Harold Kildow writes:
In a piece titled "The Europe Syndrome and the Challenge to American Exceptionalism" (The American, March 16, 2009), Charles Murray gives chapter and verse supporting the "socialism is a soul killing threat to humanity" meme that David and I have been promoting here every chance we get. (See below). Of course, being Charles Murray the eminent social scientist, he goes much further than that commonplace observation and extrapolates it into the call for a new Great Awakening; not a spiritual awakening (though he would not be against such a thing), so much as a cultural and political awakening. It is a call for Americans to realize what we have, and why we have it.

The advent of the Obama administration brings this question before the nation: Do we want the United States to be like Europe? President Obama and his leading intellectual heroes are the American equivalent of Europe’s social democrats. There’s nothing sinister about that. They share an intellectually respectable view that Europe’s regulatory and social welfare systems are more progressive than America’s and advocate reforms that would make the American system more like the European system.

Not only are social democrats intellectually respectable, the European model has worked in many ways. I am delighted when I get a chance to go to Stockholm or Amsterdam, not to mention Rome or Paris. 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 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.

So let me rephrase the question. If we could avoid Europe’s demographic problems, do we want the United States to be like Europe?

I argue for the answer “no,” but not for economic reasons. The European model has indeed created sclerotic economies and it would be a bad idea to imitate them. But I want to focus on another problem.

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, a 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.

I have two points to make. First, I will argue that the European model is fundamentally flawed because, despite its material successes, it is not suited to the way that human beings flourish—it does not conduce to Aristotelian happiness. Second, I will argue that 21st-century science will prove me right.

The rest is must reading for all of you here at this blog. You can finish it here.

Charles Murray is the W. H. Brady Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. This essay is adapted from The 2009 Irving Kristol Lecture delivered in Washington, D.C. on March 11, 2009. The American is a magazine of ideas published by the American Enterprise Institute.

-- Harold Kildow (Ph.D. Fordham) is associate blogger at Principalities and Powers.

Quin Hillyer at The American Spectator sounds a call to all patriots, to every friend of liberty, and to the political Minutemen among us to stop the devastation of our country that our current President is engineering ("Channeling the Young Patrick Henry").

He begins with this:

If this be treason, make the most of it. No, not treason against this wonderful nation. But this column may sound suspiciously like treason against the cult of Obama, and against his hagiographers in the establishment media, and against the very idea that this president actually loves this nation's liberal, republican, constitutional order. Consider this also to be treason against the myth that our president is a man of deep, or even average, integrity. Barack Obama is a radical's radical and a man whose ego vastly outstrips his prior accomplishments. He is dangerous, and after just seven weeks he already is leading this country into disaster.

He then discusses the President's long list lies and broken promises, followed by his radicalism, leftism, and just plain recklessness in foreign policy, the justice department, economic policy, defense policy and just about everything else. It is an amazingly thorough record of destruction for just two months of office. You have to read it for the full impact.

Hillyer ends this way: "Rhetorically, organizationally, financially, and politically, he must be stopped. Must. And if this be treason, make the most of it."

As far as the economy is concerned, if Obama had done the right things such as cut the capital gains taxes and sharply reduce corporate taxes, the recession might have lasted a year. But that would have given him two or three years to suffer the cruel winds of fortune and perhaps find himself back in Illinois after just one term. George Bush fought a successful Gulf War early in his term, but found himself subsequently buffeted by events and out of the White House in '93. But if Obama by his policies can actually extend the recession by two years, he can enjoy the benefits of a longer record of fighting it along with the local benefits that come from his recession lengthening spending measures, and then better ensure his re-election in 2012. This is what Franklin Delano Roosevelt did in the 1930s.

