On DOMA, Obama Seeks A Stalemate From His Zugzwang

In declaring the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) unconstitutional,  President Obama is not declaring war on the executive branch's constitutional role as envisioned by the founders.  While his move is definitely an unusual gambit as he seeks a stalemate between his previous position on gay marriage and what many suspect his real position may be, the real crime is his contradictory actions following his decision.  As a result, he has backed himself in a corner and gave conservatives an open door to ending judicial activism.

In chess, a zugzwang refers to a position where one is forced to make an undesirable move.  A stalemate occurs when one player's King is not in check but he has no available move to make that would not put his King in check.  When a player finds that he has been maneuvered into a zugzwang, his best move will often be to play for a stalemate in order to obtain a draw.  One danger in this maneuver is that the player must be aware of all possibilities, otherwise he further place himself into the zugzwang.  President Obama has chosen to play for the stalemate. 

In running for President, candidate Obama stated his opposition to legalizing gay marriage.  Despite his repeated statements supporting this position, it has endlessly been speculated that it did not reflect his true feelings on the matter.  If, and I will say if, in fact President Obama has always been a closet gay marriage supporter, he must find a path that enables him to fess up.  But he must do so without seeming like the liar so many hoped he was.  If this seems troubling, read my last statement again.  His supporters hoped that the President of the United States was lying to them; and many assumed it.  This is his zugzwang. 

Want some Tea with that birthday cake, Mr. President?

This Sunday would have been Ronald Reagan's 100 birthday.  The press will be full of stories and coverage of this.  Most will be reverent and celebratory of the man,  his life and his presidency.  This is a surprising turn, since he was condemned and belittled on a daily basis while serving as our 40th president.

I was still a teenager during Reagan's presidency, so some may say I was too young too know what I am talking about.  But I remember all to well how he was thought of at the time.  He was a heartless, evil, senile old racist who was too stupid to understand diplomacy, too stubborn to change and too air-headed to run the country.  The press' treatment of him was eerily similar to that of George W. Bush. 

This is a bit from Saturday Night Live during the Iran-Contra affair (notably not a high point).  It shows that the perceived notion of Reagan in the press and the White House's use of that image to disguise the "truth".  And it's really funny.

Following my post, Reagan/Obama 1984, I received comments that today's GOP is too far right of Reagan.  But that couldn't be more wrong.  Let's try taking a look at the big picture.  During the Great Depression, the country began a lurch to the left.  Reagan, who was once a Roosevelt Democrat, was famous for declaring, "I didn't leave the Democratic party.  The party left me".  Presidents Eisenhower and Nixon were a fixture in that leftward tilt.  President Kennedy's tax plan was more conservative than anything Nixon did in office.

#snOMG! Snow Day Civics Test

Take this quick test.

1)      The USA has what type of government?

2)      Prior to passage of the 17^th amendment, who elected Senators?

3)      Who elects your United States Representative?

4)      Who elects the President?

5)      Are you willing to brave the ice and snow to meet your mail carrier at the street?  How much is too much to even consider it?

As events in the Middle East develop, you will hear some disputes regarding democracy in Egypt.  Recently, I heard Chris Matthews say that because of Bush’s freedom agenda, the right should be embracing what is taking place.  But it’s not necessarily as easy as Chris makes it sound.  Democracy without the proper safeguards is a bit like welding without a face shield.  It's a quick way to put something together, but it may blow up in your face.

Our founders were fearful of (direct) democracy.  Democracy in action can be a powder keg because the passion of the masses burns hot.  Have you ever found yourself in a large crowd doing something you would never do in a small group such as yelling, dancing, singing, and booing or maybe even, while under the influence you found yourself becoming violent.  In those moments, we lose ourselves and refrain from using our impulse control.  Our individuality is sacrificed to the group.

As our government was discussed and formed, the founders sought to add buffers and protections to balance the various groups. A democratic republic (answer 1) would be the form, loosely based on the British system which was composed of a King, a House of Lords and a House of Commons.  The “king” in our government would be the president who would be elected by a group of chosen electors, the Electoral College (answer 3).  The House of Lords would become our Senate, whose members would be chosen by the state legislatures (answer 2) and represent the individual states in the Federal Government.  The House of Commons would become our House of Representatives, which would be each citizen’s most direct line to the Federal Government since they were directly elected by the voters (answer 4).

The founders chose to create a government with three branches.  The two houses would form the legislative branch; the president would lead the executive branch, with a judiciary comprising the third branch.  This three branched government with a bi-cameral legislature formed from out of so many states, a structured set of checks and balances was provided in order to maintain the ability to govern in an orderly and peaceful manner.

The checks and balances were a necessary component to prevent tyranny on one hand and anarchy on the other.  Unfortunately, the 17^th amendment to the US Constitution in 1913 ended the election of Senators by the legislatures and they are now directly elected by the voters in each state.  This has removed the individual states participation in the federal government and allowed the Federal Government to run roughshod over the states.

