Daniel Henninger wrote in the Wall Street Journal:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid tells of congratulating freshman Sen. Obama on a phenomenal speech. Without a hint of conceit, Mr. Obama replied, “Harry, I have a gift.”

In the article he also describes this observation:

Harvard Law Prof. Charles Ogletree told how Mr. Obama spoke on one contentious issue at the law school, and each side thought he was endorsing their view. Mr. Ogletree said: “Everyone was nodding, Oh, he agrees with me.”

That’s essentially how he got elected.  With a heaping helping hand from the popular media, many people saw Obama as a blank screen upon which they could project their own views and see those as Obama’s own.  He’s our man!  He listens.  He cares deeply.  For a politician it is a phenomenal gift.  For a legislator it is an extremely valuable gift.  For an executive it is poison.

Pulling the Trigger

As a politician or a legislator you are in the role of persuader; somebody else makes the decision to vote for you or vote with you, respectively.  As an executive you are in the role of the decider.  You must make a decision and every decision, especially the tough ones are going to make a good many people unhappy.  Perhaps that explains why, in the Illinois Senate, Obama voted “Present” so many times.  Voting “Present” rather than “Yea” or “Nay” allowed him to hold that special place where everyone felt he agreed with them.  Too many decisions one way or another would have tarnished “the gift”.  So why is “the gift” poison for an executive?  If you don’t have “the gift” and you make a decision your opponents may disagree with you, but they are not surprised.  If you have “the gift” and you make a decision, those on the short side feel betrayed and angry, because they thought you agreed with them and then “sold out” and decided the other way.

Obama is in a tight spot where he has to make decisions and decisions have consequences.  When you make a decision it is very hard to make it seem like everyone got their way.  His complete lack of executive experience is telling.  If he had some executive experience, such as a mayor or a governor, he might have had enough practice learning how to make his decisions appear to satisfy everyone, as his campaign speeches did.  But that’s the thing about decisions.  If everyone supports them, they’re not much of a decision, like deciding to pardon a turkey on Thanksgiving.  Everyone enjoys the decision, but it’s really not what we elect presidents for.

I’ll Have the Waffles, Please

If you watch closely, you can see that Obama is struggling to preserve “the gift”.  He said he is for closing Guantanamo, but not yet.  He is for pulling out of Iraq, but no timetable.  The general he put in charge of Afghanistan, McChrystal, said he needed 40,000 more troops, but Obama could not bring himself to say yes or no.  He had to ponder, think, consult, weigh alternatives, and three months later, he gave McChrystal what he asked for.  Those on the left complained that he was not pulling out.  Those on the right complained that he wasted precious time while our troops were on the battlefield.  His backers tried to give him the fig leaf of showing gravitas.   He can’t seem to find the magic formula where everyone applauds him.  From “the gift” he has gone to “the anti-gift”.  Instead of satisfying everyone, he is finding that he is satisfying no one.

Move On

It’s time for Obama to “Move On”.  He should put “the gift” in his trophy case right next to his Nobel Peace Prize.  It got him to the White House.  How much more can he ask of such a thing?  So drop the pretense.  We all know he is a hard left guy, so he should just be who he is.  He may suddenly face a more hostile press, or they may love him more, although that would be hard to believe.  But when he makes a decision he will at least please his base, and then his opponents can fight his statist goals without being branded as racists.  As a hard left guy he will probably not get re-elected because America is not a hard left country, on the contrary the majority of Americans describe themselves as conservative.  But by choosing he can try to do what he can within one term.  It will be a battle. Obama’s poll ratings have dropped steadily since his inauguration and the Democrats are likely to lose seats in Congress this fall.  As an old acquaintance once said to me, “It’s like standing in the middle of the road.  Choose left or choose right, but choose; otherwise you get hit by traffic coming in both directions.”

Today Barack Obama received his Nobel Peace Prize in Norway for his accomplishments in the area of …..?  Well, nothing actually.  It was called anticipatory, in other words, he got the prize for what they hoped he would accomplish.  There’s that hope thing again.  I hope he stops burying this country in debt.

TR and Woodrow Wilson

In some puzzling way, President Obama’s acolytes like to make comparisons to two other presidents who won the Nobel Peace prize.  But they actually accomplished something or introduced a concept that eventually prevailed.  In 1905, Teddy Roosevelt successfully negotiated the end of the Russo-Japanese War, and that peace actually stuck.  Woodrow Wilson created the League of Nations which, although it failed survive, it was the forerunner of the United Nations.  Gentlemen, take a bow.  As for President Obama, I guess we’ll have to keep holding our breath and hoping.

