MayerBlog: The Web Log of
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Tricks and Treats (2009)
Four years ago, in October 2005, I posted my first “Tricks and Treats” blog essay, in celebration of Halloween season. It’s time again for me to note some more “tricks” or “treats” – that is, both negatives and positives among the current developments in politics and popular culture.
n Trick: B.O.’s Ig-Nobel P.P. The announcement that B.O. has won the Nobel Peace Prize predictably generated a storm of outrage, with most commentators pointing out the fact that B.O. had done absolutely nothing to earn the award. Because he had been nominated on February 1, barely two weeks after his inauguration, obviously it wasn’t his record but his rhetoric that was the basis of the nomination and the award. In an October 10 editorial the Detroit News observed: “When you think about it, it’s not all that remarkable that President Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize based on a nomination made just nine days after he took office. It fits perfectly with the rest of his resume. Obama was handed the White House by voters after serving just four years in the U.S. Senate, half of which he spent on the presidential campaign trail. While in the Senate, not a single piece of legislation was passed because of his championship. Before coming to Washington, Obama spent six unremarkable years in the Illinois Senate, and prior to that he was a law professor and a community organizer. Obama’s resume has never been his strength. He has been pushed ahead in leaps and bounds based on his promise and in advance of his actual achievements. Now he’s been given a Nobel Prize, apparently because the judges felt he talked a good game about a more civil world and, in large part, for not being George W. Bush.”
The Europeans who comprise the Nobel Peace Prize committee (mostly left-wing Danish parliamentarians) apparently share the “hope” that B.O.’s presidency would “change” American foreign policy in what they see as a positive direction – but which conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh has aptly characterized as the “emasculation” of the United States. In his actions so far as president, B.O. apparently has earned the Nobel committee’s confidence. He has attempted to appease ruthless dictatorial regimes like those in Iran, North Korea, Cuba, and Venezuela, making the peoples of those countries and their neighboring countries far less safe. And he has backed away from plans to install a missile-defense shield in eastern Europe, just to please Russia, in the vain hope that Vladimir Putin might help prevent Iran from developing nuclear bombs. (In so doing, B.O. has alienated the good people of the Czech Republic and Poland. In a classic instance of bad timing, the administration’s announcement that it would scrap plans for the missile-defense shield program was made on the day that marked the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland at the start of World War II. Having removed what little leverage the U.S. has against Russia, B.O. has not only ruined whatever chances we had to get Russia’s help in containing Iran but also left these nations of eastern Europe powerless to defend themselves against an increasingly aggressive, nationalistic Russia itself.) The Nobel Peace Prize is an unfunny joke, as is demonstrated by past awards to the likes of Palestinian terrorist Yassar Arafat, incompetent boob Jimmy Carter, and fear-mongering hypocrite AlGore. It’s essentially an award for anti-Semitism, anti-Americanism, anti-reason – and hence, its award to the current president of the United States can be considered nothing but an embarrassment. It’s almost as embarrassing as B.O.’s presidency itself.
n Treat: 20 Years Without the USSR The cover story of the new, November 2009 issue of Reason magazine, “The Unknown War,” celebrates the 20th anniversary of the collapse of the Soviet Union and, with it, the end of the Cold War. Editor-in-chief Matt Welch writes about the momentous events that occurred during the last four months of 1989 – a year that “ended communism in Europe, the Soviet empire, the division of Germany, and an ideological and geopolitical struggle . . . that had shaped world politics for half a century.” Perhaps the most dramatic event, the event that most dramatically summed up the historic changes that took place in the fall of 1989, was the fall of the Berlin Wall. On November 9, 1989 a Communist Party spokesman announced that citizens of East Germany were allowed to travel to the West, meaning that the people of East Berlin – for the first time since the 30-mile Wall was erected in 1961 – could freely cross into West Berlin. Within a few hours, the people of Berlin began demolishing the Wall, by hand, with chisels and hammers. (Remember the memorable photos of the jubilant crowds of Germans standing on top the Wall, having already torn down whole sections of it, celebrating the end of the Soviet Communists’ post-WWII division of Germany? One of those magnificent photos is reproduced opposite page 49 in the November Reason. In the historic speech he gave at the Brandenburg Gate on June 12, 1987, Ronald Reagan had challenged Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev to liberate the Soviet bloc nations, declaring, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” Just over two years later, the people of Berlin began to tear down the wall themselves.) In the days that followed, millions of East Germans visited West Berlin for the first time; by June 1990 the official demolition of the Wall began by former East German border guards (many of them the very guards who, before this time, had shot dead anyone who even approached the Wall from its east side). By October 1990 Germany was officially reunited, and Communist rule of East Germany (the sector seized in the final days of World War II and occupied by the Soviet Union for the next 45 years) finally had come to an end. In the fall of 1989 the old Soviet Union itself – the “Union of Soviet Socialist Republics” that the Leninist-Stalinist Communist regime in Russia had imposed by force on Russia’s neighbors – also came to an end, as its government collapsed, liberating both the people of Russia and these former Soviet satellite states from the yoke of Communist tyranny. The “Iron Curtain” has rusted away: countries formerly enslaved by Soviet Communist tyranny are now free and prospering, particularly the Baltic nations (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuana) as well as several nations in Eastern Europe (especially the Czech Republic and Hungary). (Sadly, however, some of the former Soviet satellites have yet to win their freedom – Belarus, for example, is still ruled by a brutal Communist dictator – while others continue to be threatened by Russia’s aggressiveness. Georgia, still occupied by Russian troops, particularly comes to mind. And, of course, although the Communist Party no longer rules in Russia with its iron fist, the former Communist KGB head, Vlad Putin, effectively rules as dictator still in Russia itself. On the whole, however, the cause of freedom has tremendously advanced in the past 20 