Marco is gaining in the polls and in my opinion he is exactly what this country needs. A young, committed conservative who can articulate conservative positions with the fluency and humor Reagan did, and who can galvanize the millennials and bring them into the conservative fold. I know many are hesitant because he is young and a first term Senator, a brand of which Obama destroyed, but Rubio is smarter than Obama and much more practical. I implore everyone to give him a second look, beginning with his excellent analysis of last nights speech:
Conservative Values
The Gun Debate – Open Thread
Obama and Progressives are calling for “sensible gun laws” as if that is the problem. They continue to demonize the NRA as if that is the problem. They continue to conflate radical Islamists with the isolated deranged American criminal, as if that is a moral equivalency. And they dare not speak one word of condemnation toward inner city gang violence, nor judge those who perpetrate those crimes for fear of constituency backlash. In summary, Obama and Progressives are not at all addressing the actual problem, which is typical, hence the absolute mess we find ourselves in. In short, we have to stop listening to Progressives.
The problems we face in this country and in this world are due to the absence of well armed, law abiding, decent people, not the presence of them. On the world stage, the problem is that the Radical Islamic Jihadists are better armed, more focused, and more brutal than those who want a peaceful existence. The Kurds need more weapons, the peaceful Sunni’s and Shiite’s need more weapons, and countries like Jordan and the UAE need more forceful support. We need more weapons to confront and defeat the Islamists, not less. And we need to be more brutal. This is not a war where you take prisoners. This is a war where you kill as many of them as you possibly can until they realize that they can not win. You want to close Gitmo? Fine. Put a bullet in the head of the remaining prisoners and burn the place to the ground. Case closed.
Domestically, we need more weapons in the hands of law abiding Americans so that they can protect themselves from the deranged gun man, or from the increasing threat of radicalized Muslims. And we need to clean out the cesspools of our inner cities and give those people hope of a better future. Make sure that children have a stable home with two parents, make sure they have school choice and a good education, make sure they have clean and decent housing, make sure they are not living in a drug and gang infested neighborhood, and make sure they have the opportunity for a good paying job and the opportunity to lift themselves up. And these are conservative ideals, not progressive ideals, and that is why Governorships and State Legislatures have increasingly gone conservative in the last 8 years, and that is why the White House will be conservative in January 2017.
Maybe Just Be Honest?
I’ve been seeing a lot of statements by politicians of late – naturally – and one thing is striking me: the inability of people in politics to just admit when they don’t know things. All of them appear to be laboring under the impression that they have to have a pat answer to all questions – and as it is impossible for them to do that, they hem and haw around and end up saying things which are wrong and/or stupid.
To be sure, a wise politician will prepare him or herself with answers for likely questions – for GOPers this will be genuine MSM gotcha questions on social issues designed to feed into the overall Progressive campaign themes. But one cannot know everything – it just isn’t possible. And, of course, when a GOPer heads to a conservative or libertarian media outfit, he or she better be prepared for all sorts of smart, penetrating questions – a bit of study beforehand is wise. But even then, you’re still not necessarily going to have an answer for every question. I’m pretty well informed on matters of foreign policy but I, for instance, didn’t know who was in command of Iran’s al Quds force until I read about the Trump/Hewitt fracas over the issue (which seems to be a bit blown out of proportion by anti-Trump forces). Trump didn’t know either – and he should have just admitted not knowing and moved on (one thing about an admission of ignorance is that whatever series of questions your interviewer was planning for that subject are now wastebasket material). If I were running for office and someone leaped out and asked me a question I didn’t have a good answer to, I’d just say: “you know, that is a good question and I haven’t looked into the details of that matter – next time we talk, I’ll have something to say on it. Next question?”. I’d rather take a bit of heat for saying I don’t know something – when I don’t know about it – than take even worse heat by giving an ignorant answer, or getting huffy about the question, itself; or worst of all, lying about things and then getting called out on the lies later.
