Niall Ferguson is one of my very favorite academics. He creates narratives based on verifiable evidence and will not hesitate to rhetorically unravel anyone who skews history or what is obvious due to ideology or partisanship. Niall Ferguson is a site to see in a debate. Former professors of mine who thought I was too rough on people for displaying inexcusable ignorance, wait till you get a load of Niall.
Here is an example:
Interesting that Niall takes the same position that several on talk radio have (Limbaugh, Beck), as well as this web site has, that the Muslim Brotherhood is not a pro-democracy movement at all as the “establishment” insists and that is merely the organizations smiley front face. This video was from early last February. The Muslim Brotherhood is taking power, this is tantamount to 1979 in Iran and they want to break the peace treaty with Israel and impose Sharia, which will devastate their economy even more and create more instability. Notice what he says at the end, “This is a high probability scenario and the President is not even considering it.” He called it.
Historian says too few pupils are spending too little time studying history, particularly in state schools.
The Harvard academic Niall Ferguson has warned that too few pupils are spending too little time studying history – and what they do study lacks a sweeping narrative.
He offers his own lesson plan to remedy what he says is a lack of cohesion, in which pupils place six “building block” events, including the Reformation and the French revolution, into the right order.
His plan aims to give pupils an overview of the years 1400 to 1914, and encourage them “to understand and offer answers to the most important question of that period: why did the west dominate the rest?”
Ferguson, who has been invited by the education secretary, Michael Gove, to play a role in overhauling the history curriculum, directs the teacher to show their class a map of the world circa 1913 “showing the extent of the western empires”.
The class then divides into groups to defend the merits of six ingredients of western success, ranging from “competition” to – perhaps more controversially — “the work ethic”.
Ferguson, who works as a consultant for a software developer that creates history-based games, encourages the class to play five rounds of the multi-player game Commerce, Conquest and Colonisation, as a supplementary activity. The plan is aimed at a mixed-ability class in year 10, the first year of a history GCSE course.
In an article for the Guardian’s education supplement, Ferguson disagrees with a recent Ofsted survey that praised history teaching in secondary schools. While Ofsted criticised “disconnected topics” in the primary history curriculum, it said that provision was good or outstanding in most secondaries they visited.
Ferguson says: “Clearly, all last year’s talk by Michael Gove, Simon Schama, myself and others about the urgent need for reform was mere alarmism, doubtless actuated by some sinister political motive.”
Ofsted’s report said it was a “popular and inaccurate myth” that students at GCSE and A-level only studied Hitler. Students were required to study a range of topics, including a substantial amount of British history, the school inspectors said.
Ferguson’s fellow celebrity historian Simon Schama has agreed to advise ministers on an overhaul of the national curriculum intended to restore a narrative “island story” of Britain.
Ferguson writes: “History is emphatically not being made available to all in English schools. Too few pupils, especially in the state sector, spend too little time doing it. And what they study lacks all cohesion.”
The academic criticises “an unholy alliance between well-meaning politicians and educationalists” for reshaping history teaching to focus more on skills such as analysing sources while neglecting facts.
“The challenge for the education secretary, Michael Gove, is to make sure that he is not the latest in a succession of politicians to see his plans for reform subverted by an educational establishment – here exemplified by Ofsted – that is still in deep denial about the damage its beloved new history has done.”
Ferguson laments the fact that England is the only country in Europe where history is not compulsory after the age of 14, and expresses concern that design and technology is a more popular subject at GCSE.
He quotes a survey of first-year undergraduates that found that around two-thirds did not know who was monarch at the time of the Armada, while 69% did not know the location of the Boer war. The survey was a quiz set by an economics lecturer at Cardiff University, which tested first years’ historical knowledge over a three-year intake.
Ferguson writes: “Such evidence should make us very skeptical indeed about Ofsted’s claim that history is ‘a successful subject in schools'”.
The historian approves of a passage in Ofsted’s report, which highlights a lack of narrative in primary school history teaching.
“The only thing wrong with this observation is that Ofsted seems to think it applies only to primary school pupils, whereas it could equally well be applied to those in secondary school – and students at a good few universities, too.”
The “long arc of time” has been replaced by “odds and sods”, Ferguson says.
Note – In this video Klavan tells us that the USA has the second highest corporate tax rate in the world. At the time this video was made that was true, however Japan, Canada and many other countries have since drastically lowered their rates leaving the United States to have the highest business taxes in the world, which explains why so many jobs have left the country.
UPDATES (See Bottom of post for details) – Glenn Beck: Romney lied in the debate
New York Post: Romney not authentic, pandering
Fox News: Polling dictates Romney answers…
In the debate Romney trashed Rick Perry and takes the position that you cannot be too against illegal immigration, but he was talking amnesty with Tim Russert:
Live Blog by PoliticalArena.org editor Chuck Norton:
Perry opens up with setting an environment to help get small business hiring – points 1, 2, 3 and 4.
Perry: Texas was the number one state for relocation for five years in a row.
