought and died for are at a vortex with the values that America has fought and died against.
Applying the Aristotelian Triumvirate
Over 2000 years ago Aristotle set forth the three modes of persuasion – logos, ethos, and pathos. The idea is that people are persuaded in three ways – logic: logos, ethics/trustworthiness: ethos, and emotions: pathos.
Under the Aristotelian triumvirate any one of the three modes, if expertly executed, is sufficient to persuade a majority of people regarding the subject under consideration. Successful execution of two or all three of the modes makes the acceptance of the persuader’s position a fait accompli.
Among the myriad of ironies of the Health Care debacle, is despite having a President described as the world’s greatest orator, a slavishly sycophantic promotional media, and Democrat control of the legislative and executive branches of government, these considerable combined forces failed, with virtually unlimited resources, to persuade a majority of Americans by logic, trustworthiness, or emotion to support nationalizing Health Care.
Obama persuaded 52% of voters in the last presidential election, now those surveyed in the last Gallup poll show 48% oppose the Health Care versus 45% in favor, similar polls range from 48% to 58% opposed. Nowhere in the polls is there a greater percentage in favor of the Health Care bill.
There is encouragement to be gleaned from these numbers that is supported in Aristotle’s quote:
“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it”.
Deepening the Divide
Oh the great expectations of the “hope and change” crowd after electing President Obama, spurred on by a media and supporters that ignored the influence on the man incubated in a Socialist/Marxist milieu by his mother and various mentors, pastor, and friends. The man with the amorphous educational background somehow pops up in Harvard Law School and is made president of The Harvard Law Review. Later his three years as a U.S. Senator, he gained the distinction as Congress’s most liberal Senator.
While the fourth estate perpetuated the image of a messianic figure, claiming Obama as the nation’s first post racial/post partisan President. Newsweek broke the bounds of credulity proclaiming Obama as Pan President (President of the world). Reality set in at every conceivable juncture of issue, event, and policy, revealing Obama to be a man with a hard coded radical left ideology, bereft of leadership skills, a myopic world view, and a surprisingly less brilliant than advertised intellectual acumen. Rather quickly much of the public viewed Obama as the naked emperor, more as a figure head President to be placed in front of audiences with the ubiquitous teleprompter, and following his numerous ideological soul mates behind the Pelosi/Reid two headed hydra.
The Health Care Bill became Obama’s cause célèbre which he contemptuously pursued, despite strong public opposition, stating to democrats that his presidency hung in the balance of the Health Care vote. It was a fatidic pronouncement, for win or lose, the vote on Health Care, an Obama second term seems a long shot at best and the remainder of his first term will be a very rough sled. Thus began the cozen journey of the Health Care legislative process, which Obama referred to as “ugly” and Republicans referred to as “corrupt and unconstitutional”.
The 2700 page fatally flawed fiscal Frankenstein piece of legislation – beautifully summarized on the internet as a health care plan written by a committee whose chairman says he doesn't understand it, passed by a Congress that hasn't read it but exempts themselves from it, to be signed by a president that also hasn't read it and who smokes, with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn't pay his taxes, all to be overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, and financed by a country that's broke.
The bill is so bad that it becomes clear that the legislation is actually about Democrat control and power over government, ergo the nation. Even so, the bill had to be larded with incredible payoffs in the billions to Nebraska, Louisiana, New York, Connecticut, North Dakota, Florida, Cadillac Union plans et al.
Nancy Pelosi set the stage for a corrupt process with her announcement “we’ll do anything to pass the Health Care Bill”. Within a week of the vote the ever cool Obama came unglued in an interview with Bret Baier revealing a seldom publically seen robotic, uninformed, flustered, and petulant President, in addition to his normal obfuscating and misleading answers.
When the COB released last week the “preliminary estimate” of $940 B over 10 years claiming $138 B in savings from the COB, whose Director said he was only able to use the figures provided to him and his “overwhelmed and overworked staff”. It is doubtful that there is a Member of the House or the Senate that really believes these numbers. This is a bill that violates basic rules of arithmetic in addition to known accounting principles by double counting the $500 B taken from the already broke Medicare plan ($57 Trillion unfunded liability) and increasing taxes for the remaining $440 B – a ten year plan that increases taxes over the ten years for six years of benefits in the first ten years.
Along the way the Democrats dredged up the Reconciliation process to compensate for the lack of the necessary 60 votes – using a strictly budgetary tool to pass a major piece of legislation. To provide cover for their votes the Democrats planned to use the arcane Deem and Pass, a rule that allows the passing of two bills simultaneously under one piece of legislation, the second bill would be deemed to pass without having to vote again. This would have meant the bill to “fix” the Senate Health Care bill would have been voted on first and the amended bill would have been “deemed to pass”. Again, this rule has never been used on a major piece of legislation but has been used to expedite minor matters in routine legislation.
Democrat Alcee Hastings, a distinguished member of the House Rules Committee and former impeached Federal Judge removed from office for corruption and perjury, made the following comforting statement “We have no rules, we make the rules as we go along”, when queried about the legislative process of the Health Care bill.
Even the casual observer knew that the Dems had the 216 votes necessary when Saturday evening it was announced that they were dropping the Deem and Pass strategy. The fix was confirmed when long time abortion opponent Michigan Democrat Rep. Bart Stupak switched his vote from “no” to “yes” and carried with him eleven other prolife Dems, all based on Obama agreeing to sign an executive order that would state than no federal funds may be used to pay for abortions. Of course,
the President may rescind an executive order at any time and if challenged legally it becomes secondary to the rule of law contained in the Health Care bill.
It is not known what other enticements Rep. Stupak may have received for his changed vote.
The Republicans were united in their opposition to the Health Care bill.
The fissures separating the Republicans and most of the public from the Democrats are now yawning chasms.
Repeal and Replace
Obama’s favorability ratings were upside down Saturday, 43 % approve/53 % disapprove according to The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll. Gallup had congress at historic lows of 80% disapproval and 16% approval, before the vote.
The New England Journal of Medicine surveyed physicians nationally and 46% of those surveyed indicated that they were either going to leave the practice of medicine or were considering doing so.
