What strange alternate universe have I stumbled in to?
If I read this correctly, failed liberal 1972 Presidential candidate George McGovern is promoting individual responsibility in the housing market and freedom of choice in the private health care market while Dems and Repubs alike are promoting a housing bail out and universal health care in Congress.
Friday, March 7, 2008
The sleepy old Senate
There are reasons to dislike McCain, but his crusade against the wasteful and corrupting practice of pork barrel spending -- or earmarking as Washingtonians call it -- is not one of them. But don't tell this to the Old Guard who runs the Senate GOP. Unlike their House counterparts led by John Boehner, Senate GOP leadership is drawing a line in the sand against their Party's nominee. Come hell or high water, they are going to maintain their right to use taxpayer dollars to buy reelection.
The Wall Street Journal's Kim Strassel explains:
The Wall Street Journal's Kim Strassel explains:
Read it all.Newly minted presidential nominee John McCain stepped into the Rose Garden this week to receive President Bush's blessing. What the cameras didn't catch were pork-addicted congressional Republicans blowing raspberries from their offices.
With all the talk about how Mr. McCain needs to unify his party, lost has been the question of whether some people will let him. Washington Republicans know he's their best shot at retaining the White House. Yet many remain ambivalent about him -- not because they question his conservatism, but out of resentment that he may get in the way of their earmarks.
This has resulted in a behind-the-scenes brawl, as spend-happy Republicans resist efforts by wiser heads to fall in behind Mr. McCain's anti-earmark message. At best, the spenders risk an embarrassing pummeling by their own nominee that could hurt them in their own re-election campaigns. At worst, they could undercut one of Mr. McCain's more persuasive messages.
Shouldn't Dems love rising gasoline prices?
The price at the pump continues to rise. Corresponding to the rising price of oil is the decibel level of Democratic rhetoric decrying the development. Obama and Hillary both have pledged to lower the price of gasoline. At the same time, they would both have us believe they are ardent environmentalists who want to ween the nation off of oil and on to environmentally friendly sources of energy (unless of course, that source of energy comes from nuclear).
So what gives? Why is no smart journalists asking Obama and Hillary why this story is not a welcome development?
What they say they are for -- environmentally friendly sources of energy -- is not really what they are for.
So what gives? Why is no smart journalists asking Obama and Hillary why this story is not a welcome development?
For the first time in years, people are buying a little less gasoline in America. Analysts say it may be a sign that high prices and a slowing economy are beginning to change people's driving habits.Democrats will never get what they want -- less dependence on oil -- unless they are willing to let prices rise and allow the market to run its course. The problem is they know full well that this is a losing position at the polls, so they posture on the environmental issue while promising to promote policies that ensure Americans can continue to get relatively cheap gasoline.Since the beginning of this year, gasoline consumption has fallen about half a percent, according to the Department of Energy.
The last time gas use fell — other than after Hurricane Katrina — was more than a decade ago. That it's falling again now suggests that high prices are finally influencing behavior. Since November, prices have averaged $3 a gallon or more. That's the longest they've ever stayed that high.
Doug MacIntyre, who has studied gas consumption at the Department of Energy since the 1980s, says he thinks people may be responding by cutting down on trips or using public transit more.
"It's probably a combination of factors. Anecdotally, we hear of more people carpooling more often," MacIntyre says.
What they say they are for -- environmentally friendly sources of energy -- is not really what they are for.
Thursday, March 6, 2008
"Culture of cool" may catch up with Obama
Yuval Levin spots a trend that should worry Team Obama:
Imagine a parody of this in 10 years. You know it will happen.
