Author Archives: Ron Lipsman

The Monumental Events of a Lifetime: Does Barack Make the List?

The famous ‘Chinese curse,’ May You Live in Interesting Times certainly applies to America’s senior citizens. They have been cursed (or is it blessed?) to have witnessed quite a few monumental events during the past 70 years. Of course, virtually anyone (past or present) might make a similar assertion since, over the course of history, the world has been subjected to (often cataclysmic) events of a monumental nature with surprising frequency. Still, there has been no shortage of such occurrences since the start of World War II.

According to dictionary.com, the adjective monumental means ‘exceptionally great…in quantity, quality, extent or degree; of historical or enduring significance.’ Below is a list of major events that have occurred since 1940, which are of such enduring significance as to warrant the descriptive adjective monumental. The point of the article is to consider whether the election of Barack Obama to the Presidency merits inclusion on the list – and why or why not, especially if one compares its (potentially) enduring significance to that of the others on the list.

Clearly the compilation of a list of the most monumental events of the last three quarters of a century is a highly subjective affair. Nevertheless, the following entries would likely make most lists. Additionally, there will be many other events that could appear on another’s list as the choice of precise criteria for characterizing an event as monumental is also a subjective exercise (despite the definition given). No matter; the central issue of whether Barack makes the list depends more on one’s evaluation of the significance of his Presidency than on the contents of the list – and also more specifically on how one interprets the precise significance of his election.

Here’s the list – a baker’s dozen:

·       The Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor

·       The Wannsee Conference and the consequent Holocaust

·       D-Day

·       The dropping of the atomic bomb and the unconditional surrender of the Axis powers

·       The birth of Israel

·       The launch of Sputnik

·       JFK assassinated

·       The Six Day War

·       The lunar landing of Apollo 11

·       Watergate and the resignation of Richard Nixon

·       The election of Ronald Reagan

·       The fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union

·       9/11.

One could write an essay for each entry as to why it belongs on the list. Instead, here are a few comments addressed to what some might consider quirks in the list.

1.     The list probably contains more Jewish/Israeli items than many would include. Perhaps the author’s heritage was unduly influential. Nevertheless, it is undoubtedly the case that each of the three such items truly belongs on a list of monumental events in world history over the last century.

2.     In a few places, two (or more) events are conflated and listed as one for obvious reasons.

3.     These are all ‘man-made’ events. There are no tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes or epidemics, although some would certainly insist that they belong.

4.     Some of the events were glorious; some horrendous. By the author’s reckoning, there are seven of the former and six of the latter.

5.     There is also a bias toward events that involve the United States. French people might want to include Dien Bien Phu or the ascension of de Gaulle. British folks might clamor for the 1956 Suez affair; Czechs for the quashing of the Prague Spring; Poles for the formation of Solidarity; etc. Given the venue, a focus on the US is appropriate here.

6.     Even so, many items that others would surely insist belong are omitted: e.g., the Inchon landings and the Korean War; the Tet offensive and the Vietnam War; the formation of the UN; Supreme Court decisions like Brown v. Board of Education or Roe v. Wade; economic collapses like the market crash of 1987 or the dot.com implosion or the bursting of the housing bubble; the Civil Rights Act; or the advent of Medicare – and others.

Indeed, a highly subjective affair. Nevertheless, by way of justification for the above list, let us note that every event on the list meets the following criteria:

·       The event was monumental according to the definition specified.

·       It had powerful consequences for the societies directly impacted, and others as well.

·       It influenced the course of history.

·       It lives on vigorously and actively in the minds (and frequently the words) of tens of millions of people.

·       It is marked, celebrated or castigated on a recurring basis by scores of descendants of those originally touched by the event.

Now comes the fundamental question of this piece. Does the election of Barack Obama become the 14th entry on the list? The instinctive answer is ‘yes!’ The 350-year history of slavery, segregation and discrimination perpetrated against black people is the greatest stain on America’s glorious history. One could easily argue that the election of a black man to the Presidency by an electorate that is no more than 13% black marks a historic, consequential, memorable, indeed monumental event in the history of the United States of America. It was an act of great national healing and atonement. It should mark the end of the bleak racial legacy of our country and initiate an age of racial harmony. Thus it obviously meets the criteria and therefore the answer to the question is undoubtedly a resounding ‘yes.’

But there are two critical reasons for qualifying the ‘yes’ with a ‘but.’

1.     Barack Obama was presented with a great opportunity in January 2009. America offered him a position from which he could cement the benign, post-racial destiny that most American envisioned his Presidency would usher in. He spurned the offer. Through actions large and small (failing to prosecute the blatantly racist and manifestly illegal actions of certain Black Panthers on election day; imputing racist motives to a white Boston police officer who was merely doing his job; branding opponents to his economic and political policies as racists; and demeaning small-town, working class Americans with his snide remark about their clinging to their guns and religion), he has continued to stir the pot of racial animosity in this country. Because of his attitudes and actions, and of those he has surrounded himself with, the healing and unifying effect on society that his election was to represent – a prime reason for his election to be considered monumental – apparently will not occur.

2.     Barack Obama is the first President of these United States who is post-American, indeed anti-American. He is not the first to be utterly contemptuous of the Constitution, but he is a hard-core, leftist ideologue who seemingly abhors what America stands for historically, who is ashamed of our country and who is hell bent on transforming it into a society radically at odds with the vision of our Founders. God help us if he succeeds. If he does succeed, then his election will certainly enter the list – but not for the salutary reasons enumerated above. Rather it will be because he destroyed America. Then he would be #14 and there would be seven of each type.

