Category: ideological culture

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ideological culture national politics & policies U.S. Constitution

The Warfare Over General Welfare

Constitutionalists, flush with the attention being paid this very day in the House of Representatives to the land’s highest law, finally get to hold their conversations outside of seminars and institutes.

Some pundits argue that Tea Party folks will be surprised by how much power the Constitution gives the federal government. (Sure, I miss the Articles of Confederation.)

But however much power Madison & Co. bestowed upon the Feds, there is a limit. This comes as a shock to career politicians who envision government as all things to all people, from world cop to tooth fairy.

They like to point to the “general welfare clause,” which reads: “The Congress shall have the Power To … provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States.” Could this mean Congress can do anything it wants, if designed to help people generally?

Yesterday, several Wall Street Journal readers cleared up any misunderstandings. 

Michael Hanselman of Maryland cited Thomas Jefferson’s 1814 conviction that “Congress had not unlimited powers … to provide for the general welfare, but were restrained to those specifically enumerated.” 

Arnold Nelson of Chicago quoted from Federalist 41, where James Madison, the Constitution’s chief architect, decried an expansive view of “general Welfare” as “a very fierce attack against the Constitution.” Mr. Nelson and Mr. Madison point to the 18 enumerated powers in Section 8, which are the only powers Congress has to affect the general welfare.

The intent? Clear. Today’s reality? Much different.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
free trade & free markets ideological culture national politics & policies

Study War Some More?

Some people love spending so much they’d kill to do it.

A while back, Paul Krugman, today’s leading Keynesian shill, trotted out the old chestnut that World War II brought America out of the Great Depression. In The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty, Steve Horwitz provides a concise, reasoned response:

Wealth increases when people are able to engage in exchanges they believe will be mutually beneficial. The production of new goods that consumers wish to purchase is the beginning of this process. 

And borrowing from future generations to spend on goods not connected “to the desires of consumers, but rather to the desire of the politically powerful” doesn’t work. 

Krugman talks war not because he wants one, but because he thinks government spending is so important that he’ll take what he can get, “even if the spending isn’t particularly wise.”

He misses the point.

The malaise that holds back recovery after a shock like the Implosion of 2008 isn’t lack of spending as such — it’s lack of confidence. Capitalism depends on trillions of separate plans and desires working together. When investors are wary of investing and consumers — fearing the future — don’t know what they can really afford to buy, no amount of “jump start” splurging will repair the engine.

At the end of World War II conscripts were freed, wage and price controls were abandoned, and a sense of victory permeated everything — and the Great Depression ended. Finally. 

The lesson? End wars. Curtail regulations. Free up the system.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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ideological culture

No Labels, No Clue

Some big players at the game of politics misinterpret the nature of today’s general political discontent, and offer only hollow novelty in response.

Take the “No Labels” movement.

A number of big-​name politicians, including New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Indiana Senator Evan Bayh, push the idea of a centrist, can-​do spirit, a bi-​partisan effort that will transcend the nastiness of the current Establishment Insider/​Tea Party Outsider split. Their trendy-​sounding “No Labels” label communicates their allegedly co-​operative, spectrum-​transcendent message. Their slogan? “Not Left. Not Right. Forward.”

According to Linda Killian, of Politics Daily, “the message No Labels is espousing is exactly what a majority of Americans, who are fed up with both parties, say they want from their government.”

This seems to fly in the face of what I’ve gleaned of American disgust. And it distorts the actual landscape of power. No Labels “pragmatism” is as mainstream as you can get, as Matt Welch noted in Reason:

Barack Obama and John McCain both ran for president as post-​ideological pragmatists. So did, in their own ways, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. It remains an attractive pose, and will always draw cheers from the indefatigable problem-​solvers drawn to power like cowbirds to cattle.

America’s growing disaffection with politicians springs from the continual betrayals of common sense by both parties — including centrist can-doers. 

