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Link: http://www.forbes.com/2009/05/04/supreme-court-justice-opinions-columnists-epstein.html An excellent article about the upcoming Supreme Court selection. Court cases should be decided based on the facts and the law, not the feelings judges have for the parties involved. Obama’s words on the matter reflect a real intellectual immaturity on the matter; it’s astounding that he actually taught law. This again shows that fairness is a trait found most lacking in liberals. For them, it is never adherence to rules and process that is respected, but about achieving their own end results. Now I understand the catchphrase. Instead of a system we can depend on and believe in, we get “change we can believe in,” as in the law changes with the sympathies or empathies of the court. Epstein also points out the incredible short-sightedness of liberal thinking:
In just about every policy arena, liberals are always trying to solve the problem of the moment without regard for how this affects future incentives and perceptions. Whether it be throwing money at poverty or promoting subprime lending or appeasing foreign dictators, it’s the same story: one-dimensional thinking. Link: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124104689179070747.html This is one of the most important articles I have seen this year. I don’t know if Arthur Brooks (President of AEI) reads my blog, but he’s certainly on the same wavelength as I am. I’m not just talking about politics or issues in general, but about what fault lines are most vulnerable and what strategy is best to repair them. Making the moral case for capitalism and freedom is as important and timely now as ever. Fundamentally, most critics of free-market capitalism these days do not dispute its usefullness. Rather, they attack its “excesses", perceived “unfairness", and persistent “inequality". Even among conservatives they are winning the argument: neoconservatives like David Frum and pragmatic conservatives like Ross Douthat have said that liberals have identified what people want (the ends), but conservatives know how better to deliver them (the means). But the ends do not justify the means. In the end, liberals and progressives are plagued by static, or at best short-term, thinking. How do we solve the current crisis? How do we cushion the blow to those who blew it? There is no concern whatsoever for the long-term effects of policies, be they moral hazard, cultural degradation, or government dependency. Capitalism is simply the maximization of freedom coupled with responsibility. It’s core is a moral axiom: you are responsible for your actions and only your actions. Everything else is a choice. Here is how he relates the cultural war over capitalism to the tax day tea parties:
Here is the best passage from Brooks’ article:
Link: http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/apr/29/gop-should-end-affair-with-corporate-elites/ I have not yet written an article about the afflictions of the Republican Party (or the conservative movement) and how to correct them. If I had, this article by Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) would serve as a model. He hits the nail on the head, not by attacking business constituencies, but by attacking constituency itself. As DeMint says:
Business interests have been a Republican constituency for over a hundred years due to a general shared belief in private enterprise. Yet quite often Republicans have let the constituency’s interest trump their core values and promoted corporate welfare. This has become especially egregious in the last ten years and with the financial bailouts. As DeMint says, our mission should be a message of freedom and not one group or another. I challenge Republicans to take it one step further. Family interests have increasingly been a Republican constituency since the cultural revolution of the 1960s due to a general shared belief in family values. Yet here too Republicans have let the constituency’s interest trump their core values, most notably with child tax credits and homeownership favoritism. Economic policies should not be tailored to fit one’s perceived constituencies. As in the case of corporate welfare, stop helping your perceived special interests and just do what’s right. Political strategists would probably say that is foolish and a recipe for defeat. I think they are wrong. They have been trained to think in terms of identity politics and voting blocs and demographics. But as anyone can tell you, politics in the last 20 years has become much more polarized and ideological. People take pride in independent thought and don’t want to vote Democratic because they’re union or Republican because they’re wealthy. Too often different demographic groups under the same banner conflict and power jockeying becomes expensive, tedious, and unreliable. Give voters a clear, predictable political philosophy and leaders who believe in it and follow it and you will get their votes. Link: http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/016/425yustu.asp?pg=1 Peter Berkowitz writes a very good article here about Obama’s supposed pragmatism. The following paragraph was especially enlightening:
One reason why liberals often (though not always) like the pragmatist label is that any government program’s purpose is necessarily framed in terms of a governmental or social end. The individual or taxpayer is not part of the equation. This is why success is always gauged without regard to cost: does the program work to reduce poverty (or promote homeownership or reduce pollution or whatever)? Then the program is a success. Cost-benefit calculations are irrelevant because the costs are external to the program goal. Here is another good passage:
Ideology has become a dirty word in our politics. But ideology is simply adherence to principle. Pragmatism is a useful path when no guiding principle is clearly apparent or perhaps even when principles conflict. But pragmatism as a principle or ideology in itself is nothing more than conformation to unprincipled interest. Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/23/AR2009042304647.html?hpid=topnews Young children are easily duped. If grandma gives them a $20 note in their Christmas (sorry, Holiday) card, you can easily swindle it out of them by offering them a handful of change. Coins seem more like real money than paper, and so children who don’t know better are sometimes happier to get solid shiny weighty quarters and nickels than crumpled flimsy $20 bills. At his first Cabinet meeting this week, Barack Obama defended his call for department heads to cut a measly $100 million out of their budgets. “None of these things alone are going to make a difference,” he said. “But cumulatively they would make an extraordinary difference because they start setting a tone. And so what we’re going to do is line by line, page by page, $100 million there, $100 million here, pretty soon, even in Washington, it adds up to real money". Let’s skip the talk of millions and billions and trillions and bring it down to what it means to the average American. These are the numbers divided by all the taxpayers (138 million) in America:
Have you finished laughing? In this coming year alone, Obama plans to add $1,420 of additional spending per taxpayer (i.e. spending that he proposed). But he will fight for taxpayers by finding them 72 cents each in budget cuts. Is he incredibly stupid or incredibly impudent when he says that “$100 million … adds up to real money"? Is he treating us like children or is he acting like one? As libertarians often say, “Conservatives want to be your daddy, telling you what to do and what not to do. Liberals want to be your mommy, feeding you, tucking you in, and wiping your nose. Libertarians want to treat you as an adult.” Obama is treating us like we’re too stupid to realize the difference between millions, billions, and trillions. He’s acting like we’re children, fooled by the chump change Obama is promising us in one hand while in the other he takes away a stack of our $100 bills. Or is he the one who’s too stupid to know the difference? And he’s running our country. |
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