By the way, here are your answers in case you missed them earlier.

1)      Democratic Republic

2)      The state legislatures

3)      The constituents of each House district

4)      The Electoral College

5)      Please post your response to this question in the comments section below.

So now we come back to Egypt and the call for democracy.  The fear among many is that Egypt does not have the proper liberal cultural base for democracy and the people may be sacrificed to the masses.  How will democracy exist in the absence of any check on the leadership?  There are many democratic elections held all over the world where the people have no liberty.  Often the leaders, once elected and without restraint, wield that power mercilessly in suppressing opposition.  Even in Egypt, sham elections are held to give the false pretense of democracy.  Our diplomats spent many months and years helping Iraq form a government with its own checks and balances to better ensure the durability of their democracy.  In Iran and Cuba, we can see that massing together in revolt does not necessarily end in democracy.

As we see the masses in Cairo protesting for a new government, we must remember that without the virtues of our system, a democratic Egypt may provide liberty, but how long can they suppress its vices before the people find themselves under another tyranny?  It is not in the United State’s interest to see a friendly, secular tyrant replaced with an un-friendly, Islamist tyrant.

Reagan/Obama 1984

I wrote this a few days ago.  I was waiting for someone else to make this point, but no one did. 
It's a bit lengthy, but I think worth the read.

Reagan/Obama 1984

by

Sam Ritter

As I read and listened to the comments following President Obama’s recent State of the Union address, it became obvious that the concerted effort to seem more Reaganesque had succeeded.  Following news reports that he had put Reagan on his reading list and then submitted an editorial on Reagan to USA Today, it was expected that the President would try to hit the sunny side of America - Reagan style.  The commentators made this the central theme of the post speech discussion.  Time magazine photoshopped President Obama with an apparently, approving Reagan for its cover.  But was Barack Obama channeling Ronald Reagan or something very different?

            President Reagan often proclaimed an optimistic future for America. As he would say, it was morning in America.  His presidency, not unlike others, was heavily draped in patriotic colors.  But it has become clear that some Americans have misunderstood this patriotism.  In fact, functioning patriotism has come to be an elusive enigma that seems to leave some on the left groping in the dark.  They have proclaimed taxes patriotic, but decry the patriotic glory of everyday Americans taking pride in the accomplishments of their fellow citizens during the Olympics.  They disparage our founders and are ashamed of those espousing American exceptionalism.  They wish to educate our children of all the wrongs ever perpetuated by America, but seek to bypass all the good that has come to exist because of her.

            In the past I never understood why they seemed so inept at showing patriotism, but now it seems they’ve let their slip show.  They, along with our President, either have no idea what patriotism is or they do, and have absolutely no need for it.  The SOTU, protestations otherwise was not a patriotic address – it was a nationalistic address.  Therein lays the danger.

            The patriotism/nationalism dichotomy has always been difficult for some to comprehend.  For some, overt patriotism would lead to nationalism, it was feared.  But that shows a basic failure to understand the underlying nature of the concepts.  Perhaps some have been distracted by the principle of American exceptionalism, which holds that the nature of America’s founding and the documents and ideals that have formed our nation are unique, i.e. exceptional.  Many misunderstand and believe this to mean that some feel that Americans are a better, more exceptional people than those of other nations.  This is of course, far from the truth.

            While both patriotism and nationalism are centered on our attitude and feelings toward our nation, they are very different.  They represent two sides of the same coin as they relate the citizenry toward the state. Patriotism is about pride – pride in the nation, pride in our fellow citizens, pride in accomplishments without a loss of self, whereas nationalism is about submission – pieces in a cog working for the greater good, submitting their own desires toward the collective, marked by a self-less devotion.  Often there will be an overlap between the two, which can be seen most clearly during martial events.  During WWII, patriotic Americans heeded the national call for sacrifice, while the German people surely felt a sense of patriotic pride following military victories.  But at the core, they retain differences.

            At times, the left has revealed how they truly feel about America.  Remember when Michelle Obama said, “And let me tell you something -- for the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country.”  In the absence of pride, there is no patriotism.  Without a patriotic pride in America, there is no reverence for the nature and history of America.  When nothing of America’s past is sacred and honored, the only way forward is to remake America into what you want it to be.  During the 2008 campaign, we heard both Obamas talk about how the world “as it is just isn’t good enough” and fighting for the world “as it should be”.

            In his address, Obama called upon us to realize our Sputnik moment, and then proceeded to “launch” into a list of “investments” for the greater good.  Children must go to college because our nation needs them to have a college degree.  We must move forward as a nation to beat the Chinese in solar panels and win the green revolution.  We will lose the future without high speed rail.  It all sounded like the normal boilerplate we hear in these types of speeches, but was it?

            Sputnik put fear in Americans, not because it showed that we were behind technologically or commercially to the Soviets, but because we feared that it put us at a disadvantage militarily and thus mortally.  When JFK called on America to go boldly where no man has gone before, it wasn’t because he wanted to ride the technological wave of the future.  He, along with many Americans feared a militarization of space – armed satellites ready to rein destruction on us from above.  For the protection of America, he stated a goal and made it clear that America would accomplish what it set out to do.  Because this was a matter of national defense, it was a task for the federal government.

