I recently heard a talk by Tim Stevens, the author of Pop Goes The Church, on how his church uses popular culture as a hook to get people into his church. I think that is fantastic and am all for it. My church also intentionally (and I would say, effectively) uses the songs, tv shows, media and movies that this culture understands in order to provide some relevant "set up" on which we can share the Gospel. It only makes sense to proceed in this fashion. People feel more comfortable around what they know, defenses and prejudices diminish when a message is presented in an entertaining and engaging manner, and the young in particular will be more engaged when they receive the gospel in a package that looks--dare I type it--cool.
If I have any slight departure with Stevens, it's wondering if he perhaps is a little too focused on trying to "fix the problem" of the unchurched through cultural relevancy. In some cases, it may be that the problem may not need fixing, or cannot be fixed by us. When we look at the large number of churches out there today, and compare them to the vast numbers of unchurched, the first response from those in ministry is often "we have got to DO something," or "we are doing something wrong." And fact-finding missions are launched, and data is gathered, and Barna surveys are explored in great detail, and we agonize that the same perennial stereotypes about Christians--judgemental, hypocritical, homophobic, etc.--still abound. Please understand, I think this is all good stuff and I don't mean to belittle these exercises, and they are done by Christians who are agonizing over the lost and who are humble enough to admit they can do better. And I for one can always do better at loving the world around me, and a lot of the damage and stereotypes would be undone if Christians just got off their butts and talked to their neighbors and friends, served the poor, etc.
But I think there is an element to this problem that won't just be "fixed" if we'd only stumble across the right ministry model, or implement the best action plan, or use more relevant music, or play scenes from famous movies, etc. And the reason it can't be fixed is just plain and simply this: the Gospel is offensive, and a lot of people just don't like it. No matter how slick the packaging. And while we should do what we can to make that message of the Gospel as effective as possible, I don't think we should approach the problem of the unchurched in its entirety as one that we can and must fix. There is an element to the problem that will never be fixed so long as people remain free to turn their backs on God.
With this in mind, let's rock on. Let us become all things to all men so that by all possible means we might save some. Let us speak to the lost in a manner they understand. Let's at least save some through using the films, songs, TV shows and poems they love as platforms to reach them with the Gospel.
And let us be grateful that modern pop music involves electric guitars and not bagpipes.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Friday, January 30, 2009
Hulaballo and Wishful Thinking
I love the fact that the leftist media in this country are still breathlessly trying to make a scandal out of Rush Limbaugh's "I hope [Obama] fails" statement. They're playing right into his hands.
The mainstream media in this country still labors under the misapprehension that they're still powerful enough to bring down someone like Limbaugh. They never learn, and they never will, which is why Rush continues to attract more and more listeners (and gets richer and richer in the process). They tried to bring him down over his addiction to oxycotin. They tried to bring him down, in conjunction with a prosecutor who is very possibly brain damaged, over phony charges of "doctor shopping." They tried their best to support Harry Reid's efforts to intimidate the owners of Clear Channel into rebuking their most profitable commodity. None of these things worked. They will never learn, and it is in Rush's interest that they never do.
Let me go down on record as adding to the scandal: I too hope President Obama fails in many ways. I hope he fails to expand the scope of abortion in this country. I hope he fails to destroy the definition of marriage that has stood since the dawn of time. I hope he fails to "spread the wealth around." I hope he fails to make any inroads into diplomacy with Iran--we don't need to make nice with apocalyptic terrorist thugs. I hope he fails to raise my taxes. I hope he fails to make the teachers' union lobby any more powerful, well funded or bloated than it already is.
In many ways I also hope that President Obama succeeds, for the good of this country. I hope he succeeds in coming to the realization that his socialist schoolboy daydreams aren't going to cut it in the real world, and that he'd better tack to the center as quickly as possible. I hope he succeeds in maturing to the point where he can see that Keynesian economics suck and that supply-side economics rock. I hope he succeeds in killing Osama Bin Laden. He can have that one. Who gets credit doesn't matter to me one jot. I hope he succeeds with his plan to ramp up the troop levels in Afghanistan, and I hope he succeeds in realizing that this is not to be achieved by prematurely withdrawing troops from Iraq. I hope he succeeds in realizing that the question when of life begins really isn't "above his pay grade," and that you don't get to punt and dodge when you're the President--that you have to be a man.
The bottom line is, I hope America succeeds, whether Obama has to fail or succeed to bring it about.
The mainstream media in this country still labors under the misapprehension that they're still powerful enough to bring down someone like Limbaugh. They never learn, and they never will, which is why Rush continues to attract more and more listeners (and gets richer and richer in the process). They tried to bring him down over his addiction to oxycotin. They tried to bring him down, in conjunction with a prosecutor who is very possibly brain damaged, over phony charges of "doctor shopping." They tried their best to support Harry Reid's efforts to intimidate the owners of Clear Channel into rebuking their most profitable commodity. None of these things worked. They will never learn, and it is in Rush's interest that they never do.
Let me go down on record as adding to the scandal: I too hope President Obama fails in many ways. I hope he fails to expand the scope of abortion in this country. I hope he fails to destroy the definition of marriage that has stood since the dawn of time. I hope he fails to "spread the wealth around." I hope he fails to make any inroads into diplomacy with Iran--we don't need to make nice with apocalyptic terrorist thugs. I hope he fails to raise my taxes. I hope he fails to make the teachers' union lobby any more powerful, well funded or bloated than it already is.
In many ways I also hope that President Obama succeeds, for the good of this country. I hope he succeeds in coming to the realization that his socialist schoolboy daydreams aren't going to cut it in the real world, and that he'd better tack to the center as quickly as possible. I hope he succeeds in maturing to the point where he can see that Keynesian economics suck and that supply-side economics rock. I hope he succeeds in killing Osama Bin Laden. He can have that one. Who gets credit doesn't matter to me one jot. I hope he succeeds with his plan to ramp up the troop levels in Afghanistan, and I hope he succeeds in realizing that this is not to be achieved by prematurely withdrawing troops from Iraq. I hope he succeeds in realizing that the question when of life begins really isn't "above his pay grade," and that you don't get to punt and dodge when you're the President--that you have to be a man.
The bottom line is, I hope America succeeds, whether Obama has to fail or succeed to bring it about.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Exhuming Nixon
When I was a kid, it was a given that Nixon was the devil. Even my dad, who has voted republican at least since Reagan/Carter and who has been staunchly GOP ever since, absolutely hated this man (I think he may have actually voted for Carter in 1976 out of anger for Ford's pardon of RMN, but I've never dared ask. The thought of my father voting for Carter is just too painful). From a young age, I had an impression of Nixon as this mean old man with greasy hair who was somehow completely responsible for the Vietnam War, was the mastermind of Watergate, and had a potty mouth to boot. What more did one need to know?
But the more I read, the question I'm asking now is "what did I really know, and when did people start lying to me?" Look at Nixon's accomplishments. A steady reduction of troops from Vietnam; normalization with China; the SALT I and II nuclear missile reduction treaties with Russia; The Paris Peace Accords, which brought ceasefire to the war Kennedy started and LBJ bungled--and which would have guaranteed a free South Vietnam if not for Watergate and its aftermath; Substantial cuts in income taxes; saving Israel in their hour of need by cutting through red tape to send aid during the Yom Kippour ambush. By this last deed, Nixon essentially single handedly prevented Israel from being erased from existence. This curriculum vitae would be impressive for any president, but throw in a hostile media and congress comprised of enemy combatants, and the formidable skills and resolve of Richard Nixon become that much more apparent.
Look at the man himself. Made himself out of nothing. A successful lawyer. A war hero. An intellectual. A longsuffering public servant, whose record of service included terms in the House of Representatives, the Senate and two terms as Vice President before being elected President in 1968. If fidelity still means anything, it is worth noting that so far as we know, Nixon was faithful to his wife--whereas predecessors LBJ, JFK, FDR and Woodrow Wilson, and future President William J. Clinton, were not. (Nixon was something else these men were not: a Republican. Coincidence?) I realize that the Clinton years have taught us that extramarital affairs are something merely to be tut tutted, just "hanky panky;" however, Nixon's example in this regard restored honor to the highest office in the land, whose prior two occupants had been serial, if not pathological, philanderers.