years. As Matt Welch notes, the global liberty watchdog Freedom House estimated that in 1988 only 36 percent of the world’s 167 independent countries were “free”; 23 percent were “partly free,” and 41 percent were “not free.” By 2008, not only were there 26 additional countries (including the liberated nations of eastern Europe), but the ratios had reversed: 46 percent were “free,” 32 percent were “partly free,” and just 22 percent were “not free.”) As Welch observes, the defeat of Soviet communism in 1989 – as symbolized by the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 – was one of the most liberating moments in history. (Indeed, as he puts it, “November 1989 was the most liberating month of arguably the most liberating year in human history.”) Yet today, two decades later as we approach the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the significance of the anniversary has been barely noted by the American media. He found only four newspapers, reprinting a single syndicated column, had noted the anniversary, by the time the November issue of Reason went to press. (Since then, more recently, on October 23 USA Today printed a feature article – “After the Fall” – that discussed the impact of the fall of the Berlin Wall, mostly on Berliners.) Remarkably, Welch observes, “the country that led the Cold War coalition against communism seems less interested than ever in commemorating, let alone processing the lessons from, the collapse of its longtime foe.” By the way, B.O. will not travel to Germany to attend the 20th-anniversary celebration. As a commentator on the conservative “PowerLine” blog noted, he really should reconsider his decision not to attend because it would an opportunity for B .O. “to give a speech in which he does not apologize for his country but celebrates the triumph of freedom. . . .” But perhaps that’s why he won’t attend: he wouldn’t like to give such a speech. After all, the last time he was in Germany (as Rick Richman has noted), he credited the fall of the wall to the “world standing as one” and failed even to mention the names of John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. B.O. wouldn’t want to jeopardize his Nobel Peace Prize by acknowledging the real reasons for the end of the Cold War. At the time of Ronald Reagan’s death a few years ago, most political commentators – including both critics and fans alike – did acknowledge the key role that Reagan played in bringing about the end of the Cold War, one of the most important legacies of his presidency. Reagan’s steadfastness in dealing with Gorbachev – not only his famous 1987 challenge, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!, but also his refusal to appease Soviet demands, in US-Soviet arms-control talks, that the U.S. back down from its planned missile-defense program (Reagan’s “Star Wars” program, as its critics unfairly maligned it) – helped accelerate the collapse of the Soviet empire. Reagan’s steadfastness will be acknowledged by history as the most important single factor in the collapse of Soviet Communism – whether or not left-wing academics and the current occupant of the White House have the intellectual honesty to admit it.
n Trick: Communist “Czars” in the USA One of the more controversial members of the B.O. administration, Van Jones, the so-called “green jobs czar,” has resigned from his position as Special Advisor for Green Jobs at the Council of Environmental Quality. Jones’ resignation letter was released on midnight, the Sunday night/Monday morning of Labor Day weekend – deliberately orchestrated by the administration to ensure minimal media coverage. Jones had become controversial because he’s a self-described “communist” (a former Oakland, California street organizer, he founded a communist group called STORM, Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement), and he’s also a 9/11 “truther” (one of those nuts who actually believes the Bush administration was somehow involved in the destruction of the World Trade Center’s twin towers in 2001); but it seems that it was one of his “inappropriate” partisan remarks – he called Republicans “assholes” – that was the final straw. Far more serious, however, were his far-leftist political beliefs and the radical agenda he was planning to push, through his job as “green jobs czar.” In a 2008 interview with a leftist radio station in Los Angeles, Jones spoke of using the “green economy” to bring about a “complete revolution” away from “gray capitalism” and toward “redistribution of the wealth.” He declared his intent “to push it and push it and push it until it becomes the engine for transforming the whole society” – in other words, to use the environmentalist “green” movement as a kind of Trojan horse to socialize the entire economy. Two questions remain in the wake of Van Jones’s resignation. First, because he no doubt will continue his political activism, will Jones continue to still influence administration policy, unofficially, through his friendship with Valerie Jarrett, a top aide (and close Chicago friend) of B.O. who helped hire Jones in the first place? And, assuming Jones is indeed no longer helping to shape policy, what other radical leftist/Marxists remain in powerful positions in this administration? Another rather scary “czar” is Mark Lloyd, who was appointed this summer as chief “diversity” officer at the Federal Communications Commission. Lloyd’s notion of “diversity” is to silence conservative commentary on talk radio and the Internet, which he aims to do by pushing new rules mandating so-called “localism” requirements and “Net neutrality.” Lloyd has written that we make too much of the constitutionally-guaranteed freedoms of speech and press, asserting that “the purpose of free speech is warped to protect global corporations and block rules that would promote democratic governance.” He has even spoken admiringly of the what socialist dictator Hugo Chavez did to silence the opposition in Venezuela’s media. And White House communications director Anita Dunn delivered a controversial high-school graduation speech, proclaiming her admiration for the philosophy of Communist Chinese dictator Mao Tse-Tung. In fairness to Ms. Dunn, rather than being a card-carrying Communist, she may be one of those naïve leftists who have blinded themselves to all the evil that Mao wrought. In her speech extolling Mao’s political philosophy, Ms. Dunn was trying to make a larger point. But, as Charles Krauthammer noted in a recent column (Oct. 24), critics have missed the “surprising stupidity” of that larger point: “She was invoking Mao as support and authority for her impassioned plea for individuality and trusting one’s own choices. Mao, as champion of individuality? Mao, the greatest imposer of mass uniformity in modern history, creator of a slave society of a near-billion worker bees wearing Mao suits and waving the Little Red Book?” As he concludes, “The White House communications director cannot be trusted to address high schoolers without uttering inanities. She and her cohorts are now to instruct the country on truth and objectivity?” (Krauthammer was referring to the administration’s war on Fox News, discussed below.)
