Borrowing from Venezuela: One, Two, Three Strikes, You're Out!

In Venezuela, opposition students have come up with a clever saying to express their disdain for the megalomaniac Hugo Chavez: "Electricity, Water, Crime, Tas Ponachao," which, borrowing from the Venezuelan love of baseball, is roughly saying "one, two, three strikes, Chavez, you're out!"

The now-viral slogan appears on banners, signs, t-shirts and at baseball games everywhere in Venezuela, protesting the blustering and incompetence of Chavez's "reforms" against the evil bourgeoisie. (Well, maybe not appearing at the home of a businessman on the run, where Chavez's client-looters are happily eating in the kitchen or taking a dip in the swimming pool.)

I think a similar slogan should be applied to Mr. Obama and his party.

As Kimberly Strassel notes in yesterday's Wall Street Journal, after the so-called mainstream media touted Mr. Obama's third major legislative "victory": "There's no longer any question whether this White House can close a sale. Its problem is the country doesn't like what it's selling."

The most recent "finance reform" is an example of looting, exploiting a crisis to make it easier for unions and activists, for example, to crash corporate boards. Which has what to do, exactly, with reforming banking and Wall Street?

The state-supportive media no doubt will tout the historic victories. But the public is not buying it.

I think it's time we in the public coin a similar slogan for our friends in the Democrat Party ("Dem Bums"?), and Mr. Obama in particular, perhaps soon to appear on a t-shirt or at a local baseball game near you: "Stimulus, Healthcare, Banks, You're Out!"

Stone's Film is a Sign of a Deep-Seated Tyrannical Temperament

Oliver Stone has a new film out praising Latin dictators. It tells us something about how virulent the seeds of tyranny are, not just among the would-be dictators, but the clients that would support them.

In "The Republic," Plato provides some wonderful insight into the origins of tyranny. He distrusted "the mob" or mass of humanity because, he argued, they will seek to organize society around base needs, and not important philosophical principles such as justice and truth. When the so-called champion of the people demands unlimited power to protect his holy mission on behalf of the mob, the nation's fate is sealed.

This lesson plays out again and again in nation after nation. We see it today in dramatic fashion in places such as Russia and Venezuela, where buffoons and thugs, running the country in the name of "the people," do quite nicely for themselves while oppressing their enemies. This is the very essence of the false notion of "justice" offered by the Sophists in the first books of "The Republic."

Yet, time and again, people ignore this lesson. Lured by personal insecurity and pessimism, and emergencies real and manufactured, people sacrifice their own freedom and protection, under a republican system of laws, in favor a "strong man" with alleged insight into the "real nature" of the emergency, and the force of will to do something about it.

The paradox is that no one man can know enough about any political or economic problem to "solve" it. Often the dictator's solutions boil down to nothing more than the imposition of his personal whim in response to his own fantastical imaginings, buttressed by masterful demagoguery.

People may not like to hear this, but Barack Obama is a smaller version of such a creature. Observe his natural tendencies of demagoguery and his clueless imaginings about the roots of our economic problems. His answer to almost every problem is more of him and his fellow travelers, the economic illiterates Pelosi and Reid.

Paradoxically, the proper answer, is, of course, more of others. Not the Republican party, with the likes of dangerous attention-cravers such as Rove and Boehner and Gingrich.  The answer is more freedom. More unleashing of the genius of the people to solve their own problems.

Obama's demagogic bellowing (about banks and other corporations - whom he negotiates deals with in secret because no one man can solve all problems) is restrained somewhat by the bars of the Constitution. A constitution he has shown himself -- like presidents before him -- willing to ignore or circumvent when he can.

He will not get to take power the way he thinks he deserves. But with each assault on the restraints on power by the constitution, (in his case by seizure of auto company assets, by health care mandate, by presidential "compensation funds") the bars weaken a little more. Setting the stage for a little more tyranny until (dare we suggest it in polite society???) the bars break.

Blindness to subtle changes in the constitution of freedom are somewhat understandable. As economists in the "public choice" school have observed, we often are distracted by other activities and incentives when slow encroachments on liberty take place.

This is a serious problem, captured in the political imaginations of many diverse authors, from Thomas Jefferson to Ayn Rand. To which there is no answer but a proper kind of sacrifice of those who would not seek power for themselves.

But, returning to my original point, how do you explain apologists for tyrants, such as Oliver Stone? His latest film, lauding Latin American dictatorship, makes one wonder about the problem of hardened paradigms. Amidst the most basic evidence about Chavez's mendacity and stupidity it is amazing how tightly some can cling to the paradigm of the "strong man."

A projection of their own insecurity, perhaps, even as they occupy positions of some modest influence over society.

Perhaps Mr. Stone, with more respect for the genius of his own film-making community, should go back and watch Chaplin's classic "Great Dictator" and other such films to clear his head a little. (Wikipedia entry here.)

More eloquent treatises have been written about this secondary problem of tyranny than mine. My only point is to note that dictators do not thrive without their foolish supporters. And as we see from Stone's latest piece of propaganda, the tyrannical temperament remains deeply and powerfully rooted in many places, even in so-called "free societies."

Political Over-promising and Under-delivering?

Very good article today by the Washington Examiner on the continuation of the "blame game" campaign by President Obama regarding the Gulf Oil spill, and the backlash it's causing him politically. Basically, after years of "blaming Bush" the expectations of the executive have been raised so high, they are sure to disappoint when the increasingly human Barack Obama flails about.

Which raises a larger point. Remember the old adage: "Under-promise and over-deliver?" Doesn't that kind of sum up the entire political problem of modern liberalism (other than it's squishy "third-way" variant)? It's all over-promise and under-deliver.