The Obama administration’s chief actuary, Richard S. Foster and his staff analyzed the Senate-passed bill and determined that it bent the cost curve up, estimating in a January 8 report that national health expenditures would increase by an estimated total of $222 B, and that the additional demand for health services “could be difficult to meet” and “could lead to price increases, cost-shifting, and/or changes in providers’ willingness to treat patients with low-reimbursement health coverage.” Foster, in his letter today, expects the new health spending bill to be “generally similar.”
A letter sent last Thursday to President Barack Obama and members of Congress signed by more than 130 economists predicted the legislation would discourage companies from hiring more workers and would cause reduced hours and wages for those already employed.
Caterpillar, the world's largest construction machinery manufacturer, said it's particularly opposed to provisions in the bill that would expand Medicare taxes and mandate insurance coverage. The legislation would require nearly all companies to provide health insurance for their employees or face large fines. Caterpillar said these provisions would increase its insurance costs by at least 20 percent, or more than $100 million, just in the first year of the health-care overhaul program.
As the public becomes more aware of the various provisions of the Health Care legislation it should only strengthen the Republicans in the November elections.
The Bill calls for removal of medical limits, preexisting conditions, dropping coverage in 2010. Also imbedded in the HCB is the unrelated Federal takeover of student loans with the projected savings in billions credited against the cost of the Health Care Bill.
Through the creation of over 130 committees and several new agencies, the Bill is designed to ultimately drive insurance companies out of the health insurance business with the government setting all the rules for the insurance companies with doctors and hospitals becoming agents of the government. This is nationalized health care with health care rationing and death panels on the horizon as the public option becomes the only choice.
The Internal Revenue Service will become the enforcement agency for the purchase of mandatory health insurance with 17,000 agents and support staff budgeted in the bill.
The Republican plan is to repeal and replace the Health Care Bill; imagine the task ahead as trying to get a camel out of a tent.
Simply stated, the process must begin with the November elections resulting in recapturing the House and closing the gap in the Senate, if not regaining a majority. From there Obama must be defeated in 2012, then a tough fight to repeal the Health Care Act and replace it with a more viable program as previously proposed by the Republicans. That gets the camel out of the tent.
Now, until then 11 states Attorney Generals are preparing suits against the Congress as to the unconstitutionality of the mandatory insurance provision with 25 states considering joining in. This could make it all the way to the Supreme Court for the ultimate decision.
In the meantime expect the administration to be emboldened by their success and to pursue other transformational legislation - Amnesty that legalizes all illegal immigrants (how do you think they plan to win 2012?) and Cap and Trade (despite the scientific discrediting of much of the Global Warming/Climate Change theory).
The classic novel, A Tale of Two Cities has the unusual distinction of in addition to having the most famous opening sentence in literature; is also recognized as having the most famous closing sentence in literature:
“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.”
Taking literary license with the circumstances and setting of the novel and placing the words in the context of repeal and replacement of Health Care – may our elected officials view their work in the preservation of our Republic as "a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done", so that this current bill passage is but a battle in a War won by the Republic.
The tumultuous period of the French Revolution is succinctly captured in Charles Dickens classic historical novel A Tale of Two Cities, offering readers, arguably, the most famous opening sentence in all of literature…….” It was the best of times; it was the worst of times...”
Today, acolytes of the Constitution, freedom, liberty, limited government, and American exceptionalism find it to be “the worst of times”, an opinion that became crystallized with the 219-212 passage of the Health Care Bill, Sunday. Supporters of a democratic republic - a government in which power is explicitly vested in the people, who in turn exercise their power through elected representatives, stands in stark contrast to the President Barack Obama and the Democrat administration.
History’s greatest form of government, represented by the United States of America, now finds itself literally teetering precariously at the precipice of, take your pick, - Statism, where government centralizes extensive economic, political, and related controls at the cost of individual liberty; Socialism, where the government vests ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole, and according to Marxism, the stage following capitalism in the transition of a society to Communism - all demonstrably failed systems of government.
It is sobering and at once shocking, to reflect on just how far we have drifted as a nation to the point where the will of the people is secondary to the agenda of the ruling party in Washington. Simply stated, we at a place where government has been dangerously, and most likely irrevocably expanded, where all elements of individual liberty and commercial freedom are entering the first concentric circle of the republic’s death spiral.
The Democrat ideology is shamelessly a system of Statism/Socialism, where government is determined to be the best solution for the management and control of the affairs of its citizens. This system in which entitlements are expanded to fiscally and ethically irresponsible levels, results in citizens becoming dependent upon the government as wards of the state.
The ideology of Republicans and most independents is one that holds the Constitution as the foundation for the U.S. government where individual freedom and liberty, limited government, and free enterprise are the hallmarks of the republic.
Quite simply, the values that this nation has fought and died for are at a vortex with the values that America has fought and died against.
Applying the Aristotelian Triumvirate
Over 2000 years ago Aristotle set forth the three modes of persuasion – logos, ethos, and pathos. The idea is that people are persuaded in three ways – logic: logos, ethics/trustworthiness: ethos, and emotions: pathos.
Under the Aristotelian triumvirate any one of the three modes, if expertly executed, is sufficient to persuade a majority of people regarding the subject under consideration. Successful execution of two or all three of the modes makes the acceptance of the persuader’s position a fait accompli.
Among the myriad of ironies of the Health Care debacle, is despite having a President described as the world’s greatest orator, a slavishly sycophantic promotional media, and Democrat control of the legislative and executive branches of government, these considerable combined forces failed, with virtually unlimited resources, to persuade a majority of Americans by logic, trustworthiness, or emotion to support nationalizing Health Care.
Obama persuaded 52% of voters in the last presidential election, now those surveyed in the last Gallup poll show 48% oppose the Health Care versus 45% in favor, similar polls range from 48% to 58% opposed. Nowhere in the polls is there a greater percentage in favor of the Health Care bill.
There is encouragement to be gleaned from these numbers that is supported in Aristotle’s quote:
“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it”.
