Time Out for Civility

Jonah Goldberg recognizes a fine gesture by President Obama. Bill Clinton delivered some wonderful eulogies, too, when he was President.

Good Grief

Protecting the public from dangerous protesters. Geriatric protesters are THE WORST. "Be on the lookout for an insurrectionist with blue hair".

Must support "the narrative".

Ace:

It strikes me as odd, however, that a day after the left is embarrassed to have the riot police called on those "mostly peaceful" bottle-throwing barricade-overrunning immigration protesters, the media suddenly gets the optics of "See, riot police were called on the Tea Partiers, too."

Of course, the optics created are not the optics intended.

The message seems to be that there are privileged points of view and unprivileged points of view. And the privileged speakers get to have riots, and the unprivileged get the threat of having their heads busted in for daring to wave a flag.

Meanwhile... "We will use our pick-axes and our shovels against you! Believe that!"

Arizona upsets the applecart

Wretchard has compared the reactions to Arizona's new immigration law and Illinois legislators' calls for help from the National Guard (i.e., a REAL "police state") in Chicago. Much more on Arizona here, especially concerning more rational legal immigration. Read the piece by VDH:

Here it goes from a supporter of legal immigration: how are we to make sense of the current Arizona debate? One should show concern about some elements of the law, but only in the context of the desperation of the citizens of Arizona. And one should show some skepticism concerning mounting liberal anguish, so often expressed by those whose daily lives are completely unaffected by the revolutionary demographic, cultural, and legal transformations occurring in the American Southwest. . . . Mexico is now more violent than Iraq. The unrest is spilling across the borders. The old shrill argument that criminals, drug smugglers, and violence in general are spreading into the American southwest from Mexico is not longer quite so shrill. . . .

Many minorities realize that the greatest hindrance to a natural rise in wages for entry level jobs has been the option for an employer to hire illegal aliens, who, at least in their 20s and 30s, will work harder for less pay with fewer complaints (when sick, or disabled, or elderly, the worker is directed by the employer to the social services agencies and replaced by someone younger as a new cycle of exploitation begins). In this context, the old race card is less effective. The general population is beginning to see not that Americans (of all races who oppose illegal immigration) are racist, but that the open borders movement has itself a racially chauvinistic theme to it, albeit articulated honestly only on university campuses and in Chicano-Latino departments, as a sort of “payback” for the Mexican War, where redress for “lost” land is finally to be had through demography. . . .

 (note: there is also the smaller side issue of lingering mistrust between at least one of the Indian tribes in Arizona and Mexicans enamored with the idea of "La Reconquista". The Indians still remember the history of long-ago abuses of their ancestors by invading Mexicans).

Reynolds also links posts about what the Feds might do, "self-righteous outrage and bone-deep ignorance", why prospective LEGAL immigrants from countries other than Mexico should consider going to Mexico to enter the U.S. illegally, etc.

Heard a couple of minutes of Glenn Beck on the radio yesterday, and he argued that the best thing we could do for Mexicans was to ensure that the traditional American form of government survives (well, that's my interpretation of his argument). Interesting. With all our political problems in the U.S., the government is a much bigger mess in Mexico.

There's nothing unusual, really, about police with "reasonable suspicion" asking someone for I.D. Happened to our blonde nephew last week when he pulled over to use his cell phone. Someone called the police, worried about the "suspicious" car. But there may be some problems with the new Arizona law, particularly with regard to police asking for drivers licenses from states which issue those licenses to illegal aliens. Even so, all those hysterical, bigoted, progressive "haters" out there who are calling the majority of people in Arizona "Nazis" need to remember that legal immigrants have been required by federal law to carry their identification "papers" at all times for 70 YEARS. But since the Federal Government does not enforce immigration laws very well, Arizona is struggling to find a way to enforce federal laws themselves, it seems to me. I also think there are far more glitches in the new federal health care legislation that in the new Arizona law, don't you? And Obamacare requires you to "show your papers".

Remember when Democrats fell all over themselves trying to prove that Obamacare would not cover illegal aliens? When Joe Wilson shouted "you lie" about coverage for illegal aliens, Obama and Democratic leaders assured the nation that illegal aliens would be excluded.

Under the final Senate health care bill signed into law (unlike the earlier House version), illegal aliens are screened out. Only persons who can prove they are "a citizen or national of the United States or an alien lawfully present in the United States" get to participate.

In other words, when you try to buy a policy through an exchange, or seek a subsidy, or receive any of the other supposed benefits, you will be told "show me your papers. . . . "

The intrusiveness continues for everyone after you have proven your legal status in order to get insurance.  But illegal immigrants will not be able to get insurance.  Isn't that cruel?  And they will be fined by the Feds when they pay their taxes.    So why aren't more progressive haters calling the Democratic Congress "Nazis"? Do you think it's less intrusive for a police officer to ask for identification at a traffic stop, or for the IRS to demand proof that you have federally-approved health insurance?  For the people whose values run to equality over other values (limiting kidnapping and murders, for example), the answer is clear: any request for identification which could possibly lead to "unequal treatment" based upon a person's appearance is evil. Even if there is a very good chance that it will prevents violence, suffering and societal breakdown.  The IRS will invate the privacy of  EVERYONE.

Some details about the law.   A Supreme Court Decision which may go further than the Arizona law.  

 A reasoned discussion of these issues would be more helpful than sending Al Sharpton down to Arizona to rouse the masses. Al Sharpton is a guy who has incited people to murder in the past. Maybe after the haters have blown off some steam,  we can get some serious movement to reform our stupid immigration system.  Polls are supporting the Arizona law.  But maybe I am indulging in wishful thinking.  Some thoughts on border vs. internal security, including an assessment by a federal border patrol agent.  .

Ironically, the political and cultural aversion to racial profiling which has helped lead to the lack of enforcement of immigration laws (at least with regard to ILLEGAL immigrants) has led to the dangerous situation in Arizona, which is leading to the response which some people feel is such a threat to freedom and equality. At least Arizona isn't asking for National Guard troops on the streets, as illinois lawmakers are doing with regard to violence in Chicago.

Glenn Reynolds:

Let’s start our display of compassion with those who are trying to come here legally. Instead of, you know, making them feel like suckers. Why is it that the Big Government party is so eager to make people who actually obey the law feel like suckers, anyway? Because that’s how it seems . . . .

More -- Are Democrats re-playing a May 2006 tactic?:

“This plan is one of extreme provocation, and if the right allows itself to get sucked into it all - and defined by the left and the press – then the left will have won a huge PR battle, and that is the win they want.”

She also chides the Right for failing to fix the problem when they had the chance.

By "extreme provocation", she may mean things like inducing children to batter effigies of the Arizona Governor. Reminds me of the Palestinian indoctrination of their children to hate Israelis. Direct threats of violence might also qualify as "extreme provocation", too.

All in all, I am a proponent of VDH's ideas about making legal immigration and assimilation easier, and pressuring Mexico to improve conditions for the people who are now desperate to leave.  If they can provide security for rich Americans who have second homes on the Coast, they should be able to do a little more for their own poor.  Supporting illegal immigration to America, while severely limiting immigration from Central America, relieves Mexico of the responsibility to facilitate better conditions in the poorer regions of their own country.

Gratuitous insults and a civil society

The NYT token conservative, Ross Douthat, on Comedy Central's decision to cave to death threats against South Park's creators. They were just following their tradition of mocking various religions (with one of their milder bits, on trying to portray Mohammed without picturing him):

This is what decadence looks like: a frantic coarseness that “bravely” trashes its own values and traditions, and then knuckles under swiftly to totalitarianism and brute force.