Damaged Goods

However noble, the Nobel Peace Prize might have been, it has been reduced to a sad joke.  Let’s look at some past recipients:

• 2007 – Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).  Al Gore won the Peace prize for his deeply flawed documentary, which by the way two members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have callied for him to return the Oscars he won  for the same film.  He didn’t win the Nobel Prize in Physics or Chemistry.  Meanwhile the IPCC is embroiled in the midst of Climategate. Who lost out to these two?  A woman who smuggled approximately 2,500 Jews, mostly small children, out of the Warsaw ghetto before the Nazi’s could exterminate them.
• 2005 – Mohamed El Baradei and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) “for their efforts to prevent nuclear energy from being used for military purposes and to ensure that nuclear energy for peaceful purposes is used in the safest possible way” .  While investigating Iran El Baradei “opposed the publication of a secret report generated by his own agency, one which indicated Iran was using its civilian program as a cover to make weapons. And why did he oppose publication?” {more}  Do you feel blissfully peaceful now when you ponder Iran?
• 2002 – Jimmy Carter – “for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development”.  Well he must have gotten tired as he mused about how any opposition to President Obama’s policies being racially motivated for the most part.
• 2001 – The United Nations and Kofi Annan – for their work for a better organized and more peaceful world.  It seems they wanted to wait until the UN was nearly irrelevant in world affairs and Kofi Annan’s son was ripping off the UN’s Oil for Food program.  Hmmm, that must have come from the “better organized” part.
• 1994 – Yassir Arafat, Shimon Peres, and Yitzhak Rabin – for their efforts to create peace in the Middle East. How’s that working out?

Notably Absent

So where are the Nobel Peace prizes for Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, for ending the Cold War without firing a shot?  That wasn’t just peaceful that was miraculous.  But then again, they were conservatives and therefore they don’t qualify for the Nobel Peace Prize.

If I asked you a simple question, what government organization works well, what would you say?  Let’s take a look at two government organizations and compare their effectiveness and motivation.

The Military

Whether you support our troops on the battlefield or want them to always stay home in their barracks, most Americans will say the military does a pretty good job.  Why? That is, why are they effective, not just why do people think so?  Well, they put a lot of investment in training and technology.  They seem to have solved the problem of integration, being based on merit rather than racial prejudice.  These are all important things, but I don’ t they get to the core of the issue.  The key question is, what happens if they don’t do their job?  They die…they die, the guy beside them dies, their buddies die, and depending on the size of the conflict, their families and country may eventually die.  With that kind of motivation, race is not even secondary.  If the guy next to me has got my back and I have his, I don’t care what color he or she is.  We do it right, we live;  we don’t, we die.

The K-12 Teacher

K-12 education comes under fire in this country, and rightly so, for failing to produce an educated workforce.  In New York, for example we spend over $14,000 per student, per year on education, far above the national average of around $9,000.  Are students in New York 50% smarter than the country in general?  Hardly.  Is the nation as a whole turning out well educated students?  Sadly, no.

Our K-12 public schools are a government run monopoly.  So what happens to a K-12 teacher if they fail to do their job?  If they have been in the job long enough to get tenure, nothing.  They will get a raise like everyone else.  So what motivates them to turn out outstanding students?  I’ll wait.

Let me be clear that I don’t want to lump all teachers together.  They are many teachers who, by having what  I suppose is a strong moral streak,  do a great job because they want to teach.  Okay, so let’s look at the teaching profession where there is a group that does their best because they get satisfaction from doing a good job.  Now, some studies come out that say the way to improve results is smaller classroom size.  The teacher’s unions get behind it and eventually push it through.  So what does that mean?  If you cut the size of the class in half, you double the number of classes.  If you double the number of classes, you have to double the number of teachers and thus have to go deeper into the labor pool to find them.  Before you took this step, we can probably assume that all the self-motivated teachers were already on the job.  So the additional teachers are motivated by what?

Co -conspirators

That brings us back to the teacher’s unions.  When government’s come under pressure to cut educational expenses, the airwaves are soon flooded with the heart wrenching commercials pleading to restore the funding “for the children’s sake.”  What you don’t hear is the trailer that says, “This commercial paid for by the PTA,” or “This commercial paid for by the Association of Concerned Parents.”  No, what you typically hear is, “This commercial paid for by the X Teacher’s union, Joe Blow, President.”

Who do the unions really represent…really? The students? or the teachers?  They want the funds restored so that their membership is not hurt and their dues are not curtailed.  If their true concern was for the students, why not support school vouchers and charter schools?  They fight the former with a vengeance and the latter, if it is not union organized.

Let’s Not Pick on K-12 Education

Let’s look at other government areas.  Government is the only area where union membership is growing.  How many people relish going to their Department of Motor Vehicles?  How efficient is the Post Office?  Amtrak?  Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have a bonus compensation plan, which is a step in the right direction unless it leads to cooking the books and making extremely risky loans that lead to the near collapse of our economy.  How can we get this under control?

