... but this is what passes for leadership in the Episcopal Church?  "Abortion is a blessing and our work is not done."???

Read the post again.  Remember when we are were told that no one "liked" abortion, but it was "necessary" when women found themselves in unfortunate circumstances like rape or incest?  Now, the new Dean of the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, MA talks about the "blessing" abortion is to women who are in a loving, committed relationship, and have "every option open" to them, but decide not to have the baby because it interferes with their work.  And then the dean goes on to call abortion providers "saints," people who "do holy work."

We've gone beyond deluded and into the realm of unadulterated evil.

from experts. 

... for President!  Damn, does this man get it.

Dear readers and visitors:

Due to some limitations of the Townhall blog capacity, my earlier articles couldn't be posted.  (None of the embedded links would work, nor would the other html.)  The gurus at TH seem to have remedied this, so I have posted the articles from February and March below.

(Originally published March 4, 2009)

This is priceless. David Brooks is having a bit of "buyer's remorse" over Barack Obama? In Tuesday’s New York Times editorial, Brooks laments that moderates thought Obama was a centrist, but now they see - *gasp!* - he's an ultra-Left ideologue who is going to spend the country into oblivion in order to try to achieve his Marxist coup d'etat. This, Brooks protests, isn't what they (the self-described moderates) expected.

If that's true (and it clearly is true), then it's only because they weren't listening. Or, more accurately, they were listening to each other, but they weren't listening to those of us who had already called Obama out on his political proclivities.

And they certainly weren't listening to Obama.

Barack Obama signaled loud and clear who he is, what he believes, and what he would do -- as a "commie organizer," as a state senator, as a U.S. Senator, as an author, and as a Presidential candidate. He supports abortion-on-demand at all stages of pregnancy, black liberation theology, an activist judiciary that will rewrite the Constitution to correct our Founding Fathers’ “blind spots,” confiscatory taxation and wealth redistribution, restrictions on gun ownership, limits to free speech, an emasculated military, and massive, massive transfers of power to an even greater leviathan of a federal government.

And that’s just content. More insidiously, Obama has also made clear how valuable his training in Saul Alinsky’s methods have been to his worldview about the process of obtaining political power. And Saul Alinsky’s philosophies can be traced back to much earlier communist and socialist radicals who were blunt about the fact that it is easiest to take over a “democratic” political system by use of the democratic franchise (voting), after which it becomes necessary to dismantle or otherwise encumber that system, to avoid being tossed out by the very same voters who had put you in power. These same writers also admit the necessity of lying, and of creating economic collapse, in order to ensure that “the people” will cry out for government intervention. (Don’t take my word for it, read Bruce Caldwell’s superlative edition of F.A. Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom. The parallels between 1940s England and the United States today are shocking and enlightening.)

Obama has already begun his left-wing lurch at a breakneck pace. You can expect the rest of his ultra-Left agenda to be implemented – or at least attempted – during his tenure in office. And you can expect any opposition to be vilified, mocked, ridiculed, humiliated, and – if at all possible – silenced. It has already started. This is no aberration; this is who Obama is.

"Centrists," "moderates" and "social justice Catholics" (among others) who believed otherwise did so because their entire justification for supporting Obama consisted of, "We know what he's saying, but we don't believe him." This is the political equivalent of sticking one's fingers in one's ears and yelling, "Nah nah nah nah nah nah - I can't hear you." How else to describe the deliberate obtuseness of authors and commentators who insisted before the election that Obama was "going to govern from the center," and the increasingly desperate and transparently specious assertions after the election that that's precisely what he was doing? Hell, they’d still be saying it, if it weren’t for the fact that the Dow takes a tumble every time he opens his mouth.

Well, I'll give Brooks credit for this much: at least he is willing to admit it now. Prominent Catholic and Pepperdine Law School dean Doug Kmiec is still running around proclaiming Obama to be the most pro-life president ever. This despite Obama's historic refusal to support the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, his promise to sign the Freedom of Choice Act, his repeal of the Mexico City Policy, his appointment of EMILY's List and NARAL operatives to important positions, and his nomination of pro-choice Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius for Secretary of Health and Human Services. (At this rate, Kmiec will soon have a pro-life website up and running in support of Kansas late-term abortionist Dr. George Tiller. I can see it now: www.catholicsfortillerthekiller.com. Perhaps Kmiec could argue that Tiller, too, actually serves the pro-life cause, because the procedures he employs are so horrific, even women who want an abortion are scared off.)

