Naomi Schaefer Riley, a Wall Street Journal writer, penned an insightful column in yesterday's edition entitled "Obama, His Pastor and The Democrats' Religion Problem."
After reading her article, I wonder if Obama and his fellow Democrats will ever truly realize what mistake he has made this past week and twenty years.
Of Obama's choice of a church, Mr. Riley writes,
"For starters: If you join a church, it should have something to do with your faith. The consensus now seems to be that Sen. Obama doesn't really believe all of the hateful and crazy things that Pastor Wright has been saying over the years. As Mr. Obama recounts in his memoir, he went to meet Pastor Wright because he was advised that it would "help your [community organizing] if you had a church home. . . . It doesn't matter where really." So he became a member of the largest black church in the neighborhood, thereby furthering his activism and eventually getting the votes of Trinity's 8,000 congregants. Which is fine, but such an attachment is more utilitarian than religious, and sooner or later its true character will show. We have only to remember how ridiculous it seemed when Howard Dean, in 2004, admitted to leaving the Episcopal Church because his Vermont parish refused to allow a bike path on its grounds. Religious people tend to join or leave churches because of things like theology, prayer and sermons."
If that isn't sufficiently damning, how about this later passage in Ms. Riley's editorial,
"Much has been said, in an effort to excuse the toxic content of Pastor Wright's sermons, about the ways in which his speeches are part of the "black tradition." But most black churches are Baptist, Methodist or independent. They have religious doctrines with a long history. Trinity, on the other hand, belongs to the United Church of Christ, a mostly white denomination defined almost entirely by its social-justice agenda.
This is how the Rev. John H. Thomas, the UCC's (white) general minister and president, recently defended Pastor Wright: "Many of us would prefer to avoid the stark and startling language Pastor Wright used in these clips. But what was his real crime? He is condemned for using a mild 'obscenity' in reference to the United States. This week we mark the fifth anniversary of the war in Iraq, a war conceived in deception and prosecuted in foolish arrogance. Nearly 4,000 cherished Americans have been killed, countless more wounded, and tens of thousands of Iraqis slaughtered. Where is the real obscenity here?" It's easy to see Mr. Obama's attraction to the UCC, and it doesn't have much to do with faith."
So we see that, for Obama, choice of church and 'religion' is probably not really at all similar to those choices for truly devout worshippers with a solely religious bent. He admits he chose his church for its size and political position, not really because he had a deep need for a religious experience and a home of kindred religious spirits.
At the end of her column, Ms. Riley writes,
"When Sen. Obama does get into the religious thicket, it doesn't turn out well. Here is his recent defense of his position against gay marriage but in favor of civil unions: "If people find that controversial, then I would just refer them to the Sermon on the Mount, which I think is, in my mind, for my faith, more central than an obscure passage in Romans." As a reporter for the Baptist Press noted: "Obama's quote may open him up to further criticism from evangelicals, because it's a common evangelical belief that all of Scripture is inspired by God and equally authoritative."
As it turns out, Sen. Obama wasn't doing all that well among religious voters even before the recent controversy. Mrs. Clinton won 57% of the votes cast by white evangelicals in the Ohio Democratic primary, compared with Mr. Obama's 35%. For Democrats, Hillary's Methodist Youth Fellowship should be looking better and better."
In effect, Obama is no more a 'new style' politician than anybody else. He uses religion flagrantly to gain votes and the acceptance of a political base on the South Side of Chicago.
To most Americans, particularly those with any sort of religious background, this smacks of expediency, cynicism and hypocrisy. Not to mention cheapening everyone else's religious choices by insisting, in his speech this week, that his experiences are just like theirs, and vice versa.
But they aren't. I have heard just this week of two people walking out of a church service, and the congregation, permanently, over a minister's sermon which they found repugnant. One involved criticizing America as justly deserving the 9/11 attacks, the other a tirade from the pulpit of an Episcopalian church against wealth, followed shortly by a plea for more donations to sustain the rector's cushy lifestyle.
Real religious Americans vote on church and minister views with their feet and donations. They don't sit silently, with their children, for ten to twenty years, condoning racist and anti-American hate speech.
