Editorial Sketch of the Week: Stating the obvious

Editorials about the Secret Service scandal were in abundance, so I took things in another direction.

© Gary McCoy

“If I don’t have this [economic solution] done in three years, then there’s going to be a one-term proposition”
~ Barack Obama; February 2, 2009

Picked from the ‘net, Vol. IV

Original sources are unknown unless otherwise stated.

Editorial Sketch of the Week: Deflection

© Two-time Pulitzer Prize recipient Michael Ramirez, Investors’ Business Daily

Editorial Sketch of the Week: A proper one-liner escapes me

As if grabbing is ankles for the King of Saudi Arabia and the Emperor of Japan wasn’t bad enough. . .

© Scott Stantis, The Chicago Tribune

“If I were the Devil”

Paul Harvey (1918-2009) was one of our finest broadcasters. Some 47 years ago, he offered a bit of commentary, under three minutes in length, that has proven more prophetic that he could have ever anticipated.

If I were the Devil - Paul Harvey (Warning for America) from anberlin_fan on GodTube.

Sunday’s Quote: On the welfare state

c/o Frostburg State University

While Alexis de Tocqueville is best known for his two-volume work, Democracy in America, it is perhaps a more obscure effort that he composed around the time of Democracy’s initial release that speaks volumes about one of the key social issues plaguing the nation for which the French philosopher once wrote so glowingly.

Feel free to read this one lengthy sentence over and over again. Every word is as perfect as it is relevant to this day.

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“But I am deeply convinced that any permanent, regular, administrative system whose aim will be to provide for the needs of the poor, will breed more miseries than it can cure, will deprave the population that it wants to help and comfort, will in time reduce the rich to being no more than the tenant-farmers of the poor, will dry up the sources of savings, will stop the accumulation of capital, will retard the development of trade, will benumb human industry and activity, and will culminate by bringing about a violent revolution in the State, when the number of those who receive alms will have become as large as those who give it, and the indigent, no longer being able to take from the impoverished rich the means of providing for his needs, will find it easier to plunder them of all their property at one stroke than to ask for their help.”
~ Alexis de Tocqueville, “Memoir on Pauperism: Does Public Charity Produce an Idle and Dependent Class of Society?” (1835)

Editorial Sketch of the Week: The downside of prophecy

© Drew Sheneman, The Star-Ledger (Newark, NJ)

Sunday’s Quote: Securing the Republic

The older I get, the more I appreciate the Founders. One of them, an original Tea Partier, offered a bit of wisdom for some of the vexing ills we face today.

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“No people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffused and Virtue is preserved. On the contrary, when People are universally ignorant, and debauched in their Manners, they will sink under their own weight without the aid of foreign Invaders.”

~ Samuel Adams, from his letter to President of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress James Warren; November 4, 1775

Editorial Sketch(es) of the Week: Self-explanatory

I couldn’t pick just one. They stand on their own merit. . .

© Dick Locher, Chicago Tribune



© Michael Ramirez, Investors’ Business Daily

© Olle Johansson

© Rick McKee, The Augusta (GA) Chronicle

© Walt Handelsman, Newsday

Editorial Sketch of the Week: The blame game

© Jerry Holbert, Boston Herald

Couldn’t have said it much better myself

Just spreading “hate,” or something. . .

Original sources unknown

Sunday’s Quote: Judging from where we came

c/o Metro UK

Note: I’m a Europhile and an unapologetic WASP, both of which are akin to my heritage and identity. So the following is of great personal interest to me.

A graduate of the prestigious Eton College (a world renowned English public school) and the similarly esteemed Trinity College at the University of Cambridge, Dr. Kwasi Kwarteng is a Member of Parliament (MP) representing the Spelthorne constituency for the Conservative Party in the British House of Commons. He is also the child of parents who were subjects of the British Empire, first in their native Ghana and later as immigrants to England. Accordingly Kwarteng’s new book, Ghosts of Empire, offers a distinct perspective about the oft-aspersed British Empire that one may not expect.

