A New Conservative Strategy for the Culture Wars
By admin
There’s an old saying that you can’t control what other people do or don’t do, but only what you do. It’s true in politics as with most other things in life. For decades conservatives have lost ground in the fight over religious liberty, primarily via our nation’s courts. But you can’t blame liberals for fighting in venues that play to their strengths (liberal judges), and avoids their weaknesses (public opinion). How conservatives “feel” about it however won’t change anything. Only raw political power does that. For opinion to become political power it must be focused and organized, and currently for conservatives it’s not. We are scattered all around, constantly fighting defensive actions on numerous issues, rather than going on offense. And given that you can’t win on defense, that’s a recipe for long-term defeat. Clearly we need a change in strategy, but how to go about it? The recent string of pro-life victories in the abortion debate points the way. Thanks to technology, it is now possible to view an unborn child in the womb at an extremely early stage of development. And it is becoming more understood that, yes, they are capable of feeling pain, moving the practice of abortion closer to infanticide in the minds of many. The result is that people in the mushy middle of public opinion are becoming more likely to either oppose it, or at least support increasing restrictions on it simply because it is easier to view the unborn child as a victim. That’s why polls show that younger voter groups are becoming pro-life in greater numbers than other age groups. They’re more liberty conscious; which presents a problem for liberals and an opportunity for conservatives. Victimhood is the sweet spot in American politics, and liberals have effectively milked it to change our culture for decades. Supporters of gay marriage have worked to legalize such marriages in over a dozen states by casting themselves as the “victims” of bigoted traditionalists, so much so that five members of the Supreme Court recently got in on the act. But whether it’s mandates for abortion coverage under Obamacare, civil penalties for refusing to recognize gay marriages, or branding religious speech as “hate speech”, it’s clear that religious Americans are becoming the victims of government policies. To effectively fight back there needs to be a rallying point; a specific call to action that conservatives could use as a focal point for messaging, tactics and organization. And politically, it needs to be something that could pull in the mushy moderates who tend to sit on the fence in such debates. Focusing on “liberty” turns the current frame of the debate upside down and places the focus back where it belongs; on the people whose rights are being threatened and sometimes outright denied. It provides an overarching cause that ties all of these issues together, and offers an outlet that conservatives can focus on and directly see how it can impact the freedoms they are concerned about. It’s time to begin pushing local and state lawmakers to amend or pass laws and state constitutional amendments to defend religious freedoms in everyday life. Since the First Amendment is obviously no longer enough, it’s time to call for passage of a more specific religious freedom amendment to the US Constitution; to demand that state legislatures adopt resolutions calling on Congress to support such an amendment, and to pressure members of Congress to act on it. Politically, it’s important to act while nerves are still raw and such abuses continue to grab headlines and percolate through the legal system. We can’t wait until after the anger dies down or for people to get used to being unable to live out their faith. We’ve been down that road before with the Defense of Marriage Act. Democrats supported DOMA in 1996 as a way to short circuit momentum for a constitutional amendment on the subject and give them an opportunity to vote “for” traditional marriage before the elections that year. All the while they were quietly hoping for a Supreme Court ruling to one day strike it down. That strategy paid off earlier this year. And that’s why nothing less than a constitutional amendment on the subject of religious liberty will do today. Political battles are all about ground, meaning wisely choosing where you fight, and controlling the debate as well as the language that is used in the debate. Focusing on religious liberty as an umbrella cause in the culture wars gives conservatives that opportunity. It’s time to stop complaining about what the other side is doing and get busy.
