A Record of Prodigious Failure

It is a record of prodigious failure:

(1) the promise to close Gitmo in the first year -- failed

(2) the 800 billion dollar stimulus package intended to fund shovel-ready jobs and to fix both unemployment and a staggering economy -- failed

(3) the promise to provide the most transparent administration in history -- failed

(4) the promise to push the reset button regarding our relationship with Russia -- failed

(5) the promise to set US-Islamic relations on a better footing than under Bush -- failed

(6) the promise to restore American prestige in the world to new heights -- failed

(7) the promise to reduce the income gap between rich and poor in America -- failed

(8) the promise to use the Arab Spring to promote better regimes and relations in the Arab middle east – failed

(9) the promise to be the post-partisan and post-racial president who healed America and closed its divisions – failed

(10) the promise to reduce the deficit and the national debt -- failed

(11) the promise not to raise taxes on the poor and the middle class -- failed

(12) the promise to pass a budget, any budget, any year -- failed

(13) the promise not to let Detroit go bankrupt -- failed

(14) the promise to put all pending legislation on line for at least five days prior to voting so that the American people can read it and debate it -- failed.

No doubt you recall your own set of Obama’s failed promises.  There are so many, it’s hard for one person to remember even the most important ones, let alone remember them all.

A Note to My Libertarian Friends

         I do not say that the libertarian commitment to preserve liberty is wrong, far from it.  Human freedom is a rare and valuable condition, one that deserves protection.  But I do say that American libertarianism lacks electoral prudence, and therefore is grotesquely self-destructive.  By its false notion of ideological purity, and by its political ineptitude, American libertarianism repeatedly and predictably marginalizes itself and prevents the success of its own important ideas.

         I want to tell my libertarian friends that they and their agenda are doomed until they learn how to win at party politics.  If you don’t know how to make your agenda prevail even in the major political party closest to your own ideals, then you won’t win elections.  If you don’t win elections, your ideas, however good they might be, will not obtain.  Someone else’s will.  If you don’t win elections, you will never get your hands on the levers of power, by which you can better establish an atmosphere more conducive to, and protective of, human freedom.

         I often have heard my libertarian friends eschew getting their hands on power.   To them, wielding power is tantamount to tyranny.  But it is not.  To have freedom, you must first have order.  To have order, you must first have power.  If you have power, you can establish policies, procedures, and institutions that foster human freedom.  If you refuse to learn how to get power and how to wield it, you doom yourself to failure.  If you wish to turn back tyranny, you must learn how get power and to exercise it so that the tyrants are kept at bay.  To suppress tyrants is not a compromise of freedom, but the very means of its preservation and a necessity of the first rank.  No power, no order; no order, no freedom.

         To my assertion above, my libertarian friends invariably assert the notion of spontaneous order.

         Yes, I know about spontaneous order.  It sometimes happens.  It sometimes works.  But I also know about not-so-spontaneous disorder, which, given human appetite, human combativeness, human greed, human apathy, and human ignorance, is a far more likely and predictable outcome than its alternative, especially on a national and international scale.  For various reasons, some people, some movements, and some nations crave disorder and chaos, and they will bring it about by whatever means come to hand, mass violence included.  In the face of the determined powers of disruption, subversion, and dislocation, libertarians need to be reminded that it takes a power to check a power.

         But libertarians don’t know how to get power.  Indeed, when it comes to getting power, they are shockingly, even jaw-droppingly inept.  They are so inept that they have never won even a single national election, not one.

         In fact, I have overstated their achievement.  It seems not to have occurred to them that even though I have never run for public office, and likely never will, I single-handedly have equaled the entire electoral vote count of Ron Paul, about whom libertarians swoon as if he were a rock star.  I have equaled him easily and without any expense at all.  Ron Paul and his supporters have invested years and millions upon millions of dollars in order to end up with me in an ignominious electoral tie: 0-0.  Clearly, if that’s what they have to show for their efforts, their time, and their money, they are doing something tremendously wrong headed.  They engage in electoral malpractice on the most spectacular national level I have ever witnessed in America.

