tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-90243287349740039962024-03-13T07:37:36.551-07:00Tory Conservative"The wise and correct course to follow in taxation and all other economic legislation is not to destroy those who have already secured success but to create conditions under which every one will have a better chance to be successful." --- Andrew Mellon, President Coolidge's Secretary of the Treasury. ('The Forgotten Man' by Amity Shlaes)Tory Conservativehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10713535182753659510noreply@blogger.comBlogger32125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9024328734974003996.post-36192245523221948502008-11-22T06:24:00.001-08:002008-11-22T06:26:55.386-08:00Senate Rule Twenty Two and the Filibuster<a href="http://rules.senate.gov/senaterules/rule22.php"><b>Senate Rule Twenty Two</b></a> is the rule that allows a minority to filibuster legislation or a nomination supported by the majority of the Senate.<blockquote>"Is it the sense of the Senate that the debate shall be brought to a close?" And if that question shall be decided in the affirmative by three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn -- except on a measure or motion to amend the Senate rules, in which case the necessary affirmative vote shall be two-thirds of the Senators present and voting -- then said measure, motion, or other matter pending before the Senate, or the unfinished business, shall be the unfinished business to the exclusion of all other business until disposed of.</blockquote>Tory Conservativehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10713535182753659510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9024328734974003996.post-42286772708730283332008-11-22T06:17:00.000-08:002008-11-22T06:21:58.462-08:00Whatever happened to the Jimmy Stewart-style filibuster?Here is a news story titled <a href="http://hnn.us/articles/1818.html"><b>Whatever happened to the Jimmy Stewart-style filibuster</b></a> by Aaron Erlich<blockquote>Since the 1960s the "two-track" system devised by Mansfield has prevailed, preventing old-fashioned filibusters. As John W. Dean, President Richard Nixon's former White House counsel, has written: "On the one hand, the two-track system strengthened the ability of the majority to withstand a filibuster by enabling it to conduct other business. On the other hand, it made it easier for the filibustering minority, which did not have to constantly hold the floor."</blockquote>Tory Conservativehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10713535182753659510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9024328734974003996.post-37895226819173831732008-11-19T12:06:00.000-08:002008-11-19T12:10:06.900-08:00A Short History of the Senate FilibusterHere is Gold and Gupta with a <a href="http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Gold_Gupta_JLPP_article.pdf"><b>short history of the Senate filibuster rule</b></a><blockquote>Senator Thomas J. Walsh (D-MT) first advocated using the constitutional option in 1917. Like Byrd, Walsh reasoned that a newly commenced Senate may disregard the rules established by a prior Senate, including the rules governing filibusters, and adopt new rules in their stead. During this process, Walsh explained, the Senate would revert to the powers set forth in the U.S. Constitution and rely upon traditional parliamentary procedures, which contain procedural mechanisms to control filibusters. Like Byrd’s opponents, Walsh’s opponents gave way once they realized that Walsh potentially had enough votes to carry out his plan, resulting in the Senate adopting its first formal rule limiting debate. Similarly, in 1959, after over a dozen civil rights bills had been defeated by filibusters, and in 1975, after nearly two decades of ruleschange attempts were thwarted, the minority gave way and agreed to amend the Senate cloture rule once it became apparent that a majority of the Senate was prepared to carry out the constitutional option. On all four occasions--1917, 1959, 1975, and 1979--the rules changes may never have been adopted but for the prospect that theconstitutional option would be exercised.</blockquote>Tory Conservativehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10713535182753659510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9024328734974003996.post-84584434635490379412008-11-15T15:08:00.000-08:002008-11-15T15:18:30.830-08:00Governor Mark Sanford Shines on Capitol HillGovernor Mark Sanford might or might not be the Republican presidential nominee in 2012. It's too early to tell. It's not known whether he will seek that nomination. But in his testimony to the US House of Representatives, he has demonstrated why so many conservatives of the "non-compassionate" variety, think that Mark Sanford would make a great President. Here he is: <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/NsS-6euWOf4&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/NsS-6euWOf4&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>Tory Conservativehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10713535182753659510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9024328734974003996.post-39476632245615161862008-11-01T09:44:00.000-07:002008-11-01T09:45:28.704-07:00McCain v Obama polling part 8 – Final WeekThe current week being surveyed is October 27th through October 31st.<br /><br />Gallup Tracking* - 10/28 thru 10/30 - 2116/2459 LV - McCain 43 - Obama 51<br />Hotline/FD Tracking - 10/28 thru 10/30 - 870 LV - McCain 41 - Obama 48<br />Rasmussen Tracking - 10/28 thru 10/30 - 3000 LV - McCain 47 - Obama 51<br />Reuters/C-Span/Zogby - 10/29 thru 10/31 - 1201 LV - McCain 44 - Obama 49<br />Marist Poll – 10/29 – 543 LV – McCain 43 – Obama 50<br />GWU/Battleground - 10/27 thru 10/30 - 800 LV – McCain 45 - Obama 49<br />ABC News/Wash Post - 10/27 thru 10/30 - 1580 LV – McCain 44- Obama 53 <br />FOX News - 10/28 thru 10/29 - 924 LV – McCain 44 – Obama 47 <br /><br />* Average of Gallup's two voter screens for likely voters.<br /><br />Current average - McCain 43.88 - Obama 49.75 - Net + 5.88 Obama<br />Week 7 average - McCain 43.00 - Obama 51.00 - Net + 8.00 Obama<br />Week 6 average - McCain 44.25 - Obama 49.25 - Net + 5.00 Obama<br />Week 5 average - McCain 41.86 - Obama 49.43 - Net + 7.57 Obama<br />Week 4 average - McCain 43.50 - Obama 49.50 - Net + 6.00 Obama<br />Week 3 average - McCain 42.80 - Obama 48.20 - Net + 5.40 Obama<br />Week 2 average - McCain 45.33 - Obama 47.33 - Net + 2.00 Obama<br />Week 1 average - McCain 46.50 - Obama 45.25 – Net + 1.25 McCainTory Conservativehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10713535182753659510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9024328734974003996.post-14518536605179267112008-10-25T12:30:00.000-07:002008-10-25T12:34:13.365-07:00Here the people ruleBill Kristol wrote an interesting New York Times column for the October 20, 2008 edition of that paper. It is titled <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/20/opinion/20kristol.html?_r=1&oref=slogin"><b>Here the people rule</b></a>. It focuses on McCain's selection of Sarah Palin as his Vice Presidential running mate, but also makes a larger point about elites, the public and representative democracy. Here it is in its entirety.<blockquote>Here the People Rule <br /><br />By William Kristol<br /><br />According to the silver-penned Peggy Noonan, writing in The Wall Street Journal over the weekend, “In the end the Palin candidacy is a symptom and expression of a new vulgarization in American politics.”<br /><br />Leave aside Noonan’s negative judgment on Sarah Palin’s candidacy, a judgment I don’t share. Are we really seeing “a new vulgarization in American politics”? As opposed to the good old non-vulgar days? <br /><br />Politics in a democracy are always “vulgar” — since democracy is rule by the “vulgus,” the common people, the crowd. Many conservatives have never been entirely comfortable with this rather important characteristic of democracy. Conservatives’ hearts have always beaten a little faster when they read Horace’s famous line: “Odi profanum vulgus et arceo.” “I hate the ignorant crowd and I keep them at a distance.”<br /><br />But is the ignorant crowd really our problem today? Are populism and anti-intellectualism rampant in the land? Does the common man too thoroughly dominate our national life? I don’t think so.<br /><br />Last week, the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press released its latest national survey, taken from Oct. 9 to 12. Americans are dissatisfied with the way things are going in the country and of course concerned about the economy. But, as Pew summarized, “there is little indication that the nation’s financial crisis has triggered public panic or despair.” <br /><br />In fact, “There is a broad public consensus regarding the causes of the current problems with financial institutions and markets: 79 percent say people taking on too much debt has contributed a lot to the crisis, while 72 percent say the same about banks making risky loans.”