Pragmatism versus Politics

Abstract:  President Trump has been in office for a year already.  Despite a growing economy and better labor numbers, the political elite have doubled down on their mission to oppose President Trump’s agenda for Making America Great Again.  Today’s segment on NBC’s Meet the Press provided more evidence.  Disturbed by some of the themes—the political capital of DACA and insinuations of a post-heroic period—it was not until I read a well-timed email from my uncle that I more deeply understood the political elite’s mind set.  They do not understand the difference between pragmatism and politics.  Politics requires glibness and visceral emotions; pragmatism requires reason unconstrained by “looking good” and “feel good” language.

Old Gadfly:  Gentleman, did you watch NBC’s Meet the Press this morning?

IM:  Yes. Amazingly, there was no mention of the Top Secret memo circulating within the halls of Congress about Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance System Act (FISA) system (see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and other non-mainstream media sources).  Rather, Chuck Todd and four panel members pontificated on the government shutdown, mostly blaming President Trump for injecting chaos into this week’s deliberations focused mostly on the unconstitutional executive order by the previous President called the Deferred for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).  Todd later showed some polling to show why DACA is so critical to elections in districts along the southern border, Florida, and some districts elsewhere in the United States.  It was clear from a Democrat perspective that DACA is critical to their political fortunes by showing “empathy” for those brought illegally to the US by their parents.

 

Old Gadfly:  So, if I understand the implications of Todd’s analysis related to DACA and political fortunes, we can infer that the political elite see DACA as really a political opportunity tied to their political fortunes.  So much for the “Dreamers”—they are mere instruments in the action for political power.

 

AM:  Even Peggy Noonan ventured to claim that President Trump represents the “post heroic” period in American history.  Here is an excerpt from today’s transcript:

Look, as for the presidency, we just past one year anniversary two days into the second year. I think what we are seeing up close every day relentlessly is a post-heroic presidency. A presidency for a post-heroic era. People don't have illusions about how high and upstanding and rigorously upholding of values that the president is. And at the same time everybody in politics around him sees it, sees that it plays fairly well for him, that he is sometimes gross or abrupt or rude in his terminology. So they do it too. It does lower everything. We are living through a cultural lowering.

Old Gadfly:  As a credentialed psychologist, from a psychological perspective I do not believe Noonan truly understands what she is revealing when she says, “what we are seeing up close relentlessly.”  What we are “seeing” is social constructivism by a progressive elite who control the public narrative and the desire to create a culture based on their values.  For example, race is a socially constructed concept that has been very useful for political purposes.  Racism is therefore an inevitable socially constructed concept as well.  Islamophobia, homophobia, xenophobia, misogynist, and the entire litany of similar terms are other examples. More importantly, regarding Noonan’s claim about a post-heroic period, what do you infer from this?

AM:  Obviously, the implication is that Trump represents the antonym of heroic. Think about this.  By implication, Noonan places the previous president (not mentioning him by name to honor his current practice of not mentioning President Trump by name when being critical of him during evening talk shows) in the heroic category.  According to Thesaurus, here are synonyms for heroic: bold, courageous, daring, epic, fearless, gallant, grand, gutsy, noble, valiant, classic, elevated, bigger than life, dauntless, doughty, exaggerated, fire-eating, grandiose, gritty, gutty, high flown, impavid, inflated, intrepid, lion-hearted, mythological, stand tall, stouthearted, unafraid, undaunted, valorous.  Certainly, the previous President can be described with some of these terms.  Yet, pigeon chess master is not one of them—but that would fit more under a psychiatric manifestation of delusions of grandeur, not heroism.  On the other hand, Thesaurus lists the following as antonyms of heroic:  afraid, cowardly, fearful, meek, shy, timid, and weak.  Strangely, none of these terms fit for either the previous President or President Trump.