         That failure results from following the wrong principles.  Too many libertarians prefer preserving ideological purity to practicing political prudence.  That is, they prefer to suffer defeat rather than to make smaller, incremental, steps toward their ultimate goal, steps that require what to them is compromise.  But it’s not compromise at all.  It looks compromise to them only because they seek to follow purely and resolutely the wrong methods and goal.  They need to junk their so-called ideological purity and in its place decide to make whatever incremental steps they can toward their final objective.  They ought to aim at accomplishing whatever progress is possible at the moment, however large or small it might be, thereby clawing and inching, if need be, to their intended destination.  They want to throw a touchdown pass when the best play available at this point in the game is three yards straight up the middle.

         Rather than achieving what actually can be achieved in the real world, libertarians too often banish themselves to the margins of political life by convincing themselves that they ought to sit out elections wherein the choice is between the lesser of two evils, as if a non-evil choice were ever actually possible.  There are no perfect political candidates, period.  There never have been and there never will be.  Every candidate and every platform will entail inevitable tradeoffs:  To get A, you’ll have to consent to B.  All political choices in a fallen world have been, and will continue to be, tradeoffs.  Libertarians despise tradeoffs, and seem to think that tradeoffs sully them and their movement.   But no; these tradeoffs make progress toward their ultimate libertarian goal possible.  Eschewing tradeoffs means only that you are now no closer to victory than you were when you first began.

         Victory for freedom is a tortoise and hare affair. It is faster to go slow.  It is faster to deal than not to deal.  You cannot get from here to an acceptable and preservable freedom in one ideologically pure leap, or even in six.   

         That is my first encouragement to the libertarians:  Learn how to play the game.  Learn how to win.  Learn how to get the power necessary to establish and protect freedom.

         Here is my second:  Learn that your political quest, as normally articulated, is conceptually ambiguous, perhaps even vacuous.  Learn that freedom is an incomplete concept.  You can’t be for freedom in the abstract.  You must be for, or against, specific freedoms.  When someone tells me that he or she is for freedom, I want to ask, “Freedom -- to do what?”  I must ask that question because some alleged freedoms are colossally vile, like the alleged freedom to slaughter one’s children before birth.

         I am for freedom in some cases and against it in others, just like I am for force in some cases and against it in others.  It’s simply foolish and presumptuous to be for either freedom or force in the abstract.  Real life isn’t about abstractions, but about realities.  It’s about the specifics, the details.  God, we must remind ourselves, is in the details, and so is prudent and precise political thinking.

         Don’t simply be for freedom, libertarians.   Be for this freedom or that.  To be simply for freedom is no more helpful or insightful than when liberals tell us they are for hope and change.  They need to tell us quite specifically, what they are hoping for, and what exact changes they propose.  Anything less specific is lazy and stems from a desire to spare oneself the great labor of precise conception, precise articulation, precise analysis, precise application, and precise defense.  In place of those multiple precisions is a mere ideologically based general judgment that allows lazy thinkers to take a position on insufficiently analyzed problems, or so they think.

         The lazy and the imprecise will not inherit the earth. They’ll inherit only the leftovers.    

Geopolitical Debate

Jonathan,

         Thanks for your thoughtful and well-articulated response, which I appreciate.  I value your contribution even if, as perhaps you’d suspect, I dissent.

         Yes, other administrations have had border agent injuries and fatalities.  That does not mean the Obama administration is not responsible for its own, especially in light of the bizarrely conceived and executed “Fast and Furious” program, and the way the administration so aggressively opposes at law the states trying to protect themselves against the hordes of illegals that now cross our borders, the total number of whom now reaches more than 13 million.

