Nothing to Lose

The time has come to contemplate the coming year.  What will it be like?  The short answer is that we are in for a bumpy ride.  If this last year has been difficult, the next promises to be worse.

Barack Obama is not a forgiving man.  He is thin-skinned, embittered, and vindictive.  Having made a mess of his presidency, he realizes that retrieving success is no longer possible.  In any event, because he will only have success on his own terms, this is doubly impossible.

Obama is, therefore, likely to remain himself—only more so.  Cranky, extreme, and isolated, he will continue to push his agenda despite radically altered circumstances.  Obama does not care about his legacy.  He understands it has been trashed.  Hence, with nothing to lose, he cares only about getting even.

First, Barack hates the Republicans.  He has blamed them for his failures since the beginning of his administration.  Although his programs have not worked domestically or internationally, he attributes this to their opposition.  Had they given him what he asked, all would be well.

The president does not understand why his agenda failed.  He cannot conceive of conservative ideas as working better than his own.  As a result, he interprets resistance as personal.  The Republicans are bad people who deserve as much grief as he can give them.

Second, Barack hates Democrats.  His indifference toward them was on display during the last election.  Not only did he not help their efforts, but time and again he said things to make himself look good, irrespective of the consequences for them.

The president’s animus toward this own party should grow as its members detach themselves from him.  Concerned about their own fate, whatever loyalty they had will evaporate.  Accordingly, the policies they adopt are apt to be congruent with whomever is their next candidate for his office.

When some Democrats begin to play ball with Republicans so as not get tagged as belonging to the party of NO, Obama will be yet more alienated.  Given that he doesn’t speak to them now, he will probably do so even less.

Third, Barack hates the United States.  He has never been concerned with our nation’s interests and will not in response to a personal crisis.  Obama assumes that if people have let him down, they deserve whatever horrors await.

Likewise Obama has never been a patriot.  Having spent his formative years abroad, been the son of a disgruntled Kenyan, and grown up as a racial outsider in Hawaii, he does not identify with the country’s mainstream.  Regardless of his later retractions, he meant it when he said America is not exceptional.

And so our president does not really care if our economy suffers.  From his perspective, we are rich enough and do not need to grow richer.  Far more concerned with redistribution than accumulation, he will continue to favor economic schemes that leave us treading water.

Nor does our president care if we are no longer a super-power.  As he sees it, we have been on top too long.  Perhaps Iran, China, and Africa deserve their turn.  So what if Iran gets the nuclear bomb?  So what if China throws its weight around in East Asia?  Who cares if ISIS creates a caliphate, Russia gobbles up the Ukraine, or North Korea eviscerates Sony?

Obama’s chief concern, apart from gratifying his ego, is his distorted version of justice.  He wants to see everyone equal, with himself, of course, a bit more equal.  If this means others have less, so be it.

As a consequence, we can expect to see the president defend Obamacare to the bitter end.  Whatever damage it causes, he will fight to keep it in place.  He will also seek to control energy production.  New, and more Draconian, environmental standards lie ahead no matter how many jobs are lost.

The latest Obama outrage, of course, was his Christmas present to the Castro brothers.  Sadly, more is to come.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

Christmas Cheer

Christmas is the holiday of love.  It is the time of the year when bygones are to be bygones and we are to join hands in shared amity.  But not this year!  Certainly not in the political arena—where the acrimony is greater than in decades.

Republicans are getting much of the blame for their expressed intension to roll back Obama’s immigration and health care initiatives.  Their unwillingness to be bipartisan is routinely blamed for the impasse in Washington.

My mother, however, always told me that it takes two to make a fight.  There is, in fact, a Democratic dimension to our current turmoil.  Indeed, if there is a prime aggressor, he lives in the White House.  Both before and after the election, our president has kicked his opponents where it hurts.  Now they are reproached for howling in pain.

If people are to work together, they must first listen to each other and second make adjustments.  How unwilling liberals are to do this was brought home to me during a recent trip to Florida.  Thus, many I encountered were liberals with unmistakable attitudes.

Let me make clear, I did not initiate our discussions.  More than once, while enjoying a friendly meal, I was initially thanked for not going political.  Then these others brought up issues about which they knew we disagreed.  It was they who sought to go on the record.