<br /><br />This seems sensible. Indeed, as Sept. 11 did not result in a much-feared (by intellectuals) wave of popular Islamophobia or xenophobia, so the market crash has resulted in remarkably little popular hysteria or scapegoating. <br /><br />And considering what has happened, the vulgar public on Main Street has been surprisingly forgiving of those well-educated types on Wall Street — the ones who devised and marketed the sophisticated financial instruments that have brought the financial system to the brink of collapse. <br /><br />Most of the recent mistakes of American public policy, and most of the contemporary delusions of American public life, haven’t come from an ignorant and excitable public. They’ve been produced by highly educated and sophisticated elites.<br /><br />Needless to say, the public’s not always right, and public opinion’s not always responsible. But as publics go, the American public has a pretty good track record. <br /><br />In the 1930s, the American people didn’t fall — unlike so many of their supposed intellectual betters — for either fascism or Communism. Since World War II, the American people have resisted the temptations of isolationism and protectionism, and have turned their backs on a history of bigotry.<br /><br />Now, the Pew poll I cited earlier also showed Barack Obama holding a 50 percent to 40 percent lead over John McCain in the race for the White House. You might think this data point poses a challenge to my encomium to the good sense of the American people.<br /><br />It does. But it’s hard to blame the public for preferring Obama at this stage — given the understandable desire to kick the Republicans out of the White House, and given the failure of the McCain campaign to make its case effectively. And some number of the public may change their minds in the final two weeks of the campaign, and may decide McCain-Palin offers a better kind of change — perhaps enough to give McCain-Palin a victory. <br /><br />The media elites really hate that idea. Not just because so many of them prefer Obama. But because they like telling us what’s going to happen. They’re always annoyed when the people cross them up. Pundits spent all spring telling Hillary Clinton to give up in her contest against Obama — and the public kept on ignoring them and keeping her hopes alive.<br /><br />Why do elites like to proclaim premature closure — not just in elections, but also in wars and in social struggles? Because it makes them the imperial arbiters, or at least the perspicacious announcers, of what history is going to bring. This puts the elite prognosticators ahead of the curve, ahead of the simple-minded people who might entertain the delusion that they still have a choice.<br /><br />But as Gerald Ford said after assuming the presidency on Aug. 9, 1974, ”Here the people rule.”<br /><br />One of those people is Joe Wurzelbacher, a k a Joe the Plumber. He’s the latest ordinary American to do a star turn in our vulgar democratic circus. He seems like a sensible man to me.<br /><br />And to Peggy Noonan, who wrote that Joe “in an extended cable interview Thursday made a better case for the Republican ticket than the Republican ticket has made.” At least McCain and Palin have had the good sense to embrace him. I join them in taking my stand with Joe the Plumber — in defiance of Horace the Poet.</blockquote>Tory Conservativehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10713535182753659510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9024328734974003996.post-62032228195141473742008-10-24T17:48:00.000-07:002008-10-24T18:08:10.275-07:00McCain v Obama polling part 7The current week being surveyed is October 20th through October 24th.<br /><br />Gallup Tracking* - 10/21 thru 10/23 - 2406/2365 LV - McCain 44 - Obama 50<br />Hotline/FD Tracking - 10/21 thru 10/23 - 766 LV - McCain 43 - Obama 50<br />Rasmussen Tracking - 10/21 thru 10/23 - 3000 LV - McCain 45 - Obama 52<br />Reuters/C-Span/Zogby - 10/21 thru 10/23 - 1203 LV - McCain 41 - Obama 51<br /><br />* Average of Gallup's two voter screens for likely voters.<br /><br />Current average - McCain 43.00 - Obama 51.00 - Net + 8.00 Obama<br />Week 6 average - McCain 44.25 - Obama 49.25 - Net + 5.00 Obama<br />Week 5 average - McCain 41.86 - Obama 49.43 - Net + 7.57 Obama<br />Week 4 average - McCain 43.50 - Obama 49.50 - Net + 6.00 Obama<br />Week 3 average - McCain 42.80 - Obama 48.20 - Net + 5.40 Obama<br />Week 2 average - McCain 45.33 - Obama 47.33 - Net + 2.00 Obama<br />Week 1 average - McCain 46.50 - Obama 45.25 – Net + 1.25 McCainTory Conservativehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10713535182753659510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9024328734974003996.post-5975060853175331162008-10-18T10:10:00.001-07:002008-10-18T10:16:15.350-07:00McCain v Obama polling part 6The current week being surveyed is October 13th through October 17th.<br /><br />Gallup Tracking* - 10/14 thru 10/16 - 2155/2314 LV - McCain 46 - Obama 50<br />Hotline/FD Tracking - 10/15 thru 10/17 - 797 LV - McCain 42 - Obama 49<br />Rasmussen Tracking - 10/15 thru 10/17 - 3000 LV - McCain 45 - Obama 50<br />Reuters/C-Span/Zogby - 10/15 thru 10/17 - 1210 LV - McCain 44 - Obama 48<br /><br />* Average of Gallup's two voter screens for likely voters.<br /><br />Current average - McCain 44.25 - Obama 49.25 - Net + 5.00 Obama<br />Week 5 average - McCain 41.86 - Obama 49.43 - Net + 7.57 Obama<br />Week 4 average - McCain 43.50 - Obama 49.50 - Net + 6.00 Obama<br />Week 3 average - McCain 42.80 - Obama 48.20 - Net + 5.40 Obama<br />Week 2 average - McCain 45.33 - Obama 47.33 - Net + 2.00 Obama<br />Week 1 average - McCain 46.50 - Obama 45.25 – Net + 1.25 McCainTory Conservativehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10713535182753659510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9024328734974003996.post-75959116572122252572008-10-18T06:35:00.000-07:002008-10-18T06:39:08.461-07:00David Frum and ConservatismIt's hard to understand what would be left of conservatism if David Frum had his way and supply-side economics was no longer a central part of the conservative movement. In this column <a href="http://www.usnews.com/blogs/capital-commerce/2008/10/15/david-frums-weird-attack-on-larry-kudlow.html"><b>David Frum's Weird Attach</b></a>, James Pethokoukis discusses Frum's disagreements with Larry Kudlow.<blockquote>..... Frum's "facts" are wrong. Moreover, I think he has misjudged terribly the actual performance of the U.S. economy during the past eight years and should probably buy Kudlow dinner in Manhattan as penance. Frum's economic errors are many, but probably fairly common among readers of the New York Times. I will attempt to briefly dispel at least some of them.<br /><br />1) Workers' incomes have been stagnant for years. Wrong! According to economist Ed Yardeni, average real pretax earned income per worker rose to a record high of $48,957 in April and is up 11 percent since January 2001, when President Bush took office. Now I'm not sure what those numbers have done lately with the slowing economy and credit crunch (more on that later), but the economic pessimists have been complaining for years about workers continually falling ever further behind. And remember, this measure does not include benefits. Plus, many estimates of real income or real wages skew lower because of the inaccurate way the government measures inflation, overstating it by two thirds of a percentage point (says economist Michael Boskin) to almost a full point (says the Labor Department) every year.<br /><br />2) Income inequality has exploded. Wrong! More and more research is revealing that the supposed rise in income inequality is a bit of a crock. One reason is the "China Effect." A recent University of Chicago study found official income inequality statistics fail to take into account that lower-income Americans tend to consume more inexpensive Asian goods. As the study's authors conclude, "This price effect offsets almost all the rise in inequality measured by official statistics." And whatever slight rise in inequality that's left over can easily be explained by technology and the expanded global market for CEO talent.