Scott Brown's election victory Tuesday night in Massachusetts was a clear mandate against ObamaCare.
Brown ran on a platform that includes across-the-board tax cuts and opposition to civilian trials for al-Qaeda terrorists. But what focused so much national attention on the race was his promise to cast the 41st vote Republicans need to block the health care bill in the Senate. With that promise, Brown made his candidacy into a state-wide referendum on ObamaCare. And since ObamaCare can't win anywhere if it can't win in Massachusetts, the race became a de facto national referendum on ObamaCare.
The result is incontrovertible. Brown won with 52% of the vote, compared to Martha Coakley's 47%; while not technically a landslide, it might as well have been, given that this was a Republican running for a Senate seat his party hasn't held in 40 years. More important, Brown won by a margin of 110,000 votes, enough to preclude any muddying of the result with a recount, or the use of absentee ballots as an excuse to delay seating him in the US Senate.
The people have spoken. In a nation based on the consent of the governed, the people have clearly withdrawn their consent for this bill—and for the whole leftist agenda of the Obama administration
The big message of last night's election is that America is still a nation of individualists. The Democrats and the Obama administration thought that the financial crisis had panicked Americans into a basic ideological realignment in which we would finally give up our stubborn insistence on self-reliance and instead demand a European-style welfare state to take care of us. But over the last year, Americans have demonstrated, in the spontaneous tea party rebellion against big government, that we don't want to be controlled by or taken care of by the state.
And we sure as heck don't want to be controlled by a self-appointed political elite that pretends to rule on our behalf while demonstrating that they don't know or care what we think. That was the other big message of the Massachusetts election. In her disdain for the idea of going out and shaking the hands of actual voters—not to mention Barack Obama's derisive references to the old pickup truck in which Scott Brown toured the state—Coakley demonstrated a sense of entitlement to power, as if the consent of the governed is merely an afterthought, a rubber stamp for a decision already made by the political establishment.
That's why it was so revealing that Coakley didn't even know that Brown supporter Curt Schilling used to play for the Red Sox. Getting the facts wrong about your local baseball team may seem like a trivial error, but there is a profound issue behind it. A free people's greatest fear is that their leaders will devolve into a cloistered elite which no longer shares the values and interests of the citizens—and which no longer believes that it has to share them. That is precisely the message Martha Coakley consistently sent: that she knows little about Massachusetts voters and cares even less.
That is also the message being sent by the whole Democratic Party leadership, as they contemplate parliamentary tricks to ram the health care bill through. Nancy Pelosi insisted yesterday that "whatever happens in Massachusetts, we will pass quality, affordable health care for all Americans, and it will be soon." Similarly, a "senior White House official" told The Politico that "This is not a moment that causes the president or anybody who works for him to express any doubt" about the health care bill or any other part of their agenda.
The past year's tea party rallies were big and raucous in their opposition to Democratic Party policies, and they swayed a lot of independent voters to their side. But that's nothing compared to what you will see if the Democrats try to push through the health care bill after it has already been rejected by the voters. I attended one of the very first tea party rallies, way back in February of last year, and I remember seeing a young lady there carrying a sign with a very pointed message: "Tea Party Now, Tar and Feathers Later." If the Democrats try to push through their agenda without the consent of the governed, the American people are going to start warming up the tar wagons.
The tea party movement is largely about small government—but it is also, in no small part, about what many see as the politicians' refusal to listen to the people. The tea party patriots want to be independent not just from big government but from any kind of political machine, which is why political independence was a major successful theme of Scott Brown's campaign.
Defying the will of the voters, after it has been expressed as clearly as it just was in Massachusetts, would be a disaster for the Democratic Party—and it wouldn't be good for the republic, either. No one benefits from a de facto civil war between the government and the governed. So it is good to see a few Democratic politicians trying to pull their party back from this precipice.