Deepening the Divide
Oh the great expectations of the “hope and change” crowd after electing President Obama, spurred on by a media and supporters that ignored the influence on the man incubated in a Socialist/Marxist milieu by his mother and various mentors, pastor, and friends. The man with the amorphous educational background somehow pops up in Harvard Law School and is made president of The Harvard Law Review. Later his three years as a U.S. Senator, he gained the distinction as Congress’s most liberal Senator.
While the fourth estate perpetuated the image of a messianic figure, claiming Obama as the nation’s first post racial/post partisan President. Newsweek broke the bounds of credulity proclaiming Obama as Pan President (President of the world). Reality set in at every conceivable juncture of issue, event, and policy, revealing Obama to be a man with a hard coded radical left ideology, bereft of leadership skills, a myopic world view, and a surprisingly less brilliant than advertised intellectual acumen. Rather quickly much of the public viewed Obama as the naked emperor, more as a figure head President to be placed in front of audiences with the ubiquitous teleprompter, and following his numerous ideological soul mates behind the Pelosi/Reid two headed hydra.
The Health Care Bill became Obama’s cause célèbre which he contemptuously pursued, despite strong public opposition, stating to democrats that his presidency hung in the balance of the Health Care vote. It was a fatidic pronouncement, for win or lose, the vote on Health Care, an Obama second term seems a long shot at best and the remainder of his first term will be a very rough sled. Thus began the cozen journey of the Health Care legislative process, which Obama referred to as “ugly” and Republicans referred to as “corrupt and unconstitutional”.
The 2700 page fatally flawed fiscal Frankenstein piece of legislation – beautifully summarized on the internet as a health care plan written by a committee whose chairman says he doesn't understand it, passed by a Congress that hasn't read it but exempts themselves from it, to be signed by a president that also hasn't read it and who smokes, with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn't pay his taxes, all to be overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, and financed by a country that's broke.
The bill is so bad that it becomes clear that the legislation is actually about Democrat control and power over government, ergo the nation. Even so, the bill had to be larded with incredible payoffs in the billions to Nebraska, Louisiana, New York, Connecticut, North Dakota, Florida, Cadillac Union plans et al.
Nancy Pelosi set the stage for a corrupt process with her announcement “we’ll do anything to pass the Health Care Bill”. Within a week of the vote the ever cool Obama came unglued in an interview with Bret Baier revealing a seldom publically seen robotic, uninformed, flustered, and petulant President, in addition to his normal obfuscating and misleading answers.
When the COB released last week the “preliminary estimate” of $940 B over 10 years claiming $138 B in savings from the COB, whose Director said he was only able to use the figures provided to him and his “overwhelmed and overworked staff”. It is doubtful that there is a Member of the House or the Senate that really believes these numbers. This is a bill that violates basic rules of arithmetic in addition to known accounting principles by double counting the $500 B taken from the already broke Medicare plan ($57 Trillion unfunded liability) and increasing taxes for the remaining $440 B – a ten year plan that increases taxes over the ten years for six years of benefits in the first ten years.
Along the way the Democrats dredged up the Reconciliation process to compensate for the lack of the necessary 60 votes – using a strictly budgetary tool to pass a major piece of legislation. To provide cover for their votes the Democrats planned to use the arcane Deem and Pass, a rule that allows the passing of two bills simultaneously under one piece of legislation, the second bill would be deemed to pass without having to vote again. This would have meant the bill to “fix” the Senate Health Care bill would have been voted on first and the amended bill would have been “deemed to pass”. Again, this rule has never been used on a major piece of legislation but has been used to expedite minor matters in routine legislation.
Democrat Alcee Hastings, a distinguished member of the House Rules Committee and former impeached Federal Judge removed from office for corruption and perjury, made the following comforting statement “We have no rules, we make the rules as we go along”, when queried about the legislative process of the Health Care bill.
Even the casual observer knew that the Dems had the 216 votes necessary when Saturday evening it was announced that they were dropping the Deem and Pass strategy. The fix was confirmed when long time abortion opponent Michigan Democrat Rep. Bart Stupak switched his vote from “no” to “yes” and carried with him eleven other prolife Dems, all based on Obama agreeing to sign an executive order that would state than no federal funds may be used to pay for abortions. Of course,
the President may rescind an executive order at any time and if challenged legally it becomes secondary to the rule of law contained in the Health Care bill.
It is not known what other enticements Rep. Stupak may have received for his changed vote.
The Republicans were united in their opposition to the Health Care bill.
The fissures separating the Republicans and most of the public from the Democrats are now yawning chasms.
Repeal and Replace
Obama’s favorability ratings were upside down Saturday, 43 % approve/53 % disapprove according to The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll. Gallup had congress at historic lows of 80% disapproval and 16% approval, before the vote.
The New England Journal of Medicine surveyed physicians nationally and 46% of those surveyed indicated that they were either going to leave the practice of medicine or were considering doing so.
The Obama administration’s chief actuary, Richard S. Foster and his staff analyzed the Senate-passed bill and determined that it bent the cost curve up, estimating in a January 8 report that national health expenditures would increase by an estimated total of $222 B, and that the additional demand for health services “could be difficult to meet” and “could lead to price increases, cost-shifting, and/or changes in providers’ willingness to treat patients with low-reimbursement health coverage.” Foster, in his letter today, expects the new health spending bill to be “generally similar.”
A letter sent last Thursday to President Barack Obama and members of Congress signed by more than 130 economists predicted the legislation would discourage companies from hiring more workers and would cause reduced hours and wages for those already employed.
Caterpillar, the world's largest construction machinery manufacturer, said it's particularly opposed to provisions in the bill that would expand Medicare taxes and mandate insurance coverage. The legislation would require nearly all companies to provide health insurance for their employees or face large fines. Caterpillar said these provisions would increase its insurance costs by at least 20 percent, or more than $100 million, just in the first year of the health-care overhaul program.
As the public becomes more aware of the various provisions of the Health Care legislation it should only strengthen the Republicans in the November elections.
The Bill calls for removal of medical limits, preexisting conditions, dropping coverage in 2010. Also imbedded in the HCB is the unrelated Federal takeover of student loans with the projected savings in billions credited against the cost of the Health Care Bill.