Mitt Romney opens up by attacking Obama on his job crushing policies – very smart. “Regulators have to be allies to business not foes”…
Romney is trying to walk the fence of the class warfare game. – We need to bring wealth home and dodging Brett’s question about that does not inspire confidence.
[Note – Romney had an opportunity to take on Obama’s recent push on class warfare he and he totally waffled. Romney’s answer fell somewhere between the non-committal committal and the non-denial denial. This is really indicative of a man who is making political calculations and is not standing on principle. This really bothered me.]
Bachmann goes after Obama on the “Out of every dollar I earn how much do I deserve to keep” question.
Federal Right to Work Law Question – Santorum goes after over reaching government unions – but the feds already took such bargaining away from the federal govt unions under Carter.
Newt: Unemployment should be tied to a business training program.
Huntsman targeted by Chris Wallace on his idea to subsidize natural gas…..and my internet freezes… so I did not hear the rest of his answer. OK – He favors it to ‘get the ball rolling’, so long as there is a quick phase out so it isn’t a long term thing…
Herman Cain on his 9 9 9 plan. Throw out the tax code totally. Romney wont toss out the tax code and start over and that dog wont hunt says Cain. Cain is absolutely right. The tax code is such a mess and so hard to comply with right now that modifying the edges of it will not help really fix the real problem which is the tax code itself.
How to get teeth in the 10th Amendment – Ron Paul says that he would veto every bill that violates the 10th amendment – It sounds great in theory, but that radical of a change so fast would be a huge shock to the economy. It would have to be phased in over time. There are just better answers to this question.
Gary Johnson gets his first answer. I promise, I promise list of goodies. Gary is a nice guy and pretty smart. I have had the pleasure of talking with him personally. He wants the Fair Tax. He needs to work on his charismatic approach IMO but a nice answer.
Megyn Kelly quoting Newt: Sure of course he is (a socialist) LOL I love it. Romney – I have news for Obama, European socialism isnt working for Europeans so stop trying to use it here.
Huntsman – this is the worst time to be raising any taxes and everybody knows that. We have structural problems with our tax code. Now huntsman is pretty much quoting the Obama deficit commission plan, which is actually a pretty good plan, which is why Obama ignored it.
Our friend Lee Doren in the debate with a question!! What department would YOU eliminate?? Herman Cain – we need to start all over on these departments like the EPA- he is right. More Cain – we need to use the Chilean model on Social Security – “The solution is FIX IT” – Herman Cain is GREAT at ‘make sure you are addressing the RIGHT problem’.
Newt – once again he refuses to accept the premise of the media figures question. Newt announces a NEW Contract with America – Far Deeper, far bolder, far more profound. Newt: Obama’s socialist policies..,. SMACK home run.
Newt just wowed the debate again.
Education Question: Gary Johnson – the department of education actually costs us more money than it spends. Santorum agrees saying “The federal education system doesn’t serve the customer” Great answer Rick. Newt Gingrich wants Pel Grants for K-12 – he obviously believes that the public schools have failed. Ron Paul – if you love your children get the govt out of public education, people need a right to opt out of the public school system when it is failing.
Rick Perry – comes out for school choice praises everyone on stage and slaps Romney for praising the “Race to the Top” program which is a regulatory disaster. Notice Romney does not deny what Perry said. Romney is dodging…. Romney just praised Arne Duncan /facepalm [Arne Duncan and ‘Race to the Top’ are both a disaster, if you do not know why I will be happy to explain in comments below – Editor]
[UPDATE – More on the education issue and Romney added in the update section below.]
Huntsman – I signed the second voucher bill in the United States. I have actually done something about this. Localize, Localize, Localize.
Bachmann asked the illegal immigration question – Should each state enforce the immigration laws because the feds will not. Wallace said that laws like Arizona’s are at odds with the Constitution – that is NOT so. The courts have said that the states can enforce federal law as long as the state law mimics it and the AZ law does.
Newt: E-Verify is a mess with massive fraud. Visa and Mastercard could run E- Verify better. Newt is right that E-Verify as it is now is useless. The federal govt keeps that program a mess.
Romney goes after Perry on in state tuition in Texas. Perry – only 4 dissenting votes in legislature on his tuition law – Perry is Right about this guys.
The accusation: Perry wants to hand ‘in state’ tuition to illegals who just waltz over the border…This particular “in state tuition for illegals” accusation is an easy one to bust when ALL of the facts are considered. WHY?????
The bill did not give in state tuition for all “illegals”, it gave it to the children of illegals who graduated in good standing from Texas high schools. The difference is a huge moral gulf. I am fine with punishing illegals who had illegal intent when crossing the border in the middle of the night.
What I am NOT willing to do is punish their children who could not control who their parents are or what they did. The very idea of punishing someone for the acts of their parents, or of continuing punishment via bloodline is morally repugnant to many good people, including myself. Would you want your kids to suffer for what YOU did, as a politician would you want to take the position that the children of those who do wrong should “pay”?
