America at the tipping point

Today, Daniel Henninger has a brilliant piece in the Wall Street Journal that lays bare the true significance of an Obama victory. Rather than being representative of a repudiation of "the last eight years", a victory for Obama will usher in a new and philosophically revolutionary change in the basic tenets of both the American economy and society. An Obama administration -- aided with huge Democratic majorities in the House and Senate -- will not be a "one-off" example of an over-reaction to the financial crisis that demands an immediate (but temporary) change in direction to right the ship.Rather, as Henninger so eloquently puts it, with this election the U.S. is at a "philosophical tipping point". This is spot on, and echoes the theme of many of my posts for the past several months. America is about to take a sharp 90 degree left turn, away from our history of free-market capitalism based on a risk/reward calculus, and toward a model of state-controlled system based on a no-risk/high security formula. It's a fundamental shift, as Henninger states:

The goal of Sen. Obama and the modern, "progressive" Democratic Party is to move the U.S. in the direction of Western Europe, the so-called German model and its "social market economy." Under this notion, business is highly regulated, as it would be in the next Congress under Democratic House committee chairmen Markey, Frank and Waxman. Business is allowed to create "wealth" so long as its utility is not primarily to create new jobs or economic growth but to support a deep welfare system.

This move toward "welfare capitalism" is exactly where Obama will take us over the next four years. And it is a tipping point because it is largely irreversible; the Great Society has now been with us for over 40 years, and its core elements -- Medicare and Medicaid -- are programs that make up a huge percentage of our entitlement spending. It is easy to giveth -- but it is much harder politically to "taketh away".  This is the issue we will face with Obama -- who plans an historic expansion of public-funded healthcare, energy development and welfare programs. As I've written previously, this will result not just in new taxes, but in the growth of a huge and growing dependent class that lives off government but does nothing to help fund it.The impact of this will be to move America back in the pack, to the economic alsorans of France, and Germany. As Henninger again writes:

Now comes Barack Obama, standing at the head of a progressive Democratic Party, his right hand rising to say, "Mothers, don't let your babies grow up to be for-profit cowboys. It's time to spread the wealth around."What this implies, undeniably, is that the United States would move away from running with the high GDP, high-growth nations rising today as economic and political powers and move over to retire with the low-growth economies we displaced -- old Europe.As noted in a 2006 World Bank report, spending in Europe on social-protection programs averages 19% of GDP (85% of it on social insurance programs), compared to 9% of GDP in the U.S. The Obama proposals send the U.S. inexorably and permanently toward European levels of social protection. This isn't an "agenda." It's a final temptation.

A temptation to remake America in the model of the "progressives left" -- which sees capitalism as a model that fundamentally offends them. It offends the notion that America should be about equality of outcome, not opportunity. At the heart of this is a super-charged version of those who believe that "self-esteem" matters more than keeping score, and the idea that some will win while others lose is not acceptable. Never mind that in our economy, those who win do so not because of some hereditary right that is baked in as a birthright, but rather because of their drive to succeed. The left wants to discount the winners so as not to offend those who are less able (or willing) to succeed. This is at the core of the progressive movement: don't brag, walk softly, don't make anyone else feel badly and -- most importantly -- spread your wealth around so as not to make anyone feel inferior.

What this ignores, of course, is that human nature desires independence and self-sufficiency, not dependence on others. Those who actively support this kind of system are the progressive intellectuals who live in a world of theory, rich liberals who feel guilty about their success, and students whose brains have been scrambled by the left-wing politics of the universities. But the vast middle -- who will vote for Obama on November 4 because they have been hoodwinked into thinking that he is more Bill Clinton than Jacques Chirac -- don't want a handout. They want opportunity. And opportunity is not granted by a statist model of economics, but rather by life-giving tax cuts and a light regulatory burden that will ignite the economy and create new jobs. That's the right tonic for America and those who have too little -- not a government handout in the form of a cash payment that serves only to affirm their lower lot in life.

But this is not Obama's view of the world. And if he wins on Tuesday, we will see America make a choice that will fundamentally alter the philosophical underpinnings of our great capitalist democracy.

It will be a choice we will long remember-- and long regret.

