To close out my coverage of CPAC 2010, I’ll finally give you my thoughts on Glenn Beck’s keynote address.
The speech was quite enjoyable. Beck takes a lot of criticism, some of it deserved, for his seemingly erratic behavior. But it only serves to enhance his sincerity, which really comes across. It is clear that he believes passionately in what he is saying. He’s certainly not doing it just to win votes, since he isn’t running for anything. Neither does one get the impression that he is doing it to sell books and boost his ratings. He just believes it.
I was very happy to see him target Progressivism as the source of America’s ills. The Progressive Era, which continues to influence left-wing thought today, is too little understood. What turn of the century Progressives promoted was essentially fascism. They cheered European fascists like Hitler and Mussolini, only turning on the former when he betrayed their other buddies in the USSR. Like other fascist movements, they believed in the perfectibility of man through social policy, which lead to disasters like Prohibition. The redistributive income tax was a Progressive reform brought about under Wilson. The Progressive Era also essentially rewrote our Constitution.
Photo by The Patriot Room
With this understanding, I was simply delighted to see such an intellectual challenge to the source of today’s problems from a speaker like Beck. It would have been so easy for him to just claim that it’s all Barack Obama, but he didn’t do that. Kudos to him.
Since the speech he has taken criticism from some, such as Bill Bennett and Rush Limbaugh, for giving Republicans little, if any, more credit than Democrats. While I agree with Rush on the point that it’s tiring to hear people say “there’s no difference between Republicans and Democrats,” I didn’t quite get that from Beck’s speech. Nor do I think the speech itself promoted a third party just because it criticized Republicans. Criticizing Republicans from the right is what will ultimately keep them in line!
So yes, he criticized Republicans. Yes, he doesn’t think they are sufficiently apologetic for their past mistakes. That’s a valid criticism. As John Hawkins pointed out in reply to Bennett, Republicans like Mike Pence and Jim DeMint who do get it are the exception that prove the rule. They got it before when the rest of the party was spending big, so it’s not enough just for them to get it now. If anything is going to be different should Republicans retake Congress, the party establishment needs to get it, too.
I also agree with RS McCain that some of the criticisms of Beck stink of professional jealousy. How dare this upstart get a keynote, when so many other hard working conservatives have been paying their dues for much longer? Of course, these same conservatives balked at such logic when it promoted John McCain as the GOP nominee. I don’t ultimately know if that’s the motivation behind some of these criticisms, but it would explain the odd tirades of Mark Levin.
At the end of the day, I doubt much of the criticism matters. Beck was very well received by those who were there, and reached out to the Tea Parties and showed them that their voice is being heard in the broader conservative movement. That’s a good thing. That isn’t promoting a third party. In fact, it makes one less likely. Now let us all stop bickering and return to our united opposition to Obama’s radical agenda.
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Everyone is talking about Ron Paul’s win in the CPAC straw poll. Much of this talk is wrong.
From the left, we have Tom Schaller of FiveThirtyEight.com, who thinks that this is proof that both the conservative movement and the Tea Parties are driven by “ginned up former Ron Paul supporters.” He then bemoans the fact that the “kooky, historically revisionist, apocalyptic ideas of Glenn Beck and Ron Paul” are treated with the same seriousness as those of our Democratic Overloads. You know, the really deep thinkers like Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Barney Frank and John Holdren.
On the right we have Mike Huckabee’s silly tantrum claiming that “CPAC has becoming increasingly more libertarian and less Republican over the last years.” And by “less Republican,” he means less prone to the nanny paternalism sold by populist snake oil salesmen like Mike Huckabee.
Now let me tell you what it actually means.
Only a quarter of attendees bothered to fill out the poll. It’s 3 years out from the election. No one has any clear idea who is even running, as most of the possible candidates are still playing coy. But guess who always runs? That’s right, Ron Paul. And I shouldn’t have to explain to someone from FiveThirtyEight what a selection bias is, right?
What the straw poll really tells us is as simple as it is obvious. Ron Paul continues to have enthusiastic supporters among young college students, who made up around half of the entire conference attendance. What it doesn’t tell us is anything significant about the legitimacy of the conservative movement, or the Tea Parties, or whether conservative ideas should be dismissed across the board by some twisted logic of guilt by association.
Here is my warning to the right: Do not dismiss the results completely. What the Republican Party in particular ought to take away is that young people are more interested in fiscal conservatism than the social populism desired by the likes of Mike Huckabee.
