During the 2008 election campaign, I was struck by how Barack Obama would describe someone's heartrending personal story, then leap immediately to suggesting a federal government solution. The assumption in between was that whatever unhappiness there is in life is the responsibility of the federal government to remedy. John Kerry did the same thing in 2004 because that is the way liberal Democrats think.

But that is not our system of government. Ours is what we call a "limited government." It is limited by the security of each one of us in our individual rights. They are rights against the power of government. Our government is limited also as to its ends. Its powers are enumerated and therefore delineated. We have established our government to accomplish specific tasks, and we have enumerated those tasks in the Constitution. That brings me to the third way that our government is limited. It is limited by law. Those who govern us govern only under law, ultimately a fundamental law we call the Constitution. Those who make the law must themselves submit to the laws they make.

If you judge Democrats not by what they say but by what they do, you can see that they don't believe in any of these features of limited government. Why should the enlightened class be limited in any way? To subject The People's Party to limitations of any sort is an act of hostility toward the people themselves. At any rate, that is how communist parties have reasoned for almost a hundred years, and that appears to be the way liberal Democrats think. And Barack Obama is a turbo-liberal Democrat.

Consider his plans for health insurance reform, plans in which he is in harmonious alliance with the "liberal bulls" in Congress. The fact that the scheme is baldly unconstitutional gives them no pause whatsoever. The suggestion that it is unconstitutional just means that they have to find a constitutional rationalization of some sort. After all, these people have long ago stopped caring what the Constitution actually says. If it is a "living constitution," then the challenge to those living under it is not to conform their legislative wishes to the Constitution, but by clever rhetoric and legal reasoning to conform the Constitution to the legislative wishes of the day. This is very opposite of the rule of law and of limited government.

As to the ends of government, people like Barack Obama cannot think of anything the federal government should not be doing. If there is suffering in the world, then the government is the most effective and most trustworthy agent to be addressing it. The broader the government, the more egalitarian the solution will be, and so the federal government is always the instrument of choice, whether directly or indirectly through its control of state and local governments. This may be a kind-hearted sentiment, but it is not a noble sentiment because it does not respect people's liberty. Even if Obama and all those in political alliance with him on this were entirely public spirited in their intentions (which any sober adult should admit is unlikely), their reforms would establish a structure for a less high-minded generation of elected and unelected government officials to lord it over a prostrate and helpless American people.

Blind to these dangers, however, and convinced of the self-evident moral superiority of their understanding, Obama's Democrats have launched themselves into the restructuring our health care system--one sixth of the American economy--expecting that the only opposition will come from selfish corporate interests, the Republican party which is the tool of those interests, and whatever rural simpletons and Christian fanatics the Republicans can deceive.

But opposition is coming from honest lovers of liberty and of the rule of law. Two such patriots are David B. Rivkin and Lee A. Casey, both of whom served in the Justice Department under Presidents Reagan and Bush. In "Mandatory Insurance is Unconstitutional" (Wall Street Journal, Sept. 18, 2009), they make the case that it goes beyond the powers of the federal government to force people to buy something they don't wish to buy. "Congress...cannot regulate simply because it sees a problem to be fixed." Since the Progressive era began almost a hundred years ago, government activists have justified most federal regulatory powers on the interstate commerce clause. The federal government can act to regulate interstate commerce (Article I, section 8), but it cannot punish you simply for sitting in your living room not buying health insurance. Rivkin and Casey take you through the history, the current health care reform proposals, and the bearing of the Constitution on it all. It's good read, and you are sure to look very intelligent and well informed to your friends for having read it.

Because Obama's Democrats don't care about the spirit of our system of government which is the spirit of liberty, they will look for a way around that restriction. Because there are others in the country who love liberty and the Constitution that supports it, they will fight him to the highest court in the land.

Harold Kildow writes: David brings back to these pages our concern for the resurgence of fascism and the fascist tendencies of modern democrats in his post directly below, Obama's Chavez Envy. Lord knows there is plenty of material out there. He asked for other examples besides the co-opting of the arts establishment, the threatenings of free speech in the Humana scandal, and the bizarre outreach to the Honduran Chavez wannabe. Here goes.

