Comment on the Belmont Club: "The First Amendment"

Notes of caution. There are two ways to view this, tactically and strategic. While it is easy to see the strategic advantages, clarity and simplicity and a reinforcing of the moral principles behind the Constitution, I am hesitant to climb on the bandwagon that says this is a tactical boon.

While it is true that the administration is making noises that would lead us to think that they agree with wretchard that "This clearly works against the administration" we should be careful not to get sucker punched. Great combines of financial power, such as GE and Disney and Goldman-Sachs are already backing the Democratic Party. This ruling could in the short term empower the oligarchs. Is it possible that the defensive bleats are intentional distractions? That is unlikely as while the inner operatives of the administration (Emanuel, Axelrod and Jarrett) may be conspiracy theorists at heart they lack the competence to act out their fantasies on more than an intermittent basis. Still it possible that the call for increased banking regulations on the same day that Goldman-Sachs reported record profits may have been less due to ironic coincidence and more a deliberate effort to distract and deflect the anger that the administration had whipped up towards less favored financial managers, such as AIG, 16 months ago.

The concern about foreign manipulation of domestic politics needs to be addressed directly and in a way that does not restrict the liberties of citizens. Congress should pass a law that all corporate entities that are over 20% foreign owned must report their extent of foreign control in every political statement directed at an American audience. If over 30% foreign owned then the identity of the nationality of the owners should be included in the statement. If over 40% foreign owned that specific targeted restrictions on political speech could be developed. Similar rules should be created based on the percentage of managers and corporate officers who are not US citizens.

Holders of non-immigrant visas should be barred from engaging in political advocacy and that warning should be posted at the Ports and attached to visas. Holders of immigrant visas, that is Permanent Residents, should be warned to identify themselves as such when engaging in political advocacy. Voting by a non-citizen in a Federal election is already grounds for removal and being permanently barred from reentry into the United States. This need to protect the integrity of the political process is a subject that reinforces the need to control the borders and remove illegal aliens who engage in political activity. We should publicly thank the Justices who raised the subject.

Prohibitions on overseas fundraising need to be given real teeth and enforced. Obama raised vast sums from the Middle-East and China in 2008.

Practically the MSM still controls the bulk of the information distribution network that people rely upon. This reduces them to the status of theater owners after the anti-trust case broke the power of the movie studies to control content. New outlets will grow, as television did 60 years ago. In the short term we can expect more infomercials from corporations and industry groups like the ads that helped defeat Hillarycare.

The Republic of Letters

(fm the BC thread "Pentup-gram")

John McCain is still waiting for the Republican Senate Cloakroom to select him for Miss Congeniality.

Kinuachdrach,
The last American President who wrote actual books on serious subjects, as opposed to a politician writing about the least serious of topics, themselves, that he could then sell to the public was Richard Nixon. The last Senator who wrote seriously that comes to my mind was Daniel Patrick Moynihan. While the Democrats have one Senator now who has sold middlebrow novels, and bad poetry abounds, good fiction is not to be found. Is this because of the conditions of public life, as opposed to journalism or academia, or is it due to a general decline in the educational system that effects all presumptively educated members of society, politicians no more than everyone else?

The English, especially the Tories, have a literary tradition among their politicians. Both Disraeli and Churchill made their living by writing. A more recent but less happy example of talent gone astray was Jeffrey Archer. The Left tends to confuse the whole concept of fiction (which they confuse with budgeting) and nonfiction (which they confuse with dour bureaucratic regimentation.)

El Supremo

Just think of Obama as El Supremo, whose character is on display here.

He does not take well to bad news.

See 2:21 and I recommend that you watch the whole movie.

Comment on Breitbart, AP "Court rolls back campaign spending limits"

OT,
My tweet & comment on "Court rolls back campaign spending limits," AP on Breitbart

SCOTUS OKs corporate political spending, Dems owned by Goldman Sachs & GE & Soros. Not sure this is a good thing.