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Obamacare Promises vs Reality
By admin
Like some cheesy infomercial that tries to convince you of how great its product is, the Obama administration continues to tell us about the wonders of Obamacare. But a critical difference between Obamacare and the “as seen on TV” product is that the sales number and website for the latter always works, (even if the product doesn’t). That’s the first insult of the government’s healthcare site: it can’t competently sell you what you’re being forced to buy. So, how did we get here? Because Obama and other Democrats made political promises that were necessary in order for the bill to have any chance of becoming law. Promises that turned out to be, shall we say, slightly less reliable than the standard infomercial. Let’s review: Promise: “If you like your health care plan, you can keep it”. Reality: you can’t keep your insurance plan if it is cancelled because the government tells your insurance company that it doesn’t comply with new regulations, or if your employer stops providing it because those regulations make the costs go up. In fact if you like your job you may not be able to keep it either – especially if your employer needs to drop enough employees to avoid higher costs; or you may lose hours on the job (and thus income) so as not to be deemed a full-time employee. Promise: “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor”. Reality: not if he quits because of the costs and complications of the law, or if your “new” insurance plan doesn’t include your doctor in it’s network of approved providers. Promise: Obamacare’s would not cover abortion. This was such a huge debate that there were several dozen pro-life Democrats who refused to support the bill until changes were made to guarantee abortion would not be covered. Reality: it does, because HHS regulations require that insurance plans cover prescriptions for abortion inducing medications – a regulation that even applies to religious organizations. Promise: Congress will have to abide by it too. The bill required that members of Congress would have to live under the same rules that they were passing for the rest of us. Reality: Obama granted Congress a waiver, which he doesn’t have the power to do, (but what’s that between friends?). It really does make you wonder why we need to get so worked up over this business of passing laws if they don’t actually mean anything. Promise: It will lower costs. Reality: most people are seeing increases in monthly premiums, even after government subsidies. And any plans that are actually cheaper come by way of narrowing the networks of hospitals and doctors you can use, or by raising your out-of-pocket expenses. Promise: It will be easy! Per Obama, “It’s a website where you can compare and purchase affordable health insurance plans, side-by-side, the same way you shop for a plane ticket on Kayak – or the same way you shop for a TV on Amazon”. Reality: not so much. Three years and over half a billion tax dollars later, the government serves up a website that no one can use if they need to buy the insurance that the law says they must have. Many Republicans have been worried that if Americans become accustomed to Obamacare, we will never get rid of it. A reasonable fear, when it comes to the political consequences of government programs, and precisely what Democrats hoped when they got bold enough to pass it despite never having the support of a majority of the American people. But the reality seems to be that Obamacare will be a political hobgoblin that will haunt Democrats for years to come. This isn’t just a run-of-the-mill government program. It covers one-sixth of the US economy, and an area that is extremely personal to every American. That means lots of political exposure for Democrats – and lots of opportunities for Republicans. It’s an ironclad rule of politics that things behind the scenes are much worse than they are presented to the public. Applied to Obamacare, this leaves many Democrats more nervous than they let on. But despite its flaws, Republicans in Congress will never help “fix it”. As they say in NASCAR, Democrats will have to “run what they’ve brought to the track”. In the end, Obamacare may be a “bridge too far” for big government liberalism. It’s a failure that could ONLY come from government, and it puts a bright spotlight on the limitations of big government for our increasing number of “low information” voters to see. As Margaret Thatcher once said, “First you win the argument, then you win the vote”. During the next few months conservatives should focus on the realities of Obamacare; to build and control the narrative while it’s still being written. This will provide all the argument we need to “win the vote” on this and many other issues in the future. Undermining faith in big government will be a bonus.
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Shutdown follies – and what Republicans should do
By admin
What if they threw a shutdown and nobody noticed? Despite Obama’s best efforts and dire warnings of what would happen if Republicans didn’t give him what he wanted, 80% of Americans in the latest AP poll say they’ve felt no impact from the shutdown. The problem Democrats have is that the shutdown only impacts a small part of the budget, since debt payments, Social Security and Medicare are all mandatory spending. That’s why Obama has been reduced to ruining family vacations by ordering the National Park Service to “close” access to otherwise open-air monuments. Another problem is that Democrats are becoming the political equivalent of the “boy who cried wolf”. Remember the sequester hysteria less than a year ago? There was almost as much hype over it as Y2K, and yet we’re all still here. So, after all of the dire predictions of political oblivion for Republicans if they didn’t cave in, where are we? A higher percentage of people do say they blame the GOP for the shutdown, but not nearly as many as during the last shutdown in 1995. And the latest “generic ballot” poll from Rasmussen shows both Republicans and Democrats pulling 40% in terms of “who would you vote for” if an election were held today. Not to be lost in the shuffle is the fact that Obama’s approval rating in the latest AP poll is down to a record low of 37%, and a majority disapprove of his performance on the budget, (you probably missed that, right?). So yes, there’s blame to go around. No it’s not apocalyptic. And yes, it’s also hurting Democrats too – especially Obama. 