Beware the Sabato slant

Probably we've all seen Larry Sabato on TV during election season. The UVA political scientist is usually portrayed as an unbiased analyst, concerned mainly with the facts, especially statistics, and with political predictions. Well, in this world there is no such thing as "unbiased". In Larry's case, his writings reveal him to be a liberal through and through. The excerpts below from a recent essay of his illustrate this. (The entire text of his essay is linked here.)

Now Larry Sabato is a halfway reasonable guy, as liberals go. It isn't so much his political orientation that I object to, except in the sense that he's old enough to know better. What I object to mainly is the pretense that he's unbiased. That's also what I loathe and despise about most of the media, that they lie not only in the pictures they paint of the world, but even in what they themselves are all about.

Regarding the substance of Sabato's comments:

It is laughable to describe today's GOP as being "fiercely right-wing" and "harsh" in its conservativism. In fact, in the past dozen or so years the party has degenerated into confusion, so that today it doesn't know what it stands for. Conservatives, feeling betrayed, are among the harshest critics of this GOP, and many have advocated forming a third party. For a respected polical analyst to state the opposite of the clear facts is jaw-dropping.

Sabato says it is surprising that a conservative politician would advocate civil unions (as opposed to the oxymoronic "gay marriage") for homosexuals. Apparently whenever a conservative doesn't fit his mental model of "harsh", it is surprising to him.

My advice to liberals: When your preconceived model conflicts with the observed data, stop trying to change the data. It's your fundamental model that's wrong, so you should change it to match the data. However, if liberals did this, they would cease to be liberals.

Also, the stance he describes is not "moderate". As used today, a "moderate" is someone who doesn't know what he believes, and whose highest value is just to cave in to the lunatics and all get along.

Regarding the last point below, I asked David Yepsin whether the conventional wisdom was correct about Romney's Mormonism hurting him in Iowa. Yepsin replied that it both helped and hurt Romney among Iowa Republicans, and as far as he could tell the net effect was a wash. At least in Iowa, Yepsin clearly knows more about this than Sabato does. Sabato was just speculating from a liberal perspective, as if his mental model of the world were as good as actually knowing the facts.

Presidency 2012: The Invisible Primary BeginsA Commentary By Larry J. Sabato Friday, May 08, 2009

We at the Crystal Ball must beg your forgiveness. With fewer than 1,300 days left until the next general election for President, we have failed to offer a single analysis of this historic upcoming battle. With humility, and hoping for mercy, we submit this first update on 2012.

(snip)

Two moderate-conservative Republicans who are fresh faces could give the GOP more of a fighting chance in 2012. Two-term Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota has found a way to win in a Democratic state without abandoning most traditional conservative positions. He is also in his 40s, with a blue collar background, possessing a pleasant demeanor and a sense of humor. (Having been on John McCain's short list for running-mate, he joked to this analyst after Palin was selected that he was "just one chromosome away from the vice presidency.") Whether Pawlenty intends to run for President is uncertain, and he has to decide about offering for a third term as Governor in 2010--always a risk in a Blue state. Will Republicans even accept a less harsh version of conservatism that isn't located in the Sunbelt?

An intriguing dark horse candidate is two-term Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman. A proponent of gay civil unions and some other surprisingly moderate stances despite hailing from one of the nation's three or four most conservative states, Huntsman is openly testing the waters, and arguing that Republicans are headed for a long spell in the wilderness without a major ideological facelift. Wealthy and smooth in his public appearances, Huntsman makes a vital point, but undoubtedly he will strain the patience and tolerance of a fiercely right-wing party. His tiny base--Utah has but five electoral votes--doesn't help, and his Mormonism possibly will be a detrimental factor with many fundamentalist Christians, just as for Romney. (snip)

Larry J. Sabato is the director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.

Airborne arrogance

You've seen that frightful image: a 747 flying low across New York City tracked by Air Force fighter jets. Still-traumatized New Yorkers understandably fled. Then we learned that an Obama administration official authorized that costly, insensitive folly as an unnecessary Air Force One "photo op" despite the numberless archived images of the presidential airliner. Why be surprised? Did we trust that these ultra-liberals actually meant their campaign propaganda about compassion and fiscal responsibility?