His moral relativism discredits Obama

Democrats like Obama the Intellectual like to denigrate "folksy" and "unintellectual" Republicans as "clinging to guns or religion," but what they really abhor about their "lowbrow" Republican counterparts is the willingness to stand in moral judgment. I am not in any way arguing that every time a Republican uses a moral argument it is a correct application. However if we are not willing to even engage in moral discourse, we will travel a very dangerous path. Only a moral realist holds that there are right and true moral universals that exist across all cultures, nations, languages and time, regardless of human comprehension or behavioral conformity to these moral truths. Only a moral realist can believe, for example, that slavery or murder is objectively wrong and was never right despite cultural norms that once permitted it.

A moral relativist, on the other hand can assert, as does Dr. Richard Shweder, respected professor at the University of Chicago where Obama taught, “…even the presumption that infanticide is immoral is too presumptive and provincial to count as a moral universal.”

Only a moral realist truly affirms human rights. Yet the conviction that we all occupy one moral universe is not "high-minded" enough for elite universities, and unless one manages to escape higher education with one's moral compass unadjusted, what was abhorrent before exposure to postmodern deconstructionist thought will afterward be considered benign or even commendable.

Lest we forget, imprisonment of innocents, human experimentation, slavery, murder, and even genocide were legal in Germany during WWII, and it was the educated who formed the Einsatzgruppen “intervention groups” tasked with carrying out systematic mass murders of Jews, gypsies, and others. If there existed no moral realists during that time, there would have been no one willing to risk their own lives to protect society's outcasts. Meanwhile, many "good" German people chose to do nothing. Moral relativism instantiates what Martin Luther King referred to as "the appalling silence of the good people" and produces indifference - or at best diffidence - in the face of evil.

"We must face this challenge. We can face this challenge. We must totally defeat it, and we're in a long struggle." says McCain.

Says Obama the Intellectual, without a hint of irony, "Now, the one thing that I think is very important is for us to have some humility in how we approach the issue of confronting evil, because a lot of evil's been perpetrated based on the claim that we were trying to confront evil."

As Edmund Burke wrote, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good [people] to do nothing." Yet Obama the Intellectual represents a perspective that is not merely morally diffident, but posits moral equivalences between actions that should be easily recognized as morally unequal. He additionally manages to associate with people who would be (correctly) unambiguously identified as racist (Wright and Farrakhan), felonious (Rezko) and terrorist (Ayers and wife, Dohrn) if they were evangelical, white, and “unintellectual.”

Cries of “we gotta be careful of guilt by association” and “these are attempts to connect Obama with events that happened when he was eight years old” obfuscate the real issue: how can we trust the judgment of someone who found none of his “controversial associates” beyond the pale? Even in condemning Ayers, Obama follows with “But…” and describes unrepentant Ayers as simply “a professor of education at the University of Illinois.”

Have we become so numb to the word "terrorist" that it has no effect when used to accurately describe FBI Most Wanted former fugitives, Ayers and Dohrn who helped blow up over 20 buildings (including one in which Ayers' former girlfriend accidentally blew herself up with a nail bomb)? Dohrn reportedly commended Charles Manson's followers while exhorting her compatriots to be “less wimpy” and was allegedly involved in the 1981 Brinks armed robbery in which two men were injured and three were murdered, leaving nine children fatherless.

Dohrn spent seven months in jail for refusing to cooperate with authorities. When two of their dear friends were sent to prison for murder and armed robbery, Ayers and Dohrn became guardians of the convicts' baby son whom they raised to be an intellectual - like themselves. When interviewed by Slate regarding his Rhodes scholarship in 2002, Yale graduate Chesa Boudin claimed he was dedicated to the same principles as "all" his parents.

It was in their living room that Obama the Intellectual’s breathtaking political ascent had its genesis in 1995, and seven years later, Ayers sat on a panel with Obama entitled, “Intellectuals in Times of Crisis.”

Intellectualism guarantees neither good judgment nor sound moral principles. One need only look at Colorado’s own Ward Churchill. But Churchill merely raved about terrorism. Ayers and Dohrn actually delivered. Churchill has at least one thing in common with the dynamite duo, though: Both Ayers and Dohrn are also university professors.

Come to think of it, “folksy and unintellectual” doesn’t sound so bad.

