Representative Linda Sanchez has an article over at the Huffington Post responding to criticism of her proposed bill, the Megan Meiers Cyberbullying Prevention Act. She starts off with this nice piece of obfuscation:
“If you were walking down the street and saw someone harassing a child, would you just walk by and look the other way? If that person was telling the child the world would be better off if they just killed themselves, would you ignore it?”
Well … no, but my response probably wouldn’t be to craft an overbroad, facially unconstitutional bill that targets far more than just “cyberbullying.” But then again, I’m not Rep. Sanchez. (For you critical thinkers out there, Sanchez’s rhetorical question is called a false dichotomy.)
Bonus points to Sanchez for including the phrase “so-called free speech” in her article. It really shows her true colors when it comes to the First Amendment.
Also, hat tip to Reason, where you can find a more thorough shellacking of Sanchez’ Maginot Line of an argument. Crossposted at Campus Magazine Online.
FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY — The Modern Whig philosophy is to empower the states with the resources to handle their unique affairs.
ENERGY INDEPENDENCE — Reduce dependence on foreign oil by developing practical sources of alternative energy. This will have the simultaneous effect of changing the national security dynamic.
EDUCATION/SCIENTIFIC ADVANCEMENT — Increased public and private emphasis on fields such as space, oceanic, medical and nanotechnology. Also, providing common-sense solutions to enhance our educational system from pre-school to university-level studies.
STATES RIGHTS — Each state can generally determine its course of action based on local values and unique needs.
SOCIAL PROGRESSION — Government should refrain from legislating morality.
VETERANS AFFAIRS — Vigilant advocacy relating to the medical, financial, and overall well-being of our military families and veterans.
A sensible, socially liberal, fiscally conservative platform with no crazy Constitution Party-esque God-bothering. Why couldn’t the Republicans have run someone like that the last few times around?
I usually like Matt Petryni’s columns. I don’t always agree with the guy, but he usually seems genuinely thoughtful and I’d put him at the top of the list of this year’s otherwise… lackluster opinion roster over at the Emerald. That said, today’s piece, which attempted to link industrial farming with swine flu (or pandemics in general), was all sound and fury (well, sound at least, and only if you were to read it aloud), signifying… nothing in particular.
I spend my time studying the Caucasus. It’s what I do in my free time. It’s what I’ll be doing for the better part of the next decade as a graduate student.
So, while it’s no secret that I’m not a fan of our current President, I respected Barack Obama’s repeatedpromises to recognize the Armenian Genocide for what it was: the systematic murder of ethnic Armenians in the Ottoman Empire.
Unfortunately, as with so manyothercases, the candidate of “Hope” and “Change” has once again revealed himself to be little more than a cynical opportunist who’s more than content to blow smoke up the electorate’s ass and otherwise continue with the policies of the past, in this case choosing to kowtow to Turkish “sensibilities” rather than live up to promises he’s made in the past.
President Obama comes to this issue with an unusually clear and unambivalent record. In 2006, for example, the U.S. ambassador to Armenia, John Evans, was recalled for employing the word genocide. Then-Sen. Obama wrote a letter of complaint to then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, deploring the State Department’s cowardice and roundly stating that the occurrence of the Armenian genocide in 1915 “is not an allegation, a personal opinion, or a point of view, but rather a widely documented fact supported by an overwhelming body of historical evidence.” On the campaign trail last year, he amplified this position, saying that “America deserves a leader who speaks truthfully about the Armenian genocide and responds forcefully to all genocides. I intend to be that president.”
[…]
It is now being hinted that if either President Obama or the Congress goes ahead with the endorsement of the genocide resolution, Turkey will prove uncooperative on a range of issues, including the normalization of the frontier between Turkey and Armenia and the transit of oil and gas pipelines across the Caucasus. When the question is phrased in this thuggish way, it can be slyly suggested that Armenia’s own best interests are served by joining in the agreement to muddy and distort its own history. Yet how could any state, or any people, agree to abolish their pride and dignity in this way? And the question is not only for Armenians, who are economically hard-pressed by the Turkish closure of the common border. It is for the Turks, whose bravest cultural spokesmen and writers take genuine risks to break the taboo on discussion of the Armenian question. And it is also for Americans, who, having elected a supposedly brave new president, are being told that he—and our Congress too—must agree to collude in a gigantic historical lie.
Were it any other President, it would be tempting to simply write off Obama’s fairly radical shift as little more than giving more value to good relations with a regional power like Turkey than with a political non-entity like Armenia. But, as noted above, Obama’s pre-election rhetoric on this issue was unequivocal.
