Showing posts with label Ronald Reagan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ronald Reagan. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Are You Better Off Than You Were Four Years Ago?
Monday, July 23, 2012
Great Events In History
As the years roll by, I tend to try to pretend it's not my birthday. Another day closer to the ultimate reward. But since my doctors tell me I'll live to be a hundred (I'm not sure that isn't a curse), I thought that rather than simply comment about birthdays, I'd play the game “where were you on (fill in the date or event)?” I have been around a long time, so I thought I'd just put down those events during my tenure on earth that are so vivid that I can picture exactly where I was and what I was doing at the time. Some are very personal, others were felt and remembered only by relatives and friends, and some were major events that all Americans and the world shared in. But for each of them, I still have that vivid memory.
I'm listing those events below. I'm sure I'll think of others as I ponder. But for now, I'm curious to hear from you. What events hit you so hard that you remember specifically where you were and what you were doing when the news was announced? Many of your memories will be entirely different from mine because you are much younger and don't suffer from “old folks memory.” On the other hand, I'm sure that there are some we all shared in common.
The very first event that I remember with that kind of clarity rather than just a vague memory is the Tehachapi earthquake of 1952. I was sound asleep when I was suddenly awakened by a sharp jolt and the movement of my bed across the floor. Still somewhat groggy, I told my dad to quit shaking my bed, and went back to sleep. Of course my dad was with my mom in their bedroom, holding on for dear life. When I finally got up, my bed had moved completely from one side of the room to the other end. I stepped over the books, stuffed toys and knicknacks which had been knocked off shelves and went into the living room. Everything was pretty messy there, but the big surprise was the huge crack in the ceiling that ran from the dining room, through the living room, and out to the entryway.
We lived in the LA suburb of Downey, which is almost sixty miles from the epicenter in Tehachapi (the Wolf Fault, actually). But buildings were knocked down in Bakersfield, downtown LA, and even as far out as Long Beach (which had suffered its own devastating quake in 1933). Fast forward to two years ago. My younger daughter had been begging me to get out of San Francisco and move nearer to her in Caliente and to my older daughter in Simi Valley. I was ready to leave anyway, so we started the search, and here I am. But I almost wasn't. I asked her to be a little more specific about where Caliente is. She said she lived right at the edge of the Sequoia National Forest, but that the place she was hoping I would take was about three miles farther down the mountain as the crow flies. OK so far. Isolated, and the property has three and a half glorious acres.
Then she made the mistake of telling me about nearby towns. Bakersfield is about an hour away. Tehachapi is about fifty-five minutes away. Lake Isabella is about thirty minutes away. “Whoa, say what? Tehachapi is about how far?” Well, it's actually eighteen miles away, but the Wolf Fault is even closer. It takes about fifty-five minutes to get to Tehachapi on winding mountain roads, but it takes the shock of a major earthquake about half a second to cover the same distance. So here I am, almost on top of the location that is my first clear memory. I managed to be living in San Francisco during both of the big quakes in Los Angeles. I managed to be living in Los Angeles during both of San Francisco's big quakes. But now I live practically on the site of the great Tehachapi quake, and the geologists say we're overdue. Hmmmmph.
There were many small and big events in the years following, and I have memories of most of them. But the next event where I remember precisely where I was and what I was doing was the Cuban Missile Crisis. My best friend and I were living in a dorm near the UC Berkeley campus. The only TV in the house was in the attic room of one of the other students. So when we weren't in class, all the dorm residents were huddled in that one small room, waiting to see what would happen. Out of the blue, about six months ago, I got an e-mail about our Cal 46th anniversary class reunion and our 50th anniversary Big Game Week (against Stanford). It was from the guy who rented that attic room. He asked the usual “do you remember when . . .” questions. And I replied, “I'll never forget it.”
The next event came just over a year later. The news had just been announced that John F. Kennedy had been shot in Dallas. I had been in class when the news was flashed to TV, but I wasn't anywhere near one. My buddy and I were meeting to grab a quick burger between classes, and the best place to meet was on the steps of Sproul Hall (the spot where most of the free speech demonstrations took place and where I had a student part-time job in the admissions office). He looked terrible, and there were tears in his eyes. He had already heard the news. I asked what was wrong, and he told me the president had been shot. It still didn't register with me. There had been a lot of demonstrations against University of California president Clark Kerr, but I couldn't believe anyone would shoot him.
My friend said “No, President Kennedy.” I had cut my political teeth at age 16 working on the Kennedy campaign. I was in shock. Classes were canceled, as were all the Big Game Week festivities. I spent the rest of the day at chapel or back in my dorm room, mourning. It seemed to me that for the first and only time in my memory, all the churches in Berkeley were open for those who were seeking spiritual relief, even though it was not a Sunday. The only very specific memory that I have of what transpired next was when Walter Cronkite came on to make an announcement. His voice was choked up, he removed his glasses, and told us the president was dead. The weather turned gloomy, and stayed that way for a full week.
The next four are easy. August 25, 1968—my wedding at Christ Lutheran Church in Downey. Followed by March 3, 1970, the birth of our first baby (Laura) at Kaiser Foundation Hospital in Hayward, California. Then May 19, 1972 , the birth of our son (Christopher) and October 7, 1976, the birth of our younger daughter (Andrea). Both of the latter babies were born at Kaiser Foundation in Panorama City, California. The latter two memories are very similar. In those days, husbands in the labor and delivery rooms were rare and highly optional. I remember the expectant father's waiting room. There's a reason I went to law school and not medical school. But Laura's birth remains a little more vivid. The elevators weren't working at the hospital, and OB-GYN was on the fourth floor. I partially carried and partially dragged my poor, very pregnant wife up three flights of stairs. I remember the stairwell better than I remember the waiting room
I remember the after-grad ceremony from law school better than I do the ceremony itself because it was a wild affair held at the Sheraton Universal Hotel in Universal City. Just a few week earlier, Johnny Carson had made one of his frequent cracks about the goings-on at the hotel, which he regularly called “The Sheraton Unique.” I also remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when I found out I had passed the Bar Exam. I was mowing the lawn on the day before Thanksgiving, 1977. The pass rate was so low that the examiners had taken extra time to grade, then re-grade the tests. My wife told me that I had a phone call from one of my classmates. She worked at a law office, so she had access to public Bar records. I said hi, then she excitedly announced: “Congratulations, Larry, you're a lawyer!” I also remember swearing-in day because it was held at the Los Angeles Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, four days before Christmas. The Pavilion is located in direct line-of-sight with the downtown Los Angeles Superior Court, and I couldn't wait to walk down that street and have my first case.
The next memory is another earthquake, but it's a very odd memory. On January 17, 1994, Northridge (in Los Angeles's San Fernando Valley) was hit by a devastating earthquake. My older daughter lived in Northridge. But she and her husband were safe visiting with me in San Francisco. It was early in the day, and I watched the news as the magnitude of the damage became more apparent. I had hesitated to wake them up, but I finally did so. I told her to stay calm, it's only “things” and you're safe here with me. But she still looked like she was in shock. I tried to reassure her, but then she blurted out that Andrea, my younger daughter, was house-sitting for her. Now we were all in a panic. The famous picture of the four-story apartment house that pancacked down to the basement was next door to her apartment. Her apartment was literally at ground zero, and my baby was inside.
They decided to pack up and head home, and I spent the rest of the day trying to locate Andrea. A friend of mine called, and after hearing the tone of my voice, immediately headed to my place. That's what good friends do. I finally was able to get through to my son who was living near the UCLA campus in Westwood at the time while working on his BA. He told me that the freeways between Westwood and Northridge were down. So I told him his little sister might be trapped in a collapsed or badly-damaged apartment. He got on his motorcycle and headed for Northridge over the back roads through the Sepulveda Pass. Some hours later, he called to say there was no sign of her at the apartment (which was badly damaged, but not destroyed). He then headed to his mom's house in Simi Valley. Andrea had also taken back roads to Simi Valley and was safe, but even Simi Valley took some of the hit. The fireplace had moved five inches away from the living room wall.
The next event I'll always remember was 9-11, and it had eery similarities for me as the Northridge quake. I woke up early for some reason, and turned on the TV while the coffee brewed. My first thought was “why are they showing a disaster movie on a news channel?” The first tower had already been hit. As I listened and realized this wasn't a movie, I heard them saying that a second plane had just hit the other tower. Nobody was yet sure what was happening, and it took some time before there was universal agreement that this was an intentional terrorist attack. Then we started hearing about Flight 93 out of Newark. That also didn't register with me at first.
Then I remembered. My son was supposed to be in New York City for one of his regular meetings with his company's east coast reps and the Defense Department (among other things, he is an expert cryptographer). He had become used to the trip, and had learned that it was frequently easier to fly out of Newark than JFK. He was scheduled to be returning to Berkeley that morning. Panic! I tried calling him multiple times on his cellphone, with no response. More panic! Finally, out of desperation, I called his home phone to leave a message pleading with him to call me as soon as he got home (thinking, "if he gets home").
In the end, it all turned out well. He picked up the phone. He had neglected to tell me that he had quit his job the week before to start his own consulting business. He had left his cellphone upstairs in his bedroom and didn't hear it ringing. He was downstairs watching the same scenes of horror that I was watching. Only he knew where I was.
I was stuck in my apartment in San Francisco recovering from surgery during Ronald Reagan's funeral. It was very frustrating for me, since the final burial service was held at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley. I had worked on and voted in favor of setting aside the land for the library when I was a Simi Valley planning commissioner, and I adored Ronald Reagan. But I was stuck in San Francisco, a town that voted against Reagan by astounding margins. I watched it all on TV, and probably had a better view of it than my daughter Laura who lives in Simi Valley and actually attended the event.
