Obama's Rubicon

Old Gadfly:  Gentlemen, yesterday, President Obama took full credit for reopening the government and saving our nation from default.  Here is what he said:  “Well, last night, I signed legislation to reopen our government and pay America’s bills.  Because Democrats and responsible Republicans came together, the first government shutdown in 17 years is now over.  The first default in more than 200 years will not happen.”  Based on his desire to speak to the American public in the way he did, how would you characterize Obama’s vision of a “transformed” America and the logic of his arguments? 

AM (an American combat aviator with an inquiring mind):  Let me start.  If we reflect upon Obama’s strategy over the past few weeks, it clearly indicates that he is repeating Julius Caesar’s political power overreach in crossing the Rubicon.  The Rubicon crossing meant that Caesar wanted complete imperial power in defiance of the established distribution of powers at the time. 

In defiance of the Constitution and the laws of our nation, Obama has indicated he has absolutely no need for the role Congress plays in his vision of a transformed America.  Incidentally, let’s recall John Stuart Mill’s arguments in his essay, “The Contest in America,” that we discussed last month in our conversation, “Beyond Negotiation.”  Both Democrats, yes even Democrats, and Republicans in both houses of Congress were mere “human instruments” in the service of master Obama.  Democrats and their collaborators in mainstream media, if they have any reasoning capacity, moral decency, and respect for the Constitution and its insistence upon the sovereignty of the people, then they should feel degraded.  Republicans were truly targeted as the enemy of the master, with the firing of canon fire and thrusting of bayonets “in the service and for the selfish purposes of the master.”  I watched ABC’s World News with Diane Sawyer yesterday evening and it was clear the mainstream media is doing Obama’s bidding by employing Saul Alinsky’s rule number 13.

Old Gadfly:  It is unfortunate that the ideal of a free press advanced in the First Amendment is so blinded by the progressive ideology.  Obama obviously has achieved a concentration of political power according to prevailing mainstream media public narratives.  AM, aside from a lot of rhetoric, why do you believe Obama’s behavior justifies being characterized as crossing the Rubicon?

AM:  Obama wants to change the constitutional process of government and concentrate more power in the executive branch.  Here is what he said in today’s speech: 

But to all my friends in Congress, understand that how business is done in this town has to change.  Because we've all got a lot of work to do on behalf of the American people -- and that includes the hard work of regaining their trust.  Our system of self-government doesn’t function without it.  And now that the government is reopened, and this threat to our economy is removed, all of us need to stop focusing on the lobbyists and the bloggers and the talking heads on radio and the professional activists who profit from conflict, and focus on what the majority of Americans sent us here to do, and that’s grow this economy; create good jobs; strengthen the middle class; educate our kids; lay the foundation for broad-based prosperity and get our fiscal house in order for the long haul.  That’s why we're here.  That should be our focus.

Old Gadfly:  Despite the arrogance of telling us where we can or should not get our information on current affairs, there are a lot of abstractions and rhetorical platitudes in that quote.  How does any of it relate to actually crossing the Rubicon?

AM:  In a nutshell, Obama wants a single, vanguard party that enables a large, centrally managed statist administration.  That single party would be a progressive Democrat Party.  That’s what he means when he says Washington must change.  While he says he’s open to ideas and is willing to compromise, Obama refuses to negotiate or compromise in actual behavior.  The past sequester was not a compromise.  It was Obama’s idea, supposedly in exchange for raising the debt ceiling.  The “appearance” of compromise was a deliberate attempt to inflict visible pain presumed to follow the effects of the sequester.  The plan was to use “human instruments” in service to a master to reinforce a narrative that Republicans do not care for the people.  This is what Obama and progressives hoped to achieve by shutting down the government because they knew they could count on the mainstream media to repeat their logic in shaping the public narrative.

Old Gadfly:  So, Obama’s Rubicon is the complete and irreversible commitment to transforming America, which involves changing the constitutional logic of governance.  IM (an American citizen with an inquiring mind), let’s hear your thoughts on the logic.

IM:  All this transformational action is being done using Orwell’s “newspeak” and by controlling the public narrative.  The logic of Obama’s arguments is designed to “frame the issue” in order to control the narrative; this logic, by the way, is also advanced by other members of the progressive caucus.

Old Gadfly:  What do you mean by “framing the issue”?

IM:  Obama and his progressive cohort are masters at sophistry. 

AM:  Define sophistry.

