Jeffery Lord, Gladwell and the American Tipping Point

Last week, on Hannity’s radio show he discussed a recent column by Jeffery Lord/The American Spectator, called  American Tipping Point. In it, Lord discusses Malcolm Gladwell’s book Tipping Point and makes comparisons to America’s tipping points at different times in our history and the rise of conservatism and the Tea Party.

Lord says that:  Thanks to the Tea Party movement, Conservatism is on the verge of a major victory that dwarfs the technical and actual realities of whatever the details of the resulting deficit deal passed last night. Yes, there is a long, long way to go. But the idea that America doesn’t, in fact, have to be governed for eternity as a debtor nation with a mammoth, out-of-control, ever-expanding government is winning the day. It is tipping the balance with increasing decisiveness against an idea that has become so much a part of conventional wisdom that even some conservatives, startlingly including, inexplicably, the Wall Street Journal, have displayed the wobblies at the thought of confronting the Leviathan. The WSJ’s attacks yesterday against Jim DeMint, Michele Bachmann and Sean Hannity, saying “sooner or later the GOP had to give up the hostage” — follows another editorial in which the paper railed against Tea Party members as “hobbits.” The paper, sounding like cranky British Tories in 1775 Boston rather than the bold, forward-looking paper that championed the much-derided ideas of Ronald Reagan​, wildly bought into the liberal notion that the Tea Party from Hobbitville is somehow holding the government hostage, instead of the other way around. In fact Big Government liberalism has spent decades holding and trying to hold the average American hostage to all manner of outrageous tax rates, taxes and regulations on everything from capital gains to sex (in Harry Reid’s Nevada) to soda, SUVs and poker.

Lord chronicles the rise of conservatism from Senator Robert Taft’s strident opposition to FDR’s mega New Deal in the 30’s, through William F. Buckley to the great Ronald Reagan to Mark Levin’s landmark best seller and Tea Party bible, Liberty and Tyranny and how all these little, or sometimes large events, are causing a tipping point in American history. He says that conservatism is spreading almost like a virus: in Gladwell’s vocabulary, “connectors” — “people with a particular and rare set of social gifts” who have the ability to “spread” an idea like an epidemic, a Tipping Point is in the works. Henry Regnery, for example, published and made a star of Buckley, who befriended Reagan who inspired Limbaugh, who was befriended by Buckley and placed on the cover of National Review, with Limbaugh in turn aiding Hannity and Levin and Levin’s book inspiring the Tea Party etc., etc.

Reading Lord, once again gave me hope. And reminded me that in Beck’s words, we are not alone. Most of America is conservative to some degree. Most of Americans want to be or remain at least, middle class and we see that vanishing under Obama’s ideology. Most of America finds communism (call it socialism or European socialism but it’s still a form of communism) to be antithetical to the fundamentals of our beliefs and our founding. And most of America will fight it.

I hope they don’t think for a minute that we will forget being called racists, nazis, homophobes, Hobbits and terrorists. We will not. The real revolution will occur on November 6th, 2012 – bloodless, gunless and in a voting booth. They are being fore warned and to disregard the tipping point signs will be at their own peril.

It’s a must-read by Lord and I hope you will take the time to read it.

Quote of the day – Mark Levin

Failure is not the product of [the Statists] beliefs but merely want of power and resources. Thus are born endless rationalizations for seizing ever more governmental authority. Mark Levin/Liberty and Tyranny

And “thus are born more rationalizations” for enslaving the citizens by over taxation. If the school systems aren’t working – Let’s throw more money at it. If the war on drugs isn’t working – Let’s throw more money at it.

Statists will never admit that a system or a program just isn’t working. That would be admission of failure and they DO NOT FAIL.

Patriot Post – Founders Quote of the day

“The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.” –James Madison, Federalist No. 45

In case anyone misunderstands, the Founders did not believe in centralized government. The more centralized and expansive government becomes, the less involvement is allowed by “the people.” The bigger government becomes, the farther away from “the people” it gets.

The Founders believed in local governments, run by the citizens of those locales; that includes education.

The Founders would be appalled by the formation of the Department of Education. Education is, and was to them, a local responsibility. Every community, every county and every state should be and must be responsible for the education of those who live there. That includes not only what they are taught and how, but how it’s paid for.

This goes back to what Mark Levin in Liberty and Tyranny called the “harmonious diversity” of America, which is what the Founders invisioned. If Idaho has an education system that is more compatible with how one person believes, or is more afforable, for instance, he can leave the state he lives in and move to Idaho. This also goes to Reagan’s belief that Americans are free to vote with their feet. They are not stuck in one state with no recourse but can move to another that might have policies that are more appealing. Levin’s example in his book was the death penalty – Texas has an fairly active policy while New Jersey has no death penalty. But anything from abortion to education could be used as an example.

