Of Free Speech and Insensitivity Training

July 23, 2015 1 Comment

There is a poignant scene in “Lawrence of Arabia”, a movie with many poignant scenes, in which Lawrence demonstrates to a fellow officer how to snuff out a candle. He pinches the flame with his fingers. The other officer gives it a try but jerks back his hand when his fingers are scorched.

“That hurts,” the officer complains. Lawrence replies, “Certainly it hurts. The trick is not minding that it hurts.”

There is a lesson there, particularly important for a society that has become hypersensitive to injury, real or imagined. Hurt may come from something as small as a look—or failure to look. It may come from an article of clothing, either worn or neglected. Lately flags have been targeted as sources of personal and even societal pain. Hurt may come from something as small as a word. Indeed, I think that most often today and in our society, both words and our sensitivity to words have become sharpened.

If we are to preserve freedom of speech—in all its important varieties—we need to develop some insensitivity, as in not minding when it hurts. Freedom of speech only matters when someone hears something he does not like. The choice then is intolerance and silence or freedom and not minding the hurt.

Another way to look at it is that we most desire freedom of speech when we are the speaker. From the point of view of listener, we may have mixed emotions. We may like what we say, but when we do not like what we hear do we wish to silence the speaker, or do we accept the options of free speech, to turn away or to endure another’s unpleasant rodomontade?

Freedom of speech was made part of the First Amendment, because rulers and monarchs were at pains to inflict genuine physical hurt whenever they took offense at the words of their subjects. The First Amendment’s protection of free speech was needed to protect people using words that hurt people in government, that offended people in power.

Even though enshrined in the Constitution, freedom of speech has to be won by each generation, because it is constantly in jeopardy. Americans are nearly unanimous in their support of freedom of speech when it is speech that they like, speech that reinforces their own views, and especially speech that praises and flatters. We do not particularly need the Constitution to protect that kind of speech. Speech that is unpopular, speech that goes against the grain, speech that is obnoxious to our opinions, speech that challenges our beliefs, that is the speech the Founders fought to protect. Most of human progress has come from that kind of speech. It is speech that is worth protecting today and that many try to silence.

President Obama and his political friends are fond of declaring that “the debate is over,” whether referring to Obamacare, the Dodd-Frank Act, climate change, same-sex marriage, or other important issues of significant disagreement. I expect that soon we will hear President Obama, Secretary of State Kerry, and other administration spokesmen insist that the debate is over with regard to the nuclear deal with Iran. In a free republic, can the debate ever really be over?

This is nothing new; it is a continuation of a very old struggle. Despots great and petty since early ages have exercised what power they might to silence ideas and expressions they did not want to hear, or did not want others to hear. The gallows, flames, and torture chambers of yesteryear are matched today by bullets, bombs, and bayonets from radical Islam and totalitarian governments. In the West, where constitutions solemnly embrace free speech, voices are silenced by public ridicule, elaborate and intrusive regulations on what can and cannot be said and when and where—reinforced by government fines, restrictions, confiscations, and jail time.

I recently visited my son at his new job at a large factory. He was very careful to spell out to me a lengthy list of subjects I should not bring up, whether from fear of his colleagues, company policies, or federal, state, and local regulations. I have been given similar training at my place of work.

When I was young I was taught to be courteous and not seek to offend. I was also taught to be slow to take offence. Do children today repeat the rhyme I heard as a child? “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names can never hurt me.” I wonder. Or are our children taught today that there is great reward in being the sensitized “victim” of someone else’s “offensive” words? Where do we find freedom in that?

Filed under Barack Obama, choice, Constitution, demagoguery, Dodd-Frank Act, free speech, freedom, global warming, Iran, Islamists, media, opposition, politics, republics, statism, tyranny Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Of Warming Planets and Cooling Economies

May 31, 2015 Leave a comment

Did you notice when the Obama Administration paused in its ballyhooing about global warming? President Obama and his officials had been busily hustling the warming of the planet and its attendant disasters—which they insist can only be fixed by increasing government control of our lives, from birthing to breathing. The President was in Florida, blaming the future hurricane season—which has not yet happened—on global warming. “The best climate scientists in the world are telling us that extreme weather events like hurricanes are likely to become more powerful.” What President Obama did not mention—anywhere in his speech at the National Hurricane Center in Miami—was that the scientists predicted a “below-normal” hurricane season for 2015. Was that mercy because of or in spite of global warming?

Perhaps we should not blame the President for leaving that little item of information out, since for each of the last several years the cited “best climate scientists” (whoever they are) had predicted extraordinarily active and destructive hurricane seasons. Since each season turned out to be unusually mild, the official forecasters have now changed their tune, putting themselves solidly in-sync with recent trends. Do not put yourself at risk with a long investment on it either way.