America’s cultural elites are easily swept up in fashionable new idealisms, especially those that confirm their existing predilections and demand no serious personal sacrifice. But the culture of cool is also powerfully allergic to forthright displays of devotion and fervor. Its most powerful weapon is sarcasm, and the kind of piety on display in the Obama movement seems to beg for sarcastic deflation. Can we doubt that a South Park episode concluding in the handing out of Kool-Aid at an Obama rally is forthcoming?Levin is spot on. Super cool, super elitism will only take you so far. No matter how hip the Obama movement may seem at the moment, one can't help but wonder when rank and file Americans will take umbrage to a bunch of uber liberal Hollywood elites forcing a candidate down their throats. In other words, these "wicked awesome" videos could get "wicked lame" soon:
Can Jon Stewart’s Daily Show put up with statements like Halle Barry’s above for long before letting loose a massive assault on the whole endeavor? How long can a politician go around saying “we are the ones we’ve been waiting for” before a sharp and memorable punch line leaves him with a nasty lasting bruise? And how will Obama’s young followers respond when forced to choose between the movement to change the world and the snide knowing chuckle?
The frantic pace of our cultural trends means Obama is running a very serious risk of making his most ardent supporters tired of him very quickly. A nasty turn in his press coverage in just the past week offers Obama an ominous preview of how that could feel. This may not be his fault, but it is certainly his problem.
Imagine a parody of this in 10 years. You know it will happen.
Due process and home schooling
It will take some time to appreciate the full significance of this state court ruling in California (hat tip: Protein Wisdom). The Second District of the California Court of Appeal has held that parents in California have no constitutional right to school their children at home. No substantive due process protection, no free exercise protection, no equal protection, nothing.
Before we examine the merits of the court's reasoning, it is instructive to perform a little compare and constrast. Note that the United States Supreme Court has held that the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment secures to a woman the right to kill her child, before birth in most circumstances and before viability always. However, that same woman has no constitutional right to educate that same child after the age of five during school hours. Abort the child; that's fine. But if you let him live to five years of age, the State will take over from there.
I am not advocating for expansion of the reach of the due process clause. I am simply giving the lie to the canard that both liberals and conservatives engage in judicial activism. If, as Professor Kmiec mistakenly asserted this week, both sides were treating the courts as political instruments, we should expect to see both liberal and conservative policy preferences incorporated into constitutional precedent. We do not. We see only liberal preferences. Conservatives are left to do the hard work of passing legislation, when liberals have not foreclosed even that avenue by commandeering the courts to do their bidding.
To the decision itself. First, this appears to be a classic case of a court making bad law in response to bad facts. The trial court found evidence that the children had suffered physical and emotional abuse at home and that they were receiving "lousy" and "meager" instruction in their home school. One certainly feels for such children. And no one would advocate for a constitutional right to abuse one's child. However, that the facts in this case are so incendiary suggests that the court should have avoided issuing such sweeping dicta.
Doctrinally, the decision rests upon old precedent. The court, an intermediate court of appeal, purports simply to follow a 1953 decision of the California Supreme Court that it is not unconstitutional to forbid unaccredited parents from educating their children at home and a 1968 decision of the United States Supreme Court to similar effect. However, both of those decisionss predate the Supreme Court's 1972 decision in Wisconsin v. Yoder. In Yoder, the Court held that Amish parents have a right protected by the free exercise clause of the First Amendment to educate their children at home and to avoid the application of compulsory education laws.
The California Court of Appeal does not mention Yoder in its discussion of the constitutionality and interpretation of California's compulsory education statute. This is particularly striking because the court notes in a footnote that the parents in this case "have asserted that they home school because of their religious beliefs." Only at the end of the decision does the court tack on a cursory discussion of Yoder and its application to this case. It is true that the Yoder doctrine distinguishes between true religious conviction and personal preferences disguised as religious beliefs. However, it is not true that parents have no First Amendment right to resist the imposition on their children of secular values that they reject, even when a majority approves those values. This suggestion of the California court is unfortunate and unhelpful dicta.
The parents appear to have received inadequate legal counsel. Their affidavit, which was "conclusional" in the court's curious parlance, did not set out with specificity to which particular aspects of the public school curriculum they objected and on what grounds. Perhaps the matter will be explored on remand. When the case re-appears on appeal, the court would do well to focus its reasoning.
