Redefining America

Superman, the character created in 1938 whose deeds inspired generations of young Americans, renounced his U.S. citizenship in 2011, for the 900th issue of Action Comics. The fictional patriotic warrior for American values stated:

Faster, Please! » Shut Up or I’ll Kill You

We’re a fractious people, always have been, and our politics have been especially colorful. I’m a nearly lifelong fan of John C. Calhoun’s line about Henry Clay: “Like a mackerel by moonlight, he shines and stinks …”. Our political candidates have been mocked for their love affairs, their wooden legs, their false teeth, and their drinking habits. It’s not elegant, but rude, insulting talk is one of the products of free speech.

It’s worth reminding ourselves that free speech around the world is still a rarity, and seems to be becoming even rarer. Lots of countries have the death penalty and other violent punishments for “insulting the state” or “the leader.” In religious states, such talk is branded blasphemy; in all too many secular states, unrestrained criticism of favored groups falls under the arbitrary classification of “hate speech” and is suppressed.

Citizens and subjects of such places are not at all like Americans; they learn habits of mind and mouth that are quite different from ours. They learn to be silent about any subject that could arouse the displeasure of the thought police, and they learn to speak in code, using words to mean things very different from their dictionary meanings. If they are unhappy with their lot or see ways things could be improved, they don’t dare reveal their true feelings openly and explicitly.

That means they can’t think their way to new ideas, because creativity requires trial and error; it needs open criticism, it relishes the destruction of bad ideas.

Free societies are so much more productive and creative than the others in large part because of open debate, just as scientific discovery demands testing all manner of hypotheses. Once you lose the habits of the free mind, it extends to all areas of endeavor. Stifling free speech crushes creativity in all areas of life. And once the censors get their teeth into us, there’s no stopping them.

In my youth, there was a fine cartoon which showed two nasty-looking men outside a movie theater with “CLOSED” on the marquee (I think it was Lady Chatterly’s Lover), and one said to the other: “You know, I enjoyed censoring the movie so much, I think I’ll go censor the book.”

There’s no stopping them. So it’s always urgent to fight the censors, and to embrace free speech, rudeness and all.

That’s not happening nearly enough. Have a look at a few recent cases here at home, and then at a frightening event overseas:


● Four students in Oxnard, California were reportedly suspended for chanting “USA! USA!” at an athletic event. The school superintendent, incoherently, said that he was trying to advance the concept of “cultural proficiency,” whatever that means. The kids are back in school, but the matter is still open. They and their cohorts had better watch their language.

● Apparently, it’s very dangerous to criticize a judge in Indiana.

● If you’re criticizing the president, you’d better not … drink water or something. If you do, your ideas won’t get reported. Only your thirst will make headlines. You don’t think that’s censorship? I do.

● Segue to Denmark, where the estimable journalist, editor, and free speech advocate Lars Hedegaard answered his doorbell when he saw a mailman there, only to have the guy draw a gun and shoot at his head. Blessedly, the would-be assassin missed, Hedegaard swung at him, and the guy ran off.

We can all be thankful that the killer missed, but Lars is now “under protection,” in the usual undisclosed secure location, surrounded by men and women with guns of their own. This may reassure you, but in practice it’s another form of restriction of free speech. Like Salman Rushdie, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Geert Wilders, and others before him, Hedegaard is so well-protected that he no longer appears in public (not even on TV). He’s been taken out of the public square; the censors have thereby won at least a partial victory.

The mission of a free society is to maximize the number of voices, not to remove some from the national debate, even on the grounds of protecting them.

The protectors have it half-backwards, at the very least. It’s fine and dandy to provide security for those at risk, but the “hate speech” rules and laws give wrongheaded protection — moral and political protection — to those who incite violence against their critics. Nobody, and no group, should be sheltered from criticism, even vulgar criticism. Not Jews, not Muslims, not neocons, not liberals. Nobody. As it is currently played, the free speech game is wildly biased in favor of those demanding that their critics be silenced or punished.

These are the fruits of the wrongheaded doctrine of multiculturalism, the misguided notion that all cultures are equally worthy of respect — especially those that attack the core values of Western civilization.

How much media have you seen about the war against free speech? Not so much. The media have a heavy burden of complicity in all of this, needless to say. They should be up in arms, but they more commonly play politics as usual. The American cases noted above are symptomatic of a large universe of similar stories, and they are not subjects of the sort of media campaign that any self-respecting publication or network should be waging. Nor have the campuses rallied to the defense of unpopular (read “not politically correct”) advocates; students are censored, because their grades may well suffer if they demonstrate for the rights of “wrong-minded” individuals. They’re intimidated to cater to the requirements of the mysterious doctrine of “cultural proficiency.”

Finally, there is the failure of the political class to take up the cudgels on behalf of free speech. Yes, I know they have reason to fear the media, but if cowed they should go into a different line of work, or at least stop pretending to be leaders. American leaders, anyway.

