Categories
free trade & free markets national politics & policies too much government

To Dream the “Impossible” Repeal

Senator Ted Cruz’s non-​filibuster filibuster, monopolizing the Senate floor for the ninth hour as I type these words, is easy to characterize — if you are Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert.

Easy to make fun of, especially when the senator read Dr. Seuss’s Green Eggs and Ham as a bedtime story for his children — via C‑Span.

It’s not a filibuster, since it stops no vote. It’s not even a speed-​bump on the way to a vote. It’s something of a demonstration by one senator and a few of his allies to highlight the dangers of the Democrats’ Affordable Care Act, and the necessity to repeal it. Marshaling emails, tweets, and open letters, Cruz hopes to pressure the unmovable Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to allow a vote on an amendment to defund Obamacare.

The point is this: Attacking Obamacare can’t help but seem quixotic. Like Don Quixote tilting at windmills, we who want less government — who want to limit government — often find ourselves jousting with giants who don’t budge, or (ahem) budget.

So of course we do appear comic, now and then.

But there’s also a reason that when Broadway and then Hollywood turned Cervantes’ classic into a musical, Don Quixote became something of a hero. The dream of justice, of economy, of equality before the law, of humility before the forces of nature, and resilience before the hordes of delusional politicians, does seem impossible.

But not fighting it, whatever peaceful way we can, would be disgraceful.

Ted Cruz is heroic.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
media and media people

Have You No Sense of Decency, Sir?

Some folks have all the subtlety of a whoopee cushion.

In a Washington Post column about the influence of freshman Senator Ted Cruz, Dana Milbank remarked that Cruz “is the same age Joe McCarthy was when he amassed power in the Senate.”

The reader is supposed to recognize in natal form a dangerous McCarthyesque demagoguery in Cruz, who is a vigorous and no doubt sometimes wrongheaded polemicist. Milbank offers no substantive comparison of the two men. He just let slip a hit-​and-​run innuendo, then raced away.

Why? I can’t read Milbank’s mind. Typically, though, smear artists defame a person in hopes that others will reel back in horror or contempt, thus diverted from relevant considerations of fact. Perhaps the smear-​wielder also wants the target to be cowed into silence.

Turnabout is fair play and underscores the silliness here. After the Instapundit blog linked to Milbank’s rapier-​like thrust, readers gave reciprocity a try. Christopher Arfaa came up with: “Dana Milbank will turn 45 next week, the same age as Walter Duranty was in 1929, when he secured an exclusive interview with Josef Stalin.” Jay Brinker proposed: “John Kerry is 69, the same age as Neville Chamberlin when he signed the Munich Agreement.” You get the idea.

Sounds easy to get caught in such a net.

I may as well admit it: I too am of a certain age — the same age at which any number of disreputable persons perpetrated some enormity or another.

All my known associates have regular birthdays as well.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.