The very idea of “criminal intent” goes to the very fabric of our rule of law and of our legal procedure back to the earliest days of the common law. No case can be made that the kids of those illegals had criminal intent.
This policy is way better than having them go on state and federal welfare rolls. By the way, said students who get in state tuition have to had come out from the shadows and be on a path to citizenship
Foreign policy question – time to watch Ron Paul blow himself to bits … IF he gets asked the Iran question. He doesn’t get asked.
On Israel: Romney – you do not have an inch of space between you and your allies. Romney pounding Obama on his trashing of Israel and sucking up to Hamas. Well done Mitt. “It is unacceptable for Iran to be a nuclear state”.
Herman Cain – I like peace through strength so my policy would be “Peace Through Strength & Clarity”. Very good answer.
Perry on the Pakistan nuke question “Where do you start”? Perry answers that you begin with Pakistan’s neighbors who are our allies. – Good answer. Santorum says stabilize Iraq and then goes after Ron Paul. He obviously does not want to see RP as the nominee.
Newt: If the country is not your ally why are you giving them money? Newt says that the world could become dramatically more dangerous in a short time.
Gary Johnson – the biggest threat to our national security is that we are bankrupt – he was wise to ignore the stupid Cuba question at first. Cuba doesn’t matter right now.
Santorum: Just because our economy is sick doesn’t mean that our values are sick – /smacks Huntsman hard and lectures him on Obama’s stupid rules of engagement. [It is true that the rules of engagement that our soldiers are operating under are ridiculous and made by a pack of lawyers. They cost lives – Editor]
Bachmann is right on the separation question. Separation means that the US Govt should not be run as a Church of the United States, not the idiocy that the courts are engaged in now. Her constitutional interpretation is spot on.
Santorum on the gays in the military question – His answer is spot on. Folks, anyone who leads with or defines himself with his sexuality is making a mistake. Sex should not be an issue so soldiers, liberals, activists should not make it one.
Ron Paul on the day after pill – the rape question – we have too many laws already and the “day after pill” is just too hard to enforce a ban upon.
Perry: the fed govt has no business telling the states how to educate our children.
Cain on ObamaCare – I suspect that he is about to whack it out of the park….. he does. Herman Cain – I had stage four colon and liver cancer. ObamaCare would have resulted in delays in tests and treatments. The only reason I survived is because I got treated on MY timeline and not the federal governments. Great answer.
YouTube question from Ian McDonald – “I have a heart condition” – asks about the new provision for kids to stay on parents policies till they are 26 [Note – this was a GOP idea a long time ago and that was included in ObamaCare in an attempt to call it “bipartisan”]. Huntsman: lets have the states engage in experiments. In Utah we have a state backed catastrophic policy that can be a supplement to private insurance [This is also a long time GOP idea by the way].
Chris Wallace goes after Bachmann on the HPV causes retardation question. – Bachmann is spinning because the day after the last debate she doubled down on this issue . Bachmann is going after Perry on the Merck donations issue – the issue is a total red herring. Bachmann gets donations from Merck’s competition and those donations are more than what Perry got. Perry reminded us on the opt out and gave a touching story. Perry is trying a rise above strategy – it may be working.
Perry on Romney’s flip flopping. Sorry Mitt, but Perry is right about that. Romney has a cute line about experience to get this country going again, but he is shying away from substance and trying to go charismatic. It is already starting to get a tad old [Note – I am trained in political communications, including deception and propaganda, so I am more sensitive to the game Romney is playing. I am not sure regular folks wont fall for this tactic. I hope not].
Via Doug Scheon and Pat Caddell: Perry is winning the polling on Fox News on immigration – toldja 🙂
Question: How to jump start the turn around once elected:
Huntsman – good specifics on energy.
Herman Cain – the problem is a severe lack of confidence in leadership – great point and one that should not be underestimated. – Reagan, shining city on a hill – Cain is doing very well tonight.
Bachmann – first thing to do is repeal ObamaCare – its a good point because domestic business is scared to death of it, while the internationals love the idea so it can eliminate their domestic competition.
Romney – restore trust in the Oval Office
Perry – energy independent, repeal ObamaCare, reform the tax code,
Ron Paul – fix the Federal Reserve problem in creating market bubbles – Good point.
Newt Quoting Reagan – “When Jimmy Carter is unemployed it is a recovery”. Awesome.
Santorum – We need to remember who are are as Americans and we have a president who does not understand what America is all about. Obama is the new King George III who believes that things need to be dictated to on high. WOW
Gary Johnson – My neighbors two dogs have created more shovel ready jobs than this current administration. More – Balance the budget now, not 20 years form now. Do it NOW. Toss out the tax system and start over.
The Running-mate question:
Johnson picks Ron Paul.
Santorum – I would pick Newt.
Newt – I do not know yet but would be capable. Newts audio flaked out so I missed part of his answer.
