Three American Values, and David Brooks

Some time ago (quite possibly two or three years ago) on an episode of the Observations Podcast, the Q and O guys pontificated about what they considered to be the three American values: Justice, Liberty, and Equality. Their discussion has stuck with me.



These three values are are displayed with prominence in the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, ...

In fact, beyond simply showing up as words, the values resonate through out that paragraph (and the rest of the Declaration for that matter). The securing of rights deals further with Justice, their unalienable status with Liberty, our right to life with Equality.

The values of Liberty and Justice also appear in the Pledge of Allegiance ("with liberty and justice for all"), and Equality was considered as being added to these before the pledge was finalized.

Each of these three values resonates through the American ethic today and has since our country's founding. But the three necessarily interfere with one another.

Before I get too far discussing the tensions between the three I should define what I happen to mean by each, because each is fairly nebulous with many options for interpretation.

Justice

By Justice, I mean "maintenance or administration ... by the impartial adjustment of conflicting claims or the assignment of merited rewards or punishments" if I can borrow part of a Merriam-Webster definition.

An instance I would consider to be within the realm of Justice would include if you are promised some amount of compensation for some amount of work, and you complete the work, that you are properly compensated, and that others then can't also lay claim to your compensation. Or, in another instance, that others are prohibited from causing you physical harm, and if do so, receive a suitable punishment.

I should mention that as a socially concerned Evangelical, I often hear the term "social justice" bandied about. "Social justice" has nothing to do with the Justice I am talking about here (and, I think, little to do with what our Founding Fathers were talking about in the Declaration.) That's to not say that "social justice" proponents have goals I disagree with - but I do dislike their terminology (and often I also dislike the means they propose to achieved their desired ends). So called "social justice" deals with what the Catholic Encyclopedia terms a "claim in charity" as opposed to a "claim in justice" (or likewise, "charity leads us to help our neighbour in his need out of our own stores, while justice teaches us to give to another what belongs to him.")

Again, charity is important, but it is not Justice as I'm defining it for the purpose of this post.

Liberty

To explain what I mean by liberty, I'll again cherry pick from M-W: "the quality or state of being free", "the power to do as one pleases", "the positive enjoyment of various ... rights and privileges".

This is all about being able do that which you desire without impediment by others, to "be free". If you want to paint your house red, and you have the means to do so, you can paint your house red. If you want to engage in an open market exchange, you are able to do so. If you want to share your wealth out of charity, you can do so. Etc, etc, etc.

Equality

I mean two related but perhaps slightly different concepts by Equality.

The first deals with impartiality. We should be impartial about things beyond someone's control and which aren't relevant when making decisions. So, one should not be able to able to discriminate based on race or ethnicity or creed because that violates equality in terms of impartiality. In this sense we are all "equal" in that we all, by virtue of being human, have access to the same set of unalienable rights.

The second deals with egalitarianism. This incorporates both the desire to provide equal privileges to all and to address the "gap" of "inequality" between individuals. We educate all children in this country out of this egalitarianism, so all persons have some degree of "equality of opportunity." Our progressive tax code is also based on this egalitarianism such that those with much are taxed more to give aid to those without (this is an attempt to achieve "equality of results/ends").


Now that you hopefully have some sense of what I mean by these concepts, I can get into how they conflict. Justice necessarily requires the State (or whomever is administering Justice) to be able to violate one's Liberty. Locking someone in jail clearly violates their Liberty, but punishing those who commit crimes is Just. Equality also conflicts with Liberty. Anti-discrimination laws violate a person's Liberty to discriminate on various criteria to achieve the goal of Equality in terms of impartiality.

Equality and Justice can also conflict. Progressive taxation, for example (and - to come back to my previous point on "social justice," which often involves calls for progressive taxation), takes away the merited rewards that should be protected by Justice for the sake of achieving the egalitarian ends of Equality.



Within the conflicting tensions between these values is where different political philosophies pop up. Referencing back to the Q and O podcast, the participants discussed how (typically) Liberals emphasize Equality above the other two, whereas Conservatives broadly champion Justice, and conservatives who would identify as Libertarians primarily care about Liberty.


Hopefully by this point you've come away from this post with something to think about, but I'm really just setting up the framework of these values for the purpose of evaluating a recent New York Times article by David Brooks - his Feb. 19 piece, "Money for Idiots". Keeping in mind that Brooks described himself as a "conservative moderate" on March 3 in his later article "A Moderate Manifesto", and he's the token conservative on PBS's NewsHour, let's consider exactly how "moderate" and exactly how "conservative" Brooks is.

"Money for Idiots" starts:

Our moral and economic system is based on individual responsibility. It's based on the idea that people have to live with the consequences of their decisions. This makes them more careful deciders. This means that society tends toward justice — people get what they deserve as much as possible.

So far so good. That's conservative red meat. It's Liberty (make your own decisions) and Justice (live with your decisions) all over the place.