Even so, Brooks still doesn’t quite get it. Despite his growing recognition of who and what Obama really is (and his admirable willingness to acknowledge it), what does Brooks fear most? Republicans back in power. He says, “The only thing more scary [sic] than Obama’s experiment is the thought that it might fail and the political power will swing over to a Republican Party that is currently unfit to wield it.” If Brooks’ fear here is returning the reins of power to a bunch of witless RINOs whose idea of conservative leadership and fiscal responsibility is to spend as much as Obama but on different stuff, then I understand, even though I don’t agree with him. But I suspect Brooks is suggesting that, despite everything Obama intends to do, we have more to fear from a political party whose members want to protect the lives of unborn children and define gays’ permanent relationship commitments as ‘civil unions’ rather than ‘marriage.’ This is absurd.

Obama’s economic ideas will fail. They have failed everywhere they have been tried. The only questions are how quickly they will fail, and what the consequences will be thereafter. Sooner is better than later, if past is precedent. But the precedent isn’t encouraging in that respect. As the brilliant Hayek explained in 1944, the inherent flaws in collectivist economic theories have inevitably resulted in totalitarian political regimes. And Hayek had it easier than we do now; the socialist colleagues to whom he was writing considered themselves traditional “liberals” in the 18th century sense of believing in political liberty, and would have been horrified at the prospect of compromising those liberties, even in pursuit of a more equitable distribution of wealth. But so-called “progressives” in this country – and President Obama is at the front of this line - would freely toss away the protections provided in our Constitution, if it meant being able to grab some extra cash away from someone who has more.

This is a tried-and-true prescription for economic collapse, poverty, anarchy, chaos, political upheaval, and widespread violence. History has shown us this over and over again. Human beings either live in a system of free and voluntary exchange, or they live at the point of a gun. There is no “middle path,” desperate though some moderates might be to find one, and it is distressing that intelligent people like Brooks are falling for the same old con game.

There is an old common law concept called caveat emptor. It means, "let the buyer beware," and it was traditionally interpreted to mean that it is the buyer who has the duty to investigate what it is (s)he is purchasing; the seller would have no duty to disclose anything. If a buyer failed to use reasonable diligence, courts applying caveat emptor would typically give the afflicted buyer no relief.

In this case, the disgruntled moderate voters who supported Barack Obama cannot claim they didn't know. He - and we - made everything perfectly clear.

And there is no relief in sight.

(Originally published March 3, 2009)

Last week’s CPAC conference was apparently brimming with new conservative energy – and further admonitions that Republicans have to be more than just “the party of ‘NO.’”  What this constant harangue ignores is the fact that sometimes, saying ‘no,’ IS taking a position.  There are plenty of principled reasons to say ‘NO’ to the anschluss of Obama and his goosestepping goons in Congress.  And as the swelling numbers in the Santelli Tea Party Brigade demonstrate, millions of Americans would WELCOME politicians who can actually say ‘no’ to the prospect of more spending and more government encroachment on our liberty.

Even so, this ‘party of NO’ nonsense still belies a party with NO vision, NO message, and NO ability to make meaningful distinctions.

Taking the last point first, what we’re asking our conservative politicians to say depends upon who they are talking to.  If it is their Democrat colleagues in Congress, then hell yes, say ‘NO’:  NO to more spending, NO to higher taxes, NO to any restraints on political speech anywhere in any media whatsoever, NO to any laws that attempt to force medical schools, medical students or health care providers to perform abortions against their will, NO to billions of dollars being sent overseas when we are bankrupt here at home, NO to government takeover of our health care system.  Conservatives’ rallying cry should be, if Pelosi and Reid want it, we’re against it. 

But it is admittedly a different matter when the question turns to what Republicans and other conservative leaders say to the American public.  As I’ve suggested elsewhere, Republicans have lost their way because they want to talk about themselves.  For Republicans, the key to successful elections – and successful public policy – is to talk to Americans about Americans.  More specifically, to reflect and remind and inspire and uplift by talking about the attributes of Americans that have made this country so successful – attributes that everyone can understand, relate to, aspire to, and emulate. 

From my vantage point after nearly a decade in entrepreneurship education, the most glaring omission in the national conversation surrounding the current economic crisis is the complete failure of our political leaders to talk about the role of entrepreneurial thinking in American history. It’s not a shock that Democrats aren’t talking about it.  But it’s inexplicable that Republicans aren’t.

Oh, you get the occasional reference to “entrepreneurs and small business.” And in fact when you say the word “entrepreneur,” most people think “business.”  But that’s not what I am talking about.  There is a difference between being an entrepreneur, and thinking like one.  And in my opinion, widespread entrepreneurial thinking is exactly what the country needs.  Not only do I think that it would pull us out of the current economic malaise, I believe it is the ONLY thing that will.

Why?  What does it mean to think “entrepreneurially”?