Obama campaigned as the candidate of “change.” Sadly, it seems that “change” often applies to the President’s ethics, from “don’t ask, don’t tell” to warrantless wiretapping. Sadly, it seems that we can add the Armenian Genocide to the list.
I forgot to mention it yesterday, but good for Iowa.
Money quote:
“We are firmly convinced the exclusion of gay and lesbian people from the institution of civil marriage does not substantially further any important governmental objective,” Justice Mark S. Cady wrote for the seven-member court, adding later, “We have a constitutional duty to ensure equal protection of the law.”
By now, comparisons between Barack Obama and Franklin Roosevelt have become as commonplace as hearing heedless pundits liken Iraq to Vietnam. Some have gone further, casting Bush as Herbert Hoover while others have gleefully piled on, spouting off about “Hooverites” and “laissez-faire capitalism” whenever they can and without really having any idea what they’re talking about.
Much like the facile equation of Iraq with Vietnam, the substitution of the credit crunch for the Great Depression is based on a few superficial similarities but breaks down under even cursory scrutiny. As with Iraq, however, the cheap comparisons have inspired people to look to past solutions for today’s problems.
Unfortunately, their prescriptions, based as they are on caricatures, have little to do with reality. In no case is this more true than with Franklin Roosevelt’s “first 100 days”, which many hoped Obama’s first 100 days in the Oval Office would be modeled on. In his review of the recently published Nothing to Fear: FDR’s Inner Circle and the Hundred Days that Created Modern America by Adam Cohen, Daniel Rothschild of the Global Prosperity Initiative ably deconstructs the fashionable inaccuracies regarding Hoover and FDR that have been gaining currency:
Hoover was not the Grinch that Cohen wants him to be; he believed in aid to the poor, preferring it to be raised and delivered through means as close to the recipient as practicable. (This was essentially the same position Roosevelt held as governor of New York.) More important, he was by no means a proponent of unfettered markets. An engineer by training, Hoover believed fully in the power of central planning and technocratic government to better society.
[…]
In a campaign address, he argued that the American economy “is no system of laissez faire” but rather “demands economic justice as well as political and social justice.” Hoover was complex, both as a man and as a president. Cohen’s caricaturization may advance his angel-replaces-devil storyline, but it ignores the similarities between FDR and his predecessor, in both their philosophies and their policies.
For the people who’re pimping the “Obama-as-FDR” meme and getting all spittle-flecked about “Hooverites”, however, the “Great Depression II” narrative is all too easy to cast as the story of hard-nosed and noble progressives struggling to undo the evils of feckless, greedy, and dishonorable conservatives (aided in no small measure by the behavior of the Republican Party over the last eight years). But one should not mistake ill-informed polemics as authentic historiography. Indeed, as Rothschild notes
… Cohen’s actual agenda probably has more to do with influencing the present than understanding the past. The book was timed to appear less than two weeks before Obama’s inauguration, and its jacket carries an alarmist blurb from the historian Blanche Wiesen Cook, progenitor of the Eleanor-Rooseveltas-lesbian theory: “At this critical moment, with our nation imperiled by the ‘starve the beast’ crowd, this book offers a hope for what is now again most needed: the restoration of democracy, and the restitution of New Deal agencies to promote dignity and security for all.”
They may yet get their way. After all, fiscal conservatism has been utterly discredited, right?
Via The Agitator, if “ringing the doorbell” wasn’t enough for you (see the “Spew” section of the “Dark Night Train of the Soul” issue of the Commentator), you can now listen to noted wordsmith Bill O’Reilly read his acclaimed novel “Those Who Tresspass.” In the audiobook version, you can hear Mr. O’Reilly utter such timeless prose as “[s]ay baby, put down that pipe and get my pipe up” and “[c]unnilingus involves the lips and tongue”.
Once you finish dry-heaving and clean the blood off of your forehead after you get done smashing it against the wall, you can move on to listening to President Barack Obama read from his audiobook. “That guy ain’t shit. Sorry ass motherfucker” and “[y]ou ain’t my bitch, nigga” are sure to go down in history along with Reagan’s “Tear Down This Wall” speech and Washington’s farewell address.
In carrying out its general purpose under subsection (a), the Commission shall address and analyze the following specific topics:
…
(5) The effect on the Nation, on those who serve, and on the families of those who serve, if all individuals in the United States were expected to perform national service or were required to perform a certain amount of national service.