2013 is nothing like 1995. Almost twenty years ago the “Big 3” networks, The Washington Post and The New York Times had about twice the audience as they do today. All we had was Rush. Now there’s an entire constellation of conservative talk-radio hosts, along with Fox News, a thriving network of websites, social media and the Tea Party. It’s also worth pointing out that Clinton’s approval numbers stayed above 50% during the last fight, unlike Obama’s today. In the grand scheme of things however, the government shutdown is really just a sideshow. The big deal is the pending increase in the national debt limit, and the Democrats’ fight to keep the GOP from using it as a way to force spending cuts. Democrats have to stop this as a matter of long term strategy since these limits will be coming up pretty much annually for the rest of our lives, giving Republicans ongoing leverage over spending. Obama has suggested that by not giving in to his demand for an unconditional debt increase, Republicans will cause Americans to “run out on our tab” at the world’s financial buffet. But, as Mark Steyn noted recently, we don’t run out on our tab, we just never pay it off – which is the reason we have to raise our debt limit about one trillion dollars every year. The good news for Republicans is that what’s good for the country is also good for the GOP politically. Here’s a little unsolicited advice: Keep the focus on Obama and his unwillingness to negotiate. Make him look unreasonable. Take “default” off the table. Pass a short-term debt extension to move the focus back to the budget, Obamacare and the fight over the shutdown. This would preserve leverage to come back and take another bite out of spending later. Focus on the failures of Obamacare. From escalating costs to jobs lost, it continues to be a ripe target. Point out that only government could spend over half a billion dollars building a website that doesn’t work. Even Wolf Blitzer is saying the administration should delay the individual mandate for a year in order to get its act together. Point out that if Obamacare is “the right thing to do”, it should also be right for members of Congress, the President and the bureaucracy. Stick and move. It’s hard to hit a moving target, so keep passing small bills funding sympathetic pieces of government, and letting Democrats reject them. Again, make them look unreasonable. Focus on the spending and the debt. Americans know government spends too much and a large majority actually oppose raising the debt limit. 53% want major spending cuts as part of any debt limit increase. Point out that we have increased our debt at twice the rate of growth in our economy over the last two years and have no credible plan to fix the problem. Stick to conservative principles. The last thing Republicans need is a high profile fight where they cave in on principles at the end. Don’t snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
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Low Information Voters Twerking to the Bottom
By admin
Where the culture goes, so goes the electorate and then eventually self-government. So where does that leave us? Apparently “twerking” before the ruling class. For the newly initiated, “twerking” is described as a “low squatting dance” that involves “moving ones buttocks in a circular, up-and-down, and side-to-side motion; basically a slutty dance derived from strip clubs”. Miley Cyrus demonstrated on national television recently by grinding her rump up against her male co-star on stage. Real classy. With each passing year, what passes for popular “culture” has become progressively more low-brow and increasingly sexed up. So-called “celebrities” are usually just famous for being famous. Others are sometimes “infamous” for video-taping themselves having sex and then pretending to be upset when it goes public (“That was private, I swear!”). Otherwise, why would anyone know who Kim Kardashian is? Truly it has been a race to the bottom, going so far into the gutter that you really have to wonder what any of these poor celebrities can do to shock anyone into paying attention to them anymore. Soon they’ll have to start acting like radical conservatives in order to “rebel” and get noticed. As the country marinates in this stuff we’re becoming overwhelmed with people who know all about who Kim’s “baby-daddy-who’s-not-her-husband” is, but don’t have a clue about the basics of American civics. In the last few election cycles we’ve even invented a new term for these people: “low information voters”. It’s a charitable term which should make the rest of us feel as hopeful for self-government as “low information brain surgeon” would if we were going in for an operation. So, just how “low-information” are they? Several years ago a Gallup survey found that: 43% of Americans don’t know that the “judicial” is one of the three branches of government; 41% don’t know that their state is represented by two US Senators; 53% don’t know what the “Bill of Rights” is; and 66% can’t identify the document containing the phrase, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal”. A study in the 2001 Annual Review of Political Science found that “Despite huge increases in the formal educational attainment of the US population during the past 50 years, levels of political knowledge have barely budged. Today’s college graduates know no more about politics than did high school graduates in 1950”. Feel better? This makes it easier to understand how the ruling class can get away with incestuous corporate/government relationships that privatize profits and socialize failures, and the resulting massive public debts from bailing out institutions deemed “to big to fail”. Too many people are too stupid to know what’s going on, or too busy watching TMZ or Access Hollywood to care, much less know what to do about it if they did care. (“Look, another video of Kim having sex with someone she’s not married to is coming out! Isn’t she cool? Next, on TMZ!”) With voters like these, it’s no wonder that our country’s fiscal policies deny the realities of basic arithmetic. With jurors like these, it shouldn’t shock us when a jury awards millions of dollars to someone who spills hot coffee on themselves. Why do you think liberals are less concerned about teaching more civics than they are about making sure we’ve got the right “cultural studies” requirements? It’s almost like were slowly “terraforming” the country with idiots who are less likely to revolt or even know how. It reminds me of the movie “Idiocracy”, where a guy travels into the future to find everyone blissfully wallowing in self-imposed stupidity and sex obsession to the point of not knowing that they can’t grow food by watering plants with soft-drinks instead of water. He of course becomes their new leader. Clearly our country needs either better civics (i.e. self-government) education, or some sort of reasonable limits on who can participate. Maybe add a simple question to voter registration forms like, “how many branches of government are there?” Anyone who gets it wrong is banned from voting for one year and is given their choice of either a remedial civics class or a subscription for celebrity sex tapes, (which would trigger a lifetime ban). One has to wonder when (or if) “low information voters” will ever see the contradictions between their relationship to government and everything else in their lives. Will they ever begin to wonder why most things are becoming simpler and more individually customized, but they can’t get their education, health care or retirement plans the way they want? It’s a little difficult for them to see (or understand) the conflict between their politics and their other preferences in life if they’re too uninformed to know the difference. Meanwhile, they’re twerking (literally or figuratively) in front of the ruling class, and getting what they deserve. And they’re taking us down with them.