Now as for his failures, and yes, misdeeds: I realize you can't exonerate the illicit goings on of one President's administration by comparing it to the shady activities of another. But when I look at what Nixon's Plumbers actually did, and what Nixon did once he learned the details of their activities, I do find myself asking how Nixon was any worse than several of his predecessors. FDR used the FBI, IRS and other government agencies to get dirt on his enemies and to punish them. JFK used the CIA quite cavalierly to spy on political enemies also allowed his brother Bobby to use his office as Attorney General to punish adversaries. LBJ would curl up at night with the latest trashy tidbits on his own enemies, compiled for him courtesy of the FBI. LBJ also used his power to quash an investigation into the corruption of his closest aide (whose homosexuality would also have been exposed). Previous presidents used wiretaps, previous presidents ordered illegal activity, previous presidents secretly recorded conversations. By contrast it must be noted that Nixon did not order the break-in of Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office or of the Watergate--in fact Nixon didn't even know about these activities until after they had happened. Obviously Nixon was still responsible, the buck did stop at his desk. But it was his handling of the aftermath, not ordering the crimes themselves, that forever tarnished the President.
It is still surprising to me how much mileage Nixon's detractors get out of his now famous proclivity for profanity. I realize it shocked the nation to hear all of those "expletive deleteds" at the time. But compare his colorful use of language to the manner in which we now know that Johnson or Kennedy spoke behind closed doors, and we see that Nixon is in good company. Still, curse words or no, it was pretty much a foregone conclusion that Nixon would be damaged by the tapes once their existence came into the light. It was, however, completely reasonable for Nixon to cite Executive Privilege when the tapes were demanded. A President needs to be able to carry on conversations with his advisers (conversations of which the public does not need to know the intimate details) without fear that anything he says will be printed in the papers or used as ammunition by a hostile opposition--both of which happened to Nixon. If Republicans had controlled Congress at the time, perhaps Executive Privilege would have stood, and Nixon's presidency could have survived (and South Vietnam would be free). Likewise, if the media had covered for Nixon the way they did for Kennedy (whose infidelity and habitual drug use, both of which were occurring on a near-daily basis, came out posthumously), "Watergate" would now be an historical aside. But, in order for the media to have covered for Nixon, he'd have to have been a Democrat, wouldn't he?
Instead a left wing ideologue named Archibald Cox, a leering and jubilant Congress driven by Senator Sam Ervin (D-N.C., the same Sam Ervin who helped LBJ bury his own potential scandal) and a viscerally liberal media filled with an irrational hatred for Nixon, formed the lethal synergy that succeeded in destroying him. The showdown with Cox, culminating in the Saturday Night Massacre, prompted an outcry for impeachment. Once Nixon allowed transcripts of the tapes to be released, it became clear that Nixon was complicit in the cover up of Watergate--his talk of "get[ting] a million dollars" for the men who had been arrested was particularly damaging--and his impeachment was pretty much inevitable. The revelation of 18+ minutes of deleted tape, and that dreadful photograph of Rose Marie Woods straining for her telephone while keeping her foot on the erase button, was a sadly amusing epitaph of a Presidency brought down by scandal.
But as was the case with President Truman, Nixon was largely brought down by goings on in his administration that were unbeknownst to himself. And the things he did know about, and his efforts to cover up and obstruct justice, are no more egregious than crimes or excesses committed by other presidents who had the blessing of complicit media and Congresses. That is not to say Nixon deserved to go unpunished. I am no moral relativist: attempting to obstruct the investigation of a special prosecutor is obstruction of justice, and impeachment would have been an appropriate response... something Democrats would learn to appreciate in 1998 when their guy perjured himself and was subsequently impeached. But compared to Presidents before and after, Nixon was no worse a man, and certainly not the Capraesque villain so many claim he was.
I think, were it not for Watergate and its aftermath, Nixon would be remembered as one of the greatest presidents of the 20th century. I think this might also have been the case if Watergate and Nixon's role had come out after he had left office. To a certain degree, he was in the wrong place at the wrong point in history (note that Reagan survived Iran-Contra unscathed), with too strong a utilitarian bent. Hopefully, given the anesthesia and sedative of time, future generations can look at the Richard Nixon objectively and appreciate his greatness, not just his weakness.
But the more I read, the question I'm asking now is "what did I really know, and when did people start lying to me?" Look at Nixon's accomplishments. A steady reduction of troops from Vietnam; normalization with China; the SALT I and II nuclear missile reduction treaties with Russia; The Paris Peace Accords, which brought ceasefire to the war Kennedy started and LBJ bungled--and which would have guaranteed a free South Vietnam if not for Watergate and its aftermath; Substantial cuts in income taxes; saving Israel in their hour of need by cutting through red tape to send aid during the Yom Kippour ambush. By this last deed, Nixon essentially single handedly prevented Israel from being erased from existence. This curriculum vitae would be impressive for any president, but throw in a hostile media and congress comprised of enemy combatants, and the formidable skills and resolve of Richard Nixon become that much more apparent.
Look at the man himself. Made himself out of nothing. A successful lawyer. A war hero. An intellectual. A longsuffering public servant, whose record of service included terms in the House of Representatives, the Senate and two terms as Vice President before being elected President in 1968. If fidelity still means anything, it is worth noting that so far as we know, Nixon was faithful to his wife--whereas predecessors LBJ, JFK, FDR and Woodrow Wilson, and future President William J. Clinton, were not. (Nixon was something else these men were not: a Republican. Coincidence?) I realize that the Clinton years have taught us that extramarital affairs are something merely to be tut tutted, just "hanky panky;" however, Nixon's example in this regard restored honor to the highest office in the land, whose prior two occupants had been serial, if not pathological, philanderers.
Now as for his failures, and yes, misdeeds: I realize you can't exonerate the illicit goings on of one President's administration by comparing it to the shady activities of another. But when I look at what Nixon's Plumbers actually did, and what Nixon did once he learned the details of their activities, I do find myself asking how Nixon was any worse than several of his predecessors. FDR used the FBI, IRS and other government agencies to get dirt on his enemies and to punish them. JFK used the CIA quite cavalierly to spy on political enemies also allowed his brother Bobby to use his office as Attorney General to punish adversaries. LBJ would curl up at night with the latest trashy tidbits on his own enemies, compiled for him courtesy of the FBI. LBJ also used his power to quash an investigation into the corruption of his closest aide (whose homosexuality would also have been exposed). Previous presidents used wiretaps, previous presidents ordered illegal activity, previous presidents secretly recorded conversations. By contrast it must be noted that Nixon did not order the break-in of Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office or of the Watergate--in fact Nixon didn't even know about these activities until after they had happened. Obviously Nixon was still responsible, the buck did stop at his desk. But it was his handling of the aftermath, not ordering the crimes themselves, that forever tarnished the President.
It is still surprising to me how much mileage Nixon's detractors get out of his now famous proclivity for profanity. I realize it shocked the nation to hear all of those "expletive deleteds" at the time. But compare his colorful use of language to the manner in which we now know that Johnson or Kennedy spoke behind closed doors, and we see that Nixon is in good company. Still, curse words or no, it was pretty much a foregone conclusion that Nixon would be damaged by the tapes once their existence came into the light. It was, however, completely reasonable for Nixon to cite Executive Privilege when the tapes were demanded. A President needs to be able to carry on conversations with his advisers (conversations of which the public does not need to know the intimate details) without fear that anything he says will be printed in the papers or used as ammunition by a hostile opposition--both of which happened to Nixon. If Republicans had controlled Congress at the time, perhaps Executive Privilege would have stood, and Nixon's presidency could have survived (and South Vietnam would be free). Likewise, if the media had covered for Nixon the way they did for Kennedy (whose infidelity and habitual drug use, both of which were occurring on a near-daily basis, came out posthumously), "Watergate" would now be an historical aside. But, in order for the media to have covered for Nixon, he'd have to have been a Democrat, wouldn't he?
