Recently in Liberalism Category

Eric the Viking takes Paul Krugman to the woodshed, giving him a much deserved fisking.

One of my favorite points from Eric:

It says something that the very people who made anti-Bushism the creamy nougat of their political ideology now want him to come back. Unless he had already, whereupon they'd be wailing about his unwanted meddling in national affairs.

They can't have it both ways, something they (and Krugman) have yet to learn.

James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal has come across a term that describes the contempt the ruling elite holds for the average American: Oikophobia.

While xenophopia is fear of the alien, oikophobia is defined as fear of the familiar: "the disposition, in any conflict, to side with 'them' against 'us', and the felt need to denigrate the customs, culture and institutions that are identifiably 'ours.' " I think the term applies. After all the "liberal elite finds Americans revolting", something that can be taken two ways.

They may see the rest of us as the great unwashed masses, but they are also experiencing our long overdue revolt against their condescending We-Know-Better-Than-You attitudes, particularly about how we live our lives. It's not like they're a shining example of how we should live considering they suffer from the same maladies as everyone else: infidelity, licentiousness, addiction, sloth, greed, larceny, ignorance, jealousy, violence, and yes, murder. I think what makes them worse though is their willful ignorance, choosing to remain ignorant about things the rest of us find important because they affect our every day lives and the lives of those around us. But that is likely just another manifestation of their oikophobia. Yet another? How about this for an example:

If you think it's offensive for a Muslim group to exploit the 9/11 atrocity, you're an anti-Muslim bigot and un-American to boot. It is a claim so bizarre, so twisted, so utterly at odds with common sense that it's hard to believe anyone would assert it except as some sort of dark joke. Yet for the past few weeks, it has been put forward, apparently in all seriousness, by those who fancy themselves America's best and brightest, from the mayor of New York all the way down to Peter Beinart.

So if we do not agree with their view of how the world should be, we are dismissed as barely cognizant troglodytes, incapable of higher thought processes? It figures. But then, that's how they raise their self-esteem. - tearing down those they see as inferior, even when they aren't. It makes them feel special.

Unfortunately special can be defined for them as "snooty, self-appointed anointed...and clueless."

Do we need any more proof the Tea parties are getting short shrift from the media and being blamed for acts of violence actually committed by those on the Left.

It seems the media and the Left want to see the Tea party as nothing more than an extension of the GOP or the Religious Right, and therefore not worthy of their attention, unless it's for something negative (even if they have to make it up). They ignore that the Tea party isn't happy with the GOP either and have worked to "throw the bums out" from both the Republican and the Democrat parties. We've seen this in a number of state primaries where incumbents have been defeated by newcomers supported by their local Tea parties. If anything it can be said the Tea party isn't an extension of the GOP. Instead it's an insurgency aiming to reform the GOP and remove the RINO faction that has made it seem more like the Democrats, with profligate spending and expansion of the size of government (though to a lesser extent).

All kinds of motivations and political beliefs have been laid at the feet of the Tea parties and their supporters by the Left. Unfortunately for them they're wrong. All those supporting the Tea parties want is fiscal sanity by the government to to be left alone by that same government. How do we know that?

Because they've told us so.

As if we need any more evidence that Obama and the Congressional Democrats are paying off the public employees unions for their past support, there's this little $26 billion bribe just passed by Congress and signed by the Socialist In Chief.

Never mind that we don't have to money to pay for this. Never mind the string attached that are trying to force states accepting any of this money to bypass their own budgeting process. Never mind that the $10 billion of that money to be used for education won't help anyone because it won't be available until after the school year starts and cities and towns have already set their budgets and their personnel requirements.

It is a blatant, in-your-face bribe to the unions using our money and the Democrats in Congress don't care who knows it. It doesn't help that President Obama helped sell the lie by making claims he knew the general public wouldn't accept. For one thing there isn't a single public union contract out there that guarantees employment for life, but to hear the President tell it the $26 billion he and Congress just spent are supposed to help spendthrift states do just that. Since when are public employees supposed to be immune to the effects of a recession? Since when are we supposed to fund pay raises when many of us haven't seen a pay raise in two years, or worse, have received pay cuts?

All this little $26 billion bribe does is further illustrate the utter contempt the Democrats in Congress and the present occupant of the White House have for those of us actually paying the bills.

