Both John Podhoretz and Dennis Prager recently offered variations on the same theme, namely that conservatives – and I’ll include libertarians – know liberal perspectives, but liberals are unaware of conservative ideas and arguments.
I commend both articles to anybody who cares about ideas. Our society is not well served by monolithic thinking on any side. Moreover, while everyone is certainly entitled to their own views, I submit that not understanding – or at least knowing - the opposing view is at minimum intellectually crippling and, at most, dangerous.
John Podhoretz’s commentary – pardon the pun – may be viewed here. Dennis Prager’s piece may be viewed here.
Things change. And they did so dramatically last week, when we lost Andrew Breitbart.
I met Andrew only twice. Before I attended law school, I enjoyed a moderately successful career as an actor and writer in Los Angeles. Andrew and I hung out in, shall we say, the same circle of friends.
The first time Andrew and I met was no more than an introduction. The second time was a reintroduction . . . and, at minimum, a two-hour conversation. More accurately, Andrew engaged in a stream of consciousness on myriad topics and I threw in my two cents when I could. What I remember most is how nice he was. To everybody. Even to those with whom he disagreed. As long as they were reasonable. I also remember his passion for ideas. And his irrepressible and contagious enthusiasm and energy. But I only met him a couple of times.
And here’s the funny thing: his death hit me like a ton of bricks. It’s bizarre. A guy I met twice (and spoke with once) died a week ago and it really shook me up, and I’m still processing it a week later. Bizarre. But, judging by the tributes, remembrances, and tweets honoring Andrew, I’m not alone. But how can this be? Why do so many people who met Andrew once or twice – or never – feel his loss so greatly? I think I have an answer.
Andrew was absolutely authentic.
To meet Andrew once, to have one brief conversation with him (although I don’t imagine Andrew engaged in brief conversations), was to know him. Not as deeply as his life-long friends knew him. Not as deeply as those who worked with him knew him. Certainly not as intimately as his family knew him. But to meet Andrew was to know him.
He was who he was. All the time. Regardless of who he was with. He also had the ability to empower people to stand up for their beliefs, to stop cowering in the face of leftist blacklists and the omnipresent threat of leftist ire. More than his words, his actions inspired. He was already doing what he encouraged others to do.
I saw that there comes a point, in the defeat of any man of virtue, when his own consent is needed for evil to win—and that no manner of injury done to him by others can succeed if he chooses to withhold his consent. I saw that I could put an end to your outrages by pronouncing a single word in my mind. I pronounced it. The word was “No.”
Andrew understood that America’s culture is one of ideas, and that ideas that support reason, individualism, and liberty are our weapons in the current culture clash. Andrew also recognized that Hollywood, academia, and the news media were taken over and run by leftists and leftist sympathizers, that the news media wasn’t reporting news, but shaping it. Andrew had the chutzpah to shout that the emperors of Hollywood, academia, and news media had no clothes.
Andrew stood up and, in his colorful way, said “No.”
He withdrew his moral sanction and called leftists what they are: hypocritical, unthinking, elitist know-nothings bent on replacing liberty with their brand of tyranny. He held a mirror up to the left and revealed its impotence. He questioned their false narrative. The below video is just one example:
But Andrew’s magic was his ability to make anyone with a passion for liberty-supporting ideas feel like they could hold up that mirror too, feel like they could fight back in the name of something better: freedom.
I hear people say that Andrew is irreplaceable. In one respect he is: we will never see the likes of him again. Only Andrew Breitbart could be Andrew Breitbart.
However, regarding the movement he led, I don’t subscribe to the idea that he was irreplaceable. Instead, I agree with the “Obi-Wan Kenobi” meme that’s going around – that the people he inspired will take Andrew’s place and stand up for liberty; will call out leftist hypocrisy and leftist bullying whenever and wherever they can; and that this will have a greater affect on the country than Andrew could ever achieve on his own. Like the fictional Obi-Wan (no offense Star Wars fans), Andrew’s death may make for a more effective and powerful pro-liberty movement.
At CPAC, a few weeks before his death, Andrew passionately pointed out the stark choice before us: America or Occupy. We will choose reason and individualism. We will choose liberty. We will choose America.