The main point I’m making here is that honesty is really the best policy. Especially in politics. This might seem counter-intuitive because, well, politicians tend to be people who spread enough bull to fertilize the Sinai. But the reality is that no matter how good a lie seems to be, it never works out in the long run. Well, strictly speaking, it never works out in the long run if you’re the sort of person who cares about the country and our people – those politicians who are just relentlessly on the make find that lies work well, in a sense. But for those who are trying to do something worthwhile, never fall into the trap of thinking that anything other than truth will work. Even if it results in you getting crushed this time around, it merely sets the stage for your ultimate triumph (or the triumph of your ideals, if you don’t get a second chance) – if a politician just tells the truth then in the long run that politician will be perceived as the best person, especially in contrast to the lying opponents who used lies to beat you at the previous election.
Level with the people. Tell them what is on your mind. Admit it when you don’t have the answer nailed down at the moment. Give a precise set of actions you will take once in office. Think about the candidate who has spent the whole campaign telling the truth – and then gets up in debate with the lying opponent: it will be a beautiful moment. “You just heard my opponent tell you a pretty story about what he/she will do – but it is just a fairy tale. It isn’t true.”. It just crushes the life out of someone who lies when someone who is known to be a truth-teller points out the Emperor has no clothes. It has happened before – when Reagan did his “there you go again” in the debate with Carter, that was Reagan saying, “it is just a fairy tale”. Here, take a look:
THE PRESIDENT. As long as there’s a Democratic President in the White House, we will have a strong and viable social security system, free of the threat of bankruptcy. Although Governor Reagan has changed his position lately, on four different occasions he has advocated making social security a voluntary system, which would, in effect, very quickly bankrupt it….These constant suggestions that the basic social security system should be changed does cause concern and consternation among the aged of our country. It’s obvious that we should have a commitment to them, that social security benefits should not be taxed, and that there would be no peremptory change in the standards by which social security payments are made to the retired people. We also need to continue to index the social security payments so that if inflation rises, the social security payments would rise a commensurate degree to let the buying power of the social security check continue intact.
In the past, the relationship between social security and Medicare has been very important to provide some modicum of aid for senior citizens in the retention of health benefits. Governor Reagan, as a matter of fact, began his political career campaigning around this Nation against Medicare. Now we have an opportunity to move toward national health insurance, with an emphasis on the prevention of disease; an emphasis on outpatient care, not inpatient care; an emphasis on hospital cost containment to hold down the cost of hospital care for those who are ill; an emphasis on catastrophic health insurance, so that if a family is threatened with being wiped out economically because of a very high medical bill, then the insurance would help pay for it. These are the kind of elements of a national health insurance, important to the American people. Governor Reagan, again, typically is against such a proposal.
MR. SMITH. Governor.
GOVERNOR REAGAN. There you go again. [Laughter]
Carter did the normal Democrat thing – claim the Republican wants people to die in the streets and then promise a sack full of free stuff if you vote Democrat. But Reagan utterly destroyed it – just by saying, “there you go again”. It means, “you’re just spreading BS, Carter”, and instantly the millions of Americans watching the debate understood it – here was a hack politician promising a world he cannot possibly give, confronted with a truth-teller. Reagan went on to win in a landslide just a few days later. We’ve been hammered by lies for quite a long while now – and people are aware of the lies. In 2016, the Democrat candidate will have to defend the lies – he or she will have no choice as Democrats cannot run far away from Obama’s record (remember: $2,500 reduction in insurance premiums? Keep your plan if you like?)…and when Hillary or Biden or Sanders is up there in front of a massive national audience telling the American people how evil the Republican is and how much free stuff he or she is going to give you for voting Democrat…”there you go again”. But it will only work if the eventual GOP nominee has not spent the campaign hedging and hemming and hawing and trying to triangulate himself into favorable coverage for a news cycle. Telling the truth can make you terribly unpopular at times – you have to endure that heat; embrace it; proclaim how proud you are to be condemned for speaking the truth…and just wait for your moment to point out that the other guy is full of nonsense from start to finish.
Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders…and Jeremy Corbyn
There is much heart ache out here in GOP Establishment-land about Trump, and I’m sure a lot among the Democrat Establishment about Sanders (though Team Hillary is still acting like her nomination is a coronation and no one need pay attention to Sanders…the GOP is being helpful by releasing videos of the massive Progressive crowds Sanders is drawing; which is encouraging, as it is actually a pretty clever move by the GOP. First time for everything, right?). But who in heck is Jeremy Corbyn, you ask?
I admit that until today I had never heard of him – he’s a candidate for the leadership of Britain’s Labour Party. Generally, when a party gets crushed at the polls in Britain, the losing side then finds a new person to lead to them victory (or, another crushing defeat…but, that isn’t the plan, at any rate). As Labour was blown out of the water a couple months back, they are casting about for someone to restore their party fortunes. Most of the people vying for the post are conventional Labour Party politicians…but Jeremy Corbyn, a backbencher of no great fame, tossed his hat into the ring…and recent polling shows him favored by 53% of Labour voters. So frightened is the Labour Establishment at this, that they even got former Labour PM Tony Blair to pen an op-ed pleading for Labour voters not to vote Corbyn. Blair warns that voting for Corbyn won’t just lead to another Labour defeat, but to the possible extinction of the party!
To be sure, I think that Blair is on to something. Corbyn isn’t just your run-of-the-mill Progressive, folks. His parents were involved on the Republican side during the Spanish Civil war, so Corbyn is a Brit version of our “red diaper babies”. Corbyn, himself, is a member of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Socialist Campaign Group and the Stop the War Coalition (which war? Don’t ask – just assume if you want to kill a bad guy, they’re against it). Corbyn wants to nationalize Britain’s railways, provide a “living wage” for everyone, backs animal rights, may favor turning the Falklands over to Argentina, wants to ban the importation of foie gras, and appears to join any group out there with a leftwing cause. This guys is a far left fanatic. But, he’s also a rebel – very often voting against his own party and his Parliamentary expense account is the lowest among all 650 members of Britain’s House of Commons. He’s a kook leftist – but he’s an honest one, my friends. And he looks poised to take leadership of the Labour Party (though we’ll see if the Establishment can squash his bid). Corbyn as leader of Labour would be the perfect opponent for the rather squishy, Establishment types of the Tory party. They’d love to run against him – all they’d have to do is quote him and roll up a 100 seat majority, so you can see why Blair is worried, as are all Establishment types on the left.
I bring this up because these phenomena – a huckster zillionaire, an out-of-touch Boomer socialist, a far left fanatic in Britain – are symptoms of a general rebellion growing against the Establishment. I read today that Sanders drew 29,000 people to a rally. Donald Trump does seem to have faded a bit in the polls, but he’s still riding high. True, in America it is still the silly season of politics. We’re a long way from the first primary ballots and we should all recall that in 2011 a lot of people rode high for a moment, only to flame out before the election even got rolling. But there is a palpable anger and frustration out there. People are sick to death of politics as usual – and especially for the American right, the politics as usual which means we just help the liberals get what they want. The first sign of rebellion in Britain was also on the right, by the way: in the form of the United Kingdom Independence Party – which has risen mostly out of British frustration with the Tories. And if you think our electoral system is hosed, you should see Britain’s – the UKIP got 2.4 million more votes than the Scottish National Party, yet the SNP wound up with 56 seats, UKIP with 1! But, still, the bottom line is that anger with politics as usual boosted UKIP votes by nearly 3 million over their 2010 number. The people are tired – the left want’s genuine leftism; the right wants genuine conservatism. No one wants a left which is actually a bunch of crony-capitalists, nor does anyone want a right which is also crony-capitalist, with a dash of just preserving leftwing policy failures. Left and right I think people want candidates who will fight for what the people believe in. To have it out in a genuine, head-to-head contest which will decide what course the nation will take.
