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.