Confucius and the Community Organizer

That excellent force for law and order, Lt. Chan of the San Francisco Police Department often had resort, during the process of unraveling a crime, to a maxim of Confucius.

Here is one retailed by Karl Jaspers in Socrates, Buddha, Confucius, Jesus.

When asked, "What is the first thing to be done in order to promote a renewal in disastrous circumstances?" Confucius gave a remarkable answer: Words must be set aright... [For] language is constantly misused, words are employed for meanings that do not befit them...

If the language is in disorder, everything goes wrong.

Now this saying of Confucius gives me remarkable hope. For the defining characteristic of this time, when the Community Organizer-in-chief is president, and language is in disorder, is that the community is organizing itself.

President Obama is a man who thinks of himself as having a remarkable gift with words. It is patently obvious, after a year of his presidency, that he abuses this gift damnably. He uses words in order to mislead. And the worst of his abuse is his promise that, if you like your health insurance, you can keep it.

His language is in disorder.

It is clear, moreover, that the deeper the president gets into trouble, the more he grabs recklessly for le bon mot to get out again. And he's not too careful about the truth. The contrast with President Bush is palpable. Liberals made a huge fuss about the Iraq "lie," but the truth is that President Bush was always very careful about what he said. He understood that every word was engraved in the book of history.

So, the first thing to do, when the president uses words for "meanings that do not befit them" is that we, the people, must set words aright.

And wouldn't you know, the people are. The people began this work within a month of the president's inauguration.

And here is the beauty of this process. The president is a practitioner of a profession that believes that when the people hurt a community organizer must go down among them and organize them. Mr. Obama himself started out organizing the folks in South Chicago who had been laid off from the big steel plant closures.

But the problem was that the steel plants were never going to open again. The good paying union jobs were gone forever, and Barack Obama, organizer, was never going to get those jobs back again. Barack Obama was organizing people for a useless war.

The left-wing world view sees the people has helpless victims, camping out in the ruins left behind by a rapacious capitalism, waiting for left-wing radical suits to come and rouse them into a fighting force. That may be true of South Chicago. But it is not true of the United States as a whole.

America is a middle-class country. The middle class does not wait around helplessly like victims. The middle class organizes itself for action and, once organized, it gets going.

And this is exactly what the Tea Party movement is doing. To me, the representative figure is Republican congressional candidate Les Phillip. Glenn Reynolds reports:

He is running against Republican Parker Griffith in Alabama's fifth congressional district. Mr. Phillip, a black businessman and Navy veteran who immigrated with his parents from Trinidad in his youth, got his start in politics speaking at a tea-party protest in Decatur, Ala., last year. "Somebody had to speak," he told me, "so I stepped up."

That was the America that Alexis de Tocqueville experienced in the 1830s in which people just stepped up to join associations to get things done.

That America still lives in us today. And the tingling feeling that I am getting is that this America is heading into the most remarkable political season in our lifetimes. Why? Because the governing elite is out of touch.

It is commonplace to accuse both parties of being out of touch, but I believe that maligns the poor benighted Republicans. They would like to do what needs to be done, but they are afraid.

It is the "educated class" that is out of touch. It is out of touch because, for the last century, it has been in broadcast mode, telling the people what to think and shutting out voices that disagreed with it.

All along the water was rising behind the dam, but the educated class and its political arm, the Democratic Party, kept the sluices closed. Now the water is about to overtop the dam. If things go well, the water will cascade down the emergency spillway. If things do not go well, then the water will take out the dam and let loose a raging torrent.

Here, today, in 2010, the American people are determined that "words must be set aright," and they are determined to have nothing to do with the artful, and increasingly desperate words coming out of TOTUS, the teleprompter of the United States.

Either way, as the sports announcers say, it's going to be one for the record books.

Dems Make Ryan's "Roadmap" the Issue

Will it work? Since the US budget came out to universal raspberries last week the Obama administration is trying a Full Alinksy. They are diverting attention from their own budget by making Rep. Paul Ryan and his "Roadmap for America's Future" the issue, according to Kim Strassel in the Wall Street Journal.

Well, it's not surprising. Ryan's Roadmap turns Social Security into a genuine savings program and it replaces Medicare with a voucher program. Can't have that! So the Dems are pulling out the Medi-scare playbooks and blaming the Republicans--for what, exactly? I thought that the Democrats were in power.

Some Republicans are acting scared. They are worried that the Democrats will demagogue the issue and scare seniors. Some "anonymous" House members are griping "to the press that Mr. Ryan doesn't 'speak' for them."

I say: Bring it on. This is a political battle that Republicans are going to have to fight sooner or later. Sooner or later, the welfare state--and that means Social Security and Medicare--are going to hit the wall.

But the question is: What do Americans want now? Americans are frightened by deficits, but not so much that they would accept reducing their entitlements.

Most likely, of course, the Democrats will win the argument, as they did when President Bush tried to privatize Social Security in 2005.

They will win up until the day that the US defaults on its debt and the grim international bankers from China in 2035 summon the US crisis negotiating team to Beijing to discuss swingeing spending cuts.

