Tag Archives: morality

Politics and Israeli Security

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The Washington Examiner‘s Philip Klein reported last Monday that Democratic National Committee Chairwoman and Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D, FL) said to a training session for Jewish Democrats just before the Democratic Party Convention,

We know, and I’ve heard no less than Ambassador Michael Oren say this, that what the Republicans are doing is dangerous for Israel.  They’re undermining Israel’s security….

Wasserman Schultz denied this, saying her remarks were “deliberately” misrepresented.  She insisted, through an unnamed spokesman, that what she really said was this:

What jeopardizes Israel’s security is the suggestion, for partisan political gain, that the election of either political party would weaken the long-standing relationship of the United States and Israel….

(In response to her denial, Klein posted the audio of Wasserman Schultz’ remark.)

Then we have the 2012 Democratic Party Platform saying this about Israel: no mention of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, which is a radical change from 2008 where the DNC acknowledged Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.  And party’s 2012 platform says this about Iran:

President Obama believes that a diplomatic outcome remains the best and most enduring solution.

At the same time, he has also made clear that the window for diplomacy will not remain open indefinitely and that all options—including military force—remain on the table[.]

This is another radical walk-back from their 2008 platform, which said

The world must prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

When questioned about these changes, Wasserman Schultz’ DNC said this in its responding statement:

This is just another attempt by the Romney campaign to turn our support for Israel—which has always been bipartisan—into a partisan wedge issue by playing politics. This is both cynical and counter-productive to Israel’s security.

Hmm….

The Progressives once again ask us to choose between them and our lying eyes.

Update:  On Wednesday, in response to an enormous public outcry over this abandonment of Israel by the Democratic Party, the Democrats altered their rules for their platform content, and they reinserted language averring Jerusalem to be the Israeli capital.  Language concerning a nuclear Iran remains missing.

This is naked vote pandering.  The Democrats told the truth about themselves the first time.

“How Democrats Made America Exceptional”

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Indeed.  But not in a good way.  Alan Colmes has an op-ed of this title in The Wall Street Journal; let’s look at some of his claims.

Conservatives blast the left for not appreciating “American exceptionalism”—even though Barack Obama is the only president to have ever used that phrase, at least in the past eight decades or so.

Which Democratic Presidential Candidate Obama did pejoratively:

I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.

Sure.  Our exceptionalism is just one among 20.  Or 192.  But this is a minor quibble.

Here’s the important stuff.  Here’s Social Security, for example.

Roosevelt created Social Security [wrote Colmes], a program that today keeps 40% of seniors above the poverty line and helps families with disabilities and those who have lost loved ones.

FDR did this at a time when there were seven American workers for every retiree, and the retirees had a life expectancy of five years in retirement.  Moreover, FDR designed it as a supplemental income program, with the retirees still expected to look to their families for any additional support needed.  Today, Social Security has three workers for every retiree, and the retirees have a life expectancy of fifteen years in retirement.  And today’s family man is taxed for the current retirement support of utter strangers.  He’s not allowed to set that money aside for his own retired parents in particular, or for his own future retirement.  Under these demographic facts, Colmes objects to redesigning Social Security, so that the promise of a safety net can be kept—if under different guise.

[Republican Vice Presidential Candidate Paul Ryan] wants to dismantle that same Social Security program.

No, let’s just leave it alone, and let it fail completely.

Food stamps.  Ah, yes.

Today the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as food stamps, feeds one in seven Americans. The program was established in 1939 by FDR’s then Secretary of Agriculture Henry Wallace.  Recipients are not all lazy bums sitting on their posteriors….

The only ones talking about food stamp recipients being lazy are Progressives trying to distract by denying a charge that isn’t being made.

More importantly, though, Colmes actually recites that food stamp dependency ratio like it’s a good thing that government policies have reduced 15% of Americans to such straits.  But why do we have a food stamp program at all?  FDR, via the National Labor Relations Act, put a floor under the wages employers were allowed to pay—at the height of the Depression, with 20+% unemployment—thus making it too expensive for employers to hire.  On top of this, he put a floor, with his Agricultural Adjustment Acts, under the price of food at which farmers could sell, ensuring that all of those out of work Americans—too many now unemployable by law—could not afford their daily bread.  Enter FDR’s food stamps, in an attempt to enable the artificially priced out of work to buy their food at those artificially inflated prices.  And those CCC and WPA programs of which Colmes is so proud?  Well-intentioned, to be sure.  But they worked in concert with FDR’s price and wage floors to crowd out the private employers that otherwise would have done the hiring—with the private economy’s far greater impact.  Indeed, these New Deal policies, far from providing relief from the impact of the Depression, prolonged it.

“Reproductive rights.”  Colmes has this to say:

The fight for women’s rights continues, as regressives try to put an end to already-established reproductive rights. Even if you don’t believe that 98% of Catholic women have used birth control, as a 2011 Guttmacher Institute study showed, the overwhelming majority has[.]

and

If Messrs. Romney and Ryan have their way, reproductive rights would be overturned and millions of Americans denied health-care coverage.

Here Colmes is cynically conflating the right to choose to have children—or not—with insurance coverage for the birth control mechanisms and abortifacients that facilitate that choice.  And he insists that it’s OK to force people or their religious institutions to pay for these even when it goes against their religious beliefs.  The fact that so many of us are sinners, anyway, somehow excuses this.  More, Colmes conflates objection to being forced to pay for something that violates one’s conscience with denial of availability altogether.  This is just more cynicism.  There’s nothing wrong with birth control for those who want it.  Insurance policies even exist that cover the incredibly cheap contraceptives as well as the abortifacients.  The problem is when the user is, by law, allowed to force others to pay for her contraceptives, her abortifacients, instead of buying them with her own money.

