Principalities And Powers

Pelosi's America and the Promise of Harmony

2009-11-09T12:58:00.000-05:00

Why is the woman smiling?

Getty Images

She is gleeful because her plans for a New America are being realized.

Think of it this way...

Consider other Narfbuscuit insights.

P.S. Well-earned smugness for anyone who got the allusion to Samuel Huntington.

Wise Public Policy Frees the American Spirit

2009-11-06T09:51:00.002-05:00

During a recession, there is much less money in circulation than there was before. That's what a shrinking economy means. Fewer people have jobs. People spend less. Governments have revenue shortfalls. But non-profit organizations, everything from local churches (which depend entirely on giving) to big universities (which have large endowments to carry them), also suffer a decrease in contributions.

These circumstances make it all the more useful to learn what three sociologists from Rice and Notre Dame universities have discovered regarding American giving patterns, particularly among churchgoers. In Passing the Plate: Why American Christians Don't Give Away More Money (Oxford UP, 2008), Michael O. Emerson (sociology professor at Rice University), Christian Smith (sociology professor at the University of Notre Dame), and Patricia Snell (Notre Dame religion and sociology researcher) have that, "When it comes to sharing their money, most contemporary American Christians are remarkably ungenerous."

Fifty percent of American who do not attend church give nothing to charity.

Twenty percent of American Christians give nothing to charity.

Regular churchgoers give two percent.

Nine percent of self-identified Christians give ten percent or more of their after-tax income to charity.

Twenty-three percent of active Protestant church attenders give ten percent or more.

As real income have risen in the last one hundred years, giving as a percentage of income has declined.

The poor are more generous in their giving than the rich.

Compare these two figures: "Regular churchgoers give two percent" and "Twenty-three percent of active Protestant church attenders give ten percent or more." This appears to indicate a significant difference between Protestant and Catholic giving. I suspect that most of the giving in those Protestant churches is from Evangelicals, including Evangelicals in the old mainline churches.

Clearly, there are many people who simply will not give to charity, regardless of how much money they have. I recall that when Al Gore's tax statements were released during the 2000 campaign, we discovered that he gave a miniscule amount to charity out of his ample income. Liberals, it seems, don't believe in private giving. They believe in establishing generous though inefficient and generally ineffective government programs. People with lower incomes are more generous in their giving, as these reports confirm.

The last fact calls to mind the 2006 book, Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism, by Arthur C. Brooks, the Louis A. Bantle Professor of Business and Government Policy at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs and Whitman School of Management.

But there are others who give regardless of their income, but who would give more if their income weren't so squeezed under the burden of having to pay for bloated government programs, including government schools. If taxes were lower, including property taxes (on Long Island, you can pay $10,000 a year on a middle to lower middle class home), people would give more money to private charities which are far more responsive to what I would call "neighbor needs" and far more effective at bringing remedies. Marvin Olasky's The Tragedy of American Compassion is the classic study on this point.

John Fund, when he spoke here at The King's College the other day, told us that occassionaly he will ask a liberal audience the following question. If you recieved a million dollars for some reason, and you wanted to give away ten percent to a worthy charitable work, raise your hand if you would give it to your local welfare office. In all the years he has been asking this question, only three people have raised their hands. One person was just hard of hearing, and otherwise would not have raised her hand. One person was Swedish. The third person worked in a local welfare office.

Freeing the world-transforming energy of the American spirit, which is powerfully informed by the Spirit of Christ in many of those Americans, entails lowering taxes not only to spur business enterprise and technological innovation, but also to release the imaginitive and vigorous charitable giving and labors of a citizenry already inclined to serve one another directly, personally, and sacrificially.

Mapping the Uninsured

2009-11-04T08:02:00.001-05:00

The Geography of the Uninsured - Jim Gimpel

Here is a really fun and informative interactive map that shows the percentage of the state population that has no health insurance.

The top rate is over 40%. The lowest rate is 3.4%, but those lowest rates are all in Massachusetts where people are required by law to have it. The top rates are all in the border states, like Texas and California, where there are particularly high concentrations of illegal aliens. Almost all of the states with a rate of over 25% are Democratic districts.

My friend Matt Laslo at PRI (Capitol News Connection) put me on to this.

Here's an interactive map at NPR that distinguishes the numbers for uninsured children from those of adults under 65.

Big Government Needs Big Laws

2009-11-02T22:49:00.001-05:00

Big government requires big laws. It seems appropriate, therefore, that the House health care reform law (HR-3962) requires 1,990 pages to cover everything that needs to be put right.

Back when it was HR-3200, but only about half the size of the present bill, Jimmy Fallon had this fun with it.

Incidentally, the law is sponsored by Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich) who takes a withering blow in Time magazine's cover story on "The Tragedy of Detroit" by Daniel Okrent (Oct. 5, 2009). "Dingell has in fact played a signal role in destroying Detroit," that is, his own constituency. With proven judgment like that, the longest serving member of the House of Representatives lends his good name to the Congressional effort at reforming one sixth of the U.S. economy.

Two words: buy gold.

The Abolition of Men

2009-10-27T21:59:00.002-04:00

Joe Queenan told us the other day that he is "sick of reading the 'Man Up, Barack' editorial" from the President's liberal detractors ("'Man Up, Obama' and Other Nonesense," Wall Street Journal, Oct. 26, 2009).

I am surprised that the thought of manly virtue enters the liberal mind at all. It has been central to the New Left liberal agenda for generations now to un-man men so that we may all live in a world that is not only sexually more egalitarian, but also safer.

Here are two articles on how boyhood is being abolished so that virility may trouble us no more.

Anthony Esolen gives us "A Requiem for Friendship: Why Boys Will Not Be Boys & Other Consequences of the Sexual Revolution" (Touchstone, Sept. 2005).

Our boys are failing in school. Has it occurred to no one that we have checked them at every turn, perversely insisting that they must not form brotherhoods, that they must not identify their manhood with practical and intellectual skills that transform the world, and that they must not ever have the opportunity, apart from girls, to attach themselves in friendship to men who could teach them?

Anthony Esolen is Professor of English at Providence College in Providence, Rhode Island.

The second article is by James Bowman, the author of Honor: A History (Encounter Books, 2006). In his article, "The Decline of the Honor Culture: An Old Code Becomes Déclassé" (Policy Review, August/September 2009), he looks at how liberal passivism neuters our boys and will leave our country defenseless insofar as we allow it to continue.

It’s hard to persuade boys of military age that they have a duty to fight for their country when they have been taught from their earliest years that fighting of any kind is wrong and shameful and only leads to more fighting.

You should read this article alongside what C.S. Lewis says about "men without chests" in The Abolition of Man. James Bowman is a resident scholar at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington.

Big Google Is Watching You

2009-10-25T16:15:00.003-04:00

You know you've made it when the name of your company becomes a verb.

New Yorker cartoonist, Charles Barsotti.

NYC is Not Where the Wild Things Are

2009-10-22T20:59:00.002-04:00

They say that New York is a city where anything goes. You could dress like a giraffe, and no one would bat an eye. A man could likely even wear a kilt without causing a stir. But apparently, wearing a bowtie goes beyond even what New Yorkers will tolerate, at least in midtown.

At The King's College, men in the House of Churchill distinguish themselves with various forms of greatness, but also by sporting the Churchill bowtie on Tuesdays. As faculty adviser to the House, I occasionally join them in this.

On my way toward Penn Station this past Tuesday evening, as I waited for the light at Broadway and 33rd, a pedicab driver pulled away from the intersection and said loudly in a mock Brahman accept, "That's why I wear my bowtie!" I thought to myself, "Oh my! I've just been gratuitously mocked by a pedicab driver. By a pedicab driver of all people!"

