Politics – Page 46 – Maverick Philosopher

Dennis Prager was complaining one day about how the Left ridicules the Right. He sounded a bit indignant. He went on to say that he does not employ ridicule. But why doesn't he? He didn't say why, but I will for him: Because he is a gentleman who exemplifies the good old conservative virtue of civility. And because he is a bit naive.

Prager's behavior, in one way laudable, in another way is not, resting as it does on an assumption that I doubt is true at the present time. Prager assumes that political differences are more like intellectual differences among gentlemanly interlocutors than they are like the differences among warring parties. He assumes that there is a large measure of common ground and the real possibility of mutually beneficial compromise, the sort of compromise that serves the common good by mitigating the extremism of the differing factions, as opposed to that form of compromise, entered into merely to survive, whereby one side knuckles under to the extremism of the other.

But if we are now in the age of post-consensus politics, if politics is war by another name, then it is just foolish not to use the Left's tactics against them.

And that includes ridicule. As Saul Alinksy's Rule #5 has it:

Ridicule is man's most potent weapon.

It is not enough to be right, or have the facts on your side, or to have the better arguments. That won't cut it in a war. Did the Allies prevail over the Axis Powers in virtue of having truth and right on their side? It was might that won the day, and, to be honest, the employing of morally dubious means (e.g., the firebombing of Dresden, the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki), the same sort of means that the Axis would have employed had they been able to. One hopes that the current civil war doesn't turn bloody. But no good purpose is served by failing to understand that what we have here is a war and not minor disagreements about means within the common horizon of agreed-upon assumptions, values, and goals.

Have we entered the age of post-consensus politics? I think so. I should write a post about our irreconcilable differences. For now a quick incomplete list. We disagree radically about: the purpose of government; crime and punishment; race; marriage; abortion; drugs; pornography; the interpretation of the Consitution; religion; economics.

Take religion. I have no common ground with you if you think every vestige of the Judeo-Christian heritage should be removed from the public square, or take the sort of extremist line represented by people like Dawkins and A. C. Grayling. If, however, you are an atheist who gives the Establishment Clause a reasonable interpretation, then we have some common ground.

Obama the Lawless

Besides being incompetent and mendacious, Obama is brazenly lawless, as Mona Charen documents.

Obama, the Main Mama of the Nanny State

Obama is this dude's main mama:

It is amazing how shamelessly blunt the Obaminators are in promoting ObamaYomamaCare. They leave no doubt that pussification and wussification are high on their agenda.

There is also something incoherent about a law that allows these pajama-clad mama's basement dwellers to remain on their parents' health care plans until age 26, when suddenly they are supposed to man up and sign up and pay high premiums for services they don't need (and in some cases cannot need, e.g., maternity care for men) so that old people, who have had an entire lifetime to pile up loot and make provision for old age, and are not saddled with outrageous college loan debt, can get free or subsidized health care.

It doesn't make any bloody sense. On the one hand, young people are given yet another incentive to prolong their adolescence and dependence on parents and not take responsibility for themselves, while on the other hand, they, who are healthy and relatively poor, are expected to bear the lion's share of the health care burden for the old and illness-prone.

My advice to the young: don't allow yourself to be screwed. I know you think Obama is one cool dude, but so is Ron Paul, and he talks sense.

Two More from Victor Davis Hanson

So much penetrating, fact-based critique from the conservative side, and what do lefties have by way of response? 'Obamacare' is a racist slur. The race card is all they have left.

How Presidents Lie. Excerpt:

When the president speaks now, few listen. He realizes that and so, like Richard Nixon, must add emphatics as a substitute for honesty. But by now we know ad nauseam all the banal intensifiers — “make no mistake about it,” “I am not kidding,” “in point of fact,” and “let me be perfectly clear.”

Obama is playing a strange game: The more he speaks untruthfully, the more he resorts to emphatic intensifiers that instead confirm that he is speaking untruthfully. In turn, Obama’s audiences play an even stranger game: The more they hear their president speak, the more they are impressed that he can sound so sincere in being so nonchalantly insincere and mellifluously misleading. When I first heard, “You can keep your doctor and your health plan,” I thought, “That can’t be true; he knows it can’t be true; and the American people must know it can’t be true” — and, then, I shrugged: “But he’s hit upon a winning lie.”