Oddly, I also remember exactly where I was when the news was announced that Barack Obama had been elected President. My office was located just inside the front doors of the Westfield San Francisco Centre on Market Street. There was a lot of cheering and noise-making that I could hear even inside. Figuring it was another typical San Francisco demonstration or riot, I poked my nose outside to see what was going on. It was a huge and enthusiastic crowd, largely young and black, shouting “we won, we won.”
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Should All Nominees Be Supported?
This exception arises when (1) the nominee’s views are well outside the range of common interests which hold the party together, and (2) there is a legitimate belief that supporting this nominee will harm the long term goals of the party.
On the first point, Reagan famously said that he could support anyone with whom he agreed on 80% of the issues. Reagan was making the point that it is foolish and counterproductive to require 100% agreement with a nominee before you can support them. Indeed, 100% agreement is probably impossible. Hence, this is the reason moderates should support conservatives and conservatives should support moderates and libertarians should support social conservatives and vice versa.
But Reagan’s point also contains the implicit understanding that at some point (possibly below 80% using Reagan’s formula) there is no obligation to support the nominee. Why would this be? For that, we need to look at the question of harm.
Companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year to ensure their products remain consistent. They want to make sure you find the exact same amount in each cereal box, that every batch of Mac and Cheese tastes the same, that every sock has the same number of stitches, and that every Acura uses only Acura parts. Why? Because having a consistent level of quality affects how people perceive their brands. People want to know exactly what they are getting when they make a purchase and branding achieves that -- whereas failing to maintain that consistency damages the brand because people will no longer know what to expect from their purchase.
Whether we like the idea or not, a political party is nothing more than a company, and its product or brand is an ideological range. Choosing a nominee from outside that range blurs the identity of the party and damages its brand.
How? For one thing, this will alienate supporters. Supporters expect nominees to be within the ideological range. When they aren’t, the party has violated the contract under which it claims a right to the individual’s support. It is the equivalent of McDonalds selling you a Big Mac container but including a ham sandwich rather than a burger. This is a violation of trust.
Moreover, this confuses voters. When a person represents a party or ideology, their views become associated with that party or ideology and their successes/failures taint the ideology. In other words, the nominee redefines how the public views conservatism or liberalism, and their meanings change. Hence, conservatism and Republicanism came to be associated with Nixon’s views in 1968, Reagan’s views in 1980, and Bush Jr.’s views in 2000 -- I exclude Bush Sr. because he claimed to be a moderate. Liberalism, by comparison, came to be associated with FDR, LBJ, Carter, and now Obama. Clinton called himself a moderate.
Prior to LBJ, the majority political view of the nation was FDR-liberalism. This could have continued indefinitely, except LBJ disgraced liberalism. His errors in Vietnam and his monstrous Great Society wiped out the Democratic party in the South and set the stage for a conservative resurgence. Jimmy Carter finished liberalism off by proving that Democrats are reckless spenders, incompetent managers of the economy, and militarily inept and cowardly. This set the stage for Reagan.
Reagan’s success revived conservatism while also redefining it back to its roots -- away from the big-government conservatism of the Nixon years. By the time Reagan left office, conservatism had become the natural ideology of the country and 60% of the public believed it.
This could have lasted for generations, except along came George Bush Jr. He wrapped himself in the conservative label and set about running a big government, civil-liberties-crushing, crony-capitalism, foreign-adventuring administration which so thoroughly discredited conservatism that in 2008, the voters were more radically liberal and more willing to accept liberalism than they had been at any time since LBJ. The ONLY THING THAT SAVED CONSERVATISM was the election of Barack Obama. If Obama hadn’t proven to be such a disaster, conservatism would be dead today. But Obama was a disaster and he caused a massive backlash which took the form of the Tea Party.
The lesson here is simple.
Ideologies get defined by their leaders and they get punished for the sins of their leaders. If a nominee calls himself conservative but acts like a liberal, the public doesn’t blame liberalism for his crimes and failures, it blames conservatism even if that person never once acted like a true conservative. Thus, Bush and Nixon, neither of whom could be called conservatives, discredited conservatism. LBJ/Carter/Obama, each of who were progressives and not liberals, discredited liberalism. And in each case, the only thing to save conservatism/liberalism was pure luck that someone worse came along to discredit the other side. If Moderate Joe Democrat had come along after George Bush Jr., we could well be looking at an America that views liberalism as the natural order of things and sees conservatism as meaning reckless spending, bad economic management, and cronyism.
Moreover, the nominee need not even be as disastrous as a Bush/Obama to harm the ideology. The goal of politics is to effect long term change in the country. That is simply not possible when the person representing your ideology holds views that are inconsistent with the ideology. This muddies the ideological waters and confuses the differences between the parties. In other words, when the Republicans and the Democrats both push the same solutions to the same issues, voters will come to believe there is no difference, and they will either stop voting or they will pick the party that promises them the most loot -- advantage Democrats.
This is what happens when you pick someone who is far outside the acceptable ideological range for the party or who happens to be insane. I’ll leave it up to you to decide if Newt or Santorum or Romney or Paul are so far outside the bounds that you should not support them, but ask yourself: “how bad would it be for the party, for my beliefs, and for the country if conservatism came to be defined in the way ____ sees it?”
Winning elections is important, but you don’t want to sacrifice the future to win a single election.
By the way, there's an interesting poll out which shows that 33% of Republicans want a new candidate to jump into the race. This is down from 68% only two months ago. I think the field is set.
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Tuesday, January 3, 2012
The Case For Romney
Romney’s not a conservative. He’s hardly exciting or inspirational. He’s flopped around so much it’s just not possible to say what he really believes. But strangely, the more I think about it, he is the Republican candidate who would probably make the best President. Here’s my take on the strange case for Romney (since I can't have Cain.)Let me start by pointing out that other conservatives are now making a case for Romney.
● Charles Krauthammer invokes the William Buckley rule: vote for the most conservative candidate who can win. He says that’s Romney.My take is different. Not only do I believe Romney is most electable -- in fact, he may be the only electable candidate -- but I think Romney may turn out to be an excellent President, something I cannot say about the rest. Here’s why:
● Ann Coulter argues Romney is the only candidate we can trust to both repeal ObamaCare and stop illegal immigration. Her point about ObamaCare is an “electability” argument, but her point on illegal immigration is solid. Only Romney and Bachmann actually oppose amnesty. The others claim to oppose amnesty, but really support it in hidden form. Some go even further. Perry wants to give illegals more rights than Americans. Newt wants to grant illegals all the rights of citizens without the name “citizen” and thereby hand the Democrats a double victory -- new voters through amnesty plus a political charge that Republicans want Hispanics to be second class citizens. Santorum actually opposes voluntary use of the e-Verify system because his Big Business friends want the system gone so they can hire cheap illegal labor.
Most ElectableThe electability case is simple. This election will be an referendum on Obama. And as such, Obama is doomed. No President has been so low in the polls so consistently for so long. This tells us the public has reached its verdict and will not change its mind. In 2010, we saw the result of this when the public punished Obama’s party with an historic thrashing. Even now, Democrats see the writing on the wall so clearly that people like Barney Frank and Ben Nelson are quitting before they get tossed out. The Democrats know they’re doomed.
The only thing that can save Obama would be if we pick a Republican who makes the race about themselves rather than a referendum on Obama. Egomaniacal loose-cannon Newt Gingrich, gay-baiting Rick Santorum or Michelle Bachmann, corrupt Bush-clone Perry, or the terrifying Ron Paul, would all make the race about themselves and the public would need to decide if it can trust these Republicans before it ever looks at Obama. That’s the only kind of race Obama can win because it distracts from his record. But Romney is mild, bland, and inoffensive. His background is competent and shows the right kind of experience. He isn’t someone the public will worry about. That leaves the election as a referendum on Obama’s record, and in that election, Obama goes down in an historic landslide. Thus, not only is Romney the most electable, he may be the only electable candidate on the Republican side.
The Best Potential President In The BunchBut electability only goes you so far. The real question is, what kind of President would Romney make. In that regard, I’ve come to believe that for a very strange reason, Romney may end up being a really good President. Here’s the thing. Our two best Presidents in recent memory were Reagan and Clinton (after his disastrous start). What they had in common was a form of conservatism that just isn’t on display in any of the other candidates or in any of the recent Presidents. I think Romney has that.
The best way to explain what I mean is to first point out the problem with the other candidates: they all think they have magic bullets to fix the country. Santorum and Bachmann think they can fix America by ridding it of gays. Santorum now adds a new-found populism which mixes socialist ideas like favoring manufacturing with the middle-class-destroying policies of Big Business. Rick Perry thinks he can fix America by handing it over to his corporate donors. Huntsman thinks he can fix America by taking the partisanship out of politics. Newt thinks he’s God and can fix America by issuing grandiose ideas. And Paul thinks he can fix America by turning the clock back to an idealized 1776 that never was.
This is all destined to fail because it misunderstands why America and conservatism work. Genuine conservatism does not try to run an economy by fiat. It does not pick winners and losers and it does not look for magic policies to kickstart the country. Genuine conservatism recognizes that the government cannot fix America, only Americans can fix America. And Americans can only fix America if the government stops trying to organize the economy and lets people do their own things.