Marvin Olasky ("The Obama Depression") gives this argument, quoting Newsweek's Jonathan Alter:

Look at Newsweek's March 2 cover story. Jonathan Alter wrote that Obama "can look successful even as hard times continue. . . . The package is so big, and stretches across so many states, that it provides him at least four years of photo ops. . . . Once these mental pieces are fastened in place and we're fully 'in recovery,' to use therapy lingo, the enduring problems won't seem so terrifying anymore. . . . The longer the recession lasts, the more points Obama will put on the board. . . . Obama will likely package and sell health-care reform, a new energy policy and even national service as 'recovery and reinvestment.'"

I don't think Obama has the strategy of lengthening the recession for political purposes. That would assume that he understands the economic stupidity of massive government spending to stimulate the economy. On the other hand, he does understand the distinction between wealth generation and what he calls "fairness." I don't believe that he is thinking in primarily economic terms, but instead passionately moral ones. Barack Obama would rather have a longer recession, or even a depression, with all the wealth destruction and lost opportunities that would entail, if that is what it takes to redistribute wealth downwards. In other words, a poorer, more egalitarian society is morally superior and thus more desirable than a society in which everyone is wealthier but in which greater disparity of wealth and power exists.

Remember during a Democratic candidates debate when Charles Gibson confronted candidate Obama with the revenue generating power of lowering capital gains taxes?

Obama's view of tax policy was also on naked display that evening. The Wall Street Journal editorial today, "Obama's Tax Evasion," draws attention to Obama's exchange with Charlie Gibson over capital gains tax and government revenue. Obama said he would raise the rate to 28%, it's highest point during the Clinton administration. Gibson pointed out that Clinton lowered it in 1997 to 20% then Bush lowered it to 15%, and in each case revenues went up as a result.

Obama did not to dispute this, but instead pointed out that the goal is "to make sure that our tax system is fair." In other words, taxation is not about raising revenue to pay for government services in an equitable manner. It is first first and foremost about equity. Revenue is secondary. Obama tipped his hand as "a true income redistributionist who prefers high taxes as a matter of ideological dogma regardless of the revenue consequences." ("Obama, All Too Human")

I remember Dan Rather saying something similar in the 1980s. He was asked whether he would agree to cut taxes on the wealthy if it could be proven that it increased government revenue and expanded the economy for everyone. No, he said, because it would be unfair.

That is the spirit or socialism. It is better that everyone be poor and equal, than widely separated on the ladder of life and free.

Harold Kildow writes:

Turn with me now sisters and brothers to the Third Book of the Prophet Obama, where we find the text of today's message. Our savior's other two books have given hope to millions, hope indeed for the overturning of the impious and cruel economic regime of those rascally republicans, the world of white hegemony where the "white man's greed rules a world in need" according to the forerunner Jeremiah, who as we have seen, was not worthy to untie the shoes of the One who came after.

Now in the latest revelation, Obama--may he always be praised--spells out explicitly what his tormentor, Joe the Plumber, tried to drag out of him prematurely with that disrespectful interjection about socialism--may he languish eternally over at Pajamas TV! His kingdom was not yet come, so premature speech about what the One would reveal, in the fullness of time, shows even the demonic republican plumbers know him, and are afraid!

From "A New Era of Responsibility: Renewing America's Promise. The President's Budget and Fiscal Preview", or the Third Book Of Obama, we see that not economic growth and vitality, but fairness, is what America needs most. And it is not fair that some should have more than others, in particular, the top 1 per cent. Though these one percenters create most of the wealth, they are keeping too much of it for themselves. This too shall cease, sayeth the Lord Obama:

While middle-class families have been playing by the rules, living up to their responsibilities as neighbors and citizens, those at the commanding heights of our economy have not."
"Prudent investments in education, clean energy, health care and infrastructure were sacrificed for huge tax cuts for the wealthy and well-connected."
"There's nothing wrong with making money, but there is something wrong when we allow the playing field to be tilted so far in the favor of so few. . . . It's a legacy of irresponsibility, and it is our duty to change it."