One of the big things we hopefully learned from the late great Andrew Breitbart is the power of the narrative. The left and their PR firm, the Democrat Media Complex (as Andrew would called it), always try to control the narrative. The pathetic shame is that those of us on the right always seem to take the bait. It is as if we are perpetually Charlie Brown and the MSM/Democrats are Lucy Van Pelt, yanking the football away again and again. And we never learn.
Here’s how it plays out: Democrats invent an issue that really isn’t one like, say . . . Republicans wanting to restrict birth control (Note: Republicans like myself are very much in favor of Democrats restricting their births). They find one weird example that doesn’t represent 99.999% of the population like, say . . . a woman who spends more on birth control than many will spend on a car payment, and they will use that to justify a law that will affect the rest of us 99.999%. So, many of us point out the absurdity of the example and some like Rush Limbaugh go too far and call her a “slut.” Now, we are forced to fight the issue on the defensive entirely on their court and using their terms of engagement.
The other recent example of this involved Warren Buffet’s secretary who apparently pays a higher marginal rate than her boss, one of the richest people on the planet. The next thing we know, the President proposes the Buffet Rule where, in case of ties, duplicate prizes are awarded.
I am sorry I didn’t pay enough attention to Obama’s explanation because I zone out the moment he says, “Let me make this perfectly clear.” Usually what follows is something that is so confusing and opaque that I wonder if Obama thinks that “Let me make this perfectly clear” is a magic phrase, like “hocus pocus,” that makes things clear. But I digress . . .
Anyway, the Buffet Rule would soak the rich, a recurring theme by the President. Even if Buffet’s secretary pays a higher rate than Buffet, which is doubtful unless his secretary makes half a million a year, it is only because Buffet’s income is from capital gains and dividends. Capital gains tax rates are lower because we want to encourage investment and because capital gains taxes are a second taxation of the same money. For example, say you earn $1000 and pay $300 in taxes on that leaving you $700. You invest that $700 and it gains back the $300 when you sell it. That gain is from money that you were already taxed on and put at risk. You could have lost the entire $700 too. In that case, you are out of luck, unless your name is General Motors, a solar company or any other wealthy contributor to the President.
Bill Clinton lowered capital gains tax rates to encourage investment. Obama on the other hand, wants to raise the capital gains rate even though it would result in less revenue for the treasury. He is primarily concerned about “fairness,” you see. The secretary story came up four years ago in a debate with Hillary Clinton.
This is their playbook. They change the narrative from the appropriate amount of taxation to a debate on “fairness;” from whether taxpayers should pay for a 3o-year-old woman’s birth control to Rush Limbaugh said “slut.” They keep going back to it again and again and we keep getting derailed off our message and find ourselves defending ourselves from their attacks. The issue isn’t what language Rush should have used. The issue is whether the government has any business getting involved and subsidizing this area of it’s citizen’s lives. Rush shouldn’t have called Sandra Fluke a slut. I would have called her another f word: fluke. She is a fluke and should be treated as such.
Andrew passed away unexpectedly from natural causes shortly after midnight this morning in Los Angeles.
We have lost a husband, a father, a son, a brother, a dear friend, a patriot and a happy warrior.
Andrew lived boldly, so that we more timid souls would dare to live freely and fully, and fight for the fragile liberty he showed us how to love.
Andrew recently wrote a new conclusion to his book, Righteous Indignation:
I love my job. I love fighting for what I believe in. I love having fun while doing it. I love reporting stories that the Complex refuses to report. I love fighting back, I love finding allies, and—famously—I enjoy making enemies.
Three years ago, I was mostly a behind-the-scenes guy who linked to stuff on a very popular website. I always wondered what it would be like to enter the public realm to fight for what I believe in. I’ve lost friends, perhaps dozens. But I’ve gained hundreds, thousands—who knows?—of allies. At the end of the day, I can look at myself in the mirror, and I sleep very well at night.
Andrew is at rest, yet the happy warrior lives on, in each of us.
Breitbart was an incredibly dynamic and joyful person who fought the good fight for truth and had a great time doing it. He was also good, kind, decent, and genuinely sweet . . . unless you were a hypocritical douchebag – then he hated you.
