Views on the News
December
11, 2010
Views
on the News*
In fifty years,
there is little doubt that history will regard the administration of Barack
Obama as the presidency that saved America, or at least woke up America. History
will show that it was the radical nature of Obama's dogged
devotion to a liberal progressive philosophy, far out of the American
mainstream, that jolted awake a generation of apathetic and passive
citizens just in time to save the republic.
For the last two years, the President has unleashed the most
aggressively left-wing agenda he could muster. Obama's un-reconstructed,
throwback Keynesian economics from the 1970s and even the 1930s was a proven
failure 30 years ago. Bringing it back
as if nothing has happened since the Keynesian intellectual high water mark in
the 1960s is public policy malpractice so extreme that it deserves sanctions. Obamanomics has now
gone beyond this silliness to outright assault on critical areas of our
economy. When the electorate began a
backlash against his revolutionary designs at town halls and Tea Parties, he
ignored them. When they rejected Obama's
ideology by throwing his party out of power by historic proportions in the
midterm elections, he pretended not to notice, or that he was misunderstood. Obama is not a conventional politician. He is a radical ideologue. Obama is not a leader. He is a bitter partisan, and as odd as it
sounds, that is exactly what this country needed. It has been generations since Americans have
been exposed to a more vivid depiction of the significant differences between
the left's and the right's views of this country and its future. The delineation between conservative and
liberal had grown hopelessly blurred to a majority of citizens. But Obama and his leftist cabal have been successful
not only in demonstrating the frightening vision progressive liberals have of
making America into a European-style socialist state. They have also managed to animate
a vast conservative majority that has lain painfully dormant since the
mid-1980s. The distinction is glaring
and, even for those who normally avoid politics, impossible to miss. Besides the glaring proof this offers of the
left's obsession with using divisive class warfare to gain power, it also
reveals a notable difference in philosophy. While conservatives believe
money belongs first to the citizen and is confiscated by government, leftists
believe money belongs first to the government. That government then lets select citizens keep
some of it... if and only if government "can afford" to be so generous.
Everywhere they turn, Americans see that the left is offering higher
taxes, less freedom, more debt and regulation. They simultaneously see the right offering
lower taxes, freer markets, and fiscal sanity.
Voters' first opportunity to choose between those two visions occurred
in the 2010 midterms. Their preference
was unmistakable to everyone except Barack Obama. His recent pronouncement that "[i]t would be unwise to assume [the voters] prefer one way
of thinking over another" reconfirmed that the President and his cohorts
have no desire whatsoever to alter course and instead will spend the next two
years butting heads with the newly elected conservative majority. This conflict is sure to make the distinction
between the left and the right all the more clear to an engaged American
public. The elites' uniform
disenchantment with Obama says much more about them than it does him, namely
that they are hopelessly lost in the intoxication of their intellectual elitism
and the mire of their crippling worldview and that they didn't have a clue
about Obama when they formed their little cult and still don't as they stumble
upon, kicking and screaming, his abundant failings. In the end, the era
of Obama will do more damage to the progressive left than any Republican Presidency
could have ever done, and for that, posterity will owe him a debt of gratitude.
(“The President that Saved America”
by Peter Heck dated December 4, 2010 published by American Thinker at http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/12/the_presidency_that_saved_amer.html
“Elites Should Blame Themselves,
Not Obama, for Believing His Messianic Pretensions” by David Limbaugh dated
December 7, 2010 published by Town Hall at http://townhall.com/columnists/DavidLimbaugh/2010/12/07/elites_should_blame_selves,_not_obama,_for_believing_his_messianic_pretensions
“The Madness of Obamanomics” by Peter Ferrara dated December 8, 2010
published by The American Spectator at http://spectator.org/archives/2010/12/08/the-madness-of-obamanomics
)
Republican legislators have no reason
to make Faustian bargains with Barack Obama and the menagerie of union-made politicians
whose destructive policies so thoroughly still dominate the Democrat Party. Republicans
do not need the approval of gauzy-minded pundits at the Washington Post and the
New York Times who are stuck in a 1932-65 time warp. The left-wing think tanks that once dominated
thought in Washington are now intellectually bankrupt. Ultra-bright young Republicans in the House
and Senate must not sacrifice the clarity of their new ideas on the phony altar
of "bipartisan" compromise.
