The not so successful party

In the 18 May 2009 edition of the Spokesman-Review an “In their words” quotation:

“Notre Dame is arresting a priest. Why are you arresting a priest for trying to stop the killing of a baby? You’ve got it all backward.”—The Rev. Norman Weslin founder of the Lambs of Christ abortion protest group, addressing police who arrested 21 people, including a priest, at a disruption Friday to protest President Barack Obama’s weekend commencement address at Notre Dame University.

On one of this week’s “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” a depiction of one of these “Lambs of Christ” literally verbally attacking the President with shouts over and over again, “Baby killer,” “baby killer.”  So how do shouts of “baby killer,” save a child’s life?  Or for that matter, prove how “Christian” a person is?

I do believe that on the same show Jon Stewart had as a guest, Newt Gingrich.  Of course Mr. Gingrich former Speaker of the House engaged in the usual partisan hack job.  But the reason for his being on the show had to do with his writing a book.  But for about 10 minutes Gingrich vented about Obama as a “socialist,” of course and Stewart had to pointedly remind him of what had taken place in the last year of GW’s presidency.  Such as the gvt under GW taking over AIG.  Which now brings to mind a most pertinent argument about what ought to be called “socialism,” an accusation that is only valid when you aren’t the party in power.

Newt Gingrich had to make at least one concession, where the GOP had begun to act too much like Democrats in the spending dept at least.  And as far as Gingrich was concerned, when the people voted on 4 November 2008, why vote for the GOP who behaved too much like the Dems when they could simply vote for the real thing.  How about that.  But it wasn’t just the spending that McCain was promising.  Even he was promising too much gvt.  But only Obama can be accused of “socialism.”  But after such a concession was made, Gingrich still seemed to have a problem wrapping his head around a particular reality; and that was, that the last administration set the stage for the economic fiasco that this nation now faces.

You ever hear of giving someone too much of a good thing?  On “The News Hour with Jim Lehrer” this evening, I managed to catch an episode of “Common $en$e” where the fellow doing the reporting discusses what happens to bad banks for example and what solutions might be had to make them solvent “good banks.”  This evening, he showcased a fellow who managed to get himself deep into debt.  And this guy was actually a reporter for the New York Times.  He’d gotten a couple of mortgages on his new home and ran up a massive credit card debt besides.  He should have been smart enough to “know better” right?  He even admits to it.  At the same time he informed the PBS viewership, he got a green light all the way.  Well yes, GW’s infamous “ownership society.”  To live large, spend, spend, spend and keep the economy working during a time of a War on Terror.  It broke the bank all right, this same New York Time employee finds himself facing foreclosure and is 7 months behind on payments of his debt.  He wrote a book and hopes people will buy it to enable him to pay his way out of debt.  In a truly conservative world, any mortgage broker would want to make certain that person applying for the loan actually had the finances available to pay it back.  That is, to exercise caution before okaying such a mortgage.  But, as was documented, even the mortgage company threw caution to the wind while waving a lot of green stuff in the guy’s face.  Then I don’t think you can call what happened in the last 8 years, “conservative.”  For the gvt to finally have to take it over; well, I suspect it is inevitable.  And a little late for the GOP to suddenly want to return to their “private enterprise” roots.  Deregulation helped to create this mess.  The anarchy that followed created the sort of situation ultimately documented on “The News Hour.”  Either you are pro-anarchy—in which case you really can’t call yourself “conservative,” or you are supportive of reasonable rules and regs that keeps the marketplace humming healthfully along.  Which would mean that some amount of gvt is going to be necessary.

Now back to the abortion issue that had a priest on camera screaming “baby killer” at the President of the United States.  Yeah, Obama is pro-choice, how about that.  He also made some comments to the graduating class of Notre Dame very remnicient of former President Clinton, of making legal abortions rare and providing women with other options than just abortion.  Yeah, pro-choice.  For what he said, he was still attacked as a “baby killer.”  If that can tell you anything, the disruptive priest (probably the one who ultimately got arrested) seemed to have become extremely hard of hearing as he chose to listen to his own strident screams over that of the POTUS address. Yeah, I guess he could be arrested.  Too bad there isn’t a criminal charge out there for misrepresenting one’s own belief.

Communism on the mind

The Spokesman-Review publishes once a  week, “Outside voices.”  a compendium of selected editorials from various newspapers.  Of the one editorial that I wish to address today, this is from Newsday and a column published on 7 May 2009.  Seems that Representative Joe Barton, R-Texas did not like how post-season bowl games were set up and broadcast on TV.  According to this editorial, he declared that it was like communism and totally unfair to smaller colleges.  So, in a session of Congress, seems Rep. Barton wants to set up rules for deciding what can truly be a legitimate championship bowl.