As Iowahawk tweeted, Andrew was “A generous, kind, patriotic goofball who had excellent taste in the people he chose to drive insane.”
Let’s pray for his wife and four kids, let’s mourn his loss, and then . . . let’s rise up in his place and joyfully continue his fight.
February is Black History Month. Toward that end, I’d like to share Rep. Allen West’s speech on the floor of the House, in which he refreshingly presents . . . history. I’m also posting a speech excerpt from the great Frederick Douglass.
Rep. West covers a lot of ground, discussing many victories on the road from slavery to freedom, the heroes that led, and the political party to which they belonged.
He also incidentally mentions a tremendously successful school voucher program – put into place by Pres. George W. Bush – that freed a number of Washington D.C. children from failing schools. Rep. West neglects to mention that Pres. Obama is determined to end this successful voucher program.
Rep. West’s theme is that, “The Republican Party has always been the party of freedom . . . . [t]he Republican Party is, always has been, and forever shall be, the party of equality of opportunity.” He makes this point with historic example after historic example.
Any commemoration or acknowledgement of Black History Month is incomplete without reference to that great man, that great American, that great advocate of freedom and justice: Frederick Douglass.
In 1865, Frederick Douglass addressed the Annual Meeting of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society in Boston. The meeting took place around the time of Lincoln’s assassination and the end of the Civil War. In his speech entitled, “What the Black Man Wants,” Frederick Douglass spoke about the equality of all under the law. Among other things, he said:
What I ask for the Negro is not benevolence, not pity, not sympathy, but simply justice. The American people have always been anxious to know what they shall do with us. Gen. Banks was distressed with solicitude as to what he should do with the Negro. Everybody has asked the question, and they learned to ask it early of the abolitionists, “What shall we do with the Negro?” I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us. Do nothing with us! If the apples will not remain on the tree of their own strength, if they are wormeaten at the core, if they are early ripe and disposed to fall, let them fall! I am not for tying or fastening them on the tree in any way, except by nature’s plan, and if they will not stay there, let them fall. And if the Negro cannot stand on his own legs, let him fall also. All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone! If you see him on his way to school, let him alone, don’t disturb him! If you see him going to the dinner table at a hotel, let him go! If you see him going to the ballot- box, let him alone, don’t disturb him! If you see him going into a work-shop, just let him alone – your interference is doing him a positive injury. Gen. Banks’ “preparation” is of a piece with this attempt to prop up the Negro. Let him fall if he cannot stand alone! If the Negro cannot live by the line of eternal justice, so beautifully pictured to you in the illustration used by Mr. Phillips, the fault will not be yours, it will be his who made the Negro, and established that line for his government. Let him live or die by that. If you will only untie his hands, and give him a chance, I think he will live. He will work as readily for himself as the white man.
The Obama administration’s recent foray into ObamaCare rule-making and its implications for the First Amendment’s free exercise clause are well-reported and appropriately criticized by people who respect religious freedom and our Constitution, which protects it. For examples, see here, here, and here.
In a nutshell, the president’s administration required religious institutions to violate their theological doctrines when it mandated every employer – including churches and church affiliated employers – pay for contraception, sterilization, and abortifacients (e.g.: “morning after” pills). In the face of resistance to the rule, President Obama backed off . . . if by “backed off” one means not requiring adherents to the so-called culture of life to pay directly for contraception, sterilization, and abortifacients, but indirectly through inevitably higher insurance premiums which will necessarily follow the mandated “free” services.
The Obama Administration’s position, however, is not unique to the president, but permeates the political Left. This recent kerfuffle is merely a symptom of the Left’s raison d’etre: nihilism. It also demonstrates that the upcoming election’s importance goes beyond merely defeating President Obama, but requires defeating the political Left.