Back in '96 or '97 Hillary and Chelsea bounced around most continents together on a mother-daughter tripped that I read in the conservative press cost a total of a billion dollars. They took Air Force Two.

Now it's Moocherella with the prodigious chip on her shoulder on her Tone Deaf Tour in Europe. And in the White House she has more aides than any other First Lady in history--by far. What gives? It's correct to call her a modern-day Marie Antoinette.

The sense of entitlement of some people is impressive. Progressives feel they are morally superior, which often translates in the sort of behavior of Michelle, whose very lush position was so unnecessary it was never filled once she left it.

It has become quite evident to me and many millions of others that the Powers-That-Be, meaning the so-called 'Political Class', are clueless and out of touch with the rest of America and the people who live there. What's worse, they are convinced they are the anointed, the only ones with the knowledge, wisdom, and the will to use it even though those they look down upon see them as nothing more than elitist snobs without a lick of common sense or decency.

What's sad is the 'common folk' - that's you and me - are right and they are so incredibly wrong. The political class has no advanced wisdom, no special knowledge divulged to them through secret and ancient organizations, and no divine right or ability to rule you, me, or anyone.

They are nothing more than a mutual admiration society striding within the halls of power with impunity, an undeserved sense of entitlement, and the arrogance to believe they are the only ones with the answers. They believe the rest of us are incapable of running our own lives and need to be taken care of. That's ironic considering how many of them can't even run their lives. They have the same problems, the same foibles, the same weaknesses, the same flaws as everyone else. But somehow I doubt you'd ever get them to admit that, for to do so would mean they aren't any more enlightened than the rest of us and that doesn't track with their belief system.

How do I and the rest if America know this? Because we see it every day on the news, on CSPAN, in the newspapers, and in almost every law passed by Congress or a large number of blue state legislatures over the past few years. Our wishes, our desires, our demands, and our knowledge of the real world is dismissed out of hand because we aren't them. Never mind that we're the ones who pay the bills, create the jobs, build the cities, grow the food, and everything else they depend on. Without the rest of us they are nothing.

Wait. What the heck am I saying? I meant to say that even with us they are nothing. Perhaps it is time for them to learn this truth.

This is a concept that needs to be repeated again and again and again until it sinks in to the minds of the Progressives: You cannot tax our way into prosperity.

Again and again it's been tried, even here in this country, and it's failed EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. Yet the Progressives are incapable of realizing a very simple and easily proven truth, that being you cannot enrich the poor by impoverishing the rich. Yet again and again they insist that in order to be "fair" they need to spread the wealth. Unfortunately they will quickly do away with what wealth there is (except theirs, of course) and make sure everyone is poor. As if that were somehow fair.

The argument they use is that the wealthy can afford confiscatory taxes. But for every means the Progressives come up with stealing what isn't theirs through taxation, the wealth producers find ways around them. And as the tax rates climb, they collect less revenue from the wealthy. Should it become bad enough, the wealthy will leave, taking their wealth with them. That's a lesson the UK learned during the 1970's, when their 'wealth' taxes caused a mass migration of wealth to more tax-friendly locations, with the end result being the collapse of the British economy.

Could the same thing happen here? Absolutely. We've already seen some elements of that occurring, with US corporations moving their 'headquarters' to tax-friendly nations like Bermuda, allowing them to greatly reduce the amount of corporate taxes they pay. Why? Because the US has some of the highest corporate taxes in the world. Only a sucker or an idiot wouldn't make moves to lessen their tax burdens if at all possible.

Now that Obama, Pelosi, Reid, Frank, and Dodd have decided the rich are the problem, they've been wasting no time trying to figure out even more ways of extracting money they did nothing to earn to give to their 'core' constituents, meaning not the average working man or woman. One commenter to the piece linked above has some of it figured out.

[They] are not really interested in raising revenue - but to continue punishing those that have money - ... It is as simple as that.

They are so envious of those that can create wealth, that the only thing Obama and his ilk can do is grab onto as much as they can, spread the misery and distribute anything they can grab - The fact that they may have less to distribute is also irrelevant - As long as those that have money feel the sting, Obama is happy - and when those that have money do whatever it takes to try and escape the taxman, the misery creators, Obama will keep turning the screws ...