Douthat's statement puts things in perspective. The reminder about  "Cabaret" in the last link is interesting. This musical does make a distinct point about the relationship between decadence and the lack of resistance, or even attraction, to  totalitarianism.

James Taranto does not agree with the "everybody draw Mohammed" push-back to the Comedy Central decision to cave.

Our reflexive response to "Everybody Draw Mohammad Day"--which we too thought was serious, not having seen Norris's cartoon or her disclaimer--was sympathetic. But (Ann) Althouse prompted us to reconsider. Here is her objection:

Depictions of Muhammad offend millions of Muslims who are no part of the violent threats. In pushing back some people, you also hurt a lot of people who aren't doing anything. . . . I don't like the in-your-face message that we don't care about what other people hold sacred. . . .

Read the whole thing.  On  related notes,

1.  Watch Sonja Schmidt's dynamite video on Jon Stewart's gratuitously insulting depiction of black gospel music. A FABULOUS, finely constructed monologue. Worth signing up for PJTV.

2.  Taxpayer-supported NPR believes that gratuitous sexual insults are perfectly O.K. in political cartoons, as long as they are about the Tea Party Movement.

3.  Something else to think about.

4.  Support, sort of, for South Park, from The Simpsons. Tim Blair excerpts Douthat:

n a way, the muzzling of “South Park” is no more disquieting than any other example of Western institutions’ cowering before the threat of Islamist violence. . . .

But there’s still a sense in which the “South Park” case is particularly illuminating. Not because it tells us anything new about the lines that writers and entertainers suddenly aren’t allowed to cross. But because it’s a reminder that Islam is just about the only place where we draw any lines at all.

"Because people are physically scared."

The Divisive Left

James Taranto compares Barak Obama then and now:

* “Even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us–the spin masters, the negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of ‘anything goes.’ Well, I say to them tonight, there is not a liberal America and a conservative America–there is the United States of America. There is not a black America and a white America and Latino America and Asian America–there’s the United States of America.”–state senator Barack Obama, Democratic National Convention, July 27, 2004

* “In the video message to his supporters, [President] Obama said his administration’s success depends on the outcome of this fall’s elections and warned that if Republicans regain control of Congress, they could ‘undo all that we have accomplished.’ ‘This year, the stakes are higher than ever,’ he said, according to a transcript of his remarks provided by Democratic officials. ‘It will be up to each of you to make sure that young people, African Americans, Latinos and women who powered our victory in 2008 stand together once again. . . .’ “–Washington Post, April 26, 2010

Glenn Reynolds:

It’s funny — all he had to do to be a success was to live up to the kind of Presidency he promised. But he didn’t, and it appears that he couldn’t.

Shannon Love:

Every leftist today seems to honestly believe that they seek an equitable society in which all people of all persuasions live together in peace. When asked, they will proudly point out all the rhetoric they spout about inclusion and harmony. They will say that proves they bring people together.

In reality, the implicit assumptions behind leftists’ rhetoric foster suspicion, paranoia and outright hatred between Americans. Every time they open their mouths or touch a keyboard, leftists sow discord and hostility in American society and divide neighbor from neighbor. . .

For an example of this one need look no further than the President’s own rhetoric. Every time he speaks about almost any issue, he pushes the implicit view that one group of Americans is cheating or attacking another group and that only people like himself can save them.

Take for example this recent statement:

“This year, the stakes are higher than ever,” he said, according to a transcript of his remarks provided by Democratic officials. “It will be up to each of you to make sure that young people, African Americans, Latinos and women who powered our victory in 2008 stand together once again.

Obama is saying that the listed groups depend on Obama to get a fair deal in America. The “stakes” that are higher is the protection of the state against the dishonest and threatening actions of other Americans.

For women to support Obama because they are women, they must view non-women as a threat. They must mistrust men and believe they need Obama in charge of the violent power of the state so that he can protect them from the dangerous men.

For African-Americans to support Obama because they are African-Americans, they must view non-African Americans as a threat. They must believe that they cannot trust non-African Americans to the point that they need Obama in charge of the violent power of the state so that he can protect them from the dangerous non-African Americans. . .

And on down the list. Every speech on domestic policy that the President gives paints one group of Americas as evil and tells everyone else they need the government, headed by Obama, to protect them from their evil neighbors.

By sheer process of elimination, the most dangerous Americans, the ones everyone else needs Obama’s government to protect them from, must be middle to upper-middle class white people who work in business and especially those who own businesses large and small…

… which is the demographic at the heart of the Tea Party.

The apparent sincere belief by many on the left that the wide spread Tea Party members are evil, violent people springs precisely from decades of indoctrination in which leftists are progressively trained to view their fellow Americans as evil, dangerous people from whom the benevolent state must protect them. They are especially trained to view white business people as evil. When they see a collection of white, small-to-medium-sized business-owners/self-employed, they automatically see a group of evil and dangerous people. They can’t help it. This is all they’ve been taught and all they say to each other.

This is much worse than smearing people out of cynical manipulation. They really do believe that people in the Tea Party are the monsters. . .

Haters on The March.

Grecian Formula: How Public Sector Unions Broke California

Depressing.   Follow the link to the City Journal article. And Doug Ross paints a grim picture about the financial situation of Greece, with lots of charts and graphs.

Greece's story will have a series of European Vacation sequels as Italy, Portugal, Spain and other countries also tremble under the strain of crushing debt.

Earlier, VDH gave a 4-step "Grecian Formula" for decline in the post linked here. And Mark Steyn has also compared Greece and California.

VDH again, with commentary by Wretchard - bringing bankruptcy in the UK into the picture.

Are you preparing, personally, to weather the turmoil which seems inevitable, eventually? I'm starting to take these developments seriously.

What the Tea Party Movement is really about

Glenn Reynolds links two short, easy-to understand pieces. From the New Ledger:

I can’t turn around without reading something new about how the Tea Party is the 10-20 percent marginalized rump of Rush Limbaugh listeners who want to keep the government from making life better in every way. Most commenters dismiss the TP as a nuisance deserving only to be ignored. Some go a little farther. David Brooks fears the TP because, as he notes, some TPers are independents, not Republicans, and their few percentage points are enough to swing lots of elections. Noam Chomsky fears the TP because he sees in it the germ of an American Nazi party that is only waiting for its charismatic Hitler to emerge and destroy the world with military power that, unlike Germany’s in 1939, is unchallengeable.

Here’s what the TP itself really fears, in an inchoate way that for most of its members doesn’t rise to the level of clear understanding, but is still intuitively very powerful: the US is embracing central planning as a governing theory, as fast as our legislative processes will allow.

Central planning has a long record of failure, but Americans have always believed that we know how to succeed where others can’t. That leads to the hubris of people like Barack Obama, who says “YES WE CAN! . . . .

Central planning has two primary flaws, when compared with economic freedom: it misallocates resources, and it magnifies the impact of corruption. . . . .

The endpoint of central planning, if not outright failure, is a much deeper and more intractable division of society into haves and have-nots. After promising a better world for everyone, the progressives will end up creating a society that is more polarized than ever.

Keep this firmly in mind, because you’ll see it first in stories that middle-income people are somehow having more and more trouble just affording the necessities of life. This is an unstoppable treadmill leading downward. . . .

And we’re already seeing everywhere, from David Brooks to Noam Chomsky, the signs of how the elites will have to deal with the polarization: by loudly proclaiming in their captive media that the have-nots are stupid and, eventually, evil.

From Hot Air:

What is money? It’s a medium of exchange – you use it to make purchases. To the average individual, money is also a means of cooperation. It transforms the value of your labor into a very efficient form of communication. . .