One of the things on the list of priorities for any political order is the education of the young, since they are its future citizens. The education is designed to create to the extent possible the ideal citizen, fit to defend and extend the values and principles of the founding of a given regime. For very young children, those ideals and values must be put into succinct, clear form, reduced to essentials in order to form the basis for their further reflection. Thus, in days past, elementary school included the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance, the elements of which, like the Lord's prayer in that other venue, generally escape them until they are older. Yet like memory verses in the bible, this early drill and memorization does give the basis for more mature reflection. In our free society, education has been guided, however tenuously, by the precepts and purposes established by the liberal arts of the classics--the main purpose being to produce freedom-loving citizens able to question their culture, society, and government. This questioning and challenging of authority is also a contribution from the Old Testament--many of the jeremiads of the prophets were against the kings and priests in authority over the Jews, a thing unknown and unthinkable to the pagan societies surrounding them, since for them there was no higher authority than their ruler, who was generally considered at least semi-divine.

Much as been made, and rightly so, of the deification of Obama, and his silent allowing of it. David sensibly asked once what kind of Christian allows himself to be equated with the Savior; to ask that question is to answer it. Thus, this most recent example of school children singing the praises of Obama, being instructed to give their allegiance not to the flag, nor the republic, nor the constitution; and not to venerate the office of the president but the president himself, is just another questionable exercise by those whose devotion to the charismatic leader reeks of past fascism.

Fascist regimes are not interested in criticism from informed individuals free to seek their own good--they want mass consciousness and blind devotion to the leader and the collective. Thus the recurrent technique of devotional songs to the virtues of the leader common to all collectivist regimes.

The charge of fascism has been so promiscuously (and illegitimately) thrown around (Bush=Hitler) that it is almost meaningless now that there is actually some basis for it (another technique pioneered by totalitarianism). The latest bit of indoctrination, which has absolutely no connection with the history or essentials of our uniquely formed polity, makes Obama the hero of American life, and subtly suggests that all that has gone before him has been wrong--kind of like the coming of a savior to a benighted nation. And note the sly co-optation of the Sunday school song--"red and yellow black and white, they are equal in his sight" the original of which only a very few of these children could be expected to know--maybe not even many of their parents. Whether they know the original or not, the effect is the same--Obama is somehow above everyone else, and is who we are to adore and look to for god-like beneficence.

This surreptitiously captured video comes out just after the president's ill-advised (and latterly revised) speech to the nation's school children. The teacher's guide that went out from the Ministry of Propaganda--I mean Department of Education--gives the lie to the claim that all the president was doing was encouraging good behavior and self reliance. (Rush Limbaugh acutely pointed out that Obama would never give that speech to the American people at large, since he is busy reducing risk-taking and self reliance by destroying capitalism and free government).

Compare this with the songs and indoctrination taught to the little would-be Nazis in the old videos from the Third Reich which expressly make Hitler the savior of Germany and the volk.

Mm, mmm, mm!

Barack Hussein Obama

He said that all must lend a hand

To make this country strong again

Mmm, mmm, mm!

Barack Hussein Obama

He said we must be fair today

Equal work means equal pay

Mmm, mmm, mm!

Barack Hussein Obama

He said that we must take a stand

To make sure everyone gets a chance

Mmm, mmm, mm!

Barack Hussein Obama

He said red, yellow, black or white

All are equal in his sight

Mmm, mmm, mm!

Barack Hussein Obama

Yes!

Mmm, mmm, mm

Barack Hussein Obama

Song 2:

Hello, Mr. President we honor you today!

For all your great accomplishments, we all doth say "hooray!"

Hooray, Mr. President! You're number one!

The first black American to lead this great nation!

Hooray, Mr. President we honor your great plans

To make this country's economy number one again!

Hooray Mr. President, we're really proud of you!

And we stand for all Americans under the great Red, White, and Blue!

So continue ---- Mr. President we know you'll do the trick

So here's a hearty hip-hooray ----

Hip, hip hooray!