I think we’ll just see more of this as time goes on – and unless the GOP Establishment wakes up, there will be an American version of the UKIP by no later than the 2024 election, with a strong possibility it’ll show up in 2020…and it’ll take out of the GOP, immediately, a couple score House members and a few Senators, likely enough to deny the GOP a Congressional majority. For the Democrats, I see a complete take over by the far left – they really can’t stop it, if the leftwing base really tries. After all, what Democrat can fight against someone shouting the slogans the Democrat Establishment cooked up to gin up their base for 2012? But it can happen that the far left splits from the Democrat party and sets up a Social Democrat Party in time for 2020 or 2024.
Hold on to your hats, folks – it is about to get very interesting.
Who is in Favor of America?
Read a couple tweets yesterday from Charles Cooke (@charlescwcooke):
I don’t like its being done per se, but the fact that people can burn American flags with legal impunity helps to show me that I’m free. 1/2
And frankly I’m much more interested in that beautiful principle than in the people who choose to use it in a way that I dislike. 2/2
I replied:
Disagree; that we allow the burning of the American flag shows that there are people who want me unfree.
One burns what one does not want. The flag is an abstract symbol of freedom.
I like Cooke’s writing. I think he’s intelligent, well informed and far seeing. He’s a go-to guy for political commentary; so please understand I’m not actually going after Cooke. I get Cooke’s point – we must allow that which is disagreeable to us to ensure our own freedom. And, in fact, that disagreeable things go on proves that we are free. But is this really so? Are we really free when we permit people to rampantly work for anti-freedom? Are we sure, that is, when we allow arguments against freedom to thrive that our freedom will survive?
We Are Ten Years from Complete Conservative Victory
Huh? How’s that? Wait a second, Noonan – are you nuts? The Supreme Court just decreed that the law doesn’t matter. Furthermore, Hillary is the odds-on favorite to replace Obama so we’ll have four to eight more years of lawless liberalism imposed from on high…and even if we vote GOP, those spineless cretins will just roll over for it. You, sir, are ’round the bend – we are on the cusp of the Union of Socialist States of America. Get used to it!
Well, not so fast. First off, it is well-known to all who study history (which pretty much excludes everyone on the left – but also a goodly portion of those on the right) that in human affairs what appears to be most strong is usually an inch away from crushing defeat while that which seems to be nearly extinguished is just about to flame into sublime victory. Looks are, indeed, very deceiving. The apparent triumph of liberalism ushered in on January 20th, 2009, is looking, upon close examination, rather rocky. Think about it: if liberalism was really the way things are going, then the Obama Administration would not have relied upon screwball re-writes by the Supreme Court to save their signature achievement – they would have brought it back to Congress, firm in the knowledge that liberalism is so popular that the Congressional GOP wouldn’t even dare tinker with it other than to enact what Obama demanded. Didn’t quite happen that way, now did it? Liberalism can only win these days when there is a President who will just ignore the law and go ahead and do it…or when a bunch of lawyers find some way to twist the plain meaning of the law to suit their desires. People heading for triumph don’t act like that – people fighting a desperate rear-guard action to save themselves act like that.
The Week That Was
It was a helluva week for the “fundamental transformation” of America brought to you by the fascist progressive minority and the newly minted fourth branch of government – the legislative wing of the Supreme Court. When CJ Roberts ruled on the individual mandate vs tax issue in 2012 I think everyone was a little surprised that he ignored the obvious intent of the legislation that the mandate was a “penalty”, not a tax, because the authors knew very well that selling a tax increase to pass the bill was not an option. Yet the tax angle was the only option to pass Constitutional muster, and Roberts was there to save the authors from themselves in the final ruling. Fast forward three years, once again CJ Roberts ignores the intent of the legislation as expressed by Jonathan Gruber to force State’s to set up exchanges or lose out on Federal subsidies. In order for the numbers to work, the Federal Government needed State’s to set up exchanges so they could pass on the financial burden of the subsidies, yet when many State’s refused to accept that financial burden, or went broke trying to set up exchanges, the entire ACA paradigm was in peril. Enter newly minted SC Legislator Roberts to save the day yet again as he magically waved his wand, reinterpreted the intent and made all the little fascists happy. It is obvious the SC no longer strictly interprets the constitutionality of legislation as it is written. They now have magic powers to see into the hearts of man, assess the intent and rule accordingly. And just a reminder, these folks are not up for election and serve in their positions for life, so in reality it wasn’t a good week for our “representative republic” at least on this issue.
