“During my 12 years in government I often saw career bureaucrats push their preferred policy passions irrespective of agencies’ rules, federal regulations or the law.”
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The independents increasingly decide elections but are muted in the primaries. We nominate candidates in the primaries that fare poorly in the general election, voting based on who they are not rather than who they are. This dynamic leads to political volatility.
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Our political elite took supply for granted. They confused dollars with goods. Demand stimulus is a very short term and limited tool. If we get into debt to stimulate demand, what happens when we pay it back? Debts are always repaid – one way or another- even if you are not a Lannister.
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Their grab for power in suggesting court packing, elimination of the filibuster and federalizing elections clearly suggests they cannot be trusted with centralized power.
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Jim Crow? Really? Are you too lazy to actually read the bill or too intellectually bankrupt to get beyond pejorative fundraising slogans?
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“For the politician, jobs are not a means to some end — Cadillacs, bales of cotton, iPhones — but an end in and of themselves.”
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“Morality is about right and wrong. Morality’s insincere cousin is moralism, which grabs virtue off the shelf as needed. About every 20 or 30 years, the progressives come up with another moralized argument to delegitimize their opponents.”
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Joe Biden is entitled to due process and the presumption of innocence. So was Bret Kavanaugh. If Biden is to be presumed innocent without a hearing, then a lot of people and most of the media owe Kavanaugh an apology. It takes a galling arrogance to believe that such moralizing would never come back to haunt you, possibly at the worst time.
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The left learned to respect the power of government during their control of the economy during WWI and WWII and sought to use that same power to further the cause of social justice, but wars end and the country returns to a different footing. The battles of social justice go on forever and becomes a permanent war footing with a similar economic outcome.
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Democracy is a means to an end, not the end itself. That is why the founders constrained it with federalism, checks and balances and strategically staggered terms. The objective should be the upholding of liberal values particularly those in the Bill of Rights. Modern liberalism (as opposed to the classical liberal tradition now called conservatism) has become illiberal advocating the restraint of free speech and unlimited central power, identity politics and political correctness.
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“The problem for Warren (who should know better) and others like her (who often don’t) is that there is a lot more juice in the moralistic account of economic problems than in the economic account of economic problems. To make things worse, the moralistic account offered by Senator Warren is untrue. Americans are not incapable of being anything other than passive victims of forces beyond their control. “
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Corroborating witnesses, due process, and timely reporting are still necessary. This is difficult in such matters because the abuse is usually committed in private. But without these norms guilt and innocence become arbitrary and the entire legal system become a tool for personal and political abuse. Yes, some of the guilty will go free and unpunished, but that is a price we pay for the presumption of innocence.
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The willingness to compromise critical institutions is a great threat to our nation. In the absence of these institutions we are left with nothing but government and arbitrary power. Justice is the first victim.
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by Henry Oliner Did Donald Trump win the election, or did Hillary Clinton lose it? It may seem irrelevant, but it does have bearing on the midterms. Hillary’s likability is used as a cloak to obscure severe character flaws and
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Another gem from Kevin Williamson, A National State of Non-Emergency in National Review: What people remember of that episode is Senator Edward Kennedy’s infamous speech describing “Robert Bork’s America,” “a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks
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“Read the declassified report by the intelligence community that came out in early January,” said (Hillary) Clinton. “Seventeen agencies, all in agreement – which I know from my experience as a senator and secretary of state is hard to get
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Victor Davis Hanson writes in National Review, Plutocratic Populism Pays In mid-October, Hillary Clinton gave a short lecture at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas bewailing the crushing costs of a university education. “Higher education,” Clinton thundered, “shouldn’t be
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One of my favorite blog postings this year is The Left is Too Smart to Fail by Daniel Greenfield at Sultan Knish. Science is for Stupid People is equally worthy and an excellent companion piece to the first article. Excerpts: Science, the magic
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Jonah Goldberg writes Biden’s Faulty Lifeguard Logic “If it saves one life” — at what cost? at the National Review, 1/11/13. Excerpt: The idea that the government can regulate or ban its way into a world where there are no
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For most of the vice presidential debate Joe Biden was contemptuous, rude, disrespectful, and often wrong on the facts and assessments. But he had one great moment. Both candidates are Catholic. The moderator, Martha Raddatz, asked both candidates about their
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