The next generation, having witnessed the failures of big government conservatism, or compassionate conservativism or whatever you want to call it, know that the most important challenge we face is the necessity of reversing the growth of government. Not slowing it. Not stopping it. Reversing it.
While I have never been a Paulite, and won’t ever support him in a primary in part because I refuse to give him a pass on playing footsie with the Truthers, the need to roll back the Leviathan is the message both he and Beck delivered, and explains why the two were so well received.
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It’s that time of year again. CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, kicks off on Thursday! Last year’s convention was a blast, and I shared some of my impressions on this blog when I got home each day. But this year I’ll be covering the event live from the Redstate.com sponsored Bloggers Lounge!
Aside from meeting fellow bloggers and activists, recharging my political batteries for what will no doubt be another exhausting year of campaigns, and just generally enjoying the festivities, I’ll be covering the event with an eye toward the many debates within the conservative movement.
One of the things I like about CPAC is that it features many different views within the movement. Who will receive the best reception? The defense hawks or Ron Paul? The social conservatives or the more libertarian speakers? And then there’s the annual game of “who looks the most Presidential?”
In addition to making regular posts, I’ll be tweeting smaller updates and my impressions throughout the event. You can follow me on twitter here, or see them scrolling by on the right with the temporary widget I setup. You can also follow all the members of the Bloggers Lounge here. There’s even a CPAC app for your iPhone!
Finally, here’s CPAC in the news:
- Palin rebuffs CPAC, Keene
- ‘Tea Party’ Movement to Star at Conservative Conference
- CPAC Organizers Try to Turn Up Hip Quotient With Video Games, Rap
- Radio Personalities On Agenda At CPAC
- CPAC Session on Jihad, Free Speech Attracts Complaints
- Conservatives In D.C. Celebrate Comeback (Again)
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As news reports continue to show just how grim the situation is in Haiti, American marines are landing to help the shaken nation. While the world has responded with an outpouring of support and donations, the earthquake and its aftermath raises important questions about just what moral obligations exist to provide support for disaster-stricken locations, as well as how much and for how long.
From a moral standpoint, Haiti is – at least for the moment – a simple case. We should provide timely supplies and labor to help free victims, offer medical assistance and protect the population from anarchy. This appears to be what we are doing. But from a policy standpoint the questions raised by such disasters can be trickier.
Haiti is also an extr
eme case, and I think most will agree that the moral aspect outweighs other considerations. But what about disasters that are a bit less severe, in nations that are a bit less poor? By responding forcefully to disasters like this one in Haiti, do we raise an expectation in other cases that we will provide similar aid? Being the world’s savior seems like it should make you popular, but no one blames other countries for not helping the way they blame us. That’s because we have given them reason to expect our help, so if it’s ever not provided, we’re bad guys for withholding it.
We also have to figure out just what it is we are obliged, or ought, to do for Haiti. If we get them just back to where they were, then they are still the poorest country in the world. Do we rebuild them to better than they were before? What about the political and social problems that have hampered their development? Do we establish some sort of government to handle things since theirs, such that it was, has been virtually wiped out? How do we distinguish that from occupation, and all the problems that go along with it?
These are not easy questions, and I do not have all – or really any – of the answers. I can only hope that someone, somewhere is at least considering these questions.
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Harry Reid is taking a lot of heat for the recently revealed statement he made regarding Barack Obama during the presidential campaign. The new book, Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime, revealed that Reid thought Obama’s electoral chances were improved by the fact that he was light-skinned and had no “negro dialect” unless he wanted one.
Is this statement racist? It is certainly about race, but I reject the identity politics tactic of taking anything racial and making it racist when it serves partisan purposes to paint it as such. The fact of the matter is that there is nothing in the context of Reid’s statement that suggests racial prejudice.
He used the word “negro.” This is an old fashioned word, for sure, but it was never one associated with racial venom the way other words have historically been. Moreover, it is still used by many national black organizations, such as the National Council of Negro Women or the National Association of Negro Business and Professional Women’s Club. Simply saying “negro” is not racist.
Beyond the word choic
e, the content of his statement reflects his opinion of the rest of America’s views on race, not his own. And there is likely a grain of truth to the idea that a lighter-skinned candidate who sounds more or less white would face less racial resistance than other black candidates. But even if it’s wrong and reflects an unfairly pessimistic view of American racial tolerance, that doesn’t make the statement itself racist.
