An American Playwright Sees the Light

In the fall of last year, I published two posts in this journal that were testaments to the genius of Friedrich Hayek (see On the Genius of Friedrich Hayek, post I and post II). I argued there that progressive education in America in the last decades has shielded the brains of our children from the monumental brilliance of Hayek. Of course it has done no such thing with his contemporary, John Maynard Keynes. Keynes’ big government, tax-borrow-spend, statist philosophy is taught in our schools as if it were the Bible, whereas whenever we adhere to its tenets, we suffer the inevitable miserable consequences: high unemployment, inflation, stagnant economic growth (cf. F. Roosevelt, L. Johnson, J. Carter and B. Obama). In those few instances when our country has followed the light shed by Hayek’s free market, limited government, individual liberty ideas (cf. Coolidge, Reagan), the US economy has exploded with robust growth, economic prosperity, increased government revenues and enhanced charitable contributions. Why we follow the discredited ideas of Keynes and ignore the proven philosophies of Hayek is a mystery that I will leave to another time.

However, on occasion, the light from Hayek’s brilliant mind does shine through to a previously inoculated denier. One such convert who has seen the light is David Mamet, the famous American playwright, who had an epiphanous change of heart within the last decade. This is explained in Mamet’s new book, The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture. Not unexpectedly, the playwright writes with great force, clarity and humor. I read his book and felt somewhat like I did when I read Hayek a few decades ago. I must have marked two score pages in Mamet’s book that contained quotes, which were memorable for their wisdom, insight and sensibleness. And so I would have liked to replicate here for the reader’s benefit what I did with Hayek’s work – i.e., compile a substantial compendium of the most penetrating, edifying and forehead-slap inducing paragraphs in the book. Alas, my compendium ran in excess of 2,000 words and Mamet’s publisher informed me that he could not permit that. Thus the reader will have to be satisfied with the standard, if somewhat ill-defined, limit for ‘fair use’ in a book review, namely some hundreds of words.

In order to pare down, I restricted the choice to quotes having to do only with culture – Mamet’s primary emphasis, as his subtitle indicates. Actually, Mamet also writes brilliantly on politics and economics; he has clearly studied Hayek very carefully. But as he is a playwright, the culture is clearly of preeminent importance to him. Of course, Mamet, unlike Hayek, is plowing well trod ground. On the other hand, Mamet writes with more literary style than Hayek – without a commensurate loss in clarity. As you peruse these trenchant quotes, those of you familiar with Hayek’s work will recognize familiar themes and I trust all of you will reach the conclusion that I did – Mamet’s book, like Hayek’s, should be standard fare on high school and college curricula. (Don’t hold your breath though!)

The great wickedness of Liberalism, I saw, was that those who devise the ever new State Utopias, whether crooks or fools, set out to bankrupt not themselves, but others…I saw that I had been living in a state of ignorance, accepting an unexamined illusion and calling it “compassion,” …I saw that to proclaim…beliefs in individual freedom, in individual liberty, and in the inevitable surrender of powers to the State, was, in the general population, difficult, and in the Liberal environment, literally impossible…

So let us enact hate crime laws, as if getting beaten to death were more pleasant if one was not additionally called a greaser. And let us ensure that the Government, to eradicate “hate speech,” will become the arbiter of all speech – the same Government whose very return address on the envelope awakens fear.

And it [liberalism] may indict religion as superstition. But man cannot live without religion, which is to say, without a method for dealing with cosmic mystery and those things ever beyond understanding; so the new religion will not be identified as such. It will be called Multiculturalism, Diversity, Social Justice, Environmentalism, Humanitarianism, and so on. These, individually and conjoined, assert their imperviousness to reason, and present themselves as the greatest good; but as they reject submission either to a superior unknowable essence (God), or to those operations of the universe capable of some understanding (science and self-government), their worship foretells a reversion to savagery.

This is the meaning of Social Justice. It means actions by the State in the name of Justice, which is to say under complete protection and immunity from review. Its end is dictatorship.