Through the creation of over 130 committees and several new agencies, the Bill is designed to ultimately drive insurance companies out of the health insurance business with the government setting all the rules for the insurance companies with doctors and hospitals becoming agents of the government. This is nationalized health care with health care rationing and death panels on the horizon as the public option becomes the only choice.
The Internal Revenue Service will become the enforcement agency for the purchase of mandatory health insurance with 17,000 agents and support staff budgeted in the bill.
The Republican plan is to repeal and replace the Health Care Bill; imagine the task ahead as trying to get a camel out of a tent.
Simply stated, the process must begin with the November elections resulting in recapturing the House and closing the gap in the Senate, if not regaining a majority. From there Obama must be defeated in 2012, then a tough fight to repeal the Health Care Act and replace it with a more viable program as previously proposed by the Republicans. That gets the camel out of the tent.
Now, until then 11 states Attorney Generals are preparing suits against the Congress as to the unconstitutionality of the mandatory insurance provision with 25 states considering joining in. This could make it all the way to the Supreme Court for the ultimate decision.
In the meantime expect the administration to be emboldened by their success and to pursue other transformational legislation - Amnesty that legalizes all illegal immigrants (how do you think they plan to win 2012?) and Cap and Trade (despite the scientific discrediting of much of the Global Warming/Climate Change theory).
The classic novel, A Tale of Two Cities has the unusual distinction of in addition to having the most famous opening sentence in literature; is also recognized as having the most famous closing sentence in literature:
“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.”
Taking literary license with the circumstances and setting of the novel and placing the words in the context of repeal and replacement of Health Care – may our elected officials view their work in the preservation of our Republic as "a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done", so that this current bill passage is but a battle in a War won by the Republic.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
The Incredible Shrinking Man
A Deficit of Trust
As President Obama delivered his first State of the Union address, (his address last February to a joint session of Congress was not an official State of the Union address), many were waiting to see whether Obama would now “get it”. After all the public rejection of the Health Care bill, was Obama going to be hoisted on his own petard of Obama Care? Even the morally corrupt, but politically astute Bill Clinton knew when to drop that albatross.
In the Democrat pantheon of presidents, no one represents and demonstrated the political savvy of an accomplished politician more than Clinton, by moving to a centrist position in his first term after losing Democrat control of Congress for the first time in forty years. Of course, with the current President no such flexibility exists, as the American public is becoming painfully aware that Obama is nothing more than a one trick socialist pony. The only aspect of Obama’s State of the Union speech that was Clintonesque was the length and an obligatory attempt at expressing “I feel your pain” empathy for the US economy.
The Obama story of ascendancy and descent embodies both of the two essential plots of all novels - the hero goes on a journey and a stranger comes to town. The journey of Obama has been well documented by a sycophantic media - rising from a broken home and culminating in a Harvard law school education; conveniently omitting a plethora of socialistic training and friendships and a complete absence of documented academic performance – that’s the journey of the hero.
What became quickly apparent on the campaign trail was the man with the sonorous voice and rhapsodic rhetoric could make trite and hackneyed expressions sound elegant and philosophical…….like hope and change.
Now the stranger comes to town – Washington. Along the way Obama forgot, or never knew, that the reciprocal of hope and change is trust. In mathematics it’s called the multiplicative inverse, meaning the ratio of unity to a given quantity by which the given quantity is multiplied to produce unity. Without trust, “hope and change” are just vacuous words without meaning or purpose ….no unity.
The President has systematically overdrawn his trust account through his “we won” expressed and demonstrated behavior. The nation’s first “post racial/post partisan” president’s approval rating has dropped further than any other president in his first year, effectively neutering a super majority advantage in the House and the Senate (until Scott Brown’s election).
In virtually all areas of policy sans bipartisanship and transparency – national security (domestic and foreign), economic, health, climate change, et al have produced failure - a seriously stalled economy with ever increasing unemployment, failed stimulus plan, mirandized terrorists, grossly incompetent cabinet and administration czars ……and that’s just touching the surface.
No president in memory has made as many speeches in his first year, as if Obama actually thought he could impose his far left ideological will on his audience. An interesting phenomenon occurred during the process, the law of diminishing returns kicked in, and the words and syntax that once marveled fell flat and seemed as if they were written by his ubiquitous teleprompter.
So it was reasonable to assume that Obama, in collaboration with his brain trust, a staff that New York Times conservative columnist David Brooks calls the most intelligent ever assembled by a U.S. President, would be able to craft a State of the Union speech that would acknowledge the majority of the nation’s views and deliver a statesman state of the union address with a commitment to honor the will of the people.
The State of the Union Speech – The Sound and the Fury
Our President, in his finest finger wagging socialist professor style, delivered seventy excruciating minutes of “more of the same”, in a panoply of delivery styles –condescension, arrogance, whining, combativeness, scolding, petulance, defiance, and of course egoism.
In a curiously disjointed speech, with the triple digit exercise of personal pronouns, President Obama essentially tossed the gauntlet before the American people. Exclaiming “I don’t quit”, as he continued “Change has not come fast enough. As hard as it may be, as uncomfortable and contentious as the debates may be, it’s time to get serious about fixing the problems that are hampering our growth.”
Among the many lowlights of the address was the proposed three year freeze on most discretionary domestic spending, beginning in 2011, after the debt ceiling has been raised. He also announced he will issue an executive order creating a bipartisan task force to recommend ways to reduce the deficit……the Senate recently blocked a similar proposal.
Obama urged the Senate to follow the House and pass a second jobs bill as its first order of business this year. Yeah, the first one really worked swell.
The President urged Senate passage of climate legislation to help the country deal with global warming and shift toward cleaner energy sources and help create jobs. Our President still supports the global warming scam.
Proving he doesn’t quit, the President called for a continuance of efforts to overhaul the health care system.
In a move to get college students on free government entitlements, Obama proposed capping student loan repayments at 10 percent of income and forgiving all student loan debt after 20 years, or after 10 years if the student enters public service. With the government now the exclusive provider of college loans, wonder how many of those loans will be repaid?
In a particularly magnanimous gesture, after shutting Republicans out of all meaningful legislation discussion with the super majority Democrats, Obama proposed monthly meetings with both the Democratic and Republican leadership in Congress.