As for global warming, however, the President and those who say they agree with him insist that the debate is over (in either science or a free nation can the debate ever really be over?), meaning that it is unacceptable to disagree with them. If you can’t say something calamitous, then don’t say anything at all.

Then, suddenly and quite unexpectedly, the global warming talk stopped. There was a mercifully, if brief, moratorium on warming warnings. Instead of predicted calamity, a real calamity was at hand that required some ‘splaining. The most recent report on the nation’s economic growth was announced. Not only had growth slowed, as measured by government number crunchers, the economy had actually declined in the first 3 months of 2015. That seemed to come as a surprise to no one who is either without a job or working in a job that is something less than the job held before 2009. But it was unwelcome news to the Administration that has been working on economic revival for going on seven years.

Instead of global warming, the Administration needed cold weather to blame for the decline in economic activity during January, February, and March. The lead official White House explanative was, “harsh winter weather”. I did not make this up, and you are not supposed to notice how convenient White House excuses are. It was better that global warming talk was cooled for a moment lest people recognize the contradictions in the official propaganda and begin to wonder whether White House policies were working.

Winter weather is not a novel excuse for failed government programs. The old Soviet Union blamed repeated crop failures on harsh winters (in Russia? Who knew?). The similarity in excuses used by the Obama White House and the Soviet Politburo is not accidental. Central planners can survive only if they have at the ready a list of excuses of things beyond their control. The list could be a long one, since in the end there is not very much about the economy that central planners can control, if control means making things go they way intended. To quote the character Jayne Cobb, in Serenity, “what you plan and what takes place ain’t ever been exactly similar.”

Filed under Barack Obama, communism, demagoguery, economic growth, economics, environmentalism, free speech, freedom, future, global warming, government, jobs, recession, Russia, science, socialism, Soviet Union, statism Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Of Signs and Deception

May 17, 2015 Leave a comment

It may seem immodest of me to point out how “insightful” was my posting, published at the very doorstep of the 2008 election of Barack Obama as President of the United States. I think I am in no danger, however, as the predictions were all too easy to make, the signs too clear then to justify special credit now. More significant, I believe, are how the lessons taught then apply as we enter another presidential election season. Give the greatest weight to what candidates do and what they have done, particularly when such evidence is distinctly at variance with what they say.

 

A well-known principle of propaganda is that if you are going to tell a lie, the bigger the lie the more believable it will be. Most people are so trusting that they do not want to believe in the enormity of a big lie. They do not want to believe that someone can intentionally say something appallingly false. Rather than disbelieve the liar, they will want to disbelieve the person who exposes the lie.

One of the biggest of lies is asserting something to be exactly the opposite of what it is. Such is the warmonger who claims to be the leading pacifist, the thief who claims to be the victim of theft—and accuses the real victim of being the criminal—or the bigoted radical who accuses opponents of intolerance.

In recent travels on the streets, roads, and highways I notice at this time of the year the beautiful Fall foliage—and the many political campaign signs. While for some there might be a distaste for seeing these, I feel to rejoice in the signs as evidence of a vigorous system of subjecting our political leaders to public vote.

Having said that, I do draw the line at the steady growth of the mega-yard and curb signs, the five-foot by eight-foot broadsides. So, already inclined to dislike such construction-size boards, I have been particularly disturbed to see what appears to be a planned series of Obama-Biden signs advocating policies that these two Washington insiders have long worked hard to oppose.

I have noticed three in this series. There may be others. The ones that I have seen show the names of the two candidates, followed by a motto reading something like, “Better Schools,” “Lower Taxes,” and “Energy Independence.”

If facts matter, and I believe that they still do (even if they are optional in the mass media), such messages on the signs of these two politicians should be jarring to the honest in heart. The political record of Obama and Biden are unequivocal on these three issues. They both have strongly and consistently opposed school reform, supporting doing more of the same old stuff that has been steadily undermining the quality of government-run schools since the 1960s.

Both have been leading advocates for raising taxes and opposing tax cuts. Even in the current campaign they advocate new tax hikes. They try to disguise their intentions with the assertion that their proposals supposedly would reduce taxes on 95% of Americans (including the 40% who pay little or no income taxes), while raising them on the rest. Either they failed with the simple math, or they hope that voters cannot or will not be able to apply simple math, but you cannot get enough taxes out of 5% to pay for genuine tax cuts for 95%. In fact, their proposals are just another camouflage for the old tried and failed policies of tax and spend. Not only does that always put more power into the hands of the politicos who take and then redistribute, but it is a highly dangerous thing to do in the teeth of an economic downturn. Taxes fall on income and investment, and whatever you tax you get less of. Now is not the time for less income and investment.