Instead a left wing ideologue named Archibald Cox, a leering and jubilant Congress driven by Senator Sam Ervin (D-N.C., the same Sam Ervin who helped LBJ bury his own potential scandal) and a viscerally liberal media filled with an irrational hatred for Nixon, formed the lethal synergy that succeeded in destroying him. The showdown with Cox, culminating in the Saturday Night Massacre, prompted an outcry for impeachment. Once Nixon allowed transcripts of the tapes to be released, it became clear that Nixon was complicit in the cover up of Watergate--his talk of "get[ting] a million dollars" for the men who had been arrested was particularly damaging--and his impeachment was pretty much inevitable. The revelation of 18+ minutes of deleted tape, and that dreadful photograph of Rose Marie Woods straining for her telephone while keeping her foot on the erase button, was a sadly amusing epitaph of a Presidency brought down by scandal.
But as was the case with President Truman, Nixon was largely brought down by goings on in his administration that were unbeknownst to himself. And the things he did know about, and his efforts to cover up and obstruct justice, are no more egregious than crimes or excesses committed by other presidents who had the blessing of complicit media and Congresses. That is not to say Nixon deserved to go unpunished. I am no moral relativist: attempting to obstruct the investigation of a special prosecutor is obstruction of justice, and impeachment would have been an appropriate response... something Democrats would learn to appreciate in 1998 when their guy perjured himself and was subsequently impeached. But compared to Presidents before and after, Nixon was no worse a man, and certainly not the Capraesque villain so many claim he was.
I think, were it not for Watergate and its aftermath, Nixon would be remembered as one of the greatest presidents of the 20th century. I think this might also have been the case if Watergate and Nixon's role had come out after he had left office. To a certain degree, he was in the wrong place at the wrong point in history (note that Reagan survived Iran-Contra unscathed), with too strong a utilitarian bent. Hopefully, given the anesthesia and sedative of time, future generations can look at the Richard Nixon objectively and appreciate his greatness, not just his weakness.
Bye Bye, Blago
So Rod Blagojevich's swan song was for naught. Holy Moses, He has been removed.
At least it was close.
The only tragedy is that the state Congress couldn't deal with this before he appointed that joke Roland Burris.
1 down, 2.5 gazillion corrupt Illinois politicos to go.
At least it was close.
The only tragedy is that the state Congress couldn't deal with this before he appointed that joke Roland Burris.
1 down, 2.5 gazillion corrupt Illinois politicos to go.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
So, I'm wondering...
So President Obama wants to use tax dollars to fund international abortion and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wants contraceptives in the stimulus bill... Since they both appear to be so dead set against babies, would they consider offering a one time tax credit to defray the medical cost of a vasectomy/tubal ligation?
Or are they only interested if there is illicit sex and dead babies involved?
Or are they only interested if there is illicit sex and dead babies involved?
Friday, January 23, 2009
Save it, Hanks
The other day on twitter, I noted that I look forward the the day when a psychotherapist identifies the particular mental disorders that causes celebrities to think we give a rat's rectum about what they think.
Reminded of it today when Tom Hanks issued his non-apology apology. My favorite quote was
In other words, "you've got a right to your conscience, mormons, you're just in favor of unconstitutional codified discrimination. You hateful swine."
Thanks Tom. It wasn't bad enough that you produce a television show that is built around a practice that has been condemned by the LDS church since the dawn of the 20th century. and which they would very much like to put behind them. I presume you are sufficiently arrogant and full of yourself to think that this statement brings some sort of "closure" or healing to our national psyche, but the fact of the matter is, we just don't care what you think. Go live your idle rich life, and do it away from my line of sight. Thank you sir.
Reminded of it today when Tom Hanks issued his non-apology apology. My favorite quote was
"I believe Proposition 8 is counter to the promise of our Constitution; it is codified discrimination. But everyone has a right to vote their conscience; nothing could be more American..."
In other words, "you've got a right to your conscience, mormons, you're just in favor of unconstitutional codified discrimination. You hateful swine."
Thanks Tom. It wasn't bad enough that you produce a television show that is built around a practice that has been condemned by the LDS church since the dawn of the 20th century. and which they would very much like to put behind them. I presume you are sufficiently arrogant and full of yourself to think that this statement brings some sort of "closure" or healing to our national psyche, but the fact of the matter is, we just don't care what you think. Go live your idle rich life, and do it away from my line of sight. Thank you sir.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
That was fast.
Didn't take Obama long to make the country less safe, did it?
Where exactly does Mr. Obama plan to house the Gitmo detainees? In U.S. penitentiaries, which are already our nation's leading recruitment centers for radical islamic terrorists?
And, he opened the door for the crazies seeking access to Bush and Cheney's records. Of course this subjects his own records to the same scrutiny, but I guess he has four years to reverse himself, doesn't he.
And, a tax dodger is about to be appointed our Treasury Secretary.
A banner day, Mr. President. Banner day. One only hopes the remaining days of your term are as distinguished. Keep making us proud, Sir.
Where exactly does Mr. Obama plan to house the Gitmo detainees? In U.S. penitentiaries, which are already our nation's leading recruitment centers for radical islamic terrorists?
And, he opened the door for the crazies seeking access to Bush and Cheney's records. Of course this subjects his own records to the same scrutiny, but I guess he has four years to reverse himself, doesn't he.
And, a tax dodger is about to be appointed our Treasury Secretary.
A banner day, Mr. President. Banner day. One only hopes the remaining days of your term are as distinguished. Keep making us proud, Sir.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
W.
Shortly before the election, a left leaning friend of mine asked me for my assessment of George W. Bush. Put on the spot, I inartfully weighed a list of pros and cons (social liberal on things like illegal immigration and welfare, solid on low taxes, defense, sanctity of life), and graded him somewhere in the B range. Having had a few weeks to reflect, I think I'd still give him a B, largely on the same grounds.
However, I don't think someone has to get straight A's or bat 1000 to be a great man. I once heard Dennis Prager say "I revere this man" when speaking of the 43rd POTUS. I concur. I love George W. Bush. I sincerely mean that. I have love in my heart toward the man. I believe he is a good and principled man, and flawed as all human beings are. I think on many levels, George W. Bush is one of the great men of history, like it or hate it, agree or disagree.
At the risk of getting a little Peggy Noonan for a moment: When you see this man speak, how can you not see his big heart? How does one fail to understand that he loves this country and every man, woman and child in it? For those who think he has cavalierly sent our fighting men and women off to war: have you seen him after a meeting with the parents of a fallen serviceman or woman? His compassion for those families and the weight of their loss is so palpable on him that even Cindy Sheehan noted it:
“I now know he’s sincere about wanting freedom for the Iraqis,” Cindy said after their meeting. “I know he’s sorry and feels some pain for our loss. And I know he’s a man of faith.”
After all, this is the man who introduced the (problematic) term "Compassionate Conservative" into the national lexicon.
I have never held the slightest doubt that this man would act in any means necessary to protect this nation (and more specifically, my family) from harm--and I am comfortable that for the most part the methods used to do so on his watch were all morally justifiable. (I do not believe what happened at Abu Ghraib was morally justifiable, but Abu Ghraib is not what I mean by "methods used." And only a fool would think that the President would condone such behavior.) While I don't need to be told everything that happens in the name of national defense, I trust that he has told the truth about the things he has publicly divulged. I believe, for example, he was telling the truth when he said those famous "16 words:"
What Bush said was absolutely factually true. At the time he said those words, in January of 2003, the British government had concluded a six month investigation with the help of British Intelligence. Their findings were published as the Butler Report, which concluded:
In other words, the President was telling the truth, and Joe Wilson is a liar. For a full recap, including how Wilson unintentionally bolstered the President's case, read here.