The Progressive mindset does not allow them to think anything other than wealth is a 'zero sum' game. That means they believe that if someone became wealthy it was because they stole it from someone else and made them poor. It appears it is hard for many of them to believe the wealthy became that way through hard work, long hours, and taking risks others were not willing to take. That many Progressives in government have managed to become wealthy through their government connections and not through the traditional American system of hard work again leads far too many of them to think their way is the only true way to become wealthy. It is true in a kleptocracy, something it seems a lot of Progressives are working very hard to create. One thing they have overlooked though is that most kleptocracies are Third World nations, with a vast majority of their populace living in poverty because that's exactly the way the kleptocrats in power want it. The Progressives in this nation are no different, though they'll try to pretty up their attempts in mind-numbing governmentalese and politically correct speech, trying to make it seem as if it's a good idea.

In the end, though, it all comes down to envy. Democrats, and particularly the Progressives within the party, envy the successful. It's all they have that might reach others of the same bent of mind. They'll work hard to take away what the successful have made, but won't work that hard to make themselves successful. They are, as Ayn Rand described them, looters.

But all of that aside (I do go off on tangents, don't I?), what Laffer describes, what most Americans understand, and what the nation needs can be broken down into two simple sentences, provided by yet another savvy commenter:

Who cares if tax breaks don't fill the pockets of lower wage earners (like myself)? If raising taxes doesn't help the economy, then don't do it. (Emphasis added)

Indeed!

This year's four best sailors happen to be all female, notwithstanding the disproportionate percentage of males--something like 85 percent--serving in that branch. This is a first, like my West Point class of 1990 having Kristen Baker as Cadet Captain, the top position. She was, and is, impressive, but there probably was reverse discrimination going on then. And likely now.

While Lawrence Auster and others comment on those ubiquitous informal water bottles, I direct your attention that two of the four sailors--the bookends--can't even stand at attention properly, with heels together as is required. Is it the larger hips? This is perhaps a clue that what we have here is not the best of the best.

Don't get me started on the madness, absolute madness, of putting women in nuclear-powered subs. This was discussed in 1991 and '92 and thoroughly discountenanced then. The Navy has lost it.

It's in the writings of Progressive Founding Father Woodrow Wilson, who showed racist movies in the White House. He ultimately proved so unpopular and his view of government went into such disrepute that progressives had to disguise themselves by commandeering the "liberal" label. I learned this separately from both William F. Buckley and Eric Goldman, in his famous book that won the Bancroft Prize in 1953.

Scott Johnson, reading Woodrow Wilson and the Roots of Modern Liberalism by Ronald J. Pestritto, writes, "[T]he intellectual roots of modern liberalism lie in an assault on the ideas of natural rights and limited government." (HT)

One of the more lucid commentaries I've ever read dealing with the financial mess the Democrats have been foisting upon us came not from this Wall Street Journal op-ed piece, but from a WSJ reader who manages to put it into perspective for those of us not infected with the progressive mind rot about economics (how it should work rather than how it does work).

Reader Geoff Wilson writes:

The Progressive mindset is a curious one. It only makes sense or becomes predictable once you realize that to them, Utopia is reached through faith in the inherent goodness of their goals. As such, it is really a religion. I say this not to disparage the concept of religion in general, but to recognize that religion is marked by a belief that "faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Thus, to a true believer, no amount of logic or objective evidence will sway their opinion, since in their eyes, the true test of faith is to adhere to your beliefs when all else tells that your course of action has no chance to bring about the result you wish it to.

Thus, Progressives cling to their backwards, illogical view of the workings of the economy not because they have ever been proved correct, but because they have faith that this is the way the world works, and because this is the only pseudoscientific framework that has ever been constructed that gives their desire to control other people for their own good some sort of supposed systematic logical basis. Thus, telling them that their logic makes no sense actually only serves to solidify their resolve, because Keynesian thought is actually based on the economy being controlled by "animal spirits" that are illogical. Thus, economic crashes are not brought about by predictable, understandable chains of logical cause and effect, but instead are brought about by the capricious whimsy of illogical humans, who stampede over the cliff of liquidity traps with wild abandon like lemmings.

They don't expect the economy to make sense. Rather, they expect to follow the wisdom of their high priests no matter what the economic dials and guages (sic) are showing, because the two things they have faith in are that good intentions will always triumph, and that the economy is a backwards, illogical machine that can only be steered by turning left if you want to go right.

Ah, yes, good intentions. We all know where that road leads, don't we?

