Targeted Reform

Now that the Republicans have captured both houses of congress, advice on how they should proceed is coming from every quarter.  Much of this counsel is sensible.  After years wandering in the wilderness, conservative thinkers have learned many useful lessons.

Why then am I about to provide yet another compendium of recommendations?  The six points that I itemize below will not come as a surprise.  Others have tread the same ground.  In later columns, I will offer details, but in the meantime, I provide an overview.

I also suggest a framework for these proposals.  They can be thought of as targeted reforms.  Too often, conservatives are regarded as backward looking.  This is anathema to many American voters.  They want a brighter future, not a return to the good old days that were not always so good.

“Reform” promises to fix what is broken.  It likewise undertakes to introduce improvements.  Given how much has gone wrong under left-liberal tutelage, there is a great deal that can be done to restore the nation’s greatness and to build a more glorious tomorrow.

Nevertheless, reforms need to be specific, achievable, and beneficial.  Pragmatism and hardheaded realism have to be the order of the day.  Juvenal fantasies, soaring rhetoric, and liberal whitewash must therefore give way to adult problem-solving.

The following list is in no particular order, nor exhaustive.  New issues are bound to come up.  Nonetheless, it is intentionally circumscribed.  It is limited in that efforts to do everything usually wind up doing very little.

1)                          Healthcare.  ObamaCare must be dismantled.  This need not be all at once; nor ought it return us to the status quo ante.  Many correctives are possible.  Tort reform and portability spring to mind.

2)                          Immigration.  The border must be protected.  This is indeed the first order of business.  Illegal immigrants should not be provided a path to citizenship.  Many can be offered a resident-alien status, but this should come with restrictions.

3)                          Military.  Our armed forces must be returned to adequate strength.  Political cuts have to be rescinded and a military doctrine appropriate to contemporary challenges developed.

4)                          Tax reform.  The tax schedule should be simplified and incentives for growth put in place.  Less social engineering and more fairness should reduce the temptation to use the tax code to micro-manage the economy and/or coerce spurious “social justice.”

5)                          Tame the Bureaucracy.  Government regulations must be pruned and arrogant agencies brought under control.  Step by step, rogue programs should be consolidated and incompetent administrators removed.

6)                          Energy.  We need rational energy policies.  A mass techno-commercial society depends on adequate supplies of power.  Practical strategies should not be held hostage to half-baked theories of climate change or crony capitalism.

Let us also celebrate the achievements of the free market, democracy, and personal responsibility.  We ought as well commend the value of the family.  The government cannot do everything; nor attempt to.   Much of what needs to be done rests on the shoulders of ordinary citizens.

Left-liberal overreach has soured millions of Americans on the virtues of progressivism.  Now they need an alternative.  Politicians who place the nation’s interests above their own can supply part of this.  But part can only come from the day-to-day commitments of the rest of us.

Governments specialize in rules and coercion.  To some extent, this is necessary to protect us from ourselves.  Nevertheless, it is not the entire ball of wax.   Our culture, and especially our moral convictions, must take up the slack.  If they do not, then the government, no matter how wise, can’t make us whole.

Targeted reform is essential.  Only it can stave off a return to collectivist government.  Yet personal maturity cannot be overlooked.  Only adults, who are committed to helping themselves, can keep us safe, prosperous, and free.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

Party or Principle

Call it the Joe Manchin Dilemma.  What does senator Manchin do now that the Republicans have captured the senate?  Not only did the Republicans win, but they decimated the Democratic candidate in his home sate of West Virginia.  What does this bode for him?

By all accounts, Manchin is a likable person.  He is well known back home and his constituents have been happy to elect him to office even though they have been drifting away from the Democratic Party.  The question is: will they continue their forbearance?

West Virginia lives and dies by coal.  It is an energy state and destined to remain one for the foreseeable future.  Never a liberal state, it had long been a conservative Democratic bastion.  But now that the Democrats have become intransigently anti-coal this is an increasingly bad fit.

Manchin has survived by proclaiming his loyalty to coal and shrugging off his inability to protect it by blaming Harry Reid.  What will he do with Reid gone?  What will he do when the Republicans pass legislation designed to clip the wings of the Environmental Protection Agency?

My guess is that Manchin will vote with the Republicans on this issue.  He will probably do so on other issues because he knows this will play well with the homefolk.  But what happens when he runs again for the Senate?  Can he argue that the return of a Democratic majority will be in the interests of his state?