Perhaps he will, in the end, enter the list for the originally stated reasons. But that will require a serious attitude adjustment on his part. There is still time for that to occur, but it is hard to believe that it is forthcoming. The best that we can hope for, I suspect, is that the American people will kick him to the curb like they did Jimmy Carter and 50 years from now he will be remembered sadly as a man who missed a great opportunity.
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This article also appeared in The Intellectual Conservative at

Defeating Obama and the Progressives: Is there Cause for Optimism?

The election of Barack Obama and a hard left Congress has not been a boon to the cause of individual liberty in the United States. Obama has worked hard to advance his goal of transforming America into a government-controlled, social welfare state. Among other steps, he has: appointed two ultra-left Supreme Court Justices; filled the executive branch with all manner of socialist radicals; proposed, and had adopted by a complicit Congress, budgets with deficits guaranteed to bankrupt the nation; nationalized car companies, insurance firms and financial institutions; excused GSEs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from culpability in the creation of the housing bubble; prolonged the 2007-2008 economic downturn by pursuing ruinous Keynesian policies; refused to enforce immigration laws in the hope that the ensuing flood would boost leftist voting rolls; weakened America’s strategic defenses; and changed our foreign policy posture from strength to obsequiousness.

These stunning achievements are topped by Obama’s three signature “triumphs”: the (nearly) one billion dollar stimulus bill, Obamacare and “finance reform”. Thus far, fortunately, the US has been spared amnesty for more than 10 million illegal aliens, as well as cap and trade, but it is feared that he will try, with his duplicitous allies in the federal bureaucracy and Congress, to impose these de facto through executive action (or inaction as the case may be).

It is not surprising, therefore, that those of us who oppose his makeover of America should be feeling somewhat dejected. One manifestation of that demoralization is the appearance of a host of gloom and doom books on the future of America. The author reviewed two of them recently in this journal (http://www.thelandofthefree.net/conservativeopinion/2010/07/24/the-future-of-america-is-the-prevailing-pessimism-warranted/). Those books do not paint a cheery picture; indeed, they foresee America sinking into a collectivist morass of big government, declining freedom and vanishing prosperity.

However, it is gratifying to learn that the doomsayers have not cornered the market. Several books, which can only be described as bullish on America, have also been written recently by conservative authors. Two of the best are: To Save America by Newt Gingrich and After the Hangover by R. Emmet Tyrrell. These authors acknowledge the damage done by Obama and his leftist minions, but they look forward optimistically to a strong, resilient and prosperous America nevertheless – and they tell us what we need to do to get there. Is their optimism warranted? I will attempt to answer that question in this piece.

First, it is irrefutable that there is much cause for pessimism. The contents of the two introductory paragraphs above provide said cause. But rather than pile on with more concrete examples of the woes that the left has inflicted on unwary Americans, let me identify four major themes that will highlight the gravity of the problems we face.

1. The length of the path that we’ve already travelled is great. The nature of American politics and society would be unrecognizable to our Founders. Over the last 100 years, America has ceased to be a limited government republic that enjoys free markets and is also a bastion of liberty and a beacon of freedom to the world. Through the corrosive influence of the progressive movement, we have morphed into more of a Euro-style social welfare state, with a gargantuan government and a mixed economy – more of a populist democracy than a Constitutional republic, a nation that is not particularly admired or feared around the world. We would have to travel a very long road back to restore America to its founding ideals.

2. This transformation is not widely understood by the populace, and where it is understood, many approve. The people have been so thoroughly brainwashed by the media, academia, the legal profession, politicians and the education establishment that they have completely lost sight of what America used to stand for. They cannot imagine a US without government entitlement programs, direct election of Senators or the federal income tax. Yet a century ago, none of those existed. A liberal was a person like Madison, de Tocqueville or Gladstone who believed in individual liberty and that government posed the greatest threat to its existence.

3. The character of the American people has changed. Whereas we were once a fiercely self-reliant people who looked to our family, friends and neighbors, religious and civic organizations and above all ourselves to deal with our problems, today we increasingly depend on the government. We have traded liberty for security. More specifically, the proportion of the population that depends on the government for its sustenance – as a salaried employee, grant recipient, benefits recipient, contractor or in any other of the myriad ways that one’s personal finances or welfare may be intimately tied to federal purse strings – that percentage is impossible to estimate precisely, but it is inordinately high and growing.

4. Sheer magnitude of the required correction. Suppose miraculously the American people came to their senses and decided to restore America to its traditional mode and values. We would need to dramatically downsize the Federal Government: eliminate scores of departments and agencies; lower taxes and spending; curtail regulatory powers; divest property; and drastically shrink that unstated percentage described in #3. While in the long run, this would be of enormous benefit to the country and its citizens; in the short run, it would be exceedingly painful for a huge number of people. Could we find the political and economic will to initiate and sustain such a difficult course of action?

Now let’s turn the page on the preceding gloomy assessment and examine a few of the causes for optimism at this stage. Here we will highlight some of the themes that run through the works of Gingrich, Tyrrell and other optimists.

• Saving remnant. As the emergence of the Tea Party movement shows, there remains in America a saving remnant – a small but passionate group of people who have not forgotten the true historic nature of American society, who remain committed to the ideals of individual liberty, free markets and Western Civilization, and who wish to purge the country of the sickness of collectivism that has infected it. The remnant probably constitutes no more than 20, perhaps 25% of the population; but its desire to restore America to the principles of freedom, individual responsibility and American exceptionalism laid down by the Founders is fervent.

• The ‘independents’ are fed up. The percentage of the population devoted to individual liberty and a Constitutional republic is probably matched by the number devoted to its antithesis. The hard core leftists who wish to complete the transformation of the US into a multicultural, collectivist, Euro-style, social welfare state also comprises likely 20-25% of the nation. That leaves roughly half of the population in neither camp, the ‘independents.’ People might fall into this category because they are apolitical, confused or ignorant. Unfortunately, many of these are also brainwashed and so routinely side with the left. How else to explain why, despite the rough parity in basic strength, the left has been able to outmaneuver the right for nigh on a century. But there are clear signs that the wantonly corrupt and destructive behavior of our current liberal regime (the Obama-Pelosi-Reid gang) has seriously gotten under the skin of the independents. Many of them are waking up to recognize the dreadful destination that the gang has in store for us. The independents are not happy about it and they are reevaluating their core beliefs or lack thereof.

