Reading by the Light of Perverted Science

But if we fail, then the whole world ... will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister ... by the lights of perverted science.
— Sir Winston Churchill, June 18, 1940

My Dear Democrat United States Congresspersons,

We do hope you are enjoying your well deserved recess. The 111th has thus far proven one of the boldest and most aggressive legislative bodies in the history of governance. Statists and collectivists throughout the world and throughout history are doubtless agog.

Between naps and town hall meetings (how rewarding those must be for you) we hope you are taking the opportunity to catch up on your reading. We highly recommend two pieces in particular, namely HR 3200 and HR 2454, the health care reform bill and the cap and trade bill respectively.

While reading, we wonder if you won’t find something reminiscent within the myriad provisions and proposals comprising these bills; something akin, if not entirely homologous to, what Sir Winston Churchill referred to as “perverted science.”

It is often assumed that in coining the phrase Sir Winston was referring to the monstrous Nazi war machine. He was not. He was referring to the synthesis of new technology and knowledge with a godless utilitarian philosophy which recast mankind as a mere resource among others to be used or discarded as expediency requires. In this world view, man exists to serve the State. To the extent that he does, he has value. To the extent he does not, he is worthless and expendable.

Not surprisingly, this “science” proves a bit of a hard sell to most populations, even the German’s of the 1930’s. So shrewd politicians dress it up with pretty little rationalizations. Eugenics, for example, justified unspeakable medical practices and experimentation so long as they were carried out upon worthless and expendable non-humans such as Jews, the disabled, blacks, homosexuals, Poles, and political enemies of all stripes. The Nazi’s “Blood and Soil” campaign made acceptable all manner of environmentalist buggery like “Tierschutzrecht,” their law against the use of cruel experiments on animals (that’s what the Jews et al were for); “Reichnatureschutzgesetz,” which allowed government expropriation of land without compensation for the purposes of environmental land use planning, “Dauerwald,” which protected forests at all costs, and ultimately “Lebensraum,” which justified the expansion of right-thinking Germany to any place on Earth it damn well pleased. (You can read all about this in Mr. Mark Musser’s excellent compendium, “The Green Nazi Hell and America’s Future?” )

Are these evidence of the sunny side of Nazism? Did Dolphy and the boys have a soft spot in their hearts for fuzzy bunnies and leafy trees? No. They merely recognized the efficacy of these measures in getting feeling, thinking people to exchange their God given rights of person and property for the promise of some mystical agrarian purity sustained only by the wisdom and grace of science and State. Alas they instead found themselves mere grist for the mill and forced to accept any dehumanizing edict handed down from government almighty.

When we read then the breathtaking affront to the rights of private property that is HR 2454, the euthanasia provisions in HR 3200 (Section 1233 pages 425-430),and the mandated tax-payer subsidized abortion via the Kennedy amendment thereto, we cannot help but feel we’ve seen all this before. We wonder, too, if the American people will prove as blind and compliant to these manipulations – festooned as they are in the raiment of social justice, environmental stewardship, and fiscal responsibility - as have been their German, Russian, Chinese, and to a lesser degree British, European, Canadian, and Australian cousins before.

It would seem, judging by the rather spunky response those of you holding live town hall meetings are receiving, that they are not. You would do well to listen to your constituents, and read the damned bills, being mindful of history and the light of perverted science.

Cheers,

Charlie

Our Interview with Satan

Churchill’s Parrot: Charlie Churchill’s Parrot here and joining us this evening is the Prince of Darkness himself, Satan. Mr. Satan, so gracious of you to be here.

Satan: Not at all.

CP: How are you, sir?

S: Never better.

CP: That’s most unfortunate. We must say we are a bit surprised to see you here. You’re not really one known for giving interviews are you?

S: You are correct. Historically my policy has been one of stealth; lurking in the shadows, masking my presence, et cetera, et cetera. There’s no cause for me to employ this strategy any longer, however.

CP: Truly? Might we ask why not?

S: No one believes in me anymore. I’ve made a joke of the very concept of evil, let alone belief in anything called “The Devil.”

CP: You don’t seem as distressed about that as one might expect.

S: Distressed? I relish in it. I am now as a hunter, utterly undetected by his prey, poised to pounce at the time of his choosing to make the final kill. Most exciting really.

CP: …yes well that is a bit chilling, isn’t it? And to what do you attribute this lack of “faith”, for want of a better term?

S: Well it certainly is no accident. My minions and I have worked for centuries to divert human beings in their intrinsic yearning for the light of Truth to the enervating conundrum that the Truth is there is no Truth. And when there is no Truth, there can be no evil. There are only preferences, which fair-mindedness prohibits people of conscience from judging. Now that this mind set has been acculturated world wide, I have effectively neutered mankind, morally speaking, and enjoy free reign on Earth.

CP: Well there it is then. What makes you believe this mind set – what we might paraphrase as Relativism - is any more a force in human events now than previous?

S: Obama.

CP: Er …Come again?