         Among those illegals are plenty of folks from the more than 30 nations we deem terrorist supporters or terrorist regimes.  We know this because of the documents they leave behind, things like bomb-making manuals, copies of the Koran, and maps of possible terrorism targets.  Yet the Obama administration seeks frequently to hinder those who want to protect us from illegal aliens and from their armed and dangerous protectors, which results in dead and injured agents and which has turned Tucson into the kidnapping capital of North America.

         Empires are attacked because of their oppression and injustice.  They are attacked in spite of  their strength, not because of it.  Whether justly or unjustly, their strength delays or prevents attack.  When I say that peace comes through strength I have in mind nations like Switzerland, which stayed at peace and remained unattacked even while two world wars raged around them on all sides.  The Swiss made the price of entry simply too high for anyone to pay.  No one wanted a piece of that snarling badger, so they left Switzerland alone.  They had peace through strength. 

         Not only do we have deadly enemies, they have killed us by the thousands.  They will kill us by the thousands more if they get the chance.  They look for that chance every day.  They have killed Israelis by the thousands too.  Indeed, they seek ways to wipe Israel off the map and are working toward that end every day, whether in the past it was Saddam Hussein lobbing SCUD missiles into Israel or paying $22,000 to the surviving families of Palestinian terrorists who died while killing Israelis, or in the present it is the Iranians who, against the will of the civilized world, seek the nuclear weapons it needs to annihilate Israel.  So great is the threat to Israel that Henry Kissinger said last week that he didn’t think Israel would exist as a nation for even 10 more years.

         And you cannot appease those who, for religious reasons, seek your death.  That is not how religious extremists think or operate.  Militant Islam has been at war with the West for centuries upon centuries.  Nothing has stopped them, whether appeasement, defeat, or something in between.  Nothing but the end of time will stop them.  As long as this world lasts, Islamic hatred for the West will continue.  We must make our policies on that basis.

         Putin is an ex-KGBer.  The “ex” is only institutional, not by personal conviction.  In his mind and methods, he is what he always was.  He is at the head of resurgent communism in Russia, which hasn’t changed its goals, just modified some of its methods.  The Chinese communists are the same in that regard.  They still mean to be what they always meant to be -- first the Asian and then the global hegemon.  They adjust their methods to their changing circumstances, but their end game is not thereby altered, only the way they get to it.

         North Korea is no threat to us, you are quite right.  They do their best to ally with some of our enemies, but they exist only at China’s will.  The Chinese could end that pathetic little regime at any moment, and no one would stop them.  The North Koreans do what they do by China’s passive, sometimes active, will and permission.  In that light, the only reason that you can go to class every day in peace, or even at all, is because of American power.  You have peace through American strength, of which China is more than well aware.  That’s what keeps them out of Taiwan, out of the disputed Senkaku islands, and out of South Korea.

         Again, Jonathan, many thanks.      

    

Barack and I

         A liberal told me yesterday that I am not as good a thinker as Barack Obama.

         Perhaps that is so; perhaps it is not.

         But I know this, and Barack Obama doesn’t:

         (1) Keynesian economics is a great failure.  Massive government spending is not the engine that drives a thriving economy, and it is not the path to prosperity.  Neither is a crushing national debt.

         (2) Demand-side economics does not produce goods and services in the same lush way as does supply-side economics, which means that if you want sound policy you ought to read Arthur Laffer, not J. M. Keynes.

         (3) Amassing 16 trillion dollars in debt leads to credit downgrades, higher interest rates, and a lethargic marketplace characterized by reduced investment and higher unemployment, not to economic prosperity.

         (4) You cannot be safe if you have porous borders.  Neither can your border agents.

         (5) No nation has ever been attacked because it was too strong, but many have been attacked because they were too weak and could not mount an effective defense.  Peace comes through strength; weakness invites attack.

         (6) We have deadly enemies who cannot be appeased.  Our deadly enemies are Israel’s deadly enemies.  The US and Israel, therefore, need to stand together.