And as for energy independence, both Obama and Biden support programs that will yield little and have yielded very little new energy—at very high expense in government subsidies—while staunchly opposing expanded use of the energy resources that are abundant in the United States, particularly oil, coal, and nuclear energy. Independence seems to me to increase reliance on your own resources. Obama and Biden are consistent supporters of policies that keep U.S. energy resources under lock and key.

This should not be surprising from two candidates who campaign on change while advocating the oldest political formula in the history of government, that government knows best, that decisions about spending, whether for health, education, or job creation, are best made by power brokers in the halls of Washington power centers, rather than by families in their homes. Calling that change may be the biggest lie of all.

(First published November 2, 2008)

Filed under Barack Obama, deception, education, elections, energy, government, investment, media, politics, recession, statism, taxes Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,

Of Presidents and Training for the Job, 2015

March 22, 2015 Leave a comment

More and more I have been struggling for the words to express my concern over the frightening incompetence of the current President of the United States. Barack Obama’s economic blunders deepened and prolonged the recession and bequeathed to us the most anemic recovery of modern times. Most of us have been seriously harmed by those policies, some more than others. Unfortunately, the extent of his economic errors are obscured by the benighted economic management in Europe, which amazingly is managing even to underperform ours.

President Obama’s politics have yielded the opposite of what he publicly promised: division in place of unity, secrecy and deception in place of open government, exclusion of those who disagree with him in place of inclusive embrace of open debate, privilege for the few in place of opportunity for the many, racial bigotry for political gain in place of a “post racial” society, rule by breaking laws and ignoring the Constitution in place of rule of law. I am sure that you could easily lengthen the list. Again, these perfidies have been to some degree obscured by congressional Democrat leaders far too willing to compromise their duties of office and the rights of the legislative branch of government, all to cover up and support the Obama Administration’s outrages on the nation and the political institutions of the Republic.

Most frightful of all, however, is President Obama’s dangerously bungling foreign policy. No friend of the United States is safe from this Administration’s blunders. Vladimir Putin, the boss of a second rate economic and military power—albeit one with a formidable nuclear arsenal—has been able to engage in 19th Century military adventures of invasion, conquest, and territorial acquisition against little more than vacuous bully talk from Obama, the emptiness of which has produced similarly pitiful responses from the leading Powers of Western Europe, derision from Moscow, and fear among America’s friends only recently escaped from the Soviet Union. China commits aggression against India and the Philippines, threatens Japan, and toys with close relations with Russia to isolate the United States, while openly engaging in cyber attacks on the U.S. government and American industry. Islamist barbarians increasingly brutalize Muslims, Jews, Christians, and humanists alike, undeterred by inchoate responses from Obama, who asserts leadership while failing to lead, other than with his transparent policies of pusillanimity and indecision. American allies in the Middle East feel abandoned or betrayed, while enemies are emboldened; the best counter strategy that Barack Obama is able to envision is a plan that might delay but will not prevent the nuclear arming of the mullahs of Iran—committed to the incineration of Israel, the more Jews killed the better. Each day seems to extend the list of foreign policy failures.

While considering the consequences of an amateur in the Oval Office, I came across a brief note I wrote during the 2008 presidential campaign. It might be immodest for me to point out how correct my warnings proved. I can make no claims to perspicacity, as all of this was rather obvious. No self congratulations are in order. It is too dangerous a world to trust the Presidency of the United States to one whose inexperience is only matched by his hubris. This is what I penned August 25, 2008, just before Barack Obama received the nomination of the Democrats:

There are some jobs you just cannot safely do without proper training and experience. Flying an airplane is one that comes to mind. Driving a bus is another. I would put being President of the United States in the Twenty-First Century on the list, too.

President of the United States was a tough job in the days of George Washington. It was even a challenge in the days of Millard Fillmore. It has not become any easier in recent years, and next year it will be a very big job. Considering the global responsibilities of the United States, with several irresponsible oil-drunk regimes threatening peace and freedom (ours and other’s) around the world, can we afford to enroll our new President in a foreign policy on-the-job-training program?

Economically as well, there is little room for error. So far we have gone through a year and a half of the housing market bust without falling into a recession. But our economic growth is anemic. A small false step or two can put us into a full-blown economic decline, exploding banking and financial markets that will then take years to recover. It is important that economic policy next year be led by someone who understands economic growth and how to promote it. The formula for growth—low taxes and steady prices—is well known to those who have learned the lesson; we do not need a novice who does not have enough experience to know that you cannot tax and spend your way to prosperity. We cannot afford his experiments with our jobs and livelihood.