That our culture is falling apart is apparent to any impartial observer. But what observer can be impartial? Conservatives are aghast; we are shocked at the actions of the Left, and we are astounded that they do not acknowledge these actions’ results…It is not that they do not care. But that they cannot afford to notice, for comparing their actions to the results would bring about either their ejection from the group (should they voice their doubts) or, should they merely follow their perceptions to their logical conclusions, the psychic trauma incident upon a revision of their worldview.

Curiously, the brightest (or, perhaps, the highest achievers) of our educational system go to the elite universities where intelligent young people are misled into the essential fallacy of Liberalism: that all society and human interaction is susceptible to human reason, and that tradition, patriotism, marriage, and similar institutions are arbitrary, and stand between the individual’s spontaneity and his ability to create a perfect world: that the individual’s reason is supreme, that he is, thus, God

To fix a game for money is called corruption, to fix a game from sentiment is called Liberalism.

We may be inspired to break the laws, discard the customs, and to destroy the culture which allowed us the freedom and leisure to so engage ourselves; and I, growing up in the sixties, thought it a grand idea: to bring about Social Justice…That such actions, whatever their supposed intention, caused havoc and that we who espoused them were responsible for the same, was to me a difficult perception. It still is…The embrace of Conservatism, my own, and that of anyone coming to it in maturity, necessitates a deep and rigorous survey and evaluation of thoughts and actions, and their honest assessment… It means leaving the group…It…is painful to recognize the incredulity and scorn which one encounters from one’s native Group (the Liberals) on announcing a change of philosophy. It is shocking. And it is sobering, for it reveals this truth: that the Left functions, primarily, through its power as a primitive society or religion, dedicated above all to solidarity, and not only to acceptance but to constant promulgation of its principles, however inchoate, as self-evident” and therefore beyond question. But, as Hayek points out, that something is beyond question most often means that its investigation has been forbidden. Why? Because it was untrue.

It is rare to encounter an American “celebrity” who takes a strong political stand on the right. More typically, we are exposed to moronic celebrities like George Clooney, Bill Maher and Susan Sarandon, who spew forth from their limited intellects leftist claptrap, socialist dogma and their fervent belief that they are enlightened and people like Mamet have been corrupted by the devil. Sadly, our biggest celebrity, namely Barack Obama, is equally benighted. I am certain that Mamet’s life among the glitterati has been far less pleasant since he emerged from the liberal closet. I, too, as a conservative academic in the liberal cesspool that passes for higher education in America today, have suffered the indignities of scorn from my enlightened colleagues. Therefore, I admire Mamet for taking such a public stand. The magnificence of his book should serve as a partial reward for his courage.

In fact, another part of his reward has been an enthusiastic embrace by conservatives around the country. His book has been highly favorably reviewed in conservative journals and he has been interviewed on Fox and other conservative venues. Just as a representative sampling, here is a short portion of a review by Steve Laib in The Intellectual Conservative:

The essential substance of The Secret Knowledge is a laser precise dissection of all of the sacred cows of modern liberal politics.  This dissection is performed not through a textbook approach of straightforward topic-by-topic analysis.  Instead the author uses a brilliantly conceived sort of travelogue wandering through the landscape of popular culture and behavior using examples and anecdotes from the usual and unusual sources to explain exactly why the liberal mind operates the way it does, and further, why it is generally impossible to move one toward rational thought…David Mamet’s…work is one of the most fascinating pieces of writing I have ever encountered, not only because of its source and content, but because of the way it is written.  It is truly extraordinary. 

I heartily endorse Laib’s last sentiment. Mamet’s book is extraordinary because the pace is brisk, the scope is amazing, the analysis is penetrating, the skewering of liberal thought is complete and delightful to read, the explanation of conservative philosophy is sharp and convincing, the humor, honesty, introspection and lack of self-aggrandizement is on full display.