The lowest of lows was achieved, a first for a state of the union address, when Obama attempted to bully the co-equal judicial branch of government, the Supreme Court, by urging lawmakers to pass a bill to undo a recent Supreme Court ruling that allows companies and labor unions to exercise First Amendment rights to make independent expenditures in candidate elections.
Justice Samuel Alito one of the justices in the majority in the decision under attack, shook his head as he heard the president’s summary of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission mouthing the words “not true.”
State of the Union addresses are opportunities for presidents to take or lose command. Obama's poll numbers on how he handles major issues have been dropping; a majority of Americans do not support his management of the economy, taxes and other issues. Unemployment is in double digits and terrorism fears are rising.
It was an opportunity lost. Either President Obama doesn’t get it or he does and just doesn’t care. The latter appears closer to the truth.
The Anatomy of a One Term President
The 1957 Sci Fi classic film The Incredible Shrinking Man presented a hero, Scott, who became exposed to a radioactive mist while on a boat off the California coast, thus beginning the gradual but inexorable shrinking of Scott. Near the end of the movie Scott has been reduced to a size that allows him to walk through a space in the grid of a window screen as he walks through the space he muses “The unbelievably small and the unbelievably vast eventually meet, like the closing of a gigantic circle,”something akin to Barack Obama assuming the office of President of the United States.
It’s a long way from Pan-President, the messianic leader of the world, to becoming a one term president. But the first quarter of Obama’s presidency has been abysmal in achieving any measurable positive results.
An ever increasing number of Americans see the direction Obama is moving the country away from capitalism towards a redistribution of wealth with more government control. The man whose bust Obama reportedly removed from the oval office, Winston Churchill, said it best when asked to compare Capitalism with Socialism, “The inherent vice of capitalism is the uneven division of blessings, while the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal division of misery”. The overwhelming majority of Americans find the vice of capitalism vastly superior to the virtue of socialism.
After one year in office, it is reasonable to deduce that the president’s character, personality, beliefs and ability has had ample opportunity to be revealed. And so it is with Barack Obama.
As far as character is concerned, while Obama’s flaws don’t rise to the Bill Clinton level of amorality, clearly he’s a man who is quite comfortable with prevarication and misrepresentation. The best thing Obama has going for him is his personality, he’s a narcissistic charmer, but the veneer is wearing thin. Obama’s beliefs spiritually and politically are radical fringe. Spiritually he’s a mixture of black liberation theology and Islam. Politically he’s a blend of Marxist, Statist, and Socialist. His abilities are not well suited for President, but would probably serve him well as a college professor and a community organizer.
The malaise that hangs like a storm cloud over the nation is not likely to dissipate during the next three years. Not since the redoubtable Jimmy Carter have we seen a president so ill equipped in all aspects of governance. The State of the Union speech pretty well provided oral testimony to the incorrigible nature of President Obama’s agenda.
Churchill captured it best in his time - “A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.”
As President Obama delivered his first State of the Union address, (his address last February to a joint session of Congress was not an official State of the Union address), many were waiting to see whether Obama would now “get it”. After all the public rejection of the Health Care bill, was Obama going to be hoisted on his own petard of Obama Care? Even the morally corrupt, but politically astute Bill Clinton knew when to drop that albatross.
In the Democrat pantheon of presidents, no one represents and demonstrated the political savvy of an accomplished politician more than Clinton, by moving to a centrist position in his first term after losing Democrat control of Congress for the first time in forty years. Of course, with the current President no such flexibility exists, as the American public is becoming painfully aware that Obama is nothing more than a one trick socialist pony. The only aspect of Obama’s State of the Union speech that was Clintonesque was the length and an obligatory attempt at expressing “I feel your pain” empathy for the US economy.
The Obama story of ascendancy and descent embodies both of the two essential plots of all novels - the hero goes on a journey and a stranger comes to town. The journey of Obama has been well documented by a sycophantic media - rising from a broken home and culminating in a Harvard law school education; conveniently omitting a plethora of socialistic training and friendships and a complete absence of documented academic performance – that’s the journey of the hero.
What became quickly apparent on the campaign trail was the man with the sonorous voice and rhapsodic rhetoric could make trite and hackneyed expressions sound elegant and philosophical…….like hope and change.
Now the stranger comes to town – Washington. Along the way Obama forgot, or never knew, that the reciprocal of hope and change is trust. In mathematics it’s called the multiplicative inverse, meaning the ratio of unity to a given quantity by which the given quantity is multiplied to produce unity. Without trust, “hope and change” are just vacuous words without meaning or purpose ….no unity.
The President has systematically overdrawn his trust account through his “we won” expressed and demonstrated behavior. The nation’s first “post racial/post partisan” president’s approval rating has dropped further than any other president in his first year, effectively neutering a super majority advantage in the House and the Senate (until Scott Brown’s election).
In virtually all areas of policy sans bipartisanship and transparency – national security (domestic and foreign), economic, health, climate change, et al have produced failure - a seriously stalled economy with ever increasing unemployment, failed stimulus plan, mirandized terrorists, grossly incompetent cabinet and administration czars ……and that’s just touching the surface.
No president in memory has made as many speeches in his first year, as if Obama actually thought he could impose his far left ideological will on his audience. An interesting phenomenon occurred during the process, the law of diminishing returns kicked in, and the words and syntax that once marveled fell flat and seemed as if they were written by his ubiquitous teleprompter.
So it was reasonable to assume that Obama, in collaboration with his brain trust, a staff that New York Times conservative columnist David Brooks calls the most intelligent ever assembled by a U.S. President, would be able to craft a State of the Union speech that would acknowledge the majority of the nation’s views and deliver a statesman state of the union address with a commitment to honor the will of the people.
The State of the Union Speech – The Sound and the Fury
Our President, in his finest finger wagging socialist professor style, delivered seventy excruciating minutes of “more of the same”, in a panoply of delivery styles –condescension, arrogance, whining, combativeness, scolding, petulance, defiance, and of course egoism.