In re: to SSM, I think public sentiment was clearly headed in this direction and despite the numerous failures at the State ballot boxes in recent years, SSM was on a trajectory towards acceptance. Enter the SC Legislative branch, who once again disrupt the natural evolution of democratic reform and impose their position on the issue upon the ignorant masses who are clearly not as evolved and wise as they are. Ironically, had patience won out and State voters were the impetus of change, this issue would not be the rancorous issue it has become. But that possibility was evidently not acceptable to the petulant progressive fascists who once again relied on the Legislative branch of the SC to impose their desires. Again, a bad week for our “representative republic”.
And while we are all adorn in rainbows, love and free health insurance, ISIS is having a field day in exploring new ways to slaughter innocent people. Remember them? I don’t even think Orwell could have envisioned this.
Can America be Conservative?
You wouldn’t think so, if you listen to the MSM all the live long day. As far as that goes, the MSM Narrative is that one or two aged Christians are all that stands between us and the Progressive Utopia of $15 an hour minimum wages and daily flights bringing in foreigners who will be able to vote from age 16 on. On the other hand, 84% of the American people back a ban on late-term abortions – including 69% of those who identify themselves as “pro-choice”. In other words, this increasingly Progressive America has some how or another managed to latch on to a key aspect of Conservatism – respect for the inalienable right to life enshrined in both our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. I fully expect a ban on late term abortions to happen before I die – and I expect that one day abortion will only be permitted when it really is crucial to save the life of the mother. The tide in America is set on pro-life. How did that happen?
Patience and charity played a huge roll. We can’t just change a person’s mind overnight. It takes a while – and you also can’t change a person’s mind if you’re being uncharitable to them…that is, condemning them, scorning them or otherwise indicating a distaste for them. While from time to time a rather zealous firebrand would come to the fore in the pro-life movement, it was pretty obvious that such people were (a) kinda shoved forward by an MSM which wanted people to think that pro-life people were like that and (b) they weren’t really representative of the pro-life movement. It was hard to characterize the pro-life movement as bad when it was almost always people quietly praying and offering counsel and assistance to women in need. It was also rather crucial that being pro-life was, is and always will be to be in favor of not just something good, but something so obviously good that even the most inattentive can see the merit of your case.
Another case of us winning is on the gun control debate. When I was a kid, it was the “thing” as much as being pro-choice was. Of course everyone wanted strict regulation of guns. But by being patient and being charitable and being in favor of something that is obviously good – the right of people to defend themselves – the right to bear arms movement has triumphed. Oh, to be sure, our Progressives are still keen to take away the guns – but they are just as keen to provide federally funded abortion on demand, too…but they won’t get it and they dare not speak their desire openly, because they know the debate is over and they lost. Only in the very deepest blue areas of the country can Progressives proclaim their desire to have taxpayers pay for abortion and to confiscate all weapons. On the national stage, they have to be in favor of “choice” in abortion and “common sense regulation” of weapons.
So, as we can see, conservatism can win – we can conserve things; the right to life and the right to keep and bear arms. We can also conserve things like property rights, the family and the free exercise of religion, as well – but only if we go about it with patience and charity and carefully selecting our issues so that we are defending what is obviously good. Leaving aside family and the free exercise of religion, let’s use property rights as a means of illustrating how we’re doing it wrong.
At bottom property rights are the fundamentally conservative thing in economic policy. The right of a person to own what he or she makes or inherits is what we’re supposed to be about. But what we do is essentially winding up defending money – we do it by defending capitalism, as a thing, and the net result is that in the public mind, we’re defending those who have bags of money. And the really irritating thing about that is that while we’re in the public mind defending the wealth of robber barons we’re actually defending the wealth of Progressive billionaires who use their money to undermine the things we actually must defend – property rights, the family and the free exercise of religion.
