"The Free Exchange"

“The Free Exchange”

Conservatism’s strength emanates from its penchant for robust debate. “The Free Exchange” is a series of articles aimed at highlighting and broadening the debate at Black and Red. When you comment on essays you read at this site, I will respond to you via this blog series. If you wish to send an email for consideration in an upcoming Free Exchange article, please email me at blkandred@gmail.com and write “The Free Exchange” and the title of the article you are commenting on in the subject heading. Hopefully, the free exchange of ideas will prove beneficial to readers and participants. Thank you for reading and thank you so much for commenting.

Under normal circumstances, “The Free Exchange” is posted on the Wednesday after the comment has been received. However, since I have been on hiatus for so long, many of you have not received responses to your comments in quite a long time. Since my return, the comments have been stacking up and in order not to show any disrespect for the thoughtful queries that you have presented to me, I have labored to respond to each one while writing new material. The result is a massive 21-page Free Exchange article that answers every single comment that has since been unanswered. This week, instead of a typical article, I am posting this Free Exchange article. Henceforth, though, “The Free Exchange” will return to its sacred place in the middle of the week—on Wednesdays.

Also, before I respond to your excellent challenges and comments, I would like to take yet another opportunity to thank all of you who read this blog. Your readership and contributions make Black and Red what it is—exactly what I had always dreamt it to be—a place where intelligent political conversation can thrive. Without you, this is just another dark corner on the web where a guy talks to himself.

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

-J. Hunter

This week, Carolyn Hyppolite addresses: “The Free Exchange.” 

Carolyn’s comments are in white. Mine are in green.

I am sorry for not posting earlier. Christmas is distracting!

I have to disagree with you that libertarians are not concerned about virtue. Libertarians believe that human beings have natural rights, which cannot be abridged and that is fundamental to a virtuous society. The first of such principle is liberty and non-agression. If one assumes that the person is free and own's his body, than laws that violates this principle are most immoral because they violate the person's natural rights.

Secondly, libertarians are not necessarily not concerned about vices but rather believe that government, as a coercive monopolist, ought not to regulate such matters. Under libertarian principles, I can freely submit myself to the rigid dictates of Catholic canon law just as you can freely choose not to submit yourself. But state power offers no such options. Under the state, we are subject to things, like blue laws whether we want to or not.

Of course, there are libertarians on both sides abortion debate. I would be happy to comment on that if you like.

Peace in Christ,
CKH
carolynhyppolite.blogspot.com

Thank you so much for reading, commenting and for wishing me well, Carolyn.

Please know, that I think of you every time I write a sentence with the word “libertarian.”  I look forward to your challenges on issues like this because I am fascinated by political ideology.

To respond, first, to your general objection, I base everything I know about libertarianism—however much that may be—on statements and claims by other prominent libertarians. Most recently, Jeffrey Miron, Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute, wrote a book called “Libertarianism, from A to Z.” In a book event, hosted at Cato, Miron described his approach to solving problems—and the approach that libertarians should emulate—as one that relegates questions of morality to questions of “practicality.”[1]

The most famous libertarian who openly despised religion was probably Ayn Rand, herself. Rand, a libertarian standard bearer, infamously remarked that Bill Buckley was too intelligent to believe in Christianity.

Libertarians, like Frank Meyer, famously dismissed the writings of traditional conservatives, like L. Brent Bozell Jr., for his dependence on his Catholic religiosity to inform his political worldview.

The libertarian position on social issues like prostitution, abortion, narcotics and humanitarian intervention (of the military variety) are simply inconsistent with virtue. How can government decriminalization and regulation of prostitution, for example, be construed as anything other than a tacit endorsement of such a horrible institution? The same question can be asked about the libertarian position on illicit drugs and abortion. (By the way, I would love for you to share your view on libertarianism and abortion.) From where does libertarianism unearth an American’s right to do wrong?

To your second point, I believe that this is the basic reason why libertarianism fails to connect with most Americans: Unless I am misunderstanding your argument, libertarians recognize that virtue and vice exist, but believe that government should remain neutral on the issue—endorsing neither. On the other hand, conservatives and liberals simply disagree about what exactly is virtuous and what is vice, but both believe that government should endorse virtue and punish vice. Liberty in and of itself is not a virtue, and both, traditional conservatives and liberals agree with that point.

I trust that, when you find time, you will deliver a wonderful response to my claims. I gladly welcome your thoughts.

NSangoma responds to “The Smutty Professor.” NSangoma’s comments are in red. Mine are in green.

