Unimaginable leftism in Cambridge case

John Lennon’s 1971 lyrics to “Imagine” reflected the head Beatle's lofty idealism -- which was embraced by many, while others attacked the song's brazen, impudent, hardened, and bold promotion of socialism. Imagine there's no Heaven , It's easy if you try No hell below us, Above us only sky Imagine all the people, Living for today

Imagine there's no countries, It isn't hard to do Nothing to kill or die for, And no religion too Imagine all the people, Living life in peace

You may say that I'm a dreamer, But I'm not the only one I hope someday you'll join us, And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can No need for greed or hunger, A brotherhood of man Imagine all the people, Sharing all the world

You may say that I'm a dreamer, But I'm not the only one I hope someday you'll join us, And the world will live as one

Lyric highlights (or lowlights, depending on your perspective): IMAGINE THERE’S NO HEAVEN…IMAGINE THERE’S NO COUNTRIES…AND NO RELIGION TOO…IMAGINE NO POSSESSIONS…IMAGINE ALL THE PEOPLE, SHARING ALL THE WORLD…I HOPE SOMEDAY YOU’LL JOIN US, AND THE WORLD WILL LIVE AS ONE.

Weren’t statements like "imagine no possessions" characterized as un-American in 1971? How about no religion, no countries, and his vision for a one world society? John Lennon expressed his world vision to a rebellious and sympathetic post-Vietnam war America. Was his agenda idealistic, therefore, unrealistic? Was he promoting Communism or Socialism, therefore, a radical agenda? Most assuredly.

According to Wiktionary “What goes around comes around” is an English Proverb which means the status eventually returns to its original value after completing some sort of cycle. That can be a frightening thought, but, unfortunately, it is true. Fast forward 38 years…

Can you IMAGINE a police officer in Cambridge, Massachusetts arresting a hostile and unruly Harvard University professor late one night after which the President of the United States, shooting from the hip, hastily and irrationally jumps into the fray offering “I don’t have all the facts, but the police acted stupidly.” After several days of hectic damage control meetings and frantic back peddling by his minions our “beloved” President spoke again saying “I should have chosen my words more carefully.” No, Mr. President, you should have stayed out if it. But I am thrilled you have alienated every policeman and policewoman in America. And to cap off several days of irresponsible remarks our #1 hothead-in-chief offered “it might have been better if cooler heads had prevailed.”

Don’t you have anything else to do Mr. President? How about dealing with the unprecedented debt, reckless spending, massive unemployment and the economic crisis you and your cronies in Congress foisted upon an unwilling America? Or yet another “Obamnation” due to your ill-advised and disastrous cap & trade plan which is nothing more than a new tax on the working class? How about the health care program you are forcing down our collective throats despite our repeated protestations? And all you can do is resort to name calling for those who oppose your plans (“obstructionists”). That doesn’t sound like really mature leadership and the change we need, Mr. President.

To add fuel to the fire Massachusetts “beloved” African-American Governor Deval Patrick chimed in with this ill-advised remark, “A policeman coming to your front door is every black man’s worst nightmare.” What? Oh, did I mention Cambridge police sergeant James Crowley is white and the unruly Harvard professor is an African-American and the neighbor who called the police to report the apparent home break-in was also African-American? It should all be irrelevant.

While others may say President Obama is arrogant I cannot agree. He is more than arrogant...perhaps elitist. It has been said his arrogance is exceeded only by his lack of integrity. Shame on President Obama and Governor Patrick for their racially divisive and uninformed remarks.

EPILOGUE: My personal response to the very talented Mr. Lennon whose life was cut way too short and the perhaps well-meaning but certainly inexperienced Mr. Obama regarding your shared agenda for socialism in America… no, I cannot IMAGINE that!

California kicks the can (again)

You have to love the politicians in Sacramento -- maybe not as embarrassing as those in Congress but pretty darn close! As I've written previously, the state has been in a fiscal mess of its own making, issuing high-interest IOUs in lieu of cash. Its just the latest annual budget fiasco in a state that spends more than it takes in -- in part because it gets over half its tax base from a tiny percentage of its richest residents whose incomes don't stay steady. Add to that an annual "cost of living increase" baked into the state's huge employee and pension contracts (regardless of annual revenue) and you have the kind of deficit spending that government is so good at. Now news comes tonight that the state has -- at least according to the questionable standards of the  San Jose Mercury News -- made a Budget Breakthrough solves California's long fiscal nightmare. Only it hasn't "solved" anything -- other than the current fiscal problems. What it didn't do is come to any kind of structural or long-term solution:

The deal would include Democratic concessions of more than $14 billion in program cuts — hitting the poor, children, the elderly and disabled while avoiding outright elimination of the state's welfare-to-work CalWORKS program and the Healthy Families health insurance program for children.Though they failed to get permanent reductions in welfare programs, Schwarzenegger and Republican legislators were able to uphold their vow of no new taxes with a series of accounting shifts and an enforced "loan" of nearly $4 billion from local governments.