Before we examine the merits of the court's reasoning, it is instructive to perform a little compare and constrast. Note that the United States Supreme Court has held that the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment secures to a woman the right to kill her child, before birth in most circumstances and before viability always. However, that same woman has no constitutional right to educate that same child after the age of five during school hours. Abort the child; that's fine. But if you let him live to five years of age, the State will take over from there.
I am not advocating for expansion of the reach of the due process clause. I am simply giving the lie to the canard that both liberals and conservatives engage in judicial activism. If, as Professor Kmiec mistakenly asserted this week, both sides were treating the courts as political instruments, we should expect to see both liberal and conservative policy preferences incorporated into constitutional precedent. We do not. We see only liberal preferences. Conservatives are left to do the hard work of passing legislation, when liberals have not foreclosed even that avenue by commandeering the courts to do their bidding.
To the decision itself. First, this appears to be a classic case of a court making bad law in response to bad facts. The trial court found evidence that the children had suffered physical and emotional abuse at home and that they were receiving "lousy" and "meager" instruction in their home school. One certainly feels for such children. And no one would advocate for a constitutional right to abuse one's child. However, that the facts in this case are so incendiary suggests that the court should have avoided issuing such sweeping dicta.
Doctrinally, the decision rests upon old precedent. The court, an intermediate court of appeal, purports simply to follow a 1953 decision of the California Supreme Court that it is not unconstitutional to forbid unaccredited parents from educating their children at home and a 1968 decision of the United States Supreme Court to similar effect. However, both of those decisionss predate the Supreme Court's 1972 decision in Wisconsin v. Yoder. In Yoder, the Court held that Amish parents have a right protected by the free exercise clause of the First Amendment to educate their children at home and to avoid the application of compulsory education laws.
The California Court of Appeal does not mention Yoder in its discussion of the constitutionality and interpretation of California's compulsory education statute. This is particularly striking because the court notes in a footnote that the parents in this case "have asserted that they home school because of their religious beliefs." Only at the end of the decision does the court tack on a cursory discussion of Yoder and its application to this case. It is true that the Yoder doctrine distinguishes between true religious conviction and personal preferences disguised as religious beliefs. However, it is not true that parents have no First Amendment right to resist the imposition on their children of secular values that they reject, even when a majority approves those values. This suggestion of the California court is unfortunate and unhelpful dicta.
The parents appear to have received inadequate legal counsel. Their affidavit, which was "conclusional" in the court's curious parlance, did not set out with specificity to which particular aspects of the public school curriculum they objected and on what grounds. Perhaps the matter will be explored on remand. When the case re-appears on appeal, the court would do well to focus its reasoning.
Immanentizing the Eschaton
As the Democrats bare more teeth and become more candid in their surprisingly close-run primary, I am becoming increasingly sanguine about McCain's chances in November. It's not just the candidates themselves but also their spouses. Bill Clinton has significantly damaged his party in recent weeks. And Jim Geraghty offers some intriguing reasons why it might be fun (and politically expedient) to have Michelle Obama on the national stage for a few more months.
Government is getting dumber
I have referenced David Frum's work here before. Needless to say, I am a fan. In this interview with Marketplace, Frum reminds us that politicians today -- on both sides of the aisle -- are guilty of turning back the clock on lessons we have already learned.
The whole notion of a fiscal stimulus bill in Washington these days necessarily ignores past lessons learned in the market. As Frum points out, "Fiscal stimulus almost always arrives too late, after the recovery has already begun. Worse, the usual result is a net economic nothing. The government borrows to give to consumers, who in turn use the money to reduce borrowing. Demand remains constant."
But our politicians today are not as concerned with good policy based on past learning as they are with good politics based on poll numbers in their home states.
More Frum:
The whole notion of a fiscal stimulus bill in Washington these days necessarily ignores past lessons learned in the market. As Frum points out, "Fiscal stimulus almost always arrives too late, after the recovery has already begun. Worse, the usual result is a net economic nothing. The government borrows to give to consumers, who in turn use the money to reduce borrowing. Demand remains constant."