S: Obama. The ascendance of this man was the confirmation I required that this Relativism, as you put it, had become the dominant influence in the American ethos. Most of the rest of the world had adopted it decades ago, but Americans always clung to these despicable notions of self-evident truths, unalienable rights, and a “Creator” from which all emanated. Now, however, it looks as though they too have come to regard these concepts as nonsense and are more than willing to chuck them at the first hint of discomfort.

CP: Sadly you’ll get no argument from us on that. Tell us, what was your first clue about Obama?

S: The Saddleback Church Forum with Rick Warren, Obama, and Mc … McElroy?

CP: McCain.

S: Yes, McCain. You will recall Warren asked both candidates independently, “Does evil exist and, if so, should we ignore it, negotiate it with it, contain it, or defeat it?” McCain’s response: “Defeat it.” Obama, however, was far more academic, finessed, nuanced, and lengthy. I knew I had my man!

CP: Fascinating. Would you agree that we have seen that same dynamic played out in Mr. Obama’s reaction to sundry international crises of late: the Russian rape of Georgia, Al-Qaeda’s advance through Pakistan, the bald-faced threats of North Korea, the repression of the Iranian freedom movement, increased Iranian hostility toward Israel, ex-Honduran President, Manuel Zelaya’s, disregard for the Honduran constitution and the rule of law...?

S: Precisely! There are complexities to these issues. But at their core, each is plainly a manifestation of brute lust for power and disregard for human dignity. In the past, American leaders would publicly identify these acts as evil, and awaken the passions of righteousness in souls throughout the world. Now the leader of the free world merely furrows his brow and spouts meaningless equivocations laden with qualifiers and caveats. Delicious!

CP: President Jimmy Carter was of little more use in such instances, was he not? What’s the difference now?

S: Carter, though useful, was genuinely weak. Obama is not weak. He is a devout Relativist. Thus he believes quite deeply that America is no better than any other nation. That she has no special responsibility to maintain the peace in the world. That she has no right to the riches she enjoys. And that she is a bully and a rogue who must be brought to justice before the world. More importantly, Obama has the talent and the will to convert the unbelievers to this worldview.

CP: So much for current foreign policy. What about domestically?

S: Oh where shall I begin? We have had so many victories so quickly. We have virtually obliterated faith in free market principles and convinced free people to place their trust in an economy managed by a vigorous centralized government. We have convinced the gentle-hearted that their love of man can best be demonstrated, not through individual acts of mercy, but through government redistribution of wealth. We continue to advance the “knowledge” that man’s activities toward bettering himself are ultimately destructive to himself and to his planet. I mean I can’t help but giggle like a school girl when I think about Obama’s EPA successfully selling the assertion that human breath is a pollutant! You can’t imagine what sublimity that is to me.

But again, the most exquisite aspect of all this is that the American people voted for it. The AMERICAN people! This is the hope and change they chose. Mind boggling! Granted only about 10% were paying any attention when they did so, but apathy has always served me well and will continue to do so. My work here is nearly done.

CP: You must know there is a rather outspoken and passionate opposition to all this.

S: Oh yes, yes, but I have so thoroughly marginalized them and that which they advocate they are almost entirely irrelevant in the scheme of things; objects of ridicule and no more. I give you, Sarah Palin.

CP: Still your minions do have the tendency, from time to time, of overplaying their hands and awakening an authentic moral outrage in the common man.

S: Oh you’re quite right about that. Ham-fisted pity pimps and wild-eyed sociopaths have certainly spoiled the whole game for me in the past. But I need no longer concern myself with such buffoons. I’ve got my smooth-talking ace-in-the-hole in the driver’s seat now.

CP: We realize this is the age of “transparency” and all, but have you no reservations about laying out your strategy so plainly?

S: None whatsoever. Remember, I don’t exist. And, in the eyes of men, those who oppose me are pathetic lunatics lunging at phantoms. You cannot win.

CP: We can and we will. It’s just that you can’t imagine how we’ll do it at this point. Unfortunately, neither can we. But we possess something which you do not: Faith.

S: You are fools.

CP: Coming from you, that’s quite a compliment.

S: As you wish.

CP: Well we certainly have no shortage of other questions for you but we realize you have another engagement to attend.

S: Yes I’m overseeing the Jackson funeral and have a few loose ends to tie up.

CP: You don’t say. Well sir we wish you every obstacle, frustration, and failure in your future endeavors.

S: Likewise.

C: We have no doubt.

Victory in Iraq - So says Joe

Vice President of the United States, Joe Biden, declared the Battle of Iraq won as United States troops withdrew from major cities this past week. (Beak tip: The Mudville Gazette). Perhaps you missed it? Perhaps everyone did? What with the Jackson funeral, the Governor Mark Sanford affair and so forth ...

Oh well. Er ... thanks guys.

Cheers,

Charlie

The Hard Price of Liberty

In these times when so many throughout the Anglosphere appear committed to relinquishing their liberty for social welfare goodies, we do well to recount the price paid by those who won that liberty for us in the first place.

Here, on the occassion of the 233rd signing of the American Declaration of Independence, is one such recounting. (Beak tip to Mark Block of Americans for Prosperity).
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Have you ever wondered what happened to the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence?

Five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died.

Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned.

Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army; another had two sons captured.

Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of theRevolutionary War.

They signed and they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. What kind of men were they?

Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists.

Eleven were merchants, nine were farmers and large plantation owners; men of means, well educated, but they signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that the penalty would be death if they were captured.

Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags.

Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family almost constantly. He served in the Congress without pay, and his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him, and poverty was his reward.

Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer,Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton.

At the battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson, Jr., noted that the British General Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson home for his headquarters. He quietly urged General George Washington to open fire. The home was destroyed, and Nelson died bankrupt.

Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his wife, and she died within a few months.

John Hart was driven from his wife's bedside as she was dying. Their 13 children fled for their lives. His fields and his gristmill were laid to waste. For more than a year he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his children vanished.
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Something to ponder. Something to share. As we line up for our federal "freebies", what exactly are we providing in exchange? The 56 signers of the Declaration just might have something to say about that.

Cheers,

Charlie

Polar bears, the Uninsured, and the Marxists Who Love Them

“Perhaps the most visible sign of the need for health care reform is the 46 million Americans currently without health insurance. CEA projections suggest that this number will rise to about 72 million in 2040 in the absence of reform.”
- The White House Council of Economic Advisers (CEA), June 2, 2009

Despite the fact that, at roughly 25,000, there are more polar bears alive today in the Arctic Refuge Coastal Plain then at any point in recorded history, global-warming pimps continue to peddle their tale of doom regarding these creatures as proof positive of the evils of man made climate change. Why? Because it works.

Similarly, another tale of doom is being spread far and wide to emotionally bludgeon the American people into accepting that a good portion of their liberty and income must be sacrificed as penance for the excesses of their free-market wantonness: the tale of the uninsured.

“We’ve got to admit that the free market has not worked perfectly when it comes to health care, because you've got a lot of people who are really getting hurt: 46 million uninsured,” declared President Barack Obama in Green Bay, Wisconsin this past 11 June.

You’ve simply “got to admit” it. Otherwise folks might suppose your capitalistic zeal has blinded you to the sufferings of your fellow man, and you wouldn’t want that would you? Golly, no.

The canard of the “46 million uninsured in America” is the well-choreographed stage-craft of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Heavily invested in, and thus deeply disappointed by, the colossal failure of the Clinton administration’s go at establishing a taxpayer-funded, government-run health care system; RWJF realized they’d need to pursue a different strategy in order to sell their poison to the American people. So they borrowed a page from their friends in Hollywood and put a “human” face on the otherwise dismal tedium of health care financing: “The Uninsured.” Like the climate-change pushers and their cute, fuzzy, drowning polar bears, government run health care advocates now had their mascots by which to yank the heart strings of otherwise common sense Americans and guilt them into forsaking not only their liberties but the best health care system in the world.

For seven years now RWJF has funded and orchestrated Cover the Uninsured Week campaigns through health institutions across the country. The intent of the campaign has been to rivet into the head of every single American that there are 44-50 million people in the United States who simply cannot afford health insurance and that something must be done NOW. As their lack of insurance is due to the fact that private insurance and private-sector health care are utterly unaffordable, a tax-payer funded public option and government enforced price controls are the only real path to the panacea of “universal coverage.” Genuinely compassionate Americans, baffled and bored by the complexities of the issue, find the logic hard to argue and increasingly go along with the show.

There is a bit of a sticky wicket in all this, however, in that the entire 46 million uninsured statistic so universally bandied about these days is a damnable lie. A bit of analysis, if you will.
As the United States’ Congressional Budget Office (CBO) explains,

“Far from being a static group, the uninsured population is constantly changing. Some people are uninsured for long periods, but more are without coverage for shorter times, such as between jobs.”

The U.S. Census Bureau, who’s Current Population Survey (CPS) data has traditionally been used for estimating the number of uninsured in America, has acknowledged the CPS’s failure to take into account this fluidity of the uninsured population. Buried in the back (page 59) of the bureau’s 2007 report you will find this:

“Health insurance coverage is likely to be underreported on the Current Population Survey (CPS). While underreporting affects most, if not all, surveys, underreporting of health insurance coverage on the Annual Social and Economic Supplement appears to be a larger problem than in other national surveys that ask about insurance. … Compared with other national surveys, the CPS estimate of the number of people without health insurance more closely approximates the number of people who are uninsured at a specific point in time during the year than the number of people uninsured for the entire year.”

So why does this matter? Well one would think activists sincerely concerned with addressing a problem, let alone a “crisis”, would want to take great pains to accurately assess it. Or, to quote the CBO once again, “Policies aimed at increasing coverage are most likely to be effective if they consider the distinction between the short term and long term uninsured.” And yet health care reform crusaders seem not at all concerned with this distinction. Curious.

Now of course, the United States Census Bureau is not entirely inept (at least not until ACORN takes over.) They do produce surveys which make the distinction between those deemed “chronically” uninsured and those just enduring a bit of nasty weather. In particular, the bureau’s National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) takes measurements of the uninsured over time, i.e. those uninsured at the time of the interview, those uninsured at least part of the year prior to the interview, and those uninsured for more than a year at the time of the interview. Not surprisingly, the 2008 NHIS produced results that paint rather a different picture of the uninsured in America:

· 42.8 reported being uninsured at the time of the NHIS survey, only 30.8 million reported being uninsured for more than a year. (Whoopsie daisy, bit of a drop off there, eh?)