In addition to being an honest and honorable man, President Bush is also incredibly long suffering and forbearing with his detractors and political enemies (many of whom seem outraged by the very fact that he presumes to be the President)--or as they are known by most, the media. One gets the impression that 10 years from now, a journalist from Good Housekeeping doing a puff piece on President and Mrs. Bush will lead off the interview with "is there anything about your administration that you still regret, and would you like to take this opportunity to apologize?" The mainstream media seems to have made "apologize!" its latest demonstration of how hopelessly and shamelessly partisan it is.
But this is hardly the most extreme example of the press's extreme antipathy toward this man. Over the last eight years, the media has bent over backwards to undermine the Bush administration, and often--and intentionally--the war effort as well. To do justice to the highly irresponsible and near-treasonous escapades of this bunch over the last eight years would take all day, so briefly, and in no particular order: The fact that the MSM to a person believed and substantiated the claims of the aforementioned liar Wilson; The New Republic's Jonathan Chait, who refreshingly came clean and told us that he hates the President; Disgraced CNN executive Eason Jordan's blatant lie that American troops were firing upon journalists in Iraq; The NY Times' divulging of the SWIFT program, by which US intelligence was tracking terrorists' money--and which probably saved lives until the Times reported it; The NY Times' divulging that our intelligence agencies were listening to terrorists via wiretaps--again a program that saved lives until the Times reported it; A flagrantly false report by Newsweek that US interrogators at Gitmo threw a Koran in the toilet to torment an interrogee--which resulted in a riot in Afghanistan in which 15 people were killed, and for which Newsweek was forced to apologize; My personal fave, the shameless Anderson Cooper broadcasting a video that a terrorist sniper made of himself assassinating a US soldier. Last but not least, and one of the rare examples of a media lie meeting with an appropriate response, Rathergate, which resulted in Dan Rather being fired.
Again, this is just a highlight, a fun little jete down memory lane. If your favorite was left out, please forgive me.
But this is not a man (unlike his predecessor, and possibly, his successor) who would unleash the power of the federal government upon his political enemies. There have been no FBI investigations. No IRS audits. (A few lawyers who served at the pleasure of the President were fired for not doing their jobs to their boss's satisfaction, and look at the ensuing mania.) This is a man who, understanding that history will be the true judge of his administration, shrugs and ignores.
And there has been much to shrug at and ignore over the last eight years, and not just in the media. Nutbags of all sorts, be they antiwar, anticapitalist, anti traditional Judeo-Christian values--or in the case of Hollywood bimbos and mimbos, all three combined--have lined up to take their shots at this man over the years. Their terms of endearment for the president--nazi, facist, murderer--are ubiquitous. My favorite slander is the accusation that the President has somehow trampled the Constitution. (This argument is often made in regard to the treatment of foreign enemy combatants who are not protected by the Constitution.) I've lost count of the number of times I've had to stomach some self-aggrandizing, self-styled martyr loudly, publicly, and without the slightest fear of molestation, pontificating about that tyrant and scourge of the Constitution, George W. Bush. It's laughable. Woodrow Wilson signed laws that allowed him to throw his critics in prison, sent goon squads into the street to beat dissidents, and ordered the postmaster general not to deliver subscriptions of magazines that were critical of him. By contrast, President Bush has been so "tolerant," illegal aliens can march in the streets to demand their "rights" without the slightest concern that our deportation laws will be upheld. Contrast that with President Clinton, who unleashed the full fury of the INS to dispatch the clear and imminent danger of a little boy from Cuba.
So long story short, I think Bush is a good guy.
Does this mean I've done cartwheels over everything he's done since January of 01? By no means. His leniency on illegal aliens and the spending like a liberal in heat we've already touched on. Bush is a fiscal and social conservative on some things and a fiscal and social liberal on others. A sampler of other things that were less than stellar:
On Iraq: I'm willing to give the President grace for not having a superb post-invasion plan in place for Iraq (I remain an unabashed supporter of the invasion), but it's now clear he waited too long to replace Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense and move forward with a surge; On the financial crash: Much like how Calvin Coolidge sat back and allowed the financial power brokers of his day to cut interest rates to the bone, which set off a speculative frenzy that shot the stock market up into orbit and ultimately brought it crasing into the abyss a year later, so Bush sat back while lenders continued to dutifully obey the mandate of the Clinton administration to loan hundreds of billions of dollars to people who could not afford to pay back; Katrina was (pardon the expression) a "perfect storm," that should have been forseen in some ways (ie, the woefully dilapidated levees, which are controlled by a tangled and inept (and in some cases corrupt) mess of local politicians) and at the same time could not have been forseen in terms of its magnitude. But once it happened, live on TV, it demanded an immediate response--and the demanders also wanted to assign immediate blame. A hefty share of that can go straight to the feet of Ray "schoolbus" Nagin and Kathleen Blanco. And despite the claims that the government sat on its hands and did nothing, this article illustrates the amazing rapidity of the mobilization and implementation of the relief effort the first week. Yet, the moment the reporters and film crews rolled into town, it was all Bush's fault. Yes, any good that FEMA accomplished was overshadowed by incompetence, perceived or otherwise, and in hindsight perhaps Bush could have deployed the National Guard faster. But Katrina was an event that demanded the knowledge of hindsight in the heat of the moment, and was utterly unforgiving of that lack of knowledge.
All in all, and all of the above considered, the good--not the least of which has been appointing Roberts and Alito to SCOTUS--has outweighed the bad. Perhaps the only thing the Bush administration has done that I can truly say is contemptible is the cynical manner in which they threw Jerry Thacker under the bus. Thacker, who was appointed to the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV and AIDS in January 2003, has HIV. So does his wife, so does his daughter. (All as a result of blood transfusions). Thacker, an evangelical, is a good man who of all people was in a unique position to understand HIV and to be compassionate to those with it. But the mainstream media and some gay activist groups found some words on his website that they could easily take out of context, and the next thing Thacker new Ari Fleischer was demonizing him in a press briefing. That the President allowed this brother in Christ to be so poorly treated is a stain upon his legacy.
There are other flaws and triumphs that I've missed, no doubt. Those who will disagree with what I've may outweigh those who will agree. I am grateful that this man has served as my President, and I can only hope that President elect Obama will take the best elements from the Bush years, in particular on fighting the terrorists, and encorporate them into his own administration.
UPDATE: I forgot to mention one thing that has driven me absolutely batty about President Bush, and that is his total inability to clearly explain his reasons for waging the "Global War on Terror," in particular the Iraq theater. This has driven me, and numerous other conservatives up the wall, precisely because such good arguments were lying at his feet waiting to be made. As journalist Steven Hayes has covered exhaustively, there was more than enough justification to invade Iraq on the grounds that Saddam Hussein was in bed with terrorists of all stripes, including Al Queda. But no, we have to get vague, vanilla platitudes about making the world safe for "peace loving peoples." Learn to make an argument. You went to Yale and Harvard. Sheesh.
However, I don't think someone has to get straight A's or bat 1000 to be a great man. I once heard Dennis Prager say "I revere this man" when speaking of the 43rd POTUS. I concur. I love George W. Bush. I sincerely mean that. I have love in my heart toward the man. I believe he is a good and principled man, and flawed as all human beings are. I think on many levels, George W. Bush is one of the great men of history, like it or hate it, agree or disagree.
At the risk of getting a little Peggy Noonan for a moment: When you see this man speak, how can you not see his big heart? How does one fail to understand that he loves this country and every man, woman and child in it? For those who think he has cavalierly sent our fighting men and women off to war: have you seen him after a meeting with the parents of a fallen serviceman or woman? His compassion for those families and the weight of their loss is so palpable on him that even Cindy Sheehan noted it:
“I now know he’s sincere about wanting freedom for the Iraqis,” Cindy said after their meeting. “I know he’s sorry and feels some pain for our loss. And I know he’s a man of faith.”