William F Buckley rejected you, BLACK and UNREAD, Negroe.
 Irrefragable BLACK and UNREAD Negroe, means impossible to refute:
 ...
[T]he legality of the 14th amendment. ... The argument that it was improperly ratified is historically irrefragable...
Martin Luther King will never rouse a rabble; in fact, I doubt very much if he could keep a rabble awake... past its bedtime...
Martin Luther King... [his] lecture... delivered with all the force and fervor of the five-year-old who nightly recites: "Our Father, Who art in New Haven, Harold be Thy name"...
The central question... is whether the White community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail, politically and culturally, in areas in which it does not predominate numerically? The sobering answer is Yes.... National Review believes that the South's premises are correct...
The axiom... was Universal Suffrage. Everyone in America is entitled to the vote.... That, of course, is demagogy.... The great majority of the Negroes of the South who do not vote do not care to vote, and would not know for what to vote if they could. ...
William F Buckley, National Review

Your IgNence conservative Negroe am incontestable, no undeniable.

Latin irrefragabilis , from Latin in- , "not" + refragari , "to oppose."
http://dictionary.reference.com/wordoftheday/archive/2003/08/21.html

Thank you for commenting, NSangoma, and thank you for defining irrefragable for my readers. One of the many things I love about William F. Buckley is his command of the English language.

On that note, I’d like to commend to you a different word—germane. (Germane is just a fancy word for relevant.)

I do not understand how your criticism of Buckley is germane to the topic of liberal indocrination at American universities. Your argument is a non-sequitur: Because A was incorrect in his stance on X, A must therefore be incorrect in his stance on the unrelated Y. Should we ignore Martin Luther King’s views on racial equality because he was a womanizer? Of course not! Should we ignore any of your opinions because you have fallen on the wrong side of any issue? Surely, no.

To understand the correlation between the controversy at Northwestern University and William F. Buckley, I would recommend that you read Buckley’s seminal work “God and Man at Yale.” Even if you don’t agree with him, you’re sure to expand your lexicon.

To address Buckley’s quote, I am perfectly comfortable admitting that he may have been wrong on some civil rights issues. As you may know, the 1960s was a difficult time for America and many people said many things that they have come to regret. To understand Buckley, or anyone else commenting on segregation and race relations in that time period, one must understand that.

Be that as it may, as I read the quote, there is not much with which I disagree. That is not because I am a Buckley apologist, but because I have a talent (some call it a skill, or even a curse or defect) that allows me to divorce my emotions from highly emotional subjects. Sometimes, that tendency leads me to proper conclusions, and other times my failure to appreciate this palpable intangible substance that exists in political discussions leads me to incorrect conclusions. That said, there are elements of the quote that appear to be prescient and applicable today—especially pertaining to the most controversial segment of his argument, that which relates to Negro voting.

Ask yourself, for example, what percentage of black Americans participate in election politics. Then, ask why polls show that black Americans are an outlier when it comes to judging the direction of the country and the president’s job approval. In other words, vast majorities of Americans of every color, sans black, believe that the president is leading the nation in the wrong direction, but black Americans are convinced otherwise despite their lowered economic and social status since Obama has taken office. That suggests to me an epidemic of underdeveloped political acumen in the black community, as well as an irrational adherence to a tribal loyalty—both issues being completely incompatible with participation in a functioning democracy. The lack of black participation in electoral politics, especially given the relative ease with which blacks are allowed to vote compared to the 1960s, suggests that today “The great majority of Negroes…who do not vote do not care to vote…” The inverse relationship between black espirit de corps’ and the palpable dread shared by every other ethnic group in the country about the nation’s direction, especially given that the fate of the United States determines the fate of American blacks, supports the latter half of the controversial segment of Buckley’s quote. Negroes “would not know for what to vote if they could.”

I look forward to your reply. Thanks for reading.

Roderick and Anonymous also respond to “The Smutty Professor.” Roderick’s comments are in orange. Anonymous’ are in yellow. Mine are in green.

I agree that the demonstration was over the top but were the students told of the demonstration in advance and after it began were they allowed to leave?

If either of those two options were avaliable then I don't understand the issue because the class was a study on human sexuality after all.

First of all to NSangoma.... feel better about your self now that you got that off of your chest? I would have to go into agreement with Roderick. If you were informed ahead of time of the demonstration and had an option to leave then the issue should be mute. This after all took place on a college campus not a high school gymnasium. Drop the hormones and religious agenda from the issue and see it for it's intellectual purposes.

Roderick and Anonymous, thank you so much for commenting on this piece.

I admit that the most frustrating part of this controversy is that one side insists that the debate should be about consent, whereas I am making (or am trying to make) an argument about puerility and the function of the American university. American students are competing in a global market against foreigners who come to American universities to learn important things. Here at Northwestern, that point is quite evident. University education is very expensive, and Americans barely stomach the fact that there are so many useless degrees (African American studies, women’s studies, Chicano studies, etc.).  There is a serious debate about how useful some of these classes are, and at what point they go from legitimate education to becoming political indoctrination. Add to the list of questionable academic endeavors a Human Sexuality course. On the one hand, tuition paying parents, donors and interested observers are willing to grimace and offer moral and financial support to the institutions that offer these classes under the insistence of academics that these topics are pursued purely in the interest of advancing true knowledge. However, when Bailey invited the sex workers to his class to “perform,” it became much more difficult to sell, not just the usefulness of his class, but also the usefulness of the Northwestern degree and of a college education. A student who attended that event surely learned nothing that could not have been learned by simply going to a typical sex show. Furthermore, whatever knowledge was gained cannot be discussed academically or in polite company. The sex show lacked intellectual substance. What Bailey did hurt academia’s argument.

