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A Matter of Pragmatism

The heft of Obama’s ideology is unquestionable and, as such, governing with pragmatism and prudence is seen as a lack of conviction.  Pragmatism is viewed with distrust and hostility by those who have a purist ideological ax to grind and thus are ultimately doomed to failure.

However, ideology does not need to be cast aside altogether and, in fact, can be a good foundation to build upon, but it becomes a liability when one’s perception of political reality becomes distorted.  This has been evidenced in the State of the Union address and subsequent speeches since then and has only highlighted his inability to rationally approach matters of politics and policy.

Now, while those on the other side are not innocent of such child-like irrationality, it is worth noting that the utter lack of such rational guidance in statements made by Mr. Obama has become obvious to not only the political savvy but the general electorate.

Mr. Obama’s political compass is broken and his ship of state is dangerously off course as the political squall of the elections fast approach.  Failed economic, health care, foreign, and domestic policies are scattered about the deck as the political winds pick up the debris of those policy wreckage’s and whip them around tattering the sails.

The people shall speak and their assault upon his hull will sink his ship of state before it sinks the Republic.

Stories of Note

Real Clear Politics: Dems Haunted By Revived Stereotypes

John Stossel: “Biased Judge Does the Right Thing

Reason: Fiscal Stimulus Buying Trouble

Real Clear Markets: A Federal Budget that Insults All Budgets

 

A State of Paradox

by Jarad Perry

In a great cascade of promises and platitudes, President Obama pontificated his plans to improve the State of the Union. However, in a Herculean effort of mental gymnastic the President offered plans for new energy sources yet seeks a cap-and-trade scheme to shackle growth.  He talked of job’s creation saying “…..the true engine of job creation in this country will always be America’s businesses” yet continues to insist that government is the engine by which jobs will be created.

Spending freezes, cuts, and all other manner of gimmicks were tossed about as ways in which to save the country from the abysmal deficit yet, by the magic of rhetoric, he listed a cavalcade of new spending.

Amidst the call for job creation and spending reductions, the President pulled the populism card once again decrying the bankers on Wall Street even though he curses them for reckless spending while seemingly unaware of the inherent hypocrisy of such statements.  He lambasted the recent Supreme Court ruling on campaign finance with the justices sitting directly in front of him, stoned face, as Justice Alito shook his head mouthing ‘not true’ to the ignorance of the constitutional lawyer lecturing him from the pulpit.

The President’s speech will soon be forgotten and the lofty rhetoric will be nothing more than notes in a history book.  All the while, this President has shown time and time again that what he says and what he does are often mutually exclusive. Lost in the ideology of those who seek to ‘equalize’ the playing field not by supporting excellence but by forcing mediocrity.  Fairness is used as a cudgel to beat upon the engines of growth and the invisible hand is restrained at every opportunity.

Yet, it is not leadership to continue to blame the ills of the country on a multitude of scapegoats but to stand up and lead, something he lectured the Republicans on without having the moral authority himself to do so.  The act of governing is not the act of speaking of governing, but doing.

Time will be the great equalizer of fact and fiction, and history may lay the laurel of failure upon this President cementing his legacy as one who knew only the campaign not the art of governance.

Stories of Note

Reason: Advice to Barack Obama

Human Events: Laffer: Obama’s ‘Train Wreck’ Ahead

Wall Street Journal: A GOP Road Map for America’s Future

Electoral Demagoguery

by Jarad Perry

The vitriolic tones, snickering quips, and general snobbery that have become a staple of the American political process are so often heard that it amounts to nothing more than white noise.  However, with the recent election of Scott Brown to the Senate as well as the constant White House berating of Quixotic windmills manifest in the tea-partiers, radio-talk show hosts, and the general ‘vast right-wing conspiracy, the ante has been raised as the 2010 election season heats up as those on the left are becoming disheartened and disenchanted with their intellectual savior.

Yet, this was only natural as the act of governing (whether well or not it is effective) is far different from the act of campaigning to govern and the campaign of President Obama was a well funded, organized, and ran machine whose cogs have started to fall off the once smooth clockwork that was his image.