That is why it is breathtaking that a major political party is on the verge of nominating for President someone so inexperienced as Barack Obama. I am unable to recall a single nominee for President, by any major party, less prepared for the office than Barack Obama. Really, there is the challenge for you. Name a nominee—Republican, Democrat, Whig, Federalist—less prepared than Obama.

Barack Obama likes to liken himself to Abraham Lincoln. I cannot claim to have known Abraham Lincoln or assert that he was a friend of mine, but I do say, Barack Obama is no Abraham Lincoln. Even liberal exaggerations of Obama’s undistinguished career cannot make it compare favorably with the long and grueling life experiences that schooled Lincoln for the White House.

In short, Obama does not have the training for the job. It may be that the Democrats’ talent pool is so thin that he will be nominated. But the job of President is too important—to all of us—to be extended to someone so unready.

Filed under banking, Barack Obama, bubbles, China, Congress, Constitution, deficit spending, economic depression, economic growth, elections, European Union, hubris, inflation, interest rates, international relations, Iran, Islamists, Israel, jobs, law, Middle East, national security, politics, racism, recession, rule of law, Russia, Soviet Union, taxes, Ukraine Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Of Presidents and Derelicts

November 20, 2014 Leave a comment

Barack Obama is no fan of the Constitution. He has been known to criticize it for its focus on limiting government, for telling governments what they can and cannot do. He prefers a Constitution that focuses more on telling governments what they should do, at least telling governments to do what he would like, including seeing to the “redistribution of wealth,” or what he calls elsewhere “redistributive change.”

Of course, that is a mischaracterization. Not a mischaracterization of Obama’s views but of what the Constitution says. It does limit government, but it also gives government specific responsibilities and the power to exercise those responsibilities. Article I, Section 8 provides a very clear list of the federal government’s duties. It is noteworthy that those enumerated responsibilities and powers are in the Article that establishes the Congress. The list includes such things as providing for the common defense, borrowing and paying government debts, regulating foreign and interstate commerce, establishing standards for weights and measures, and so forth.

There are plenty of other provisions that limit the powers of the government and how it operates. The Constitution is a balance of governmental duties within a structure intended carefully to limit the government. As a limited government our Republic has prospered. It has struggled either when its duties were neglected (as in the days of President Buchanan, who did nothing while he watched state after state rebel from the Union) or when the limitations have been eroded (as we have witnessed through much of the twentieth century and in the first 14 years of the twenty-first).

The President has specific powers and duties, too, nearly all of which are carefully linked with the role of the Congress. For example, while the President does not make the laws—Article I, Section 1 gives “All legislative Powers” exclusively to the Congress—the President is authorized to make proposals to Congress and has the authority to veto legislation (but not change it) that Congress has approved. Once an act of Congress becomes law, the President then has the explicit obligation to, “take Care that the Laws be fully executed” (Article II, Section 3).

Note the words, “fully executed”. The President takes an oath to fulfill those duties, and nowhere in oath or Constitution is the President authorized to execute the laws only as much as he likes or agrees with them. Once something has become a law, the President may not set aside this or that part of the law or decide that he will only enforce the law so far. His obligation is to take Care that the laws are fully executed.

Average Americans may not like this or that provision of law, but we are not at liberty to ignore any law that applies to us just because we do not like it. The President is not exempt from that common responsibility of all citizens, either. As the chief government executive, who sought to hold his high office of public responsibility, he is even more obligated not only to obey the laws but to execute them, fully. The President may not make the laws, he may not amend the laws, he may not change the laws, and he may not disregard the laws. His duty is to execute the laws, and when he does not he is derelict in his duties.

This is all in accordance with the important division of labor, the separation of powers that the Founders put into the very structure of the Constitution to combat the tendency of all humans to abuse power once it comes into their hands. By dividing the power of government among three separate but coequal branches, dividing legislative power even further between House and Senate, and yet again separating government power between federal and state governments, the Founders went to clear and elaborate lengths to create checks and balances.

Under the American system of government no branch, no person, no group of people in government, are to be able to do very much on their own without getting the other elements of government to go along. Where they are not able to agree, where there is no consensus, for the safety of our freedoms government is prevented by constitutional law from moving forward unless substantial consensus among the different branches can be reached. Those checks and balances again and again, throughout the more than two centuries of our Constitution, have forced the very human people in government to revisit their differences and come to terms with one another, however much they may disagree and be disagreeable. There is safety for you and me in that. And it helps keep our Union together, repeatedly forcing our leaders (and the parts of the nation that they represent and whose authority they exercise) to work with one another, like it or not.