Controlling the Uncontrollable

Our government is trying to install a massive health care program that will cost a trillion dollars.  At the same time, tens of billions of dollars are stolen from Medicare every year and they can’t stop it.  Early this year, the Obama Administration passed a $787 billion stimulus package, spent $18 million to build a website to track it, and put Joe Biden in the role of watch dog.  How is that working out?  A recent report from ABC News, of all places, found that credit for creating jobs was given on the web site to Congressional Districts that do not exist.  A $1,000 grant was purported to have created 50 jobs.  The New York Times investigated and found that the $1,000 went to purchase a lawn mower.  It took from the time of the founding of the Republic until about the mid 1990s to accumulate $6 trillion in debt.  It has doubled since then, and it is projected to go from $12 trillion to $14 trillion by next year!

It cannot be controlled.  It is impossible to control.  The only solution is to cut the federal government down to size.  Take out the Constitution and read what the true function of government are supposed to be.  The military, absolutely;  the Post Office, yes it’s in there; coin money; establish patents and copyrights; establish the courts; control the District of Columbia; regulate interstate commerce; make treaties; give the State of the Union address.  That pretty much sums it up and everything else should be left to the states and local government or the people.

We should jettison all the rest and cut this government down to size and get out of debt.  Department of Labor–gone;  Department of Health and Human Services–gone; Deparment of Housing and Urban Development–gone; Deparment of Transportation–gone; Deparment of Energy–gone; Deparment of Education–gone; Deparment of Veterans Affairs–gone, rolled into the Department of Defense;  Deparment of Homeland Security–gone, rolled into the Department of Defense; Deparment of the Interior–gone; Deparment of Agriculture–gone.

The amount of money saved would be enormous.  Selling all the real estate and buildings would bring in more money.  We could then cut taxes to jump start the economy and run a surplus to cut the debt.  The next step would be to make it illegal for unions to organize government workers without a referendum approved by all the voters.  Side benefits would be less campaign money because there would be less government to influence.  Government would be more accountable to the people because it would be closer to the people, that is, at the state level or local level.  We can do this proactively, or wait until the government is bankrupt and we have to sell off the parts to the Chinese.

Over the past eleven months, have you ever gotten a feeling that you are watching a magician, rather than a president run our country?  As any practitioner of the art of the illusionist will tell you, one of the key things is to keep the audience distracted.  Have them watch the left hand, while the right is slipping the coin into the pocket.  The Obama Administration is about to unleash their greatest trick yet, trying Khalid Sheik Mohammed in civil court in New York for the 9/11 attack on America.  Why?

The Greatest Show On Earth

The trial will become an absolute three ring circus, with all the world watching closely.  The liberal pundits say, “this is our chance to show the world our justice system.  We can demonstrate how civilized we are, and show the Muslim world how fair we are.”  Really?

Remember to the footage in the Muslim world immediately following the collapse of the World Trade Center towers.  They were dancing in the street, laughing and singing, shouting praise to Allah.  What do you think the reaction will be if Khalid Sheik Mohammed, jumps up in court and screams out, “Kill the infidels! This is a fraud meant to disguise these devil’s tricks!”  Do we let him ramble with a global audience?  Do we have the bailiffs wrestle him to the ground?  Do we put him in restraints for the rest of the trial?  Who exactly is going to show the world what?

We Have No Secrets

In a civilian trial there is a process called discovery, where the defense is told everything the prosecution plans on bringing to court, including witnesses, so that the defense has a chance to prepare their rebuttal case.  How much of the CIA’s methods and contacts are we prepared to reveal to the world and to Khalid Sheik Mohammed’s allies?  Or, how much are we not going to use in order to protect that information and at the same time increase the chances that he will be acquitted?

Can Anybody Say O.J.?

Do you remember the O.J. Simpson trial?  A slam-dunk if ever there was one.  There was blood evidence, DNA evidence, means, motive, opportunity, it couldn’t get any easier.  But what happened?  Judge Lance Ito, lost control of his court room in the kleig lights of national television.  One of O.J.’s attorneys or advisors told O.J. to stop taking his arthritis medication  so his hands would swell and then the famous glove trick, abra cadabra, “If the glove doesn’t fit, you must acquit.”  What happened after that trial?  Dancing in the streets of the black community.

The Jury Pool

Are Muslims going to be excluded from the jury pool?  If so, on what grounds and would a judge allow it?  In the O.J. case we had what was called jury nullification, where a jury handed up a verdict not based on the evidence presented, but based on a social determination.  O.J. was a symbol for all black men put on trial and all past injustices.  He was a sports hero to millions and he wasn’t going down, no matter what.  What if a someone with strong beliefs sees disrupting the outcome of the trial as the new jihad?  Don’t use suicide bombers in New York, that’s so Middle East, let’s kill them softly by getting Khalid Sheik Mohammed acquitted or a give them a hung jury.  What better way to humiliate the Great Satan.  It will be like David and Goliath all over again.