We can’t win the fight to save property as long as in the public mind we’re defending billionaires and multi-national corporations. In point of fact, someone who has billions of dollars and a corporation as large as, say, General Electric is a negation of property. General Electric is a behemoth making a few people very rich. A billionaire doesn’t have property like, say, a farmer or small retailer has property. A billionaire has investments and interests and wants to defend them – and will use his wealth to ensure special dealing for his investments and interests (and large corporations do the same). A farmer just wants his farm to work. A retailer just wants his store to be profitable. Do you see the difference?
To win the fight to save property rights, we have to champion those who actually have property – not those who have buckets of money. In fact, we have to stand athwart those with buckets of money…because a key thing for us to conserve, if we are indeed conservatives, is the bedrock, “small r” republican concept that any great concentration of power is a danger to the Republic. Large amounts of money under control of one person or a few people are dangerous concentrations of power…just as much as any large government bureaucracy. We have to be seen as curbing the power of billionaires and large corporations – and our battle ground would be best defending small business operators and other small property owners against the regulations of government, often done at the command of large corporations and billionaires who are trying to use government power to protect themselves.
What I’m talking about is well illustrated by a proposal from Senators Diane Feinstein (D-CA) and Susan Collins (R-ME) to regulate soap – specifically, a requirement for soap makers to register with the FDA any time they change their ingredients. This will not adversely affect large soap manufacturers – they only rarely change their ingredients and the economies of scale allow them to easily absorb the cost of new regulations. But small soap makers who can’t buy ten tons of their ingredients at a time and, at any rate, might just decide to, say, put a little more of Ingredient A into their soap can’t afford the freight. The big soap manufacturers are entirely behind this proposal – from Procter and Gamble to Revlon and everything in between…because they know full well it will drive a lot of small competitors out of the market, thus increasing their profit margins. We should be taking up the banner of the small operators against the big players…people will see, easily, that we are on the side of the good guys. And we’ll make our point that property rights are something worthy. A battle over this – and similar battles that come up – will allow us to cast ourselves as the defender of the little guy…and will show up Progressives like Feinstein and Collins for what they are: tools of the rich.
Other things that are obviously good can be defended, as well. The family, for instance. Don’t get wrapped up too much in some of the debates currently raging. They are trivial. But in Nevada the governor recently signed a law which empowers families to control the education of their children (it has to do with Education Savings Accounts which allow parents to easily save money to pay for private education). That is obviously good – in defending such a thing as that, we’re defending the ability of strong, responsible parents to be deeply involved in their children’s education, rather than having faceless and corruptible bureaucrats decreeing from on high what sort of education the kids will get. The difference here is not in attacking the public school system, which only allows Progressives to absurdly (but effectively) paint us as anti-education – we’re not attacking anything; we’re just empowering people to do for themselves, if they want. And in doing this we’re also defending family, as a thing. We’re not saying what is a family, at all – we’re just saying that families have rights and privileges that are worthy of defense. And that is a winning way to approach it – because no matter how crazy it gets out there, most families will remain what they have always been…mom and pop and the kids. And in defending that, we’ll set the cultural stage for a revival of all the things which go along with strong, independent families. And into the bargain with our defense of strong, independent families is a death blow to Big Government: the more power we secure for families, the less power there necessarily will be for government to exercise. Think what happens to government mandates in education once, say, even 25% of the kids are being educated as their parents wish in institutions the government has no control over?
I guess if I had to nutshell it, the revival of a conservative America depends upon us finding the good things we want to defend, and then going out there an defending them without acrimony. People do wish to be fair and if we’re defending what is fair, we’re going to win.