• Obama’s success is far from total. Yes, he got the ‘stimulus,’ Obamacare and ‘financial reform.’ but he didn’t get cap and trade, card check and amnesty for illegal aliens, and Fox News is still on the air. All is not lost yet. Yes, he can still wreak a lot of damage in the 29 months left until – God willing – he is tossed out of the White House. But hopefully the forthcoming midterm elections will substantially cripple his ability to implement his nefarious agenda. One might even hope that the momentum to recapture America from his and his cronies’ collectivist clutches will continue to build.

• Nancy Pelosi. There is no better symbol for the 21st century liberal than Nancy Pelosi – angry, mean-spirited, arrogant, dictatorial, closed-minded, and downright unpleasant to look at or listen to. She represents perfectly the bleak vision that modern liberalism wants to impose on America – a future of enforced equal poverty, subservience to a gargantuan federal government composed of haughty bureaucrats and elitist politicians, diminution of America’s historic role as a bastion of freedom, and a multicultural polyglot of favored groups and compliant individuals. An increasing number of Americans see her liberal agenda for the calamity it would inflict and they are recoiling in horror. Perhaps it took too long to recognize the true nature of the liberal utopia that Nancy, Barack and their ilk have planned for us – but better late than never. This dastardly duo has given America a clearer vision and a better understanding of the utopia that awaits.

• Ronald Reagan. There is no better symbol for the 21st century anti-liberal than Ronald Reagan – optimistic, cheerful, modest, kind-hearted, clear-thinking and mindful of history. He represented perfectly the grounded, yet vast vision of the grand experiment in individual liberty that America’s Founders intended for us. Although not strictly speaking a religious person, he understood that man is not the ultimate arbiter of his fate. Reagan preached that there is an unseen power that has contributed at least as much as man to the unfolding human drama and that the liberal atheist’s faith in human ability to totally plan mankind’s future is as dangerous as it is foolish. America resonated to Ronald Reagan. America is revolted by Nancy Pelosi. That is certainly cause for optimism.

• Center-right. Finally, polls, pundits and politicians continue to acknowledge that the American people remain more center-right than center-left. The instincts of the majority of the independent camp lean right – even if their behavior has unfortunately often tilted left. Perhaps that explains why it took the progressives a century to (nearly) achieve their objectives. If we are truly on the cusp of a counter-revolution, then unlike the progressives, we traditionalists/conservatives/19th century liberals will be swimming downstream as we try to correct the egregious mistakes of the last 100 years. Maybe we can get it done in half, or even a quarter of the time.

Obama repeats ad nauseam that it was George Bush’s policies that put America in its current doldrums – seemingly, idiotically unaware that there is a remarkable degree of similarity between his (i.e., Obama’s) policies and those of his much-maligned predecessor. They both ran up huge budget deficits, expanded government regulation, initiated massive new entitlement programs, increased the power of the federal government at the expense of the people and the States, and failed to set clear goals in the battle against Islamic fundamentalism. Yes, they had some differences (on taxes, nature of Supreme Court appointments, various social issues). But in the grand scheme of things with regard to moving America from a Constitutional republic to a statist society, they are cut from the same cloth. Of course, Obama is much more extreme in the collectivist direction than Bush, but Obama’s assertion that he is the anti-Bush is laughable.

The latter point and many of those in the bullets above are treated in the current small spate of optimistic books. Here are the final two paragraphs from the two books I cited earlier:

Gingrich. We [the American people] have the energy and we have the determination to save America. November 2010 will be our first big chance to render judgment on the Left’s healthcare bill, and two years later we’ll have another opportunity. It’s easy to despair, but that energy is better put toward preparing for these elections, which will be the most consequential of our lifetime.
We must speak out, organize, and never forget what’s at stake: our livelihood, our freedom, and our precious country.

Tyrrell. Viewed from the perspective of history, the Liberals have been in a long, slow, but apparently unavoidable decline since the 1960s, when for them history stopped. From their excesses in the early Obama administration, it is clear that they completely missed the 1980s and 1990s. They have become fantasists. They believe all the legends they have created for themselves. As one after another is defeated at the polls, it might be difficult to get them to vacate their offices. Special counselors may have to be called in.
America’s political center is now a center shaped by conservatism. With the growth of the conservative counterculture, the prospects are good for conservatism now to do what it should have done in the 1980s and act not merely like a political party but like a political culture. Finally, the conservatives can stop pulling each other back. They stand poised to create what the New Deal created, a New Order. History rarely repeats itself, but it does occasionally approximate itself.

I pray that we are truly on the cusp of a counter-revolution to the progressive hegemony that has dominated our politics and culture and which has done so much terrible damage. But I want more than what Reagan and Gingrich were able to bring about. They achieved at best a slowdown in the inexorable march to the left that the US has been on for decades. I want it reversed – irrevocably. I want my grandchildren to look back in 50 years and understand that their beloved America was almost lost because of traitorous progressives who introduced the poison of collectivism into the American bloodstream, and also due to the lack of faith by the people in the historical purpose, culture and values of the nation. My grandchildren should be incredulous that these developments almost cost us our freedom and they must be dedicated to preventing progressives and self-doubt from ever threatening the country again.