The Real Trial

Or is it really the Bush Administration that Obama wants to put on trial?  The Obama administration’s popularity is sinking link a stone.  The stimulus package was a bust.  Cap and Trade is a disaster.  Health care a debacle.  Tea Party’s are breaking out all over.  The Democrats got trounced in Virginia and New Jersey, and even New York’s 23rd is still alive as recounts have dramatically closed the gap. A show trial of the Bush Administration is just what the Obama Adminstration needs to keep the focus off what they are really doing.

This is a tragedy and a travesty and there should be no end to the shame heaped upon this administration if they follow through on this.

There was a time when people came to our shores to find a better life.  To escape persecution and poverty and to build a better life for their children was their goal.  They found Lady Liberty lifting her lamp beside the golden door.

What happened next was that people assimilated.  Their children went to school with other children and learned to read and speak English.  Their names may have sounded different but before long their voices didn’t.  Sure, New Englanders sounded different than those from Mississippi, but they sounded very much like their neighbors.  They became Americans.

I just finished reading Newt Gingrich and William Forstchen’s historical novel, To Try Men’s Souls, which is the story of the George Washington crossing the Delaware on Christmas night, 1776, and attacking Trenton.  Trenton was guarded by Hessian mercenaries, who were some of the most elite soldiers in Europe.  It was a mismatch beyond belief, but in a last ditch effort, their password that night was “Victory or Death,” and with the element of surprise, they prevailed.  In one passage it mentioned American soldiers of Dutch and German extraction shouting to the Hessians to surrender, in German.  They were probably closer to the Hessians in culture and blood than to their fellow Americans from Boston, but they considered themselves Americans and were willing to die for their country.

The Balkanization of America

Today, we are mired in multiculturalism.  I remember the story of an Hispanic man loudly protesting to his local school board regarding bilingual education to which he was opposed.  “You’re teaching my son to be a janitor!” he said, “I want him to learn in English, so that he can get a job with a future!” 

We should not lose track of our roots.  It is right to celebrate where we came from.  One of the great things about New York is the different neighborhoods and parades that teach and celebrate about where we came from, which is good.  But if carried to the point where we no longer assimilate; where we remain pockets of groups with their own identity and politics, we are in grave danger of ceasing to be America.

During World War II, what if people of German heritage refused to fight against Hitler or for that matter felt a greater allegiance to him than to America?  Some did.  They were tried for treason. What if they were protected instead?  What if their differences were looked at with admiration rather than suspicion?

Fort Hood

Commentators in the news are twitsting themselves in knots trying to disassociate Major Nidal Hasan’s slaughter of 13 Americans from his jihadist proclivities, despite evidence of outright hostility toward America and contact with a radical imam.  It is politically incorrect, to speak of his religion.  The Army Chief of Staff raises concern about negatively impacting the military’s record of diversity, if we focus on anything but a lone gunman who snapped.

But what if there is a larger plot?  What if there is an effort on the behalf of some muslims to purposely not assimilate, to infiltrate the military and become a fifth column within?  Multiculturalism makes it far easier for this to occur because if everyone looks different, no one stands out.  On the other hand, if everyone assimilates, those who speak, act, or plot against America become more obvious.  Again, imagine multiculturalism in the United States in 1943.  You might have whole communities that were German to the core, did not like non-Germans among them and quickly spread the alarm when a stranger approached.  How much easier would it have been for Hitler to build a network of sabateurs?

Kill Multiculturalism Before it Kills Us

We must reinvigorate the idea of assimilation.  Speak any language you want at home; dress any way you want; practice your faith as you please, but where government is involved, we should be treated equally. We should speak one common language for all official business.  If not, where do we draw the line?

In Minnesota in 2007 a public univerity coffee cart was banned from playing Christmas Carols, but public money was being used to install foot baths to accomodate Muslims before prayer.  After the terrorist attacks on 9/11 and now another terrorist attack at Fort Hood, we have to be able to tell the good muslims from those out to kill us.  We must have true peace loving muslims, become true Americans.  We have to engender that we are Americans first, like those early Americans of Dutch and German decent, and not have divided loyalties particularly where the “other loyalty” insisits on killing us infidels.

What is racial profiling?  I think most people would agree it is where an individual is observed and because of his or her race, some assumptions are made about their behavior.  Let’s examine the Louis Gates case

Sergeant Crowley

Sergeant Crowley responded to a call of a possible Breaking and Entering.  This was the result of a call to 911 reporting that a passerby and a neighbor saw two men, no race mentioned, attempting to force their way into a house.  Crowley, who is white, and two other officers, one black and one Hispanic, responded to the call.  Crowley began to investigate and Gates responded belligerently and called Crowley a racist.  The altercation moved outside where a crowd began to form.  Crowley warned Gates several times that he was becoming disorderly and even showed his handcuffs to make his point.  The 911 caller said there was only one person shouting and it was Gates. Crowley is a highly regarded officer who trains other officers regarding racial profiling.

