Category: ideological culture

Categories
ideological culture national politics & policies too much government

A Too-Clever Prez?

“It’s all right in politics to be clever,” said George F. Will last week, “but you don’t want to look like you’re trying to be clever, because that looks tricky and sneaky.”

Will, who has recently jumped ship from ABC to Fox News, was identifying the autocratic nature of current national politics. He did this on his premiere appearance on Fox’s The Kelly File, starring Megyn Kelly.

“And, in fact, as the president continues to waive this and suspend that in the exercise of what he calls ‘enforcement discretion,’ the American people are beginning to feel that the law is in constant flux. And if the law is in constant flux . . . there is no law. . . .”

In a Washington Post column earlier in the week, Will identified the president’s personal flaw at the heart of the tragedy. Obama has always thought of himself as an extremely clever fellow, and as a result of his (perhaps undue) self-esteem, has often been bored. Bored, even, with competence.

For Ms. Kelly’s audience, Will painted the problem in the broader context of Democratic Progressivism. It’s been a hundred years since the disastrous reign of Woodrow Wilson, another clever fellow hailing from the Ivy Leage. Obama’s parallels with Wilson are apparent, and it’s no wonder that “Obamacare is collapsing under the weight of accumulated cleverness,” Will states, perceptively — well, at least echoing what I wrote a few weekends ago on Townhall.com.

America doesn’t need super-clever (much less faux-clever) leaders. The country, on the brink of insolvency, needs wise ones.

But Barack Obama, self-diagnosed clever person, seems more interested in appearance than reality, and is, in the end, merely tricky and sneaky.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
ideological culture media and media people too much government

Got Ads?

First the hush-hush secrecy; then the lies. Now something even . . . worse?

President Barack Obama doesn’t think the American people can handle the truth. Neither do several progressive non-profit groups in Colorado that have produced a plethora of cringe-worthy ads promoting Obamacare.

One print ad, “Let’s Get Physical,” pictures a young women giving a thumbs up sign and showing off her birth control pills standing next to a scruffy-faced man-boy, with the text: “OMG, he’s hot! Let’s hope he’s as easy to get as this birth control. My health insurance covers the pill, which means all I have to worry about is getting him between the covers.* I got insurance.”

No worries, eh? The asterisk informs readers that, “The pill doesn’t protect you from STDs.”

Another advertisement, “Brosurance,” reaches out to young . . . drunkards. “Keg stands are crazy,” we’re informed. “Not having health insurance is crazier.” It continues: “Don’t tap into your beer money to cover those medical bills. We got it covered.”

Gee, thanks. In fact, both print ads end with the “thanks obamacare!” slogan.

So, can floundering Obamacare be saved by harnessing the awesome power of sex appeal and inebriation and huge dollops of kitsch and irony? Only if young people are as vacuous as these ads insinuate.

“Younger Americans may indeed be reckless enough to do keg stands and have unprotected sex on a regular basis,” Nick Gillespie wrote in Time, “but they’re not so dumb as the ‘Got Insurance?’ ads — or the architects of Obamacare — seem to think.”

Because, as Gillespie and others point out, Obamacare overcharges young people to supposedly lower costs for others. Let’s get real, bro.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
education and schooling ideological culture

Pledge or No Pledge

School authorities in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, decided not to require students of all ages to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. They said they couldn’t find time to put it in the schedule, etc., thereby both disappointing and puzzling local veterans, who were the ones who brought the issue up.

The “time” excuse was just that, of course. What the real reasons for the decision are, I don’t know, and will let others guess.

On the bright side, there are reasons not to require recitation of the Pledge. My qualms center on how un-American it seems. Veterans today often talk up the Flag, and the Pledge, etc., but the Founding Fathers took allegiance seriously, and they didn’t secede from Great Britain to pledge their sacred honors to a symbol — a fighting banner too easily unanchored from the best part of the short declaration, “with liberty and justice for all.”

Besides, the Pledge was written in the late 19th century by Francis Bellamy, a Christian socialist who targeted the Pledge at those sectors of society that he most feared: immigrants, anyone prone to “radicalism.” And yet when I read his political agenda, I see the very radical ideas that corrupted American politics away from limited government.

Worse yet, Bellamy devised an ominous salute to go with his recitation. (Thankfully, that was modified to the hand-on-heart gesture in 1942, when Congress officially adopted the Pledge.)

I’d rather students learn about the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Substance, not symbol; law, not fiction.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
ideological culture political challengers

Is the Tea Party Dead?

Newspapermen used to keep files on major figures, for that inevitable day when the newsworthies shuffle off that final coil. Timely obituaries don’t just “happen.”

Heedless of the danger of a premature obit, today’s journalists seem always ready with an autopsy, even before the corpse cools.