I will close by remarking that a reverse endorsement is provided in Mamet’s book. Namely, I believe that his book endorses the sentiments expressed in the concluding paragraph of my second article (referenced above), which briefly summarize Hayek’s brilliant ideas. It reads: “The fundamental truths which Hayek espouses should serve as a guide to conservative politicians and economists, indeed to all people in the nation whose desire for the country is success and prosperity. Clearly, they have guided Mamet. Hayek explains why free markets work better and are more just than collectivist planning. He describes how social values and cultural morals that are developed by communal trial and error are more reliable and humane than behavior dictated by political elites. He argues that social advancement and individual accomplishment are better served by uninhibited competition than by edicts and artificial rules imposed by anointed experts. In order for one to accept the legitimacy of Hayek’s reasoning one must be willing to trust the efficacy of “unseen forces,” invisible hands, seemingly irrational and/or random processes and unprovable theories over and above the desire for order decreed and enforced by leaders and experts. To do so arguably goes against human nature. It requires a difficult leap of faith – not religious faith, but more a faith in the reliability of historical observation, acquired wisdom and the unformulated but immutable laws of human nature. If teachers do not accept this paradigm, their students learn its negative – despite the vast history that shows how accurate Hayek’s formulations for societal and economic organization have proven to be.” Mamet gets it. Let’s hope that his star quality will help others to see the light.
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This post also appeared in The Land of the Free at:
and also in The Intellectual Conservative at:

The Stock Market is Making Me Dizzy – and Nauseous

Last summer I posted an entry in this blog entitled The Stock Market is Making Me Dizzy. In that piece I bemoaned the – what seemed at the time – wild gyrations in the stock market. I pointed out that as a newly retired person, it was very difficult to know how to position and manage my 401(k) funds if I had no idea what the short-term – much less long-term – trend of the stock market was going to be. I worried that the current moment resembled 1934 in that Bush-Obama was startling similar to Hoover-FDR and I wondered whether the upcoming fall election would channel that of 1934 or 1994. Fortunately it was the latter. Of course we are all wondering whether the election of 2012 will mirror those of 1936 and 1996 or of 1980, but that history is still 15 months from being written.

At the moment, the market is even wilder than it was last summer. The daily gyrations are worse – both in frequency and amplitude. The prognosticators are all over the map with their explanations of why, not to mention what comes next. And the recommendations for coping range from apocalyptic to incoherent: convert everything to precious metals (ignoring the risk that the astronomical price of gold might be at its apex); or convert everything to cash (upon which the effective rate of return is miniscule, and actually, essentially negative due to the fact that our official “low” inflation index is bogus); buy T-bills (backed by the full faith and credit of our newly downgraded government); move equities to bonds; or stay put. I don’t have Warren Buffet’s resources and insider information. Trying to decide what to do is enough to make one nauseous.

Why might this summer’s stock market turmoil be worse than last summer’s? Three reasons occur to me:

  1. Europe and the global economy. There have been days on which “analysts” attribute the wild swings on Wall Street purely to economic (or political) events in Europe or the Far or Middle East. Given how intertwined global finance has become, I have no doubt that there is some – perhaps substantial – truth to these assertions. It seems to me that these trends will only strengthen and, therefore – since the world is not getting any more stable – investors had better get used to stock market volatility as the new normal.
  2. The US financial situation. Things really haven’t gotten better since last summer. Well, it is true that the liquidity/banking/housing/auto manufacturing crisis of 2008-09 has ameliorated to some extent. But it is also true that our deficit/debt/unemployment/stagnant growth crisis continues unabated. Moreover, a much greater percentage of the population has become aware of the perilous and deteriorating economic health of our country. More people now understated that the federal (and also State) government(s) have grown into monsters that are eating our wealth, corrupting our business and diminishing our future prospects. The worry is palpable and it certainly affects Wall Street performance.
  3. It has been conventional wisdom that political gridlock in the form of mixed control of the various branches of the federal government is good for the country. One can cite many supporting examples: for example, the good times during the eras of Eisenhower, Reagan and Clinton. Conversely, when one party has been in complete control, things have not gone so well – for example, under Johnson, Carter and during the first two years of the Obama administration. Well, we have mixed control now; why aren’t things improving? One possible reason is the hardening of the nation’s political arteries. The hard Left now virtually controls the Democratic Party and the Republican Party is coming under increasing control of the hard Right. These two communities hold sharply different visions for the future of America. The possibilities of a meeting of the minds in the middle are increasingly remote. Political polarization intensifies. One result: greater instability on Wall Street.