How many times have we seen a government decide it knew best how to handle its national economy, only to see all its efforts make things progressively worse to the point where the economy collapses, and with it, the government that tried to 'save' it? The harshest example has to be the the old Soviet Union, where all their 5-year economic plans failed to produce anything in abundance except inefficiency, shortages of vital goods, and misery. Venezuela has been heading down that road to hell and Argentina is following close behind.

Britain narrowly escaped the same fate when Maggie Thatcher became prime minister and proceeded to undo all the damage done to the British economy by her wrong-headed, though good intentioned predecessors. She understood, as did Ronald Reagan, that no one person or group of people are smart enough to control an economy to the betterment of all.

One of the most easily documented examples has been economic central planning, which was tried in countries around the world at various times during the 20th century, among people of differing races and cultures, and under government ranging from democracies to dictatorships.

The people who ran central planning agencies usually had more advanced education than the population at large, and probably higher IQs as well.

The central planners also had far more statistics and other facts at their disposal than the average person had. Moreover, there were usually specialized experts such as economists and statisticians on the staffs of the central planners, and outside consultants were available when needed. Finally, the central planners had the power of government behind them, to enforce the plans they created.

What is remarkable is that, after a few decades of experience with central planning in some countries, or a few generations in others, even communists and socialists began to repudiate this approach.

All such control diminishes economies and acts as a disincentive for anyone trying to do anything to improve it. China and India came to understand the concept and abandoned tight government control over their economies and they boomed to a level never seen before in either country's history. It's too bad the Progressives in this country have failed to learn that lesson and are willing to make the same mistake. Of course I expect their refrain will be "But we'll get it right this time!"

The only explanation I can come up with for the Progressives' belief they can succeed where everyone else has failed is insanity. You know, the type of insanity defined so: "Doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results this time."

Indeed.

New research shows (via Jonah Goldberg at The Corner):

Participation in such Red State activities as high school ROTC, 4-H clubs, or the Future Farmers of America was found to reduce very substantially a student's chances of gaining admission to the competitive private colleges in the NSCE database on an all-other-things-considered basis.

I hope working hard on the farm won't diminish Beezlebub's chances if he decides to apply to a swank private school. But never underestimate the radical chic marxism of college administrators.

It sure helps being a member of a government-approved minority.

I happened to be a monarchist when I went, but that of course wasn't one of them.

As I've mentioned before one of my roommates flunked out of West Point--he had lower grades, college board scores, etc.--but that proved no hindrance for him to attend a competitive school at a full boat scholarship, which was simply amazing to me at the time. Esp. when slightly lesser schools made me understand I was wasting my time even applying.

"White people are the cancer of the planet." ~ Susan Sontag.

I've since learned that liberals are totally into bean counting accidents of birth. I think our choices, not what group we happen to be born into, counts for far more. Like what we put into our brains.

Lawrence Auster links to a riotous Ann Coulter opinion piece in response to a NYT article on Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagin's upbringing in an apparently insufferably smug and intellectually self-contained Jewish environment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

I like it when she proposes a question to be asked to the nominee: One third of Americans are Evangelical Christian. Do you know any? Name two.

An aunt in the NYT is quoted as saying nothing was sacrosanct in the Kagin home. Well, Miss Coulter pierces that lie many times over. Also, some of the commentators to Mr. Auster's entry are well worth the reading. It's amazing how liberalism is so tyrannical people have to watch what they say very carefully for fear of saying something that will get them ostracized.

I heartily concur with Rick Darby, one of those commentators:

I admire many things about Jewish culture: the concern with justice and morality, the high value placed on literary and scholarly interests, a deep feeling for music and art. American Jews' tragic flaw, in my view, is a near-complete blind spot about toxic left-wing politics. They continue to act as though they are a persecuted minority, a pogrom about to fall on them any minute, and that their best defense is to turn the country into an ethnic patchwork of "majority minorities." So much intelligence, so little political wisdom.

While looking for blog fodder I came across a number of interesting videos. Some of you may have already seen them. Some of you haven't. It doesn't matter since they because they're good enough to see more than once.

First, there's this from Arizona Governor Brewer, calling President Obama on the carpet for his failure to fulfill one of his primary duties as president: Protecting our borders.


Then there's this, made by an unknown author, that brings the problems with the 111^th Congress and the President into focus. Some have called it a new Republican campaign ad. I think it's a warning to those in power that we, the American people, are not to be trifled with, condescended to, or ignored.


