Here’s Mike Pence from day 1 of CPAC.
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
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If one were to believe the conventional wisdom espoused in the media, the conservatives are demoralized after that election and that conservatism itself is dead, then one would expect a conservative conference to be lightly attended and full of sulking zombies. The conventional wisdom is wrong. CPAC 2009 is the biggest ever. Let me say that again: CPAC 2009 has more registered participants than any previous conference.
Moving on to the substance of the conference, day one featured a number of impressive speeches. Right off the bat, Paul Ryan, one of the future stars of the republican party, got things started with a speech impressive in both substance and style. The policy ideas he discussed, such as scraping our “byzantine tax code,” were from his Roadmap for America’s Future.
John Bolton followed in his usual direct and humorous style. He had some criticisms for the Bush administration’s foreign policy, suggesting that they allowed North Korea to develop their weapons programs unhindered, and also attempted to block Israeli action against Iran’s nuclear facilities in 2007. Criticism of the Bush administration continued from many other speakers throughout the night. Someone referred to him as a “pseudo-socialist,” though I don’t remember who. The most humorous was Tucker Carlson’s plea to find a conservative leader who can actually articulate conservatism. He described watching a Bush speech as watching a drunk try to cross an icy road, all the while waiting for him to slip on a prepositional phrase and eat it (summarizing). More seriously, he pointed out that after 8 year’s of Clinton’s articulate lies, it was understandable to conclude that presentation didn’t matter over principles (non-existent as Bush’s turned out to be).
The day’s best speech belonged to Mike Pence. After Ryan’s brilliant opening, I wasn’t expecting anyone to top it. Pence did. He has an impressive delivering style to go with an unimpeachably conservative message. His commanding speech was far better than anything John McCain delivered in his entire campaign, and the crowd responded with numerous stnading ovations, something which other speakers were lucky to get only when they came and left.
After the next day or two of the conference, I’ll discuss some the important themes I’ve noticed.
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If federalism wasn’t dead already, the “stimulus” killed it. That is, the relationship between the federal government and the states has become so distorted compared to the original conception held by our founders that it would make little practical difference if we just went ahead and abolished the concept of states altogether.
The Constitution designed a system in which the states share sovereignty with a federal government. According to Madison, the powers of the federal government were to be “few and defined,” while those remaining with the states would be “numerous and indefinite.” This is no longer so.
No longer dependent on their constituents for financial support, the states become rent-seekers looking to game the federal system.
The federal government now has the final say in most areas which used to be the sole responsibility of the states. Criminal law, an area left exclusively to the respective states, is becoming ever more federalized. Obeying the laws of California and growing pot for medical use is no protection from federal agents. Whatever one might think of this behavior, it’s the voters of California who should get the final say.
A fifty-five mph speed limit, promptly ignored by most motorists, was dictated to the states by passage of the 1974 Emergency Highway Energy Conservation Act. Although the national speed limit was later repealed in 1995, numerous federal standards remain, such as the minimum ages for drinking and smoking. The federal government has largely accomplished this power grab by opening the spigot of federal dollars, then threatening to cut off any state that doesn’t kowtow to Washington’s demands.
So when a number of governors of both parties balked at taking federal money for unemployment insurance, knowing that they would be stuck with the bill of an expanded government welfare mandate when the federal funds expired, it should come as no surprise that the beltway response was to attempt to denigrate and browbeat the rogue states into compliance. Democratic Senator Charles Schumer responded to their rejection of federal funds by admonishing governors for playing “political games,” then boldly declared, “whether the governors want to or not, they can be forced to take the whole thing.” This astonishing declaration strikes at the heart of our federalist system. Even the race card has been played to shame governors into accepting the dictates of Washington, such as when democratic House member James Clyburn shamelessly alleged that any rejection of stimulus money, and the strings that came with it, amounts to “a slap in the face of African-Americans.” Not all states have the foresight to resist such federal encroachments. State financial shortfalls and a narrow view of state interest leads some, such as California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, to turn to Washington hat in hand.
Aside from the eventual subjugation of state authority, funneling federal dollars into the states also leads to significant waste. No longer dependent on their constituents for financial support, the states become rent-seekers looking to game the federal system. This is why 250,000 Washington State residents recently received a $1 check in the mail. As a reward for this wasteful spending, the federal government will pump into the state millions in new welfare funds. This seemingly irrational and grossly wasteful spending is encouraged by the present system, where states have financial incentives to meet federal bureaucratic rules that allow them to qualify for more funding. The impact on the taxpayer is simply not important to the state in this calculus.
Alexander Hamilton described the balance between national and state governments as one of “utmost importance” that should be “dwelt on with peculiar attention.” Yet hardly a thought was given by Congress to this fundamental principle when it hastily passed almost $1 trillion in new federal spending, $144 billion of which has been designated for state consumption. And so we must now repeat in vain Thomas Jefferson’s wish “never to see all offices transferred to Washington.”
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Or so says Harvard University. The most amusing aspect for me is how the introduction identifies “the free market ideology that has dominated legal discourse and lawmaking the last few decades.”
The last few decades? Spending so much time diagnosing right-leaning thinkers as mentally ill, they must not have much left over for the history of political
Hat-tip: Cato-at-Libery
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According to Eric Holder, us cowardly Americans never talk about race. And yet, that’s what the conversation is about regarding an advanced placement education program in Florida.