“No Labels”? Phooey. Instead: “No Bailouts. No Over-​spending. No Ignoring the Voters.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
education and schooling general freedom ideological culture nannyism national politics & policies

Fat Lot of Good That’ll Do

It sounded like a good idea — Michelle Obama would get involved in a campaign to reduce childhood obesity. Obesity is a problem, yes, and a good cause for the First Lady. But, today, advocacy must always be paired with legislation.

An AP news story provides all you really need to know:

A child nutrition bill on its way to President Barack Obama — and championed by the first lady — gives the government power to limit school bake sales and other fundraisers that health advocates say sometimes replace wholesome meals in the lunchroom.

So now we are to have federal government’s micro-​mismanagement reach far beyond the curriculum. The basic idea being … give up on parents. Give up on local control. Go, Washington!

Our national nannies took special care with the bill’s language, adding the category of school fundraisers as a special target of the regulations. Apparently, they can’t stand the fact that, on special occasions, mothers and fathers bake up sugary treats to sell, to support special school activities that affect their kids.

I guess they want us to sell broccoli. 

Yup. That’ll send the school band to Disneyland.

The whole bill is a bad idea, and not just because Washington can’t tell special occasions from one’s day-​in/​day-​out diet. The very singling out of special fundraisers for federal attention shows just how far into our lives Washington’s busybodies believe they can insert themselves. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
ideological culture too much government

Where Democrats Go Wrong

When we find ourselves in a pickle, it’s a good idea to ask: Where did we go wrong? 

I’ve often probed how America got itself into the present mess. I’ve noted how easy it is for politicians to lose touch with the common sense of the American people — so much so that they cannot even imagine balancing a budget while they are in office. 

Further, I’ve often castigated Republicans for betraying their promises to cut spending.

But what of Democrats? Where’s the common sense?

When President Obama proposed a non-​military pay freeze on federal workers, the Democratic National Committee’s “Organizing for America” (OFA) QUANGO asked its supporters for help. Fine. But what happened? The Democratic base went ape. Bananas. Noodles-​out nuts.

Example? David Dayen of the FDL News Desk. “We’ve officially gone around the bend,” he wrote, thereby going ’round the bend. He characterized the carefully worded letter sent out by OFA with a “this is what we’ve been reduced to” snipe.

Dayen and too many other Democrats think their ideology means always increasing government worker pay. Even if government workers prove almost impossible to fire, have great benefits, and comparatively high pay, they must not be asked to make a tiny sacrifice. Not even while others suffer.

If these partisans’ core concern were really helping Americans, including the poor, they wouldn’t be so fixed on keeping federal pay as high as it is.

But, priorities, you know.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
ideological culture national politics & policies

The Murky, Muddled Middle

We’ve seen a lot of insightful reflection about what the recent elections say about the prospects for liberty and the efforts of many Americans to fight for endangered liberties.

One lesson I hope we’re on the way to unlearning is how allegedly “praiseworthy” it is to evade any clear-​cut defense of fundamental political principle. How allegedly “critical” it is to compromise not only on the details of a program that does advance one principles, but also on the basic principles themselves.

In a recent communiqué, Representative Ed Emery rejects the notion that “moderates” lost, sometimes spectacularly, because voters “weren’t thinking.” No, “Moderates lost because voters woke up to the truth that lukewarm does not protect personal liberties; it compromises them [and] protects the status quo.…”

But not even the status quo is protected by huddling in the middle of the road. The premier beneficiaries of the worship of the muddled middle are those who do advocate certain fundamental (and poisonous) ideological principles but who succeed in posing as practitioners of “moderation.” Today, the radical left calls itself “the center” and screams bloody murder about “extremism” when anybody offers cogent objections to their socialist agenda. “Compromise,” to them, means only tweaking the speed at which we hurtle ever closer to full government control over our lives.

Let’s not submit to this intimidation, this fraudulent debate-framing.

Let’s demand a fair and open clash of basic political principles.

That’s a battle we’ll win.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.