It is interesting to note that Reid acknowledged Obama’s tendency to pander to black audiences by putting on a phony accent, where he drops his g’s and mimics the cadence of MLK. But beyond that, I find the statement wholly uninteresting.
It is fair for conservatives to point out that a conservative would undoubtedly be tarred as racist for making such a statement, but we can’t confuse pointing out hypocrisy with engaging in it. To brand Reid’s statement as racist in the process of pointing out liberal hypocrisy is to undermine the very position we have rightfully staked out in the past: talking about race does not make someone a racist.
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Nancy Pelosi and the far left have decided that gaining control of our health care system must be done at any cost. Promises be damned.
Both Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi promised there would be transparency during the health care debate. Pelosi assumed the Speakers role while promising to work at “restoring accountability and openness.” She also promised “ample time” for the public to learn what is in the health care bill. Don’t hold your breath.
The mallet is for bashing heads
At a 2008 debate, Obama said that a potential health care bill would not be negotiated “behind closed doors, but bringing all parties together, and broadcasting those negotiations on C-Span so the American people can see what the choices are.” He lied on all accounts. Democrats are negotiating behind closed doors, will subvert the normal legislative process, and have cut out Republicans. Meanwhile, the CEO of C-Span wrote a letter, thus far to no avail, asking these leaders to live up to their promises by having the process televised.
Faced with this reality, Nancy Pelosi put on her best Baghdad Bob impression and declared, “there has never been a more open process for any legislation.” Au contraire! There has never been a bigger liar serving as Speaker of the House, nor President of the United States.
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The Copenhagen talks aren’t about climate science. They aren’t about carefully crafting policy to deal with scientifically calculated problems. For one thing, we know that the science has been cynically manipulated to the point that the very scientific process itself has been forever undermined.
No, Copenhagen is not about science. It’s about two things: power and ideology.
The violent protests taking place outside the conference probably look familiar to you. They should. We’ve seen all this before. It’s the same bunch who have been protesting since the 60’s – radical leftwing agitators who hate capitalism. They’ve found a new home in the confines of ecoreligion, where they can again comfortably lob emotional attacks on the capitalist order. These are ideologically minded radicals; brainwashed, capitalist-hating and know-nothing college youths; and other social malcontents. They don’t have the first clue as to what the science does or does not say, nor do they care. All they know is that the West is evil and capitalism has got to go.
Been there, done that. We’ve heard it all before.
They are quite clear in what they want. Marching under the banner of “Climate Justice Action,” some of these leftwingers want redistribution as “reparations” for “ecological debt.” They are demanding up to $45 trillion. This is attempting confiscation and political revolution, not science.
Dance, puppets!
Inside the conference, it’s all about power. These people don’t give a damn about the environment, climate change, or whatever buzz words they’re throwing out to the world at large. Oh, sure, they’ve invited plenty of people who have been duped into believing such things, but those actually making the decisions aren’t there to save the planet or any such feel-good nonsense. They’re there because the world order is suddenly up for negotiation. Power is being redistributed, and everyone wants to maximize their acquisitions.
Don’t believe me? Just look at the two sides. Where are the fault lines? The so-called developing nations want power redistributed to them, while the current powers seek desperately to defend the status quo. The entire affair is best understood through the prism of realist foreign policy. It’s power politics, plain and simple.
This might actually be good, as it reduces the chances of all sides settling on some economy destroying agreement that leaves none better off. If they’re all indeed fighting to preserve or enhance their own power structures, we might just skate by without any freedom-reducing agreements to “save the planet” from imagined catastrophe.
Update: Confirmation that it’s not about science (via The Foundry):
Janos Pasztor—the Director of U.N. secretary-general Ban Ki-moon’s Climate Change Support Team—was characterizing the nature of the talks between the rich and poor nations of the world when he said the following: “This is not a climate-change negotiation … It’s about something much more fundamental. It’s about economic strength.” The nations at the negotiation, he added, “just have to slug it out.”
Update II: Hugo Chavez gets wild applause for saying that capitalism is the “silent and terrible ghost in the room.”