(also a tweet)

Papa Ray,
(who commented OT on the BC thread "Pentup-gram")
The Daily Beast is Tina Browns toxic take on life from the Left. They are more Obama than Obama is. Think of her as being more Catholic than the Pope in fantasy left conspiracy mongering. A wanna be HuffPo is not a reliable source.

Charles Stuart

(fm the BC thread "Pentup-gram")

Sertorius,
Interesting theory but I think that you do an injustice to Charles.
He genuinely loved his kingdom and was sincere in his efforts to protect what he believed to be the Englishman's Liberties which had been entrusted to him. At his death he proclaimed, "I Am the Martyr of the People." He took the integrity of the justice system seriously and would have agreed with Francis Bacon that his judges were "lions under the throne." Cromwell himself treated the King with deference and was treated with courtesy. The failures that lead to his death 361 years and 9 days ago and the death of many others are real and your indictment of him on that score stands but I think that Charles Stuart himself was capable of recognizing and regretting those errors in a way that Barack Obama never could.

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Sertorius,
Concur with your position. It is possible that Charles was actually more in tune with the spirit of the age, just not with the spirit of his location. Cromwell has been described as a Tudor Grandee writ large and painfully out of place with an age of absolute monarchs and international intrigue supported by faceless bureaucrats. By force of personality he came from nowhere to take power, as did his distant cousin Henry Tudor who became Henry VII. He probably spared England the Europeanization that would otherwise have happened or at least postponed it a few hundred years. In a reversal of roles the heirs of the Whigs are now the Labour Europhiles. Obama is the would be absolute Prince, without any of Charles' personal virtues, whose supporters prefer the sophisticated Metropole to their rustic neighbors.

Habu,
Would that include Jomini, Sun Tzu, etc…
I can read all those foreigners in phonetics as well as anyone, I just don't know what they mean.

Jomini is an under used treasure. Most just read a 3 page excerpt from Clausewitz and think they are scholars.

Comment on the Belmont Club: "Pentup-gram"

First rule is, don't take advice from the enemy. You can read him for the purpose of getting in his head but do not let him into yours. Grant did not send a note over to Lee asking if he wanted to inspect the lines together at the Wilderness for old times sake.

Brown is of course very in tune with the voters in Massachusetts. To many Republicans are trying to cram him into some conservative mold. Rush was a little more enthusiastic about the national political implications than I thought prudent. Brown in office will probably align with McCain and represents what I consider the Romney wing of the party. Personally I am fine with that given the community that elected him. Reasonable expectations at the beginning can help avoid the pain of dissapointment in the future.

Fear Codes

(fm the BC thread "No, leave it on")

JMH,
You are not giving Fineman enough credit. He was speaking to the Democratic base. He was telling them that because Brown drove a pickup truck in Massachusetts where the people are not all bigots it will be seen and inspire all those redneck Republicans in the rest of the country and soon people of color and gays are going to be getting dragged to their deaths behind trucks in Texas. The argument is that the Democrats should fear and hate all opposition and suppress it everywhere because if they don't their supporters may be at risk sometime somewhere.

This is the same logic behind speech codes. They arrogate to themselves the power to judge and suppress innocent speech, as with the academic who lost his job for correctly using the word niggardly, because it will protect some member of a favored or protected class from some possible psychic trauma in the future.

Comment on PJM, Bob Owens: "ABC Raids Message Boards to ‘Break’ a Decades-Old Story"

Wait until ABC News discovers that every US Navy Officers Sword displays the Jewish Star of David. Imagine the Islamists trying to wrap their heads around that.

It would be nice if these self appointed guardians of the First Amendment actually read the document. We do not have a federally established religion in this country. At least we did not before the acolytes of Gore and Global Warming gained power. There was no doubt when the Constitution was written and for 200 years following what an establishment of religion means. The Church of England is Established as is the Presbyterian Church in Scotland. They are supported by taxpayers and have a formal voice in government. Bishops of the CofE sit in the House of Lords. Two hundred years ago some of the states that ratified the Bill of Rights had established churches at their level. Maryland for example was founded by and for the Catholics by Lord Baltimore. The entire point of the Establishment Clause is to protect minority rights to freedom of conscious and worship without imposition by the Federal government.