Old Gadfly:  Ironically, after watching Meet the Press, I opened an email from my uncle.  He forwarded a reflection by Mychal S. Massie, who “is an ordained minister who spent 13 years in full-time Christian Ministry.  Today he serves as founder and Chairman of the Racial Policy Center (RPC), a think tank he officially founded in September 2015. RPC advocates for a colorblind society. He was founder and president of the non-profit ‘In His Name Ministries.’  He is the former National Chairman of a conservative Capitol Hill think tank; and a former member of the think tank National Center for Public Policy Research.  In his official capacity with this free-market, public-policy think tank, he has spoken at the U.S. Capitol, CPAC, participated in numerous press conferences on Capitol Hill, the National Press Club and testified in private session concerning property rights pursuant to the “Endangered Species Act” before the Chairman of the House Committee on Resources.”  Massie explained why President Trump is such a mystery to the establishment in Washington DC and other political elite in political parties, the media, academia, and Hollywood.  President Trump is neither liberal nor conservative—he’s a pragmatist.  He further contends President Trump has risked a hard earned fortune to solve problems both political parties have created, let alone solve.  Sounds heroic to me.  Here is Massie’s article.  I now more deeply understand the political elite’s mind set.  They do not understand the difference between pragmatism and politics.  Politics requires glibness and visceral emotions; pragmatism requires reason unconstrained by “looking good” and “feel good” language.  Meanwhile, those who earn good livings based on ideological politics, glibness, and visceral arguments, will continue droning on and demonizing President Trump while he keeps moving forward pragmatically Making America Great Again.

IM:  Doesn’t President Trump need some help in this process?

Old Gadfly:  Yes, he does.  Help may be on the way in the form of the Article V (of the US Constitution) movement.  Here is an excellent observation from Bob Berry (author and economist), one of the pioneers in the movement:

 [Thomas] Paine’s words ring especially true regarding our present situation.  As he observed, “there is something very absurd, in supposing a continent to be perpetually governed by an island.”  How much more absurd is it today, the whole of our country’s land-mass and its 310 million inhabitants is ruled with an iron fist from a 68-square mile swamp along the Potomac.  Excerpt from Amendments without Congress:  A Timely Gift from the Founders (2012) by Bob Berry

The nearly miraculous part of this movement is that it is nonpartisan.  It avoids political agendas in favor of restoring the sound governing principles of a Constitutional Republic gifted to us by heroic and pragmatic Americans.  Unfortunately, opponents tend to base their arguments on political agendas.  See for example the excellent analysis provided by Dennis Haugh in Political Vertigo and other postings at his website.

 

While the political elite play their political games, let me know if you want to learn more about this self-governing citizen effort (Old Gadfly at oldgadfly@gmail.com)

Stupid Is as Stupid Does

IM:  Gentlemen, remember scenes when Forrest Gump’s mother coached him on life matters?  One of the notable quotes in the movie is from Forrest’ own observations:  “stupid is as stupid does.”

Old Gadfly:  Where are you taking us with this theme?

IM:  Current talk about a possible government shutdown.

AM:  And the question is typically worded this way:  Are Republicans willing to shut down the government to push legislation to defund Planned Parenthood? 

Old Gadfly:  What exactly is the logic being implied by this question?

AM:  The majority of Americans are repulsed by videos portraying the harvesting of fetal tissue for profit.  Responding to this concern, Republicans in the House have advanced legislation that shifts nearly half a billion in taxpayer funds away from Planned Parenthood and to reallocate these same funds for other health providers providing similar services, but not the abortions.  Democrats are saying they are opposed to defunding Planned Parenthood and will vote against the legislation.  Republican leadership in the Senate, fully aware that Republicans were blamed for the last shutdown talk about kicking the can down the road because even if the Senate passed defunding legislation, President Obama will veto it.

IM:  If Democrats and the Administration are not willing to acknowledge the will and intent of the majority of Americans and to compromise with Republicans who are legislating on behalf of the people, then why is it logical to blame Republicans for shutting down the government?  It sounds like Democrats are not willing to compromise, but expect Republicans to fully capitulate, that is, surrender any moral obligation to stand on principle.

Old Gadfly:  Americans have short memories.  During the last shutdown, Republicans in the House of Representatives tried several iterations of legislative language to defund or at least delay funding portions of the Affordable Care Act.  The final version gave Democrats everything they wanted but delayed funding for some of the more controversial measures of the Affordable Care Act.  Two months earlier, the Obama Administration issued an Executive Order delaying the employer mandate by one year because it would have been a political disaster for upcoming Democrat elections.  Not only was the Executive Order unconstitutional, it was an insult to the Republicans who already understood the consequential impact on the American economy.  Ever since the passage of the Affordable Care (without a single Republican vote) the labor participation rate plummeted and is now the lowest it has been since October 1977, with most of these Americans now on government subsidies.

It was the Democrat caucus that refused to compromise even on this last version proposed by the House.  By choosing not to compromise, Democrats are the ones that chose to shut down the government because they could shamelessly blame it on Republicans for refusing to compromise.  Republicans made numerous compromises.  Democrats allowed none.  This Democrat-manufactured notion that Republicans shut down the government is called a meme, and it took on irrefutable truth in the minds of Americans.  This was a case of unconditional surrender, and Republicans bought it.  And now they own it, until they grow a backbone and argue for the actual truth. 

AM: So, why are Democrats willing to lie and cheat to keep Planned Parenthood funded?

 IM:  It’s all for political power.  Planned Parenthood spends millions each year lobbying the government and contributing to political campaigns.  Just in Colorado, according to Secretary of State data, Planned Parenthood spent $3.3 million since January 2013.  This money was spent on promoting Democrat candidates, defending two Democrat incumbents during recall elections, and on opposing statewide ballot measures to redefine the term "person.”  These data represent only one of the 50 States.  Can you imagine the impact defunding Planned Parenthood would have on Democrat resources for political campaigning?  The half billion in funding does not just go away.  House Republicans reallocated the funding to other health care providers to provide similar services, minus abortion.

Old Gadfly:    Walter Cronkite, often called “the most trusted man in America,” wrote the preface to a 1983 Signet Classic version of Orwell's Nineteen-Eighty-Four. Here is an excerpt: "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 imagination of earlier ages." In our time, it is manufactured "pop culture" folklore (such as “the war on women” and “war against reproductive rights”) that wires so many to think the way the political establishment wants. Progressive Democrats cannot continue their success in advancing an administrative state (as we discussed in our last conversation) without the duplicitous, mendacious, and complicit collaboration of Planned Parenthood.  This is why Obama and Democrats in Congress have drawn a line in the sand.

IM:  So, if I may be so blunt, who are the stupid ones?

Old Gadfly:  Well, I think we can identify at least three groups:  (a) establishment Democrat politicians who subscribe to their own lies and deceitfulness; (b) Democrat constituents who subscribe to the establishment narrative; and (c) establishment Republican politicians who are either naïve in the face of blatant duplicity, mendacity, and complicity, or lack courage to stand for moral principle.

AM:  How about Republic constituents?

Old Gadfly:  Republican constituents are frustrated and disappointed.  Elected Republicans failed to deliver on expectations following elections in 2010 (Republicans took control of the House) and 2014 (Republicans kept even stronger control of the House and regained control of the Senate).  The notion that “we just need to elect the right people” is not working.  Thus, there is now a growing movement to seek another solution to overcome the corruption in Washington, D.C.  It is called the Convention of the States Project (www.cosaction.com; authorized by Article V of the U.S. Constitution) to propose amendments to the Constitution under three main topics:  fiscal responsibility, power and jurisdiction, and term limits.  If 34 State legislatures pass a resolution for such a convention, Congress shall establish a date and a location.  Any amendments proposed by the convention would then be sent to the State legislatures for ratification, which requires 38 or more States to approve.  This is a peaceful, Constitutional solution, advanced by “we the people” on behalf of State legislatures to rebalance political power in our nation. 

IM:  Of course, understanding the vision and wisdom of our Constitutional framers, who anticipated the need for such a solution, requires some refresher education. 

Old Gadfly:  The fate of our nation depends upon such a refresher and a commitment to action if we are to preserve our self-governing Constitutional Republic.  We cannot assume this problem will take care of itself.  We will all own the consequences, whether we choose to be stupid or not.

Shut It Down

AM (an American combat aviator with an inquiring mind):  Gentlemen, our nation is asleep and in the throes of a nightmare.  We’re becoming mentally and emotionally paralyzed from the constant droning about the recovering economy, distractions from phony scandals, and obstruction from Republicans.  I say:  shut it down!

Old Gadfly:  Shut down what?

AM:  Shut down the nightmare.

IM (an American citizen with an inquiring mind):  How?

AM:  Shut down the Obamacare fiasco or the federal government.  We are rapidly approaching September 30, the deadline for a continuing resolution to fund the federal government.  The dilemma is that Republicans want to defund Obamacare while essentially funding other programs.  Obama has threatened to veto such a bill. A veto would then “shut down” the government. Such a result would be blamed on Republicans.