Reagan understood this. His goal in office was not to find some clever policy to spur something specific. His goal was to eliminate regulations and lower taxes and unleash the public to make their own choices. None of the candidates except Paul (who fails for other reasons) understand this because they aren’t genuine conservatives. . . they think they can tinker America to greatness by making its choices for it.
Unlike the others, I suspect Romney understands this. For one thing, Romney’s background as the hamstrung governor of a liberal state tells us that Romney knows the limitations of political power. Secondly, his business experience is critical. Since he didn’t just run a company, but was instead involved in buying failing companies and turning them around, he is familiar with the vagaries and uncertainties of the business world and the degree of latitude business needs to function. Those are exactly the kinds of lessons that underlie Reagan’s beliefs.
But even if Romney doesn’t get this, there’s another reason to suspect he would make an excellent President, and believe it or not, it’s his lack of principles. Clinton was an awful President when he first arrived. His people were far-left radicals who planned to remake America. The backlash against their hubris gave us the first Republican Congress in forever. That’s when an interesting thing happened. Clinton, who apparently had no values of his own, decided the best way to govern would be to stick his finger in the wind and do whatever the public wanted. Since the public was leaning right, Clinton ended up moving right and became one of the better Presidents in history because the public pushed him in the same direction Ronald Reagan had gone -- toward getting the government out of the way.
One of the concerns people have with Romney is that he lacks principle. This is true in a specific sense as he has been both liberal and conservative on almost every issues. But there is one overriding principle Romney does follow: he does what the public wants. Right now, the public is sending highly conservative, Reaganesque signals. Romney has adopted these and presents a platform that is easily the most conservative of any of the candidates. And there is good reason to believe he means it, because he thinks this is what the public wants and, thus, that is what he intends to deliver.
In other words, as strange as it may sound, Romney’s lack of principles may be what make him the most trustworthy candidate because he will do his best to please us, the public. And since the public is conservative in a Ronald Reagan sort of way, there is significant reason to believe Romney will adopt Reagan's principles. I don’t see that in any of the other candidates, each of whom seems more interested in legislating their own pet peeves.
That’s why I think Romney deserves support. Not only is he the most likely to beat Obama, who simply must be beaten for the sake of the country, but he also has the potential to become an excellent President. I understand the fear that a man without principles is unpredictable and that RINOs have too often lied about their views to sneak through the elections, but I think Romney is a different case because Romney isn’t a principled RINO who has adopted a conservative cloak, he’s a principle-less mirror who adopts whatever the public currently wants. And with the public channeling Reagan and Romney signaling that he understands that, I think he could well become a President in the conservative mold of a Reagan or the good-Bill Clinton years.
That’s my take on it. I guess we’ll see what Iowa thinks tonight?
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Saturday, July 23, 2011
Ronald Reagan Agrees With The Democrats
The Democrats recently released a House Democratic Caucus video filled with out-of-context and incorrect quotes from Ronald Reagan which purport to prove that Reagan would support Barack Obama and the Democrats over the current crop of Republicans on the issue of the debt ceiling. Naturally, the mainstream media are in lockstep with the Democrats.As The Gipper would say, "Well, there they go again." The commercial networks and the cable news channels (Fox News excepted) are playing the quotes, largely without comment or correction from Republicans. But as usual, MSNBC is in the forefront of perpetuating the distortions, angrily, and then either editorializing or challenging guests to prove that Reagan would have been in agreement with Obama.
Lawrence O'Donnell on The Last Word did it badly. He asked why Republicans don't learn from Ronald Reagan's lessons, then proceeded to prove that Reagan wouldn't have agreed with Obama's position: "Somewhat to my surprise, that lesson that Ronald Reagan was trying to teach about the debt ceiling, what it actually means, what happens if you wouldn't raise it. He said that in the context of having to sign a debt ceiling increase that included pieces that he did not like, that he was absolutely opposed to, but he said I got to sign it because if I don't, look what happens." But that was Reagan facing a Democratic House of Representatives. By O'Donnell's flawed logic, that means Obama should accept the Republican House plan of increasing the debt limit, accompanied by cut, cap and balance. I don't think that's what O'Donnell meant to prove.
What Reagan actually said in his debt-limit speech was: "You don't need more taxes to balance the budget. Congress needs the discipline to stop spending more, and that can be done with the passage of a constitutional amendment to balance the budget." For some reason, the Democrats don't include that in their selective quotations from Reagan about the debt-limit.
Chris Matthews on Hardball also played some of the cherry-picked quotes. He accused Republicans of engaging in "economic terrorism" by ignoring Reagan's real message. Said Matthews: "There Reagan is saying this brinksmanship, this trickery, around the time of of a deadline is sort of economic terrorism." No, what Reagan was saying is that sometimes you have to take the bitter with the better when the better is more important than the bitter. More importantly, Reagan had a plan to defend and promote. Obama has no plan except to jam unsustainable debt and crippling taxes down the throats of the American people without any intention of helping the Republicans to rein in spending. Unlike Reagan's reluctant compromise, Obama has no intention of cooperating with the Republicans. It's my way or the highway.
Just hours later, Rachel Maddow went off on an incomprehensible rant about how dumb the Republicans are for not following their icon's advice. "Of course Reagan was a noted communist, long-haired hippy. It is important to recognize that this is the state of debate right now in half of Washington. In half of Washington, the Democrats are using Ronald Reagan from the 80s, and everything else they can think of, to try to convince Republicans that defaulting on the national debt would be bad. Think about that for a second." Get it? The Democrats understand Reagan--the Republicans don't.
On the 11 AM ET show, Thomas Roberts asked Bill Clinton economic adviser Robert Reich: "All right, so there we have it. President Reagan tying this up in a nutshell. For current day Republicans that evoke President Reagan's name so much, why don't Republicans listen to that message from the icon that they have in Ronald Reagan and move off of some of the far-right rhetoric that we've been hearing over the last weeks and months?" We all know that Reagan wanted to increase taxes, build a huge federal government, and put us into irretrievable debt. Why aren't the Republicans listening to him?
I saved my favorite MSNBC intellectual for last--the Reverend Al Sharpton. First, he made it clear for the umpteenth time that he really hated Reagan. But even so, he still was unclear on why the Republicans wouldn't follow the advice of their iconic attack dog. "Interviewing" Congressman Mo Brooks (R-Alabama), the host and occasional creator of libelous racism charges shouted: "In the name of Ronald Reagan, I think this president in the White House right now sounds a lot more like Ronald Reagan than you guys do." On MSNBC Live, Sharpton spent more time answering his own questions than allowing the guest to do so. And he demanded that Brooks do what Reagan would have done (or at least what Sharpton says he would have done).
These MSNBC hacks remind me of the line of a very old song: "Why would you believe me when I said I love you when you know I've been a liar all my life?" A half-truth or quarter-truth is still a lie.
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Tuesday, November 30, 2010
1979-1980/2010-2012. . . History Repeating?
Ronald Reagan became President at a low point for the United States. Our economy was failing, our military was neglected, our politics were poisonous, and our nation was demoralized. Over the next few years, Ronald Reagan turned all of that around. But even before Reagan brought us Reaganomics, Margaret Thatcher was beating Reagan to the punch, with similar stunning results. Well, our two countries feel a lot like 1979 again, and once again the British are showing us the way out of this mess.In two short years, the Democrats have made a royal mess of our country. They’ve wasted trillions of dollars we could not afford, they’ve created what appears to be a permanent structural deficit, they’ve demoralized our foreign policy, they’ve disgraced our political system, and they’ve put the public on the verge of revolt. Labor did the same thing to Britain. But Britain is now turning this around.
When the British replaced their Labor government with a Conservative/Liberal coalition, few expected much in the way of reform. The Conservatives were led by David Cameron, who seems more like an effete elitist than a reputable leader. Indeed, his claim to fame before being elected was to rid the Conservatives of most of their ideology and to turn them into Tony Blair impersonators. His coalition partners, the Liberals, are a confused jumble of socialists and civil libertarians. That’s hardly the recipe for daring achievements. Yet, that is exactly what they are doing. Consider this:
1. Facing a $245 billion deficit (11.4% of GNP), the government issued a dramatic budget containing previously unthinkable cuts. Government agencies will be cut by 19% on average, 500,000 government jobs will be eliminated, welfare benefits will be cut, a middle class child credit will disappear, the retirement age will rise from 65 to 66, college tuition and train fares will rise, and so on. The only two errors were to exempt the National Health Service from cuts and to increase spending on foreign aid.
This is an incredible budget for a coalition that can hardly be called fiscal hawks and whose members range from both fringes to the squishy middle. So when our media is throwing up their hands trying to explain why not one penny of federal spending can be cut, keep Britain's example in mind. This is a blue print for the United States.
2. The government plans to cut overall immigration from 196,000 a year to below 100,000 by 2015. To achieve that, they’ve just imposed a 20% cut in the number of non-Europeans allowed to work in the U.K., cut the number of visas granted to foreign students, and will impose a minimum standard for English proficiency on marriage visas.
The focus on student visa (which account for 60% of immigration) is the result of many “students” coming to England but not actually working on degree programs, and of concerns that some “schools” are simply schemes to exploit student visas to get immigrants into the country -- and which may provide a gateway for terrorists to enter the U.K. Thus, the new government also will begin stringent background checks into the credentials of schools that offer visas to overseas students, and will give a preference to students in degree programs.