As some other prophet or other once said, first shall be last and last shall be first. The Lord Obama means to bring heaven to earth by overturning the rule of the rich, taking from the lions and giving to the lambs. Already the undeserving rich around the world have given up 22 trillion in wealth, according to the plan for fairness now underway. And it's only beginning dear ones--TARP II and Son of Stimulus are coming soon. The dawn of fairness and equality is breaking, and soon we shall all be living in the light of the Lightworker!

Let us give thanks dear children, while we await our cut of the spoils. That 13 dollars a week will sure feel good--that, and seeing how the mighty 1 percent are fallen!

(H/T to Dan Henninger at the WSJ)

-- Harold Kildow is associate blogger at Principalities and Powers.

Don't Let This Happen To You







Taking a Sabbath from Technology




Innes adds:

Someone recently asked me, "In light of the many tributes offered at the first anniversary of William F. Buckley's passing, it seems to be a commonly held view that the conservative voice died with him. As the GOP is always searching for the 'next Reagan,' should conservatives be searching for the next Buckley?"

I responded:

William Buckley was a seminal figure in the conservative movement with a fruitful life of service. After just two generations, his philosophical descendants are legion. And if their voices are not heard as widely as they need to be, at least their presence is felt on every hill and in every valley of the cultural landscape, whether directly or indirectly.

I don’t think that we need another Buckley any more than we need another Madison. Our great need is for those who consider themselves his philosophical namesakes to appreciate the battles he fought and won on their behalf and the intellectual inheritance he has bequeathed to them, and then to take up the task he necessarily left unfinished, and make full and faithful use the opportunities his great accomplishments provided for them.

Buckley set out in the 1950s to change the political and intellectual battlefield conditions so fundamentally that we would not need another Buckley. He has done that, perhaps more successfully than he initially imagined he could. The point now is not to re-lay the foundations, but to employ our intellectual capital and cultural opportunity to understand, teach, and defend the principles of liberty that are rightfully ours as God’s human creatures, and also, with that liberty, to cultivate the fullness of human life to which God has called us.

Conservatives often forget that final concern regarding what to do with liberty, but we need to give it a much greater emphasis. Otherwise, you're just a libertarian at best, and perhaps even a nihilist.

Here is an interesting exchange on the Europeanization of America between Harold Kildow and one of our more skeptical readers.

From Mark Steyn, the smartest Canadian I know--aside from David: "Last week, the president redefined the relationship between the citizen and the state, in ways that make America closer to Europe. If you've still got the Webster's to hand, "closer to Europe" is a sociopolitical colloquialism meaning "much worse." "

A reader named Dan, with whom I've had a previous exchange, could not contain himself in the face of this assertion.

"much worse"...?

Geez, you guys are fairly fatalistic about the trajectory and/or overzealously fond of the past results here in the States.

I'm not just responding to this post... it seems to be a theme. "Oh, no, Obama was elected, we're going to be a socialist state." First off... that's unlikely. And secondly, would it be so bad? What's wrong with the "European way" of things?

Harold Kildow then responds as follows:

OK Dan, first, thanks for paying attention. Socialism has been a major theme on this page since the Obama candidacy hove into view 18 months ago. It took Joe the Plumber to make overt what had until then been covert in the national mediasphere, but David and I and many other bloggers were onto the implications of Obama's indirect speech and euphemisms from the beginning. I believe if you continue to pay attention, you will find that what Obama was hiding under the rubric of "change we can believe in", and "we are going to change America" is in fact an attempt to shift the American political and economic regime into as pure a strain of socialism as it is possible to accomplish.

I will take your points in order. “[Y]ou guys are fairly fatalistic about the trajectory [of the country]”.

I will speak for myself here, and let David qualify his own position as he sees fit; but for myself, you are correct. The left has never cared a whit for the constitution, except as a device to empower themselves while at the same time restricting their reactionary enemies—that would be all who like the constitution as it is, and don’t want wholesale changes made to what the Founders designed.