What is value? It’s more than just the number on a price tag. If you look around your home, you’ll find many objects with value that far exceeds their price: treasured heirlooms, gifts from your children, mass-produced artwork that you happen to like. Value is subjective… which means, in essence, it’s a function of choice. . . .

What is power? It is the ability to impose your will upon others. Power requires compulsion, which can range from a mild set of incentives through absolute domination. Your best friends might be willing to honor almost any of your requests, but you don’t really have power over them. . . .

In a constitutional republic, our elected government is meant to be the exclusive concentration of legitimate power. By definition, the amount of power exercised by the government increases as it grows larger. Power is compulsion – fines, subsidies, regulations, and imprisonment. More power means less freedom. Reduced freedom means less value. As money is drained away from free citizens, their ability to cooperate voluntarily is reduced… and only voluntary cooperation produces genuine value.

This is the dreadful equation of socialism. Money can be used to create value, or it can fuel the exercise of power, but not both. You can see this happening around you, right now. It has happened everywhere in the world, every time central planning has been tried. It would happen even if politicians were the selfless, compassionate, disciplined civil servants they claim to be. . . .

I believe that the ideas in these two pieces are very important. Please consider them as they relate to current political developments.

Who should maintain civic order?

Detroit may be the most dangerous city in America, but Illinois lawmakers are asking for the National Guard to come into Chicago.  Meanwhile, Arizona has passed a state law in the wake of violence on the border, to control illegal immigration - which should be a federal responsibility.  Wretchard reviews the situation.  

In Chicago:

It is almost as if, despite decades of ‘community organizing’ efforts, the communities themselves had dissolved under the impact of various political, social and economic influences.

In Arizona:

The question of when Federal government intervention is warranted or not recently hit the headlines this week when another community leader, the Reverend Al Sharpton, argued that Arizona had no right restrict the influx of illegal aliens into their state. Whereas in Chicago the enlightened argument is to let local government lead, in Arizona the call is for federal action, soon to take the form of Immigration Reform.

New York activists, including the Rev. Al Sharpton, compared Arizona’s new immigration law to apartheid, Nazi Germany and the Jim Crow South – and vowed to shut it down with mass protests.

“We will bring Freedom Walkers to Arizona just like Freedom Riders went to the deep south 50 years ago,” Sharpton said yesterday.

Almost no argument is too absurd to make in these circumstances. . . .

Read the whole thing. And think about this: "How's that gun control working out for you?"

Is it possible to avoid Crony Capitalism in the U.S.?

Further to the WSJ article on Crony Capitalism by a former Fed official, Wretchard notes:

The fundamental problem with any government attempt to the fix financial industry is how to stabilize it without getting involved in it.

"For political reasons (the financial system) has no real freedom to fail. That’s why the real cost of managing the financial sector’s problem is astronomical. . . "

Greece is a frightening, current example of what could happen both in our own federal government and in California:

Once a financial crisis is in full swing all thoughts turn to preventing a collapse.

But during the lulls the last word anybody wants to hear is “no”. Everybody is addicted to business as usual. Neither Wall Street, nor the Federal Government, nor California want to be put on short leash. Ask the public service unions. The Greek debt crisis (Greece being one place where public service unions are particularly strong) showed how difficult it was to put a stop to profligacy. Demonstrators took to the streets to demand an end to the crisis, by which they meant ‘pay us our salaries’. The Economist writes that the EU and the IMF must bail out Greece even though Athens shows no sign of stopping its wayward ways. Otherwise another weak Eurozone country may be the next domino to go over. Yet that “will provide only temporary relief”. But it must be done to keep the system from crashing. Like an addict who must get what he needs the entire universe collapses to the horizon of the next fix.

Baseline Scenario writes that more taxpayer money must be infused now or things will really start to fall apart. The Greek crisis, which was never supposed to get this far, must not be allowed to go further. The catch is that the solution is guaranteed to make things go not just further, but all the way. . . .

Although the “Wall Street versus Main Street” meme may be a good administration sound bite to push financial “reform”, the idea that governments will rein in irresponsible traders is about as plausible as leaving two drunks in a warehouse full of whiskey to watch over each other. Governments are the among the most profligate borrowers of all. . . .

Read the whole thing. Sobering, along with the real-life stories about our current dire politico/economic situation. This seems like a good time for stepping back and focusing on production, developing trust and debt reduction rather than on consumption and dependence, starting at the personal level.

Liars: Why Government Regulation Fails

The recent outrageous dereliction of duty by the SEC, and the transparent effort to hide the worst failures from the public, is entirely predictable where government has a great deal of power over business. Over-regulation, particularly regulation intended to favor some businesses over others, predictably leads both government officials and business people to commit fraud. And more regulation also tends to favor big businesses over small ones, unless the small ones have direct political connections.

An important piece in the Wall Street Journal: An Economy of Liars

When government and business collude,

it's called crony capitalism.

Expect more of this from the financial reforms

contemplated in Washington.

Free markets depend on truth telling. Prices must reflect the valuations of consumers; interest rates must be reliable guides to entrepreneurs allocating capital across time; and a firm's accounts must reflect the true value of the business. Rather than truth telling, we are becoming an economy of liars. The cause is straightforward: crony capitalism. . . .

Public choice theory has identified the root causes of regulatory failure as the capture of regulators by the industry being regulated. Regulatory agencies begin to identify with the interests of the regulated rather than the public they are charged to protect. In a paper for the Federal Reserve's Jackson Hole Conference in 2008, economist Willem Buiter described "cognitive capture," by which regulators become incapable of thinking in terms other than that of the industry. On April 5 of this year, The Wall Street Journal chronicled the revolving door between industry and regulator in "Staffer One Day, Opponent the Next."

Congressional committees overseeing industries succumb to the allure of campaign contributions, the solicitations of industry lobbyists, and the siren song of experts whose livelihood is beholden to the industry. The interests of industry and government become intertwined and it is regulation that binds those interests together. Business succeeds by getting along with politicians and regulators. And vice-versa through the revolving door.

We call that system not the free-market, but crony capitalism. It owes more to Benito Mussolini than to Adam Smith. . .

Deregulation is not some kind of libertarian mantra but an absolute necessity if we are to exit crony capitalism.

Read the whole thing. See if he can convince you.

SEC: The Country's in the Very Best of Hands

Unlike many others, Professor Bainbridge doesn't think that President Obama's plans to massively increase government control over the financial industry are the reason for the exact timing of the Goldman Sachs investigation by the SEC.  Rather, the timing is intended to cover up continued bungling and corruption within the SEC itself.  From the Wall Street Journal:

Last Friday, the same day that the government unexpectedly announced its Goldman lawsuit, the SEC's inspector general released his exhaustive, 151-page report on the agency's failure to investigate alleged fraudster R. Allen Stanford. Mr. Stanford was indicted last June for operating a Ponzi scheme that bilked investors out of $8 billion. He has pleaded not guilty.

Guess which of these two stories was pushed to the back pages? The SEC did its part by publishing the Stanford report so deep in its Web site that more than a few of our readers had trouble finding it. Yesterday, the SEC management's response to the report was available on the agency's homepage, yet it provided no links to the report itself.

Little wonder. . . .

Follow the links for details. It seems odd to me that people who fear the power of Big Business are often so eager to turn even more power over to Big Government.

Detroit, one of the most dangerous cities on the planet

Another failure of progressivism.  And destructive, stunning arrogance brought about by illusions of invulnerability.    Read the whole thing,  watch the video.  Heartbreaking.