n Treat: Congressman Joe Wilson, Patriotic “Heckler” Congressman Joe Wilson (R.-S.C.) caused some controversy last month, when during President B.O.’s speech to Congress on September 9, he shouted out “You lie!” in response to B.O.’s assertion that his health-care plan would not cover illegal immigrants. Democrats were appalled, as were many members of Wilson’s party (who pressured him to apologize to the White House). TV journalists claimed that such “heckling” of a president during his speech to Congress was unprecedented – ignoring, among other things, the many times that Democrats heckled President George W. Bush during his addresses to Congress (for example, during his 2005 State of the Union address, when multiple Democrats booed when Bush warned that Social Security was going bankrupt). The difference between multiple Democrat members of Congress booing Bush and a lone Republican “heckling” B.O.? Other than the numbers, among the other differences: B.O. actually was lying (the Democrat health-care proposals have no mechanism for denying coverage to illegal immigrants), one of many lies in a speech that was noteworthy for being filled with bald-faced lies. The American people are beginning to realize exactly what kind of snake-oil salesman they elected president last year; they’re beginning to realize, as I wrote last fall, that “the Emperor Has No Clothes.” Congressman Wilson was like the little boy in that classic story by Hans Christian Anderson – the honest little boy who wasn’t deceived by the politically-correct fiction about the emperor’s new suit of clothes and who simply shouted out the truth as he saw it, that the emperor was really naked. He was merely “speaking truth to power” – something that left-liberals used to admire, until one of their own came into power.
n Trick: B.O.’s F’ed-Up Priorities At the beginning of October, B.O. and Mrs. O. (along with Oprah!) traveled to Copenhagen, so the president could personally lobby the International Olympics Committee to pick his adopted hometown, Chicago, Illinois, as the host city for the 2012 Summer Games. B.O.’s lobbying effort failed spectacularly: in the IOC balloting, Chicago came in dead last – with the least number of votes, Chicago was eliminated in the first round, losing to the other three cities under consideration, Tokyo, Madrid, and Rio de Janiero – with Rio ultimately winning the IOC’s pick. Matt Drudge announced on his Drudge Report: “The Ego Has Landed; World Rejects Obama: Chicago Out in First Round.” The London Times, in an Oct. 2 online article, reported: “Chicago’s dismal showing today, after Mr. Obama’s personal, impassioned last-minute pitch, is a stunning humiliation for this President. It cannot be emphasized enough how this will feed the perception that on the world stage he looks good – but carries no heft.” B.O. flew out of Washington at a critical time: among other crises that ought to have been the focus of the president’s attention were Iran’s defiant nuclear-weapons program and the continuing military quagmire in Afghanistan, where U.S. servicemen and women are dying every day while B.O. remains undecided about whether to boost troop levels, as the U.S. commanding general in Afghanistan has recommended. (Meanwhile, General McChrystal has disclosed that during his first 70 days as commanding general in Afghanistan, he spoke to the Commander-in-Chief only once – a disclosure that shows B.O.’s shameful lack of concern about military matters. Like his Democrat predecessor, Bill Clinton, B.O. seems to have nothing but contempt for the U.S. military, even though they’re engaged in a war in Afghanistan that he himself has characterized as “necessary.”) B.O.’s decision to fly to Copenhagen instead of staying in Washington to deal with the urgent problems with Iran and Afghanistan is, sadly, all-too-typical of the fucked-up priorities of this president. From his first day in office, B.O. has been jumping from issue to issue like a child with attention-deficit disorder might jump from toy to toy in his playroom: indeed, B.O. looks more and more like our first president with ADD or ADHD. As I’ve been saying for more than a year, he’s simply not fit to be president.
n Treat: The 9/12 Protest in Washington, D.C. On Saturday, September 12, one of the largest “marches on Washington” that have occurred in modern history took place in the nation’s capital, and yet the nation’s major newspapers and news outlets essentially ignored it (except for Fox News and C-SPAN, who covered the event live). Hundreds of thousands of Americans – estimated by London’s Daily Mail at over one million people, which would rival the size of the crowd gathered for B.O.’s inaugural on January 20 – traveled to Washington to participate in a huge march and a rally on the Mall. Carrying hand-made signs – with messages such as “Government is not the solution, it’s the problem”; “Subverting the Constitution is Un-American”; “Marxism – Change We Don’t Need”; “Go Green – Recycle Congress”; and “ObamaCare Is Evil” – many of the demonstrators also waved the yellow “Don’t Tread on Me” flags, with a libertarian slogan of the American Revolution. Like those involved in “tea party” protests this past spring and summer, they were expressing their opposition to massive federal spending programs (such as the $787-billion so-called “stimulus” package or the “bailouts” of banks and auto companies), the mushrooming federal deficit and national debt, and the Democrats’ schemes for a federal takeover of the health-care industry. What the 9/12 demonstrators were protesting weren’t just these massive federal tax-and-spend programs or expanded government regulations; more importantly, what really concerns them is the larger trend these policies signify: a shift from what remains of the American free-market, capitalist, and limited-government system to a European-style socialist, redistributionist, Big-Government welfare state. The 9/12 anti-tax-and-spend demonstrators weren’t members of special-interest groups, like the more famous “million-man” marches that received lots of publicity in past years. They were ordinary citizens, many of them participating in such a mass rally for the first time. Encouraged by conservative and libertarian commentators such as Glenn Beck and organized virtually on Twitter, Facebook, and other social networking sites, the march constituted “the largest gathering of fiscal conservatives ever,” according to a spokesman for FreedomWorks, the advocacy group led by former House majority leader Dick Armey, which helped plan the event. It was truly a “grass-roots” demonstration by the “silent majority” of Americans concerned about the growing power of the U.S. government – a majority that’s silent no longer, and which politicians from both major political parties would ignore at their own peril (as we’ll see in the 2010 and 2012 elections).
n Trick: Jimmying with the Race Card A recent strategy used by the president’s apologists – and a sign of their desperation – is to allege that criticism of B.O. is “racist.” Maureen Dowd penned another one of her typically bitter screeds aimed at Congressman Joe Wilson, in which she claimed to hear him say the word “Boy” at the end of his “You lie!” comment. The equally idiotic (and hopelessly doddering former president) Jimmy Carter opined, “I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man.” As Walter Williams commented in a recent column, “This [statement] came from a man [Carter] who earlier referred to Obama as `this black boy’ on Jim Lehrer’s `NewsHour.’” Walter Williams, as a free-market economist who happens to be black, knows something about race and politics. In response to the various Democrat politicians and leftist media hacks who claim that racism is behind criticism of B.O. – a group that includes, along with Dowd and Carter, House Ways & Means Committee chairman Charlie Rangel and MSNBC’s Chris Matthews – Professor Williams writes: “For these people, it is inconceivable that many Americans are outraged by the president’s spending policies, budget deficits and industry takeovers – not to mention the appointment of czars. . . . So now Carter, Dowd, Rangel, and other race-carders want us to believe that the massive discontent with Obama is racism. I say nonsense!”