And so he did — until now.

Learning Through Pain

The Four G’s Revisited

Conservative: God, guns, grub, gold

Libertarian: Guns, grub, gold, grass

Liberal: Government, government, government, government.

More specifically:

The Pope is a Buffoon When it Comes to Economics

There is too much buffoonery in high places.

It would be nice to be able to expect from popes and presidents a bit of gravitas, a modicum of seriousness, when they are instantiating their institutional roles. What they do after hours is not our business. So Pope Francis' clowning around does not inspire respect, any more than President Clinton's answering the question about his underwear. Remember that one? Boxers or briefs? He answered the question! All he had to do was calmly state, without mounting a high horse, "That is not a question that one asks the president of the United States." And now we have the Orwellian Prevaricator himself in the White House, Barack Hussein Obama, whose latest Orwellian idiocy is that Big Government is the problem, not him, even though he is the the poster boy, the standard bearer, like unto no one before him in U. S. history, of Big Government!

But I digress. Here are a couple of important points in rebuttal of Francis (emphasis added):

To begin, we note that “trickle-down” economics is a caricature used by capitalism’s critics and not its defenders. Those of us who embrace free markets do so not out of a belief that the breadcrumbs of affluence will eventually reach those less well-off, but, rather, out of a conviction that the free market is the best mechanism for increasing wealth at all levels. As for being confirmed by the facts, we believe the empirical evidence is conclusive. Compare the two sides of Germany during the era of the Berlin Wall or the China of today with the China that hadn’t yet embraced an (admittedly imperfect) form of capitalism. The results are not ambiguous.

To this I would add that it is a mistake to confuse material inequality with poverty. Which is better: everyone being equal but poor, or inequality that makes 'the poor' better off than they would have been been without the inequality? Clearly, the second. After all, there is nothing morally objectionable about inequality as such. Or do you think that there is a problem with my net worth's being considerably less than Bill Gates'? There is nothing wrong with inequality as such; considerations of right and wrong kick in only when there is doubt about the legality or morality of the means by which the wealth was acquired. My net worth exceeds that of a lot of people from a similar background, but that merely reflects the fact that I practice the old virtues of frugality, etc., avoid the vices that impoverish, and make good use of my talents. I know how to save, invest, and defer gratification. I know how to control my appetites. The relative wealth that results puts me in a position to help other people, by charitable giving, by hiring them, and by paying taxes that fund welfare programs and 'entitlements.' When is the last time a poor person gave someone a job, or made a charitable contribution? And how much tax do they pay? There are makers and takers, and you can't be a giver unless you are a maker, any more than you can be a taker if there are no givers. So, far from inequality being the same as poverty or causing poverty, it lessens poverty, both by providing jobs and via charity, not to mention the 'entitlement' and welfare programs that are funded by taxes paid by the productive.

You don't like the fact that someone has more than you? Then you are guilty of the sin of envy. And I think that Francis is aware that envy is one of the Seven Deadly Sins. Here is a question for socialists, redistributionists, collectivists, Obaminators: Is your redistributionism merely an expression of envy? I am not claiming that envy is at the root of socialism. That is no more the case than that greed (also on the list of Seven Deadlies) is at the root of capitalism. But it is the case that some socialists are drawn to socialism because of their uncontrollable envy, a thoroughly destructive vice.

There’s a more fundamental misunderstanding at work here, however. When Francis talks about “economic power,” he misapprehends a fundamental aspect of free markets – they only provide power consensually. Apart from government, no one can force you to buy a product or purchase a service. There’s a similar error in his citation of Saint John Chrysostom’s aphorism: “Not to share one’s wealth with the poor is to steal from them and to take away their livelihood.” The economics of capitalism are not zero-sum. Trade only occurs when both sides are made better off by the transaction. The wealthy don’t get rich at the expense of the poor.