3. The government is completely reforming British schools. For example, they are dismantling the system put in place by Labor where students could get non-academic qualifications (like certificates in “sports leadership”) as a substitute for traditional subjects. They will grade schools on the performance of their students in English, math, science, history or geography, and a modern or ancient language. Moreover, teachers will need to pass math and English aptitude tests. Principals will be given more powers to restrain violent pupils, put students in detention, and search them for mobile phones. Also, about 400 schools will be taken over. Further, they have introduced a program to train soldiers to become teachers with the idea that they have the experience to teach students and to improve classroom discipline. Finally, they are planning reforms to “drive out ‘trendy’ learning methods” brought in under Labor.
That’s not a bad start for a coalition that wasn’t supposed to do much of anything, and it is a lesson for our country. Right now, people are ready for a radical remake of the current system. They don’t want to hear, “we don’t know how to cut the budget.” They don’t want fake 10 year plans where the cuts never come. They don’t want public sector employees to keep getting raises and untouchable jobs when their own jobs are hanging by a thread. They don’t want unchecked immigration. And they don’t want to double down on the liberal stupidity that has ruined the public schools.
If a coalition of quasi-Euro-socialists, actual socialists, and libertarians can do this, then so can the Republicans. It won’t happen until Obama is gone in 2012, but it’s time to start now and to fully implement what we start when the new Republican president takes office in 2012. Anyone promising less than that, need not apply.
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Saturday, February 6, 2010
Once There Was A President
Though not exactly in a log cabin, on this day in 1911, Nelle Reagan gave birth to a future President on the second floor of a commercial building in Tampico, Illinois. I take no small (and undeserved) pride in the fact that the future President was born in my birth state and moved on to the White House in the Sky after an illustrious career built in my adopted state.This post will not be a biography of the great Ronald Reagan, nor will it be some sort of detailed analysis of his entire life, complete with pithy comments on his predecessors and successors. It will instead be a personal view of my long-distance "relationship" with one of the most important politicians and statesmen of the twentieth century.
I first came to know a little about Ronald Reagan as a small child seeing the movie classic (?) Bedtime for Bonzo, and later as a young adult watching him as the host of TV's Death Valley Days. Frankly, I found him a little wooden and ordinary, and didn't give him any more thought, although I also saw him later in a couple of movie revivals in which I saw a very fine actor who was neither wooden nor ordinary.
It wasn't until I left home, went off to the university, and became a member of the Berzekeley Brigade (aka, the Cal Crazies) that I started taking notice of the up-and-coming leader of the armies of the enemy--the conservatives. I remember having a poster on my dorm wall, with Ronald Reagan in a wig, bearing the legend "Ronald Reagan is Ayn Rand in drag." As a proud member of the "new left," I abhorred Reagan's speechifying about how out-of-control we were. I was particularly contemptuous of anyone who would desert his Democratic roots and become (shudder) a Republican. How could such a man be trusted?
By the time he ran for the job as Governor of California, we lefties were in full-throated rebellion against the entire "establishment." And he had run on two recurring themes: "Send the welfare bums back to work, and clean up the mess at Berkeley." What mess?," I thought. He's trying to suppress our freedom of speech (but deep down inside I was beginning to wonder if he was really only trying to suppress our right to riot). As the antiwar demonstrations became more pointedly anti-American and anti-military, I was already beginning to drift away from my angry rhetoric and back toward my family's patriotic roots. But still, this guy's picking on us. Phooey.
By his second term as governor, and first toe into presidential politics, I was starting to listen more and more to what he had to say. By then I was married, had a baby on the way (we subsequently had two more--a total of girl-boy-girl), we had just bought our first home, and I was working my way up in corporate management. After finishing at Cal, I moved my studies over to San Francisco State, where the student demonstrations took on a much broader and sinister tone, particularly the Black Students Rebellion (which ultimately resulted in the first Black studies curriculum in the nation). I was trying to study political science, and one of my professors (later the chairman of the SF State history department) had dropped a bomb that got me thinking about both Reagan and the course education was taking. Said professor Arthur Mejia, "and now let's move on to the deaf, dumb and blind Don Quixote of the twentieth century--Woodrow Wilson." Not only did that run counter to the progressive view endemic already in academia, but it seemed to echo some thoughts I had had years earlier, and sounded a bit like some of the things Reagan was saying.
But I was not yet ready to surrender, even though I had to admit to myself that when Reagan announced of our demonstrations "if they want a bloodbath, let's give them a blood bath," I was impressed. Hmmm, I think he's talking about us, and despite all logic, I began to think "in another context, I think I might really like this guy." I wouldn't consider voting for a Republican (or even a moderate Democrat), but something about the man kept me listening to him. In his second run for governor, he defeated machine politician and manipulator extraordinaire Jesse Unruh (known to political buffs as "Big Daddy"). I had developed a disgust for the Democratic machine, and after voting for Unruh, I left radical politics permanently. Reagan finished his second term as governor, and for awhile dropped out of the public eye while he consolidated his troops within the Republican Party. Since I would never be a Republican, I gave him no further thought, even though I sort of missed his speeches.
By 1976, Reagan was back in the public fray. He had been very anti-Nixon, and from my viewpoint, that meant he couldn't be all bad. He challenged Gerald Ford for the Republican nomination, and advanced the agenda of one of my other former hate-objects, Barry Goldwater. Considering the drubbing Goldwater had suffered at the hands of Lyndon Johnson, I figured the challenge was going nowhere. Little did I know. But Reagan lost the nomination, and once again I gave him little thought, particularly since I was fooled by Carter's pretensions and anti-establishment campaign. "Well," I thought, "the Democratic Party can be saved after all." It didn't take long for me to realize that we had replaced the weak Gerald Ford with the even weaker Jimmy Carter. I began to look for solid American leadership within the Democratic Party, and never found it.
When Reagan secured the Republican nomination in 1980, I found myself at a crossroad. The Democratic Party had continued to drift left, while I was continuing to drift toward the center. The President has one job, and only one that matters--to lead. Jimmy Carter couldn't lead a horse to water, and that left only one other prominent Democrat for the nomination--Teddy Kennedy. Sensing that I had the choice between no leadership and horrific leadership, I voted for Carter in the primary. But I knew I was about to find myself doing something I swore I would never do--vote across party lines. To my mild irritation, Reagan was amazing during the campaign. Regardless of whatever else I might think, it was clear the Republicans had nominated a man who was self-confidently a leader. During the presidential debates, I waited for him to do that said shaking of his head, followed by "there you go again." I asked God for forgiveness, went into the ballot booth, and voted for Reagan.
I was right in doing so, even though I voted for the Democrat in the next three presidential cycles (I guess I figured Reagan had brought us back from the brink, so it was safe to vote for a Democrat again). But during both of his presidential terms, I constantly found myself defending or praising him to my Democrat buddies. When he was ruthlessly mocked for calling the Soviet Union "the evil empire," my vocal reaction was always the same: "Well, they are evil, and they are a communist empire, so they're an evil empire. What's so hard to understand about that?"
Even his own speechwriters cringed when Reagan would take a speech away from them and insert his own words. Scrapping their words, Reagan stood at the Berlin Wall and demanded "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" Now that's leadership. He announced "Star Wars," again to great ridicule from the left, and I saw the wisdom in it. We can win the cold war without firing a shot, and look like the good guys while doing it. Call it the Strategic Defense Initiative, and then offer the technology to the enemy, since it's solely for defense, right? The Soviet Union was in complete disarray, people were lined up for blocks in Moscow to buy a loaf of bread that wouldn't be there by the time they got to the head of the line, most of the Soviet money had already been spent on multiple redundant weapons of war, and now Reagan was proposing to hand them a very, very, very expensive defense technology. All they had to do was pay for it out of non-existent Soviet money. It was the beginning of the end for the Soviet Union, and I couldn't have been happier.
Ignoring massive demonstrations throughout Europe, Reagan put cruise missiles in place on their territory (on US bases, of course). He regularly threw American politicians completely for a loop. He outraged rightists by making nice with Gorbachev, then outraged the left by defying him. He made peace overtures at just the right time, and rattled the sabers at just the right time, usually defying conventional wisdom in both cases. That's what true leaders do. Ignore the flak, and destroy the enemy's home bases (politically speaking, I should add). As one of the mourners said at Reagan's funeral, "I doubt that we will see his like again in our lifetimes."
By the time he stood his ground on supply-side economics and restored America's belief in itself as the economic engine that powered the world, I was fully aboard intellectually. Still, it took one more political promise from a Democratic president in 1992 that was tossed out the window by 1994 for my final conversion to the Republican Party. I haven't voted for a Democrat since, and I doubt I ever will. As the great man himself said, "I didn't leave the Democratic Party, it left me."
So amid the many blogs and news items that will do honor to him today, I simply want to say a very personal "Thank you, Mr. President, for making my conversion as painless as possible." Without him, I doubt that any politician could ever have effected that subtle but ongoing change in my political beliefs. I had long since begun practicing law, and taught constitutional law, but it took a Reagan to make me see that it wasn't just an intellectual exercise. I truly cling to the Constitution and the greatness of the Founders. He made me feel the strength of America rather than just thinking about it. And if the recent election results are any indication, it is as he said, "morning in America" once again.
No President in my lifetime has ever been the leader and inspiration that was Ronald Reagan. He was "American" in every way, and apologized to nobody for it. Sure his views were too conservative for my tastes those many years ago, and by my current standards, frequently too moderate or liberal. But he knew the goal. Restore America to its rightful place at the top of the heap, and do it in a manner that recognizes political realities without surrendering the goals of the Founders. Listen to the voice of the people, not to the talking-heads or pollsters. Make a mistake, admit it and correct it. Be willing to admit that a personal political view might detour the ship of state, and adjust. Risk the displeasure of the political establishment and the mainstream media. It's all leadership, and boy, what a leader he was.
