Old Gadfly: IM (an American citizen with an inquiring
mind), in my younger, single days I once heard a man ask a woman to start a
honeymoon that evening with the promise he would marry her the next day. What do you think he was doing?
IM: Obviously, the man was enticing the woman to
meet his personal desire with a promise that he would marry her after his
desire was met. Promises are not always
kept; but, worse, some abusive marriages (especially those that spinoff from
such a spontaneous encounter, without the benefit of a more traditional
courtship) are difficult to dissolve.
Gadfly: Exactly, IM.
Do you see analogous behaviors playing out in American political
affairs?
IM: Yes.
Although, I must admit, Obama enticed the American public to elect him,
twice, with a promise of hope and change.
The reelection does make me think about the battered women syndrome.
Gadfly: Let’s discuss specific details, such as
promises kept and not kept, the nature of the current marriage Obama has with
the American people, and the consequences of no traditional courtship and the
battered women syndrome.
IM: I’ll start with promises kept.
·
First, Obama promised change. Now, I must admit when talking to younger
people who enthusiastically campaigned for him, none, not one, could tell me
what change meant. I just wanted one
example, such as major reform of the healthcare system, major reform of the tax
system, or bipartisanship in Washington D.C.
These examples were what I inferred from his campaign speeches. But these young people didn’t care about
details. What I got in return was a
glassy-eyed blind allegiance to a man they hardly knew. But, as we know, Obama did bring change. He did win landmark major healthcare legislation
without a single Republican vote. Yet,
for such a self-proclaimed historical achievement, the legislation involved
stealing over 700 billion from Medicare accounts and we continue to hear about
waivers for special interest groups and how businesses are laying off employees
because of the increased costs of providing healthcare. My own insurance premiums have already risen
and as I approach the age of 65, I see fewer and fewer care providers accepting
Medicare patients.
·
Second, Obama promised to wind down military
operations in Iraq and to shift the military effort to Afghanistan, where the
real focus should be. The Iraq
withdrawal timeline had already been established by his predecessor, pending
conditions within the region. Obama kept
to the timeline, despite failing to establish a Status of Forces Agreement with
the Iraqi government. Now, Iraq is at
risk with pressures from Iran and Syria.
In Afghanistan, Obama did increase forces, but well-below what was
requested. Now, Obama is seeking to
withdraw from an intractable situation.
So, Obama kept his promises, with himself as the only winner, and many
losers, in the outcome.
Gadfly: IM, are the American people so naïve that
they do not understand the implications of what you just described?
IM: Naïve seems like a good description, but in
keeping with the theme of our conversation, I would suggest the battered women
syndrome is a more accurate characterization.
I’ll expand on this notion later.
For now, let me talk about promises not kept.
·
First, Obama promised to cut deficits in half
by the end of his first term.
o
The worst annual deficit during his
predecessor’s eight years in office was less than $500 billion. Every year of the past four years had
deficits well in excess of $1 trillion.
Yes, the Bush era deficits contributed $4 trillion to the national debt
over the eight-year term. But, Obama
contributed between $5 and $6 trillion in only four years. So, it seems the honeymoon bliss dominates
any marital obligations.
o
Ironically, I was leafing through one of the
textbooks you use when teaching ethics to your students. I noticed a quote from U.S. District Judge
Leonard Sand when sentencing John and Timothy Rigas for fraudulently looting $100
million from Adelphia Communications. He criticized the defendants for spending
other people’s money. John Rigas founded
the company in 1952. Fifty-three years
later, after creating thousands of jobs and billions in wealth for stockholders
and stakeholders, his company faced bankruptcy with $2.5 billion of debt. Although John was 80 at the time, and
suffering from bladder cancer, the
judge sentenced him to 15 years in prison. Now, let me provide some context.
§ Solyndra, a California-based
green energy company, received a $535 million government loan with strong
backing from President Obama. Less than a year later, the company declared
bankruptcy. Based on the language in the
loan, the U.S. government ended up writing off the entire amount. But, bonuses were honored. The $535 million came from taxpayers. Other people spent their money on a risky and
failed investment. No one was prosecuted.
§ Even
more egregious, the financial crisis of 2008 stemmed from the housing
bubble. As one of our previous conversations
revealed, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were primarily responsible for generating the
subprime mortgages that led to creative financial maneuvering by the financial
sector mandated by Congress to purchase the toxic assets. Combined, these government supported
enterprises cost the American taxpayers $274
billion in bailout funds. Between 2008 and now, bonuses have been paid
at taxpayer expense. Again, not a single
person was prosecuted.
§ I
wonder if John Rigas would have received more mercy had he claimed the
government built his business.