But our politicians today are not as concerned with good policy based on past learning as they are with good politics based on poll numbers in their home states.
More Frum:
A third lesson, big banks are stuck with hundreds of billions in bad real estate loans. That's also happened before, in the 1980s savings and loan crisis. Back then, everybody had to learn that the best way to unravel bad credit was fast. Yet once again we're hearing prominent politicians urging rate freezes and foreclosure moratoriums, postponing the inevitable at great cost.
We like to think that we get smarter as we get older, and that society makes intellectual progress from year to year -- not on present evidence. It would be bad enough if we did not know better. It's worse. We have unlearned what we do know.
Amen to that. Hat Tip: Kendall Harmon.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Filling the Ranks
I was recently researching our history of military service when I came across a University of Michigan study titled Americas Military Population, by David R Segal and Mady Wechsler Segal. The study covers the post revolution time period up until the current day and gives a percentage of those actively serving in the military as compared with our total population.
The study shows that during the post revolution time period up until the Civil War around 0.5% of the US population was actively serving as military personnel. During the Civil War this number jumped to just over 3%. From the Civil War up until the First World War this number was once again below 1%. During WWI the number grew to slightly less than 3%, again falling below 1% until the Second World War. During the Second World War nearly 9% of the U.S. Population was serving at any one time. This number fell to below 3% for the Korean War and below 2% for the Vietnam War. This participation has continued a downward trend to nearly 0.5% serving as military personnel today.
In fairness these statistics only include those currently on active duty (It’s unlikely but it could be that we have just as many men and women serving they just don’t stick around as long). However, according to these statistics around 0.5% seems to be the historical “resting heart rate” of the country. What is worth noting today is that we are not resting. We are currently fighting a war on two fronts and we still sit near that 0.5%. This is the lowest percentage during a war cited in the study.
The study shows that during the post revolution time period up until the Civil War around 0.5% of the US population was actively serving as military personnel. During the Civil War this number jumped to just over 3%. From the Civil War up until the First World War this number was once again below 1%. During WWI the number grew to slightly less than 3%, again falling below 1% until the Second World War. During the Second World War nearly 9% of the U.S. Population was serving at any one time. This number fell to below 3% for the Korean War and below 2% for the Vietnam War. This participation has continued a downward trend to nearly 0.5% serving as military personnel today.
In fairness these statistics only include those currently on active duty (It’s unlikely but it could be that we have just as many men and women serving they just don’t stick around as long). However, according to these statistics around 0.5% seems to be the historical “resting heart rate” of the country. What is worth noting today is that we are not resting. We are currently fighting a war on two fronts and we still sit near that 0.5%. This is the lowest percentage during a war cited in the study.
Catholics for Obama?
Professor Doug Kmiec drank the Kool-Aid. Swept off his feet by Obama's soaring rhetoric, he suggested recently in Slate that sincere Catholics might defect from the Republican party to vote for Obama. He elaborated yesterday: "Unless you gave up TV for the duration of the writers’ strike or something shorter, such as Lent, the Ronald Reagan comparison is obvious. Obama’s eloquence and inspiration is inescapable." It is difficult to avoid wondering with Kmiec's correspondents what substance he has been abusing.
The inestimable Professor Robert George brings the Obamabats back to earth.
UPDATE: A friend emails: "I wonder what tune Kmiec will be singing once HRC wins the nomination (and she will win the nomination, no doubt. Last night gave her just enough room to make a push all the way to the convention)."
That calls to mind a funny image. I picture a grizzled Doug Kmiec holding a 2/3-empty wisky bottle, staring under half-closed eyelids at his TV screen as Hillary accepts the party's nomination at the Democratic convention. So much for a Supreme Court seat. Hillary's never going to appoint him. And now he's assured that no Republican will get away with doing so. The base would rise up with greater force than even Harriet Miers aroused.
If you shoot at the King, be sure not to miss. Kmiec's bullet is still on the way, but it appears that the Republican party just might escape the line of fire.