Why was Bailey’s decision inappropriate? Not simply because it was indecent—and it was—but also because it was injurious to the school, the reputation of his defenders and, as a result, to those who continue to defend the expensive college experience.

I look forward to other thoughts you may have on this matter. Thank you for participating.

BJ, Anonymous and Kazador commented on “Progressive Conservatism.” BJ’s comments are in blue. Anonymous’ are in yellow and Kazador’s comments are in lavender. Mine are in green.

Welcome back! I am so happy to see your blog return to the internet airwaves. Believe it or not, you are giving back by doing this. I would welcome your writing even once a month if things get too busy, but it's great to see its return.

I love these political theory discussions. I agree that the so-called progressive ideas are not new with a few exceptions such as same-sex marriage. Their idea of income redistribution by big government/forced equality of result is an old, Marxist idea that was put in place in the old Soviet Union, Cambodia, and other such places in the last hundred years. Their environmental worshipping ideas are arguably based on pre-Bible, nature worshipping ideas of the ancient times. On the other hand, conservative ideas try to preserve and sustain the ideas and values of our Founding Fathers from the late 1700's.

Dennis Prager was so right when he said that everything with the left is backwards. They are the ones truly stuck in the 1960's "past." Every foreign conflict is the Vietnam War (Persian Gulf War, Iraq War, Afghanistan, Kosovo); still fighting racism against blacks and sexism whether it exists to day on that scale or not; still fighting corporate greed with today's version of the "Great Society" and its war on poverty such as the stimulus package and the Community Reinvestment Act; still for reverse racism known as affirmative action etc.

I look forward to many more of your insights.

Thank you, BJ, for your unwavering support and encouragement. So often I am up late at night, even into the pre-dawn morning hours, researching and writing blog articles. You never fail—despite your own busy schedule—to read these essays and write such thoughtful and intelligent replies. You keep me motivated, and for that, I truly thank you.

I plan to take you up on your offer to write monthly if I get bogged down again.

I think it is important for conservatives to fight the rhetoric of the left as much as possible, and to a great degree we do so rather successfully. I never tire of making the comparisons between liberal policies and other obsolete ideas.

Thank God you're back.

I thank God you’re back to read me. And of course, I thank you for doing so.

Good show as always... I look forward to reading more and more articles as the weeks progress.

Thank you Kazador! I hope to continue engaging you.

Francoise commented on “Our Stolen Generation (Murder in the First).” Francoise’s comments are in grey. Mine are in green.

Disgusting. I'm pregnant and intending to raise and love my child, I'm looking at pictures of ultrasounds online and I come upon this on the first line of results.

Great job, people. The power of hatred.

Francoise,

Thank you for reading and commenting. God bless you for your intention to raise and love your child. Your little baby will learn how fortunate he/she is to have such a wonderful mother as a nurturer.

Abortion, in my view, truly is an institution of hatred. It’s hatred not only for the innocent baby who is murdered, but it is hatred of God.

God gives us so many gifts—even the most destitute among us share in these God-given gifts. For someone to murder an innocent human being in pursuit of a “higher or sustained quality of life,” they are doing so, in effect, for the sake of material wealth.  In other words, we are breaking God’s commandment for material greed—idols, as it were. What could be more ungrateful or disdainful of God?

Every time I am able to debate abortion proponents fully, it always comes down to this undeniable fact. (I had such a debate three weeks ago.)

The “Our Stolen Generation” series will continue.

BJ comments on “The Conservative Heart.” BJ’s comments are in blue. Mine are in green.

Joe,

I can't tell you how refreshing it is to have Black and Red back. And after all the recent events in my personal life, it is wonderful to take a peaceful moment to read your writing and insight about what's happening to our beloved country. I say all this because I really, truly love this analysis. You told me a condensed version of this before but this article illuminates a point that's so true.

I am very disturbed by the left-wing direction that our country has been moving towards, with Obamacare being the greatest example. However, I am even more sick and disturbed about how left-leaning the Republican Party has become. As much as I love President Bush, he had some left-leanings fiscally and in terms of expanding the size of government. Plus the nomination of McCain seemed to almost nail the title of "Democrat-lite" to the Republican Party.

This is why it is imperative that the next nominee be a solid, true conservative that's unapologetic,as you pointed out. As Prager said, I would rather lose narrowly with a true conservative (Rick Perry, Herman Cain) nominee rather than win with a half-ass conservative (McCain, Romney). We may differ here, but I'm not as focused on just winning but producing that conservative. What good is winning if what we have a watered down Democrat in our Party? Then we really will have unity in the wrong way: all leftward.