Manchin will then be torn between party and principle.  Will he choose loyalty to his longtime allies or cross the aisle?  For that matter, what will Maine’s Independent senator Angus King do?  Will he now decide to caucus with the Republicans?  Having seen which way the wind is blowing will he conclude that conservative policies are best?

What too of those other Democratic senators who have gone along with Obama and Reid?  Many of them are liberal to the bone.  They have safe seats and can afford to vote on ideological grounds.  Yet what of the less committed legislators?  Will they continue to tow the left-liberal line if it becomes a liability?

There is little doubt that control of both houses of congress will enable Republicans to pass legislation that formerly went to the Senate to die.  There can also be little doubt that Barack Obama will veto many of these bills.  What then will career-oriented senators do?

Will incumbents in red or purple states cover their hind ends by voting with the majority?  If they do, will the president back down from some of his more radical positions?  Or if the insecure Democrats vote with Obama, will this expose their extremism to voters.  Reid protected them from controversial votes.  What will they do with him gone?

And what will the American people do?   Two things are certain.  First, the media will continue to incline left.  They will cheerlead for progressives and slant the news in their favor with almost as much fervor as formerly.  Second, the true believers will continue to believe.  Whether elected officials or ordinary citizens, mere facts or political setbacks will never dissuade them.

What must eventually make the difference are the moderates.  If they are concerned with the nation’s welfare, they will support reasonable candidates.   If, however, too many of them remain attached to the Democratic Party, they may not.

I hope that these last six years have been an aberration.  I hope that if sensible legislation emerges from a Republican congress that the American people will recognize it as sensible.  Paradoxically, if Obama stands by himself as a lonely voice in opposition, this might make these measures seem all the more responsible. 

I am a meliorist.  I believe in slow and careful improvements.  I also believe in building on tradition.  The United States has been a shining city on a Hill.  While it makes mistakes, it seeks to correct these.  Let us continue this practice!

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

On Tenterhooks

Two years ago, the American people made a terrible mistake.  Against common sense and a boatload of evidence they reelected president Obama.  The question is: Will they be as foolish tomorrow?  At the moment it is impossible to say.

During the last electoral cycle Bill Clinton assured the public that Obama had done as well as anyone could under the circumstances.  Indeed, the economy was allegedly poised to take off and Al Qaeda was on the run.  Any indications to the contrary were Republican spin.

In fact, a team of monkeys pounding typewriters and squealing into telephones could have done better.  Their uninformed choices would have been superior to Barack’s obstinately misguided ones.

Nor would these simians have been as narcissistic.  Our chief executive is not merely a bystander to events; he is a ceaselessly preening bystander.  Blessed with an enticing line of patter, it is usually dedicated to vindicating how wonderful he is.

Two years ago, Obama’s narcissism was on full display; nevertheless his spurious expressions of concern for the American people were taken at face value.  He cared about their welfare, whereas that vulture capitalist Mitt Romney surely did not.

Dishonesty has been a persistent theme of the Obama administration.  From the beginning he and his minions have lied about nearly everything.  Not just ObamaCare and foreign policy, but small matters, such as whether the president woke up each morning worrying about the strength of the economy, received duplicitous treatment.

Even now many Americans do not realize how treacherously they have been manipulated.  Nevertheless, the president recently let his approach to political gamesmanship slip out.  He endorsed mendacity out loud.  --But were people listening?

During several radio interviews, Obama explained that he was not distressed that Democratic senatorial candidates were disavowing their connections to him.  They were merely saying what they had to say to return to office.  Then, when they did, they would revert to their true colors and again vote with him.

Here was a president defending the expedience of telling lies.  Yet these were not statesmanlike lies.  Their goal was not to protect the nation’s interests.  These were selfish lies.  They were intended to further his interests.

Does this matter?  Are we so far gone that bald-faced lies are an acceptable way of doing business?  Liberals evidently think so.  They are beginning to blush a little, but they still believe that their objectives are so important that it is okay to guard them with a palisade of fabrications.

What about the rest of us?  What about ordinary voters?  Will the Democratic ground game succeed in bringing out sufficient numbers of morally challenged constituents to put them over the top?  I await the results on tenterhooks.