Let me add that I have a tremendous amount of respect for Professor Kmiec. I am confident that his insanity is temporary and that he will someday awake from his Obama-induced stupor with regret.
ANOTHER UPDATE: A third august Catholic law prof weighs in, and he is pulling no punches. Rick Garnett of Notre Dame faults Kmiec for his "misguided" support for Obama. The money quote:
The inestimable Professor Robert George brings the Obamabats back to earth.
There are many injustices in our country. None can compare, however, with abortion and embryo-destructive research when it comes to the gravity and sheer scale of the injustice. We are talking about life and death here in huge numbers. Indeed, the scope of the killing itself tends to numb our sense of the horror of it. We think about it as little as we can, for understandable reasons. It is hard to get through the day if we focus our minds squarely on the thousands of deliberate and legally authorized killings that go on every day in our nation. (The same was true for opponents of slavery in the 19th century.) But, as I see it, there is no avoiding our moral obligation to make this profound violation of human rights central to our deliberations as voters. If we were the victims, we would expect others to make the protection of our lives central to their decision about voting. So, as I see it, the implications of the Golden Rule are clear. The question for each of us is whether we are willing to live by it.Be sure to read the whole thing.
UPDATE: A friend emails: "I wonder what tune Kmiec will be singing once HRC wins the nomination (and she will win the nomination, no doubt. Last night gave her just enough room to make a push all the way to the convention)."
That calls to mind a funny image. I picture a grizzled Doug Kmiec holding a 2/3-empty wisky bottle, staring under half-closed eyelids at his TV screen as Hillary accepts the party's nomination at the Democratic convention. So much for a Supreme Court seat. Hillary's never going to appoint him. And now he's assured that no Republican will get away with doing so. The base would rise up with greater force than even Harriet Miers aroused.
If you shoot at the King, be sure not to miss. Kmiec's bullet is still on the way, but it appears that the Republican party just might escape the line of fire.
Let me add that I have a tremendous amount of respect for Professor Kmiec. I am confident that his insanity is temporary and that he will someday awake from his Obama-induced stupor with regret.
ANOTHER UPDATE: A third august Catholic law prof weighs in, and he is pulling no punches. Rick Garnett of Notre Dame faults Kmiec for his "misguided" support for Obama. The money quote:
First, I have no idea what Kmiec means when he suggests that both sides should stop treating the Court like a political “sinecure”, i.e., an office that requires little or no work and that usually provides an income. If he means that “both sides” should stop treating the question of Supreme Court appointments as such an important one, because our Nation’s most pressing moral questions should not be decided by unelected federal judges, well, then I can only assume that my friend Doug Kmiec is being held hostage someplace and that an alien unfamiliar with the Supreme Court’s history for the past 50 years is penning op-eds in his name.
A big night for the GOP
Republican operatives are giddy. For the better part of two years now, GOP pollsters have been telling Party insiders that they only have one real shot at keeping the White House in 2008. That one shot has been a Hillary Clinton nomination. Her negatives are through the roof. Her obnoxious husband will remind the country of past misdoings. And the GOP base will turn out to stop the Clinton machine.
Over the last few months, the potential for a Clinton nomination seemed all but lost. Last night, her three wins breathed new life into GOP hopes for 2008. It also raised the specter of a new path to the White House for Republicans -- a bitterly divided Democratic Party and a severely battered eventual nominee.
The Clinton "Kitchen Sink" strategy ensures that Obama will not be able to keep his golden boy image, and that is a huge problem for a Party that is hoping to peddle the neo-camelotonian candidate of hope. Party leaders are not amused:
This will be fun to watch."Despite Obama's impressive victories in February, Clinton's comeback is based on sowing political seeds of doubt," said Donna Brazile, a Democratic strategist and one of nearly 800 party leaders known as superdelegates for their ability to determine the nomination. "In order to clinch the nomination, he must anticipate the worst attacks ever."