So will we be OK? Optimists say: the US still has the most dynamic economy on earth; Americans remain among the most hard-working and resilient people on the planet; the country is rich in natural and (now we know) energy resources; its competition around the globe, while growing stronger, is still very weak compared to us; our economy – mired as it is in government debt and regulation—is still in better shape than that of our competitors; profits are good, corporations are sitting on a pile of cash and labor unrest is almost unheard of. We’ll tame unemployment and stagnant growth – it just might take longer than after past recessions.

Pessimists counter: the deficit/debt problem is unprecedented, perhaps insoluble and no one in Washington is addressing it seriously; all the metrics indicate that we are a poorer county than we were in the previous generation (which never happened in our history) and the markers point toward continued decline; the government has metastasized beyond the point that its growth can be tamed by other than revolutionary means; 50% of the people pay no income tax, reflecting the fact that we are not a country of rich and poor but a country of givers and takers; industrial innovation increasingly comes from overseas; our military is stretched thin and by any objective measure grows weaker and weaker, and we do not have the funds to restore it.

So which is it? I don’t know. That’s why I am nauseous.

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This blog post also appeared in The American Thinker at:

What Would the Founders Say Back on the Road to Serfdom?

The title refers to two recent books: What Would the Founders Say, by Larry Schweikart and Back on the Road to Serfdom: The Resurgence of Statism, edited by Thomas E. Woods, Jr. On the surface, these are very different books that treat distinct topics in unlike styles. Schweikart identifies ten fundamental questions concerning the role of government – ranging from “Should the government stimulate the economy and otherwise ensure full employment?” to “Should…governments…have the authority to regulate gun ownership?” He then presents ten essays, each addressed to one question, in which he strives to explain how he believes the Founders would have answered the question. He does this by meticulously consulting original sources (of course including America’s founding documents: the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Federalist Papers), but also pamphlets, letters and newspaper articles penned by the Founders. His findings are neatly encapsulated in these paragraphs from his final summary chapter.

It should be apparent from what the Founders said and how they acted that such current practices as bailing out banks and auto companies, having the federal government dictate diet and health practices, requiring the government to provide jobs, and sending the nation spiraling into astronomical levels of debt would all be anathema to them. Many modern government “functions” are so outrageously outside the powers that the founders permitted the government to have that, faced with modern society, they would certainly be revolutionaries, burning the whole structure down to start anew. In such a case, a new bill of rights would likely be double its current size, and deeper in specificity and the limitations on the power of the federal government would almost certainly be vastly expanded.

                              …

Jefferson wrote in the Declaration that “whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government.” Opposing tyranny and despotism are not only man’s right, Jefferson concluded, but it was “their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.” The current administration and those in Congress today seldom refer to the Founders, and with good reason. The Founders would have utterly rejected their attitudes and direction.

                                          ….

What can we learn from the Founders, even when “our” problems weren’t “their” problems? A great deal. They operated on a set of principles that, like mathematics, was applicable in almost any situation, and across time. It is the genius of the Constitution that it provided flexibility to adapt to almost any modern problem, while at the same time containing the overall imperative of reducing or limiting the power of the national government and placing power in the hands of the people. Not surprisingly, virtually none of the modern Left – save when it comes to certain civil rights – ever refers to the Constitution. To them, it is a stumbling block, an impediment. To the Left, the Constitution must be overcome, flanked or ignored. When Martin Luther King Jr. led civil rights marchers in singing “We Shall Overcome,” he meant that they would overcome the barriers that denied them their constitutional rights. When modern leftists employ the phrase, they mean “We Shall Overcome the Constitution”! A better solution to the nation’s problems would be overcoming the Left and its deviant, perverse, and, yes, sinister ideas, once and for all.