When you study entrepreneurs of all stripes, you discover that they have a number of things in common.  Further study reveals that these same attributes, characteristics and experiences not only contribute to successful business – they make people more successful at everything they undertake.  Here’s my list of the attributes that make for successful entrepreneurs:

1.        Specific expertise – in something.  Studies have shown that upwards of 80% of ideas for new businesses come from an entrepreneur’s earlier employment.  This makes sense; the aspiring entrepreneur will know the market, the consumers, and the needs that are not being met.  This is one of the best ways to identify new opportunities.  But it is not the only way.  And this brings me to #2.

2.       The ability to see a problem as an opportunity. This, more than anything else, is the aspect of “entrepreneurial thinking” that is most transformative – and most desperately needed today.  Engineers see problems and begin devising technical solutions.  Entrepreneurs see problems and start thinking of products or services to meet those needs.  Every successful company you can think of solved a problem or met a need – from faster transportation to cleaner clothes to eradicated diseases, to larger operating systems.  Americans take it for granted that businesses think this way, but it rarely occurs to them that individuals and other organizations can – and must - think this way.

3.       An internal locus of control.  This is sometimes referred to in the literature as “self-efficacy.”  Entrepreneurs have a strong belief in their own ability to get things done.  Rather than look at a problem and say, “Somebody needs to do something,” an entrepreneur will tend to say, “What can I do to fix this?”  (When I speak to people – especially underrepresented groups – about entrepreneurship, my standard line is that, “Entrepreneurship is about empowerment, not entitlement.”  They get it.)  The good news is, self-efficacy can be learned.  In other words, entrepreneurs are made, not born.

4.       Willingness to risk creating a solution.  One of the most common misperceptions about entrepreneurs is that they are “risk-takers.”  Not exactly.  What entrepreneurs do is take calculated risks.  The willingness to create a solution (a product, a service, a company) is born of a confidence that in many cases comes from long experience (see #1, above).  That makes it seem far less risky to the entrepreneur than it might otherwise be to a complete outsider.

5.       A tolerance for failure.  This is tied with #2 as the most significant attribute of entrepreneurial thinking.  No one likes to fail.  But not only do successful entrepreneurs fail, most will tell you that they learned more from their failures than their successes.  Working as I do with engineers, I see how critical the scientific method is to successful entrepreneurship: hypothesize, test, (fail), adapt … repeat.  Failure is more than a necessary evil - - it is vital to the development of an individual, the growth of a company, and the health of a robust economy.  It is the consummate irony: a society that cannot tolerate failure, will have nothing but failure.

You are probably wondering at this point what this has to do with Republicans’ ability to craft a message that will resonate with American voters.  Bear with me.  There is a powerful message in all of this that Republicans and other conservatives can use when speaking to the American public.  And in my next column, I’ll explain what that is…

(Originally published February 24, 2009)

“I saw that there comes a point, in the defeat of any man of virtue, when his own consent is needed for evil to win – and that no manner of injury done to him by others can succeed if he chooses to withhold his consent.  I saw that I could put an end to your outrages by pronouncing a single word in my mind … The word [is] ‘No.’”

- Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

Last week I gave my take on the trillion dollar “stimulus” package Obama and the Congressional Democrats shoved down America’s throat – that 1100+ page leviathan that no one read before it was voted on.  I warned that the “Keynesian” policies it supposedly reflected were long-since discredited, that it would throw us more deeply into economic chaos, that this was deliberate, that it was little more than a thinly disguised effort to socialize the entire American economy, and that one need only read 80 years of communist and socialist theory to see it for what it was.

Just one week later, what has happened?  The markets reacted to the signing of the bill by falling over 300 points.  Obama announced yet another multi-billion dollar “bailout” – this one allegedly for homeowners who have defaulted on their mortgages (and this despite a 40-60% redefault rate!).  $75 billion for them, and $400 billion for who?  Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the quasi-government entities that deceptively repackaged and sold the worthless mortgage-backed securities (under pressure from special interest groups) that set this economic collapse in motion.  And now the government is talking about nationalizing the banks.

Obama’s shills like to point to his poll numbers as proof of public support.  Garbage.  The markets – the only “poll” that matters – fell to a twelve-year low yesterday.  They drop every time this guy opens his mouth.  At this rate, by the end of Tuesday’s State of the Union address, we’ll be the Weimar Republic.

We are having hundreds of billions of our hard-earned tax dollars taken from us and given to the same organizations that got us in this mess, under the advice and counsel of the same irresponsible and deceitful politicians like Barney Frank and others who ignored warnings about the bad lending practices in the first place.  And those same politicians now see fit to lecture us about patriotism and fiscal responsibility?  This is a travesty so appalling that it should be prompting protests in the streets.

As hardworking, tax-paying Americans have watched this Obamadrama play out, they have become increasingly distressed, saying, “But what do we do?”

We start saying NO.  Obama’s campaign mantra was “Yes, we can.” Here’s the new mantra for the American taxpayer: “No, we won’t.”