Consider that a shot across the bow to the Clinton campaign because Brazile — like many other superdelegates — worries that Clinton's only hope for victory is tearing down Obama and dividing the party. Party chairman Howard Dean recently told House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that he was concerned about the possible impact of a nominating campaign that stretched through the end of the primaries in early June.
Some superdelegates are bracing themselves to intervene on Obama's behalf if necessary.
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Is California next?
Obama's comments are timely. The California Supreme Court today heard oral arguments in a legal challenge to that State's conjugal marriage statute. Keep one eye trained on San Francisco.
Blessed are the liberals, for they shall defy public reason
The Sermon on the Mount includes a mandate for legal approbation of same-sex unions. So saeth the junior Messiah from Illinois. Reverend Obama did not choose to enlighten us by instructing where precisely the mandate may be located. Perhaps it ought to be inferred from the passage on interior decoration, a well-known strong suit among gay men: "Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house."
Obama's is a curious interpretation of a passage that includes express prohibitions against both lust and divorce and makes no mention of same-sex relationships, much less homosexual intimacy. (His description of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, which expressly condemns homosexual conduct, as "obscure" betrays a manifest ignorance of biblical literature, Christian theology, and Western philosophy.) But leaving aside Obama's embarrasingly bad hermeneutics, his assertion raises two additional questions.
First, is there any conceivably rational interpretation of his statement? CNSNews speculates that Obama might have been referring either to the Golden Rule or to the prohibition against judging. However, neither has any bearing on the question whether the State ought to lend legal approbation to monogamous, same-sex intimacy. Indeed, nothing in the Sermon on the Mount has any obvious relevance to the issue. Just as nothing in the Sermon addresses same-sex unions, nothing about conjugal marriage offends against any of Christ's admonitions. So what was Obama thinking?
Second, why does Obama think that this theonomous rhetoric is persuasive? Some conservative evangelicals are often excoriated for engaging in the same practice. A public figure who argues against same-sex marriage on the ground that the Bible condemns homosexual conduct short-shrifts the conclusive argument from public reason in favor of conjugal marriage for two reasons: (1) which choices are right or wrong for individuals does not directly determine which choices the State ought to approve in law and (2) arguments from authority are only persuasive if the audience submits to the authority invoked. Most of our interlocutors in the public square do not recognize the authority of Scripture. We are well-advised to offer the very compelling public reasons in favor of legal approbation of conjugal marriage and to avoid turning Holy Scripture into a law and policy manual.
Legal approbation of conjugal marriage -- the two-in-one-flesh communion possible only in a monogamous commitment between persons of opposite sexes -- is eminently reasonable. It promotes a self-evidently valuable relationship and, additionally, secures the practical benefits that flow out of marriages and familes. As a strategic matter, Obama is wise to call attention away from the reasoned arguments in favor of conjugal marriage; those arguments are not merely persuasive but conclusive. His attempt to distract is as transparent as the emptiness of his message of hope.
Obama's is a curious interpretation of a passage that includes express prohibitions against both lust and divorce and makes no mention of same-sex relationships, much less homosexual intimacy. (His description of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, which expressly condemns homosexual conduct, as "obscure" betrays a manifest ignorance of biblical literature, Christian theology, and Western philosophy.) But leaving aside Obama's embarrasingly bad hermeneutics, his assertion raises two additional questions.
First, is there any conceivably rational interpretation of his statement? CNSNews speculates that Obama might have been referring either to the Golden Rule or to the prohibition against judging. However, neither has any bearing on the question whether the State ought to lend legal approbation to monogamous, same-sex intimacy. Indeed, nothing in the Sermon on the Mount has any obvious relevance to the issue. Just as nothing in the Sermon addresses same-sex unions, nothing about conjugal marriage offends against any of Christ's admonitions. So what was Obama thinking?