Leftism neither builds nor creates anything of value; it seeks only to destroy what others build or create. For example, recall the Left’s war on the Boy Scouts of America over the issue of openly homosexual scouts and scout leaders. There, the issue wasn’t whether gays could participate in the Boy Scouts (they could), but whether openly gay scouts and leaders may participate. Regardless of one’s views on that issue, the Left expressed no interest and took no action in developing its own version of the Boy Scouts. The Left only sought to change (or, in its own parlance, “improve”) the Scouts, by throwing out the century-old Boy Scout oath. As Dennis Prager put it at the time:
The left-wing position is that if the Boy Scouts do not change a policy that has been in place since the inception of the organization, they do not deserve to exist . . . . There is no left-wing Boy Scouts. The left knows best how to crush the non-left Boy Scouts, but it has never made a boys organization of its own.
Even as amended, the HHS rule imposes on institutions the same destruction that the Left sought against the Boy Scouts. Catholic institutions, for one affected example, include universities and hospitals. Apparently, such organizations do not include contraception, sterilization, or abortifacients in the health insurance provided its employees because such things violate Catholic Church doctrine. Leftism’s adherent in the White House doesn’t merely disagree with the Church’s doctrine, his programs suggest that he wishes to end such doctrine. Where the Left previously tried to destroy the Boy Scouts because it disagreed with certain tenets of the Boy Scouts’ policy, it now wishes to destroy religious institutions because it disagrees with certain tenets of various religious doctrine.
So-called reproductive rights are protected by the Constitution (see Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) and its progeny). Rights, however, do not come at others’ expense. While Catholic and other religious institutions that do not subscribe to the use of contraception, sterilization, and abortion may not prevent others from availing themselves of such goods and services, they are also not required to provide them. Nor should they be. However, the controversial HHS rule imposes such a requirement. The Obama Administration is essentially saying, “Hey, Catholic Church, thanks for building all those hospitals, charitable organizations, and educational institutions that contribute to our society. Now we will tell you how to run them.”
The Left creates nothing of value, but it desires to dictate to the individuals who create everything of value. Whether imposing its abortion views on religious organizations, or imposing a regulatory stranglehold on business, the Left knows how to destroy everything . . . once others create it.
There’s a name for something that invades, lives off of, and kills something of value: Parasite.
NOTE: Wake Up Winston! proudly reports that this post was also published at Western Free Press.
I had an epiphany tonight. I was pondering the question as to why Obama seemingly sought to tick off Catholic voters. I was puzzled because it seemed to be a form of political suicide that lacked any political benefit; Obama didn’t need to offend Catholics to secure the support of pro-abortion voters.
I had incorrectly assumed that Obama was a political animal like Bill Clinton and would take actions that would assure his reelection. For example, Dick Morris convinced Clinton to sign welfare reform to ensure his re-election. Why did Obama do the opposite here? Why not push the decision back until after the election?
The answer is simple: Obama is not a political animal like Bill Clinton. In many ways, Obama is much more honorable and much more dangerous. He is a true believer, an ideologue, which begs a bigger question: why are leftists so militantly pro-abortion?
In my epiphany, an answer. In my opinion, leftists are more pro-abortion than pro-choice because they don’t seem to like it when people choose life.
Incidentally, this may be the only area – excepting narcotics – in which leftists want more freedom. Leftists dislike freedom of speech, which they stifle with political correctness and speech codes on campuses. They dislike economic freedom, which is known to most as Capitalism. Capitalism is where individuals spend their money where they wish. People have the freedom to enter into trade where both sides benefit. Leftists also don’t want freedom in employment, health care, smoking, gun ownership, or property rights.
But they desperately want “freedom” of unfettered access to – and even government sponsorship of – abortion.
Now, one could argue that the abortion/birth control mandate at the heart of the the recent controversy is the natural consequence to the government running healthcare; if they run it, they can dictate what’s in it. But why are abortion and sterilization even in the bill? One could argue that birth control affects health care, but abortion? Since when is disposing of potential human life a form of health care? It’s not.
In my view, leftists don’t like babies. I’m sure leftists like their own babies and I’m also sure that they will send their children to their left wing seminaries (i.e.: college), but they don’t like babies in general. Or, they don’t like people having many babies.
The reason? Leftists don’t like babies because babies force people to think realistically about the future and not merely about the present.
I remember holding my daughter for the first time thinking, “holy crap, I really have to be a grownup now.” I had to start thinking about the future. Upon having children, particularly multiple children, people tend to focus realistically on the future and this often moves them, politically, to the right.
