The Liberal Paradigm

Great column by John Steele Gordon over at the Wall Street Journal this morning, "Obama and the Liberal Paradigm." It's a nice introduction to the liberal mind set which goes something like this:

a) The majority of Americans are dumb-stoopid! They are sheep and need to be led and protected.

b) Corporations, business people, financiers...you know "Wall Street," are the wolves who want to prey upon the sheep.

c) Liberals are the shepherds who protect the sheep from the wolves. Because of this they are an enlightened lot, pure and wise and all who would be against them must be dumb-stoopid!

This paradigm, as Gordon observes, worked well from the 1890's through the FDR administration. But times have changed and their paradigm has not.

While I agree with Gordon's analysis, I think it falls a little short. Specifically, this paradigm, this mindset, allows them to forgive all forms of malfeasance and misgovernment. Corruption by a liberal? Necessary! The Enlightened cannot be held to the same standard as the sheep. Accountability? Not Necessary! The Enlightened cannot lead the sheep if someone expects results - after all, you never know where the evil wolves will strike next.

I would add that there is a crucial disconnect in the concept of freedom between the sheep and the Enlightened liberal. The liberal views freedom as something that he provides to the sheep - by providing them with redistributive goodies from the state, the sheep are free to graze and enjoy themselves free of consequences. The real meaning of freedom in the American sense is the freedom to choose what we bloody well want to do with the understanding that with this freedom comes the responsibility to be a good citizen and that life has consequences.

Global cooling crisis

Well, since everything is a "crisis" these days, why not create a new one. We are going to need it to justify passing this ridiculous cap and trade bill. The ice wall of disinformation is starting to spring leaks all over:

The BBC: "What Happened to Global Warming?"

Investors Business Daily: "Three Decades of Global Cooling."

Scientists challenging EPA on Carbon Dioxide ruling: a letter to EPA Director Lisa Jackson

From the letter:

And yet, without thoughtful, fully-informed judgments on all of the questions by the scientists who are expert in the particular issue area, the EPA should not feel comfortable issuing an Endangerment Finding in support of CO2 regulation.

But, God forbid you challenge orthodoxy:

The American Thinker had an excellent column this morning that connects the dots between liberalism, global warming and Obama:

The global warming fraud is a lesson in the self-censorship of liberals, their fear of finding out the truth. It's even worse when you see that same self-inflicted blindness over and over again. Millions of liberals didn't want to know about Obama before the election. They sleepwalked into that voting booth, like an old Disney cartoon with Donald Duck holding his arms out in front and with his eyes firmly shut. But they do that a lot, just shutting out sizable parts of the world and not exercising basic adult intelligence in the minefield of politics.

Eyes wide shut - liberalism at its best. Sticking your fingers in your ears and chanting slogans like "yes we can," over and over is infantile enough. But now those same blutheros have the power to destroy the American economy and are hard at work passing legislation that will do just that:

It is also worth noting that, of the 24 years analyzed by The Heritage Foundation's Center for Data Analysis (CDA), 2020 had the second lowest GDP loss. Furthermore, the CDA found that for all years the average GDP loss was $393 billion, or over double the 2020 hit. In 2035 (the last year analyzed by Heritage) the inflation adjusted GDP loss works out to $6,790 per family of four--and that is before they pay their $4,600 share of the carbon taxes.[5] The negative economic impacts accumulate, and the national debt is no exception. The increase in family-of-four debt, solely because of Waxman-Markey, hits an astounding $114,915 by 2035.[6]

How does that hopey-change thing feel now? Now, to my centrist friends that still have some wiggles on your EEG...you know who you are - the ones that just thought we needed something different - do I have your attention now? Liberalism is founded on the hope that the masses are not thinking...how do you feel grouped in with that lumpetariat? How about some real change in 2010 before it is too late.

Welfare Hurts

And not just in the United States...article in the Sydney Morning Herald out of Australia that discusses a recent study conducted down under on the effects of chronic welfare dependency. The results are still more compelling evidence that liberal good intentions do little to help the individual:

Where families had been on welfare for at least six years, the young people were almost three times as likely to have been suspended from school at some time, compared with young people with no family welfare history. About 20 per cent had a history of being late for school compared with fewer than 10 per cent of the more advantaged. They were less likely to be in classes for the gifted and talented and more likely to be in remedial classes.

By the age 18 about 65 per cent of those with no family welfare history were studying compared with just over 40 per cent of the welfare group; and more than 30 per cent of those from fortunate backgrounds were at university compared with about 12 per cent of the disadvantaged group.

Big differences were apparent in rates of depression and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and alcohol, tobacco and illicit drug use. To the researchers' surprise, almost 45 per cent of the less advantaged group had suffered asthma compared with 27 per cent of the better off.

But conservatives have known this for a long time...so have the statist leftists. Problem is, conservatives actually want to help those less fortunate by providing opportunities for them to work and have the dignity and self-worth that comes from that. Liberals love dependents - it's a guaranteed voting bloc. The old adage of "teaching a man to fish" rather than giving him a fish...or in liberal parlance, giving the man someone else's fish.

Consider these facts and then mull on the implications of providing socialized medicine. Flannery O'Connor was right: "if we are not ruled by faith, then we are ruled by compassion and that compassion leads to the gas chamber."

Tolerance, Liberal Style

It is astounding to me how the side that claims the moral high ground of "tolerance" and "understanding" and "equality" demands mind-frozen obedience to their teachings. Failure to do so exposes you to tactics like this: a blacklist of people who contributed to a political cause they felt strongly about. Or of course, there's the more traditional approach, like this:

The Shrinking Possibility of Hope

The caption under this picture in the Wall Street Journal this morning was priceless: "Obama gets taken for a ride by the UAW." Holman Jenkin's column "Obama Hears a Giant Sucking Sound," is a refreshing perspective. As terrified as those of us on the right are about a tsunami of liberalism headed our way, the reality is that his hands are probably tied. "Mr. Obama must be looking around and beginning to suspect he will be pouring his political capital, along with considerable taxpayer capital, down bottomless holes for the next four years. He won't be building a legacy as the new FDR, but cleaning up after the last one." I love how Holman finishes the piece:

That Mr. Obama had been sent by history to assuage the insecurities of the middle class with a "New" New Deal was always a tad detached from reality anyway. The reason is those giant legacies of existing New Dealism known as Social Security and Medicare, about which he was careful to say nothing intelligible during the campaign. These programs worked for a while too, but now their expected revenues are (in present value) about $99.2 trillion short of the expected outlays required to assure present and future workers their promised comfort in retirement.

Then again, Mr. Obama did say something in his campaign about tax rebates for all these payroll taxpayers. He also said something about government matching contributions to incentivize today's low- and middle-income workers to save for their own retirement.

Voilà, personal accounts funded by payroll-tax givebacks -- strangely similar to the solution our current president promoted to help workers escape the impending insolvency of the government retirement programs. Mr. Obama envisioned himself extending FDR's work. He may end up finishing George Bush's.

Look folks - at some point we are going to have to face the $99.2 TRILLION shortfall in Social Security and Medicaid. We can't print our way out of it...I doubt we can grow our way out. The only hope is for an honest, sober assessment of the situation and a realistic plan to scale entitlements back. Otherwise we are doomed to the ash heap. Now would be a good time to do it too...the economy's in the tank, the news every day is bad...one good dose of cod-liver oil reality and let's get on with it!