Lefties hate business and especially big corporations. I give the latter no pass if they do wrong or violate reasonable regulations. But has Apple or Microsoft ever incarcerated anyone, or put anyone to death, or started a shooting war, or forced anyone to buy anything or to violate his conscience as the Obama administration is doing via its signature abomination, Obamacare?

On the other hand, did the government provide me with the iPad Air I just bought? You didn't build that, Obama! Not you, not your government, not any government. High tech does not come from politicians or lawyers, two classes that are nearly the same — yet another problem to be addressed in due course.

Be intellectually honest, you lefties. Don't turn a blind eye to the depredations of Big Government while excoriating (sometimes legitimately) those of Big Business.

It’s about Liberty, not Race

In other words, Republicans oppose Obama's policies, not the man, because they believe the president will so inexorably change the structure of our social and economic system by mandating and punishing human behavior that nothing less than individual freedom is at stake. Under present circumstances, this hardly seems delusional. Does anyone really believe that subsidized policyholders with pre-existing conditions won't eventually face other mandates and penalties related to their lifestyle choices?

An Incorrect Promise?

This from The New York Times:

The split between lawmakers and the White House reflects the dilemma the president finds himself in as he seeks to follow through on last week’s acknowledgment about his incorrect promise on health care coverage.

A statement is either true or false, correct or incorrect. "No Republican voted for Obamacare' is a statement and it happens to be true or correct. But it is incoherent to speak of a promise as either correct or incorrect. 'I promise to loan you $100 on Friday' is a promise, not a statement. A promise is either fulfilled or not fulfilled. If, come Friday, I loan you $100, then I fulfill my promise. If I don't, then either (i) the promise I made is insincere, or (ii) something happened outside my control that prevented me from loaning you the money, or (iii) I reneged on my promise.

To speak of Obama's now famous lie — If you like your health plan you can keep your health plan, period – as an incorrect promise shows total confusion or perhaps willful obfuscation. First, there is no such thing as an incorrect promise. Second, a lie is not a promise. Obama lied about the already existent content of the ACA. He did not promise what that content would be.

And then Bubba comes along to add a further layer of incoherence and absurdity to this sorry spectacle.

Under pressure from Bill Clinton, Obama yesterday tried to correct his 'incorrect promise' by changing the law, something he is not constitutionally authorized to do. The passing , repealing, and amending of laws is a legislative function, not an executive function.

Are we in Cloud Cuckoo Land yet?

Libertarian (‘Losertarian’) Party Strikes Again

Ken Cuccinelli could have won in Virginia had the Libertarian candidate not siphoned off votes. Libertarianism is a healthy, if extreme, counterbalance to the the hard leftism that controls the Democrat Party, and the soft leftism of the RINOs. But the Libertarian Party is not only unnecessary, but destructive. Libertarians should follow the lead of Ron and Rand Paul, join the Republican Party, and push it in a libertarian direction, at least with respect to economic and political issues.

Libertarian ideas are many of them good; the Libertarian Party, however, is a disaster.

I have had my say on this topic in previous posts wherein you will find my reasons:

Libertarians are the Ralph Naders of the Conservative Side

Vote Libertarian, Waste a Vote.

Besides, a vote for the 'Libertarian' candidate, Robert Sarvis, was "insane," according to Ron Paul:

Specifically referring to the mileage taxes that Sarvis indicated he may support and which may require GPS systems to be installed in everyone's cars, Paul said "anybody who would conceivably vote for someone who would endorse a mileage tax" is "insane" because a mileage tax would be an "invasion of privacy" and would just give the government more money it could waste. In an interview on MSNBC, Sarvis indicated that he could support "vehicle-miles-driven taxes."

But What if I Want a ‘Crappy’ Health Plan and by Which Standard is it ‘Crappy’?

For liberal scumbaggery and dumbassery, it is hard to beat Ed Schultz. This is the guy who called the sweet and loveable and ladylike Laura Ingraham a "right-wing slut." Now he is saying that the health plans that Obamacare will outlaw are 'crappy.'

If so, there must be some one standard relative to which they are adjudged 'crappy.' But what is that standard, and who sets it? Is maternity care built into the standard? But maternity is not in my future, or in my past for that matter. And if you are a woman past a certain age, or a nun of any age, maternity is not in your future either.

