Undocumented Pithiness

If I were to sum up the Left's recent comments decrying the vitriole, hate speech, and incivility of the Right, I think it would be, "Nothing says hypocrisy like one journalist accusing another of sedition."  Following his remarks on Chris Matthews' show, Klein has tried to justify his remarks, claiming that "dissent" isn't the same as "sedition," conveniently ignoring all the claims from the Left that George W. Bush was illegitimate--so, I suppose he would argue that those remarks were also seditious?  (Let's recall the Supreme Court settled that issue in a Consitutional manner, so if you don't like it, your recourse is to vote four years later, not to insist that he's not your President.)

But, the real reason for this post is to recognize true pithiness (with a nod to Mr. O'Reilly) when I read it.  I found this on bookwormroom.com (see "My Blog List"), but the quote is Mark Steyn in National Review:

"Nothing says sedition like citing the U.S. Constitution and quoting Thomas Jefferson."

Mrs. Clinton couldn't have said it better herself.

Democrats: The Party of "No"

No sooner had Scott Brown won the special election in Massachusetts, pundits began rerunning their schtick that the Republican party was, "The Party of No."

Actually, they have that backwards.

Brown's election means that the Democrats no longer have 60 seats in the Senate. Since 60 votes are required to cut off debate and call a vote, they must now get at least one Republican to agree with any legislation they intend to pass.

One Republican seems a pretty small requirement. When the Republicans controlled the Senate in a 50-50 tie, they needed 10 Democrats to invoke "cloture," and the people's business still got done.

The difference was that the Republicans listened to the Democrats' cries about the "rights of the minority." They had to, even if they thought those cries were disingenuous. But, Democrat Senators have gotten in the habit of saying, "No," every time the Republicans wanted that legislative body to perhaps consider something that some of them could support.

Democrats didn't need Republicans over the last year, so their answer was, "No. No, we won't consider your ideas; no we won't reach a compromise the American people might prefer; no, we won't even acknowledge that you have ideas." They ran with that last comment to every journalist they could find, pretending that the other side didn't even offer ideas. Sadly, too many journalists let them get away with it.

So, when your opposition won't listen to you, about all you have left is to say, "No. No, we don't agree with where you're going, and, no, we can't stop it, but, no you can't make us vote for it, either."

Republicans have had ideas all along, and have been offering them. Whether they're the best ideas ever, or utterly foolish, isn't the point. Democrats will now, at least, have to stop saying, "No."

Dissent is Racist? You can't be serious.

I normally prefer the long form for blogs, but this one is just too infuriating not to just vent.

So, former President Jimmy Carter says that opposition to President Barack Obama is racist? Are you kidding me? Let's see where that logic goes: If I oppose President Obama's ideas, I'm racist. If I oppose Hillary Clinton's ideas, I suppose I must be sexist. And if I oppose John Edwards, I'm...against big hair? Against philandering? Against having affairs with your wife when she's in remission from cancer?

Are you kidding me?

I recall then-Senator Clinton arguing that, "We have the right to debate, and to disagree with any administration!!!!!!!" I add the screamers because--well, because she was yelling. But, she had a point, it works both ways, and I've since adopted her comment as this blog's subtitle. So, I will politely respond...

President Carter, if you have racist guilt about your Southern upbringing, I'm sorry. But, please don't project that guilt on me. I lost several bets in 2008 because I was certain Condi Rice would be the Republican VP candidate. If that's not enough for you, let me make it crystal clear:

Rice/Cheney 2012.

Is that enough?

Executive Pay--Bipartisanship, or the Issue?

President Obama has recently made the case that executives in companies that accept "bailout" money from the federal government should be restricted to salaries of $500,000. His argument is that they shouldn't be rewarded for running their companies into the ground, and the taxpayers certainly shouldn't be subsidizing the reward. An interesting argument.

It certainly has populist appeal, and liberals are obviously supporting the concept as a matter of how they see fairness. Conservatives counter on principle--that once the government starts telling these businesses how to run their affairs, what's to stop them from telling all businesses? Or all of us?

That's not a ridiculous worry--when the income tax was being debated in Congress, one member was belittled for worrying that someday, 5% of the population might be subject to it.

