the daily republican – September 16, 2009: Some Ground Rules for Accusations of Racism (Matt Parks)

September 16th, 2009

   If our political discourse were in any way serious, one would not lightly charge that criticism of President Obama was motivated by race.  This is not like a statement of sharp policy difference or a slight critique of an individual’s private character.  A person who opposes a political leader on racial grounds deeply violates the core principles of our regime and is guilty of a great moral failing.  There is, of course, no need to respond to such opposition, which is fundamentally irrational, and no reason why a person whose politics is guided by racism should have any respectable social standing.  The moral significance of such a charge and its obvious benefits for the accuser should make it necessary to give sufficient evidence to establish it.  Since from the recent comments of former President Jimmy Carter and op-ed column of Maureen Dowd, among many other instances, it appears likely that we will be revisiting this topic frequently over the next three or seven years, we may do well to consider what is and is not ground for a reasonable accusation of racism.  A few basic propositions:

   1. No accusation of racism should be based merely upon suppositions about an individual’s internal motives.

It is hard enough to understand all the reasons behind our own actions; it should be obvious that we know next to nothing about the motives of others.  It is far too common in debating political questions to suppose one has the fullest comprehension of what one’s opponents are “really” after and far too easy to “discover” only the worst motives and designs.  A bit of humility, if not a modicum of charity, ought to keep us from making the most serious charges with the most flimsy evidence.

   2. Absent external evidence, no accusation of racism should be made when differences of principles are sufficient to account for political opposition.

Throughout the presidential campaign, there was much discussion within the mainstream media about whether conservatives and Republicans would oppose Senator Obama because of his race – and what it would say about such groups if he were to lose.  But if large numbers and conservatives were to oppose Senator Obama – and they did – there would obviously be no reason to look for a racial motive.  There was nothing in Senator Obama’s voting record and little in his campaign rhetoric that a typical conservative or Republican could approve consistent with the principles that made him a conservative or a Republican.  The fact that this same group, whether private citizens or office holders, perhaps even more stridently opposes President Obama than it did Senator Obama is very easily explained by the sharp left-ward tilt of his domestic policy in the first several months of his presidency and the current effort to nationalize health care.  It should not be surprising that people who made every effort to oppose “Hillarycare” in 1994 would make every effort to oppose “Obamacare” in 2009.

   3. The best circumstantial evidence of racism is an otherwise unexplainable departure from past practice or principle.

Where might evidence for racial bias have been found in the 2008 presidential campaign?  Suppose (hypothetically) that among white self-described liberals support for Democratic candidates had ranged from 90-94% over the past five presidential elections.  Now suppose (again hypothetically) that President Obama’s support from the same group had been 80% in 2008.  Since there would be little reason to believe that, on policy questions, President Obama’s positions were less agreeable to liberals than those of John Kerry, Al Gore, Bill Clinton (in 1992 or 1996), or Michael Dukakis, racial bias would at least be a possible, even plausible, explanation for the difference.  Once again, is it any surprise that people who oppose high taxes, high spending, heavy-handed regulation, and the government takeover of the banking, auto, and health care industries would oppose the President’s agenda?  One may concede this point and still suggest that the intensity of the August congressional town meetings, the size of the number that rallied in Washington last Saturday, and the nature of Rep. Joe Wilson’s outburst during President Obama’s speech to Congress are unprecedented and out of proportion with the differences in principle between the president and his critics.  Without going through a comprehensive historical review, there is nothing in the present conservative opposition to President Obama that is without a parallel in the conservative opposition to President Clinton the last time the Democrats controlled congress and the White House and attempted a major redirection of the nation’s domestic policy (1993-1994). 

   4. The best circumstantial evidence of racism is only circumstantial evidence of racism.

Very few claims of racial bias can be substantiated by incontrovertible documentary evidence.  Suppose (hypothetically) that the person who shouted “You lie!” during President Obama’s address to Congress had been a current or former member of the Ku Klux Klan.  Is it self-evident even in this case that the motive for such an exclamation was racial?  Is a racist incapable of acting upon any other motive?  Does anyone always act consistently, even with his most cherished beliefs? 