As for Georgia, David Purdue is not a wonderful candidate.  I was amazed that he bested Jack Kingston in the primaries.  A bit weasely, his shtick about being against Washington was thin gruel that did not demonstrate the soundness of his credentials.

Nonetheless Michelle Nunn’s credentials are even thinner.  She shares an honored name, but how does this prove she is senatorial timber?  Worse still, if she is elected, she will be a reliable vote for Obama and Harry Reid.  How will this help Georgians—or anyone else?

Too many recent elections have been decided by irrelevancies and misperceptions.  For democracy to work, people have to understand the issues and vote accordingly.  If they do not, they get what they deserve.

Moreover, a people who do not uphold crucial values eventually become rudderless.  They are vulnerable to corruption and incompetence.  Unfortunately, this is the brave new world we seem to have entered.

What I am waiting to find out is whether it will take a crisis of enormous proportions to shake us out of our lethargy.  How bad do things have to get before people conclude that enough is enough?

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

Liberal Extremists

Liberals do not seem to have any boundaries.  There are apparently no behaviors—no extremes—beyond which they will not go in order to promote their ideology.  So convinced are they of their moral rectitude that they happily engage conduct that would otherwise be considered immoral.

Richard Nixon was accused of going too far in promoting his agenda, but in the end most Republicans rejected his amoral manipulations.  The same can be said of Joseph McCarthy’s excesses.  These politicians fell from grace because their conservative allies would not countenance their unscrupulousness.

With liberals it is different.  Although they routinely accuse Republicans of the vice, they are the true extremists.  Arrogantly boasting that they are “non-judgmental,” they project their own reluctance to condemn corruption onto their political adversaries.

Examples of this lack of principle are everywhere.  Thus, not long ago, when defending gay marriage, Ted Olsen declared that the sole criterion for defining marriage was love.  Asked how far this extended, he deflected the query.

Nonetheless this is a good question.  If love is all that matters, then why not polygamy?  Or child brides?  Or zoophilia?  Perhaps, gay marriage makes sense.  We might want to allow it; but shouldn’t we be willing to draw a line somewhere?

Or how about the mayor of Houston subpoenaing the sermons of pastors who disagreed with her policy of allowing transgendered persons to use restrooms of those of the opposite sex?  Had a Republican done this, the hue and cry about violating the first amendment would have been deafening.

Or consider the FCC being recruited to punish media outlets that use the name “Redskins” to refer to the NFL’s Washington franchise.  This heavy-handed attempt to stifle free speech in the name of justice would have done McCarthy proud.

Or what about the way that race hustlers like Al Sharpton and Eric Holder have used the Ferguson tragedy to divide the races and to curry favor with Black voters.  Then there is Texas’ Wendy Davis accusing Greg Abbot of being against  interracial marriage, despite the fact that his wife is Hispanic.

Or contemplate the rampant sleaze in liberal campaign commercials.  It was not enough to vilify Mitt Romney as a vulture capitalist and a probable murderer, but Republicans were also held responsible to the Ebola outbreak because they allegedly refused to fund the CDC—a base canard.

Or think of the trumped up war against women.  Mark Udall used this fiction so relentlessly that he became known as Senator Uterus.  Somehow opposition to mandating free birth control through ObamaCare morphed into opposition to birth control period.

And don’t forget about Harry Reid violating centuries of precedent to exercise the so-called nuclear option.  Not only did he refuse to allow votes on legislation he disapproved, but he also eliminated the filibuster on presidential appointments he did approve.

Or what about the IRS scandal?  It entailed a bit more than a smidgeon of corruption.  Or the budget deficit?  Our national debt has grown so large that we will soon be spending more on interest than everything else put together.

All in all, there has been a blizzard of political lies that had they originated with conservatives would have been condemned as moral turpitude.  The Affordable Care Act is not affordable.  Benghazi was not a spontaneous demonstration.  And our southern border is not secure.

By now even the president’s most ardent supporters know that he is given to exaggeration and blame-shifting.  The problem is that they do not mind.  In fact, deception and political spin are celebrated as political acumen.  So far as they are concerned what works is fair game.

Liberals are extremists.  They care nothing about maintaining our democratic traditions.  All that matters to them is obtaining sufficient power to force their egalitarian fantasies on a reluctant nation.  If they need to bend a few rules, why this is for the greater good.  Somehow I recall that Lenin and Goebbels affirmed something similar?

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University