Why is it that when the federal government plays a minimalist role and the states are given broad powers to regulate their own affairs, it is called federalism?
And why is it that when the federal government plays a maximalist role and tramples the rights of states to regulate their own affairs, it is called statism?
Confusing as the terms may be, the truth is that we have had way too much statism in recent decades. It’s time to get back to federalism.
This is nothing more than a sophisticated form of bribery. Senate Majority Leader Reid is apparently trying to buy Senator Landrieu”s (D-La) vote for healthcare reform by sneaking into the 2,000 page monstrosity a $100 million favor for her state.
Other than the fact that Landrieu’s single vote on this question is of massive significance for the future of our country, I realize that this kind of thing happens all the time in Washington and that both parties do it.
And that is what is so disturbing. Washington is a cesspool of corruption, a big game where powerful people take turns scratching each other’s backs.
I would wholeheartedly support term limits for all congressional seats. Among politicians (not an admired group to begin with), career politicians are at the bottom of the barrel. And the career politicians (who like to refer to themselves as “public servants”) are the ones who have made Washington what it is today.
I am a bit surprised at the audacity of the Democratic Party. In a week when off-year elections have proven that voters (even in New Jersey!) are fed up with the government expansion going on under the Obama-Pelosi-Reid socialist machine, the House of Representatives has decided to spend the weekend transgressing the Constitution by assuming unprecedented regulatory powers over the healthcare of all Americans.
In doing so, Democrats have virtually handed Republicans a major victory next November. And when it comes, it won’t be a moment too soon.
Dear All Southern States Like Virginia and North Carolina That Voted for Barack Obama Last November,
How’s that working out for you?
Sincerely,
Aaron O’Kelley
One thing I love about Douglas Wilson is that he can always come up with a fitting (and usually humorous) analogy for any situation. This is the most recent one that caught my attention, from his post on the health care debate:
The unfunded obligations of Medicare and Medicaid are about 50 trillion dollars, give or take 5 dollars or so. The economic liars who are pushing Obamacare want you to believe their lie that the future will not go the way the past has gone, and that government mismanagement of programs like these, and Social Security, are no indicator of future performance. Things will be lots better this time around. Having floundered and almost drowned in the kiddie pool, we are now going to swim to Hawaii. If you predict unfortunate results, this is no doubt the result of you being full of spite and malice. For humanity.
Now, lest you think incorrectly, Wilson is no partisan. He has harsh words for Republicans too, and most of the time I agree with him on that. Read the whole thing.
I think of President Obama as a Nobel Prize winner the same way I think of Paris Hilton as a “celebrity.” Both are famous for being famous.
UPDATE: Many thanks to Adam for pointing out this link from factcheck.org about the czars. It turns out that the real situation is a bit more complicated than I represented in the original version of this post. I apologize for not doing my homework on this and admit that I was relying on information I had received exclusively from right-wing commentators.
It turns out that Cass Sunstein was confirmed by the Senate, though by a narrow margin. So I cannot say that Obama appointed him with no restraints whatsoever, and at this point I am unsure whether Congress has any oversight with regard to Mr. Sunstein. But nothing I have seen causes me to doubt that he is a left-wing radical with regard to the question of abortion, and this fits precisely with what I have seen from Obama to this point. I remain convinced that we have a president who considers abortion not just a lamentable necessity, but a positive good for society.
I have eliminated most of the original version of the post and changed the title so as to correct my previous mistakes.
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Obama has appointed a team of czars who are fringe leftists. This leads me to believe (though I have never really doubted it) that Obama himself is a fringe leftist who happens to portray himself as something else.
Take Cass Sunstein, for example, the current regulatory czar. In his 1993 book The Partial Constitution, Sunstein wrote the following about abortion:
A restriction on access to abortion turns women’s reproductive capacities into something to be used by fetuses. … Legal and social control of women’s sexual and reproductive capacities has been a principal historical source of sexual inequality.
I have argued before that the pro-life/pro-choice dichotomy is actually more like a spectrum of views. And this is about as far left as you can go on the spectrum. This man actually claims that any restriction on access to abortion makes women susceptible to being “used” by fetuses.
If only we could rid the world of those oppressive fetuses who go around using women as a way of sustaining patriarchy. Oh wait, we can! That’s right. Abortion is the weapon of righteousness in the hands of oppressed women who can fight off these oppressive fetuses who are only seeking to use them for their own selfish ends. Rise up, women of the world! May you never be deterred from the righteous cause of killing off your oppressors, those wretched fetuses!
This is a far cry from the old Democrat party line: “Abortion should be safe, legal, and rare.” Democrats used to say that kind of thing, claiming to lament the reality of abortion while acknowledging its necessity. But the Obama administration apparently believes otherwise. For Obama and those in his mold, abortion is not a lamentable necessity. It is a positive good.
