Friday, December 27, 2013
Thursday, December 26, 2013
Tuesday, December 24, 2013
A Christmas Carol Starring Alastair Sim on FXM
The FXM channel has scheduled a marathon running of, in my opinion, the best version of A Christmas Carol. The one I'm referring to stars Alastair Sim. I haven't seen this movie in years, and am happy a cable channel has decided to show it.
Source: http://www.fxnetworks.com/fxm/movies/a-christmas-carol-aka-scrooge-xms1503
Monday, December 23, 2013
Who Checks and Balances the Federal Judiciary?
When Barack Obama promised to fundamentally change
the United States, he wasn’t kidding. We
are currently living the nightmare that is Obamacare, and he has strategically placed
activist judges in key districts. A U.S.
District Court judge in Utah, appointed by the Anointed One, made an asinine
ruling in favor of same-sex marriage.
Here is an excerpt from CNSNews.com:
(CNSNews.com)
- Judge Robert J. Shelby, whom President Barack Obama appointed to the U.S.
District Court in Utah last year, issued an opinion on Friday declaring
that a right to same-sex marriage is "deeply rooted in the nation’s
history and implicit in the concept of ordered liberty."
Shelby was confirmed to
the federal bench by a voice vote of the Senate on Sept. 21, 2012. There was no
debate over his nomination, and no senator objected to his confirmation.
He has now issued an
opinion that could fundamentally alter American law and culture.
“The State’s second
argument is that the Plaintiffs are really seeking a new right, not access to
an existing right,” Shelby wrote in an opinion issued on the afternoon of the
Friday before Christmas.
Shelby ruled in this
opinion that the state constitutional amendment that 66 percent of Utah voters
approved in 2004 restricting marriage in that state to the union of a man and a
woman violated the U.S. Constitution.
Homosexual marriage is
deeply rooted in the nation’s history?
What history books has this guy been reading? Wow!
Of course, the vehicle that
all activist judges use to circumvent the legislative process and the
Constitution is the 14th Amendment.
The federal judiciary has completely bastardized the 14th. They have used it as a weapon to impose their
will upon the citizens of this country.
Four out of the five clauses in this post-Civil War amendment was
designed to punish and disenfranchise Southerners. The equal protection clause was meant to
ensure ex-slaves and their progeny were granted equal protection under
individual state laws. But of course,
through the decades, this punitive amendment has been shaped by unelected and
unaccountable judges to mean anything they want.
The Anti-Federalist was
right when it came to the judiciary.
They predicted that this branch of government would become the most
destructive of the three. The pseudonymous
writer, Brutus, predicted the following:
Perhaps nothing could have been better conceived
to facilitate the abolition of the state governments than the constitution of
the judicial. They will be able to extend the limits of the general government
gradually, and by insensible degrees, and to accomodate themselves to the
temper of the people. Their decisions on the meaning of the constitution will
commonly take place in cases which arise between individuals, with which the
public will not be generally acquainted; one adjudication will form a precedent
to the next, and this to a following one. These cases will immediately affect
individuals only; so that a series of determinations will probably take place
before even the people will be informed of them. In the mean time all the art
and address of those who wish for the change will be employed to make converts
to their opinion. The people will be told, that their state officers, and state
legislatures are a burden and expence without affording any solid advantage,
for that all the laws passed by them, might be equally well made by the general
legislature. If to those who will be interested in the change, be added, those
who will be under their influence, and such who will submit to almost any
change of government, which they can be persuaded to believe will ease them of
taxes, it is easy to see, the party who will favor the abolition of the state
governments would be far from being inconsiderable. — In this situation, the
general legislature, might pass one law after another, extending the general
and abridging the state jurisdictions, and to sanction their proceedings would
have a course of decisions of the judicial to whom the constitution has
committed the power of explaining the constitution. — If the states
remonstrated, the constitutional mode of deciding upon the validity of the law,
is with the supreme court, and neither people, nor state legislatures, nor the
general legislature can remove them or reverse their decrees.
Had the construction of the constitution been left with the legislature, they would have explained it at their peril; if they exceed their powers, or sought to find, in the spirit of the constitution, more than was expressed in the letter, the people from whom they derived their power could remove them, and do themselves right; and indeed I can see no other remedy that the people can have against their rulers for encroachments of this nature. A constitution is a compact of a people with their rulers; if the rulers break the compact, the people have a right and ought to remove them and do themselves justice; but in order to enable them to do this with the greater facility, those whom the people chuse at stated periods, should have the power in the last resort to determine the sense of the compact; if they determine contrary to the understanding of the people, an appeal will lie to the people at the period when the rulers are to be elected, and they will have it in their power to remedy the evil; but when this power is lodged in the hands of men independent of the people, and of their representatives, and who are not, constitutionally, accountable for their opinions, no way is left to controul them but with a high hand and an outstretched arm.