It wasn't always like this.   Even Motown Records has gone from signing young Smokey Robinson on his way up to signing young Lindsay Lohan on her way down.

A straight-A student at school, she excels at math and science. She also enjoys gymnastics, swimming, ice skating, roller blading, singing, biking, reading, writing, and playing with her siblings. . .


Was ranked #18 on The 20 Top-Earning Young Superstars list by Forbes magazine (2007). . .


TMZ reported on April 2, 2010 that actress Lindsay Lohan is currently broke and unable to pay her bills. It is alleged that she has recently been unable to make her rent payment on time as well. Her rent payment—according to TMZ—was behind by two months.

Seems kind of symbolic, in a way. Again, the disintegration of her personal life is heartbreaking to those who remember her as a bright, young rising star.

Hospice America

Blogger Doctor Zero with an astute observation:

Sadly, the America of new frontiers and bright mornings was long ago. Today we live in Hospice America, where caretakers with first-class temperaments and sharply creased trousers make us comfortable in the face of inevitable decline… and forward the bills for our end-of-greatness care to our children, who will go bankrupt paying them. . . .

Democrats may lie incessantly about the solvency of massive entitlements like Social Security, Medicare, and ObamaCare, but you can rest assured they’re privy to the real numbers. Their long-term plans involve assuming control over an exhausted population, which will trade the energy and risk of prosperous capitalism for evenly-distributed mediocrity. Top Party officials, and their well-heeled admirers from Hollywood to Goldman-Sachs, will retain lavish lifestyles and platinum benefits… while sternly lecturing the little people about their moral responsibility to accept the end of the American century, and lie quietly in their socially just, environmentally sustainable deathbeds. . . .

Sort of like when the President tells us that we're not going to be able to eat what we want anymore, then imports $100 per pound beef for White House dinners and flies a pizza chef in, with suitcases full of pizza dough, for a staff meeting.

Michael Barone on the current clash between the culture of dependency and the culture of independence:

"Do you realize," CNN's Susan Roesgen asked a man at the April 15, 2009, tea party in Chicago, "that you're eligible for a $400 credit?" When the man refused to drop his "drop socialism" sign, she went on, "Did you know that the state of Lincoln gets fifty billion out of the stimulus?"

Roesgen is no longer with CNN, and CNN has only about half as many viewers as it did last year. But her questions are revealing. They help us understand that the issue on which our politics has become centered -- the Obama Democrats' vast expansion of the size and scope of government -- is really not just about economics. It is really a battle about culture, a battle between the culture of dependence and the culture of independence.

Probably unknowingly, Roesgen was reflecting the the midcentury sociologist Paul Lazarsfeld's dictum that politics is about who gets how much when. If some guy is getting $400, shouldn't he just shut up and collect the money? Shouldn't he be happy that his state government, headed recently by Rod Blagojevich, was getting an extra $50 billion?

Unfortunately, Lazarsfeld has been largely correct for several decades about Americans voting for their immediate economic self-interests.  Both Democrats and Republicans have fought to win "earmarks" to benefit their particular constituencies.  But the idea that morality (and politics) should be seen primarily  in economic terms is so pervasive among the highly educated on the Left that it is sometimes hard for them to imagine that people might have political concerns beyond their immediate financial interests.   President Obama recently mocked Tea Party participants for failing to thank him for pushing taxes to pay for his monumental spending programs into the future.  He got a big response from his progressive audience.  Barone again:

But public policy also helps determine the kind of society we are. The Obama Democrats see a society in which ordinary people cannot fend for themselves, where they need to have their incomes supplemented, their health care insurance regulated and guaranteed, their relationships with their employers governed by union leaders. Highly educated mandarins can make better decisions for them than they can make themselves.

That is the culture of dependence. The tea partiers see things differently. . . .

And, invoking the language of the Founding Fathers, they believe that this will destroy the culture of independence that has enabled Americans over the past two centuries to make this the most productive and prosperous -- and the most charitably generous -- nation in the world. Seeing our political divisions as a battle between the culture of dependence and the culture of independence helps to make sense of the divisions seen in the 2008 election. . . .

Interestingly, in the Massachusetts special Senate election the purported beneficiaries of the culture of dependence -- low-income and low-education voters -- did not turn out in large numbers. In contrast, the administrators of that culture -- affluent secular professionals, public employees, university personnel -- were the one group that turned out in force and voted for the hapless Democratic candidate. The in-between people on the income and education ladders, it turns out, are a constituency for the culture of independence. . .

As Roesgen discovered, tea party supporters are not in the mood to be bought off with $400 tax credits.

They have a longer time horizon and can see where the Obama Democrats are trying to take us. . .

Follow the links.

How Barak Obama Invented Himself

Despite the fact that he had written two autobiographical books, most Americans really didn't know much about Barak Obama when he was elected President.   Most of the mainstream media seemed to play a cheerleading role more than an investigative role concerning Obama's candidacy.

 Here's an interview with the author of a new, somewhat hagiographic biography. There's a lot of information in the interview about how Obama invented a black identity for himself. Early on, he apparently presented himself as the head of a "Joshua generation", with the promise of leading blacks into the promised land.

Consider this interview (and perhaps the book) along with the following articles by another man with a white mother and a black father, just like the President.  Although he addresses Obama's relationships with blacks elsewhere, these articles focus on the President's relationship to whites:

Obama and our post-modern race problem:

The president always knew that his greatest appeal was not as a leader but as a cultural symbol.

Barak the Good:

Well, suppose you were the first black president of the United States and, therefore, also the first black head-of-state in the entire history of Western Civilization. You represent a human first, something entirely new under the sun. There aren't even any myths that speak directly to your circumstance, no allegorical tales of ancient black kings who ruled over white kingdoms.

If anything, you may literally experience yourself as a myth in the making. . . .

Does this special burden explain Barack Obama's embrace of scale as vision (if I don't know what to do, I'll do big things)? I think it does to a degree. It means, for example, that a caretaker presidency is not an option for him. . . .

Of the two great societal goals — freedom and "the good" — freedom requires a conservatism, a discipline of principles over the good, limited government, and so on. No way to grandiosity here. But today's liberalism is focused on "the good" more than on freedom. And ideas of "the good" are often a license to transgress democratic principles in order to reach social justice or to achieve more equality or to lessen suffering. The great political advantage of modern liberalism is its offer of license on the one hand and moral innocence — if not superiority — on the other. Liberalism lets you force people to buy health insurance and feel morally superior as you do it. Power and innocence at the same time.

This is an old formula for power, last used effectively on the presidential level by Lyndon Johnson. But Johnson's Great Society was grasping for moral authority after the civil rights movement. I doubt any white president could use it effectively today, and even ObamaCare passed by only a three vote margin in the House and with no Republican support at all. Worse, in the end, it passed not to bring the nation better health care but to pull a flailing Democratic presidency back from the brink. . . .

Mr. Obama's success has always been ephemeral because it was based on an illusion: that if we Americans could transcend race enough to elect a black president, we could transcend all manner of human banalities and be on our way to human perfectibility. A black president would put us in a higher human territory. And yet the poor man we elected to play out this fantasy is now torturing us with his need to reflect our grandiosity back to us. . . .

Of course, these views can't tell the whole story of Mr. Obama's rise to power, but the information at the links starts to add some pieces to a puzzle - how and why did he rise so fast, and then fall in popularity so fast?

UPDATE: From 2009, a former Democratic aide to Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, Brent Budowsky: Why is everyone saying "No" to President Obama?

Last Friday the president was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for doing nothing. Don’t blame the president. He did not ask for it, and had the grace to say he did not deserve it.