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Culture war becoming a war over religious liberty
By admin
With each passing day the country’s ongoing culture war is morphing into an assault on religious liberty. When liberals talk about opposing the “legislating of morality”, what they really mean is that they oppose policies that are supported by people whose morality is based on religious beliefs – and that they want to force everyone else to comply with their own secular based version of morality. And since fewer liberals believe in God anyway, destroying religious liberty isn’t something they worry about. In the wake of new gay marriage laws we’ve seen Christian photographers, Christian bakers and Christian owned venues sued for refusing to provide services to same-sex weddings. We’re now seeing lawsuits against states that don’t recognize gay marriage by homosexuals who have been “married” in other states. We’ve seen Catholic adoption agencies run out of business for refusing to violate their faith and place children with homosexual couples; and seen a Christian school get sued for expelling two students that were involved in a lesbian relationship on the grounds of its religious views. In San Diego a fertility doctor was sued for refusing to artificially inseminate an unmarried lesbian because of his beliefs. Meanwhile, the state of California is considering legislation mandating insurance coverage for gay and lesbian “infertility”, (yes, you read that right). In the area of healthcare, the government is trying to force religious institutions to pay for insurance coverage that includes not just birth control, but drugs that are designed to induce abortions. As one Catholic Bishop put it, the state is trying to use the “rule of law to force a church institution, in violation of its own self-identify and constitution, to pay for something in its own workplace that the institution holds and teaches to be sinful.” To paraphrase another church official, does the state have the right to tell citizens how to practice their religion? Many liberals would emphatically answer “yes”. According to the Obama administration, once you start a business you don’t have First Amendment rights anymore. In its response to Hobby Lobby’s lawsuit against Obamacare’s abortion coverage mandates, the administration wrote: “Hobby Lobby is a for-profit, secular employer…and a secular entity by definition does not exercise religion.” Got that? In our military, the Air Force censored a video created by a chaplain simply because it included the word “God”; another chaplain was removed for not allowing a military chapel to be used for a same-sex wedding; and another service member received a potentially career ending reprimand for expressing his religious beliefs about homosexuality on a personal religious blog. Senior officials at Fort Campbell sent out emails informing the ranks that “the religious right in America” is a “domestic hate group” because of its opposition to homosexuality. And this is the same military that recently produced training materials that lumped Tea Party supporters in with terrorists. As instances like these came to light, a Republican US House member introduced an amendment to a military funding bill that would have “required the Armed Forces to accommodate actions and speech reflecting the conscience, moral, principles or religious beliefs” of service members. The Obama administration “strongly objected”. Add all of this to the recent Supreme Court decision on gay marriage in California which, as Justice Scalia put it in his dissent, formally declared “anyone opposed to same-sex marriage an enemy of human decency” and that “any resistance to its holding is beyond the pale of reasoned disagreement”. That’s par for the course. The diversity and tolerance crowd doesn’t give a rip about diversity of thought or tolerate values that are different from their own, (such as they have them). Gay marriage is the biggest weapon in this war simply because refusal to accommodate or sanction it can potentially leave you open to massive lawsuits in the conduct of normal business. As former US Senator Sam Brownback put it, “…in states with same-sex marriage, religiously affiliated schools, adoption agencies, psychological clinics, social workers, marital counselors, etc. will be forced to choose between violating their own deeply held beliefs and giving up government contracts, tax-exempt status, or even being denied the right to operate at all.” In short, the active practice of one’s faith in everyday life would no longer be legal. These are the kind of problems you run into when government becomes so large that it covers virtually every type of human interaction. Inevitably it crosses the line from the secular to the realm of religious conscience. All of which is kind of ironic for a country created by people looking for religious liberty.