Consider the underlying psychology of an ultra-liberal. Liberals are motivated by a profound, yet pathetic craving for kudos and control. Their professed concern for our needs, fears and hopes extends only to claiming our votes. Once in power, they reveal their true self-absorbed disregard for you and me.

The liberals' pose invokes a powerful allure, manipulating our emotions (and bypassing our reason). They call up our fears and propose to ease our anguish. But beneath their pretense of concern lies a hidden but massive insult.

Ultra-liberals strive to sell us the notion that we are victims. They cast us in the role of hapless, ineffectual schmucks. What greater insult could they invoke? Simultaneously, they gain the ego-boost of seeming superiority as our rescuers. And we get to pay the enormous bill!

Personally, I don't buy it not their designation as victim nor their stupendous vote-buying expenditures. Paying their debt would indeed make me THEIR victim.

That Air Force One incident illustrates their total lack of respect or regard for us. You might want to remember this illustrative incident the next time an ultra-liberal proclaims his/her dedication to our welfare.

'Suicide of West' imminent?

National Review listed James Burnham's "Suicide of the West" as one of the top 10 books that nudged America toward political conservatism in recent decades. (See rankings in their 50th anniversary edition.) Burnham was a young Trotskyite who turned against Communism and in his later years wrote for National Review. He wrote this book in 1964.

Burnham's thesis was that liberalism is the ideology of Western suicide.

For a young person unschooled in political thought, such as I was, this thesis was difficult to believe. Both JFK and LBJ were aggressive in their Cold War liberalism, which in those days included a strong pro-American component. Even the true believers on the Left assured us that they were pro-American, despite appearances to the contrary. Alger Hiss, the Rosenbergs and I.F. Stone were all leftist idealists, they never actually betrayed their country. Or so we were endlessly and emphatically told in the mass media and in our classrooms.

Well, it turned out that Burnham and his fellow conservatives were correct, and we had been lied to on virtually all fronts. We now know that Hiss, the Rosenbergs, Stone and many others on the American Left spied for the Soviet Union for years.

The leftists were not only for collectivism, they were against America and most of what it stood for. Their virulent assaults against the free market, against a strong military and against traditional American values were all of a piece. They regarded liberal journalists and liberal officials in all three branches of government as "useful idiots" and as loose allies in the steady drip of daily propaganda and assaults against America.

By now we are much further along in this process. Some of the most prominent liberal journalists and liberal Democratic leaders in government are no longer acting as merely useful idiots. Some of them are at last revealing themselves to be more malevolent than that.

This is most clearly seen in their move to prosecute those in the Bush admininistration who authorized the enhanced interrogation techniques (which they falsely call "torture") against a few of our top terrorist enemies.

We should recall at this point that the laws of war and the Geneva Convention clearly distinguish between (1) conventional soldiers and (2) nonuniformed terrorists who hide among civilians and attack from schools, mosques and civilian residences. Conventional soldiers, when captured, must be treated humanely. Nonuniformed terrorists, when captured, may be summarily shot.

Unfortunately, instead of shooting these vicious predators on the spot, our government unwisely treated most of them better than we have ever treated prisoners of war. They get better food in prison than our schoolchildren get in school cafeterias. There have been strict limits even on the interrogation techniques.

In three highly supervised cases waterboarding was employed to get vital information that saved many innocent lives. (Many of our own soldiers and sailors undergo waterboarding as part of their training, hence it is absurd to deem it "torture".)

But now many voices are telling us that this was unacceptable, that America's leaders must be punished, rather than thanked and honored, for this great so-called evil. They quote the Constitution much as Satan quotes Scripture, and they pretend to defend both America and the Constitution. However, this new thrust is clearly intended to demoralize those who are defending the country and to reduce or destroy America's future effectiveness in fighting our enemies.