   Beyond the incendiary and malicious nature of inadequately-established claims of racism, there is another reason to oppose their entrance into political debate: their basis in the almost-assumed, yet illogical, leap from discrediting the moral character of an opponent to discrediting the political wisdom of his cause.  Racists can support good causes just like non-racists can support bad ones.  As effective as ad hominem arguments often are, they will never be anything but fallacious ones.  The American founders tried to avoid this problem in their public debates by writing controversial essays under pseudonyms chosen from classical allusions.  While there is very little chance that this practice will be recovered in our day, we might at least avoid the most slanderous and irresponsible claims about our opponents by remembering that even if we have proven them scoundrels, we haven’t proven that their ideas are wrong.

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the daily republican – September 9, 2009: Equality, Natural and Unnatural (Matt Parks)

September 9th, 2009

   Previous editions of the daily republican have considered the confusion that accompanies contemporary citations of the Declaration of Independence’s central proposition: that “all men are created equal.”  Assaults on the Founders’ meaning and sincerity come from all sides.  Were they radical levelers on the order of their French revolutionary contemporaries? Were they racist, sexist, propertyist (?) bigots committed only to equality among their wealthy, white, male counterparts?  Or were they simple Englishmen asserting their common law rights in grandiose language?  The answer is: none of the above. 

   While they were able to appeal to much within the English legal tradition to vindicate their cause, the Declaration was built upon a foundation of natural, not chartered, rights.  Though they were no more free from prejudice than any of the rest of us, the principles they declared (and, in many cases, acted upon) were universal.  Lastly, while they insisted upon the responsibility of all governments to protect the equal rights of those they served, they understood that social and economic inequalities were as natural as political inequality was not. 

   Following a tradition in America as old as the colonies themselves, the Founders argued that while government must be founded in the consent of the governed to protect universal inalienable rights, differences in effort, ability, character, and personality would lead to a social and economic differentiation among the American people.  This, of course, did not mean that the actual distribution of wealth or social status among men had been justly derived – force and fraud had, no doubt, played their part.  Nor did it mean that there was no role for government in preventing or punishing that force or fraud.  What it did mean, however, was that it was unreasonable to make the attainment of social or economic equality, as opposed to the enjoyment of equal natural rights, an end, much less the end, of government. 

   And yet, at least since the time of the New Deal, this has been the principal goal of American domestic policy – with roots that can be traced to the Andrew Jackson administrations of the early 19th century.  Overcoming its innumerable failures and outlasting its strongest critics, the “War on Inequality” plods on, from one generation to the next.  Alexis de Tocqueville worried in the 1830s that the hold that this idea had on Americans was so strong that they might prefer the social and economic equality of slaves to the inequality of free men.  Whether this was a true assessment of the American public at the time, the alternatives that he placed before his readers are indicative of the danger associated with the quest.  The house of equality is not expanded by the addition of social and economic equality to the existing edifice of equal rights, as if one might make a cozy New Englander fit for a more prosperous family.  Rather, it is razed – its pieces pulverized or twisted into unrecognizable shapes. 

   A government that modestly pursues the defense of equal natural rights places itself in proper submission to the human beings it exists to protect and the order of nature given by its divine Author.  A government that proudly crusades for social and economic equality must reduce men to mere means to its revolutionary ends.  One might do well to consider these alternatives as one reflects upon President Obama’s speech before the joint session of Congress tonight.

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the daily republican pick of the day – September 7, 2009: “From Citizens to Stakeholders: The New American Constitution” – Angelo Codevilla

September 8th, 2009

Because the Constitution of 1789 (and its imitators) is based neither on socioeconomic classes nor on socioeconomic functions, it takes no position on the relative value of medicine, mining, banking, or farming, or of the individuals and corporations who perform these functions. Much less is our Constitution about arranging and rearranging functions, making some in any given field into winners and others into losers. That is because our Constitution and its imitators presuppose that government exists by the consent of the individuals who live under it, all of whom are “created equal.” By sharp contrast, stakeholders are not equal individuals, but rather unequal collective entities.