If the Republicans do nominate Romney or one of these Democrat-lite, I think we conservatives need to leave the GOP and form a different, true conservative party since it's clear that we true conservatives cannot take over the GOP. It would sink us in the short term, but the current liberal-instinct Republicans (a la Mark Kirk) being in the GOP is slowly bleeding us to death anyways. That's why I'm thankful for the Tea Party, bringing the debates right-wards.

And so this is my way of agreeing with you and that's why I'm so happy that Rick Perry entered the race. There's all this criticism against him now and that's fine. I didn't see the latest debates where people say he did so awful. But I don't understand how people can be so short-sighted. Perry cannot have done that bad, making Palin-like mistakes. If he really does suck, fine. He shouldn't be our nominee. But I don't see that he has. And in this critical time where we need an electable, all around conservative, Perry is it. There is no one else that fits the bill. So his stance on illegal immigration sucks and he maybe sucked in the debates. Fine. Let's build him up and help fix him. I want to ask many Republicans, why pile-drive on him as if he is a Democrat opponent? Romney is self-amputating himself with his stubborn, ego-laced response to Romneycare. That really does disqualify him from being the nominee, not to mention his belief in global warming and former pro-choice stance. He has NEVER explained why Romeneycare was necessary for Massachusetts. And how was it right for Mass. but not right for the country? And if it was right for Mass., then would Romney be OK if California decided to pass a similar law for themselves? Ridiculous. There's no one else. We need to stick by our guy and eliminates these other nominees like Romney and Bachmann (as much as I like her) who are sinking our own ship for the future. I am looking towards next year and we need Perry undamaged to go against Obama. Obama himself was raw and full of stupid statements (57 states, I would talk to any country's leader without preconditions etc) but he polished up through the 2 year campaign process. I don't understand how Republicans can just sit back, shoot away, and criticize/kill our only chance against Obama just because Perry hasn't done well on several debates. Talk about wanting a perfect candidate right now.

BJ,

Thank you for the kind words. It is a pleasure to be writing again. I wish I could have replied to this sooner because you and I have spoken about this and fleshed it out more since you wrote this comment. If I understand your current position on Perry correctly (and as you know, I am always open to correction) your support for him has considerably cooled. Mine has too.

For me, Perry was introduced as the great conservative hope who would come along and save the Republican Party and the country, but when he entered the race, he proved himself to be just a jerk. From day one, he harshly savaged Mitt Romney, and he rightfully paid a price for doing so.

I don’t want to get into Perry and his problems here, though. Instead, I would like to address where you and I disagree:

While I, too, am disturbed about the leftward direction that our country has taken, I strongly disagree that the Republican Party is taking a turn to the left. I submit that if you talk to liberals—especially older liberals—they will tell you that the Democrat Party has turned to the right. To some degree, I think they are correct, and I think that is so because Republicans deal in reality and sooner or later Democrats must face reality themselves. For example, liberals of the past, especially progressives, had a slash-and-burn attitude towards the wealthy. In other words, they believed so strongly in wealth redistribution, that they did not care what it meant for the rich. Today, that dynamic has changed, to the point where the president is surrounded by successful Wall Street elite, and Democrats shape their big government policies to be accommodating to the rich in order to take advantage of support from the wealthy. Our president, with a Democratic Congress, also failed to cancel the Bush Tax Cuts, instead waiting until he faced fierce opposition from newly elected Republicans. A true, ideological liberal would have addressed those tax cuts from day one.

Democrats, also, must come to terms with the fact that (to his great credit) President Obama is a terrorist-killing machine. Despite his campaign promises, he has not closed the prison at Guantanamo Bay, nor has he ended the war in Afghanistan (instead, he doubled down with a troop surge) and he led American troops into Libya where we deposed an age-old enemy to the United States. Osama bin Laden, Anwar al-Awlaki, Muammar Gaddafi and a slew of terrorists and Somali pirates were all killed by the command of a Democrat president who will undoubtedly take credit for their deaths, and not face a liberal backlash.

On what issue has the Republican Party turned left?

I listened to a speech given by Republican presidential hopeful, Robert Taft, given in 1940. Paul Ryan could read those words today, and they would still apply. Republicans may change policy positions on occasion, but they generally find their center of gravity in conservatism.

Richard Nixon gave us affirmative action. The Republican Party is firmly against that now.

Nixon also gave us the Environmental Protection Agency. Today, the GOP wants to slash (if not eliminate) it.

Ronald Reagan supported the Simpson-Mazzoli  Act—which was true amnesty for illegal immigrants. Republicans are, today, wholly against amnesty for illegal immigrants.

As governor of California, Reagan signed the most liberal abortion bill in American history—the Therapeutic Abortion Act. Mass slaughter was a result. There is not a single pro-choice Republican running for President now.

George H.W. Bush raised our taxes after promising not to, and Republicans dumped him.

His son expanded government in the areas of Medicare and Education. His reputation is suffering as a result, and Republicans widely believe it to have been a mistake.

On core issues—issues that matter to conservatives and to the country—the Republican Party has remained steadfast and principled. I see no leftward drift or flirtation with liberalism.