Democratic Virginia Senator Jim Webb has has gotten the message of the Massachusetts election. In a statement last night, he declared:
"In many ways the campaign in Massachusetts became a referendum not only on health care reform but also on the openness and integrity of our government process. It is vital that we restore the respect of the American people in our system of government and in our leaders. To that end, I believe it would only be fair and prudent that we suspend further votes on health care legislation until Senator-elect Brown is seated."
So much for rushing the final bill through the Senate before Brown can drive his pickup to Washington. And as for cramming the Senate bill through the House, two House Democrats who voted for the previous version of the bill have come out in favor of dropping it.
"I've maintained for months now that incremental reform in the health care package would make much more sense from my perspective," said California Rep. Jim Costa, one of the last Democrats to vote yes on the House bill. He said he'd like to see Obama tell voters that "we may have been overreaching" and then push for a scaled-back bill that focuses on things more people can agree on, like insurance reforms….
Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY), one of the leading advocates for health reform in the House, said, "I don't think it would be the worst thing to take a step back and say we are going to pivot to do a jobs [bill]"…. "If there isn't any recognition that we got the message and we are trying to recalibrate and do things differently, we are not only going to risk looking ignorant but arrogant."
Given the razor-thin margin by which the health care bill passed in the House, these defections effectively kill the bill.
There has been a lot of discussion about all of the "options" the Democrats will have after last night's election. But let's be realistic: they only have one option, which is to seat Senator-elect Brown and drop the health care bill. That is the only option that we, the governed, will consent to.
2. Reality Gets a Vote
Why the Public Blames Obama for the Economy
by Jack Wakeland
The left is complaining that the right is unfairly taking advantage of discontent over high unemployment. If Ronald Reagan was able to duck high unemployment in 1981 by blaming it on earlier economic policies of his predecessors, shouldn't Obama be able to duck the blame for high unemployment by blaming Bush?
One pundit blames the right-wing "noise machine" for allowing Reagan to duck the blame while, in the same situation, sticking Obama with the blame. Another pundit—a New York Times pseudo-economist with an Atlas Shrugged villain's name—blames Obama for not fighting to win the battle over who controls the "narrative" of blame.
Both pundits spectacularly miss the whole nature of what is actually going on in the world.
We don't live in a world ruled by economic determinism. While high unemployment puts all Americans on edge—making us more grumpy, more introspective, and more philosophical than normal—it does not cause people to reject the president and the Congress who are in office. It is the widespread belief that the president and Congress are making things worse that does it.
The truth of whether government spending creates jobs and economic growth or whether liberty makes it possible for private investors and businessmen to create jobs and economic growth is not socially determined. It is not a "narrative" that can be won by one political faction or another.
The reason why the right's "noise machine" won in 1981 and why it is beginning to win today is that the majority is being swayed by the truth of pro-free-market, pro-producer arguments. It is not the personalities or the commercial broadcasting power of the right that "concedes nothing, pounds home its points like a jackhammer, repeats its themes relentlessly." Personalities and broadcasting networks don't have that power. Only the truth has the power to repeat relentlessly, pound like a jackhammer, and concede nothing to falsehood, power-mongering fraud, and patronage plunder. It is only the truth that has to power to gain "the ear of the Washington mainstream press" even though it partially (or wholly) contradicts their philosophical orientation.
It is only the proponents of political truths who earn the "presumption that their beliefs are driven by deep and earnest heartland principles" from their opponents, while the purveyors of political falsehoods are rightly regarded as "a crude collection of special interests and cynical political calculations."
Thus, it happens that Ronald Reagan can successfully disown the high unemployment that occurred during his first year in office, but Barack Obama can't.
America's high unemployment was caused by government intervention in the economy. Can Barack Obama blame the Bush administration for easy money policies, egalitarian home loan policies, and a policy of ballooning the federal debt—when these are the policies which Obama has doubled, and tripled, and quadrupled, over those of his predecessor?
For those who are disappointed that Obama hasn't been able to pin America's high unemployment on George Bush and the Republican Party, the truth isn't real. But reality gets a vote, and it gets the final vote.