         (7) Ideas do not die simply because they have been refuted roundly, soundly, and repeatedly.  Communism is not dead and it will not die.  It simply and continually re-organizes.  Vladimir Putin and his ideological allies in China and North Korea are up to no good.  Never trust them to have your best interests at heart -- never.

         (8) A nation that cannot or will not acknowledge God inevitably thinks that government is the highest power; that self-satisfaction is the highest good; and that self-indulgence is the best path to it.

         (9) A nation that slaughters its young cannot be trusted to know the right thing or to do it.  It cannot be trusted to make the heavy sacrifices necessary to maintain freedom.  That nation falters because it has severed the connection between duty and liberty.  Without the higher calling and higher morality that only life under God brings, nothing more profound than mere orgasm rules the citizens’ actions.

         (10) Neither private virtue nor public duty has any suitable substitute.  Either you do the right thing or you slide downhill.  No other option exists.

Condi Rice's Speech before the RNC

Prepared Remarks at Republican Convention

Good evening. Distinguished delegates, fellow Republicans, fellow Americans.

We gather here at a time of significance and challenge. This young century has been a difficult one. I will never forget the bright September day, standing at my desk in the White House, when my young assistant said that a plane had hit the World Trade Center – and then a second one – and a third, the Pentagon. And then the news of a fourth, driven into the ground by brave citizens that died so that many others would live. From that day on our sense of vulnerability and our understanding of security would be altered forever. Then in 2008 the global financial and economic crisis stunned us and still reverberates as unemployment, economic uncertainty and failed policies cast a pall over the American recovery so desperately needed at home and abroad.

And we have seen once again that the desire for freedom is universal – as men and women in the Middle East demand it. Yet, the promise of the Arab Spring is engulfed in uncertainty; internal strife and hostile neighbors are challenging the fragile democracy in Iraq; dictators in Iran and Syria butcher their own people and threaten the security of the region; China and Russia prevent a response; and all wonder, “Where does America stand?”

Indeed that is the question of the moment- “Where does America stand?” When our friends and our foes, alike, do not know the answer to that question – clearly and unambiguously -- the world is a chaotic and dangerous place. The U.S. has since the end of World War II had an answer – we stand for free peoples and free markets, we are willing to support and defend them – we will sustain a balance of power that favors freedom.

To be sure, the burdens of leadership have been heavy. I, like you, know the sacrifices that Americans have made – yes including the ultimate sacrifice of many of our bravest. Yet our armed forces remain the sure foundation of liberty. We are fortunate to have men and women who volunteer – they volunteer to defend us on the front lines of freedom. And we owe them our eternal gratitude.

I know too that it has not always been easy – though it has been rewarding – to speak up for those who would otherwise be without a voice – the religious dissident in China; the democracy advocate in Venezuela; the political prisoner in Iran.

It has been hard to muster the resources to support fledgling democracies– or to help the world’s most desperate - the AIDs orphan in Uganda, the refugee fleeing Zimbabwe, the young woman who has been trafficked into the sex trade in Southeast Asia; the world’s poorest in Haiti. Yet this assistance – together with the compassionate works of private charities – people of conscience and people of faith - has shown the soul of our country.

And I know too that there is weariness – a sense that we have carried these burdens long enough. But if we are not inspired to lead again, one of two things will happen – no one will lead and that will foster chaos --- or others who do not share our values will fill the vacuum. My fellow Americans, we do not have a choice. We cannot be reluctant to lead – and one cannot lead from behind.

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan understand this reality -- that our leadership abroad and our well being at home are inextricably linked. They know what needs to be done. Our friends and allies must be able to trust us. From Israel to Poland to the Philippines to Colombia and across the world -- they must know that we are reliable and consistent and determined. And our adversaries must have no reason to doubt our resolve -- because peace really does come through strength. Our military capability and technological advantage will be safe in Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan’s hands.

We must work for an open global economy and pursue free and fair trade – to grow our exports and our influence abroad. In the last years, the United States has ratified three trade agreements, all negotiated in the Bush Administration. If you are concerned about China’s rise – consider this fact – China has signed 15 Free Trade Agreements and is negotiating 20 more. Sadly we are abandoning the playing field of free trade – and it will come back to haunt us.