I ask, who checks and balances the federal judiciary. As stated by Brutus: No one.
Saturday, December 21, 2013
Progressives Conspire to Co-Opt Jesus Christ
The suspension of Duck Dynasty’s patriarch, Phil
Robertson, is another salvo against traditional America and Christian
orthodoxy. For decades, progressives
have bastardized our founding, the first amendment, laws and language as means
to secularize the country. Devout
Christians are to be shamed and shunned.
And if that doesn’t work, the progressives will co-opt the religion
itself.
There is a movement to redefine Christianity. Those who live questionable lifestyles want
nothing more than to be accepted by traditional America. They need to manufacture a doctrine that is
permissive and tolerant. And the best
way to accomplish this is by remaking Jesus Christ. Here is an excerpt from a report entitled: Redefining Christ and Christianity:
This questioning for the most radical
progressives has resulted in a complete re-orientation of the traditional
Christian discourse (Hall, 2011). The death and resurrection of Jesus
Christ as the Son of God for the salvation of mankind would be a key doctrine
to the vast majority of Christians. Yet progressive Christianity seeks to
rid itself of any kind of soteriology and the related concepts of the
Original Sin, guilt, judgement and inherent worthlessness of humans. They
see these ideas as extremely negative, destructive and oppressive in the
sense that they lead people to needlessly despise themselves sometimes
leading to self-flagellation; one leader even felt that the promotion of
such an ideology was the worst injustice committed by Christianity. Not content
with the rejection of Christian soteriology, progressive leaders also seek
to jettison traditional Christian eschatology; progressive leaders reject
the view of heaven and hell as existing separately from and beyond this
life. If they believe in such concepts it is in a very abstract way, more
as states of mind which can be achieved in this life by anybody (see
Sanguin, 2011; Plumer, 2011b; Lawton, 2011) so that ‘heaven’ can be found
in this world by a variety of methods (see the section below on progressive spirituality).
Progressive theology goes even further in its
rejection of orthodox Christian doctrine to the redefinition of both God
and Jesus. In the same way that they cease to view heaven and hell as
existing outside the universe, many progressives reject any theistic model
of God preferring to see him as part of the universe thereby allowing us
to touch the divine in this life. God is no longer the big man in the sky
who controls the world, makes demands of us and can be petitioned. Prayer
is now seen more as a therapeutic activity, a way finding the inner
strength to solve our problems for ourselves. That God is the universe or
the universe is part of God means that each of us is also in some small
way sacred or even divine; we are all sons (or daughters) of God, which
reinforces the emphasis on the inherent worth of human beings. The actual
word ‘God’ has become an issue for progressives because of its theistic
connotations and so there is no agreed label for this new concept which
may reflect a wider confusion over what ‘God’ actually is to post-theistic
Christians.
This movement is slowing making its way into
mainstream America. The militant LGBT
community is their foot soldiers. Political
correctness is their weapon of choice. And
Duck Dynasty is just one of many casualties.
Friday, December 20, 2013
Obamacare Ad Promotes Vice and Ignorance
If you thought the federal government has a vested
interest in the populace submersing itself in vice and ignorance, the above
video just confirmed your suspicions. And
the taxpayers paid for this filth.
Samuel Adams, the father of the American Revolution,
stated the following:
Is it not
High Time for the People of this Country explicitly to declare, whether they
will be Freemen or Slaves? It is an important Question which ought to be
decided. It concerns us more than any Thing in this Life. The
Salvation of our Souls is interested in the Event: For wherever Tyranny
is establish’d, Immorality of every Kind comes in like a Torrent. It is
in the interest of Tyrants to reduce the people to Ignorance and Vice.
For they cannot subsist separately; and therefore they rise and fall together.
For this Reason, it is always observable, that those who are combined to
destroy the People’s Liberties, practice every Art to poison their
Morals. How greatly then does it concern us, at all Events, to put a Stop
to the Progress of Tyranny.
And that
is the truth.
Please Be Careful This Holiday Season
With the holidays upon us I would like to share a personal experience with my family & friends about drinking and driving. As you may know some of us have been known to have brushes with the authorities from time to time on the way home after a "social session" or out with friends.
Well,
three days ago I was out for an evening with friends and had several cocktails,
followed by some rather nice red wine. Feeling jolly I still had the
sense to know that I may be over the limit. That's when I did something
that I've never done before ... I took a cab home!