Earlier: Back in 2009, PJM’s Andrew Klavan explored in video form the media’s chief message for conservatives — and pretty much everyone else who disagreed with the MSM and the president’s agenda:





 

The Pre-Post Mortem

November 6, 2012 - 8:38 pm - by Stephen Green


As I write this, the election is not yet decided. But it doesn’t look good for Romney, and it’s over for the Senate. But even if Romney does pull out a squeaker, what follows still holds true.
Tonight’s mystery is, there were constituencies which should have flocked to Romney after years of legal and extra-legal assaults. “Catholics and coal,” I said earlier.

Yet they didn’t.

Why didn’t they?

 Was it the largess of the last four years? Perhaps. If so, they’ll perhaps be hurt the most when one of two things happen. Either the gravy train will stop (was that Ryan’s threat to them?), or Obama will simply put them out of business. The Catholic church as an independent entity in this country is already an endangered species thanks to ObamaCare’s mandates. And we know exactly what Obama intends to (finish) doing to the coal industry. So why didn’t they turn the Industrial Midwest and the Great Lakes red tonight? I’m afraid they were bought off. I very much fear their bitterness when the gravy train does stop, as it must. Their reaction will be angry and unpredictable.
And that’s where I misread this electorate. It used to be a pretty sure thing in a democracy that, when the guy you supported screwed you, you would go with the other guy. Because in the end, that’s the only way to keep politicians somewhat honest. But when the Fed can conjure up trillions, when Congress can ease things along with continuing resolutions, when the White House has unprecedented power to punish its enemies and reward its friends…

…how, in these circumstances, do we keep the bastards honest?
We had a chance — not a great chance, but a real one — to stanch the bleeding. We failed to do so.
I fear that means we’re a country in deep denial of just what kind of a hole we’re in, and how much deeper we’ll be in it after another four years of spending-by-autopilot.
We can blame the candidate, sure. Romney didn’t fully capitalize on his first-debate win, and apparently the Chris Christie/Barack Obama lovefest turned a lot of votes back to the president, too. But overall, Romney ran almost as competent a challenger’s campaign as I’ve seen.
We can blame the press, sure. Benghazi alone would have sunk most presidents — most Republican presidents — in weeks if not days. The coverup by the Complicit Media was shameful in the extreme. But we’ve faced down the MSM before, and won.
So, no, I don’t think we can just blame Romney and I don’t think we can just blame the press. Even combined, those two aren’t enough to explain what happened today.
There is something deeply wrong with our country. We’ve been living on borrowed time — and trillions of borrowed dollars — for a decade already. We seem to think that we can keep on doing so. That more than anything else is “the new normal.”

Thomas Jefferson famously said of the slavery issue, “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.” I tremble for my country when I think that the God of Compound Interest is a far more jealous God than Jahweh, Allah, and Zuul all wrapped up into a single, bloody package.
Maybe that truth — the truth — doesn’t sell in a country that’s been suffering for four years now, and with no real end in sight.
This election should have been something like a walkover for the challenger. But no. Our economic destiny is already written in stone, with four trillion in new debt run up by Bush and the GOP, and another six trillion by Obama and the Democrats. Our only hope is rapid and wrenching reform. The alternative is hyperinflation, Cloward-Piven, and all the rest of the Zimbabwe-like horror.
And that means Mitt Romney didn’t fail us. That means people like me — people like you — failed our country. We had years to make the case, and we didn’t. We worked our bottoms off, but it wasn’t enough.
So we must redouble our efforts.
If Obama wins tonight, as seems likely, he has no mandate. He ran on a platform of “Mitt Romney is teh sux.” I’m not sure how that translates into a governing platform, and neither is anyone else. If Romney pulls this out, he’ll have a hostile Senate for at least the first half of his term.
Either way, we’re looking at deadlock.
It’s our job, yours and mine, to pick that lock. Do not tire, do not flag, do not quit.
If Romney wins, he will need us to constantly push him in the direction of sanity. If Obama wins, we will need to fight him at every turn.
I’m not quitting. Don’t you quit now, either.

Beyond Impeachment: Obama Treasonous over Benghazi

Submitted by : Claire gooski

November Surprise: Millions of Tea Party Voters Are Engaged and Ready to Vote (Oct. 3, 2012)

A recent report predicts that 41 million Tea Party voters will likely show up to vote in the presidential election. If more Tea Party voters than liberals show up on Election Day, won't GOP nominee Mitt Romney beat President Obama? Trifecta thinks this simple math makes perfect sense. Hear why.

http://www.pjtv.com/s/GEYDQNBY

The Romney Local Rumbles On

Will the "Etch A Sketch" stumble be a major roadblock to securing the nomination?


I grew up in New York City, and regularly traveled by subway. The various train lines had express service (e.g., from 59th Street to 125th Street in Manhattan) as well as locals, which made every stop. After Mitt Romney’s decisive victory in the Illinois primary on Tuesday, winning another big collection of delegates, the Romney campaign may have believed it was now on the fast track, the express train to the nomination.

Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor and a favorite of those who had been pining for a deadlocked Republican convention and a new entrant to the race, endorsed Romney on Wednesday. Rush Limbaugh seemed pleased with Romney’s more vocal conservative messaging in his victory speech Tuesday night, and seemed to be signaling that he was at peace with Romney’s nomination, arguing that the conservative alternative to Romney may in fact be Romney (whatever that means).

And then came “Etch A Sketch” — an offhand comment by Romney campaign advisor Eric Fehrnstrom that appeared to suggest that Romney was ready to start anew for the fall campaign against Barack Obama with a different message (a fresh slate on an Etch a Sketch). Without having said as much, the instant analysis of the comment was that Fehrnstrom was in effect admitting that any perceived Romney pivot to the right to win the nomination would be reversed with a move to the center for the fall campaign. Both Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum seized on the stumble and immediately had Etch a Sketch kits distributed by their campaigns to reporters at campaign stops.



I am not sure why it would be shocking news that candidates who win contested races for the nomination, mainly among a political party’s most committed activist voters, might try to broaden a campaign message for a fall campaign to win over those who are not partisan to one party or another, and who might have a somewhat different agenda of issues than the party’s base. The fact of the matter is that virtually every national campaign is an attempt by the nominee to expand out from the base of the party which nominated that candidate to get to the 50% or more needed to win.

The problem for Romney is that he has been battling an image as a moderate (an inauthentic conservative) and a flip-flopper in both this campaign and his first race for the GOP nomination in 2008. So Fehrnstrom’s error may have been to say publicly what everyone expected anyway (since moving to the center for the fall campaign is politically smart) in an impolitic manner suggesting cynicism by the Romney campaign and disregard for the conservative voters he has struggled to attract in the primaries so far.

Romney wants the fall campaign to be about the economy: gas prices, energy policy, federal spending, growing annual deficits and the accumulated federal debt, ObamaCare, and tax and regulatory policy. He will not run a campaign on social issues, which are of paramount importance to a significant part of the GOP base. Evangelical Christians and other social conservatives are also very concerned about economic issues, and Romney is counting on their votes in November since his approach is far more attractive to this group than Obama’s.

As Rick Santorum has emerged as Romney’s chief rival, reporters, particularly those who are not sympathetic to any Republican (probably over 90% of the national press corps), have seen an opportunity to inject social issues into the campaign. The controversy over Obama’s contraception initiative that seemed to infringe on the rights of religious organizations appeared to have died down for a bit after an attempted compromise was offered by HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. But it then erupted and became the main news story for several days after Rush Limbaugh trashed Sandra Fluke, the woman who had testified at a House hearing. Of course, Santorum himself has aided and abetted these social issue controversies by bringing up some of these issues on his own, such as the need to enforce pornography laws, or saying that John F. Kennedy’s statement during the 1960 campaign in Houston on the role of religion in public life made him want to throw up.


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Election 2012: The Rust Belt

The mood in the Rust Belt — a designation for states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan referencing their aging infrastructure and declining industry — is one of resignation and worry. Ordinary voters repeatedly voice their dismay over the jobs market. Says Vince Lombardo, a high school teacher in Ohio: “It seems we’ve reached dead ends in so many fields and need a new approach.”

Doing field work for my next book on national elections, I recently toured the cities of Flint, Detroit, and Saginaw in Michigan, and Dayton, Toledo, Cleveland, Akron, and Youngstown in Ohio. Along with western Pennsylvania, these cities were once the heart of American heavy industry (steel and autos). “De-industrialization” has since led to chronically high unemployment rates and a “land-that-time-forgot” landscape.

But whatever their current troubles, Pennsylvania and especially Michigan and Ohio may choose our next president. President Barack Obama will need to win at least two of these three states to retain the White House, as no Democrat has ever been elected president without substantial blue-collar support. Mitt Romney will need at least Ohio to win a majority in the Electoral College, as no Republican has ever been elected president without winning the Buckeye State. (Ohio was essential to George W. Bush’s one-state victories in 2000 and 2004).

In The Real Majority (1970), Richard Scammon and Ben Wattenberg argued that the “typical American voter was a 47-year-old machinist in Dayton.” That plant was probably closed long ago, but Ohio still contains lots of “typical” voters (now suburbanites) and ranks with Florida as one of the premier swing states.

According to union leaders I spoke with, over half of auto workers and nearly 75% of steelworkers have lost their jobs since the 1973 peak. Detroit once had over a dozen large auto factories, including the largest plant in the world — Ford’s River Rouge employed roughly 40,000 people. River Rouge closed in 1983, and the Motor City now has only one major auto plant within the city limits. Youngstown had six large steel mills until the 1970s; they now have none operating.
 Cont. Reading