Then:

Over the last few months, we've made a hash of all that. The Bush and Obama administrations have compensated foolishness and irresponsibility. The financial bailouts reward bankers who took insane risks. The auto bailouts subsidize companies and unions that made self-indulgent decisions a few decades ago that drove their industry into the ground.

The stimulus package handed tens of billions of dollars to states that spent profligately during the prosperity years. The Obama housing plan will force people who bought sensible homes to subsidize the mortgages of people who bought houses they could not afford. It will almost certainly force people who were honest on their loan forms to subsidize people who were dishonest on theirs.

These injustices are stoking anger across the country, lustily expressed by Rick Santelli on CNBC Thursday morning. "The government is promoting bad behavior!" Santelli cried as Chicago traders cheered him on. "The president ... should put up a Web site ... to have people vote ... to see if they want to subsidize losers' mortgages!"

After reading just the intro, I started thinking "Hey - Brooks is back!" After all his Palin bashing and what seemed to be his secret glee over the Obama win, I was hoping to be breathing a fresh breath of Brooks by the time I made it that far through the article — individual responsibility, apparent sneers at bailouts and the stimulus, Liberty. Justice. And, low on egalitarian Equality. He's a conservative again!

But, wait! Unfortunately, there's more:

Well, in some cases we probably do [have to subsidize irresponsible people's mortgages]. That's because government isn't fundamentally in the Last Judgment business, making sure everybody serves penance for their sins. In times like these, government is fundamentally in the business of stabilizing the economic system as a whole.

Sigh. He's back to his liberalism. He just chucked Liberty and Justice out the window to welcome in egalitarian Equality.

It's more anti-Justice, anti-Liberty through the rest of the article and Brooks concludes:

The nation's economy is not just the sum of its individuals. It is an interwoven context that we all share. To stabilize that communal landscape, sometimes you have to shower money upon those who have been foolish or self-indulgent. The greedy idiots may be greedy idiots, but they are our countrymen. And at some level, we're all in this together. If their lives don't stabilize, then our lives don't stabilize.

Which, is basically a more elaborate way for Brooks to make a bad parody out of Patrick Henry's famous quote ... changing it to: "The government needs to give egalitarian Equality to the entire economy, or you get death."

David Brooks doesn't share a common outlook on these three American values with conservatives. He's willing to do away with the conservative push for Justice and Liberty for a little Equality. That's not the balance of a conservative, it's the balance of a liberal. Now if only the mainstream media would bring Brooks on their programs under the right label.

Related:
1. Bruce McQuain makes similar points to the above over at Q and O.
2. Brooks wins the "2009 Beclownment in Journalism Award". (H/T The Other McCain).
3. David Brooks: insane. Count me stuck on Reagan. (Also, H/T The Other McCain).

Update, 3/11: Michael Wade over at Q and O critiques the latest nonsense to come out of David Brooks which is continued criticism of faux capitalism from a faux conservative.

Final Plea Against The Largest Spending Bill In History

With Obama about to sign this thing at an invitation-only event tomorrow, I'm days, if not weeks, late to post this, but here it goes:  Here are my arguments for why H.R 1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, better known as the "Stimulus" and gaining recognition as the "Generational Theft Act of 2009" is a really bad idea.


1. $787 billion (that's billion with a B!) is a lot of money.

And all that money has to come from somewhere. The government can either raise it by taxing or taking on debt. Or they can print more money. No one (or few people) are talking about the negative effects of these three possibilities. If we print more money, we get inflation. Borrowing more puts our credit rating at risk and leaves future taxpayers to have to cover the principal and the interest. And raising taxes moves capital from the private sector (the sector we are trying to stimulate!).


2. $787 billion is a lot of money.

OK, so, I repeat myself. But I want you to understand how big that number is. It's $787,000,000,000.00. If you had a pile of that much money in one dollar bills and you stacked it, you'd get about a fifth of the way to the moon. (So, it's literally an astronomical number).

If you had one second for each dollar in that sum, you'd have enough seconds to make up about 24,325 years. Humans started writing things down only 6,000 years ago. 24,325 years is a lot of seconds.

Put yet another way, with Obama's $500,000 executive salary cap now in place, using the $787 billion, you could hire 1,574,000 executives. That's a lot of fat cat executives making a cool half million a year.

Finally, the "Stimulus" costs about $5,700 per taxpayer. How many ways can you think of of how you might prefer to spend $5,700?


3. The government has a really poor track record.

Question: How well did the government do at spending vast sums of money on the Iraq War, Katrina recovery, and Boston's Big Dig?

Let's go ahead, and for the sake of argument, propose that by magic the Congress has really out done themselves here and only a mere 1% of this bill is going to get lost to fraud. But wait, 1% would be nearly 8 billion dollars. Add together the Gross Domestic Product of Nicaragua and Belize. You'll come to about 8 billion. More realistically (based on, say, Katrina figures), we'll see fraud and other waste eat up something like 12% of this bill. So, maybe $100 billion. Yes, billion.