Perhaps I should have thrown a coffee at him, or even a garbage can. No. It would not have been in keeping with the bowtie. Besides, I remembered this video of a brawl in the street between a pedicab driver and a cabbie. (Go on. How can you not watch it?)

For those of you who are from out of town, "That's New York for ya" is a gross mischaracterization. New Yorkers, even New York cabbies, are a whole lot more civil and friendly than this. In my more than four years here, I have never seen anything even remotely like this. In fact, I have found New Yorkers to be remarkably polite and considerate of one another. (Read my earlier post, "New York--City of Marvels and Manners.")

But it seems that Gotham is also a lot more conventional than it's reputation would lead you to think it is. You can play a guitar in your underwear in Times Square and call yourself the Naked Cowboy, but if you walk down 34th Street dressed that way, you'll make people uncomfortable. (I have not tried this.) I'm not even sure that a man could wear a kilt without getting jeered. And even a distinguished looking bowtie is a step outside the acceptable, inviting cultural punishment from the street.

I'm not complaining, mind you. All of this just confirms my belief that a sustainable, livable political community--which New York City is--requires a degree of mutual consideration and fellow feeling, but also a healthy level of outwardly expressed mutual censorship...some, but not too much.

I love New York. And New York loves me, but not always.

Christian Culture War in the Age of Obama

2009-10-20T14:16:00.001-04:00

In his April 2009 farewell speech to the Focus on the Family staff, Dr. James Dobson surveyed what his more than thirty year defense of the Christian American family had accomplished. Far from triumphalist, he described the work of his mammoth organization on behalf of the unborn child and the dignity of the family as "a holding action." He seemed to concede defeat, but if so it was only for the present. "We are awash in evil and the battle is still to be waged. We are right now in the most discouraging period of that long conflict. Humanly speaking, we can say that we have lost all those battles, but God is in control and we are not going to give up now, right?"

It does look bad on the culture front. Thirty-six years after Roe v. Wade, abortion is still legal. All manner of depravity is broadcast over the airwaves, taught and tolerated in the public schools, and pressed into our souls from every direction. It is more difficult than ever to raise godly or even just polite children without sealing one's family off from the world. Like Dobson, I do not think that the war is over. It cannot be. As God has not rescinded the cultural mandate to "take dominion over the earth" (Gen. 1:26), neither has Christ told his people to be anything other than salt and light in the world (Matt. 5:13-14), taking captive every thought for him (II Cor. 10:5).

John Barber and David Brooks have separate responses to the state of the Christian culture war in the age of Obama.

In a conference address at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church this spring entitled "Have Christians Lost the Culture-War? ," John Barber challenged the way Christians assess success and failure in our efforts to transform culture by comparing it to our view of evangelism.

What is successful evangelism? Is it successful only when you share the gospel with someone and that person becomes a Christian? What if no one comes to Christ? Are we to say that we failed? Isaiah preached for nearly fifty years and hardly anyone responded positively. Was he a failure? I think of Bill Bright’s helpful definition of successful evangelism. Bright often said, “Successful evangelism is witnessing in the power of the Holy Spirit and leaving the results to God.” Now apply what Bright said in reference to the Great Commission to the cultural mandate, and let’s define the cultural mandate. “Successful Christian activism is laboring in culture in the power of the Holy Spirit and leaving the results to God.” You see, if we looked at evangelism the way some look at the culture-war, we’d look at all the people we’ve witnessed to, and see how few have come to Christ, and [following Dr. Dobson] say, “We are awash in evil and the battle is still to be waged. We are right now in the most discouraging period of that long conflict. Humanly speaking, we can say we have lost all those battles.” But no one who is biblically informed thinks this way regarding evangelism. So we ought not to think this way regarding the cultural mandate.

David Brooks, whether or not he thinks that these old battles (are they so old?) over abortion and the normalization of homosexuality are obsolete, is certainly convinced that we have missed one of the great battle fronts of the age. He has a point.

In "The Next Culture War" (New York Times, September 28, 2009), he writes:

[D]espite the country’s notorious materialism, there has always been a countervailing stream of sound economic values. The early settlers believed in Calvinist restraint. The pioneers volunteered for brutal hardship during their treks out west. Waves of immigrant parents worked hard and practiced self-denial so their children could succeed. Government was limited and did not protect people from the consequences of their actions, thus enforcing discipline and restraint. ...

Over the past few years, however, there clearly has been an erosion in the country’s financial values. This erosion has happened at a time when the country’s cultural monitors were busy with other things. They were off fighting a culture war about prayer in schools, ... and the theory of evolution. They were arguing about sex and the separation of church and state, oblivious to the large erosion of economic values happening under their feet.

He cites widespread and government sponsored gambling and the avarice it incites, scandalously huge executive compensation packages, supersized restaurant meals, a sharp rise in personal consumption as percentage of GDP, the explosion of personal debt (133% of national income vs 55% in 1960), and runaway government spending.

Our current cultural politics are organized by the obsolete culture war, which has put secular liberals on one side and religious conservatives on the other. But the slide in economic morality afflicted Red and Blue America equally.

Brooks calls for a “moral revival” in the form of a “crusade for economic self-restraint.”

He sent the same message in his June 10, 2008 column, “The Great Seduction.”

The people who created this country built a moral structure around money. The Puritan legacy inhibited luxury and self-indulgence. Benjamin Franklin spread a practical gospel that emphasized hard work, temperance and frugality....The United States has been an affluent nation since its founding. But the country was, by and large, not corrupted by wealth. For centuries, it remained industrious, ambitious and frugal.

Over the past 30 years, much of that has been shredded. The social norms and institutions that encouraged frugality and spending what you earn have been undermined. The institutions that encourage debt and living for the moment have been strengthened. The country’s moral guardians are forever looking for decadence out of Hollywood and reality TV. But the most rampant decadence today is financial decadence, the trampling of decent norms about how to use and harness money.

Evangelical Christians have had to mount counter-offensives on seemingly innumerable fronts as the culture has been unraveling, hastened on by the ubiquitous and (yes) demonic efforts of the nihilistic left. We have rallied to the defense of babies in the womb. Murder is a bloody and obvious evil. We have stood against public acceptance of the horror and perversity of homosexuality alongside its wholesome and natural counterpart. Prompted by these conflicts, evangelicals have thought seriously about the nature of healthy family life and have developed helpful resources to support people in their marriages and child rearing.

But the seductions of wealth and comfort and self-indulgence were harder to discern, and they so went largely unopposed. The megachurches went as far as embracing them. Why should I not sit in my own theater-quality chair? Why should I not be entertained on Sunday morning the way I was on Saturday night? Why should I not enjoy a Starbucks coffee after or before church, and why should I not be able to buy it in the church lobby? But Christians in small churches too went heavily into debt and voted for governments that did the same, and also supersized their drinks.

The Institute for American Values has initiated the sort of moral reform movement that Brooks has advocated. Indeed, Brooks praises them for this in his 2008 column. David Blankenhorn, the institute's founder and president, has written Thrift: A Cyclopedia, as well as “There is No Paradox of Thrift” (The Weekly Standard, June, 15, 2009). You can learn about the organization's Thrift Initiative here: http://www.newthrift.org/.

Dow 10,000 a Bubble, Not a Boom

2009-10-16T09:55:00.000-04:00

Whenever we see a bubble, we want to think it's a bag of gold. And when we enter the eye of a storm, we like to kid ourselves that times of peace has come at last.

Now that the Dow Jones Industrial Average has once again surpassed the 10,000 mark, we want to believe that the hard times are finally over and that ten to fifteen years of unbroken prosperity lies before us. Brace yourself.

The New York Times reminds us ("10,000: The and Now") that when the Dow first passed that point on March 29, 1999, the economy was roaring through it's eighth year of wild prosperity, and unemployment was about as low as it could be. This ten is not the same as that ten.

Yes, unemployment today stands at 9.8 percent. But is that just the economy lagging behind the first indicators of economic recovery? Sorry. No.

