Category Archives: Natural Law

Big-Government Gerson

Bush, Conservatism, Constitution, Natural Law, Neoconservatism, Political Philosophy

BUSH’S Bastardized Conservatism is also Michael Gerson’s. As a committed ideologue, formerly of the Bush administration, Michael Gerson is a completely consistent, dangerous statist. He imagines that the General Welfare Clause gave our overlords, and the Little Lord Fauntleroys who serve them (the female version: Dana Perino), authority to enact the New Deal, Social Security, Medicare, federal civil rights law; direct what Gerson terms “economic growth,” and pursue the national greatness agenda.

To oppose “Alexander Hamilton and a number of Supreme Court rulings” that affirm such overreach is “morally irresponsible and politically disastrous,” says Gerson.

Today, Laura Ingraham referred to Gerson, affectionately, as being part of that wonderful big tent that makes the GOP so inclusive. Yet Gerson, whom BAB celebrity Myron Pauli long ago identified as the most dangerous kind of (crunchy) conservative, holds that the welfare clause, “and Congress will have the power…to provide for the general welfare”—Article I, Section 8—implies that government can pick The People’s pocketbooks for any possible project, even though the general clause is followed by a detailed enumeration of the limited powers so delegated.

Asks historian Thomas E. Woods Jr.: “What point would there be in specifically listing the federal government’s powers if the general welfare clause had already provided the government with an essentially boundless authority to enact whatever it thought would contribute to people’s well-being?” Woods evokes no less an authority than the “Father of the Constitution,” James Madison: “Nothing is more natural nor common than first to use a general phrase, and then to explain and qualify it by a recital of particulars.”

You’d think Madison knew one or two things more than Michael about this document.

I once wrote that “sometimes the law of the State coincides with the natural law. More often than not, natural justice has been buried under the rubble of legislation and statute.” When Gerson and company (you’ll find that Rove, Perino, and the rest, currently masquerading as conservatives, are no different) reject “a consistent constitutionalism,” namely a critique of the current promiscuous applications of the 14th, the “General Welfare” clause, and so on, and embrace the concept of the Constitution as a “living, breathing” document—they rely for their case on layers of that rubble.

Having shoveled the muck of lawmaking aside, constitutionalists base their case on the natural justice and the founders’ original intent.

Gerson is the enemy of liberty. But even more so, because so deceptive, are the Ingrahams of the world. Ms. Ingraham wanted to know how Gerson could bad mouth the tea part, yet still call himself a Bush conservative. Ms. Ingraham has set up a dichotomy where there is only congruity and consistency on the part of Gerson: now that is dangerous.

UPDATED: ‘Tax Cuts Not Paid For’ Says Thief

Debt, Democrats, Journalism, Media, Natural Law, Republicans, Taxation, The State

The execrable bunch that convened to Meet The Press on Sunday carried out a conversation about the irresponsible Republikeynesians’ tax policy.

Against the Republikeynesians, moderator DAVID GREGORY argued that “if you’re concerned, as Republicans say they are, about cutting spending and the deficit, you have to acknowledge that tax cuts are not paid for.”

“It’s still borrowed money,” contended Gregory, paraphrasing the Great Inflater, ALAN GREENSPAN.

Other than meekly pointing out that the problem we have is a problem of spending, Mitch McConnel, being a Republican, made various weak appeals such as that “if you push this economy further backward, we’ll get less revenue for the government, not more.” And “raising taxes in the middle of a recession on the major job generator in America, small business, is a very, very bad idea.”

TAXES ARE STOLEN PROPERTY. A tax cut, especially to high income earners who pay most of the taxes, is a return of stolen goods. To say that you need to “pay for tax cuts,” as Gregory does, is akin to a thief saying he can’t return the TV he just stole until he is in a better financial position.

On the other hand, “taxation hits the pocketbook directly; government’s borrowing and counterfeiting does so indirectly—it devalues Joe the Plumber’s labor, assets, purchasing power, and savings. Unaware of how he’s being ground down, Generic Joe keeps on consuming until he crashes.”

UPDATE (Aug. 24): “Arguing for higher taxes for the rich” is tantamount to arguing for a transfer of wealth from those who pay taxes to those who habitually consume them. It’s always an election-winning strategy given that the last group outnumbers the first. Ask Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Reuters: “Thousands have taken to the streets this summer to demonstrate against plans by Merkel’s center-right government to cut billions of euros in spending on the unemployed without imposing a similar burden on the other end of society.”

Come again? Does the correspondent mean to imply that the pain of doing without as much welfare as before is on par with having to fork out for it (without being entitled to it?)

In mobocracy, some are more equal than others.

Want proof that, the world over, “Statism begins With YOU”?

“Surveys indicate that if a national vote were held now, the opposition would crush Merkel and her allies, whose coalition lost its majority in the upper house of parliament after defeat in a regional election in May.”

Speaking of statism, HERE AT HOME, the booboisie want their “runny egg yolks for mopping up with toast” better monitored by Big Daddy.

A salmonella outbreak, and “the largest egg recall that has happened in recent history,” simply show that the fatter the feds the happier egg-scarfing Americans stand to be.

UPDATED: 'Tax Cuts Not Paid For' Says Thief

Debt, Democrats, Journalism, Media, Natural Law, Republicans, Taxation, The State

The execrable bunch that convened to Meet The Press on Sunday carried out a conversation about the irresponsible Republikeynesians’ tax policy.