The Obama administration looks bold, calm and confident, but they have one primal fear, and it isn’t economic collapse.  The Obamaniacs are terrified that Americans will see through the charade. 

Obama and the Congressional Communists are counting on the American taxpayers to do what they have always done: gripe a bit, then hunker down, work even harder, and pay even more taxes.  At the first hint of grumbling, they’ll pronounce the usual platitudes about “shared sacrifice,” “patriotism” and “belt-tightening.”  They’ve already done that.  But Americans have seen through it.  Where’s the “shared sacrifice” if you’re cutting back to make your mortgage payment, and the government hits you up to pay some stranger’s mortgage as well?  And it’s hard to call for belt-tightening when Congress clamors to sign the bill within hours of receiving it so that Nancy Pelosi can jet off to Rome for a private audience with the Pope, and President Obama can ride a taxpayer-funded 747 back to Chicago to take Michelle out for a romantic Valentine’s Day dinner.  (What, there aren’t any restaurants in D.C.?)

When the grumbling gets a little louder than usual, when appeals to patriotism don’t work, they’ll ratchet up the next level of shibboleths: accusations of “greed,” “selfishness,” and (that trusty old standby) “racism.”

Americans’ response must be the same:  “No.  That won’t work anymore.”

What’s needed here is some good old-fashioned civil disobedience.  The Fairness Doctrine is the best place to start. 

This may seem a complete non sequitur to people frantic about the disappearance of a trillion dollars down a rabbit hole.  But that money isn’t spent yet.  The 2010 elections could change things dramatically.  But throwing the hypocritical spendthrift bums out of Congress (and they wrote this bill, not Obama) is dependent upon American’s access to truthful information.  This, for the moment therefore, is the most critical fight. 

Rick Santelli’s now infamous “rant” on CNBC proves my point.  It was the first sign of hope I’ve seen in months.  And I am not alone (if the 1.7 million hits to CNBC’s website are any indication).  Santelli tapped into a huge and powerful vein of public sentiment   Mary Kate Cary in U.S. News and World Report called Santelli’s opinion, “the elephant in the room.”  (Now there’s an image message-seeking Republicans should be able to relate to.) 

That is what Obama and his Congressional commie comrades fear more than anything else.  It was proven when the President – the leader of the most powerful nation in the world - trotted out his press secretary, the next day, to try to humiliate a hitherto-obscure reporter from a show called “The Squawk Box.”  Americans must not know the truth.  We must not know how many of us are in agreement.  We must not defeat Democrats and elect conservatives in 2010 (and 2012).  And so you can expect the push for the “Fairness Doctrine” (under that name, or something else) to get stronger now, not weaker. 

Our best hope is access to the information we can get from talk radio and other alternative media.  So this is a call to radio station owners, television station owners, managers, producers, writers, on-air talent, bloggers, and alternative media magnates everywhere.  If they try to force the Fairness Doctrine on you, you say no.  You change nothing – not your schedule, not your format, not your programming, not your writing, not your talent – nothing.

Do you think this is extreme?  Consider this: If Congress passed a law that sent African-Americans to the back of the bus again, would they go?  If some administrative agency drafted a regulation that placed Americans with Japanese last names in internment camps, would they go?

Hell, no.  Those laws would be unconstitutional, and the persons affected would make damn sure everyone knew it.  But pass a regulation or law in utter violation of our First Amendment rights, a law intended to shut conservatives up, and we’re expected to roll over.

No.  Not this time.  Not anymore.

You take a page out of the civil rights playbook.  Protest.  Picket.  Storm your representatives’ offices.  Use the legal system.  Go straight to your county or federal courthouse and file for a temporary restraining order, and then a permanent injunction against the enforcement of the law or regulation.  If you are fined, do not pay it.  Make the government defend civil litigation in every city and every state across the country.  The government cannot possibly do this, anymore than it can possibly shut down every single Christian, conservative, right-wing, Republican or Libertarian show and/or station in the country.  More to the point, they won’t want the country to see them try.  If you think Santelli’s rant generated public outrage, imagine how the public would react to footage of government agents coming into your studio or station and forcing you to shut down.  Imagine that happening all over the country.

When blacks marched peacefully through the streets of the south in the 1960s, and they had the water hoses turned on them, and attack dogs unleashed on them, the rest of America saw those governments for what they were.  This government is depending upon our complicity in its takeover.

Not anymore.  This time, we are saying, “No.”

(Originally published February 16, 2009.)

There is a principle called “Occam’s Razor,” which has been interpreted to mean that the simplest of two competing theories is usually the right one.  This comes to mind as President Obama and the flying monkey minions in Congress scramble frantically to ram a trillion dollar “stimulus” bill down American’s throats with no debate, no discussion, and almost no understanding of what is in it.