Robert Tracinski writes daily commentary at TIADaily.com. He is the editor of The Intellectual Activist (TIA) and contributor to The Freedom Fighter's Journal
Brown ran on a platform that includes across-the-board tax cuts and opposition to civilian trials for al-Qaeda terrorists. But what focused so much national attention on the race was his promise to cast the 41st vote Republicans need to block the health care bill in the Senate. With that promise, Brown made his candidacy into a state-wide referendum on ObamaCare. And since ObamaCare can't win anywhere if it can't win in Massachusetts, the race became a de facto national referendum on ObamaCare.
The result is incontrovertible. Brown won with 52% of the vote, compared to Martha Coakley's 47%; while not technically a landslide, it might as well have been, given that this was a Republican running for a Senate seat his party hasn't held in 40 years. More important, Brown won by a margin of 110,000 votes, enough to preclude any muddying of the result with a recount, or the use of absentee ballots as an excuse to delay seating him in the US Senate.
The people have spoken. In a nation based on the consent of the governed, the people have clearly withdrawn their consent for this bill—and for the whole leftist agenda of the Obama administration
The big message of last night's election is that America is still a nation of individualists. The Democrats and the Obama administration thought that the financial crisis had panicked Americans into a basic ideological realignment in which we would finally give up our stubborn insistence on self-reliance and instead demand a European-style welfare state to take care of us. But over the last year, Americans have demonstrated, in the spontaneous tea party rebellion against big government, that we don't want to be controlled by or taken care of by the state.
And we sure as heck don't want to be controlled by a self-appointed political elite that pretends to rule on our behalf while demonstrating that they don't know or care what we think. That was the other big message of the Massachusetts election. In her disdain for the idea of going out and shaking the hands of actual voters—not to mention Barack Obama's derisive references to the old pickup truck in which Scott Brown toured the state—Coakley demonstrated a sense of entitlement to power, as if the consent of the governed is merely an afterthought, a rubber stamp for a decision already made by the political establishment.
That's why it was so revealing that Coakley didn't even know that Brown supporter Curt Schilling used to play for the Red Sox. Getting the facts wrong about your local baseball team may seem like a trivial error, but there is a profound issue behind it. A free people's greatest fear is that their leaders will devolve into a cloistered elite which no longer shares the values and interests of the citizens—and which no longer believes that it has to share them. That is precisely the message Martha Coakley consistently sent: that she knows little about Massachusetts voters and cares even less.
That is also the message being sent by the whole Democratic Party leadership, as they contemplate parliamentary tricks to ram the health care bill through. Nancy Pelosi insisted yesterday that "whatever happens in Massachusetts, we will pass quality, affordable health care for all Americans, and it will be soon." Similarly, a "senior White House official" told The Politico that "This is not a moment that causes the president or anybody who works for him to express any doubt" about the health care bill or any other part of their agenda.
The past year's tea party rallies were big and raucous in their opposition to Democratic Party policies, and they swayed a lot of independent voters to their side. But that's nothing compared to what you will see if the Democrats try to push through the health care bill after it has already been rejected by the voters. I attended one of the very first tea party rallies, way back in February of last year, and I remember seeing a young lady there carrying a sign with a very pointed message: "Tea Party Now, Tar and Feathers Later." If the Democrats try to push through their agenda without the consent of the governed, the American people are going to start warming up the tar wagons.
The tea party movement is largely about small government—but it is also, in no small part, about what many see as the politicians' refusal to listen to the people. The tea party patriots want to be independent not just from big government but from any kind of political machine, which is why political independence was a major successful theme of Scott Brown's campaign.
Defying the will of the voters, after it has been expressed as clearly as it just was in Massachusetts, would be a disaster for the Democratic Party—and it wouldn't be good for the republic, either. No one benefits from a de facto civil war between the government and the governed. So it is good to see a few Democratic politicians trying to pull their party back from this precipice.
Democratic Virginia Senator Jim Webb has has gotten the message of the Massachusetts election. In a statement last night, he declared:
"In many ways the campaign in Massachusetts became a referendum not only on health care reform but also on the openness and integrity of our government process. It is vital that we restore the respect of the American people in our system of government and in our leaders. To that end, I believe it would only be fair and prudent that we suspend further votes on health care legislation until Senator-elect Brown is seated."