Not only does Obama probably not now, or ever will, realize his sin of hypocrisy in attempting to use religion as a mere stepping stone to political power. The liberal mainstream media which supports him continues, with Obama, to try to explain his debacle as one of race, rather than one of judgment and expedient misuse of religion for political gain.
Despite the media's fawning over his speech, including Peggy Noonan's somewhat muddle piece in today's weekend Wall Street Journal edition, this whole affair is not, per se, about race in America.
It is simply about a black candidate using religion in an attempt to curry favor with his core base of racist-leaning voters in Illinois' largest city early in his political career. Having been identified with a racist minister, Obama won't throw away his ticket to his core political support. Instead, he is crying 'victim' over race.
Personally, I don't think Americans will elect a victim, nor a racist. No matter what Obama and his mainstream media acolytes believe and maintain to the voting public.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Friday, March 21, 2008
Shelby Steele and Geraldine Ferraro on Obama's Dilemma
This week has seen some unbelievable developments in the US political sphere.
On Tuesday, Obama delivered a speech calculated to extinguish the fire which has ignited over his minister's now-very-public anti-white and anti-American statements. I wrote a post about the speech here.
Geraldine Ferraro, one-time Vice-Presidential candidate for the Democratic party, offered this view of Obama's actions and speech, on John Gibson's Fox News show, as seen here on YouTube.
On Tuesday, Obama delivered a speech calculated to extinguish the fire which has ignited over his minister's now-very-public anti-white and anti-American statements. I wrote a post about the speech here.
Geraldine Ferraro, one-time Vice-Presidential candidate for the Democratic party, offered this view of Obama's actions and speech, on John Gibson's Fox News show, as seen here on YouTube.
Shelby Steele wrote this editorial in the Wall Street Journal on the day of Obama's speech. In it, he opined,
"Geraldine Ferraro may have had sinister motives when she said that Barack Obama would not be "in his position" as a frontrunner but for his race. Possibly she was acting as Hillary Clinton's surrogate. Or maybe she was simply befuddled by this new reality -- in which blackness could constitute a political advantage.
But whatever her motives, she was right: "If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position." Barack Obama is, of course, a very talented politician with a first-rate political organization at his back. But it does not detract from his merit to say that his race is also a large part of his prominence. And it is undeniable that something extremely powerful in the body politic, a force quite apart from the man himself, has pulled Obama forward. This force is about race and nothing else."
But whatever her motives, she was right: "If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position." Barack Obama is, of course, a very talented politician with a first-rate political organization at his back. But it does not detract from his merit to say that his race is also a large part of his prominence. And it is undeniable that something extremely powerful in the body politic, a force quite apart from the man himself, has pulled Obama forward. This force is about race and nothing else."
Ferraro was and is being excoriated by the press and Democrats for her remarks, while Steele, a distinguished black historian now at the Hoover Institute, has received absolutely no reaction to his editorial of which I am aware.
In an attempt to fend off charges that he called his own grandmother a racist, Obama made these remarks later in the week on a radio talk show. The YouTube video has take the audio track and used it as the centerpiece of a very judgmental video, but the audio is, nonetheless, real.
I have heard this unedited comment by Obama about four times on Fox News in the last two days, and I believe he also said something to the effect that the reaction he attributes to his white grandmother is 'bred into' whites. I may be wrong on this, but I don't think so.
Never the less, as the video notes, he clearly stereotypes whites with the phrase "typical white person."
Does anyone believe that a white candidate for President of the US who used the phrase "typical black person" would still be in the running?
It's my guess that this entire issue has spun in a manner totally unforeseen and unwanted by Obama and many blacks unrelated to him. Just when race was fading as an issue for mainstream America, Obama has brought radical blacks like Jesse Jackson and Jeremiah Wright, whose positions depend upon continued exploitation of imagined racism in America, (back, in Jackson's case) into the limelight.
As Shelby Steele noted in his editorial, Obama doesn't really offer America much beyond a vote to assuage guilt over prior generations' involvement in slavery.
As a Caucasian American, I must say that I feel absolutely no guilt over prior generations' actions. What happened, happened. I cannot change it, and I did not partake in it.