It may be possible to make a policy argument against fielding equipment with scriptural references on it and it may be possible to argue that the self confidence that displays will engender more respect and be effective. That debate has nothing to do with the Constitution. One argument raised against the Crusader artillery system was that the enemy we fight find the name inflammatory and intimidating. Maybe we should do something really frightening and attack our enemies with weapons named after Barney that kill while singing.

Next

Does anybody here know anything about Harold Ford Jr?

There will be a flood of hopeful challenges across the country. Some will be serious, some will be delusional and some will be money sucking fronts. We need to examine and evaluate them and support the worthy.

Olbermann and Limbaugh

(fm the BC thread "No, leave it on")

Salt Lick is perfectly entitled to find Rush crude or offensive. Personally I do not enjoy Bill O'Reilly and I do like Rush. There are two sides to these broadcasters. Only secondarily are they political operatives and information purveyors. Primarily they are entertainers. The best of them, as I feel Rush is, are very forthright about this. In fairness O'Reilly has stated this himself. As professionals they work as hard as Jay Leno does. They craft a message and do their research to hold an audience. The evidence is that Olbermann is bad at this and Rush is good at it. If a reference to Mary Jo Kopechne is offensive and crosses line then that is probably not Rush's intent. It is his intent to approach the line to engage his audience. While Olbermann might make the same argument in his case there is more evidence that he is acting out of personal animus even when it is against the best interests of his employer. The worst thing I hear on Rush is the advertising. It is depressingly down market most of the time. Some huckster decrying his "Itty Bitty" structured settlement and pitching a costly cash payout makes my skin crawl. It would be better to me if tobacco and liquor ads were allowed back on the air.


BTW, I was trained by a Boatswain's Mate Master Chief who had turned Old Ironsides around twice. Here is to you BMCM Gross wherever you are. When I was commissioned he did get a real silver dollar.

Comment on the Belmont Club: "No, leave it on"

People like Olbermann were always around and they were always vile. What was the restraint on their conduct then? Legal liability and commercial interest. 30 or 40 years ago or more if an employee of the General Electric Company had used such words then the CEO would have been besieged at his desk by both the Chief Counsel and the VP for Marketing. Olbermann would have been out the door within the hour. Did they believe in the First Amendment and John Peter Zenger? Sure they did and they would contribute to a symposium at Columbia on the subject.

On the last thread people were discussing how clueless it was for Obama to insult people who drive trucks. Brown channeled FDR who ridiculed his critics by speaking up for his dog Fala. Brown ate Obama's lunch.

Comment on the Belmont Club: "Coakley concedes"

The Democrats believe in Situational Ethics, that is in a flexible sense of moral accounting. Oh Heck, they cheat and they found themselves in a position where the clock ran out and the light was bright enough that they could not pull it off.

POLITICIAN:

Who said anything about repeatin'? Where do ya think this is? Hicks' Corners? Some people is too lazy to vote, that's all. They don't like this kind o' weather. Some of 'em is sick in bed and can't vote. Maybe a couple of 'em croaked recently. That ain't no reason why Mayor Tillinghast should be cheated out of their support. All we're doin' is gettin' out the vote!

The Great McGinty

The greatest danger the Republicans face now is arrogance. If they act fat or lazy in this jungle they will discover that they are not lions but lambs.

A slave stood behind the conqueror holding a golden crown and whispering in his ear a warning: that all glory is fleeting.

Patton

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wretchard has mentioned as one of his running sub-themes how essentially retrograde Obama is. The whole Chicago thuggery/Tammany Hall tribal spoils system with a New Age coating of Green pretensions to cover for more financial jiggery pokery was more peeling than appealing and reeked like a fish 40 years past its "sell by" date. Between the collapse of Copenhagen and the repudiation of the looting of the Treasury the time is right for a counterattack. Fat Al Gore is a made to order target and once he goes down then the chain of financial links that have fed the Democrats will hopefully unravel like a cheap suit.

solovyov,
(who think that a Romney/Brown ticket has 12th Amendment issues)
Romney can relocate to anywhere. Michigan is logical but he could even move and then claim NY if he wanted to stir the pot. The Democrats could sputter about it but the response would be laughter.