Woods’ book also contains ten essays, but each by a different author. The essays treat the origins, development and consequences of massively expanded government in our so-called mixed economy. Topics treated include: protectionism, entrepreneurship (its practice and its vilification), crony capitalism, class warfare and cultural collapse. Whereas single authorship in Schweikart’s book leads, not surprisingly, to an enviable consistency in the content and style of the essays, the varied authorship in Woods’ book results in markedly different styles, organization and effectiveness. However, the ultimate conclusions are remarkably similar to Schweikart’s. Here are the telling passages from Woods’ introductory chapter:

The unifying theme of this book, though, is the brute fact that a shift toward statism is indeed occurring, and that it will not end happily. History is littered with foreign and domestic crises that became pretexts for the expansion of government power, and the present instance appears to be no exception.

                                          ….

The problems we face stem from the mixed economy, as opposed to the fully socialist ones that Hayek criticized. All over the world, the impossible promises governments have made to their populations are beginning to unravel. Millions of people have arranged their lives in the expectation of various forms of government support that will be mathematically impossible to provide.

                                          ….

What the rising generations across the developed world are facing is a genuine road to serfdom. They will have to work harder and longer than their parents just to tread water, if they can find work at all in artificial economies battered by years of “stimulus” and misdirected resources. Retirement will seem like something out of science fiction. And to add insult to injury, they will be putting in this effort on behalf of transfer programs that are going to collapse anyway – Social Security, Medicare, pensions, and so forth.

                                          ….

The more functions the state usurps from civil society, the more institutions of civil society will atrophy. Once supplanted by coercive government, tasks that people used to perform on a voluntary basis come to be viewed as impossible for civil society to manage in the absence of government – even though civil society did indeed perform these functions once upon a time. The spiritless population comes, in turn, to look for political solutions even to the most trivial problems.

                                          ….

Americans are taught a great deal of civics-book nonsense about the nature of the state, the benefits it confers, and the unbearable difficulties we would face without its careful custodianship of society. In reality, Americans are ruled by a patchwork of self-perpetuating fiefdoms, which beneath a veneer of public-interest rhetoric seek to pursue their own power and resources.

There is, one would think, another way for human beings to live than this. Ironically, it is government itself that is about to teach that very lesson. When its grandiose schemes and promises inevitably unravel, all that will be left is civil society managing its own affairs, the very thing we have been taught to believe is impossible.

Both books are thoroughly researched and very well written. However, like so many of the genre, it is unfortunately quite likely that they will be preaching to the converted. Conservatives will find much within these books with which they will heartily agree. They will also find new information and perspectives that will boost their arsenal in their fervent, if forlorn, verbal battles with their liberal colleagues and friends. Liberals, on the other hand, will find little of interest to them in these fine books. That is simply because liberals won’t read them. In both books it is immediately clear that the authors condemn the ongoing liberal assault on America’s economy and culture, and that they believe that said assault is bringing America to ruin. Liberals treat such beliefs as hogwash (when they are not branding them as treasonous) and they certainly will not expose themselves to that kind of thought by reading traitorous books.

Continuing to pursue the thread that – despite their apparent differences – the books are surprisingly similar, I wish to point out three subthemes that are present in both books, even if they are not emphasized.