· Men are more likely than women to be uninsured. (Why is that do you suppose? Could it be that men, as a group, tend not to give a tinker’s damn about their health as compared to women?)

· 18 to 24-year olds are most likely of all age groups to be uninsured. (Why is that do you suppose? Could it be that 18 to 24 year olds, as a group, tend not to give a tinker’s damn about health care– and why should they- as compared to everyone older than they?)

· Those without a high school diploma are far more likely to be uninsured. (Just another in a litany of misfortunes destined to befall those who fail to complete high school in the United States.)

· The percentage of uninsured poor children has decreased since 1997 (How can this be? Don’t tell the S-CHIP pushers!)

· The percentage of uninsured poor adults has remained relatively stable since 1997 (How can this be? Don’t tell the Medicaid pushers!)

· Spells of uninsurance average 5.6 months in duration

· Only 1 in 9 of the uninsured go without coverage for more than two years.

· 9.7 million of the uninsured are not citizens of the United States (Véase la página 21.)

· 18 million of the uninsured earn more than $50,000 a year (See page 21.)

· 14 million of the uninsured are eligible for Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP but have not enrolled (See page 21.)

How often have these caveats accompanied the utterance of the “46 million uninsured” factoid when e’er you’ve heard it? We’re guessing never. For doing so reduces the issue to what it is: a problem, not a “crisis” symptomatic of the dire need for massive reform of the American health care industry and its financing.

There are individuals genuinely experiencing hardship through no fault of their own owing to medical expenses and insufficient insurance. And the current pathetic state of the economy has forced many who have never before sought nor needed government assistance to become wards of the state (kudos Messrs. Cloward and Piven). For both the chronic and the acute aspects of this problem, however, there exists numerous free market proposals on the table; the most tidy and comprehensible proposed by one Congressman Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) known as the Patients’ Choice Act. You’ll likely never hear a wit about any of these unless you do the digging yourself. As they say, the fix is in.

As for those insisting that “only government” can provide relief for the nation’s uninsured, they care no more about people who lack health insurance than the global warming scammers do their polar bears. They are mere pawns, a new category of “victims” the Marxists can use to emotionally blackmail the American people into relinquishing still more of their hard won liberty and prosperity. Why? Because it works.

Cheers,

Charlie

For additional reading on this complete and utter farce:

http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_12691196

http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=50288

http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=49986

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=479724

http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=49586

http://www.epionline.org/study_detail.cfm?sid=122

The Mother of Dissolution

“Mercy without justice is the mother of dissolution” – St. Thomas Aquinas.

Words matter to the extent they accurately represent the concept for which they were originally intended. When you wish to make a piece of toast, for example, you request a “toaster” not a “philodendron.” Surely some concepts are more abstract than others. This reality, however, is no justification for obfuscation nor does it make holding the loftier terms to their original definition any less important. Indeed, quite often it is more so.

But what with ever-slackening educational standards and minds liquidated from endless hours before the tele, modern man can hardly be expected to prevail in the Herculean task of holding words to their meaning. Thus “freedom” today is synonymous with perversion, “greed” refers to any instance of any creature acting in its own self-interest, and “justice” equates to making sure everyone has the same number of points at the end of the game.

It is this last abomination of explication upon which we wish to focus.

It is our contention that the Obamanon by which America is currently disfiguring herself was made possible by this contemporary misinterpretation of justice. The laughably un-American policies and proposals, the bald-faced contempt for free-market values, the sanctimonious arrogance of apologizing to the world for American greatness, all are made acceptable to the American people to the extent they believe these atrocities to be acts of “justice.”

After all, under the modern definition of justice, the realities of poverty and suffering can only exist as a result of some injustice, and could never be the by-product of human stupidity, fecklessness, impulsiveness, or outright evil. Inequality of circumstance simply IS injustice, and Bob’s your Uncle! Ergo the gains of the rich, clearly ill-gotten, must be redistributed. The ventures of the capitalists, pure wanton profiteering, must be shackled. And American influence in the world, nothing but imperialistic bullying, must cease and desist. Only thus can justice be restored. Yes we can. And the people nod in passive agreement.

But, as has been pointed out so many times before by others nearly as brilliant as ourselves, equality of circumstances for all is not justice. In fact, the key ingredient in establishing equality of circumstances for all is injustice, usually in the form of jack-booted thugs, firing squads, tanks, and secret prisons.

Alas, modern man, in his zeal to demonstrate his compassion, his empathy, his sense of justice for those less fortunate, is in the process of securing the exact opposite of all for all. He has removed actual justice from the equation and need now only sit back and await validation of St. Thomas Aquinas’ supposition, “Mercy without justice is the mother of dissolution” i.e. chaos, anarchy, tumult, pestilence, suffering, and death.

