We live up in the woods near South Mountain, east of Hagerstown, Maryland, and my wife has a rooster and some hens in the backyard which provide us with eggs. So I was working here in my basement office at home, a little after midnight, when my 18-year-old son Bob comes running in the door and yells for his twin brother: “Jim, get your gun! It’s a possum!” And out the door they went. A half-hour later, they returned safely and successfully. The possum? Not so much.
It’s obviously hereditary. I call ’em Bo and Luke.
You definitely ought to hit the tip jar. I’ll buy ’em some more shells.
My wife and I have six children, which is three times the national average in the U.S. People often ask, “Are you Catholic?” No, we’re proudly Protestant. Yet one cannot ignore the fact that, almost alone among major Christian denominations, the Catholic Church has a well-developed pro-life, pro-family doctrine as part of its basic belief system. It is lamentable that Protestants — even conservative denominations — have not followed suit, insofar as I think that the 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae, for example, has proven quite literally prophetic in its forecast of the social consequences of what has been called the Contraceptive Culture. (See “The Pill at 50: Unhappy Un-Birthday.”)
One obviously need not be a Catholic to see this, nor even a Christian, because every man may examine the facts for himself. And strangely, most people remain utterly unaware of the dire results of a collapsing birth rate. If you’ve read Mark Steyn’s America Alone or Pat Buchanan’s The Death of the West, you know what I’m talking about. But those are political books by conservatives, and the arguments made by Steyn and Buchanan are apt to be rejected by those who aren’t interested in politics, or who don’t share the conservative views of the authors. In the same way, religious arguments about sexual matters are likely to be rejected by people who aren’t religious.
The important thing to understand is that there are no inexorable trends in human affairs that we are powerless to resist. Men make trends, and not the other way around. Change begins with one person — and that person is you. Do not ask what government can do. Do not ask what your neighbor or your church can do. Instead ask yourself, “What can I do?” And whatever that is, do it.
Don’t look at me. I’ve got six kids — certainly I’m part of the solution, not part of the problem.
We begin this week’s roundup of Rule 5 linkagery with one of the stranger links I’ve ever seen. Without further ado, courtesy of The POH Diaries, Hilary Duff owling.
More conventionally, Randy’s Roundtable has Sara Jean Underwood and Lisa Marie Scott, Eye of Polyphemus fakes us out with Laura Croft, but Fishersville Mike fills that particular niche in the Rule 5 linkosphere for us instead with Jessica Alba. A View From The Beach offers Angelina Jolie because she eats crickets, and also puts us some science about the slut gene. Jake Finnegan offers us a look into one possible (and horrible) future with Burkalesque Babe Heather Mitts.
Thanks to all for their linkagery. For next week’s Rule 5 Sunday, please do not send your links to the same e-mail address as the FMJRA or delays/omissions may ensue. Instead, send your snooch links to Rule 5 Wombat by July 30 for proper, er, handling.
If you’ve been reading blogs for the last couple of years, there is an air of predictability as the political theater moves forward.
Via BlogProf, we have the weekly GOP address, where Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) lays everything out in smooth, even tones:
Also trying to sound reasonable, and failing, we have Elizabeth Drew in the New York Review of Books: “What Were They Thinking?” If you want a target for a lengthy fisk, this article affords nearly five thousand words of cherry-picked, reasonably toned finger pointing. A few introductory points:
The President argued that it’s critical to make cuts that will “get our fiscal house in order,” so that the American people and the politicians would accept the idea of new programs leading to growth and more jobs. But there are numerous indications that the public is ready for such programs now, and serious analysts see no reason why he should not also be taking such steps now, even if this increases the deficit in the short run. But that would be at odds with Obama’s current self-portrayal. People who are looking for work, or worried about their unemployment insurance, or getting their kids to college, may not be impressed with the argument that they must be patient while the President adjusts his fiscal image in time for the 2012 election.
So, calling the good President’s bluff, what cuts? There remain substantial differences between three crucial items here: sound waves emitted by the Presidential mouth, budgetary plans available for public scrutiny, and historical events. If we had a dollar for every swell sounding platitude departing the President, the whole country could retire outright. Perhaps his lack of real-world business experience is an impediment.
The Republicans, with Alice in Wonderland logic, termed any elimination of a tax break a tax increase. Moreover, the breaks included in the tax code were there because they had been sponsored by an important member of Congress, or supported by a powerful lobby on behalf of one interest or another. After the President, in a press conference in late June, inveighed against tax breaks for corporate jets, the industry quickly insisted that such a change would cost jobs.
Alice, you see, was actually a plumber in disguise. If the market is a pipe, and economy is some working fluid, then taxation is an orifice that may have some utility, unless it Progressively becomes a clenched sphincter:
Emphasis mine in this next bit:
The Tea Party’s strength was larger than its numbers—about eighty in the House and as few as four in the Senate—because the entire House Republican freshman class and some more senior members were sympathetic to its views, and because the ghost of Bob Bennett now haunts many Republicans. Bennett (still alive), a solid conservative three-term senator from Utah, was, astonishingly, rejected for reelection last year by the Utah Republican caucus for having been insufficiently pure in his conservatism. (His vote in 2006 against a constitutional amendment to ban flag-burning was seen as heresy.)
If Bob Bennett could be dumped, no one was safe. Boehner himself was facing a possible primary challenge. Some Tea Party members dug in on the debt ceiling because they, too, feared attacks or challenges, principally from people who would accuse them of not forcing sufficient cuts or of failing to keep their pledge not to raise the debt limit.
Safe from what, precisely? We have a population, from which is drawn a subset of citizens to trudge into Congress and make laws. The 2010 election (and, one prays, the 2012 election as well) formed a strong, Constitutional signal about the will of the people: we want responsible government. A President running amok is at least showing signs of being brought to heel. What is unsafe about the Constitutional design working as intended? Not that this is time for high fives, mind you, but we should be cheered that the exceptional notion of liberty and self government at least affords an appearance of working.
Read the whole thing for a peek into a sadly diseased Progressive mindset.
Also in need of help is Adam Liptak at the NYT. “The 14th Amendment, the Debt Ceiling and a Way Out”:
The provision in question, Section 4 of the amendment, was meant to ensure the payment of Union debts after the Civil War and to disavow Confederate ones. But it was written in broader terms.
“The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payments of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion,” the critical sentence says, “shall not be questioned.”
The Supreme Court has said in passing that those words have outlived the historical moment that gave rise to them.
“While this provision was undoubtedly inspired by the desire to put beyond question the obligations of the government issued during the Civil War,” Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes wrote for the court in 1935, “its language indicates a broader connotation.”
In recent weeks, law professors have been trying to puzzle out the meaning and relevance of the provision. Some have joined Mr. Clinton in saying that it allows Mr. Obama to ignore the debt ceiling. Others say it applies only to Congress and only to outright default on existing debts. Still others say that the president may do what he wants in an emergency, with or without the authority of the 14th Amendment.
This is the usual idiotic argument of staring so closely at single clauses as to see whatever you want in them, at the expense of the broader scope of the Constitution. How can anyone seriously argue that the Executive branch can ingore Congress’s power of the purse? Maybe the Supreme Court can poke the Congress, if the Congress is so freaked out as to pass wantonly irresponsible legislation. Recent history has shown that the more likely case is that Congress blows off budgeting entirely, and the Federal Reserve waters down the dollar to taste.
Having said all that, the fundamental rock-scissors-paper arrangement of federal power has got to be inviolate, or we’re just another dictatorship.
Finally, Ezra Klein opens his mouth and justifies not having the WaPo cluttering my driveway. “A small deal won’t cut it”, is his title. That’s what she said. Nancy Pelosi, that is. On the topic of the debt ceiling. No double on-tawdry here. Someone has whispered to Excitable Ezra that there is a market filled with ravenous capitalists who are waiting to eat the U.S. credit rating. Possible side effects include Ezra having to get a real job (just kidding) and some of his patrons looking bad for re-election.
And Congress, unfortunately, has made that job a lot harder. A year ago, the market didn’t question our ability to raise the debt ceiling, nor our ability to come to a deficit deal in some reasonable period of time. Standard & Poor’s didn’t even think we should mix the two issues together. “It’s best practice for governments to enact [deficit] reforms … using the broader and longer-term perspective occasioned by debate on the budget proposal as a whole,” wrote the credit-rating agency. Plus, the debt ceiling had to be raised this year, but the deficit was a long-term problem that we had, at the least, “three to five years” to address.
Again, Ezra is either too witless or too cunning to look at the broader picture. The problem isn’t new. The irresponsibility didn’t grow overnight. The overreach is a bi-partisan product of decades of neglect. Ezra: the old days are gone, man: people in office are going to have to face an informed electorate. Finger-pointing, blaming Congress, Bush, Wall Street, rating agencies, &c is just passé. No one wants to hear it. We want to hear how responsible officials are going to make the budget fit the existing tax receipts.
And, from almost 30 years ago, we have this relic of Stacy’s brief flirtation with Brit pop:
One of the great joys of blogging is when people hit the tip jar and, when I send them a thank-you e-mail, they write back. A certain tip-jar hitter wrote back today to say he would have given me more, except he’s saving up to buy that 7-carat diamond ring from Amazon.
(tied) The Lonely Conservative and That Mr. G Guy (9)
Maggie’s Notebook (7)
(tied) Da Tech Guy and Republican Redefined (6)
Thanks to everyone for the links! Want to be included in next week’s FMJRA roundup? Send your links to me at Wombat-socho with “FMJRA” or “Shameless Blogwhoring” in the subject line by July 29.
NTTAWWT, mind you; one is pleased that the political will of New Yorkers has been expressed. Whether or not the Almighty will be impressed remains to be seen, but hey: not my problem.
Sprinklerman and BHO, on the other hand, are a two guys making decisions that affect a large number of people. This debt debate really isn’t about either of them. The question of whether an organization should wallow in debt until it collapses really gets at basic notions of integrity and forthrightness.
Over at Alan Colmes’ joint, Karthiks quotes Paul Starr at The American Prospect, who busily wrecks Hamilton’s Federalist #30 argument, emphasis mine:
During the [Constitution] ratification debate, those fiscal powers were at the heart of the Anti-Federalist case against the Constitution—to which Hamilton responded, in “Federalist No. 30,” that limiting those powers would be unwise because there was no telling what demands the government might face in the future.
Hamilton was right. The nation would never have flourished if the Anti-Federalists had gotten their way. Now the Republicans—true heirs to the Anti-Federalists—are trying to entrench the kind of arbitrary fiscal limitations and requirements for congressional supermajorities that the Founders rejected.
Nice throw-away counter-factual, Starr.
Curiously missing from Starr’s analysis is the ~125 year gap between the Constitution and Woodrow Wilson, when things really started going sideways, as a result of the Federal Reserve Act and 16th Amendment.
Those beating a Constitutional drum today are not necessarily anti-Federalist; those debates were held and concluded in Hamilton’s day. Many are anti-Federal-Over-Reachist, decrying the way the vertical separation of powers between local, state and federal government has been substantially erased in the last century.
Maybe Mr. Starr will get some word of this post and follow up on the question of just how much federal government is too much.