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UPDATE #2: I was just thinking last night how ironic it is that Sunstein would speak of fetuses “using” the reproductive capacities of women, as though fetuses could make a conscious choice. Doesn’t that attribute willpower to a fetus, which in turn implies that a fetus is more than a clump of cells but actually a person? If Sunstein is serious about this argument, then it would represent a major revision of the pro-choice position. Until now, pro-choicers have argued that it is okay to kill fetuses because they are not persons. Is Sunstein perhaps suggesting that fetuses are indeed persons, but it is okay to kill them in self-defense? Ironically, Ronald Reagan once actually made this (very bad) argument, but ONLY with respect to babies that were conceived as the product of rape. Reagan said women who had been raped could terminate their pregnancies in self-defense, since their bodies had been unwillingly invaded by another person (or persons, meaning both the rapist and his offspring). Sunstein apparently believes that any woman, no matter what the situation of conception, has the right to defend herself against the intruder who has entered her body.
I don’t particularly like either view, but Reagan’s is a lot better. If we lived in a country where Reagan’s view prevailed, abortion would actually be rare, which is what Democrats used to claim that they wanted.
In a nutshell, here is what I think about what Joe Wilson did and the aftermath of the incident:
(1) The propositional content of Wilson’s outburst is factually correct. I do believe President Obama lies regularly. With regard to this healthcare proposal, we all know what will happen if Congress fails (or, as has been the case so far, explicitly refuses) to insert language that prohibits illegal immigrants from receiving government-funded health insurance. Government programs are like kudzu: if measures are not taken to contain them, they go all over the place. I have difficulty believing that the President honestly believes otherwise, so all of his promises about illegals not being covered do appear to be misrepresentations of what he knows to be true. Ergo, Joe Wilson was factually correct.
(2) Nevertheless, it is possible to be factually correct and still be in the wrong. Joe Wilson is in the wrong. There are times and places to criticize the President, but heckling him in the middle of a speech to Congress is unacceptable.
(3) Wilson’s behavior since the incident offers me little encouragement about his own personal character. On the one hand, he called the White House to apologize, but on the other hand, he is capitalizing on his new found fame as the voice of conservative anger. He is trying to eat his cake and have it. Mr. Wilson, a real apology entails an acknowledgement that you were in the wrong. But if, after you have apologized to the President, you go around bowing to conservatives who are proud of your sinful incivility, then you obviously really don’t believe you were ever in the wrong. You should either apologize or dig in your heels (and I would recommend the former). It is a bit hypocritical to try to do both, depending on who is listening.
It didn’t take long for Democrats to seize upon the death of Senator Ted Kennedy as a political opportunity. ABC News reports:
Democrats are hoping that the memory of Sen. Ted Kennedy will revive the Democratic Party’s flagging push for health care reform.”You’ve heard of ‘win one for the Gipper’? There is going to be an atmosphere of ‘win one for Teddy,’” Ralph G. Neas, the CEO of the liberal National Coalition on Health Care, told ABC News.
Democrats are hoping that Kennedy’s influence in death may be even stronger than it was when he was alive as they push for President Obama’s top domestic priority. Democratic officials hope that invoking Kennedy’s passion for the issue will counter slippage in support for health care reform.
I think this is simply more evidence of desperation on the part of the majority party because of their inability to sell their ideas to the American public. Can’t win a debate on the merits? Then try to win it on sentimentality!
The problem is that the average American cares very little about what Ted Kennedy would have wanted. Ted Kennedy has been out of touch with the heartland of America for decades now. It is almost comical to think that “Win one for Teddy” could be mentioned in the same sentence with “Win one for the Gipper.” Teddy was no Gipper, and thus the attempt to circumvent the debate over merits and push the sentimentality argument is not likely to go anywhere, even among people who are normally dragged along by their heart strings. Outside the staunchly liberal northeast and the Beltway, Ted Kennedy really doesn’t have much of a hold on anyone’s heart strings.
When will the Democrats learn that when you are in a hole, you should stop digging?
I make no secret of the fact that I fall on the conservative side of the political spectrum. I believe most of the tenets of political conservatism as it exists today arise from a biblical worldview.
But what happens when a political philosophy ascends to a position above Scripture itself and then functions as a grid through which Scripture may be read? What happens when politics attempts to employ the Word of God to further its own agenda? You end up with travesties like The Green Bible and The Patriot’s Bible. The first leans left, and the other leans right, but both elevate a human political agenda above divine revelation, particularly above the central message of the Bible, the gospel of Jesus Christ. (Go here and click on promotional video #2 to see blasphemy on display).
Both Bibles represent particular communities on the theological left and right that have subordinated Scripture to something else. Both represent distorted theologies that fail to hear the gospel for what it is: God’s rejection of all human agendas in the exaltation of Christ crucified. Environmental care and American patriotism are important subjects that must be informed by the truth of divine revelation. But they are not the controlling frameworks within which Scripture should be read.
The fact that Christians from widely different theological and political perspectives can err in similar ways is indicative of the fact that we are all idolators at heart. We all prefer our own agendas over God’s holy Word. And sometimes we even bless and baptize our idolatry by using it to shrink wrap our new Bibles.