I apologize for the length if this article, but it is hard to express the admiration I have for a former political enemy who was instrumental in my long transition from scruffy student political agitator to reasonable America-loving grandfather of eight. God bless Ronald Reagan and his beloved United States of America.
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Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Pelosi Planning Huge Mistake
I love Ronald Reagan, as do you. But Reagan made two mistakes. One he’s admitted -- the illegal alien amnesty. The other took longer to become apparent. Now Pelosi seems intent on undoing that mistake by making her own version of that mistake. Hmmm. Read on my friends. . .The second mistake Reagan made was the tax reform he enacted in 1986. From an economic perspective, this was a great reform. It eliminated some tax brackets, flattening the tax structure, and lowered the capital gains rate. That reduced some of the distortions of the tax code and spurred the economic growth that we’ve continued to enjoy until pretty much last year.
But within that success lay a political disaster. As a result of those reforms, millions of people came off the income tax rolls. Economically, that’s a good thing. But politically, it created a problem. People who don’t pay taxes have no incentive to keep the size of government under control. To the contrary, they have an incentive to increase the size of government because it doesn’t cost them anything. Thus, by taking millions of Americans off the tax rolls, Reagan accidentally created a class of people that had nothing to lose from an increase in the size of government!
And that class has been growing. Indeed, the number of Americans who pay no income tax has risen from 15% in 1985 to 40% today. Add in the fact that just over 52% of Americans now receive a check from the federal government, and you’ve got the makings of a “pro-government-growth” constituency.
But if Nancy Pelosi has her way, this problem may be about to correct itself. Over the past few weeks, the left, i.e. Pelosi and many within the MSM, have begun talking about “the need” for a value added tax.
A value added tax is like a sales tax, only the product is taxed at every stage of its production rather than at the point of sale. Said differently, whereas a sales tax is paid once -- by retail consumers, a value added tax is paid by each business that participates in the creation of the product or service. Each business is taxed on the “value it adds” to the product. Since businesses don’t pay taxes, they pass those along to consumers by rolling those taxes into the price of the product as it moves along the production chain.
Economically speaking, a value added tax is a good method for raising taxes. It doesn’t distort people’s incentives to work, like an income tax, nor does it distort their consumer behavior, like targeted deductions. It is also much less intrusive than an income tax. Thus, economically speaking, a value added tax is far superior to an income tax.
But the downside with a value added tax is that it is an easy tax to raise because consumers don’t see it. They only see the final price of the product, they don’t see where it was taxed at each stage of production. And while this could be countered with a requirement that all products identify the total tax paid, consumers still are a notoriously difficult group to organize against bad governmental decisions. A case in point is sugar subsidies, which harm all consumers and which everyone agrees should be eliminated. But because consumers are a diffuse group and the sugar industry is a determined lobby, no one has been able to gather the political muscle needed to eliminate those subsidies.
In any event, if I had a choice between an income tax and a value added tax, I would probably lean toward the value added tax, with certain safeguards. But Pelosi isn’t talking about replacing the income tax, she’s talking about adding a value added tax to the income tax. This, I cannot support.
Anyhoo, here’s the interesting bit about what Pelosi is trying to do. She wants a value added tax. But a value added tax hits all consumers. Thus, she’s working hard to pass a tax that will suddenly smack right in the face that 40% of Americans who currently pay no income taxes. What does this mean? It means, that if she passes this, she’s going to undo Reagan’s 1986 mistake by taking this “pro-government-growth” constituency and making them pay for the services they get. God bless her little black heart.
What’s even more interesting is that a value added tax smacks all consumers equally. That means that the tax is “regressive” in that it takes a larger share of poor people’s income than it takes from rich people. This is not going to make the “pro-government-growth” constituency happy at all. Indeed, even if they exempt food and medicine, for example, this constituency will suddenly find that cars, clothes, DVDs and consumer goods are 20% more expensive.
And here I thought liberals cared about poor people?
Interesting times ahead.
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Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Democratic Administrations Seem Less Stressful
Ever notice that life is less stressful when the Democrats hold the White House? Actually, I’m serious. I’ve lived through several now and I can honestly say that the country seems much more at ease when the Democrats are in charge. Bear with me as I try to figure this out (or bare with me if you prefer).My first real experience with a Democratic President was Honest Jimmy Carter. Good times, let me tell you.Honest Jimmy Carter
Sure, we had 7.6% unemployment, 13.5% inflation, falling incomes, gas lines, labor strikes and the such, but that’s part of life. Anyone who says differently is just expecting too much. . . or so the media constantly assured us. Besides, Jimmy was such an honest man that you couldn't fault him. At least, that was the standard media motif.
With nothing to worry about, there were no nasty movies about Carter either. In fact, if I remember correctly, Hollywood was largely apolitical at the time, except for the occasional movie attacking Nixon. Oh, and the music. . . the apolitical music?! Great stuff!
Then came Reagan. Man, the Reagan years were tense. The economy was crap. Sure, he got unemployment down to 5.2% and inflation down to 1.9%, but those weren’t real jobs. The real jobs were vanishing at an alarming rate, leaving us to sell hamburgers to each other. . . and our Japanese masters.The Evil Ronald Reagan
What caused all of our jobs to vanish? Greedy corporate types, all personal friends of Reagan, would forcibly buy our prosperous companies and part them out just to make a quick buck. I remember seeing a film about this. In fact, I recall a bunch of films attacking this horrible thing called mergers and acquisitions, and vulture..., er, venture capital.
And don’t forget what Reagan did to us with his debts! He sold our futures! Deficits of around 3% of GNP?! What was he thinking? (For cynics who note that Obama’s deficit is 12.6% of GNP, all I can say is that it was a different time and 3% meant more than it does today.)
Fortunately, there was strong oversight. The media kept on him day. . . after day. . . after day! He may have been made of Teflon, but that wasn't going to stop them. And who can forget all those Congressional hearings to investigate every single thing Reagan or anyone in his administration did (or didn’t) do! Even Hollywood and the music industry strove to point out how horrible Reaganomics was over and over again.
Oh (almost forgot), Reagan was dangerous too. He dreamed of getting us killed. He wanted to start a nuclear war! At least, that’s what a dozen movies (like Dreamscape) told us. . . and the protesters chanted. . . and a few Congressional Democrats proclaimed. . . and a bunch of singers sang about. It is any wonder things were so damn tense!
Then we got Bush. He wasn’t Reagan, but he wasn’t much better. Bush brought us the wars that Reagan always wanted. He attacked Iraq to get its oil. In fact, I remember protestors screaming this daily, and of course Hollywood and the music industry backed this up in their films and music. The media did a great job of investigating this too. . . constantly. As I recall, they really dug into the idea that he sold Iraq the very weapons they would use to kill so many American soldiers and he encouraged Iraq to attack Kuwait, a ruthless dictatorship of the kind that Bush favors, just to cause the war. True evil there.Heartless George Bush
Man, wasn’t it funny when he threw up in Japan? How many times did I see that on television!
Bush also gave us junk bonds, increasing the pace of jobs disappearing, and the S&L crisis -- caused by his nephew Neil Bush! He brought us the age of the never-ending Independent Counsel. And he created homelessness to kill poor people. Robert Redford told us so himself (Sneakers anyone?). I’m pretty sure the media backed Redford up on that. I don’t recall exactly, because there were so many stories about the 200 million homeless that it got a little confusing, but I think they did confirm it.
Very tense times.
Bush gave way to Clinton and things changed. Sure, Clinton loved women, but man was he a good guy. He was the Great Communicator II, the greatest politician of our time!Good-Natured Rogue Bill Clinton
Let’s see, great economy, budget surpluses, nothing happened overseas. He ended homelessness. Sure, there were more mergers during the Clinton years than the Reagan/Bush years, but those were good mergers. They made America efficient.
Unlike Bush, Clinton never sold any influence. At least, I don’t recall hearing about that in the media.
Strangely, the number of films about presidents dropped off to almost nothing during his term. In fact, Hollywood largely went apolitical again, hmm. But that’s not to say they were playing favorites just because they were all FOBs. . . we got their word on that. Plus, don’t forget, they did do that one film about Clinton being a good-natured rogue who loves McDonalds. I remember a good deal of consternation in the media over that.
I don’t recall any protest music. But then what would you protest? He only used the military where it was absolutely necessary -- when the safety of the United States was at issue. . . like in Yugoslavia, and Somalia, and Haiti. And unlike Bush, whose failures led to a second Gulf war, Clinton solved the Somalia and Haiti problems completely -- or if he didn't, we never heard about it. He would have solved that Al Qaeda problem too, if the Republicans had let him. And you can't really blame him for Rwanda, no one knew what to do about that.
All in all, it was a very tension free time.
But all that changed when Bushitler stole the election and imposed himself upon us. I don’t even know where to begin with Bushitler.Bushitler
Look at the problems he didn't solve in Rwanda, Somalia, and the genocide in Darfur!
And I’m not saying he caused 9/11, but I read that he knew about it and he didn’t call the airport to stop those guys because he wanted to create an incident to let Dick Cheney’s firm take Iraq’s oil. I don’t have any facts to back that up, and neither does the media, but I seem to recall reading that daily in real newspapers. I guess, sometimes the truth transcends the facts.