Is that too much to hope for? Is it too great a miracle to count on? Human history is replete with shocking and unanticipated developments – both good and bad. Ahead of the actual occurrences, few if any foresaw: the fall of the Soviet Union, the Holocaust, the rebirth of Israel, the advent of the United States, the carnage of the Great War or of the American Civil War. Perhaps the rebirth of the United States as a limited government republic devoted to the ideals and laws of our Constitution and Declaration of Independence, drawing inspiration from 19th century liberalism, is not beyond the realm of possibility. Perhaps all that is required is to remind the people of Franklin’s famous quote: “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
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This essay also appeared in The Land of the Free; as did the following essay, which was inadvertently deleted in the transfer of the blog from Townhall to this site:

The Future of America: Is the Prevailing Pessimism Warranted?

 

There is no denying the heightened level of concern among the public for the future of our nation. Polls consistently reveal that optimism among American adults about the future welfare of their children and grandchildren is plummeting. Angry town hall meetings, anti-incumbent sentiment and the rapid growth of the Tea Party movement all reflect the deep misgivings that increasing numbers of Americans feel about what’s in store for our country. Another manifestation: there is no shortage of doom and gloom books that give vent to these concerns. Although these books have a common theme – namely, America is in trouble and if we don’t reverse course, the nation may cease to exist in the form that we have known it for more than two centuries – both the root cause of the malady and the remedies prescribed to fix it vary from book to book.

 

Most lay the blame squarely at the feet of the Leftist regime that has come to rule over America during the last 75-100 years. The common theme is that we have lost our way as a ConstitutionalRepublic founded on individual liberty, limited government and a traditional culture based on the tenets of Western Civilization and replaced it with a Euro-style, social welfare state that prizes equality of outcome, massive government control of all aspects of society and a secular creed steeped in multiculturalism.

 

Two representative examples that I read recently are: The Tyranny of Liberalism, by James Kalb (Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2008) and The Struggle to Limit Government by John Samples (Cato Institute, 2010). I single these out not because they are the best of the genre – in fact, I think they are among the least attractive of the lot – but because each makes a critically important observation that is worth emphasizing.

 

Kalb’s book is really an exercise in political philosophy and psychology. His subtitle:  Understanding and Overcoming Administered Freedom, Inquisitorial Tolerance, and Equality by Command is a giveaway to what the reader may expect to find in his tome. It is a treatise in behavioral psychology, seeking to explain what motivates liberals to believe and behave as they do, how their increasing dominance affects the members of society and why – in Kalb’s belief – what they have created is ultimately unstable and will eventually cause the collapse of society. It is a book that could easily serve as a text in a graduate school psychology or sociology course, which explains why it has not topped the best seller’s list.

 

But it does have one remarkably redeeming feature. In Chapter 5, entitled “Are Objections to Liberalism Overstated?”, Kalb presents one of the most compelling litanies of the perverse accomplishments of American liberalism that I have ever read. If I may be permitted several trenchant quotes:

 

“Continued faith in liberalism is supported by the common view that whatever its flaws, American society today is much more fair and decent than in the past. The correctness of that view is quite doubtful. Past discriminations led to many evils, but the triumph of advanced liberalism in the sixties has meant worse. Recent social changes have taken mothers away from their children; forced children to grow up without fathers; led women to destroy their children before or during birth; taught boys there is nothing specifically good about manhood or respectable about women; told girls that they are victims, predators, and commodities; destroyed common culture and common sense; multiplied crimes and prisons; increased economic disparities and the working week; imposed pervasive bureaucracies of racial preference and thought control; and led to rabid and mindless political partisanship, a radical decline in intellectual and cultural standards, and the degrading entertainment now seen on television and in theaters. There is nothing fair or decent about forcing people to live, and young people to grow up, in such a setting.

The welfare state makes us clients rather than actors. It makes us useless to each other. It separates conduct from consequences and undermines personal responsibility. It weakens connections between the sexes and generations by insisting that dependence on particular persons is wrong. It deprives personal loyalty and integrity of their place and function by making us rely on the system as a whole rather than on ourselves and each other. The result is that people feel alienated and lack civility, couples do not stay together or have children, the ones they do have are badly brought up, and men and women do not know how to treat each other. In the long run—with the growth of crime, corruption, abusiveness, and other social disorders—costs soar, efficiency drops, dependency outruns productivity, and the system loses the ability to achieve its basic end of securing a reliable minimum of security and well-being.

 

The changes brought about by the radicalization of liberalism in the sixties and thereafter have hurt the weak and marginalized more than anybody. The liberation of women and of sex has deprived women of masculine support, feminized poverty, and turned girls into sexual commodities…Gay lib has liberated conduct that destroys lives by glamorizing acting on weaknesses and facilitating preying on the confused. Black progress slowed or reversed in most ways for most blacks after the sixties, the period that was supposedly a new dawn in fairness and decency on racial issues. None of that is progress, any more than it is progress to make people generally worse—less social, loyal, and disciplined, and more grasping, cynical, and self-involved—and to deprive them of concrete models and standards for a good life. All those conditions have been consequences of a post-sixties order emphasizing social justice and consequently downplaying the need for people to keep their own lives in order and to treat each other well in daily life.”

 

These powerful remarks are backed up by numerous illustrations throughout the book. They are representative of Kalb’s basic thesis, which can be summarized in these bullets:

  • Liberalism preaches tolerance, but is famously intolerant of those who don’t subscribe to its preachings.
  • Liberalism advocates inclusiveness, but excludes from the mainstream any who disagree with its premises.
  • Liberalism celebrates diversity, but crushes any whose views diverge from standard liberal thought or dogma.
  • Liberals profess to be non-judgmental, but they judge as unworthy any and all conservative thought or opinion.