Which brings us to Sonia Sotomayor; wise Latina, President Obama’s nominee for Supreme Court justice, and the embodiment of all of the above. By her words and actions this woman has demonstrated her conviction that justice is not the preservation of equality of opportunity, but the establishment of equality of circumstances. It is attainted and maintained not by adherence to a mutually beneficial rule of law, but by quotas, affirmative action, and the intrinsic knowledge that she knows better. She will judge others not by the content of their character, but by the color of their skin. She has been called – and rightly so – a racist, a supremacist, an irresponsible even reckless jurist, and she will win confirmation as a justice on the highest court in the land on or about July13.

In the objective world, a toaster remains distinct from a philodendron, justice remains distinct from empathy and preference, and dissolution is dissolution. But in this era of the new “justice,” we must do everything in our power to pretend otherwise, lest we find ourselves held in contempt.

May God help America.

Cheers,

Charlie

Milking the Cow Dry

“Some regard private enterprise as if it were a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look upon it as a cow that they can milk. Only a handful see it for what it really is - the strong horse that pulls the whole cart.” – Sir Winston Churchill

While virtually all eyes are on the spectacular plane-crash-in-progress that is California, the nauseating reality is that the same cataclysm is playing out in states throughout the land of the decreasingly free. Case in point: the State of Wisconsin.

The background is depressingly familiar. Under the meticulous financial mismanagement of Democratic Governor Jim Doyle since 2003, Wisconsin has ascended through the ranks to become the fifth highest taxed state in the Union. This has resulted, of course, in a vigorous flow of business and brains out of the state to greener pastures. Consequently, with the tax base ever-diminishing and the tax rate ever-increasing, we have Wisconsin face-to-face with its present nightmare: an unprecedented $6.6 billion deficit. Granted other states boast more breathtaking deficit numbers, but when population is factored in – Wisconsin is rather more sparse at roughly six million - she is perhaps the worst off of the fifty United States.

And if she isn’t yet, she soon will be.

Enter the state legislature; majority Democrat as of the Obamanon of November 2008. Full of hope and change and New Left (we’re not Socialists wink, wink) vigor, the Democrats on the legislature’s Joint Finance Committee last week approved – literally in the dead of night - not a spending decrease in light of the leviathan deficit, but an increase of overall spending of roughly 7%. Somewhere Lord John Maynard Keynes is giggling like a school girl.

Mind you, Democratic assemblyman assuaged any fears of recklessness on their part by assuring Wisconsinites that the increase in spending is made possible by federal dollars from the economic stimulus package. Then, in order to regain the mantel of fiscal conservatism, they explained that spending of state tax dollars will actually decrease about 3.4% should this proposed budget pass. As the entire state government of Wisconsin is Democrat, there is no reason to believe it will not pass.

We witness here in a very real and intimate way American government transmuting from Keynesian folly to Marxist tragedy. For State representatives to so gleefully exclaim that they have transferred funding authority from local government to central government is to reveal the degree to which they are indeed Marxists. If this reversal of Federalism doesn’t convince you of such a charge, perhaps a quick look at the rest of the proposed budget will.

(Compliments of The MacIver Institute)

* A new income tax bracket for those despicable Wisconsinites earning over $300,000 per year.

*An increase on the capital gains tax.

*An “oil franchise fee” to stick it to those miserable oil companies (which will result in higher prices at the petrol pump).

*Eliminating welfare reforms designed to put welfare recipients to work. The latest proposal expands the benefit eligibility window from two to five years and relaxes education requirements. Welfare queens, pimps, drug dealers, ne’er-do-wells, and gangstas – Wisconsin welcomes you!

*Increasing the brand new tax on Wisconsin hospitals in order to draw down still more federal dollars to fund the ever-swelling Medicaid roles and various state plans which provide health care to pretty much anyone for “free.” In a wholly unrelated development, Wisconsin hospitals are raising their rates. (Think “oil franchise fee.”) Note: If you have insurance and believe in paying your bills, don’t get sick in Wisconsin.

*New mandates on health and auto insurance which will increase premiums and force many to drop coverage altogether.

*Early release for felons to reduce the expense of incarceration of hardened criminals. Brilliant!

*Elimination of moderately expensive GPS monitoring of sex offenders. Again brilliant.

*Relaxing restrictions on teacher’s union benefits (which just may account for 6.3 of the $6.6 billion deficit already.)

*A new cell phone tax. OMG!

*A school district transportation mandate for pregnant students who live within a few blocks from school.

*The ability to sue pretty much any business any time for anything (this only affects those businesses and individuals participating in activities which involve some modicum of risk such as sky-diving, hunting, skiing, horseback riding, camping, fishing, walking on slippery surfaces, or occasionally sitting back a bit too far in folding chairs.)

*Curtailment on the use of private contractors during hiring freeze. In other words, look for the Union Label. If you don’t see it, it doesn’t get done.

*Fees on mutual funds – A tripling of the registration filing fee and increased the annual filing fee by over $5 million dollars over 2 years. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to file mutual fund registrations!

*Increasing spending to give in-state tuition to illegal immigrants.