From the beginning:

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the daily republican – September 5, 2009: 10 Principles for a republican Approach to Health Care, part 2 (Matt Parks)

September 5th, 2009

   After a 4-day pause to build suspense (with apologies to our faithful reader), the rest of the list:

    6. More skin in the game: Individuals with a significant financial stake in their health care consumption will be much more likely to maximize the benefit of each dollar spent.  Once again, the point is not to bring about an arbitrary reduction in health care spending because in our Olympian wisdom we have determined Americans spend too much on their health, but to make the dollars that are spent, however many they may be, count.  Making health savings accounts more available, offering a greater variety of health insurance ratings, and similar reforms would allow a real market for health services to emerge.  Competition for customers would be good for doctors, pharmacies, and hospitals – and for health care consumers.  Like most of the reforms on this list, there is no need for the government to create such opportunities – it need only remove the regulations that keep such options from emerging in the present market.

   7. Tort reform: It is easy to complain about the large awards in headline-grabbing civil cases, yet there is not much more benefit to conservative social engineering than liberal social engineering.  Tort reform should not happen just because we don’t like trial lawyers (and sometimes even their clients) getting fabulously rich in “rainmaker” cases.  There is a problem, however, in the area of tort law that has emerged over the last generation from the combined efforts of anti-capitalist ideologues and wealth-seeking trial lawyers: the rise of non-quantifiable damage claims and the use of civil lawsuits in the place of professional discipline and criminal law.  The civil courts are well-designed for adjusting property claims.  Someone who has suffered an economic loss can recoup that loss in a reasonable process that will generally end in a common sense out-of-court settlement.  In such cases, quantifiable monetary losses are compensated with monetary awards.  But in an increasing number of situations, large awards are given for non-economic damages like psychological distress and for non-compensatory purposes like punitive awards.  The latter category is especially problematic.  Narrowing the context to medical malpractice lawsuits, a doctor whose actions truly deserve punishment should either be charged with criminal negligence or brought before a professional panel for review and possible discipline.  Using the civil courts instead unnecessarily increases the cost of liability insurance and therefore medical services while inappropriately awarding plaintiffs money that is essentially equivalent to a fine for criminal activity.  Whatever can be quantified in terms of income lost, new expenses born, and the like is an appropriate item for inclusion in a civil suit settlement or award.  Non-economic damages, however, should be capped at a low number or prohibited altogether.  As long as there are medical boards of review and criminal courts are open, there is no need to use the civil courts inappropriately to police the medical field or any other.

   8. Eliminate mandatory coverage regulations: The more items that are included in mandatory coverage regulations, the more homogenized the health insurance industry becomes.  Such regulations are no doubt responsible in part for the large number of the uninsured in the United States.  For those who are young and healthy, particularly, there is little reason to pay for a policy that has an artificially high price because it covers all sorts of medical care they will never need.  My family is part of a non-insurance health care cooperative (and therefore among the technically uninsured) that does not reimburse expenses generated as a result of certain lifestyle choices.  This makes the monthly fees considerably less than a comparable insurance plan, serving the needs and desires of those involved, but has made the company liable to legal action in a number of states on the grounds that it is a disguised form of insurance.  What public interest is served in the attempts to make such cooperatives more expensive or eliminate them altogether?  Deregulation in this area would allow a much larger number of Americans to find suitable, affordable insurance.

   9. Allow insurance competition across state lines: When each state becomes a health insurance island, the interests of consumers, once again, are compromised.  It is no violation of federalism to make it possible for consumers to purchase insurance policies generated in other states.  In fact, it was one of the very purposes of the Union to create a free market among the several states.  Article I, section 10, of the Constitution specifically prohibits placing tariffs on goods entering one state from another.  The regulatory “tariffs” that limit consumer insurance options violate the spirit, if not the letter, of that principle.

   10. Insurance for citizens, not workers: The present system of employer-based health care, largely the result of special corporate tax benefits associated with providing coverage, causes a number of distortions in the health insurance market.  As argued in previous posts, it obscures a significant portion of the cost of health care decisions.  It also creates many of the oft-noted problems in finding coverage experienced by people with pre-existing conditions.  With the average person changing jobs a half dozen or more times during his work life, each period of transition creates a potential choke point for reinsurance.  Eliminate the tax advantages for the present system and a whole variety of citizen-based, rather than employee-based, plans would emerge that could follow the individual or family from one job to the next over the course of one’s entire working career. 