(Williams, “Is It Racist To Disagree with the President?” Investor’s Business Daily, Oct. 1). The real racism, I would submit, lies with the president’s fanatical supporters, who overlook B.O.’s many serious flaws simply because of his skin color. That’s a form of bigotry that’s really pernicious.
n Treat: “Fair & Balanced” Fox News The problem with B.O.’s skin appears to be its thinness rather than its color: he just cannot take criticism. And officials in the administration apparently are as thin-skinned as the president himself is – a point that’s rather obvious in the administration’s ongoing “war” against Fox News, the only major news outlet that doesn’t toe the administration line and which therefore seems to be the target of an administration boycott. When in September B.O. made an unprecedented presidential talk show blitz, appearing on five Sunday TV programs (ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos, on CBS’s Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer, on CNN’s Late Edition with John King, on NBC’s Meet the Press with David Gregory, and even on Univision’s Al Punto (To the Point) with Jorge Ramos), the one Sunday talk show on which he did not appear was Fox News Sunday. B.O. has accused Fox News of conservative bias against his administration; White House spokesman Josh Earnest (yup – that’s really his name!) called Fox News “an ideological outlet.” In discussing the flap on Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace repeated his previous comment that the B.O. White House includes “the biggest bunch of cry babies I’ve ever dealt with in my 30 years in Washington.” And earlier this month, White House communications director Anita Dunn (that admirer of Chairman Mao) announced that the B.O. administration would treat Fox News like an “opponent” – which evokes memories of the Nixon White House’s infamous “enemies” list (and Nixon’s “war” against the Washington Post). (Ms. Dunn also accused Fox of acting like an arm of the Republican Party, ignoring the overwhelming evidence that Fox’s competitors – ABC, CBS, NBC, CNBC, MSNBC, CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time, Newsweek, etc. – indeed function as arms of the Democratic Party and willing dupes of the White House propaganda machine.) The White House’s real complaint seems to be that Fox News is truly living up to its motto, “Fair and Balanced,” because it’s the only major news outlet that takes seriously the press’s obligation to hold accountable those people whom the American people have placed in positions of political power. Maybe that’s why Fox News is beating its competitors so handily, averaging a viewership on weekday evenings that beats all the other cable channels (CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, etc.) combined.
n Trick: Crap-and-Tax, Indeed The Senate version of the energy/”climate change” bill – the so-called “cap-and-trade” bill co-sponsored by Democrat Senators Barbara Boxer (Calif.) and John Kerry (Mass.) – isn’t quite as bad as the “cap-and-trade” bill, sponsored by Democrat Congressmen Henry Waxman (Calif.) and Edward Markey (Mass.), that narrowly passed the House in the spring. The Boxer-Kerry bill is even worse than the Waxman-Markey bill! The Kerry-Boxer bill sets up a cap-and-trade system supposedly to cut “greenhouse” gas emissions from the use of fossil fuels, although it doesn’t spell out how to allocate allowances (while the House bill would give away 85% of initial permits); Kerry-Boxer also sets a goal of reducing greenhouse emissions 20% by the year 2020 (compared to the House bill’s goal of 15-17%). Senator Kerry recently made a remarkable admission when he stated, “I don’t know what cap-and-trade means.” He’s calling it “pollution reduction and investment” because critics have noted so many problems with the whole cap-and-trade scheme – including problems of political corruption associated with the government creating an artificial commodity and then controlling its allocation among special-interest groups, as well as doubts voiced by many environmentalists about its workability – that the critics, emphasizing that it’s an indirect form of tax, have taken to calling it “cap-and-tax” instead. In another remarkable statement, Kerry also noted, “The United States has already this year alone achieved a 6 percent reduction in emissions simply because of the downturn in the economy, so we are effectively saying we need to go another 14 percent.” As Nick Loris of the Heritage Foundation points out, what Kerry is really saying is, “If you enjoyed this year’s recession, just wait for cap-and-trade.” (A Heritage Foundation study, running the numbers on the less-onerous Waxman-Markey bill, found that imposing cap-and-trade would have devastating costs for the U.S. economy. Over 23 years, a cap-and-trade plan would slash $9.4 trillion from GDP and kill 2.5 million jobs. It would hike gasoline prices by 58%, or $1.40 a gallon. Home electricity rates would soar 90%. All told, according to the White House’s own estimates, cap-and-trade could cost families an additional $1,761 a year in taxes – a total of $200 billion, or the equivalent of raising everyone’s taxes by roughly 15%. “Economic costs will be likely to be on the order of 1% of GDP, making them equal to all existing environmental regulation,” said a confidential White House memo, written last year and recently obtained by the Competitive Enterprise Institute. (“Cap-and-Fade,” Investor’s Business Daily, October 1).) Meanwhile, popular support for “climate change” legislation is dropping dramatically, as the supposed “consensus” behind “global warming” theory evaporates: more and more intelligent people realize that it’s a myth based on “junk science” – that there’s no clear scientific evidence showing that the Earth’s temperature is warming to dangerous levels (some scientists now think that global cooling is the problem, as the Earth again seems poised to enter another little Ice Age phase), let alone any solid evidence in support of the theory than man-made carbon dioxide is the cause of climate change. CO2 – the naturally-occurring molecule that’s the basis for all life on Earth as well as the fuel for modern civilization – is being unjustly vilified as a “pollutant.” It’s time for those morons in Congress to junk the junk science and focus instead on the most serious pollution problem in America today: the way the federal government is polluting the American free-market economic system, with outrageous laws and regulations.