Those accounting tricks include accelerating income tax withholdings from residents' paychecks by 10 percent,effectively shifting millions of next year's revenues into this year's budget, and delaying state workers' June 30, 2010 paychecks by one day — and thus, into next fiscal year.

From the beginning, Democrats had little hope that they could win approval of tax increases, though they proposed popular measures such as $2 billion in taxes on oil companies, alcohol and tobacco sales and the closing of numerous corporate loopholes.

Although they represent barely more than one-third of either the Senate or the Assembly, Republicans have near-veto power over the proceedings, thanks to the constitutional requirement of a two-thirds vote for budgets and taxes.

Despite an ardent lobbying effort, cities and counties likely will take a major hit, with the state poised to borrow nearly $4 billion in revenues from property taxes and gas taxes. Critics say that will result in a devastating impact on local services.

Only in California, then, can you fail to make any headway on the longer-term issue of out-of-control spending and a shrinking revenue base while solving the problem with accounting gimmicks -- and call it a "success".  What the state has done is simply to kick the can down the road yet again, so that next year it will have to go through this all over again. Now that's what I call inspired political leadership!

What do you expect from a legislature that is bought and paid for by the unions and special interests, and a governor who talks tough but doesn't really have the stomach (or principle) for the kind of show down that might have really fixed this problem once and for all?  Creative accounting followed by a huge passing of the buck to local governments, which will now have to make the tough choices that Sacramento didn't have the courage to make.

And we now are going to give health care to Washington? Are we completely nuts?

“Born Yesterday” years out of date

TCM, the Turner Classic Movie channel, offers a steady stream of yesterday’s movies. Sometimes it offers a classic that provides more than nostalgia, with a window into the past that contrasts sharply with the present. "Born Yesterday (1950)," a popular comedy about both the virtues and the dangers of a little learning, ran this week, and made me lament the passing of the sort of education that can no longer be taken from granted. All I knew as a seven-year-old, besides the fact that bright theatre marquees displayed the movie’s title and stars in vivid letters, was that a beautiful but dumb woman, Emma "Billie" Dawn (played by Judy Holliday) was getting a lot of laughs for the ignorant, if not stupid things she consistently said. I heard something about the story being somewhat more complicated than that, but that’s about as far as my comprehension went. Now I know–and know of–many people who have been formally educated far beyond what Billie learned but possess far less understanding than she acquired.

Emma is the seven-year girl friend of Harry Brock (played by Broderick Crawford), a millionaire tycoon who thinks and acts more like a hoodlum than a businessman. (Unfortunately, this is the perennial Hollywood caricature of people in other businesses, or is it a self portrait?) He wants to get some results for his congressional bribes, so he must make the Washington D.C. scene. Unfortunately, he is burdened by a woman lacking in the social graces and incredibly ignorant, or so he thinks. In due course, he comes into contact with a polished journalist named Paul Verrall (played by William Holden) who, it occurs to Brock, can educate his "dumb broad" and not embarrass him around all the important people he must meet and/or win over. His scheme is to get a bill passed that, in ways that are not particularly clear, give him the edge over his domestic and foreign competitors in the junk business.

In any case, Brock thinks he is pretty smart to hit upon this idea, but events, to put it mildly, take a different turn. Billie, who goes blank when her tutor makes a reference to the Supreme Court, soon gets a pretty thorough tour of the nation’s capital and picks up a dizzying vocabulary along with a lot of pertinent information. Her life is transformed, not only by the accumulation of books, most notably a huge dictionary, but by her attraction to the polished, polite and attentive Paul, with whom she quickly falls in love. But as inevitable and even just as their pairing is, it is overshadowed by the education she receives in the nation’s founding (with a qualification to be explained below).