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Time for a National Conversation on Liberty
By admin
After every media sensationalized incident of racism, gun violence, or fill in the blank, we are told by our betters that it’s time for a “national conversation” on the subject. This usually seems less about actually having a conversation and more about giving them a sense of moral superiority. But if information is power and, as Lord Acton put it, “power corrupts”, we need to think very carefully about the power that we are handing over to government without demanding a national conversation on liberty. It should be a conversation with Americans making informed decisions about what’s important to them, not secret edicts by politicians and bureaucrats who are quick to create systems that grow out of control and prove impossible to stop once in motion. Each day seems to bring new stories of abuse. A Washington Post report detailed how the government has secretly been paying tens of millions of dollars to tech and internet companies to underwrite the ability of the government to use these services to spy on everyone – not just terrorists. The Wall Street Journal reported that employees and contractors of the NSA have been found to use the agency’s capabilities to spy on their own potential “love interests” and former spouses. Call if cyber-stalking on steroids. And just a week ago we found out that the government’s own secret reports document that the NSA had broken privacy rules nearly three-thousand times in the last year alone. A recent CNET story details how the FBI has developed new custom “port reader” software that it is trying to force all Internet service providers to install in order to give them access to Internet data in real time. (Who needs the NSA when you can wiretap the whole Internet yourself?) To add insult to injury, the administration is petitioning the Supreme Court to review a case that could give government the right to search your mobile phone without a warrant. When you consider that most mobile phones are now linked to the same data and applications of the average computer, the government’s ability to go through it without a warrant is effectively no different than being able to walk into someone’s home or office and go through their computer files at will. This isn’t what our Founding Fathers had in mind when they wrote the Fourth Amendment’s language about being “secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects”. As a result of the growing scandal, Obama has done what folks in Washington usually do when they want to defuse a political problem: appoint a committee. The new panel is comprised of leaders from the intelligence community as well as White House staffers, and will take a look at how the NSA spies on Americans and then let us know if there is anything to be worked up about. Fox, meet hen-house. Of course all of these new revelations come several weeks after a coalition of conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats in the US House came within twelve votes of passing a resolution to prohibit the NSA’s collection of “bulk data” on Americans unless they were under suspicion of terrorism. Clearly it’s time for another vote on the subject. Why is it illegal for the CIA to operate domestically (a wise precaution), but not for the NSA to spy on Americans domestically and share that information with other government agencies? And who’s to say these programs can’t be focused on something other than potential lovers and be used for blackmail, or to spy out financial secrets and make big bets in the markets? The list of potential abuses is endless. There needs to be someone in this process whose job is to protect the privacy and liberty of the very people who are paying the tab. Some sort of congressionally appointed special counsel who can review all activities, report to Congress and even prosecute abuses. The current “trust us” arrangement doesn’t cut it. Whatever reforms and restrictions are put in place need to be imaginative and lay down clear principles that apply no matter what the technology of the day may be. To set out in certain terms that it is illegal for any agency of our government to spy on us (individually or collectively) or to collect personal information on Americans without their consent or a specific, individualized warrant from a judge – which was the exact intent of the Fourth Amendment. Anything less is not only an invitation but an admission that this is exactly what will happen. It’s time that we start having that national conversation.