n Treat: Tokin’ Rationality Readers of this blog know I’m not shy about criticizing the B.O. administration, but neither am I unwilling to give it credit when credit is due. The administration finally got something right – something I not only agree with but even applaud – with its policy on medical marijuana. Attorney General Eric Holder recently instructed federal prosecutors not to go after pot users who comply with state laws, in those states (13 so far) that permit marijuana use for medical purposes. Thus, for example, federal raids would be stopped on medical-marijuana dispensaries in those states where agents previously had conducted such raids under federal law, which doesn’t provide any exceptions to its pot prohibition. Had the Bush administration followed this common-sense policy (one that, incidentally, gives minimal recognition to the American federal system of government), the Raich case would not have been brought. (That case had originated with federal prosecution of two seriously ill women who were using homegrown marijuana for legitimate medicinal purposes, and it resulted in a rather horrible Supreme Court decision in 2005. For more on Raich, see my discussion – “Reefer Madness Meets Wickard v. Filburn” – in “More Supreme Nonsense,” June 24, 2005.) It’s a small step toward a truly sensible drug policy in the United States (one that would fully decriminalize not just marijuana but all drugs), but at least it’s a step in the right direction, as law professor Jonathan Adler recently observed on the “Volokh Conspiracy” blog (“A Step Toward Sanity on Medical Marijuana,” Oct. 19).
n Trick: Another Snowe Job U.S. Senator Olympia Snow (RINO-Maine), a member of the Senate’s powerful Finance Committee, cast a critical vote in favor of the health-care bill pushed by Committee chairman Sen. Max Baucus (D.-Mont.) and the other Democrats on the committee – a bill that was approved on October 13 by a 14-9 party-line vote. (The nine real Republicans on the committee voted against the bill; the thirteen Democrats, plus Ms. Snowe, voted in favor.) Ms. Snowe’s vote helped move forward a truly horrible piece of legislation – one that would, among other things, use the tax code to punish Americans who choose not to buy health insurance, or who choose health insurance plans that the government deems too expensive, while at the same time increasing the costs of most private insurance premiums paid by Americans, or their employers, with mandates that aim ultimately to destroy the market for private health insurance in the United States. Moreover, Ms. Snowe’s vote gave political cover to the Democrats, allowing them to claim that their partisan plan, which was crafted entirely by the Dems on the committee with no input from its Republican members, was nevertheless “bipartisan” simply because Ms. Snowe voted with the Democrats. Well, it’s not “bipartisan” because Ms. Snow isn’t really a Republican. Olympia Snowe epitomizes the RINOs (Republicans in Name Only) on Capitol Hill. She frequently has voted with Democrats on key pieces of legislation and, indeed, by some measures, has a more “liberal” voting record than such Democrats as Mass. Sen. John Kerry. How did Ms. Snowe justify her recent Finance Committee vote on the Baucus bill? She explained it merely by speaking in empty cliches: “My vote today, is my vote today. It doesn’t forecast what it will be tomorrow.” And: “Is this bill all that it want. Far from it. Is it all that it can be? Far from it. But when history calls, history calls.” The people of Maine must feel ashamed at electing such an idiot to the U.S. Senate. As Paul Mirengoff noted on the “Power Line” blog (Oct. 13), “I think `history’ got a wrong number.”
n Treat: The Return to Standard Time Sunday morning Americans turn their clocks back one hour, as the U.S. changes back from Daylight Saving Time (DST) to Standard time. Regular readers of this blog know that I detest DST, calling it “Damn Socialist Tinkering,” because I resent Congress passing a law that forces Americans to change their clocks twice a year, inconveniencing everyone, simply because some special-interest groups like longer daytime hours in the fall and because some politicians actually believe their own bullshit rationalizations (like DST “saves energy”). As I wrote about this “Damn Socialist Tinkering” in my Fall 2008 “Fall-deral” post, Congress’s most recent tinkering with DST – extending the DST season by starting it earlier, in March, and ending it later, in November – was a change in the wrong direction. “It’s time to put an end to this nonsense. Whatever benefits some special interests might derive from D.S.T. are not worth the inconveniences it causes all of us by being forced to change all our clocks twice a year. Americans should stand up and demand that the national government, which is far too big and far too intrusive on far too many aspects of our lives, keep its hands off our clocks!” At least, when we all “Fall back” this weekend, we’ll get back the one hour of time that Congress’s damn socialist tinkering took away from us when we “Spring’d” forward back in March. Getting back the hour that Congress stole from us is a good start: If only Congress would start giving back some other things – say, even a small portion of the wealth and the freedoms it also has stolen from the American people! Now, that would be the kind of “change” worth having!
n Trick: Taking Issue with the Issues in Ohio Three statewide referenda appear on the ballot here in Ohio, for the Nov. 3 general election, and all three deserve to be defeated. Issue 1 would amend the Ohio Constitution to permit the sale of bonds to fund bonuses for veterans of the Afghanistan, Iraq, and Persian Gulf wars. It may be popular, for knee-jerk “patriots,” to pay bonuses to war veterans, but it’s not a proper action to be taken by a state government. Military funding, particularly for foreign wars, falls within the exclusive authority of the federal government – one of its legitimate, enumerated powers under the Constitution. These days, with the federal government legislating on so many matters that the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution leaves to the states or to the people (education, health care, etc.), it seems we’ve turned federalism on its head, with the states now legislating on properly federal matters. It would be an insult to the service of war veterans for Ohio voters to so disregard our federal system, which after all is one of the key American constitutional principles the veterans supposedly fought to defend. Issue 2 would amend the Ohio constitution to create a Livestock Care Standards Board, composed of “experts” from various special-interest groups (farmers, veterinarians, and local humane societies representatives, among others) to set standards for the “humane” care of livestock. It would create an unnecessary government board, further eroding the economic freedom of Ohio farmers, in an attempt to forestall even more draconian regulations being pushed by PETA, the Humane Society, and other animal-rights fanatics. Their irrational agenda should be rejected outright by sensible Ohioans. (While I understand why farmers and others might support Issue 2 as the less-draconian alternative, I don’t think Ohioans should be so easily intimidated by the animal-rights nuts.) Finally, Issue 3 – the most hotly contested, with expensive (and misleading) ads being run by interest-groups on both sides – would amend the Ohio constitution to allow gambling casinos in Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, and Toledo. Although legalizing gambling is a good idea, the way it would be done by Issue 3 – adding an enormously-detailed provision to the state constitution that creates a monopoly, regulated by the government – isn’t the way to go. Rather than creating another monopoly (like the state-run Ohio Lottery), I’d favor a simple constitutional amendment providing merely, “All laws criminalizing gambling, in any form, in the state of Ohio are hereby repealed.” Then let anyone who wants to open a casino do so, and have the state tax the proceeds just as it does those of any other legitimate business.