Every few years we endure talk of the death of a major political party. Journalists love this sort of speculation. And apparently it’s so forgettable that it never really sticks to the journalists who trotted out the last false prophecy. In the real world, sociologists study what happens to cults “When Prophecies Fail”; in journalism, the eternal cranking out of copy goes on as if nothing happened.

The Last Democrat, a book produced at the height of the Bill Clinton scandals, argued that Americans would never again elect a Democratic president — Americans, you see, had finally wised up, given up on the old redistributionist racket. Wishful thinking.

The book should be prominently placed on every would-be prophet’s desk. A cautionary title.

Today, the old political rackets have ratcheted up, and Democrats are riding high. Sort of.

So now, after Tuesday’s elections, we hear talk of the death of the Tea Party.

A possibility? Yes. But remember: it was never a real party, and it was never about tea. It was (as near as I could make out) about responsibility. In government.

I can’t see how that idea will ever go out of style.

Though how it will win, that’s harder to envision.

And whether the name will stick with the idea, that’s another matter, too. Tea and revolutions, like obituaries, must be prepared in advance.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
ideological culture national politics & policies

Demonize, Demonize

Washington State’s I-517 failed yesterday. Did demonization help assure its defeat?

In the state’s Voters’ Pamphlet, the second item against the measure was “I-517 benefits Tim Eyman” because, it was alleged, the measure would allow Eyman to “double his output and increase his profits.”

Eyman is a great guy, but to insiders in the Evergreen State he’s the Devil Incarnate. He keeps on promoting initiatives that would limit the state’s seemingly unlimited taxing and spending propensities.

So, of course, he’s demonized, though the idea that I-517 would’ve benefited his professional operation more than everyday citizens just entering the process is absurd.

But speaking of absurd, and of demonization, you can’t get more of either than Harry Belafonte. The august old singer spoke in a New York church in favor of Democrat mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio. Identifying David and Charles Koch as “the Koch brothers,” he went off on a tear, objecting to their spending money on causes Belafonte doesn’t approve of:

Already we have lost 14 states in this union to the most corrupt group of citizens I’ve ever known. They make up the heart and the thinking in the minds of those who would belong to the Ku Klux Klan. They are white supremacists. They are men of evil.

What possible warrant there could be for the “white supremacist” charge? None was offered. Chalk it up to partisan hysteria, hyperbole. But, truth is, the Kochs aren’t devils, nor are other wealthy individuals who fund causes, whether we like their politics or not.

The ad hominem — ad diabolos? — fixation in politics continues to plague debate, making otherwise intelligent people seem like fools.

Unfortunately, it too often works.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
free trade & free markets general freedom ideological culture

Taboos Against Toke Talk

Not all taboos are alike. Some are backed by the full force of law. Other taboos are enforced merely by polite opinion and the snubs of the cold shoulder.

Have you noticed how the latter kind feeds the former?

John Payne, executive director of Missouri’s Show Me Cannabis Regulation, was recently asked on Mike Ferguson’s Missouri Viewpoints why the politics of marijuana has changed in recent years. His answer is worth contemplating:

[O]ne thing that’s finally changing is that the taboo around talking about this has finally started to drop away. Pretty much, people have thought that any discussion of the issue . . . has been labeled almost criminal in and of itself. Just talking about legalizing it means that not only do you support the use but you yourself are a user.

He calls the old view a “stereotype,” and says that its repulsive — shaming? — effects seem to be dwindling — the town meetings he has been conducting around Missouri have certainly been drawing huge crowds.

Interestingly, later on in the show, the pro-drug war gentleman shot back exactly in the old-school manner. He demanded to know “why [marijuana legalizers] don’t frankly come out and say ‘because we want to get high!’” He was dismissive of Mr. Payne’s reasoning. He’ll only accept the confession: “I want to get high.”

Apparently, individual freedom coupled with personal responsibility — principle — is not something the drug warrior finds very convincing. Unlike growing numbers of Americans who now seem, at the very least, more than willing to engage in what Payne calls a “rational debate.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
ideological culture too much government

Surprised by Obamacare

So, wait, Obamacare is not free?

Pre-Obamacare, George Schwab paid $228 a month for health insurance. Now he must pay $1,208 a month for a comparable plan. “The president told the American people numerous times that ‘If you like your coverage, you can keep it.’ How can we keep it if it has been eliminated? How can we keep it if the premium has been increased 430 percent . . . ?” He sounds surprised.

Michael Hood paid $324 a month. Now it’s $895. “The president told us Obamacare would make health insurance affordable and reduce costs. It is now impossible for our family to afford private health insurance.” He sounds surprised.