Colmes’ Progressives want the wrong type of exceptionalism for America.  They don’t want the old, foundational exceptionalism of self-reliance, individual responsibility, and a limited government that recognizes both the fundamental wisdom of Americans and that it has no standing to do for us for our own good.  They want Big Government acting in our stead.

Another Thought on Government

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One line from Michelle Obama’s speech on the opening day of the just concluded Democratic Party’s convention jumped out at me, and it did so because it epitomizes the difference between Progressive and Conservative views of government and responsibility.

[W]hen you’ve worked hard, and done well, and walked through that doorway of opportunity, you do not slam it shut behind you.  You reach back and you give other folks the same chances that helped you succeed.

Indeed, conservatives not only believe this, we live it.  Arthur Brooks, the author of Who Really Cares, says:

[W]hen you look at the data, it turns out the conservatives give about 30 percent more.  And incidentally, conservative-headed families make slightly less [6% less] money.

and

…conservatives are 18 percent more likely to donate blood.

Here are some more numbers from Brooks, via George Will:

In the 10 reddest states [in 2004], in which Bush got more than 60 percent majorities, the average percentage of personal income donated to charity was 3.5. Residents of the bluest states, which gave Bush less than 40 percent, donated just 1.9 percent.

There are notable exceptions to this.  The Clintons and Obamas, on the other hand, gave significant per centages of their income to charity.  But these exceptions demonstrate the truth in the data.

Conservatives already are, as a matter of course, reaching back and helping others.  We’re reaching sideways and helping others with current problems, too.  And we reach forward—we pay it forward [emphasis added]:

…lower income people give more [than those better off] because they think they are more likely to need charity or know someone who needs charity.

We don’t need government to force us to do our duty.  We don’t need government to dictate to us what our charities will be, or the mechanisms by which we will help.

Progressives, though, do need government to prod them, apparently, as they project this shortcoming of theirs onto all Americans.  From Brooks (Will), again [emphasis in the Will cite]:

People who reject the idea that “government has a responsibility to reduce income inequality” give an average of four times more than people who accept that proposition.

Mrs Obama was, in fact, preaching to the choir.  She was just in the wrong church.

Excuses of an Addict

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In doing research on another subject, I ran across this article, a part of which I’ve excerpted below.

  • It wasn’t my fault!
    Rationalization and projection of blame attempt to distance the addict from the consequences of his (actually, of his addiction’s) actions.
  • You’re not so pure yourself!
    Following the adage that “the best defense is a good offense” the addict seeks to turn the tables and distract attention from himself by “attacking the attacker….”
  • Trust me – I know what I am doing!
    The addict, blinded to reality by his own denial, attempts to reassure those who have begun to wonder about his judgment….
  • I’m not nearly as bad as OTHER people!
    An almost universal addictive rationalization.  The addict compares himself to people who are in his opinion in far worse shape….
  • Look at all I have done for you! or This is the thanks I get!
    Another “guilt trip” designed to disarm or deflect criticism of addictive behavior.
  • Now is not a good time to stop!
    Another nearly universal addictive rationalization.  “I’ll quit tomorrow” is a familiar addictive refrain.  The time never seems quite right to stop – even though the addict may be or seem to be perfectly sincere in his determination

Do any of these excuses sound familiar in today’s political arena?

Tomorrow

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I’ll kick the habit tomorrow.  I promise.  I need to get ready, get my mind right, build up to the effort.

That’s what Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama said last Sunday about his spending addiction.  Speaking through his senior campaign advisor, David Axelrod, on “Fox News Sunday,” he said,

You can’t balance the budget in the short term, because to do that would be to ratchet down the economy.

What an awesome display of economic ignorance, even for someone who’s never worked in a real economy in his life.

The economy isn’t already ratcheted down?  With 23 million Americans still out of work or actively underemployed (as in, scratching with part-time jobs, but wanting full-time work)?  With fewer Americans employed today than at the start of his term?  With unemployment above 8% for his entire term?  With a “recovery” since that Panic’s definitional end in early 2009 the worst in American history?  With the Obama tax increases and the rest of his “taxmageddon” set to hammer us in a shade over three months?  With three years of trillion-dollar-plus deficits?  With the nation’s debt $5 trillion larger—one-third larger—than at the start of his term?

Then Obama insisted, again using Axelrod’s mouth, that he’s created 4.3 million jobs since the Panic.  Never mind that while accepting that figure there remain those fewer Americans employed today than then.  Never mind that Obama continues to decline to offer any evidence that he’s responsible for those “added” jobs, that they were not added by what would otherwise be an ordinary business cycle recovery, suppressed by his policies.

Obama insisted, also (through Axelrod, again), that our auto industry was “saved” by his bailout.  Never mind that of the seven major car companies in the American auto industry (GM, Chrysler, Ford, Toyota, Hyundai, Honda, Nissan—all of which import their constituent parts from overseas, and all of which assemble those parts in their plants in the US), only two took his bailout money, and those two are still suffering under significant government ownership.  The other five car companies—albeit generally without significant union employment, and so not in league with Obama—didn’t need “help” at all; the industry was never at risk.  And never mind that had GM and Chrysler been allowed to go through bankruptcy, they would have recovered much faster, without government encumbrances, and without stiffing senior creditors in favor of Obama’s unions.

If the time to balance the budget isn’t now, then when will it be time?  Oh, yeah.  Tomorrow.  I just need another day.