They and their pro-individual,
pro-prosperity, small-government policies are what the voters want and America
needs. These young Republican leaders
are at the cutting edge of a reawakening in America that demands intellectual
competence and moral integrity in public affairs. The present tax code, largely designed and
built by Democrats, does at least $2 of damage to the private economy for every
$1 of tax revenue collected. They also know
that raising job-killing taxes, stifling business capital investment and
running up the debt are not the ways to restore prosperity to America. A new era of American exceptionalism
is in the offing. It will be a time of
renewal and common sense. Taxes will be
lowered, money will be spent wisely and for value received, freedom will
replace regulation, the economy will grow while the government shrinks, dependency
will give way to work and dignity; and in Washington, smart will replace dumb. The Constitution will be restored and the
borders protected. America's history and
culture will be respected and its strength in the world re-established. Before any of that can happen, the Obama
blitzkrieg must be stopped and the iron grip of the federal government on
America's throat must be broken. The
recent citizen-led midterm election victory that installed a Republican
majority in the House was a cry of anguish by an oppressed people, a desperate
last stand that slowed the left's destructive advance and kept hope alive. It is now time for a counteroffensive where a
new alliance of Republicans, independents, Tea Partyers
and Reagan Democrats, armed with ballots instead of pitchforks, must start working
forward to 2012 and elect a new-style Republican to the White House and
Republican majorities in both houses of Congress. From now on, every
Republican in Congress must stand fast, through a combination of superior skill
and true grit preventing Obama from doing further harm between now and the next
election.
(“Make No More Faustian Pacts With
the Left” by Ernest S. Christian and Gary A. Robbins dated December 8, 2010
published by Investor’s Business Daily at http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/556177/201012081828/Make-No-More-Faustian-Pacts-With-The-Left.htm
)
For those who
doubt that liberals want to control the information that citizens can receive,
we now have proof that the FCC has begun their assault on free speech. The
FCC Commissioner Michael Copps says to bolster "traditional media," the FCC should
conduct a "public value test" of every commercial broadcast station
at relicensing time. He also advocates relicensing
every four years instead of the current eight.
Ever since Barack Obama became President, prominent conservatives have
warned about liberal efforts to squelch conservative and Christian talk-radio. Although Copps has
said the FCC will not reinstate the Fairness Doctrine, his prescription for
"testing" commercial
broadcast stations will alarm defenders of free speech and free enterprise. The FCC's Public Value Test would include
seven areas:
·
Meaningful
Commitments to News and Public Affairs Programming. These would be quantifiable
and not involve issues of content interference.
·
Enhanced
Disclosure.
Requiring information about what programs a station airs allows viewers to
judge whether their local station should be subsidized with free spectrum
privileges.
·
Political
Advertising Disclosure.
We the People have a right to know who is bank-rolling these ads beyond some
wholly uninformative and vapidly-named group that appears on the bottom of the
screen to mask the special interests it really represents.
·
Reflecting
Diversity.
The FCC’s Diversity Advisory Committee has spent years providing specific,
targeted recommendations to correct this injustice. (Since
when has this been a mission of the FCC?)
·
Community
Discovery.
The FCC required licensees to meet occasionally with their viewers and
listeners to see if the programs being offered reflected the diverse interests
and needs of the community.
·
Local
and Independent Programming.
The goal is more localism in the program diet, more local news and information,
and a lot less streamed-in homogenization and monotonous nationalized music at
the expense of local and regional talent.
·
Public
Safety.
Every station, as a condition of license, must have a detailed, approved plan
to go immediately on-air when disaster, nature-made or man-made, strikes.
The FCC wants to return to
its original licensing bargain between broadcasters and the people: in return
for free use of airwaves that belong exclusively to the people, licensees agree
to serve the public interest as good stewards of a precious national
resource. The FCC and Congress continues its support
for public broadcasting, which it described as "the jewel of our media
landscape." Clearly this FCC initiative is an attempt to implement stealth censorship
on media outlets using arbitrary criteria and partisan evaluation.