Dr. Pamela Zuker received her Ph.D. in Human Development and Psychology from the University of Chicago where she performed research at the National Opinion Research Center (NORC). She also holds degrees in Anthropology and Clinical Psychology, and practiced marriage, child, and family therapy before focusing on positive psychology. Her current research is on the role of meaning in adult life. She lives in the Roaring Fork Valley with her husband and two children.

Islamic guilt trip rolls on

Religious bias filings in the workplace are on the rise, according to the Wall Street Journal. Here's the link for their 10/16 story.. One must put this in proper perspective: such filings by Muslim groups constitute “classic cultural jihad”. Muslim groups will put continual pressure on employers and local officials to accommodate their culture and traditions with the intention of slowly but surely replacing ours entirely. This is the publicly announced long term Muslim goal.

The normal reaction of most decent Americans is to be non-confrontational, to try to compromise, to dialog, and to “reach out and understand”. The Muslims interpret this as weakness and push even harder. The key: Muslims feel morally superior to us, and have nothing but contempt for us. They have no problem cynically using our traditions of religious liberty and common decency to posture as “persecuted victims” and to strive to destroy the very liberties of which they are taking advantage.

If we wish to even have an America in 50 years, we will have to resist each and every encroachment. Look at Holland! They have tried to appease Muslim demands for 30 years. The result: Dutch culture is on the verge of disappearing into an Islamized Western Europe.

Locking in dependency is Obama's aim

I've been thinking a lot about Barack Obama and his tax plan. I'd prefer to spend my Saturdays thinking about college football, but since an Obama Presidency may force me to get a second job, well, here I am. Steve Charnovitz has a great letter today in the Wall Street Journal, commenting on the Journal's excellent piece entitled Obama's 95% Illusion. Here's what he said: Your editorial is very helpful in pointing out that Sen. Barack Obama's plan would allow 44% of U.S. taxpayers to enjoy no federal income tax liability. Such a policy is wrong in principle. If America is going to use an income tax to pay for the federal government, then all income earners should have to pay some tax.

Whenever any citizen is exempt from having to pay taxes, the untaxed citizen has little incentive to insist upon a responsible government. If we allow the tax rolls to fall to 56%, then we will soon be dangerously close to a tipping point where the majority of the public has no stake in insisting that politicians stop wasteful federal purchases and subsidies to special interests.

There are a couple of important things related to this letter that I think need to be addressed:

First, it is increasingly clear that Barack Obama's primary constituency is the non-tax payer. Because Obama's tax plan gives cash payments to those who don't pay any taxes at all, it amounts to another form of welfare. As the Journal points out:

The Tax Foundation estimates that under the Obama plan 63 million Americans, or 44% of all tax filers, would have no income tax liability and most of those would get a check from the IRS each year. The Heritage Foundation's Center for Data Analysis estimates that by 2011, under the Obama plan, an additional 10 million filers would pay zero taxes while cashing checks from the IRS.

So, Obama's plan is geared to increasing the number of non-tax payers. He is not trying to assist them in getting jobs that would help them earn enough money to pay taxes in the first place. Rather, by transferring wealth from tax payers to non-tax payers, Obama is actually enshrining a new and larger underclass -- dependent on government handouts for their livelihood. This is, of course, regressive. But it meets Obama's desire to make a large voting class permanently indebted to the Democrats.

Second, we are on a slippery path to having a majority of the nation being dependent on the innovation, hard work and entrepreneurship of a shrinking tax paying class. This is both unfair and unhealthy for the country. A permanent dependent class will be an economic burden and ultimately a killer for economic growth, because it will require new and ever higher taxes to support. What is the motivation for innovation if you know that 50, 60 or 70% of your income will go to supporting people who either don't work or don't pay taxes? How is that equitable?

It isn't equitable. And even worse, it totally ignores human nature. Multiple studies of welfare recipients have shown clearly that people want to be self-sufficient -- there is no pride in taking handouts. People want to feel proud about their lives and the work that they do. I don't believe that they want to be treated like children. The welfare reform of the 1990s proved that putting in place incentives for people to find work is effective. When given the right motivation, people find jobs for themselves. It's basic human behavior.