And what is in it makes it abundantly clear that this is no “stimulus.”  It is riddled with hundreds of billions of dollars in pork, payoffs to special interest groups, massive increases in welfare spending, new and more bloated federal bureaucracies.  What’s worse, we don’t actually have the money for any of it.  It will have to be taxed, printed, and borrowed, all of which will make our economic situation worse, not better. 

 But … but … the President and the Democrats don’t know this?

 Of course they do.  For weeks, seasoned and well-respected economic and financial writers from the Wall Street Journal, National Review, the Weekly Standard, the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, Americans for Tax Reform, the American Enterprise Institute, the Hoover Institution, and God-only-knows how many others have been explaining why this bill will not jump-start the economy.  Even the Congressional Budget Office has admitted it will make things worse. 

 Obama ignores them all, and continues to preach what he knows is a lie: that this bill is something that we “must” do to “save” the economy.

 This seems inscrutable to most of the commentators I have heard, who protest even more loudly that Obama’s “Keynesian” economic policies have failed everywhere they’ve been tried.  And many Americans who voted for Obama – but not, they thought, for this - seem just as baffled: Does Obama not understand?  Does he know no history?  Has he not heard what the experts are saying?  Maybe he is listening to other economists.  Perhaps he’s misinformed. Maybe he’s being misled by his advisers.

 This is where Occam’s Razor comes in.  None of those explanations makes any sense.  Obama is not stupid.  He has read history.  He isn’t misinformed.  And he is not being misled.  The policies Obama is espousing have been thoroughly discredited for decades, and he knows it.  So there is only one logical explanation: he doesn’t want a real stimulus.

 Why not?

 In a word, power.  Because for a collectivist, collective misery is not just a wet dream, it’s an orgy.  An economic crisis creates the climate that enables Obama to achieve his fondest desire: government takeover of the economy.  This is the Marxist/socialist aim, and has been since its inception.  French historian Elié Halévy explained in 1934 the sentiment socialists need to create in the people: “We are living in economic chaos and we cannot get out if it except under some kind of dictatorial leadership!”

 How better, then, to obtain the dictatorial power you crave, than to ensure that an economic crisis becomes a catastrophe?  Why else would the Pollyanna of Hope and Change have suddenly become the Jeremiah of Doom and Gloom?

 While I hear much discussion about how nothing in the steal-from-us bill makes sense from the standpoint of economic recovery, I hear very little to the effect that the bill’s content and enactment process makes perfect sense when one admits that Obama’s views are essentially Marxist.

 Despite the expected denials (and we heard these before the election as well, which tells you plenty), there is ample evidence of Obama’s inclinations:

1.        The African father that abandoned Obama and his mother was a Communist;
2.       Obama’s childhood mentor was rabid America-hater, and Communist pervert Frank Marshall Davis;
3.       Obama himself has admitted that in college he sought out the most left-wing comrades he could find to associate with;
4.       For 20 years, he attended a church whose pastor preached a philosophy that was not only racist, but also steeped in Marxism;
5.       Obama brags about his “community organizer” experience in the mode of Saul Alinsky, whose book , “Rules for Radicals” is just another Marxist text for a “people’s revolution” from within the system.
6.       His election was – and continues to be celebrated by Communists around the globe.  (Hey, if they think he’s one of them, who are we to argue?)
7.       In addition to the federalization of financial institutions, Obama has already set CEO salaries by fiat, and is pushing for control over the census, and the media (that is, that part of the media that doesn’t lick his feet like a lapdog).

 More to the point, Obama’s collusion with the most left-wing democrats in Congress to ram through policies by burying them in monstrous unreadable bills (over 1100 pages at last count) filled with pork is straight out of the socialist playbook about how to use the democratic system to permanently take over a democratic government.  F.A. Hayek in The Road to Serfdom explains it thus:

 “Parliaments come to be regarded as ineffective ‘talking shops,’ unable or incompetent to carry out the tasks for which they have been chosen. The conviction grows that if efficient planning is to be done, the direction must be ‘taken out of politics’ and placed in the hands of experts – permanent officials, or independent autonomous bodies.  This difficulty is well known to socialists…”

 Hayak further explains the socialists’ view that their ideal “government must not allow itself to be too much fettered by democratic procedure,” and quotes early 20^th century socialist legal theorist Professor Harold Laski, who warns that a Socialist government “can[not] risk the overthrow of its measures as a result of the next general election.”

 In that vein, consider the following quote:

 “The next President should act immediately … If that means attaching a health-care plan to the federal budget, so be it. This issue is too important to be stalled by Senate protocol.”