Did we end the War on Poverty? Or create a Great Society? Did liberalism really bring about a New Deal where the so-called "little guy" was liberated from the corruption of government power by the very industries it claimed it would control? (Or, to put it in today's lingo "asses it would kick?")

The answer is No.  Today we see the Obama presidency is rife with corporatism (BP, Goldman Sachs, General Motors, etc.)

So much of modern liberalism is grandiose and utopian, so full of over-promising. How can it lead to anything but disappointment? And yet, the faith lives on . . .

No Need to Violate the First Amendment When You Have Industrial Policy

Just a bit more on the Charles Krauthammer piece mentioned in my previous post. Mr. Krauthammer makes a couple of points. One is about Madisonian norms.

But even more importantly, and what makes his piece so trenchant, is that he is exposing a subtle way to suppress and control the media without explicitly violating the Constitution. It's called industrial policy.

Threaten a network and you are also sending signals to other who might get in the way of a political agenda.

To potential advertisers: we control a lot of money, contracts and life support in bad times. Don't advertise on networks where we find stories unfavorable to our political agenda.

To media rivals: don't follow the disfavored media outlet or we'll do the same to you that we're doing to them.

This is the change we've been waiting for? Co-opting the NEA, ACORN and other government-funded groups for political propaganda purposes? And cutting the financial legs out of the free press if it interferes with our "revolution?"

How very Hugo Chavez-like of Mr. Obama.

On Obama Thuggishness toward Dissenters

Charles Krauthammer is one of Washington's most intelligent and respected opinion journalists. He makes an important point in this piece. President Obama and his thuggish administration, in trying to delegitimize political dissenters (Fox News, Chamber of Commerce, Insurance Companies, etc.) and in fact intimidate them into silence by threats, is ignoring the Madisonian traditions of our country.

You know, the traditions that say we must respectfully tolerate dissent.

The traditions that differentiate us from countries such as Russia, Iran and Venezuela, whom Mr. Obama has such cordial relations with, but who all intimidate, prosecute and even murder dissenters as enemies of the state, Allah, or the revolution.

Mr. Obama is showing himself to not only fail at all of his promised open-minded and open-dooredness. He is showing himself to be diametrically opposed to it.

Can a person with such a vaunted opinion of himself and his mandate to "fundamentally reform America" be trusted to respect dissent, or even the Constitution itself should his project be threatened by political failure?

When he attempts to exclude Fox News from a press event, as took place this week, how long before, Hugo Chavez-like, he finds some reason to shut down Fox News entirely?

Is this intolerant behavior the "change we've been waiting for?"

A Simple Philosophy to Help Mankind

I am a recovering political junkie. I don't like the controversy of politics, or how crazy it makes people. I prefer not to wade into political controversy when there is very little chance of winning. I have learned a lot of hard lessons about this activity over the years and I try to stay on the wagon.

But now, when wild charges are being lobbed around about why people don't want so much government spending and debt and intervention into various sectors of the economy, we see some people, our leaders in government, engaged in the most outrageous ad hominem attacks and demonization against anyone who disagrees with them and their wild, self-serving activities.

I don't like being called a member of some conspiracy or a hateful person simply because I don't have faith in government's (read: mediocre, headline-chasing politicians) ability to save us from ourselves.

Embedded below is a very simple, powerful statement of facts about our current government programs. And a clear articulation of why markets work to improve the general well being of humanity and government does not.

There is no hate in this. There is no "code" or conspiracy. There is nothing here that well-intentioned progressives can take umbrage at. (Although, they will never give me the same credit of good intentions if I say that I truly believe the market, not government, is the best way to make life better for my fellow man.)

For the self-righteous progressive, people who articulate the cause of freedom can never be taken at face value. Why? Because to do so would require the hard work and risk to one's own righteous self-image of having to address real arguments and real facts like those articulated by Judge Napolitano below.

Let the Overreach Begin

Prior to Barack Obama's inauguration, a number of pundits predicted that Obama would need to triangulate to some degree away from his Democratic colleagues in the Congress, lest they overreach and cause the chief executive to waste valuable political capital, as happened in the early days of the Clinton presidency.

As this trenchant political analysis by my old colleague Larry Kudlow demonstrates, Mr. Obama has indeed allowed himself to become identified with a Democratic House pork-barrel bill -- usually the ordinary disgraceful business of Congress -- masquerading today as emergency "stimulus."

As Kudlow notes, criticism is now coming from all sides, including former Clinton budget honcho Alice Rivlin.

One wonders if Obama will now try a charm offensive to put lipstick on this pig, or cut his losses. Either way, this is no First 100 Days FDR for sure.

An Eloquent Editorial

Bravo to the editors of The New Criterion for an eloquent editorial regarding the gradual loss of freedom (or, rise of government paternalism) in the United States.

Excellent reading.

The problem is not the fault of any one party. It is the result of a "fatal conceit" by the ruling class in Washington and the States for decades that all things, from who should own homes to steroids in baseball, fall under their purview. Nothing escapes the scrutiny of our deeply "concerned," selfless politicians.

From G's to Gents: The White House Edition

A bunch of Chicago political G's are about to gain access to the ultimate crib: ACORN, Richard Daley, Bill Ayers, Jeremiah White, Michael Pfleger, Rod Blogojevich, et al.

All thanks to Gent Barack Obama, and tens of millions of Americans who are ignoring Obama's associations and character. Much the way they did with Bill Clinton during his first presidential campaign. And for the same reasons -- a Republican president and party that are incompetent and grasping.

However, as John Batchelor notes, Chicago G and fixer Tony Rezko is spilling his guts about the Chicago machine's machinations to prosecutors.

During a time of unprecedented political and economic crisis, I suspect we are due for another "failed presidency."

"Every battle is won [or lost] before it is ever fought."