The New Clarion

If there is one issue that defined Obama’s long march through the primaries, it is that he opposed the war. The Democrat base loved it. Hillary Clinton had supported the war, thinking that she had to look strong on defense for the general electorate, and that she could take her leftist base’s support for granted. Her miscalculation about the war, as much as anything, cost her the nomination. The Democrat voters want their leaders to be antiwar.

So who does Obama pick for Secretary of Defense? He picks Bush’s man, Robert Gates, to continue in office. It makes me wonder if Obama really stands for anything other than Obama. He can flip-flop on any stand, no matter how important; but when it comes to imagery and self-promotion he is solid as a rock.

He has won much scorn from the right for using a seal that says, "Office of the President-Elect." As many have noted, there is no such office. (If he had lost, would he have created an Office of the Almost Elected President?)

It might be argued that Gates is no ideologue, so it’s not a big deal if Obama keeps on a pragmatic technician who already knows his way around the Pentagon. But if Obama were seriously committed to the antiwar stand, he would have picked a new man just to make a statement of change. Some on the left are unhappy with Gates, but others think Obama is being a crafty machiavel by choosing right-wing warmongers to effect his antiwar policies.

Sam Webb, leader of the Communist Party USA, is delighted with Obama:

"A sense of joy, catharsis and renewal is in the air," said Webb. "Expectations are high. A new era of progressive change is waiting to become a reality. If the past eight years of the Bush administration seemed like a winter of discontent, Obama’s ascendancy to the presidency feels like a springtime of possibility."

We’ll see. So far Obama’s cabinet picks are to the right of how he campaigned.  How do we explain this?

J.R. Dunn says Obama’s presidency will be all image, no substance.

It is to be a ritual presidency. Plenty of pomp, plenty of ceremony, plenty of rhetoric, and very little else. Problems that possess any form of glamour will get as many words thrown at them as O can pull together. Problems that no human being in history has dared contemplate will be given serious consideration by the messiah-elect — on the rhetorical level. But problems that have to be handled, have to be confronted in one way or another, problems that at the same time present a possibility of failure — such as terrorists mowing down Americans on distant shores — will not even be so much as acknowledged, not by the president, his administration, his party, or the media. In the same sense as occurred with the campaign, this will be an image presidency, to an extent that will make even the previous image champ Bill Clinton’s jaw drop open in sheer disbelief.

I think that’s right. There is an interesting story about Obama deciding to run for president:

[Axelrod] thought back on what he called the original why question, what got all this started, back in December 2006. Barack, Michelle and eight others were in Axelrod’s office in downtown Chicago. If Barack was going to run, he had to decide quickly, a point the group made by laying out primary schedules and game plans for fund-raising and building an organization. Insights were offered from around the room. It was Michelle, Axelrod remembers, who stopped the show. “You need to ask yourself, Why do you want to do this?” she said directly. “What are hoping to uniquely accomplish, Barack?” Obama sat quietly for a moment, and everyone waited. “This I know: When I raise my hand and take that oath of office, I think the world will look at us differently,” he said. “And millions of kids across this country will look at themselves differently.”

Instead of talking about things he wants to do, Obama’s first explanation of why he wanted to run for president was about how others would think and feel. And here we are at the core of Obama: he is a social metaphysician. His primary focus is not on the facts of reality, but what others think.

By Obama’s thinking, he is already a successful president, even though he does not take office until January 20th, 2009. The world is happy with Obama and full of hope. This is the most important thing to accomplish. Actually doing something for the next four years is a secondary consideration, important only so that people will continue to think well of Obama into posterity.

Obama will be the second Democrat president in a row to put symbolism over substance. It makes me wonder, is this the kind of person public education is turning out these days? Someone who can’t think independently, but is focused on what others think?

And what does it mean for America to have Peter Keating as president? It means we will get the opposite of the "change" Obama campaigned on. We will get the status quo. In one respect this is good: Obama is no revolutionary or pioneer; he is nothing but a blank screen reflecting those around him.

On the other hand, continuing the status quo will be bad, considering what a disaster Bush has been for the last eight years. As the Yaron Brook of the Ayn Rand Institute puts it in response to the insane idea that Bush followed free market policies,

Did Bush abolish the countless regulations and controls strangling businessmen? No. But he did sign into law Sarbanes-Oxley—the largest expansion of business regulation in decades. Did Bush consistently push for free trade? No. But he did give us a new steel tariff. Did Bush attempt to roll back America’s massive welfare state? No. But he did pass the prescription drug benefit, the largest new entitlement program since Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. Did Bush curtail government spending? Far from it. Bush presided over an unprecedented increase in the federal budget: from $1 trillion at the time he took office to more than $3 trillion today. This is to say nothing of Bush’s response to the financial crisis. He has completely evaded his administration’s responsibility for the Fed and housing policies that created the housing bubble. Instead, he has led the chorus blaming the market and calling for unprecedented handouts, bailouts, and nationalizations as the cure.