(6) Whether a workable, fair, and reasonable mandatory service requirement for all able young people could be developed, and how such a requirement could be implemented in a manner that would strengthen the social fabric of the Nation and overcome civic challenges by bringing together people from diverse economic, ethnic, and educational backgrounds.
No word yet on whether or not the name “Reichsarbeitsdienst” is being considered for the new program.
Because some governors might not accept the money, Congress added a unique provision, in subsection 1607(b): “If funds provided to any State in any division of this Act are not accepted for use by the Governor, then acceptance by the State legislature, by means of the adoption of a concurrent resolution, shall be sufficient to provide funding to such State.”
If state law does not give the state legislature the right to bypass the governor, how can Congress just change that law? Where does Congress get the power to change a state constitution?
Well, OSPIRG has officially been cut from the ASUO budget, but don’t think those goons are giving up. Since they couldn’t sway the student government (even though they were given four opportunities to do so), OSPIRG is taking its message to “the people.”
You may notice (in fact, you will be forced to notice) the dweebs on campus trying to get you to sign a petition for something called the “student voice campaign.” OSPIRG, masquerading as the “coalition for student voice,” is trying to collect enough signatures to put a ballot measure up for vote. The measure reads:
Should the ASUO fund student-directed programs that address issues that affect both students and all Oregonians, using methods such as: research; press conferences; letter writing drives; demonstrations; public forums; advocating to the City Council, Legislature, Congress, and corporations; and hiring professional staff to work to amplify and empower student voice both on and off-campus in places like Salem and Washington DC?
I just wish for once in its insipid history OSPIRG could be honest with students. It’s pathetic that they have to couch their campaign in smarmy platitudes about “student voice” – worse that they can’t even bear to mention OSPIRG itself. If you get confronted by one of these clipboard-wielding mouth-breathers, write down your feelings on their signature sheet. That’s what I do.
Here at the University of Oregon we’ve long since become accustomed to the “diversity” gang’s dog and pony show: they find some reason to get offended, write a few letters to the Emerald denouncing whatever it is that’s got them in a huff, engage in a lot of nail-biting and childish, unconvincing theatrics in the ASUO, and basically bully whomever they disagree with by smearing them as racist, sexist, homophobic, or whatever.
Unfortunately, a different U of O — the University of Oklahoma — is learning first-hand how the whole “diversity” racket works. In an interesting twist, though, it’s not a group of professional victims and serial whiners in the student body that’s causing trouble… it’s the Oklahoma legislature. Upset by the University’s decision to invite militant atheist and polemicist Richard Dawkins to campus to commemmorate Charles Darwin, the legislature took it upon itself to draft HR1015 (RTF file).
The text of the resolution contains all of the usual pablum:
[T]he University of Oklahoma is a publicly funded institution which should beopen to all ideas and should train students in all disciplines of study and research and to use independent thinking and free inquiry…
[T]he University of Oklahoma, as a part of the Darwin 2009 Project, has invited as a public speaker on campus, Richard Dawkins of Oxford University, whose published opinions, as represented in his 2006 book “The God Delusion”, and public statements on the theory of evolution demonstrate an intolerance for cultural diversity and diversity of thinking and are views that are not shared and are not representative of the thinking of a majority of the citizens of Oklahoma…
[T]he Oklahoma House of Representative strongly opposes the invitation to speak on the campus of the University of Oklahoma to Richard Dawkins of Oxford University, whose published statements on the theory of evolution and opinion about those who do not believe in the theory are contrary and offensive to the views and opinions of most citizens of Oklahoma…
[T]he Oklahoma House of Representatives encourages the University of Oklahoma to engage in an open, dignified, and fair discussion…
Any of this stuff sounding familiar? About the only thing that’s missing are the words “safe space”.
Now, personally I can’t stand Richard Dawkins. I think he’s as shrill and intolerant as any god bothering evangelical. Regardless of my opinion or anyone else’s, though, the man has every right to speak in a public venue at a public university. HR1015 does not prohibit him from doing so. It’s merely a pointless waste of taxpayer dollars that expresses the displeasure of a nosy and self-important legislature that’s sticking its nose where it doesn’t belong.
The Oklahoma House of Representatives has thus given us yet another reason to distrust anyone in government, proving once again that nearly all of them are blithering, power-hungry idiots. Furthermore, it’s a strong reminder to look askance at anyone who is pimping the whole “diversity” scam. As should be abundantly clear by now, such individuals, regardless of whether they’re halfwit undergrads from the MCC or halfwit lawmakers in the Oklahoma legislature, are mostly interested in silencing speech they don’t agree with.