Not typically would I write about sports.  I have no interest, I don’t even much watch the games on TV, let alone being willing to shell out the big bucks for a game, pre-season, during the season, or even post -season.  However, to write about this, the implications to be had in the Newsday editorial, goes even beyond what Newsday itself was prepared to say, at least  in the published excerpt.

TV and College sports are part of the entertainment business, and yes, it actually is a business.  I will even further add that as a business it faces far more severe regulations than any other.  Nor do the GOP in particular find regulations of entertainment to be particularly offensive as they might where polluting industries get shackled by environmental laws.  Or mining companies get shackled by work place safety laws.  Or construction businesses who feel they can only be competitive if the home you buy wasn’t built by American labor.  Or you are convinced that the food you buy would “cost more” if picked by an American work force.  In the above cases, those industries at least should have as few regs as possible to encourage their competitiveness and continued operations.

So, I found it to be extraordinary indeed when Rep. Barton, Republican of Texas decides that he is going to take away from private industry the right to set the rules on how, when and whether they will cover post-season games or championship bowls.  And here is why:

I am sure that at one point Gonzaga U. of Spokane, Washington was a little known private college.  But the sports team and head coach spent a lot of time, energy and invested money toward making the football team there into a contender that could play against better known colleges and universities.  They did so on their own initiative, with a lot of effort and got the necessary respect and the television coverage to go with it; as they began to consistently win their games in various regional play offs.  They have fallen short, certainly, but they have been good contenders none the less.  Shouldn’t any lesser known college make use of the same initiative and all out effort to earn the same recognition without gvt setting the rules of coverage and etc.?

On the other hand, why make the effort if gvt does force the entertainment industry to cover their teams, no matter how poor they may be and how unlikely their teams might be to even enter regional play offs let alone championship bowls.

These were the implications that Newsday didn’t appear to get into.  Gonzaga U. might be considered a “small college” in comparison to other well-established colleges and universities.  But it didn’t need federal help to get proper television coverage.

Private enterprise:  Wouldn’t Barton have been among those GOP who would have waxed incensed that the Obama administration would simply fire GM’s CEO—by calling it Communism?  Or the federal $$$ flowing into the nation’s banks—by calling it Communism?  But here he wants to force some kind of “equality” among how college sports are covered and etc. by the rules that he personally writes through the legislation that he personally introduces.  As I understand this, a gvt that sets up these rules personally, that dictates how a private business  operates and how it personally works (the entertainment industry as an example) with labor and customers or even affiliated businesses; and in this case college football and what will constitute legitimate championships as defined by law; is deemed a command and control economy.  At least, that’s what the GOP were prepared to charge when the Democrats were in majorities in the House and Senate.  But now, we are seeing from this Republican member of Congress a willingness to add a dash of command and control so that small colleges, those lesser known will have an “equal shot” at post-season bowls.

Newsday was entirely right to ask why, with more pressing issues on Congressional plates why college football as “big business” would take priority over more pressing issues.  They could have gone further.  They could have asked why a GOP who would have argued against the collectivism of unions, minorities, and feminists; would suddenly be for the collectivism of minor league colleges.  This should have entered the lexicon of Ripley’s Believe it or Not.

…you have to be kidding… Part 2

A day after I posted a screed on the identity crisis facing “conservatives” in general and the Republican party in particular; you almost wonder if Leonard Pitts, jr. goes blog trolling once in a while to find ideas to work into his latest columns or if the guy is really good at reading minds.  In his republished column found in the Opinion pages of the Spokesman-Review, Pitts gave his readership some examples of Christianity gone awry.  Christians who for the most part stood silently by when those not like us—Nazi led holocaust of the Jews for one, tortures and killings of civil rights workers for another—took place in their name.  And Pitts then went on to use such examples, why he wasn’t surprised, by a poll concerning the use of torture being justified at least part of time.  That when you broke it down by religious affiliation, those most ardently affiliated (my words, not his) were more likely to approve of torture.  Really?  Those most ardently affiliated who didn’t want a branch of the gvt, namely the courts, to allow hubby Schiavo to pull the plug at long last on his wife.  Who pushed GOP into office with the condition that eventually the courts would rule in their special interest favor of overturning Roe v Wade.  None the less, they are prepared to believe that torture is justifiable some of the time.  For a people hell-bent on not wanting human life to be demeaned, they sure seem to want human life demeaned.  Well, as long as it is the other guy.