Here at last the Left is taking a position that is so clearly anti-American that there is very little room at the margin for "useful idiots". Some Democrats on my "lunatic" list claim that foreign terrorists captured on the battlefield should be treated as if they were American citizens with Constitutional protections, but even for them that level of imbecility is not credible. Political maneuvering aside, their position can be seriously maintained for long only by the actual enemies of the United States.

For benefit of the lawyers and other confused citizens, let us apply the Left's argument in mirror image so that everyone can see just how bonkers it really is.

The FDR administration put more than one hundred thousand Japanese American citizens in concentration camps during World War II. This was clearly a much more heinous crime against humanity than waterboarding three Al-Qaeda terrorists. We should therefore prosecute all those Democrats still alive who had anything to do with perpetrating that great injustice. Correct?

The LBJ administration entered the Viet Nam conflict on the false and exaggerated claim of being attacked near the Gulf of Tonkin. This resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of American soldiers and sailors and of millions of Asians. We should therefore prosecute all those Democrats who had anything to do with perpetrating and acting on that falsehood. Correct?

The Reagan administration's retributive attack across Libya's "line of death" in 1986 happened to kill Gaddafi's innocent young daughter. We should therefore prosecute all the Republicans who had anything to do with that attack. Correct?

The Obama administration's attacks on Taliban and Al-Qaeda terrorists using Predator drones and other means also produce collateral damage, killing innocent children and others, without benefit of legal hearing or trial by jury. Also the suspects are not even given their Miranda warnings. We should therefore (as Ted Olson has recommended in a recent thought experiment) prosecute everyone in the Obama administration who has anything to do with these attacks whenever they occur. Correct?

No, of course these assertions are clearly not correct. The concept is intended to be used only against the "evil" Bush administration, which in fact was trying with the best of intentions to protect America in a legally acceptable manner.

However, war is not police work, never has been, and never can be. The concept of prosecuting actions like this, if taken seriously, would degrade or destroy our ability to defend ourselves. But that is the whole idea. Our domestic enemies will now have another powerful new tool to weaken us, if we have become so confused and lacking in will as to allow it.

In summary, James Burnham was both correct and extremely prescient. Liberalism is indeed the ideology of Western suicide. We will see this in spades during the next four years.

America is better than Utopia, Mr. President

Utopian visions have stirred men’s souls at least since the time of the ancient Greeks. The philosopher Plato unmasked the folly and the evil of all such schemes in his famous "Republic." He did not merely criticize a current tendency but a perennial human temptation. President Barack Obama is a utopian who believes that there are no limits to what can be done with political power. In contrast to the United States Constitution, the powers of which James Madison described as "few and defined," the ideological goal of the current administration is "transforming" the human condition.

Not content with equality in political rights and economic opportunities, Obama seeks to redistribute the wealth. To this end, he means to increase the income tax on the most productive and eliminate it for the least productive. By simultaneously commandeering votes with groups like ACORN, he will ensure that those who pay no taxes will access the money of those who do.

Obama has shown no respect for the law of nature that persons of the opposite sex alone should be married, that marriage should be upheld as a vital institution, or that unborn children should not be wantonly slaughtered. That is why he equivocates on same-sex marriage, ended restrictions on federal money for abortions overseas and for embryonic stem cell research, and supports legislation to end all restrictions on abortion whatsoever.

In perhaps the biggest conceit of all, our President actually says that he can negotiate with the world’s most aggressive dictatorships and make them see the wisdom of restraining their military ambitions. Iran and North Korea somehow will stop producing nuclear bombs and missiles, the Taliban and Hamas will see the error of their ways, and Hugo Chavez, Danny Ortega and even the Castros will change their opinion of us.

Obama pledged during the campaign to cut back on nuclear weapons unilaterally and has repeated the pledge recently. He says that our moral leadership will show the rogue nations of the world that we mean them no harm and that we can develop common interests.