n Treat: Glenn Beck, “Mad Man” – and Scourge of the Left Glenn Beck, host of both a nationally-syndicated radio talk show and a successful Fox News TV show (weekdays at 5 p.m.), is typically described as a “conservative,” but since the 2008 elections he’s been identifying himself as a “libertarian.” (He’s really more of a limited-government conservative than a true libertarian, but he’s become too disenchanted with the Republican Party and certain strains of modern conservatism to continue calling himself a conservative. He’s an impassioned, often openly emotional guy, with strongly-held values in defense of individual liberty against the powers of an out-of-control federal government.) Whatever one labels him, Glenn Beck is clearly one of the most popular political commentators in America today: his book Common Sense topped the best-seller lists throughout the summer, and his new book Arguing with Idiots is selling just as well. Most importantly, Beck is emerging as one of the most vocal and influential advocates of liberty – and critics of the B.O. administration and its nefarious designs on the Constitution and Americans’ freedoms. Because he’s been so popular and influential, Beck has been viciously attacked by Democrat apologists in the leftist news media, who have made him the poster-boy for the caricature they’re trying to paint of B.O. critics. One case in point: the cover story in the Sept. 28 issue of Time magazine, featuring a not-so-flattering photo of Beck (sticking out his tongue) on the cover, with the heading, “Mad Man: Glenn Beck and the Angry Style of American Politics.” The article was a classic example of hatchet journalism, unfairly attacking Beck as a leader of the “lunatic fringe,” an “agitator,” stirring up the “fears and anger of Americans who feel left out,” and comparing him to Howard Beale, the “mad anchorman” (brilliantly acted by the late Peter Finch) at the center of the satiric movie Network. In the movie, Beale energized the nation with his cry, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!” Beck similarly seems to be energizing ordinary Americans (many of them former members of the country’s “silent majority,” who never before had participated in any sort of political activism), who have been showing up by the thousands (indeed, by the hundreds of thousands) to protest B.O.’s policies at Congressional “townhall” meetings, TEA parties, and the Sept. 12 taxpayers’ march on Washington. What Time doesn’t mention, of course, is that unlike the Americans in the fictional story of Network, the real-life coalition of Americans today who are Glenn Beck fans – conservatives, libertarians, and independents of all sorts – are really “mad as hell” for good reasons: they’re justifiably angry at a far-left president who seems to have only contempt for the American free-enterprise system and whose administration seems determined to undermine the Constitution and the rule of law, and they’re also justifiably fearful for the loss of their individual freedoms to an ever-expanding, out-of-control Big-Brother government. To the editors of Time, Glenn Beck is an “agitator” for daring to reveal these truths – just as the author of the first Common Sense, Thomas Paine, was an agitator against the tyrannical monarch, George III.
n Trick: Casting Perils before Swine (Flu, that is) Politicians (like B.O.’s Health secretary Kathleen Sibelius) and the news media have been stirring up paranoia about the so-called “swine flu” (the H1N1 flu) and the “pandemic” that’s breaking out across the USA, now that confirmed cases of the flu strain have been found in over 30 states. Although this new strain of influenza seems no more deadly than the usual seasonal flu (which typically results in over 30,000 fatalities), it’s likely to infect far more people, especially young people, because they haven’t been exposed to anything quite like it. Educational institutions – from grade schools to colleges and universities – implemented policies to deal with the likely pandemic; among other things, they’ve urged students, faculty, and staff to frequently wash their hands – one of the simplest yet most effective means of preventing spread of the flu. The paranoia has been a huge boon for the manufacturers of hand sanitizers. Given these circumstances, one would think that lots of people would be getting vaccinated against the H1N1 flu, but that’s not the case. Thanks to fears about the safety of the vaccine (based mostly on unsubstantiated rumors), many people have decided not to get vaccinated. (Indeed, a recent AP poll found that 38% of parents said they were unlikely to give permission for their kids to be vaccinated at school.) But the biggest problem has been the frustratingly long delay in the marketing of the vaccine. Just this month, vaccines for the H1N1 flu – initially, only in nose spray form, but now in shots as well – have started to become available, first for health-care providers and people in the highest risk groups. By the time the vaccine is available for the general population of Americans, it may be too late to prevent widespread outbreak of the flu strain – and the pandemic will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The vaccine delay demonstrates the folly of having distribution of vital medical products centralized and controlled by an agency of the federal government, the Center for Disease Control (CDC). The feds’ obsession with alleged “fairness” in the distribution of the vaccine – carefully doling it out to the states according to their population – is overriding the genuine public health need of speedy distribution to stave off the very pandemic the feds have made Americans so paranoid about. It’s yet another lesson in the inefficacy of central government planning versus decentralization (leaving public-health protection to the states, which is where the U.S. Constitution vests it) or the efficiency (and fairness) of the free market.
