Politics Is Politics But - Road to the Middle Class

Obviously, Democrats are deeply concerned that the world think well of us when it comes to dealing with global Islamic extremism. But it’s obvious that they don’t give a damn when it comes to trade.

Here’s news item from Joshua Goodman and Mark Drajem at Bloomberg reporting on House action on the free-trade pact with Colombia.

The Democratic-controlled House voted 224-195 yesterday to deny President George W. Bush’s request for a vote on the trade pact within 90 days, likely postponing action until after the November elections. It is the first time Congress has refused a presidential request to pass a trade agreement.

You wonder, of course. Why would the Democrats give a damn about trade? It’s not as if Democrats have any dog in the race. They all work for the government (including government universities) or for non-profit foundations. Why should they care if the last five industrial-union workers lose their jobs in Pennsylvania?

And anyway, the pact is mainly about lowering import tariffs in Colombia, not the US!

It’s not as if the notoriously partisan President Bush hasn’t gone the extra mile adding to the free-trade pact with Colombia stupid labor and environmental provisions that Democrats like in order to appease their labor and environmental base.

It’s a bit late for Democrats to be standing up for hard-pressed workers in Pennsylvania. The cake was baked fifty years ago when the political culture taught union leaders to fight for labor agreements that basically promised billions in future corporate profits to the workers on the rather rash assumption that a corporation that was earning big bucks in 1948 would still be doing so 50 years later.

One thing you can say for Democrats. For one shining moment, back in the 1960s, they led the nation; they stood on high principle. They made the nation deal with its race problem.

But that’s about it. On everything else, it is Republicans that appeal to the better angels of our nature.

On top of that, watch President Obama or Clinton push the pact through Congress anyway on a quiet weekend in 2009.

Earth to Dem voters: Does it bother you that your leaders keep doing this to you?

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Christopher Chantrill blogs at www.roadtothemiddleclass.com. His Road to the Middle Class is forthcoming.

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Faith & Purpose

“When we began first to preach these things, the people appeared as awakened from the sleep of ages—they seemed to see for the first time that they were responsible beings...”
Finke, Stark, The Churching of America, 1776-1990

Mutual Aid

In 1911... at least nine million of the 12 million covered by national insurance were already members of voluntary sick pay schemes. A similar proportion were also eligible for medical care.
Green, Reinventing Civil Society

Education

“We have met with families in which for weeks together, not an article of sustenance but potatoes had been used; yet for every child the hard-earned sum was provided to send them to school.”
E. G. West, Education and the State

Living Under Law

Law being too tenuous to rely upon in [Ulster and the Scottish borderlands], people developed patterns of settling differences by personal fighting and family feuds.
Thomas Sowell, Conquests and Cultures

German Philosophy

The primary thing to keep in mind about German and Russian thought since 1800 is that it takes for granted that the Cartesian, Lockean or Humean scientific and philosophical conception of man and nature... has been shown by indisputable evidence to be inadequate.
F.S.C. Northrop, The Meeting of East and West

Knowledge

Inquiry does not start unless there is a problem... It is the problem and its characteristics revealed by analysis which guides one first to the relevant facts and then, once the relevant facts are known, to the relevant hypotheses.
F.S.C. Northrop, The Logic of the Sciences and the Humanities

Chappies

“But I saw a man yesterday who knows a fellow who had it from a chappie that said that Urquhart had been dipping himself a bit recklessly off the deep end.” —Freddy Arbuthnot
Dorothy L. Sayers, Strong Poison

Democratic Capitalism

I mean three systems in one: a predominantly market economy; a polity respectful of the rights of the individual to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and a system of cultural institutions moved by ideals of liberty and justice for all. In short, three dynamic and converging systems functioning as one: a democratic polity, an economy based on markets and incentives, and a moral-cultural system which is plural and, in the largest sense, liberal.
Michael Novak, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism

Action

The incentive that impels a man to act is always some uneasiness... But to make a man act [he must have] the expectation that purposeful behavior has the power to remove or at least to alleviate the felt uneasiness.
Ludwig von Mises, Human Action

Churches

[In the] higher Christian churches� they saunter through the liturgy like Mohawks along a string of scaffolding who have long since forgotten their danger. If God were to blast such a service to bits, the congregation would be, I believe, genuinely shocked. But in the low churches you expect it every minute.
Annie Dillard, Holy the Firm

Conversion

“When we received Christ,” Phil added, “all of a sudden we now had a rule book to go by, and when we had problems the preacher was right there to give us the answers.”
James M. Ault, Jr., Spirit and Flesh

Living Law

The recognition and integration of extralegal property rights [in the Homestead Act] was a key element in the United States becoming the most important market economy and producer of capital in the world.
Hernando de Soto, The Mystery of Capital

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