After all, this is the man who introduced the (problematic) term "Compassionate Conservative" into the national lexicon.
I have never held the slightest doubt that this man would act in any means necessary to protect this nation (and more specifically, my family) from harm--and I am comfortable that for the most part the methods used to do so on his watch were all morally justifiable. (I do not believe what happened at Abu Ghraib was morally justifiable, but Abu Ghraib is not what I mean by "methods used." And only a fool would think that the President would condone such behavior.) While I don't need to be told everything that happens in the name of national defense, I trust that he has told the truth about the things he has publicly divulged. I believe, for example, he was telling the truth when he said those famous "16 words:"
The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.
What Bush said was absolutely factually true. At the time he said those words, in January of 2003, the British government had concluded a six month investigation with the help of British Intelligence. Their findings were published as the Butler Report, which concluded:
It is accepted by all parties that Iraqi officials visited Niger in 1999. The British Government had intelligence from several different sources indicating that this visit was for the purpose of acquiring uranium. Since uranium constitutes almost three-quarters of Niger’s exports, the intelligence was credible.
In other words, the President was telling the truth, and Joe Wilson is a liar. For a full recap, including how Wilson unintentionally bolstered the President's case, read here.
In addition to being an honest and honorable man, President Bush is also incredibly long suffering and forbearing with his detractors and political enemies (many of whom seem outraged by the very fact that he presumes to be the President)--or as they are known by most, the media. One gets the impression that 10 years from now, a journalist from Good Housekeeping doing a puff piece on President and Mrs. Bush will lead off the interview with "is there anything about your administration that you still regret, and would you like to take this opportunity to apologize?" The mainstream media seems to have made "apologize!" its latest demonstration of how hopelessly and shamelessly partisan it is.
But this is hardly the most extreme example of the press's extreme antipathy toward this man. Over the last eight years, the media has bent over backwards to undermine the Bush administration, and often--and intentionally--the war effort as well. To do justice to the highly irresponsible and near-treasonous escapades of this bunch over the last eight years would take all day, so briefly, and in no particular order: The fact that the MSM to a person believed and substantiated the claims of the aforementioned liar Wilson; The New Republic's Jonathan Chait, who refreshingly came clean and told us that he hates the President; Disgraced CNN executive Eason Jordan's blatant lie that American troops were firing upon journalists in Iraq; The NY Times' divulging of the SWIFT program, by which US intelligence was tracking terrorists' money--and which probably saved lives until the Times reported it; The NY Times' divulging that our intelligence agencies were listening to terrorists via wiretaps--again a program that saved lives until the Times reported it; A flagrantly false report by Newsweek that US interrogators at Gitmo threw a Koran in the toilet to torment an interrogee--which resulted in a riot in Afghanistan in which 15 people were killed, and for which Newsweek was forced to apologize; My personal fave, the shameless Anderson Cooper broadcasting a video that a terrorist sniper made of himself assassinating a US soldier. Last but not least, and one of the rare examples of a media lie meeting with an appropriate response, Rathergate, which resulted in Dan Rather being fired.
Again, this is just a highlight, a fun little jete down memory lane. If your favorite was left out, please forgive me.
But this is not a man (unlike his predecessor, and possibly, his successor) who would unleash the power of the federal government upon his political enemies. There have been no FBI investigations. No IRS audits. (A few lawyers who served at the pleasure of the President were fired for not doing their jobs to their boss's satisfaction, and look at the ensuing mania.) This is a man who, understanding that history will be the true judge of his administration, shrugs and ignores.
And there has been much to shrug at and ignore over the last eight years, and not just in the media. Nutbags of all sorts, be they antiwar, anticapitalist, anti traditional Judeo-Christian values--or in the case of Hollywood bimbos and mimbos, all three combined--have lined up to take their shots at this man over the years. Their terms of endearment for the president--nazi, facist, murderer--are ubiquitous. My favorite slander is the accusation that the President has somehow trampled the Constitution. (This argument is often made in regard to the treatment of foreign enemy combatants who are not protected by the Constitution.) I've lost count of the number of times I've had to stomach some self-aggrandizing, self-styled martyr loudly, publicly, and without the slightest fear of molestation, pontificating about that tyrant and scourge of the Constitution, George W. Bush. It's laughable. Woodrow Wilson signed laws that allowed him to throw his critics in prison, sent goon squads into the street to beat dissidents, and ordered the postmaster general not to deliver subscriptions of magazines that were critical of him. By contrast, President Bush has been so "tolerant," illegal aliens can march in the streets to demand their "rights" without the slightest concern that our deportation laws will be upheld. Contrast that with President Clinton, who unleashed the full fury of the INS to dispatch the clear and imminent danger of a little boy from Cuba.
So long story short, I think Bush is a good guy.
Does this mean I've done cartwheels over everything he's done since January of 01? By no means. His leniency on illegal aliens and the spending like a liberal in heat we've already touched on. Bush is a fiscal and social conservative on some things and a fiscal and social liberal on others. A sampler of other things that were less than stellar:
On Iraq: I'm willing to give the President grace for not having a superb post-invasion plan in place for Iraq (I remain an unabashed supporter of the invasion), but it's now clear he waited too long to replace Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense and move forward with a surge; On the financial crash: Much like how Calvin Coolidge sat back and allowed the financial power brokers of his day to cut interest rates to the bone, which set off a speculative frenzy that shot the stock market up into orbit and ultimately brought it crasing into the abyss a year later, so Bush sat back while lenders continued to dutifully obey the mandate of the Clinton administration to loan hundreds of billions of dollars to people who could not afford to pay back; Katrina was (pardon the expression) a "perfect storm," that should have been forseen in some ways (ie, the woefully dilapidated levees, which are controlled by a tangled and inept (and in some cases corrupt) mess of local politicians) and at the same time could not have been forseen in terms of its magnitude. But once it happened, live on TV, it demanded an immediate response--and the demanders also wanted to assign immediate blame. A hefty share of that can go straight to the feet of Ray "schoolbus" Nagin and Kathleen Blanco. And despite the claims that the government sat on its hands and did nothing, this article illustrates the amazing rapidity of the mobilization and implementation of the relief effort the first week. Yet, the moment the reporters and film crews rolled into town, it was all Bush's fault. Yes, any good that FEMA accomplished was overshadowed by incompetence, perceived or otherwise, and in hindsight perhaps Bush could have deployed the National Guard faster. But Katrina was an event that demanded the knowledge of hindsight in the heat of the moment, and was utterly unforgiving of that lack of knowledge.
All in all, and all of the above considered, the good--not the least of which has been appointing Roberts and Alito to SCOTUS--has outweighed the bad. Perhaps the only thing the Bush administration has done that I can truly say is contemptible is the cynical manner in which they threw Jerry Thacker under the bus. Thacker, who was appointed to the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV and AIDS in January 2003, has HIV. So does his wife, so does his daughter. (All as a result of blood transfusions). Thacker, an evangelical, is a good man who of all people was in a unique position to understand HIV and to be compassionate to those with it. But the mainstream media and some gay activist groups found some words on his website that they could easily take out of context, and the next thing Thacker new Ari Fleischer was demonizing him in a press briefing. That the President allowed this brother in Christ to be so poorly treated is a stain upon his legacy.
There are other flaws and triumphs that I've missed, no doubt. Those who will disagree with what I've may outweigh those who will agree. I am grateful that this man has served as my President, and I can only hope that President elect Obama will take the best elements from the Bush years, in particular on fighting the terrorists, and encorporate them into his own administration.