Second, why does Obama think that this theonomous rhetoric is persuasive? Some conservative evangelicals are often excoriated for engaging in the same practice. A public figure who argues against same-sex marriage on the ground that the Bible condemns homosexual conduct short-shrifts the conclusive argument from public reason in favor of conjugal marriage for two reasons: (1) which choices are right or wrong for individuals does not directly determine which choices the State ought to approve in law and (2) arguments from authority are only persuasive if the audience submits to the authority invoked. Most of our interlocutors in the public square do not recognize the authority of Scripture. We are well-advised to offer the very compelling public reasons in favor of legal approbation of conjugal marriage and to avoid turning Holy Scripture into a law and policy manual.
Legal approbation of conjugal marriage -- the two-in-one-flesh communion possible only in a monogamous commitment between persons of opposite sexes -- is eminently reasonable. It promotes a self-evidently valuable relationship and, additionally, secures the practical benefits that flow out of marriages and familes. As a strategic matter, Obama is wise to call attention away from the reasoned arguments in favor of conjugal marriage; those arguments are not merely persuasive but conclusive. His attempt to distract is as transparent as the emptiness of his message of hope.
Conservatives for Hillary
Four different states will decide Hillary Clinton's fate today. If Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island and Vermont all cast their votes for Obama, Hillary will look silly not to leave (my guess is if she wins only one state, she stays in). Fortunately for her, and to the joy of many conservatives, the late breaking polls are showing a shift away from The Messiah.
Throw in the fact that Rush Limbaugh is urging listeners to cross over and vote for Hillary in Texas and we may see some interesting results. Rush's reasoning is quite simple: the GOP has its nominee settled (despite the Huckster's continued machinations). The Dems are locked in a bloody intra-party dispute that could go all the way to the election. Historically, the convention that is most peaceful politically produces the next nominee.
Here is something else to consider; what if Hillary does really well today and begins a real comeback? Is it possible that the Chosen One's shiny veneer is fading? We know the emperor has no clothes, but do the Omamabots?
Throw in the fact that Rush Limbaugh is urging listeners to cross over and vote for Hillary in Texas and we may see some interesting results. Rush's reasoning is quite simple: the GOP has its nominee settled (despite the Huckster's continued machinations). The Dems are locked in a bloody intra-party dispute that could go all the way to the election. Historically, the convention that is most peaceful politically produces the next nominee.
Here is something else to consider; what if Hillary does really well today and begins a real comeback? Is it possible that the Chosen One's shiny veneer is fading? We know the emperor has no clothes, but do the Omamabots?
Monday, March 3, 2008
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Where is the Church?
What is it that America values more than anything else? Is it the freedom to do what we want? Is this freedom being elevated from its place as a right to the place of a goal? Is this freedom we call liberty a proper goal or is it a launching pad from which we should be reaching for greater heights?
In my most recent reading I have taken up The Republic by Plato. It’s Plato’s contention that Democracy eventually will lead to tyranny. How? Liberty being the defining characteristic of a democratic society is soon lifted and made not only a right but the greatest good. Consequently, the slippery slope of liberty permeates all aspects of society. From the personal to the public the cry is “Liberty or death!” Soon children want liberty from parents, parents want liberty from commitments, and constituents demand the government give them liberty from work. As the appetite is fed the hunger of liberty grows. Plato, through the voice of Aristotle, argues that this hunger leads to anarchy which leads to tyrants ruling the house.
If Plato is right then why has this not happened to America, or are we just in the process? A little of both is probably the answer. I’m not anywhere close to saying that this great country we live in will fall anytime soon, however Aristotle’s words are worth reflecting on. I also believe it is worth reflecting on how liberty went from a basic freedom (or launching pad) to the greatest good. The path of this reflection would take a lot longer than I’m prepared for at this time but I think the path might take us closer to the idea of a "naked public square" than we may have previously thought. It also would likely lead us to the front door of a church. We would likely knock at the door of this church and find that nobody is home. Nobody is there to set an agenda of values. Nobody is there to inspire us to higher levels of life and higher virtues to pursue. Recognizing nobody was going to come to the door we would likely walk away, joining the chorus “liberty or death!” Without the Church we won’t know any better.
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