  1. Both books inherently assume that America began to seriously lose sight of the wisdom of the Founders, and started its unwise trek down the road to serfdom during the so-called Progressive Era, which began in earnest in 1900 with the presidency of Teddy Roosevelt.
  2. With rare exception (under Coolidge and Reagan, e.g.), the country has moved steadily over the last century and a decade to the Left. It experienced extreme lurches to port during the eras of Wilson, FDR, LBJ and between 2008 and 2010 under Obama-Pelosi-Reid. Through its domination of the media, educational establishment, legal profession, government bureaucracies, libraries and foundations, the Left has been able to monopolize the national conversation, presenting (even egregiously) leftist policies as mainstream while demonizing (even modestly) conservative ideas as perverse, dangerous and out of the mainstream.
  3. A century of damage is not going to be undone overnight – if it is going to be undone at all. To think – even if the Republicans recapture the White House and Senate in 2012 – that 18th and 19th century-style America is going to rapidly reemerge is the height of folly. No second coming of Reagan is going to balance the budget, retire the debt, free up our markets, restore the concept of American exceptionalism, re-instill traditional values, deregulate the government bureaucracy and restore prosperity – all in the space of four or eight years. It will take at least two generations. Alas, it is far from clear that the American people can sustain the will over that long a period to accomplish the task.
Which brings me to my last point about the books. Both tracts contain more a description of “what went wrong” rather than a prescription of “how to make it right.” Recipes for fixes are scarce in either book and what suggestions are made are actually quite minor – a step in the right direction, rather than a radical global fix. What stratagems appear are more in the vogue of “a camel’s nose under the tent” as opposed to a second American Revolution. This is in some sense ironic because it mimics the Left’s “successful” 20th century game plan, that is, the slow, steady, inexorable expansion of government control of the economy, politics and culture. It pains me to recommend that conservatives take a page from the liberal playbook – as these books implicitly do – but that might be the only winning strategy.
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This article also appeared in The Intellectual Conservative at:

America Abdicates

The story in July 29th’s Wall Street Journal about the death of a Libyan rebel leader also describes the unending ebb and flow of the battle lines between Kaddafi’s forces and those of the rag-tag group of “patriots” who oppose them. More generally, the situation in virtually all of the countries convulsed over the last half year by Arab spring uprisings (i.e., Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Syria, Bahrain and others) remains confused at best. With the exception of Libya and Egypt, the US has played no role in these potentially monumental events – it seems content to sit idly by while upheavals that could dramatically affect the US and its allies play out according to a dynamic that is ill understood. Incidentally, the US role in Libya was to goad the Europeans to intervene with absolutely minimal assistance from us; and its role in Egypt was to toss overboard our main asset on the ground and then withdraw and hope for the best.

Thus the new Obama Doctrine as explained in the July/August issue of Commentary by Feith and Cropsey. In a nutshell: America’s role in world affairs has been aggressive and arrogant; America owes the world an apology for failing to understand the needs of the people who have been negatively impacted by our assertiveness; and the US must defer to multilateral organizations in order to work for the world’s general good. Our belief in American exceptionalsim has done more harm than good.

This new doctrine is completely at odds with how America has seen its role in the world since it emerged as a global power approximately a century ago. The US has intervened – overtly and covertly – in numerous regional conflicts around the globe in that time. Many of the interventions were successful (Grenada, Taiwan, Korea [we didn’t win, but we prevented a Communist takeover], the Philippines, Israel [Nixon’s airlift], the Falklands [in support of the Brits], Chile, Afghanistan [helped drive out the Soviets], Dominican Republic). Some led to various degrees of failure (Vietnam, Iran [Carter’s rescue mission], Lebanon). A few remain unresolved (Iraq, Afghanistan, the Balkans). The point is that we saw ourselves as a force for good in the world. We took our role as a world superpower seriously and when our interests or those of our allies were threatened, we acted – with force, if necessary – to protect those interests.

No more. According to the wise one, those interventions reflected American arrogance, self-indulgence, insensitivity and almost always damaged the people whose needs we ignored in our ignoble desire to demonstrate our might. But the wise one now asserts that we have overcome such wanton disregard for our fellow citizens of the Earth. Henceforth, we shall constrain ourselves from actions that are not endorsed by the “world community”; we shall reign in and rarely display our power; we shall engage even our most implacable foes in dialog; and we shall reorient our focus toward ameliorating the ills that plague our own society before we assume the moral authority to address the plight of others.