Hip, hip hooray!

Hip, hip hooray!

Just for the sake of overindulgence, here is a song reproduced in a slim volume that should be more widely known by Gene Edward Veith, Modern Fascism: The Liquidation of the Judeo-Christian Worldview, p 67:

We are the happy Hitler Youth

We have no need of Christian virtue;

For Adolph Hitler is our intercessor

And our redeemer.

No priest, no evil one

Can keep us

From feeling like Hitler's children.

Not Christ do we follow, but Horst Wessel!

Away with incense and holy water pots.

Singing we follow Hitler's banners;

Only then are we worthy of our ancestors.

I am no Christian and no Catholic

I go with the SA through thick and thin.

The Church can be stolen from me for all I care

The swastika makes me happy here on earth.

Him I will follow in marching step;

Baldur von Schirach, take me along.

Admittedly, we are not seeing this sort of unambiguous blasphemy, propaganda,and indoctrination, but what we have seen is way outside what a free society with an elective republican form of government should ever see. This strange and threatening departure from our traditional political values is part of what is angering so many people, and arousing them to action.

Vigilance is the price of freedom.

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

During the 2008 election campaign, Harold and I discerned fascist tendencies among the Obama people and in the candidate himself, even more than one normally does among Democrats. (Go to: "Radical Fascist Chic," "Foreshadowing Liberal Fascist Violence," "Just The Beginning," "(Not So) Distant Early Warning," "The Dark Night of Fascism," "Obama Youth Brigade Sings For Change," and the entire "Political Idolatry" collection.) Of course, the most noteworthy and thoroughly stated warning came in Jonah Goldberg's book, Liberal Fascism.   Some people rebuked us for what they considered inflammatory language. And yet, buds of fascism are what we see. Keep your freedom-loving, vigilant eyes open for more signs like these. (Do you have any to add?)

The fascists commandeered the arts for state purposes. Andrew Klavan writes in City Journal ("The Art of Corruption") about the administration's abuse of the National Endowment for the Arts to promote Obama policies.

[T]he more areas of life are funded and regulated by government, the less free you are, and the more corrupt and servile you ultimately become. ... [This administration] seeks, as statist government always seeks to modify and control human behavior through the doling out and withholding of money and favor.

Notice also the vindictive response to health insurance company Humana Inc. by the Democrats when that company voiced a word of disagreement. Bloomberg News reports, "At Baucus’s request, Medicare officials are investigating letters in which Humana told customers that senior citizens may lose benefits under a health-care overhaul. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, in a Sept. 18 letter to Humana, ordered the health insurer to stop the mailings and remove the materials from its Web site."

Why this government wrath? Humana merely informed their aged customers of what may arguably result for them if current Congressional plans for health care insurance reform become law. In other words, they were uttering political speech with which Sen. Baucus disagrees and which he found politically disadvantageous to him and his party.

“It is wholly unacceptable for insurance companies to mislead seniors regarding any subject - particularly on a subject as important to them, and to the nation, as health-care reform,” Baucus’s statement said.

Add the White House call for citizens to inform on any of their fellow citizens whom they discovered circulating “fishy” arguments against the health plan.

Then there is the administration's odd determination to return the leftist Chavez crony, Manuel Zelaya, to the Honduran presidency, despite a judgment by that country's Supreme Court that his removal from office was constitutionally justified and followed constitutional procedures. Mary Anastasia O'Grady's column, "Hillary's Honduran Obsession," points to America as the country with the thuggery problem in all of this.

But it may be that Americans should be even more concerned about the heavy-handedness, without legal justification, emanating from the executive branch in Washington. What does it say about Mr. Obama's respect for the separation of powers that he would instruct Mrs. Clinton to punish an independent court because it did not issue the ruling he wanted?...It seems that Mrs. Clinton is peeved with the court because it ruled that restoring Mr. Zelaya to power under a proposal drafted by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias is unconstitutional. Thus, the State Department decided that in defense of the rule of law it would penalize the members of the Supreme Court for their interpretation of their constitution. Fourteen justices had their U.S. visas pulled.