All Obama has to do is continue Bush’s policies to take America toward socialist hell.

Don’t miss Roger Kimball’s stunning story of Damian Green, a conservative MP in Britain who was arrested, questioned for nine hours and had his private papers and computer confiscated by the state. What crime did Mr. Green commit? He embarrassed the Gordon Brown’s government on the floor of the House of Commons.

We are living in a remarkable moment in the West when the left on both sides of the Atlantic is flexing its muscles and sending out little trial balloons to see if now is the time to grab more power. If they do not suffer for this politically, intimidation and abuse of power will continue.

“Barack Obama will save us—he’ll know what to do.” That seems to be the plaintive cry of people desperate for some sense of hope. Obama’s election represents a turning point: the ravages of a century of pragmatism have culminated in a people ready to be led.

I never thought that I would see this transpire. I always shared Ayn Rand’s sentiments about the common man:

A dictatorship cannot take hold in America today. This country, as yet, cannot be ruled—but it can explode. It can blow up into the helpless rage and blind violence of a civil war. It cannot be cowed into submission, passivity, malevolence, resignation. It cannot be “pushed around.” Defiance, not obedience, is the American’s answer to overbearing authority. The nation that ran an underground railroad to help human beings escape from slavery, or began drinking on principle in the face of Prohibition, will not say “Yes, sir,” to the enforcers of ration coupons and cereal prices. Not yet.
“Don’t Let It Go,” Philosophy: Who Needs It

I would expect to see this sort of fawning adoration from the media or the intellectuals, but the cult of personality that has developed around Obama is troubling.

It is hard to say whether the situation seems more dire now due to the increased accessibility of information. But I can’t remember any past presidential candidate that inspired anyone to shave his likeness onto his head, visit his favorite haunts, seek to declare a national holiday for him, rename a school in his honor, or promote tourism using his name.

He’s certainly not the first politician to believe that we are bound “together as one American family—the belief that we rise and fall as one people; that we want that American Dream not just for ourselves, but for each other.” But he’s definitely the first to find an American populace receptive to that message. I would like to believe that individualism is still a vital facet of our cultural DNA but there is scant evidence of it.

For pragmatism has replaced principle. Is a move to “renewable energy” warranted? Who knows, let’s try it and see. Should we bail out American finance and industry? We have to do something. Our founding principles would have told us that the government should not dictate how people choose to produce or consume electricity, and the ideas of liberty and private property demand that one person’s property should not be taken and given to another person. Under pragmatism, anything goes and so the nation lurches fitfully through trial and error—mostly error.

Each stutter is a move towards statism. It is not long before the pretense of purposeful action is jettisoned and action becomes an end in itself. Action, in this context, means a planned economy. Who will defy this “overbearing authority” then? How will they even recognize that it has become overbearing since that presumes a reference to some standard, a principle of governmental restraint? We are closing in on Rand’s “not yet” admonition: there’s still hope for change but it’s never been bleaker than now.

There is no question that the Tesla Roadster is an impressive, amazing car. If I was able to afford a $110,000 car, I would order it without hesitation. If it is a viable business on the cusp of introducing an affordable, all-electric sedan, then it should have no trouble attracting investors.

The fact that it is having trouble is indicative. The fact that its founders are now seeking federal subsidy tells one everything one needs to know about the viability of an all-electric car.

Taxpayers as individuals have only invested $145 million and have only bought 80 of its expensive sports cars. Why should taxpayers as a group be compelled to pay for what they wouldn’t pony up for individually? This bailout—as well as every bailout before and to come—violates the rights of every individual American taxpayer. We must oppose it any way we can or every faltering company will beg Congress until we the people have nothing left to steal.

I was talking to a woman who is a liberal public educator the other day. She asked me about my politics. I briefly explained that I supported laissez-faire capitalism, the complete separation of state and economics. Her reaction? "But you’re such a nice guy!"

While I am gratified that she thinks I’m nice, I must judge her reaction not nicely at all. First, this liberal obsession with "nice" and "mean" annoys me. It reduces complicated political and philosophical concepts to the language of a playground. Liberals are nice, right-wingers are mean; this renders politics as idiocy. These childish concepts are a badge of ignorance in a political discussion.