·
A second Obama promise included reducing
unemployment to 6% by the end of his first term. As we know, it still hovers around 8%.
o
Instead of thanking the top 1% or 2% for
paying 60-70% of the tax revenue, Obama demonizes this group for not “paying
its fair share” even though they do not get a fair share in terms of government
services or voting privileges. Whether
one pays a million dollars in taxes or none, each still gets one vote.
o
Yet, for a clever politician who claims to
want to improve financial conditions for the middle and lower classes, one
would think he might be open to learning how wealth creation actually takes
place in a relatively free society. He
demonizes the one segment of our society that can actually unleash trillions of
reserve capital into the type of investment that generates new jobs and more
wealth.
o
The only jobs governments create are
government jobs which create no wealth and are a further drain on an
economy. Obama campaigned on making the
wealthy pay their fair share while cutting federal spending. This is the honeymoon appeal. As we know there are no budget cuts. This is the promise of marriage tomorrow.
·
A third Obama promise was to lead the most
transparent Administration in the history of our Nation. Of course, we all know the expectation for
transparency is accountability to the American public.
o
When Congress pushed for additional
documentation related to the Fast and Furious Operation, President Obama
declared the documents were protected by executive privilege. This declaration meant one of two realities: (a) Obama did in fact have personal knowledge
about the operation when he had publicly claimed no knowledge, or (b) he abused
the power of executive privilege to block full disclosure to Congress.
o
As we know, another transparency issue
continues to play out regarding the events in Benghazi, Libya prior to the
election. Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton at least “accepted responsibility” for the fatalities. That’s noble; yet, there is no
accountability. Perhaps, Michael Moore
can build on an old Bush cliché. “Bush
lied and people died” has morphed into “people died and Obama (and Rice, and
Clinton, and Clapper) lied.”
o
There are certainly many other issues related
to transparency, but I must confess that I believe what Obama means by
transparency is that he will assertively tell the American public what Obama or
his strategic communication advisors (i.e., David Axelrod, David Plouffe, Anita
Dunn, and Robert Gibbs) determine what
the public needs to know,
whether it’s a manufactured picture through plausible spin or actual
reality. The key to Obama’s success is
telling the right story; he even admitted this during a CBS News interview
with Charlie Rose. This may explain why
he has spent the majority of his time traveling to various parts of the country
in “campaign mode.” Tell people what
they want to hear—hope is on the way. These
behaviors represent the abusive part of the battered wife syndrome, where
control is so important.
Gadfly: IM, I see the connection to honeymoon and
marriage, but I do not grasp the connection to the battered women syndrome.
IM: This one is more complicated. According to the American
Judges Association, there are at least three characteristics of
the battered women syndrome.
·
The first characteristic is the fight
mode. “The body and mind prepare to deal
with danger by becoming hyper-vigilant to cues of potential violence, resulting
in an exaggerated startle response.”
Obama has achieved this result by manufacturing threats against sexual
orientation, reproductive rights, and civil rights for undocumented immigrants,
etc.
·
The second characteristic is the flight
response. “When physical escape is
actually or perceived as impossible, then mental escape occurs. This is the avoidance or emotional numbing
stage where denial, minimization, rationalization and disassociation are
subconsciously used as ways to psychologically escape from the threat or
presence of violence.” Obama capitalized
on this by emphasizing fears for the first characteristic. This kept people from focusing on domestic
economic and foreign policy failures.
·
The third characteristic is cognitive ability
and memory loss.
Here, the victim begins to have intrusive memories of the
abuse or may actually develop psychogenic amnesia and not always remember
important details or events. The victim
may have trouble following his or her thoughts in a logical way, being
distracted by intrusive memories that may be flashbacks to previous battering
incidents. The victim may disassociate
himself or herself when faced with painful events, memories, reoccurring
nightmares or other associations not readily apparent to the observer.
This is why instruments like Sandra Fluke and Sister
Simone Campbell were so effective at the Democratic National Convention.
o
Fluke reminded single women of how
Republicans threatened their reproductive rights and entitlement to free
contraceptives or abortifacients.
o
Sister Campbell let the middle and lower
class know the Romney-Ryan economic plan would further jeopardize their
financial well-being.
·
As the American Judges Association understands
from psychiatric evidence, perception control is an important feature in a
battered women syndrome relationship.
Guilt is one manifestation. And
for any American that might feel he or she is being abused by Obama, the fact
that he is black conjures up fears and guilt of being accused as a bigot.
Gadfly: You are correct about the analogy of the
battered women syndrome being complicated.
But, your explanation certainly makes sense. At the beginning of our conversation, you
mentioned traditional courtship. What
are your thoughts along these lines?