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Matt Yglesias is upset and considers America to be “ungovernable” because Obama can’t just wave his hand and have his agenda pass without opposition:
We’re suffering from an incoherent institutional set-up in the senate. You can have a system in which a defeated minority still gets a share of governing authority and participates constructively in the victorious majority’s governing agenda, shaping policy around the margins in ways more to their liking. Or you can have a system in which a defeated minority rejects the majority’s governing agenda out of hand, seeks opening for attack, and hopes that failure on the part of the majority will bring them to power. But right now we have both simultaneously. It’s a system in which the minority benefits if the government fails, and the minority has the power to ensure failure. It’s insane, and it needs to be changed.
No, it doesn’t. What we have is a system that protects itself from the whims of fanciful, but ill-considered change.
The guardian has also taken up the cause of whining about America’s “broken” system, which just refuses to allow the immediate and thoughtless adoption of a sweeping, radical agenda.
This is not Latin America, where any colorful demagogue can rise to power and immediately reshape an entire nation in his imagine. Where Matt Yglesias and the hard-left see a bug, those more concerned about the nature of American democracy than the ability to ram through radical legislation see a feature.
The Senate is the only body in the government which protects minority rights from the trampling of the majority. It was designed specifically for that purpose, and although the nature of how it does so has changed, it continues to serve that purpose today. We should not undo our governing model on the basis of the dictatorial impulses of Matt Yglesias.
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The jobless rate is currently at 10% (or higher if you count the discouraged), so clearly we need a little government job promotion, right? Barack Obama thinks so, and is set to unveil his latest “plan.” But not so fast! Haven’t we done this before?
This will be the third time government has acted to “create jobs” since the beginning of 2008. Why should we believe it will be any more successful now than it has been in the past?
In early 2008, President Bush teamed up with Nancy Pelosi to pass a $150 billion (then considered a lot of money) stimulus package. This “booster shot” to the economy, consisting primarily of rebates to individual taxpayers, was supposed to head off recession. At the time, the unemployment rate was under 5%.
A year later, Pelosi found herself with a new dancing partner in Barack Obama. President Obama’s subsequent stimulus package dwarfed that of President Bush. Passed when the unemployment rate was not yet 8%, it was promised that the $800 billion stimulus would hold joblessness below a peak of 9%. This package also failed, and today the unemployment rate is in double digits.
Leave it to government to insist we continue down a path with such a sterling record of failure. It is time to abandon the Krugman-championed policies of Keynesian economics. Government cannot create jobs by taking money out of the economy, funneling it through a wasteful bureaucracy, then directing it to the most politically connected and favored industries. No economy has ever been successfully powered by such a model.
The best thing Democrats can do is to stop threatening to destroy so many industries via regulation and government control. This would reduce the uncertainty hampering investment. If they combined that by lowering the rates of the most destructive taxes, such as the corporate and capital gains taxes, an improved job market would follow. Otherwise, we can continue banging our collective heads against the wall while insanely expecting an outcome other than pain.
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While the media is doing their best to avoid covering the bombshell Climategate scandal, the global warming propaganda industry is working on all cylinders to bring you the latest in scaremongering and hysteria. The latest production is the “Copenhagen Diagnosis,” which laughably declares that global warming is worse than the exaggerated and made-up claims so far reported by the IPCC.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—the world’s foremost body for weighing and assessing climate science—received a kick in the pants today from members who say the climate situation is much worse than the IPCC has so far reported.
Twenty-six climatologists—including 14 IPCC members—have released a startling update to the panel’s work, reporting that sea levels could rise and methane-laden arctic permafrost could melt much sooner than the panel had anticipated.
“The Copenhagen Diagnosis: Updating the World on the Latest Climate Science” is not an official IPCC report; it’s a summary of the hundreds of peer-reviewed research papers that have been published since the IPCC’s last assessment. It was released now to fill the long gap in between official IPCC reports—the last was released in 2007, but the drafting text is more than three years old, and the next isn’t scheduled until 2013. It was also timed to the Copenhagen climate talks, of course.
We know from the Climategate emails that the peer-reviewed process has been thoroughly compromised by the political agenda of the warmist industry. Conspiring to subvert the anonymous review process, targeting journals that publish “skeptic” articles and demonizing any and all dissent are just some of the tricks they revealed.
This report, far from a summary of objective science, is a politically timed polemic designed to stoke fear and drum up support for the coming Copenhagen meeting, where world leaders will conspire to destroy the world economy and limit the individual freedoms of their citizens.
Update: IPCC Chair Rajendra Pachauri confirms the suspicion that global warming alarmism is an all-out attack on western life.
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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.