If I, and many other millions of Americans feel likewise, and would prefer to vote for any minority on their qualifications, rather than their being a member of a minority, where does that leave Obama?
Nowhere.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Obama's Race Speech Fails
Having seen the speech and heard a day's worth of commentary on Obama's attempt to quell the mounting furor over his minister and spiritual adviser's well-publicized and documented racist and anti-American speech, I must conclude that he failed.
Sure, as I told the liberal son of a friend last night, Obama convinced his own party's left wing, and probably the slightly-left-of-center members, as well.
But, despite naming the fear, in hopes of conquering it, he almost certainly has lost the 'Reagan Democrats' of mid-America. They are the middle-class, sometimes blue-collar, often male voters who swing about the center of the American political spectrum.
Listening to the more balanced black commentators yesterday, including Fox News/NPR's Juan Williams, it was obvious that even they felt Obama erred grievously by failing to have left his church and minister years ago, upon hearing the latter's anti-white and anti-American statements.
A liberal friend of mine agreed with me that Obama has now lost the election by failing to explicitly and totally sever himself from the repugnant minister. But, in reality, she said, he lost when he continued to sit in the church's pews and silently accommodate and tolerate such speech. Interestingly, she asked,
'How, as a partly-white American, could he sit there in silence and have half of himself damned by this minister?'
As I recollected to my friend's son last night, Michael Dukakis' turning point came in a debate, when he failed to say he'd want the death penalty for the hypothetical rapist of his wife, should such a person be caught. Americans found his carefully-couched, legalistic reply to be unnatural and suspect.
In this campaign, I believe we are witnessing a similar moment for Obama. This is his Waterloo.
For what it's worth, his speech reflected the perspective of someone with whom, frankly, I seem to share very little in the way of views of our country.
Again, speaking with my friend's liberal son, I opined that while Obama is contending that race is a paramount issue in today's America, I simply don't agree. It's nowhere on a list of my top five or seven issues most in need of address in America today.
In fact, this young man with whom I spoke is, himself, the son of a multi-cultural couple, and speaks his mother's non-English language fluently. He attended a first-rate private high school, and one of the best Ivy universities. He surely is not the victim of racism in today's America.
What Obama construes as racism is, I believe, more a function of poverty stemming from America's uneven, locally-funded and controlled educational system. Confusing the two is a horrendous mistake.
By, among other things:
-comparing his minister to 'everyone else's' minister, rabbi, or priest in making statements with which he disagreed,
-using his own grandmother as a source of racial slurs,
-claiming that the race issue will be used by conservatives as they have used 'fear' tactics in other campaigns,
-claiming that the race issue leads to legitimate, wider debate of Obama's other favorite campaign topics,
I think Obama pointlessly and ineffectively made his speech a grab-bag of topics which both elevated the minister, rather than disowned him, and blurred the focus of his statements.
In the end, his explicit refusal to repudiate his relationship with the racist minister will assure that this issue has a life as long as Obama's candidacy.
Sure, as I told the liberal son of a friend last night, Obama convinced his own party's left wing, and probably the slightly-left-of-center members, as well.
But, despite naming the fear, in hopes of conquering it, he almost certainly has lost the 'Reagan Democrats' of mid-America. They are the middle-class, sometimes blue-collar, often male voters who swing about the center of the American political spectrum.
Listening to the more balanced black commentators yesterday, including Fox News/NPR's Juan Williams, it was obvious that even they felt Obama erred grievously by failing to have left his church and minister years ago, upon hearing the latter's anti-white and anti-American statements.
A liberal friend of mine agreed with me that Obama has now lost the election by failing to explicitly and totally sever himself from the repugnant minister. But, in reality, she said, he lost when he continued to sit in the church's pews and silently accommodate and tolerate such speech. Interestingly, she asked,
'How, as a partly-white American, could he sit there in silence and have half of himself damned by this minister?'
As I recollected to my friend's son last night, Michael Dukakis' turning point came in a debate, when he failed to say he'd want the death penalty for the hypothetical rapist of his wife, should such a person be caught. Americans found his carefully-couched, legalistic reply to be unnatural and suspect.
In this campaign, I believe we are witnessing a similar moment for Obama. This is his Waterloo.
For what it's worth, his speech reflected the perspective of someone with whom, frankly, I seem to share very little in the way of views of our country.
Again, speaking with my friend's liberal son, I opined that while Obama is contending that race is a paramount issue in today's America, I simply don't agree. It's nowhere on a list of my top five or seven issues most in need of address in America today.
In fact, this young man with whom I spoke is, himself, the son of a multi-cultural couple, and speaks his mother's non-English language fluently. He attended a first-rate private high school, and one of the best Ivy universities. He surely is not the victim of racism in today's America.
What Obama construes as racism is, I believe, more a function of poverty stemming from America's uneven, locally-funded and controlled educational system. Confusing the two is a horrendous mistake.
By, among other things:
-comparing his minister to 'everyone else's' minister, rabbi, or priest in making statements with which he disagreed,
-using his own grandmother as a source of racial slurs,
-claiming that the race issue will be used by conservatives as they have used 'fear' tactics in other campaigns,
-claiming that the race issue leads to legitimate, wider debate of Obama's other favorite campaign topics,
I think Obama pointlessly and ineffectively made his speech a grab-bag of topics which both elevated the minister, rather than disowned him, and blurred the focus of his statements.
In the end, his explicit refusal to repudiate his relationship with the racist minister will assure that this issue has a life as long as Obama's candidacy.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
On Race & Obama's Minister
Let me state my conclusion up front and clearly. In my opinion, Obama's church's minister probably has, and/or will, cost him his chance to become President in November of this year.
Over the past week, the just "retired(?)" minister of Obama's church, Jeremiah Wright, has once again ignited a firestorm. I write 'once again, because he was identified as a racist minister as long ago as last March.
Here are two YouTube videos from that time period. One is of Sean Hannity interviewing Wright on Hannity & Colmes, while the other, a month earlier, shows Tucker Carlson discussing Wright's explicitly racist themes.
Hannity & Colmes interview with Wright March 2007
Tucker Carlson February 2007
More recently, these two clips were added on YouTube. The first is a video of Wright's anti-white, anti-Hillary diatribe.
This next clip appears to be the taping, while in a car, of a radio address by Wright.
I was unable to locate the video in which Wright, shortly after the 9/11/01 attacks on the World Trade Centers and the Pentagon, rails against US foreign policy and echoes Malcolm X by saying that the 'chickens have come home to roost.'
Why did it take so long for the mainstream media to finally identify Wright's racist themes? Why has it taken over a year for Obama to address this issue?
This isn't about freedom of religion, or the explanation of a race-neutral church to the rest of America.
This church had on its website, until, it has been reported on Fox News, just this week, information about it's insistence for church members to propagate 'black values.'
The problem for Obama, as I see it, is to explain to Americans why the pastor whom he says converted him to Christianity and has been a close confidant for over a decade holds explicitly racist, anti-American views. And why Obama has, in full knowledge of this, continued to participate in the church and associate with the minister.
If I had five minutes in which to question Obama, here are some questions which I would ask:
-Do you agree with your minister's expression of your church's precepts in explicitly racist tones?
-Do you feel that by associating with this church and minister, and its racist views, you are expressing your own values to the American voting public?
-If you continue to support this minister's views, by not explicitly denouncing them and leaving his church, does he not provide an example of the sort of advisor you would choose as President?
-Is your support of this minister an example of your judgment of people and values which you would carry over to your administration, if elected President?
-If you don't feel it is fair to judge you by this minister, his words and values, then how are the American people supposed to gauge what you have done that does provide evidence of your judgment, values and choices of advisers? Are they to assume that you will dump any now-inconvenient and inconsistent prior advisers, or repudiate similar actions or beliefs, in order to win votes?
Last night, on Fox News, an Obama apologist kept exhorting the on-air anchors to 'give (Obama) a chance to explain himself' in his speech later today.
Frankly, I don't think that speech will matter. What is to 'explain' about Wright's recorded anti-white, anti-American speeches? Nothing. They speak for themselves. So does Obama's lack of response to their known existence.
He didn't leave his church a year ago, when these issues were raised. He didn't repudiate the minister.
It seems very clear that Obama is now caught precisely in the race-trap he sought to avoid. Many who ardently support him are anti-white racists. If a white candidate for President had a church and minister which had identical themes and 'values,' only substituting the word 'white' for 'black' or 'african american,' he'd be hounded out of the Presidential race and his party by the (liberal) mainstream American media.
At this point, even if Obama can paper over this mess among his party's voters, and still beat Hillary, I think it will turn many centrist, blue-collar Reagan Democrats against him. Obama's apologies or late attempts to distance himself from his racist minister may play well to the upper-income white Democrats who feel guilt for prior anti-black racism, but it probably won't work with middle-class white voters.
By failing to have openly denounced his church and its minister as soon as they espoused racist and anti-American themes, Obama has opened himself up to justifiable criticism of his judgment, awareness of the actions of those he claims are close to him and advise him.
When we choose a President, we ultimately choose his/her character and values, because we don't know exactly what challenges our country will face on that President's watch.
As Obama attempts to dance and weave away from this crisis, he exhibits a character which is, in my opinion, fatally flawed for a person who would be President.
Dick Morris opined on Hannity and Colmes last night that the Democrats mistakenly have chosen Obama as their Presidential candidate before appropriately vetting him.
I think Morris is right, and this issue with Obama's minister and church are a prime example of that.
Over the past week, the just "retired(?)" minister of Obama's church, Jeremiah Wright, has once again ignited a firestorm. I write 'once again, because he was identified as a racist minister as long ago as last March.
Here are two YouTube videos from that time period. One is of Sean Hannity interviewing Wright on Hannity & Colmes, while the other, a month earlier, shows Tucker Carlson discussing Wright's explicitly racist themes.
Hannity & Colmes interview with Wright March 2007
Tucker Carlson February 2007
More recently, these two clips were added on YouTube. The first is a video of Wright's anti-white, anti-Hillary diatribe.
This next clip appears to be the taping, while in a car, of a radio address by Wright.
I was unable to locate the video in which Wright, shortly after the 9/11/01 attacks on the World Trade Centers and the Pentagon, rails against US foreign policy and echoes Malcolm X by saying that the 'chickens have come home to roost.'
Why did it take so long for the mainstream media to finally identify Wright's racist themes? Why has it taken over a year for Obama to address this issue?
This isn't about freedom of religion, or the explanation of a race-neutral church to the rest of America.
This church had on its website, until, it has been reported on Fox News, just this week, information about it's insistence for church members to propagate 'black values.'
The problem for Obama, as I see it, is to explain to Americans why the pastor whom he says converted him to Christianity and has been a close confidant for over a decade holds explicitly racist, anti-American views. And why Obama has, in full knowledge of this, continued to participate in the church and associate with the minister.
If I had five minutes in which to question Obama, here are some questions which I would ask:
-Do you agree with your minister's expression of your church's precepts in explicitly racist tones?
-Do you feel that by associating with this church and minister, and its racist views, you are expressing your own values to the American voting public?
-If you continue to support this minister's views, by not explicitly denouncing them and leaving his church, does he not provide an example of the sort of advisor you would choose as President?
-Is your support of this minister an example of your judgment of people and values which you would carry over to your administration, if elected President?
-If you don't feel it is fair to judge you by this minister, his words and values, then how are the American people supposed to gauge what you have done that does provide evidence of your judgment, values and choices of advisers? Are they to assume that you will dump any now-inconvenient and inconsistent prior advisers, or repudiate similar actions or beliefs, in order to win votes?
Last night, on Fox News, an Obama apologist kept exhorting the on-air anchors to 'give (Obama) a chance to explain himself' in his speech later today.
Frankly, I don't think that speech will matter. What is to 'explain' about Wright's recorded anti-white, anti-American speeches? Nothing. They speak for themselves. So does Obama's lack of response to their known existence.
He didn't leave his church a year ago, when these issues were raised. He didn't repudiate the minister.