<br /><br />3) The fundamentals of the economy are weak. Wrong! There is way more to the U.S. economy than Wall Street. Did you know that the World Economic Forum, the Davos folks, for the second straight year judged the United States as possessing the most competitive economy in the world? (Then came Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, and Singapore.) Among America's strengths: innovation, flexible labor markets, and higher education. And remember, the core U.S. economy is in far better shape than it was in the 1970s. Productivity, the key measure of an economy's strength, consistently grew at less than 2 percent in the 1970s and stayed weak until the tax cuts, deregulation, inflation fighting, and corporate restructuring of the 1980s blossomed into the tech and productivity boom in the 1990s and beyond. Productivity has averaged about 2 percent since 1995 and is now running closer to 3 percent year over year, including 4.3 percent in the second quarter.</blockquote>Tory Conservativehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10713535182753659510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9024328734974003996.post-50200054794747251462008-10-17T17:15:00.000-07:002008-10-17T17:24:01.502-07:00Election PredictionsHere is my prediction regarding the Obama versus McCain presidential race and the US Senate races:<br /><br />Electoral Votes:<br />Obama - 349<br />McCain - 189<br /><br />States:<br />Obama - 27 + Washington DC<br />McCain - 23<br /><br />Popular Vote Percentage:<br />Obama - 52.41 pct<br />McCain - 46.66 pct<br />Obama plurality - 5.75 pct<br /><br />States voting for Obama that voted for Bush in 2004:<br />Colorado (9), Florida (27), Iowa (7), Missouri (11), Nevada (5), New Mexico (5), Ohio (20), Virginia (13)<br /><br />US Senate Seats changing from Republican to Democrat:<br />Virginia, New Hampshire, Colorado, New Mexico, Alaska, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oregon.<br /><br />US Senate balance of power for 2009-2010:<br />Democrats - 58<br />Republicans - 41<br />Independent (Lieberman) - 1Tory Conservativehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10713535182753659510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9024328734974003996.post-74792974170069752732008-10-10T18:28:00.000-07:002008-10-10T18:37:19.125-07:00McCain v Obama polling part 5The current week being surveyed is October 6th through October 10th. <br /><br />Newsweek - 10/8 thru 10/9 - 1035 RV - McCain 41 - Obama 52<br />Fox News Poll - 10/8 thru 10/9 - 900 RV - McCain 39 - Obama 46 <br />Gallup Tracking - 10/7 thru 10/9 - 2784 RV - McCain 41 - Obama 51<br />Hotline/FD Tracking - 10/7 thru 10/9 - 838 LV - McCain 41 - Obama 48<br />Rasmussen Tracking - 10/7 thru 10/9 - 3000 LV - McCain 45 - Obama 50<br />GW/Battleground - 10/6 thru 10/9 - 800 LV - McCain 43 - Obama 51<br />Reuters/C-Span/Zogby - 10/7 thru 10/9 - 1203 LV - McCain 43 - Obama 48<br /><br />Current average - McCain 41.86 - Obama 49.43 - Net + 7.57 Obama<br />Week 4 average - McCain 43.50 - Obama 49.50 - Net + 6.00 Obama<br />Week 3 average - McCain 42.80 - Obama 48.20 - Net + 5.40 Obama<br />Week 2 average - McCain 45.33 - Obama 47.33 - Net + 2.00 Obama<br />Week 1 average - McCain 46.50 - Obama 45.25 – Net + 1.25 McCainTory Conservativehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10713535182753659510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9024328734974003996.post-79012483012999265002008-10-03T17:24:00.000-07:002008-10-04T15:24:04.188-07:00McCain v Obama polling part 4The current week being surveyed is September 29nd through October 3rd. <br /><br />Gallup Tracking - 10/1 thru 10/3 - 2703 RV - McCain 42 - Obama 50<br />Hotline/FD Tracking - 10/1 thru 10/3 - 915 LV - McCain 41 - Obama 48<br />Rasmussen Tracking - 10/1 thru 10/3 - 3000 LV - McCain 45 - Obama 51<br />GW/Battleground - 9/29 thru 10/2 - 800 LV - McCain 46 - Obama 49<br /><br />Current average - McCain 43.50 - Obama 49.50 - Net + 6.00 Obama<br />Week 3 average - McCain 42.80 - Obama 48.20 - Net + 5.40 Obama<br />Week 2 average - McCain 45.33 - Obama 47.33 - Net + 2.00 Obama<br />Week 1 average - McCain 46.50 - Obama 45.25 – Net + 1.25 McCainTory Conservativehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10713535182753659510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9024328734974003996.post-45851299656304718502008-09-26T12:46:00.001-07:002008-10-03T17:39:36.822-07:00McCain v Obama polling part 3The current week being surveyed is September 22ndt through September 26th. <br /><br />Gallup Tracking - 9/24 thru 9/26 - 2759 RV - McCain 44 - Obama 49<br />Hotline/FD Tracking - 9/24 thru 9/26 - 914 RV - McCain 43 - Obama 48<br />Rasmussen Tracking - 9/24 thru 9/26 - 3000 LV - McCain 44 - Obama 50<br />Fox News Poll - 9/22 thru 9/23 - 900 RV - McCain 39 - Obama 45<br />Marist Poll - 9/22 thru 9/23 - 689 LV - McCain 44 - Obama 49<br /><br />Current average - McCain 42.80 - Obama 48.20 - Net + 5.40 Obama<br />Week 2 average - McCain 45.33 - Obama 47.33 - Net + 2.00 Obama<br />Week 1 average - McCain 46.50 - Obama 45.25 – Net + 1.25 McCainTory Conservativehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10713535182753659510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9024328734974003996.post-73883943747666229182008-09-19T13:58:00.001-07:002008-09-20T10:35:07.700-07:00Fouad Ajami writes of a Clash of CivilizationsIn a January 2008 New York Times column, Fouad Ajami reverses himself somewhat regarding Samuel Huntington's <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/books/review/Ajami-t.html?_r=3&pagewanted=1&oref=login"><b>Clash of Civilizations</b></a><blockquote>Those 19 young Arabs who struck America on 9/11 were to give Huntington more of history’s compliance than he could ever have imagined. He had written of a “youth bulge” unsettling Muslim societies, and young Arabs and Muslims were now the shock-troops of a new radicalism. Their rise had overwhelmed the order in their homelands and had spilled into non-Muslim societies along the borders between Muslims and other peoples. Islam had grown assertive and belligerent; the ideologies of Westernization that had dominated the histories of Turkey, Iran and the Arab world, as well as South Asia, had faded; “indigenization” had become the order of the day in societies whose nationalisms once sought to emulate the ways of the West. <br /><br />Rather than Westernizing their societies, Islamic lands had developed a powerful consensus in favor of Islamizing modernity. There was no “universal civilization,” Huntington had observed; this was only the pretense of what he called “Davos culture,” consisting of a thin layer of technocrats and academics and businessmen who gather annually at that watering hole of the global elite in Switzerland. <br /><br />In Huntington’s unsparing view, culture is underpinned and defined by power. The West had once been pre-eminent and militarily dominant, and the first generation of third-world nationalists had sought to fashion their world in the image of the West. But Western dominion had cracked, Huntington said. Demography best told the story: where more than 40 percent of the world population was “under the political control” of Western civilization in the year 1900, that share had declined to about 15 percent in 1990, and is set to come down to 10 percent by the year 2025. Conversely, Islam’s share had risen from 4 percent in 1900 to 13 percent in 1990, and could be as high as 19 percent by 2025.<br /><br />It is not pretty at the frontiers between societies with dwindling populations — Western Europe being one example, Russia another — and those with young people making claims on the world. Huntington saw this gathering storm. Those young people of the densely populated North African states who have been risking all for a journey across the Strait of Gibraltar walk right out of his pages.<br /><br />Shortly after the appearance of the article that seeded the book, Foreign Affairs magazine called upon a group of writers to respond to Huntington’s thesis. I was assigned the lead critique. I wrote my response with appreciation, but I wagered on modernization, on the system the West had put in place. “The things and ways that the West took to ‘the rest,’” I wrote, “have become the ways of the world. The secular idea, the state system and the balance of power, pop culture jumping tariff walls and barriers, the state as an instrument of welfare, all these have been internalized in the remotest places. We have stirred up the very storms into which we now ride.” I had questioned Huntington’s suggestion that civilizations could be found “whole and intact, watertight under an eternal sky.” Furrows, I observed, run across civilizations, and the modernist consensus would hold in places like India, Egypt and Turkey.