Which is why I continue to have a problem wrapping my head around why this is supposed to be somehow “conservative.”  You don’t stand around condemning that pro-choice Dem where the “choice” supported leads to the abortion death of a fetus; but have no problem wanting to see someone’s child inflicted with pain, misery, even to the point of death if it will achieve some illusion of security.  It is still a life.  It also matters on how you would end up looking to others when it comes to your image on an international level.

Yes, terrorists have kidnapped and tortured our fellow Americans as well as foreign members of the press in such war theaters as Iraq.  Without a doubt, nothing will persuade them to act more decently or civilized.  But the Christ whom Pitts referred to as that Middle Eastern man who was imprisoned, tortured and finally put to death…  That he found it ironic that such followers of the Middle Eastern man who suffered such a fate would none the less wish it inflicted on others…  That same Christ in the book of Luke argued that perfect love was to include even your enemies.  Let me just add here concerning “The Golden Rule:”  Do unto others what you would have them do unto you.  If you didn’t wish to be subject to “enhanced interrogation techniques” yourself, why would you subject others to them?  Apparently, “The Golden Rule” can be just as selectively applied as any other biblical teaching.

So, let me remind my readership of a few important matters.  What does “strict construction” mean when it comes to biblical passages?  What does the belief that the bible is literally true mean?  Then let us again refer to Luke where “he” had penned that the followers of Christ were to love even their enemies and here was why, because of the blessings that God gave to the righteous and sinners alike.  If the bible is literally true then no bible believer would believe in torture.  For torture itself would go against the grain of Christ’s teachings.  So shall I say that instead bible belief or strict constructionism is a matter of political expediency?  Where those who make such a claim in order to wrap about themselves a “conservative” fig leaf  to demonstrate what makes them legitimate as a social and poltical force are however unwilling to recognize that the biblical instructions from Old to New Testaments aren’t exactly options; they are moral obligations.  So, what’s a “value” if you think the other guy should uphold it, whether abortion, stem cell research, what defines marriage or what defines a family; but that you don’t care to uphold it yourself?  A “value” dictated but not practiced is certainly hypocrisy.  But what would make a hypocrite “conservative?”  The religio/political activists never had a problem wanting gvt to be there for them and their special interest agenda.  Who didn’t want the competition from “collectivists” of say minorities, feminists, the impoverished who also felt that the same gvt should address their needs.  But the same social activists who wanted the country and the gvt as well as the U.S. Constitution all to themselves; still had to live with the not so friendly reality that the country isn’t and never will be made up of just them.  A conservative would accept that reality.  Because that is the way things are.  A conservative would have to accept that in a democratic nation there are going to be many interest groups vying for the attentions of gvt.  The gvt that acted against one group in order to favor another might at the same time no longer work for the nation as a whole.  And what conservative would want that?  Pitts made his column about “Christians” in particular, the Christianity that isn’t.  He’s right.  While religio/political activists have demonized the opposition as “those liberals” who are for everything that supposedly the religio/political activists are against; the same activists desperately need the “liberals” to legitimize their own moral failures.

In the you have to be kidding Dept.

There is no question that the Republican party in general and the so-called “conservatives” in particular are currently suffering a major identity crisis. But to blame Senator Arlen Specter who returned after many decades to the Democratic ranks, is to miss the point entirely.  None the less, Cal Thomas makes the attempt and ends up veering aimlessly all over the road and finally ends up in a ditch.

In fact as history has proved many of the so-called “conservatives” of today saw it as in their own best interests to migrate from the Southern Democratic party, decimating it in the process, to that of the GOP, decimating what had been a centrist to moderately (old) leftist ideological position held for a long time in that party.  But of course, Mr. Thomas wouldn’t be inclined to recall that important bit of history now would he?  But that bit of public fact had been published in news magazines decades ago.  But as ideologies migrated from one political party to another, polar extremes that fed upon themselves, began tilting the parties too.  For any centrist observer, who wasn’t afraid to call a spade a spade, both parties had now been made up of ideological special interests.  Both parties had the cause to serve only their own base instead of a country.  None the less, for anyone who’d laid the claim that there were viable alternatives in variously named third parties, those third parties have not gained traction.  Nor will they until the American public sees both Democrats and Republicans seriously imploding.