Unfortunately, Obama and the "well intentioned" Democrats have never understood this basic fact. The opposed welfare reform because they didn't think people could pull themselves up and provide for themselves. Their basic assumption is that we are not capable of taking care of ourselves. And now they are planning a system that will be a massive new entitlement program -- funded on the backs of those who get up every morning and go to work. It is destructive and will result in a massive new dependent class which society will have to deal with for generations.

Is this the kind of country America will become? A Democratic-socialist state with ever higher taxes and ever lower productivity?

This is the America that Barack Obama envisions. His tax plan proves it.

Enough with the Euro-smugness

From east to west, living room to board room, Americans are watching a slew of disturbing TV news stories . The focus of the citizen is overwhelmingly on the economy and his or her own, modest and hard earned treasure pile. This is not surprising, after all the Dow is behaving like a drunken clam and the finance sector is as chaotic as a college department meeting. The media is constantly rattling everyone’s cages and our commercial breaks are now plagued with the most annoying ads known to man: those of the goldbug.

In the depths of an election the worry meter on many Americans is high. We all want answers to our economic question and, in general, want to see this country restored to a place of prosperity, power, and might. But across the eastern ocean, in the world-weary lands of Western Europe, a strange and different dialogue is bubbling to the surface. In it, the cause for America’s troubles is not practical or function but moral and the feeling is not of despair but strangely, of glee.

As the United States hits a rather large bump in the road, many in Europe’s chattering class are taking up a rather despicable tone. This tone, in the forefront hammers home the idea that America’s Economic woes derive somehow from moral failing, that her age of dominance is over, and that both are happy occasions to root onward.

Moral supremacy and the role as judge has always been a part of the European tradition. Since 2000, this proclivity has been primarily focused against the United States and Israel in discussions that usually, either, apologize for Islamic terrorism, lift up the European ‘way’ as just, or simply scapegoat America for a host of domestic European problems. Recently, full and front page articles have popped up in major European papers claiming that the age of American dominance is over.

Strangely these articles and comments come with, not just a statement of fact, but a moral judgment and indictment of American and her way of life. Quite often the words ‘redneck’ ‘bubba’ and ‘empire’ appear when authors mention America and her apparently lost power.

Moreover, in these periodicals there is also an obvious bit of smug cheer. That is to say, that Americans current crisis is not just mentioned it is cheered on with a form of moiling academic demonology. In these circles, somehow, the financial troubles of America and Americans is actually a good thing.

Such feelings and statements are as uninformed as they are vile. To state things as they are and point out fault is one thing; but to actually root for calamity and chaos is quite another. Moreover, it is quite self-destructive. An important fact seems to escape most European chatterers, that is, if America ‘goes down’ that Europe will not be far behind.

We have already seen this as European markets have tumbled in the wake of U.S. financial problems. In a more abstract sense, a removal of U.S. power abroad would force Europe to actually grow up. Specifically, they would have to actually spend money on national defense and foreign policy as opposed to simply relying on the ample subsidy provided by both the United States and NATO.

The historian or more mature reader can attest to the fact that such disruptions from Europe are not exactly new. For years, on many European College Campuses, it has been both fashionable and convenient to viciously assail the United States. Such criticism usually comes in the form of vaguely defined critiques of U.S. policies and or a bizarrely styled bit of political wishful thinking that is not founded in the realities of America or Europe.

Even further back it should be remembered that in the 19th century it was the keen desire of many European Nations to subjugated American foreign policy and behavior to their will and call. Happily this did not happen and it is important that it does not happen now. Listening to friends is fine, but doing whatever they say while they slap you in the face is not.

Unfortunately, it is likely that these academic and anemic voices will continue to blame the United States with the smug liberal tone of Maddow, Mahr, Obama and Pelosi. This blame game will probably disparage the United States for the global economic crisis without the responsibility of say acknowledging that Europe readily invested in America and made economic blunders of its own. This is a shame and will only hinder Europe’s own recovery.

Relations between Europe and America have always been complex and full of recrimination. I like Europe, I like their food, silly accents and women, and I also share their desire for close relations. But I don’t appreciate their chattering classes smug back biting and moral judgment. I’d also say that if Europe wants closer relations and wants to influence U.S. policy, it would help if they don’t constantly attack the U.S. with puerile name calling and instead replace it with a real dialogue.