*Providing tax-payer funded insurance benefits for domestic partners of state employees.

*Doubling the garbage tax from $5.90 per ton to $13.00 per ton; which will cost municipalities $63 million, and likely result in higher property taxes.

There is much, much more. Why not read it for yourself?. And did we mention the millions of dollars of pork-barrel projects in Democratic districts figured into the budget; the icing on the cake, or the insult to the injury depending on your perspective.

“One, sweeping, secretly-negotiated omnibus motion, on which no public hearing was held,” says the MacIver Institute of this proposal. “New taxes. New fees. New fund transfers. New mandates. New policies.” We would summarize it by another quote, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” That’s the American way in 2009.

When California implodes under the strain of its own Leftist asininity it provokes little more than a roll of the eyes and a chortle. But when states in the purported heartland of America demonstrate such unabashed commitment to Marxist economic policy, how is one to react? After all, the people voted for this.

One by one American politicians, business leaders, and individual citizens line up to suck at the teat of private enterprise, despite her ever increasing burden and suffocating environment. When she finally is sucked dry and collapses under the strain, they will point and say, “You see, the free market does not work. Only government can provide for the needs of the people.” And the people will nod passively in agreement and shuffle along to their holding pens to await their next feeding.

Cheers,

Charlie

A Memorial Day Reminder

“It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us. . .that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion. . . that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain. . . that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. . . and that government of the people. . .by the people. . .for the people. . . shall not perish from the earth. "

- President Abraham Lincoln, November 19, 1863

American Exceptionalism and the Art of Flying Kites

UPDATE: Mr. Mark Steyn chimes in. Brilliant, of course.

Kites rise highest against the wind - not with it.

- Sir Winston Churchill

Sir Winston’s maxim above is so oft cited as to have become cliché. Every parent, teacher, coach, religious instructor, motivational speaker, and supportive friend worth their salt has employed it, or some variation of it, innumerable times. The point – that confronting adversity makes one stronger – is allegedly common knowledge. Indeed it is intrinsic to the ethos of Western man. As Sir Winston declared before the Canadian Parliament in December 1941. “We have not journeyed across the centuries, across the oceans, across the mountains, across the prairies, because we are made of sugar candy.”

And yet, political winds ore’ those Western oceans, mountains, and prairies blow in a different direction today. Western man is evidently tired and seeks respite from the toil of flying his kite and maintaining his Liberty. Since the end of the Second World War Western European nations, Britain, and Canada have succumbed to the seductions of the Nanny State; accepting her high taxation, high unemployment, low growth, and ever-diminishing liberty in exchange for cradle to grave economic sedation. The exchange has rendered them comfortable, for the most part, and secure, so long as America was willing and able to shoulder their defense.

But now Americans too say they are tired, and seek admission into the Great International Nursery.

Our dear friend Mr. Shane Borgess at Political Vindication.com recently brought to our attention a magnificent presentation by Charles Murray, the W. H. Brady Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, about this very phenomenon. Entitled, “The Europe Syndrome and the Challenge to American Exceptionalism” Mr. Murray’s essay examines America’s seemingly increasing conviction that Europe’s regulatory and social welfare systems are the proper model for U.S. governance and economy. Murray confesses some empathy for this infatuation.

“Not only are (European) social democrats intellectually respectable, the European model has worked in many ways… When I get there, the people don’t seem to be groaning under the yoke of an evil system. Quite the contrary. There’s a lot to like—a lot to love—about day-to-day life in Europe.”

But?

“But the European model can’t continue to work much longer. Europe’s catastrophically low birth rates and soaring immigration from cultures with alien values will see to that.”

Mr. Murray then commences his argument as to why the United States must not become more like Europe. He argues, not for economic reasons, (despite Europe’s “sclerotic economies”) but for reasons that could best be described as spiritual.

“My argument is drawn from Federalist Paper No. 62, probably written by James Madison: ‘A good government implies two things: first, fidelity to the object of government, which is the happiness of the people; secondly, knowledge of the means by which that object can be best attained.’ Note the word: happiness. Not prosperity. Not security. Not equality. Happiness, which the Founders used in its Aristotelian sense of lasting and justified satisfaction with life as a whole.”

Murray contends that the European model, where the State seeks to provide all for all from birth to death, is fundamentally flawed because, despite its material successes thus far, it is not suited to the way human beings flourish.

“The problem is this: Every time the government takes some of the trouble out of performing the functions of family, community, vocation, and faith (via social policy) it also strips those institutions of some of their vitality—it drains some of the life from them. It’s inevitable. Families are not vital because the day-to-day tasks of raising children and being a good spouse are so much fun, but because the family has responsibility for doing important things that won’t get done unless the family does them. Communities are not vital because it’s so much fun to respond to our neighbors’ needs, but because the community has the responsibility for doing important things that won’t get done unless the community does them. Once that imperative has been met—family and community really do have the action—then an elaborate web of social norms, expectations, rewards, and punishments evolves over time that supports families and communities in performing their functions. When the government says it will take some of the trouble out of doing the things that families and communities evolved to do, it inevitably takes some of the action away from families and communities, and the web frays, and eventually disintegrates.”