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If You Build It, They Will Come
By admin
Just over one month after repeated assurances from the government that the NSA’s data-collection program wasn’t anything like what we thought it was, we’re now finding out that they were right. It’s worse. A review of some recent headlines: “NSA ‘dragnet’ wider than previously suspected” – NBC News “Report: NSA Searches and Stores Americans’ Emails” – Mashable.com “The NSA is giving your phone records to the DEA. And the DEA is covering it up” – Washington Post “White House: NSA monitors ‘very small percentage’ of Web traffic” – The Hill “US directs agents to cover up program used to investigate Americans” – Reuters “Other Agencies Clamor for Data NSA Compiles” – New York Times “FBI pressures Internet providers to install surveillance software” – CNET “IRS manual instructed agents how to hide secret DEA/NSA intel” – Reuters Despite the fact that when the scandal first broke, the government claimed that it was just harvesting “meta data” – supposedly just the same records that your phone company has – we now learn what most people suspected: that they are indeed collecting emails, texts, Internet search and social media data, along with some content. Further, the snooping isn’t limited to communications from terrorist suspects outside the US, but covers those between regular people right here in the good ol’ US of A. We were told that this was exclusively about stopping terrorists, but now we find out that the NSA has been sharing its notes with the DEA to assist in its investigations too. Worse, the DEA is hiding the use of that information from judges and prosecutors; meaning there’s no legitimate oversight of their criminal surveillance practices, making it harder for defendants to challenge the evidence against them. Now before you shrug this off as not being your problem, (hey, it’s drug dealers!), read further. According to a New York Times report last week, other government agencies have been looking to get their hands in the NSA’s treasure chest too, in order to “curb drug trafficking, cyber-attacks, money laundering, counterfeiting and even copyright infringement”. Still not close enough to home? A Reuters report found that the IRS had also been receiving NSA intelligence by way of the DEA connection. You’ve dealt with the IRS before, haven’t you? Remember, those are the guys whose leadership and staffers have been found to deliberately target certain Americans based on their political beliefs. The other reason these agencies want access to the NSA’s data is that any warrants they get for their own investigations have to be specific, whereas the NSA obtains its vast data through secret, generalized warrants. It’s just easier not to follow the rules. What we have now with the NSA is an agency that is taking advantage of the legitimate need Americans see in spying on our enemies to build a vast infrastructure that is now being directed at us, even if just incrementally. But as long as such an infrastructure exists, it WILL be used for things that neither Congress nor the American people ever intended. It is metastasizing into less of an intelligence agency and more of an intelligence warehouse that is subject to being accessed by other government agencies whose missions would never allow them to conduct this type of spying on Americans. If you build it, they will come. Meanwhile, some politicians on both sides of the aisle act as though there’s nothing to see here. Liberals who manage to find a right to an abortion hiding in the Fourth Amendment don’t seem to know the meaning of the right of Americans to “be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects”. And some “conservatives” have forgotten that one of the defining aspects of real conservatism is a very healthy dose of skepticism and distrust of government. But the politics here is clearly on the side of liberty. Sixty-nine percent of Americans believe that this is a real scandal that needs to be taken seriously, despite Obama’s lumping it into what he recently referred to as “phony scandals”. Most people think it’s a pretty big deal. It is now possible to construct a government that could legally snoop on the content of every conversation we have, know everywhere we go, when and with whom, (via cell phone location data and closed circuit cameras), every dollar we spend, when, where and on what – and record every bit of it. And that information would most certainly enable the government to catch a lot of bad guys and save a lot of lives, but would that make it worth the costs? Once we decide that we are willing to give up “x” in exchange for more security, we’ll soon hear from the “If it would save a single life” crowd telling us that we should also be willing to give up “y”, and then “z”, etc.. As Ben Franklin put it, “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety”. We’re on a slippery slope.
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Updating the dead girl, live boy rule
By admin
Former Democrat Governor Edwin Edwards of Louisiana gave the political world what has since become known as the “ dead girl, live boy rule ” of politics when, en route to his 1984 election to a third term, he estimated his chances by saying “the only way I can lose this election is if I’m caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy”. It’s a metaphor for doing something so insanely stupid as to upend politically reality, or at least getting caught doing it. As another former Louisiana Governor Earl Long put it in the movie Blaze , “A politician’s got to be discreet in his indiscretions”. But being discreet is getting tougher. Since the dawn of the Internet, along with email and its spawn text messaging, a smart politician with any survival instincts has to know that anything sent to anyone – no matter how trusted they may be at the moment – can one day pop up on the front page of the newspaper, show up on TV, or in the email in-boxes of every voter in their district. Many a job has been lost on account of the “reply all” button. Further, thanks to the ubiquitous smart phone, virtually everyone everywhere is equipped with a handheld digital camera and voice recorder that can quickly capture that obscene rant at a constituent, or the discreet exit from the no-tell motel with that hot new intern, and post it on Facebook in a matter of seconds. Despite that, human nature is what it is, and people continue to do dumb things. Add that to a culture that continues to chase the lowest common denominator and you end up with a lot of unfortunately “candid” moments and busted careers. On the bright side, this gives voters a chance to see what they actually got on Election Day, often much to their disappointment. That said, the “ dead girl, live boy rule ” has been more than adequate to cover the idiocy of politicians of all stripes up to this point. But every now and then someone comes along who does something so colossally and epically stupid that rules have to be re-written to account for it. Clearly it’s one thing to get caught doing something foolish, but it’s something else to willfully and