Billie visits the capitol building and becomes acquainted with the immortals commemorated there. She also goes to art museums, attends concerts and browses through multiple historic sites, but the most impressive turns out to be the Jefferson Memorial. There she finds written the third President’s powerful words: "I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." Billie’s first gaze is mostly blank, but after she comes to know, through her education, that the man she’s been living with (and living comfortably) for so long is not merely annoying or difficult to deal with or understand, but is in fact a tyrant, Jefferson’s words take on considerably more meaning.

Of course, that is a lesson for us all, for tyrants are not merely ghastly men who rule countries outside our borders, but rise up among us, but restrained, for the most part, by laws, institutions and public opinion, and especially by the United States Constitution. Harry reasons with or otherwise deals politely with other people so long as they tell him or give him what he wants but flies into a rage at the slightest sign of disagreement or difficulty. Because Billie has (supposedly) read the works of Thomas Paine (but not of Abraham Lincoln), she has a pretty good idea of what a tyrant is, and her man fills the bill.

After years of complaisantly signing documents as if she were his wife, Billie decides she wants to read what they say. Harry’s shrewd advisor, Jim Devery (played by Howard St. John), pleads with Billie to sign but is unable to prevent the explosion that occurs when his boss finds out that the complaisance might be over. True to form, Harry beats Billie until she signs, although it is no surprise that she forms the intention then and there to leave him and never to sign onto any more of his opaque dealings.

When Billie finally resolves to bail out altogether, Harry can’t make up his mind whether he likes the idea or not, although it seems clear enough that he loves her, albeit in his own way, and would rather she stayed. But she is too educated for him now, for we learn as the movie progresses that Harry’s smarts are more often not pure bluster, which fools only those who are as ignorant as he is. The wise Paul hits upon a plan to thwart Harry once and for all.

"Born Yesterday," based on a Broadway play of the same name which opened in 1945, oversimplifies education, to be sure, in its own version of the Pygmalion story. (Compare "Never on Sunday" and "My Fair Lady.") But at least it is wholesome in holding out the prospect that an educated person can appreciate the virtues of our democratic form of government and the men who designed and implemented it. Yet not long after this, our university professors began to teach the opposite lesson, namely, that democracy is a sham and a delusion that enables the Harry Brocks of this world to rule in their own interest at the expense of a multitude of oppressed classes that run from the poor, to racial minorities, to women, to children, to homosexuals and lesbians, foreigners, and all of the "other" ad infinitum.

Education is no longer a source of hope and renewal but of cynicism and despair. Imagine if "Born Yesterday" had been produced with the assumptions of the professorial elite in our time. Billie would have learned that the problem is not Harry Brock so much as the United States of America. Rather than celebrating our form of government, the "educated" person concludes that it is rotten to the core and ought to be "transformed" into something entirely different.

There is a link, only somewhat tenuous, between Hollywood’s political thinking of 1945 and 2009. The enemy is fascism, then and now. There is no "enemy to the Left." Harry is labeled a fascist, not a communist, at least partly justified since the United States and its allies recently prevailed over the fascist dictators in Germany, Italy and Japan with the aid of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (never mind its complicity in starting the war). The evil of Josef Stalin and his totalitarian regime was not apparent to many, even if it should have been. In the glow of victory, this is an excusable error.

Too, liberals had convinced themselves, by virtue of their devotion to democracy, that they were the progeny of the founding fathers, also democrats. A clue to the film’s partisanship is in the very reliance on Thomas Jefferson who, unlike Lincoln, is remembered at the Democratic Party’s annual dinners. The Republicans completed the Lincoln Memorial in the 1920s and the Democrats countered with the Jefferson Memorial in the 1930s. Surely both will do for educating about tyrants, but the film’s choice of Jefferson puts it firmly in the Democratic camp.

Our problem today is that it is not so clear that liberals are as firmly in the democratic camp as they were at the close of the Second World War. Between leftist professors teaching students to scorn their country, their civilization and their religion, and Democrat politicians scoffing at any distinction between democratic and undemocratic regimes abroad, public opinion is being dumbed down at least as much as Billie was, if not more so. For if Billie did not appreciate her country’s virtues, at least she did not despise them. On the other hand, those "educated" people who openly malign the freest country on earth might just as well have been born yesterday.

Open season on conservatives

Jonah Goldberg points out how the left is stringing together two disconnected acts, the killing of abortionist George Tiller and the Holocaust museum shooting, to paint conservatives in dangerous light. Here's the link.The crux of the argument should be no surprise to anyone who reads the mainstream media -- namely, that angry right-wingers are taking their guns and going hunting for women, minorities, disabled people and anyone else who stands for "truth, justice and the (progressive) American way". Such broad, general linkages are in themselves offensive, of course -- but that doesn't get in the way of what Goldberg rightly calls "the whole point of these exercises (which) is to paint the Right as an undifferentiated blob of evil."