As an alternative to the predictable, almost requisite condemnation of the largest empire the world has ever known, Kwarteng instead assesses the kingdom somewhat more magnanimously by weighing both the Empire’s progressive influence with its impulsive callousness. The truth, as one review explained, is that the Empire “was the product, not of a grand idea, but of often chaotic individual improvisation,” the result of unconventional governors and attachés who nevertheless operated the royal enterprise with an unparalleled level of success that was more than one-sided.

Kwarteng’s perspective, once the historical norm, is now disparaged by those who view the Empire as a collection of oppressive White Europeans that merely exploited people from other parts of the world who were, in essence, their exact opposite. Not so unexpectedly, this has also become a gradually prevalent interpretation of our own United States.

To be sure, the very concept of our domestic exceptionalism first referenced in Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America some 175 years ago is being supplanted by post-nationalist intellectuals among the left who, at their core, are abhorred — whether they admit it or not — by the very principles that developed America into a social and economic model coveted by billions. As it turns out, we elected a philosophical spawn of these left-wing ideologues to lead our nation just a few years ago, the consequences of which have been questionable at best.

A piece in The Wall Street Journal tied it all together a couple of days ago.

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“In his recent State of the Union speech, President Obama said: ‘Anyone who tells you that America is in decline or that our influence has waned doesn’t know what they’re talking about.’ It was hardly a Churchillian rejoinder, but then it was a very demotic speech, and he is wrong. By almost any criteria, the American influence in the world has indeed waned since the Eisenhower administration, but it still has a good head start on the British Empire, which was antidemocratic, protectionist, slow to innovate and largely ruled over by the sportsmen of its only two great universities. America, by contrast, is — when it is true to itself — a proselytizing democracy, free-market and innovational, which has more than a dozen of the world’s top 20 universities.

“Where the British Empire does indeed hold a message for modern America is in the area of self-belief. Many of the British Empire’s worst legacies stemmed from a collapse in confidence among the British elite in the values and principles that had made Britain the largest empire in the history of mankind. Anyone who thinks that just such a spasm of self-doubt among America’s elite isn’t a problem in modern America doesn’t know what he is talking about.”
~ from “Now That The Sun Has Set” by Andrew Roberts, from his review of Kwarteng’s Ghosts of Empire in The Wall Street Journal; February 10, 2012

Sunday’s Quote: Class warfare

c/o Gateway Pundit

The term referenced above has been used, and will continue to be exhausted, from now to Election Day. There’s really no escaping it, so we may as well have a more distinct view of its meaning.

Presently class warfare consists of elected officials persuading the underprivileged to believe that their financial subjugation is solely the result of an affluent minority — let’s call them the “1%” — who doesn’t pay their “fair share.” While pandering and demonizing may offer the perception of sympathy for the less fortunate, it’s the riling of mass dissention that permits those same bureaucrats to deflect from their unprecedented fiscal recklessness, evidently for the sake of suffocating (if not eliminating) the economic model that has afforded so much, in exchange for initiating policies that both embolden goverment and penalize personal accomplishment.

This is not to imply that the tax code is an example of government at its best. Far from it. But the numbers don’t lie.

According to the American Enterprise Institute, the wealthiest 1% of the population earned 19% of the total income and paid 37% of all income tax in 2007, the year before Obama was elected (and long before chatter about “fair share” became commonplace). Moreover the top 10% accounted for 68% of federal tax revenue, while the bottom 50% — those of us below the median earnings level — earned a paltry 13% of the income and paid just 3% of the taxes.

Kiplinger’s updated numbers, which are nearly identical to the data above, can be found here.

The humble purveyor of this blog is not a one-percenter; not by any stretch. But I would like to be among them one day. And because no nation has ever taxed itself into prosperity, people would be wise to resist anything that could stymie their ability reach the pinnacle in this, the greatest of all nations.