Sure
enough on the way home there was a police road block, but since it was a cab
they waved it past. I arrived home safely without incident. This was a
real relief and surprise because I had never driven a cab before. I don't even
know where I got it and now that it's in my garage I don't know what to do with
it!!!
H/T: Ray via email
MSNBC: Pajama Boy an Insufferable Man-Child
You know it's bad when MSNBC criticizes an Obamacare ad.
Homeland Security Caught Smuggling Illegal Aliens into America
I have said on many occasions
that agents in the Obama administration have contempt for Americans and the
idea of citizenship. These people are
deeply embedded and are actively working to subvert our immigration laws. Here is a story in the Washington Times
reaffirming those suspicions:
A federal judge in Texas
late last week accused the Obama
administration of aiding drug cartels, saying that instead of
enforcing immigration laws, agents knowingly helped smuggle an illegal immigrant
girl into the U.S. to live with her mother, also an illegal immigrant, in
Virginia.
In a 10-page order,
Judge Andrew S. Hanen said
the case was the fourth such case he’s seen over the last month, and in each
instance Customs and Border Protection agents have helped to locate and
deliver the children to their illegal immigrant parents
The judge said in each
case, the taxpayers footed the bill for flights — including flights to multiple
locations in different parts of the U.S. that it took to find one of the
children’s parents.
“The DHS is rewarding
criminal conduct instead of enforcing the current laws. More troubling, the DHS
is encouraging parents to seriously jeopardize the safety of their children,”
the judge said, adding that some of the children have been made to swim the Rio
Grande River or traverse remote areas as part of the smuggling.
And there is nothing we
can do about it.
Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter
Thursday, December 19, 2013
Progressives Are Trying to Redefine Christianity
I started watching Duck Dynasty a couple of months
ago. Fans of the show know the Robertson
family is devoutly Christian. It should
have been no surprise that the patriarch would publicly speak out against
homosexuality and other forms of aberrant behavior. So, one must ask why would a cable network
like A&E produce and air a show that is antagonistic to the LGBT community
that they proudly support. Eventually,
there was going to be a conflict. Phil Robertson discussed his problems with the
network in the following video:
Anyone who pays attention knows that Christianity is
under attack and has been for decades.
What is even more disturbing is the attempt to redefine Christianity
itself. F.A. Hayek wrote about the
insidious actions of progressives redefining the language. He warned that they would succeed in
bastardizing the word liberal, and they have.
Now, they are trying to redefine Christianity.
Notice that the homosexual activist in the above
video stated that his view of Christianity is only about tolerance; that the
teachings of Jesus Christ are just about treating your neighbor as you want to
be treated. We are beginning to witness an
implication that morality and vice are just an abstraction that has no credence. Their new version of the Christian religion must
embrace homosexuality or be banned from the public square. What we are witnessing is the beginning of
the redefinition of Christianity.
Obama's Vision of Manhood in America
So, this is what passes for manhood in Obama's America. I haven't wore a one piece pajama since I was five years old. And I don't believe I've ever held a coffee cup like that either.
Oh, and let's not forget Mr. Silence of the Lambs.
And we wonder why no one fears or respects this country any more.
Wednesday, December 18, 2013
Like Your Senator Ad
They need to run an ad like this in North Carolina. Can anyone say Senator Kay Hagan?
Medicaid Expansion Leads to Single-Payer System
A legion of commentators has speculated on the true
intent of Obamacare. Many believe the
end game is a single-payer system. That
is why states like North Carolina are being browbeaten by the Obama administration,
progressive organizations and media outlets into expanding Medicaid. The John Locke Foundation has postulated the
following:
While the current
Obamacare debate has focused on the fate of the insurance exchanges, the bill
was always primarily about expanding Medicaid. Most of the people forecast to
obtain coverage under Obamacare were to do so as new Medicaid recipients, not
enrollees of private plans.
Moreover, the flaws in the insurance exchanges reflect not an accident but instead a heartfelt belief by the law’s framers that true health insurance — a financial product to protect households against unforeseen major medical expenses — needs to go away. They were willing to use federal power to attempt to turn private insurers into regulated utilities. But most of them assumed the effort would fail in the long run, leaving no alternative but to expand Medicare and Medicaid into a de facto single-payer system.
In that one prediction, at least, the framers of Obamacare are likely to be correct. If current trends continue, a combination of adverse selection and moral hazard will render the private exchange plans unsustainable without massive and unpopular government bailouts. If taxpayers are going to be forced to plow more money into the financing system of health care, the argument will go, why not just cut out the middleman and fund the expansion of Medicare (by lowering the eligibility age) and Medicaid (by raising the income-eligibility cap)?