 

Kalb goes to great lengths to explain why liberals must behave in this fashion. His explanations are, as I said, rooted in psychology, sociology and philosophy. His arguments are dense and at times impenetrable. Thus I fear that his book will not be widely read. That is perhaps unfortunate since his Chapter 5 contains many insightful and well-stated arguments. So if a copy falls into your hands, turn to Chapter 5, and then turn to something more readable and optimistic like the recent books by Gingrich (To Save America: Stopping Obama’s Secular-Socialist Machine) or Tyrrell (After the Hangover: The Conservatives’ Road to Recovery).

 

An equally dense, yet valuable critique of liberalism may be found in Samples’ book. The reader will not find much psychology there, but instead the most intense political science, political history and political minutiae imaginable. As the author says in the Preface, “This book concerns the political [emphasis added] struggle to constrain the activities of the federal government.” The work is an incredibly detailed look at the political machinations of the federal government over the last 30 years. The author explores in the greatest detail the strategies, motivations and actions of myriad federal officials (elected and appointed), especially with an eye toward evaluating the effects of any action that influenced the size and scope of the federal government. There is a tremendous amount of nuanced information, some of it quite interesting. But far from all of it! Like Kalb’s, I fear that Samples’ book is a sleep inducer. It is too dense, with too many asides and far too many statistics.

 

But Samples’ book, like Kalb’s, has a strongly redeeming quality – it effectively makes a point that transcends the otherwise laborious chore of slogging through the manuscript. The point is this. Reagan was a singular President in the last 80 years – the only true conservative elected to the White House. Reagan was the unique President since Coolidge who actually believed – as he said – that government is the problem, not the solution and that he intended to address the problem by shrinking the size of government. The book makes a persuasive case that he did not succeed. He did succeed in reducing taxes, jump staring the economy and initiating 25 years of growth and increased prosperity. He did revitalize the nation’s defenses and defeated the Soviet Union to win the Cold War. But he utterly failed to win the ‘struggle to limit government.’ Once again, some relevant quotes:

“Reagan sought to control spending later by cutting taxes first. The prospect of substantial deficits would force Congress to choose cutting programs, a choice members did not like but would have seen as better than deficit spending. This strategy did…not work.

 

Overall, the Reagan years saw neither growth nor reduction of domestic discretionary spending. … Hence the period 1981-1989 is more appropriately characterized as one year of deep budget cuts, 1982, followed by rapid budget growth. … Between 1980 and 1987, the three largest social welfare programs (Social Security, Medicare, and other health care spending) increased their spending by 84 percent. … Even in the discretionary domestic budget, a relatively small part of overall spending, the Reagan administration produced only minor absolute cuts in spending. … The Reagan years did not see … a significant reduction in the size of government…

 

Did Reagan change the political culture of the United States? … Polling responses indicate that the number of people who wanted more government spending grew with each passing year in the Reagan presidency. A similar result marked ideological self-identification among Americans. During most of the Reagan years, the number of people claiming to be liberals rose and the number identifying as conservatives fell.

 

What explains Reagan’s limited success at limiting government? The …answer may be found in Reagan’s 1980 election campaign. Candidate Reagan promised to restrain the growth of government, not roll back the state. But candidate Reagan also promised to enact reforms that would constrain government spending and taxing. These changes did not happen. Year after year, the Reagan administration proposed cutting or eliminating spending on everything from small programs … to large programs… Yet after 1981, these budgets and their cuts were considered “dead on arrival” on Capitol Hill. … [One explanation:] There turn[ed] out to be relatively few fiscal conservatives in the administration or in either party in Congress… conservatives in both parties were more protective of programs that served their own states and favored constituencies than of their commitment to a responsible fiscal policy.

 

The old regime was built on entitlement expectations and concomitant spending. Reagan did not eliminate or significantly restrain major entitlement programs. Reagan did attempt, more than once, to constrain Social Security spending, and each time was met by an overwhelming political reaction that cowed most congressional republicans almost immediately…. Reagan did not come close to overturning the old regime. Its main policies and institutions resisted his efforts.”

Those words are found in a subsection entitled “Assessing Reagan” (pp. 142-154). Like Kalb, Samples justifies the words with ample evidence throughout the book.

 

It is possible to come away from these (and other) books profoundly depressed about the future of the nation. As Kalb demonstrates, liberalism is a self-contradictory, perverse philosophy that now rules the politics and culture of the USA. As Samples shows, the one serious effort that we have made to tame the beast did not succeed. Despair seems legitimate. And yet, the nation’s political literature has also been graced by the recent appearance of several hopeful books – some based on an abstract faith in American destiny and some bearing concrete proposals to recapture the country. America has shown amazing recuperative powers in the past and I think that Reagan would have more faith in Gingrich and Tyrrell than in Kalb and Samples. I’ll stick with the Gipper.

Is the President a Closet Muslim?

Late at night, in the Lincoln bedroom, does the President of the United States whip out a prayer rug, drop to his knees and profess his obedience to Allah? According to recent polls, somewhere between 20 and 25 percent of the American people believe that he does. What an astounding development! Nearly seventy five million Americans think that our President is a follower of a faith that demeans Christianity and Judaism, that is the inspiration for world-wide Jihad against Western Civilization, that has contributed virtually nothing to the history, culture and politics of our nation and whose adherents around the globe consider themselves at war with our country.

How amazing! The American people have installed in the White House a man about whom it knows remarkably little – and more astonishingly, a man who little understands the nature of the people he governs. Surely the election of this enigmatic man to the Presidency must be one of, if not the most colossal blunder(s) that the American people have ever collectively made. The people entrusted the Presidency to an individual who expresses scorn for the nation’s history, who purposefully weakens the fabric of society and who steers its economic course directly toward bankruptcy. This expression of trust seems almost like an act of madness and self-flagellation by the American people.