To relate back to Sir Winston’s maxim, as government shields against contrary winds, so fall the kites of all.

As evidence of this decline and disintegration, Mr. Murray identifies sundry pan-European paradoxes: meticulously tended churches, subsidized by the government and unattended by the people; “child-friendly” policies for populations with plunging marriage rates and fertility rates far below replacement; jobs carefully protected by government regulation and replete with lavish mandated benefits for work forces who regard work as, at best, a necessary evil, rarely as a vocation, and who are least likely to say they love their jobs.

“What’s happening?” Murray asks. He calls it “the Europe syndrome,” a mentality that has been documented by journalists and scholars alike.

“That mentality goes something like this: Human beings are a collection of chemicals that activate and, after a period of time, deactivate. The purpose of life is to while away the intervening time as pleasantly as possible.

If that’s the purpose of life, then work is not a vocation, but something that interferes with the higher good of leisure. If that’s the purpose of life, why have a child, when children are so much trouble—and, after all, what good are they, really? If that’s the purpose of life, why spend it worrying about neighbors? If that’s the purpose of life, what could possibly be the attraction of a religion that says otherwise?

The same self-absorption in whiling away life as pleasantly as possible explains why Europe has become a continent that no longer celebrates greatness. When life is a matter of whiling away the time, the concept of greatness is irritating and threatening. What explains Europe’s military impotence? I am surely simplifying, but this has to be part of it: If the purpose of life is to while away the time as pleasantly as possible, what can be worth dying for?

I stand in awe of Europe’s past. Which makes Europe’s present all the more dispiriting. And should make its present something that concentrates our minds wonderfully, for every element of the Europe Syndrome is infiltrating American life as well.”

Murray traces the source of the American outbreak of European Syndrome to the elite American Left who openly express their accord with the above stated world view. This elite American Left has been in control of American popular culture for some time and is now completely in control of the American government. The trajectory is nauseatingly predictable.

In reading Mr. Murray’s essay, the voices of many echoed in our minds; Tocqueville, Russell Kirk, Pope Benedict the XVI, Churchill of course. But the voice most resonant was that of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, particularly as expressed in his indispensable 1978 graduation address at Harvard, “A World Split Apart.”

Here Solzhenitsyn is highly critical of the very mentality Murray identifies and its effect on the souls of free men.

“When the modern Western States were created, the following principle was proclaimed: governments are meant to serve man, and man lives to be free to pursue happiness. (See, for example, the American Declaration). Now at last during past decades technical and social progress has permitted the realization of such aspirations: the welfare state. Every citizen has been granted the desired freedom and material goods in such quantity and of such quality as to guarantee in theory the achievement of happiness, in the morally inferior sense which has come into being during those same decades. … the majority of people have been granted well-being to an extent their fathers and grandfathers could not even dream about; it has become possible to raise young people according to these ideals, leading them to physical splendor, happiness, possession of material goods, money and leisure, to an almost unlimited freedom of enjoyment. So who should now renounce all this, why and for what should one risk one's precious life in defense of common values, and particularly in such nebulous cases when the security of one's nation must be defended in a distant country?

Even biology knows that habitual extreme safety and well-being are not advantageous for a living organism. Today, well-being in the life of Western society has begun to reveal its pernicious mask.”

(Sir Winston’s kite theorem is again brought to mind.)

But is Solzhenitsyn here suggesting that the vision of the American Founders was to create a welfare state tasked with providing for the material comfort and ease of all the people? Quite the contrary.

“In early democracies, as in American democracy at the time of its birth, all individual human rights were granted because man is God's creature. That is, freedom was given to the individual conditionally, in the assumption of his constant religious responsibility. Such was the heritage of the preceding thousand years. Two hundred or even fifty years ago, it would have seemed quite impossible, in America, that an individual could be granted boundless freedom simply for the satisfaction of his instincts or whims. Subsequently, however, all such limitations were discarded everywhere in the West; a total liberation occurred from the moral heritage of Christian centuries with their great reserves of mercy and sacrifice. State systems were becoming increasingly and totally materialistic. The West ended up by truly enforcing human rights, sometimes even excessively, but man's sense of responsibility to God and society grew dimmer and dimmer.”

The consequences of this drift from God are manifest for all with eyes to see.

“A decline in courage may be the most striking feature which an outside observer notices in the West in our days. The Western world has lost its civil courage, both as a whole and separately, in each country, each government, each political party and of course in the United Nations. Such a decline in courage is particularly noticeable among the ruling groups and the intellectual elite, causing an impression of loss of courage by the entire society. … Should one point out that from ancient times decline in courage has been considered the beginning of the end?”

“No weapons, no matter how powerful, can help the West until it overcomes its loss of willpower. In a state of psychological weakness, weapons become a burden for the capitulating side. To defend oneself, one must also be ready to die; there is little such readiness in a society raised in the cult of material well-being.”

One might here be tempted to conclude – as is rather the fashion these days - that Solzhenitsyn has declared the death of Western democracy (in particular the American Republic) and is suggesting that only government via strict regulation and economic planning can restore the vitality and direction necessary to bring these nations back to their original greatness. One would be dead wrong.