And those are just the few things that come to mind.

One might object that this is hardly a coup d'etat. This is hardly the burning of the Reichstag. True, but it is evidence of an attitude toward the law and politics that is more at home in the Venezuela of Hugo Chavez than in the republic of American patriots.

It seems that the ruling Democrats are marshaling every arms of their power to neuter every expression American national virility--economic, financial, military, and diplomatic.

Here is the latest assault, this time to make sure that we never see another bull market.

Policies that set the pay for tens of thousands of bank employees nationwide would require approval from the Federal Reserve as part of a far-reaching proposal to rein in risk-taking at financial institutions. The Fed's plan would, for the first time, inject government regulators deep into compensation decisions traditionally reserved for the banks' corporate boards and executives.

Under the proposal, the Fed could reject any compensation policies it believes encourage bank employees -- from chief executives, to traders, to loan officers -- to take too much risk. Bureaucrats wouldn't set the pay of individuals, but would review and, if necessary, amend each bank's salary and bonus policies to make sure they don't create harmful incentives.

The plan under consideration "requires a vote by the central bank's board, but no congressional approval" ("Bankers Face Sweeping Curbs on Pay," Wall Street Journal, September 18, 2009).

Sen. Chris Dodd, that trustworthy steward of the public weal and co-author of the housing collapse, is taking up the task of combining the four banking agencies—the Federal Reserve, the Office of Thrift Supervision, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Comptroller of the Currency—into one superagency. Ever larger and more powerful government agencies always result in greater liberty for citizens and efficiency in government, right? ("Leading Senator Pushes New Plan to Oversee Banks," New York Times, Sept. 19, 2009.

• "The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the Nation;
• The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
• The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
• The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
• The right of every family to a decent home;
• The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
• The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
• The right to a good education."

A year ago at this time, The King's College hosted a debate between Christopher Hitchens (Vanity Fair columnist and author of God Is Not Good) and Douglas Wilson (pastor, public intellectual, classical schooling advocate) on the existence of God and the truth of the gospel. The event, along with others like it, was raw material for Darren Doane's film, Collision, to be released in New York and Los Angeles on October 27.

Here is the trailer. Provost Marvin Olasky gets a little spot where he says something humorous and makes Hitch laugh at a Scripture allusion.

COLLISION - 13 min VIMEO Exclusive Sneak Peek from Collision Movie on Vimeo.

The website describes the film this way:

In May 2007, leading atheist Christopher Hitchens and Christian apologist Douglas Wilson began to argue the topic “Is Christianity Good for the World?” in a series of written exchanges published in Christianity Today. The rowdy literary bout piqued the interest of filmmaker Darren Doane, who sought out Hitchens and Wilson to pitch the idea of making a film around the debate.

In Fall 2008, Doane and crew accompanied Hitchens and Wilson on an east coast tour to promote the book compiled from their written debate titled creatively enough, Is Christianity Good for the World?. “I loved the idea of putting one of the beltway’s most respected public intellectuals together with an ultra-conservative pastor from Idaho that looks like a lumberjack”, says Doane. “You couldn’t write two characters more contrary. What’s more real and punk rock than a fight between two guys who are on complete opposite sides of the fence on the most divisive issue in the world? We were ready to make a movie about two intellectual warriors at the top of their game going one-on-one. I knew it would make an amazing film.”

In Christopher Hitchens, Doane found a celebrated prophet of atheism. Loud. Funny. Angry. Smart. Quick. An intimidating intellectual Goliath. Well-known for bullying and mocking believers into doubt and doubters into outright unbelief. In Douglas Wilson, Doane found the man who could provide a perfect intellectual, philosophical, and cinematic counterpoint to Hitchens' position and style. A trained philosopher and and deft debater. Big, bearded, and jolly. A pastor, a contrarian, a humorist--an unintimidated outsider, impossible to bully, capable of calling Hitchens a puritan (over a beer).

It was a collision of lives.