The Nobel Prize gets to the heart of the matter of the Obama presidency. The prize was not awarded to President Obama, but to the idea of Obama. . . .

The president has described himself as a Rorschach in which others with divergent views project their views onto him. This is brilliant politics in a campaign but a disastrous approach to governing. Opponents become energized, supporters become depressed, power centers become disrespectful, and the president who tries to be many things to many people influences very few to do anything of substance for change. . . .

Shelby Steele was not correct in predicting that trying to be too many things to too many people would prevent Obama's election. But maybe he was right about the eventual ability of Obama to "win" on policy issues.

It seems to me that Mr. Budowsky, as late as October of 2009, still viewed the President as trying to be "too many things to too many people" on the domestic front. Fascinating how different his perspective was from mine. I noticed that the President immediately started playing to his progressive base after his election while treating Americans who disagreed with him as insignificant (dismissing Republicans in Congress with, "I won" during his first meeting with them, for example,) or as enemies. Unfortunately for him, his base was not as large as he might have thought it was. His sudden reversal of the promise to be a "healer" alienated many. His policy proposals have sometimes reflected what may have seemed to him to be political realities, at odds with his statements, twitter and blog communications with his liberal base, and Mr. Budowsky's article reflects disappointment from that camp. But by then, the President had just about stopped two-way communication with the "other side".

His tendency to defer actual work on policy to his staff and the Democratic Congress followed the pattern he had shown when he headed up the Harvard Law Review, where people who did the actual work recalled him as sort of a figurehead leader there, too - showing up to say a few inspiring words and to talk with people from time to time while others shouldered the burden of putting the publication together.

Our last election was one in which America would probably have done better if there were a ceremonial leader of America (sort of the equivalent of the Queen of England) in which role Obama would have been a natural, along with a working President.

It seems to me that the President was exceptionally good at image-making. He did not seem to understand the "governing" bit too well, though. Virginia Postrel on Obama's "glamour problem":

reason: You’ve called glamour a beautiful illusion. A lot of people would say that describes President Obama.

Postrel: Yes, President Obama is a very glamorous figure. Glamour is a particular form of illusion. It’s an illusion that tells a truth about the audience’s desires, and it requires mystery and distance. During the campaign people projected onto Barack Obama whatever they wanted in a president or even in a country. Lying is usually a bad thing, but they would project onto him that he was lying about his positions because he secretly agreed with them: “Anyone that smart has got to be a free trader at heart. He’s just saying this to pander to those idiots. He can’t really mean it.”

You’ve seen, as he’s taken office and tried to govern, this back and forth where he is consciously or unconsciously trying to maintain his glamour—which requires a kind of distance from the political process so that people can continue to see him as representing them, regardless of their contradictory views—while actually trying to be president, which means you have to decide what to do about Guantanamo. You have to decide what health care bill you’re going to back. You have to decide all these things, and you’re going to make somebody disillusioned. This morning I saw that the former editor of Harper’s is about to write a book, The Mendacity of Hope, attacking Obama from the left. That’s the power and the downside of glamour. . .

Words as Weapons

Yesterday, I posted about leftist agents provocateurs who had planned to infiltrate and discredit the Tea Party Movement. One who got a lot of attention was a middle school teacher named Jason Levin. Before that, I posted on the Democrats' fake hate crimes (also intended to discredit the Tea Party Movement). Today, James Taranto connects the efforts of Mr. Levin and the use of Words as Weapons:

Yesterday we examined the latest evidence and concluded that there is still no corroboration for three black congressmen's claims that tea-party protesters yelled racial slurs on March 20, the eve of ObamaCare's enactment. Today we'd like to step back and ponder the meaning of this alleged event.

Why are racial slurs such a taboo? . . . .

If racial slurs are weapons, in a political context such as this they are weapons only of self-destruction.

Opponents of the tea-party movement are well aware of this, as evidenced by this AP report from Valerie Bauman:

Opponents of the fiscally conservative tea party movement say they plan to infiltrate and dismantle the political group by trying to make its members appear to be racist, homophobic and moronic. 

Jason Levin, creator of http://www.crashtheteaparty.org, said Monday the group has 65 leaders in major cities across the country who are trying to recruit members to infiltrate tea party events for April 15--tax filing day, when tea party groups across the country are planning to gather and protest high taxes. . . .
Levin says they want to exaggerate the group's least appealing qualities, further distance the tea party from mainstream America and damage the public's opinion of them. 

"Do I think every member of the tea party is a homophobe, racist or a moron? No, absolutely not," Levin said. "Do I think most of them are homophobes, racists or morons? Absolutely."

Levin's claim is self-refuting. If "most of them" were "homophobes, racists or morons," there would be no need for exaggeration. Levin is engaged in wishful thinking--and what a creepy thing he wishes for.

Many in this crowd seem to be so focused on the compassionate intentions of their own ideology that they believe that people who don't agree with them MUST be either evil or stupid. They have never been challenged during their education to seriously consider conservative or libertarian ideas.  The are not exposed much to conservative ideas, especially, in a straightforward manner through the media.    This allows many of them to become provincial, narrow-minded bigots who promote vicious stereotypes about people they don't even know.  Conservatives have the advantage in understanding their liberal fellow-citizens because liberal ideas are so ubiquitous in the popular culture.

Read the whole essay by Taranto, plus the item after it, concerning the New York Times' difficulties understanding the Tea Party Movement.  Plus this by Glenn Reynolds:  

Yesterday, noting new survey data on Tea Partiers, I commented: “Old spin — they were dumb ignorant hillbillies. Predicted new spin: Just a bunch of overeducated fatcats!”

And, right on cue from Dana Milbank: At the ramparts with an elite brand of populism. . . .

Here's someone who took Jason Levin's advice on trying to make Tea Partiers look like morons: A lawyer named Justin Lewis. Given the ridiculousness of his sign, he doesn't seem like a very effective "hater", but I left this comment:

Imagine what would happen if a conservative lawyer, an Officer of the Court, pretended to believe that the moon landing was faked in order to make Democrats he knew nothing about look stupid.

Maybe he can become a Poster Boy for reducing the enormous influence of Big Law on the Democratic Party and vice versa. Current American tort law is a massive drain on the economy and on the vitality of the nation.

In a way, though, I kind of feel sorry for him. He was probably surprised to find that no one else showed up to ridicule the "morons" with him. And they reacted with good humor rather than violence. He looks a little sheepish in the photo.

Update:  From the comments - one of Mr. Lewis' areas of legal practice is False Advertising.  Getting a little real-world experience, I guess.  Heh.

The Morning After

The big Tax Day Teaparty is over. Tea Partiers were egged in Boston by some of the "violent radicals" among the progressive mevement. Spurred on, no doubt, by the bigoted language of politicians on the Left.

Some thought from newpaper columnist James Lileks, No Taxation without Satirization:

A Rasmussen poll says 66% believe we’re overtaxed. Hmm: 47 percent don’t pay federal income tax. So 19% feel overtaxed? This either means they think they’re getting totally jobbed when it comes to taxes on cigarettes or lottery lump-sum payouts, or they have a great fellow-feeling for the taxpayers who do shovel the shekels to Uncle Sugar, and believe those guys need a breather. If nothing else, it suggests there’s a general mood afoot that believes the government hoovers up too much, and not because it has so many obligations. It raises taxes for the same reason they say a dog, er, does that thing it does: because it can.

But at least a dog comes when it’s called. Add high taxes and feeling that government just might put its own needs ahead of yours, and you have discontent. Add the sense of overtaxation with the realization that we still have to go cap-in-hand to China to borrow the occasional trillion, you get something: an entirely new opportunity for the Republicans to squander.