The spike in the Dow is the result of huge profits that the banks have posted from their recoveries. But they are still not lending, and without that there will be no recovery for the rest of us. But don't get angry. Get answers. Why are these shrewd people still not lending? Isn't it their business to lend? No, it is their business, as in any business, to make money. They must have reason to believe that if they lend, e.g. to small businesses or to prospective homeowners, they will lose money. So look around for what they are seeing.

Look here. David Malpass, the president of Encima Global LLC, points us to our collapsing dollar as a source of our vanishing prosperity ("The Weak-Dollar Threat to Prosperity"). The Bush administration was devaluing the dollar throughout the decade. That corresponded with runaway government spending. When faced with large debts, government must either cut spending (unthinkable), raise taxes (impolitic and counterproductive), or devalue the currency. How do they do this? By keeping interests rates low, they encourage public and private borrowing, such as government bonds and home mortgages. If anything becomes oversupplied, it's value decreases. As dollars lose their value, it takes more of them to buy things, both at home and abroad. Prices rise across the board.

How much value has the dollar lost? Is this a big deal? You can see how dramatic the fall has been by looking at the price of gold over the past decade. Gold has a stable value. The fluctuation in its price reflects the relative value of the currencies that are used to price it. So as the dollar loses value, it takes more of them to buy an ounce of gold. When President George W. Bush came into office, gold was selling at over $250 an ounce. When he left office eight years later, it was about $850 an ounce. The price climbed steadily over those eight years.

President Obama is making his predecessor look like the king of thrift, and he's not done. The present government has popped the roof off an already large public debt, spending trillions, and preparing to spend trillions more. As a consequence, the dollar is falling faster than ever. Since Barack Obama took office less than a year ago, gold has gone from about $850 an ounce to roughly $1,050. You should expect it to go higher. Much higher. Adjusted for inflation, gold's historic high is over $2,000 an ounce.

As Obama pumps trillions of dollars into the economy, and the economy does not respond proportionately with a vigorously growing GDP (still no sign of that), more dollars chasing the same number of goods will mean inflation. A ridiculous increase in the money supply on top of a stalled economy will give us a devouring plague of inflation further devastating people's lives.

You might be wondering, however, about the upside to a weak currency. Doesn't it make our exports cheaper, and thus boost domestic production and launch us into recovery? Malpass explains how historically this has always been a losing strategy.

As the pound slid in the 1950s and '60s and the British Empire crumbled, the corporations that prospered were the ones that borrowed pounds aggressively in order to expand abroad. Though British equities rose in pound terms, they generally underperformed gold and foreign equities. At the end of empire, the giant sucking sound was from British capital and jobs moving offshore as the pound sank....No countries have devalued their way into prosperity, while many—Hong Kong, China, Australia today—have used stable money to invite capital and jobs.

None of this indicates the American economy returning to boom times any time soon. In fact, this window onto the future reveals just the opposite.

The other place bankers are looking is the second wave of residential mortgage defaults and, on top of that, the coming collapse of the commercial real estate market. Charles Gasparino helps us there ("The Next Bank Crisis").

[The banks are] still holding trillions of dollars in ailing mortgage loans and commercial-real-estate debt that they have yet to fully write down. They're hoping they won't have to -- but continued joblessness is squeezing those portfolios. The banks will tell you that they've written down a good chunk of their consumer loans. But the problem, according to banking analysts like Mike Mayo, becomes acute if unemployment passes 10 percent and nears 11 percent. That's the point, according to many economic models, that American consumers start defaulting on loans in such a way that trillions of dollars in consumer-related loans and debt that haven't been written down start to implode.

And that doesn't account for the trillions in commercial-real-estate loans and bonds that have yet to take any significant hit at all -- but (most analysts predict) will be crashing in the months ahead even if unemployment stabilizes at 10 percent.

Bottom line: If unemployment goes higher than 10 percent, the banks' numbers get even worse. As losses begin to mount, the big banks may well find themselves back begging the government for more bailout money.

So beware of jumping on the bank profit driven bull market, thinking that you are going to ride it into the Obama Boom Years. There is much pain to come, and with it much tragic loss. It is tragic because wise leadership could steer us through it more safely by stabilizing the currency and tightening up on government spending. The administration is doing just the opposite. It's like physics. If you torch your house, it will burn down. We are already feeling the heat.

Justice

2009-10-15T22:32:00.001-04:00

I teach Introduction to Politics. The topic of ultimate concern in political life is, of course, justice. The morally serious students at The King's College are eager to know what this is.

This is justice.

Now you know what justice is.

The Nobel Goodist Prize

2009-10-14T22:43:00.002-04:00

Hopeless Continuity: A Goodist in Power

Dick Morris sees Obama's Peace Prize as Europe's second attempt in three hundred years to civilize America. "Europe wants to reverse the American Revolution and re-colonize us and it sees in Obama a kindred spirit willing to do its bidding."

John Bolton sees a leftist Norwegian record of interfering in American politics with the Nobel. He writes, "Their message really is quite straightforward: 'Jimmy Carter in 2002,Al Gore in 2007 and now Barack Obama. Do you Americans get the point yet?'"

Hendrik Hetzberg at The New Yorker is harsh on the Nobel Prize itself ("Obama's Nobel Surprise").

If President Obama really had to get a gift postmarked Scandinavia this month, he would probably, on the whole, have preferred the Olympics. At least at the Olympics the judges wait till after the race to give you the gold medal. They don’t force it on you while you’re still waiting for the bus to take you to the stadium. They don’t give it to you in anticipation of possible future feats of glory, like a signing bonus or an athletic scholarship. They don’t award it as a form of gentle encouragement, like a parent calling “Good job!” to a toddler who’s made it to the top rung of the monkey bars. It’s not a plastic, made-in-China “participation” trophy handed out to everyone in the class as part of a program to boost self-esteem. It’s not a door prize or a goody bag or a bowl of V.I.P. fruit courtesy of the hotel management. It’s not a gold star. It’s a gold medal.

But he is sympathetic to the Nobel's most recent recipient. "Given that his perceived political problem is exaggerated expectations, does he really need a Nobel Peace Prize before he has actually made any peace?"

But the best of the columns that I have read on the Obama Nobel prize come from one who fully supports the award, Bret Stephens in The Wall Street Journal ("A Perfect Nobel Pick"). Stephens has figured out the Nobel Committee. They are what Oriana Fallaci "Goodists."

They are the people who believe all conflict stems from avoidable misunderstanding. Who think that the world's evils spring from technologies, systems, complexes (as in "military-industrial") and everything else except from the hearts of men, where love abides. Who mistake wishes for possibilities. Who put a higher premium on their own moral intentions than on the efficacy of their actions. Who champion education as the solution, whatever the problem. Above all, the Goodists are the people who like to be seen to be good.

Yes, there is a long history of their influence in the previous century. They gave us the League of Nations. They gave us "peace in our time" back in 1938. They gave us permissive child-rearing in the generation following the war. In the 1960s, they addressed "the root causes" of poverty, and gave us vastly more. At the same time they addressed "the root causes" of crime, and gave us a pandemic outbreak of that too. The last Goodist President made human rights the organizing principle of his foreign policy, but did so in Goodist fashion, so only succeeded in making the world safe for oppression by weakening America.

Now the Nobel Committee has helpfully identified our current President as a thoroughgoing Goodist (for those who were unable to see it during the election campaign). So when Iran starts firing nuclear missiles, when former residents of Guantanamo Bay blow up densely populated American targets, and when the engine of American prosperity splutters and dies, we'll all know why.

Obama, Man of Peace...Or So We Hope

2009-10-09T20:50:00.004-04:00

When I first saw the New York Times news alert in my inbox announcing that President Obama had won the Nobel Peace Prize I thought--for just a flash--that it was a conservative joke, but then just as quickly recognized the source. This is serious. They gave him the peace prize.