repeatedly do so in a self-absorbed, sociopathic and exhibitionist way, especially after you’ve already been busted and drummed out of office for doing it once before. Which brings us to the latest case of Anthony Weiner and what I’ll call the new “ Carlos Danger corollary ”, which covers using technology in an insanely moronic and reckless way – like taking pictures of yourself naked and intentionally sharing them with someone in a format that is just one mouse click away from being front page news. So here’s the updated rule: never get caught with a dead girl or a live boy; or take pictures of your junk and send them to people. Politicians, take note. Now that it’s becoming so much easier to get caught, we’ve got an increasing number of politicians who want second chances; a trail blazed by Bill Clinton and followed by many more ever since. As Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey recently put it, “when voters don’t take public service more seriously than entertainment we end up with clowns”. Maybe that’s why they keep asking for another chance. They know how low the standards have fallen. And you can’t really mention these guys without also mentioning the women who enable them by publicly standing by them, excusing them, and in effect asking voters to excuse them as well. It’s like they have decided that, no matter how embarrassed they may be, no shame is worth losing access to political power. Why are these women willing to allow themselves to be used like this? And, at the risk of being sexist, what’s the line on how many men we will see “standing by their women” in similar situations? (I’ll take the under) Of course the intrepid feminist who blazed this trail of self-sacrifice was none other than the Democrats’ prospective 2016 nominee Hillary Clinton. And now we have Weiner’s wife, Huma, who has set the new feminist degradation record for standing by her man not once, but twice. (He’s really, REALLY straightened out this time!) Maybe we need a new “ Human Shield rule ” of politics, stipulating that you can possibly save your husband’s career by throwing your dignity on a political grenade just once. Beyond that, your credibility is gone along with your self-respect.
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Republicans should target the IRS and the Tax Code
By admin
Former Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall stated that, “The power to tax involves the power to destroy”. This is true enough, but it also involves the power to control. In fact, control is the number one feature of our tax code, at least in terms of how much of our behavior it controls. This is as opposed to how efficiently it raises revenue while doing the least possible damage to the economy and personal liberty. Like a hydra, it sits at the center of American life with tentacles that reach into our finances, our politics and – coming soon – our health care. It is the great enabler of big government, and it makes potential criminals out of everyday Americans who can’t possibly keep up with its over four million words and fifty-five thousand pages of rules and regulations. A code so complicated that it takes a collective 6.1 billion hours to comply with each year, the equivalent of over three million full-time employees and about 170 billion dollars in costs to the economy. Generally speaking, it is said that if you want less of something, you tax it, and if you want more of something, you subsidize it. With that in mind, our tax code is a veritable road map to what our betters want more and less of. We tax success, whether in the form of income, capital gains and essentially savings as well. We tax free speech with regulations and the time and resources necessary to comply with them. And of course we subsidize unemployment, poverty, poorly performing government monopoly schools and failing businesses. Trillions later, how’s that been working out for us? Its primary beneficiaries are accountants, lobbyists, lawyers and the businesses that get the loopholes they want, and the politicians who get contributions for keeping the loopholes in place. In other words, the complexity invites corruption. Of course such a large, complicated tax code gives rise to a large agency to administer it. And since it is a virtual certainty that everybody is violating some element of it at some time, it becomes a matter of bureaucratic discretion as to whether you’re targeted for enforcement or not. The more the agency has to regulate, the more it “needs to know” about those it regulates: like your finances, the content of your prayers, your political beliefs, what type of health insurance you have, etc. – all information that can be exploited and shared with others who have no business seeing it. Just ask the Tea Party supporters. Just this week a Treasury Inspector General’s report revealed that confidential tax records of some political candidates and donors were “improperly” reviewed by the IRS, and that they “targeted for audit candidates for political office”, and that there was “unauthorized access or disclosure of tax records of political donors or candidates”. But these scandals are mere symptoms of the problem that is our incomprehensible, inefficient, corruption-inducing tax code. All of which presents an opportunity to Republicans, and they should use it to “go big”. Call for the immediate appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate the IRS abuse scandals. Pass a resolution in the House every day if necessary to bring public attention and pressure Obama to make the appointment. Eliminate the IRS role in Obamacare. Of course that would essentially gut program financially, so Democrats would oppose it, but it would put them on the record voting to keep the IRS involved in American health care, much to the appreciation of the voting public. Eliminate the IRS all-together and restructure government revenue collection. We upended entire bureaucracies after 9-11, why not now? Further, push for real civil service reform that has real punishment for political favoritism and abuse. Reform the tax code to eliminate all deductions and lower all rates. Start with a blank sheet of paper and design it like it was on purpose, not the result of some grotesque experiment in regulatory evolution. It would mean easier compliance for taxpayers and less control for bureaucrats. Ignore the howls of protest from lobbyists and adopt a “no loopholes, no exceptions” policy. Eliminate the corporate income tax , since it is just a pass-thru to the shareholders who own corporations to begin with. This would also have the virtue of eliminating the need to file for tax-exempt status in order to create political speech groups and get the legal protections of a corporation, (the source of the recent IRS abuse of Tea Party groups). These are all issues that Republicans can use to beat Democrats over the head from here to 2016. Never let a crisis go to waste, remember? Best case, we actually improve something that desperately needs fixing. Worst case, we put Democrats in close races next year in a really bad spot. It’s all about preparing the ground we’re going to fight on.