n Treat: What a Rush! Conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh has hosted his nationally-syndicated radio talk show now for 21 years, and he’s more popular today than ever. I confess that I frequently listen to Rush’s radio show; I don’t always agree with him (though most of the time I do), but I always find him entertaining – as even his harshest critics concede. Questioned by NBC’s Jamie Gangel in a two-part interview aired on The Today Show on October 12-13, Rush showed one reason why he’s so popular: uninhibited by concerns about being “politically incorrect,” he freely speaks his mind – and, most of the time, he voices opinions held by many (if not most) Americans. Contrary to the negative stereotypes painted by Rush’s enemies in the left-liberal news media, Rush’s fans are not unthinking “Dittoheads.” (The name comes from Rush’s fans who call into the show and rather than repeating the typically gushy introductory comments – “Love you, Rush, and love the show,” etc., etc. – they simply say, “Dittoes, Rush.”) Rush’s fans come from all walks of life, ranging widely in age, income, occupation, sex, race, religion, sexual orientation, and even politics. (I know for a fact that his audience includes gay atheist libertarians as well as black Christian social conservatives, for example.) What they have in common is that they identify with the people whom Rush champions, the productive people in America (those who are either producers themselves or who at least admire the producers or aspire to become producers), against the tyranny of the “looters” (as Ayn Rand called them, the parasites who’d live off the productive work of others). Among the “looter” class whom Rush satirically skewers are the politicians who scheme to wield power over the producers, by pandering to the looters and their resentment against achievement. As important as Bill “Slick Willy” Clinton was, as a foil against whom Rush could rage, the current occupant of the White House, B.O., is an even better foil – a kind of gift that the American people (when they foolishly elected this bullshit artist to be president of the U.S. last fall) have given to Mr. Limbaugh. May he long continue to rage against both the bullshit and its leading purveyor!
n Trick: The NFL’s Racist Politics Rush Limbaugh’s also a huge fan of professional football. Yet in his bid to be a part-owner of an NFL team, the St. Louis Rams, he has been “sacked,” so to speak, because of the NFL’s intolerance and, yes, racist politics. Certain critics, including sportswriters like Drew Sharp of the Detroit Free Press, spoke out against the bid, claiming that Limbaugh was too “divisive” or “polarizing” a public figure to be co-owner of the Rams. Sharp cited what he called a “litany of incendiary racial comments,” giving as an example a supposed statement made by Rush on his radio program, that slavery “had its merits” – a statement that Rush never made. One frequently-cited statement that Rush actually did make, back in 2003 – his contention that Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb was overrated because the news media wanted to see a black quarterback succeed – had ignited a controversy that forced Limbaugh to resign as an analyst on ESPN’s NFL Countdown pregame show. Critics might consider that comment “divisive” or “polarizing” because it was controversial – a statement of Rush’s own opinion, for which he ESPN supposedly hired him to speak – but it was hardly “racist”; rather, it was an accusation that the news media themselves were racist in evaluating McNabb not by the quality of his play but by the color of his skin. Whether or not Rush was right about McNabb, he certainly had the right to say what he said – and not to be blackballed (so to speak) merely for speaking his mind. Other phony statements falsely attributed to Limbaugh were cited by other critics, as they began piling on the sportscaster’s lament: NFL Players Association executive director DeMaurice Smith, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, and even those notorious race-hustlers, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, joined in the outcry against Rush as a supposedly “divisive” or “polarizing” figure. As conservative commentator Mark Steyn noted in an op-ed, “Rush Limbaugh is so `divisive’ that to get him fired, leftie agitators have to invent racist sound bites to put in his mouth” (Investor’s Business Daily, October 19). Pressured to withdraw by David Checketts, the investor who originally had invited Rush to join in the bid for the Rams, Rush refused to do so, so Checketts announced that he was dis-inviting Rush, dropping him from the group. On his radio show and later in an op-ed published in Wall Street Journal (“The Race Card, Football, and Me,” October 17-18), Rush noted that “this spectacle is bigger than I am” (which is especially true, now that he has lost so much weight!). “This is about the ongoing effort by the left in this country, wherever you find them, in the media, the Democrat Party, or wherever, to destroy conservatism, to prevent the mainstreaming of anyone who is prominent as a conservative” – a political intolerance that reflects “the blind hatred espoused by Messrs. Sharpton and Jackson” (who, as Rush demonstrated in his op-ed, really are racists themselves). What exactly are “my racial views”? Rush asked. “You mean, my belief in a colorblind society where every individual is treated as a precious human being without regard to his race? Where football players should earn as much as they can and keep as much as they can, regardless of race? Those controversial racial views?” That the leftist racists’ intimidation tactics worked so effectively against someone as popular and influential as Rush Limbaugh should concern all Americans who care about freedom of expression, in our supposedly “free” society. The tyranny of the leftist “political correctness” police is truly, as Rush wrote in his op-ed, “a cancer on our society.”
n Treat: Vampires! For some reason, one of the hottest subjects in American popular culture today is vampires. The blood-thirsty fanged “undead” creatures of the night are so prevalent in best-selling books, movies, and TV shows that many Americans have to pinch themselves (in lieu of biting themselves) as a reminder that the creatures are really fictional. In books, there are the best-selling Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer (very hot with teens and young women); the less-well-known but far more entertaining Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris (the books are even better than TrueBlood, the hit HBO series based on them); and the just-published sequel to Bram Stoker’s classic novel, Dracula the Undead, co-written by Stoker’s great-grandnephew, Dacre Stoker, and Ian Holt. In movie theaters, there’s the quirky Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant (which premiered Oct. 23), as well as the much-anticipated Twilight sequel, New Moon, which premieres in November. A big-screen remake of the 1960s cult TV show, Dark Shadows, starring Johnny Depp as Barnabas Collins, is in the works and may reach theaters next year. And on TV, in addition to TrueBlood (in its second season on HBO), there’s the CW hit, Vampire Diaries (in which talented actor Ian Somerhalder steals the show as the evil vampire brother). Perhaps it’s not surprising that vampires are so popular in today’s pop culture in America: with real blood-suckers in Washington, D.C. (the B.O. administration and the Democrat-controlled Congress), Americans find the fictional variety to be a welcome (and entertaining) diversion.
