Were Not In 1995 Any More - Road to the Middle Class

THE FEAR in the back of every Republican mind is that the American people will blame John Boehner and Republicans for shutting down the government. Just like they blamed Newt Gingrich in 1995 when President Clinton shut down the government in a budget battle with Newt and the first Republican Congress in 40 years.

Could the Republicans get blamed again? Of course they could. But I don’t think they will.

For sure, the president and the Democrats and their bribed apologists in the mainstream media will give it one more college try. But don’t forget Marx’s memorable line. He was comparing Napoleon III to the first Napoleon.

Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.

In the current debt crisis it might end up the other way around. The farce of 1995 could very well be the tragedy of 2011. In any case, I think that the words of Lloyd Bentsen apply to Barack Obama: “Mr. President; you’re no Bill Clinton.” There was something of the brilliance of Napoleon I in the political footwork of Bill Clinton, and we will never see his like again, certainly not in a president who’s careful to keep to the script on the TelePrompTer.

The likeliest outcome of the debt-ceiling debate, I suspect, will be “a pox on both their houses.” That would be a win for Republicans. Maybe Speaker Boehner can persuade the American people that he tried, he really tried to put together a package that would cut spending and revive the economy. But the president just couldn’t buck his Democratic wire-pullers. So now it would be up to the voters in November 2012 to put America back on the road to prosperity.

There’s another difference between now and 1995. President Obama just doesn’t look and doesn’t act like a leader. Leaders don’t whine, and leaders don’t point fingers. Leaders crack heads together, they get Congress to agree on a bi-partisan package, and then boldly lead their people into a future of hope and opportunity.

Some people fear the president as an adept of Saul Alinsky and his Rules for Radicals. But don’t forget that Alinsky’s advice was not for presidents; it was for activist insurgents trying to embarrass the system and The Man. It’s one thing to run for president as the Washington outsider; it’s another thing to make like the outsider while actually running the government. Mr. President, I’ve got news for you. You’re not the outsider any more. Today you are The Man.

One thing The Man never does is make empty threats, as in:

“Well, when it comes to all the checks, not just Social Security — veterans, people with disabilities — about 70 million checks are sent out each month — if we default then we’re going to have to make adjustments. And I’m already consulting with Secretary Geithner in terms of what the consequences would be.” Earlier he said in an interview on CBS News: “I cannot guarantee that those [Social Security] checks go out on August 3rd if we haven’t resolved this issue. Because there may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it.”

There’s only one problem with that. Social Security is supposed to have $2.4 trillion in the Social Security trust fund, as Stanford Law Professor Michael McConnell has pointed out. What happened to all that money? And now the president has started making veiled threats about chaos in the financial markets:

I think it’s very important that the leadership understands that Wall Street will be opening on Monday, and we better have some answers during the course of the next several days.

Talking down the markets, Mr. President? But suppose the Treasury market opened on Monday without any problem? What empty threat would you come up with then?

No, it isn’t 1995, or 2008, or 1960 or 1936 or any year that looks good to a Democrat. To return to Marx and Napoleon, 2011 looks more like 1814. After the debacle of the 1812 retreat from Moscow and the 1813 defeat at the Battle of Leipzig, Napoleon was still the best army commander in Europe, and he could still beat the uncoordinated allies in battle. But it didn’t matter any more. The game was up.

Democrats are still good at calling for “balanced packages” and “revenue enhancements” and “shared sacrifice” and blaming millionaires and billionaires. But it just doesn’t matter any more.

The old game is up. We still don’t know what the new game will be. The American people will decide that next year in 2012. It won’t be another 1996.

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

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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

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

China and Christianity

At first, we thought [the power of the West] was because you had more powerful guns than we had. Then we thought it was because you had the best political system. Next we focused on your economic system. But in the past twenty years, we have realized that the heart of your culture is your religion: Christianity.
David Aikman, Jesus in Beijing

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

Civil Society

“Civil Society”—a complex welter of intermediate institutions, including businesses, voluntary associations, educational institutions, clubs, unions, media, charities, and churches—builds, in turn, on the family, the primary instrument by which people are socialized into their culture and given the skills that allow them to live in broader society and through which the values and knowledge of that society are transmitted across the generations.
Francis Fukuyama, Trust

Class War

In England there were always two sharply opposed middle classes, the academic middle class and the commercial middle class. In the nineteenth century, the academic middle class won the battle for power and status... Then came the triumph of Margaret Thatcher... The academics lost their power and prestige and... have been gloomy ever since.
Freeman Dyson, “The Scientist as Rebel”

Conservatism

Conservatism is the philosophy of society. Its ethic is fraternity and its characteristic is authority — the non-coercive social persuasion which operates in a family or a community. It says ‘we should...’.
Danny Kruger, On Fraternity

Conservatism's Holy Grail

What distinguishes true Conservatism from the rest, and from the Blair project, is the belief in more personal freedom and more market freedom, along with less state intervention... The true Third Way is the Holy Grail of Tory politics today - compassion and community without compulsion.
Minette Marrin, The Daily Telegraph

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

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

Drang nach Osten

There was nothing new about the Frankish drive to the east... [let] us recall that the continuance of their rule depended upon regular, successful, predatory warfare.
Richard Fletcher, The Barbarian Conversion

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

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