IM: In my lifetime, the traditional courtship
with presidential candidates involved a fairly objective vetting by a free
press. Of course, there is plenty of
evidence that the media has always displayed a political bias throughout
history. But I must admit that during my
lifetime, I have not witnessed such a lopsided display of bias, and as a consequence
the dismissal of a need for a courtship.
Gadfly: Why do you think this happened?
IM: My theory is that we are experiencing an
intellectual hubris that has thoroughly penetrated the media, government, and
academia since around the 1960s. People
that migrate to these three regimes tend to pride themselves as being members
of the “educated class” with a moral obligation to govern the
“underclass.” Of course, the conditions
that provided fertility for this movement started in the early 20th
Century with an intellectual fascination and love affair with socialism, as a
political economic philosophy, and statism, as an effective way of governing a
society. Woodrow Wilson and Franklin
Delano Roosevelt, empowered by large democratic majorities in both houses of
Congress, pushed aggressively to change institutions of government based on
principles of socialism and statism.
Given the public malaise and discontent of the 1960s, characterized by
hippies, drugs, and an unpopular Vietnam conflict, one of the triggering
mechanisms for accelerating this movement was the Port
Huron Statement of the Students for a Democratic Society,
primarily authored by John Hayden, a University of Michigan student and later
and elected official and husband to Jane Fonda.
In a sense, this document embodied the emotions and passions of a
college-age generation, and represented a new Declaration of Independence from
the perceived oppression of accumulated traditions that characterized America
in the early 1960s.
In
arguing for an activist agenda, the Statement claimed “A
new left must include liberals and socialists, the former for their relevance,
the latter for their sense of thoroughgoing reforms in the system. The
university is a more sensible place than a political party for these two
traditions to begin to discuss their differences and look for political
synthesis.” This explains why 85% or
more university faculty today are registered Democrats. Yet, what this 1962 declaration missed in
history is that it was a new left that allowed Hitler to achieve political
power in the 1960s. As Hayek, quoting
extensively from German scholars, explained in The Road to Serfdom that at one point, the contest between liberal
and socialistic perspectives reached a tipping point which resulted in fascism.
Gadfly: Wait a minute, IM. It is commonly accepted that fascism was a
far right manifestation.
IM: I know, Gadfly. Most people believe communism is the far left
equivalent of fascism on the far right.
This cannot be further from the truth.
Think about it. As conservative
ideology moves from center to right the ideology becomes increasingly libertarian,
with an increasing emphasis on limited government. At its most extreme, this ideology would
result in anarchy. As liberal ideology moves from center to left
it becomes more progressive and socialistic, in anticipation of an inevitable
transition to communism, with an increasing emphasis on a larger or more
centralized government. In German and
Italy, the political center moved progressively left. And when socialism did not sustain the needs
of the masses, instead of the emergence of communism, the states devolved into
fascism. For an excellent background on
the actual roots of fascism, read Chapter Two, “The Great Utopia,” in Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom.
Gadfly: This explanation will not convince a lot of
people who believe otherwise.
IM: This is true, Gadfly. Unfortunately, a consequence
of the critical theory and postmodern philosophy, that so impressed college
students in the 60s and inspired the Port Huron Statement, is a distortion of
truth. These activists truly believed
then and believe now that truth is created, not discovered. We live in a world now where formerly
accepted truth is heresy, and an imagined utopia becomes truth.
Gadfly: About the time of the Port Huron Statement, I
recalled a speech by retired Admiral Ben Moreell. The speech made an impression on me because
Moreell delivered it on the same day John F. Kennedy was assassinated, November
22, 1963. The title of his speech was
“The Right to Be Wrong.” Moreell argued against the push to centralize
all power in Washington. He provided
evidence of an increasing preference for egalitarian policies in the name of
social justice and at the expense of individual rights. The push was disguised as “democracy” when in
fact it was “socialism.” Moreell
cautioned that we should heed the warning of Dean William Ralph Inge who
observed that throughout history, the greatest triumphs of the powers of evil consist
of capturing or coopting organizations designed to defeat them; once captured
or coopted, and the devil has altered the contents, he preserves the original
labels. In other words, he has changed
the essence of the original concept or truth.
IM: Excellent point, Gadfly. So, as we wrap up our conversation, I am
still taken aback that Obama and the Democrats in Congress believe the
Republicans will buy the honeymoon tonight for marriage tomorrow
proposition. They truly believe the
Republicans will accept tax hikes today for a promise of budget cuts in the
future. What is really insulting is that
when Democrats call for compromise, they really mean Republican capitulation. And, not surprising, the public will read
about the mainstream media’s claim of Republican obstructionism.