</blockquote><blockquote>I still harbor doubts about whether the radical Islamists knocking at the gates of Europe, or assaulting it from within, are the bearers of a whole civilization. They flee the burning grounds of Islam, but carry the fire with them. They are “nowhere men,” children of the frontier between Islam and the West, belonging to neither. If anything, they are a testament to the failure of modern Islam to provide for its own and to hold the fidelities of the young. <br /><br />More ominously perhaps, there ran through Huntington’s pages an anxiety about the will and the coherence of the West — openly stated at times, made by allusions throughout. The ramparts of the West are not carefully monitored and defended, Huntington feared. Islam will remain Islam, he worried, but it is “dubious” whether the West will remain true to itself and its mission. Clearly, commerce has not delivered us out of history’s passions, the World Wide Web has not cast aside blood and kin and faith. It is no fault of Samuel Huntington’s that we have not heeded his darker, and possibly truer, vision.</blockquote>Tory Conservativehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10713535182753659510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9024328734974003996.post-48964674481540766972008-09-19T13:58:00.000-07:002008-09-19T14:09:31.760-07:00McCain v Obama polling part 2The current week being surveyed is September 15th through September 19th. <br /><br />Gallup Tracking - 9/16 thru 9/18 - 2726 RV - McCain 44 - Obama 49<br />Hotline/FD Tracking - 9/16 thru 9/18 - 915 RV - McCain 44 - Obama 45<br />Rasmussen Tracking - 9/16 thru 9/18 - 3000 LV - McCain 48 - Obama 48<br /><br />Average - McCain 45.33 - Obama 47.33 - Net + 2.00 Obama<br /><br />Last week's average - McCain 46.5 - Obama 45.25 - Net + 1.25 McCain <br /><br />Change from last week - McCain (1.17) - Obama + 2.08 - Net + 3.25 ObamaTory Conservativehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10713535182753659510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9024328734974003996.post-39431226893726341792008-09-12T14:30:00.000-07:002008-09-12T19:32:05.812-07:00McCain v Obama polling part 1Each week, I plan to post the most recent polls of the McCain/Obama presidential race. I will post on Friday afternoons only those polls where the entire polling period falls in the current work week. In this case the current work week is September 8th through September 12th. <br /><br />Newsweek - 9/10 thru 9/11 - 1038 RV - McCain 46 - Obama 46<br />Gallup Tracking - 9/9 thru 9/11 - 2726 RV - McCain 48 - Obama 45<br />Hotline/FD Tracking - 9/9 thru 9/11 - 913 RV - McCain 44 - Obama 45<br />Rasmussen Tracking - 9/9 thru 9/11 - 3000 LV - McCain 48 - Obama 45<br /><br />Average - McCain 46.5 - Obama 45.25<br /><br />* RV stands for Registered voters. LV stands for Likely voters. Polls of likely voters are often considered more accurate because they screen those polled as to how likely they are to vote in the election.Tory Conservativehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10713535182753659510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9024328734974003996.post-23889323564157514512008-09-10T14:36:00.000-07:002008-09-10T14:38:10.076-07:00The Economic Case for Tax HavensHat tip <a href="http://kudlow.nationalreview.com"><b>Kudlow's Money Politics</b></a>.<br /><br />Dan Mitchell makes the case for low tax nations.<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/yi0lkJBTi58&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/yi0lkJBTi58&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>Tory Conservativehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10713535182753659510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9024328734974003996.post-64855301972410208042008-09-07T12:25:00.001-07:002008-09-07T12:58:23.683-07:00The US Supreme Court. A reason to support McCain for President?Many conservatives who are reluctantly supporting John McCain for president are doing so because they are worried about the ideological direction of the US Supreme Court under a President Obama. This is a very legitimate consideration. I will now explain why this consideration has not persauded me to support John McCain. <br /><br /><b>Will there be a US Supreme Court vacancy?</b><br /><br />The following the are the current Justices of the US Supreme Court along with their respective age. <br /><br />John Stevens - 88, Ruth Ginsberg - 75, Antonin Scalia - 72, Anthony Kennedy - 72, Stephen Breyer - 70, David Souter - 68, Clarence Thomas - 60, Samuel Alito - 58, John Roberts - age 53.<br /><br />It is my expectation that if Obama is elected, no conservative justices (Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, Alito and Roberts) will retire. But it is very possible that two of the liberal justices, Stevens and Ginsberg will retire. Conversely, if McCain is elected, it is my expection that no liberal justice will retire. <br /><br />The reason is that most US Supreme Court Justices care about what direction the court will take once they leave. It explains why Sandra Day O'Conner did not retire during the Clinton administration but waited until George W. Bush was elected president. It also explains why Harry Blackmun and Byron White did not retire during the Reagan and Bush adminstrations (1981-1993) but retired when Clinton was president. Blackmun retired in 1993 and White retired in 1994. <br /><br /><b>Who controls the US Senate? The Democrats.</b><br /><br />Currently the Democrats have a 51 to 49 seat majority in the US Senate. Therefore, they have a majority on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which handles nominations to the US Supreme Court and the US Court of Appeals. <br /><br />Most political experts believe that the Democrats will gain anywhere from 3 to 7 US Senate seats this November. This would result in a Democrat Senate majority ranging from 54 - 46 to 58 - 42. In addition, not all Republican US Senators are strong conservatives. So not all of their votes can be counted on in the event of a confirmation battle. <br /><br />Another important consideration is the fact that the Democrats have already tried out their filibuster strategy and it worked very successfully to prevent Bush's judicial nominations from being confirmed. McCain is on record supporting, in principle, the Democrat party's right to filibuster judicial nominees. This means that the Democrats need only 41 of their members, not 51, to defeat a judicial nominee. <br /><br />It is highly unlikely that a President McCain will be able to convince a Democrat Senate to confirm a constitutionalist nominee. <br /><br /><b>McCain's views on issues before the US Supreme Court</b><br /><br />McCain has been an advocate of ignoring the 1st Amendment of the US Constitution and of campaign finance reform, which severely restricts the ability of American citizens to participate in politics within 60 days of an election. The conservative members of the US Supreme Court believe that much of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance legislation is unconstitutional. <br /><br />McCain is an opponent of waterboarding and supported a law that would prohibit any treatment of terror suspects that would be considered "humiliating." The conservative members of the US Supreme Court do not see this conduct by the federal government as unconstitutional. <br /><br />Also, consider a portion of my previous post where I mention that John McCain assisted the Democrats in the Democrats' effort to retain the right to filibuster Bush's judicial nominees. This leaves open the very real possibility that McCain does not really desire a US Supreme Court that is more conservative. It is very possible that he is only using this tried and true campaign line of "judges that interpret the law and do not invent law" as a means of getting votes from conservatives in a tight presidential contest with Barack Obama.