In a curiously disjointed speech, with the triple digit exercise of personal pronouns, President Obama essentially tossed the gauntlet before the American people. Exclaiming “I don’t quit”, as he continued “Change has not come fast enough. As hard as it may be, as uncomfortable and contentious as the debates may be, it’s time to get serious about fixing the problems that are hampering our growth.”
Among the many lowlights of the address was the proposed three year freeze on most discretionary domestic spending, beginning in 2011, after the debt ceiling has been raised. He also announced he will issue an executive order creating a bipartisan task force to recommend ways to reduce the deficit……the Senate recently blocked a similar proposal.
Obama urged the Senate to follow the House and pass a second jobs bill as its first order of business this year. Yeah, the first one really worked swell.
The President urged Senate passage of climate legislation to help the country deal with global warming and shift toward cleaner energy sources and help create jobs. Our President still supports the global warming scam.
Proving he doesn’t quit, the President called for a continuance of efforts to overhaul the health care system.
In a move to get college students on free government entitlements, Obama proposed capping student loan repayments at 10 percent of income and forgiving all student loan debt after 20 years, or after 10 years if the student enters public service. With the government now the exclusive provider of college loans, wonder how many of those loans will be repaid?
In a particularly magnanimous gesture, after shutting Republicans out of all meaningful legislation discussion with the super majority Democrats, Obama proposed monthly meetings with both the Democratic and Republican leadership in Congress.
The lowest of lows was achieved, a first for a state of the union address, when Obama attempted to bully the co-equal judicial branch of government, the Supreme Court, by urging lawmakers to pass a bill to undo a recent Supreme Court ruling that allows companies and labor unions to exercise First Amendment rights to make independent expenditures in candidate elections.
Justice Samuel Alito one of the justices in the majority in the decision under attack, shook his head as he heard the president’s summary of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission mouthing the words “not true.”
State of the Union addresses are opportunities for presidents to take or lose command. Obama's poll numbers on how he handles major issues have been dropping; a majority of Americans do not support his management of the economy, taxes and other issues. Unemployment is in double digits and terrorism fears are rising.
It was an opportunity lost. Either President Obama doesn’t get it or he does and just doesn’t care. The latter appears closer to the truth.
The Anatomy of a One Term President
The 1957 Sci Fi classic film The Incredible Shrinking Man presented a hero, Scott, who became exposed to a radioactive mist while on a boat off the California coast, thus beginning the gradual but inexorable shrinking of Scott. Near the end of the movie Scott has been reduced to a size that allows him to walk through a space in the grid of a window screen as he walks through the space he muses “The unbelievably small and the unbelievably vast eventually meet, like the closing of a gigantic circle,”something akin to Barack Obama assuming the office of President of the United States.
It’s a long way from Pan-President, the messianic leader of the world, to becoming a one term president. But the first quarter of Obama’s presidency has been abysmal in achieving any measurable positive results.
An ever increasing number of Americans see the direction Obama is moving the country away from capitalism towards a redistribution of wealth with more government control. The man whose bust Obama reportedly removed from the oval office, Winston Churchill, said it best when asked to compare Capitalism with Socialism, “The inherent vice of capitalism is the uneven division of blessings, while the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal division of misery”. The overwhelming majority of Americans find the vice of capitalism vastly superior to the virtue of socialism.
After one year in office, it is reasonable to deduce that the president’s character, personality, beliefs and ability has had ample opportunity to be revealed. And so it is with Barack Obama.
As far as character is concerned, while Obama’s flaws don’t rise to the Bill Clinton level of amorality, clearly he’s a man who is quite comfortable with prevarication and misrepresentation. The best thing Obama has going for him is his personality, he’s a narcissistic charmer, but the veneer is wearing thin. Obama’s beliefs spiritually and politically are radical fringe. Spiritually he’s a mixture of black liberation theology and Islam. Politically he’s a blend of Marxist, Statist, and Socialist. His abilities are not well suited for President, but would probably serve him well as a college professor and a community organizer.
The malaise that hangs like a storm cloud over the nation is not likely to dissipate during the next three years. Not since the redoubtable Jimmy Carter have we seen a president so ill equipped in all aspects of governance. The State of the Union speech pretty well provided oral testimony to the incorrigible nature of President Obama’s agenda.
Churchill captured it best in his time - “A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.”
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Mr. Brown Goes to Washington
Life Imitates Art
In all the tradition and improbability of the 1939 Frank Capra film classic, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Massachusetts State Senator, Scott Phillip Brown has accomplished what political pundits dismissed as impossible just two months ago. In the movie, Mr. Smith played by “everyman” Jimmy Stewart, a naive man appointed to fill the vacancy in the US Senate created by the death of one of his State’s Senators. Mr. Smith quickly collides with political corruption, but doesn’t wilt under the intense pressure, and ultimately and dramatically becomes a state and national hero.
While Mr. Smith was appointed to the vacant Senate seat, Mr. Brown didn’t have it so easy. Brown, a Protestant Republican in the heavily Catholic bluest of blue states seeking to succeed the iconic, if not venerable, Lion of the Senate, Ted Kennedy, was considered well……an almost perfunctory gesture on the part of the GOP to even nominate a candidate.
Massachusetts is Blue for a Reason
The Massachusetts demographics were stacked heavily against Mr. Brown. The state’s political demographics are 38% Democrat, 11% Republican, and 51% Independent, a state that Obama won by 26 points in 2008 (62% to 36%). The Independents in the state are decidedly left leaning. Further exacerbating the situation, religious demographics have the state at 44% Catholic; slightly more than double the percentage of Protestants in the state.
Pollsters posited that for Brown to have a chance in the Bay State, the breakdown of the political demographics on Election Day had to be 33% Democrat, 12% Republican, and 55% Independent. It was said if that happened and if Brown was able to carry two-thirds of the independent vote, he would win 51% to 49%.
The Making of an American Hero
Democrats find it almost impossible to believe that this Senate seat they've held since John F. Kennedy could go to a Republican. The Bay State has not elected a Republican to the Senate since 1972. Ted Kennedy held his seat for almost 47 years until his death last August.