Ron Paul – I defer
Rick Perry – I want to merge Herman Cain and Newt and make him VP 🙂
Romney – there are a couple images I am going to have a hard time getting out of my mind. Any one up here would be a great president or VP.
Bachmann – a solid conservative she says. Then she has a good moment saying, (paraphrasing) “Every 4 years we are told that we have to settle. I do not think that is true. We need a candidate who represents constitutional conservatives especially since Obama’s numbers will be even more in the tank come election time.”
Cain Hints using a non verbals that he is open to be asked for the VP spot and says – If Romney throws out his bad jobs plan and adopted 9 – 9 – 9 I could go for him, but am thinking Newt Gingrich.
Huntsmnan – I would pick Herman Cain.
END OF DEBATE –
Commentary
Romney had his first decent night, but once again everyone had their moments. Romney and Herman Cain stood out as far as showmanship is concerned.
Doug Scheon said that the people are still ahead of the candidates. That is a very astute observation, but I think Doug missed Mitt walking the fence on the class warfare card because Scheon is a Democrat who does not understand GOP sensitivities on that issue.
Mitt’s fence walking on this critical issue has actually managed to lower my confidence in him, but he did raise my estimates of him communications ability. I think more voters caught onto that than the Fox News team realizes.
If I was on Perry’s communications team. I would have this theme and pound it:
Voters have had enough of candidates who talk a great game and then lack follow through when elected. You guys TALK about plans and job creation, but I do it every day and I do something none of you have done, and that is have the best job growth under the totally irresponsible job killing policies of this president. Talk all you want, I walk the walk when the chips are down.
I am becoming more convinced that Romney is not going to replace the tax code, he is not going to tackle the bureaucracy and regulatory reform except superficially. His vision lacks boldness. Every time Romney was asked to state a BOLD plan or vision for reform he gave platitudes and/or his weak-sauce “59 points job plan” answer. Even Herman Cain made it clear that Romney”s 59 points plan is almost a joke.
I discussed tonights performance with two communications professionals. One who is from out West and another who is a DC insider with many years of political experience.
Out West:
I’m not liking Romney. Class warfare, the scare tactics and his flip flopping. I smell a John McCain all over. Conservative in the primaries and a moderate in the general & presidency. Perry needs to be specific and articulate more. My top three candidates so far are Perry, Gingrich & Cain. Santorum & Bachmann come off as bitter Perry haters, although I loved Rick Santorum’s smack-down on Ron Paul/Huntsman on foreign policy.
If Bachmann is so anti Obamacare, why is she not pounding Romney on Romneycare? If she’s truly principled, she’d hammer Romney instead of trying to pry back the Evangelical vote from Perry?[Answer: Bachmann wants Romney v Bachmann two man race, that is why.]
DC Insider:
Thanks, Chuck…good honest assessment of candidates’ positions. Right on…exactly about the Fox News team of Caddell, Scheon, and Parino missing the point on Romney’s fence walking. Romney’s communications person (Eric Fehrnstrom) and his strategist are crippling him [in the long run as they may have done OK in this battle but will lose the war with the charismatics and the fence walking].
UPDATE – Glenn Beck comparing Romney’s book from 2 and a half years ago to the recently released paperback version (ironically called ‘No Apologies’).
Romney then: The stimulus will help some but could be better. RomneyCare could be a national model.
Romney now: Stimulus is a war against free enterprise. National health care of any kind is unconstitutional.
Glenn Beck just read verbatim from the two versions of Romney’s book. When Perry hit Romney for making these changes he said “I have changed no such thing” – Romney lied.
I am going over clips from the debate. When Romney praised Obama’s radicalized and failed Education Secretary Arne Duncan in the debate, Romney was saying that we need to have a teacher accountability program like Duncan has proposed (and will never see the light of day).
How many “teacher accountability” programs have we had? Tinkering around the fringes of our failed education system will not fix the problem. Herman Cain lectured Romney last night for taking that same approach to his economic recovery and jobs program. Cain always says, “Make sure that you are working on the RIGHT problem”. The problems are institutional in education as well as our regulatory structure. Much like the tax code, they are structurally flawed and tinkering with them will not solve the problem.
UPDATE II – New York Post: Romney an unauthentic panderer
Today’s New York Post after going through Romney’s statements found out that he was not being honest in much the same way we did.
And yet maybe Perry’s debate wasn’t all awful. Far from it. The thing is, debates aren’t only about performance; they are also about the way the interchanges reveal the character of the candidates — their political character.
Do they stand up for what they believe? Do they believe in anything, or are they just willing to say whatever their audiences want to hear?
And in that regard, Romney did not perform well at all.
In the opening of the debate, Romney went after Perry for statements in his book, “Fed Up,” about Social Security and the problems with the direct election of senators. And Perry lowered the boom on him. Romney, he noted, changed his line on his own health-care plan in the text of the paperback version of his book “No Apology.”