Dr. Gates

Dr. Gates is a well respected professor at Harvard University and had just returned from a long trip and found he was locked out of his house.  To be fair, he was probably tired and irritated and having do deal with the issue of being locked out.  He and another individual tried to force their way into the house.  The witnesses, not knowing it was Gates and concerned about other reported burglaries in the neighborhood called 911.  The police arrived, Gates saw that Crowley was white and assumed that Crowley’s being there was racially motivated and proceeded to call him a racist, insult Crowley’s mother, and take the dispute outside the house.  So who exactly profiled whom?

Obama

Barack Obama, who was supposed to be the post-racial president really stepped in it, when he said the Cambridge Police acted “stupidly.”  Perhaps there is a silver lining.  By raising this local issue to national prominence, perhaps we can finally put to rest the battle of racial animosity.  Let’s face it, there will always be prejudice.  We are wired to be prejudiced.  Our survival depends on being able to size someone up quickly as friend or foe and take the appropriate action.  It is a natural instinct.  However, unlike animals, we have the ability to reason and control our instincts.

This self control has been driven into whites for 40 years.  You are guilty.  You are racist.  You must be re-educated.  You’ve got to control yourselves.  Has it worked?  Well in a country that is still predominantly white, we elected a black man president with 53% of the popular vote.  That’s more than Bill Clinton ever got by a long shot.  It’s more than either Bush got and for a Democrat you have to go back to Lyndon Johnson in 1964 to find better poll numbers.

On the other hand, minorities have been told for the same period of time, you can’t be a racist, no matter what you say, because you don’t have power (that’s over, with Obama in the White House).  It’s not your fault, you are a victim of society.  You didn’t get the job because of racism, so let’s throw out the test.  There is so much prejudice in this country you can’t get into college unless we put a box on the form to indicate your race and give you a helping hand.  It’s not your fault, it’s not your fault.  With all that conditioning who could be blamed for throwing the race card whenever there is a bad outcome and the other guy is white?  It’s a conditioned reflex.

Playing the Race Card

I taught a graduate course in telecommunications.  There was a student, who was black, that I really enjoyed having in my class.  He actively participated and really enlivened the discussion.  There was one topic that he didn’t seem to grasp and as a result he did poorly on an exam.  He asked for a makeup exam, which I granted.  My policy was that my makeup exams were notoriously tough.  The reason was that the makeup focused on what you got wrong on the first test, and didn’t include a lot of what you got right.  If you were going to get another bite at the apple, and you had more time to study and you knew where to focus, I felt that was the only way to be fair to the other students.  He did worse on the make-up than on the original test but I took the higher grade of the two.  With his other work in the class, he still got a good grade for the course.  I later saw him on the elevator and he said to me, “I know why you failed me on those tests.  It’s because I’m black.”  Everyone took the same test, whites, blacks, Indians, Asians, immigrants, Hispanics, but I was accused of singling him out and failing him because he was black.  What I found most interesting was that his body language showed he wasn’t really comfortable using the race card.  He said it tentatively, rather than with the outrage some someone truly wronged.  It was if someone had coached him to use it.  Very sad.

A New Chapter

At the conclusion of today’s beer summit at the White House, they should symbolically take out a card that says RACE in bold letters on it and burn it.  This should signal that we are all Americans, and using the race card should be as scorned as racial profiling.  Whites have been learning this lesson for forty years, it’s time for everyone else to get the same education.  We all have our prejudices.  We must not assume that the motive behind every action is racial.  Maybe the reason you didn’t get the job is that you weren’t qualified.  Maybe the reason you didn’t get into the Ivy League school is that very few people do and your grades were not as good.  Maybe the reason you didn’t graduate high school is that you didn’t study.  With Barack Obama as President, it’s time to accept that anything is possible in this great country.  You have to accept responsibility and work hard.  I may not agree with much of what President Obama believes in, but he got to there by working very hard at what worked to get him there.  There is no Affirmative Action checkbox in the voting booth.

Dred Scott Redux

In case you didn’t believe me in my post Stay on the Plantation that liberals think all “good” blacks belong to the group labeled “blacks” and if you don’t conform, watch out.  California Senator Barbara Boxer, blithely walked into a buzz saw named Harry Alford, when he called her on gratuitously trying to put him in a box with the NAACP.  Watch here: Senator Boxer Accused of Race Politics

The Audacity

You see, Harry Alford, CEO of the Black Chamber of Commerce, which represents business interests, has an issue with some legislation before Senator Boxer’s committee.  He had the temerity to oppose what she wanted to do.  So she said she was going to enter into the record a study by the Pew Research group (okay), a resolution by the NAACP (uh-oh), and a statement by John Grant, the CEO of “100 Black Men of Atlanta,” (huh?).  And Harry pounced.  What do these other black groups have to do with what he’s saying?  He was quite incensed that as a black man, the Senator obtained documents from other black organizations who agreed with her, despite the relevance to energy policy.  It was clear, the point was to isolate Harry Alford.  Clearly show that he was off the plantation and that he better get back on the plantation, or trouble was coming.