The only sensible response to socialism at home and ill-conceived peace missions abroad is to point out that "there is nothing new under the sun." There will always be persons--and nations--who envy the success of others, blaming others rather than themselves. What talents they do possess they turn to tearing down others’ achievements. Socialism, as Winston Churchill so sagely remarked, produces nothing and makes people equal in their misery.

Mankind is certainly capable of improvements, as our ancestors showed when they founded the freest nation in the history of the world. But the enemies of the American Constitution, foreign and domestic, stretch the limits of human nature and wind up making things infinitely worse with socialism, communism and fascism.

The task of each generation of Americans is to elect leaders who understand that we are better off buying and selling with each other, in our neighborhoods or across national boundaries, than trusting governments to determine who should benefit from its power to redistribute the wealth through taxing and spending.

Those same leaders need to follow the maxim of Alexander Hamilton that nations do not have permanent friends, only permanent interests. Although the most reliable friends are those with a common heritage of liberty, we should never imagine that American independence can coexist with the fiction of a "community of nations." Many nations are as envious of our freedom, wealth and power as the least successful among us are of the most successful.

It is not in the character of the United States to be belligerent toward the world, but neither should it procrastinate while threats build up to such a degree that we lack the will and the means to counteract them and we are forced to wage defensive war, as we did in 1917 and 1941.

And certainly no America President should ever apologize abroad for policy differences with his predecessors, not to mention frivolously gloss over the great divide that separates the majority of Americans who embrace the Judaeo-Christian tradition and those who adhere to Islamic doctrines. For whatever Christians may have done in the Arab world a thousand years ago, there are no modern-day Christian equivalents of the violent Muslim minority that has declared war on the "Infidel."

Obama cannot legislate inequalities away or make the lion lay down with the lamb. Indeed, it is better for us to trade, as civilized nations do, than to seize wealth by force, as barbarians do. Meanwhile, we must always keep our guard up.

Useful idiots & how not to be one

The term “useful idiots” was attributed to Soviet dictator Vladimir Lenin describing intellectual idealists persuaded to adopt communism. Later after a fait accompli, with their idealism supremely disappointed and dangerously reactive, they would of course have to be eliminated. Wikipedia explains how Lenin’s, “‘useful idiots of the West,’ described Western reporters and travelers who would endorse the Soviet Union and its policies in the West.”

From www.usefulidiots.com , the question, “Why This Web Site?”: "Useful idiots is a name no group of people would like to be called. It is however, what most Americans are relied upon to be by the powers that be. When the voting segment ... allows itself to fall for the same old word games and mind manipulation, it sadly earns the title of useful idiots ... too many Americans are naive about their political ‘system’ and its politicians ... America is a land of plenty. Plenty of food, plenty of money, plenty of gods, plenty of corrupt politicians and alas, plenty of useful idiots that repetitively vote for them.”

From five million Coloradans, 65 House and 35 Senate members emerge to serve public office in the Legislature. They take an oath to support the Colorado and U. S. Constitutions. This is their only required oath -- not to their constituents, the government, their political party, nor the citizens, voters and taxpayers of Colorado, not even to their families or themselves. Just to the rich heritage, words, meaning, expression, majesty and magnificence of those documents.

Question: How many elected officials have read both documents, before or after entering office? The oath presumes familiarity with, understanding of, and a full, recent read and determination to honor them. Otherwise it’s easier to create, cultivate and control “useful idiots.”

Officeholders are prote cted in this ignorance. Those who voted them into office too are “useful idiots.” They have little familiarity, interest or knowledge of those documents whose power is to contain and control only the government, not the people.

Once public officials, they are in intimate contact with “the system” – elected colleagues, special interests, partisan political parties, government bureaucracy and employees, bond dealers, lobbyists and friends of same, and far removed from those who sent them there. The Legislature meets for 120 days creating legislation presumably to make Colorado a better place. However, officeholders’ limited political, economic, business, financial, constitutional and governmental acumen put them at the mercy of the true, long-term professionals, well-paid, who know how to manipulate people, opinions, legislative bills and votes.

