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David Warren columns on the 9/11 anniversary with a call for visiting upon our enemies a catharsis of defeat. Because if they don’t know they’ve lost, we’ll have to do it again. With our present president, we risk starting this century like we started the last – letting an enemy think they didn’t really lose. Regarding WW I, Mr. Warren says;
…The mistake we actually made was not pursuing that war to its conclusion, with a full invasion of Germany, to obtain an unconditional surrender. Such an invasion would have visited reciprocally on the people of Germany the experience of the people of France: the total violation of their security and dignity by German invaders; the humiliation that contributed to the pusillanimity of France in the next generation.
Germans were left with the possibility of believing that they hadn’t really lost the war, that they had been somehow cheated at Versailles, that in the upshot of their military aggression they were somehow victims not perpetrators; that scores remained to be settled.
This is precisely what made the Hitler phenomenon possible in Germany. And it was the bitter experience of 1945 — the unconditional surrender of Germany, in the ruins of Berlin — that ultimately cleansed the German nation of militarist ambitions.
The Second World War was the unfinished business of the First World War; just as in our own time the second Iraq War was the unfinished business of the first. …
Mark Steyn remarks on the welfare state in Great Britain.
…The bloke on the pavement demanding “Brother, can you spare a quid?” of me every afternoon can’t boast that kind of résumé. Never worked on the railroad, never worked in construction, never served in the army, never frothed up a decaf caramel macchiato. Never worked, because he never had to. One day those hardworking Poles will figure it out, too. A lot of immigrants already have. Two-thirds of French imams are on the dole. In the heavily immigrant Stockholm suburb of Tensta, one-fifth of women in their late 40s collect “disability” checks. Abu Qatada, a leading al-Qaeda recruiter, had £150,000 (a quarter million bucks, give or take) in his bank account courtesy of the British taxpayer before the drolly misnamed Department for Work and Pensions decided to cut back his benefits.
I confess a sneaking admiration for Mr. Qatada, who was at least using his welfare payments actively to fund the destruction of Western civilization, as opposed to just undermining it through sloth and inertia. When William Beveridge laid out his blueprint for the modern British welfare state in 1942, his goal was the “abolition of want,” to be accomplished by “cooperation between the State and the individual.”
In attempting to insulate the citizenry from the vicissitudes of fate, Sir William has succeeded beyond his wildest dreams: Want has been all but abolished. Today, fewer and fewer Britons and Europeans want to work, want to marry, want to raise children, want to lead a life of any purpose or dignity. “Cooperation” between the State and the individual has resulted in a huge expansion of the former and the remorseless shriveling of the latter. …
Thomas Sowell warns against drinking the Cool-Aid that the President is offering.
…Obama can deny it in words but what matters are deeds — and no one’s words have been more repeatedly the direct opposite of his deeds — whether talking about how his election campaign would be financed, how he would not rush legislation through Congress, or how his administration was not going to go after CIA agents for their past efforts to extract information from captured terrorists.
President Obama has also declared emphatically that he will not interfere in the internal affairs of other nations — while telling the Israelis where they can and cannot build settlements and telling the Hondurans whom they should and should not choose to be their president.
One of the secrets of being a glib talker is not getting hung up over whether what you are saying is true, and instead giving your full attention to what is required by the audience and the circumstances of the moment, without letting facts get in your way and cramp your style. Obama has mastered that art.
Con men understand that their job is not to use facts to convince skeptics but to use words to help the gullible to believe what they want to believe. No message has been more welcomed by the gullible, in countries around the world, than the promise of something for nothing. That is the core of Barack Obama’s medical care plan. …
Victor Davis Hanson reminds us of all the left’s Bush hatred.
… The Guardian published a sick column by one Charles Brooker, who asked out loud, “John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr. — where are you now that we need you?” Howard Dean, head of the Democratic party, raged, “I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for.” I think it was The New Republic that published Jonathan Chait’s infamous “Why I Hate George W. Bush” article — imagine the outcry should anyone now do the same reprehensible thing with Obama substituted for Bush (e.g., “Why I Hate Barack H. Obama”). A play ran in New York called “I’m Gonna Kill the President.”