Words poured from Romney’s mouth like smoke from a wildfire. He zoomed through sentences impossible to follow as he tried to deny that he had done what he had in fact done, which was scrub his own book as his own position changed.
The speed with which he spoke recalled the flim-flam salesman Harold Hill, clouding the minds of innocent Iowans as he raced through the song “Trouble in River City” in “The Music Man.”
Even more telling, Perry hit Romney for speaking well of President Obama’s “Race to the Top” initiative, as implemented by Education Secretary Arne Duncan–which Romney absolutely did in Miami on Wednesday. “I think Secretary Duncan has done some good things,” he said, as reported by Politico. “I hope that’s not heresy in this room.”
Romney denied it–a huge blunder, because this contradiction can be thrown back at him daily until the campaign is over. And because it speaks to precisely the reason Romney has been unable to make the sale with Republicans despite his incredible persistence in wooing them over the course of five years. He comes across as false, somehow.
Is unprepared and graceless worse than smooth and false in the eyes of voters desperate for authenticity? I don’t think so.
UPDATE III – Dan Henniger at Fox News
A reader sent us the following note:
Chuck, Dan Henninger just referenced your sentiments on Journal Editorial Report on Fox. He said that Romney’s answers scream “Polling, polling, polling”. The sentiment from the panel is that Romney is a well polished panderer.
This does not surprise me, they did not want Perry to be first and Romney second. So they decided to put their votes behind someone with very little support in the general public to help diminish Perry. As was shown in the last debate, to the Romney camp everything is a political calculation and that is very revealing.
I am not going to hold back here. Eugene Robinson is the quintessential example of what is wrong with journalism today. His arguments amount to emotionalism, fear mongering and demagoguery, which he uses to try to hide that fact that he rarely does his homework.
We have talked about the way the far left argues. The first argument is S.I.N. and the last argument is an attempt to paint you as a monster to shut you up. This is all that is in the far left play-book. You can see that Cong. King pummels Robinson with fact after fact while Robinson just sits there and shakes his head. The far left typically ignores most facts that threaten their narrative. You will see this pattern perfectly in this video.
When Joe Lieberman and Snow had similar hearings some years ago why did the left not call Lieberman a McCarthy or a bigot? This is all politics folks and Eugene Robinson once again shows himself to be a naked partisan hit man.
Ted Kennedy reached out to Russia to undermine Reagan.
Democrats opposed Reagan’s efforts to end the Cold War.
Democrats favored Daniel Ortega when he aligned with the Soviets in the 80’s
NPR was just caught expressing a willingness to funnel illegal terrorist funds from the Muslim Brotherhood to itself.
On college campus around the country the progressive secular left and the MSA, which is a part of the Muslim Brotherhood, collude to harass Christians and Jews and to stifle free speech.
The Daily Caller has acquired the talking points that the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), a group with deep ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, supplied to its supporters as an aid in attacking the Muslim radicalization hearing New York Republican Rep. Peter King held Thursday. Save for Texas Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee’s incoherent ramblingson Thursday, Democrats’ statements and testimony against King’s hearing, whether intentionally or unintentionally, largely mirrored MPAC’s talking points.
MPAC recommended that its supporters accuse King of “pure political posturing,” and told them to say, “these hearings appear little more than a political circus with Rep. King as the ringleader.” MPAC also recommended supporters say that the “hearings hurt our national security” because of their “narrow scope.” Finally, it said supporters should say that the hearings were unnecessary because “active” partnerships between law enforcement and the American Muslim community already exist.
California Democratic Rep. Laura Richardson hit on the “pure political posturing” point in the MPAC memo. She compared King’s hearings to those of the McCarthy era.
Rep. Al Green, Texas Democrat, asked why King wasn’t investigating the Ku Klux Klan, something that plays right into the MPAC “suggested message” that the “hearings hurt our national security” because of a “narrow scope.”
“I think that all criminals should be prosecuted. I think that all terrorists should be investigated which is why I said we ought to investigate all of them and that would include the KKK,” Green said. “Over a hundred years of terrorism why not investigate them too. They are rooted in a religion as well. Check their website out. You’ll see.”
Minnesota Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison regurgitated all the MPAC talking points in his testimony at the beginning of the hearing.
“Ascribing the evil acts of a few individuals to an entire community is wrong; it is ineffective; and it risks making our country less secure,” Ellison said. “Targeting the Muslim American community for the actions of a few is unjust. Actually all of us–all communities–are responsible for combating violent extremism. Singling out one community focuses our analysis in the wrong direction.”
A spokesman for Ellison told TheDC that the congressman didn’t receive the MPAC talking points and “wrote his testimony himself.” Spokespeople for Green and Richardson did not immediately respond to TheDC’s request for comment.
The MPAC’s talking points aren’t something that surprise Ben Lerner of the Center for Security Policy. He said they are just another example of a self-described “rights” group shifting the debate away from the issues at hand and onto whatever they want to talk about.