What Doane didn’t expect was how much Hitchens and Wilson would have in common and the respectful bond the new friend/foes would build through the course of the book tour. “These guys ended up at the bar laughing, joking, drinking. There were so many things that they had in common”, according to Doane. “Opinions on history and politics. Literature and poetry. They agreed on so many things. Except on the existence of God.”

In the debate here at The King's College, Wilson left Hitchens speechless. Unlike D'Souza, Wilson is a presuppositionalist in his apologetics. Where Hitchens asserted various moral principles such as, "Genocide is wrong!," Wilson pressed him for a foundation and found none. For his part, Wilson stood on Scripture without blushing or flinching, and showed himself not only man of grace and charm, but also Hitchens' equal in wit and his better in precision.

Irving Kristol died last week at age 89. He was the father of what is called neo-conservatism, but what James Q. Wilson in his Wall Street Journal obituary this morning says is better characterized as policy skepticism ("A Life in the Public Interest").

As the so-called "neo-cons" have come into a bad reputation recently as fanatical American imperialists, Wilson supplies us with a welcome reminder that neo-conservatism was a prudent response to the naively and hubristicly optimistic efforts of Johnson era liberals to build a beautiful world, a "Great Society," through centrally administered government programs. It is "[t]he view that we know less than we thought we knew about how to change the human condition."

Summarizing Kristol's thoguht, he writes:

Neoconservatism is not an ideology, but a "persuasion." That is, it is a way of thinking about politics rather than a set of principles and rules. If neoconservatism does have any principle, it is this one: the law of unintended consequences. Launch a big project and you will almost surely discover that you have created many things you did not intend to create. This is not an argument for doing nothing, but it is one, in my view, for doing things experimentally. Try your idea out in one place and see what happens before you inflict it on the whole country.

Irving Kristol's world transforming journal, The Public Interest, discontinued publication in 2005 after forty years of sober reflection on what actually works, i.e. on what is necessary for going beyond good intentions (and satisfying political constituencies) to promoting what is actually the public interest. As we now have an administration that is blithely appropriating vast regions of private life into the government sphere in the interests of "fairness" and "progress," an enterprise in social engineering that makes Lyndon Johnson look like Herbert Hoover, perhaps Kristol's journal needs to be fired up again with a new generation of bipartisan policy skeptics.

The Wall Street bull will soon be forever a cow.

In my previous posts on Obama art, I have drawn attention to the blend of religion and politics that the artists express, the religion centering on the political figure himself.

Michael J. Lewis makes the same connection in his essay, "The Art of Obama Worship" in Commentary (September 2009).

What is striking about these paintings is not their quality, about which the less said the better, but their consistent tone. They belong to that class of objects known as “devotional art.” Such objects are not only intended as votive offerings, to serve as the focus of veneration; the actual process of making them is itself an act of piety, a consideration that all but places them outside the realm of aesthetic judgment.

Lewis takes us through a recent history of the intersection of art with politics, from the Vietnam War through the art wars of the 1980s to Bush Baiting most recently. He then discusses Shepard Fairey, Ron English, and Shawn Barber, but dwells at length on the Fairey's career and the powerful effect of his Hope poster, recently acquired by the National Portrait Gallery.

He concludes, saying, "...there is something unsettling about images that offer little more political commentary than an uncomplicated adulation that borders on power worship. By showing the subjects removed from all political context, and in a beatific reverie, such art produces images that are aesthetically indistinguishable from the “dear leader” effigies that delighted the dictators of the 1930s or of our own day."

Here President Obama in his introductions before the speech draws special attention to one Congressman in the audience: "he is going to be helping to shape the agenda going forward to make sure that we have one of the strongest, most dynamic, and most innovative financial markets in the world for many years to come--and that's my good friend, Barney Frank."

If "Barney Frank" is how the President summarizes what he means by "strong, dynamic, and innovative financial markets," then we need an interpretive key like this for understanding his speeches: "War is peace; freedom is slavery; ignorance is strength." We already know what to make of "The Department of Education." Think of Democratic "health care" reform in that context.

Sen. Jim DeMint spoke at The King's College yesterday saying some of the things he says here regarding the socialistic direction of the administration's reforms. Watch his FoxNews interview here.