(“FCC Commissioner Wants to Test
the ‘Public Value’ of Every Broadcast Station” by Susan Jones dated
December 3, 2010 published by Cybercast News Service at http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/fcc-commissioner-wants-test-public-value
)
The Bipartisan Deficit
Commission led by Democrat Erskine Bowles and Republican Alan Simpson voted 11
to 7 in favor of their far-sighted plan to cut the deficit by $4 trillion
within the decade, which can be classified as only a symbolic victory, because
under the rules of the commission, this nearly 2 to 1 margin represented a
pointed failure to reach the 14 votes needed pass the recommendations on to
Congress. Given the make-up of this commission, it is
somewhat miraculous that the commission came up with any useful ideas at all. As a matter of fact, the commission doesn’t
actually “cut” federal spending. Under
the commission’s proposal, government spending would rise from roughly $3.5
trillion today to more than $5 trillion by 2020. So, under the terrible “cuts” that the
commission is recommending, federal spending would still increase faster than
inflation. This is the old Washington
game of calling a slower increase than previously projected a “cut.” Of course, because the size of the economy
will grow over time, the commission’s proposals would mean that government
spending would fall from 24.3% of GDP today to 21.8% over the next 15 years. If we fail to act, federal spending is
projected to consume as much as 43% of GDP by 2050. To its credit, the Commission made
constructive proposals for capping discretionary spending, reforming Social
Security, and simplifying the tax code (albeit with substantial tax hikes). The Deficit Commission report also revealed
several overlooked truths about the federal government, health reform, the tax
code and more:
· The federal government is
horribly managed.
· Health reform's cost savings
apparently were bogus.
·
Millions
of workers don't pay into Social Security.
·
The
tax code is a hopeless, loophole-riddled mess.
·
Obama
is a big spender.
·
It's
actually not that hard to cut the deficit.
The most important thing this
report will reveal is whether there's any political courage left in Washington.
One of the biggest disappointments of the Deficit Commission report was its
lack of substantial entitlement reform. Modern
democracies have created a new morality.
Government benefits, once
conferred, cannot be revoked. People
expect them and consider them property rights. Just as government cannot randomly confiscate
property, it cannot withdraw benefits without violating a moral code. Ultimately, the
failure of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform was a
failure of leadership, and unfortunately, that man was President Obama.
(“6 Hidden Gems in the Deficit
Commission Report” by John Merline dated December
2, 2010 published by AOL News at http://www.aolnews.com/opinion/article/opinion-6-hidden-gems-in-the-deficit-commission-report/19741541
“Cowards Sank the Deficit Plan”
by John Avlon dated December 3, 2010 published by The
Daily Beast at http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-12-03/deficit-commission-plan-fails-alleged-fiscal-conservatives-most-to-blame/
“Supersized Government” by
Robert Samuelson dated December 6, 2010 published by Real Clear Politics at http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/12/06/supersized_government_108147.html
“Errors of Commission” by Avik Roy dated December 7, 2010 published by National
Review Online at http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/254640/errors-commission-avik-roy
“The Cuts That Weren’t” by
Michael Tanner dated December 8, 2010 published by National Review Online at http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/254714/cuts-weren-t-michael-tanner
)
If the 2010 election produced any
conservative mandates, they are to create jobs and to rein in soaring spending
and deficits. Despite liberal claims to the
contrary, rising spending, not declining revenues, drives America’s long-term
deficits. Once the economy recovers,
revenues are projected to return to their historical average of 18% of the
economy, even if all tax cuts are extended. Federal spending, rising from its historical
average of 20% of the economy to a projected 26% by the end of the decade, is
the moving variable. Nearly all of this
new spending will come from Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and interest
on the debt. Combined and adjusted for
inflation, these annual expenditures will rise from $1.6 trillion to $3
trillion over this decade. Therefore,
budget reform must include putting Social Security and Medicare on a fixed
long-term budget with a capped growth rate.
Yet major entitlement reforms would be phased in slowly. In the meantime, Congress should enact
government-wide spending caps that gradually return spending to 20% or less of
GDP. After a $727 billion spending
increase since 2007, there is no shortage of programs to cut to meet that 20%
target. The 112th Congress should target
programs based on their economic impact, their cost, and the feasibility of
reforming them. It should build
credibility with the public by including cuts in the federal government’s
spending on itself, unpopular earmarks, and even traditional conservative
spending programs. Conservatives could
begin with the following twelve projects:
·
One. Freeze and reform federal
pay.
·
Two. Ban earmarks.
·
Three. Ban corporate welfare.
·
Four. Reform farm subsidies.
·
Five. Recall unspent stimulus
funds.
·
Six. Repeal ObamaCare.
·
Seven. Repeal the new entitlement
Community Living Assistance Services and Support (CLASS).
·
Eight. Return highway spending
to states..
·
Nine. Defund high-speed-rail
projects.
·
Ten. Trim Pell Grants.
·
Eleven. Reduce aid to states.
·
Twelve. Reduce waste.
Conservatives
should harbor no illusions that cutting spending is easy,
however, by carefully selecting its targets, Congress could save as much as $3
trillion over the next decade and lay the groundwork for Social Security,
Medicare, and Medicaid reform.