The Obama administration, in league with the Congressional despots Reid and Pelosi and all their henchmen, will see to it that most of their gains will be locked in, impossible to undo. They have a huge advantage in that the ever-expanding portion of federal and even state governments that are beyond public control are on their side—the Dems are the party of big government. For example, executive branch agencies—the Environmental Protection Agency will do as typical—are only loosely controlled by the political appointee (the Secretary in charge of the agency) and the president, or even the Congress. Career bureaucrats consider presidential administrations the “Christmas help”—i.e., the bureaucrats will be in place long after the politicians are gone. They have their own agenda—witness the way the CIA and State Departments beleaguered the Bush administration with those continuous and damaging leaks. How many leaks do you expect from those agencies under Obama? The federal bureaucracy is aligned with socializing the nation because that puts them in control of it. They are unionized, and they can never be fired.

Next, the federal courts are presided over by judges totally in sync with rewriting the constitution in the manner of common law—i.e., the law is whatever the courts say it is. So, through administrative fiat and judicial activism almost all the unconstitutional changes about to be wrought in the next four years will be difficult to undo—with four votes on the Supreme Court the only governmental backstop. Don’t forget the ominous move to take the census into the White House. Do you think all those hugely funded ACORN types are going to be unemployed the next two years? According to that Ur-socialist Joseph Stalin, “the people who vote are not important; it is the people who count the votes that are important”. This, along with huge changes in immigration policy, will lock down their political gains for generations if they get a way with it. Thus, the electoral remedy is being put even further out of reach.

And yes Dan, I am zealously, though not overzealously, fond of the “past results of this country.” Political, economic, and religious liberty is rare and precious. Despots don’t like freedom and they are in the business of increasing their power, under the guise of “helping”, at the expense of the people’s liberty. Liberty necessarily produces some messy processes and less than optimal outcomes. But breathing free air is something few human beings on this planet have experienced, and the American experience of freedom will mark the high point in political history, as Francis Fukuyama pointed out in The End of History and the Last Man. It doesn’t have to end, but I fear it will. The “Last Man” in Fukuyama’s title is Nietzsche’s prophesy: the last man is socialist man, enervated, emptied of virtue, and barely human.

That is the main reason socialism is inferior. It is antithetical to liberty and all that liberty produces, most especially human excellence. Look at what has happened to us already. The nanny state directs our lives in ways the Founders never dreamed any rational person would accept. Ronald Reagan said the scariest sentence you can hear is “We’re from the government and we’re here to help.” But the help governments bring only deadens initiative, removes personal responsibility, and actively competes with God and all religions for the spiritual allegiance of the people. Can you name a socialist country that has an active and engaged citizenry, a vibrant economy, or encourages religious faith? And because of its intrusiveness, it necessarily politicizes all of life. Suddenly, it is my business if you smoke or are too fat—it makes my health care costs more expensive, since we are all paying for each other’s health care. And instead of rationing resources and services by price, we will ration with waiting lines and coupon books. But there is always a way for some people to get to the front of the line or get more coupons, or avoid the whole regime, right? Orwell taught us that some are always more equal than others in socialism.

Frederich Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom and The Constitution of Liberty conclusively showed that, merely from the stand point of information science, central planners—and planning and control is what socialism is all about—cannot have access to enough information to make the economic decisions that routinely occur each day across the millions of actors in an open and free market. The “commanding heights” conceit that Marx was so fond of—from analogy with 18th century warfare—is false, and is an excellent example of how metaphors and analogies can mislead us in our thinking. Yet it is a flattering idea to men like Barack Obama—that he, along with a cadre of wizards, can command the economy to rise and the oceans to recede like some grand field marshal. It has evolved into the notion that reality can be legislated.

What’s so bad about Euro socialism? Holy mackerel, where to begin. Aside from the truncated freedom, the social pathologies it breeds, and the economic stagnation and unemployment, what’s not to like? Economically, socialism is willing to accept a high number of permanently unemployed people who are placed in hammocks and provided for, in order to lock down a minuscule number of permanent jobs for people who can never be fired from jobs in moribund industries, and are taxed at confiscatory rates. I suppose it’s a good deal for those with jobs; but take John Rawls’ “initial position” idea, and suppose yourself to be one of those European sad-sacks locked out of a job because the State determined as a child you were not going to university. You want to live in government housing, cashing minimal government checks for doing nothing, with no prospect of useful employment? Swedes, Danes, and Swiss all kill themselves in disproportionate numbers directly related to this sort of ennui. Epidemic numbers of Brits are falling down drunks; Belgium and Holland are full of heroine addicts who smoke pot in bars between fixes—all of them on the dole.

There are some socialist arrangements that maybe don’t seem that bad—Sweden, Denmark, Finland, if you don’t care about individual freedom. But these countries and all of Europe have been riding behind the huge economic locomotive of the United States economy since WWII. We have provided for the defense of Europe, and they all spent the money that would have gone to defense budgets on welfare programs. They all depend on selling into our huge open and free market. What happens when we are taxed and regulated into mediocrity? Who’s going to buy all those BMW’s and Volvo’s? When the entire Western world is socialist, that will mark the beginnings of the real sorrows. America is still the last best hope of mankind, because of LIBERTY.

Besides, socialism is not American. It is an alien plant, as welcome and as useful as kudzu. It cuts against every line in our constitution. And that is the main reason I detest socialism and will continue to warn and rail against it—it is unconstitutional and un-American.

David Innes adds:

Harold, I echo your "Where do I begin?"

First it is interesting that Barack Obama wants to reduce the tax advantages for charitable giving quite significantly. Even Democrats are surprised (a) that he would do this, and (b) that he would do it at a time when charities are suffering huge declines in contributions. But this behavior is characteristic of socialists and of statists of all sorts. They want all relief in the hands of the government where it can be properly directed and where it can further establish the necessity and ubiquity of the state. For this reason also, people on the poltiical left are notoriously stingy givers. They give almost nothing to charity compared to conservatives, especially religious conservatives, as Arthur C. Brookes has documented.

The best refutation of socialism I have read came from Alexis de Tocqueville in his "Memoir on Pauperism." (That link takes you to a pdf download.) It's a short but life transforming read. His chief concern is for what it does to the citizen character and the human spirit. It ennervates, infantilizes, and enslaves.

Tocqueville's chapters on soft despotism in Democracy In America (Part II, part 4) are also essential reading. We're vigilant against the tyranny of the majority, but we get blindsided by what he calls democratic despotism. "The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd."

He adds, "They devise a sole, tutelary, and all-powerful form of government, but elected by the people. They combine the principle of centralization and that of popular sovereignty; this gives them a respite: they console themselves for being in tutelage by the reflection that they have chosen their own guardians. Every man allows himself to be put in leading-strings, because he sees that it is not a person or a class of persons, but the people at large who hold the end of his chain."

Another short but great work advocating individual liberty and thus refuting state socialism is Milton Friedman's classic, Capitalism and Freedom. Here's chapter one.

If our public schools would provide an education that actually fit our young people for life in our particular regime, this good regime--industrious and civic spirited life--then we would not have to make these arguments.

Thanks, Dan. This was a useful exercise.

Harold Kildow writes:

Larry Kudlow, who has educated me in the ways of economic science starting back in the early 80's, had on his TV show one Donald Luskin, another of the truly good guys and straight shooters on the scene today. Unsurprisingly, he weighed in with an impassioned, off the cuff riff not unlike many posts by David and me in this space over the last 18 months. Listen to the entire segment of Kudlow's CNBC show to hear Luskin's dead-on take on the Bamster. The kernal of what he said, picked up in res media:

"None of the things that are happening now should have been a surprise. The things that Obama is doing, his war on capitalism, his unholy partnership with Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi in the war on capitalism are exactly all the things he promised in his campaign. There is no bait and switch, no surprise--look, you and I are optimists, we tried to think he was a centrist because he appointed someone like Larry Summers instead of someone like Robert Riech, but you know, the mask is off. He is trying to socialize this country, with socialized health care, with carbon taxes, with raising taxes on hedge funds and private equity funds and even ordinary investors. He wants to wipe out your 401K so you will be dependent on the federal government for your health care and your retirement, and until that runaway train, that legislative onslaught, that is being made possible in the name of emergency, until that train is halted, stocks cannot sustain any meaningful rally."

