A Missing Piece: The Responsibility Ethic
I could wright all day about the faults of the modern Left. I did once, and put it in parts of my book
Was that shameless? I'll tell you what's really shameless: the Left's propensity to point the finger at other people for the destruction progressive policies they tend to perpetrate on this country.
One of the major pitfalls of modern leftism is it's utter lack of regard for the common sense ethic of personal responsibility. Let me refine that. It is not a lack of regard for this virtue, but a complete embrace of its vice that seems to be the modus operandi of Obama, Axelrod, Pelosi, and their ilk. I believe this irks average Americans almost more than any single policy issue. It's a matter of character.
Nowhere is this more clear in recent history than with the Obama administration's inability to take responsibility for, well, anything. Now that he's had two years under his belt with the media cheerleading all the way, President Obama's approval numbers are still poor. As jobless claims gradualy eek up despite unprecedented intervention into the private sector, net "neutrality" and perhaps soon cap-and-trade by fiat, he reminds us that he's 'digging us out of a hole.' Presumably, he's referencing the hole creating by "backwards" policies like free-markets and capitalism, not poor policy and perverse incentives pushed by his administration in the last two years or by allies like Barney Frank for the past decade.
Then this from Nancy Pelosi just a couple days earlier: the midterm election spanking the Democrats took? It was Bush's fault.
In any case, I hope they really believe what they're saying. If they do, the only holes they are digging are their own political graves.
Get On Board!
Here in Illinois, we are engaging tea party activists and concerned citizens across the state to turn what has become known as the land of Blago and Obama back on the path to prosperity.
If you're an Illinois resident or in the area this fall, get on board!
To learn more check out IllinoisTurnaround.com
Hope for Change
The partisans in Washington that recently jammed through ObamaCare despite widespread public opposition may very well loose their jobs come November, but that's little comfort to Americans concerned about the legislation's long-term detrimental impact on the nation.
Fortunately, there's an old piece of paper meant to keep the nation's leaders in check even after they've hopped over every procedural hurdle and bent every rule to get their way regardless of the will and interest of the people: the United States Constitution.
The efforts of a dozen or so state Attorneys General and legislatures to mount opposition to ObamaCare has been couched by many cynical commentators as pointless, legally impotent wheel spinning. The Wall Street Journal ran a heartening piece last week that paints a much more hopeful picture by taking a look at the implications of some of the more egregious parts of the bill, such as the insurance mandate, on the role and power of the federal government:
...if Congress can force Americans to buy a product, the question is what remains of the government of limited and enumerated powers, as provided in Article I. The only remaining restraint on federal power would be the Bill of Rights, though the Founders considered those 10 amendments to be an affirmation of the rights inherent in the rest of the Constitution, not the only restraint on government. If the insurance mandate stands, then why can't Congress insist that Americans buy GM cars, or that obese Americans eat their vegetables or pay a fat tax penalty?
Click here for the full piece.
Strange brew: The Coffee Party
My latest piece at The Daily Caller:
In a tacit admission of the Tea Party’s success, backers of the wildly unpopular big-government, liberty-crushing policies of the Obama administration are brewing up their own movement—the Coffee Party. It all allegedly started with a random musing in a post by Annabel Park on Facebook in which she called for an alternative to the Tea Party movement.
Read more here.
Brooks’ Strange Brew
New York Times token conservative David Brooks always has an interesting take on the tea party movement (See his previous piece on the movement where he contrasts tea partiers with the "educated class.")
Mr. Brooks' most recent reading of the tea leaves is equally...intriguing.
Take Brooks' summary of the tea party movement which he contorts to fit his cute narrative comparing tea partiers to the 60's radicals of the New Left:
The people we loosely call the Tea Partiers also want to destroy the establishment. They also want to take on The Man, return power to the people, upend the elites and lead a revolution.
Brooks goes on to characterization of the tea party movement as preoccupied with black helicopter theories:
In its short life, the Tea Party movement has developed a dizzying array of conspiracy theories involving the Fed, the F.B.I., the big banks and corporations and black helicopters.
I'm curious to know how many tea parties Brooks has gone to and how many tea partiers he's interviewed in order to form the opinion that informs his commentary. Based on my experience organizing, participating in, and documenting the tea party movement, Brooks' generalizations of the tea party movement bears no correlation with reality. The tea party movement is in fact a mainstream, grassroots coalition of Americans concerned with the direction of this nation. Brooks would likely draw a different conclusion were he to look beyond the pages of his own paper. Sadly, Mr. Brooks appears to suffer from the same delusion as many of his colleagues: that the reporting on the pages of the Times truly is an accurate portrayal of "all the news that's fit to print."
CPAC This Week
I'm excited and honored to be attending and participating in CPAC 2010 beginning this Thursday.
I'll be participating in the following panel:
Thursday, February 18th - 11:45am
"Saving Freedom One Patriot at a Time"
Marriott Ballroom
Ginni Thomas, LibertyCentral.org
Dana Loesch, St. Louis Tea Party
Jenny Beth Martin, Tea Party Patriots
Moderator: Andrew Moylan, NTU
Afterwards, I'll be signing copies of A New American Tea Party in the main exhibit hall. Stop on by if you're at CPAC!
If you aren't already coming, be sure to check out the impressive agenda here. Online registration is closed, but you can show up and register for a few different packages.
The Tea Party Nation
Great op-ed in the Sacramento Bee this weekend on the recent tea party convention, the media spin of same, and the real principles - and people - behind the tea party movement.
Writes Ben Boychuk:
What tea parties represent is a revival of good, old-fashioned constitutionalism and the idea that government needs to get back to basics. There is a great yearning for a return to first principles. Millions of Americans, but perhaps not yet a majority, would very much like to restore the principles of the American Founding Fathers to their rightful and pre-eminent place in our political life.
Read the full piece here.
A New American Tea Party
O’Hara at The Daily Caller
- How to lose jobs and alienate taxpayers
- Squashing dissent with slander and libel
- Strange brew: The Coffee Party
- A civic reawakening: The Tea Party movement
- SOTU wishes: A lot less talk, a lot more action
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Debt Tea
Efforts to tie spending reductions to a debt ceiling increase aren’t merely ideological demands made by reckless ideologues.
Voters, particularly those who voted in this freshman class of Republicans, realize that their shot at achieving the American dream is threatened when the government continues to expand in size and scope, draining resources from their more efficient, equitable allocation in the private sector. What’s more, wasteful government spending crowds out both private and public programs that serve as the social safety net for the poor and disadvantaged.