Beneath the polished veneer of candidate Obama is nothing more than a hollow ideological demagogue set upon contorting to his will the mechanism of growth. Of course, that ideology is not as simplistic as ‘socialism’ it is more an American reworking of European social democracy.  The social democrat is a person who does not want to completely turn off the valve of the market but to control the flow so as to keep the people in scarcity and dependence.

But it only takes a mere look at the fortunes of Europe to see that the stalwarts of the left are coming under increased scrutiny by their once loyal charges.

Social democracy is a proposition of the farcical middle-way between socialism and capitalism, one that fails to understand that the basic mechanisms of the two are incompatible.  Yet, far from discouraging the social democrat, the failures only empower the continued push for more control of the falsely accused market forces.

Such social democratic thinking manifests itself in America under the guise of ‘progressives’ and, as such, is often not fully grasped until the failed end results of policies lacking substance.  Media shills cry out to those in power that the answer is not to buckle under the pressure of the electorate but to push through the foretold agenda no matter the political, societal, or economic costs.

So as the election season gets fully underway, the manner in which the campaigns are conducted may be a lesson in the failures of electoral demagoguery.

Stories of Note

The Washington Post:  How Hugo Chavez’s Revolution Crumbled

Wall Street Journal: A Debt-Limit Test

John Stossel’s Take: Obama’s Bad Connection

Big Government: Calling Another Stimulus a ‘Jobs Bill’ Won’t Make It Work any Better Than Last Year’s Fiscal Flop

Democrats Seek To Raise Debt Limit

by Jarad Perry

Fiscal responsibility is a concept lost upon those in Washington, D.C. as the Democrats want to raise the debt limit by another $1.9 trillion to continue to fund their ludicrous projects. While the Republicans are not entirely innocent, as they raised the deficit under Bush, the Democrats have take spending to a whole new level.

Hollow Rhetoric Of A Hollow Ideology

by Jarad Perry

Empty rhetoric echoes in deafening silence when there is no substance for it to be muted upon.  This state of affairs exists in the hallowed halls of the White House where a president once hailed as eloquence manifest, now sits in the eye of a coming political storm.

Rhetoric is the vehicle by which ideas are carried to the people, but when those words do not carry the weight of real policy they are whisked away in the changing political winds.

President Obama is a great rhetorician but lacks the temperance and pragmatism to be a policymaker.  And when he does engage in the policy world, he is found speaking in abstractions that have been proven to be as hollow as the words used to portray them.

This ideal of rhetoric void of policy is a staple of the progressive worldview and, as such, is one that has long been rejected by the people.  Those of this ideology continue to attack the policies that have worked in the past by mistaking them for their policies looked through a different lens.

That is how capitalism is viewed.  The free market is decried as the root of all evil when it is, in fact, the cronyism and attempted command of the economy that has lead to the collapse and continued fall of market forces.

It is by the mechanism of government that the progressive seeks to change society, but it is this same system that has shackled the invisible hand of the market.

A free market is not void of regulation and, in fact, does not work without the foundational framework necessary to operate in a a manner that is not a free-for-all.  However, when that regulation goes beyond necessity, it becomes an impetuous reactionary force that hinders growth and the alleviation of poverty.

Yet, the progressive on the one hand wishes to control market forces but becomes frustrated when their control schemes fail to produce the outcomes they desired.

Then it is with the cudgel of rhetoric that they bludgeon the market, once again, as the root of all evil. Yet, in the end, it is merely  hollow rhetoric for a hollow ideology.

Stories of Note

Spiegel Online:  The World Bids Farewell to Obama

Real Clear Politics: Our Philosopher-King Obama

Human Events: Obama Blames Bush for Brown’s Win in Massachusetts

 

Scott Brown Wins!

A great shadow is looming across the progressive landscape and that shadow is common sense.  In an upset fit for a political thriller, Republican State Senator Scott Brown has won the special-election for the Senate seat held by Edward Kennedy in Massachusetts.

The voters of Massachusetts have sent a clear signal to Obama and the Democrats in congress that absurd Keynesian stimulus and government-run health care are not the answer to the countries fiscal woes.

Take note ye holders of power that those who usurp the power of the people will be swept away in election after election this November.

I congratulate Scott Brown on his victory and hope such victories can be repeated across America.

The paradox of the progress worldview is that it is the ideology of the past parading as the solution to the future.