We must not allow the chance to attain energy independence to slip from our grasp. We have a great gift of oil and gas reserves here in North America that must be and can be developed while protecting our environment. And we have the ingenuity in the private sector to tap alternative sources of energy.

And most importantly, Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan will rebuild the foundation of American strength – our economy – stimulating private sector led growth and small business entrepreneurship. When the world looks at us today they see an American government that cannot live within its means. They see a government that continues to borrow money, mortgaging the future of generations to come. The world knows that when a nation loses control of its finances, it eventually loses control of its destiny. That is not the America that has inspired others to follow our lead.

After all, when the world looks to America, they look to us because we are the most successful political and economic experiment in human history. That is the true basis of “American Exceptionalism.” The essence of America – that which really unites us -- is not ethnicity, or nationality or religion – it is an idea -- and what an idea it is: That you can come from humble circumstances and do great things. That it doesn’t matter where you came from but where you are going.

Ours has never been a narrative of grievance and entitlement. We have not believed that I am doing poorly because you are doing well. We have not been envious of one another and jealous of each other’s success. Ours has been a belief in opportunity and a constant battle – long and hard -- to extend the benefits of the American dream to all – without regard to circumstances of birth.

But the American ideal is indeed endangered today. There is no country, no not even a rising China, that can do more harm to us than we can do to ourselves if we fail to accomplish the tasks before us here at home.

More than at any other time in history –the ability to mobilize the creativity and ambition of human beings forms the foundation of greatness. We have always done that better than any country in the world. People have come here from all over because they believed in our creed – of opportunity and limitless horizons. They have come from the world’s most impoverished nations to make five dollars not fifty cents– and they have come from the world’s advanced societies – as engineers and scientists -- to help fuel the knowledge based revolution in the Silicon Valley of California; the research triangle of North Carolina; in Austin, Texas; along Route 128 in Massachusetts – and across our country.

We must continue to welcome the world’s most ambitious people to be a part of us. In that way we stay perpetually young and optimistic and determined. We need immigration laws that protect our borders; meet our economic needs; and yet show that we are a compassionate people.

We have been successful too because Americans have known that one’s status at birth was not a permanent station in life. You might not be able to control your circumstances but you could control your response to your circumstances. And your greatest ally in doing so was a quality education.

Let me ask you, though, today, when I can look at your zip code and can tell whether you are going to get a good education – can I really say that it doesn’t matter where you came from – it matters where you are going. The crisis in K-12 education is a grave threat to who we are.

My mom was a teacher – I have the greatest respect for the profession – we need great teachers – not poor or mediocre ones. We need to have high standards for our students – self-esteem comes from achievement not from lax standards and false praise. And we need to give parents greater choice – particularly poor parents whose kids – most often minorities -- are trapped in failing neighborhood schools. This is the civil rights struggle of our day.

If we do anything less, we will condemn generations to joblessness, hopelessness and dependence on the government dole. To do anything less is to endanger our global economic competitiveness. To do anything less is to tear apart the fabric of who we are and cement a turn toward grievance and entitlement.

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan will rebuild us at home and inspire us to lead abroad. They will provide an answer to the question, “Where does America stand?” The challenge is real and these are tough times. But America has met and overcome difficult circumstances before. Whenever you find yourself doubting us – just think of all the times that we have made the impossible seem inevitable in retrospect.

America’s victorious revolutionary founding – against the greatest military power of the time; a Civil War – hundreds of thousands dead in a brutal conflict – but emerging a stronger union; a second founding – as impatient patriots fought to overcome the birth defect of slavery and the scourge of segregation; a long struggle against communism – that ended with the death of the Soviet Union and the emergence of Europe, whole free and at peace; the will to make difficult decisions, heart-wrenching choices in the aftermath of 9/11 that secured us and prevented the follow-on attacks that seemed preordained at the time.