His book is Saving Freedom We Can Stop America's Slide Into Socialism.

Fouad Ajami has an eloquent and insightful account of Barack Obama's presidency so far. It builds on what he wrote last October in "Obama and the Politics of Crowds."

Here, in "Obama's Summer of Discontent," he repeats his point that, "His politics of charisma was reminiscent of of the Third World." The people invest all their hopes and all their authority in a charismatic leader who embodies them and who thus speaks and acts in their name without serious legal restraint. In fact it is just the sort of tyranny that grew out of the ancient democracies, and which the Founders of our republic resolved to avoid by means of the unique features of our liberal republic (federalism, representation, checks and balances, separation of powers).

But Obama and his most religiously devoted supporters have been disappointed with how difficult it has been for the President to realize all his beautiful hopes. Ajami explains that it because we are not a Third World "democracy."

American democracy has never been democracy by plebiscite, a process by which a leader is anointed, then the populace steps out of the way, and the anointed one puts his political program in place. In the American tradition, the "mandate of heaven" is gained and lost every day and people talk back to their leaders. They are not held in thrall by them. The leaders are not infallible or a breed apart. That way is the Third World way, the way it plays out in Arab and Latin American politics.

Barack Obama needs humbling, and the American people are just the ones to give it to him.

Norman Borlaug died on September 12 at the age of 95. He was one of the nation's great Iowans (and there have been many). When the neo-Malthusians were warning us about a "small planet" and "limits to growth," Borlaug was engineering what became the Green Revolution which unlocked the wealth of the Creator's provision that lay yet untapped within what people of smaller spirit saw as our irremediable collective poverty.

In his Reason.com obituary, Ronald Bailey provides us with the relevant quotations from Paul Ehrlich's 1968 prediction of impending global doom, The Population Bomb. 

In the late 1960s, most experts were speaking of imminent global famines in which billions would perish. "The battle to feed all of humanity is over," biologist Paul Ehrlich famously wrote in his 1968 bestseller The Population Bomb. "In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now." Ehrlich also said, "I have yet to meet anyone familiar with the situation who thinks India will be self-sufficient in food by 1971." He insisted that "India couldn't possibly feed two hundred million more people by 1980."

Borlaug soon afterward proved him wrong, accomplishing precisely what Ehrlich said was impossible. Not only does the Lord provide, he has already provided more bountifully than we imagine or deserve.

The irony in the term "Green Revolution" is that the phrase has been re-embraced by the pusillanimous doom-and-gloomers who see the earth as a paltry and all too delicate resource, and human beings as the recklessly short-sighted and irresponsible tenants who will ruin and squander it if they are not soon placed under strict supervision. They act as though we're living inside a china cup, when in fact God has placed us in a mansion which we find to be ever more sprawling with every new room and wing that we discover.

I don't know what Norman Borlaug thought of his creator, but I thank God for creating and cultivating this man who had such confidence in the goodness of God's earth and who set about so intelligently and industriously to unlock greater depths of its goodness. In his honor, I am re-posting what I wrote on October 26, 2007.

Everyone puzzles over Africa. Much of the world is enjoying runaway economic growth and increasingly widespread prosperity, but that huge and wealthy continent is left largely behind. It's a human tragedy. In today's Wall Street Journal, 1970 Nobel Peace Prize winner, and one of the fathers of the 1960s Green Revolution in world food production, Norman Borlaug lays out what is required to save Africa from it's chronic development crisis. He emphasizes science and agriculture, but the subtext is a political challenge to the African leaders themselves.

He compares the Green Revolution in Asia to that of Africa. He says that small-holder agricultural production in sub-Saharan Africa has been especially anemic. Unlike Asia which has a good road and rail network, "African farmlands are generally isolated from motorized transport systems." In addition, population growth "has resulted in progressive -- and now often dramatic -- degradation of the soil resource base, while fertilizer use has hardly increased at all, and is the lowest in the world." Whereas agricultural R&D in Asia has tripled over the last 20 years, in Africa is has grown by only 20%, and in half the countries it has actually declined. This is especially tragic given the "special production circumstances" that put Africa in particular need of research and development investment.