Read the whole thing.

Roger Kimball with some thoughts on Hayek and others who saw situations similar to ours today:

President Obama would be proud of me: this morning, it being the 15th of April, I got out my check book, searched the innermost recesses of my savings accounts and lines of credit, and with a few strokes of the pen helped to “spread the wealth around ” . . . .

“But,” you point out, “taxes haven’t really risen yet.”

Precisely. And yet even so here’s an ordinary slob like me feeling like Boxer in Animal Farm. What happens when the taxer-in-chief really gets going?

It was at this point in my musings that I thought about the 19th-century English essayist William Hazlitt: “those who lack delicacy,” he pointed out, “hold us in their power.” Early on in the Obama administration, Governor Mitch Daniels spoke about Obama’s “shock and awe statism.” . . . we now see just how much in earnest Obama was when, a few days before the election, he told his followers that they were on the threshold of “fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”

The point is that Obama and his coterie have moved with dazzling speed on every conceivable front to transform the country. And he’s only, remember, 15 months into it. The rest of us stand about dazed and confused, exclaiming (as our two-year-old daughter is wont to do): “What just happened? ” Read on for two important observations by Hayek about how government is now affecting you life - psychologically as well as financially. Compare with the typical progressive theories about economics and power.

And think about what is happening in Greece.

Partying through Tax Day

I didn't do much partying on Tax Day. But a lot of people did. Instapundit reports from Cincinnati here, here and here. Transparency.

Sissy Willis went to Boston before Tax Day, to meet the Tea Party Express, I think. There were a few people there.

Other parties:
Atlantic Ocean

President Obama mocked the protesters. Classy. Some members of Congress are taking them more seriously. An effort here by government officials to decrease their effectiveness.

At a Crossroads: Taking the movement past Party Time. One reason radicals have become so dominant in our political and professional organizations is that they make their activism the reason for their lives. Ordinary people like those in the Tea Party already have full lives, and are only likely to become involved when they feel threatened. This is one of the drawbacks of a free society which must be recognized in order to prevent radicals from taking control.

Tea Party Infiltrator fails to understand the internet

This is a little story about grand political schemes in the Age of the Internet, and how those schemes were thwarted with the help of the internet, mostly by using humor and competition. One man took his political animus too far and is in a rather precarious situation at work now. But he seems the exception to the rule.

A Beaverton, Oregon middle school teacher, Jason Levin, who works in the media lab, faces an ethics investigation after starting a web site called "Crash the Tea Party" that he said was aimed at encouraging people to pose as Tea Party protestors while acting in outlandish ways in hopes of discrediting the movement. He attracted some 2000 members to his group.  He seems to openly favor socialism.

Parents in the school district seem to have picked up on this from the internet (perhaps clued in by news stories about him), and some seem not to be too happy with this despicable plan. Mr. Levin and his progressive non-judgmental, totally unprejudiced anti-tea party friends are just desperate to incite prejudice against their political adversaries. "For the children", probably. Though which children is unclear, as the policies they favor are so unfair to future generations. From the comments, he seems to be a popular, "cool" teacher who once "flipped off" a class.

But if he would do something as  devious as advocating the  impersonation of a political opponent in order to destroy the reputations of people he doesn't even know, what might he do to a child, parent, or colleague who does something he doesn't like? One commenter said that he advocated on his website obtaining personal information from Tea Party participants in order to create "mayhem" for Tea Party participants. If true, the man is dangerous and should not be teaching.

Today, Tax Day, was supposed to be the big day when Tea Party crashers did their best to make Tea Party participants look like dangerous, violent racists. Tea Party participants were advised to keep their cameras and video equipment ready to record the actions of the agents provocateurs, some of whom seemed to try to hide their identities as a result, on the Big Day. Bet this had a "chilling effect" on some of these jerks, too. And most of the bigoted (or desperate), leftist infiltrators who showed up found that their messages were quickly neutralized. Follow the links.

Guess the big subversive plan didn't work out too well.

But all hope is not lost. They still have until July 4 to become … something.

For now, though, Epic Fail. From the comments:

We had one guy crash our Party yesterday. 5000 Patriots waving flags and having a great time, and one guy shows up with a “Hope” poster and “keep hope alive” slogan. We pitied him, gave him a sammich, welcomed him and enjoyed his company. I think he enjoyed our company, too.

Mission Accomplished.

Key West Reader

Even More on the Democrats' Fake Hate Crimes

After the Health Care Bill passed, Democrats immediately tried to divert attention to the Tea Party movement. With a lot of help from the Mainstream Media (Iowahawk really scored this time). Mark Steyn and others explained the significance of what happened on March 20 with the "walk" by the Congressional Black Caucus. Why are Democrats so firmly stuck in the past? Also back in March, VDH put the Democrats' "bottled piety" in perspective:

Like it or not, between 2001 and 2008, the “progressive” community redefined what is acceptable and not acceptable in political and public discourse about their elected officials. Slurs like “Nazi” and “fascist” and “I hate” were no longer the old street-theater derangement of the 1960s, but were elevated to high-society novels, films, political journalism, and vein-bulging outbursts of our elites. If one were to take the word "Bush" and replace it with "Obama" in the work of a Nicholson Baker, or director Gabriel Range, or Garrison Keillor or Jonathan Chait, or in the rhetoic of a Gore or Moore, we would be presently in a national crisis, witnessing summits on the epidemic of "hate speech."

So here we are with the age-old problem that once one destroys decorum for the sake of short-term expediency, it is very hard to restore it in any credible fashion on grounds of principle when the proverbial shoe is on the other foot.

Below is an ongoing update on the transparent attempts by Democrats to vilify the Tea Party Movement.

Don't Leave It to Cleaver
Part 2: Starting to back off claims
Part 3: The Breitbart challenge
Part 4: Video debunks claims
Part 5 The Washington Post's contribution to the brouhaha.
Part 6: The AP reports on the controversy, gets facts wrong.
Part 7: A citizen challenges WaPo's ombudsman.

Changes in Media Stereotypes of Tea Party Protesters

Some time around the beginning of April, the descriptions of Tea Party protesters began to change. Maybe the push-back from Breitbart, et. al, had some effect. Maybe the polls had some effect, or the presence of Democrats among the protesters. In any case,

There was a time, oh, a week or two ago, when the mainstream media portrayed the tea-party movement as an assortment of crazed angry extremist redneck racist idiots. What changed?

The headline we've given this column is a phrase coined by the conservative writer Tom Bethell to refer to the media's attitude toward conservatives who veer leftward. What we're about to describe is a bit different: more an epiphany on the media's part than a change in the object of coverage. It seems unlikely that the tea-partiers have suddenly become mainstream.

Yet that's what you'd think from reading some of the recent coverage. The Christian Science Monitor, which a month ago baselessly labeled Pentagon shooter John Patrick Bedell a "right-wing extremist," begins a Saturday story by rehearsing the stereotypes but then cautions that "political experts say that many such criticisms are near-sighted, if not outright inappropriate--and ultimately may miss the point": . . .

Something different is happening out there.

Update: From Punchline to Powerhouse

The End of Trust, the End of an Economy?

I heard an interview of Victor Davis Hanson by Ray Appleton today on KMJ. Evidently, he has a book manuscript now undergoing editing (by the publishers of the Harry Potter series) about ancient precedents for many of today's political developments, even those we consider to be innovative.   Should be good.