Recently, President Obama has expressed impatience with the Constitution’s checks and balances. After all, he personally, in and of himself, embodies an entire branch of government. The other branches, Congress and the courts, have many different people with a messy variety of ideas. President Obama complains that Congress cannot decide what it wants to do as quickly as he can. In his view, why wait?

By design, Congress of course has something of a multiple personality. It is a gathering of elected representatives, reflecting the diversity of views among the people of the nation. Appropriately, it takes time to build a consensus that accommodates those views, as it should. But President Obama cannot wait. He sees the need to accommodate no ideas other than his own. He has decided that on this issue or that—today it is immigration laws—there is a limit, defined by himself, as to how much time Congress can take to consider things. When time is up, he, the executive branch, will take the matter into his own hands, and pretend to the authority to do it.

His tool of choice today is to abjure his duty to execute the laws fully and instead to execute them partially, just to the extent and manner that suit his own desires, as he engages in another round of redistributive change. That he is endeavoring to violate rather than execute our national, founding law, and his constitutional oath of office, apparently does not trouble him. It is the Constitution itself that troubles him.

But from where does he think he gets his authority to do anything. When he breaks the Constitution, does he not break his very authority to act in the office that the Constitution created?

Filed under Barack Obama, Civil War, Congress, Constitution, courts, duty, federalism, freedom, government, House of Representatives, immigration, law, republics, rule of law, Senate, tyranny Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Of Majorities and Modesty

November 18, 2014 Leave a comment

Perhaps with some weeks enough dust has settled to allow a few reactions to the recent American elections, with more perspective than can be gathered from listening to reporters interviewing reporters. I will offer views that focus mostly on the results of the congressional elections, drawing upon experience from more than two decades of work in the Senate.

I do not, however, wish to minimize the importance of the elections for governors and state legislatures. In fact, I suspect that the next President of the United States will more than likely be a current or former governor than a Washington politico. Most Presidents, historically, have come from the state governments, which I find encouraging for our federal system. Moreover, judging from what we have seen, former Senators do not seem to make very good Presidents. I cannot name one to whom we can look with admiration for what he accomplished in the White House. There seems to be too much Washington blindness in them to govern effectively for our whole nation.

I am straying to an election yet to come, though. Back to this year’s results, I will begin with the view that we should expect, with the media-scorned Republicans holding the majority in both House and Senate, that the finger of blame for all problems—real or imagined—will be pointed at “Congress.” Disputes between legislative and executive branches will tend to be cast as exposing the nation to great danger as a result of congressional intransigence and/or “politics,” as if no real issues of policy—no questions of life, freedom, or wealth—are involved.

It is happening already. In one bizarre report I heard this week on a major network “news” report, some Amtrak railroad drawbridge in the northeast is over a hundred years old and prone to getting stuck when it opens to let ships pass. Amtrak wants a billion dollars or so to fix it, but, as the “news” story would have it, Republicans in the new Congress “are not looking for ways to spend money.” That was the story. Note the nothing new here. The bridge has been around for a hundred years and did not suddenly become prone to malfunction this November. But the election has now made it a story; a problem is arising, not because the President or the Democrats in Congress for several years did not seek to fix it, but because the new Republican majorities are not interested in spending money. The bridge is not the problem in the story, the Republicans are. Expect more of this kind of media “news.”

Second observation: in recent decades Congress has increasingly surrendered more and more authority to the executive branch, including to the regulatory agencies. The Senate, under the misleadership of Majority Leader Harry Read, has given up even more power and authority (perhaps in another post I will expound on lessons from the Senate of Rome, which by avoiding decisions paved the way for the Caesars—who were all too ready to make decisions). The Democrats retain full control of the executive branch. No small thing. In the remaining two years of the Obama Administration look for more aggressive activity from the White House and the regulators as they test just what they can try by regulation and regulatory fiat, without any detours to Capitol Hill. To quote Jacob Marley’s ghost, “Much!”

When it comes to big Republican plans to make major changes, the quidnuncs will be fed explanations of the thinness of the Republican majorities, along with the “responsibility” of Republicans to share power with Democrats that the Democrats failed to win at the ballot box. When it comes to work that needs to be done, the repeated common wisdom will be that the Republicans have the majority, so nothing should stop them from getting on with the job. There will be little mention that the President can veto what Congress passes, and that Democrats in the Senate will likely filibuster anything that the White House threatens to veto, saving the President the trouble—and political risk.