Against the Republikeynesians, moderator DAVID GREGORY argued that “if you’re concerned, as Republicans say they are, about cutting spending and the deficit, you have to acknowledge that tax cuts are not paid for.”

“It’s still borrowed money,” contended Gregory, paraphrasing the Great Inflater, ALAN GREENSPAN.

Other than meekly pointing out that the problem we have is a problem of spending, Mitch McConnel, being a Republican, made various weak appeals such as that “if you push this economy further backward, we’ll get less revenue for the government, not more.” And “raising taxes in the middle of a recession on the major job generator in America, small business, is a very, very bad idea.”

TAXES ARE STOLEN PROPERTY. A tax cut, especially to high income earners who pay most of the taxes, is a return of stolen goods. To say that you need to “pay for tax cuts,” as Gregory does, is akin to a thief saying he can’t return the TV he just stole until he is in a better financial position.

On the other hand, “taxation hits the pocketbook directly; government’s borrowing and counterfeiting does so indirectly—it devalues Joe the Plumber’s labor, assets, purchasing power, and savings. Unaware of how he’s being ground down, Generic Joe keeps on consuming until he crashes.”

UPDATE (Aug. 24): “Arguing for higher taxes for the rich” is tantamount to arguing for a transfer of wealth from those who pay taxes to those who habitually consume them. It’s always an election-winning strategy given that the last group outnumbers the first. Ask Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Reuters: “Thousands have taken to the streets this summer to demonstrate against plans by Merkel’s center-right government to cut billions of euros in spending on the unemployed without imposing a similar burden on the other end of society.”

Come again? Does the correspondent mean to imply that the pain of doing without as much welfare as before is on par with having to fork out for it (without being entitled to it?)

In mobocracy, some are more equal than others.

Want proof that, the world over, “Statism begins With YOU”?

“Surveys indicate that if a national vote were held now, the opposition would crush Merkel and her allies, whose coalition lost its majority in the upper house of parliament after defeat in a regional election in May.”

Speaking of statism, HERE AT HOME, the booboisie want their “runny egg yolks for mopping up with toast” better monitored by Big Daddy.

A salmonella outbreak, and “the largest egg recall that has happened in recent history,” simply show that the fatter the feds the happier egg-scarfing Americans stand to be.

UPDATED: Tea Party Central

Constitution, Founding Fathers, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Natural Law, Political Philosophy, Politics, Race, Racism

How do you tell that a grassroots, decentralized movement has moved into mainstream politics and has been thoroughly co-opted by its forces? Here’s one sign: A movement that arose in order to address profound issues of political philosophy begins to front “spokespersons” to apologize and bend over backwards in order to pacify mainstream muckrakers and race-baters. That’s one way to know for sure that the Tea Party is being schooled and groomed for grimy politics as usual.

MSNBC:

Mark Williams, the flamethrower leading the battle against the Ground Zero mosque, was kicked out of the National Tea Party Federation Saturday for a racist blog post.
He shrugged off the diss, calling it “grandstanding” from a “minor player on the fringe.”
A California radio host and leader of the Tea Party Express, Williams had labeled the Manhattan boro president a “Jewish Uncle Tom” and President Obama an “Indonesian Muslim turned welfare thug.”
But when he posted a satirical letter supposedly from “the Colored People” to President Lincoln praising slavery, that apparently crossed the line.
The federation, an umbrella organization that claims to represent 85 Tea Party groups, kicked out Williams’ group when it wouldn’t fire him. “We have expelled Tea Party Express and Mark Williams from the National Tea Party Federation because of the letter that he wrote,” federation spokesman David Webb said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

You got a hint of the forces controlling the Tea Party—the kind of people who’ve clawed their way onto establishment forums such as “Face the Nation”—when the “gritty” movement doubled up in pain and then went into defense mode over being accused of racism by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Being so accused by such people is always false and is almost always a badge of honor.

Andrew Breitbart’s “Go to hell” is a start. But even better would it have been to ignore an organization that is too stupid to debate, but is sufficiently wily to work to ensure that nothing of the old, founding liberties remains or is revived.

It was wrong to so much as dignify these contemptible efforts to silence the small segment of America that is still true to her origins. Leaders of that America should never have chomped down on the bait, which is nothing but ad hominem intended to paralyze and marginalize liberty.

“The Many Ministries of Truth,” I wrote,

“make truth telling a difficult task. In fiction, the Orwellian Ministry of Truth is a reified entity. In reality, there isn’t one concrete ministry that decides how the nation thinks—there are many such entities. They’ve evolved over time, and they issue countless subliminal edicts.
One type of aversion treatment is to call the unhappy victim a racist. It’s the contemporary version of fingering a witch during the Salem witchcraft trials. This treatment awaits any and all who fail to conform to the correct thinking, transmitted by the education system, the churches, and the intellectuals.”

UPDATE (July 19): “Is it not an absurd world we live in?” asks a fired-up Pat Buchanan, who I’ve been seeing less and less on MSNBC.

“Here is an organization whose very name, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, pronounces its goal—advancement through affirmative action, quotas, contract set-asides based on race—accusing another organization of being motivated by race.”

Jealous and the NAACP are trying to change the subject from Obama’s failure to Obama’s race, and from the failures of liberals to the motivations of conservatives.
By accusing the tea party of harboring racists, the NAACP is, in effect, demanding that the party appear in a court of public opinion to prove itself innocent of an unsupported slander.
Sorry, that’s not how things work in America.

Oh, but that’s exactly how things work in America.