Seriously, was there anything he did right in Iraq or Afghanistan? Not according to the media, or Hollywood, or the music industry, or the protestors, or Democratic Congressmen, or Senators, or governors. And wow was Hollywood busy with movies about Bush and Iraq. The music industry too (how unfair to attack the Dixie Chicks for saying what everyone in the media was already saying).
And that was just the beginning. He tried to kill black people when he caused Katrina. He destroyed our economy, causing an unemployment rate that reached almost 7% -- no economy can survive with an unemployment rate that high, and the President is directly responsible for unemployment. . . except Obama and his 10.5%, that’s not his fault.
Bushitler also generated a massive deficit of around $200 billion! And don’t even think of comparing Obama’s $1.4 trillion deficit to Bushitler’s, they just aren’t the same thing. In fact, they're so different that the media doesn't even bother making the comparison.
Don’t forget Bushitler forced an entire generation of soldiers to develop mental illness and to become homeless. Everybody lost their homes! He let AIDS run wild in Africa, and, let’s be honest, he was stupid. How many times did I hear that! Probably every day. And didn’t he cause a school shooting?
Thank God he’s gone. Too tense.
Finally, we have the Obamatopia of today. What pleasant times. Sure there’s 10.5% unemployment, but that’s to be expected -- employment always lags in a recovery. We have $1.4 trillion deficits, but that’s Bush’s fault too, and those should drop again in 5-10 years. The dollar is falling, but that’s good for the stock market.Barack “The Messiah” Obama
We’ve had no mass shootings and no terrorist attacks that have made the news. We have no homeless, and all of our soldiers are fine again. Foreclosures have stopped. We have no racial strife, except that racist cop. AIDS in Africa has ended. He solved Darfur. Obama brought peace to South America, I don’t think we’ve heard a peep out of Chavez in some time. . . certainly no criticism from him. Our relations with the Middle East are great, or so we're told.
What’s not to like? In fact, times are so good that most journalists have little to do except report what Obama tells them. I don't think I've heard a body count since Bush left office? And I guess the media dropped their demand to film caskets coming home. Who needs the stress of seeing that!
Hollywood too seems to have become apolitical again, except for the few films honoring Obama. Of course, the television industry also has worked hard to help Obama out with bringing us together and doing a few good things.
All very stress free.
My PointOk, enough. I think you get my point. I am actually being quite serious when I say the world seems less dangerous and less contentious when the Democrats are in power. For most people, it does. And there is a reason for that: the Democrats’ fellow travelers in the media and in the culture industry work to generate that perception.
They will savage Republicans on a 24/7 basis, including making things up when there is nothing to complain about. Angry films get cranked out, personal attacks are made nightly on television or in songs, Congressional investigations are held, and a chorus of hate arises all to keep the public on edge.
Why? Because the perception that life is contentious when the Republicans are in charge can be a powerful force to wear people out under Republican regimes, to get them to give Democratic another chance, and to keep fence-sitters voting for Democrats.
This is why it’s so important that conservatives reinsert themselves into the culture -- from Hollywood, to Madison Avenue, to the music world, to the media. We cannot allow this perception to continue unchallenged. It's like letting your competitor send people to your restaurant to bother the customers.
By the way, lest anyone suggest that the left is merely acting on principle, explain to me why they suddenly go silent on those same principles, and will ignore or forgo them, when the Democrats win the job? It’s all for show folks.
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Saturday, September 5, 2009
Messiahs Aren't Taught Self-Restraint
Dear Leader Barack Obama will be shoving his mug in front of America's school kids the day after Labor Day, and then in front of Congress and the rest of us on Wednesday night. On Tuesday, he'll ask the kids to help him build the Obama Nation, and on Wednesday we'll be treated to the miracle of universal health care with no restrictions and no costs. I haven't been this excited since my bank told me my 401k's were worthless--like Obama rhetoric.If there's one thing that Obama is filled with, it's self-confidence. Well, he's full of something else, too, but that doesn't relate directly to this discussion. Nobody without several extra rations of self-confidence could go from obscure two-bit Chicago politician to President of the United States in such a short period of time. But there is something to be said for rising a bit slower, making a few stops along the way to learn a few things, and maybe even stumbling a few times. Such a meteoric rise can turn self-confidence into arrogance and intransigence, along with a feeling of infallibility. Those are traits best left for Greek gods and dictators. It can quickly lead to a fall, and cause a great deal of harm along the way.
In a republic, it can also lead to a disdain for the underpinnings of the republican form of government, and lead to a "whatever it takes" attitude toward maintaining the leader's preeminent position. One of the earliest indicators of this in the Obama administration was his choice of Rahm Emmanuel as his Chief of Staff. Emmanuel very openly told Obama: "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." Cynical and opportunistic, it played right into Obama's mindset of "making a fundamental change in America." Using a serious recession as the crisis to be exploited, Obama parleyed it into his foot-through-the door to proclaim the entire nation to be in crisis on finance, health care, the environment, and racial relations.
Any president who didn't think he was the best man for the job would probably not be there in the first place, and if he got there by some fluke, wouldn't be good at the job anyway. But it has become increasingly clear that Obama believes a great deal more than that about himself. He has come to believe his own propaganda. And it means that the people he is sworn to protect are irrelevant to his goals.
So Obama began making his first, ongoing mistake about America. He believes it needs to be fundamentally changed. Most Americans like their country enough to want to preserve it and improve it by reasonable and traditional means. To Obama and his crew, the word "tradition" means "outmoded." So rather than listen to the people, he firmly plants his feet and proceeds to do whatever he can--not to convince, but to offer the option of "convert or be destroyed." He cannot conceive that any ideas but his own can have any validity. This means no compromise, no give-and-take, no discussion, just "listen here" (as he is wont to say), here's what you need and here's how I'm going to give it to you." The American people saw the moderate, bipartisan image that he tried successfully to promote during the election, and chose him as the man to stabilize the economy. They didn't elect him to turn our 220 year old constitutional republic into rule by the elite and government control of everything in their lives.
Instead of seeing quickly-growing suspicions about his plans as a warning to slow down and moderate his agenda, Obama saw it as a challenge to his "fundamental change," to be attacked, ridiculed, and overcome by exploiting the economic crisis and moving even faster. His poll numbers drop each time he renews his call for government control and radical change in society. That mistake could cost him his agenda and his presidency. It's a rookie mistake, and a sin of pampered youth. Age doesn't impart wisdom automatically, but youth cannot gain experience any faster than the years attained. And experience is an ingredient of wisdom which Obama, with zero prior executive experience, lacks almost entirely.
He could have learned a lot from the lessons of Ronald Reagan, if he had stopped to consider that his book-learnin' at Columbia and Harvard weren't the only places to get an education. Reagan was no slouch in believing in himself. But he had learned early on that even people who were with him would not always agree with him, and that his opponents were not enemies trying to interfere with his perfect agenda. After two terms as governor of the nearly unmanageable State of California, Reagan had learned a great deal about governing successfully.
After winning a decisive victory over Jimmy Carter, and bringing in the first Republican Senate in nearly thirty years, Reagan was in a position roughly comparable to Obama's, although Reagan's party did not control the House. And Reagan did indeed have an agenda. But unlike Obama, Reagan recognized that much of his agenda had to wait because, like Obama, he came into office during a very tough economic period. Reagan had the good sense to realize that his strong victory didn't guarantee similar victories on legislation, and he had to fix the economy before he could do anything else that he wanted to do. In order to restore the economy and defeat the Carter "stagflation," Reagan obtained immense tax cuts and restoration of the dollar. But to do so, he had to give up temporarily some of his other important issues, such as killing off the welfare state and destroying the entitlement monster. That's the difference between self-confidence and childish arrogance.
It took two future administrations to effect the final cutbacks in the welfare state and reduction in entitlements, but none of that could have been accomplished if Reagan had not first gotten the economy back into high gear. He deferred his grand plan in order to lay the foundation for that plan to build on later. The American people had said "fix the economy" and Reagan did so, at the expense of some ideas he held dear. Obama simply can't even grasp the concept of deferring his grand plans in order to do the first thing which needs to be done--fix the economy. And daily, he repeats his mistake.
The other big Obama mistake is less obvious, more subtle, and yet perhaps even more fundamental. Obama, for all his alleged smarts and education, has no sense of history nor any understanding of how a constitutional republic develops. And even if he does, he doesn't care. Again, in keeping with that childish personality flaw, Obama wants it all, and he wants it now. Utilizing Emmanuel's playbook of exploiting a crisis, Obama tosses aside James Madison's "auxiliary precautions" which constitutional historian Martin Diamond describes as "the self-restraining, temporary majority-restraining principles of the Constitution, such as the separation of powers, bicameralism, limited government, and all the internal checks which go with those restraints."
Americans who may not be students of history or the Constitition still have an innate sense of putting on the brakes and moving with caution. They have lived in a constitutional republic all their lives, and they're instinctively suspicious of nebulous big ideas powered by an engine with no governor and no brakes. Unlike Obama ideologues (or Marxist ideologues, or socialist ideologues, or internationalist ideologues, etc.), they know that man and society are works-in-progress with both virtues and vices which propel their actions. They see government as a way to get things done, but not at the expense of liberty, choice and the abandonment of all caution. When things are not being done right, they want to see change, but they know better than to throw the baby out with the bathwater. They are by nature, moderate to conservative.