Dred Scott Redux

Blacks are supposed to belong to the Democratic party.  If a black person should be so audacious as to speak their mind and not in concert with Democratic party orthodoxy, then send out the troops to bring them back.  It doesn’t matter if what they bring to bear on the recalcitrant person is relevant, just pile it on until they are shamed into returning to the fold or fading away into obscurity.

Liberty is under attack in the most vile way.

On this Fourth of July weekend we will have many opportunities to celebrate the genius of the founding fathers who created this country.  There is no other country like ours nor has their been.  It was and is a beacon of hope for people around the world who we welcome, those who come here legally, to help continue to build this great country.  Here is how Emma Lazarus described the new Statue of Liberty.

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame,
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

by Emma Lazarus, New York City, 1883

Liberals vs. Conservatives

The most stark difference, I see, between liberals and conservatives is that conservatives believe in the individual and their right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, while liberals believe in groups.  And God help you if you stray from the Plantation of your group.  Groups, like blacks for instance, have “leaders”.  For years if you wanted to know what blacks thought about an issue you asked Jesse Jackson.  He would tell you what blacks thought and then he would tell blacks what they are supposed to think.  If your skin was black, you belonged in the group called “blacks” and Jesse Jackson was your leader, no independent thought, no dissension, he was it.  He would collect the money from the coffers of the guilt ridden whites, take his fair share, and preside over the distribution of the rest.  In return to access to power he would tell blacks to always vote Democratic. It was a very lucrative career for Jesse Jackson.  For blacks?  Not so much.

If you were so bold as to be a black with an independent mind such as Clarence Thomas, Condoleezza Rice, Larry Elder, Walter Williams, Michael Steele, Janice Rogers Brown, J.C. Watts, and many more, watch out.  You were to be condemned in the vilest language imaginable for your failure to surrender your soul and pledge your fealty to the black leadership.

But this country was built on individual rights, the Pursuit of Happiness, not the guarantee of Happiness.  This country was not founded on the principles of taking from the successful and giving handouts to those who are not, either through misfortune or sloth.  Those suffering from misfortune were cared for by organized religion and charity.  Liberals believe that government should use its enormous power to steal from successful individuals and give to whoever they deem to be needy.  There is no clearer demonstration of this than in who gives to charity.

– Although liberal families’ incomes average 6 percent higher than those of conservative families, conservative-headed households give, on average, 30 percent more to charity than the average liberal-headed household ($1,600 per year vs. $1,227). — RealClearPolitics

Consider for example, “Buck-a-Day” Biden, who gave an average of $1 per day to charity, although being a millionaire, with an annual salary of $174,000 per year.  In a formulation that liberals like to use, Joe Biden earns that much money before his head hits the pillow on New Year’s Day.  But he keeps virtually all of it and from his seat of power tells us how it is patriotic to pay more taxes to fund pork projects for his favored groups.

The Hunt for the Latest Escapee from the Plantation

Lieutenant Ben Vargas is a New Haven Connecticut firefighter.  He had the audacity to pass a test for promotion and fight for the promotion he won when the city of New Haven invalidated the test because no blacks made the cutoff.  You see, Ben Vargas is Hispanic and as such liberals have assigned him to the group that includes all Hispanics.  When not protesting how not every Hispanic is successful, Hispanics are required to fight for other groups if they are not all successful.  Ben Vargas stood up for his rights and was assaulted by a black man in the bathroom of Humphreys East Restaurant and ended up in the hospital.  Having wandered off the plantation, the Hispanic firefighters association publicly refused to back him up.

Lieutenant Vargas, who posted the sixth-highest score on the exam, was ridiculed as a token, a turncoat and an Uncle Tom — all of which, he said, “made my resolve that much stronger.” — NY Times, July 3, 2009

This case has achieved notoriety because of the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court.  This case came before her and was dismissed with little explanation.  The Supreme Court just overturned the decision 5-4.  Now Lieutenant Vargas is set to become Captain Vargas.  Here are his views:

“I consider myself an American — I was born and raised here,” he said in an interview on the porch of his home in the wooded suburb of Wallingford. “I love my people. I love my culture. I love our rice and beans, our salsa music, our language — everything my parents raised us with. But I am so grateful for the opportunity only the United States can give.”

That’s the American Dream.

With all the umbrage by the likes of Barney Frank about reining in executive compensation, a reasonable question to ask is, “What kind of value are we getting for the $174,000 per year that we pay each and every Congressman and Senator?”  If these people worked for me in private industry, I would fire them in a heart beat.  Lest it be thought that I am just raging at my television set over the nightly news, let me relate a more personal experience.