Primary care physicians advise their patients to have colonoscopies starting at the age of 50. Suppose you are a healthy 27-year-old runner who thrives on a fiber-rich diet. You and Sir Thomas Crapper are on most excellent terms. Your policy does not cover colonoscopies, let us assume. Does that make it 'crappy'? Not at all. It makes it reasonable. Why buy what you don't need?

So what would be a crappy plan for one person might not be for another. It depends on age, sex, and other factors.

Who is to decide? Obviously, the person in question or the person's parent or guardian. Not the government.

So here is the nub of the issue. The government has no right to force you to buy health care or health insurance (not the same, by the way), or anything else. Whether you buy and what you buy is your business. Or do you think that the citizen-state relation is or is closely analogous to the child-parent relation?

The various mandates (individual, employer, HHS) are egregious assaults upon individual liberty and upon the mediating structures of civil society such as private enterprises, clubs, fraternal associations, and churches. (In a later post I plan to talk about contraceptives and abortifacients and the assault on religious liberty.)

So do you value liberty? Or do you want an Obama-style "fundamental transformation" of our country in the direction of a collectivist nanny-state? We are well on the way to it already. How far do you want to go?

Let us understand what is fundamentally at issue here. Let's not get hung up on details such as those pertaining to the inasupicious 'rollout' of ObamaCare. We need clarity as to the "conflict of visions" ( T. Sowell) of Right and Left.

But we can't have clarity as long as Obama and his defenders lie and bullshit and prevaricate. The latter include Feinstein, Pelosi, and Wasserman-Schultz.

So, Mr President, please tell us forthrightly what your vision for America is. Don't lie to us, or try to trick or fool us or try achieve your ends by stealth.

Then and only then can we have the 'conversation' — to use a nice squishy bien-pensant liberal word — we need to have about the direction of the country.

But please, no more lies, and no more lies about your lies.

The Wages of Presidential Deception

Barack Obama does not have proprietary rights in presidential mendacity: he has many illustrious predecessors. But Obama has pushed the arts of deception, prevarication, and empty bluster to new heights. Unfortunately for him, the economy is bad, which fact will make it difficult for him to get away with his lies, bullshit, and Orwellian abuses of the English language.

I'll give the guy this much: it takes balls of brass and chutzpah on stilts to lie brazenly about what can be easily checked. Was he ever a used car salesman? Of course, he would have spoken of 'pre-owned vehicles.'

So much for my little summary of VDH's latest.

Who are the Extremists? Contemporary ‘Liberals’

Steven F. Hayward:

But the sound and fury against the Tea Party is a sideshow. The second aspect of the current partisan divide reveals the real extremism in politics today, and it isn’t to be found among Tea Partiers. The complaint against the supposed “extremism” of the Tea Party is nowadays followed by a much more risible lament: that the very design of our government is to blame for “gridlock” and the increasing conflict between the two parties in Washington. Supposedly serious people have written in the last couple weeks that Tea Partiers should be arrested and charged with treason or sedition for causing the government shutdown. More frequent are the calls for abolishing the Senate because of its equal representation of small states and out of frustration with the filibuster. A couple of liberal pundits, like the usually more sober-minded Jacob Heilbrunn at the National Interest, have suggested abolishing Congress altogether. And New York Times columnist Thomas “China-Is-Awesome” Friedman periodically recycles his fantasy that we could be “China for a day” so that his favorite authoritarian wish list could be imposed without our democratic consent.

This is not a brand new phenomenon. Starting with Woodrow Wilson, “progressives” (to use a name more accurate than “liberal”) have complained that our various mechanisms of “checks and balances” prevent government from being more “effective.” This is just code for the liberal desire that its opposition should simply shut up, surrender, and submit to their rule unquestioned. It is a liberalism that has grown too lazy to argue with—or even tolerate—opposition, which is what happens when you come to believe that you embody “the side of history.” This display of contempt for the institutions of democratic deliberation reveals today’s progressives to be highly undemocratic—and illiberal, too. With their will to power checked as intended by our founders, the Left is letting out a primal scream.