<br /><br /><b>Looking ahead to 2012</b><br /><br />If McCain wins the 2008 election, it is reasonable to believe that the Democrats will win the 2012 presidential election. This is because the Republican party has not held the White House for 4 consecutive terms since the 1896-1908 time period. The inevitable desire on the part of the American people for change is likely to result in a Democrat White House four years from now. <br /><br />A very likely scenario is that there are no vacancies on the US Supreme Court during a four year McCain presidency. Conservative Justices would not retire out of concern that a replacement could not get a fair hearing from the Democrat Senate and, also, out of concern that McCain would appoint a moderate or liberal to replace him. Liberal Justices would not retire out of concern that McCain would appoint a conservative or moderate to replace him or her. <br /><br />The a likely result is that there would be several US Supreme Court vacancies in the president term beginning in January 2013, when the Democrats would hold both the White House and the US Senate. Not only could the Democrats fill judicial seats occupied by older Liberal Justices with younger Liberal Justices. They might be able to fill judicial seats occupied by Conservative Justices with Liberal Justices. This is because of the advanced age of Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy, both currently 72 years old. <br /><br /><b>Conclusion</b><br /><br />The US Supreme Court is a profoundly important institution as is the 1st Amendment of the US Constitution. Entrusting someone like John McCain, someone who has demonstrated in his Senate career a complete disregard for the intentions of the 1st Amendment, to maintain or expand on the conservatism of the US Surpeme Court is a huge gamble that conservatives will likely lose.Tory Conservativehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10713535182753659510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9024328734974003996.post-13063330044257007862008-09-06T07:09:00.000-07:002008-09-07T12:24:50.790-07:00Why I will not be voting for John McCainThere are two main reasons why I will not be voting for John McCain for President in this November's election: (1) John McCain's demonstrated willingness to assist the left wing of the Democrat party on important issues and (2) the fact that, given America's decentralized electoral system, America will not likely move to the right until a Democrat is elected President of the United States.<br /><br />First, let's look at John McCain's record of assisting the Democrats on important issues. <br /><br /><b>The 2001 and 2003 Bush Tax Cuts</b><br /><br />In the spring of 2001 George W. Bush was in his first year as President and he had just inherited a recession from President Bill Clinton. The tax cut proposal that Bush had campaigned on became all the more necessary due to the sagging economy. Among the 50 Republican US Senators, nearly all of them supported the Bush tax cuts. Most of the Democrat US Senators opposed the Bush tax cuts, partly for ideological reasons and partly for tactical reasons. <br /><br />The Democrats generally support redistribution of wealth and, thus, oppose tax reduction. In addition, given that Bush's main purpose in proposign tax cuts would be to get the economy out of recession and to create economic growth, most Democrats believed that this would work to their political disadvantage. A weak economy under a Republican president would be more political advantageous for the Democrats than a strong economy. <br /><br />So, most Republican US Senators supported the Bush tax cuts and most Democrat US Senators opposed the Bush tax cuts. What was John McCain's opinion of the 2001 Bush tax cuts? McCain opposed the 2001 Bush tax cuts using <a href="http://www.clubforgrowth.org/2007/03/arizona_senator_john_mccains_t.php"><b>rhetoric nearly identical to that of Massachusetts US Senator Ted Kennedy</b></a><blockquote>"I cannot in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us at the expense of middle-class Americans who need tax relief." --- John McCain June 9, 2001</blockquote>During the 2008 Republican primaries, McCain stated that he opposed the 2001 Bush tax cuts because they did not include spending restraint. But a look at the record shows that <a href="http://www.clubforgrowth.org/2007/03/arizona_senator_john_mccains_t.php"><b>this is misleading.</b></a><blockquote>Senator McCain not only voted against the Bush tax cuts, he joined leading liberal senators in offering and voting for amendments designed to undermine them. All in all, Senator McCain voted on the pro-tax side of 14 such amendments in 2001 and 2003. These included such odious measures as:<br /><br />An amendment sponsored by Senator John D. Rockefeller (D-WV) to prohibit a reduction in the top tax rate until Congress enacted legislation to provide a prescription drug benefit.<br /><br />An amendment sponsored by Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) against full repeal of the Death Tax. <br /><br />This vote is in keeping with Senator McCain's 2002 vote against repealing the Death Tax.<br /><br />An amendment sponsored by Tom Daschle (D-SD) and co-sponsored by Senator McCain to limit tax reduction in the top tax bracket to one percentage point.</blockquote>McCain was only one of two Republican Senators to vote against the 2001 Bush tax cuts and one of only three Republican Senators to vote against the 2003 Bush tax cuts.<br /><br /><b>The Democrats' Filibusters of Bush's Judicial Nominess</b><br /><br />In McCain's acceptance speech at the Republican convention last Thursday, McCain said that he supports judges who objectively interpret the law and do not legislate. But it's important to look at McCain's behavior during the Clinton and Bush administrations to see whether McCain's recent words really match up to his intentions. <br /><br />Like most US Senators at the time, McCain voted for Clinton's US Supreme Court nominees Ruth Bader Ginsberg in 1993 and Stephen Breyer in 1994. At no time during the Clinton administraton did McCain vote to prevent any of Clinton's judicial nominees from receiving a confirmation vote. <br /><br />When the Democrats took over the US Senate in May of 2001 during George W. Bush's first year in office, Bush began having trouble getting his judicial nominees confirmed as the Democrat controlled Senate judiciary committee often refused to even hold confirmation hearings for Bush's judicial nominees. In the November 2002 elections, however, the Republicans gained a net of 2 US Senate seats and obtained a majority of the US Senate and, thus, obtained majority control over the Senate judiciary committee. It looked like Bush's judicial nominees would have a chance to get confirmed to the US Court of Appeals. <br /><br />That's when the Democrats began using the Senate's 60 vote cloture rule to prevent Bush's judicial nominees from receiving a vote. This had not been done when the Republicans were a minority in the US Senate during the Clinton administration from 1993 to 1994. Many Republicans Senators protested against the Democrat minority's use of the Senate's 60 vote cloture rule to prevent Bush's judicial nominees from receiving a vote. But John McCain was not one of them. In total, the Democrats successfully prevented 10 of Bush's nominees to the federal court of appeals from receiving a confirmation vote. <br /><br />In the November 2004 elections the Republicans gained a net of 4 US Senate seats, a 55 to 45 seat majority while President Bush was reelected in his race against Democrat John Kerry. The Republican Senate leadership indicated that they would use a parliamentary vote, often referred to as "the nuclear option," to bypass the Senate's 60 vote cloture rule if the Democrats continued to prevent Bush's judicial nominees from receiving a vote. <br /><br />Most Republican US Senators vocally supported their leadership, President Bush and Vice President Cheney in their determination to allow Bush's judicial nominees to receive a confirmation vote. That's when <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7505537/"><b>John McCain became the first Republican US Senator to announce that he would vote with the Democrats on the issue of the filibusters on Bush's judicial nominees</b></a>. Here's an excerpt from McCain's interview with Chris Matthews on MSNBC's Hardball program on April 14, 2005.<blockquote>MATTHEWS: But bottom line, would you vote for what’s called the “nuclear option,” to get rid of the filibuster rule on judgeships?<br /><br />MCCAIN: No, I will not.<br /><br />MATTHEWS: You will stick with the party?<br /><br />MCCAIN: No, I will vote against the nuclear option.<br /><br />MATTHEWS: You will vote—<br /><br />MCCAIN: Against the nuclear option.<br /><br />MATTHEWS: Oh, you will?<br /><br />MCCAIN: Yes.<br /><br />MATTHEWS: So you will vote with the Democrats?<br /><br />MCCAIN: Yes, because I think we have got to sit down and work this thing out. Look, we won’t always be on the majority. I say to my conservative friends, some day there will be a liberal Democrat president and a liberal Democrat Congress. Why? Because history shows it goes back and forth. I don’t know if it’s a hundred years from now, but it will happen. And do we want a bunch of liberal judges approved by the Senate of the United States with 51 votes if the Democrats are in the majority?</blockquote>McCain's argument that "some day there will be a liberal Democrat president and a liberal Democrat Congress" and that, therefore, Republicans should want to preserve the option of the judicial filibuster was made by McCain knowing that most MSNBC viewers were unaware that McCain voted for US Supreme Court nominee Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Stephen Breyer. Ruth Bader Ginsberg was an ACLU General Council who supported Co-ed prisons and lowering the age of sexual consent to age 12. McCain not only didn't attempt to filibuster any of Clinton's judicial nominees, he voted for many of them even if they were extreme Left-Wingers. But when Democrats filibustered Bush's judicial nominees, McCain announced that he would vote with the Democrats to allow them to continue their obstructionist behavior.