IM:  The sophists believed in the power of rhetoric.  Arguments merely need to be plausible, not necessarily true.  Dictionary.com defines sophistry this way:  “a subtle, tricky, superficially plausible, but generally fallacious method of reasoning.”

AM:  That concept nails what we are enduring under Obama.  Sometimes, the approach is not so subtle.  I heard today from one of the “talking heads” Obama told us to avoid in his speech yesterday, that while Obama was appearing presidential during the government shutdown, members of his administration were tweeting followers with pejorative (Mill’s canon fire and bayonet attacks) comments about Speaker Boehner and the Republicans.

IM:  Absolutely.  Let’s get back to the logic.  Obama and his progressive followers use syllogisms to frame issues.  This, by the way, is a tactic George Lakoff had advanced and employed in training progressive politicians and political activists.  Some of this intellectual indoctrination and training took place through The Rockridge Institute before it lost its 501c(3) status.  But, the intellectual momentum and activism continues through Cognitive Policy Works.

Old Gadfly:  Before we get into specific arguments, explain what you mean by syllogism.

IM:  A syllogism is a form of deductive reasoning that includes a major premise followed by a minor premise that in turn leads to an apparent conclusion.  Here’s an example:  The major premise states:  educated people are liberal.  The minor premise states:  Mary is educated.  Therefore, it follows that Mary is a liberal.  The problem with syllogisms is that oftentimes major premises are not true.  In the example just provided, we know “educated people” are liberal, conservative, and in between.  Thus, the fact that Mary is educated does not necessarily make her liberal.  Yet, there is a prevailing meme that educated people are liberal.

Old Gadfly:  One of the arguments I keep advancing in our discussions is that many Americans who claim to be liberal, are not.  They are progressive.  And, as F.A. Hayek pointed out in The Road to Serfdom, many who claim to be “liberal” are really “conservative” in terms of preserving privilege.  We discussed evidence of this notion in the presumption (major premise) that Democrats protect classes of people (unions, minorities, reproductive rights, illegal immigrants, gays, and so forth).

IM:  So, in the “government shutdown,” what progressives have advanced in terms of a syllogism are the following arguments:

Argument 1:

Major premise:  House Republicans passed a bill to shut down the government.

Minor premise:  The government was shut down.

Conclusion:  House Republicans shut down the government.

Argument 2:

Major premise:   A government shutdown will hurt people.

Minor premise:  News reports indicate examples of people who were adversely impacted by the shutdown (e.g., WW II vets, furloughed government employees).

Conclusion:  The government shutdown did in fact hurt people.

IM:  So, collectively these arguments lead to an even stronger narrative:  House Republicans shut down the government to hurt people.

AM:  Exactly.  This narrative was blatantly obvious in the mainstream news.

Old Gadfly:  Let’s correct the logic.

IM:  First of all, in his speech yesterday, Obama lectured Republicans by saying

So let's work together to make government work better, instead of treating it like an enemy or purposely making it work worse.  That’s not what the founders of this nation envisioned when they gave us the gift of self-government.  You don’t like a particular policy or a particular president, then argue for your position.  Go out there and win an election.  Push to change it. But don’t break it.  Don’t break what our predecessors spent over two centuries building.  That's not being faithful to what this country is about.

IM:  Our founders envisioned a limited government, not the Leviathan Obama and progressives want.  The Tea Party is not anti-government.  The Tea Party represents Americans who fully understand what our founders had in mind regarding limited government with appropriate checks and balances.  While Obama presumes to lecture Republicans, he completely ignores the fact that “self-governing” Americans argued against Obamacare when then did elect members to represent them in the House of Representatives.  Obama and progressives in government and the media refuse to acknowledge the fact that in 2010, following the partisan passage of Obamacare, Democrats lost 64 seats to give Republicans a majority with a 49-seat margin.  Granted, Republicans lost eight seats in the 2012 elections, but this was due to the Obama Administration via the Internal Revenue Service successfully demonizing and censoring the Tea Party voice between 2010 and 2012.  Yet, despite a majority voice in the House of Republicans, they are treated as a fringe, extremist minority in one of the branches of government designed constitutionally to maintain “power of the purse.”  And regarding Obama’s comment, “don’t break it,” Obamacare has broken the founder’s ideal of self-government.  Obama is a bully with a pulpit and a legion of Copernican drones repeating his messages.