Writing your Congressman

I wrote to my congressman expressing my opposition to the Freedom of Choice Act, the purpose of which is to codify Roe v. Wade.  I received a letter back from my Congressman with these dubious points:

1. “As a practicing Catholic, a husband, and a father…I strongly believe that women in America must have the legal right to choose an abortion.”
2. “Legislating the outcome of this decision would be an undue intrusion on the rights of women, as well as the confidential relationship between doctor and patient.”
3. “Outlawing the operation will not end the practice of abortion in America, but rather force it underground and expose women to unacceptable health risks.”
4. “I share your concerns about late-term abortions, and have said that I would support a ban on late-term abortions if it includes an exception that encompasses the life and health {emphasis added} of the mother.”

Responding to the Congressman

Although writing to your Congressman is supposed to be the way to express your views other than biennially at the voting booth, I have always been skeptical about the practice.  My view is that if the Congressman is of the same political philosophy they might give your letter some weight and try to gain your support ($).  If on the other hand your philosophies diverge, they will likely find a bland polite response from their database of responses, just to make you feel like they care what you have to say.

I felt compelled to respond to the Congressman because his logic seemed both contradictory and flawed.  Here is my response:

Dear Congressman,

Thank you for your response to my communication to you regarding the Freedom of Choice Act.  While I understand your positions, I feel compelled to challenge your reasoning.

You state:

“I strongly believe that women in America must have the legal right to choose an abortion, with the advice of their doctors and trusted confidantes.  Legislating the outcome of this decision would be an undue intrusion on the rights of women.

The fundamental argument that makes this a controversial issue is when does life begin?  Are there just the mother and a clump of cells involved, or are there two human beings involved?

Let’s examine your position from the context of the first point.  If it is just a woman and a clump of unwanted cells, you say government should not intrude.  However many people who share your beliefs feel that it is perfectly alright to intrude all the time, where the consequences are even less grave.  An individual wants to ride their bicycle and feel the wind through their hair but the government steps in and says no, you can’t do that, you must wear a helmet.  Why?  Who is affected other than the bicycle rider?  No one. Yet government can step in and say no.  An individual wants to drive their car without wearing a seat belt, and the government steps in and says no, you can’t do that.  Who is affected other than the unbelted person?  No one.  Yet the government can step in and say no.

Now in the case of abortion, while I can understand the arguments on both sides, and the real reasons behind them, cases of botched abortions where the child lived are proof enough that this involves more than a single individual, but you say government shouldn’t intrude to protect a human life.  Government can dictate to an individual how they can live their own life, but it is out of bounds to protect the lives of the innocent?

You state:

“Outlawing the operation will not end the practice of abortion in America, but rather force it underground and expose women to unacceptable health risks.”

Can’t the same be said of outlawing murder?  Outlawing murder hasn’t ended it.  So should we legalize murder?  Perhaps we can set up murder centers so it can be done cleanly and painlessly.  We should really fight to stop back alley murders.

You say:

“Public laws should not attempt to overrule a doctor’s professional judgment on crucial medical decisions regarding a patient’s health.”

Can I count you among those opposed to President Obama’s health initiative?  After all it includes the creation of a national board that will review medical practices and procedures and, let’s not kid ourselves, dictate what health care can be administered and what cannot.  You’re overweight?  No hip replacement for you.  You’re over 80?  Well we’ll have to let you go blind in at least one eye before we pay for the surgery to correct your vision.  You’re a smoker?  Well you’ll have to quit before we can even consider treating you.

It pains me when I hear people say, “As a practicing Catholic,” and then go on to defend their position on abortion.  That formulation provided a unique twist when Mario Cuomo first foisted it on the American people, as a neat way for Catholics to look the other way on abortion and still be faithful.  With all due respect Congressman, as a practicing Catholic, you need more practice.

Would you stand in front of the NAACP debating the Dred Scott case, with the argument, “Well, I have to support the Supreme Court’s decision on Dred Scott, for while I am personally opposed to slavery, I believe legislation opposing slavery would be an undue intrusion on the rights of slaveholders.  After all, they paid good money for these slaves.  We just can’t take them away.”  Would you?  To the slaveholder, it was property, not a person.  To the abolitionist, they were human beings who couldn’t be owned by another.  Today, those who are pro-abortion are the same as the pro-slavery people of the nineteenth century.  Those who are pro-life are the abolitionists of the current era.

Slavery was wrong then and a ugly blemish on our history.  People will look back on us and see the same ugly stain of 40,000,000 aborted babies and ask, “Have they learned nothing?”

Sincerely yours,

The Congressman Responds

I really didn’t expect a response to my rebuttal.  I didn’t think the Congressman would want to wade into the arena and battle it out.  When I saw the letter in the batch of mail, I set it aside.  I wasn’t quite ready for the ire of another cafeteria Catholic telling me I had no right to challenge his faith.  However, when I opened the letter I was surprised.  It was the exact same copy of the original letter that I received! The only thing changed was the date.