In addition to that point, you and I also differ as to whom we should embrace in the party. I am a big tent Republican, one who supports moderates, libertarians, traditionalists, and the reddest red meat that can win. If we purge Republicans who are not ideologically pure, then we become the Democrats—a party that will not allow dissention, individuality or fresh ideas (even misguided ones). We must always encourage debates and new ideas. We need to debate our own—folks like Mark Kirk—and let them know that this party is a conservative one.

Finally, I am a believer that we should not expect our politicians to be cookie cutters. A Republican in Maine will not hold the same views as one in Mississippi. The states consist of different people who demand different policies of their politicians. That said, I do not worry about Romneycare. I would not want to live under Romneycare in Illinois—I would move. But you must understand that Obamacare does not offer us the same option. I must participate in Obamacare or leave America. Even if the policies are similar, the matter of degree varies considerably. In addition to that, the people of Massachusetts favored Romneycare, while the American people did not favor Obamacare. To me, those are huge differences. What is an executive to do if not the will of the governed?

I’m sure you have noticed that I have not written a piece about the Republican presidential candidates yet. That’s because I’m not sold on any of them yet. Romney and I have some serious issues to work out, and they are the issues that he must work out with the entire conservative movement. “Mr. Romney, can you demonstrate to me that you are a conservative in your core and not just an opportunist?” Until he answers that question, he will continue to only enjoy tepid support from a Party that is constantly looking for his replacement.

Romneycare isn’t the issue. Conviction is the issue.

BJ comments on “The Tea Party as a Movement, Not a Faction.” BJ’s comments are in blue. Mine are in green.

This is very interesting. I agree with what you wrote and you articulate an objective, accurate description of the Tea Party. But I've always wanted to ask you what you personally thought of the Tea Party Movement. Did you mention briefly to me before about how you thought there were racist-like tendencies in the Tea Party or am I imagining things?

I first disliked the Tea Party since I'm not a fan of big protesting people anyways. But over time, I've come to LOVE this movement and even consider myself to be one of them. Bring primarily a fiscally conservative issue movement, they have changed the basic tone of the national discussion after the left-ward movement of our country thanks to Obama. I think they'll end up saving this country. This is how a democracy/republic was meant to work; the people rising up and giving orders to its government. Daniel Hannan said that the reason the British has no Tea Party is that they don't have direct primaries. Thank God for that and may God continue to bless our country.

Thank you for the comment and for the kind words, BJ.

My view of the Tea Party has changed quite a bit since its inception, but I want to be very clear in saying that I never thought of it as being at all racist. I reserve that term, usually, for open racists. 

In the beginning, I was nervous about them simply because I am nervous about any mass movement. I once attended a Second Amendment rally in downtown Chicago and ever since then, I decided that I should probably avoid mass protests. Liberals run into this problem all of the time: they attend a Code Pink rally because they are against the War in Iraq and a chapter of Code Pink in another city does something deplorable. Then, every protester is painted with the same brush. What I feared was that a Tea Party event may go awry, somewhere, and I would be guilty by association. My picture could appear in the newspaper much like it did when I attended the Second Amendment rally, and I could suffer unintended consequences.

Also, in the beginning, nobody really seemed sure what the Tea Party was really about: if it was a libertarian movement, if it was a group angry with Republicans and Democrats equally (and if so, was it, then, just a group of independent protesters), if the group would materialize into something more constructive than protesters dressed as colonists. I recall watching the reactions of conservative and libertarian groups—The Cato Institute, for example, wavered in support for the Tea Party, sometimes calling it a libertarian movement and sometimes admonishing it as a mob of traditional conservatives unserious about libertarian policies. Other conservative commentators were simply reticent until they were clear that supporting the Tea Party would not harm their reputation.

           

That said though, I’m largely happy that they exist and that people marched and participated in them. I understand you saying that the Tea Party will save the Union—it has galvanized conservatives and given us the much needed morale boost to stand up to a Democrat Party that is utterly hostile to us. In cities across the nation, the Tea Party has reminded us that we are not alone, and that even our protesters are decent, law-abiding people who love the institutions that make this nation great.

Now, I have not always agreed with the Tea Party’s tactics. I hated their support for Christine O’Donnell. She is an absolute embarrassment, an opportunist and (at least politically) a loser.  I did not agree with the Tea Party stance on raising the debt ceiling. I think that Cut, Cap and Balance should have been the plan that Republicans unified around instead of the political game of chicken that we played—and could never have won. Furthermore, I don’t care for the Tea Party’s disdain for Speaker Boehner. Boehner is one of my favorite Republicans, in fact. He works very hard to advance the conservative agenda using practical methods. He should be universally hailed as a hero of Republicanism, not castigated as “old-guard.”

In the end, you’re right—this is democracy at its finest. It’s why I, like George Will, encourage the Occupy movement.