America will indeed rise on November 2, 2010. We "shall not go quietly into that goodnight."

Last, but not least, is this video from Penn & Teller's cable show, calling "Bulls**t!" about health food and the scare tactics used by shallow, holier-than-thou racists willing to let millions upon millions starve to death just so they can feel good about eating expensive organically grown, not-available-to-the-Third-World food. (Sorry, you'll have to follow the link as I couldn't find any embed code to add it here.)

It was 80 years ago yesterday, June 17th, that President Herbert Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act into law, which instantly turned the Great Recession into the Great Depression. It was an act of trade protectionism that had exactly the opposite effect from the one intended. Call it an example of the Law of Unintended Consequences writ large.

Hoover and his congressional allies thought that reducing imports would strengthen the economy. Instead, it contributed to a collapse in world trade and the spread of protectionism around the globe. The lessons from this policy mistake are unfortunately all too relevant today.

The Smoot-Hawley tariff, conceived as a Republican ploy to gain the farm vote in the 1928 election, was a bad idea from the start.

It was one of the biggest mistakes the Republican Party ever got involved with.

It seems modern day Democrats are now looking to make the same mistake as the Republicans did in Hoover's day and for the same reasons. Should they pull it off, the unintended consequences won't be the same as those back in 1930. Instead, they'll be far worse.

Perhaps it's time for Congress and the President to stop punishing American businesses for succeeding here. Who knows, maybe new jobs will be created here as a result.

As a conservative libertarian who supports the decriminalization of drugs--here's a touching report from Maine about Montel Williams fighting multiple sclerosis and needing marijuana to cope with the pain--and the abolishment of the IRS and the regressive "progressive" income tax, I've read more than a handful of economic books.

Full disclosure: I smoked pot about a dozen or two times my senior year of high school, 1985-6. Since then, no, not in over twenty years, that's for sure. I've grown to dislike marijuana on ideological grounds. But that doesn't mean I can mandate my disapproval to others through intrusive legislation. I wish the same could be said of NH legislators who a year or two ago saw fit to ban smoking from all bars and restaurants. Damn busy bodies!

The best book on economics has been Henry Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson. I remember the blurb on the back by the great journalist H.L. Mencken saying Hazlitt, who used to be a mainstream American editorialist and journalist way back when, is one of the few economists who could actually write lucid English. I think the book is absolutely mandatory reading for the Skip Murphy Brethren.

It turns out the left doesn't really have as good a grasp on economics. Thanks, Doug Bandow, my ole Cato buddy from the summer of 1990, for the link.

Having been a superannuated college student, count me as supremely unsurprised. I saw it every day.

Also, while we're on the Left's intellectual deficiencies--their moral ones are legion--I also recommend a book by Thomas Fleming, The Politics of Human Nature,  I found extremely enlightening.

Economist Arthur Laffer (he of the Laffer Curve) gives us a reminder and a preview of how tax policies can affect economic activity, sometimes for the better, but this time around for the worst.

People can change the volume, the location and the composition of their income, and they can do so in response to changes in government policies.

It shouldn't surprise anyone that the nine states without an income tax are growing far faster and attracting more people than are the nine states with the highest income tax rates. People and businesses change the location of income based on incentives.

People can also change the timing of when they earn and receive their income in response to government policies.

On or about Jan. 1, 2011, federal, state and local tax rates are scheduled to rise quite sharply. President George W. Bush's tax cuts expire on that date, meaning that the highest federal personal income tax rate will go 39.6% from 35%, the highest federal dividend tax rate pops up to 39.6% from 15%, the capital gains tax rate to 20% from 15%, and the estate tax rate to 55% from zero. Lots and lots of other changes will also occur as a result of the sunset provision in the Bush tax cuts.

Now, if people know tax rates will be higher next year than they are this year, what will those people do this year? They will shift production and income out of next year into this year to the extent possible. As a result, income this year has already been inflated above where it otherwise should be and next year, 2011, income will be lower than it otherwise should be.

Anyone believing people and businesses won't change their schedules or behavior due to tax increases or decreases or government mandates are either deluded or have no understanding of human nature or business. The upcoming tax changes will certainly affect the revenues collected next year as anyone capable of taking advantage of the existing tax rates will do so before the rates change next year. To do otherwise would be foolish. (I am also assuming that many of the same people who deride others for taking advantage of moving up income or other disbursements will do likewise, showing that they are hypocrites as well.)