This is actually consistent with his life so far. This is a man who had written two (2!) autobiographies before becoming President, and with no significant accomplishments to his credit. This is a man for whom people renamed schools and roads simply for his having been elected. The Hempstead, NY, school district here on Long Island renamed Ludlum Elementary School after him immediately after his election and before he was sworn in. And now he has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize before he has actually brought any peace anywhere in the world. The Nobel Committee's reasons for choosing the 44th American President are all anticipations of what they expect him to do. He has "created a new climate" in international relations. He has a "vision" of a nuclear weapons free world. His government is "playing a more constructive role" in efforts to fight climate change. "Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened," but nothing to report so far. It's all hope; no actual change.

While it is shocking that the Nobel Committee has given this award to Barack Obama at this stage in his presidency, it is just as shocking that he would accept it. No. On second thought, I'm quite sure he believes he deserves it. This is the man who has been lauded by his most devoted admirers as the Messiah, and he has received the near-worship without objection. His arrogance is as without bounds as it is without foundation.

In accepting the award, Obama spoke humbly and turned attention to the work of others.(Watch the full six minute video here.)

Words are easy to craft. A statesman must ultimately be judged by his deeds, however. Not only has Obama done nothing to justify this award, his record has even been one of emboldening dictators and betraying the allies of liberty. Daniel Henninger makes this case in "Obama, Dictators and Democrats" (Wall Street Journal; Oct. 1, 2009).

The Monday after last Friday's bombshell that Iran has a hidden nuclear site, the State Department announced the start of a "direct dialogue" with Burma's hopeless junta. The administration has dispatched a special envoy to Sudan and its genocidal leader, Omar Hassan al-Bashir. Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad got his own Obama envoy, plus a visit from John Kerry. At the Summit of the Americas, Mr. Obama himself did meet and greets for "dialogue" with Venezuela's Hugo Chávez, Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega and Bolivia's Evo Morales, and reached out to Cuba's Raul Castro. Mr. Obama then dropped in on Russia's leaders for a "reset."

But this is precisely the sort of thing that has earned him the prize. The committee said in its press release:

Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts.

In the past, The Nobel Committee has honored dissidents, like Aung San Suu Kyi and Andrei Sakharov, who had been struggling courageously and with great suffering against oppressive regimes. Barack Obama, by accepting the award, not only displaces many nominees of this character, he has also turned his back on such people in his overtures to their oppressors. Henninger notes this also.

If the Obama team wanted to make a really significant break from past Bush policy, it would say it was not going to just talk with the world's worst strongmen but would give equal, public status to their democratic opposition groups. Instead, the baddest actors in the world get face time with Barack Obama, but their struggling opposition gets invisibility. Iran's extraordinary and brave popular opposition, which broke out again this week at two universities, seems to have earned these pro-democracy Iranians nothing in the calculations of U.S. policy.

Henninger traces this cold-blooded foreign policy to the influence of Obama's trade union support.

For the American left, now fused to financial support from domestic labor unions, the world's dispossessed represent a threat—less costly labor selling goods into the high-cost world. Active help for democratic oppositions in Venezuela, Syria, Egypt, Iran or even Guinea hardly serves this interest. Today, social justice stops at the water's edge. Even as Mr. Obama extends his hand to a Chávez, Morales or Castro, he makes no effort to finish free-trade agreements with certifiably democratic Colombia and Panama.

The Nobel Committee has made some strange choices in the past, but nothing this bizarre. Even many on the left are scratching their heads. You can look down this list of past recipients and make your own comparisons.

2009 - Barack Obama
2008 - Martti Ahtisaari
2007 - Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Al Gore
2006 - Muhammad Yunus, Grameen Bank
2005 - International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei
2004 - Wangari Maathai
2003 - Shirin Ebadi
2002 - Jimmy Carter
2001 - United Nations, Kofi Annan
2000 - Kim Dae-jung
1999 - Médecins Sans Frontières
1998 - John Hume, David Trimble
1997 - International Campaign to Ban Landmines, Jody Williams
1996 - Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo, José Ramos-Horta
1995 - Joseph Rotblat, Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs
1994 - Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin
1993 - Nelson Mandela, F.W. de Klerk
1992 - Rigoberta Menchú Tum
1991 - Aung San Suu Kyi
1990 - Mikhail Gorbachev
1989 - The 14th Dalai Lama
1988 - United Nations Peacekeeping Forces
1987 - Oscar Arias Sánchez
1986 - Elie Wiesel
1985 - International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War
1984 - Desmond Tutu
1983 - Lech Walesa
1982 - Alva Myrdal, Alfonso García Robles
1981 - Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
1980 - Adolfo Pérez Esquivel
1979 - Mother Teresa
1978 - Anwar al-Sadat, Menachem Begin
1977 - Amnesty International
1976 - Betty Williams, Mairead Corrigan
1975 - Andrei Sakharov
1974 - Seán MacBride, Eisaku Sato
1973 - Henry Kissinger, Le Duc Tho
1972 - The prize money for 1972 was allocated to the Main Fund
1971 - Willy Brandt
1970 - Norman Borlaug
1969 - International Labour Organization
1968 - René Cassin
1967 - The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section
1966 - The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section
1965 - United Nations Children's Fund
1964 - Martin Luther King Jr.
1963 - International Committee of the Red Cross, League of Red Cross Societies
1962 - Linus Pauling
1961 - Dag Hammarskjöld
1960 - Albert Lutuli
1959 - Philip Noel-Baker
1958 - Georges Pire
1957 - Lester Bowles Pearson
1956 - The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section
1955 - The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section
1954 - Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
1953 - George C. Marshall
1952 - Albert Schweitzer
1951 - Léon Jouhaux
1950 - Ralph Bunche
1949 - Lord Boyd Orr
1948 - The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section
1947 - Friends Service Council, American Friends Service Committee
1946 - Emily Greene Balch, John R. Mott
1945 - Cordell Hull
1944 - International Committee of the Red Cross
1943 - The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section
1942 - The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section
1941 - The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section
1940 - The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section
1939 - The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section
1938 - Nansen International Office for Refugees
1937 - Robert Cecil
1936 - Carlos Saavedra Lamas
1935 - Carl von Ossietzky
1934 - Arthur Henderson
1933 - Sir Norman Angell
1932 - The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section
1931 - Jane Addams, Nicholas Murray Butler
1930 - Nathan Söderblom
1929 - Frank B. Kellogg
1928 - The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section
1927 - Ferdinand Buisson, Ludwig Quidde
1926 - Aristide Briand, Gustav Stresemann
1925 - Sir Austen Chamberlain, Charles G. Dawes
1924 - The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section
1923 - The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section
1922 - Fridtjof Nansen
1921 - Hjalmar Branting, Christian Lange
1920 - Léon Bourgeois
1919 - Woodrow Wilson
1918 - The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section
1917 - International Committee of the Red Cross
1916 - The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section
1915 - The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section
1914 - The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section
1913 - Henri La Fontaine
1912 - Elihu Root
1911 - Tobias Asser, Alfred Fried
1910 - Permanent International Peace Bureau
1909 - Auguste Beernaert, Paul Henri d'Estournelles de Constant
1908 - Klas Pontus Arnoldson, Fredrik Bajer
1907 - Ernesto Teodoro Moneta, Louis Renault
1906 - Theodore Roosevelt
1905 - Bertha von Suttner
1904 - Institute of International Law
1903 - Randal Cremer
1902 - Élie Ducommun, Albert Gobat
1901 - Henry Dunant, Frédéric Passy

Here is the full text of the committee's announcement of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 is to be awarded to President Barack Obama for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. The Committee has attached special importance to Obama's vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.

Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts. The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations. Thanks to Obama's initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened.

Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future. His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population.

For 108 years, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has sought to stimulate precisely that international policy and those attitudes for which Obama is now the world's leading spokesman. The Committee endorses Obama's appeal that "Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges."

Oslo, October 9, 2009

Better Grammar. Better World.

2009-10-08T22:36:00.000-04:00

We at The King's College expect that our exceptional students, with a command of the great ideas and of the written and spoken word, will find their various ways into the nation's strategic political, economic, and cultural institutions, and transform them for the good of their neighbors and the glory of God.

This cartoon from the Wall Street Journal seems to depict a TKC graduate who landed a job on the production side of the popular music industry. I find it quite exciting to think that what we see here may one day be true.

"Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers."

From "Politics and the English Language" by George Orwell (1946).

Richard Nixon, Alpha Male

2009-10-06T19:41:00.004-04:00

Richard Nixon is not one of my favorite presidents. My dad was a Scoop Jackson democrat (the sensible wing of the party trying to hold off the New Left, when it was the party of the little guy, and knew what side was up internationally), and complained bitterly about "tricky Dick" during the nightly newscasts of that era that I watched with him as a kid. So my antipathy was kind of inherited, but my later, adult appraisal of his presidency didn't alter my youthful prejudice. He established the EPA and OSHA, and handed them over to the Left to run; famously proclaimed "we're all Keynesians now", and promptly ordered the federal imposition of wage and price controls, with predictable effects; and of course showed his true inner impulses with the Watergate cover up of a small time burglary that, left alone, would have been a minor episode in the history of the office. Not least, the famous White House tapes showed him to be an inveterate anti-Semite, condescending and insulting to the Jews on his staff and in official Washington generally.

Yet, his foreign policy acumen still shines; I would argue he ranks first among the 44 presidents for his understanding of international relations. His ambition to redeem his shamed presidency in his post resignation period resulted in thousands of pages of highly authoritative foreign policy analysis, and earned for him a reputation as a true statesman, perhaps the last of that breed.

Now, we find revealed another aspect of the man that calls for respect. Jason Moaz over at Commentary magazine reports that 1973's Yom Kippur war, which saw Israel attacked by six Arab nations while the world stood by, had Nixon as the proximate cause of the victorious outcome for Israel. Seems he put aside whatever personal prejudice he had (one shared by most of Europe then and to this day), and unlike the feckless Europeans, boldly made the decision to secretly airlift the war materiel which made the decisive difference in whether Israel survived or not:

What is clear, from the preponderance of information provided by those directly involved in the unfolding events, is that President Richard Nixon — overriding inter-administration objections and bureaucratic inertia — implemented a breathtaking transfer of arms, code-named Operation Nickel Grass, that over a four-week period involved hundreds of jumbo U.S. military aircraft delivering more than 22,000 tons of armaments.
[...]
As soon as the scope and pattern of Israeli battle losses emerged, Nixon ordered that all destroyed equipment be made up out of U.S. stockpiles, using the very best weapons America possessed. . . . Whatever it takes, he told Kissinger . . . save Israel.

“It was Nixon who did it,” recalled Nixon’s acting special counsel, Leonard Garment. “I was there. As bureaucratic bickering between the State and Defense departments was going back and forth, Nixon said, this is insane. . . . He just ordered Kissinger, “Get your ass out of here and tell those people to move.”
[...]
When Schlesinger initially wanted to send just three transports to Israel because he feared anything more would alarm the Arabs and the Soviets, Nixon snapped: “We are going to get blamed just as much for three as for 300. . . . Get them in the air, now.”

Haig, in his memoir Inner Circles, wrote that Nixon, frustrated with the initial delays in implementing the airlift and aware that the Soviets had begun airlifting supplies to Egypt and Syria, summoned Kissinger and Schlesinger to the Oval Office on October 12 and “banished all excuses.”

The president asked Kissinger for a precise accounting of Israel’s military needs, and Kissinger proceeded to read aloud from an itemized list.

“Double it,” Nixon ordered. “Now get the hell out of here and get the job done.”

Later, informed of yet another delay — this one because of disagreements in the Pentagon over the type of planes to be used for the airlift — an incensed Nixon shouted at Kissinger, “[Expletive] it, use every one we have. Tell them to send everything that can fly.”

This was a man made of sterner stuff than what we have seen in that office since, especially the current occupant, who on the Israeli issue seems determined to do what he can to help with the new final solution the Iranians have in mind. The revelation of Nixon's decisive executive decision making, regardless of the considerable international fallout, makes Obama's disgraceful indecision on what we are doing in Afghanistan look even weaker and more despicable than ever. Greg Lewis at The American Thinker wonders "Did We Elect a Beta Male as President?" and then goes on to demonstrate that we did.

There was a time boys and girls, when men were men. Our enemies are noticing who wears the mom jeans in this administration.

Abe Lincoln Weighs In On Health Care Debate

2009-10-05T22:06:00.000-04:00

Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) speaks homespun common sense in good midwest American fashion here in his opening statement on the currently proposed health care reform legislation. Let the Congressman have the floor.

He's eloquent. He's sincere. He quotes Lincoln ("You can't make a weak man strong by making a strong man weak.")

Of course, I was curious as to the source of this Lincoln quote, so I went searching. It does not appear that Honest Abe wrote these words, although they have been attributed to him for many years. Snopes traces it to a Presbyterian minister named William John Henry Boetcker who was the director of the Citizens' Industrial Alliance when he penned these truisms in 1916. The theory goes that they were later published on the back of a leaflet of genuine Lincoln quotes and the confusion was inevitable. Nonetheless, the ideas are Lincolnian.

Ronald Reagan quoted these pearls of wisdom at the 1992 Republican National Convention, and attributed them to Lincoln.

I heard those speakers at that other convention saying "we won the Cold War" -- and I couldn't help wondering, just who exactly do they mean by "we"? And to top it off, they even tried to portray themselves as sharing the same fundamental values of our party! What they truly don't understand is the principle so eloquently stated by Abraham Lincoln: "You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot help the wage-earner by pulling down the wage-payer. You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves." If we ever hear the Democrats quoting that passage by Lincoln and acting like they mean it, then, my friends, we will know that the opposition has really changed.

This clip does not include the spuriously attributed Lincoln line (it follows just after), but it is well worth the five minute investment to watch it.

You can read the full text of the speech here.

American Socialism's Waterloo

2009-10-02T14:20:00.000-04:00

King's student, Matthias Clock, reports on Sen. Jim DeMint's visit to The King's College and the South Carolina Senator's opposition to ObamaCare, American socialism's Waterloo.

Much of DeMint’s rhetorical firepower has been directed at Obama, who DeMint said continues to increase federal power. The senator added that we have witnessed a “bait and switch in the White House.” According to DeMint, Americans are now finding out how destructive the Obama administration will be if left unchecked. He predicted a difficult road ahead for his Republican colleagues, calling Obama’s healthcare plan “the fight of our lives.”

Read the article in the online edition of World magazine: "DeMint Defends Liberty Against Rising Socialist Threat."

Give Me Liberty or Give Me ObamaCare

2009-09-30T15:17:00.002-04:00

During the 2008 election campaign, I was struck by how Barack Obama would describe someone's heartrending personal story, then leap immediately to suggesting a federal government solution. The assumption in between was that whatever unhappiness there is in life is the responsibility of the federal government to remedy. John Kerry did the same thing in 2004 because that is the way liberal Democrats think.

But that is not our system of government. Ours is what we call a "limited government." It is limited by the security of each one of us in our individual rights. They are rights against the power of government. Our government is limited also as to its ends. Its powers are enumerated and therefore delineated. We have established our government to accomplish specific tasks, and we have enumerated those tasks in the Constitution. That brings me to the third way that our government is limited. It is limited by law. Those who govern us govern only under law, ultimately a fundamental law we call the Constitution. Those who make the law must themselves submit to the laws they make.

If you judge Democrats not by what they say but by what they do, you can see that they don't believe in any of these features of limited government. Why should the enlightened class be limited in any way? To subject The People's Party to limitations of any sort is an act of hostility toward the people themselves. At any rate, that is how communist parties have reasoned for almost a hundred years, and that appears to be the way liberal Democrats think. And Barack Obama is a turbo-liberal Democrat.

Consider his plans for health insurance reform, plans in which he is in harmonious alliance with the "liberal bulls" in Congress. The fact that the scheme is baldly unconstitutional gives them no pause whatsoever. The suggestion that it is unconstitutional just means that they have to find a constitutional rationalization of some sort. After all, these people have long ago stopped caring what the Constitution actually says. If it is a "living constitution," then the challenge to those living under it is not to conform their legislative wishes to the Constitution, but by clever rhetoric and legal reasoning to conform the Constitution to the legislative wishes of the day. This is very opposite of the rule of law and of limited government.

As to the ends of government, people like Barack Obama cannot think of anything the federal government should not be doing. If there is suffering in the world, then the government is the most effective and most trustworthy agent to be addressing it. The broader the government, the more egalitarian the solution will be, and so the federal government is always the instrument of choice, whether directly or indirectly through its control of state and local governments. This may be a kind-hearted sentiment, but it is not a noble sentiment because it does not respect people's liberty. Even if Obama and all those in political alliance with him on this were entirely public spirited in their intentions (which any sober adult should admit is unlikely), their reforms would establish a structure for a less high-minded generation of elected and unelected government officials to lord it over a prostrate and helpless American people.

Blind to these dangers, however, and convinced of the self-evident moral superiority of their understanding, Obama's Democrats have launched themselves into the restructuring our health care system--one sixth of the American economy--expecting that the only opposition will come from selfish corporate interests, the Republican party which is the tool of those interests, and whatever rural simpletons and Christian fanatics the Republicans can deceive.

But opposition is coming from honest lovers of liberty and of the rule of law. Two such patriots are David B. Rivkin and Lee A. Casey, both of whom served in the Justice Department under Presidents Reagan and Bush. In "Mandatory Insurance is Unconstitutional" (Wall Street Journal, Sept. 18, 2009), they make the case that it goes beyond the powers of the federal government to force people to buy something they don't wish to buy. "Congress...cannot regulate simply because it sees a problem to be fixed." Since the Progressive era began almost a hundred years ago, government activists have justified most federal regulatory powers on the interstate commerce clause. The federal government can act to regulate interstate commerce (Article I, section 8), but it cannot punish you simply for sitting in your living room not buying health insurance. Rivkin and Casey take you through the history, the current health care reform proposals, and the bearing of the Constitution on it all. It's good read, and you are sure to look very intelligent and well informed to your friends for having read it.

Because Obama's Democrats don't care about the spirit of our system of government which is the spirit of liberty, they will look for a way around that restriction. Because there are others in the country who love liberty and the Constitution that supports it, they will fight him to the highest court in the land.

Under the Loving Care of the Benevolent Obama

2009-09-27T21:05:00.005-04:00

David brings back to these pages our concern for the resurgence of fascism and the fascist tendencies of modern democrats in his post directly below, Obama's Chavez Envy. Lord knows there is plenty of material out there. He asked for other examples besides the co-opting of the arts establishment, the threatenings of free speech in the Humana scandal, and the bizarre outreach to the Honduran Chavez wannabe. Here goes.

One of the things on the list of priorities for any political order is the education of the young, since they are its future citizens. The education is designed to create to the extent possible the ideal citizen, fit to defend and extend the values and principles of the founding of a given regime. For very young children, those ideals and values must be put into succinct, clear form, reduced to essentials in order to form the basis for their further reflection. Thus, in days past, elementary school included the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance, the elements of which, like the Lord's prayer in that other venue, generally escape them until they are older. Yet like memory verses in the bible, this early drill and memorization does give the basis for more mature reflection. In our free society, education has been guided, however tenuously, by the precepts and purposes established by the liberal arts of the classics--the main purpose being to produce freedom-loving citizens able to question their culture, society, and government. This questioning and challenging of authority is also a contribution from the Old Testament--many of the jeremiads of the prophets were against the kings and priests in authority over the Jews, a thing unknown and unthinkable to the pagan societies surrounding them, since for them there was no higher authority than their ruler, who was generally considered at least semi-divine.

Much as been made, and rightly so, of the deification of Obama, and his silent allowing of it. David sensibly asked once what kind of Christian allows himself to be equated with the Savior; to ask that question is to answer it. Thus, this most recent example of school children singing the praises of Obama, being instructed to give their allegiance not to the flag, nor the republic, nor the constitution; and not to venerate the office of the president but the president himself, is just another questionable exercise by those whose devotion to the charismatic leader reeks of past fascism.

Fascist regimes are not interested in criticism from informed individuals free to seek their own good--they want mass consciousness and blind devotion to the leader and the collective. Thus the recurrent technique of devotional songs to the virtues of the leader common to all collectivist regimes.

The charge of fascism has been so promiscuously (and illegitimately) thrown around (Bush=Hitler) that it is almost meaningless now that there is actually some basis for it (another technique pioneered by totalitarianism). The latest bit of indoctrination, which has absolutely no connection with the history or essentials of our uniquely formed polity, makes Obama the hero of American life, and subtly suggests that all that has gone before him has been wrong--kind of like the coming of a savior to a benighted nation. And note the sly co-optation of the Sunday school song--"red and yellow black and white, they are equal in his sight" the original of which only a very few of these children could be expected to know--maybe not even many of their parents. Whether they know the original or not, the effect is the same--Obama is somehow above everyone else, and is who we are to adore and look to for god-like beneficence.

This surreptitiously captured video comes out just after the president's ill-advised (and latterly revised) speech to the nation's school children. The teacher's guide that went out from the Ministry of Propaganda--I mean Department of Education--gives the lie to the claim that all the president was doing was encouraging good behavior and self reliance. (Rush Limbaugh acutely pointed out that Obama would never give that speech to the American people at large, since he is busy reducing risk-taking and self reliance by destroying capitalism and free government).

Compare this with the songs and indoctrination taught to the little would-be Nazis in the old videos from the Third Reich below, which expressly make Hitler the savior of Germany and the volk.

Mm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama

He said that all must lend a hand
To make this country strong again
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama

He said we must be fair today
Equal work means equal pay
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama

He said that we must take a stand
To make sure everyone gets a chance
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama

He said red, yellow, black or white
All are equal in his sight
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama

Yes!
Mmm, mmm, mm
Barack Hussein Obama

Song 2:
Hello, Mr. President we honor you today!
For all your great accomplishments, we all doth say "hooray!"

Hooray, Mr. President! You're number one!
The first black American to lead this great nation!

Hooray, Mr. President we honor your great plans
To make this country's economy number one again!

Hooray Mr. President, we're really proud of you!
And we stand for all Americans under the great Red, White, and Blue!

So continue ---- Mr. President we know you'll do the trick
So here's a hearty hip-hooray ----

Hip, hip hooray!
Hip, hip hooray!
Hip, hip hooray!

This video showcases the Norks', the Nazis', and the Stalinist's efforts at early indoctrination:

Just for the sake of overindulgence, here is a song reproduced in a slim volume that should be more widely known by Gene Edward Veith, Modern Fascism: The Liquidation of the Judeo-Christian Worldview, p 67:

We are the happy Hitler Youth
We have no need of Christian virtue;
For Adolph Hitler is our intercessor
And our redeemer.
No priest, no evil one
Can keep us
From feeling like Hitler's children.