Perhaps enough of us have woken up to the horrendous mistake we made so that the intention to terminate the madness will bear fruit in 2012. That will not change the fact that Barack Hussein Obama will always be listed as the 44th President of the United States. The blow to our self-confidence as a people – given the monumental blunder that we have made, the fact of which we will never be able to erase – will be felt for decades.

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This post also appeared in The Intellectual Conservative blog at

It’s the Fiscal Uncertainty, Stupid

It is not easy to discern under the fog of misinformation disseminated by the Obama administration and its leftist allies in the Congress and the Federal bureaucracy, but these folks seem genuinely puzzled that their Keynesian/socialist policies have not brought the US economy roaring back to life. They said and, more to the point, apparently believed that: the nearly billion dollar stimulus program would provide the perfect jolt to the US job creation machine and cut the employment rate by at least 2%; Obamacare was exactly what the American consumer needed and wanted, and that it would eventually rescue the economy from the ravages of unchecked health care expenditures; the extension and expansion of unemployment benefits and other welfare programs would ease unemployment and cushion the effect that the economic contraction was having on poorer Americans; and finally, their misbegotten mortgage assistance program, cash for clunkers and other artificial, one-time statist interventions in the economy would save it from the severe harm inflicted by the evil policies of the Bush administration – policies which were strangely reminiscent of those of the current administration.

All of these suppositions are patent nonsense. But that this is so is completely beyond the ken of the vastly-experienced businessman whom the American people so foolishly installed in the White House. Obama utterly rejects the policies of Ronald Reagan that rescued the US economy from similar dire circumstances 30 years ago. Instead, he plows ahead with failed Keynesian economic policies and wonders why they don’t herald the economic revitalization that he believes they should. He is clueless as to why American businessmen and the American consumer don’t respond as he expects. It’s the fiscal uncertainty, stupid! The actions of Obama and his minions who, tragically, govern our fair land have created massive uncertainty about what will come next; and it is that uncertainty – as much as the already manifest deleterious effects of Obama’s policies – that is the cause for the continued stagnation in the American economy.

The notion that the uncertainty caused by Obama’s unwise fiscal policies is as damaging as the already perceived ill effects of those policies is not a new idea – although my phrasing of the concept in the title is hopefully novel. I would like to pursue the thought in two ways in this article. First, I will quickly review the nature of the uncertainties and the harmful consequences that follow. Second, I will consider two excellent, recently published books that analyze Obama’s fiscal policies: The Great Money Binge: Spending Our Way to Socialism, by George Melloan (Threshold Editions, 2009) and It’s Not as Bad as You Think: Why Capitalism Trumps Fear and the Economy Will Thrive, by Brian Wesbury (Wiley, 2010). I will discuss how these astute authors’ analyses of the nature of Obamanomics are almost exactly parallel, but how they come to diametrically opposed conclusions as to the consequences for the country and the economy. The point is that if these accomplished experts (both conservative, incidentally) are in complete disagreement about the fallout from Obamanomics, how great indeed must be the uncertainty it is producing in the business community, among investors and consumers and of course in the public at large.

The financial uncertainties that our nation faces are crippling as well as perplexing. But before we recite them, let us list a few of the certainties that have been established beyond doubt in the last 18 months:

·       Obama is a leftist ideologue who wants to transform the US from a society characterized by free markets, limited government, traditional culture and individual liberty into a government-controlled, Euro-style social welfare state.

·       Nationalized health care, cap and trade, massive deficit spending, punitive taxation – especially on the ‘rich,’ extensive government regulation, re-unionization of the American work force and demonization of American business are the main mechanisms he intends to deploy to bring about his radical transformation. He has succeeded in a few of these areas and he continues to press the others.

·       Despite the fact that his agenda was evident for all who cared to look during the 2008 campaign, the American people were blinded by his charisma and apparent pragmatism, by the cover provided to him by the media, and by the populace’s desire to put the nation’s dismal racial legacy to a final rest by elevating a black man to the Presidency. But now a significant portion of the electorate has awoken to the horrendous mistake that was made and is determined to correct said blunder at the earliest opportunity.

These things we know. We see what Obama has done and he is now largely transparent about what he still intends to do. Now what don’t we know?

·       We are unsure of the level of taxation awaiting us. Obama wants to raise income taxes, capital gains taxes, taxes on dividends, FICA earnings limits, estate taxes and all manner of corporate taxes. Will he succeed? To what extent?

·       Do we have inflation waiting just around the corner? perhaps hyperinflation? or will it be deflation? or just stagnation?

·       Will the economy dip back into recession?

·       What surprises await consumers, businessmen and investors in the two multi-thousand page bills that Congress passed in the last four months? What effect will they have on consumer spending or saving, entrepreneurship, the housing industry, the medical profession, Wall Street, Main Street and your street?

·       How much more of Obama’s destructive agenda will be enacted before he stands for re-election? cap and trade? card check? more campaign finance ‘reform’? more education ‘reform’? amnesty for illegal aliens?

·       How deep is the resistance to the threat he poses? Are the Tea Party people representative of not just deep-seated resentment but of a more widespread disappointment at Barack’s plans? Is the Republican Party more RINO than Tea? How will all of this be manifested in the Congressional elections this fall? What effect will that election have on the progress of Obama’s radical agenda? Can any of it be rolled back?

Because of these uncertainties: businesses are loath to invest in new ventures or hire new workers; consumers are reluctant to buy homes; the stock market is subject to wild gyrations; other countries lose faith in the soundness of the dollar; parents worry about their children being able to live as well as the parents do; we remain paralyzed and unable to address the entitlement calamity that is bearing down upon us; public morale is damaged by the enormous debt we are piling up; and our pride in our nation is weakened. Incidentally, this litany doesn’t even touch upon the people’s fear for the country’s security occasioned by Obama’s foreign policy of ‘soft power,’ appeasement, obsequious groveling to tyrants, disarmament and multilateralism.