Ideologues like Obama and his gang of half-fast intellectuals see society as immediately perfectable, infinitely malleable, and capable of making every decision entirely rationally and intellectually rather than ever considering self-interest. Every dictator and totalitarian has believed exactly the same thing. Obama believed that by using Emmanuel's cynical ploy of exploiting the economic crisis, he could slip immense packages of legislation through Congress without debate. And those packages would, as he wishes, fundamentally transform America--from the greatest and wealthiest republic in the world, to a middling Euro-style socialist state with personal liberty and freedom of choice in how to live their daily lives gone forever. "Here comes the unread and unreadable stimulus. Just pass it. Here come the incomprehensible nationalized health care bill. Just pass it. And don't worry about the multi-trillion dollar cost and the burden on our children and grandchildren. Just pass it. We're here to make your lives perfect and the nation brand-new overnight. Just pass it."
James Madison's restraints have stopped the master's progress in its tracks. And Lincoln's wisdom had apparently never been transmitted to Obama: "You can't fool all the people all the time." Obama's plan was to rush this nation-altering legislation through so fast that it would be in place before the American people knew what had happened to them. American tradition and plain common sense have thwarted the rush to destruction. Even with a clear majority in both Houses of Congress, and the ability to use a procedural ploy to pass his nationalized health care package in the Senate, Obama has raised so much ire at his attempt to detour around public input that his own party won't do his bidding. He is such a completely deluded ideologue, and he is so isolated from middle America in his White House of Sycophants, that he is genuinely convinced that the opposition is all a vast plot to thwart his lofty goals.
That wonderful Constitution, and America's determined belief in its right to govern itself without an all-powerful government to tell it what to think and do, will keep this wannabe perfect leader from ever becoming a true dictator. If he gets health care reform at all, it won't even faintly resemble his nationalized government plan, and the public will be watching to see if he tries to get that plan incrementally in future legislation. He has lost the trust of the majority of Americans, and whether he likes it or not, the Constitution and the people will prevent him from tossing out 220 years of history for a little promised economic or health security at the expense of their basic liberty.
As I did in yesterday's post, I again advise caution. Obama is a doctrinaire leftist, but he's not a complete fool. He wants his agenda, and he will not give up trying to get it. The current mood of the people must not lull us into a sense of complacency while the spider in the White House spins his web in a less visible way. His mistakes so far and his misjudgment of the American people may be his downfall, but only if we don't take a few winning battles and turn them into a belief that we've won the war. The price of liberty is eternal vigilance. If we stop watching and stop fighting, the dear leader could still defeat us.
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Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Through The Legal Looking Glass--The Nine Gray Eminences
Associate Justice Clarence Thomas was born on June 23, 1948 in Pin Point, Georgia. His family was poor--dirt poor, as he himself describes them. As the descendants of American slaves living in the Deep South, Thomas and his family experienced many of the humiliations so common to African-Americans of the time. And some of the same family tragedies. His father left the family when Clarence was only two years old. After a fire destroyed their meager home, the family split up.While Clarence's sister Emma stayed behind with relatives in Pin Point, he and his brother Myers moved to Savannah with their mother. His mother worked as a maid, housekeeper, inn worker, and other types of domestic employment. Though she tried mightily to remain independent, it became increasingly difficult as the boys grew up. The extended family always stuck together, and finally his mother decided she just could no longer go it alone. So when Clarence was seven years old, his mother and the two boys moved in with their grandfather, Myers Anderson, after whom Clarence's brother was named.
Anderson was a largely uneducated man with a big heart and an agile brain. He had built not just one, but two businesses in Savannah. He owned a fuel-oil business as well as an icehouse and delivery service. Myers started taking Clarence and his brother to a local farm around the time Clarence was ten, where they worked a typical sunrise-to-sunset day when not in school. As an adult, Thomas loved to quote his grandfather saying "never let the sun catch you in bed."
Teenage Thomas was the only black student at his high school in Savannah. Following his grandfather's advice, he pursued self-reliance. He was an honors student throughout his high school years. The family were Roman Catholic, and he continued his learning through Catholic schools of higher education. At one point he considered becoming a priest, and attended two different Catholic seminaries. Now ready for his sophomore college year, Thomas went on to College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts.
At Holy Cross, Thomas encountered the Northern form of racial discrimination. Though never directly denied access to any of the privileges of the white students, he nevertheless saw the subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) differences in the way black students were treated, even at a Church-sponsored school. At Holy Cross, Thomas formed one of the very first Black Students Associations. He pointed out years later than he had no intention of it being a separatist group, but formed it solely in reaction to the unequal treatment of black students. He led a student walkout when certain white students received light discipline at the same time that black students were receiving harsh discipline for exactly the same infractions, including expulsion. His group successfully negotiated the return of the expelled black students.
He always felt that the Catholic Church was not doing enough to use its moral and religious power to combat racism. It led to his break with the Church, and he became an Episcopalian for some years. In the 1990's, he returned to the Catholic Church, where he remains a communicant to this day.
After graduating from Holy Cross cum laude with a degree in English literature, Thomas went on to Yale Law School. He graduated near the middle of his class, getting his JD degree in 1974. Thomas was admitted to Yale Law based strictly on his grades and achievements. He had taken advantage of none of the early affirmative action advantages which were available for black students. Yet he was treated by future possible employers as if he wasn't a legitimate Yale Law graduate. Some asked pointed questions about how Thomas had gotten into Yale Law in the first place. This had a very strong influence on Thomas's ongoing disdain for affirmative action programs.
Thomas has one son from his first marriage. He and college sweetheart Kathy Ambush were married in a ceremony at the time that Thomas was Episcopalian. The two separated and were subsequently divorced in 1984. After returning to the Catholic Church, he met Virginia Lamp, a lobbyist and aide to Congressman Dick Armey. He married Lamp in 1987, obtaining an annulment of his first marriage from the Catholic Church. Out of 140 Justices currently serving on the federal bench, there are only thirteen who are Catholic. But Thomas certainly doesn't feel isolated by that. He is just one of the six Catholics currently sitting on the Supreme Court bench.
Thomas's legal and political career started when he was made Assistant Attorney General of Missouri in 1974 under State Attorney General John Danforth. When Danforth was elected to the US Senate in 1976, Thomas went into private practice as an attorney for the Monsanto Company in St. Louis. Danforth had recognized Thomas's negotiating and legal talents, and in 1979 called Thomas into service again, this time as a Senatorial Legislative Assistant. Danforth was later a strong advocate for a Thomas seat on the Supreme Court.
In 1981, he was appointed as Assistant Secretary of Education for the Office of Civil Rights by Ronald Reagan. In 1982, Thomas was appointed Chairman of the US Equal Employment Opportunities Commission. As someone who had experienced the effect of racial discrimination young, and later the questioning of his credentials because of affirmative action, Thomas became a strong enforcer of anti-discrimination statutes while showing benign neglect toward affirmative action.
He also continued his philosophy of personal self-reliance and stopped the EEOC practice of filing group "class actions" for discrimination, choosing instead to pursue cases of individual and provable discrimination. He discontinued the policy of treating every allegation of discrimination as being true unless proven false, and shifted the burden of proof to those making the claim. He got national press in 1984 by telling black leaders like Jesse Jackson that they were "watching the destruction of our race as they bitch, bitch, bitch about President Reagan instead of working with the Reagan administration to alleviate teenage pregnancy, crime, unemployment and illiteracy."
In June of 1989, President George H. W. Bush nominated Clarence Thomas to the US District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals. Initially, Thomas was not receptive to the idea, and it took some serious jaw-boning to bring him around. Thomas later said that during the interviews with Democratic Senators and their staffs, he was "struck by how easy it had become for sanctimonious whites to accuse a black man of not caring about civil rights." Hard to believe, but the actual hearings went very smoothly, and during the time he served on the Court of Appeals bench, he became a close friend of fellow Appeals Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
When Supreme Court Justice William Brennan stepped down in 1990, President Bush first thought that he would appoint Thomas to that seat. But fearing a charge of tokenism and growing obstreperousness among the left wing of the Democratic Party, he appointed judicial question mark David Souter instead. As Souter immediately turned out to be a judicial activist and liberal opinion writer, Bush and his Chief of Staff John Sununu determined that their next appointment would be a staunch conservative, and they would not back down. Sununu predicted a "knock-down, drag-out, bloody-knuckles, grass-roots fight" over such a nomination.
Upon the announcement of the retirement of Justice Thurgood Marshall in July of 1991, Bush and Sununu both decided immediately that Thomas would be the nominee. Whether the fact that Marshall was the first and only black Justice on the Court was a factor in the choice is unknown, but it added another factor to the fight that Sununu had predicted, and put the left into full spin cycle figuring out how to attack a black Court nominee. It started with legal writer Jeffrey Toobin saying that Bush made the decision solely on race, and saw Thomas as "pretty much the only qualified black candidate who would be a reliable conservative vote." And that was mild compared to what followed.
The liberal American Bar Association Panel on Supreme Court Nominations declared Thomas "qualified," less than Bush would have wished, but much stronger than the attack dogs would have preferred. Until the earlier Bork debacle, a "qualified" rating from the ABA was more than enough to allow a nominee to slide through the Senate. But the Senate Judiciary Committee was by now far more politicized than even the liberal ABA.
Along with the liberals on the Senate Committee, Thomas was opposed by the NAACP, the Urban League and the National Organization for Women. None were able to attack Thomas on his competence and judicial record, which before Bork were the only criteria by which a Supreme Court nominee was to be vetted. But the NAACP and Urban League didn't like Thomas's views on affirmative action, and NOW was horrified at the thought of a Justice who might vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. Out went the judicial questions, and in came the political questions. What ensued was the worst political circus around a Supreme Court nominee since the first "Borking."