Not Christ do we follow, but Horst Wessel!
Away with incense and holy water pots.
Singing we follow Hitler's banners;
Only then are we worthy of our ancestors.
I am no Christian and no Catholic
I go with the SA through thick and thin.
The Church can be stolen from me for all I care
The swastika makes me happy here on earth.
Him I will follow in marching step;
Baldur von Schirach, take me along.

Admittedly, we are not seeing this sort of unambiguous blasphemy, propaganda,and indoctrination, but what we have seen is way outside what a free society with an elective republican form of government should ever see. This strange and threatening departure from our traditional political values is part of what is angering so many people, and arousing them to action.

Vigilance is the price of freedom.

Obama's Chavez Envy

2009-09-24T08:41:00.002-04:00

During the 2008 election campaign, Harold and I discerned fascist tendencies among the Obama people and in the candidate himself, even more than one normally does among Democrats. (Go to: "Radical Fascist Chic," "Foreshadowing Liberal Fascist Violence," "Just The Beginning," "(Not So) Distant Early Warning," "The Dark Night of Fascism," "Obama Youth Brigade Sings For Change," and the entire "Political Idolatry" collection.) Of course, the most noteworthy and thoroughly stated warning came in Jonah Goldberg's book, Liberal Fascism. Some people rebuked us for what they considered inflammatory language. And yet, buds of fascism are what we see. Keep your freedom-loving, vigilant eyes open for more signs like these. (Do you have any to add?)

The fascists commandeered the arts for state purposes. Andrew Klavan writes in City Journal ("The Art of Corruption") about the administration's abuse of the National Endowment for the Arts to promote Obama policies.

[T]he more areas of life are funded and regulated by government, the less free you are, and the more corrupt and servile you ultimately become. ... [This administration] seeks, as statist government always seeks to modify and control human behavior through the doling out and withholding of money and favor.

Notice also the vindictive response to health insurance company Humana Inc. by the Democrats when that company voiced a word of disagreement. Bloomberg News reports, "At Baucus’s request, Medicare officials are investigating letters in which Humana told customers that senior citizens may lose benefits under a health-care overhaul. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, in a Sept. 18 letter to Humana, ordered the health insurer to stop the mailings and remove the materials from its Web site."

Why this government wrath? Humana merely informed their aged customers of what may arguably result for them if current Congressional plans for health care insurance reform become law. In other words, they were uttering political speech with which Sen. Baucus disagrees and which he found politically disadvantageous to him and his party.

“It is wholly unacceptable for insurance companies to mislead seniors regarding any subject - particularly on a subject as important to them, and to the nation, as health-care reform,” Baucus’s statement said.

Add the White House call for citizens to inform on any of their fellow citizens whom they discovered circulating “fishy” arguments against the health plan.

Then there is the administration's odd determination to return the leftist Chavez crony, Manuel Zelaya, to the Honduran presidency, despite a judgment by that country's Supreme Court that his removal from office was constitutionally justified and followed constitutional procedures. Mary Anastasia O'Grady's column, "Hillary's Honduran Obsession," points to America as the country with the thuggery problem in all of this.

But it may be that Americans should be even more concerned about the heavy-handedness, without legal justification, emanating from the executive branch in Washington. What does it say about Mr. Obama's respect for the separation of powers that he would instruct Mrs. Clinton to punish an independent court because it did not issue the ruling he wanted?...It seems that Mrs. Clinton is peeved with the court because it ruled that restoring Mr. Zelaya to power under a proposal drafted by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias is unconstitutional. Thus, the State Department decided that in defense of the rule of law it would penalize the members of the Supreme Court for their interpretation of their constitution. Fourteen justices had their U.S. visas pulled.

And those are just the few things that come to mind.

President Obama chumming it up with Venezuelan socialist hegemon, Hugo Chavez

One might object that this is hardly a coup d'etat. This is hardly the burning of the Reichstag. True, but it is evidence of an attitude toward the law and politics that is more at home in the Venezuela of Hugo Chavez than in the republic of American patriots.

Dems Are Hunting Bulls To Extinction

2009-09-23T09:23:00.000-04:00

It seems that the ruling Democrats are marshaling every arms of their power to neuter every expression American national virility--economic, financial, military, and diplomatic.

Here is the latest assault, this time to make sure that we never see another bull market.

Policies that set the pay for tens of thousands of bank employees nationwide would require approval from the Federal Reserve as part of a far-reaching proposal to rein in risk-taking at financial institutions. The Fed's plan would, for the first time, inject government regulators deep into compensation decisions traditionally reserved for the banks' corporate boards and executives.

Under the proposal, the Fed could reject any compensation policies it believes encourage bank employees -- from chief executives, to traders, to loan officers -- to take too much risk. Bureaucrats wouldn't set the pay of individuals, but would review and, if necessary, amend each bank's salary and bonus policies to make sure they don't create harmful incentives.

The plan under consideration "requires a vote by the central bank's board, but no congressional approval" ("Bankers Face Sweeping Curbs on Pay," Wall Street Journal, September 18, 2009).

Sen. Chris Dodd, that trustworthy steward of the public weal and co-author of the housing collapse, is taking up the task of combining the four banking agencies—the Federal Reserve, the Office of Thrift Supervision, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Comptroller of the Currency—into one superagency. Ever larger and more powerful government agencies always result in greater liberty for citizens and efficiency in government, right? ("Leading Senator Pushes New Plan to Oversee Banks," New York Times, Sept. 19, 2009.

The Democrats are the party of risk aversion. Prosecuting the CIA discourages risk taking by agents for our national security. Discouraging risk taking on Wall Street dampens our general prosperity. Government health insurance is just another step toward removing risk from daily American life generally. This is what Franklin Roosevelt had in mind when he proposed in his Four Freedoms speech (1941) that the federal government should guarantee everyone "freedom from want" and "freedom from fear." Just months before dying in office, in his 1944 State of the Union Address to Congress, he called for "a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all regardless of station, race, or creed." The first Bill of Rights was inadequate. These rights were to include:

"The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the Nation;
The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
The right of every family to a decent home;
The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
The right to a good education."

Roosevelt states his purpose in this clearly: "All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being." As FDR saw it, the purpose is government is not to allow for the "pursuit of happiness," as the Founders and the authors of the original Bill of Rights saw it, but to provide "happiness and well-being" itself.

Of course, government has a legitimate, natural, and divinely appointed role in securing those under its care from threats to life, health, and property. But the purpose in this is to secure people in the liberty to live adult lives with all the challenges involving success and failure which that entails.

Irving Kristol's Good Work Needs a Second Life

2009-09-21T10:36:00.002-04:00

Irving Kristol died last week at age 89. He was the father of what is called neo-conservatism, but what James Q. Wilson in his Wall Street Journal obituary this morning says is better characterized as policy skepticism ("A Life in the Public Interest").

As the so-called "neo-cons" have come into a bad reputation recently as fanatical American imperialists, Wilson supplies us with a welcome reminder that neo-conservatism was a prudent response to the naively and hubristicly optimistic efforts of Johnson era liberals to build a beautiful world, a "Great Society," through centrally administered government programs. It is "[t]he view that we know less than we thought we knew about how to change the human condition."

Summarizing Kristol's thought, he writes:

Neoconservatism is not an ideology, but a "persuasion." That is, it is a way of thinking about politics rather than a set of principles and rules. If neoconservatism does have any principle, it is this one: the law of unintended consequences. Launch a big project and you will almost surely discover that you have created many things you did not intend to create. This is not an argument for doing nothing, but it is one, in my view, for doing things experimentally. Try your idea out in one place and see what happens before you inflict it on the whole country.

Irving Kristol's world transforming journal, The Public Interest, discontinued publication in 2005 after forty years of sober reflection on what actually works, i.e. on what is necessary for going beyond good intentions (and satisfying political constituencies) to promoting what is actually the public interest. As we now have an administration that is blithely appropriating vast regions of private life into the government sphere in the interests of "fairness" and "progress," an enterprise in social engineering that makes Lyndon Johnson look like Herbert Hoover, perhaps Kristol's journal needs to be fired up again with a new generation of bipartisan policy skeptics.