(“What to Cut” by Brian Riedl dated December 6, 2010 published by National Review
Online at http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/254153/what-cut-brian-riedl
)
Obama has approved
nearly $5 billion for black and Native American farmers who claim they were
discriminated against, which is a redistribution of wealth in the name of
environmental and social justice better known as reparations! Redistribution
of wealth has been an underlying purpose of this administration and Congress,
and one of the most glaring examples has been its welcoming of a series of
lawsuits alleging past discrimination by black, Native American, Hispanic and
female farmers. Pigford
v. Glickman was a class action lawsuit against the Department of Agriculture
alleging discrimination against black farmers in its allocation of farm loans
between 1983 and 1987. A separate suit
filed by 300,000 American Indians claimed they had been cheated out of land
royalties dating back to 1887. It was then-Senator Obama who introduced the original Pigford legislation in 2007. One of the fruits of this lame-duck
session has been the approval of $1.15 billion to the black farmers and $3.4
billion to the American Indians to settle the two lawsuits. At last count, more than 94,000 black farmers
have signed up for payments under the settlement, but based on census data
there were only 33,000 or so black farmers in existence during the period in
question. This is what happens when
government rings the reparations dinner bell, and it's an indication of just
how loose the rules are for vetting past injustices, real or not. Throw in the cult of victimology
permeating modern liberalism and you have a cash cow ready to be milked and victims
will come out of the woodwork. The only
"proof" required was a form
stating that the claimant had "attempted"
to farm, perhaps planting tomatoes in the back yard, and to have a family
member vouch for that assertion. The
government would then send the aggrieved "farmer" a check for $50,000. Pigford is an
outright raid on the U.S. Treasury that needs to be investigated. No doubt there may be
valid minority claims for discrimination, but when there are more claimants
than farmers, so this sure smells like a scam but the President is already
invested in this scam.
(“Reparations? When Pigford Flies” dated
December 7, 2010 published by Investor’s Business Daily at http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/556104/201012071900/Reparations-When-Pigford-Flies.htm
)
Multiculturalism
is the most recent, and perhaps the final, expression of the late 20th-century
left-wing ascendancy, which is a completely synthetic doctrine, formulated
without reference to any perceptible element of the quotidian world, and it is
only a matter of time until it fails spectacularly. Although
derived in format and rhetoric from the civil rights movement, it has no
relationship with the ideas or hopes expressed by King, Abernathy, Rustin, or
any other legitimate civil rights leader. While the civil rights movement was founded in
opposition to the odious practice of legal racial segregation, multiculturalism
had no such concrete agenda. It was
based almost completely on abstract academic theories derived in equal part
from black racial extremism and Marxism, purporting to define the relationship
between the dominant "white" race and all other races. It would be difficult to find a theory to beat
multiculturalism for sheer vacuity. It
ignores the fact that numerous groups among the "oppressor" race, such as the Irish and Jews, have been
historical victims, while the "oppressed"
races have often victimized in their turn when they have occupied the top slot.
For these reasons among others, multiculturalism gained no greater a foothold with the
American public than its political models, socialism and Marxism. Although the left attempted throughout the
late '80s and '90s to force multiculturalism on the country through its
activist PC component, the effort went nowhere. There were two exceptions -- the academy,
whence multiculturalism arose, and the government bureaucracy. On campus, multiculturalism remained one of
the weird things that academics believe. In the bureaucracy, it became another
expression of bureaucratic stupidity and intransigence, which did not prevent
it from having an impact, limited but malignant, on the country as a whole. After 9/11, the response of the country's
intellectual leadership was straightforward: to react exactly as set forth by
multicultural doctrine. The U.S., as a
white European oppressor state, was obviously at fault. The Islamist jihadis,
all members of an oppressed subaltern race, were victims, no matter what
appearances might otherwise suggest. TSA
procedure was tailored to meet multicultural norms from the beginning. No effort was spared to avoid any sign of
profiling. There are lessons to learned in the world of multiculturism:
·
A primary driver of
multiculturalism is cowardice -
Americans as a whole were repelled by the Ground Zero Mosque proposal, while
academic, media, and government figures (among them Bloomberg and Obama)
feigned incomprehension.
·
Multiculturalism cannot
distinguish between hustlers and legitimate figures - The civilian trial of Ahmed
Khalfan Ghailani resulted
in acquittal on 224 charges of murder and 60 other serious charges while
discouraging any further civilian trials.
·
Multiculturalism and the law
don't mix -
The TSA's new airport anti-terror strategy is a disaster which was met with
total resistance from the public, marked by confrontations with officials, open
arguments, and refusals to cooperate.