“Serious people are trying to raise serious questions about the issue of homegrown terrorism and radicalization in the Muslim community,” Lerner said in a phone interview. “A lot of what these ‘so-called mainstream’ Muslim organizations are doing is throwing out insults and labels to anyone who has tried to delve into this. They’re not offering any serious, substantive responses to the concerns that are being raised by Congress.”
Thousands of Christians have been forced to flee their homes in Western Ethiopia after Muslim extremists set fire to roughly 50 churches and dozens of Christian homes.
At least one Christian has been killed, many more have been injured and anywhere from 3,000 to 10,000 have been displaced in the attacks that began March 2 after a Christian in the community of Asendabo was accused of desecrating the Koran.
The violence escalated to the point that federal police forces sent to the area two weeks ago were initially overwhelmed by the mobs. Government spokesman Shimelis Kemal told Voice of America police reinforcements had since restored order and 130 suspects had been arrested and charged with instigating religious hatred and violence.
I hate to admit it. My Democrat liberal friends were right. They told me if I voted for McCain, all sorts of bad things would happen. Well, I voted for McCain anyway . . . and they were right.They told me if I voted for McCain, the nation’s hope would deteriorate, and sure enough there has been a 20 point drop in the Consumer Confidence Index since the election, reaching a lower point than any time during the Bush administration.
They told me if I voted for McCain the US would become more deeply embroiled in the Middle East, and sure enough tens of thousands of additional troops are scheduled to be deployed into Afghanistan
They told me if I voted for McCain, that the economy would get worse and sure enough, unemployment is approaching 8.8% and the President’s many gloom and doom announcements and the new stimulus packages have sent the stock market lower than at any time since 9-11.
They told me if I voted for McCain, we would see more “crooks” in high ranking positions in Federal government and sure enough, several recent cabinet nominees revealed resumes of bribery, immigration violations and tax fraud or tax evasion.
They told me if I voted for McCain, our relations with foreign countries would be worse, and sure enough China has questioned investing in more US treasuries, France and Germany have rejected our President’s suggestions that they spend more money to save the world economy, Russia has apparently forced us to abandon our defense missile programs in Poland and Czech Republic, we snubbed Great Britain’s Prime Minister Gordon Brown when he visited Washington (and sent him packing with a bust of Winston Churchill that had graced the Oval Office), the State Department shuffled the visit of the president of Brazil to avoid a conflict with St. Patrick’s Day (and spelled his name wrong in the official announcement), the President scuttled the pending free trade agreement with Colombia (an important ally next to Chavez’s Venezuela), Mexico imposed tariffs on $2.4 billion of American products in retaliation for our breach of the North America Free Trade Agreement, and Iran is getting ever close to making a nuclear bomb. It’s a good thing we’re chumming up to Syria.
They told me if I voted for McCain, that the moguls of industry would increase their salaries and bonuses at the expense of the little people. And sure enough, companies like Merrill Lynch and AIG and Fannie Mae have used the bailout money to pay record bonuses to the very executives who drove those companies into the ground.
They told me if I voted for McCain that innocent children would die, and sure enough, the President has lifted the ban on federal funding of abortion and the ban on using federal funds for research on embryonic stem cells, so many more innocent children will die.
They told me if I voted for McCain, the civil rights of Americans would be put in jeopardy. And sure enough, the Congress is about to pass the misnamed “Employee Free Choice Act” which will deprive workers of the secret ballot in union elections and the President wants to institute a civilian national security force to spy on Americans.
Well, I ignored my Democrat friends, voted for McCain, and they were right . . . all of their predictions have come true.
Our universities haven’t taught much political history for decades. No wonder so many progressives have disdain for the principles that animated the Federalist debates.
Highly educated people say the darndest things, these days particularly about the tea party movement. Vast numbers of other highly educated people read and hear these dubious pronouncements, smile knowingly, and nod their heads in agreement. University educations and advanced degrees notwithstanding, they lack a basic understanding of the contours of American constitutional government.
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman got the ball rolling in April 2009, just ahead of the first major tea party rallies on April 15, by falsely asserting that “the tea parties don’t represent a spontaneous outpouring of public sentiment. They’re AstroTurf (fake grass-roots) events.”
Having learned next to nothing in the intervening 16 months about one of the most spectacular grass-roots political movements in American history, fellow Times columnist Frank Rich denied in August of this year that the tea party movement is “spontaneous and leaderless,” insisting instead that it is the instrument of billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch.
Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne criticized the tea party as unrepresentative in two ways. It “constitutes a sliver of opinion on the extreme end of politics receiving attention out of all proportion with its numbers,” he asserted last month. This was a step back from his rash prediction five months before that since it “represents a relatively small minority of Americans on the right end of politics,” the tea party movement “will not determine the outcome of the 2010 elections.”
In February, Mr. Dionne argued that the tea party was also unrepresentative because it reflected a political principle that lost out at America’s founding and deserves to be permanently retired: “Anti-statism, a profound mistrust of power in Washington goes all the way back to the Anti-Federalists who opposed the Constitution itself because they saw it concentrating too much authority in the central government.”