UPDATE: I forgot to mention one thing that has driven me absolutely batty about President Bush, and that is his total inability to clearly explain his reasons for waging the "Global War on Terror," in particular the Iraq theater. This has driven me, and numerous other conservatives up the wall, precisely because such good arguments were lying at his feet waiting to be made. As journalist Steven Hayes has covered exhaustively, there was more than enough justification to invade Iraq on the grounds that Saddam Hussein was in bed with terrorists of all stripes, including Al Queda. But no, we have to get vague, vanilla platitudes about making the world safe for "peace loving peoples." Learn to make an argument. You went to Yale and Harvard. Sheesh.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Happy Trails, Vice President Cheney
I'll always look back on this little incident and smile.
Thank you for 8 (additional) years of service, Vice President Cheney.
Thank you for 8 (additional) years of service, Vice President Cheney.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
When Cadillac was KISSed
This was undoubtedly one of the most surreal moments in Rock history. For the reputation they have since garnered for themselves of being total money hos, I think it's fantastic how much KISS gave of themself to this event. Utterly cool.
Then again, I don't know how much they got paid...
Then again, I don't know how much they got paid...
The Fabled Boba Fett Cartoon
As is so often the maddeningly frustrating case, the ancillary, never-makes-it-into-the-movies stuff of the Star Wars universe is often the most interesting. Case in point, the Boba Fett Cartoon from the magnificently regrettable Star Wars Holiday Special. Boba Fett (as an adult) has, what, all of one line in the movies? Here we see him as in interesting and fleshed out character:
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Propaganda
In the summer of 1932, as the country was enmeshed in the third full year of the Great Depression, A "Bonus Expeditionary Force" of 20,000 veterans descended upon Washington DC to demand a war bonus from Congress. Their plan was to squat in a "Hooverville" until their demands were met. Neither Congress, nor President Hoover (nor later, President Roosevelt) was in favor of paying the bonus, and the President called out the Army to disperse the camp. General Douglas MacArthur, with then Majors George S. Patton and Dwight D. Eisenhower, oversaw the removal.
It was an ugly scene, to be sure. Photographs and film recordings captured the rather rough treatment the vets received. But film and photos of course can be used to give a less than full or distorted account of events. and the images of the forced removal combined with carefully crafted and blatantly false propaganda by left leaning writers and newspapermen, made the Army look like brutes and put the final nail in the coffin of any hope Hoover had of reelection.
As Paul Johnson points out, "Communists...organized the subsequent propaganda with great skill. There were tales of cavalry charges, of the use of tanks and poison gas, of a little boy being bayoneted while trying to save his pet rabbit, and of tents and shelters being set on fire with...women and children still inside." When I read that, I cannot help but feel a great sense of relief that MacArthur, Patton and Eisenhower's careers survived this bundle of lies so that they could go on to be the heroes of WWII that they undoubtedly were.
But I am also struck by how similar this is to the shameless lies that the enemies of Israel spout incessantly about that nation's supposed brutality. For years, we've heard stories of how Israeli soldiers bulldoze Palestinian homes while women and children are trapped inside, gun innocents down in the street, and the like. Osama bin Laden used one of the most famous pieces of anti-Israel propaganda in his training videos: the image of 12-year-old Mohammed al-Dura being "gunned down" as his father tries to protect him. This, like all anti-Israel propaganda that I have personally seen, is absolutely untrue. But images are very convincing to a general public too lazy to do a little investigating.
Israel notifies Palestinian civilians who would otherwise be in harms way before engaging in military actions--even though this gives terrorists advanced warning. Israeli soldiers use rubber bullets, even though they don't have to. Israel extends the option of full citizenship to any Palestinian, including rights and benefits such as education and health care. Just this week, in a classic example of Israeli forbearance, they temporarily halted air strikes in Gaza so that relief workers could get in and out. They do not target civilians, they do not use bombs, suicide or otherwise, on non military targets. Absolutely none of the above can be said of their enemies.
And yet the world is ready to believe just about anything that Osama Bin Laden or anyone else has to say about Israeli brutality. Why?
Is it because anti-semitism never goes out of fashion?
It is a very good thing for the world that the lies told about men like MacArthur, Eisenhower and Patton were not sufficiently damaging to stop them from saving western civilization. It's a pity that so many throughout the free world are willing to believe the lies told about a great nation and a wonderful friend of freedom like Israel. It was Israel, not the United States or any other nation, that stopped Saddam Hussein from getting a nuclear weapon. Most likely, it will be Israel, and not the US or anyone else, from stopping Iran when they are on the verge of developing their own nuclear arsenal. And it is Israel, more than we will ever know, that has hunted down and killed the terrorists who would just as happily murder your children or mine as target Israelis.
I'm not so much a romantic to expect that the leaders of the free world are going to ever publicly acknowledge the debt they owe to Israel, or ever apologize for swallowing the lies told by its enemies. However, it would be nice if once in a while, they just considered the source when they read of some alleged Israeli atrocity.
It was an ugly scene, to be sure. Photographs and film recordings captured the rather rough treatment the vets received. But film and photos of course can be used to give a less than full or distorted account of events. and the images of the forced removal combined with carefully crafted and blatantly false propaganda by left leaning writers and newspapermen, made the Army look like brutes and put the final nail in the coffin of any hope Hoover had of reelection.
As Paul Johnson points out, "Communists...organized the subsequent propaganda with great skill. There were tales of cavalry charges, of the use of tanks and poison gas, of a little boy being bayoneted while trying to save his pet rabbit, and of tents and shelters being set on fire with...women and children still inside." When I read that, I cannot help but feel a great sense of relief that MacArthur, Patton and Eisenhower's careers survived this bundle of lies so that they could go on to be the heroes of WWII that they undoubtedly were.
But I am also struck by how similar this is to the shameless lies that the enemies of Israel spout incessantly about that nation's supposed brutality. For years, we've heard stories of how Israeli soldiers bulldoze Palestinian homes while women and children are trapped inside, gun innocents down in the street, and the like. Osama bin Laden used one of the most famous pieces of anti-Israel propaganda in his training videos: the image of 12-year-old Mohammed al-Dura being "gunned down" as his father tries to protect him. This, like all anti-Israel propaganda that I have personally seen, is absolutely untrue. But images are very convincing to a general public too lazy to do a little investigating.
Israel notifies Palestinian civilians who would otherwise be in harms way before engaging in military actions--even though this gives terrorists advanced warning. Israeli soldiers use rubber bullets, even though they don't have to. Israel extends the option of full citizenship to any Palestinian, including rights and benefits such as education and health care. Just this week, in a classic example of Israeli forbearance, they temporarily halted air strikes in Gaza so that relief workers could get in and out. They do not target civilians, they do not use bombs, suicide or otherwise, on non military targets. Absolutely none of the above can be said of their enemies.
And yet the world is ready to believe just about anything that Osama Bin Laden or anyone else has to say about Israeli brutality. Why?
Is it because anti-semitism never goes out of fashion?
It is a very good thing for the world that the lies told about men like MacArthur, Eisenhower and Patton were not sufficiently damaging to stop them from saving western civilization. It's a pity that so many throughout the free world are willing to believe the lies told about a great nation and a wonderful friend of freedom like Israel. It was Israel, not the United States or any other nation, that stopped Saddam Hussein from getting a nuclear weapon. Most likely, it will be Israel, and not the US or anyone else, from stopping Iran when they are on the verge of developing their own nuclear arsenal. And it is Israel, more than we will ever know, that has hunted down and killed the terrorists who would just as happily murder your children or mine as target Israelis.
I'm not so much a romantic to expect that the leaders of the free world are going to ever publicly acknowledge the debt they owe to Israel, or ever apologize for swallowing the lies told by its enemies. However, it would be nice if once in a while, they just considered the source when they read of some alleged Israeli atrocity.
Monday, January 5, 2009
The Forgotten Man
Just finished Amity Shlaes's The Forgotten Man. A fitting subtitle might have been "What Hoover could screw up, FDR could screw up worse."