Old Gadfly:  Excellent analysis, IM.  Let’s get back to some corrected logic.

IM:  The arguments should look like this:

Argument 1:

Major premise:  As 2010 elections arrived, the majority of Americans had concerns about the effect of Obamacare on the economy and individual freedoms.

Minor premise:  Democrats lost 64 seats to Republicans, giving Republicans a 49-seat margin as the majority party.

Conclusion:  Self-governing Americans wanted to repeal Obamacare.

Argument 2 (aside from over 40 House-passed bills to repeal, defund, or delay Obamacare or various provisions, none (that is zero) were sent to committee or presented to the Senate for an up or down vote):

Major premise:  In the current crisis, House Republicans passed a bill to fund the federal government with the exception of Obamacare (representing the will and intent of those who elected them).

Minor premise:  Senate majority leader Reid refused to allow a vote on the bill, claiming Obamacare must be fully funded.

Conclusion:  Reid (not House Republicans) would not allow the federal government to be funded.

 Argument 3:

Major premise:  In a spirit of compromise, House Republicans passed a bill to completely refund the federal government and included a one-year delay on implementing the individual mandate (despite the President already granting numerous exemptions or delays, in violation of the law he pushed and approved).

Minor premise:  Senate majority leader Reid refused to present the bill the bill for a vote, claiming Obamacare must be fully funded.

Conclusion:    Reid (not House Republicans) would not allow the federal government to be funded.  Thus, the government was allowed to be shut down by Reid with the full support of Obama (who had blatantly indicated he would not negotiate).

Old Gadfly:  So, Obama’s idea of compromise is really capitulation or surrender.

AM:  That’s exactly right.  And after nearly five years of perverting the idea of what the founders had in mind in combination with an abysmal economy with millions either unemployed or underemployed, lower incomes, and fears of additional costs for Obamacare, he is even more confident in crossing the Rubicon.  Add to this his ability to completely dodge, for now, scandals such as Benghazi and the IRS harassment of the Tea Party that are far more egregious than Watergate, strengthen his resolve to further exploit obvious mendacity, complicity, and duplicity among those who control the public narrative.

Old Gadfly:  As we discussed just prior to national elections this past year, Walter Cronkite foresaw 30 years ago what is currently playing out in the lives of Americans.  Cronkite said the following in the Preface to a 1983 edition of George Orwell’s dystopian novel, 1984:

Seldom has a book provided a greater wealth of symbols for its age and for the generations to follow, and seldom have literary symbols been invested with such power.  How is that?  Because they were so useful, and because the features of the world he drew, outlandish as they were, also were familiar. . . . We’ve met Big Brother in Stalin and Hitler and Khomeini.  We hear Newspeak in every use of language to manipulate, deceive, to cover harsh realities with the soft snow of euphemism [George Lakoff demonstrates this in Moral Politics:  How Liberals and Conservatives Think when he metaphorically classifies liberals as nurturing parents and conservatives as strict fathers].  And every time a political leader expects or demands that we believe the absurd, we experience that mental process Orwell called doublethink. . . . If not prophecy, what was 1984?  It was, as many have noticed, a warning:  a warning about the future of human freedom in a world where political organization and technology can manufacture power in dimensions that would have stunned the imaginations of earlier ages.[1]

AM: Obama is a seasoned community organizer and he has surrounded himself with communications experts who are experts in the use of social media technology.   I have often wondered what symbolic role Obama’s personal logo has played since he started campaigning for president.  I visited his website Organizing for Action.  Here is an example of how the logo has been used in organizing followers:

IM:  This is eerie.  In the movie, 1984, a logo also plays a key role.  Here’s a snapshot from one of the scenes:

AM:  What does INGSOC represent?

IM:  INGSOC is Newspeak for “English Socialism,” a political ideology advanced by the political party that had power over society.  Obama’s logo signifies a rising sun within a circle that represents “O” in Obama.  The sun represents hope over the “changed” landscape of America as symbolized in the complete restructuring of the elements of the American flag.  The change is the fundamental change Obama keeps promising and pushing in violation of the “self-governing” ideal “gifted” to us by our founders.  AM, I agree with your notion that Obama has crossed the Rubicon.

AM:  Sad . . . so very sad. 

Old Gadfly:  Yes, but I think the situation is still redeemable.  We’ll discuss such a strategy during our next conversation.

---

[1] George Orwell, 1984, (New York:  Signet Classic, 1983), pp. 1-2