Yet, there are things that the Republicans, even with working but not overwhelming majorities in Congress, will be able to do. Most important, they get to set the agenda. They get to decide what issues will be debated, what hearings will be held, what will be put to a vote, even when they may not have the votes to break Democrat opposition in the Senate. It will be some relief that instead of the familiar series of proposals to curb liberties, raise taxes, or stifle economic growth and opportunity, the agenda will tend toward ideas of freedom and prosperity, though actual accomplishments will of necessity be modest against the strong opposition of the President and his media allies. I will take modest improvements over the calamitous policy fails of the past several years.

Filed under Barack Obama, bureaucracy, Congress, economic growth, elections, federalism, freedom, government, House of Representatives, media, politics, prosperity, Rome, Senate, taxes, Washington Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Of Obama and Ethelred the Unready

March 22, 2014 1 Comment

As the troubled year of 2009 was approaching its final weeks I wrote a commentary, reprinted below, reflecting on how President Obama’s unreadiness for the job of President was endangering our soldiers abroad and weakening the economy at home. As we have witnessed a recovery that month after month remains so anemic that many Americans are not experiencing much of a recovery at all, as our retreat from world affairs encourages aggression by adventurers in Russia and elsewhere, and as the Obama Administration plans to return our Army to levels not seen since before World War II, it seemed to me appropriate to reprise my musings of November 2009. I also have to wonder whether the Nobel committee, which was so excited to award the peace prize to Barack Obama for promises to reduce American influence in world affairs, still considers its decision and the policy that it celebrated to have been wise and fortunate for the world.

Arguably the worst king of England was Ethelred the Unready. He was unready to rule his kingdom, he was unready to promote its prosperity, he was unready to repel the invader. The chief manifestation of his unreadiness was his inability or unwillingness to recognize reality. Reality eventually caught up with him—as it always does—and with his kingdom—as it always does for those subject to unready rulers.

The current President of the United States, Barack Obama, may be working hard to earn himself the title of Obama the Unready. The evidence is accumulating.

For months, the novice commander-in-chief has been at a loss to know how to respond to the urgent recommendations of the field commanders in Afghanistan. They have been pleading to increase the troop levels. The added troops are needed to respond to increased enemy activity. Unwilling to say yes or no, the President vacillates while American soldiers die because they are stretched too thin. He seems to have forgotten that American soldiers under President Clinton were similarly sacrificed in another poor corner of the world—Somalia—only because Clinton did not provide enough troops to do the job. Rather than decrease casualties, insufficient troop strength increases casualties, soldiers who would not die if given enough support to overwhelm the enemy. This week the White House announced that President Obama is still unready to decide on troop strengths for the mission in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, the Taliban is not waiting for him to make up his mind.

Also this week, President Obama gave a little speech about the economy. It was hard to miss the sense of frustration and perplexity in his remarks, made quickly as the Nobel laureate left town to seek more praise from his adoring foreign fans. He admitted that unemployment remains high, despite his economic program. He admitted that employers are reluctant to hire new people. He just does not seem to know why. His solution is to call a conference of economic talkers in December to talk about it. He remains unready to do something about his economic plans and government policies that are making it riskier for employers to take on more employees. Faced with half a trillion dollars in new taxes (many focused on small businesses), higher health care expenses from the trillion dollar “reform” program, new environmental plans to cool off the globe by cooling off economic growth, and dozens of other new plans to make it harder for businessmen to succeed, businessmen are reluctant to hire new people that they will later have to let go. All the while, the natural tendency for the economy to recover is weakened.

Consumer spending remains suppressed, while the Obama Administration and its friends in Congress pursue policies that make consumer credit more expensive and harder to get. Congress this year, with the Obama Administration cheering on, passed new credit card laws that make it difficult for lenders to have riskier borrowers pay higher rates. The result is that everyone gets to pay higher rates. Predictably, consumer credit declined by 15% in September and shows little sign of getting better. As we approach the holiday season, so important for the success of retailers, the Obama Administration and its Congressional allies are busily making it tougher for banks to run their debit card programs. Expect more debit cards denied at the checkout lines. Also expect the pace of store closures, already growing faster than swine flu, to continue to grow. Seen any empty storefronts at shopping centers lately? Be ready to see more, even as President Obama convenes his economic talk show in December.

Not to forget swine flu, the Obama Administration was eager all year to pump up the worry about a swine flu epidemic, in hopes that it might frighten people into supporting healthcare legislation. In the meantime, the Obama Administration’s health officials, who are heavily involved in development and distribution of vaccines (lawsuits that plague the medical industry have driven most vaccine manufacturers out of the business), were ready to promise but unready to deliver swine flu vaccine. Expect more of the same, of promises that do not meet actual needs as government becomes even more involved in regulating healthcare. Service and speed are what most people look for when they are sick, but service and speed are not what government programs are known to provide—any government program.