Hospital executives and other providers may not fully appreciate where this is going — although some may have concluded that they might as well be in on it rather than have no seat at the table. For Obamacare’s most-passionate advocates, however, there is simply no doubt about their ultimate goal. If you agree with that goal, so be it. If you don’t agree with that goal, you need to recognize that browbeating North Carolina and other states into expanding Medicaid is intended to hasten its realization.
Moreover, the flaws in the insurance exchanges reflect not an accident but instead a heartfelt belief by the law’s framers that true health insurance — a financial product to protect households against unforeseen major medical expenses — needs to go away. They were willing to use federal power to attempt to turn private insurers into regulated utilities. But most of them assumed the effort would fail in the long run, leaving no alternative but to expand Medicare and Medicaid into a de facto single-payer system.
In that one prediction, at least, the framers of Obamacare are likely to be correct. If current trends continue, a combination of adverse selection and moral hazard will render the private exchange plans unsustainable without massive and unpopular government bailouts. If taxpayers are going to be forced to plow more money into the financing system of health care, the argument will go, why not just cut out the middleman and fund the expansion of Medicare (by lowering the eligibility age) and Medicaid (by raising the income-eligibility cap)?
Hospital executives and other providers may not fully appreciate where this is going — although some may have concluded that they might as well be in on it rather than have no seat at the table. For Obamacare’s most-passionate advocates, however, there is simply no doubt about their ultimate goal. If you agree with that goal, so be it. If you don’t agree with that goal, you need to recognize that browbeating North Carolina and other states into expanding Medicaid is intended to hasten its realization.
The Democrats have
never been forthright with their intent.
They have lied to the American people time after time. Any reasonable person should conclude that a
single-payer system is the endgame, and they will implement it by any means
necessary.
Barbara Walters Bemoans the Messiah's Failures
Barbara WaWa just reaffirmed what we have been saying since the beginning of the Anointed Ones administration. The media and all of Obama's followers thought him the messiah.
A Charlotte Observer Wastrel Christmas
Every year, the Charlotte Observer publishes Christmas cartoons depicting the GOP and republican politicians as Scrooge, the Grinch, or some other loathsome seasonal characterization. It never fails. The two above are just the beginning of this holiday season.
I would like
to ascribe a cartoon that more accurately portrays the editorial board and their
cartoonist.
Have a Merry Christmas all you wastrels at the
Charlotte Observer. And without a doubt,
the word “Christmas” is offense to the Marxist that infest that libtard paper.
The Washington D.C. Menace
The assault on liberty, property, prosperity and
conscience from a centralized government is a very real threat. The premise of a limited government as
defined in our Constitution has been trash canned. The States have been turned into vassalages
and citizenship is mocked and spurned.
Washington D.C. has become a menace. Unelected bureaucrats are running roughshod
over our rights, while federal judges affirm their power grab. All three branches of government have
colluded to enslave the American people.
The next step is President Obama exercising dictatorial powers by
issuing executive orders. We have progressive
politicians demanding he do so, especially when it comes to granting amnesty to
illegal aliens.
But the president has found other ways to circumvent
the legislative process. He is
appointing activist in the federal bureaucracies to spearhead his progressive
agenda. One such example is his stacking
Homeland Security with open borders attorneys that will openly work against
immigration laws. What we have is a rot
from within. And this is only one example.
There is hope.
The American people are beginning to wake up. A recent Gallop Poll has shown that 72% of those
participating believe the federal government is a threat. Once we recognize the problem, we can begin
to address it. And one of the ways to
defang this monster is to abolish their army of bureaucrats. We must repeal the law that unleashed this
unholy authoritarian hell. We must
repeal the Administrative Procedures Act of 1946.
Sunday, November 24, 2013
Celebrate Evacuation Day!
Tomorrow is Evacuation Day. November 25, 1783 was the day American
patriots reclaimed New York City from the British troops and their loyalist
occupiers. General George Washington
marched his troops through the streets of Manhattan. He was astonished at what he saw.
The Americans stopped at
the Blue Bell Tavern, at what is now 181st St. and Broadway, once a hotbed of
patriotic sentiment, where the head of King George III’s statue was stuck on a post
in the first days of liberty. They marched through McGowan’s Pass, along what
is now Central Park’s East Drive at about 102nd St., then made their way down
the Bowery to Pearl St., and turning west on Wall St. — following much of the
same route along which they fled in a desperate retreat from British troops
seven years before.
The landscape about them
was unrecognizable, “the island . . . totally stripped of trees,” an astonished
Washington reported. Most of the villages of upper Manhattan had been burned
and looted. It was, one observer said, “one general scene of ravage and desolation.”
Those
who remained loyal to the crown sailed back to England or moved to Canada. Here is a picture of a statue in Hamilton,
Ontario lamenting the fate of British refugees.
This Monument is
Dedicated to the Lasting Memory of The United Empire Loyalists who, after the
Declaration of Independence, came into British America from the seceded
American Colonies and who, with faith and fortitude, and under great pioneering
difficulties, largely laid the foundations of this Canadian nation as an
integral part of the British Empire.
Neither confiscation of their property, the pitiless persecution of their kinsmen in revolt, nor the galling chains of imprisonment could break their spirits, or divorce them from a loyalty almost without parallel.
“No country ever had such founders — no country in the world — no, not since the days of Abraham.” — Lady Tennyson
I
can’t wait for the day when patriotic Americans once again liberate this
country from the current occupiers that infest this country.
Democrats Utilize Nuclear Option; Dismiss Senate Rules
We have witnessed time and time again,
Democrats disregarding the very rules and laws that they have implemented for
short term political expediency.
This time they utilized the nuclear option. According to Senate parliamentary procedures,
a 2/3 vote is required to change senate rules. That means 67 members must vote in the affirmative. Senator Harry Reid and his confederates
ignored this, even though he warned of the consequences in his book.
Everyone knows what this is about. They want to pack the D.C. Circuit Court in
order to buttress their runaway Administrative State and rule us without going
through the legislative process.
You Democrats are fooling no one.
H/T: NCRenegade
The Affordable Veterinary Care Act
If you like your balls, you can keep your balls.
H/T: I Own the World
Source: http://bitsandpieces.us/2013/11/24/obama-affordable-veterinary-care-act/
Democrats Road Map to Tyranny: Ignorance and Vice
Earlier this week, the nation celebrated the 150th
anniversary of the Gettysburg Address. President
Barack Obama, of course, had to place himself center stage by omitting “Under
God” in his recitation of that famous speech.
His irreverence should be no surprise to anyone who pays attention. He and his minions attack Christians and
their religion every chance they get.
Progressives have been successful at rewriting
history. Their god, FDR, is a poignant example
of that. So far, they have also been
successful at expunging God and Christ from our schools and the public square;
even to the point of denying that our founding fathers were Christians and that
they envisioned the United States as a Christian nation.
Progressives can deny this all they want, but we
have the documents to prove it. The first
Continental Congress unanimously voted for the Suffolk Resolves. One of those provisions claimed they were
Protestant Christians:
10. That the late act of parliament
for establishing the Roman Catholic religion and the French laws in that
extensive country, now called Canada, is dangerous in an extreme degree to the
Protestant religion and to the civil rights and liberties of all America; and,
therefore, as men and Protestant Christians, we are indispensubly obliged to
take all proper measures for our security.
Samuel Adams, widely considered the Father of the Revolution,
wrote that Americans have a religious duty to defend their liberties. Here is an excerpt that was published in the
Boston Gazette on October 5, 1772:
Is it not High Time for the People of this Country
explicitly to declare, whether they will be Freemen or Slaves? It is an important Question which ought to be
decided. It concerns us more than any
Thing in this Life. The Salvation of our
Souls is interested in the Event: For
wherever Tyranny is establish’d, Immorality of every Kind comes in like a
Torrent. It is in the interest of
Tyrants to reduce the people to Ignorance and Vice. For they cannot subsist separately; and
therefore they rise and fall together.
For this Reason, it is always observable, that those who are combined to
destroy the People’s Liberties, practice every Art to poison their Morals. How greatly then does it concern us, at all
Events, to put a Stop to the Progress of Tyranny.
And that pretty much describes the strategy of the Democratic
Party.
It is Healthier to be Uninsured than on Medicaid
As the American people are being stampeded from
their "substandard" insurance policies into a more expensive and/or taxpayer
subsidized one that doesn’t pertain to their needs, many are finding out that
they can’t afford it. Those unfortunates
are being herded into the Medicaid system.
Talk to anyone who is on Medicaid. You’ll find out there are too many people
competing for too few services. As a
matter of fact, it is coming to light that it is more dangerous to your health to
be on Medicaid than it is to be uninsured.
Here is an excerpt from Avik Roy’s broadside: How Medicaid Fails the Poor.
There’s a massive fallacy at the heart of Medicaid,
and therefore at the heart of Obamacare.
It’s the idea that health insurance equals health care.
It doesn’t take a PhD in health economics to
appreciate that if you have a card that says you have health insurance, but
that card doesn’t get you into the doctor’s office when you need help, you’re
not going to get better health care. But
in case you were wondering, PhD’s – and MD’s – have looked at this
problem. In 2010, a group of surgeons at
the University of Virginia asked this question:
Does the type of health insurance you have make a difference in the
outcomes of the care you receive?
To answer it, they evaluated 893,658 major surgical
operations from 2003 to 2007. The
results were jarring. Patients on
Medicare who were undergoing surgery were 45 percent more likely to die before
leaving the hospital than those with private insurance; the uninsured were 74
percent more likely; and Medicaid patients were 93 percent more likely. That is to say, despite the fact that we will
soon spend more than $500 billion a year on Medicaid, Medicaid beneficiaries,
on average, fared slightly worse than those with no insurance at all.
The advocates of Medicaid contend that this program
helps the poor by providing preventive care.
Avik Roy’s pamphlet also torpedoes this assumption by referencing the
Oregon study and others. Of course, progressives
come up with all sorts of excuses. Mr.
Roy refutes each one. Watch this
video. At the 3:24 mark he describes
that Medicaid reimburses doctors 30 cents for every dollar it collects.
Source:
Carolina Journal Radio: Amity Shlaes on Calvin Coolidge
RALEIGH — As Americans
continue to struggle with a sluggish economy, policymakers could learn useful
lessons from a president who served in office more than 80 years ago. That’s
the view of Amity Shlaes, director of the Four Percent Growth Project at the George
W. Bush Center, nationally syndicated columnist, and author of three New
York Times best-sellers, including a biography of the 30th
American president, Calvin Coolidge. Shlaes outlined Coolidge’s successful
record for a recent John Locke Foundation Headliner event. She also discussed
Coolidge during an interview with Mitch Kokai for Carolina Journal Radio.
(Click here to find a station near you or to learn about the weekly CJ Radio
podcast.)
Kokai: Calvin Coolidge. Why devote an entire book to this president who a lot of people don’t even remember?
Shlaes: Well, today we wonder — we’re a little worried about the debt today, right? And today we wonder if a president could ever cut debt really, could cut the budget really — especially in peacetime. That seems incompatible with our politicians. It’s almost inconceivable.
And here was a U.S. president who cut the budget during peacetime and prosperity. The astounding fact, Mitch, about Coolidge was he came into office in 1923. He left in March ’29, and when he left the White House, the federal budget was lower than when he came in. Actually lower, not just mess[ing] around with inflation — really, truly lower. Even as the economy expanded throughout the period, even as the population expanded, he managed to shrink the government. So how did he do that? That’s the subject of this book.
Kokai: I imagine some people will hear that and say, “Oh, but those were different times. It was so long ago. It must have been easy to cut the federal government back then.” Your book details that even in the 1920s, it was hard to make these cuts. These weren’t simple, easy decisions.
Shlaes: Well, yes. We always ask, “What direction is the country going in?” And if you ask President Obama what direction he was going in, it wouldn’t be that much different, on paper, than where a Republican might be going. In that period, they had the Progressive Party. It wasn’t shy about expansion of government. It wanted to nationalize the two most important industries at that time: the railroad and electric power. It wanted to nationalize the industries of the future. The Internet equivalent was utilities. It didn’t mind the idea of a bunch of reforms at the federal level, some of which we wouldn’t agree with, such as full national health like England. And this was the coming party. If you [asked], “What is the future of the U.S.?” you’d say, “It was the Progressive Party.”
And, indeed, in 1924, in the election in which Coolidge, as president, did compete, the Progressives got 17 percent. So they were saying the Republican Party is dying, the Progressives are going to take over, and America is going to shift left.
So imagine as executive you’re competing with that. And instead of saying, “Yeah, I’ll do a little national health. Yeah, I’ll do a little for the veterans.” (The great entitlement group at that time was the veterans, the ones seeking entitlements. One-third were disabled from World War I. They were angry, and they had no pension.) Instead of saying, “Yeah, I’ll concede there,” Coolidge just said, “No.” So to sketch it as a job without challenges or without pressure from the left is to misrepresent history.
Kokai: The Progressives were a separate party eventually, but there were a lot of Progressives within the Republican Party, and Calvin Coolidge, we learn from your book, really had to come to grips with what he thought about that element of his own party and whether he would stand with Progressive Republicans or with another group that was more for limited government. How did he end up coming to the stance that he did?
Shlaes: One of the interesting things about the period is the Republican Party thinks it’s in crisis today; it was really in crisis then. There were many new immigrants. They weren’t necessarily going to vote for Republicans. They were in traditional Republican territory. The Progressive movement was growing.
Coolidge was a professional politician. He spent his entire career in politics in a very interesting way, moving up the ladder from little mayor of Northampton or even the city solicitor, all the way to governor of Massachusetts and then to Washington, vice president, president. He had to figure out where he fit in this. And as a young man, a young Republican coming out of college in 1895, who is the star of his party in the first 10 years of his adulthood? Theodore Roosevelt, the great Progressive.
And there’s an amusing section in the book. Coolidge’s honeymoon, he goes to Canada. And even in the Canadian papers, Theodore Roosevelt is it. Coolidge as a young man believed in Progressivism and passed Progressive laws, endorsed them, sponsored them as a lawmaker in the state of Massachusetts and Boston. He even had an antitrust law he wanted for theaters. So these Progressive concepts — help for workers, minimum wage, things like that — Coolidge, if you go look at the roster of the things he endorsed as a state politician, it’s there. He was a Progressive.
But two things happened. Gradually he began to see that maybe Progressive ideas weren’t good for the economy. And especially with the panic in 1907, the Progressives wanted this and that with the railroad, basically to rip it apart, and then they wanted the railroad to rescue the economy after they had trashed the railroads and caused the crash.
And Coolidge saw the hypocrisy in this. There was a lack of functionality. And he began to say, “Well, maybe I’m not so progressive.” And he was horrified at the disloyalty of Theodore Roosevelt, who ran off and founded his own party, the Bull Moose Party, and therefore gave the opposition power. Woodrow Wilson wouldn’t have won if the Republicans hadn’t split.
So a third factor, though, is federalism. Coolidge believed in states. He was a state Progressive. But the idea that Washington, which he called the national government, should promulgate Progressive policy, well, he wasn’t so sure about that. So it’s both a shift in temperament — through experience and philosophy, as a man ages and comes to maturity — and also a shift in level of government.
If Coolidge had always stayed Massachusetts’ governor, we could do a hypothetical and say he might have been for some Progressive laws for Massachusetts, even as an old man. But he didn’t. He went to Washington, to where he thought neither Progressive laws were a good idea nor, certainly, was it suitable for Washington to be promulgating them, to them come upon the states from Washington.
Kokai: What should today’s politicians learn from Calvin Coolidge?
Shlaes: We think today that if a candidate is for cutting government, he’s going to lose. We also think, by the way, that cutting government doesn’t work. “Austerity,” the dreaded red letter A, right? No politician can be for it, whatever party. What Coolidge showed is that you could be for austerity and have a good result with the economy. They had 4 percent growth, like the name of my project at the Bush Center. Something to which we today can only aspire: 4 percent growth. They had very low unemployment with a policy of austerity.
And the second thing is that austerity can win. People wondered whether Coolidge, when he did run for president in 1924 — he had come [into office in 1923] after the death of a president — would he win? Would he make it? And the outstanding fact of the ’24 election is that Coolidge, as a Republican, even with a third party taking 17 percent, prevailed. He had an absolute majority, not just a plurality, beating Democrats and Progressives combined. He was enormously popular. When he didn’t run in ’28 the Republican Party, neurotic [then] as now, had a nervous breakdown. So you can win politically and economically with a policy of government austerity. That’s Coolidge’s message
Kokai: Calvin Coolidge. Why devote an entire book to this president who a lot of people don’t even remember?
Shlaes: Well, today we wonder — we’re a little worried about the debt today, right? And today we wonder if a president could ever cut debt really, could cut the budget really — especially in peacetime. That seems incompatible with our politicians. It’s almost inconceivable.
And here was a U.S. president who cut the budget during peacetime and prosperity. The astounding fact, Mitch, about Coolidge was he came into office in 1923. He left in March ’29, and when he left the White House, the federal budget was lower than when he came in. Actually lower, not just mess[ing] around with inflation — really, truly lower. Even as the economy expanded throughout the period, even as the population expanded, he managed to shrink the government. So how did he do that? That’s the subject of this book.
Kokai: I imagine some people will hear that and say, “Oh, but those were different times. It was so long ago. It must have been easy to cut the federal government back then.” Your book details that even in the 1920s, it was hard to make these cuts. These weren’t simple, easy decisions.
Shlaes: Well, yes. We always ask, “What direction is the country going in?” And if you ask President Obama what direction he was going in, it wouldn’t be that much different, on paper, than where a Republican might be going. In that period, they had the Progressive Party. It wasn’t shy about expansion of government. It wanted to nationalize the two most important industries at that time: the railroad and electric power. It wanted to nationalize the industries of the future. The Internet equivalent was utilities. It didn’t mind the idea of a bunch of reforms at the federal level, some of which we wouldn’t agree with, such as full national health like England. And this was the coming party. If you [asked], “What is the future of the U.S.?” you’d say, “It was the Progressive Party.”
And, indeed, in 1924, in the election in which Coolidge, as president, did compete, the Progressives got 17 percent. So they were saying the Republican Party is dying, the Progressives are going to take over, and America is going to shift left.
So imagine as executive you’re competing with that. And instead of saying, “Yeah, I’ll do a little national health. Yeah, I’ll do a little for the veterans.” (The great entitlement group at that time was the veterans, the ones seeking entitlements. One-third were disabled from World War I. They were angry, and they had no pension.) Instead of saying, “Yeah, I’ll concede there,” Coolidge just said, “No.” So to sketch it as a job without challenges or without pressure from the left is to misrepresent history.
Kokai: The Progressives were a separate party eventually, but there were a lot of Progressives within the Republican Party, and Calvin Coolidge, we learn from your book, really had to come to grips with what he thought about that element of his own party and whether he would stand with Progressive Republicans or with another group that was more for limited government. How did he end up coming to the stance that he did?
Shlaes: One of the interesting things about the period is the Republican Party thinks it’s in crisis today; it was really in crisis then. There were many new immigrants. They weren’t necessarily going to vote for Republicans. They were in traditional Republican territory. The Progressive movement was growing.
Coolidge was a professional politician. He spent his entire career in politics in a very interesting way, moving up the ladder from little mayor of Northampton or even the city solicitor, all the way to governor of Massachusetts and then to Washington, vice president, president. He had to figure out where he fit in this. And as a young man, a young Republican coming out of college in 1895, who is the star of his party in the first 10 years of his adulthood? Theodore Roosevelt, the great Progressive.
And there’s an amusing section in the book. Coolidge’s honeymoon, he goes to Canada. And even in the Canadian papers, Theodore Roosevelt is it. Coolidge as a young man believed in Progressivism and passed Progressive laws, endorsed them, sponsored them as a lawmaker in the state of Massachusetts and Boston. He even had an antitrust law he wanted for theaters. So these Progressive concepts — help for workers, minimum wage, things like that — Coolidge, if you go look at the roster of the things he endorsed as a state politician, it’s there. He was a Progressive.
But two things happened. Gradually he began to see that maybe Progressive ideas weren’t good for the economy. And especially with the panic in 1907, the Progressives wanted this and that with the railroad, basically to rip it apart, and then they wanted the railroad to rescue the economy after they had trashed the railroads and caused the crash.
And Coolidge saw the hypocrisy in this. There was a lack of functionality. And he began to say, “Well, maybe I’m not so progressive.” And he was horrified at the disloyalty of Theodore Roosevelt, who ran off and founded his own party, the Bull Moose Party, and therefore gave the opposition power. Woodrow Wilson wouldn’t have won if the Republicans hadn’t split.
So a third factor, though, is federalism. Coolidge believed in states. He was a state Progressive. But the idea that Washington, which he called the national government, should promulgate Progressive policy, well, he wasn’t so sure about that. So it’s both a shift in temperament — through experience and philosophy, as a man ages and comes to maturity — and also a shift in level of government.
If Coolidge had always stayed Massachusetts’ governor, we could do a hypothetical and say he might have been for some Progressive laws for Massachusetts, even as an old man. But he didn’t. He went to Washington, to where he thought neither Progressive laws were a good idea nor, certainly, was it suitable for Washington to be promulgating them, to them come upon the states from Washington.
Kokai: What should today’s politicians learn from Calvin Coolidge?
Shlaes: We think today that if a candidate is for cutting government, he’s going to lose. We also think, by the way, that cutting government doesn’t work. “Austerity,” the dreaded red letter A, right? No politician can be for it, whatever party. What Coolidge showed is that you could be for austerity and have a good result with the economy. They had 4 percent growth, like the name of my project at the Bush Center. Something to which we today can only aspire: 4 percent growth. They had very low unemployment with a policy of austerity.
And the second thing is that austerity can win. People wondered whether Coolidge, when he did run for president in 1924 — he had come [into office in 1923] after the death of a president — would he win? Would he make it? And the outstanding fact of the ’24 election is that Coolidge, as a Republican, even with a third party taking 17 percent, prevailed. He had an absolute majority, not just a plurality, beating Democrats and Progressives combined. He was enormously popular. When he didn’t run in ’28 the Republican Party, neurotic [then] as now, had a nervous breakdown. So you can win politically and economically with a policy of government austerity. That’s Coolidge’s message
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