What's more interesting to me is the obvious counter the President could play, if he really wants a bipartisan approach. Sure, liberals like the idea because they think it's fair. But the conservative argument should be that executives and boards need to be discouraged from taking the bailout unless their companies really need it. Taking a bailout is likely to devastate the shareholders--the owners of that company. There needs to be a personal disincentive to ensure that boards act on behalf of their investors, the owners, and don't get the idea that these companies are a personal playground.

He could move on to asking Congress to figure out a way to ensure that the CEO brought in to pull a company out of the ditch doesn't have to pay that penalty (nicely assuming he now automatically wins over his opposition with the previous argument).

The downside, of course, is that requires him to acknowledge the other side really has good ideas. Since, so far, "bipartisanship" has mostly consisted of, "Come to the meeting and then vote for my plan," that could be a problem. But that begs the question--is this about bipartisanship, or the issue?

Wrong versus Stupid

I had a boss once that we called “The Crazy Man,” because he would lose his temper for no apparent reason and end up in an apoplectic rage. Moreover, if you disagreed with him, you weren’t just wrong, you were stupid. He’s no longer with the company, but a recent blog I read got me to thinking about that concept.

In his December 20 column in the NY Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/opinion/21kristof.html?ref=opinion), Nicholas Kristof made the interesting observation that self-described liberals give less to charity than self-described conservatives. He then invited readers to offer their thoughts on why at his blog, http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/ and did they ever!

The first thing I immediately noticed was the rage. Kristof had been straightforward in his purpose: “a transparent attempt this holiday season to shame liberals into being more charitable.” My immediate thought was, “Good for you!” Encouraging one’s own group to live up to its ideals always seems like a good goal to me. Alas, Mr. Kristof and I were alone in that opinion.

There were 685 posts when I first looked, and I stopped reading after about 100. By then, the trend was pretty clear, and interesting in about three ways. First, many of the posters were clearly very angry at the notion they should do more. Some insisted that they gave of their time, so that was better than “simply dashing off a check.” While I’m glad they’re giving their time, economics don’t really care who’s doing the work, so I don’t grant them a special moral position. Some insisted that giving to political causes would do more good than giving to charity, because that would restructure the country. Here, again, I admire their dedication, but that seems just a bit too convenient. There’s a reason some organizations have tax exempt status and others don’t. But the largest portion seemed to insist that they had no obligation to give to charity—they paid their taxes, and aiding the poor was a communal duty, period. They had absolutely no obligation to pay more, because that just meant others would take advantage of their generosity.

That seems completely absurd to me. The very people who insist we should care more about our fellow man also insist that they don’t have to do one iota more until everyone else has paid their fair share? (However that’s defined?) So much for leadership by example!

To be fair, a lot of conservatives seemed pretty put out by the other posters, but that makes sense based on the subject of the Op-Ed. I think I could sum up their position as, “We give more but get called selfish and greedy. Who are the hypocrites here?” And, to be fair, some liberals pointed out that they give personally, which never gets counted. That’s legit—I have helped out several relatives, and that isn’t counted by anyone as charitable giving. By the way, the second time I checked, it was at 858 posts.

What struck me as the most interesting, however, was the liberal argument that having government provide charity services is “more efficient” than relying on private charity—one poster called it more “professional;” another called charities “bureaucratic;” a third praised government bureaucracy for being able to avoid the need for donor mailings. Having worked for government, and being able to read, I know that the government spends more on overhead than any charity would ever be permitted. I don’t know how these posters arrived at their conclusion, other than that’s what they wanted to believe.

I suspect that is, in fact, the case—they simply want to believe that government is a better solution. My first evidence is the posters’ words—that they don’t think charity should exist at all, because it won’t assure that the money goes where it’s truly needed. My second evidence for this is the number of posters who insisted that conservatives should pay more, because they had higher paying jobs. The problem with that assertion is that Kristof was quite clear that he had corrected for income, and the conclusions didn’t change—in fact, the poorest conservatives gave the most, percentage-wise. So, either the liberal posters couldn’t read, or they simply didn’t register an inconvenient truth. They didn’t want to believe it was true, so they didn’t.

And anyone who disagreed with them wasn’t just wrong. They were stupid.