So much for rushing the final bill through the Senate before Brown can drive his pickup to Washington. And as for cramming the Senate bill through the House, two House Democrats who voted for the previous version of the bill have come out in favor of dropping it.
"I've maintained for months now that incremental reform in the health care package would make much more sense from my perspective," said California Rep. Jim Costa, one of the last Democrats to vote yes on the House bill. He said he'd like to see Obama tell voters that "we may have been overreaching" and then push for a scaled-back bill that focuses on things more people can agree on, like insurance reforms….
Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY), one of the leading advocates for health reform in the House, said, "I don't think it would be the worst thing to take a step back and say we are going to pivot to do a jobs [bill]"…. "If there isn't any recognition that we got the message and we are trying to recalibrate and do things differently, we are not only going to risk looking ignorant but arrogant."
Given the razor-thin margin by which the health care bill passed in the House, these defections effectively kill the bill.
There has been a lot of discussion about all of the "options" the Democrats will have after last night's election. But let's be realistic: they only have one option, which is to seat Senator-elect Brown and drop the health care bill. That is the only option that we, the governed, will consent to.
2. Reality Gets a Vote
Why the Public Blames Obama for the Economy
by Jack Wakeland
The left is complaining that the right is unfairly taking advantage of discontent over high unemployment. If Ronald Reagan was able to duck high unemployment in 1981 by blaming it on earlier economic policies of his predecessors, shouldn't Obama be able to duck the blame for high unemployment by blaming Bush?
One pundit blames the right-wing "noise machine" for allowing Reagan to duck the blame while, in the same situation, sticking Obama with the blame. Another pundit—a New York Times pseudo-economist with an Atlas Shrugged villain's name—blames Obama for not fighting to win the battle over who controls the "narrative" of blame.
Both pundits spectacularly miss the whole nature of what is actually going on in the world.
We don't live in a world ruled by economic determinism. While high unemployment puts all Americans on edge—making us more grumpy, more introspective, and more philosophical than normal—it does not cause people to reject the president and the Congress who are in office. It is the widespread belief that the president and Congress are making things worse that does it.
The truth of whether government spending creates jobs and economic growth or whether liberty makes it possible for private investors and businessmen to create jobs and economic growth is not socially determined. It is not a "narrative" that can be won by one political faction or another.
The reason why the right's "noise machine" won in 1981 and why it is beginning to win today is that the majority is being swayed by the truth of pro-free-market, pro-producer arguments. It is not the personalities or the commercial broadcasting power of the right that "concedes nothing, pounds home its points like a jackhammer, repeats its themes relentlessly." Personalities and broadcasting networks don't have that power. Only the truth has the power to repeat relentlessly, pound like a jackhammer, and concede nothing to falsehood, power-mongering fraud, and patronage plunder. It is only the truth that has to power to gain "the ear of the Washington mainstream press" even though it partially (or wholly) contradicts their philosophical orientation.
It is only the proponents of political truths who earn the "presumption that their beliefs are driven by deep and earnest heartland principles" from their opponents, while the purveyors of political falsehoods are rightly regarded as "a crude collection of special interests and cynical political calculations."
Thus, it happens that Ronald Reagan can successfully disown the high unemployment that occurred during his first year in office, but Barack Obama can't.
America's high unemployment was caused by government intervention in the economy. Can Barack Obama blame the Bush administration for easy money policies, egalitarian home loan policies, and a policy of ballooning the federal debt—when these are the policies which Obama has doubled, and tripled, and quadrupled, over those of his predecessor?
For those who are disappointed that Obama hasn't been able to pin America's high unemployment on George Bush and the Republican Party, the truth isn't real. But reality gets a vote, and it gets the final vote.
Robert Tracinski writes daily commentary at TIADaily.com. He is the editor of The Intellectual Activist (TIA) and contributor to The Freedom Fighter's Journal
0 comments:
Post a Comment