It should be no surprise that President Obama is not ready for the growing challenges of being President. Like Ethelred, Barack Obama had little training for the job. Governing has not gotten easier in the thousand years since Ethelred disgraced the throne of England. It is not getting any easier for Barack Obama. Fortunately for America, we do not invest all power in a king.

(First published on November 13, 2009)

Filed under banking, Barack Obama, Constitution, economic growth, environmentalism, global warming, government, healthcare, interest rates, jobs, markets, national defense, national security, personal finance, statism, taxes, Uncategorized

Of Panic and Complacency

March 8, 2014 2 Comments

I wrote the following a few days after the election of Barack Obama in 2008. I was not in despair then, and I do not despair of finding some value even today in the thoughts expressed just before the dawn of the Obama Administration.

First of all, do not panic. Second, do not take it easy.

This is in line with another piece of advice I came across a few years ago (attributed to Austrian statesman, Clemens von Metternich): “Let us not consider ourselves victorious until the day after the battle, nor defeated until four days later.” Well, it has been more than four days since the November elections, and I believe that it is safe to say that the Republicans were defeated.

There are other things, however, that are not safe to say. It is not safe to say that the Democrats won an overwhelming victory. In fact, their margin of victory was fairly narrow, less than 7% separating the Republican and Democrat candidates for President, a number that only looks large when compared with closer recent Presidential races. Senator Obama’s percentage of victory was a little less than George Bush’s (the father) over Michael Dukakis, 6.7% versus 7.8%. The Democrats also picked up significant gains in their numbers in the Senate and House of Representatives, but in both cases they fell short of the overwhelming victories for which they had hoped. The results of the election were neither overwhelming nor underwhelming—just whelming.

It is also not safe to say that President-elect Obama and the Democrats do not mean to do what they said they wanted to do during the election. They plan to raise taxes. These higher taxes will be felt by everyone, but they will fall most heavily on businessmen and entrepreneurs, exactly the people whose efforts we need to restore economic growth. So as Obama and his team work to spread the wealth around, there will be less of it to spread, and less and less as time goes by. There are many other like-minded plans of the change team arriving in January.

Elected with the embarrassingly undisguised support of the mass media, the new leadership will continue to rely upon the media, this time to hype the “mandate” from the voters and to try to cower the remaining Republicans in town into timidity. The early effect of this can be seen in the hushed conversations of “people in the know” trying to convince themselves that Obama is really more moderate than he appears, that he will try to “govern from the center.” Maybe that will be true, but there is nothing either in Obama’s brief but clear far left voting record or his statements during the election to support the theory.

There remains powerful virtue in the Constitution (which the President-elect considers to be a flawed document), in which we can take comfort. The founding fathers wisely diffused power, because they were rightly afraid of what concentrated political power would do to individual liberty. While it is frustrating to new politicians in Washington, there is not a lot that one man can do—for good or ill—in our system of government, and that should be more of a source of solace than of worry.

We need not buy into the slogans that we should rise above partisan politics (which usually means that the other party should keep quiet and become politely ineffective) in order to wish the new President and the congressional leadership well so long as they propose to do good. Neither do we need be devotees of political parties in order to speak up when policies are proposed that will make things bad. In the land of “We the People,” it is our job not to be complacent. It is our job to remind the authorities in government who they work for. Otherwise, as we approach the holiday season in 2009, things will be much worse than they are already today.

(First published November 16, 2008)

Filed under Barack Obama, Congress, Constitution, economic growth, elections, government, investment, media, politics, socialism, taxes

Of Plumber Joe and Community Organizer Barry

March 1, 2014 Leave a comment

I first published this before the 2008 presidential election. In the years since, President Obama’s community organizer background has faithfully exerted itself.

It took a real life example to give life to the key difference between the two candidates for president. When Plumber Joe met Barack Obama campaigning in his neighborhood, Joe asked the would-be president, why do you want to tax my small business? Actually, more precisely, Joe wants to buy the plumbing business he has worked at, and Obama wants to raise taxes on it, and Joe asked Obama, why? At first, Obama equivocated and mumbled something about getting some tax breaks to offset the tax hikes. When Joe refused to buy into that sleight of hand trick, Obama fessed up. Obama admitted that he wanted to spread the wealth around. In other words, he said that Joe would be making too much money, so Obama wanted to take from him and give to someone else.

Why would Obama want to do that? Because, unlike Plumber Joe, who has a real job, Obama’s career experience came as a “community organizer” (when he was known in Chicago as Barry). Taking money from people and giving it to others is what community organizers do. Barry the Community Organizer now wants to organize a big community, of over 300 million people, and he wants to keep spreading the wealth around. Community organizers like to do that, because they like to get the credit for being compassionate and generous, compassionate and generous handing out other people’s money.