Leftist and their ideas only exist in the present. If you project leftists ideas just a bit forward they collapse like a house of cards. As Whitney Houston sings, “I believe the children are our future.” The left wants to live in the present where their paradise can exist without the consequences of reality.
I was going to write about the fickleness of conservatives. Fickleness seemed an apt description. In this primary season, conservatives swooned first over Michelle Bachmann. Then Herman Cain. Rick Perry was king of the prom for a dance or two. Then Newt Gingrich wooed conservative hearts . . . until he attacked free enterprise, which wasn’t too smart because conservatives like free enterprise. Rick Santorum, of course, turned heads in Iowa. Now, like the hot-headed boyfriend conservatives know they should avoid – but just can’t, damnit! – Newt’s triumphant debate performance in Charleston convinced conservatives to give him one more chance; he’s changed, ya see . . . at least until he loses control of himself again.
Fickleness.
Only, it isn’t fickleness. Not really. I think it’s an aversion to the guy that, deep down, conservatives should know is right for them: Mitt Romney. Yes, you read that right. If the Republican primary were a romantic comedy, Mitt would be the guy we all know the girl should be with, but she just doesn’t see it. He’s Duckie in “Pretty In Pink.” So right for conservatives, if only they would open their eyes.
Interestingly, Romneycare aside, the arguments against Mitt’s candidacy are largely based on things he said while campaigning. To put the prospect of a potential Mitt nomination in perspective, it’s instructive to examine what Mitt actually did while in positions of authority and control, including signing Romneycare into law, and not on what he said during a campaign.
In 1990, after he left Bain Capital and it subsequently sank into debt, the company asked Mitt to return and to save the company. He did both.
When the 2002 Olympic Games were rocked with financial failure and scandal, Mitt was asked to take over. He did. The Salt Lake City Olympics slated for 2002 were an absolute disaster. In 1999, the Games were approximately $379 million dollars in debt and top officials were embroiled in allegations of bribery. Mitt’s leadership turned that disaster into an opportunity that resulted in a $100 million dollar profit. As a side note, Mitt donated his three years of salary – approximately $825,000, to the Olympics and contributed an additional $1 million of his own wealth. In the words of Rocky Anderson, a Democrat and the mayor of Salt Lake City at the time:
He was absolutely spectacular . . . . He walked into an utter disaster, and slashed spending without cutting corners on what was necessary to put on an absolutely extraordinary Olympics . . . . With his unique management skills we came out in the black – which no one ever dreamed.”
(Emphasis added). After turning a sure failure into a remarkable success in Salt Lake City, Mitt was elected Governor of Massachusetts.
Mitt’s achievements in his first two years as governor were, in Terry Eastland’s words, “conservative in both ends and means.” Prior to taking office, Mitt knew his state was in a dire situation. Massachusetts reportedly had a deficit of at least $500 million. In fact, things were worse than reported. When Mitt was sworn in as Massachusetts’ 70th Governor in January 2003, he discovered that his state’s deficit was actually $650 million and the projected shortfall for the following year was $3 billion. Like he did with the Olympics, Mitt led Massachusetts away from the brink of fiscal catastrophe. He balanced his first budget in 2003 and ended his second year in office, 2004, with a $700 million surplus. And he did so without taxing or borrowing – he cut spending. Quite an achievement considering that both houses of his legislature were controlled by Democratic super-majorities.
I’ve determined that [the 'morning after pill'] not only involves contraceptive features, but also involves []termination of life after conception has occurred . . . . You could have a pharmaceutical product that prevents [t]he conception of an embryo – the sperm and the egg combining, but does not prevent the continued life of an embryo after conception has occurred.”
Mitt believes that life begins at conception and vetoed a bill that ended life post-conception. Accordingly, he is both personally and politically pro-life.
Which brings us to Romneycare . . . I’m not a fan of Romneycare – in fact, I would personally like to see government get out of the health care business (and all business) entirely. But I’m not running for president and this post isn’t about me – it’s about Mitt. I do not defend Romneycare, but I do defend the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. And so does Mitt. The 10th Amendment reads:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
(Emphasis added). Without going into the veritable thrill ride that is a blogged account of American Constitutional jurisprudence, I’ll just say that, under its police power, a state may do things that the federal government may not. Seemingly, this includes a state-run health care system.