Add on top of this the fact that the government wants to spend much of this as quickly as possible, and we're just setting ourselves up for poor oversight and fraud, waste, more fraud, and more waste.


4. The government doesn't have the information it needs.

Let's guess that between members of Congress, their advisors and the President and his advisors we've had 2,200 people work on this bill. Let's further suppose each of these people had equal weight in putting together the bill such that each person allocated the same amount of money within the bill. That means they each had to allocate more than $350 million. Now consider how you would allocate $350 million dollars - more than a third of a billion - to best help our economy. You probably have no idea. Neither, I'm sure, do they. It's just too much money to know how to precisely use it well. There's too much going on in the economy for an individual to know enough to make meaningful macroeconomic decisions like this. (Note: Arnold King expands on this argument better than I do, here.)

By contrast, when we interact with the economy as private citizens, amazing things happen. We all know our individual niche needs and desires and we can use the information we each individually have to produce some amazingly complex, but still largely efficient, systems. In fact, there are even rewards for being more efficient. But, when a relatively small number (say 2,200 instead of 300 million) are calling the shots they lack this information and these rewards for efficiency.

And to make matters worse, this bill was rushed. The bill was debated for less than an hour in the House to limit input from the Republicans. The pre-conference version of the bill was finalized less than 72 hours before the Senate voted on it. (And, if you could read the bill's legalese at a pace of one page per minute, it would take you more than 16 hours just to read the thing.) And if you divide the bill's cost by the number of seconds spent working on it, you come to one million dollars per second. How do you adequately put in safeguards for prudent spending when the rate is $1,000,000.00 / second?!


5. History says it won't work.

Despite (or because of) the massive spending of the New Deal, the Great Depression lasted ten long years. The Pelosi/Reid/Bush "Stimulus Checks" of last year haven't made a dent in this current recision. Neither have the hundreds of billions used under the TARP program.

Or, looking outside the U.S., Japan spent the 1990s trying to revamp their economy by Keynesian style defecit spending on infrastructure. It didn't work.

And finally, if you look at the historical data - government spending does not create jobs.


6. It's not stimulative.

At least not most of it. Most of it is useless pork. (Here are some more examples.)

Most seem to be putting the "stimulative" portions of the "stimulus" at about 20% of the bill. It makes you wonder why we aren't passing this bill instead.

And for the claims (falsehoods?) about how we, absolutely, positively, must pass this NOW and get money moving NOW, almost half the bill's spending doesn't take place until after 20 months.

Bruce McQuain of QandO puts it well when he terms the bill as "Long On Pork And Relief - Short On Stimulus And Jobs".

My Thoughts Exactly - Wishing President Obama Well

McQ at QandO:

Unlike the left, I’m not playing this "he's not my President" nonsense. I may not have voted for him, but he is my President. And I wish him well. That doesn't mean, however, that he has my blessing to do things to which I am philosophically opposed. I will vigorously oppose those things. What I don't plan on doing is descending into personal attacks and hate-filled rhetoric that so characterized much of the left's opposition this past 8 years. What I do plan on doing is reminding the left about how they acted in the same situation.

...

All of that said, I wish President Obama success on those things in which we find common ground. And I promise him dogged but respectful opposition to those on which we disagree. I understand, no matter how much we disagree, that in reality Barack Obama has the best interest of the country at heart. But the same stands true for me. However, as the left never seems to learn, opposition does not have to mean hate.

President Obama: You are my President and you have my best wishes. May God grant you the wisdom to sustain and improve the great country of ours over the next four years.

Neighborliness

From the Obama - O'Reilly interview last week, about raising taxes on the wealthy:

Obama:

Well, but the problem is, if I am sitting pretty, and you've got a waitress who is making minimum wage plus tips, and I can afford it if she can't, what's the big deal for me to say I'm going to pay a little bit more? That is neighborliness.

Suppose I was your neighbor. And suppose I know of a waitress making minimum wage who's having trouble keeping up on her bills. So, I come and ask you if you'll donate some money to help her stay afloat. OK, now that's "neighborliness".

Now - new thought experiment - again suppose I'm your neighbor. I still know of said waitress, and my intentions are still utterly pure - I just want to help her out. But this time, I show up at your house, with the police standing behind me, and I say "Hey - I want to help this waitress. It's a really noble cause. Oh, and if you don't give me money to help her, these police are going to take you to jail."

That's only "neighborliness" if you're Barack Obama. To me, that's called any of "the nanny state" or "socialism" or "income redistribution." Those are highly charged terms, but - that's exactly what this is. People don't pay their taxes as "charity" - they pay them because they don't have a choice. If you don't pay your taxes, you go to jail. Removing the person's choice in the matter changes the action of helping the waitress from charity to government coercion.

Dale Franks at QandO had an excellent treatment on this about a year ago, from which I'll liberally quote here:

The basis of socialism—and that's what it is, no matter what prettier, more trendy name you prefer—is that you will intentionally harm Person A to some degree, in order to help Person B.