To draw a quick parallel between the two protests, and speak to American media bias, it should be noted that the Tea Party was constantly accused, sans evidence, of being racist or extreme. As a personal example, I was contacted by a journalist in April of 2010 to comment on the Tea Party movement. In the pre-interview stage, the young lady asked me how I could be so supportive of a movement that was so racist. I told her that the Tea Party was not racist at all. Reflexively, she brought up the story about Tea Partiers spitting on and hurling epithets at black and gay congressmen while they walked to the Capitol building to vote against the will of the people in support of Obamacare. When I retorted that there was no evidence to support that story despite the many media cameras present and despite the intense desire of the media to want to advance that narrative, she simply shrugged off my rebuttal.

She ended up not interviewing me. I could not give her the story that she wanted—the story of a poor, confused, black man-child who was forced to subvert his blackness in order to be accepted by the very movement that keeps America a white-dominated society.

My point is, the media has, for months, searched for a “gotcha moment” with the Tea Party. There are literally hundreds of Tea Parties throughout the country, and the media has not been able to discredit any of them with a shred of proof—anywhere. Compare this to the Occupy movement, within which there are daily reports of anti-Semitism, rape, murder, vandalism, drug-peddling and disorderliness.[2] Still, though, more Americans have fond feelings for the Occupiers than for the Tea Party.[3] I believe that to be largely a function of media coverage.

BJ responds to “This Week in Government Ineptitude: Illinois’ Child Care Assistance Program.” BJ’s comments are in blue. Mine are in green.

This is heartbreaking and sad to read. I have a lot of experience in this area unfortunately. Although I am a small government advocate like you, there are areas of government that are essential and need to both improve in its quality and better funded. The military, police, firefighters, and DCFS are all such areas. Why we are wasting so much money on other areas but not these areas is baffling. And I am not talking about blindly throwing money at the DCFS system. But certainly there is no real private solution to childcare of abused and neglected kids due to the amount they charge. And so maybe from the inception, there should have been some private childcare organizations created. But this is one of the few areas that needs to expand in its quality and quantity. We owe those poor neglected and abused kids of our society that much.

BJ,

What you are offering is a common sense, conservative solution to a problem that really does afflict this country. Of course, we are not inconsistent in saying that our current government is too large, wasteful and poorly managed while advocating for some areas of government to be better funded or even expanded. In fact, I would even argue that Americans would acquiesce to paying higher taxes if the government engaged in objectively beneficial endeavors and more credibly staunched waste and inefficiency.

Stephen Goldberg wrote a fascinating book that every conservative should read. It’s called “Billions of Drops in Millions of Buckets.” In it, Goldberg addresses the conservative notion that government should leave philanthropy solely to the private sector—non-profits, charities, etc. We say that as something of a throw-away line, though. Goldberg argues that most people do not know about the serious challenges facing philanthropic organizations. The thesis of his book is that there are actually multiple philanthropic organizations that are duplicative, and furthermore, the money that one organization raises for a cause may not be sufficient enough to serve its purpose because other similar organizations raised money for the same cause (however insufficient) as well. What results is a situation in which 40 organizations try to single-handedly take on homelessness, for example, on a budget of $1 million apiece. Goldberg suggests the 40 organizations consolidate into one organization that could make a greater difference on what would become a $40 million budget.

While the goal of this piece was to point out the ineptitude of government agencies, your comment hammers home a much more important aspect that I neglected to emphasize—the human cost of this ineptitude. I hope that the sufferers are considered as we look for political solutions to social ills.

Anonymous comments on “Terrorism 2010.” Anonymous’ comments are in yellow. Mine are in green.

The Nigerian Leaders will soon experience the greatest terrorist attack, if there is no provision for the unemployed Nigerian YOUTHS. This youths has plan to eliminate the lives and properties of Nigerian leaders, if they refuse to pass a bill that will allow each unemployed youths to live on #40,0000 per month. This request must take effects from 1st of december,2011.

Failure to pass the bill will make us to bomb the house assembly complex, defence headquarter and all the government in each state.

Employ us or give us something to live on. Failure to do this.............will cause chaos.

         

     Thank you for commenting, Anonymous.

I struggled with how to moderate your comment—either to post it and take it seriously or ignore it as a jejune rant from an anonymous writer. However, I found myself becoming increasingly enraged every time I read your words, because I absolutely abhor terrorism. So you win! For that reason, I decided to take it seriously—even though, I don’t expect you to ever read my response or offer a counter. If you are serious, and if you do reply, I hope you do so to tell me that you see the foolishness in your ways and have repented. If you do not reply, I hope that you are either a prankster, or that you died in the planning stages of your terrorist attack.

Anonymous, reading your post makes me happy to live in a civilized country where violence and barbarism is not a political tactic. It also reminds me of how happy I am to be black in America instead of any color in the worthless society that people like you have created in a country so rich in natural resources and potential. Blame colonialism for your problems, if you wish. Blame Europe. Blame America. Blame your politicians. What is your solution? What happens after you bomb buildings and kill people? Does money pour into Nigeria from a magical blood fairy?