·
To sow multiculturalism is to
reap the whirlwind -
Portland opted out of the Joint Terrorism Task Force as kind of a protest
against the inhuman policies of the Bush-Cheney tyranny. The population of the
city was saved, despite themselves, by agents of a government they despise.
The problem is that there
exists no particular impulse for reform or removal. Multiculturalism infests all levels of
government, and no one involved sees anything wrong with the status quo. It is likely that we will simply stumble on as
if lost in a haze until we suffer yet another large-scale atrocity. The battle against terror is a race between
rationality and luck. The United States has been very lucky so far, lucky over
Detroit, lucky in Times Square, lucky in Dallas, and lucky in Portland, but
luck, as Fort Hood clearly reveals, won't last forever, and when it fails,
rationality, intelligence, common sense, and trained intuition, must be ready
to take over.
(“Multiculturalism Hits the Wall”
by J.R. Dunn dated December 5, 2010 published by American Thinker at http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/12/multiculturalism_hits_the_wall.html
)
The dramatic
improvements in Iraqi security between 2007 and 2009 have produced important,
but incomplete changes in Iraq's politics, and these changes make it possible
to imagine Iraq slowly muddling upward, building gradually toward a better
future. -Iraq's own internal dynamics and the history of
intercommunal civil wars indicate that if Iraq does
not find a way to muddle slowly upward toward greater stability, it is far more
likely that it will slide quickly backward into the chaos of all-out civil war
than that it would simply muddle downward toward an unpleasant, weak, but
minimally stable state that need not concern the United States. Washington has signaled its intention to
withdraw U.S. military forces from the country, sooner rather than later. Washington has announced a strategy to exit,
but it has not yet formulated an exit
strategy that will secure and sustain its interests in Iraq and the region. The United States will have several different
goals as it exits Iraq, but these goals, and the objectives they imply, are not
all of equal importance, and Washington must recognize the priorities among
them:
·
Iraq cannot be allowed to descend
back into civil war -
Because of Iraq's own resources and its position in the economically vital and
geo-strategically sensitive Persian Gulf region, it would be disastrous for
American vital national interests if Iraq were to slip into an all-out civil
war, which still remains very possible.
·
Iraq cannot reemerge as an
aggressive state -
There is little danger of this in the near term, but as the United States works
to build a strong, cohesive Iraq that would not relapse into internal conflict,
it also must avoid building one that is so powerful and self-confident that it
will threaten its neighbors.
·
Iraq should ideally be a
strong, prosperous U.S. ally -
Because it will be difficult enough to ensure that Iraq averts civil war and
does not emerge as a new "Frankenstein's
monster" of the Gulf, this last objective should be seen as an aspirational goal rather than an irreducible necessity.
Since Iraq is now a fully
sovereign nation enjoying a resurgence of nationalism, it is essential that
Iraqis see themselves as benefiting from continued American involvement in
Iraq. The Strategic Framework Agreement
(SFA), a partnership document between Iraq and the United States that was
initiated by the Iraqi government, provides a foundation for this type of
assistance. If the United States wants
to maintain leverage in Iraq, the SFA must ultimately deliver outcomes that
Iraqis value. For these same reasons,
the United States must work in tandem with the United Nations Assistance
Mission for Iraq, other international organizations, and its allies (in the
region, in Europe, and elsewhere) more than ever before. The more that the United
States can move in synch with the UN and American allies, the more palatable
American initiatives will be to Iraqis.
Ultimately, the United States must condition the
continuation of the U.S.-Iraqi relationship on the willingness of the Iraqi
political leadership to guide their country in the direction of greater
stability, inclusivity, and effective governance.
(“Unfinished Business: An American
Strategy for Iraq Moving Forward” by Frederick Kagan,
Kenneth Pollack, Raad Alkadiri,
J. Scott Carpenter, Sean Kane, and Joost Hiltermann dated December 3, 2010 published by American
Enterprise Institute at http://www.aei.org/paper/100161
)
*
There is so much published each week that unless you search for it, you will
miss important breaking news. I try to
package the best of this information into my “Views on the News” each Saturday morning. Updates have been made this week to the
following issue sections:
· Feminism at http://www.returntocommonsensesite.com/dp/feminism.php
· Immigration at http://www.returntocommonsensesite.com/dp/immigration.php
· Foreign Policy at http://www.returntocommonsensesite.com/fp/philosophy.php
· Europe at http://www.returntocommonsensesite.com/fp/europe.php
David Coughlin
Hawthorne, NY