Character versus Corruption: Two Different Visions

Today’s article is a monologue, not a conversation.  I have been asked by a very good friend, someone I immensely respect for his intellect and sense of integrity and honor, to assess the two major candidates.  Here, I will do my best.  The assessment involves character versus corruption and two different visions for America.

Character versus Corruption

The presidential candidates represent a fundamental difference between character and corruption.  By character, I mean a sense of virtue and the role it plays in a just society.  A just society comprises citizens who possess a civic responsibility to the rule of law.  This is what provides stability and order within a society. 

Virtue does not include pandering, conspiring, colluding; nor, does it include mendacity, complicity, and duplicity.  These are traits that do not define the Trump campaign.  Several virtues define Trump:  honesty, courage, fortitude, and respect for the individual liberty that allows liberty-minded people to innovate and flourish.  Honesty is a virtue, even when it offends.  Trump has been honest and courageous in authentically and sincerely expressing his concerns about the lack of virtue within the ruling elite (some call it the establishment).  He believes in the U.S. Consitution and the rule of law as the framework for governance within America.  He criticizes those who believe otherwise, and as a consequence is attacked with labels—racist, Islamaphobe, misogynist, and so forth.  His greatest critics represent the truly corrupt worldview of the progressive left and even progressives within the Republican establishment (the Bushes, Romney, etc.).  The willingness to fund his own campaign demonstrates his fortitude in fighting for something far bigger than himself:  the American idea spawned by our Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution.  His disappointment in how the recent ruling elite has squandered the political, social, and economic capital generated by those who understood the important relationship between a limited government within a system of federalism, inspires a sense of duty within Trump.

It was not virtuous when Senator Harry Reid claimed Romney had not paid taxes for ten years.  He knew at the time it was a lie, but it generated a news cycle very damaging to Romney.  When confronted about it later, he did not deny that the claim was false, but with a grin said, “we won didn’t we?”  So, now the news cycle is about a 1995 tax return, illegally attained and published by the New York Times.  Trump and his accountants completed the mandatory IRS filing based on public law.  In other words, it was an honest and legal filing.  Yet, that is not the issue.  Trump did not pay his “fair share” of taxes.  This immoral notion reflects a dangerous vision for America—more on that shortly.

Dwarfed by the manufactured tax travesty were the allegations, shared at the close of the last debate by Clinton, that Trump demonized a Venezuelan beauty queen.  Despite the fact that there were no witnesses to verify the queen’s allegations, the narrative was compelling enough to dominate all the mainstream news cycles.  The fact that business contracts were involved and the queen failed to live up to the arrangements had no relevance—truth, in this case, was less important than an opportunity to demonize a candidate that threatens the progressive worldview.  This is not virtue; it is corruption.

During the same debate segment, Clinton tattled to the listening public that Trump had not paid an architect (who she invited to attend in the audience) for his work on one of Trump’s properties.  Trump did not deny it.  He said the architect did not perform to expectations.  After doing my own research, I read complaints by the architect that because he did not get paid for this particular job, his company went under.  In other words, he only had one client—Trump.  If the architect had a reputation for meeting or exceeding expectations, he likely would have had more clients.  Nonetheless, there was no law suit, meaning there was no legal standing for one.  This is called accountability, something Clinton has no appreciation for.  She now claims the basement server was a mistake and accepts responsibility for it.  Responsibility and accountability are fundamentally different concepts.  Clinton is a member of the corrupted ruling class, so accountability does not apply to her (Comey got the memo).  Of course, there are plenty of precedents that have convinced her that she can avoid accountability.

Two weeks ago, Peggy Noonan penned an article for the Wall Street Journal:  “Travel Back to an Early Clinton Scandal.”  Calling someone overweight and cajoling them to lose weight to meet contractual terms is far less brutal than what Clinton did to the White House travel office.  Noonan claimed, “It was the first big case in which she showed poor judgment, a cool willingness to mislead, and a level of political aggression that gave even those around her pause.  It was after this mess that her critics said she’d revealed the soul of an East German border guard.”  On May 19, 1993, the entire travel office staff was fired.  Different stories were told over time.  “It emerged in contemporaneous notes of a White House staffer that the travel-office workers were removed because Mrs. Clinton wanted to give their jobs—their “slots,” as she put it, according to the notes of director of administration David Watkins—to political operatives who’d worked for Mr. Clinton’s campaign.”  To cover up the corrupt action, the FBI was asked to investigate; reluctantly, they did, and the head of the travel office was indicted on charges including embezzlement.  He was acquitted by a jury, and retired.  Mrs. Clinton said under oath that she had no role in the firings.  A General Accounting Office report later refuted this.  According to Noonan, “So—that was the Clinton’s first big Washington scandal.  It showed what has now become the Clinton Scandal Ritual:  lie, deny, revise, claim not to remember specifics, stall for time.  When it passes, call the story ‘old news’ full of questions that have already been answered. ‘As I have repeatedly said . . ..’”  Because they have the same worldview as Clinton, the mainstream media consider facts, such as the White House travel-office scandal, “old news.”