Some of you--and you know who you are--have been thinking David and I have been too harsh on the One, rushing to judgment as it were. But we were on to Barack the hard leftist in moderate/pragmatic/centrist clothing from the beginning. We are now witnessing the full court press by the hard left in finalizing their 70 year old dream of politicizing all of American life, controlling you in every discernible aspect of your life.

Sort of like the 1980's TV show "V", in which alien invaders masquerade as humans in order to take over the world.

Magazine covers could be another post entirely.


The most striking adoration of the Bam has been in political posters, however. Consider the effect of these. This one is a more traditional political poster, but very well done.


These posters, by contrast, are not traditional.


These two seem to me to bring out the candidate's African heritage quite strikingly.




This last one suggests that the candidate is a spiritually exceptional person, a prophet, or perhaps even a divine being.

These do not feature Obama's face, but they are beautiful and at the same time troubling in their Utopian promise.



Senator Obama's unwaveringly leftist voting record together with the fainting hysteria surrounding him personally produced a talented response from the more conservative, or at least more politically skeptical, artists. This one places him on the far left.


This one on the far right. (Of course, the left and right converge at some point. The rightist Adolf Hitler was a National Socialist.)


This one, alluding to a recently popular film, mocks Obama's political inexperience.


The best known poster has been Shepard Fairey's "Hope" poster. The same poster also appears with "Progress" as the caption. Fairey's model was this Mannie Garcia AP photo. The Associated Press is suing Fairey over the use of their image.


And here is The Poster.

Fairey appears to have used a Communist genre of political poster art as his inspiration. Here is the Russian Bolshevik, Vladimir Lenin.


Here is Cuba's iconic Che Guevara.


This socialist/communist connection is becoming increasingly relevant as the Obama administration leads the government in nationalizing, taking charge of, and redesigning most of the country's economy.

It is a tribute to the Fairey poster that it has become the model for a growing number of parodies. There are these, for example, that are critical of Obama himself. "Obey" is likely the best-known of the parodies.



There are many other variations. Some are racist, some are just in bad taste, and some just aren't funny, as far as I can tell. These are a few of the wittier ones. They go in various directions, all playing on the word "Hope," but the last two using the "Change" mantra as a take off point.




Finally, as President Obama stumbles and wrecks his way to what he tells us will be a just society and a vibrant economy, the Reagan variation stands as a continuing reminder that there are principles of political and economic liberty that are also principles of political and economic flourishing, and they are...


You can go to Rene Wanner's page to find her collection of 149 Fairey themed posters that she assembled the day after the 2008 election, including the Soup Nazi, Jeremiah Wright, and More Cowbell. Of course, the number has grown since then.

Laying fun aside, this artistic aspect to the 2008 Obama campaign should put every lover of republican liberty on guard. Up to this point, it has only been in totalitarian countries that we have seen a political leader's face celebrated so artistically and plastered so ubiquitously. It is the sort of personality cult that is incompatible with a modern republic structured around a constitutional separation of powers. If he is the One, if he is the Dawn, if he is both the exemplar and the source of moral and political progress, then the separation of powers, which is premised on the recognition of human moral frailty and political epistemological skepticism, becomes inherently unjust. Start researching "the Hugo Chavez political model."

Wendell Phillips said that "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." This artistic expression of what is arguably the first "personality cult" in American politics does not constitute President Obama as a totalitarian, but it does prompt the wise to view his every attempt at concentrating political and economic power in Washington with a heightened and aggressive scrutiny.