n Trick: Michael Moore’s Hypocritical Anti-Capitalism Leftist provocateur Michael Moore has a new anti-capitalist movie, ironically titled Capitalism: A Love Story, now playing in theaters. From what I’ve read about the film (I refuse to waste even a dollar of my money – let alone the five dollars that would be cheapest price of a bargain matinee at my local movie theater – enriching this left-wing propagandist), Moore’s complaint isn’t really against capitalism, properly considered, but rather the “mixed economy,” part-capitalist, part-socialist, that currently prevails in the U.S. Moore denounces “some truly offensive things,” Sheldon Richman writes in a recent review: “banks engaging in wild speculation, without concern for the risk, taxpayer bailouts for banks and other businesses [among them, it should be added, the very company that Moore skewered in one of his early films, General Motors, which has now become “Government Motors”], cozy relations between Wall Street and Washington, politicians getting favors from companies that want benefits from government, and big institutions pushing less powerful individuals around.” Yet virtually all the things he rails against are not the products of capitalism but rather of the “mixed economy” – whether you call it “state capitalism,” or “crony capitalism,” or “corporatism,” as some scholars do. (Richman, “Frustrating Michael Moore,” on the Foundation for Economic Education website, http://fee.org.) Whatever it is that Moore denounces, it ain’t really capitalism. In denouncing what he calls capitalism, Moore reveals himself to be the worst sort of hypocrite. As a film-maker in capitalist America, Moore has been free to make a fortune from those people gullible enough to pay money to view his films, in theaters or on TV or DVDs – films that denounce as evil the free-market system that allows him the freedom not only to make his films in the first place, but to earn an income that enables him and his family to live the lifestyle of “the rich and famous,” the Hollywood celebrities whom Moore regards as his peers (despite his phony association with his humble middle-class roots in Davison, Michigan). (David T. Hardy and Jason Clarke expose Moore’s hypocrisy in their bestselling 2004 book, Michael Moore Is a Big Fat Stupid White Man. There’s also Michael Wilson’s entertaining and revealing documentary, Michael Moore Hates America, available on DVD.) As Walter Williams notes in an op-ed in Investor’s Business Daily, people in capitalist countries have “far greater income and enjoy greater human rights protections” than those in socialist and communist countries” (“Why Michael Moore Is Dead Wrong,” Sept. 29). Consider Communist Cuba, whose socialized medicine system Moore naively extolled in his previous movie, Sicko. Can you imagine Moore attacking the thugs who run Cuba (Fidel Castro and his brother, Raoul), the way he attacked President George W. Bush in his movie Fahrenheit 9/11? That would be as incredible as Moore’s movies themselves.
n Treat: Ayn Rand, Real Advocate of Capitalism Over 25 years after her death, novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand still continues to influence American politics and culture, through her writings passionately defending reason, individualism, and capitalism. As I’ve noted (see my discussion of “The Summer of Atlas Shrugged” in my previous post), her magnificent novel, Atlas Shrugged, continues to be a best-seller, indeed selling better today than it did when first published 52 years ago. Yet another sign of the continuing influence and importance of Rand’s ideas is the recent publication of two new biographies, both of them emphasizing Rand’s role as a champion of capitalism – of true capitalism, that is, free-market capitalism. (As Rand herself once famously stated, the term free-market capitalism is redundant, because capitalism properly understood is the economic system of free markets, based on the voluntary actions of individuals freely trading goods and services among themselves, free of government coercion. Rand understood more clearly than any major thinker of the 20th century the moral justification of capitalism: that it was the only social/ economic/ political system based on, and fully compatible with, the rights of the individual.) Jennifer Burns’s Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), released in mid-September, has been touted as the first true scholarly biography of Rand. (Burns writes in the book’s introduction that “until now Rand has not been the subject of a book-length biography,” but that’s simply not true; I could cite at least a half-dozen book length biographies of Rand, most written by Objectivists.) The book is better described as the first scholarly biography of Rand written by a non-Objectivist (Burns is an assistant professor of history at the University of Virginia) and published by a major publishing house (Oxford). Those facts alone nevertheless signify how important Rand’s influence has been in modern American political philosophy. The title of the book is inappropriate: Rand was indeed an ardent advocate of free markets, but neither she nor her admirers would consider her a “goddess of the market” (indeed, the whole point of a free market is that it’s spontaneously ordered, not commanded by either humans or “gods”). The title is also misleading, in its reference to “the American right”: like other left-liberals, Burns tends to view politics in terms of a one-dimensional “left”/”right” dichotomy, lumping together everything that’s non-left – conservatism, libertarianism, and Objectivism – despite the critical differences between these intellectual movements. Notwithstanding these faults, however, the author is fair in her analysis of both Rand and Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism. (Unlike other non-Objectivist critics of Rand, she at least understands the fundamentals of the philosophy). And the book benefits greatly from the author’s access to Rand’s personal papers in the archives at the Ayn Rand Institute (and, in an interesting “essay on sources” at the end of the book, she reveals some of the editorial flaws in recently-published collections of Rand’s writings). The book is a “must-have” for serious students of Rand and her ideas. Anne Heller’s newly-published biography, Ayn Rand and the World She Made (New York: Doubleday, 2009), is just now appearing in bookstores. It is a much-anticipated biography, on which Ms. Heller has been working for several years (Heller previewed excerpts from the book in her comments at the 2007 Atlas Society conference celebrating the 50th anniversary of Rand’s greatest novel, Atlas Shrugged.) Although I have yet to see the book (my copy from Amazon.com is due in the mail any day now), advance reviews – such as Stephen Cox’s, in the October issue of Liberty magazine (“Ayn’s World”) – have been quite favorable. The advance reviews (along with Ms. Heller’s interview in the October issue of Liberty) show that Heller gives Rand her due as a novelist as well as a philosopher. Her sympathetic (yet fair) account of Rand, her life and her works, is another “must-have” book, not just for Objectivists but for anyone who’d like to better understand this remarkable woman who so brilliantly championed reason, individualism, and capitalism.
| Link to this Entry | Posted Thursday, October 29, 2009 | Copyright © David N. Mayer |
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