Clinton wants to increase taxes and government spending.  This would give the federal government more money to distribute to others (and probable voters) through various programs.  It doesn’t matter that this kind of thinking has accumulated nearly $20 trillion in public debt (not to mention the hundreds of trillion legal obligations for unfunded entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare—programs citizens paid into in good faith as a civil responsibility).  How would this benefit the economy?  Taxation takes resources from the private sector that can be used for investment and new jobs and shifts this wealth to the government to dole out in welfare subsidies—sapping the private sector of productivity and diminishing wealth creation.  The chart below shows the cost of the federal government is 65 times greater today in constant dollars (adjusting for inflation) per capita than when the Sixteenth Amendment was passed (authorizing individual income tax) was ratified in 1913.  American citizens are nowhere close to 65 times better off.  All this shows is that an expanding administrative state has become far more powerful and unaccountable than ever intended by the founding fathers.

The second chart shows the labor participation rate since the mid-1970s.  The significant decline in the labor participation rate coincided with the passing of Obamacare.  While the federal government gets better resourced over time through taxation and borrowed money, the economy has become far more fragile with investment resources either sucked away through taxation or suffocated by federal regulation.  And now American citizens are suffocating from crushing premiums and unaffordable deductibles.  Clinton wants to perpetuate this monster.

    

Facts may be inconvenient, but the data strongly support the adverse effects of a tax and spend orientation.  The progressive agenda is socialistic in its approach because it treats capitalism as an evil.  As scholars (e.g., Hayek) have revealed, socialism is not sustainable.  It morphs into fascism or communism, both far left manifestations.  Add to these dynamics crony capitalism (i.e., health insurance companies) and corporate welfare (e.g., companies like Boeing which gave a large contribution to the Clinton Foundation and receives billions from the Import Export Bank for lucrative contracts to sell fighters to the Middle East and airliners to Iran).  These practices perpetuate the establishment status quo (keeps elected officials in office focused on reelection instead of representing their constituents).  Recognizing these practices allows us to understand what Hannah Arendt explained as a step toward totalitarianism.  In her book, The Origins of Totalitarianism, Arendt dedicated an early chapter to the political emancipation of the bourgeoisie—the centers of production within a society.  In the modern age of information technology, we can now include academia and mainstream media (centers for the dissemination of ideas) as part of that emancipation.

Different Visions for America

What we are asked to do in the upcoming election is to choose between two fundamentally different visions for America.  These visions are personified in the actual candidates:  one who still believes in virtue and the other who is terribly corrupted.  I know Hillary Clinton advances a progressive vison for America because President Obama has spent his entire tenure pursuing a progressive agenda. Hillary is committed to continuing this agenda.  This, by the way, is the only way to preserve an imagined legacy for Obama (at least for a few more years), not America.  What Donald Trump envisions is contrary to this vision because he seeks to restore individual liberty, limited government, the rule of law, and a free market; thus, it is soundly rejected by those who subscribe to the progressive agenda.

What is a progressive agenda?  It essentially subscribes to a powerful central government that solves most, if not all, of society’s problems guided by a fundamental principle of social justice.  This sounds noble; but, the means involve picking winners and losers in the name of “professed” equality of outcomes.  This is why, to a progressive, distributing wealth is morally justified.  As a consequence, this practice suffocates any incentive for innovation and entrepreneurial risk-taking.  Anyone with a basic understanding of economics knows that our economy is on thin ice.  Unlike a positive multiplier effect in the private sector, progressive policies impose a negative multiplier effect, sucking value out of the private sector to advance true “trickle-down economics.”  (For an excellent history on the trickle-down economics meme, see Thomas Sowell’s paper here.)  This scheme coercively takes wealth away from those who earned it to dole out to an increasing population of welfare recipients at the individual and corporate levels.  As a cultural consequence, this practice diminishes a moral obligation for an American citizen or legal resident to accept his or her moral responsibility to contribute to the greater good of society at large, to be productive, law-abiding, and self-reliant. 

Most Americans once understood the importance of natural rights and the difference between civil rights and civil responsibilities.  Progressives have long ago dismissed the inevitable truth of natural rights, that is, the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—rights granted by God, to be protected by a government that derives its powers from the consent of the governed.  Civil rights represent the obligation of government and civil responsibilities represent the obligation of the citizens to obey just laws and to contribute to society (from neighborhoods to the nation).  This is the noble and ideal social contract Rousseau advanced before it was perverted by Robespierre in his great reign of terror in the French Revolution.  Robespierre and progressives today believe that only the right political elite know how to determine what is good for the public at large.     

I contend that the progressive agenda is contrary to the founding principles of our Nation.  Trump believes in these principles.  So, this is our choice:  we either vote for the founding principles or for the progressive agenda that is contrary to these principles.  The progressives that include academia and mainstream media are betting that they can convince the American public that the progressive agenda is better than our founding principles.  This is why we see so much positive press for Clinton and negative press for Trump in the politically emancipated mainstream media (unless you watch Fox News).

Dr. Benjamin Franklin had an optimistic view of the potential greatness of a Constitutional Republic.  Yet, at the closing session of the Constitutional Convention, on September 17, 1787, Franklin cautioned us:

In these sentiments, Sir, I agree to this Constitution with all its faults, if they are such; because I think a general Government necessary for us, and there is no form of Government but what may be a blessing to the people if well administered, and believe farther that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in Despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic Government, being incapable of any other.

Trump asks voters to help him make America great again.  Clinton asks voters to be with her.   We have a choice: virtue or corruption; a renewed America or a despotic government.  Unlike Clinton who can smugly say “I made a mistake and took full responsibility,” we have a responsibility to make a good choice because we are the ones who will be accountable in terms of consequences.