The biggest danger for the Republicans now is arrogance, greed and complacency.
memento mori

wws,
People keep saying that Obama is intelligent but I never hear why they think so. It all boils down to hearsay from some guy who knows someone who had lunch with him once.

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peterike,
(on Cambridge)
Good god, what is life like in such a place?
Soft, very soft and sheltered.

Kae Arby,
Obama is the new Woody Wilson. If he can't be palmed of on the UN and he doesn't implode and go catatonic, will he read thumbsuckers that he is a tragic hero and start chewing the scenery? What do our learned friends think?

exhelodrvr,
Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall
Sol would say things like that before swiping your onions and beets at Grosinger's.

James,
Your description of Health Savings accounts and School Vouchers/Charters as two weapons trained on core Democratic power centers is a brilliant piece of political analysis. What is needed is a third missile targeted on the Tort Lawyers.

Give Haiti Back

(fm the BC thread "Double Down")

Teresita,
(who hoped that Brown drove a Ford)
Scott Brown drives a GMC truck with 200,000 miles on it He bought it long before Obama showed up.

Haiti should be placed under the authority of the UN Trusteeship Council and assigned to a Condominium of France, Brazil and India. No B, J, H, F or R nonimmigrant visas should be issued to admit Haitians into the US. No immigrant visas should be issued to Haitian citizens for 10 years. Those needing emergency medical care may be paroled in for a limited time. Many people are unaware of the nonvisa status of parolee that CBP can use. While some may object that my proposal would violate the Monroe Doctrine in this case we should welcome the presence of the French. May they embrace Haiti and find it at least as useful in demonstrating their superior ways to the Anglo-saxons, and as ready a source of immigrant labor, as Algeria proved to be.

Comment on the Belmont Club: "Double Down"

Doubling down is easier when you are playing with Other People's Money.


The hardest part for the Republicans will be in controlling the urge of prima donnas to strut before the cameras in the name of bipartisanship. Here is a tweet to settle your digestion before bed time;

@ewerickson So George Voinovich is going to meet Obama tomrrow. There's 1 RINO who'd give 2 arms & a testicle to screw conservatives... about 3 hours ago from Tweetie

All the Republicans have to do is remember to Maintain the Objective. If they don't get distracted and keep articulating basic principles of honest effective economic management and open honest governance then they win. If they get pulled into bidding wars over fantasy policies then they lose.

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What should we be doing to positively counter the Obama campaign to link the nation's problems to the Republicans? Attack! We must link the Democrats to all these disasters in the public mind. We need billboards with the slogan "These are the people who stole $Trillions$" and 30' photos of Dodd and Franks and Geithner and Gorelick and the Fannie/Freddie crew. After 2 months of the campaign we add Obama's image to the rogues gallery.

If we are lucky then the Democrats will split and hive off the extremists. This will get dicey because the black voting bloc has tied itself to the most extreme and irrational elements. It would be better for America if they did not go over the cliff with their exploiters.

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“The response will not be to do incremental things and try to salvage a few seats in the fall,” a presidential adviser said. “... go out and fight and let the chips fall where they may".

This is where the troops shoot the officer in the back. Just how does Obama expect to get Democratic politicians to join him in this bold sacrifice of their seats? John McCain must be making phone calls tonight.

Comment on the Belmont Club: "Oh my gosh"

Coakley stepped on the Catholic vote with the Emergency Room gaffe.

The poverty pimp from the Urban League thinks that elections are a bad idea.