An equally interesting aspect of Goldberg's argument is the link he sees to a particularly virulent strain of anti-Semitism on the left. The left seems to think that U.S. foreign policy is in the clutches of the Jews -- a grip that liberal commentators link clearly to Bush-style neoconservatism:

After all, for years, mainstream liberalism and other outposts of paranoid Bush hatred have portrayed neoconservatives - usually code for conservative Jews and other supporters of Israel - as an alien, pernicious cabal. "They have penetrated the culture at nearly every level from the halls of academia to the halls of the Pentagon," observed the New York Times. "They've accumulated the wherewithal financially [and] professionally to broadcast what they think over the airwaves to the masses or over cocktails to those at the highest levels of government."

NBC's Chris Matthews routinely used the word "neocon" as if it was code for "traitor." He asked one guest whether White House neocons are "loyal to the Kristol neoconservative movement, or to the president." Von Brunn may have wondered the same thing, which is why he reportedly had the offices of Bill Kristol's Weekly Standard on his hit list.

Unhinged Bush-hater Andrew Sullivan insists that "The closer you examine it, the clearer it is that neoconservatism, in large part, is simply about enabling the most irredentist elements in Israel and sustaining a permanent war against anyone or any country who disagrees with the Israeli right." Leading liberal intellectual Michael Lind warned about the alarming fact that "the foreign policy of the world's only global power is being made by a small clique" of neoconservative plotters.

Even with Bush out of the picture, some see the problem emerging again. Just this week, Jeremiah Wright, the president's longtime mentor and pastor, whined that "Them Jews aren't going to let him talk to me."

It is easy to see why I and others see Obama as a less-than-stalwart friend of Israel. The sentiment Goldberg outlines -- a view that has been echoed by prominent academics John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt in their book "The Israeli Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" seems consistent with Obama's recent pressure on Israel to roll-back West Bank settlements and pursue a "two state" solution with the Palestinians -- not to mention his desire to engage in high-level diplomacy with the greatest existential threat to Israel -- the Islamic Republic of Iran His recent speech in Cairo to the "Muslim world" also carried a theme that was critical of Israel's efforts at self-defense -- a message that wasn't lost on the Israelis. Taken together, it is clear that the Obama administration sees the stalwart support of Israel -- a bedrock of U.S. Foreign Policy since the state of Israel was formed in 1947 -- as a something that is consistent with Bush Administration Middle East policy that it is trying to distance itself from.

At the root of all this, of course, is an effort to de-legitimize conservatism by linking it to radical movements that the left can easily define as "evil". It allows commentators in the mainstream media to demonize conservatives as being on the fringe, and thus makes it acceptable to make disparaging remarks against them. When Carrie Prejean, the former Miss California, had the guts to give her opinion on gay marriage, the left wing media pounced, calling her all kinds of names in a bevy of personal attacks. Such is also the case with Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh and others. If you can successfully paint those who hold conservative views as worthy of scorn, it is open season. Is this is the post-partisan, hope-filled change that Obama has promised?

Donald Douglas, who I have linked to frequently, has an important take on this -- and it is worth reading. He calls it nothing short of a "civil war" -- traditional values versus a "postmodernism" that has moral relativism as its foundation:

As regular readers well know, it's my personal belief that radical left-wing ideology is the greatest threat to the country today. Leftist radicalism and demonology is manifested not just in the corrosive political discourse of the online fever swamps, but on television with the likes of David Letterman and Keith Olbermann. Most importantly, radical postmodernism has reached the apex of power, with President Barack Obama's post-structural presidency. In general, the present danger from the left isn't the potential for violence or rebellion, it's the slow erosion of right and wrong in politics, and the steady weakening of America's exceptionalism and moral resolve in the face of domestic and international crises. The United States will be just another nation, if the leftists have their way. Excellence will be prohibited. Everyone will be "equal." No foreign nations will threaten us, and in time the U.S. will go the way of all other great hegemonic powers.

This is perfectly said -- and a wake up call to those who see the United States as a good and decent country where the tradition of hard work, individual liberty and political and religious freedom make it the envy of the world. Those values are under attack now from all quarters, and we ignore it at our peril.