   As the congress returns next week and President Obama attempts to rekindle the smoldering fires of “comprehensive health care reform,” there will be much pressure from liberal media, academic, and political elites to approve a “compromise” plan with only cosmetic changes to the current House bill on the grounds that something is better than nothing in the midst of our present health care “crisis.”  It has been my desire in this extended series of posts to add my little yelp to the strong voices of many lion who deny this claim.  There are many things worse than our present health care system – including the consequences of almost every significant reform bill that one could imagine coming out of the current congress.  And this should not surprise us – since almost all of the legitimate problems in the present market for health care are the result of previous government reforms. 

   Politics in a hurry is a recipe for bad policy.  Politics in a hurry at the point of a left-wing ideological gun is a recipe for really bad policy.  Politics in a hurry at the point of a left-wing ideological gun under the pressure of an imaginary crisis is a recipe for just about the worst policy of all.

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the daily republican pick of the day – September 2, 2009: “We’re Recovering Despite Looming Obamanomics” – Larry Kudlow

September 3rd, 2009

While so-called spending-and-deficit stimulus may be an economic depressant, Friedmanite monetary stimulus — which has been substantial — is gradually exerting a powerful impact on economic growth. At the same time, businesses have become lean and mean, with radical cost-cutting of inventories, employment, and hours worked. That’s setting up a big profits surge, which is the biggest economic stimulus of all.

From the beginning:

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the daily republican – September 1, 2009: 10 Principles for a republican Approach to Health Care, part 1 (Matt Parks)

September 1st, 2009

   Politically-speaking, the health care policy alternatives before us at the moment are limited: a strong or weaker version of the President’s plan (any of which would either include or prepare the way for the provisions and approach to health care objected to in my “10 Reasons to Oppose Obamacare” columns) or something not very far removed from nothing.  With a different congress, different options would emerge.  With a different president and a different congress, a whole range of new possibilities would come into being.  For now, then, it is most important that we have clarity on the key question that will be before the congress when it returns from recess: is the status quo preferable to the President’s alternative? 

   There is no guarantee that “reform,” however good may be the intentions of those who advocate it, will make things better.  The history of public policy has many, many chapters that can be summarized: good intentions, bad results.  Unless we currently have the worst possible health care system, there are ways to make it worse.  I believe that there are very good reasons, detailed in numerous previous posts, to believe that the President’s plan will reduce access to health care, increase costs until strict rationing is imposed, create a culture of Darwinian competition for medical resources and pressure on the weak to “get out of the way,” compromise liberty, and vastly expand the reach of the emerging corporatist, bureaucratic state.  Given the choice between the President’s plan and doing nothing, we would be better off doing nothing.  Given a different set of political possibilities, however, a republican approach to health care might look something like this:  

   1. Maintaining a fundamental respect for human dignity – One of the great dangers of nationalized health care is its tendency to compromise human dignity in a whole variety of ways.  From the paternalistic assumption that government boards can better manage my health than I can to the creeping expansion of the number of our fellow men who are defined out of the human family (to justify abortion or the denial of treatment to those whose “quality of life” is substandard), a government-controlled health care system assaults our republican principles at their foundation.      

   2. Keeping the private private – The more health care is conceived of as a service provided by the government rather than a service contracted for between private parties, the more of one’s life is drawn within the public sphere.  There is no national health care “bill,” as the President has put it, as if all Americans, in this regard, comprised one large family – and there won’t be so long as there remains a strong private market for health care services.  It is no small reason to fight for the continued existence and growth of that market that we may forestall the onerous lifestyle taxes and regulations that must surely grow with the government’s role in providing and regulating health care.     

