Hedgehog beats the fox every time

British political philosopher Isaiah Berlin famously contrasted the hedgehog, who does one big thing, and the fox, who does many things. This was a particularly apt metaphor for Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter, as the former sought to win the Cold War and revitalize American commerce and the latter despaired of Americans’ "malaise" just as the long Iranian hostage crisis began to undermine his presidency. Reagan was under considerable pressure from his strongest supporters to solve a host of long-festering problems and certainly Reagan never lacked convictions for confronting them. But he was convinced that national security and world peace demanded his greatest efforts, which culminated in the collapse of the Soviet Empire. He built up our armed forces and thereby negotiated from strength with our less capable communist adversary.

No less demanding was the need to encourage vitality in our stagnant commerce, buffeted by decreasing purchasing power and increasing unemployment, with cuts in income tax rates. Unfortunately, we are currently in the beginnings of a resurgence of big government that we gained some relief from a quarter century ago.

Berlin was mindful of other statesmen of a similar single-minded determination. His countryman, Winston Churchill, set out to save Great Britain from defeat to a Nazi tyranny which had already conquered most of Europe, and ultimately helped save Western Civilization from collapse.

Such is statesmanship. Is George Washington remembered by anyone except historians for the positions he took on tariffs, excises or treaties? He devoted himself to winning independence from Great Britain, providing a national constitution and serving as the first president. A multitude of lesser problems survived him but so did the nation.

Our greatest national challenge came in 1861 when 11 states defied the results of a presidential election and its mandate for stopping the spread of slavery. Abraham Lincoln had hated slavery since childhood and gave it his single-minded attention when the Democratic party resolved to remove all obstacles to its movement into western territories previously closed to it.

Indeed, Lincoln was severely criticized for talking about virtually nothing else after passage of the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act, which allowed slavery in the old Louisiana Territory. His response was simply, "I’ll stop talking about it when everyone else stops talking about it."

Lincoln was not being perverse. Sen. Stephen Douglas of Illinois, author of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, sought to end slavery agitation by removing the controversy from the halls of Congress and throwing it out to the western frontier to be resolved by the first few settlers in territories forming into new states. But his plan backfired as southerners wanted guarantees for slavery and anti-slavery northerners were outraged at a massive equivocation on this fundamental question.

Later, even historians were critical, not only of Lincoln, but also of Douglas, as the two senatorial candidates in 1858 debated slavery in the territories and practically nothing else. Again, tariffs, excises and treaties were ignored as these longtime rivals explored the political, constitutional, legal, social and moral aspects of slavery. How could they be so single-minded?

The answer is, both Lincoln and Douglas understood that, until fundamental principles are resolved, action on other issues not only would have to wait but no prudent solutions for them were possible. If slaves may be taken to new territories, might Congress revive the international slave trade? What principle can distinguish the one form of "commerce" from the other?

No act of statesmanship, no matter how great, can guarantee results forever. Democrats imposed segregation, something very much like slavery, in the Southern states for a century following its official extinction.

Fortunately, no American president after World War II squandered the ascendancy maintained for the Western world, although Carter seriously underestimated the Soviet threat, militarily and strategically. However, the ultimate collapse of the Soviet Union opened the door to the long-dormant ambitions of Islamic extremists.

The quarter century of dynamic commerce generated when Reagan persuaded Congress to enact cuts in income tax rates was undermined by out-of-control credit in the federally subsidized housing market, which has corrupted all of finance, even as union contracts and retirement plans, public and private, have proved unsustainable.

Everything depends, then, as it so often does, on the character of the occupant of the Oval Office, for our Constitution designed the government for leadership in the various crises of human affairs. In this rich and powerful country, many things are going on but all pale in comparison to the requirements of the common defense and the general welfare.

Obama misrepresents Lincoln

We have grown accustomed to Barack Obama invoking the name and memory of Abaham Lincoln, this day of the 16th President's 200th birthday being no exception. But even in this brief news article, our current President manages to be so grossly wrong in his lessons and parallels that is almost laughable. Here it is:

Obama urges Americans to follow Lincoln's example

By BEN FELLER Associated Press Writer

Published: Thursday, Feb. 12, 2009

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama called on citizens Thursday to follow Abraham Lincoln's example of showing generosity to political opponents and valuing national unity - above all else.

At a ceremony in the stately Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol marking the 16th president's 200th birthday, Obama said he felt "a special gratitude" to the historical giant, who in many ways made his own story possible. On Thursday night, Obama, the nation's first black president, will deliver the keynote address at the Abraham Lincoln Association's annual banquet in Springfield, Ill.