I doubt there is anything that I have said here with which the two afore-mentioned authors would not agree. In their books, they each come down very hard on Obama along the lines that I have laid out in this piece. The similarities in their analyses of Obamanomics are highlighted by the facts that both books have Forwards written by the same person (Amity Shlaes) and both authors have deep connections to the Wall Street Journal. Yet, Melloan strikes a very pessimistic note, whereas Wesbury remains optimistic.

Melloan: Now, with the crash of 2008, our new president and government appear committed to ignoring the lessons of the past. With multibillion dollar ‘stimulus packages’ becoming the norm, and a multitrillion-dollar national debt that will keep growing so long as present policies are continued, America can look forward to a very grim future indeed.

Wesbury: There is clear evidence that panics and depressions happened with some regularity back in the 1800s and early 1900s, and it is also true that government was small back then, but … Government experimented with two different national banks, often changed the price of gold or silver, issued debt, and regularly interfered with the banking system. … The key is that the United States made it through all of that and has averaged a little more than 3 percent real GDP growth per year for the past … 200 years. This history of free market capitalism is a huge hurdle for anyone who wants to say that it was built on sand to overcome. The United States has created so much wealth and built such a robust system that taking it down is much more difficult than anyone thinks. In the end the economy is built on a rock. … Capitalism has not failed. And it’s not time to give up—on free markets or a better tomorrow. History has shown that every time the economy was thought to be done, worn out, finished, it bounced back. …[It will do so again.] It’s not as bad as you think.

 

Melloan concedes that America’s economic goose is cooked, while Wesbury attempts to convince the reader that the American economy can take Obama’s best punch and still come back strong. As a stockbroker acquaintance says: ‘The market factored in Social Security, then it factored in Medicare; it will likewise factor in Obamacare.’ But there is no more factor room counters Melloan. Are we hopelessly far down the road to ruin or will America’s unbelievable history of resilience rescue us? I wish I knew which of these two gentlemen was correct. How could they come to such vastly different conclusions based on the same evidence and based on essentially the same evaluation of the evidence? I think the answer can be found in the notion of a tipping point. The idea, which I believe originates with Thomas Sowell, is that there is a point in the transformation of America from a Constitutional Republic to a Euro welfare state beyond which – if we reach it – it will be impossible to reverse course. Actually, in a previous post in this blog, in which I discuss this idea at length, I described three tipping points – one political, another economic and a third cultural. Melloan and Wesbury are concerned exclusively with the second. The answer to the puzzle I posed is that Melloan believes that we have passed the economic tipping point, whereas Wesbury does not. I sure hope that Wesbury is right.

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This article also appeared in The Intellectual Conservative on Aug 3, 2010 at:

Free Markets vs. Efficient Markets: Free People vs. ‘Equal’ People

Many broad explanations have been offered for the economic collapse of 2008, including corporate greed, government incompetence and personal irresponsibility. Specific causes have also been put forward, for example: Fannie and Freddie bankrolled insolvent mortgages; unsound derivative investments toppled the mortgage industry in particular and the credit markets in general; aggressive promotion of the Community Reinvestment Act encouraged unwarranted borrowing by persons incapable of repayment; or artificially low interest rates fueled unsustainable borrowing. A novel thesis that in some sense incorporates both general and specific explanations for the crash has been put forth in a new book Panic: The Betrayal of Capitalism by Wall Street and Washington by Andrew Redleaf and Richard Vigilante. Broadly stated, the authors’ explanation asserts that those responsible for our economy (the business community that creates it, the government that regulates it and the consumers and investors who sustain it) all abandoned free markets in favor of efficient markets. The book explains why the folly of replacing the unpredictable, turmoil-filled and at times chaotic environment of free markets by the supposed safety, predictability and manageability of ‘efficient markets’ was both the proximate and ultimate cause of the crash.

The context of the book is almost exclusively economic, to some extent social, and nearly completely apolitical. In this article I will identify five main themes in the book, all of which are socio-economic. I will show how each has a political analog and that the consequences of the pursuit of these analogs (which has occurred) has been just as devastating to our polity as the pursuit of the authors’ five was to our economy.

Replacing free markets by efficient markets. Redleaf and Vigilante contend that our financial gurus, having grown weary of the unpredictable nature of free markets, developed a new system of rational or efficient markets. There are many components to this system change but the main principle can be summarized in the following quote from the book’s dust jacket:

‘This ‘ideology of modern finance’ replaced the capitalist’s appreciation for free markets as a context for human creativity with the worship of efficient markets as substitutes for that creativity. The capitalist understands free markets as an arena for the contending judgments of free men. The ideologues of modern finance dreamed of efficient markets as a replacement for that judgment and almost a replacement for the men.

Under the influence of contemporary financial theory, bankers and regulators abandoned basic tools of financial analysis and judgment for elaborate, statistically based insurance schemes and a blind faith in the efficiency of modern securities markets.

The result: it became impossible for either executives or regulators to fully understand the financial condition of any great modern bank. Believing that financial systems could transcend the need for human judgment the bankers and regulators combined to create financial institutions with balance sheets no one could judge.’

The main thrust of the book is an explanation of why this strategy backfired.

Now politically, the United States has made an equivalent swap. We have traded the fundamental principle of a free people for that of ‘equal’ people; that is, the ultimate goal of liberty in American society has been superseded by the drive for equality. Allowing the people to freely pursue their dreams under the rubric of God-given rights, which grant them the liberty to chase those dreams – as long as they don’t impede similar pursuits by their neighbors, often leads to messy and unpredictable outcomes. Those who would alter the system to have government decide which dreams are compatible with the ‘greatest good’ for society, who shall pursue which and how they should be pursued, those people believe deeply that such a ‘progressive’ system would result in a fairer, more equitable, orderly and just society.