The President of NOW literally said in a public statement that they were going to "Bork" Thomas. The "Uncle Tom" allegations began shortly thereafter. Ted Kennedy came up just short of calling Thomas a secret member of the Ku Klux Klan. But Bush stood by his man. And then came the final attack. "A little bit nutty, a little bit slutty" Anita Hill showed up to accuse Thomas of sexual harassment. Thomas lost his temper over this only once, when he called the hearings "a judicial lynching." The story of the hearings is a book by itself, so I will leave it at this. With Thomas's judicial qualifications nearly ignored, and his political beliefs clearly at the forefront, the Senate confirmed his appointment by 52 to 48, the narrowest margin in over a century. Eleven Democrats found their honesty and integrity for a few brief moments, and joined the 41 Republicans voting in favor.
Thomas was viewed from the beginning of his first Supreme Court term as being a member of the conservative minority on the Court. This altered the makeup of the Court in that he replaced a reliably activist and liberal Justice. The Souter nomination had merely replaced a very vocal liberal with a stealth liberal. As an "originalist" he is considered by liberals and judicial activists to be ultraconservative, and the most "right wing" Justice of them all. Many have made the mistake of thinking that because he is rather quiet during argument and reluctant to take center stage that he is merely a weak Justice who follows in the wake of conservatives like his early companion Antonin Scalia.
At least one liberal Supreme Court watcher has gotten it right. Legal reporter Jan Crawford Greenburg says that "pundits' portrayal of Thomas as Antonin Scalia's understudy was grossly inaccurate, it was more often Scalia changing his mind to agree with Thomas rather than the other way around." Unwilling to let such a legal compliment go unmodified, she also adds that she sees Thomas as divisive, since "the forcefulness of Thomas's views pushed Justices Souter, Sandra Day OConnor and Anthony Kennedy away." Yet she remains highly critical of court watchers who consider Thomas to have meager legal talents. For those who might wonder why Chief Justice Rehnquist rarely called on Thomas to write majority opinions, Greenburg says it was Rehnquist's fear of Thomas's clear and cogent arguments and refusal to water down his ideas to gain a majority concurrence. It had nothing to do with any inability of Thomas to write brilliant opinions.
The similarity of voting between the conservative Justices is not as simple as most people would believe. "Originalist" is a broad term which does indeed distinguish them from the "Living Constitution" Justices. But there are subtle differences which could become more apparent if the "originalists" ever become a clear majority on the Court (which isn't going to happen while Barack Obama is President). Justices Scalia and Chief Justice Roberts espouse "original intent," while Justice Alito leans toward "original words plus original intent." While Thomas agrees with both of those views as they have evolved, he goes one step farther. If the original intent is not apparent and the original words do not address a modern issue, Thomas is very clear on where to look next, and it's not "evolving law," the "living Constitution," foreign law or group therapy.
Rather than write a concurring opinion which lays out his judicial philosophy and might harm the the possibility of bringing along the fifth "swing vote," Thomas has thus far largely simply joined in the originalist opinions. But were there to be a fifth solid vote on the originalist side, Thomas would be very likely to concur rather than simply join, and set forth his underlying judicial philosophy. He got it from the Founding Fathers. It's called "Natural Law." Thomas believes that if the words and intent of the Constitution do not resolve the issue, then go to the Declaration of Independence. And if that doesn't address the issue adequately, then go to the Federalist Papers, and the writings of the early Revolutionaries, and even to Judeo-Christian legal tradition. The other originalists stop at "words and intent."
In a much earlier post in which we discussed the Dred Scott decision, I pointed out that had Roberts, Alito, Scalia and Thomas been sitting on the Supreme Court at the time of the decision, only Thomas could have remained true to his judicial philosophy by holding that runaway slaves must be treated as full human beings with the rights of all humans as defined in the Declaration of Independence. The three others would most likely have to go with the majority opinion which held that runaway slaves could be treated in non-slave states as property with no independent human rights because of the "counting" provision contained in the pre-Civil War Constitution.
The likelihood of such a landmark decision ever having to be made again based solely on that difference is terribly slim, but worth thinking about if it should ultimately become the majority legal concept among originalist Justices. This is largely because it would also be a guide to the lower appellate courts making decisions on cases of first impression when the original words and original intent are not sufficient to form a dispositive opinion.
Thomas's stand on stare decisis is clearer in his written works than in the opportunities he has had to exercise it on the Court. In majority opinions, he has the most consistent record of any Justice in upholding prior decisions. Yet when he writes a minority opinion or dissent he is the Justice most consistent in arguing for the overturning of precedent. Thomas has made it clear that he believes that precedent is not legitimate if it is based on false reading (not a "different" reading) of the words of the Constitution. His exact words are "When faced with a clash of constitutional principle and a line of unreasoned cases wholly divorced from the text, history, and structure of our founding document, we should not hesitate to resolve the tension in favor of the Constitution's original meaning." Thus, he has consistently been in the minority on abortion cases, nearly always injecting his view that Roe v. Wade should be overturned.
Thomas is a free speech purist, and behind David Souter, the Justice most likely to support the exercise of free speech regardless of how offensive he personally finds the speech in question. He has been very consistent on the issue of federalism, voting nearly every time to support the reinstatement of purely state issues to the states and taking them out of the federal jurisdiction. He believes the Interstate Commerce Clause provides a particular jurisdiction to the federal government, but does not believe that this specficity of the Clause should be expanded to include entirely tangential matters. For that reason, he has nearly always voted to restrict the federal government from interfering in state-to-state compacts and activities which have minimal impact on national commerce.
Thomas supports the Eighth Amendment in its traditional upholding of the death penalty, and opposes federal court intervention in matters of sentencing and arrest determination based on federal standards being applied to state procedures. As for Equal Protection, he sees it in simple terms combined with a traditional view of procedural due process. He sees "substantive due process" as a creation out of whole cloth by the activist Warren Court which turned traditional procedural due process into a legal and philosophical spitting contest about what comprises equal protection. And he's not afraid to apply that judicial philosophy directly to affirmative action. In Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Pena he wrote that "there is a moral and constitutional equivalence between laws designed to subjugate a race and those that distribute benefits on the basis of race in order to foster some current notion of equality. Government cannot make us equal. It can only recognize, respect, and protect us as equal before the law. That affirmative action programs may have been motivated, in part, by good intentions cannot provide refuge from the principle that under our Constitution, the government may not make distinctions on the basis of race."
On the Church and State issue, Thomas applies his rarely enunciated natural law theory to interpret the meaning of the Establishment Clause. He sees the free exercise provision as an individual right, best protected by the States, and therefore opposed interference in state determinations utilizing the Fourteenth Amendment "incorporation" argument. His stand is that when the Founders wrote the Establishment Clause, they paid due deference to "Nature and Nature's God" from the Declaration by simply stopping the federal government from forcing religion on anyone by creation of a national official religion. He sees the Establishment Clause as fundamental along with the Free Exercise Clause, and therefore any incorporation of the Establisment Clause must necessarily include incorporation of the Free Exercise Clause. That means that prohibiting religious observances or displays on property located within any State jurisdiction via the federal courts is interference with the individual's right to express religious views on state property. And whether that comprises state promotion of religion, he says, is a determination to be made by the State, not the federal courts.
He is clear on abortion. He personally opposes it. But that is not his judicial opinion. His judicial opinion hinges on his belief that some precedent is based on purposeful misreading of the Constitution and should be overturned. He believes Roe v. Wade to be one of those precedents. He has expressed his judicial opinion that abortion is one of those matters never even considered by the Founders except as to the sanctity of human life, and therefore the appropriate jurisdiction for determination of abortion laws is the states, not the federal government. He was able to extend his view to the federal jurisdiction in supporting the federal statute banning partial-birth abortions on the grounds that it asserted authority over a practice clearly proscribed over the entire course of American legal jurisprudence, and that it was not an inordinate overstepping of the federal government since no argument either for or against the statute involved the issue of interstate commerce. Since the Constitution never addressed abortion as an issue of its own, any state or federal statute which addressed the live-birth issue as homicide rather than abortion was valid on its face and could be stricken only if the statute violated some other constitutional stricture.
Thomas has consistently supported the executive branch in its exercise of independent executive power, particularly where it involves the executive's sole power to conduct war as Commander-in-Chief. He therefore wrote a dissenting opinion in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld in which the majority held that the ability of the executive to try terrorists captured on foreign soil in military tribunals was a sole prerogative of the Congress, and required Congressional authorization for such trials. As for Fourth Amendment protections, he has usually found in favor of the exercise of the power of the police, and has acidly referred to the volumes of restrictions on reasonable search and seizure as unreasonable.
Thomas has been criticized by overly talkative legal scholars of being lax in his use of the right to ask questions of the attorneys at oral argument. Thomas has given the serious answer that he believes that most issues talked about at oral argument are just recitations of the legal briefs, and that asking questions should be limited to oral arguments which diverge in some way from the written briefs. That is a rare occurrence. Humorously, he has said that if he waits long enough, someone on the Court is going to ask the question he was thinking of anyway. He has also said rather humanly that presenting a case before the Supreme Court is tough enough without Justices asking "gotcha" questions designed solely to show off their own wisdom while humiliating the attorney presenting the argument. "Im not here to give the attorneys a hard time."
Fortunately for all of us, Justice Thomas has given his liberal counterparts on the Court an extremely hard time. And he has made his conservative brethren adhere to their principles. When they have not, he has not been reticent about a school master's use of a sharp tongue for correction.
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