As lawmakers and guests looked on, Obama recalled Lincoln's words in the closing days of the Civil War, when the South's defeat was certain.

Lincoln "could have sought revenge," Obama said, but he insisted that no Confederate troops be punished.

"All Lincoln wanted was for Confederate troops to go back home and return to work on their farms and in their shops," Obama said. "That was the only way, Lincoln knew, to repair the rifts that had torn this country apart. It was the only way to begin the healing that our nation so desperately needed."

A day after House and Senate leaders agreed on a costly economic stimulus plan that drew scant Republican support, Obama said, "we are far less divided than in Lincoln's day," but "we are once again debating the critical issues of our time."

"Let us remember that we are doing so as servants to the same flag, as representatives of the same people, and as stakeholders in a common future," Obama said. "That is the most fitting tribute we can pay and the most lasting monument we can build to that most remarkable of men, Abraham Lincoln."

Surely Obama is correct to call attention to Lincoln's generosity following the Civil War, a powerful symbol indeed. But it is one thing to forgive rebels after they have been defeated following four long, bloody years of battle. It is something else to summon up such virtue when it is not called for. Is Obama forgiving Republicans for losing the election?  Should they be returning to their homes or more likely simply retreating in the face of the Democratic victory not only in November but even the predictable victory on the "stimulus" [re: Big Government] package flying through Congress? Is asking your political opponents, in other words, to roll over and play dead an example of Obama's magnaminity? Shouldn't that be reserved for graver situations than getting bills passed? We should be pleased, I suppose, that Obama and congressional Democrats aren't seeking revenge! (Although congressional committees are planning to hold hearings on possible Bush Administration "war crimes.")

As to the plea for unity, Obama is not even close. When Lincoln ran for President, nay, as he campaigned against the spread of slavery for six years prior following passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act that permitted slavery to go into the Western Territory under the deceptive slogan of "popular sovereignty," he was hardly calling for unity but accepting the unavoidable consequence of hard and bitter division over the nation's most pressing issue. He was denounced for uttering the Biblical saying that "A house divided against itself cannot stand," which put the onus on pro-slavery Democrats for dividing the nation even as he knew that existing divisions would be exacerbated. It was the speech, as political philosopher Harry Jaffa has written, that changed the world, for it made clear that Lincoln was prepared to accept  "disunity," and even Civil War, to prevent slavery from being enshrined forever by the imperialist impulses of its apologists and advocates.

If Lincoln was denounced for recklessly dividing the nation, not to mention stirring up war, that was unfair, but it is even more unfair to misrepresent Lincoln when he knew that fighting for the equal rights of all under a central government able to exercise its constitutional authority after a free and fair election, was the right thing to do, even if it "divided" the country.

Doubtless Obama will not abandon the useful device of brow beating his opponents with the authority of Abraham Lincoln. Thus, we who know what Lincoln's statesmanship actually consisted of, should not hesitate to point out his errors. It is our turn to "speak truth to power."

Abraham Lincoln truly was a great man

In his famous Lyceum Speech in 1839, Abraham Lincoln expressed his hope that George Washington would always be revered. Little did Lincoln know that he too would be revered and that more would be written about him than anyone except Jesus Christ. Lincoln’s fame is deserved. He did not run for President simply to hold the office. Rather, he sought the office in order to deal with the nation’s greatest crisis. When the Civil War ended, the nation finally ended slavery, the institution that massively contradicted our nation’s principles.

Not only that, the end of slavery invigorated commerce and caused a steady rise in the standard of living for millions of Americans. Whereas the nation once had enslaved nearly half of its population and had provided limited opportunities for much of the other half, after war’s end it turned its energies to an industrial revolution that made America rich and powerful.

Millions of Americans admire Lincoln for his statesmanship, yet some on the extreme left and right accuse him of hypocrisy, offenses against the Constitution and even tyranny. These charges are false.

The black power movement and remnants of Confederate sympathizers would seem to have little in common, but in fact both have denounced Lincoln. Both believe that Lincoln didn’t really care as much about freeing Americans of African descent as he did in wielding power. Their common error, to put it charitably, is to ignore the circumstances in which Lincoln’s statesmanship was employed.

In his campaign against the spread of slavery following passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, Lincoln found himself in the middle between passionate abolitionists who disregarded public opinion, and pro-slavery men who were determined to spread slavery wherever they could.

There was no majority in favor of the abolition of slavery, but many Americans were determined to prevent domination of the country by slavemasters. This position was grounded in the judgment that slavery was wrong and, though too powerful to be abolished, must be prevented from spreading.

We need to understand that when slavery was legal most people were slow to turn against it. Lincoln walked a fine line in the North between those few who favored abolition and many more who hated slavery because it had brought Negroes into the country.

Lincoln contended that slavery was wrong because it denied the fundamental rights of human beings, and that its expansion ultimately threatened the rights of whites no less than blacks. Color may have been an excuse but it hardly limited the desires of slave masters.

Lincoln was reviled by northern Democrats for declaring in his 1858 Senate campaign in Illinois that "a house divided against itself cannot stand." Lincoln invoked that Biblical passage to condemn the efforts of slavemasters to make slavery national. He did not call for the abolition of slavery where it existed.

Lincoln did not originally support full civil rights for those held as slaves for such a goal was not yet possible. It was enough that slavery should be restricted to where it already was.

Fortunately, more Americans opposed than supported the spread of slavery and even more the attempt at secession by 11 southern states. While both abolitionists and Democrats wavered in the face of rebellion, Lincoln never abandoned his determination to preserve the Union or his commitment to the ultimate extinction of slavery.

After hundreds of thousands of Americans became casualties in a terrible conflict, it became clear to Lincoln that the war could no longer be fought simply to preserve slavery. As a war measure, as well as to propound a greater purpose, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed slaves in rebel states and thereby encouraged them to abandon their masters and even to join the Union Army.

Lincoln was no usurper, but he did not hesitate to use his powers to preserve the Union. When the Maryland state legislature met to vote for secession, Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus and arrested all those who intended to take that fateful step. The loss of Maryland would have isolated the nation’s capital behind rebel lines.

As political philosopher Harry V. Jaffa has written, President Lincoln in dealing with rebellion exercised extra constitutional power to protect freedom, in contrast to Confederate President Jefferson Davis, who may have been more scrupulous but was dedicated to preserving slavery. That made all the difference.

This Thursday, Feb. 12, we should honor Lincoln on the 200^th anniversary of his birth, for he well deserves the titles of Savior of the Union and Great Emancipator. He saved America for freedom.

Merci, Monsieur le Président

Dear President George W. Bush: As you open a new chapter in your life down in Crawford, Texas, after eight, sometimes turbulent years as the 43rd President of the United States, I would like to take this opportunity to publicly express my eternal gratitude to you for strengthening my faith in America’s destiny as a truly exceptional nation. It all goes back to March 2003. Back then, I remember huddling over my ancient radio trying to pick up medium-wave signals of the BBC World Service for the latest English-language news about the outcome of a summit meeting which you were holding in the Azores with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar to work out a U.N. resolution that might eventually lead to military intervention in Iraq. In hindsight, I can truthfully say that when the report ended with the view that war was imminent, I was born again.

Please, do not get me wrong. I agree that war is ugly and should always be used as a last resort. However World War II taught us that the use of force in a just cause is an eminently virtuous course of action. In March 2003, most Europeans were still wilfully denying the essential truth of that painfully poignant lesson and you were trying hard to educate them.

Therefore, Mr. President, although your brand of conservatism eventually turned out to be too compassionate for my small-government predilections, I want to thank you again for courageously standing up for good against evil. I want to thank you again for steadfastly promoting freedom and democracy in the world. Above all, I want to thank you again for relentlessly protecting America and the American people and conserving the enduring values which your blessed country uniquely stands for.

May God bless you, Sir. May God bless the United States of America.

Yours Faithfully, A French friend of America

Note: “Paoli” is the pen name, er, nom de plume, of our French correspondent. Monsieur is a close student of European and US politics, a onetime exchange student in Colorado and a well-wisher to us Americans. He informs us the original Pasquale Paoli, 1725-1807, was the George Washington of Corsica.

We all want to change the world

That line from a Beatles tune keeps coming to mind as we observe not only the inauguration of a president, but the ushering in of an entire cultural revolution, a new heart throb, super jock, and teen idol to swoon over; a new rock star that storms onto center stage. "You say you want a revolution? Well, you know, we all want to change the world."

More importantly, the media and Hollywood have now found religion.  They have witnessed the birth of their savior, and they are aglow with born-again fever.

I watched the introductions of dignitaries onto the inaugural platform, the swearing-in and the speech yesterday.  In the land of Hopeandchange, I was highly disappointed that Mr. Obama has not yet groomed his troops in proper etiquette and appropriate conduct during a historical moment.  His adoring fans that boo-ed both President and Laura Bush, their daughters and the Cheney family should really be educated so as not to tarnish that all-inclusive love fest atmosphere that is to surround our president. 