No thank you, Mr. President. A fundamental transformation of our nation is not required. Taxes are not the real problem. Federal expenditures, and the pseudo-philosophy that drives such disbursements, are. Here is syndicated columnist George F. Will to expand upon the point.

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“Government becomes big by having big ambitions for supplanting markets as society’s primary allocator of wealth and opportunity. Therefore it becomes a magnet for factions muscular enough, in money or numbers or both, to bend government to their advantage.

“The left’s centuries-old mission is to increase social harmony by decreasing antagonisms arising from disparities of wealth – to decrease inequality by increasing government’s redistributive activities. Such government constantly expands under the unending, indeed intensifying, pressures to correct what it disapproves of – the distribution of wealth produced by consensual market activities. But as government presumes to dictate the correct distribution of social rewards, the maelstrom of contemporary politics demonstrates that social strife, not solidarity, is generated by government transfer payments to preferred groups.  . . .

“People are less dissatisfied by what they lack than by what others have. And when government engages in redistribution in order to maximize the happiness of citizens who became more envious as they become more comfortable, government becomes increasingly frenzied and futile.”
~ from “Government: The redistributionist behemoth” by George F. Will, The Washington Post; January 6, 2012

Editorial Sketch of the Week: Waiting. . .

© Jeff Stahler, formerly of The Columbus (OH) Dispatch

And remember kids. . .

Original source unknown

A Harvard guy explains capitalism

Jeff Miron, Ph.D. is the Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Economics at Harvard University and a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. Though he’s a staunch libertarian who believes that all narcotics should be legalized — a rather common position among the mass of Ron Paul supporters — Miron was also a candid detractor of both President Obama’s financial industry bailout and his Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (i.e., “Obamacare”).

Take just a few minutes and listen to the good doctor explain the free market system that has afforded our nation so much. And then contrast his words with the guiding principles implemented by the current administration.

Sunday’s Quote: Teddy’s rebuttal to the Occupiers

c/o American Gallery

Although a recent story from LiveScience.com senior writer Stephanie Pappas claims otherwise, it seems the United States is now fundamentally divided into dual factions: those who know what America is, and those who want our Republic, despite their amicable rhetoric, to become something vastly different.

It’s the latter who concerns a substantial portion of the populace most, especially since we began reaping the benefit of choosing one of their own to lead our nation. Referencing Obama’s State of the Union address, syndicated columnist George Will wrote, “Progressive presidents use martial language as a way of encouraging Americans to confuse civilian politics with military exertions, thereby circumventing an impediment to progressive aspirations — the Constitution and the patience it demands.”

He concluded, “Like other progressive presidents fond of military metaphors, [Obama] rejects the patience of politics required by the Constitution he has sworn to uphold.”

Judging from Will’s assertions, one might assume that an Occupier was elected to reside in The White House. It’s not such a stretch considering the hordes of would-be revolutionaries who have taken to the streets in protest all over the world via the belief that ordinary citizens are held down almost entirely by the ultra-wealthy few. If such a driving sentiment isn’t central to the core of Alinsky-inspired class warfare, nothing is.

Nevertheless, the quote included below is not to sing the praises of a flawless system. Far from it. Rather, the words of our 26th President (one of the finest) are tantamount to the hazards of embracing alternatives that are proven to be epic failures already, as the avant-garde Left so often does. Indeed Teddy seemed to understand these Occupier types long before any of them were born, in part because their mantra is not new. Here is Theodore Roosevelt to expand upon the point.

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“. . .as a rule, the business of our people is conducted with honesty and probity, and this applies alike to farms and factories, to railroads and banks, to all our legitimate commercial enterprises.

“In any large body of men, however, there are certain to be some who are dishonest, and if the conditions are such that these men prosper or commit their misdeeds with impunity, their example is a very evil thing for the community. Where these men are business men of great sagacity and of temperament both unscrupulous and reckless, and where the conditions are such that they act without supervision or control and at first without effective check from public opinion, they delude many innocent people into making investments or embarking in kinds of business that are really unsound. When the misdeeds of these successfully dishonest men are discovered, suffering comes not only upon them, but upon the innocent men whom they have misled.