   3. Recognizing the tradeoffs that public spending forces – If I could wish two pieces of wisdom upon every policymaker in the nation, they would be: first, a proper understanding of human nature (consistent with the Biblical account of fallen humanity); second, an appreciation of the economic concept of opportunity cost.  Over and over again, those who craft legislation and regulation fail to appreciate the policy implications of the obvious fact that a dollar spent on item x is consequently unavailable for the purchase of item y.  $1 trillion spent on public health insurance is almost $10,000 that every household in America will not be able to spend on their heating and cooling bill, a healthier diet, more adequate clothing, improved housing, an exercise machine or gym membership, an extra trip to the doctor or dentist, or a safer car.  Any or all of these items might be at least as likely to improve the health or life expectancy of Americans as government-centered health reform, but may be quietly foregone when the money is appropriated for public use.  Spending on a government health care plan, to be justified, must at least be able to show that: a. it will bring about a net improvement in health after factoring in all the opportunities foregone in the collecting of the taxes to pay for it; b. that that net improvement is greater than the improvements available through non-public options, tax credits for health insurance, etc.  To advocate a program that cannot meet these tests is an ideological, rather than a policy, judgment.

   4. Promoting cost transparency – The more that payment for health care is removed from the relationship between patient and provider, the less the health care consumer is able to make his own important judgments about relative spending priorities.  Greater transparency may not lead to less spending – and there is no intrinsic reason to believe that Americans should spend less on their health rather than more – but it will lead to a more informed choice. 

   5. Less “policy,” more responsibility – What portion of our health care system is it necessary for government to control?  Must the government make it its business to reduce health care spending to a certain arbitrary level?  Must the government provide health insurance companies with a list of items they must cover? Must the government ensure that there will be no personal benefit for healthy living in the form of reduced insurance premiums?  Must the government decide what profits pharmaceutical companies may make, what rates doctors may charge, what services hospitals must offer?  There is no necessity that any one group or individual make such decisions.  In these and many similar areas, it is quite possible to have no “policy” at all, but to leave such matters in the hands of the millions of responsible citizens who sensibly go about their own business each day and the thousands of health care providers who respond to their desires and needs. 

   For those seeking a laundry list of “conservative” health care policies and programs to enact, the five points in today’s post must fall rather short of the mark.  There will be time to consider legislative changes (items 6-10) that could mitigate some of the commonly-cited problems of the American health care “system.”  But we will not allow ourselves to be forced into a debate on ground occupied by our opponents, where legislative activity is the measure of a legislator’s excellence, where public policy is expected to solve every private problem, and where individual citizens are collectivized and homogenized into an amorphous mass of government clients and dependents.

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the daily republican – August 29, 2009: 10 Reasons to Oppose Obamacare, part 2 (Matt Parks)

August 29th, 2009

   In Thursday’s daily republican, I highlighted the first five reasons to oppose the President’s health care reforms.  Today, the rest of the list….

   6. Creating an unnatural right: One of the most pregnant features of the current health care bill is the provision that establishes a right to health insurance.  As the first post in this series argued, this turns the logic of rights on its head.  A right as a protection from harm is universally enforceable since there is nothing that prevents all people from enjoying it simultaneously.  A right to a positive good (like health insurance) cannot be universalized without compelling some people to provide it to another; that is, without conscripting the labor and resources of some in the service of others.  As a result, some end up with a right without a corresponding responsibility and others with a responsibility that vastly exceeds the value of the right. 

   7. More hidden costs: As we’ve argued at a number of points, the demand for health care is artificially increased in our system by the fact that consumers have very little opportunity or incentive to investigate the true cost of treatments and procedures.  Neither employer-based private insurance nor public health insurance options provide individuals with any palpable benefit from economizing or any easy way to observe the consequences of their health care decisions.  Since these are the core of President Obama’s plan, approving it will only make matters worse in this regard.

   8. Possessive politics: While some may find the implied social solidarity comforting, the nationalization of health care will only exacerbate the trend toward an increasingly paternalistic government.  As “our seniors” and “our children” becomes “our everyone,” we must recognize that something fundamental to our republican system is being given away.  It is in the messy relationships of life within one’s “little platoon” that true care and love is shown, not in the cold comforts of the bureaucratic state.