“I hope that no one present will suspect me of offering my personal criticism of the Western system to present socialism as an alternative. Having experienced applied socialism in a country where the alternative has been realized, I certainly will not speak for it. The well-known Soviet mathematician Shafarevich, a member of the Soviet Academy of Science, has written a brilliant book under the title Socialism; it is a profound analysis showing that socialism of any type and shade leads to a total destruction of the human spirit and to a leveling of mankind into death.”

What then? If all species of socialism and wanton materialism both ultimately lead man to the same state of spiritual and practical ruin, by what system is man to achieve – as Murray describes it - “happiness, which the Founders used in its Aristotelian sense of lasting and justified satisfaction with life as a whole” ?

Solzhenitsyn suggests a return to fundamental spiritual values – sacrifice, restraint, prudence, forbearance, humility - not by force of law, but by voluntary change of heart.

“If humanism were right in declaring that man is born to be happy, he would not be born to die. Since his body is doomed to die, his task on earth evidently must be of a more spiritual nature. It cannot be unrestrained enjoyment of everyday life. It cannot be the search for the best ways to obtain material goods and then cheerfully get the most out of them. It has to be the fulfillment of a permanent, earnest duty so that one's life journey may become an experience of moral growth, so that one may leave life a better human being than one started it. …. Only voluntary, inspired self-restraint can raise man above the world stream of materialism.”

Murray agrees.

“If we ask what are the institutions through which human beings achieve deep satisfactions in life, the answer is that there are just four: family, community, vocation, and faith…. The stuff of life—the elemental events surrounding birth, death, raising children, fulfilling one’s personal potential, dealing with adversity, intimate relationships—coping with life as it exists around us in all its richness—occurs within those four institutions.”

This spiritual maturity necessary to willingly and enthusiastically accept these duties; the voluntary, inspired self-restraint to which Solzhenitsyn refers, is the essence of American Exceptionalism. Is it not vastly evident in the words and deeds of the Pilgrims who first settled the American coast; the Colonists who established communities and nurtured a passion for self-reliance; the Founders who crafted a brilliant system of government devoted to the maintenance of ordered Liberty; the pioneers who risked all and endured the unendurable in search of greater opportunities and new lands; the ordinary citizens who weathered a Great Depression and two World Wars? It is this Exceptionalism – the American soul – despite all its resurgence in the years since Solzhenitsyn’s 1978 address, that Murray says is today in danger of being lost forever.

"What it comes down to is that America’s elites must once again fall in love with what makes America different. I am not being theoretical. The possibility that irreversible damage will be done to the American project over the next few years is real. The drift toward the European model can be slowed by piecemeal victories on specific items of legislation, but only slowed. It is going to be stopped only when we are all talking again about why America is exceptional, and why it is so important that America remain exceptional. That requires once again seeing the American project for what it is: a different way for people to live together, unique among the nations of the earth, and immeasurably precious."

It is not too late America. Seek not the protection of the Nanny State Nursery, for its shelter is that of a tomb. Instead, step boldly once again into the winds of adversity and set your kites as high as you see fit, living as the Creator decreed and the Founders intended – in sacred freedom.

Cheers,

Charlie

Liberalism’s Bountiful Harvest - Part 3

In our epic “Liberalism’s Bountiful Harvest” parts one and two, we examined the disintegration of the American economy owing to forty years of Marxist handiwork.

In part three of our sadly continuing series, we should like to draw your attention to the disintegration of civil society in Luton, England.

Most of our readers are familiar with Lionheart and his documentation of the Islamic takeover of his hometown of Luton, quite possibly the Anglosphere’s frontline in the war against Islamic Fascism. (If not, best you read up: http://lionheartuk.blogspot.com/ )

Recently the people of Luton have been standing up. On May 5 they began fighting back in earnest: the Islamic centre in Luton was fire bombed .

No one is endorsing this action. It is sad and frightening. It was also avoidable. Undoubtedly culpability will be placed upon “racist” Englanders “intolerant” of immigration and non-whites. This is not the case, nor is it a means of avoiding further violence. Indeed it is the surest method of ensuring the violence escalates.

This incident is the result of multi-culturalist paralysis in the face of the unreasonable demands and growing threats posed by Islamic immigrants flooding into Britain. Had the British government and civil authorities fulfilled their primary duty from the get go - uphold the rule of BRITISH law and protect the rights of BRITISH citizens – the people of Luton would be less compelled to take the matter of their own survival so drastically in hand.

But alas a government deeply enfeebled by decades of multiculturalist dogma, secularism, and social justice poison is in no condition to perform the difficult task of protecting civil society nor civil people. The result? Chaos; precisely what Marxists and Islamists the world over crave.

The people of Luton and all of Britain are waking to the realization that their government cannot and will not defend them against foreign and domestic enemies. Proportionally, those citizens not also castrated by Marxist conditioning will take the job increasingly upon themselves.

This is not Western “civilization” as we would have it. But it may be Western civilization as it must be, if it is to survive at all.

Cheers,

Charlie