So how is it that “Downtown Scotty Brown”, as he was called on the Tufts University basketball team and the 1982 Sexiest Man in America posing in the buff of the centerfold of Cosmopolitan magazine, became the victor in the most important non presidential election in the past 50 years?
It is the quintessential American success story and a far more compelling tale than the movie Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. A child of divorced parents, Scott was raised by his grandmother and later his aunt. An arrest at age twelve for shop lifting caused Scott to take a better path, devoting his energy to sports and ultimately playing on the Tufts University basketball team. Brown is an accomplished cyclist, swimmer, and runner and has won a number of triathlons. He earned his BA from Tufts and his Juris Doctor from Boston College of Law. Brown worked for a while as an actor/model appearing in several commercials.
Scott Brown entered politics in 1992 and has served in the Massachusetts Senate since 2004. Mr. Brown has served in the Massachusetts National Guard for thirty years and currently holds the rank of Lt. Colonel in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps. Brown has been deployed to Kazakhstan and Paraguay. He and his wife Gail have two daughters, Arianna and Ayla. Prior to winning the race for Senator, the most famous member of the Brown family was Ayla, an American Idol semi finalist and Boston College basketball player.
Brown is considered a conservative Republican by Massachusetts standards and a moderate Republican by national standards. Scott Brown is anti tax, pro gun, strong national defense, pro choice, and supports civil unions, but not gay marriages.
At The Precipice
The monumental Massachusetts Senate victory by Scott Brown was every bit a referendum on the Obama Democrat administration and agenda. Massachusetts merely served as a microcosm of the national outrage over Obama’s radical agenda and the utter contempt and arrogance displayed toward the will of the American people. It’s no surprise that after a year in office, President Obama has the lowest approval rating of any President in modern history after his first year.
The American voters either ignored the obvious lifelong radical nurturing, tutoring, and political record of Obama, or more likely were sweep up in the frenzied media promotion of the potential of the nation’s first black(well almost) President. Never underestimate the judgment of the American people, bad or good. Things appear to be changing now in a very big way.
How ironic then at the beginning when Obama declared "change we can believe in" and proclaimed "Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of my presidency," quite the antithesis of the litany, too numerous to enumerate, of appointments, initiatives, legislation, actions, inactions both domestically and abroad since his inauguration. Only the most myopic of the far left views the Obama Presidency as anything but an abject failure.
It borders on the unbelievable that this President, as an ineffectual neophyte, has squandered a congressional majority because of his hard coded Socialist ideology, obnoxious arrogance, and pseudo intellect. From a community organizer to the President of the United States is clearly a bridge too far.
The American experience under Obama is rapidly becoming the tandem nightmares of George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. The Orwellian “Big Brother” and “Newspeak” have become an all too familiar part of the contemporary landscape. Orwell wrote of the truth being concealed from us, while Huxley told of the truth being drowned in a maelstrom of irrelevance. In 1984, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, people are controlled by inflicting pleasure.
The nation now teeters on the precipice of becoming a socialist state with the Senate Health Care Bill before the House. If passed, Obama Health Care becomes a major domino in the crashing down of America’s democracy and free enterprise system.
Now with Scott Brown taking the 60th vote in the Senate from the Democrats the Obama Health Care Plan appears to be in terminal condition along with the entire Obama agenda.
It’s not too difficult to imagine that the Democrats will try every manner of chicanery and bribes to push the 2000 page HC monster to passage, but there are a few comments that at least a few have seen the blinding light of the obvious in the Scott Brown victory.
Virginia Senator Jim Webb stated: “In many ways the campaign in Massachusetts became a referendum not only on health care reform but also on the openness and integrity of our government process. I believe it would only be fair and prudent that we suspend further votes on health care legislation until Senator-elect Brown is seated.”
Fellow Massachusetts citizen and Congressman Barney Frank, a friend of neither democracy nor free enterprise remarked: "I have two reactions to the election in Massachusetts.”
“One, I am disappointed. Two, I feel strongly that the Democratic majority in Congress must respect the process and make no effort to bypass the electoral results. If Martha Coakley had won, I believe we could have worked out a reasonable compromise between the House and Senate health care bills.”
“But since Scott Brown has won and the Republicans now have 41 votes in the Senate, that approach is no longer appropriate. I am hopeful that some Republican Senators will be willing to discuss a revised version of health care reform because I do not think that the country would be well-served by the health care status quo. But our respect for democratic procedures must rule out any effort to pass a health care bill as if the Massachusetts election had not happened.”
“ Going forward, I hope there will be a serious effort to change the Senate rule which means that 59 votes are not enough to pass major legislation, but those are the rules by which the health care bill was considered, and it would be wrong to change them in the middle of the process."
The stage is now set for the Republicans to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat; managed properly this November the GOP could gain at least 25 seats in the House and possibly six seats in the Senate.
We may expect Senator Scott Brown to become the new bête noire of the media, as demonstrated by the seldom viewed MSNBC Host, Keith Oldermann: “In short, in Scott Brown we have an irresponsible, homophobic, racist, reactionary, ex-nude model, tea bagging supporter of violence against woman and against politicians with whom he disagrees.”
Welcome to Washington Mr. Brown, may you enjoy success that exceeds that of Mr. Smith. After all, your success may be instrumental in saving the country we know and love.
In all the tradition and improbability of the 1939 Frank Capra film classic, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Massachusetts State Senator, Scott Phillip Brown has accomplished what political pundits dismissed as impossible just two months ago. In the movie, Mr. Smith played by “everyman” Jimmy Stewart, a naive man appointed to fill the vacancy in the US Senate created by the death of one of his State’s Senators. Mr. Smith quickly collides with political corruption, but doesn’t wilt under the intense pressure, and ultimately and dramatically becomes a state and national hero.
While Mr. Smith was appointed to the vacant Senate seat, Mr. Brown didn’t have it so easy. Brown, a Protestant Republican in the heavily Catholic bluest of blue states seeking to succeed the iconic, if not venerable, Lion of the Senate, Ted Kennedy, was considered well……an almost perfunctory gesture on the part of the GOP to even nominate a candidate.