In June, the Supreme Court will hopefully affirm that the 10th amendment and the commerce clause prevent such a mandated system on the federal level and invalidate Obamacare. If the Supreme Court upholds the law, however, Mitt has clearly and consistently stated that, if elected, he will repeal Obamacare. He’s made this pledge throughout the campaign. I don’t claim that this makes him unique as it is the position of every GOP candidate. However, Mitt is unique in advocating a plan – waivers for all 50 states – in the event that he is elected either without a GOP Congress or with one that does not include a filibuster-proof Senate.
Mitt’s emphatic support of federalism in general – and with regard to health care in particular - is not new. In the following video of a 1994 debate, Mitt educates the late Senator Ted Kennedy on both federalism and the free market.
If SCOTUS fails to invalidate Obamacare, each GOP candidate has every reason to honor their promise to repeal it, if possible. The last GOP candidate to renege on a strongly-made campaign promise – George H.W. “Read My Lips” Bush – suffered dire political consequences.
Our nation sits in the doldrums of a government intervention-created economic crises. Our national debt is approximately $15.3 trillion. Too many Americans are out of work in this barely growing economy. Our current president’s ineffectual, rudderless leadership on the world stage projects a dangerous, tyrant-provoking weakness.
As I previously wrote, Mitt has enjoyed great success as a businessman and investor in the private sector and he has experience as a successful executive in the public sector. He is therefore a successful businessman who understands both the needs of the free market and the constraints of political office. He governed dark-blue Massachusetts as a “conservative in both ends and means.” And he is pro-life. In his foreign policy he advocates the projection of American strength and values to “ensure[] the security and prosperity of the United States and our friends and allies.”
There are some who call Mitt a “Massachusetts moderate”; who think him ideologically squishy; who advocate for “anybody but,” and for the “non-Romney.” However, as set out above, Mitt is a conservative with expertise in creating success out of sure failure. He’s done so at Bain Capital, at the 2002 Olympics, and in Massachusetts. The “non-Romney” that conservatives seek has been right there all along. The best non-Romney is actually Mitt Romney.
Every candidate for the Republican nomination would, in my opinion, be a better president than the oval office’s current occupant. But only one candidate has the experience and the record of success that qualifies him not just for the office, but for the particular challenges we face now and in the near future.
That candidate is Mitt Romney.
NOTE: I’m proud to report that this post was also published at Western Free Press.
Ezra Levant hosts “The Source” on Canada’s Sun News. In the below videos, this Canadian accurately explains how President Obama’s recent decision to prevent the Keystone Pipeline illustrates – among other things – the president’s siding with special interests over American interests, broken campaign promises to the American people, and the continued standing up for our enemies while standing against our friends.
President Obama’s decision to prevent the creation of over 100,000 American jobs and and to impede lower energy prices should be – and will be – a major election issue. While it’s shameful that American mainstream media fails to provide clarity on this important issue, I’m grateful to Ezra Levant for his efforts. In the following video, Levant explains it all to us.
In this second video, Levant interviews David Wilkins, former US ambassador to Canada, about the political motivations behind President Obama’s terrible decision.
Rev. King spoke and wrote many memorable words. To commemorate this holiday on which we honor Rev. King, I offer you a few of his sentiments.
In 1967, Rev. King spoke to the 11th annual Southern Christian Leadership Conference convention and delivered his “Where Do We Go From Here?” speech, in which he said:
When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds of despair, and when our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe, working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.”
And, of course, below is video of Dr. King’s “I Have A Dream” speech.
Where President Lincoln said, “I don’t know who my grandfather was; I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be,” Rev. King dreamed that his “four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
We are not our groups, we are not our skin color, and we are not our ethnicity. We are individuals, created in God’s image. And we should see each other – and judge each other and ourselves – as such.
Both John Podhoretz and Dennis Prager recently offered variations on the same theme, namely that conservatives – and I’ll include libertarians – know liberal perspectives, but liberals are unaware of conservative ideas and arguments.