“How should we reply Congressman?”

“Let’s see, he sounds conservative, let’s send him letter No. 37″

“Okay, done!”

If the Congressman was employed by me and pulling down $174,000 and he tried to submit the same workproduct twice, he would get an escort to his car after a brief stop to clean out his desk.

The Truth Revealed

The most telling point I missed the first time around.  The Congressman when writing about late term abortions states, “…if it includes an exception that encompasses the life and health of the mother.”  Children have mothers.  Clumps of cells don’t have mothers.  If a woman goes into the hospital to have her appendix removed, do we call her a mother, if she has no children? So if the good Congressman is talking about a mother, what is being aborted is her child.  Killing a child is murder.

Let us not forget that President Obama, the great conciliator and healer, fought against a law while in the Illinois Senate, that would require that a child that survives an abortion be given medical care.  Instead, State Senator Obama supported leaving the newborn infant to die, since that was the intent of the mother.  It’s pretty gruesome and heartless in Obama’s America.

Republicans: Don't Fall Into This Trap

Republicans lose elections when they act counter to what people expect of them.  When President Clinton was undergoing impeachment, too many Republicans focused on what happened in the Oval office, leading Democrats to tut tut, “Republicans are just a bunch of prudes.”  In France, where taking a mistress and siring a brood is a way of life, were baffled at the commotion over here.  The argument should have focused on women’s rights and how Clinton, by his lying, was denying Paula Jones her day in court on a legitimate claim of sexual harassment.  If that was the gravamen of the discussion, the Republicans would have one on either the impeachment claim or by discrediting the left wing of the women’s movement by starkly painting them as choosing abortion as the sine qua non of their existence, rather than supporting the rights of a solitary woman against a powerful man.  Alas, the Democrats successfully dragged the fight into the mud, smearing everyone in the process.  When it was all done, you couldn’t tell a muddy Clinton, from a spattered Ken Starr, from a slime covered Republican Congressman.

Take the High Road

Today there was a news release from the Republican National Committee trying to make hay out of President Obama taking his wife to a Broadway play on the eve of GM filing bankruptcy, the state of the economy, etc., etc.  PLEASE!  Let the man take his wife to a play.  Barack Obama will have the Secret Service following him for the rest of his life.  It costs money to protect him.  What do we expect our President to do, stay home and bowl for the rest of his term?  The man still has very high approval ratings.  Trying to make these kinds of points is counterproductive and will probably raise his numbers and the Republicans negative numbers at the same time.  Instead of asking why he was doing that, ask him how he liked the play.

With the confirmation hearings approaching for Judge Sonia Sotomayor, the Republicans have to be on guard for the same things.  Get off the “she’s a racist” bandwagon.  You’re playing right into the Democrats hands.  They are the party of class warfare and nothing would please them more than ad hominem attacks on a Puerto Rican woman.

Treat it just like any job interview.  Is she qualified to do the job? Don’t bring up any questions about race, sex, age, disabilities, or anything else you couldn’t ask on a job interview.  Instead of saying she is a racist for saying a Latina woman would arrive at better decisions than a white man, ask her to explain her thinking behind the statement and then follow it up with a line of questions about judicial activism.  On the Ricci case, ask her what would be the remedy that would pass muster in her court.  How many blacks would have to pass the test to allow the promotions to go through?  How many Hispanics? How many Asians?  Ask her if a white male wanted to sue the National Basketball Association because whites are disproportionally represented in the NBA, what would she rule?

Set the Table

Judge Sotomayor probably has the votes to make it to the Supreme Court.  At the same time most Americans are opposed to judicial activism.  If the Republicans stay on message and take this as an opportunity to point to another instance of this Administration taking away more and more of our liberties, they can head to the production studios and start making the commercials for 2010.  If they accept the left’s invitation to step into the mud pit, then when it is all over all anyone will see is the mud dripping from every participant.  Just say no.  No ad hominem attacks.  No inflated claims on small points.  Just a steady, consistent focus on whether on not Judge Sotomayor is an activist judge.  Here is the speech that we should hear from any Republican senator when the nomination comes up for a vote:

“Judge Sotomayor has a great American story.  It is a story that all Americans should admire.  She seems like a truly warm and caring individual, which are qualities than anyone should embrace.  However, in her judical philosophy she doesn’t seem to be able to separate her personal feelings from the law.  Her passion would make her a wonderful legislator, but a judge does not make the rules.  Like an umpire in a baseball game, the judge calls balls and strikes, safe and out.  The umpire doesn’t directly influence the outcome for one team or the other, neither the underdog nor the favorite.  Justice should be blind.  Judge Sotomayor doesn’t believe that.  Therefore, regretfully, I will be voting against her.”