And on a personal note– a little girl grows up in Jim Crow Birmingham – the most segregated big city in America - her parents can’t take her to a movie theater or a restaurant – but they make her believe that even though she can’t have a hamburger at the Woolworth’s lunch counter – she can be President of the United States and she becomes the Secretary of State. Yes, America has a way of making the impossible seem inevitable in retrospect. But of course it has never been inevitable – it has taken leadership, courage and an unwavering faith in our values.

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan have the experience and the integrity and the vision to lead us – they know who we are, what we want to be and what we offer the world.

That is why this is a moment – an election – of consequence. Because it just has to be – that the most compassionate and freest country on the face of the earth – will continue to be the most powerful!

May God Bless You – and May God continue to bless this extraordinary, exceptional country – the United States of America.

Labor Unions and the Mythical Free Riders

Labor unions make constant, even habitual, reference to someone they call the “free rider,” by which they mean a person who enjoys the benefits of union activity but who does not pay for them.  But the free rider, at least as he or she is understood and depicted by the unions, does not exist.

Here’s what I mean:  Men and women who, for various reasons, refused to consent to the Communist party and its tactics in the old Soviet Union were not free riders on the train to the peoples’ socialist utopia, even if they were able to keep their jobs in the process.  Those jobs were not free.  Indeed, they came at an extremely high price, the price of freedom.  Those dissident workers were convinced that the destination was a delusion and that the journey to it was an exercise in oppressive compulsion, of which they wanted no part, even if the Soviet Union allegedly paid for the ticket. 

Labor unions, much like the Soviet Union, do not want individual workers to have the choice to go their own way to their own destinations.  Labor unions wish to eliminate free workers and their free choices.  Therefore unions do their best to get the legislators they pay for with political donations drawn from union dues to pass laws forbidding the existence of the dissenters, the so-called free riders.  Because they wish to stay in office, the bought-and-paid-for legislators do as they are told, constricting or prohibiting the right to work.

Yet, despite the political and personal opposition arrayed against them, dissenters prefer to go their own direction by their own means.  They do so for many reasons:  Perhaps they are lazy and selfish freeloaders, as unions depict them.  Or, perhaps they have examined the union, its leadership, its goals, and its methods and cannot consent.  Perhaps they have had a long, fruitful, enjoyable, and mutually respectful and beneficial relationship with their employer and do not wish to see that relationship suspended or distorted as it must be if the union intrudes.  Perhaps they think unionism itself is inimical to personal ambition, to incentive, and to freedom.  Perhaps they simply haven’t made up their minds on the issue of unions, whether for or against.  For whatever reason(s), they are not onboard.

To label such independents “free riders” and not also “innocent victims” is to tell but half their story, as if they were merely the beneficiaries of the union and not also its casualties, as if independent workers did not get caught up in strikes and other job actions that they do not condone but cannot evade.  Whenever the union so decides, independents are involuntarily deprived of their living even though those strikes and job actions are built upon principles to which they do not consent and are called for reasons and purposes they might personally denounce.  Nevertheless, the independent workers must endure these shut downs and job actions without the benefit of union strike funds, and must do so despite their disagreements and disapproval.

Take, for example, the great American steel strike of 1959, which lasted so long and cost steel workers, both union and non-union, so much in lost wages that it would have taken more than 120 years of their union-won wage increases to balance the gain/loss scales.  I say “would have” because it never happened and never will.  That strike opened the door for foreign steel makers and their cheaper steel to enter American markets, which caused nearly a quarter million -- more than 200,000 -- American steel workers to lose their jobs permanently, including the so-called free riders, who never consented to the strike or to the economic disaster it produced for them.

Not to mention the threats to their family, their property, and themselves, sometimes fatal, that independents have had to face from union goons in order to maintain their occupational autonomy.

Independent workers are being taken along for a ride by  the unions, that’s for sure.  But the ride is not free.