It seems very clear that Obama is now caught precisely in the race-trap he sought to avoid. Many who ardently support him are anti-white racists. If a white candidate for President had a church and minister which had identical themes and 'values,' only substituting the word 'white' for 'black' or 'african american,' he'd be hounded out of the Presidential race and his party by the (liberal) mainstream American media.
At this point, even if Obama can paper over this mess among his party's voters, and still beat Hillary, I think it will turn many centrist, blue-collar Reagan Democrats against him. Obama's apologies or late attempts to distance himself from his racist minister may play well to the upper-income white Democrats who feel guilt for prior anti-black racism, but it probably won't work with middle-class white voters.
By failing to have openly denounced his church and its minister as soon as they espoused racist and anti-American themes, Obama has opened himself up to justifiable criticism of his judgment, awareness of the actions of those he claims are close to him and advise him.
When we choose a President, we ultimately choose his/her character and values, because we don't know exactly what challenges our country will face on that President's watch.
As Obama attempts to dance and weave away from this crisis, he exhibits a character which is, in my opinion, fatally flawed for a person who would be President.
Dick Morris opined on Hannity and Colmes last night that the Democrats mistakenly have chosen Obama as their Presidential candidate before appropriately vetting him.
I think Morris is right, and this issue with Obama's minister and church are a prime example of that.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
McGovern's Conversion To Conservatism
Last Friday's Wall Street Journal featured a remarkable editorial by George McGovern entitled "Freedom Means Responsibility." To read his latest piece is to, I believe, witness the final conversion of Senator McGovern into a man of truly conservative values.
Some passages from his editorial are,
"Nearly 16 years ago in these very pages, I wrote that "'one-size-fits all' rules for business ignore the reality of the market place." Today I'm watching some broad rules evolve on individual decisions that are even worse.
Under the guise of protecting us from ourselves, the right and the left are becoming ever more aggressive in regulating behavior. Much paternalist scrutiny has recently centered on personal economics, including calls to regulate subprime mortgages.
Health-care paternalism creates another problem that's rarely mentioned: Many people can't afford the gold-plated health plans that are the only options available in their states.
Buying health insurance on the Internet and across state lines, where less expensive plans may be available, is prohibited by many state insurance commissions. Despite being able to buy car or home insurance with a mouse click, some state governments require their approved plans for purchase or none at all. It's as if states dictated that you had to buy a Mercedes or no car at all.
Economic paternalism takes its newest form with the campaign against short-term small loans, commonly known as "payday lending.
With payday lending, people in need of immediate money can borrow against their future paychecks, allowing emergency purchases or bill payments they could not otherwise make. The service comes at the cost of a significant fee -- usually $15 for every $100 borrowed for two weeks. But the cost seems reasonable when all your other options, such as bounced checks or skipped credit-card payments, are obviously more expensive and play havoc with your credit rating.
Anguished at the fact that payday lending isn't perfect, some people would outlaw the service entirely, or cap fees at such low levels that no lender will provide the service. Anyone who's familiar with the law of unintended consequences should be able to guess what happens next."
That last line is amazing to read. I'm old enough to remember McGovern's run for the Presidency, so this is particularly sweet to read. Imagine him, a former ultra-liberal Democratic US Senator, acknowledging the 'law of unintended consequences.'
It harks back to his reflections on attempting to run a B&B some years ago. Whether he appeared on Firing Line with Bill Buckley, or merely wrote about it in the Journal, I recall that he seemed a truly chastened man. His admission of frustration in dealing with the very same laws and paternalistic attitude he had helped craft as a Senator was gratifying to watch.
McGovern closed his piece with these words,
"Since leaving office I've written about public policy from a new perspective: outside looking in. I've come to realize that protecting freedom of choice in our everyday lives is essential to maintaining a healthy civil society.
Why do we think we are helping adult consumers by taking away their options? We don't take away cars because we don't like some people speeding. We allow state lotteries despite knowing some people are betting their grocery money. Everyone is exposed to economic risks of some kind. But we don't operate mindlessly in trying to smooth out every theoretical wrinkle in life.