The Crash of 1929, says Shlaes, was a natural result of a market that was in a frenzied state of activity operating in largely uncharted waters: there were new markets and commodities (the utilities market, for example) and a turbulent market in a period of unprecedented growth needed to eventually correct itself. The crash became the depression as Hoover got in the way and FDR later went to war against the private sector. Paul Johnson fleshes this out a bit more in History of the American People: the Coolidge administration allowed inflation to rise rapidly without allowing interest rates to rise (shades of Alan Greenspan) or wages to fall, which led to extreme market speculation and an inevitable downturn. Coolidge chose not to intervene when Benjamin Strong, the governor of the NY Federal Reserve bank, chose to give the market "a shot of whiskey" by cutting the interest rate to 3.5%, which allowed inflation and frenzied speculation to balloon to dangerous levels. Both Shlaes and Johnson drive home the point that the growth of the 1920s economy was real, and not the debauched cariacature to which we've grown accustomed. They also both stress that the depression was a natural correction that could have been much shorter than it was. Interestingly, Johnson views the crash as not an affirmation of but rather a rebuke of Keynesian economics: the market crashed, says Johnson, not because of too little regulation, but overregulation by the powers that be; Lazzais faire was not left unchecked, but rather compromised by the sort of tinkering that FDR would become famous for.
Hoover's blunders as Shlaes cites them were primarily that he (1) attacked short-term investors, driving out a presence that was balancing longer term buyers, (2) guilt-tripped business owners into not cutting salaries (subsequently many companies went under or were forced to lay off employees) and (3)the grand poo-bah of them all, that he signed Smoot-Hawley. Of course, after Smoot-Hawley pretty much did in international trade, Hoover decided to impress foreign markets by raising taxes "in order to balance the budget." So in a deflation, when dollars were expensive and scarce, and jobs were evaporating at an alarming rate, Hoover both drove up the cost of living and raised taxes. Brilliant. Hoover took a recession and made the Great Depression.
If FDR had merely continued down this path of folly, perhaps the depression could have ended sooner. Instead, he first embarked on a monetary policy that was indecisive at times(weakening the gold standard, then going off, then waiting a year and going back on) to the point of schizophrenic at others(sending his Secretary of State and top financial advisers to a summit with England and France, ostensibly to undo the damage of Smoot-Hawley and to establish firm exchange rates, then before the summit was over reversing himself three times, and ultimately rejecting the deal that was worked out); in addition FDR continued Hoover's fool's errand of artificially raising prices, and in a number of ways essentially declared war on the private sector.
FDR created a number of new agencies and drafted laws that either regulated or directly competed with private industry. The most eggregious regulatory body was the National Recovery Administration, a bureaucracy of olympian proportions that employed thousands upon thousands of government agents who regulated every aspect of myriad industries right down to how tailors could and could not mend garments; poultry butchers were told how their customers could and could not select chickens; wages were fixed at artificially high levels, unique to each industry. Failure to comply with any and all of the thousands of pages of new regulations could land business owners in prison. Upon hearing the now famous case of the Schecter brothers poultry butchers, SCOTUS struck down the NRA as unconstitutional.
Regrettably, SCOTUS found Roosevelt's Wagner act to be very constitutional. Wagner gave employees the right to form "closed shop" unions--in other words, your employees, once organized, could tell you who could and could not hire IN YOUR OWN BUSINESS. Union leadership was elected for life, they had the right to strike, and the message communicated by FDR contained the implication that, if he was not sympathetic to unions who resorted to violent measures, then surely the employer must bear a healthy share of the blame.
Perhaps the ultimate example of scope creep during FDR's first two terms was the Tennessee Valley Authority. Originally created by Congress to run the Wilson Dam and to improve navigability and flood protection of the Tennessee River, under Roosevelt the TVA was soon competing directly with, and in the end supplanting the private sector.
As if FDR hadn't made his feelings clear about the private sector through his actions, he took the opportunity afforded by several speeches and his fireside chats to personally attack "the wealthy," ie, the people who owned the businesses that could have, under different cicumstances, driven a recovery. As FDR and other members of his administration made clear, the wealthy were reprobate for holding on to their profits in a time of economic insecurity. To drive the point home further, the wealthy were put on trial, literally: Samuel Insull was tried for fraud after his utilities empire went belly up. Andrew Mellon, former Treasury Secretary to three Presidents, was tried for using tax loopholes that his persecutors even admitted were perfectly legal.
As if all of the above weren't enough--regulating, villifying, and prosecuting the hell out of business owners owners--FDR decided to tax the hell out of them as well. The wealthiest investors and business owners in the country could look forward to 75% of their profits being swallowed up on any business venture--while they of course would assume all of the loss if the venture failed. To me most obnoxious of all, FDR's leftist Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau decided that businesses weren't producing enough or paying sufficient dividends to suit his tastes, and created the Undistributed Profits Tax to squeeze from industry the cash that he (Morgenthau) thought those businesses ought to have been making or paying out. The reason businesses weren't aggressively producing was because FDR had taken away virtually all incentive for business owners to do business. And yet the administration had found yet another way to punish them. As a result, the economy crashed again. It was a period that Shlaes calls "the depression within the depression."
The consequences of the path that President Roosevelt pursued are depressing to consider. The entire decade of the 1930s was a bleak time all around, with unemployment ranging from highs over 20% to lows that never really went below 14%. The Dow never came close to pre-1929 levels, and wouldn't return there until the 1950s. There were always more than 1 in 10 unemployed, often 2 in 10 or higher. FDR's massive federal spending, often cited as the great salvation that pulled the country out of "Hoover's depression," had little discernable long-term positive impact. As Michael Medved points out, while FDR declared that his "greatest primary task is to put people to work,"
If Coolidge sinned in allowing credit regulation to be too lax; if Hoover sinned by being a know-it-all control freak who thought he could force the economy back to health; FDR, at times playfully and at other times vindictively, poisoned the economic engine that under the right circumstances could have pulled the economy out of the depression years sooner than it ended. It is Roosevelt also to whom we are largely indebted for our modern paradigm of class warfare, of the "evil" rich who lie in wait to exploit the "marginalized" or "underprivileged" poor--a paradigm that we see writ large (no pun intended) any time the adjective "Big" is tacked on in front of an industry ("big oil," "big tobacco," etc) Whereas previous administrations and decades had been about ambition, aspiration and growth, the 1930s of FDR taught Americans to expect scarcity, to fear and hate the wealthy, and to depend on government to ride to the rescue.
I wonder how much patience for massive industry bailouts (for "big auto," "big banking," and other too "big" to fail entities), or for stimulus rebate checks for that matter, our country would have if the depression had ended by 1932 or even 1935. Regardless, we do have a lot of patience for the government dole today. Which makes me shudder just a little bit when I hear Barack "spread the wealth around" Obama talking about a $775 billion stimulus package that he himself admits will do little to improve the prospect of trillion dollar deficits for years to come. If we get comfortable with that kind of welfare, America may be unrecognizable in a generation.
UPDATE: New data that unemployment under FDR never got below 20%
The Crash of 1929, says Shlaes, was a natural result of a market that was in a frenzied state of activity operating in largely uncharted waters: there were new markets and commodities (the utilities market, for example) and a turbulent market in a period of unprecedented growth needed to eventually correct itself. The crash became the depression as Hoover got in the way and FDR later went to war against the private sector. Paul Johnson fleshes this out a bit more in History of the American People: the Coolidge administration allowed inflation to rise rapidly without allowing interest rates to rise (shades of Alan Greenspan) or wages to fall, which led to extreme market speculation and an inevitable downturn. Coolidge chose not to intervene when Benjamin Strong, the governor of the NY Federal Reserve bank, chose to give the market "a shot of whiskey" by cutting the interest rate to 3.5%, which allowed inflation and frenzied speculation to balloon to dangerous levels. Both Shlaes and Johnson drive home the point that the growth of the 1920s economy was real, and not the debauched cariacature to which we've grown accustomed. They also both stress that the depression was a natural correction that could have been much shorter than it was. Interestingly, Johnson views the crash as not an affirmation of but rather a rebuke of Keynesian economics: the market crashed, says Johnson, not because of too little regulation, but overregulation by the powers that be; Lazzais faire was not left unchecked, but rather compromised by the sort of tinkering that FDR would become famous for.