A Riot of Idiocy
I don’t know much about the Mayor of Baltimore, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake. Her Wikipedia entry indicates a pretty conventional political career for a Democrat – you know: went to college, got out of college and got into government and has never left it. Some say her “space to destroy” remark is being taken out of context and I’ll go ahead and buy that – maybe she was trying to put out an idea and it got mangled in transition from mind to mouth…it does happen to us all. But, on the other hand, she’s the Mayor, not some small-time blogger, like me. Within the city limits of Baltimore, she’s the Commander in Chief in an emergency…it is to her that the law must refer when riots erupt. Within the city, she – and no one else – is ultimately responsible for the lives and property of the citizens of Baltimore. Do understand this – when the chips are down, it is to the top person everyone looks. Not the city council, not the chief of police – to the Mayor. Regardless of whether her destroy remark was out of context, the city clearly fell apart on her watch.
This reminds me a bit of Hurricane Katrina – while the MSM and the Democrats (but, I repeat myself) managed to fix in the public mind that President Bush (who bore zero legal responsibility) was at fault for the failed response, the reality was that the Mayor of New Orleans and the Governor of Louisiana failed. The two leaders were both also rather conventional Democrat politicians who had spent most of their lives in politics – and were the kindly, public faces of the party to the electorate. But, they failed miserably. I think this is because our Democrats are rather clever in most instances – they know they need a kind face in front and so they find one. One who will do as they are told, not rock the boat and allow the nauseating sea of Democrat corruption to continue unhindered by reality. I don’t know for certain if Ms. Rawlings-Blake is as much of a zero as the Mayor and Governor were in Louisiana, but my guess is that she was elevated to the Mayor’s office by the Democrat powers-that-be not because of a sterling record of accomplishment but, rather, because of her loyalty and pliability (she signed off on a plan to fix Baltimore’s disastrous fiscal problems – and it promises to reduce a shortfall over ten years from $750 million to $400 million…which means it fixes precisely nothing and, I’ll bet, even the $300 million saved is probably due to fiscal hocus-pocus; a real leader doesn’t sign off on a solution which doesn’t solve; the difference is in what Walker did in Wisconsin – he really fixed Wisconsin’s fiscal woes).
The main thing to keep in mind outside of the particular merits of the current leaders of Baltimore is that the last time a Republican ran the city was from 1963 to 1967, and Republicans have held the Mayor’s office only 16 out of the last 100 years. Baltimore is the Democrat’s city. They own it. If there is anything wrong with Baltimore, it is 100% the fault of the Democrats. And very liberal Democrats, at that (as an aside, Nancy Pelosi’s dad and brother both served as Mayor – her brother botching the 1968 riots so badly that he was booted out of office after one term; another oddity is that at that time, as well, a Democrat mayor botched the response and a Republican Governor, Spiro T. Agnew, called out the National Guard – and, eventually, federal troops courtesy of the President – to restore order). Bottom line is that if the Baltimore Police Department is a racist oppressor, then it is made up of and run by liberal racist oppressors. I fully expect at the next election the people rioting in the streets will vote for the same people running the show today.
Astonishingly, President Obama actually used the word “thugs” to describe the rioters. Per many liberals, this actually makes President Obama a racist as the word “thug” is code for “N word”. President Obama, more true to form, did manage to place some of the blame on the GOP for the riots, claiming that GOP failure to pass his agenda has meant less money for programs to alleviate the problems which led to the riots. This in service of the ideal that only vast sums of federal cash funneled to bureaucrats can fix our problems. I actually figure the use of the word “thug” was because someone did some polling and found out that riots don’t play well for the 2016 narrative – after all, it has been a couple days and Obama is only speaking just today.