Nonetheless I am not shy about defending my positions.  Soon enough we reached a deadlock.  At this point, on several different occasions, I asked if there was any evidence I could adduce that would change my adversary’s viewpoint.  In each case, the answer was a clear and unambiguous: No!

What kind of discussion is it where facts have no relevance?  The answer is plain.  These typically concern moral controversies.  When people believe they are fighting for justice, they refuse to be deterred by pesky truths.  To the contrary, they insist on clinging to what are regarded as higher truths.

This then is where we are at as a nation.  We are morally polarized.  Liberals and conservatives are each convinced that they hold the high ground.  Neither is even willing to concede that the other is operating from “good will.”

Part of the reason for this antagonism is that accusations of moral turpitude have been escalating for years.  Protagonists on both sides consequently respond ever more vehemently to what they perceive as undeserved brickbats.

Do you remember when Barack Obama promised to bring us together?  Do you recall when he contended that there were no white or black, no red or blue states?  There was only the United States.

Those days are gone.  From the moment he took office, Obama has been telling Republicans their opinions do not matter.  As a result, they were not included in writing the stimulus or affordable health care acts.  Indeed, not a single conservative vote was cast for the latter.

Now Republicans are castigated for not helping make ObamaCare work.  They are similarly chastised for not concurring in a Democratic sponsored immigration law.  Apparently the only way they are allowed to compromise with liberals is by capitulating to them.

Obama’s has been the most divisive administration since the Great Depression.  He will not discuss; he will not adjust; he will not accommodate.  His much-vaunted willingness to listen to other ideas includes only those with which he already agrees.

If we are to have collegiality on the banks of the Potomac, this blame game must stop.  Too often we hear calls for bipartisanship in the abstract followed by partisanship on the particulars.  Brotherhood (and sisterhood) has to do better.

Actually I have no expectations of political comity.  The next two years promise to be exceptionally rancorous.  And so, despite my desire for an extended holiday season, I am girding my loins for spiteful conflict.  Moreover, if we cannot have civility, then I too will fight for what I believe.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw state University

Liberal Lynch Mobs

Almost one hundred years ago, Leo Frank was taken from his Milledgeville prison cell to be hanged from an oak tree in Marietta, Georgia.  Frank was almost certainly innocent of killing Mary Phegan, but that did not deter a crowd bent on exacting justice.

 Frank was a northern Jew accused of murdering a southern Christian and that was all the evidence the lynch mob needed.  Today we are witnessing a revised version of this mentality.  Today, liberals aspire to criminalizing white police officers accused of killing unarmed blacks.

When Grand Juries in Ferguson Missouri and State Island New York refused to indict those involved in the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, vehement protests erupted across the nation.  These alleged injustices cried out for retribution.

It mattered not what the facts were.  These counted for as little as they did in the Frank case.  Despite testimony that Brown never held his hands up or said don’t shoot, thousands of marchers lifted theirs in emulation of a fictitious event.  Many more parroted Garner’s last words about not being able to breath, even though in speaking he demonstrated that he could breath.

These activists would not be satisfied with anything less than convictions.  Sadly, in the case of Ferguson, it is likely that had Officer Wilson returned to duty he would have been assassinated.  Despite the ballyhooed compassion of liberals, none was directed toward the police.  It was as if they were not human.

The question is why?  Why are contemporary liberals so bloodthirsty?  Why do they behave so irrationally?   And make no mistake: whatever their rhetoric, they are irrational.

History offers some clues.  Why, for instance, were southern whites so ready to believe the worst of an outsider?  And why did they feel the need for a final solution?  Why, for that matter, were my ancestors in Bialystok Poland forced to barricade themselves in their apartment lest rioting Poles hang them?

What these instances have in common was that the perpetrators were under stress.  Most were poor people who had little hope of redemption.  Moreover, their victims, i.e., their scapegoats, were perceived as perpetuating their misery.  The hope was that in punishing them, they could relieve their own distress.

The same is true of today’s liberals.  Thus, many are young people who are out of luck and out of hope.  Things are not going their way; hence they need someone to blame.  Who better to crucify than the police who purportedly represent a repressive establishment.

On a larger scale, politicians and media types are likewise experiencing distress.  Liberalism is a dying ideology.  As a result, its acolytes are dismayed.  Their cherished polices keep crashing down around their necks.  So extensive is the wreckage that denial will no longer suffice.  They must now lash out more aggressively.