They spoke about the europeanization of the United States and its implications for the psychological health of Americans and the financial health and future of the entire world.  They also discussed some similarities between Greece and California.  The governments of both Greece and California face severe  financial difficulties caused by over-spending.  And the natural blessings (and blessings left by past generations)  in both Greece and California allow unrealistic spending to continue longer than in less-beautiful climates and less-blessed regions.

Taxes are so high in Europe that ordinary citizens are becoming as adept at tax evasion as, say, the typical nominee for President Obama's cabinet.  People don't seem to think about the long-term consequences of their actions, because "the government" will take care of everything.  They think  (something also pointed out by Mark Steyn).

Victor Davis Hanson spoke so plainly and clearly. Everything he said made sense. I wish everyone I know could have heard it.  However, he has written a short piece which I can recommend, which covers some of the same topics.  And Wretchard has written a wonderful commentary on a second piece by VDH in which VDH reports his observations while riding a bicycle around rural California, not far from us, and compares what he saw to what he sees and hears in more prosperous parts of the state.  These pieces cover topics which involve us very personally, as people who live in the most economically-depressed part of California and who are participants in the state pension system.

The first piece which increased my understanding of the world is called  "The End of Trust".   It starts out with the financial debacle in Greece as it relates to the sudden disclosure that the books were cooked concerning public pensions in California. Shortfalls come to about half a trillion dollars.   He also discusses other manifestations of the end of trust in financial dealings. 

The world is getting a little edgy when very few investors are willing to buy Greek bonds — given what they know about Greek politics and productivity. . . .

California, take note. Some Stanford economists and analysts just refigured the cooked books at the various California public pensions and found a $500 billion shortfall. The state is already broke. Its taxes are the highest in the nation, the flight of its wealthy per week unsustainable — and its teachers apparently (please explain this?) furious that their salaries are the highest in the country and their students among the worst. So we either float more bonds, or ask retirees to take a cut or freeze. The latter is not even being discussed. . . .

From what the administration announces almost daily, from the radio ads blaring now in the popular culture, and from congressional promising, I think I get the new narrative. “Trust” is an archaic construct established by capitalists to ensnare the more noble poor. When you buy that blue-ray DVD player or plasma TV (saw lots of that today at Best Buy in Fresno), in lieu of a catastrophic insurance plan, and add to it a night out at the Macaroni Grill and the multiplex, it is not all that certain you will have to pay all of that charge back. As you go from one maxed-up credit card to another, there will be a new company waiting to renegotiate your debt, and a demagogic congress person to explain why you were snookered into doing what you did.

“Walking away” is suddenly not defaulting, but a smart move when the house you were betting would go up went down in value. Note that we didn’t have any law suits five years ago against new “greedy” homeowners who woke up each year with thousands of dollars in “equity” that magically appeared out of nowhere. No one wished then to sue the speculative homeowner that banked rightly on his investment; instead, on the way down is where we get the human interest stories about greed — and the need to violate the trust of an obligation. It is all sort of analogous to the Old West stereotyped saloon scene, in which the confident would-be card player struts up to the card game, starts losing, and then overturns the table, guns blazing.

There are dangers to all this.

He then recounts prior similar events in classical history. Read the whole thing.

Wretchard's brilliant commentary:

Two articles, one by Christopher Booker describing the impending bankruptcy of the UK and another by Victor Davis Hanson describing the catatonic walk over the financial edge by California are united by a single theme: the power of denial.

You will learn a lot if you read both of the links above before you read Wretchard's "I want my MTV".

VDH in California: "Are We Parasites?"


Christopher Booker in the UK: "Don't let the voters know we face bankruptcy"


Wretchard in Australia:

Until recently the difference between the First and Third Worlds was that the Western future was real. The Western tomorrow was a definite quantity; loans would mature at a certain date, elections would be held at scheduled times and the pension check would arrive in the mail every 15th and 30th of the month. By contrast the Third World timescale had only the present. Tomorrow was ink on a calendar. Only things you could touch, take or use now were real. Checks in the future were as unreal as rocket ships and rayguns.

What a whole generation of Western political leaders have done is abolish the future. Comprehensively and perhaps irretrievably. And since that hasn’t happened in two generations, very few can even come to terms with it. Victor Davis Hanson describes the bewilderment of Californians who find that, for the first time in living memory, tomorrow isn’t coming. It’s so absurd people treat the fact with disbelief. People continue to act rich even though they’re poor. They live as if that check will arrive tomorrow even though no one can give a reason why it should. . . . 

Were you brave enough to read these articles?  Worried yet? Any ideas how to protect our future?

What did they find in the Health Care Bill NOW?

The Health Care Bill passed by Congress may have accidentally stripped them of health care coverage.

Just to review, Nancy Pelosi said we would be excited when we started finding out what is in the bill. It will be good for part-time artists. Not to mention violent sex offenders who want Viagra and child abusers on Indian reservations.

Even though they tried to divert attention from the bill to its opponents, we soon started to find things out about the bill. (If Nancy Pelosi REALLY thought that the Tea Party protesters were so violent, why did she lead a group of legislators through the protest, wearing that Cheshire cat grin of hers and carrying a giant, cartoon-sized gavel, after the vote?).

We found out, for example, that senior Democratic staffers who helped write the bill were exempted from its restrictions. Legislators who made sleazy deals in return for their votes, like Ben Nelson, were kicked under the bus. I'm not sure if the special deals for rich people in Nevada, not to mention union members who are paid more than their non-union counterparts, are still in there. All in all, approval of this bill was an ugly, messy, corrupt, haphazard process.

Members of Congress were surprised when corporations took massive charges against earnings, decreasing their ability to hire more employees during this recession. Henry Waxman declared war on those who had followed accounting rules for which he voted. Glenn Reynolds explains that this is not because Rep. Waxman is stupid.

Waxman and his colleagues in Congress can't possibly understand the health care market well enough to fix it. But what's more striking is that Waxman's outraged reaction revealed that they don't even understand their own area of responsibility - regulation -- well enough to predict the effect of changes in legislation.

If Congress were able to understand what was in the bill, would they have used language which might deny them health care coverage?

Update:  From a smaller, less complex country where government health care is firmly, solidly established, a grand idea for politicians.  Read through the entire post for an exciting political decision to waive health and safety regulations for health care workers belonging to a certain minority. Not that conditions are much better without those exceptions to sanitary procedures.

Imagine what politicizing health care would be like in the vastly larger USA:

The politics of deciding who gets what in the way of medical treatment doubtlessly will push aside traditional affairs of state. Every member of Congress will need to hire several staff members just to manage constituents' complaints about their care. Elections will be won and lost on the basis of who can get the most in the way of health care for their districts.

We will become the Gulliver of nations, a great power whose leaders are tied up in strings as they spend much of their time addressing the medical complaints, valid and imagined, of their electorate.

There's something to be said for allowing the individual states to become "laboratories" for the best health care policies.  The USA is so big and complex.  Socialized medicine would fall into a miserable condition in the USA faster than it has done in Europe, due to the size and complexity of our nation.  British hospitals were not ALWAYS compared to those in the third world.

UPDATE II:  Waxman has cancelled his show trials, apparently.

UPDATE III: Where were all the reporters before the health care bill passed? Oh, and incidentally, the promises that insurance premiums would be lower and that less-healthy citizens would pay less may not be true.

Projection

Remember this ad from the Presidential Primaries? Like someone says in the comments, "we're all Hillary now."

We've surely got trouble!
Right here in River City,
Right here!

Not sure he's doing real well at keeping the magic alive.

Meanwhile, the former ominous threat to freedom of thought (in the imagination of Obama promoters) is reduced to making weak warnings of possible dangers ahead while the President does all the high-minded, idealistic statements about reducing nuclear weapons.