Mr. Dionne follows in the footsteps of progressive historian Richard Hofstadter, whose influential 1964 book “The Paranoid Style in American Politics” argued that Barry Goldwater and his supporters displayed a “style of mind” characterized by “heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy.” Similarly, the “suspicion of government” that the tea party movement shares with the Anti-Federalists, Mr. Dionne maintained, “is not amenable to ‘facts'” because “opposing government is a matter of principle.”
To be sure, the tea party sports its share of clowns, kooks and creeps. And some of its favored candidates and loudest voices have made embarrassing statements and embraced reckless policies. This, however, does not distinguish the tea party movement from the competition.
Born in response to President Obama’s self-declared desire to fundamentally change America, the tea party movement has made its central goals abundantly clear. Activists and the sizable swath of voters who sympathize with them want to reduce the massively ballooning national debt, cut runaway federal spending, keep taxes in check, reinvigorate the economy, and block the expansion of the state into citizens’ lives.
In other words, the tea party movement is inspired above all by a commitment to limited government. And that does distinguish it from the competition.
But far from reflecting a recurring pathology in our politics or the losing side in the debate over the Constitution, the devotion to limited government lies at the heart of the American experiment in liberal democracy. The Federalists who won ratification of the Constitution—most notably Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay—shared with their Anti-Federalist opponents the view that centralized power presented a formidable and abiding threat to the individual liberty that it was government’s primary task to secure. They differed over how to deal with the threat.
The Anti-Federalists—including Patrick Henry, Samuel Bryan and Robert Yates—adopted the traditional view that liberty depended on state power exercised in close proximity to the people. The Federalists replied in Federalist 9 that the “science of politics,” which had “received great improvement,” showed that in an extended and properly structured republic liberty could be achieved and with greater security and stability.
This improved science of politics was based not on abstract theory or complex calculations but on what is referred to in Federalist 51 as “inventions of prudence” grounded in the reading of classic and modern authors, broad experience of self-government in the colonies, and acute observations about the imperfections and finer points of human nature. It taught that constitutionally enumerated powers; a separation, balance, and blending of these powers among branches of the federal government; and a distribution of powers between the federal and state governments would operate to leave substantial authority to the states while both preventing abuses by the federal government and providing it with the energy needed to defend liberty.
Whether members have read much or little of The Federalist, the tea party movement’s focus on keeping government within bounds and answerable to the people reflects the devotion to limited government embodied in the Constitution. One reason this is poorly understood among our best educated citizens is that American politics is poorly taught at the universities that credentialed them. Indeed, even as the tea party calls for the return to constitutional basics, our universities neglect The Federalist and its classic exposition of constitutional principles.
For the better part of two generations, the best political science departments have concentrated on equipping students with skills for performing empirical research and teaching mathematical models that purport to describe political affairs. Meanwhile, leading history departments have emphasized social history and issues of race, class and gender at the expense of constitutional history, diplomatic history and military history.
Neither professors of political science nor of history have made a priority of instructing students in the founding principles of American constitutional government. Nor have they taught about the contest between the progressive vision and the conservative vision that has characterized American politics since Woodrow Wilson (then a political scientist at Princeton) helped launch the progressive movement in the late 19th century by arguing that the Constitution had become obsolete and hindered democratic reform.
Then there are the proliferating classes in practical ethics and moral reasoning. These expose students to hypothetical conundrums involving individuals in surreal circumstances suddenly facing life and death decisions, or present contentious public policy questions and explore the range of respectable progressive opinions for resolving them. Such exercises may sharpen students’ ability to argue. They do little to teach about self-government.
They certainly do not teach about the virtues, or qualities of mind and character, that enable citizens to shoulder their political responsibilities and prosper amidst the opportunities and uncertainties that freedom brings. Nor do they teach the beliefs, practices and associations that foster such virtues and those that endanger them.
Those who doubt that the failings of higher education in America have political consequences need only reflect on the quality of progressive commentary on the tea party movement. Our universities have produced two generations of highly educated people who seem unable to recognize the spirited defense of fundamental American principles, even when it takes place for more than a year and a half right in front of their noses.
Mr. Berkowitz is a senior fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution.
The crash that initiated the Great depression was not a failure of freedom or private enterprise. The great depression was initiated largely by the actions of the Federal Reserve (with some outside forces) who acted in such a way that was contrary to the ideas in which it was created.
Notice how Dr. Friedman says that government can deliberately cause inflation because it acts as a tax. Inflation brings more money to government and also makes the dollars that the government pays back to debt holders and bond holders worth less and less. This is why the Obama Administration and his lackey at the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, have been deliberately driving up prices with inflation. This also makes every dollar in savings that the elderly have weaker and able to buy less, thus making them even more dependent on government, which falls in line with the current Democrat Leadership’s political strategy.