Redleaf and Vigilante show how the abandonment of free markets for efficient markets led to arrogance concerning our ability to tame market forces and the unintended consequence of financial structures for which we were totally unable to value their worth. In the same way, our surrender of liberty for equality has resulted in a society in which we are unable to distinguish good from evil, morally appropriate behavior from degeneracy, knowledge from trivia, justice from perversion or tradition from fad.

Replace entrepreneurs by experts. Free markets are driven by entrepreneurs – those whose vision and drive are so powerful that they are motivated to found businesses, develop new industries and raise capital in order to produce new products. The problem is that, although such drive frequently leads to innovation and prosperity, more often than not the entrepreneur’s vision is misdirected. Too many mistakes are made and too many people get hurt in the process. Therefore, progressives conclude, we should rely on government bureaucrats working in tandem with industrial experts to chart our course through the shoals of free enterprise in order to lead us to the safer waters of a managed economy.

Redleaf and Vigilante refute this conclusion by showing that ‘experts’ are no more adept at picking economic winners and losers than are private entrepreneurs. Moreover, since neither the sweat of their brow nor the green of their wallet is invested in the enterprise, bureaucrats and experts are far more likely to fail than is the entrepreneur at identifying a priori the most profitable business ventures and products.

Politically, the country is making the exact same philosophical mistake. Instead of entrusting the key decisions of our social, cultural and political lives to the ones closet to the action – parents, relatives, clergy, civic leaders, we have surrendered the authority to structure our lives to distant government regulators, judges, bureaucrats and other ‘experts’ who micromanage – and mismanage – our schools, communities, farms, factories, laboratories and our nation as a whole. Instead of trusting our instincts, traditions and experience, we rely on government’s big brothers to decide for us how to live our lives. As in the economy, individual initiative is stifled in favor of government-inspired uniformity and predictability.

Replace morals by systems. Redleaf and Vigilante explain how the success of business correlates positively with the morals of the people involved – including producers, laborers and consumers. In picking winners and losers, the market relies on the good sense of millions of individuals who make choices in the complicated processes of starting and managing a business, marketing and distributing its products and of course also in the evaluation and purchase (or not) of said products. Success or failure is governed by people’s sense of what is the value to them, their families and communities, and to the nation in general. Since producers must satisfy their customers in order for their business to succeed, excellent morals among the latter guarantees that the former will behave scrupulously. But, say progressives, morals are judgmental. So, as the authors explain, we replaced them with systems. The objective is to scientifically design processes and mechanisms, grounded in logic and dispassionate evaluation, which would maximize the chance of success of new products. Of course, it does not work. The systems developed on Wall Street and in Washington were opaque, needlessly complicated and flawed in design. Can you say Fannie and Freddie, Lehman Brothers or AIG?

Once again, the same type of flawed substitution manifests itself in the socio-political milieu. We replace a reliance on the good moral behavior of the people by a reliance on multiculturalism, tolerance, non-judgmental attitudes and diversity. What a fool’s quest! The effect has been to replace the shared values of our traditional culture – i.e., a Calvinist work ethic, rugged individualism, American exceptionalism, Judeo-Christian Western Civilization, and a devotion to free markets, limited government and individual liberty – by a falsely uniform soup of mushy ideals that no one except diehard progressives believes in. We have diluted the character of the American people and separated ourselves from our history, traditions and our national purpose.

Eliminate risk. Free market capitalism is inherently risky – very risky. Historically, Americans were prepared to incur the risks for the promise of success and prosperity. Individuals might suffer, but on average the population grows richer. However, in recent decades, our society in general and our financial moguls in particular became increasingly risk averse. New systems (see the previous item) accommodated that sea change. But of course, it did not work. Some risks were averted, but the system did not anticipate other risks caused by the irresponsible promotion of the Community Reinvestment Act, corruption and duplicity at Fannie and Freddie, and artificially low interest rates. These were sufficient to bring down the house of cards.

The desire to eliminate risk is even more prevalent in our culture and politics than in our economy. We want the government to insure our health, our houses, our businesses, our credit arrangements, not to mention our bank accounts. The government can only do so by putting us in the straight jacket of high taxes, excessive regulation, bloated spending and oppressive nanny state rules. We have traded freedom for security and in the end we obtained neither.

Capitalism without capitalists. Redleaf and Vigilante again:

Capitalists are owners. Capitalism rests on strong ownership. Being an owner means more than having the right to the income from an asset. Ownership implies both the legal right and the practical capacity to make judgments about the care and use of the asset. Judgment and ownership are inseparable. Both the mortgage crisis and the crash are best understood as the result of government policies that pushed trillions of dollars in assets out of the hands of relatively strong owners and into the hands of weak owners….

The driving force behind this massive shift from strong ownership to weak ownership was the ideology of modern finance. Replacing the notion of free markets as an essential context for capitalist creativity was the worship of supposedly efficient markets as substitutes for capitalists themselves.’

In a parallel fashion, we increasingly have a ‘free country’ without free people. We pay lip service to our founding documents and we take pride in calling ourselves ‘the land of the free.’ But we surrender more and more of our freedoms to a coercive Federal Government in exchange for security and an oppressive equality of outcome. We mistakenly declare our economic system to be capitalistic whereas in fact it is at best a mixed free market/managed economy that is dangerously close to being a Euro-style social welfare state. Similarly, we declare ourselves to be a Constitutional Republic of limited government, federalism and individual liberty whereas we have evolved into a soft tyranny managed by a central government of elites and false experts.

In 2008 the US experienced a severe economic crisis caused by a change in our fundamental economic axioms. We have also altered our basic political axioms in an essential way. It is therefore likely that a severe political crisis lies in our near future.
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This article also appeared in The Intellectual Conservative at: