americanideal.org Blog

Actions have consequences.  It’s axiomatic, self-evident, and true.  Yet it is widely denied by most of popular culture, the media, and the political class.  And the denial of this truth is at the very heart of contemporary liberalism.

We think that we can wish away the negative consequences of our actions.   Maybe we can hit the delete button on our keyboard and they will disappear!  Like a text message that disolves into cyberspace.

That’s why abortion is such a frustrating issue.  Everyone knows it kills a living human being, but it’s too much to ask, to expect a woman to bear and raise a child that she doesn’t want just because she and her boyfriend “made a mistake” when having a little frolic in the nude.  After all, nobody should be “punished with a baby” (in Mr. Obama’s words) because they forgot to use birth control.

Look at most of today’s parents, the ones with teenage children.  Drive by a high school parking lot during a school day and see all the expensive cars and SUVs parked there.  Those aren’t the teachers’ cars. Those are the students’ rides.  Their precious asses can’t be expected to sit on a school bus, heaven forbid.  And walking to school?  Unthinkable.

Cell phones in high school are a given.  Every high school student has one, and them’s the times we live in. But first and second graders with cell phones?  Common nowadays.

So what?  Kids today are by and large spoiled and pampered.  That’s not news.  No, but it goes hand in hand with the attempt to excise consequences from our lives.  Parents can choose to withhold punishment when their children do wrong, or they can limit their punishments to a toothless talking-to.  If my teenager drives drunk and kills somebody, though, that consequence–an innocent dead person–cannot be wished away, no matter how “understanding” I may try to be.

STD’s (AIDS etc.) are so troubling to us becuase they are by and large easily prevented.  But it just doesn’t seem fair that having sex can lead to terrible illness, and we need to erase the illness (the consequence) without expecting any change in people’s behavior that could prevent the illness in the first place.  We need vaccines, antibiotics, and condoms, but not more responsible behavior.

This brings us to the Wall Street bailout.  If companies make bad loans to unqualified recipients because of political correctness (increased minority home ownership goals, e.g.), the urging of bureaucrats, or short-sighted folly (absolute faith that real estate values will keep going up), they are taking on a risk that the loans will go bad, and they are hoping for a reward that the loans will be repaid on time.

If the loans succeed and retain their value, they can be sold for gain or retained for the income they will generate.  That’s fine.

If the loans can’t be repaid and the values of the homes supporting those mortgages also tank, they may become worth much less, and the lending institution takes a loss.

If we believe in the free market, the lending institution gets to enjoy the benefit of their investments and loans when they work out.  Why, then, should they not bear the burden when they don’t work out.  Why do we want to privatize the reward and socialize the risk? 

We want to wipe away, wish away, delete by magic the negative consequences of the risks taken by individuals and firms in the marketplace of mortgage lending.  After all, they didn’t mean for things to go bad.  They thought real estate values would continue to rise. They meant well by trying to expand home ownership. Why should they be punished for all these good intentions by taking a financial loss?  Let’s just abort the consequence of their actions, to the tune of $700 billion of somebody else’s money.

Navigating politics without principle will get you lost.  That’s where John McCain finds himself today.  He has fallen into the same trap as George HW Bush in 1992.  He is sounding like a “me too but less” Democrat.

I have to admit I was impressed with McCain’s acceptance speech at the GOP convention, more than I had expected to be.  His story is compelling and reveals many admirable character traits that would help him as president.  Anyone who endured that living hell and stayed true to his cause is a hero to be sure.

So, when he picked up the mantel of change and reform, I thought that wasn’t a bad strategy, not letting Obama claim that territory unchallenged.  Great, let McCain do that for the convention with a big national audience, put out a few commercials talking about change, and then he will get back to the issues that will help him win.

Apparently not, at least not yet. And time is a-wasting.  McCain’s problem is the emphasis on “getting something done” no matter what it is.  Getting the right things done, according to firm and fundamental principles, should be the goal. 

I find McCain’s character, which is obviously loyal, steadfast, disciplined, courageous, and self-sacrificing, to be at odds with the kind of pragmatic politics that he seems to employ.  There is nothing fundamentally good about compromise, and it shouldn’t be an end in itself.  Compromise is something you tolerate when you must, in order to advance your principles toward a goal, albeit not as far as you would like.  Half a loaf is better than none, but not as good as the whole loaf.  And no one starts out by striving for half the loaf.

McCain got stuck on reform and change and has sounded like Obama:  empty and vague promises without substantive content.  In so doing, he has surrendered one of the biggest advantages he had on Obama.  He should be hammering Mr. O. on his platitudes and demanding concrete specifics, while offering plenty of his own.  In other words, this election should be and in order for McCain to win–must be–about issues.

If the election is only about who is going to bring the most “change,” there is no way McCain can win.  If you want a “change” and all you care about is the emotional feeling of something “new” coming in and sweeping away the old, who is going to vote for a 72 year old white guy that has been in the Senate for 30 plus years, when this other cool cat has an interesting and unique name, is half black, and has only been around for a couple of years. 

McCain has to go back to basics, and it ain’t complicated:  “Obama is a flaming liberal, and here are the differences between us (taxes, guns, right to life, free markets, socialized medicine, freedom to control your own life, judges, strong military, etc.)  Here are my bedrock principles, and I am going to fight to implement them as well as I can when I am your president.”

Add Whoopi Goldberg to the pantheon of intellectual giants that speak for the liberal-celebrity-Democrat culture.  You may recall that theologian Nancy Pelosi, Doctor of Divinity, has recently discovered something unknown to Cathoic Popes and theologians for two thousand years, as if it was buried in her backyard when she was excavating for a new pool, namely that the Catholic Church, in fact, is not sure when a human life acquires a right to live. 

Now we have Ms. Whoopi Goldberg, Juris Doctor.  By the way, is she on Obama’s short list for his first Supreme Court vacancy?  After all, she’s eminently qualified.  She’s a real woman (unlike Sarah Palin), because she’s a radical feminist; and she’s really black (unlike Clarence Thomas), because she’s a radical leftist. Therefore, she’s got two interest group identities nailed.  Now we find that she is a stunningly original legal mind!  If only she were a lesbian too. . . Ah, but with Hollywood, you never know.  She could one day fall under the spell of that seductress (I mean seducer (?) sorry for the sexist suffix) Ellen Degeneres.  Then we would have a feminist black woman involved in an interracial lesbian affair.  That’s a grand slam on any lefty’s scorecard.  She would sail through the Senate with unanimous Democrat support, and the Republicans would politely nod and add fawining praise (”Hey, she was hilariouis in Sister Act, and wasn’t she one of those hyenas in the Lion King? Very funny stuff”).

Whoopi’s crack a the law came on recent appearance of John McCain on The View  (I liked politics better when its practicioners thought it was beneath their dignity to do these pop-TV interviews as just one of the guys with Jay, Dave, or now these four harpies on the View–or Oprah God help us).

ELISABETH HASSELBECK: There has also been a question burning amongst voters and actually our viewers, and that is the question of Roe v. Wade. And as president, if you were, no softballs coming from me, even though you have my vote. Would you as president work to overturn that? And then would Sarah Palin be working to overturn Roe v. Wade?

SENATOR JOHN McCAIN (R-AZ): I think what we would be doing is appointing or nominating justices to the United States Supreme Court and other courts who strictly interpret the Constitution of the United States. We would not impose a litmus test on any issue because that’s not fair to the American people. But they would have to have a clear record of strict interpretation.

BARBARA WALTERS: That’s kind of the other way of saying people who would want to overturn Roe v. Wade.

McCAIN: That, that, well, that is saying that, I believe Roe v. Wade was a very bad decision, Barbara. [audience groans] I think it was a bad decision. I thought other, I thought other decisions of the United States Supreme Court were bad decisions. But I want people on the Court who, quote, “do interpret” and not just on the issue of Roe v. Wade, but on other issues.

WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Do I have to be worried about becoming a slave again?

McCAIN: My interpretation of the Constitution of the United States is that the United States Supreme Court enforces the Constitution of the United States and does not legislate nor invent areas that are responsibilities, according to the Constitution, of the legislative branch.

HASSELBECK: So it was in how the law came up, it was in how Roe v. Wade came apart was the issue. You, you want it to be through the Constitution from the people not from the bench.

McCAIN: And I believe that if Roe v. Wade were overturned, then the states would make these decisions.

GOLDBERG: Sir.

McCAIN: Yes?

GOLDBERG: Can you just, and I don’t want to misinterpret what you’re saying. Did you say you wanted strict Constitutionalists? Because that, that-

McCAIN: No, I want people who interpret the Constitution of the United States the way our founding fathers envision-

GOLDBERG: Does that-

McCAIN: -for them to do.

GOLDBERG: Should I be worried about being a slave, about being returned to slavery because certain things happened in the Constitution that you had to change.

McCAIN: I, I understand your point.

GOLDBERG: Okay, okay.

McCAIN: I understand that point and I, I, [applause] thank you. That’s an excellent point.

GOLDBERG: Thank you sir.

McCAIN: And I thank you.

WALTERS: Before we go, before we go, just to give a different picture because you talk- [laughter]

GOLDBERG: I got scared.

JOY BEHAR: She’s picturing herself on the plantation.

GOLDBERG: I got scared. I gotta start running.

WALTERS: You and Sherri, we’ll take care of you. Us white folk will take care of you.

SHERRI SHEPHERD: Oh my God.

“Oh my God” is right.  Hey Whoopi, any supreme court justice who would apply the Constitution as written could not allow you or any person (black or white) to become enslaved (although in your case it might be tempting . . .). 

The Constitution has these legally binding principles embodied not just in the original clauses and articles, but in those pesky amendments that have been added over two centuries time since.  These amendments are part of the Constitution and have absolute legal force, and they were added through the process spelled out in same, not by the reckless whim of five or more black-robed dictators.  Guess what, Whoopi!  The 13th amendment to the US Constitution specifically forbids the practice of slavery or involuntary servitude in the United States; and the 14th and 15th amendments further articulate this nation’s commitment to equality of the races under the law.  They all came during a national time of healing knows as reconstruction, after a terrible national blood-letting known as the Civil War.  Ever hear of any of that?

How I wish McCain, instead of the obligatory and insincere show of “understanding” toward Ms. Goldberg’s alleged fear, had told her what an idiot she is and had given her a lecture on the Constitution that every American 8th grader should know.  It shows us just how unhealthy race relations are in this country, in the way the Obama campaign also shows it.  In a “post-race” world, one could say honestly to Whoopi something like the following:  “You, Whoopi, may be an amusing comic actress, but when it comes to politics you are in idiot.  And you are an idiot, neither because of nor despite the fact that you are black and a woman, but because you are stupid.”   That’s a healthy dialogue I long to hear.

No, Whoopi, you needn’t fear being shackled and forced to pick cotton.  Heck, that doggone Constitution even prevents you from being silenced for being wrong and being a moron (did I mention, however, that the prospect makes my mouth water . . . ) 

The rest of the world wants Obama

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/world/view/20080911-159952/World-wants-Obama-but-McCain-leads-in-US-polls