“It is a painful awakening, whenever it occurs; and, naturally, when it does occur those who suffer are apt to forget that the longer it was deferred the more painful it would be. In the effort to punish the guilty it is both wise and proper to endeavor so far as possible to minimize the distress of those who have been misled by the guilty. Yet it is not possible to refrain because of such distress from striving to put an end to the misdeeds that are the ultimate causes of the suffering, and, as a means to this end, where possible to punish those responsible for them. There may be honest differences of opinion as to many governmental policies; but surely there can be no such differences as to the need of unflinching perseverance in the war against successful dishonesty.”
~ from Theodore Roosevelt’s annual Message to Congress; December 3, 1907

The federal budget, in the simplest possible terms

Original source unknown

Just Thinking Out Loud: While “fairness” is referenced. . .

Original source indeterminable

The State of the Union – hopefully Obama’s last – will begin soon. Whereas the President is sure to employ rhetoric about paying our fair share, let us never forget about policies that make George W. Bush appear fiscally responsible in comparison. There is nothing fair about that. So call it racism, ignorance, bigotry, or any other catch term if necessary, because that says far more about you than it does me.

Sunday’s Quote: The impact of fiscal negligence

c/o U.S. History

Our colossal $15 trillion debt, currently 101.1% of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product, is tops in the world by far. But CNBC revealed last September that the percentage of American debt-to-income ranks an almost respectable 20th worldwide among other mass-borrowing countries. Australia (138.9% of GDP), Spain (179.4%), Portugal (223.6%), Hong Kong/PRC (250.4%) and Denmark (310.4%) are just five nations that struggle all the more. Yet none surpass the dubious distinction held by Ireland, whose total obligations weigh at a bewildering 1,382% of its GDP.

How such financial calamities occur in sophisticated nations is beyond comprehension, although a failure among elected officials to abide by the standards that established their homeland appears to be the proverbial key that swings the door wide open for unsustainable liabilities that later become domestic nightmares.

Everyday citizens are just as capable of spending in gross excess. Although materialism and greed are unfortunate byproducts of free enterprise, such unscrupulousness is not exclusive to those who benefit so greatly from our economic structure. Moreover, alternative models commonly endorsed among the Left (centrism, collectivism, communism, socialism, etc.) are no better. In fact such ideologies are proven far more stifling to cultures that yearn for opportunity and self-determination.

Hence the social order is left with a question: will we temper ourselves, and thus demand our elected officials to do the same; or will we surrender what remains of our ever-diminishing autonomy and hope that, by some miracle, an unabated government will cease to function according to blank check policies and right the ship by all benevolent means?

Monetary issues concerning both government and the electorate are timeless. Verily we now have a President – a confessed redistributionist in the mold of the above-mentioned philosophies – who evidently views our established system as a mark for ultimate dismantling, the exploitation of which is only used as a platform to endorse something entirely different. To that end, one of the Founders offered the following:

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“The establishment of the new plan of government, in its present form, is a question that involves such immense consequences, to the present times and to posterity, that it calls for the deepest attention of the best and wisest friends of their country and mankind. If it be found right, after mature deliberation, adopt it; if wrong, amend it at all events: for to say that a bad government must be established for fear of anarchy, is really saying that we should kill ourselves for fear of dying!”
~ Richard Henry Lee, in a letter to the Governor of Virginia, Edmund Randolph; October 16, 1787

R.H. Lee (1732-1794) was a signer of the Articles of Confederation and the author of the Lee Resolution, by which the Second Continental Congress declared the Colonies to be independent of the British Empire. He likewise served a one-year term as the President of the Continental Congress and later acted as President pro tempore of the U.S. Senate. Yet he is perhaps better known in modern times as the great-uncle of General Robert Edward Lee.

Editorial Sketch of the Week: As Congress returns. . .

© R.J. Matson, St. Louis Post-Dispatch