Old Gadfly:  Why would Republicans get blamed if Obama has an opportunity to compromise—something he keeps badgering Republicans to do?  Besides, Obamacare is still very unpopular with the public—premiums have already increased and will continue to rise significantly, Obama is granting waivers and subsidies for special interest or “privileged” groups in violation of the law, and he has delayed implementing provisions of the law, in violation of the law (among a list of many other issues with Obamacare).  It can’t always be “my way or the highway.”

AM:  All good points, Gadfly.  However, Obama and Democrats have proven to be disingenuous in this matter.  What is ironic is that Obama and the Democrat caucus in both houses of Congress deserve the credit (or blame) for creating such a monster.  Not a single Republican in the House or Senate voted for Obamacare.  Now, with all of his broken promises, implementation problems, and burdens placed upon the American public, Obama and Democrats absurdly expect Republicans to keep feeding this monster.

IM:  Perhaps Obamacare and its adverse impact on employment and the growing entitlement class is part of a more sinister plan?

Old Gadfly:  How so, IM?

IM:  It’s called the Cloward-Piven strategy.  Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, both sociologists and political activists, published their strategy in a May 1966 article in The Nation.  The article was entitled, “The Weight of the Poor:  A Strategy to End Poverty.”  The idea was to overload the public welfare system to cause a financial crisis and then to blame it on capitalism.  This manufactured set of circumstances would then allow the political elite in power to substitute the failed capitalist system with socialism in the form of a new welfare system that guaranteed annual income, ultimately ending poverty.  A good indication as to how this has been happening over time is captured in the following chart, using federal budget data that compares the percentage of the federal budget that has been allocated to defense versus human resource programs (entitlement programs).  Notice the steep incline after the article was published.

Old Gadfly:  To understand these developments, it is important to grasp the ideological basis that underwrites them.  The progressive or modern liberal concept called poverty has been an enduring justification for social justice in the form of redistribution of wealth, and is closely aligned with Karl Marx’s theory of dialectical materialism.  Leon Trotsky admired Marx’s approach as a “scientific classification of human societies in the development of their productive forces and the structure of the relations of ownership, which constitute the anatomy of society.”  Dialectical materialism presumes human advancement through epochal crises as history marches forward.

AM: Obama keeps emphasizing crises; and, “Forward” was Obama’s slogan in the last campaign. 

IM:  Absolutely.  And, I would suggest that Obama’s claim to being the most transparent Administration in history refers to his vision, not his actions.  His vision is to transform America from a liberal democracy founded as a Constitutional Republic into a socialistic nation governed by a very powerful central government. 

Old Gadfly:  Obama sees an opportunity to bring into reality Woodrow Wilson’s early attempts to do the same thing.  Wilson completely subscribed to Marx’s dialectical materialism and published his own theory called historicism.  Wilson’s ideology fueled a strong progressive agenda to create a large, central government to promote social justice.  There is a wealth of evidence to track these developments.  For example, Ronald Pestritto has brilliantly analyzed and evaluated Wilson’s progressive efforts in Woodrow Wilson and the Roots of Modern Liberalism.  

I think the spiritual emptiness of dialectical materialism may have spawned the existentialism movement that started in the late 19th- and early 20th-century and permeated Western Europe.  In other words, dialectical materialism did not inspire nor feed spiritual needs—that is, a person’s sense of personal value, such as the need for belongingness, self-esteem, and self-actualization argued by Abraham Maslow.

AM:  These are heavy thoughts, Gadfly.  Yet, I can see why it is urgent to check the current cultural flow that seems to reflect a growing population hypnotized by a “free lunch from Obama” dream.

IM:  For the common American citizen, trying to understand what is going on in our nation may explain why the national mood is becoming more melancholic.

Old Gadfly:  Now that we have discussed some of the public reaction to the direction our nation is headed, let’s get back to the merits of shutting down the government.

IM:  I would start with the notion that we have allowed our federal government to incrementally get larger and larger, and thus more costly over time.  For example, in our last discussion we looked at a chart that compared the cost of government in relation to the Gross Domestic Product.  What the chart does not reveal is the actual cost of the federal government.  I did some analysis and discovered the cost per person in constant dollars was about $600 in 1933.  Today, the cost is about $12,000 per person.  This comparison says we have allowed the cost of government to increase 20 times greater than in 1933.  Why is the cost of government so expensive today?  Do we now have 20 times more programs and services?