Well, victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan.
If Brown pulls it off then come Wednesday defeat will have ten thousand fingers pointing at possible fathers. This could reopen the civil war between the Kennedy-Obama Democrats and the Clinton faction. For 55 years now the Kennedys have sat on Massachusetts like America's Bourbons. They have forgotten nothing and learned nothing. The Commonwealth must be full of people with thwarted ambitions looking to claw power from them.

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Josh,
(who questioned the Obama-Kennedy connection)
Obama was specifically advanced by Ted Kennedy to block Hillary Clinton. Was Ted a knowing advocate of the whole Cloward-Pliven Soros project of deconstructing Western power? No, for one thing Ted Kennedy was far to selfish to be anyone's servant. What he did care about was muscular politics every bit as unprincipled as that played in Chicago. Remember the attacks on Hillary by Samantha Powers and others? There is no love lost between factions within the Democratic Party. That does not mean that any of them are the good guys.

Comment on the Belmont Club: "Strange loop"

A fascinating thread topic. If the big difference between the Right and Left sides of the Innertubes is that the Left delivers less content then we should ask, Why? It may be that for the Left their content is generated and paid for in institutional settings. The Left are entrenched in Government, Academia and in Media. Professionals from those communities do not engage in "peer review" in public on the internet. They do blog to engage in personality and political posturing or to build support for other ventures that can be monetized.

For the Right little of that applies. People with other experiences and credentials meet online to explore issues and offer evidence or anecdotes. This is analogous to an 18th and 19th century tradition of pamphlet and journal writing combined with a skill for public civil debate that was once the cornerstone of a Socratic education. The Right uses the internet this way because they have no place else to go. The biggest weakness the Right faces is that their strengths are based on their age and experience but except for those socialized by an experience in the armed forces few people under 45 are now learning the skills needed to use the internet as the Right does.

If the Left wanted to drain the best minds on the Right away from the online conversation then they should arrange to get them tenure track positions at small but cozy colleges. However doing so would risk allowing the Right to transmit their values and skills at reasoned discourse to a new generation. Therefor it may be in the interest of the Left to keep the Right in an online ghetto and hope that dominance of the Media will allow them to keep their messages from leaking into the general body politic.

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no mo uro,
Thank you for the reply. Regarding your specifics, on point #4 you note the common lack of a grasp of science, logic and Western thought on the part of many attempting political discourse. This relates to my concern about declining educational standards. At one time a liberal education meant a broad based program, such as was delivered by a Common Core that most great universities based their curricula on. These ensured that even those who majored in the Humanities or Social Sciences had some understanding of the scientific method and that all were exposed to the basic canon of Western Civilization. That can not be assumed, with rare exceptions, for anyone who graduated within the last 20 years.

While I generally follow the logic of your argument I would caution you to remember that while the positions of the Left may be more likely to leave their adherents open to error it is still possible for someone to be overtly religious, technically competent, neither hedonist nor ostentatiously ascetic, the recipient of a well rounded education, and indifferent to the praise of Charlie Rose and to still be wrong. We should always be on guard not to mirror the errors and assumptions of virtue of those we disagree with. While the argument may be made that their positions would tend to certain conclusions, I would avoid stating "they will always" as if what followed is a proven fact.

A Conservative Teacher,
If the Belmont Club "rules the media" then I want to start making money for my contributions to this forum. How about it wretchard? Time to pony up.

Jeff Medcalf,
If you find Cass Sunstein frightening look up his wife Samantha Powers.

solovyov,
Concur.

Nice to see a flame free thread. Excellent comments.

Jan 18, 2010 - 7:24 pm

Heads I Win

Obama has no downside that he can see from the Haiti earthquake. If anyone is rescued then it gets trumpeted in the press as a triumph of compassionate government and an example of international cooperation. As the place dissolves into chaos and violence and disease sweeps away hundereds of thousands on camera then all the violence and disorganization will be blamed on the US military and a legacy of distrust going back to Bush.