Tom Waschura is getting socked with a $10,000-per-year addition to his family policy. “I was laughing at Boehner — until the mail came today.” He sounds surprised.

Cindy Vinson must pay $1,800 more a year. “I want people to have health care. I just didn’t realize I would be the one who was going to pay for it personally.” She sounds surprised.

At the Healthcare.gov Facebook page, Dema Zinger says “I am so disappointed. These prices are outrageous and there are huge deductibles.” She sounds surprised.

If government massively transfers private insurance policy costs from each according to ability (younger, healthier, richer) to each according to alleged need (older, sicker, poorer), there’s a good chance the former will end up paying more whether they liked their pre-Obamacare policies or not.

Which is a surprise because . . . ?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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

Greenspan’s Tarnished Standard

Long ago, before becoming Federal Reserve Inflater-in-Chief, Alan Greenspan advocated a gold standard.

The idea is that everybody pays for things in gold, a natural medium of exchange. Receipts for gold used for convenience in trade are “backed” and can be easily redeemed. With appropriate protections in place, politicians can’t dilute the value of money by printing more receipts or by shuffling phosphor dots on a computer screen.

But our world is very different.

At the Fed, Greenspan oversaw a lot of credit expansion, encouraging a horde of folks who couldn’t afford homes to take out mortgages. Any discussion of the financial crisis of 2007-2008, or why “we” “failed to predict” it, must discuss Fed policies and other government interventions.

Not, though, if you’re a former Federal Reserve chairman intimately aware of those policies and fully capable of grasping their baleful effects. Then you blather about “irrational exuberance,” or, in a new article for Foreign Affairs magazine, Keynes’s “animal spirits.”

Not a word about how monetary inflation spawns malinvestments that must eventually be washed away. Indeed, the best interpretation of Greenspan’s new book, or his appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, is that Greenspan is doing his utmost to deflect attention from his own disastrous record.

He’d rather have us believe that “free markets” failed in 2008, not — oh, no! — the policies he himself had pushed since obtaining his seat as head honcho at America’s inflationary central bank.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
education and schooling ideological culture

Progress in Talk About Schools

Since my days in the early grades of school, there’s been a lot of educational progress in America.

Not so much in the public schools, but in alternatives to them. When I was young, public schools were not only paid for by taxpayers, they were near-monopolies. Parochial schools and other religious-based programs were few. Home-schooling was uncommon, technically illegal in most states and locales.

How things have changed! Not enough, mind you. But the general political culture has improved enough that charter schools are often voted in, and there exist working voucher systems, if of a limited scope, in several areas of these United States.

In Britain, the situation is also opening up. The Labour Party is pitching its support for “parent-led academies in areas of educational need.” Party outreach spokesman Tristram Hunt, who had previously snarked that such projects were “vanity project[s] for yummy mummies,” takes it all back, now insisting that his (quasi-socialist) Labour Party now backs “enterprise and innovation.”

Britain is ruled by a Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition, with Labour on the outs, so of course Labour could be said to be grasping at straws. It’s cheap to try freedom when you have little power. Conservative politicians insist that the latest statements are nothing but empty promises, and that Labour is still socialistically clinging to the old notion of schools “run by bureaucrats.”

But hey: notice that freer solutions are on the table.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
First Amendment rights ideological culture national politics & policies

Supreme Politics and Sublime Congress

Former FEC commissar Trevor Potter says the Supreme Court “should get more politically savvy.”

Potter really means the High Court should agree with him, and allow incumbents in Congress to write the campaign finance rules under which they — and their opponents — operate, undisturbed by constitutional review.

Last week, the Court heard McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, a case concerning Shaun McCutcheon, an Alabama businessman, who wants to give $1,776 dollars to more candidates. He’s limited, because by law he cannot give over $48,600 to all federal candidates combined.

Why? Apparently those who contribute $48,600 or less to candidates they believe in are pure of heart, but that once that forty-eighth-thousandth-six-hundredth-and-first dollar is donated it can only be devoid of any decent intention, an unquestionable attempt to corrupt our government.

Most observers recognize that such an arbitrary limit is constitutionally suspect and likely to be voided. Including Potter, who is already furious that the Roberts Court has restricted congressional legislation dealing with campaign regulation in all five cases it has thus far considered. Potter accuses it of “judicial hubris” and “contempt for legislative authority” and “a surprising lack of respect for Congress’s expertise on political matters.”

How could “a lack of respect” for Congress be “surprising”?

Speaking of “political savvy,” where’s Potter’s?

Potter concludes that the Supremes “should leave politics to the politicians, who have a better sense of when the intersection of fundraising and lawmaking leads to corruption.”

Sure, politicians have a better sense of that corrupt intersection . . . they’re always there.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.