If America becomes European, what will Europe do?

Some people, watching President Obama's actions toward the leaders of Western European nations, believe that the President has written Europe off as "the past", even as his policies bring us closer to the European model. Others are not sure why the President snubs our allies.

Jonah Goldberg thinks Europe would be in deep trouble if America europeanized.  

From what I can tell, everyone agrees that you can’t have Europeanization without European-size governments. . . .

To be fair, liberals insist conservatives are wrong to think that Europeanizing America will necessarily come at any significant cost. New York Times columnist and Princeton economist Paul Krugman says that, in exchange for only a tiny bit less growth, Europeans buy a whole lot of security and comfort. Economists such as Stanford’s Michael Boskin say Europeans have a standard of living about 30 percent lower than ours and are stagnating. Others note that the structural unemployment rate in Europe, particularly for young people (it’s over 20 percent in many countries), is socially devastating.

Obviously, I’m in the conservative camp. But I think the debate misses something. We can’t become Europe unless someone else is willing to become America

Look at it this way. My seven-year-old daughter has a great lifestyle. She has all of her clothes and food bought for her. She goes on great vacations. She has plenty of leisure time. A day doesn’t go by where I don’t look at her and feel envious of how good she’s got it compared to me. But here’s the problem: If I decide to live like her, who’s going to take my place?

Europe is a free-rider. It can only afford to be Europe because we can afford to be America. . . .

Read the whole thing.

Thomas Sowell:

It is important that young children be able to rely on their parents completely — and equally important that grown children not be able to.

Otherwise, they will never be able to care for their own children. But dependency can be awfully comfortable. Ever wonder if dependency on government contributes to the dramatically falling birth rates in European countries? Could be that many adults there don't ever feel really "adult" because they have the government to take care of them.

The fiscal crisis developing in parts of Europe seems not to be affecting Scandinavia as much (well, except for Iceland). One reason may be that the climate forces people to face reality to a certain extent, and to cooperate with each other on a local level. Local cooperation can be a good thing for society. And people there can be very harsh toward those whom they consider to be "free-loaders". Perhaps some residual "Protestant Work Ethic" still manifests itself in "progressive" Scandinavia. And recently, the Swedish government, in particular, has been lessening governmental burdens on business. Kind of the opposite of what is happening here (except for well-connected, favored corporations which get special deals from the government).

Some European leaders seem to be struggling to adjust to President Obama's international priorities and actions. They had a hard enough time when Donald Rumsfeld announced that we would be moving some military bases out of Western Europe. It can be a shock to lose "adult" support suddenly. Europe may soon find itself losing American support at a time which is inconvenient, to say the least.

The Left's New Restrictions on Sexual Conduct

Remember those heady days, starting in the 1960s, when "Free Love" was in the air?  Tossing aside all those repressive expectations of society concerning sexual conduct was "liberating".  Well, now, it seems that all that liberty has become uncomfortable to the Academic Left.  So, as is typical, they institute legal structures to replace the societal standards which they helped tear down. But they have a slightly different approach to restrictions on sexual activity:

Duke University has instituted a new "sexual misconduct" policy that can render a student guilty of non-consensual sex simply because he or she is considered "powerful" on campus. The policy claims that "perceived power differentials may create an unintentional atmosphere of coercion." Duke's new policy transforms students of both sexes into unwitting rapists simply because of the "atmosphere" or because one or more students are "intoxicated," no matter the degree. The policy also establishes unfair rules for judging sexual misconduct accusations.

Maggie's Farm:

The Moonbat Left can never decide whether they are for free love, or whether all sex is rape.

Wonder how long Duke University will continue to have sports programs, if all athletes are automatically subject to rape charges in any kind of sexual relationship just because of who they are?

Some other developments since the false rape charges against a group of Duke University athletes and the lynch-mob abuse by faculty and students of those wrongly-accused athletes. They'll never learn.

Of course, both this new sexual misconduct policy and the older feminist declaration that all sex between men and women (particularly in marriage) is rape are based on the Hard Left's tendency to view morality primarily in terms of economics and power, rather than in terms of right and wrong or in terms of the survival of civilization.  And the Hard Left is in charge of many of our universities.  At private universities like Duke, faculty members who persecute wrongly-accused students are especially well-paid for their persecution, by the evil capitalist parents of those students.  Of course, they are also well-supported by the government, through subsidized student loans, grants, etc.

More on the Democrats' Fake Hate Crimes

The media, amplifying statements by Democrats, have exhibited a grand paranoia about members of the Tea Party Movement, even though the vast majority of recent political violence has come from the Left.

Mark Steyn:

On March 20th, something truly extraordinary happened. On the eve of the health care vote, a group of black Democrat Congressmen (eschewing the private tunnels they usually use to cross from their offices to the Capitol) chose to walk en masse through a crowd of protesters, confident that the knuckledragging Tea Party goons they and their media pals have reviled for a year now would respond with racial epithets.

And then, when the crowd didn't, the black Congressmen made it up anyway. Representative Andre Carson (Democrat, Indiana) insisted he heard the N-word 15 times. He's either suffering from the same condition as that Guam-flipper from Georgia, or he's a liar. At a scene packed not only with crews from the Dem poodle media but with a gazillion cellphone cameras, not one single N-word has been caught on audio. (By contrast, see my post yesterday for how easy it is to get it on tape when real epithets are flying.)

I disagree with John Lewis (Democrat, Georgia) politically but I have always respected him as a genuine civil rights warrior. And I feel slightly queasy at the thought that he would dishonor both the movement and his own part in it for the cheapest of partisan points - in the same way I would be disgusted by a Holocaust survivor painting a swastika on his own door and blaming it on his next-door neighbor over a boundary dispute.

But that's what the Democratic Party has been reduced to - faking hate crimes as pathetically as any lonely, mentally ill college student. Congressmen Carson, Lewis, Cleaver and the rest have turned themselves into the Congressional equivalent of the Duke University stripper. Except that they're not some penniless loser but a group of important, influential lifetime legislators enjoying all the privileges and perquisites of power, and in all probability acting at the behest of the Democrat leadership.

Isn't that what societies with functioning media used to call "a story"?

John Lewis is, indeed, a "Genuine Civil Rights Warrior". But here is one recent instance in which he puts on his tinfoil hat, concerning his fears of "right-wing Republicans", and it works in a local election.   Listen to the clip. From the irrational scare tactics in the clip, you would never guess, if you didn't know, that Representative Lewis had faced down ACTUAL VIOLENCE in the past. This is the new post-racial era we were supposed to get with Obama.  

Peter Kirsanow has some thoughts:

As Mark Steyn noted this past weekend, the smearing of tea-party members by elected representatives and their media acolytes demonstrates the desperation and bankruptcy of many of today’s arguments in support of the liberal agenda — in this case, health-care reform. The claim that black Democratic congressmen courageously defied being spat upon and being called the n-word reflects a pathetic attempt to equate their support for the cynical, corrupt process by which the health-care bill was passed with the heroic efforts of the civil-rights movement. . .

Continued use of the “cry racism” tactic — despite its diminishing effectiveness — is partially the result of groups like the CBC (Congressional Black Caucus) having long since lost their reason for being. . . .

While members of the CBC tilt at windmills from decades past, they adamantly refuse to engage or even acknowledge the actual problems that currently plague the black community — single parenthood, dysfunctional schools, the debilitating effects of the welfare state (if you want to see the promised splendor of Obamacare right now, go to the inner city), to name a few.

These problems don’t fall neatly into the anti-discrimination model with which liberal groups are most comfortable. And they refuse to leave their comfort zone.