   9. Rationing: The primary reason cited by President Obama for insisting on health care reform now is the link he believes exists between our supposedly unsustainable level of health care spending and our nation’s long-term economic prosperity.  The difficulty that he has had is in explaining how providing 48 million people with health insurance and increasing the mandates on private insurance companies will lead to reduced costs.  So far, the answer has focused on the savings that will be wrung out of pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, and doctors, who will be forced to accept less for their goods and services by government mandates and its increased purchasing power.  There is no way, however, that this will be enough to “bend the curve.”  If President Obama’s plan is fully operationalized, the result will be a health care system where both the marginal cost for medical care and the marginal benefit to foregoing care will be, in practical terms, zero.  This will create an essentially unlimited demand for care.  There will then be only one way to reduce costs: ration care through the sorts of government boards and agencies all nations with socialized medicine use.

   10. Stakeholders and social scientists: In less than 2/3 of a year, the Obama administration has institutionalized a way of governing that departs dramatically from our republican tradition.  Policy is made by presidentially-appointed czars in cooperation with business and non-profit “stakeholders,” according to the dictates of presidentially-approved social scientists.  Congress formally retains its role in the process, but until the health care debate, has generally followed the command that the “time for talking is over.”  Who, then, counts in this system?  Not the voting and tax-paying public, whose “stake” in what happens to their lives and property is ignored, but those with the right political connections and lobbyists.  Once they are “on board,” the ship is ready to sail.  And once the ship sails, it is the same group of the well-connected and approved that mans the helm for the sake of their own power and profit.

   These, of course, are the short versions of the argument.  Most of these points have been much further developed in the dozen or so preceding posts on the topic.  Tuesday, we begin to sketch the parameters of a truly republican health care policy.

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the daily republican – August 27, 2009: 10 Reasons to Oppose Obamacare, part 1 (Matt Parks)

August 27th, 2009

   For several weeks, I have focused my editions of the daily republican on the health care reform proposals working their way through congress at the behest of President Obama.  In the next four posts, we will complete this series with two final topics: ten reasons to oppose the President’s plan and ten principles for a republican approach to health care.  Today, the first five objections to Obamacare:

   1. Fiscal Irresponsibility: The increase in the 10-year deficit projection to $9 trillion only underscores a point that was obvious from the beginning of this debate: the US can’t afford these health care savings.  The Obama administration estimates that its health care program will add $1 trillion to this deficit, but given its already-demonstrated tendency toward rosy economic projections and the long history of entitlements far exceeding their estimated costs, there is every reason to believe that this is far too low.  Borrowing will account for more than 40% of government spending this year, an unsustainable pace.  As the national debt explodes, we will have a diminishing control over our fiscal future as a larger and larger percentage of government spending and the national GDP is committed to debt service and entitlements.  This will leave us at the mercy of international investors willing to finance our debt at the rising interests rates that will be needed to attract scarce capital. 

   2. Socialized risk: The heavy-handed regulation of the private health insurance industry will not only threaten the existence of the private health insurance industry (see below), but remove all connection between health and health insurance premiums.  Insurance is meant to protect people against unlikely but financially-devastating events.  Since not all classes of people have the same risk profile, insurance premiums naturally vary.  The Obama plan brings this to an end, also ending any financial incentive for responsible living.

   3 Socialized life: When health care is nationalized, whether directly through a single-payer system or indirectly through heavy regulation with or without a “public option,” every decision that affects an individual’s health has public consequences.  Taxes and regulations on newly “anti-social” behavior are sure to follow.

   4. The public option minus the option: Many liberals are not even subtle about the fact that the “public option” health insurance plan, freed from any financial constraints imposed upon private insurance companies and buttressed by a regime of vast regulation upon those companies, is only a temporary stop on the way to single-payer health care.  President Obama’s most shameful talking point in this debate has been his much-repeated claim, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that anyone who wants to keep his health insurance will be able to.  Three quick reasons this will not be the case: a. all grandfathered health care options disappear when a person changes jobs; b. under the law, employers may pay an 8% payroll tax rather than provide private insurance, which some who currently provide insurance will undoubtedly choose to do; c. it is a moral certainty that the plan’s regulations will set off a series of insurance company bankruptcies, sales, and mergers that will entirely change the industry and its options.     