Now, I'm sure we're all keen to see Person B get help, but what moral reason justifies harming Person A to supply that help?

I mean, it's not enough to say, "Well, Person A is only harmed a little bit. He doesn't need all that money." Because, even if the harm is slight, you are intentionally causing harm to an innocent person, for no other reason than its a convenient way to help Person B. But convenience, whatever else it may be, is not a moral justification.

After all, Person A isn't harming Person B. He isn't culpable for Person B's problem. So, what justifies taking Person A's property, simply because person B could make some use of it? Is it because Person A is morally different in some definable way from person B?

And, while we're on the subject, what is the limiting principle for taking something from one person by force, in order to give it to another?

For instance, we could conceivably save a number of lives by requiring, by law, that every healthy citizen report to the local blood bank at least twice a year, in order to "donate" blood. It would be a slight inconvenience for us to all trudge down to the blood bank every six months or so, but it wouldn't really cost us anything significant, and we aren't really harmed by donating a pint of blood. And, it would probably save a number of lives every year. So, why don't we make that a law?

Another argument that one might make is that, "Well, most people think it would be a good thing to do it. So it's a democratic decision."

Okay, but how does the fact that most people want something done morally justify doing it? At various times in history, a majority of people have wanted to do any number of awful, harmful things. But democratic legitimacy is, again, a legal concept. Not a moral one. Democracy is nothing more than a means for deciding what public policy will be. It is morally neutral. Just because a lot of people want to do something, doesn't make it a moral thing to do.

The bottom line for socialism is that it claims a moral right to take the property—and if necessary, the freedom, or even the lives—of one class of people by force, in order to distribute it to another class of people. I simply want to know what the moral justification for that claimed right might be. This is not about convenience. It's not about the needs of the afflicted. It's about philosophy.

Holy Goodness... Dems calling to Nationalize Oil Companies

It took me a while to pick my jaw off the floor for this one:

Link: sevenload.com

So, that sneaking suspicion conservatives have that liberals really do want to socialize things is apparently not too far off...

Good write up on this by McQ over at QandO. And several gems from McQ in an earlier post on gas prices, including:

When confronted with the reality that oil must be an integral and growing part of at least the short-term solution to our energy problem the usual suspects retreat into the cave, begin banging their tribal one-note drum and resort to petulant insult rather than signaling a willingness to discuss changing their mind for the good of their fellow citizens. A typical example of that would be the Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who, while respectfully calling the Vice President “oil man Cheney” said this:

"So all that Cheney can talk about, the Oil Man Cheney can talk about, is drilling, drilling drilling. But there is not enough oil in America to make that the salvation to our problems."

Of course the 1.5 trillion barrels sitting in western US shale alone, not to mention the 89.5 billion barrels offshore, show Harry Reid to either be incredibly ignorant, in which case he should just keep quiet, or a plain old liar. The fact is the shale reserve alone would fulfill all our energy needs for about 200 years.

"The Oil Man Cheney"? Falling back on an ad-hominem? Give me a break! I would hope for so much better from any Senator, especially a majority leader! Ugh.

And people want persons like Harry Reid to build and operate refineries and/or America's entire oil industry. Genius!

Clinton and Gore on Iraq

Back when, you know, Iraq was a threat with its WMD...

Update: Bruce McQuain, over at QandO, reminds us of all the other Democrats who believed Iraq was, well - in the words of Tom Daschle, "a threat we must address". The list: Bill Cinton, John Kerry, Jay Rockerfeller, John Edwards, Harry Reid, Hillary Clinton, and Bob Graham.

Link Roundup - 1/20/08

• More good news about Iraq. Complete with pictures. Keywords: progress and impressive.
  
  
• The Bush stimulus program is an awful idea. Romney's also weighed in with his proposed plan. I wish he'd back up his tax cut proposals with spending cut proposals, but I do welcome this difference between his and Bush's:
  

  
  [Romney's plan] centered on several permanent tax cuts…permanently reducing the rate for the lowest income tax bracket to 7.5 percent from 10 percent, retroactive to 2007. He also wants to eliminate Social Security payroll taxes for workers over 65 and eliminate capital gains and dividend taxes on households earning less than $200,000 a year. He also would permanently reduce the corporate tax rate to 20 percent from 35 percent over two years and allow businesses to depreciate the value of new equipment purchases faster.
  

  
  versus:
  

  
  President George W. Bush earlier on Friday called on Congress to enact a package of temporary tax cuts and other measures estimated to cost up to $150 billion.
  

  
  
  
• Do Democrats really want to return to the Cinton era? I can't even imagine what would happen if papers surfaced documenting the Bush administration had intent to "expose lifestyles, tactics and motives of [opponent] lobbyists" and "track personal information about interest group leaders, such as their home phone numbers, addresses, 'biographies, analysis of credibility in the media, and known relationships with Congresspeople.'"
  