This video of the ignominious end of some kind of student protest at NYU has been making the rounds today, and it really is worth a laugh. It kind of reminds me of the 2000 occupation of Johnson Hall by a motley assortment of protesters demanding that the U of O join the Workers Rights Consortium.
The NYU kids, though, had an even more hillarious list of demands than did the WRC protesters. In addition to the usual laundry list of college progressive smegma, they decided to include such reasonable requests as the establishment of a student commission with full power “to vote on proxies, draft shareholder resolutions, screen all university investments, establish new programs that encourage social and environmental responsibility and override all financial decisions the committee deems socially irresponsible, including investment decisions” (and you thought the ASUO was bad…), forcing the university to “donate all excess supplies and materials in an effort to rebuild the University of Gaza”, and demanding that someone else pick up the tab for their political theatrics by compensating “all employees whose jobs were disrupted during the course of the occupation.”
My favorite part of the video, though (aside from the cameraman bleating out platitudes about “consensus”, “hierarchy”, and “power structures” that he obviously thinks makes him sound “academic”), comes at the end when he’s making video of the protesters’ possessions just in case campus security confiscates their stuff. After making sure to document all the MacBooks, iPods, and headphones the rabble-rousers are carrying around in their bags, he proclaims that the police won’t be interested in confiscating a water bottle, since “they probably drink corporate water.”
Well, President Obama has signed the bailout bill, for better or worse. You can see some excerpts of the speech he gave for the occasion here.
For a different President’s take on how to deal with a very similar situation, scroll to about 4:30 in this video and watch until the end:
I’m not the biggest fan of Ronald Reagan in the world, but what he says in that speech about individualism rings a lot more true than any of President Obama’s talk about the government riding to the rescue and saving us all from “catastrophe.”
Last week OSPIRG had it’s annual budget hearing, and students packed into the room to speak out for and against the group. After nearly three hours of listening to presenters, the ACFC (which controls OSPIRG’s budget) adjourned the meeting without a vote. There will be a second budget hearing sometime next week.
As I mentioned earlier, the Commentator has opposed OSPIRG for most of our history, so I thought it might be useful to dig through the archive and give some context to the whole thing. You see, this has been going on for a long, long time.
But before I move on: Last year, the Daily Emerald ran a very good article, “The OSPIRG you can’t see,” that goes over much of the same material as this blog post. If you think we’re distorting or twisting facts, I would advise reading it. Many OSPIRG supporters accuse us of opposing the organization’s goals and trying to stop campus activism, but, as the aforementioned article says, “it’s all about money, visibility and tangible results.”
Since the last few posts have been, essentially, about the economy and the pending stimulus bill I thought that I’d share this recent article from Newsweek.
Thomas and Meacham are arguing that because of Bush practices and predicted Obama ones the United States is starting to look more and more like Europe (I doubt this but we’ll see).
All of this is unfolding in an economy that can no longer be understood, even in passing, as the Great Society vs. the Gipper. Whether we like it or not—or even whether many people have thought much about it or not—the numbers clearly suggest that we are headed in a more European direction. A decade ago U.S. government spending was 34.3 percent of GDP, compared with 48.2 percent in the euro zone—a roughly 14-point gap, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. In 2010 U.S. spending is expected to be 39.9 percent of GDP, compared with 47.1 percent in the euro zone—a gap of less than 8 points. As entitlement spending rises over the next decade, we will become even more French.
What this is truly pointing at is that since Reagan, and if you really want to all the back to Nixon, the Republican party has been spouting the party line but spending like Democrats (although, I assume many of you knew this already). It’s interesting to actually here a columnist, media of any kind really, finally come out and say that Bush was somewhat socialist in his policies and promoted big government over little.
Personally, this is an article, among many, that allows me to shove it down the throats of those who blame deregulation on the current economic collapse. I blame it on an increase in regulation in certain sectors (banking, realty, etc.) and the what the article above calls:
Much of that economic growth was real, but for the past five years or so, it has borne a suspicious resemblance to Bernie Madoff’s stock fund. Americans have been living high on borrowed money (the savings rate dropped from 7.6 percent in 1992 to less than zero in 2005) while financiers built castles in the air.
Or irresponsible spending by Americans during an economic high.
I’m not arguing that one has to disagree or agree with this article but I think that for the current arguments that are being made in this country about the economy, big government, and socialism that this short piece happens to have some very cogent points that you don’t see in the mainstream media very often.
Posted in Media, National, Politics, World | Comments Off on According to Newsweek America is turning French