Lost in all this is the man who’s death in police custody sparked the riots (or, at any rate, provided an excuse for criminal elements to go on a rampage). Freddy Gray was no exemplar of good citizenship – but what caused his arrest is that he took off running when the police approached him. He was found with a switchblade and arrested. To be sure, running from the police is not a good idea – but I don’t find in the available information any underlying crime being committed…and arresting someone for having a knife seems a bit extreme (and you can probably thank the good liberals who run Baltimore for making sure that knife possession is illegal). Irritatingly, some on the right are pointing out Gray’s long rap sheet as some sort of justification for his death. Sorry, folks, but being a petty criminal doesn’t in any way, shape or form justify death. Unless the police can come up with credible evidence that Gray attacked them, then the police did wrong (to be sure, in the Ferguson case, the evidence ended up being open and shut – the dead man did attack the officer…and maybe over time some evidence of this will come out in the Gray case: so far, it hasn’t). Most of Gray’s arrests seem to be over drugs, so I guess we can count this as another victory in the War on Drugs? And may we please surrender in that war?
The MSM covered itself in it’s usual glory here – first ignoring the riots when they started because that might have made Obama’s appearance at the White House Correspondents Dinner look bad. Next by trying to some how justify the riots based upon American racism without even once noting that the city is run by liberals (and has a black Mayor, black Chief of Police and is, indeed, 63% black). Interspersed among this has been the sensationalist showing of videos of burning buildings and lack of police presence – coverage assured to get everyone off the couch and off to the looting (except for one young man who has the best mother, ever).
In all of this, I don’t think I’ve seen any intelligent commentary or suggestions. The thing to be done is, of course, a national campaign to reform police practices and for the GOP to start getting into these deep blue cities and start campaigning. Offer the people there a choice, for crying out loud. Do you really think that most people in Baltimore want to live like that? Of course they don’t – but all they get is, at best, a choice between the liberal Democrat who is favored by the party bosses and the odd liberal Democrat who thinks he or she should have been favored by the party bosses. Nothing will change in places like Baltimore until there is something to change to.
It is all really rather sad and enraging – I pray for the people of Baltimore, and of our poor nation, so badly served by politicians and media.
UPDATE: If this is true, then it is a complete game-changer in the Freddy Gray story.
It’s the Arbitrariness, Stupid
Arbitrary government operating by force, by terror, must destroy the best, the boldest dissenters in sheer self-defence; soon it finds itself destroying all who, on the one hand, do not actively assist it or, on the other, do not passively submit. – Edward Crankshaw
In other words, if you won’t have a government of laws and customs, then you simply must destroy the very best people you have…those who think in the boldest terms and seek to do the best. Arbitrary government cannot exist except when everyone is beaten down…and mindless, bureaucratic hacks are free to just grind away.
A strict – even Draconian – legal code is no problem, at all. If you know what the law is and if the law applies equally to all, then we all know where we stand. We can take care. We can take evasive action. We’re fine, even if rather inconvenienced. But when what the law is resides in the merest whim of those who enforce the laws, then no one really knows the law – no one knows what may be done, or what may bring punishment. People become fearful, dissent and innovation dry up…and the world is left to those who enjoy wielding arbitrary power (and make no mistake about it, some people do enjoy it…such people exist in all societies…and an arbitrary society just brings such people out of the woodwork in droves).
What we saw in Wisconsin is an example of arbitrary law – even if one wants to believe that Walker supporters were breaking the law, it was still an arbitrary enforcement…and done with such crude (disgusting, actually) force that everyone involved in right of center politics in Wisconsin became fearful. What our liberals – who are still mostly silent on the issue – don’t realize is that while they might think it good for such things to be done to conservatives, they will eventually be done to liberals, as well. People who like to arbitrarily enforce laws in a cruel manner never get tired of it – and when the enemies are all destroyed, they simply go after the friends, as well. You see, once you’ve got people empowered to do whatever they wish, they’ll do it – and, indeed, they have to, in a sense. If all the enemies are disposed of and it is now time to close up shop, that forces a bunch of people off the government gravy-train. They’ll invent new enemies as needed in order to justify their continues bureaucratic existence.
The lesson for all of us here – left and right – is strict rules strictly enforced. There is no half-way house. It is liberty or tyranny – no shading in between. We, as a people, must demand that our government officials scrupulously follow the rules…and if we find a gap in the rules, then we must fix it, and the government must follow the new rules, as well.
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