  
• Meanwhile, Grassley's investigation continues to give me the heebeegeebees. I loathe the prosperity gospel movement. I think the prosperity gospel's message is wrong and that its theology is dangerous. But, these people pushing the prosperity gospel are still religious institutions that Congress has no business investigating.
  
  
• Finally, Iran: Still a threat.

This and That

This, Senators Obama and Clinton, is called progress.

And this is another reason I'm gravely concerned about the general '08 election. Any disagreements with Clinton will be painted as sexism; with Obama, racism.

That is how much car prices are going to go up thanks to the new CAFE standards. ($6,000 ... thanks Congress and President Bush!)

And this is why "the idea that the United States, the world's single largest energy consumer, can be independent of the $5 trillion-per-year energy business -- the world's single biggest industry -- is ludicrous on its face". (H/T Pejman Yousefzadeh @ Redstate)

And, finally, that is the kind of 2008 change I'm looking for ... (market-driven).

Oh, OK, one more ... this (read the comments...) is yet another example of the left-leaning community that is Digg failing engage in anything that even approaches civil discourse. It's also a prime example of why I ditched Digg however many months ago, and why I'm glad I've never looked back.

Update: OK, really, just one more: This is reason #7,567,981 Planned Parenthood is evil. (My tax dollars at work, ending lives. That helps me sleep at night. Sign the petition [please!])

Welcome to the Endarkenment, Bro

In the last month and a half, between traveling for work and moving, I haven't had much time to blog. It looks like I'm going to start things back up talking on the subject I effectively left off with though.

It's yet-another-cop-tasering. And, really, I'm late to this particular story - it made it's way through the blogosphere last weekend. I care enough about the topic to dive in a week late though.

If you haven't seen this tasering, well, here's the 2-part "uncut" version via YouTube:

It's approaching the point at which I just don't know what to say. I guess in lieu of my own thoughts, I'll simply quote Billy Beck's (apologies for the profanity in the quote):

I cannot conclude otherwise: this sonofabitch of a cop needs to get stuffed into a cage, forthwith.

Once more, children: we are cultivating exactly the very mentality that once herded human beings into cattle-cars without hearing the sounds of its own conscience. These automatons -- these political homunculi -- are being cultivated to not reason to a moral conclusion on their own powers.

I say that Tasers are only accelerating this dynamic: touted as "non-lethal" (which is now known nonsense), they are more and more instant resort to force exactly where human beings ought to put their minds to work. And I will not entertain any judy-boy bullshit about how hard cops have it. Fuck them. I long for an America where cops were men, able to rationally face the dangers of the work that they chose, instead of walking "policy" statements in action without minds and morals.

Pay serious attention to his whole issue. This is going nowhere good, in a big-time hurry.

Dale Franks of QandO borrowed the above mentioned Billy Beck's term "the Endarkenment" in his commentary on this and I think it appropriate to do the same.

Some choice quotes from Dale Frank's commentary:

Morons cannot maintain a sophisticated, technological civilization. And slowly, and ever so surely, that's what we're becoming.

And it's not just the lack of critical thought. It's the lack of being able to think morally or philosophically. take a look at this: [embedded video of the tasering]

And there's something I want you to notice. It's important. The cop pulls his taser immediately. The man is offering no threat, the officer tells him to get out of his car, walks back to the RMP cruiser, drops off his ticket clipboard, and draws his taser before asking the man to comply. In the absence of any threat at all, the officer initiates force.

The rules for dealing with the police are now getting much simpler. Comply, instantly, or be tasered and arrested.

...

We're losing America. I hope you enjoyed it while it lasted.

Today it was reported that the Utah Department of Public Safety has come to the conclusion that the officer's "actions were lawful and reasonable under the circumstance." If that's the case, might I suggest Utah change their laws such that these action can't be consider lawful?

Over at HotAir, all the commenters who thought the tasering was justified and said as much in the comments of HotAir's original blog post on this story are taking the Utah DPS conclusion as evidence they were correct. For instance, "JetBoy" comments:

*pats self on back*

I’ve got the “bragging rights”! I never doubted for a moment the officer was well within his authority to use the taser on that dude.

You have to always remember…the officer who pulls you over has no idea who you are or what you’re capable of. Cops get shot or worse all the time from simple routine traffic stops. And expecially since the officer was alone, he has every right to protect himself from someone who repeatedly refused the officer’s demands.

JetBoy - enjoy your bragging rights. Myself, I'd prefer actual rights. Like the kind that should be keeping people - even people that act like jerks - from being tasered by cops.

I think the sheer number of HotAir commenters that don't seem to find anything wrong with what this cop did is what I find most disturbing. This idea of "screw the average citizen, we've got to protect our cops!" How contrary to how things should work. As this coming from the commenters at a conservative blog.

I'll just conclude with this:

• We're giving our police military equipment.


• We're using SWAT teams to take down non-violent offenders.