            Watch the movie “The Right Stuff” based on the novel by Tom Wolfe and you will see the rugged individuals who came to epitomize the early days of NASA.  Life and death were on the line for our first “space voyagers” much as it was on the line for America as we entered the Space Race with the Soviets.  To compare our perceived deficiency in solar panels or high speed rail to the Chinese with these events is beyond believability.

            Yet, there was our president telling us we need to “Win The Future™”, by circumventing our capitalist system and throwing our efforts to the state in order to succeed in the marketplace of the future.  By his reasoning, I’m amazed that America has survived to the present, unless my history is off and Eli Whitney worked for the Department of the Interior.  Or were John Fulton and Henry Ford working for the Federal Transportation Authority?  Is it too much to think that Samuel Colt was part of the ATF?  I’m not sure which area of the Federal government Steve Jobs worked in as he developed the iPOD.  To understand where Obama is wrong is to understand when and where the state should have primacy.  In matters of national defense, it should.  In matters of commerce, it should not.  It is understood that the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution gives the federal government directive to regulate, but it does not have primacy and should only interfere with the open marketplace as a last resort, whereas “provide for the common defence” is a stated federal obligation found in the preamble.

            In truth, America succeeds because of our open marketplace, where good ideas flourish and bad ideas are quickly and mercilessly destroyed.  Many can recall the state of fear that believed Japan’s lead in the electronic age was going to leave us behind?  Even when America does not lead the way, our open market allows American innovation to improve and market these ideas and succeed. If an idea is worthy, it will succeed in the market and if not, it will fail miserably as it should.  In the government bureaucracy an idea may continue to be pursued regardless of any future success.

Certainly some good ideas develop from government research, but often they are inadvertent successes.  The basic framework for the internet was developed as a defense project.  Many innovations have developed from NASA, but as side effects, so to speak.  Among these are freeze drying, solar energy, portable cordless vacuums, Light-emitting diodes (LED) and Tempur foam.  What this shows is that in any properly funded research and development department, good ideas will come, often in unexpected forms.  But this does not show that the state is the best place for research.  The government beast makes for a highly inefficient laboratory with no true mechanism for harvesting the good or ridding the bad.  At this point in time, NASA is a mess of a bureaucracy filled with red-tape, whose once tightly focused mission has become so scattershot that it is no longer able to complete its primary goal of sending Americans into space, but must pay to hitch a ride with the Russians.  By raising the specter of Sputnik, the irony of NASA’s current failures could not be made clearer.

            Yet despite what was made clear by his allusion, the President called for Americans to put more of our private sector and research under the control and direction of the state and asked the American people to rally together toward our common good as dictated by him.  Thus lays the heart of the leftists’ nationalism.  For those who think of Mussolini or Hitler, Obama’s is not a militant nationalism.  No, this movement flows from leftist, social justice thinkers who believe America needs to be liberated; liberated not from some external enemy, but from the enemy within – free market capitalism.  Obama seeks to accomplish this from the top down, but others seek the same from the bottom up.  We’ve seen this recently in the call by Francis Fox Piven for mass protests and riots among the working class.  Our open markets are the oppressor that must be vanquished.  This way forward is with the mass of nameless, faceless “oppressed” in open rebellion.  Both directions seek to suppress the will of the individual to the group.  This is a radical departure for a nation founded upon the virtues of the individual and the general will identified in liberal nationalism as originally espoused by Jean-Jacques Rousseau.  In his writings, Rousseau claimed that citizens constrained to obey the general will are free.  He emphasized that the general will exists to protect individuals against the mass, not to require them to be sacrificed to it

Taking their cue from him, the founders formed a nation of individuals called to a joined purpose of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; a general will that leaves them free to follow the path of their own choosing.  Obama now seeks to call us for joined goals through singular means – individuals need not apply, as we must sacrifice ourselves for the common good.  By invoking Reagan, Obama sought to put a happy, patriotic face on left-wing/Marxist nationalism and make it more palatable to the people.  By their reactions, this has worked with the mainstream press. Thus far it has failed with the people.  With the advent of the Tea Parties, there is a renewed interest in the founders and perhaps as the public becomes more aware of federal encroachment, it can be restrained or even pulled back.

But the leftist, like an expert chess player sees several steps ahead.  If you’ve ever wondered why the leftists seek out a crisis, it is because of this – the American people are willing to humble themselves for the public good and pull together during a crisis, whether war, disaster, terrorism attack, etc. because that is part of our nation’s social contract.  In that moment, our civic nationalism becomes exploitable and that is exactly where Barack Hussein Obama wants us.  Only in the Orwellian world found in the aptly titled “1984” would it be anything other than reprehensible that this man could ever be compared to Ronald Wilson Reagan.