ObamaCare is a failure, the stimulus did not revive the economy, scandals wrack the Democratic administration, foreign policy is a mess, and liberals lost the bi-election.  Hope and change have therefore been revealed as empty slogans.  What to do?  A diversion is needed.  Not just a diversion, but an emotionally charged one.

Ergo: blame the bad guys!  Blame the conservatives!   Better yet, blame the police for upholding the status quo.  They are clearly impeding progress and need to be shunted aside.  Only then can the liberal millennium arrive.

But notice something important. This is wholly negative project.  Liberals who have run out of ideas are now compelled to deflect attention from their disappointments.  It’s the other guy’s fault.  “We progressives are faultless paragons of virtue; we never make mistakes.  In fact—look at us—we are fighting for justice!”

Liberals are essentially manufacturing a crisis—one they do not intend to waste.  Despite causing much of the current political consternation, they invoke this as an excuse to reconstruct our social institutions along collectivist lines.  “You, the dim-witted public, may be alarmed, but we know what is best.”

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

Racial Permissiveness

You’ve seen it.  Perhaps in a supermarket or on a plane a small child throws a tantrum.  Then his mother seeks to appease him by giving in to little Johnny’s every whim.  No matter what he asks, she placates him.

Maybe this mom had a difficult childhood.  Perhaps raised in poverty by an abusive parent, she is now determined to make sure that her child has every advantage.  Mindful of her present good fortune, she is resolved not to deny him what it is in her power to provide.

The problem is that permissiveness backfires.  All too often, its recipients are not grateful.  Indeed, many become selfish adults who are utterly insensitive to the needs of others.  Unfortunately, what amounts to racial permissiveness today flourishes among liberals.  Ironically, in their quest to right previous wrongs, they inadvertently create new ones.

Although racism persists, it is a spent force.  Only a few troglodytes insist that blacks be oppressed—and they usually do not have the power to enforce their will.  The rest of us stipulate that African-Americans must receive the same opportunities as everyone else.

Nonetheless, blacks are not entitled to special privileges.  The same rules that apply to others must also apply to them.  If anything, allowing them unique dispensations is like spoiling the very young.  It robs them of the controls needed to become successful.

If proof is necessary, the Ferguson debacle supplies it in abundance.  To blame the police for the death of a young thug—merely because he was black—provides an excuse for lawlessness.  It informs out-of-control young men that only others must exercise restraint.

When the president of the United States tells the nation that he “understands” why blacks are distraught, he, in effect, justifies the rioting.  Whatever else he says is canceled out by putting the focus on police behavior—where, in this case, it does not belong.  Officer Wilson did nothing wrong!

Al Sharpton, Eric Holder, and Brown’s attorneys likewise illustrate the consequences of racial permissiveness.  By essentially claiming that bad conduct is acceptable, they undermine our nation’s foundations.  Ostensibly to compensate for a non-existent crime, they would cheerfully put the rest of us in jeopardy.

Consider the attacks on the grand jury.  It was held in secret, as are all grand juries, but now its secrecy is to be stripped away.  Why?  Because the race hustlers hope to apply pressure for an outcome they desire.  It matters not that they would thereby destroy an institution designed to protect our rights.

Or what about the attacks on the district attorney?  His character was impugned, again, to coerce a desired result.  Incredibly, he has been castigated for presenting all of the evidence to the grand jury.  In other words, unless he collaborated in rigging the decision, his detractors would not be satisfied.

Or what about demands that police recruiting be nationalized.  What makes the critics believe that federal control would enhance this effort?  Is Washington that efficient?  No, the goal is once more to use the central government to impose an unlegislated result.

Or what about the rioting?  Why wasn’t sufficient force brought to bear?  In the old day they shot looters; hence there was little looting.  While it is not necessary to go that far, mass arrests and public condemnation would have done wonders.  None of this flying in from Washington to comfort the parents!

The violence that is ripping apart black neighborhoods will never subside until blacks take responsibility for controlling it.  Blaming others merely diverts attention from the unfulfilled obligations of black leaders and national politicians.

African-Americans are not children.  Nor are they mentally or morally defective.  It is time to stop treating them as if they were.  We demand civilized behavior of others; we must demand it of them!  Writing off violent tantrums as protests is absurd.  This trivializes the freedoms for which so many sacrificed their last full measure of devotion.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University