• Citizens getting involved with police are engaging in actions that many other citizens identify as not causing any threat to the police, but are getting tasered by the police anyway.


• I'm officially concerned.

Update: The good old days?

MoveOn.org betrays US

This. Is. Shameful.



Despite what a very small fringe of the very far right might claim, wanting an (even immediate) end to the Iraq war does not make you unpatriotic. But running ads making a groundless claim that a U.S. General is treasonous does. MoveOn.org and the New York Times should be ashamed.

Bruce McQuain of QandO writes:

There are few times in my life that I've seen anything this deliberately despicable and vile put out by a political organization. Words simply fail me.

The perpetrators of this execrable ad should be ashamed of themselves. The depth of hate necessary to attempt this sort of character assassination is both irrational and toxic. The organization which put this together deserves only derision and scorn. And they should understand that I do question their patriotism. This is way over the line and is anti-American by any measure or metric.

Amen.

The fact they ran this ad even before Petraeus actually testified only adds shame on their heads.

John Kerry and other congressional Democrats are distancing themselves from the ad, and I applaud them for doing so. MoveOn.org "[stands] by the ad completely" however.

This war deserves new and continued debate. Third grade name calling that calls a general a traitor adds nothing to that debate.

John Edwards and Hateful Speech

Watching this clip on YouTube I came away agreeing with the substance of what Edward's was saying but almost laughing to myself because the story of Edwards' campaign really doesn't line up very well with the tirade against hateful speech he gave on Hardball.

First there was the Marcotte thing. Then you've got Elizabeth Edwards calling her neighbor a "rabid rabid Republican" and insinuating Bush is a racist.

Not quite a campaign free of hateful speech...

With the perceived hypocrisy in mind, I did what any iMovie-equipped, YouTube-account-holding blogger would do, and here's what we've got:

Credits

• John Edwards Hardball footage - the above mentioned YouTube clip
  
• Elizabeth Edwards Hardball footage - clip on HotAir
  
• Michelle Malkin, reading Amanda Marcotte - Vent clip
  
• Amanda Marcotte's hateful speech - the Pandagon blog
  
• Music - Funkstörung, "Wearing Old Armani"

Fairness Doctrine

Bringing back the "Fairness Doctrine" seems to be getting mainstream attention, which I find surprising and perhaps (if this leads to popular support) unfortunate.

The latest episode of the CNN "Special Programming" Podcast is about "Reviving the Fairness Doctrine." It begins:

Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) (Guest): The people of this country should have the opportunity to hear all points of view.

Announcer: Reviving the Fairness Doctrine.

Maurice Hinchey: You're jeopardizing the basic principles of the Constitution.

Announcer: A CNN Podcast.

Dick Uliano (Host): Here's an issue that may soon move from back to front burner in Washington. A bid to rein in one-sided talk radio.

I guess we know where CNN stands.

Granted, there is a Constitutional issue here. But it's not at all what Hinchey's trying to claim. It's called the freedom of speech and the freedom of the press. You know, the very reasons the FCC did away with the Fairness Doctrine back in 1987 -- from Wikipedia:

In August 1987, the FCC abolished the doctrine by a 4-0 vote, in its Syracuse Peace Council decision. The FCC stated, "the intrusion by government into the content of programming occasioned by the enforcement of [the Fairness Doctrine] restricts the journalistic freedom of broadcasters ... (and) actually inhibits the presentation of controversial issues of public importance to the detriment of the public and the degradation of the editorial prerogative of broadcast journalists", and suggested that, due to the many media voices in the marketplace at the time, the doctrine was perceived to be unconstitutional.

QandO has excellent commentary on this going back to as early as January:

• The False Assumption Underlying the Fairness Doctrine (January 17, 2007)


• Why I don’t buy the liberal argument about Talk Radio (June 26, 2007)


• Gearing up to pass the Fairness Doctrine (June 27, 2007)

Additionally, the Heritage Foundation's analysis from October 29, 1993 continues to be spot-on.

For those interested in a less intellectual evaluation of the issue, just give this your consideration:

QandO Roundup, June 9

I read "The QandO Blog" almost daily. As far as politics goes, it's the blog I visit the most often. I even find time to listen to both of the two podcasts they put out each week. I like Q and O a lot...

And, it's not as though this is an unusual occurrence, but I found a bunch of their posts for the last day or so to be really on the mark. This is a round up post linking to them.

First, I like the general news coverage and commentary that makes up most Q and O posts. Every so often, Dale Franks, will post a "libertarian philosophy post" though. They are my favorite. Two of them today:

• Moral Questions for our Liberal Friends
  
  
• Moral Questions for our Liberal Friends II

Both are gems of good public discourse and reason. Hopefully the left side of the blogosphere will respond, I'd like to hear counter points, although I think Dale Franks's arguments are pretty sound.