Shaun, BJ and Anonymous respond to “Simple Solutions to a Persistent Problem Part Two:The Voting Schema.” Shaun’s comments are in pink, BJ’s are in blue and Anonymous’ are in yellow. Mine are in green.

having read this entry and part one, i am inclined to agree with you that option 1 is the simplest method of reform as opposed to option 2. the sound-byte debates are, at times, a glorified version of The Dozens, minus "mama jokes" and stuff. not productive nor entertaining to me.

Agreed.

I think, though, that BJ has made the 2^nd option more feasible by suggesting that primaries all occur at the same time.

Thanks for reading and commenting, Shaun.

Joe,

I wouldn't think that anything Chris Matthews says is true these days. What does that mean? That we are all some Nazi troopers listening and falling in line to our Hitler king maker Rush Limbaugh? I cannot stand Matthews. He is intellectually vapid, a bully, and a man-child who rarely gets challenged like he should.

Anyways, the only way this two stage voting could work is if you held all the primaries at the same time rather than this long, drawn out primary season. I think this timing thing is everything. The reason why you and I did not get to vote for Giuliani is that the earlier states such as Iowa, New Hampshire, and Florida already did the nominating for the entire party. It's silly and ridiculous to let a few select states pick our nominee before we ever get a voice. If there was a way to have all the primary voting on the same day earlier in the year with this two stage process, that would be ideal.

I like both of your ideas. With the debates earlier in the year and the national two stage primary held around April or May, that would produce the most qualified and electable candidate to beat our opponents. What do you think?

Thank you BJ,

Let me begin by acknowledging your point about Mr. Matthews. It is true that he is a bully and a windbag, and more often than not, I ignore his rants. Matthews was implying that conservatives were marching goose-step with the party like Nazis. If you forget that he is the messenger, and ignore his innuendo, though, there is a kernel of truth to what he said especially with regards to the 2008 election. To be clear, though, I only invoked Matthews because he makes conservatives’ skin crawl—my own skin included.

You would be hard pressed to find many Republicans who were excited to vote for McCain. I, personally, worked hard to consider the totality of the man before I felt comfortable with him. Instead, we supported him because he was the nominee.

On the left, though, the love-fest could not have been more sickening.

To some degree, we fell in line and they fell in love. We just aren’t the brain-dead Nazis who Matthews wishes we were.

For this reason, I think it is imperative that we continue to lead the way politically, and change our nomination process so that Republicans can rest easy with our nominees. I don’t think Republicans have been in love since Reagan, and that was some time ago now.

Your suggestion that all of the primaries take place at the same time would fix the most important problems that I foresaw. I, too, hate that other states whittle down the field before the rest of the nation can choose the candidate. I wonder if this issue has been raised before, and if so, why there has been no serious effort to make changes. If you noticed, Jon Huntsman sat out the debate in Las Vegas to protest Nevada moving their primary to an earlier date in the year. Huntsman was showing solidarity with the state of New Hampshire which was very displeased with Nevada’s move. Clearly, this suggests a deeper story—a stubborn marriage to a system that is injurious to the constituency and to the Republican Party.

I'm confused. Isn't it fairly apparent that the majority of primary voters want, above all, to win the general election? If I'm correct, then, the current system does seem to produce the primary voters' preferred choices. They chose McCain in 2008, e.g., because they thought he had the best chance to become President. They'll make the same calculation this time and likely end up with Romney or Perry.

Thank you, Anonymous, for your comment.

You are right to suggest that primary voters want to win the general, but the problem is that they have differing opinions about which candidate is best suited to do so. On the one hand, you could claim that McCain was the primary voters’ first choice. I argue, though, that voters are too often swayed by intangibles like momentum and a feeling of inevitability. In fact, the candidates are affected similarly—See Tim Pawlenty in this campaign. When a candidate does not fare well in Iowa or New Hampshire under our current system, he is under intense pressure to leave the race. This assumes, though, that voters in Idaho, California, New Mexico and other states would vote similarly. The media presumes any candidate who does not succeed early in a primary race dead in the water, and donors lose incentive to give to his campaign.  Voters truly do not get a choice. They must, instead, choose from a list made shorter by voters in other states—who have different concerns.

I hope I have explained my rationale for writing this piece more clearly to you. If not, please feel free to challenge further.

BJ comments on “Simple Solutions to a Persistent Problem Part One: The Debates.” His comments are in blue. Mine are in green.

Joe,

I was clapping as I read your blog. THIS IS SO TRUE AND NEEDED!! It's frustrating to see the MSNBC idiots and the rest of the liberal media trying to ignite a fire for ratings and for their bias of the candidates stumbling. I LOVE the idea of think tanks and conservative organizations holding the debates. The only thing is to make sure that there are fair and substantive challenges so that the public doesn't see and think that these are scripted and planned softballs being thrown at the candidates. I'm not so hot on the idea of the one on one since it would to too difficult to coordinate and would take too long to digest. (You and I would love it, but not the public. I don't think they can stomach 2 hours of Ron Paul and Huntsman) I also heard that Heritage lecture about Reagan vs. Buckley debate about the Panama Canal. We should petition RNC Chairman Priebus regarding this idea. I look forward to your second suggestion.