With accompanying “spotlight and applause,” many of these “useful idiots” can be persuaded to perform in ways anathema to what they otherwise would want done, or perhaps more importantly, not done. They sponsor, sign on to, or support bills that on their face violate their oath of office and the Constitution.

Examples of the Useful Idiot Dodge (UID) are abundant. Colorado’s executive, legislative and judicial branches too often misapply, misinterpret or ignore the Constitution when it threatens their agenda or very existence. Good job, “useful idiots,” on the following:

** “FASTER” legislation politically morphed an in-fact tax increase into an automobile fee increase, to obtain more revenue, and avoid submitting it to the electorate, in compliance with the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, Article X, Section 20 of the Colorado Constitution.

** The General Assembly could have put on the ballot a gasoline tax increase, but no. Instead, this UID was an intentional end-run around TABOR, depriving taxpayers of their power to accept or reject this tax increase.

** The general assembly enacted a mill levy freeze to increase tax revenue to the schools, to provide the general fund more money to spend, again without a vote of the people, a UID for a billion dollars over the next ten years.

** Boisterous assault on TABOR, with a power-hungry and derelict Democratic Majority in the House, Senate, Supreme Court and Governorship. The next TABOR-forbidden UID target, is the 1 992 Bird-Arveschoug six percent growth limit to the General Fund, conservatively interpreted and highly respected for 17 years, is now being plundered to allow for easier, less confined state spending.

** The current target is to throw Colorado’s nine electoral votes into a consensus pool of other states, making null and void the Founder’s concepts. The 222-years-old Electoral College was crafted to protect the small versus big states. Requiring a consortium of states to support one national candidate/party is a UID that shrinks the power of Colorado voters. Is there no limit?

William Shakespeare said in Julius Caesar, “The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.” That’s the tragic tale of today’s “useful idiots.” While in office they are conned into legislative actions that are long-term anathema to what their Founders and Freedom Documents, their children, grandchildren, even themselves; and unborn, unrepresented generations in the future would want. But once in, laws stay. Good job, “useful idiots.”

Conversely, realization is how legislators can get beyond being “useful idiots.” They first realize the Founders created a system of limited government and self-governing people, that government is to protect the people's rights and property, that its financial impact was not to overspend, overtax or over borrow, that its Founding document, the Constitution, was meant to control the government, not the people. When the people put in place an amendment to the Constitution, it is not up to the legislators to flail it to oblivion, but to respect and abide by it. Inconvenient, frustrating or difficult? Deal with it.

How can one avoid becoming or being an elected official or citizen “useful idiot?” Six steps:

1. Read, understand, know, preserve and protect America’s and Colorado’s Freedom Documents--Declaration of Independence, Constitutions and their incredibly important Bills of Rights. Lesson: Master the basics, the fundamentals of a successful society.

2. Build your knowledge and understanding of history’s fundamentals -- its ideas, philosophies, ideals, events and actors, heroes and villains. “Who knows only his own generation remains always a child,” is chiseled on a building at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Lesson: Grow up.

3: Read. Watch. Listen. Think. Understand. Lesson: Get and stay informed.

4. Quit being a civics dropout, constitutional illiterate or citizen slug. America’s Republic (not “Democracy”) is not a spectator sport. Lesson: Become aware, interested, informed, concerned, involved and active in what is going on.

5. Share your information, knowledge and concern. America’s educational system leaves too much out. On many talk shows I told listeners too many Americans are “dumbed down, numbed up, tuned out and turned off.” We need to turn them back on, to a country and future of Freedom and destiny. Lesson: Share true personal Freedom and political Liberty.

Sixth: Seeing a “useful idiot” committing a UID, pounce on it. Lesson: It’s up to you.

President George Washington said, “Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.”

Louis D. Brandeis said, “The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men (and women) of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.”

George Santayana, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Nobel Laureate Economist Dr. Milton Friedman, “Our problem is not ignorance. It’s what we know that’s not so.”

Note: The term “useful idiot” is not meant in any way to disparage, deprecate, defame, denigrate or demean the word “idiot.”