Sotomayor's race colored glasses

Barack Obama's selection of Sonia Sotomayor is par for the course with this president, a man who ascended the presidency on the basis of a compelling personal story and a bag full of bromides about post-partisan hope and change. Those who bought the Obama schtick may not have known it then, but they elected a hyper-partisan pol with big dreams of remaking America into a social justice utopia where the ends always justify the means. Rules -- and indeed the rule of law -- mean little in this world where grievance politics dominate, and the playing field shifts regularly to protect those suffering all manner of "discrimination" at the hands of the (white) power structure. Its typical class warfare, only this time it is practiced with extreme efficiency and on the backs of a huge Congressional left-wing majority. For those who believe that America is a meritocracy and should be truly "color-blind", the country is now being run by those who see everything through race-colored glasses. The nomination of Sotomayor is a perfect example of this. Obama picked her not because she has the finest legal mind in the country (she does not), but because of she is an Hispanic woman who has a personal history that is appealing. She grew up poor in the Bronx and worked hard, and made something of herself. She also satisfies two check boxes on the identity politics checklist -- being a woman and a minority -- which brings Obama praise from NOW and other interest groups.

Ironically, Sotomayor's story is little different than that of conservative Justice Clarence Thomas -- a point eloquently made today by Kim Strassel in the Wall Street Journal. But whereas Thomas' personal struggles led him to embrace the lesson that if "I can do it, so can others" -- Sotomayor fell firmly into victimization's clutches, where she joins a legion of other minorities in the belief that the system is arrayed against them. The irony, of course, is that the evidence of their own success from hard-scrabble beginnings has done nothing to dissuade them from their hardened belief that somehow "the man" is out to get them. This is yet another example of how facts have little bearing on the "feeling" politics practiced by the left.

Sotomayor has made it clear that her view of the world -- and the law -- is based principally on her gender and background. It is something that she feels makes her better positioned to "come to a wise decision" than is a white man who hasn't been subjected to the devastating discrimination that people like Sotomayor see lurking behind every tree. If you view America as a mean place where Hispanics, women and other minorities need protection, then I suppose this is a reasonable position to take. But is this what a Justice of the United States Supreme Court should believe? Someone appointed to intepret the Constitution for all Americans -- white, black or other? A process that, by definition, must be impartial and based on legal fact and analysis?

As it happens, a famous case of Sotomayor's from her tenure on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals is now being reviewed by the current Supreme Court -- as the Wall Street Journal outlines today in the case of the New Haven Fire Department:

With a single paragraph, Judge Sonia Sotomayor and two colleagues dashed the hopes of firefighters here who believed they'd scored high enough on exams to win a promotion.

The three federal appeals judges said last year the city had the right to reject the results of two tests because no black firefighters scored high enough.

The ruling is now turning into perhaps the most contentious of the 4,000 Judge Sotomayor made in 17 years on the federal bench, and it is likely to come up in her Supreme Court confirmation hearings. The justices whom she may soon join on the high court are expected to rule within weeks on the case, which they took on an appeal by white firefighters.

The facts of the case are as follows:

A total of 118 applicants took the two tests for promotion to lieutenant or captain in late 2003, and 59 earned passing scores. Because there were limited vacancies, only the top scorers were eligible for promotion -- a group of 17 whites, and two Hispanics. None of the 27 black firefighters with passing scores was eligible.

New Haven city lawyers advised the city's Civil Service Board to reject the results, warning the city could be exposed to a race-discrimination lawsuit by minority firefighters if it let the exam stand. The board heard conflicting views on whether the test could have been re-engineered to have a less disparate impact. It split 2-2, which meant the exam wasn't certified.

This is classic liberal social engineering at work: you give a merit based test to determine promotions and tell firefighters to study hard for it. They take the test and when the results come back in a way that you don't like, you throw the results out and say "nevermind". If no blacks and only two Hispanics scored high enough, it must be because of some discrimination at work. Let's not reward those who passed -- let's reengineer the test so more blacks and Hispanics will pass.

Sotomayor was at the heart of this decision -- stating that it was in the "state's interest" to throw out the results so that the outcome was more to her liking. And what about the white firefighters who have now been discriminated against? To Sotomayor, it doesn't matter, because she lives in a world where color matters more than principle. This is a woman who values outcomes over equality -- even if it results in a decision that is reverse discrimination.

We can take some solace that her decision in New Haven is almost certainly going to be reversed by the current Supreme Court. But it leaves little comfort that we are now poised to put this very same judge on the highest court in the land for a generation to come.