BJ,

I am very happy that you like this idea as much as I do. I’m also very happy that you had a chance to view or listen to the Heritage Foundation event. (Here is a link to it, for any of my readers who would like to listen.) Dr. Lee Edwards is an absolute treasure. When I see his name attached to any papers or events at Heritage, I immediately consume it and never regret having done so. There are a lot of great folks at Heritage, Dr. Lee Edwards and Matthew Spalding are among my favorites.

It is so clearly unfair that the liberal media can question Democrat candidates and Republican candidates alike. They get to frame the issues and force our candidates into narrow categories. Even Fox News—considered by many to be a conservative news source—has a greater interest in scandal and ratings than does the Republican electorate at large. 

I believe that think tanks would serve as much better organizations to host Republican debates. In fact, I am certain that their questions would be anything but softballs. I would expect a think tank like the Heritage Foundation to ask some of the important “worldview” questions that are most important to conservatives—questions that would elucidate the true convictions of Republicans like Mitt Romney, Jon Huntsman and John McCain. Think, too, of how different debates would be if Republicans had to sit before the Cato Institute! Surely, they would receive no quarter there. The most important thing is that we, as voters, would truly get a sense of how the prospective presidents draw conclusions: what informs them, how libertarian they are, how traditional they are.

Also, I think that in-depth one-on-one  interviews or debates between two or three candidates could work. If, for example, instead of seeing single debates with 8 or 9 candidates on stage, there were 4 debates taking place simultaneously (i.e.: Gingrich v. Paul, Bachmann v. Perry, Huntsman v. Romney, Cain v. Santorum ), the voters would be able to see the candidates at their intellectual best. There would be no room for soundbytes, slogans or pernicious jabs.

Now, the important question you raise about audience appeal—an issue raised at the Heritage Foundation event, is a deep one (one to which I should devote an entire essay).  My short response, however, is this: You may very well be right, that the general public may not be keen on digesting one-on-one debates. (You give the example of Huntsman v. Paul—a debate that I would probably skip, myself.) From my vantage point, though, most of the general public is, also, not very politically engaged. Not to be too blunt, but I don’t really care about accommodating the people who wait until a week before the election to read a pamphlet about the candidates and then vote. Debates should serve the truly dedicated politicos—folks like us, and many people who read this blog. That said, there will always be an avenue for the less serious political junkies to get their fix for salaciousness—entertainment news media that covers political events, etc. There will also be plenty of resources for people who are new to politics to learn more, so that they aren’t completely in the cold and overwhelmed.

To some degree, though, your question is like a variation of the proverbial “If a tree falls in a forest” question. “If an enlightening debate occurs at a think tank and no one is around to be enlightened, what good is it?” The only answer I have to that question may not be a particularly satisfying one, but it is: that at the very least, the debates could be used to get a better sense of who the candidates and presidents were and how they thought. They would be like transcripts of the Lincoln-Douglas debates are today. Sometimes, I watch the old Bush-Reagan debates, but then again, I’m a political nerd.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts, BJ.

Anonymous has left a new comment on "Explaining Deadlock". Anonymous’ comments are in yellow. Mine are in green. 

Your post seems like a great illustration of the difference between advocacy and argument. Most Democrats believe that congressional deadlock (in this current Congress) exists, not because of a divide in core convictions, but because the Republicans don't want to take actions that would be likely to substantially improve the national economy in advance of the 2012 elections. A conservative acting as an advocate for his side would not address this (fairly wide-spread) belief. A conservative intending to engage in argument would.

Thank you for commenting Anonymous,

You are right to claim that most Democrats believe that Congressional deadlock is the result of Republican recalcitrance, in fact, I actually agree—in part. Where you and I may disagree pertains to policy analysis. You believe that the policies that the Democrats are proposing are “likely to substantially improve the national economy.” I, the Republicans and millions of American voters, firmly disagree. We believe that President Obama’s Jobs Bill, for example, will actually make America’s matters worse. For this reason, the Republicans are staunching efforts the Democrats are making that will (in our view) detriment the American economy.

Here is where I disagree with the Democrats: to pretend that the Republicans are refusing to cooperate for reasons other than core convictions, is to ascribe a motive that is not only impossible to prove, but is also not supported by the evidence. Republicans have always resisted the kind of federal spending and regulation that President Obama and the Democrats support. Even when they strayed from fiscal responsibility during the Bush years, you could find Republicans who were openly displeased.

Moreover, when an election is as seismic as the 2010 election, or the 2006 and 2008 elections, the new politicians have a mandate to stop the policies of the party in power.

I hope that I have proven myself to be a conservative interested in argumentation. Please challenge further otherwise. 

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[1] http://www.cato.org/event.php?eventid=7037

[2] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/01/occupy-wall-street-security_n_1069597.html

[3] http://articles.nydailynews.com/2011-10-13/news/30293944_1_tea-party-wall-street-movement-big-banks