   5. The duty to die: The Senate “gang of six” can remove every expert board or panel in the House bill without freeing the President’s proposed reforms from one of its most troubling implications.  If all health care spending is collectivized into one national health care “bill,” then it is impossible to avoid the implication that it is one’s public duty to die when one is no longer “useful” or requires an “excessive” degree of medical care to survive.  A revitalized form of social Darwinism will force the old, weak, and disabled to justify their existence against the subtle, often unspoken, but unmistakable pressure to get out of the way.

   Saturday: the rest of the list.

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the daily republican pick of the day – August 26, 2009: “Obama’s Summer of Discontent” – Fouad Ajami

August 26th, 2009

American democracy has never been democracy by plebiscite, a process by which a leader is anointed, then the populace steps out of the way, and the anointed one puts his political program in place. In the American tradition, the “mandate of heaven” is gained and lost every day and people talk back to their leaders. They are not held in thrall by them. The leaders are not infallible or a breed apart. That way is the Third World way, the way it plays out in Arab and Latin American politics.

“The politics of charisma is so Third World. Americans were never going to buy into it for long.”

From the beginning:

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the daily republican – August 25, 2009: With Friends Like These… (Matt Parks)

August 25th, 2009

   In yesterday’s Washington Post, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele announced a new Republican health care initiative, the Seniors’ Health Care Bill of Rights.  There seems to be something about being a state or national party chairman that leads previously sensible men to start sputtering the most embarrassingly common political clichés and the most opportunistically populist dogma.  In an op-ed entitled “Protecting Our Seniors,” Mr. Steele said that “any health-care reform should be fully paid for, but not funded on the backs of our nation’s senior citizens.”  That’s a hack daily double with the ubiquitous political possessive (“Our Seniors”) and an attempt to boomerang a line worn out years ago in the Clinton administration’s vituperations against the Republican congress (“funded on the backs of our nation’s senior citizens”) – with extra points for turning the merely trite into the completely inane (how do you “fund” something on someone’s back?  The proper cliché is “balance…on the back”).  The worst offenses in the article, however, are not rhetorical, but political. 

   The first “article” of the Seniors’ Bill of Rights commits the Republicans to protecting Medicare.  This certainly qualifies as opportunistic populism.  President Obama’s efforts to make the major healthcare “stakeholders” complicit in his plan have given the GOP the rare opportunity to get to the left of the Democrats on Medicare and Mr. Steele is determined not to miss the chance.  The AARP was persuaded to swallow $500 billion in Medicare “savings” in the name of liberal solidarity.  Not a few of their “retired persons” have been showing up at congressional town halls to voice their dissent and 60,000 quit the organization in July.  If the Republicans can’t be the party of limited government and free markets, maybe they can gather in all the “victims” of President Obama’s cruel fiscal parsimony. After all, in the heady days of the Gingrich Revolution, the Republicans were budget-cutting little-old-lady-haters for threatening to reduce the rate of increase in Medicare spending.  No doubt Mr. Steele enjoys the opportunity to turn the tables on behalf of all his demonized fellow-Republicans of the 90s.  But at what price?  Does the Republican Party really want to score a few momentary points with “our seniors” by tying itself to the Medicare albatross? 

   Politics, of course, involves politics.  But it should be one of the basic rules for the leaders of political parties that their mind-numbing press release wars not undermine their party’s basic goals and principles.  In his essay, Mr. Steele agrees with President Obama that “Medicare will go deep into the red in less than a decade.”  His complaint: that the President and congressional Democrats are trying to “raid, not aid” Medicare.  How does Mr. Steele intend for Republicans to “aid?”  Before trying to figure this out, consider the commitments Mr. Steele makes on behalf of Republicans in his essay.  First, once again, they must “protect” Medicare.  Second, as noted above, they must reform health care without those who are the current beneficiaries of government health care programs paying the price.  Third, they must especially “ensure that our greatest generation will receive access to quality health care.”  Any fair-minded reader of this essay will conclude that Mr. Steele has taken every option off the table except tax increases for non-seniors – a hike in the Medicare-funding payroll tax.  If he has something else in mind, the readers he is targeting – “our (high-voter-turnout) seniors” – will not appreciate his subtlety.   And if he doesn’t, Republicans have further damaged their already limited post-Bush credibility as the party of low taxes and limited spending.

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