Joe has worked hard as a plumber. Joe has saved and prospered. Now Joe wants to own his own business and provide work for other employees. The employees, these plumbers, would provide plumbing services and get paid by their customers. Barack Obama wants to take some of that money—O.K., a lot of that money—and spread it around to people who would get their money from Barack, people who have not been as “lucky” as Plumber Joe.

Lucky? My guess is that it was not luck that made Joe work hard over the years and save his money to be in a position to own a business and provide real jobs to other people. Under a President Obama, Joe and others like him would become unlucky.

John McCain has been trying to point out for weeks that the change offered by Barack Obama is a big time return to the tired old tax and spend politics of the big government politicians. John McCain is not the most eloquent campaigner, and the mass media has been doing its best to bury his message anyway. McCain finally found a real life example, and that is the most eloquent statement of all. At the last national debate, on a stage that the mass media could not ignore, McCain introduced us to Joe the Plumber (who by the way did not ask for all the attention and is a bit embarrassed by it), and McCain asked, why raise his taxes? Why raise anybody’s taxes going into an economic downturn?

If you do not raise the taxes, you cannot keep spending other people’s money and winning praise for your compassion and generosity. And that is the point of this election.

(First published October 16, 2008)

Filed under Barack Obama, compensation, economic depression, elections, fairness, government, jobs, politics, recession, socialism, statism, taxes, tyranny

Of Elections and Consequences

January 16, 2014 Leave a comment

I wrote the following just a few days before Barack Obama was first elected President, in 2008. I am tempted, reading it 5 years later, to congratulate myself on how insightful I was, but, frankly, Obama’s policies were so old and tried and failed, that he made it easy. See for yourself:

Elections have consequences, real, life-affecting consequences. One of the more unfortunate aspects of the mass media attitude toward elections is their approach to them as if they were some kind of game. The running score that they keep of the latest polls, their up-to-date electoral college count, the fixation on who “won” the latest debate, all demonstrate a sentiment that the election is some kind of sporting event, where we all root for one side or another, and when the game is won and the season is over we all go back to business as usual. That is not only wrong, it is dangerous.

After the election in November is over, it will not be back to business as usual. America’s standard of living, our economic welfare, our health, safety, and national security will all be affected. Electing Jimmy Carter meant economic and social malaise, it meant the loss of allies in several parts of the world, it meant civil war in Central America and the rise to power of the Ayatollahs in Iran. It meant a toxic economic brew of high unemployment, high inflation, and high interest rates. It meant increased crime in our cities. It meant an underpaid and undersupplied military, with Navy ships coming into harbor trading ammunition with those leaving port because there was not enough ammunition to go around.

Barack Obama is not quite as good or experienced as Jimmy Carter. His leading economic proposal is a whopping tax in the face of an economic downturn. Presidents Hoover and Roosevelt tried that in the 1930s, which turned a recession into the Great Depression. And Obama lies about his tax increase. He lies that it would not affect 95% of the population. The severe recession that it would cause will affect everyone, even the non-tax payers who are promised a tax cut by Obama.

Obama’s plan for a camouflaged government take over of health care will mean that health services will be provided with the same efficiency of the U.S. Postal Service. That means that sick people will have reduced access to medical services. It means that incentives to develop new medicines and new treatments will melt away. If government runs health care, as Obama wants, that means that political muscle will determine health care priorities rather than patient demand setting the priorities.

Obama’s foreign policies are right out of the Jimmy Carter briefing book. That means betrayal of our friends, appeasement of our enemies, and adventurous use of the military in places and causes that mean little to the national security of the United States. It means preparation always for some other war but inadequate commitment to fight the war we are in (he’s eager to send more troops into Afghanistan, but unwilling to win the war in Iraq). It means further design of the next weapons system, but never deployment of it, a return to starving our military of what it needs to do the job with least loss of life and maximum success. It means that the most important issues for the Obama military will be social engineering of the armed forces rather than a focus on their increased effectiveness and efficiency.

Voting in a republic like the United States is a serious matter. It is not a game. It means far more than bragging rights over whether our team won the World Series. It means that we are responsible for our electoral choices, with a full understanding that the people we elect will mean a difference in our lives and the lives of our families. It is a truism that people get the government they deserve. I firmly hope and believe that the American people deserve better than Obama. I know that my children do.

(First published October 5, 2008)

Filed under Barack Obama, deficit spending, economic depression, elections, Franklin D. Roosevelt, healthcare, national security, politics, recession, statism, taxes

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