AM:  I’ll be blunt:  the federal government has become a self-licking ice cream cone.  Unions have reinforced this notion.  We know that one kind of market failure is called monopoly.  Unions are a form of monopoly.  Yet, of all the working sectors, the highest concentration of union membership is in government.  The following chart is from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

Further, if we follow the money trail on “stimulus” spending, we would find a significant amount went to unionized sectors.  Detroit’s bankruptcy is a classic example of the unsustainability of a self-licking ice cream cone.  And, those who promote such absurdity expect the federal government to bail them out.  Are we fools?  Where does the federal government get the money for bailouts?  They take it from us in the form of taxes.  They play and we pay.  How stupid are we?

IM:  Why stop at defunding Obamacare?

Old Gadfly:  You have a point.  Instead of being dissed by the cavalier suggestion of phony scandals, perhaps Republicans should delay funding to organizations associated with the obstruction of justice.

AM:  I think what I am hearing is that until the Department of Justice provides documentation on Fast and Furious, the Department of State provides documentation on the Benghazi incident, and the Internal Revenue Service provides documentation on how certain groups were targeted, these organizations would not get funded.  Perhaps members within those organizations would become more forthcoming as whistleblowers.  There is a reason our Founding Fathers gave Congress the power of the purse.

Old Gadfly:  There is an important concept underwriting our discussion:  justice.  What we are witnessing is anything but justice in the current Administration.  The same government that would fine Hobby Lobby $1.3 million per day for not complying with the contraception and abortifacients  provision of Obamacare placed Lois Lerner on administrative leave for months with full pay and benefits while the Administration obstructs Congress’s Constitutional duty for oversight of the IRS and other executive branch departments and agencies.  Imagine this:  if an employee is not happy with Hobby Lobby’s hiring arrangements, he or she is free to find a different employer.  Yet, we do not have the freedom to refuse to pay taxes to an organization that violates our trust by abusing its authority.

IM:  I agree with AM:  shut it down.  We have 50 states that can take back the authority prescribed for them in the ninth and tenth amendments to our Constitution.

AM:  If politicians, Republican and Democrat, refuse to muster the courage to lead at this point in our history, then it is a matter of time when the federal government will experience a far worse fate than a simple shut down—it will implode.

IM:  Besides courage we also need judgment.  Is there no judgment within the Administration?

AM:  I remember, during the 2008 Presidential campaign, Obama was accused of having “no experience.”  This observation did not intimidate Obama—he agreed. But, more importantly Obama boasted, he had superior judgment that more than substituted for his lack of experience. 

Old Gadfly:  Obama speaks and acts like a true intellectual without an ounce of wisdom.  Thomas Sowell brilliantly explains that there is a major difference between intellectual and intelligent.  Here is an excerpt from his book, Intellectuals and Society:

 The capacity to grasp and manipulate complex ideas is enough to define intellect but not enough to encompass intelligence, which involves combining intellect with judgment and care in selecting relevant explanatory factors and in establishing empirical tests of any theory that emerges.

            Intelligence minus judgment equals intellect.

            Wisdom is the rarest quality of all—the ability to combine intellect, knowledge, experience, and judgment in a way to produce a coherent understanding.  Wisdom is the fulfillment of the ancient admonition, “With all your getting, get understanding.”  Wisdom requires self-discipline and an understanding of the realities of the world, including the limitations of one’s own experience and of reason itself.  The opposite of high intellect is dullness or slowness, but the opposite of wisdom is foolishness, which is far more dangerous.[1]

IM:  May I suggest that the combination of dull Copernican drones following Obama’s foolishness is not new?  The distinctions described by Sowell existed more than two thousand years ago.  They have been documented in such historical texts as Proverbs in the Bible.  As we have discussed in previous conversations, Proverbs 26:11 comes to mind.

Old Gadfly:  If our national leaders have lost the capacity for the wisdom that might overcome the foolishness that has put our nation on such thin ice, then we may find ourselves seeking some solace in the book that follows Proverbs.

AM:  I’m not ready for Ecclesiastes.  To our elected officials, I say:  grow a spine and shut it down—if not Obamacare, then the federal government!

Old Gadfly:  The deadline is six weeks away.  How do we get the word out?

IM:  We need faith in the resilience of Americans to deal with any chaos from a government shutdown.  We must also muster our own courage to tell our family, friends, neighbors, elected officials, and anyone else we encounter between now and decision-time in September to “shut it down.”

Old Gadfly:  Let’s get started.  

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[1] Thomas Sowell, Intellectuals and Society, (New York NY:  Basic Books, 2011), p. 4.