At this time, the focus is on the GOP and why they are out of power.  Throughout Thomas’ entire column—examples are to follow—he seems to look for all kinds of reasons why the GOP lost in 2008.  RINO, Republican in Name Only:  This is applied to any member of the GOP who seems to be a bit squishy ideologically.  In short, to not be a RINO you must be 1,000% in agreement with that particular special interest, whether religious or business, or in ideological opposition to the political opposition.  The problem with thinking in terms of RINO as a means of achieving political purity; you end up with a situation that isn’t conservative at all.  And RINO to outside observers not afraid to say it, is comparable to “capitalist roader” in Soviet style societies.  What you have instead is commie think.  A mentality that is radical in its approach to ideology and what is acceptable governance.  In short, there can not be diverse opinions in any one political organization—except that Thomas demanded that the Dems give prominent positions to anti-abortion Dems in Congress; before the GOP should consider watering down their own—for to hold them would “weaken” the strength of what makes it possible for that ideology to win.  As Thomas flails around looking for solid ground to hang future GOP opportunities to regain power in Washington, D.C. on; he at the same time exposes the lie of what has been called “conservative” over the last two decades.

When you are out of power, then it is easy to declare why we need to see a more limited gvt.  (1) Selectively pointing out burdensome regs—those that specifically help labor and consumers—while failing to point out other gvt involvement in the private sector—protecting business interests from foreign competition as an example—is to hold a utopian view of a “free market” that actually does not now and probably never did exist in this country. (2) Personal responsibility—that does not extend to the final fate of say a Terry Sciavo.  The hubby wants to pull the plug on his blind and brain dead wife, her parents are in constant denial about the fact that she materially died 15 years earlier.  Her “physical life” is maintained through a feeding tube.  Anti-abortionists literally make a circus out of protesting Schiavo going to heaven.  As long as her heart can be forced to keep on beating, then she is “alive.”  And Congress must of course meet to protect this poster child of ideological “culture war.”  Passing a law to force the independent branch of gvt, the judicial system, to act in favor of Schiavo.  They refuse and are then called “activist” by an activist president, GW Bush, who wanted to dictate literally the behavior of the courts in the Schiavo case.  Of point 2, Thomas upbraided the GOP as “masquerading as liberals” in order to be liked.  The GOP were playing to their base that never did oppose an activist gvt, only that activist gvt controlled by the opposition party.  And without a doubt, the GOP did aply an activist gvt on the behalf of any other special interest with the money to buy their time and legislative efforts.  (3) If we have financial systems on shaky grounds today it is because the anti-regulatory GOP shoved through this concept of “conservatism” that demonstrated an ignorance of history as to what useful purpose those regulations served to keep financial systems (banks, mortgage companies) both healthy and stable, and therefore depended upon.  Remove those regulations, and they cease to be a guiding principle by which those same financial institutions can continue to operate in the black and not collapse under a pure weight of greed with a house of cards constructed on quicksand.  Wouldn’t principled conservatism keep what works?  Obviously, deregulatory madness, while it may have taken decades for its true costs to be known, has still replicated in some ways the panic and crash of 1929 and the great depression that followed.  Why would you repeat what history says failed and created untold suffering?  Those who grew up during the great depression understood the necessity of frugality of not spending beyond one’s means.  What has been just as obvious, is that business interests have recently been headed (within the last few decades) by a greed at all costs mentality.  And we need gvt to give us a green light.  Those who head these business interests and their lobbyists couldn’t be bothered with the lessons of history.  Frugality and discipline in business would have kept Washington Mutual a healthy bank.  And definitely not one forced to merge with Chase (2008).  80 years later, and change agents (masquerading as conservatives) found out what havoc was wrought by their utopian ideals.  And the people turned to the only other party that understood how to help consumers and labor, the Democrats.

Exactly what “principles” did so-called “conservatives” actually have that would have won them elections?  The principles they threw aside when the GOP achieved effectively one party rule by 2002.  And began losing ground on after 2004.  Let’s put it bluntly, gvt isn’t supposed to be there to ratify specified religious canon.  That is an activist gvt.  Nor to use various public institutions to dictate a specific brand of “values;” inclusive of public education.  That is a demand for more and more gvt involvement.  If people want “educational alternatives” to public schools based on ideological opposition, isn’t personal responsibility then inclusive of then you must be prepared to pay the cost of private education instead of sharing the costs (through taxation) with others in your same school district as is done with public education? But no, seems these same people want taxpayers taking up some of the burden of their child getting that private and ideologically correct education through tax vouchers.  The same taxpayers who may deem that public education is quite good enough for their own kids.  From my perspective, if you don’t want your kid in the public school system, then it is your responsibility to pay in full the costs of your child’s private education.  Not mine.

If ultimately this might explain a few things; at best, the so-called “conservative base” never operated on conservative principles to begin with.  That was for “the other guy” to do.  And the identity crisis for the GOP really started with the Reagan revolution and not the Obama blowout of 4 November 2008, when he won a 365 electoral college vote.  Too bad that Thomas couldn’t have been honest about this.