The speech did not inspire me, but then, this is the first president I can remember that has not reached out much at all to those that did not vote for him and do not support many of his policies.  Usually, a bone is thrown out to the tune of, "You may not have voted for me, but today, I'm your president, too, and I am here to serve you and listen to you, as well."  President Obama does not have to acknowledge the millions that did not support him during the election.  He dismisses us as insignificant, irrelevant and part of the past.  We are the group he referred to in his speech when he said "the ground has shifted" beneath our feet. We can either find our footing, which is squarely behind him in all things, or prepare to be ignored.

Critics are talking about the aggressive agenda President Obama has for his first days in office.  They say he's taking on more than he can manage in the early going.  While he may have more directives than he can get accomplished in a short while, you can't blame him for trying.  After all, he's at cruising altitude with a nice tail wind in perfectly clear skies and fantastic flying weather.  Why would he not seize those ideal conditions?  With an adoring media, mind-boggling amounts of money sitting at the ready to fund advertising to promote his agenda, he has the most friendly, conducive climate to achieve his goals of any incoming president. 

The youth vote takes much credit for electing their new pop culture hero.  Dick Morris made a statement recently that should prompt the Republican party to sit up and take notice and start sharpening their communication skills.  Morris stated that Obama will be able to push through much of his agenda by simply text messaging his supporters.  Obama's theme yesterday was that he needs his supporters now to help him bring about change.   Translation:  "Congress and the general public may not back me up, so I'll need you guys to make lots of noise to help push things through."  He'll reach out to his voters, asking them to contact their representatives in Washington each time he hits a roadblock in Congress or with dissenters in general.  Washington listens to massive input from voters--they want to keep their jobs.

Young people think its very cool to get an instant message from the guy they voted into office.  Using technology, along with his charismatic personality, he's gotten the under 30 crowd right where he wants them.  He promises them change and they sign on because they feel entitled to education, healthcare and other government subsidies.  Just as the Beatles changed hearts and minds in the 1960's and '70's about national defense, capitalism, personal responsibility, organized religion and morals, President Obama now has the power and backing to do a total remake of our culture as he sees fit.  His youth support will stand with him.

As policy discussions ensue about the Don't Ask, Don't Tell  issue, whether or not the federal government will pay for abortions both here and in other countries, increased spending and budget deficit expansion, nationalized healthcare, unionization of the workplace, increased taxes, and putting more people on the welfare roles, and thus, destroying incentive we will start to observe if the current level of popularity continues.  Education reform is also high on the 'to do' list and the new education secretary has trained and studied under Bill Ayers.  Before being tapped for this new position, he was working diligently in Chicago to create a socially reformed high school which would require half the students be gay and the other half straight. 

There is change coming, and we better get ready.  Our pubic school textbooks will continue to be written to support a political agenda.  Our healthcare will be delivered as the government deems appropriate and to whom.  Our place of work may well become an environment of organized labor and forced union dues to a political party we may not support.  We may see higher fuel taxes,  meant to discourage commerce and freedom to travel or drive a distance for a job  We may see taxes for our pets, luxury taxes based on the square footage of our homes and taxes on how much energy we use (the government will install thermostats to keep tabs on our usage). 

Farming as we know it may change because the newer mindset is that farming destroys the environment and livestock may be taxed, or preferably, done away with completely.  Off-shore oil drilling and increased efforts to extract clean coal and natural gas may be rejected.  The jobs and clean energy nuclear plants could provide will not be part of our energy policy.  While wind and solar may have great potential in years to come, they are not ready yet to assume the energy needs of our growing nation.  Military spending may be dramatically decreased with career soldiers discouraged from re-enlisting in order to save money.  As trouble sprouts around the world that threatens our national security, increased troop levels may be met by reinstituting the draft (if Charlie Rangel has his way). 

When Bob Dylan wrote, "The Times, They are A-Changin'",  he must have been able to see the coming of Barack Obama.  He chides mothers and fathers to get out of the way of their sons and daughters that are moving toward the change.  He tells congressmen that soon their windows will rattle with coming change.  He advises writers to use their pens to write about change.  He tells us change is engulfing us like rising waters.  Whether it's the Beatles, Dylan or other 1960's anti-establishment musicians, they surely inspired the Weather Underground crowd and other revolutionary factions of society.  It's taken longer than they probably had thought, but the agents of change and revolt of that era are finally realizing their visions.   Change has come to America.