Thus the Arab world careens further down the road to jihadist violence; Iran surmounts the final obstacles toward achieving nuclear power status; Russia sinks further into a degenerate gangster state; Latin America veers sharply left; Israel is threatened with annihilation; Western Civilization continues its dance with death in Europe; and America accelerates its inexorable slide toward financial Armageddon. The US is not only abdicating its role as a world leader; it is surrendering to the dark forces – external and internal – that threaten its existence.
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This post also appeared in The American Thinker at:

Debt Debate Discloses Dems’ Depravity

George W. Bush drove the car straight toward the ditch, but the Obama-Pelosi-Reid team accelerated the vehicle and now we are either in the ditch or at best teetering precipitously on the edge. When Bush left office, the annual budget deficit was a shocking $460 billion and the national debt stood at a gaudy $10.63 trillion. Now, two and one-half years into the Obama era, encompassing two years in which the Dems controlled both the Executive and Congress, the annual deficit has reached a staggering $1.4 trillion – roughly 40% of the entire annual budget, and the debt has ballooned to $14.35 trillion.

This fiscal state of affairs has scared the hell out of the American people – yet it’s only one of three “achievements” of the Obama-Pelosi-Reid team that has mortified the populace. The second is the passage of Obamacare. The third is the Obama Doctrine of Constrainment (as explained by Douglas Feith and Seth Cropsey in the July/August issue of Commentary). Sayeth those sage analysts,

Two large ideas animate the Obama Doctrine. The first is that America’s role in world affairs for more than a century has been, more often than not, aggressive rather than constrained, wasteful rather than communal, and arrogant in promoting democracy, despite our own democratic shortcomings. Accordingly, America has much to apologize for, including failure to understand others, refusal to defer sufficiently to others, selfishness in pursuing U.S. interests as opposed to global interests, and showing far too much concern for U.S. sovereignty, independence, and freedom of action. The second idea is that multilateral institutions offer the best hope for restraining U.S. power and moderating our national assertiveness…the United States should drop its obsession with its own national interests and concentrate on working for the world’s general good on an equal footing with other countries, recognizing that it is multinational bodies that grant legitimacy on the world stage.

In short, Obama and the Dems have rejected the notion of American exceptionalism – which has been a staple of American belief since the Founders – and the people are aghast at the President’s anti-Americanism.

As for Obamacare, Americans realize that it heralds the arrival of socialized medicine in our land – which is guaranteed to dramatically curtail the quality of American health care – and that it will hugely exacerbate the deficit/debt problem. Unlike virtually all historic American legislation (Constitutional Amendments, Social Security, Medicare, Civil Rights laws) – which were passed with bipartisan support and substantial majorities, Obamacare was rammed through Congress in a blatantly partisan fashion with the barest of majorities via dubious legislative tricks. The unholy passage of Obamacare revealed clearly that the Left is determined to complete its march to the Euro-socialist nirvana at which it has been aiming for more than a century – irrespective of the nefarious and duplicitous means it must employ to do so.

That assessment is reinforced by the behavior of Obama and his henchmen in the current debate over raising the debt ceiling. Conservatives see the debt ceiling tap dance that the Congress has been doing for decades as emblematic of the big government calamity that has befallen our country. Conservatives have seized on the current installment of the dance as an opportunity to link this destructive act to a serious effort at federal spending reduction. They are determined to ransom the debt ceiling rise to a significant shrinking of the federal government behemoth in the belief that it will set the country on a course to reverse a century-long liberal stranglehold on the nation’s politics and culture.