And the American people are probably right to resist reform until the system actually breaks. Because if we reform now then it will just encourage our Democratic friends to find new ways to spend money and we'll end up broke anyway.

But the time is now to start thinking about what a genuine welfare society, rather than today's government dependency welfare state, would look like;.

Surely there is a better way to protect people against the tribulations of old age than a government program. Surely there is a better way to help grannie than taxing young working families trying to start a family and buy a house.

Broder Spills Beans on Palin

It had to happen. But why now? Sooner or later, some liberal commentator was going to see through the red mist of liberal rage and understand that Sarah Palin is not just a empty head but a skilled politician.

And why did it have to be the dean of liberal pundits, David Broder? Here is his judgment on last weekend:

Her lengthy Saturday night keynote address to the National Tea Party Convention in Nashville and her debut on the Sunday morning talk show circuit with Fox News' Chris Wallace showed off a public figure at the top of her game -- a politician who knows who she is and how to sell herself, even with notes on her palm.

Let's go on.

Blessed with an enthusiastic audience of conservative activists, Palin used the Tea Party gathering and coverage on the cable networks to display the full repertoire she possesses, touching on national security, economics, fiscal and social policy, and every other area where she could draw a contrast with Barack Obama and point up what Republicans see as vulnerabilities in Washington.

Her invocation of "conservative principles and common-sense solutions" was perfectly conventional. What stood out in the eyes of TV-watching pols of both parties was the skill with which she drew a self-portrait that fit not just the wishes of the immediate audience but the mood of a significant slice of the broader electorate.

This is just what we don't want liberals to know at this stage of the game. No, no. Let's all just make silly jokes about making notes on her hand, and all the rest. Let's give Palin another year under the radar.

(That Robert Gibbs: how dumb can you be to mention Palin's hand notes at the White House? It raises Palin to the presidential level. I thought it was Politics 101: you never raise up the small fry opposition.)

Personally, I think that Broder is overdoing it a bit. I don't think that Sarah Palin is at the top of her game. I think she is still learning the craft of a national politician, and has a ways to go yet. But you can see already that, populist or not, she is going for the center. No more compassionate conservatism. Palin's book is drenched in references to "common-sense conservatism." And her speech was the same. It was all about common-sense solutions and ridiculing the silliness and lack of common sense in the Obama administration.

When the nation self-identifies 40 percent conservative and 36 percent moderate, you can see that "common-sense" and "conservatism" covers a majority of the electorate.

Common sense isn't enough, of course. You need empathy. And this report of Sarah Palin's visit to Walter Reed Army Hospital starts to build a narrative of Palin the empathetic. Says Anthony Tata, a retired Brigadier General:

As the leader of thousands of troops in combat, I’ve been honored to visit hundreds of wounded and had the privilege of burying too many friends and fellow warriors. Accordingly, my “insincerity detector” is pretty good and I give Governor Palin high marks. She was in the moment with those Soldiers and families. All wrapped in one person, she was leader, mother, friend, grateful American, and grieving parent.

You can't pay for stuff like that. It fills you with hope for change.

The Welfare State Hitting the Wall

How will it end? The welfare state, that is. Will it end with a bang or a whimper?

We are getting a glimpse at the welfare state in crisis because there are a bunch of countries in the world right now where the government is in serious economic trouble.

There's Greece. The interest rate on Greek sovereign debt has sky-rocketed and so the Greek government is in a cash crisis. The helpful Greek civil servants have gone on strike, presumably to protest any potential cuts in government spending. Since Greece is in the Euro system, its troubles affect all countries in the Euro area. Ministers are shuttling to and fro deciding what to do.

There's Argentina. President Cristina Kirchner has just sacked the president of Argentina's central bank.

In his place she named Mercedes Marcó del Pont, a Yale-trained economist who has expressed the view that central bank autonomy ought to be limited.

So that will enable Kirchner to pay foreign creditors with central bank reserves. Can you spell i-n-f-l-a-t-i-o-n?

But Venezuela takes the cake. Last month Venezuela devalued the Bolivar by about 50 percent, finally caving in to reality. But, of course, President Chavez is trying, even now, to deny reality by threatening retailers that raise prices.

The government, which threatened to shut down or seize retailers that were seen gouging prices, closed about 1,900 retailers and nationalized a supermarket chain controlled by France's Casino Guichard-Perrachon S.A. (CO.FR).

Like that will really get food to the poor.

This is not a pretty picture. It shows that the welfare state will not go quietly. It shows that left-wing politicians will loot the state of all its wealth in an effort to stay in power. It shows that there is no way around an economic maelstrom at the end of the welfare state era.

And then the whole thing starts again.

Listen folks. This is not that hard. Hard money. Limited government. Clear and transparent regulation of the private sector. No crony capitalism. Pretty soon the poor get to prosper and the country climbs into the developed world.

But no. People want to take the short cut. They think like peasants. They think that businessmen are no different than the landowners that oppressed them for centuries. They want to line their pockets with other peoples' money. They think that evil businessmen are stealing them blind.

As Goldfinger told James Bond: You are a fool Mr. Bond, and a fool must pay for his folly.