He recommends a "broad and more integrated perspective" that focuses on "transforming staple-food production" and giving greater attention to "post-production market linkages -- especially to grain markets and agro-industrial food processing that offer off-farm employment opportunities." Improvement also requires "[s]ubstantially greater investments in infrastructure -- roads, electrical power, water resources." Without this, "there is little hope for real progress in reversing the alarming food insecurity trends or in making agriculture an engine of economic growth."

Borlaug has been calling for an African Green Revolution for years (e.g. International Herald Tribune 1992; New York Times 2003). He did his great work in the 1960s. He is 93 and he is still beating the drum for this cause. So what's the hold up? There is a important political aspect to all this that Borlaug touches upon at several points, but does not emphasize. Perhaps he is being subtle. Perhaps he is leaving it to the multitude of political leaders, government and NGO officials, journalists and scholars to see the political point and make it explicit. Let me do my part.

These nations are governed by more or less sovereign governments. Implementing many of his recommendations presupposes governments that actually care about their people, i.e. that they are not tyrannies which sadly many of them are. In his opening paragraph, concerning Asia's Green Revolution and the global development agenda, Borlaug quietly underscores the critical role that wise political leadership must play: "Research and development, political courage, effective policies and good governance were the driving forces." African leaders are not known for their"political courage, effective policies and good governance."

One cannot help but wonder why "political courage" should be necessary, at least at the highest levels of power. Why shouldn't crass self-interest and naked ambition not suffice to bring the thug-tyrants of the African continent into line with this program? Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe comes first to mind. It is a marvel, especially in view of the enormous productive power that modern economic and political principles have made possible, that they see their personal security, prosperity, and glory in brutalizing their peoples whom they keep in heart-rending poverty, rather than in securing their peoples' property, enriching their nations' economies and establishing themselves as the fathers and protectors of these accomplishments.

John Locke argued this point, appealing to the shrewdness of every ruler, in his great Second Treatise on Civil Government (section 42):

Harold Kildow writes: If you are suspicious of the numbers Democrats throw around when promising us heaven on earth, you are not alone. Some patriotic citizen out there, equally suspicious, put pencil to paper on the Cash for Clunkers program hailed by all and sundry as such a rousing example of the beneficence of Keynesian pump-priming, to see just how marvelous a thing it was.

Cash for Clunkers is a tiny program by this administration's standards, so the following analysis, suitably scaled up for the other government spending horror shows coming this season, should serve to clarify our situation, vis-a-vis our government masters.

The two main rationales for the program were 1) replacing gas guzzlers with more efficient cars, while 2) goosing sales and thereby providing stimulus to the economy. My, how they must imagine old John Maynard beaming down from heaven at his acolytes' clever combination of his economic theory with the tenets of the Church of Green. Let's take a look:

A vehicle at 15 mpg and 12,000 miles per year uses 800 gallons a year of gasoline.

A vehicle at 25 mpg and 12,000 miles per year uses 480 gallons a year.

So, the average "Cash for Clunkers" transaction will reduce US gasoline consumption by 320 gallons per year.

They claim 700,000 vehicles – so that's 224 million gallons / year.

That equates to a bit over 5 million barrels of oil.

5 million barrels of oil is about ¼ of one day's US consumption.

And, 5 million barrels of oil costs about $350 million dollars at $70/bbl.

So, in brilliant Keynesian fashion, the government (that is, you and I) spent $3 billion to save $350 million.

Hey, if you're going to save the earth, you have to spend some money. The extra $2.65 billion is what the carbon dioxide not spewed into the atmosphere by those clunkers cost us.

Now let's see what they can do with regulating and taxing the entire carbon-based energy sector. Should be a bargain along the lines shown above.

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

This is the sort of politicized retribution that prevails in backwater countries when regimes change. Our wise tradition has been for new administrations to accept that their predecessors did their best, however disagreeably, and move on. Gerald Ford sacrificed himself to that end, and even Jimmy Carter understood that presidencies are not for domestic revenge.