On Sex, Intel and Air Power

(fm the BC thread "Firestorm")

Habu
Once I met Admiral Bobby Ray Inman whose career took him from ONI to DIA to CIA to NSA. He confirmed for me the story that he once had a report of a young analyst who engaged in activities that were deemed incompatible with a security clearance. The Admiral had the person in question called into his office, handed him a telephone, and said, "Call your mother and tell her what you are." The call completed the Admiral said, "Good, now you can't be a blackmailed. Now get back to work."

Teresita,
Your refusal to acknowledge the reality of our tactical victories in Vietnam and the role of John Kerry and media practitioners of sedition in snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, in a campaign that set the pattern for the installation of Obama, puzzles.

Can the strategic targeting of population centers induce a change in the morale and change the culture to effect a political goal desired by the attacker? Clearly yes, al-Qeada did that in Madrid, the Mongols did that with massive demonstrations like in Baghdad, the Romans practiced targeted brutality, as with Carthage, to enable a generally light hand over compliant local subject communities. The Allied air campaign against Germany did result in a desired shift of the German nation towards pacifism. Unfortunately that did not effect the fighting in 1945 in the Ardennes but it did effect the performance of the Germans in Nato towards Poland and Russia and Afghanistan in 2009.

JMH,
There have been arguments made, forgive the passive voice as I do not have the sources, that Hitler's no retreat order was not irrational in all cases. Given the logistics of the time retreating may have been a riskier strategy. The failure to establish and hold a second line was a fatal error on their part.

Comment on the Belmont Club: "Firestorm"

Time only moves in one direction. Enormous damage has been done. Real assets, military, political, financial and moral, have been consumed. In the Ukraine the Putin ally, their would be Zelaya, leads after the first round of voting and the would be ally of Nato has been repudiated.

If there is a firestorm then it is consuming the natural acquiescence of the people to their elites. This has been a bad time for Harvard. Spitzer, Obama, and Conan O'Brien all traded on the reputation of the school to convince the rubes that their judgments deserved special approval. Nature abhors a vacuum and elites serve a function. Who will replace them? When the wise-asses entertain themselves by debunking the myths of John Harvard or undermining the legal and social system that his followers constructed in service to the Commonwealth, then they consume what others produced and spend capital that they have not earned.

Teresita,
(who makes a general case against strategic bombing)
Random violence against civilians is counterproductive in most cases but that does not mean that under the right circumstances massive and disproportionate violence may not have a desired political effect.

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Three elections in near time show the ebb and flow of something in an age where political currents are spun around the world via Facebook™ and 140 character tweets. What that something is will be a proof left to the reader. In Chile the right wins an election for the fist time since 1958 amid mutual pledges of reconciliation and good fellowship. In the Ukraine the Russian bear looms ever larger as all of Europe edges towards accommodation and both sides seem to repudiate Nato. In Massachusetts a sclerotic and complacent left wing oligarchy will either collapse or seek to survive through brazen fraud and confrontation to stop a moderate Republican whose campaign has focused not on socially divisive issues but on simple respect for the rule of law and for the electorate.

Canvassing for Brown

(fm the BC thread "A real horse race")

Saturday I spent the day canvassing in Western MA. Some of the people who attend political rallies and do volunteer work for my side frighten me more than the opposition does. I believe in politics as in romance it is best to build strength on strength. Unfortunately there are always lonely weak and troubled people who seek a venue of controlled social activity in which they can attempt to impose authority, force social relations in a controlled setting, and act out their grievances and inadequacies to tear down others. Such people populate the fringes, Larouchites for the Democrats and Paulites for the Republicans and Palin or McCain haters are often motivated less by their policy concerns, which many share, but by their need to find flaws and enemies and tear down rivals. They drive people out in order to gain control.

The process of coming in from another state to spend a few hours walking around is very wasteful but the reception was remarkably positive. Almost no evidence of support for Coakley displayed and an 80% positive response for Brown from the Independents that I contacted. Without succumbing to the wilder enthusiasms of the ideologues and obsessives that every campaign attracts, and without ignoring the potential for Minnesota level fraud with boxes of voted to be discovered in car trunks after an election, it is possible to feel hope.