<br /><br /><b>America's electoral system and the perverse effect of electing a Democrat President</b><br /><br />President Clinton takes more credit for the 1996 Welfare Reform than he should. But it is also true that Welfare Reform would probably not have occurred if President George Herbert Walker Bush had defeated Bill Clinton in 1992. Why? Because the political party that holds the White House usually loses Congressional seats in mid-term elections. The 1994 mid-term congressional election represented an example of this, as did the 2006 mid-term congressional elections. Bill Clinton, a Democrat, was president in November 1994 and the Republicans ended up winning both houses of Congress for the first time in 40 years. This would not likely have happened had President George Herbert Walker Bush prevailed over Governor Bill Clinton in the 1992 presidential election. The Republican Congress elected in 1994 would pass welfare reform in 1996. President Clinton reluctantly signed the welfare reform legislation.<br /><br />If one is dissatisfied with a US House of Representatives led by Democrat Nancy Pelosi and a US Senate led by Democrat Harry Reid, the quickest way to remove the Democrats from their majority status in Congress is to elect a Democrat president. Again, this is because of the perverse nature of America's decentralized electoral system. The American people tend to view the party of the President, not the party that holds a majority in Congress, as responsible for what is happening in the country even though Congress arguably has as much or more power over the direction of the country. That's why it shouldn't be surprising that the Democrats regained control over Congress not during the Clinton administration, but during the George W. Bush administration. <br /><br />If this country is to be turned around, the Democrats must be removed from their majority status in Congress. For that to happen, the Democrats must first win the White House.Tory Conservativehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10713535182753659510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9024328734974003996.post-79384896552449840582008-04-27T06:38:00.001-07:002008-04-27T06:47:35.594-07:00The imprisonment of Iranian journalist Akbar GanjiHere is an excerpt of the book “Persian Pilgrimages,” by Afshin Molavi, which discusses Iran's imprisonment of journalist and pro-democracy activist Akbar Ganji.<br /><br />Page 154 – 158<blockquote>Back in Tehran, I received a telephone call from a colleague in the Iranian press. “Ganji has been jailed,” he said. “This is the beginning of a crackdown. Be careful what you write.” He bade me a hurried good-bye and hung up the phone. <br /><br />Akbar Ganji, a wildly popular prodemocracy journalist, had grown legdenary for his scathing attacks on Iran’s powerful conservatives and hardliners. Most who followed his case expected his imprisonment. No one could speak out so boldly with impunity and go free. Still, news of the jailing sent a chill through Iran’s reformist journalists and the prodemocracy movement. Ganji’s bravery lifted the movement to a higher level. Where would it go now? <br /><br />I knew Ganji only slightly, having interviewed him a few weeks before. We had met in the newspaper-lined basement of an apartment building in Tehran. Yellowing copies of the weekly Rah-e-Now (New Path) --- Ganji’s newspaper prior to its being shut down by Iran’s hard-line judiciary --- formed neat stacks along the white concrete walls. When I entered, he sat alone, reading a book in the carpeted room. He turned away from his book and sprang to his feet, a small man with a light brown beard and brown, dancing eyes. I concealed a tinge of surprise. I suppose one expects national heroes to be tall.<br /><br />He greeted me warmly, embracing me as if I were an old friend. “Welcome,” he said, smiling. “It is nice to meet you.” <br /><br />A small stack of his best-selling book Darkroom of the Ghosts leaned against some newspapers. In the book he brands Iran’s conservative clerics “religious fascists” and links a small clique of hard-line clerics and intelligence agents to assassinations of up to eighty dissidents and writers since 1988. The chilling book also contains brave passages defending free speech and democracy. <br /><br />Ganji pioneered a new journalism in Iran: brash, aggressive, intellectual, fearless. He crossed red lines routinely. He received death threats from government-affiliated thugs almost daily. When we met, I found to my surprise that none of the usual hangers-on or security types surrounded him. He tarried alone in a basement office, reading a book, despite the fact that a few months earlier his friend and colleague Saeed Hajjarian had taken a bullet in the head. He offered me a seat at a long, rectangular brown table. “I am not looking to become a martyr,” he said. “I have a family, and I enjoy life. However, I realize that sometimes in life one must be prepared to fight and pay the consequences, if necessary. If we really want democracy in Iran, we must be willing to fight for it. There has been a great deal of talk in this country. It is time to act.”<br /><br />He then talked at length about the revolution. He said it was a fine example of a vigorous and determined act by the Iranian people, but it ultimately failed. “Our revolution was an act for freedom, but we did not follow through properly. We ended up with tyranny and fascism. We Iranians have been fighting for freedom in one form or another since the beginning of the twentieth century. Today, as we enter the twenty-first century, we still have not tasted long periods of freedom. We still see a free press as a privilege, rather than a right. I hope to see Iranians one day come to expect these things.” <br /><br />Ganji, like many of today’s reformists, came to these views after the revolution. In the early days of the revolution he would have turned his nose up at the title of democrat. He then belonged to a radical Islamic leftist faction, the sort of people who took Americans hostage. A vehement anti-imperialist and vigorous pamphleteer, he wrote often of foreign exploitation in Iran. He saw solutions in Islam, in a return to a native identity, even though he acknowledged, then and now, that Iran has several identities. He fought in the war with Iraq. Later he joined Iran’s intelligence services. <br /><br />“Around 1984 or 1985 I was becoming disillusioned,” he said. “I saw a pseudofascism and political tyranny emerging in Iran. Anyone who asked questions was branded ‘antirevolutionary’ and ‘against Islam.’ In my opinion, Islam was being abused by a fascist system.”<br /><br />He harped on this theme often. A personally religious man, he found the abuse of his faith in the service of tyranny unacceptable. “A certain faction in Iran,” he said, referring to conservatives, “has turned religion into ideology, faith into fascism. It promised us heaven, but it created a hell on earth.” The last line was a Ganji trademark, one that was often quoted. “Every religion has had its dark moments with inquisitions and narrow-minded prejudice,” Ganji said, “but this moment we have had in Iran goes against the spirit of Islam and all major faiths.”<br /><br />Did he agree with the Islamic philosopher Soroush that politics pollutes religion? As a corollary to this thought, did he believe in the need for the separation of mosque and state? <br /><br />“Most of today’s religious intellectuals,” he said, “greatly admire Soroush, but he is a philosopher, and we must deal with practical political realities. We believe that Iran must embrace the principles of political modernity: civil society, free press, democracy, rule of law. These are principles of secularization.” He used the English word with a Persian accent: “sekularee-zaseeon.” <br /><br />He did not answer the questions outright, and I did not press him. They were red line questions, and at a first meeting, he may have felt uncomfortable addressing them. <br /><br />He continued. “Most of us, the religious intellectuals, believe in a Popperian view of the world.” <br /><br />The Austrian philosopher Karl Popper, author of the landmark political study Open Society and Its Enemies, was a favorite of Iran’s reformists. Popper makes a powerful defense of democratic liberalism and a devastating critique of the philosophic underpinnings of totalitarian systems. Like many Iranian intellectuals of Ganji’s generation, Popper in his youth was a Marxist. By 1945, when he published Open Society, describing how Marxism as a theory soon failed on the weight of empirical evidence and degenerated into pseudoscientific dogma in the defense of totalitarianism, he had abandoned Marxism. Ganji saw parallels in Popper’s view of Marxist history and the evolution of Iran’s Islamic government. <br /><br />“In a sense that is what happened with our Islamic revolution,” he said. “We had a theory --- that Islamic government could provide us with just rule --- but then there was a great deal of pseudo-Islamic dogma added in defense of totalitarianism.”<br /><br />His voice paused, as if to go on, but the phone interrupted us. The German embassy waited at the other end. One of Ganji’s aides handled the call. Ganji’s visa was ready, he was told. He could pick it up when he wanted.<br /><br />“There is a conference in Berlin on our reform movement,” Ganji explained to me. “I’m not sure what it’s about, but I shall make my points,” he said, smiling. “Why don’t you drink some tea?” He leaped up from his chair, catlike, but I insisted that he not trouble himself. We wound up our conversation with talk of my travels in Iran. “Have you been taking pictures? We have some beautiful sites, don’t we?”<br /><br />The following week Ganji went to Germany. The conference turned into political dynamite for those Iranians who attended. Iranian opposition figures in Europe came to the event, where they openly ridiculed the rulers of the Islamic Republic and attacked Ganji and other reformists as lackeys of the Islamic Republic, trying to preserve the system through reform instead of trying to defeat it through revolution. At times the conference degenerated into a circus. One woman, protesting the veil, took off all her clothes and stood naked in front of the Iranian delegates. A man, also moved to unclothe, joined her. Another woman got up and started dancing in protest against the prohibition on the public display of dancing in Iran. <br /><br />When Ganji returned from Berlin, conservative newspapers slammed him for attending a conference side by side with opposition figures that sought to overthrow the government and “morally lax” ladies who ridiculed Islamic traditions. Undaunted, Ganji continued his open onslaught against Iran’s hard-liners and his vigorous advocacy of democracy. He pulled few punches. Throughout his rise to legendary journalist, Ganji amazed Iranians with his bravery. He did not smile, kiss the leader’s hand, and say things behind his back. He said them openly, brazenly, defiantly. He felt no need to hide his views behind ambiguous language, allegory, symbolism, or satire. He did not want to be Gholam Ali. <br /><br />Eventually hard-liners had heard enough. One of the charges leveled against him was his attendance at the Berlin conference. After a show trial that Ganji dismissed openly as illegitimate,” the judge handed him a sentence of fifteen years on January 12, 2001.</blockquote>Tory Conservativehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10713535182753659510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9024328734974003996.post-18744426885614743662008-02-25T17:21:00.000-08:002008-02-25T17:26:18.798-08:00John O'Sullivan follows up on "the conservative interest" columnJohn O'Sullivan has written a follow up post in <a href="corner.nationalreview.com"><b>NRO's Corner</b></a> explaining conservative deliberations regarding McCain and this November's election.<blockquote>Ramesh and Derb both aim reasoned (and reasonable) criticism at my long piece last week on the circumstances in which voting against one's own party might be justifiable or, in extreme cases, even required. I've also discussed these arguments with Ramesh off-line. Since my original piece was—as Noel Coward said of Camelot — "longer than Parsifal but not as funny," I don't want to compound the offense by writing a long exercise in self-justification. So how about a short exercise in self-justification? Let me respond first to Ramesh:<br /><br />1. It's true that I cited the "National Question" issues—immigration, multiculturalism, preferences—as a possible justification for defection. That was because I thought (and think) they are the issues most likely to provoke conservative voters to abandon the GOP. My own objections to the Senator's policies go somewhat wider—his enthusiasm for the EU, for instance, as well as the usual conservative moans.<br /><br />2. Sure, the same indictment could have been mounted against President Bush in 2000 and 2004. Readers with long memories may recall that I actually levelled such charges against the candidate, especially in 2000 before 9/11 had kicked in. One can agree with Ramesh that consistency requires those who supported Bush then to back McCain now. Equally, however, one can make the opposite case: namely, we never liked these policies and we can now see that, in addition to their other harmful effects, they are widely unpopular and damaging to the GOP. Four or eight years more of them and the party will be in ruins. <br /><br />3. Of course, some overriding moral issue may override (as they do) these calculations. For some of my colleagues, Victor in particular, the war in Iraq and the wider war on terror are between them such an issue. I respect that view and am close to sharing it, but because I think that nation-building in America is more important than nation-building in Iraq, that alone would not be decisive. For me — as I believe, also for Ramesh — the pro-life issue is such an overriding consideration. You can see where that is driving me — either to the Senator or to some third-party candidate who combines pro-life views with soundness on the National Question, the EU, etc., etc.. <br /><br />Now to Derb who rides boldly up to what seems to me to be my strongest point favoring Obama and swings his ball and chain at it with his usual elan. He asks if a President Obama, far from being a force for racial and ethnic reconciliation in America, might not be a disaster for it — if his presidency was a failure and if non-blacks deserted the Democratic party in droves as a result. He mentions the awful warning of the Carter presidency and goes on to suggest that a Black Jimmy Carter would be even more catastrophic for America. However:<br /><br />1. Very few presidents fail and visibly and comprehensively as Jimmy Carter. Even if one takes a kind view of his administration, as such distinguished Carter appointees as Zbig Brzezinski do, there is no quarrelling with the fact that most Americans and many Democrats thought he had been a failure in 1980 and for many years afterwards. This was exceptional.<br /><br />2. Even so the Carter administration did not destroy the Democrats. He scored a respectable 45 percent of the two-party vote in 1980 against the most brilliant politician in postwar American history. Twelve years after his defeat the Democrats regained the White House. They held the House of Representatives for all this period until 1994. So the prospect of a post-Obama Democratic meltdown is unlikely even if Obama is regarded as having failed disastrously.<br /><br />3. Those white, Asian, and Latino voters who are open to the temptation of thinking a Black candidate would be simply incapable of governing competently are highly unlikely to vote for Obama in the first place; and those white, Asian and Latino voters who are moved to vote for him in this election in order to advance the cause of racial reconciliation are unlikely to abandon him in droves if he performs as badly as Carter or even just not very well. So a collapse of the Democratic vote and the party's transformation into a racially uniform rump seems to me to be a paranoid nightmare. <br /><br />4. Whatever else he is, Obama is a smart man. His campaign shows that. So I doubt he would repeat Carter's mistakes when the evidence shows that they failed the tests of both practicality and popularity. The current version of Carterism is too close to the original to be mistaken for something else. In this context, unlike most of my colleagues, I think Obama's rhetoric of American unity is probably a better guide to his potential presidency than his liberal voting record.<br /><br />Well, it's turned out to be a long exercise in self-justification after all.</blockquote>Tory Conservativehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10713535182753659510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9024328734974003996.post-35553343949503381802008-02-21T09:51:00.000-08:002008-02-21T09:56:25.274-08:00John O'Sullivan considers the Conservative Interest and John McCainAn excellent column by National Review editor at large, John O'Sullivan titled <a href="http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=ZGQ4ZTg1YWJiN2QwYzQwMzcwNDcyOTFiYjgwNmU4ZWY="><b>The Conservative Interest: McCainiacs and anti-McCainiacs</b></a><blockquote>......... I had argued that some of these conditions had applied in the recent past. In fact I maintained that two of the three in extremis justifications had recently applied on two different occasions.<br /><br />The first occasion was the first of the two British elections of 1974. On that occasion I was not in favor of reelecting Ted Heath. He was promising what a Marxist group (which asked its members to vote Tory) called the most extensive program of socialism and state control—including control of wages, prices, and dividends, and the establishment of a tripartite Labor Union-Corporate Business-Government council that would determine economic policy — ever proposed in Britain. I voted for an independent conservative candidate. That vote was not cast from any Leninist “the worse, the better” reasoning but because I thought that Heath’s solutions would make a terrible national situation much worse while also being harder to oppose because they would likely be supported by both the government and the Left.<br /><br />As it happens, things worked out well: Heath was defeated and succeeded by Thatcher who reversed Tory policy, adopted sensible free-market policies, won power four years later, and instituted Thatcherism. Something similar happened in the U.S. when the failure of the Carter administraion and the over-reaching of the Soviets led to Reagan’s 1980 victory (though Gerald Ford’s policies bore no relationship to the Heath madness and would not have justified Republican abstentions.) But those of us who rejected party loyalty in favor of conservative principles in Britain have to concede that it might have turned out very differently—and much worse. I can justify the risk we took only by the extreme folly of the Tory government’s policy—and by our knowledge that some Tory leaders, imprisoned temporarily in the Heath orthodoxy, would take the Tories in a more genuinely conservative direction if given the chance by defeat.</blockquote><a href="http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=ZGQ4ZTg1YWJiN2QwYzQwMzcwNDcyOTFiYjgwNmU4ZWY="><b>read the whole column</b></a>Tory Conservativehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10713535182753659510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9024328734974003996.post-63051810890972019822008-02-20T18:14:00.000-08:002008-02-20T18:19:24.305-08:00Shlaes dicusses the politics of the economyAmity Shlaes takes a look at <a href="http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm?article=com.commentarymagazine.content.Article::10841&search=1"><b>Middle Class Anxiety</b></a> at a time of low unemployment.<blockquote>What is most striking about today’s anxiety is that it has emerged despite a robust economy. Americans have worried in times of 8- or 10-percent unemployment, but why at 5 percent or less? Even with the recent jump in oil prices, today’s misery index is at a docile low. Yet a Gallup survey published in March 2006 reported that “Americans continue to resist giving the nation’s economy positive ratings.” Data from ISR, a research firm, suggest that in 2005 three times as many Americans were afraid they would lose their jobs as had similar fears during the ugly downturn of the early Reagan years.</blockquote><blockquote>Members of the new majority on Capitol Hill mock Republican talk of an “ownership society,” and have moved quickly to try to raise the minimum wage. Charles Rangel of New York, the new Democratic chairman of the House Ways and Means committee, attacked as “dangerous” a White House plan to move responsibility for health care from employers to individuals. Even some Republicans have gotten in on the act. John McCain has warned that “My children and their children will not receive the benefits we will enjoy. That is an inescapable fact, and any politician who tells you otherwise, Democrat or Republican, is lying.” In the 2008 race for the White House, class angst is sure to be a prominent theme—as John Edwards, among others, has already made clear in his early campaign rhetoric.<br /><br />Economic populism, in short, is back with a vengeance. But is it justified by our economic circumstances? And do its noisiest proponents have viable answers to the concerns of working Americans?</blockquote>Who would have believed that 5 percent unemployment, which used to be considered "full employment," would be labeled "a sluggish economy?"Tory Conservativehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10713535182753659510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9024328734974003996.post-36936746399143112502008-02-18T16:34:00.000-08:002008-02-18T16:36:10.610-08:00Whom should supporters of the 1st Amendment vote for in this fall's presidential race?What do Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain have in common? All three of them believe that the government should be able to ration the amount and timing of political speech during political campaigns. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.speechnow.org/"><b>Bradley Smith and his fellow first amendment activists</b></a> are engaged in the highest form of patriotism. They are motivated not by the latest cult of personality to strut across the political stage, but by the enduring principles that led to the founding of this great nation. <br /><br />What should a voter do if one takes the following words seriously?<blockquote>Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.</blockquote>I realize that there are significant differences between John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama on many political issues. But if the people of the United States lose the right to criticize our elected officials during election contests, or if we have these rights severely restricted, haven't we essentially accepted tyranny over liberty, fascism over freedom? <br /><br />We are often advised to support a candidate with whom one agrees with more than the alternative candidate. But is it morally correct to support a candidate who wants to limit your Constitutional right not only to support or oppose his candidacy, but to support or oppose <b>any candidacy</b> now and in the future? Isn't the principle that underpins the 1st Amendment of the US Constitution more important than any single political candidate? Or are all political values negotiable?Tory Conservativehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10713535182753659510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9024328734974003996.post-74135411715079412712008-02-18T09:28:00.000-08:002008-02-18T19:46:11.981-08:00Canadian Health Care: A health care monopolyHere's an excerpt from Lorne Gunter's column about Canada's National Health care system titled, <a href="http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/story.html?id=315974"><b>Dying To Save 'The System'</b></a><blockquote>For defenders of Canada's government-monopoly health care system, there is only one goal that truly matters. And, no, despite their earnest insistences to the contrary, that goal is not the health of patients. It is the preservation of the public monopoly at all costs, even patients' lives.<br /><br />This week, the Kawacatoose First Nation, which has an urban reserve on Regina's eastern outskirts, announced it wanted to build a health centre there with its own money. Among other things, the band wants to buy a state-of-the-art MRI machine and perform diagnostic tests on Saskatchewanians -- aboriginal and non-aboriginal-- who currently face some of the longest waits for scans in the country.<br /><br />This should be a win-win: Aboriginals show entrepreneurial initiative, without any financial obligation on the part of the federal or provincial government, and create well-paying high-tech jobs for natives who desperately need them, while at the same time easing the wait for MRI tests in Saskatchewan that can now run to six or even 12 months.<br /><br />Each year, hundreds or even thousands of Saskatchewan residents -- mostly middle-class -- drive across the border into North Dakota and pay their own money for scans rather than wait for one at home. The Kawacatoose proposal would give them a much closer alternative.<br /><br />So what was the reaction of the opposition NDP in Saskatchewan? Restrained contempt and veiled fear-mongering.<br /><br />The restraint was a result only of the fact that this proposal was coming from aboriginals. Had a private, non-native company suggested the same thing, Saskatchewan's opposition socialists would have been screaming from the rooftops that greedy insurance companies and health profiteers are lurking under every hospital bed ready to prey on unsuspecting patients the moment they get the green light.</blockquote>Tory Conservativehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10713535182753659510noreply@blogger.com0