Palin's Lemonade Stand

It seems our lefty friends didn't like Gov. Palin's speech in Nashville, TN, last Saturday. But it wasn't the content, or even her hair, that caught most of the interest. It was her hand.

Maddened into a frenzy by the TOTUS meme, our lefty friends made a lot of unprintable comments related to the notes that Gov. Palin had scribbled on her hand.

As usual, Palin has turned lemon into lemonade by making a point of waving her notecard hand at her personal appearances. That's what a skilled politician does, by instinct. In fact that's how you can tell a skilled politician.

Meanwhile, Jonathan V. Last at the Weekly Standard looks at the Obama numbers and tells us what is happening to the president's support. The weaker parts of his winning coalition are leaving the sinking ship.

Back in 2008 Obama's core support was upscale professionals, blacks, and young voters. The "Jacksonian" voters (i.e., Scotch-Irish backwoodsmen that first turned out for Andrew Jackson 190 years ago!) and white ethnics were slow to rally to Obama's standard. It is the Jacksonians and the white ethnics who are falling away now. They are falling away from the president and maybe falling away from the Democratic Party.

Hmm. Now who do you think would really appeal to those folks? Who do you think could make them feel that he really understands them?

Exactly, Senator. That "he" is a "she."

The McGovern wing of the Democratic Party has always had a problem with the white ethnics that once were the core of the party. On defense, on race, on the regulatory state, on sex, the McGovern Democrats are poles apart from the white ethnics. Up until Obama the post Vietnam Democratic presidents have been moderate Southerners. So the antipathy between urban liberals and the white ethnics was blurred.

But President Obama is a full-on McGovern Democrat. And the old-line white ethnic voter is finding out that the McGovern wing of the Democratic Party just doesn't understand and doesn't appreciate them.

The truth is that the rise of the Republican Party since the nadir of 1964 has never been about the brilliance of Republican Party politicians and ideas. The story has always been that, about once each decade, the elite liberals toss out another member of the old New Deal coalition. And the only place for the homeless faction is the Republican Party.

But now something is different. Now the Republican Party has a headline politician who could be picked by Central Casting to appeal to the disaffected Jacksonian and white ethnic Democrats.

Her name is Sarah Palin.

Oh No! US "Ungovernable." Again

It's deja vu, all over again. Liberals are running around complaining that America is ungovernable. Again.

You young-uns may not remember the last time that happened. So I will help you out. It was in the latter stages of the Carter administration, when the hostages were in Iran, when inflation was 10 percent, people had to line up to get gasoline, and President Carter made his "malaise" speech,

Well, you can understand why liberals felt that way. They were the best and the brightest; they believed in rational government. So how come things were going so badly wrong? It couldn't be them and their stupid ideas. Oh no. Liberals couldn't be to blame. It must the the American people. They were ungovernable.

So now, after the "year the locusts ate," with President Obama having failed to pass his signature reforms to heal the sick and stop the oceans rising, liberals are blaming the system, the politicians, the public. Anyone but themselves. Jay Cost has the goods.

Ezra Klein argued that it was time to reform the filibuster because the government cannot function with it intact anymore. Tom Friedman suggested that America's "political instability" was making people abroad nervous. And Michael Cohen of Newsweek blamed "obstructionist Republicans," "spineless Democrats," and an "incoherent public" for the problem.

Nonsense, says Jay Cost. The problem is that the "President has simply not been up to the job." He has governed too far to the left, encouraging the left-wing House to produce bills too far to the left to get through the Senate and the result is that he hasn't been able to get enough support to push his program through.

That's not a bug, it's a feature. The founding fathers meant to set things up that way. They created three branches of government to police each other. They created a bi-cameral legislature that balanced popular representation with regional representation. They created a Bill of Rights to limit government power.

The end result was a government that is powerful, but not infinitely so. Additionally, it is schizophrenic. It can do great things when it is of a single mind - but quite often it is not of one mind. So, to govern, our leaders need to build a broad consensus. When there is no such consensus, the most likely outcome is that the government will do nothing.

So be quiet, liberals. The system is functioning exactly as designed. And if you don't figure that out real quick your chaps are going to be tossed out of Congress in November in an election that will make 1994 look like a Sunday school outing.

The last time that liberals declared the United States "ungovernable" the voters elected Ronald Reagan in two landslide elections. And, if you remember, during the Reagan Era nobody complained about the American people being "ungovernable."

Employment Improves

There's light at the end of the tunnel. The unemployment rate is down to 9.7 percent. But that really isn't the interesting number. The interesting number is that, in the Household Survey, there is an increase in the number of employed. It is up 542,000. That is big news.

Of course, the Establishment Survey shows a decline in employment of 20,000. But the Household Survey shows a definite uptick, and it usually shows improvement first.

Let's look at the charts. First the employment trend.

There's no doubt about it You can see a definite uptick. Now for the labor force trend.

It's still throttle bottom, with no return of discouraged workers to the labor force. But again, it is showing signs of bottoming out.

If we get another couple of months of this, then we can say that the economy is really on the mend.

But then it will be time to begin the hard work. It will be time to take a meat ax to government. Because that's where the waste, fraud, and abuse is.