[Editor’s Note – I posted this in March 2010. After repeatedly insisting that ObamaCare would never be able to ration care or ever have death panels and even after the self-proclaimed politifact.com labeled this their “lie of the year”; fast forward to September 2011, now the truth is reported so casually that even Robert Reich and Paul Krugman have admitted that death panel like rationing will be necessary and the ObamaCare “Independent Payment Advisory Board” is common knowledge. Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich were the first to call this what it was and deserve credit for doing so by stating the obvious: that the words “death panel” do not have to appear in the bill because Congress, by passing the ObamaCare law, has handed such overwhelming regulatory authority over to these faceless bureaucrats that they have the ability create law by regulation at the stroke of a pen.]
Bloomberg News reports about one of the ways health care will be rationed, notice it starts after the upcoming presidential election.
The legislation also creates an Independent Payment Advisory Board to suggest cuts in spending by Medicare, the government health program for the elderly and disabled, that could threaten payments for drug and device-makers. Starting in 2014, the panel’s recommendations would take effect unless federal lawmakers substitute their own reductions.
The president’s own cousin, Dr. Milton Wolf, said that this bill does harm and rations care in multiple ways – LINK:
As one example, consider the implications of Obamacare’s financial penalty aimed at your doctor if he seeks the expert care he has determined you need. If your doctor is in the top 10 percent of primary care physicians who refer patients to specialists most frequently – no matter how valid the reasons – he will face a 5 percent penalty on all their Medicare reimbursements for the entire year. This scheme is specifically designed to deny you the chance to see a specialist. Each year, the insidious nature of that arbitrary 10 percent rule will make things even worse as 100 percent of doctors try to stay off that list. Many doctors will try to avoid the sickest patients, and others will simply refuse to accept Medicare. Already, 42 percent of doctors have chosen that route, and it will get worse. Your mother’s shiny government-issued Medicare health card is meaningless without doctors who will accept it.
Obamacare will further diminish access to health care by lowering reimbursements for medical care without regard to the costs of that care. Price controls have failed spectacularly wherever they’ve been tried. They have turned neighborhoods into slums and have caused supply chains to dry up when producers can no longer profit from providing their goods. Remember the Carter-era gas lines? Medical care is not immune from this economic reality. We cannot hope that our best and brightest will pursue a career in medicine, setting aside years of their lives – for me, 13 years of school and training – to enter a field that might not even pay for the student loans it took to get there.
Of course, when the regulations written by bureaucrats get written how will they be interpreted and enforced? Several of Obama’s Czar’s and advisers have said in no uncertain terms that value judgements about who should get care need to be made, and we have reported those statements right here on this web site.
Now some of you will watch this and think he is being over the top. But is he?
Allen West he defines tyranny as the Founders did. Think about the situation, what would the Founders think of the following:
All three branches of government are now legislating on their own and against the will of the people. We have a breakdown of separation of powers. Federalism is all but eliminated. Government is infringing on private property rights more and more, government owns most of the land west of the Mississippi to prevent us from using our own resources, Congress banned the Thomas Edison light bulb, government uses the tax code and other regulations to pick winners and losers and funnel money to their allies, judges and other office holders do not respect the limits of their office or the Constitution. The government is becoming so big that it is becoming ungovernable.
Congress spent almost $4 trillion last year with $2.08 trillion of that being new deficit spending which is 10 times higher than the yearly deficit the last year the Republicans had budgetary control.
Does anyone doubt for a minute that George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, James Madison, Jon Jay, Ben Rush, George Mason, Gouverneur Morris, Sam Adams, or Alexander Hamilton would say otherwise? Would Abe Lincoln, Frederick Douglass or Joseph Story?
Obama on the transition process to nationalized health care. He says that he opposes national health care , but when in front of a safe audience he says that is what he supports and where he is headed.
Obama saying how he would do health care different form the Clinton’s; notice the transparency and process he is describing was never seriously attempted and the process the Democrats used was so secretive that ‘Easter Eggs” in the bill are still being discovered such as the three multi-billion dollar political slush funds hidden in the bill.
So six months ago we were “nuts” and now some on the left admit that we are right. Of course if one were still in denial over this and believes the video’s and information links above are totally innocent coincidences, at the very least you must admit that Obama gives very different messages when he is in front of different groups, showing that he is just a typical politician willing to tell you anything you want to hear at the time.
This one is just a bonus, definitely worth five minutes of your time. This video is from a union supporting Obama voter who came to the realization that his president just doesn’t tell the truth. The shame is that this guy who is just waking up, doesn’t realize that this ObamaCare bill regulates the insurance industry in such a way that it is designed to blow them up and make health care costs skyrocket. Using the Alinsky model they will blame capitalism and freedom for the problems they created and offer a government take over as the solution. –
Why Keynesian (neo-socialist) economics doesn’t work in the modern economy explained very well in 5 minutes.
This audio is from July 2010. Notice what Quinn says about Obama’s economic policy came true.
“If you are not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.” – Malcolm X
Political Arena 