‘As Difficult as it Might Be to Accept, There Are Problems That Can’t Be Fixed By Washington’
Posted: October 2, 2015 Filed under: Law & Justice, Politics, Think Tank, White House | Tags: 2012 Aurora shooting, Afghanistan, American Enterprise Institute, Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders, Bloomberg L.P., David Harsanyi, Gun violence, Gun violence in the United States, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Mass murder, Ramesh Ponnuru, Rand Paul, Ronald Reagan, United States, Virginia Tech massacre Leave a comment
The More You Politicize Guns, The Weaker Your Case Becomes.
David Harsanyi
writes: After the horrific mass shooting at a community college in Oregon, President Obama made an impassioned case that gun violence is “something we should politicize”—and why should this be any different:
“This is a political choice that we make, to allow this to happen every few months in America. We collectively are answerable to those families who lose their loved ones because of our inaction.”
Everything in that statement is wrong. What happened in Oregon is tragic, and the nation should comfort families and look for reasonable and practical ways to stem violence, but there is only one murderer. Now, if government somehow bolstered, endorsed, or “allowed” the actions of Chris Harper-Mercer—as they might, say, the death of 10,000-plus viable babies each year or the civilian deaths that occur during an American drone action—a person could plausibly argue that we are collectively answerable as a nation.
“For the liberal, every societal problem has a state-issued remedy waiting to be administered over the objections of a reactionary Republican. But just because you have a tremendous amount of emotion and frustration built up around a certain cause doesn’t make your favored legislation any more practical, effective or realistic.”
Then again, when the president asserts Americans are collectively answerable, what he really suggests—according to his own broader argument—is that conservatives who’ve blocked his gun-control legislation are wholly responsible. The problem with that contention, outside of the obvious fact that Republicans never condone the use of guns for illegal violence (in fact, these rampages hurt their cause more than anything) is that Democrats haven’t offered a single bill or idea (short of confiscation) that would impede any of the mass shootings, or overall gun violence. This is not a political choice, because it’s likely there is no available political answer.
[Read the full text here, at The Federalist]
For the liberal, every societal problem has a state-issued remedy waiting to be administered over the objections of a reactionary Republican. But just because you have a tremendous amount of emotion and frustration built up around a certain cause doesn’t make your favored legislation any more practical, effective or realistic. It doesn’t change the fact that owning a gun is a civil right, that the preponderance of owners are not criminals, or that there are 300 million guns out there.
And if it’s a political argument you’re offering—and when hasn’t it been?—you’ll need more than the vacuousness of the “this is bad and so we have to do something.” That’s because anti-gun types are never able to answer a simple question: what law would you pass that could stop these shootings?
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry: ‘The Republican Party is becoming the party of ideas again’
Posted: March 14, 2014 Filed under: Mediasphere | Tags: Barack Obama, Daily Beast, GOP, Paris, Ramesh Ponnuru, Reihan Salam, Ross Douthat, Tea Party, White House, Yuval Levin Leave a comment
And it’s amazing how quickly and quietly it’s happened
Don’t get your hopes up. This guy says more insulting and bizarre things about conservatives and Republicans, on a word-by-word basis, than we normally see from writers that describe themselves as “right-of-center”. Why? Because the markers on the field are different in western Europe than they are here.
When Pascal mentions “innovative conservative policy ideas” that he supports, I shudder to think. Watch closely as he agrees with the Left about how Republicans are perceived. Because, you know, their critics are right. About how dumb Republicans are. And spends most of the article exploring different ways to call them stupid. Until, you know, recently. Sorta.
In France, a “conservative thinker” is probably somewhere in the range of a ‘big ideas’ Hillary Clinton-wing-of-the-party policy wonk here. Just a guess. Perhaps my judgement is too hasty. Let’s give Pascal the benefit of the doubt. He is writing for The Week, so, here goes…
From across the pond, in Paris, Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry writes:
Perhaps the worst sin of the GOP during the Obama era has been the party’s lack of interest in serious, innovative policy.