Probably the biggest problem facing us is that, as a group, far too many liberals have a very poor understanding of economics. How do I know? Because Zogby tells me so.

Who is better informed about the policy choices facing the country--liberals, conservatives or libertarians? According to a Zogby International survey that I write about in the May issue of Econ Journal Watch, the answer is unequivocal: The left flunks Econ 101.

Some commenting on the Zogby piece claimed the questions asked didn't include enough specifics, but the poll was supposed to cover generalities, not definitive economic principles. Zogby wasn't polling economists, but members of the general public, giving us a decent snapshot of economic knowledge and attitudes across America, including some of our politicians. And with a majority in Congress, the left has been making some major economic blunders in their ignorance.

Need we say more?

As I was heading out during my lunch break I made the mistake of listening to the Diane Rehm show on NPR, where guest host Frank Sesno had author/sociologist Juliet B. Schor as a guest. Schor's book, Plenitude talks about the need to make profound changes in how we live. As I listened I came to realize that while her goals may be laudable, those goals have ignored one thing that she, being a sociologist, should understand: human nature.

How many times over the decades have utopian/progressive/socialist plans for this country or for the world tried to make it sound that if people would only change how they look at things that we could create a perfect society/world? The problems is that people tend to resist change, particularly when they see little return for all the effort that will be required. They have higher priorities, such as providing for their families. Unless people can be shown up front such changes will benefit them and their families directly, they will resist those changes. To rely on altruism to fuel such changes is foolish and a waste of time. As I and many others have come to realize, altruism is something we feel from time to time. It cannot be sustained 24/7/365. Unfortunately far too many of the Left have chosen to ignore that one little truth. Most of there utopian ideals demand altruism from is all day, every day. It's the only way their world will work.

If people like Schor want to see those kinds of changes they shouldn't waste their time appealing to people's better nature. They may not have one, particularly when it comes to their families or businesses. Those are the most important things in their lives. If someone tries to convince them they should sacrifice the well-being of either in the name of some nebulous cause, the response they get will likely be "Screw you and the horse you rode in on!"

More than once during the show Schor lamented the "greed" that seems to drive the Western world and tried hard to guilt us into giving up everything everyone has worked so hard to achieve. I had a hard time figuring out exactly how she defined greed. Was it overweening avarice? Was it profiting from the misfortune of others? Or was it simply making money at one's job or business and having a little left over to do something other than buy necessities? (I get the feeling she didn't differentiate between them at all, with the last one being the worst of the three.) More than once she played the leftist egalitarian card, implying no one should have [place name of item or possession here] unless everyone can have one. But that's a straw man argument because by that logic no one will ever be able to have whatever it is because no one has them. Someone has to be first. Call it the Lowest Common Denominator premise, which always turns out to be false, unrealistic, and impossible to achieve.

One of her favorite targets was the oil companies. Another target was big corporations. While I have no love for either, her remedy (smaller innovation driven companies to replace them) isn't something that can be forced. For one thing, who decides and on what basis? Some things can't easily be done by smaller companies, if at all. Does that mean they shouldn't be done at all? Again, who decides?

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that Schor and those like her seem to think that someone should be making these decisions for us rather than letting things develop on their own. Forcing the issue, either by heavy government intervention or outright government control, never works out and always causes far more problems than such changes were meant to fix. History is rife with examples of how and why we should not to do such things. Yet the Left sees the previous failures not as a flaw in their theories but as poor execution of them. They'll explain that this time they'll get it right...but they never do.

From IMAO comes this present day definition of the term liberal:

Someone who's still angry about slavery 145 years after it ended, but wants you to "get over 9/11″.

One of the comments breaks it down even more with this:

"So, you going to tell me that demanding that everyone has proof of health insurance on them is constitutional, but expecting proof of citizenship is not?"

Yup. I'd say that pretty much says it all.

Yesterday morning before the sun rose I read something good from the paper edition of National Review. Michael Knox Beran, an editor with City Journal, knows his stuff apparently in his article "The Descent of Liberalism."

In a review of David Remnick's "panegyric" of the president, "The Banality of Race," Mr. Beran questions the author's servile acceptance of the premise that to be a black man in America today is still to be greatly burdened by racism.

Along the way he unleashes this very fine paragraph worth remembering: