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.
How the Political Class Thinks
My latest piece at BigGovernment.com:
In his Daily Show appearance last night, President Obama made a very revealing—and presumably inadvertent—statement about those in Congress who have supported his radical agenda.
In the context of many congressional seats being up for grabs in what pundits and prognosticators are predicting to be a GOP wave election, Obama stated that many of his allies in Congress voted for politically tough bills because they believed “it was the right thing to so” despite being in conservative-leaning districts.
On the surface, what the President says sounds so noble. These politicians are doing what they think is right. They’re standing up despite outside pressure! Except they aren’t standing up for the right people: their constituents. “Doing what they think is right” is warm and fuzzy code for “what Nancy Pelosi / President Obama tells them is right.”
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
Frum’s Folly
My thoughts on David Frum's Monday morning quarterbacking with regard to the health care debate:
There has been much hullabaloo regarding David Frum's recent statements that the passage of health care non-reform represents is largely a result of short-sighted GOP stubbornness. The failure to stop ObamaCare is hardly the GOP's Waterloo as Frum asserts. It is, however, a major setback for the American people who overwhelmingly oppose this legislation and will have to live with the consequences.
For the full piece, visit the American Thinker.
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."
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
Cap and Tax
Coffee Party
Education
Environment
Government Unions
Health Care
Illinois
Illinois Policy Institute
Meeks
Protests
Rallies
School Choice
Scott Walker
Taxes
Unions
Vouchers
Wisconsin A New American Tea Party (27)
Chicago (14)
Commentary (42)
Defense (1)
Education (5)
Environment (29)
Health Care (34)
Illinois (13)
Obamanomics (36)
Parody (2)
School Choice (3)
Snark (4)
Taxes (54)
Tea Parties (52)
Uncategorized (5)
WP Cumulus Flash tag cloud by Roy Tanck and Luke Morton requires Flash Player 9 or better.
Patronizing and Wrong
President Obama's reelection campaign recently released "The Life of Julia," a slide show demonstrating how President Obama has made virtually every aspect of every woman's life better. At each point in "Julia's" life, viewers are also reminded that Mitt Romney would destroy all this good work and thus the lives of millions of women.
This is not hyperbole on my part - watch the slide show.
This is an unbelievably disturbing combination of gross policy distortions and patronizing of women fueled by a philosophy of total government dependency and what can only be described as clinical narcissism.
Check out these great perspectives from NRO's Kevin Williamson and Human Events' David Harasanyi.
Update: For an alternative vision of public policy proposals that would empower Julia, check out the Heritage Foundation great post here.