 Who is speaking there? Tom Daschle, the now-disgraced tax cheat who was Obama’s original pick for head of Health and Human Services, in his book, “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health Care Crisis.”   Despite Daschle’s withdrawal, his recommendations were taken.  Thus we have in this alleged “stimulus” bill the creation of the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, and the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research – a group of bureaucrats who will have the power to decide what medical treatment you get, if you get it.  This politburo, of course, will not be elected, will be answerable only to the President, and once established, nearly impossible to remove.  So, now Obama’s federal government will gradually take over all of the health care industry, via a bill that no one read, and in ways that will not be able to be undone.

 Alinsky would be proud.  As would Laski.  And Marx.

 Some in Obama’s inner circle have been more honest about it than others.  The President’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, for example, said "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste … This crisis provides the opportunity for us to do things that you could not do before."

 We need to stop kidding ourselves, stop playing along with this trainwreck, and tell the truth: neither President Obama nor the Democrats in Congress want to stimulate the economy.  What they really want is to bring America to its knees, setting the stage for their takeover.  This is no stimulus package.  It is a Trojan horse.

 All of the blogosphere, on talk radio, and in other alternative media, the sense of outrage is growing.  And the people are asking, “But what do we do about it?”  The question of what is to be done is for the next column.  Stay tuned.

Because it creates the impression that the practices the practices he condones are in conformity with Catholic beliefs.  He will not be challenged, he will not be debated - he will be showcased and feted and highlighted and stroked.

And so we get statistics like this.

(And yes, I know Obama did not "cause" these data, so spare me the obvious.  My point is that it is the work of Obama and people like him who Notre Dame and other Catholic institutions strengthen when they hold up as paragons of "social justice."  These people succeed in watering down the protection for human life under the guise of actually caring for it.)

There are two questions I don't hear anyone asking Barack Obama:

1.  "What if...?"

and

2.  "And then what?"

So I am reading this article today - like literally hundreds of others - all saying the same thing: you mustn't raise taxes during a recession;  you can't spend your way out of it; everyone knows this; Obama's spending will cripple this country; the Chinese (and others) will refuse to buy our debt; printing money will create runaway inflation; the debt-to-GDP ratio Obama is proposing is unsustainable; his economic growth projections are overly optimistic, and on and on and on and on.

And in response to all of this, he just proclaims in his sonorous voices something about how we cannot make a "false choice" between some extreme that he makes up and some other extreme that doesn't exist, or some other blather about how we cannot go back to "the past," which is just another way of saying, "George Bush, and the Republicans," at which time the media all fall into a Pavlovian [we're going to have to start calling it "Obamanian"] Two Minutes Hate, and that's the end of the inquiry.

But there's never any follow up.  What I want to hear someone ask is, "What if?"

As in, "Mr. President, what if you're wrong?"

In other words, what if all these writers are right, and Barack Obama is wrong?  What if growth stagnates?  What if charitable donations do go through the basement?  What if people do stop lending money?  What if Americans don't start businesses?  What if the economy continues to plummet?  What if companies keep laying off?  What if the Chinese wake up tomorrow and say, "No thanks, we won't buy American debt anymore"?

Or, even more insidiously, what if Iran doesn't heed Obama's overtures?  What if the Gitmo detainees who are released do go back to terrorist activities?  What if they do them there?  I want someone to ask the President these questions, because I want to know what his back-up plan is.

Because I don't think he has one. 

Of course, anyone who has read my past columns knows it's because I think that the collapse IS the plan.  And that brings me to the NEXT question I want someone to ask Barack Obama:  "And then what?"

"So, if Iran does develop nuclear capacity, what will you do?"
"If North Korea launches a missile, what will you do?"
"If China refuses to buy American debt, what will you do?"
"If the economy gets worse in response to your spending plan, what will be your next step?"

Oh, we all know what he would say.  It would be some blather about how we have to have "faith" and "trust" and we can't "undermine" our "confidence" because that is a "false choice" between "optimism in our future" and "preparedness for any eventuality," and in any event, what we cannot do is "return to the policies of the past" (i.e. "George Bush and the Republicans.")

In other words, he wouldn't say anything.

And at that point, the reporter should ask, "So what you're saying, Mr. President, is that you don't have a backup plan."

Now let's ask ourselves - does any of this make sense?  Obama is going against economic wisdom (if that's not an oxymoron) and common sense.  We've spent our way into this mess - so let's spend ten times more, and call it "savings" and "investment"!  Obama's "plans" for economic recovery will not work.  And so the question becomes, well, what will happen when the whole thing hits the wall?

What do you think will happen?  Total government takeover.

And that is not the "backup" plan.  It's the actual plan.  And it's the one Obama hopes no one asks about, even while its unfolding right in front of their eyes.