For decades, high-school students have taken community-college courses to dress up their resumes and prepare for college.
Now, competitive middle-schoolers in Florida are flocking to sign up for high-school classes.
For parents and students, it’s a great chance to get ahead. And school districts have something else to brag about: seventh- and eighth-graders completing courses such as Algebra II Honors and biology that had been reserved primarily for ninth- and 10th-graders.
But the nation’s foremost scholars in middle-school education are worried the fast-growing trend is leaving minority children behind. They also question whether the practice is legal because, nationwide, it has tended to result in students being segregated by race.
In Florida, high-school-level classes at middle schools are filled mostly with white kids. That’s the case even at some schools where most of the kids are black or Hispanic, according to an Orlando Sentinel analysis of public records from the Florida Department of Education and school districts.
So here we have a program that itself has nothing to do with race. It’s a voluntary program in which anyone can participate. The article, after the author is done wringing his hands over several classes with no black students, acknowledges it later:
Orange County officials said they monitor the diversity of their advanced classes and want their racial makeup to mirror the student body as a whole. But many minorities aren’t choosing the high-school classes — a situation that should change as more kids learn about the program, said Dianne Lovett, the school district’s senior director for advanced studies.
Contrary to the claims of Eric Holder and the race baiters in the White House, this nation is obsessed with race already. We’re so obsessed with it that we take a good thing in education, a program that allows students to get ahead of their oppressively incompetent regular school programs, and we turn it into something bad.
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If you thought the election of the first African-American to President of the United States would end the practice of phony outrage over non-existent racism, you were wrong.
Leaders of the NAACP on Saturday called for the firing of the New York Post cartoonist whose drawing lampooning the federal stimulus bill has drawn charges that it’s racist and encourages violence toward President Obama.
…”There is consensus that if the Post does not … get rid of the journalists who are responsible for this bit of hate speech seeing the light of day, that we will move this from a local, regional issue to a very national issue,” Jealous said.
The group also called for the cartoonist’s editor to be fired.
The horrible racist crime committed? Nothing more than alluding to the fact that the stimulus was so poorly written, it could have been done by a monkey.
Previous: This Must Be What Holder Had In Mind
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How to create your own economic disaster:
Ingredients
- Control White House
- Control Congress
Instructions
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Fixed for accuracy.
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A lot of talk was given to foreign policy during the recent Presidential campaign. Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran dominated the debate, while little attention was given to the dangerous developments on the other side of our southern border, where both the number of incidents of drug-related violence and their severity have increased dramatically. Mexican military and law enforcement personnel find themselves out-gunned by traffickers and gangs, while corruption plagues all levels of public and private life. The country is on the brink of a complete collapse that would have profound implications for U.S. national security.
Violence is taking an increasingly heavy toll in Mexico. In 2005 there were more than 1,300 deaths to drug-related violence. By 2007 that figure had doubled. In 2008 it almost doubled again, with estimates of more than 4,500 deaths by mid-November. The cartels are also becoming increasing bold in their recruiting and tactics. One group hung a banner on a major thoroughfare offering “good salary, food and benefits for your family.” Several grenade attacks have also been directed at police in the last week. In one such attack, police attempted to apprehend several armed men spotted riding in a vehicle. After the men fled to a nearby residence, they engaged police with grenades and RPG’s.
Corruption is also undermining the legitimacy of the governing authorities. Drug cartels have subverted many local authorities and law enforcement, and public sentiment is becoming increasingly hostile toward authorities. Multiple protests have broken out on claims that soldiers have been robbing, raping and murdering civilians.
The nation’s escalating instability poses significant security implications for the United States. As the situation deteriorates, violence and fleeing civilians are likely to spread across the border. A failed state with a 2,000 mile border with the U.S. also poses a unique opportunity for well armed terrorists seeking to enter the U.S. As the flood of immigrants increases, it will become harder to protect from such breaches.
The underlying cause of the situation is clear. Our drug laws have created a lucrative black market that attracts the most ruthless criminal elements. Just as the violence in Chicago ended after the end of Prohibition, so to can the violence in Mexico. But so long as these powerful financial incentives remain, the violence and social collapse in Mexico will continue. In the short run, the situation may require a U.S. military presence on the border, but in the long run only a change in drug policy can allow Mexico to recover and protect America’s security interests on the southern border.
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A chimp named Travis was recently shot by police after attacking a woman. A cartoon in the New York Post then satirized the event:
The meaning here is obvious. The artist has taken a recent event and added commentary to it to mock another current event. Specifically, that the stimulus bill was so bad it could have been written by a chimp.
But then here come the race hustlers, led by Al Sharpton, to declare that this cartoon is really a racial insult to Obama. Nevermind that he didn’t write the stimulus bill (Pelosi did), we are to believe that Obama is being compared to a monkey, rather than take the more sensible and self evident understanding I described above. Of course, none of these people cared when Bush was routinely drawn as a chimp.
When one side is this hyper-irrational about race, should we be surprised that others might not want to talk about it?
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I am a libertarian-conservative blogger living in the DC area. I have a Master's degree in Political Science, but please don't hold that against me.
