More Thoughts on the GZM

Since I weighed in on the Ground Zero mosque not quite two months ago, I have been troubled with my position. I felt a strong sense of discord in my thinking; while I held my reasoning was sound in my position of not wanting the government to use arbitrary force to stop the mosque, the mosque itself is such a monstrosity that the thought of it seems to fester in my mind like an infection or cancer. I chalked it up to what Paul Hsieh had described as a "lose-lose situation" in that there are no good options here.

This morning, Stephen Bourque made an interesting argument about the situation.

If individual rights were being upheld in a reasonably consistent fashion in America, one might argue that the breach constituted by blocking the building of the mosque would threaten the rule of law itself. (Such a breach still might not compare to the threat of Islam, but the argument could be made.) However, this is not a case of “the cure being worse than the disease.” We already have the disease. The government seems to recognize no restraint on its powers to regulate and control our lives. . .

In light of this, my dilemma can be expressed more clearly: Given the past and present failings of the federal government, should it now apply an incremental evil of its own to stop a monstrous, civilization-threatening evil? In those terms, the answer in the affirmative is obvious. [emphasis in original]

I'm not sure if it's obvious, but it is something to think about. Previously, I wrote:

. . .fully recognizing the virulent evil of Sharia and Islam, I come down on the side of stopping the growth of our government’s rights-violating practices at all costs. If I were to guess which will be a greater threat to my kids’ lives in 20 years, I would unquestionably pick the arbitrary force of our own government.

The discord is still there, perhaps even stronger when contemplating Stephen's arguments, but I still think it's a lose-lose.

Whining, Finger-pointing, and Self-indulgence

What we are seeing, I think, is a group of supremely arrogant people humbled by events. They are turning out to be a good deal more incompetent than they (and many Americans) ever imagined. They see impending political doom in the form of the midterm elections. Yet this is not leading them toward any apparent serious self-reflection; rather, they are engaging in an extraordinary degree of whining, finger-pointing, and self-indulgence.

Peter Wehner discusses an upcoming Vanity Fair article that gives an inside look at the Obama White House. It's a perceptive commentary that helps explain the petulant, spoiled little rich kid attitudes of everyone in that building.

And yet, despite all that incompetence and whining, Obama and his minions have been tragically effective at hurtling our national coal cart down the tracks into the mineshaft of statism and tyranny. What? You say that perhaps that's why Obama is so self-pitying, precisely because things have gone awry? No, dear reader. He's happy with the course on which he has set us. He's just angry that the unwashed masses don't love him for it.

The Great Depression Reenactor

Having done all she can to bring about a country-wide reenactment of the Great Depression, President Obama's chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, Christina Romer, is stepping down. Following the standard doctrine of politicized, progressive economists, she believes that heavy government intervention saved the country from the Great Depression, and she relied on that "expertise" in her position for the past year and a half.

Among her challenges was explaining why her prediction that the Obama-backed fiscal stimulus would keep the unemployment rate below 8% proved overly optimistic. The unemployment rate is now at 9.5%.

"I certainly hoped it would be lower," she said. "The world deteriorated between November 2008 when I started" and the initial estimates were made "and when we took office January 21. Do I wake up every morning and wish it were 8% instead of 9.5%? You bet."

Well, as least she hoped it would be better. But it's not her fault, you see? The "world deteriorated!" "I'm not to blame! It's not my fault!" (Is that Dr. Robert Stadler or James Taggart -- or both -- from Atlas Shrugged?)

I wrote about Romer in November 2008 when she was first picked to lead the Council. I quoted the following passage from a Boston Globe article:

The lesson she drew from that crisis, according to colleagues and a review of her writings, is that strong government intervention is sometimes necessary medicine. That may mean she will urge Obama to act aggressively to keep capital flowing through the financial system and to enact an economic stimulus package that injects government spending into the economy at the risk of ballooning the deficit.

See my post for Henry Hazlitt's take on how well that worked when FDR did it. Similar policies threw the country into deeper depression which only relaxed when FDR (and the Supreme Court) finally lifted the boot from the neck of American business.

And yet, after seeing the failure of her policies -- even though she wishes! for lower unemployment -- Romer did, in fact, learn something new:

Where we are today is certainly not good. But in the absence of the actions [of the government --ed.] the economy would have been even more terrible."

One thing she says she hadn't realized previously: "The degree to which you often only get one shot at something like the Recovery Act."

See? She learned that as bad as things are, it would have been worse without her. What evidence does she have for that? To quote a favorite phrase of Ayn Rand's, "blank out."

Romer only got "one shot" and it was right on target. She hit America in the jugular and we've been hemorrhaging red ink ever since.

Not Right

In "Scalia Was Right" in today's WSJ, James Taranto discusses how Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia predicted the 9th Circuit's overturning of California's Prop. 8. Taranto uses that model to predict that when the SC hears the appeal, it will be upheld by a 5-4 vote with Justice Kennedy writing the opinion.

He notes how in a 2003 dissenting opinion, Scalia described -- the bile flooding from his pen as fast as were his logical arguments -- how the ruling would lead inexorably to allowing same sex marriage, and his logic was certainly sound. Taranto seems to share Scalia's "the world is going to hell in a handbasket" view, writing:

In Perry [the current Prop 8 case], however, the defendants are unlikely to be able to counter the plaintiffs' claims by arguing that forcing states to recognize same-sex marriage violates anyone's individual rights. Their appeals are to tradition, morality and the collective right of the people to self-government--worthy arguments, we would say, but ones Justice Kennedy has already rejected in Romer and Lawrence.

Did you notice the problem there? Taranto laid it out for you on a platter. Let me state it clearly: individual rights don't matter to him. Instead, some bastardized crap called the "collective right of the people to self-government" should rule the day.

Taranto, I expected better of you. I don't know why, but I did. You're advocating the tyranny of the majority -- i.e. pure democracy -- and the wanton and willful violation of individual rights in the name of tradition and morality, or some non-existent bullshit idea of "collective rights".

Well, that will come back to bite you when it's the other guy's traditions and morality that are in the majority. In fact, I think you've been advocating against Obamacare. Didn't the democratic process lead to that rights-violating monstrosity? Would you be more comfy with it if it was put up for a direct vote by the people? 51% calls it? No?

This is the problem with Conservatism in a nutshell. It's the same crap the Lefties peddle but from the religious side, with a bit of free market pandering thrown in. It may be fun to watch guys like Taranto attacking Obama's insanities, but this man is no friend of individual rights.

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Update 8/6/10: Removed "you fool" from second to last paragraph. Upon reflection, it was unfair and unnecessary.