I have been plenty ashamed of my alma mater in recent years.  Allowing performances of the artistically meritless and gratuitously vulgar play, “The Vagina Monologues” on a campus named for the woman whose body Catholics believe bore the Son of God was a new low.

But now the University of Notre Dame has sunk even lower, by inviting President Barack Obama to give the commencement address at this year’s graduation ceremonies in May, conferring upon him a doctor of laws honoris causa.

Obama’s enthusiasm for the deliberate destruction of human life is well-known by now.  He does not merely tolerate it; he has consistently used his political power to advance it.  And to advance the careers of others who support it.

For the benefit of the pro-Obama Catholics out there, let’s review, shall we?

When in the state legislature in Illinois, Obama voted against the “Born Alive Infant Protection Act,” proposed legislation which would have required medical assistance for babies who survived botched abortions.  His reasoning, as always, was specious and false.  Obama protested that Illinois already “had a law on the books” that provided for medical assistance to children surviving abortions, and so BAIPA was unnecessary.  This lie was particularly heinous, since the law had been introduced in the Illinois State Legislature as a result of the botched abortions at Christ Hospital in Chicago.  Nurse and pro-life activist Jill Stanek brought these despicable practices to the Illinois legislature’s - and the public’s - attention.  The outcry against this infanticide was immediate, and the support for the BAIPA was strongly bipartisan.  Except for Barack Obama.

When running for President, Obama promised Planned Parenthood that his first act as President would be to sign the Freedom of Choice Act, an abysmal piece of proposed legislation that would destroy virtually every shred of legal protection states have enacted, including parental notification for minors, licensing requirements for physicians, health and safety regulations for facilities, and informed consent laws.

Shortly after being elected President, Obama named Ellen Moran as White House Communications Director.  Moran’s earlier position was Executive Director of EMILY’s List, an advocacy group for pro-choice female political candidates.

Three days after his inauguration, President Obama signed an Executive Order reversing the “Mexico City Policy,” authorizing the expenditure of federal funds for organizations overseas that provide abortions.

Earlier this month, Obama nominated pro-choice Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius for Secretary of Health and Human Service.  Despite being Catholic, Sebelius has provided support and political cover to notorious late-term abortionist George Tiller (now on trial).

Obama also nominated Dawn Johnson to be head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel; she who equates unplanned pregnancy with “involuntary servitude.”

The White House also announced a move to eliminate the Bush administration’s “conscience rules,” protecting health care providers who do not wish to participate in abortions or refer patients to abortion providers.

Most recently, Obama signed another executive order, this one authorizing federal funding for embryonic stem cell research – a move which even unreligious observers like Charles Krauthammer characterized as an “outrage.”

What part of this don’t Catholics get?  Do they think it’s all a series of wild coincidences?  What about the fact that it’s just about all Obama has done?  In the two months since Obama was inaugurated, we have watched him bumble and fumble every possible way on the economy – which was, allegedly, what he was elected to “change.”  And he has been equally hapless in matters of international diplomacy.  But when it comes to human life, he has been chillingly consistent and tragically effective.

My brother (also a graduate) wrote a letter voicing his objection to Notre Dame Alumni Association Executive Director Chuck Lennon.  In response, Mr. Lennon said, “The invitation to President Obama to be the Commencement speaker shouldn’t be taken as condoning or endorsing his positions that contradict the teachings of the Catholic Church. Rather, the University has invited the President to campus for what he’s done for racial equality, and for his stands on poverty, immigration, education, infectious disease, and seeking peace.”

This is predictable.  But as with all of Obama’s religious posturing, it is false.

"Racial equality"? Obama was a 20-year member of a race-baiting, white-hating, Marxist, black supremacist church.  His economic policies are grounded firmly in class envy and racial division.  And that is in the New Testament where?

As for poverty, all decent persons would love to eliminate it.  But most of us are not willing to dismantle the entire free-market economic system in order to achieve the equality of misery.  Yet those whose writings inspired Obama, do, and say so.  More coincidence?  Furthermore, morally serious people can and do question the efficacy – not to mention the morality – of subsidizing the very bad choices that create and perpetuate poverty in this country.  Where is Obama’s moral courage there?

Obama’s attitude about immigration?  That those who defy and disobey our laws should be allowed to stay in the country, and those who have abided by the laws can take a flying leap.  Why?  Because Obama knows that many of the illegal immigrants will vote for the candidate who promises the most government-provided goodies.  [Here's a question for you: name ONE other country that someone can illegally walk into, expect to live in, and demand health care, education and housing - for free.  (Michael Moore in Cuba doesn’t count)  Here's the answer: NONE.]

Education?  How about cancelling the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Fund?  So HIS children can attend Sidwell Friends, because he's rich, but the two children in Sasha and Malia's class who are there on the Opportunity Scholarship will be forced back into D.C.'s failing public schools.  And why?  Because Obama is in bed with the teacher's unions.  Oh, yes - he's wonderful on education.