His invocation of "the J-Man" also got me thinking about what a Biblical worldview would say about property rights. Some initial thoughts that bubbled up include The Year of Jubilee, The Bible on Money, Jesus's Parables About Money, The Church on Greed (versus how greed effectively fuels a market driven economy...), Christ's life of poverty, etc., etc. Having spent probably an hour or more thinking though that question, I may very well write a lengthy blog post on the subject if I find time. Hmm... I wonder if I'd be able to find something already written to just link to over on the Acton Institute website... Hmm. Anyway: Yay for intellectual stimulation! :)

... Back to Q and O links ... This time, just standard news coverage/commentary:

• Speaking of illegal immigration
  
  
• Some more reasons to hope the immigration bill is really dead
  
  
• Why the immigration bill failed
  
  
• The best climate change option? Perhaps it is "do nothing"
  
  
• Supporting the troops San Francisco style

Good Stuff.

Reason Assault'd

Having just posted some praise for the premise of the "The Assault on Reason" and then checking some news sites and blogs I regularly read, the irony was just too thick to ignore...

The Assault on Reason:

At first I thought the exhaustive, nonstop coverage of the O.J. Simpson trial was just an unfortunate excess—an unwelcome departure from the normal good sense and judgment of our television news media. Now we know that it was merely an early example of a new pattern of serial obsessions that periodically take over the airwaves for weeks at a time: the Michael Jackson trial and the Robert Blake trial, the Laci Peterson tragedy and the Chandra Levy tragedy, Britney and KFed, Lindsay and Paris and Nicole.

The "news" line up I encountered:

• How about a little context in the Hilton Case? (Q and O)
  
• Breaking: Paris going back to jail; Update: Shep Smith snark video added! Update: More Shep snark! (Hot Air)
  
• Video: Geraldo kinda sorta calls Michelle a Nazi (Hot Air) ... half way through the embedded video of the relevant Bill O'Reilly interview, for no good reason, O'Reilly brings up the Paris thing with Michelle Malkin...
  
• Should Scooter or Paris serve the longer sentence? (Chicago Times) Recommended to me by Google News (!?)
  

At least I'm not the only getting getting sick of this kind of thing....

Fred Thompson To Announce in July? Or Not?

I think there is some wisdom in not announcing as early as the current batch of front runners have. I think a lot of people are already sick of hearing the names Obama, Romney, Hillary, McCain, Edwards, and Rudy. But a late announcement lends itself to all sorts of rumors as to when the announcement will happen, so, to that extend, I hope Thompson announces sooner or later. Apparently his intentions are clear though, quoting The Tennessean:

Thompson, a former U.S. Senator from Tennessee, has been coy about his intentions with audiences, but made clear in an interview that he plans to run.

More info/confusion about the whole "Thompson will announce July 4 start accepting contributions June 4" news/rumor:

• Fred Thompson will run, advisers say (Politico)
  
• Fred Thompson will announce his candidacy on the 4th of July (or not - update) (QandO)
  
• Politico: “The Fred has landed” — Thompson to jump in around July 4th; Update: Did Politico get it wrong? (HotAir)

Run, Fred, Run.

Oh, and if you are still undecided on Thompson, I recommend you give his speech to the Lincoln Club of Orange County a read. Good stuff. Solid guy.

Jimmy Carters Spouts Off Again

Looking over Digg's top stories today, I noticed Jimmy Carter opened his big mouth again and, in typical fashion, some (most?) on Digg can't praise him enough (or insult the current Administration enough):

President Carter is one of the smartest and noblest men in our day. He dedicated his life to serving men, women and children in every capacity he could. With the heart of a tender-loving parent and decades of service at the highest levels of government comes incredible insight, outstanding judgment and sound wisdom.

I respect him, agree with him and believe these statement represent the feelings of the American people.

- "readthis", 5/19

Give. me. a. break.

Some on Digg know enough history to criticize Carter, but their comments are getting "dugg down."

Meanwhile, over at QandO, some excellent commentary from McQ that I can (heartily) agree with:

The paucity of credibility Jimmy Carter brings to such criticism should be evident to anyone who lived through his presidency. If there is anyone more responsible for feeding the "paper tiger" meme which has so enabled our enemies, I'd like to know who it is. The 444 days in which Iran kidnapped and exploited our embassy employees while he sat morose and powerless stands right up there as the worst, as far as I'm concerned.

...

Having lived through the Carter presidency and now Bush's, I'll take the latter any day of the week, mistakes, blunders, ineptness and all.

Unfortunately Carter has to be the exception to the unwritten rule that former presidents remain silent about the administrations of serving presidents. Like so much in his miserable life, he can't even get that right. Following that tradition would require grace, restraint and class, virtues Carter has never had.

Instead we're again exposed to the pathetic mewling of a washed up former president who so screwed up his watch that he's reduced to trying to criticize other presidents in hope of having them awarded the "world's worst" crown he's worn since he was run out of DC on a landslide.

Allow me to reiterate that - the unwritten rule that former presidents remain silent about the administrations of serving presidents. Amen.