The nature of freedom of choice is that some people will misuse their responsibility and hurt themselves in the process. We should do our best to educate them, but without diminishing choice for everyone else."
I could not put it better myself. Nor, I think, could any conservative of longstanding beliefs in that vein.
Some passages from his editorial are,
"Nearly 16 years ago in these very pages, I wrote that "'one-size-fits all' rules for business ignore the reality of the market place." Today I'm watching some broad rules evolve on individual decisions that are even worse.
Under the guise of protecting us from ourselves, the right and the left are becoming ever more aggressive in regulating behavior. Much paternalist scrutiny has recently centered on personal economics, including calls to regulate subprime mortgages.
Health-care paternalism creates another problem that's rarely mentioned: Many people can't afford the gold-plated health plans that are the only options available in their states.
Buying health insurance on the Internet and across state lines, where less expensive plans may be available, is prohibited by many state insurance commissions. Despite being able to buy car or home insurance with a mouse click, some state governments require their approved plans for purchase or none at all. It's as if states dictated that you had to buy a Mercedes or no car at all.
Economic paternalism takes its newest form with the campaign against short-term small loans, commonly known as "payday lending.
With payday lending, people in need of immediate money can borrow against their future paychecks, allowing emergency purchases or bill payments they could not otherwise make. The service comes at the cost of a significant fee -- usually $15 for every $100 borrowed for two weeks. But the cost seems reasonable when all your other options, such as bounced checks or skipped credit-card payments, are obviously more expensive and play havoc with your credit rating.
Anguished at the fact that payday lending isn't perfect, some people would outlaw the service entirely, or cap fees at such low levels that no lender will provide the service. Anyone who's familiar with the law of unintended consequences should be able to guess what happens next."
That last line is amazing to read. I'm old enough to remember McGovern's run for the Presidency, so this is particularly sweet to read. Imagine him, a former ultra-liberal Democratic US Senator, acknowledging the 'law of unintended consequences.'
It harks back to his reflections on attempting to run a B&B some years ago. Whether he appeared on Firing Line with Bill Buckley, or merely wrote about it in the Journal, I recall that he seemed a truly chastened man. His admission of frustration in dealing with the very same laws and paternalistic attitude he had helped craft as a Senator was gratifying to watch.
McGovern closed his piece with these words,
"Since leaving office I've written about public policy from a new perspective: outside looking in. I've come to realize that protecting freedom of choice in our everyday lives is essential to maintaining a healthy civil society.
Why do we think we are helping adult consumers by taking away their options? We don't take away cars because we don't like some people speeding. We allow state lotteries despite knowing some people are betting their grocery money. Everyone is exposed to economic risks of some kind. But we don't operate mindlessly in trying to smooth out every theoretical wrinkle in life.
The nature of freedom of choice is that some people will misuse their responsibility and hurt themselves in the process. We should do our best to educate them, but without diminishing choice for everyone else."
I could not put it better myself. Nor, I think, could any conservative of longstanding beliefs in that vein.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
William F. Buckley, Jr. On A Liberal Democrat President
As part of my recent memorial post to William F. Buckley, Jr., I found and embedded several vintage Buckley video clips from 1968.
The occasion was his, and Gore Vidal's employment as conservative and liberal, respectively, commentators for the Democratic Party's nominating convention for that year.
In addition to the two clips which I found for the prior post, there is an additional one from the set. This clip continues each commentator's views, this time, as explained by ABC's Frank Reynolds, on how the candidate of the 'other's' party would govern as President.
Isn't Buckley still more or less describing liberal Democrats? Chilling, no?
And didn't Vidal off-handedly sniff that Nixon might be a 'statesman?' Which, in fact, is exactly that for which the former cold-warrior became known- opening China and, to some extent Moscow, to the West.
It took the former anti-communist bulldog, Nixon, to credibly thaw relations with the two major Communist powers, despite Vidal's doubts.
Yet Buckley's characterization of a hypothetical Humphrey Presidency isn't all that different than what one might expect from Hillary or Obama today, is it?
Scary.
The occasion was his, and Gore Vidal's employment as conservative and liberal, respectively, commentators for the Democratic Party's nominating convention for that year.