Infectious disease.  Hmmm.  Would this be among the things for which we can find cures by destroying tiny human beings?  If so, then that's ok, right?

And as for "seeking peace," that must mean Obama’s obsequious outreach to oppressive regimes, and provision of nearly a billion dollars for a terrorist organization whose charter calls for the destruction of Israel.  A reminder for the Catholic Obamaniacs out there: Christ was a JEW.  His Mother was a JEW.  His earthly father was a JEW.  His apostles were JEWS, as were most of his earliest followers.  When did "seeking peace" mean sucking up to those who want to destroy not only the Chosen People, but the rest of us infidels?

And none of this even addresses his economic “policies,” which consist of oppressive and confiscatory taxation, irresponsible borrowing, unsustainable spending, calls for the nationalization of banks and other financial institutions, unconstitutional ex post facto laws and bills of attainder. 

Obama gets away with this, in part, because he couches his views in religious platitudes. This effrontery should make his violation of Christian beliefs and American principles all the more offensive.  Instead, lefty religious types embrace his WORDS and ignore the DEEDS (Matthew 7:15-23, anyone?), and in so doing provide exactly the kind of cover and sanction that he desperately needs to prop him up while he undermines our political, economic and religious liberties.  Notre Dame is doing precisely this by awarding Obama an honorary doctorate

That a Catholic (and some say, the premier Catholic) university would overlook Obama’s appalling record on human life, disregard the inconsistencies in his positions, and bestow an honor of this magnitude upon him is more than disturbing.  It is a travesty.  It is a lie.  And it is the culmination of the lies that Catholics commit and endorse when they hide behind the leftist rubric of “social justice,” which is nothing more than a pious euphemism for wealth confiscation and redistribution.  There is nothing religious about it (indeed, some religious writers point to the 10^th Commandment as proof).  But anti-life, and anti-American activists and politicians like Obama have been using “social justice” for decades to deceive decent, unsuspecting, well-meaning Catholics (and others) into supporting policies and organizations that undermine everything they stand for.  Saul Alinsky was quite straightforward about the need to use established organizations like the Catholic Church to convey respectability.  So it should not come as any surprise that Obama uses the same tactics.  It is surprising, however, that after 40-plus years of this deception, any Catholics still fall for it.

This kind of ignorant complicity might be excusable in an uninformed, uneducated individual.  But Notre Dame has no excuse.

I suppose not, but I think we'd be on to something if all conservatives (and conservative commentators) could replicate the biting and self-deprecating wit that Steyn shows here.  (If you're coming in late, it's the Sunday, March 29th edition).  It's rare that I laugh out loud reading commentary, but the bit about Mark and Glenn Beck in frilly panties had me in hysterics.  (His comments on newspaper editing from March 28th were hilarious, too.)

It's not just being funny - it's the self-deprecating part that's so critical.  This is the BEST antidote to the Alinskyite methods used by the Obamaniacs.  How can your political opponents effectively ridicule you, when you've so effectively ridiculed yourselves?

Of course, Mark is a Brit, and that means he was born with a humor gene that somehow we all lost when we became Americans.  Maybe revolutions create some genetic mutation.  Think of all the countries you know that have undergone revolutions - how many genuinely funny Frenchmen, Russians, or Burmese do you know?  (And of course, the so-called "people's" revolutionaries are the most humorless of all - which explains why liberals have no sense of humor at all.)

The quotes Fred Barnes cites in his article on The Weekly Standard online are pure Obama.  They sound great.  But as Barnes notes, they are FALSE (our economy does NOT grow stronger when we are thinking about "each other"; our economy grows stronger when each person is free to pursue his or her own rational self interest).  And they mask what he's really talking about - which is a government takeover of the economy so that he and his minions can decide what's in everyone's "best interests"; so that he and his cronies can take everything from those who produce and dole it out however they see fit, according to whatever Leftist, victimhood mentality is most convenient at the time.

THAT is why he doesn't give a damn about the markets.  THAT is why Tim Geithner has no help.  THAT is why Obama's only concern for banks and other financial institutions is that they keep failing so that he can seize them.  THAT is why he is proposing to raise our taxes and spend us into oblivion.  THAT is why he proposes to eliminate the charitable deduction.  Why have private charity when the government can take care of everyone?

THAT is what he wants, and every other interpretation is a LIE.  Obama is a Marxist.  He was sired by a Marxist, breast-fed by a Marxist, mentored by Marxists, inspired by Marxists, preached to by Marxists.

For crying out loud, people, don't you get this yet?

We need Congressmen (and women) and Senators whose primary aspiration in life is to stop Obama in his tracks.