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Politics of Obamacare Gives Liberalism a Comeuppance
“Remain calm.” So said Nancy Pelosi in response to the Great Democrat Panic of 2013 over the general public’s reaction to the realities of Obamacare. Democrats are in a tizzy, feigning shock and indignation because the law is doing precisely what it was designed to do – kick people off of their existing insurance plans in order to subsidize the new government insurance scheme, despite Obama’s promises to the contrary. Worse, the same government that managed to put a man on the moon (several times) and can read your emails, text messages and listen in on your phone calls can’t build a website to sell insurance. About the only thing that could make it worse would be if using the website gave you rickets. The panic dam officially burst when Bill Clinton gave worried Democrats cover to bail on Obama by saying “the president should honor the commitment the federal government made to these people and let them keep what they got.” Within days thirty-nine House Democrats ignored a White House veto threat and supported a Republican bill to allow insurance companies to continue selling the old policies. As a famous Chicago pastor might put it, Obamacare’s political chickens are coming home to roost. Even before the fiasco with the website Americans have been split over Obamacare, with those opposed to it outnumbering those in favor of it in most every poll conducted since the law was passed. According to the latest Quinnipiac poll, just a month ago both Obama and Obamacare were at about 45% approval; today they’re both at 39%, the lowest ever. Only 36% of Americans approve of Obama’s handling of health care in general, and 54% disapprove of his overall job performance. The same poll shows 52% of Americans agreeing that he isn’t trustworthy, and 56% say that he is incompetent. Worse yet, both Obama and his namesake law are upside-down among the 18-34 year old crowd that put him in the White House to begin with. More amazingly, the latest Gallup poll shows a record 55% of Americans do not believe that it’s the federal government’s responsibility to provide everyone with health care – up from just 28% in 2008. It turns out Joe Biden was right, it really is “a big ___ing deal”. The problem for Democrats is that these numbers aren’t being driven by clever Republican messaging, but rather by the implementation of Obamacare itself. So far over five million policies have been cancelled, while just over one-hundred thousand people have managed to get insurance through the new program, (with the vast majority of them actually signing up for Medicaid). But the number of people losing insurance now pales in comparison to the tens of millions more who will lose theirs when the employer mandate kicks in a year from now. Further, even the White House now admits that the “better” Obamacare policies chock full of things people don’t want (such as maternity coverage for men) costs more than their old “sub-standard” policies, (despite Obama’s other promise that the average family would save over $2,500 per year). Of course the Democrats now running like scalded dogs are the same ones who voted for the law and stood by Obama when he said “If you like your plan, you can keep it”. In fact, many of them were saying the exact same thing, (which will make wonderful commercials in 2014). The political damage goes deeper than the next election and extends to liberalism itself. Setting aside the current debate, how many other big-government schemes are voters likely to shrug their shoulders at, or will Democrats in competitive seats embrace anytime soon? It should be pointed out that part of the political strategy of Obamacare was to have government provide a tangible, personal benefit to voters in hope that they would see how great big government could be. But every cancelled plan, every rate hike, every deductable hike and every lost access to a personal physician is a personal story some potential voter will be sharing with other potential voters between now and next November. Obamacare is the biggest, most personal opportunity Republicans have ever had to make the case against big government liberalism. It feeds perfectly into a strategy of focusing on issues with a liberty oriented message. To remind voters that elections matter, and that the people who bungled both the creation and implementation of this law are the same people who want to run other aspects of our lives, rather than leave us free to do it ourselves. Democrat National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Shultz recently told CNN, “You’re darn right that our candidates are going to run on the advantage that Obamacare will be going into the 2014 election. The choice will be very clear.” The challenge for Republicans is to make sure that it is.
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