In addition to the two clips which I found for the prior post, there is an additional one from the set. This clip continues each commentator's views, this time, as explained by ABC's Frank Reynolds, on how the candidate of the 'other's' party would govern as President.
Isn't Buckley still more or less describing liberal Democrats? Chilling, no?
And didn't Vidal off-handedly sniff that Nixon might be a 'statesman?' Which, in fact, is exactly that for which the former cold-warrior became known- opening China and, to some extent Moscow, to the West.
It took the former anti-communist bulldog, Nixon, to credibly thaw relations with the two major Communist powers, despite Vidal's doubts.
Yet Buckley's characterization of a hypothetical Humphrey Presidency isn't all that different than what one might expect from Hillary or Obama today, is it?
Scary.
The Second "Super Tuesday" Results
It's been a while since I've commented on the Presidential campaigns. This morning, in the wake of last night's significant election results, seems a propitious time to revisit them.
If you are a conservative and/or notionally Republican-leaning, all is right with the world today.
McCain won convincingly, Hickabee has finally faced reality and conceded, and the Democrats will remain at each other's throats until Labor Day.
Hallelujah!
Truly, it can't get any better than this. Confusion to the liberals, while the conservative-to-moderates can coalesce and see the clear differences between the ever-more-left-moving Hillary and Obama and the centrist-conservative McCain.
If Obama had managed to win Texas and Ohio, or either one, he might have driven Hillary out and begun to swing into general election mode. As it is, both will push each other further left to try to cinch their party's nomination.
In the meantime, the fights over the Florida and Michigan delegations, plus the now-important, secretive 'superdelegates,' will put the Democratic Party on display before the American electorate as pandering, inwardly-divided and craven. Both candidates will be trying to out-grovel the other as they pander to the extreme left of their party.
Meanwhile, McCain can finally be recognized by the sitting President as his party's candidate. Party-level fundraising, with the assistance of President Bush, can begin. McCain has seven months to prepare for the final month of the general campaign.
Hard as it is to believe, the Democrats may actually be snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, again, this year. You'd have thought, last summer, that it was a cinch that a Democrat would be sitting in the Oval Office at this time next year. Heck, most of Wall Street thought so, judging by their rush to back Hillary and Obama.
Not now.
Instead, many financial service firm leaders are watching in dismay as their pet liberal candidates now turn on American business, the better to garner extremely liberal votes.
As one Fox News Network guest pundit opined a month ago,
"If the Democrats can't win the White House this time, they should fold up their tent and close down their party."
Well said.
If you are a conservative and/or notionally Republican-leaning, all is right with the world today.
McCain won convincingly, Hickabee has finally faced reality and conceded, and the Democrats will remain at each other's throats until Labor Day.
Hallelujah!
Truly, it can't get any better than this. Confusion to the liberals, while the conservative-to-moderates can coalesce and see the clear differences between the ever-more-left-moving Hillary and Obama and the centrist-conservative McCain.
If Obama had managed to win Texas and Ohio, or either one, he might have driven Hillary out and begun to swing into general election mode. As it is, both will push each other further left to try to cinch their party's nomination.
In the meantime, the fights over the Florida and Michigan delegations, plus the now-important, secretive 'superdelegates,' will put the Democratic Party on display before the American electorate as pandering, inwardly-divided and craven. Both candidates will be trying to out-grovel the other as they pander to the extreme left of their party.
Meanwhile, McCain can finally be recognized by the sitting President as his party's candidate. Party-level fundraising, with the assistance of President Bush, can begin. McCain has seven months to prepare for the final month of the general campaign.
Hard as it is to believe, the Democrats may actually be snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, again, this year. You'd have thought, last summer, that it was a cinch that a Democrat would be sitting in the Oval Office at this time next year. Heck, most of Wall Street thought so, judging by their rush to back Hillary and Obama.
Not now.
Instead, many financial service firm leaders are watching in dismay as their pet liberal candidates now turn on American business, the better to garner extremely liberal votes.
As one Fox News Network guest pundit opined a month ago,
"If the Democrats can't win the White House this time, they should fold up their tent and close down their party."
Well said.
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