****************
Update (Sept. 28,2009):
A reader informs us that there is a new journal in the tradition of The Public Interest, entitled National Affairs.

The website says this of the new periodical.

National Affairs is a quarterly journal of essays about domestic policy, political economy, society, culture, and political thought. It aims to help Americans think a little more clearly about our public life, and rise a little more ably to the challenge of self-government.

Each issue will feature lively yet serious essays on the range of domestic issues: from economics and health care to education and welfare; from the legal debates of the day to enduring dilemmas of society and culture. We will devote special attention to the deeper theoretical questions of American self-government—seeking to cut through the conventional wisdom, help you make sense of complex issues, offer concrete proposals, and illuminate the ideas that move our politics.

In doing so, we strive to walk in the footsteps of our intellectual and institutional predecessor, The Public Interest, a journal that for decades enriched our public life with its unparalleled clarity and wisdom. We hope to provide the same service to Americans addressing the problems of a new era, and to serve as a venue for a new generation of thinkers and writers seeking to influence the affairs of the nation.

Yuval Levin is the editor, and these distinguished scholars and sages comprise the publication committee: Gerard Alexander, James W. Ceaser, Eric Cohen, John J. DiIulio Jr., Nicholas Eberstadt, Martin Feldstein, Robert P. George, Michael W. Grebe, Roger Hertog, Kay Hymowitz, Leon R. Kass, Bruce Kovner, William Kristol, Jay Lefkowitz, Lawrence Lindsey, Wilfred M. McClay, James Piereson, Diana Schaub, Irwin M. Stelzer, and James Q. Wilson. You can see among them the living connections with The Public Interest.

Collision Over Christ

2009-09-20T15:44:00.003-04:00

A year ago at this time, The King's College hosted a debate between Christopher Hitchens (Vanity Fair columnist and author of God Is Not Good) and Douglas Wilson (pastor, public intellectual, classical schooling advocate) on the existence of God and the truth of the gospel. The event, along with others like it, was raw material for Darren Doane's film, Collision, to be released in New York and Los Angeles on October 27.

Here is the trailer. Provost Marvin Olasky gets a little spot where he says something humorous and makes Hitch laugh at a Scripture allusion.

COLLISION - 13 min VIMEO Exclusive Sneak Peek from Collision Movie on Vimeo.

The website describes the film this way:

In May 2007, leading atheist Christopher Hitchens and Christian apologist Douglas Wilson began to argue the topic “Is Christianity Good for the World?” in a series of written exchanges published in Christianity Today. The rowdy literary bout piqued the interest of filmmaker Darren Doane, who sought out Hitchens and Wilson to pitch the idea of making a film around the debate.

In Fall 2008, Doane and crew accompanied Hitchens and Wilson on an east coast tour to promote the book compiled from their written debate titled creatively enough, Is Christianity Good for the World?. “I loved the idea of putting one of the beltway’s most respected public intellectuals together with an ultra-conservative pastor from Idaho that looks like a lumberjack”, says Doane. “You couldn’t write two characters more contrary. What’s more real and punk rock than a fight between two guys who are on complete opposite sides of the fence on the most divisive issue in the world? We were ready to make a movie about two intellectual warriors at the top of their game going one-on-one. I knew it would make an amazing film.”

In Christopher Hitchens, Doane found a celebrated prophet of atheism. Loud. Funny. Angry. Smart. Quick. An intimidating intellectual Goliath. Well-known for bullying and mocking believers into doubt and doubters into outright unbelief. In Douglas Wilson, Doane found the man who could provide a perfect intellectual, philosophical, and cinematic counterpoint to Hitchens' position and style. A trained philosopher and and deft debater. Big, bearded, and jolly. A pastor, a contrarian, a humorist--an unintimidated outsider, impossible to bully, capable of calling Hitchens a puritan (over a beer).

It was a collision of lives.

What Doane didn’t expect was how much Hitchens and Wilson would have in common and the respectful bond the new friend/foes would build through the course of the book tour. “These guys ended up at the bar laughing, joking, drinking. There were so many things that they had in common”, according to Doane. “Opinions on history and politics. Literature and poetry. They agreed on so many things. Except on the existence of God.”

In the debate here at The King's College, Wilson left Hitchens speechless. Unlike D'Souza, Wilson is a presuppositionalist in his apologetics. Where Hitchens asserted various moral principles such as, "Genocide is wrong!," Wilson pressed him for a foundation and found none. For his part, Wilson stood on Scripture without blushing or flinching, and showed himself not only man of grace and charm, but also Hitchens' equal in wit and his better in precision.

Reason, Political Dissent, and Your Inner Racist

2009-09-17T09:30:00.000-04:00

Is it possible to disagree with Barack Obama, even passionately, without becoming the object of McCarthyite slander attacks? Maureen Dowd has started it rolling in full gear: "Some people just can’t believe a black man is president and will never accept it" ("Boy, Oh, Boy," New York Times, Sept. 12, 2009).

Seeing his opportunity to say what was on his mind, Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) mused, "I guess we'll probably have folks putting on white hoods and white uniforms again, and riding through the countryside intimidating people." Here is the Congressman's complete statement.

Jimmy Carter is pleased that people are finally agreeing with him, so he gets out front in an interview.

...to which a friend of a friend on Facebook (you understand) commented: "Jimmy Carter is like grandpa. You listen to him and laugh, but you don't really take him seriously, because you never really know if he knows where he is, or if he is wearing pants."

Democrats just don't know how to deal with people who have principled disagreement with them. On the one hand, they spent their college years shouting people into submission with incendiary name-calling. On the other hand, since they are entirely convinced that the progress of moral history culminates in whatever their sentiments happen to be at the time, everyone who stands in opposition to them constitutes an homogenous group of monsters that includes Vlad the Impaler, Adolf Hitler, George W. Bush, and your grandmother.

Castrating the Wall Street Bull

2009-09-16T21:05:00.001-04:00

King's College alum, Anthony Randazzo of the Reason Foundation, explains the proposals for reforming the way Wall Street is regulated in his report entitled, "Storming Wall Street." The Fulton County Independent Examiner highlights and summarizes it for us.

If you are more inclined to the oral tradition, Randazzo will summarize it for you himself.

The Wall Street bull will soon be forever a cow.

Dr. Obama Does Economic Heart Surgery

2009-09-15T13:21:00.003-04:00

In his speech yesterday at Federal Hall in New York's financial district, President Obama, speaking on the financial crisis, proposed what he called "the most ambitious overhaul of the financial regulatory system since the Great Depression." But if Wall Street is to the economy what the heart is to the body, this legislation is like open heart surgery. It is no work for mechanics or butchers, nor for herbalists and conjurers. Yet, he openly boasts that he is entrusting this task to the most anti-capitalist, anti-business, socialism-first-and-prosperity-second Congressional leadership this country has ever seen. It is for good reason that they are universally distrusted outside the hard-line, ideological left.

Here President Obama in his introductions before the speech draws special attention to one Congressman in the audience: "he is going to be helping to shape the agenda going forward to make sure that we have one of the strongest, most dynamic, and most innovative financial markets in the world for many years to come--and that's my good friend, Barney Frank."

If "Barney Frank" is how the President summarizes what he means by "strong, dynamic, and innovative financial markets," then we need an interpretive key like this for understanding his speeches: "War is peace; freedom is slavery; ignorance is strength." Think of Democratic "health care" reform in that context.

Sen. Jim DeMint spoke at The King's College yesterday saying some of the things he says here regarding the socialistic direction of the administration's reforms. Watch his FoxNews interview here.

His book is Saving Freedom We Can Stop America's Slide Into Socialism.