Massachusetts is Blue for a Reason
The Massachusetts demographics were stacked heavily against Mr. Brown. The state’s political demographics are 38% Democrat, 11% Republican, and 51% Independent, a state that Obama won by 26 points in 2008 (62% to 36%). The Independents in the state are decidedly left leaning. Further exacerbating the situation, religious demographics have the state at 44% Catholic; slightly more than double the percentage of Protestants in the state.
Pollsters posited that for Brown to have a chance in the Bay State, the breakdown of the political demographics on Election Day had to be 33% Democrat, 12% Republican, and 55% Independent. It was said if that happened and if Brown was able to carry two-thirds of the independent vote, he would win 51% to 49%.
The Making of an American Hero
Democrats find it almost impossible to believe that this Senate seat they've held since John F. Kennedy could go to a Republican. The Bay State has not elected a Republican to the Senate since 1972. Ted Kennedy held his seat for almost 47 years until his death last August.
So how is it that “Downtown Scotty Brown”, as he was called on the Tufts University basketball team and the 1982 Sexiest Man in America posing in the buff of the centerfold of Cosmopolitan magazine, became the victor in the most important non presidential election in the past 50 years?
It is the quintessential American success story and a far more compelling tale than the movie Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. A child of divorced parents, Scott was raised by his grandmother and later his aunt. An arrest at age twelve for shop lifting caused Scott to take a better path, devoting his energy to sports and ultimately playing on the Tufts University basketball team. Brown is an accomplished cyclist, swimmer, and runner and has won a number of triathlons. He earned his BA from Tufts and his Juris Doctor from Boston College of Law. Brown worked for a while as an actor/model appearing in several commercials.
Scott Brown entered politics in 1992 and has served in the Massachusetts Senate since 2004. Mr. Brown has served in the Massachusetts National Guard for thirty years and currently holds the rank of Lt. Colonel in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps. Brown has been deployed to Kazakhstan and Paraguay. He and his wife Gail have two daughters, Arianna and Ayla. Prior to winning the race for Senator, the most famous member of the Brown family was Ayla, an American Idol semi finalist and Boston College basketball player.
Brown is considered a conservative Republican by Massachusetts standards and a moderate Republican by national standards. Scott Brown is anti tax, pro gun, strong national defense, pro choice, and supports civil unions, but not gay marriages.
At The Precipice
The monumental Massachusetts Senate victory by Scott Brown was every bit a referendum on the Obama Democrat administration and agenda. Massachusetts merely served as a microcosm of the national outrage over Obama’s radical agenda and the utter contempt and arrogance displayed toward the will of the American people. It’s no surprise that after a year in office, President Obama has the lowest approval rating of any President in modern history after his first year.
The American voters either ignored the obvious lifelong radical nurturing, tutoring, and political record of Obama, or more likely were sweep up in the frenzied media promotion of the potential of the nation’s first black(well almost) President. Never underestimate the judgment of the American people, bad or good. Things appear to be changing now in a very big way.
How ironic then at the beginning when Obama declared "change we can believe in" and proclaimed "Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of my presidency," quite the antithesis of the litany, too numerous to enumerate, of appointments, initiatives, legislation, actions, inactions both domestically and abroad since his inauguration. Only the most myopic of the far left views the Obama Presidency as anything but an abject failure.
It borders on the unbelievable that this President, as an ineffectual neophyte, has squandered a congressional majority because of his hard coded Socialist ideology, obnoxious arrogance, and pseudo intellect. From a community organizer to the President of the United States is clearly a bridge too far.
The American experience under Obama is rapidly becoming the tandem nightmares of George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. The Orwellian “Big Brother” and “Newspeak” have become an all too familiar part of the contemporary landscape. Orwell wrote of the truth being concealed from us, while Huxley told of the truth being drowned in a maelstrom of irrelevance. In 1984, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, people are controlled by inflicting pleasure.
The nation now teeters on the precipice of becoming a socialist state with the Senate Health Care Bill before the House. If passed, Obama Health Care becomes a major domino in the crashing down of America’s democracy and free enterprise system.
Now with Scott Brown taking the 60th vote in the Senate from the Democrats the Obama Health Care Plan appears to be in terminal condition along with the entire Obama agenda.
It’s not too difficult to imagine that the Democrats will try every manner of chicanery and bribes to push the 2000 page HC monster to passage, but there are a few comments that at least a few have seen the blinding light of the obvious in the Scott Brown victory.
Virginia Senator Jim Webb stated: “In many ways the campaign in Massachusetts became a referendum not only on health care reform but also on the openness and integrity of our government process. I believe it would only be fair and prudent that we suspend further votes on health care legislation until Senator-elect Brown is seated.”
Fellow Massachusetts citizen and Congressman Barney Frank, a friend of neither democracy nor free enterprise remarked: "I have two reactions to the election in Massachusetts.”
“One, I am disappointed. Two, I feel strongly that the Democratic majority in Congress must respect the process and make no effort to bypass the electoral results. If Martha Coakley had won, I believe we could have worked out a reasonable compromise between the House and Senate health care bills.”
“But since Scott Brown has won and the Republicans now have 41 votes in the Senate, that approach is no longer appropriate. I am hopeful that some Republican Senators will be willing to discuss a revised version of health care reform because I do not think that the country would be well-served by the health care status quo. But our respect for democratic procedures must rule out any effort to pass a health care bill as if the Massachusetts election had not happened.”
“ Going forward, I hope there will be a serious effort to change the Senate rule which means that 59 votes are not enough to pass major legislation, but those are the rules by which the health care bill was considered, and it would be wrong to change them in the middle of the process."
The stage is now set for the Republicans to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat; managed properly this November the GOP could gain at least 25 seats in the House and possibly six seats in the Senate.
We may expect Senator Scott Brown to become the new bête noire of the media, as demonstrated by the seldom viewed MSNBC Host, Keith Oldermann: “In short, in Scott Brown we have an irresponsible, homophobic, racist, reactionary, ex-nude model, tea bagging supporter of violence against woman and against politicians with whom he disagrees.”
Welcome to Washington Mr. Brown, may you enjoy success that exceeds that of Mr. Smith. After all, your success may be instrumental in saving the country we know and love.
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