Hoover's blunders as Shlaes cites them were primarily that he (1) attacked short-term investors, driving out a presence that was balancing longer term buyers, (2) guilt-tripped business owners into not cutting salaries (subsequently many companies went under or were forced to lay off employees) and (3)the grand poo-bah of them all, that he signed Smoot-Hawley. Of course, after Smoot-Hawley pretty much did in international trade, Hoover decided to impress foreign markets by raising taxes "in order to balance the budget." So in a deflation, when dollars were expensive and scarce, and jobs were evaporating at an alarming rate, Hoover both drove up the cost of living and raised taxes. Brilliant. Hoover took a recession and made the Great Depression.
If FDR had merely continued down this path of folly, perhaps the depression could have ended sooner. Instead, he first embarked on a monetary policy that was indecisive at times(weakening the gold standard, then going off, then waiting a year and going back on) to the point of schizophrenic at others(sending his Secretary of State and top financial advisers to a summit with England and France, ostensibly to undo the damage of Smoot-Hawley and to establish firm exchange rates, then before the summit was over reversing himself three times, and ultimately rejecting the deal that was worked out); in addition FDR continued Hoover's fool's errand of artificially raising prices, and in a number of ways essentially declared war on the private sector.
FDR created a number of new agencies and drafted laws that either regulated or directly competed with private industry. The most eggregious regulatory body was the National Recovery Administration, a bureaucracy of olympian proportions that employed thousands upon thousands of government agents who regulated every aspect of myriad industries right down to how tailors could and could not mend garments; poultry butchers were told how their customers could and could not select chickens; wages were fixed at artificially high levels, unique to each industry. Failure to comply with any and all of the thousands of pages of new regulations could land business owners in prison. Upon hearing the now famous case of the Schecter brothers poultry butchers, SCOTUS struck down the NRA as unconstitutional.
Regrettably, SCOTUS found Roosevelt's Wagner act to be very constitutional. Wagner gave employees the right to form "closed shop" unions--in other words, your employees, once organized, could tell you who could and could not hire IN YOUR OWN BUSINESS. Union leadership was elected for life, they had the right to strike, and the message communicated by FDR contained the implication that, if he was not sympathetic to unions who resorted to violent measures, then surely the employer must bear a healthy share of the blame.
Perhaps the ultimate example of scope creep during FDR's first two terms was the Tennessee Valley Authority. Originally created by Congress to run the Wilson Dam and to improve navigability and flood protection of the Tennessee River, under Roosevelt the TVA was soon competing directly with, and in the end supplanting the private sector.
As if FDR hadn't made his feelings clear about the private sector through his actions, he took the opportunity afforded by several speeches and his fireside chats to personally attack "the wealthy," ie, the people who owned the businesses that could have, under different cicumstances, driven a recovery. As FDR and other members of his administration made clear, the wealthy were reprobate for holding on to their profits in a time of economic insecurity. To drive the point home further, the wealthy were put on trial, literally: Samuel Insull was tried for fraud after his utilities empire went belly up. Andrew Mellon, former Treasury Secretary to three Presidents, was tried for using tax loopholes that his persecutors even admitted were perfectly legal.
As if all of the above weren't enough--regulating, villifying, and prosecuting the hell out of business owners owners--FDR decided to tax the hell out of them as well. The wealthiest investors and business owners in the country could look forward to 75% of their profits being swallowed up on any business venture--while they of course would assume all of the loss if the venture failed. To me most obnoxious of all, FDR's leftist Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau decided that businesses weren't producing enough or paying sufficient dividends to suit his tastes, and created the Undistributed Profits Tax to squeeze from industry the cash that he (Morgenthau) thought those businesses ought to have been making or paying out. The reason businesses weren't aggressively producing was because FDR had taken away virtually all incentive for business owners to do business. And yet the administration had found yet another way to punish them. As a result, the economy crashed again. It was a period that Shlaes calls "the depression within the depression."
The consequences of the path that President Roosevelt pursued are depressing to consider. The entire decade of the 1930s was a bleak time all around, with unemployment ranging from highs over 20% to lows that never really went below 14%. The Dow never came close to pre-1929 levels, and wouldn't return there until the 1950s. There were always more than 1 in 10 unemployed, often 2 in 10 or higher. FDR's massive federal spending, often cited as the great salvation that pulled the country out of "Hoover's depression," had little discernable long-term positive impact. As Michael Medved points out, while FDR declared that his "greatest primary task is to put people to work,"
the persistence of devastating unemployment rates should alone identify the New Deal as a wretched, ill-conceived failure. Other measures of recovery show similarly dismal results. After the stock market crash and the beginning of the Great Depression, the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit 250 in 1930 under Hoover (it had been 343 just before the crash). By January, 1940 the market had collapsed to 151 (remaining in the low 100's through most of Roosevelt's terms) and didn't return to its 1929 levels until the 1950's. At the same time, federal spending as a percentage of the Gross Domestic Product soared at an unprecedented rate: from 2.5% in 1929, to 9% in 1936 (long before the wartime spending began). In other words, the portion of the total economy controlled by Washington increased by a staggering 360% in the course of just seven years - without providing discernable benefit to the economy.
If Coolidge sinned in allowing credit regulation to be too lax; if Hoover sinned by being a know-it-all control freak who thought he could force the economy back to health; FDR, at times playfully and at other times vindictively, poisoned the economic engine that under the right circumstances could have pulled the economy out of the depression years sooner than it ended. It is Roosevelt also to whom we are largely indebted for our modern paradigm of class warfare, of the "evil" rich who lie in wait to exploit the "marginalized" or "underprivileged" poor--a paradigm that we see writ large (no pun intended) any time the adjective "Big" is tacked on in front of an industry ("big oil," "big tobacco," etc) Whereas previous administrations and decades had been about ambition, aspiration and growth, the 1930s of FDR taught Americans to expect scarcity, to fear and hate the wealthy, and to depend on government to ride to the rescue.
I wonder how much patience for massive industry bailouts (for "big auto," "big banking," and other too "big" to fail entities), or for stimulus rebate checks for that matter, our country would have if the depression had ended by 1932 or even 1935. Regardless, we do have a lot of patience for the government dole today. Which makes me shudder just a little bit when I hear Barack "spread the wealth around" Obama talking about a $775 billion stimulus package that he himself admits will do little to improve the prospect of trillion dollar deficits for years to come. If we get comfortable with that kind of welfare, America may be unrecognizable in a generation.
UPDATE: New data that unemployment under FDR never got below 20%
Paul Gilbert.
Mother of Pearl.
Maybe this is why I can't play like that. I don't have an assistant to capo for me.
This one you've got to wait for, but the candy is there:
Maybe this is why I can't play like that. I don't have an assistant to capo for me.
This one you've got to wait for, but the candy is there:
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Words of Wisdom in the Strangest Places
From Emma Goldman, anarchist, to Roger Baldwin, starry-eyed Stalin fanboy and founder of the ACLU:
So much said about what is so wrong with liberalism, in so few words.
I frankly admit that people as naive as you are hopeless. They see the world...through romantic rosy eyes as the young innocent girl sees the first man she loves.
So much said about what is so wrong with liberalism, in so few words.
Sigh.
Mark Steyn, with more of the cold hard reality that tends to get him in trouble with hippy-dippy "hate crimes" tribunals.
I truly regret having to be the wet blanket on the heads of the two-state solution Kumbaya crowd: it will never happen. In order to have a two state solution, one of the groups involved can't insist on the extermination of the other group as a prerequisite for negotiations.
I truly regret having to be the wet blanket on the heads of the two-state solution Kumbaya crowd: it will never happen. In order to have a two state solution, one of the groups involved can't insist on the extermination of the other group as a prerequisite for negotiations.
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