Michael Moore was not censured by Democratic grandees for his horrendous comments (such as describing the insurgents in Iraq as modern-day Minutemen), but was instead rewarded with invitations from top Democrats, presumably because he was deemed useful. So far, unhinged Republican senators have not blasted Obama and suggested that our troops are akin to Nazis, terrorists, Khmer Rouge killers, and Baathists (in the manner of Senator Durbin or the late Senator Kennedy).
When an Iraqi threw shoes at President Bush, there was plenty of undisguised delight among liberal columnists and bloggers. …
Theodore B. Olson, the attorney who argued for Citizens United in the recent Supreme Court case, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, wrote an article featured in The Wall Street Journal. He explains why McCain-Feingold, by prohibiting discourse funded by corporations and unions, violates the First Amendment.
…Hard-charging campaign rhetoric is something that the First Amendment’s authors had experienced firsthand. In making the choice between government-approved, polite discourse and boisterous debate, the Founders chose freedom. They did not say Congress could enact finely reticulated restrictions on speech. They said plainly that there could be “no law” abridging the freedom of speech.
The idea that corporate and union speech is somehow inherently corrupting is nonsense. Most corporations are small businesses, and they have every right to speak out when a candidate threatens the welfare of their employees or shareholders.
Time after time the Supreme Court has recognized that corporations enjoy full First Amendment protections. One of the most revered First Amendment precedents is New York Times v. Sullivan (1964), which afforded publishers important constitutional safeguards in libel cases. Any decision that determines that corporations have less protection than individuals under the First Amendment would threaten the very institutions we depend upon to keep us informed. This may be why Citizens United is supported by such diverse allies as the ACLU, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the AFL-CIO, the National Rifle Association and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.
Persons of modest means often band together to speak through ideological corporations. That speech may not be silenced because of speculation that a few large entities might speak too loudly, or because some corporations may earn large profits. The First Amendment does not permit the government to handicap speakers based on their wealth, or ration speech in order somehow to equalize participation in public debate.
The case is not about Citizens United. It is about the rights of all persons—individuals, associations, corporations and unions—to speak freely. And it is about our right to hear those voices and to judge for ourselves who has the soundest message.
The Economist gives a basic breakdown of the arguments and how McCain-Feingold has led to abuses.
…The case for campaign-finance curbs goes something like this. Corporations have a lot of money, which could give them a lot of influence. So they should be barred not only from giving large amounts to candidates but also from paying to disseminate views that might affect an election. If they wish to raise money to express political views around election time, they must form a “political action committee” (PAC), jump through regulatory hoops and raise only limited amounts of money from each donor. The counter-argument is that this system (which is much more complicated than described) does not work. It has not kept money out of politics: the amount spent on presidential elections has grown relentlessly. And the complexity of campaign-finance law makes it hard even for well-meaning candidates to be sure they are not breaking it. John McCain, who ought to know better, was accused of an arcane but serious violation last year.
Big companies can hire lawyers to help their PACs find their way through the maze, but the little guys get lost. And some states have tried to use campaign-finance laws to stifle debate. In Washington state, prosecutors claimed that a friendly discussion of an anti-tax campaign on a radio show was a political donation that the campaigners should have declared. In Colorado, a group of homeowners protesting a plan to incorporate their neighbourhood into a nearby town were sued for displaying yard signs without registering as a PAC. Free-speech advocates won these cases, but they needed lawyers to do so.
Another effect of campaign-finance laws is to protect incumbents. That, suggested Justice Antonin Scalia on September 9th, may well have been their purpose. Incumbents have no trouble getting on the evening news. Their challengers are often unknown, and making it harder for them to raise money increases the odds they will stay that way. Outsiders can sometimes break in, as Barack Obama spectacularly showed. But the big donations that jump-started the insurgency of Eugene McCarthy, the anti-war candidate who prompted Lyndon Johnson not to seek re-election in 1968, would be illegal today.