Second, the premises underlying her statement are entirely wrong. The only social system that treats all people fairly and justly is one that protects and defends individual rights. Once you replace individual rights with the individual’s duty to serve the collective — as both Democrats and Republicans have done — then the state can trample over individual rights in the name of a "greater good." This puts a nation on the road to serfdom. And if you want mean, totalitarianism is mean.

Benevolence — people being nice to one another — is possible only in a free country. When people must trade values with one another, it is in their self-interest to treat the other fairly, as one would want others to treat him. Good humor and hospitality thrive in such a society.

In a free country wealth is created, not taken from other people. The great wealth created by entrepreneurs ends up raising the standard of living of everyone. The poorest people in America today have riches that kings and queens did not have a century ago, from technological wonders, digital technology and improvements in food and health care. These riches did not come about through charity, but from greedy "robber barons" striving to make as much money as possible.

In a socialist country everyone is fighting for a piece of a static pie. If Peter gets a bigger slice than Paul, it comes from what Paul should have gotten. Could one devise a better system to set Peter and Paul against one another?

There have been studies showing that charitable giving is highest in "red" states and lowest in "blue" states. Why is this? Because Democrats have been taught to look to the government for handouts. This mentality makes them less likely to give to charity. Collectivists are less likely to take the initiative to help other individuals. Why should they when the state is supposed to take care of all that? (Charity is a minor issue, and it’s fine if one wants to give, but it is not an issue of morality as altruists think it is.)

Collectivism destroys moral behavior. In a totalitarian state the individual is expected to follow the orders of the state — without subjecting those orders to the examination of his conscience. There is no place for individual conscience in such a society; that is why it is called totalitarian.

America is not yet a totalitarian state; it is a mixed economy, or welfare state with a growing aspect of fascism. But America has already taken the fundamental step of replacing individual rights with the premise that the individual must sacrifice to the collective. Both Obama and McCain made statements upholding the collectivist morality in the last election.

Altruism, the notion that one must sacrifice value to a non-value, is a prescription for a society in which everyone is a threat to everyone else. Instead of regarding others benevolently, hatred and suspicion grow in an altruist-collectivist society in which all look to the state for favors at the expense of everyone else.

If one seriously wants a "nice" society, one should fight for laissez-faire capitalism. Only a free people are motivated to be nice to one another. All other societies put chains on individuals to some extent. That sounds mean to me.

The foundation of a free market economy is the sanctity of contracts. Think about it: what would happen if a farmer refused to deliver his crop at the price he agreed to in a futures contract? Or if borrowers could opt out of paying off their debt without consequence? What if the government introduced political considerations into the contractual relationship—where one party could be given a pass by Congress, leaving the other party high and dry?

Chaos would result. When a party fails to uphold his end of the deal, he faces a lawsuit, loss of reputation, or prosecution in the case of fraud. But if the failure is government sanctioned, there is no recourse for the wronged party—he must absorb the loss and consider future contracts in the light of possible default. If he is smart, he’ll restructure the next contract so that it is beyond the government’s reach; if things are really bad and the rule of law is in question, he will forego whatever economic activity is being targeted.

Employment contracts are just like any other contract in this regard. A company hires an executive and promises to pay a salary plus bonuses, benefits, and stock options. In return, the executive promises to do whatever job he was hired for. The executive seeks the most income he can make while the company offers the least compensation it can. In the end after a process of negotiation, the two reach a mutual conclusion and a contract is inked.

The government’s role in this negotiation is to provide recourse should either party fail to live up to its obligations in the contract. It does not get to decide whether the deal is equitable. It does not get to say that the medical plan is too generous, or that there isn’t enough stock options. The only way it can inject itself into the process is with a gun.

That is, sadly, the history of employment law in America. If an employee is willing to work for $2.50 per hour and an employer can only pay that amount, the government has said that it will prosecute the employer if that contract is drawn. If an employer says that it will only hire a person if she promises not to join a union, the government will nullify that contract and fine the employer if it is discovered. And now, if a company pays its CEO millions of dollars to turn a company around, the government can deny that CEO his earned pay if it deems the CEO’s performance unsatisfactory. We now have the repellent sight of heads of companies dragged before Congress to defend their legal contracts.

People may think they know better than a corporation’s officers how much a CEO deserves, but that is wholly irrelevant. If the Board of Directors pays dearly or offers compensation untied to performance, then that is between it and the shareholders. If they don’t like executive compensation policies, they can sell their shares or replace the board. Petitioning Congress to second-guess employment contracts is fraught with peril.

The government should be in the business of enforcing contracts, not subverting them. Whether or not executives are worth their pay is not a social issue; making it one puts all contracts in peril.