Naturally, liberals see this as an existential threat. They fear, correctly, that any success by conservatives in truly reversing the growth of government might spell the death knell for all that liberals have “achieved.” Since liberals control the White House and the Senate, they can and will thwart any such conservative effort. Moreover, they will pull absolutely no punches in their attempt to do so. Thus:

  • Obama, Geithner et al threaten that, if the debt ceiling is not raised, the country will default. But they know full well that there are sufficient incoming federal revenues to pay the interest on the debt, Social Security and Medicare obligations, unemployment benefits and military salaries. Other federal programs (e.g., all the useless and wasteful projects run by the Departments of Education, Energy, Commerce and Agriculture) might have to go unfunded, but Obama places off limits his personal, favorite boondoggles like “green jobs,” high-speed rail and unexpended stimulus moneys.
  • The President explicitly threatens that Social Security benefits might not be paid, knowing full well that after the interest on the debt, and perhaps military pay, that is the next item that Americans will insist be paid. He is purposefully trying to terrify seniors and to direct that terror toward Republicans.
  • The President and the Dems blame the oncoming “default” on unpaid bills incurred by Bush tax cuts, Bush’s Medicare Drug Prescription Plan and Bush’s Iraq War, ignoring the Obama stimulus, Obamacare, Dodd-Franks and the nearly $5 trillion dollars of budget deficits that the big O has racked up. In other words, “we Dems are completely innocent; it’s Bush and the Republicans’ fault.”
  • Obama blatantly lies that 80% of the people favor tax raises as part of a debt ceiling deal, knowing full well that the polls do not support his assertion and that the mainstream media will not hold him accountable.
  • The President and his attack dogs (like Senators Reid and Schumer) demonize business as part of their class warfare effort. They hope to galvanize the approximately 50% of the public that pays no income taxes into blaming the mess on what the Dems identify as the usual Republican cohorts of corporate jet owners, hedge fund managers, oil companies, the “rich” and “Wall Street.” This tactic is particularly divisive, mean-spirited, and subversive of the goal of national unity.
  • The Dems assert that Bush, Republicans, conservatives and Tea Partiers are responsible for the unending recession, the housing crisis, the energy crisis, high unemployment, the out-of-control federal debt and impending high interest rates. Either they are blithely unaware or nefariously cognizant of the fact that their beloved big government, high tax, rampant spending, Keynesian policies are in fact the cause of all these calamities. If the former, they are incompetent and should not have the levers of power in their hands. If the latter – which I suspect is true of some Dems, including Obama – then the country is in mortal danger from Alinsky radicals who will purposefully push us over the aforementioned edge.

The Dems believe that they can repeat 1994-96. They have absolutely no intention of giving an inch toward meaningful spending reductions in return for a raise in the debt ceiling. They are daring Republicans to block a debt ceiling rise and hoping the Republicans will take the bait. The Dems intend to blame the ensuing financial difficulties – however serious they might be – on Republicans and they believe that the people will buy it. They might be right. But their cynicism, their wanton disregard for the welfare of the American people, indeed their depravity is on clear display – if the people will only see it.

Indeed the Republicans might be walking into a trap. If you play fair and your opponent plays dirty, it’s hard to prevail. Given that, it might be that no real start on reversing America’s slide to socialism can begin while the Dems control the White House and the Senate. Therefore, Republicans must unite behind a strategy and a candidate to retake those prizes. That seems to me a necessary – albeit, alas, not a sufficient – condition to achieve the goal of reversing America’s side into a liberal/socialist oblivion. The wildfire that started with Rick Santelli’s rant must spread further throughout the country and convert a substantial majority of Americans to the conclusion that the liberal trajectory of the nation over the last century has been a disaster and must be sharply reversed.

With minor exceptions under Coolidge, Reagan and fleetingly in the time of Gingrich, liberals have been in nearly complete command of the national political conversation in the last century. Like any spoiled brat, a liberal will do anything to preserve what he sees as his innate prerogatives. Liberal temper tantrums and underhanded behavior are on full display in the debt ceiling debate.

This article also appeared in The American Thinker and The Intellectual Conservative at these sites:

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/07/debt_debate_discloses_dems_depravity.html