Thanks to the notion that opposing the White House was enough of an agenda, and the inchoate enthusiasm of the Tea Party, the GOP, it seemed, was great at sound and fury but had no ideas. Anything the GOP did manage to propose was either an old idea from the ’80s, just plain awful, or (most often) both.
“…but basically their sense was that the problem was that Republicans are dumb. Republican politicians would never take on innovative policy ideas because their base is made up of a bunch of backward troglodytes and their paymasters are robber barons only interested in tax cuts…”
If this narrative seems familiar, it’s because left-of-center pundits have been hammering these ideas for years. And they were right.
“…And in any case, to be a Republican is to have little interest in new ideas — or ideas, period…”
But now, these same pundits are conspicuously silent about how the trend is reversing — and fast.
The Silence of the Liberals
Posted: December 13, 2013 Filed under: Politics, Think Tank, U.S. News, White House | Tags: Christopher DeMuth, Obama administration, Obamacare, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Ramesh Ponnuru, Yuval Levin 5 Comments
Image by © Larry George/Corbis
Obamacare is inimical to their values, too
Christopher DeMuth writes: Obamacare may or may not survive its inauspicious beginnings. It has become dangerously unpopular and accident-prone and faces a minefield of difficulties. Still, the Obama administration has a plausible strategy: to titrate the program’s numerous taxes, subsidies, mandates, and restrictions so as to forestall immediate legislative or electoral reversal, thereby entrenching its basic structure for tightening as future circumstances permit.
But the drama has made one thing clear: Obamacare will never achieve its promise of affordable health care for all paid for with improved efficiencies in health insurance and medical care. The initial troubles and compromises have revealed that the program improves “access” mainly by herding millions of people and firms into insurance they do not want or need. A great many will simply refuse, having little to fear for the time being, with the result that government expenditures will be far higher than projected. It is equally clear that the variety and quality of medical care will be seriously restricted for all concerned.
Collaterally, Obamacare is introducing a new form of government—improvisational government, characterized by continuous ad hoc revisions of statutory law by executive decree. This is a reversion to a primitive form that long antedates our Constitution and rule-of-law traditions. Transported to the modern world, it leaves the private sector in a state of constant uncertainty and subjection.
These developments have produced a strong partisan reaction. Republicans are commiserating with individuals who have lost their health insurance or seen their rates increase, and are introducing tactical bills to stay unpopular program elements. Obamacare was a partisan enactment and was designed, clumsily, in such a way as to generate identifiable victims—so the partisan response was inevitable and is, up to a point, serving a worthy function of public education.
Hidden Killer Weapon in Obamacare Wars: Take note of Lawsuit in Oklahoma
Posted: September 25, 2013 Filed under: Health and Social Issues, Politics | Tags: Chris Christie, John Kasich, Medicaid, Obamacare, Oklahoma, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Ramesh Ponnuru, Rick Scott 1 Comment
Ramesh Ponnuru reports: The attorney general of Oklahoma has filed a lawsuit that, if successful, would cripple Obamacare by challenging the lawless way the Obama administration is implementing it. (Implementing it lawfully, that is, would cripple it.) Most states have not created exchanges, and in those states the law as written does not authorize the administration to offer tax credits–and, because of that, limits its ability to impose its penalties on employers and individuals. As far as I can tell, there would be no downside for conservative attorneys general to launch their own lawsuits–or for Republican politicians at the state and federal level to support them, whether by filing briefs or speaking on their behalf.
Republican governors who say they oppose Obamacare even though they have taken some of the Medicaid money it offers–governors like Rick Scott, Chris Christie, and John Kasich–should be especially eager to get on board this lawsuit. These governors have not set up exchanges. They can protect their citizens and businesses from Obamacare penalties through the suit. Read the rest of this entry »