There's plenty the Bush Administration has screwed up on. Those things deserve criticism and debate. But former presidents should have the perspective, civility, humility, and honor to, at least publicly, keep out of it.

Tax and Spend is Back

Republicans are billing it as "the largest tax increase in history." I can't say for sure if that's an exaggerated claim or not, but not having that extra $2,596 a year is going to hurt.

And, remember, this is the budget the Democrats claimed wouldn't raise taxes.

Elaboration by Senator John Thune, Republican from South Dakota:

For more, see the excellent commentary over at QandO: "Putting numbers to the 'largest tax increase in history'".

Free Economics Lession

Many, if not most, of the economic policies advocated by politicians today would never pass muster if the average voter understood as much economics as an economist like Alfred Marshall understood 100 years ago or David Ricardo 200 years ago.

Nothing is more basic in economics than prices — and yet the role of prices is repeatedly ignored or even misrepresented by politicians and the media.

...

Prices impose the most effective kind of rationing — self-rationing. Why is rationing necessary? Because what everybody wants always adds up to more than there is.

It doesn't matter whether you are talking about a capitalist economy, a socialist economy, a feudal economy or whatever. Resources are limited but desires are not. That is the basic and defining problem of economics.

- Priceless politics, Part II, Thomas Sowell



I can think of at least 94 people I'd like to have read this.



HT: McQ @ QandO.

I'll Take the Blogosphere Over MSM News Any Day

I don’t do fair and balanced, Cindy ... never have, and never claimed to. This is a blog, not an "objective" news source. It’s time you got a clue.

- Bruce McQuain, QandO.

Both political blogs and mainstream media news have spin. The difference is political blogs are upfront and don't try to hide it so readers don't have to work nearly as hard to filter it out.

It's a Culture War, Jon Henke

Of all the political blogs I read on a regular basis, The QandO Blog is my favorite. Disappointingly, I think Jon Henke completely misses the point in his recent post, Dennis Prager, [Judeo]-Christianist.

He takes issue with Prager's editorial, America, Not Keith Ellison, Decides What Book a Congressman Takes His Oath On.

Although, (uncharacteristically, I might add), he doesn't really address Prager's argument directly. Instead, he seems to move to dismiss Prager's argument outright, and (additionally uncharacteristically), takes a step to delegitimize it by throwing around the "Christianist" label. (I've disliked the Christianist label since the first time I heard it, but that's a discussion for another time.)

What I think Henke is myopic to is that America, the nation, does have an established culture and, potentially, a vested interest to maintain that culture. Usually the argument about this comes out when talking about immigration, like in this piece by Pat Buchanan:

If assimilation is working, why are Californians voting with their feet and fleeing to Nevada, Colorado, Arizona and Idaho?

"Who cares where people come from?" comes the retort. "The Melting Pot will make them all Americans, as it did the 18 million who came from Eastern and Southern Europe from 1890 to 1920."

But those were European peoples coming to a country run by descendants of Europeans. They came to a land that enforced assimilation in its schools. They learned and were taught in the same language, read the same books and magazines, went to the same movies, listened to the same radio, went through the Great Depression together and served in the same Army in World War II.

...

Instead of assimilation, we live in an age of racial and ethnic resentments and entitlements, where "multiculturalism" is in vogue and it is "racist" to demand immigrants learn the English language.

But if we no longer worship the same God, honor the same heroes, speak the same language, study the same history, love the same literature or even agree about what is right and wrong, how do we remain one nation and one people?

What do we have in common anymore? If Bush's ally-ally-in-free immigration policy is embraced, the old America we knew will be nothing more than a global hiring hall and what Teddy Roosevelt called a "polyglot boarding house for the world."

The existence of a common heritage, which creates an American culture, can not be denied. Whether that heritage is worth preserving, and in what way, is clearly worth debate though. That is the exact premise behind the classic, and on-going, "social liberal" versus "social conservative" debate.

And I do not wish to imply that American culture lines up precisely with orthodox Christian values – many American values have more in common with Horatio Alger novels than The Gospel. And, indeed the New Testament actually forbids taking oaths! However, present American culture does draw much from Judeo-Christian influence, and from the time George Washington was sworn into office, the Bible has been the book to use for oaths.

Having texts other than the Bible be used should give pause to American Christians who don't want to see America go the way of Europe. At the same time, Americans of all faiths should think carefully about mandating an official government act that gives appeared preference to one religion over another.

And, commenter "D.T.Devareaux" makes an excellent point for consideration in the comments on Q&O:

Perhaps Prager is skeptical because Ellison is swearing upon a book, the dictates of which are INCOMPATIBLE with an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States. Consult your Koran for details.

So, should Ellison be allowed to use the Koran for his oath? It's worth debating. And Dennis Prager's argument that allowing Ellison to use the Koran shifts the American culture in a harmful way may not be worth agreeing with, but it is worth consideration and shouldn't be simply dismissed as the rant of a so called "Christianist".