Newspapers and television stations are exempt from the strictures of McCain-Feingold, so they can spend vast sums supporting or hounding political candidates without fear of reprisal. Some media firms, such as the New York Times, see no problem with denying other corporations the same right. But five of the nine Supreme Court justices seem to find it troubling. If a politician promises to ban tobacco, asked Chief Justice John Roberts this week, is it fair to ban tobacco firms from responding? …
The Institute for Justice, in keeping with their mission to protect our civil and economic liberties from government overreach, wrote an amicus curiae brief supporting Citizens United. The Institute released these statements regarding Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. You can read the brief at www.ij.org/citizensunited.
…“Based on today’s argument, free speech advocates can be optimistic for a broad vindication of First Amendment rights,” said IJ Senior Attorney Steve Simpson. “Several justices recognized that a piecemeal approach to free speech is insufficient to protect vital constitutional rights. As Chief Justice Roberts said, ‘We don’t put our First Amendment rights in the hands of FEC bureaucrats.’”
Simpson said, “Corporate speech bans are nothing more than government censorship of selected speakers. The simple fact is it takes money, including corporate money, to speak up and be heard. Under the First Amendment, the government has no businesses deciding which speakers gain admittance to the marketplace of ideas.”
“Freeing corporate speech will lead to what more speech always leads to—a debate,” said Simpson. “Wal-Mart will support President Obama’s health care reform, as it has done, but the National Retail Federation will oppose it, as it has done. Chrysler may well speak out in support of candidates who won it favorable bankruptcy treatment, but Chrysler’s institutional investors will also be able to criticize those same politicians for destroying the value of their bonds. Corporations do not speak with one voice any more than individuals do.”
“It’s not the government’s job to protect us from ideas, even those backed by people and groups with great resources, good ideas or other tools of persuasion,” concluded Simpson. “People either agree with speech or they do not, but they are able to make up their own minds. The Court should open the floodgates to speech and let the people decide.” …
Andrew Sullivan has not appeared in Pickings for five years because he lives in Washington and has gone native. Summers, he’s on Cape Cod where this year he was pot-busted. Richard Fernandez of Belmont Club posts on what came next.
The Watergate scandal which brought down Richard Nixon originated in a “third rate burglary”. The burglary itself was of no consequence to Nixon. It was the steps he took to protect the burglars that ultimately proved his undoing. Similarly, the recent news stories about Andrew Sullivan’s citation for pot possession on Cape Cod revolve less around the possession of a small amount of marijuana in a national park then what happened afterward. Jacob Sullum at Reason describes the incident in a matter-of-fact way.
“Gawker, citing a report on the blog of Massachusetts Lawyer’s Weekly, notes that blogger/journalist Andrew Sullivan was cited for pot possession in July at the the Cape Cod National Seashore. The U.S. Attorney’s Office later sought to drop the charge, arousing objections from a judge who suspected Sullivan was receiving special treatment. …”
… One of former attractions of journalism was to be intimate with the brick thrown into your window, the gun shoved into your face, the sap applied to the back of your head; to know the smell of sawdust on a gym floor, to be familiar with groping for a dime amid the lint in your pocket for that phone call to the city desk; and to know the sour taste of bad coffee served at the cut-rate greasepit. This was the price of admission into a brotherhood, or so we were told. If today that’s changed to the point where a US Attorney will act to keep you from getting busted, then life has gotten easier for journalists, the question is, has it gotten better? In the Andrew Sullivan incident, the citation for pot possession is in itself trivial; it’s a third-rate bust. What is potentially serious is the burden that it places on Sullivan himself. Who can blame others if they believe he now acquired a debt of gratitude towards the US Attorney and his bosses? Who can blame the bosses of the US Attorney for thinking they now have a marker on Sullivan they can call in some day? …