Our mobility has not yet been halted by Ray LaHood and we are still free to move where we choose to. However, that has potential to change if he has his way to “coerce us of our cars” and restrict our movement.

But I digress and I think I made my point.

Education should be and must be a state’s rights issue and there is no question that the Founders intended it to be that way. Every state should have it’s own department of education, funded entirely by the state’s citizens and managed with curriculum established by those same citizens.

That’s the long and the short of it.

Thank goodness my daughter is not a member of the teacher’s union.

Powerful government versus a large one

We often focus on the size of government, as measured in percentage of GDP taxed and spent by the government, which is an important and measurable concept. But our real concern is power. What kind of power does the government wield over the people? Powerful state institutions tend to be large, but that doesn’t mean that a larger state is necessarily exercising more power. Imagine a small town that adds two officers to its police force. Now it has more police officers, and that costs more money; the government is “larger.” But if the officers now do a better job of arresting violent criminals and protecting the lives and property of the people — and refrain from arresting or hassling non-criminals — then the government has not expanded its power. Indeed, better eight officers protecting lives and property than six officers enforcing drug laws and blue laws. We should focus on what is actually important — the exercise of arbitrary power over others.

David Boaz/The Cato Institute

He’s right. Big government is not necessarily a bad thing, if the people choose to enlarge it and if the people choose to fund it. But I don’t think, for instance, that the Founders had a Department of Education in mind when they wrote the Constitution. (You can replace that department with Health and Human Services, Agriculture or any other big government department of your choosing.) The Founders believed that those “services” would best serve the people at the local level. The people would decide how much government they wanted and how much they would be willing to fund. And those departments, because they were local, would be accountable and responsible to the people who chose to fund an enlarged local government.

The seal with branches that resemble sinister tentacles entwined in the leaves and an acorn, which now has an entirely new meaning in our society.

At some point though, this big federal government power grab took place and some do-gooders and greedy elected politicians in Washington, DC determined that the people weren’t smart enough or capable of determining the appropriate curriculum their children needed. They believed that people needed Ivy League academics, primarily from the Left Coast, to make the rules and determine the curriculum for students in Rock Springs, Wyoming and San Diego, California.

Isn’t it more sensible for a citizen to call their school board member or attend a meeting to voice concerns than give it all up to some bureaucrat in Washington, DC? How can an elite academician in Washington know what the needs and desires of students and parents in Butte, Montana are? What gives them the right to mandate rules and regulations on people 2000 miles away?

Departments like education should only exist on the county and state levels and by the decision of the local citizens to determine their existence or not. It would be then responsive and responsible to the citizens who are funding them with their own tax dollars. The people would be able to determine what and how their children are being taught. And people would be able to decide if those school districts were places they wanted their children to be educated in.

Education is a prime example of a state’s rights issue, as is abortion, the death penalty and other areas that the federal government has imposed themselves in.

As Ronald Reagan said, Americans have the freedom to vote with their feet. If a person doesn’t like the government, rules, laws and regulations in one state, he can move to another. Mark Levin, in his book Liberty and Tyranny, said that the mobility of Americans to relocate to areas that are more compatible to their beliefs and desires is what the Founders had in mind and that this diversity in states is what created a more “harmonious union.” I agree and believe that this is what the Founders believed, too.

Instead, what has evolved from the Founders original vision is a one-size fits all kind of government – a socialist government – where the needs and desires of the individual is trumped by the collective majority and power-hungry big federal bureaucracy.

The Founders had faith and trust in the intelligence of the people to govern themselves. We have gone 180 degrees from that and it will be difficult, if not impossible, to ever return to what they had in mind.

Mark Levin at the Reagan Library

His interview:

And his speech:

Reagan on socialized medicine and socialism

H/t Dena. 😉

If you listen to Mark Levin or have read his book, Liberty and Tyranny, you’ll recognize the final part of this video…. very prophetic:

Abortion: a state’s rights issue

“Federalism also diffuses conflict and promotes harmony.  A strong proponant of the death penalty can live in Texas, which has the most active execution chamber, and not care much that New Jersey has just abolished the punishment. Individuals with widely divergent beliefs are able to coexist in the same country because of the diversity and tolerance federalism promotes.” Mark Levin/Liberty and Tyranny

Substitute the word abortion for ‘death penalty’ and this is exactly why abortion should never have been taken from the states to decide. Abortion should be a state’s rights decision and not a governmental edict. The Supreme Court, with Justice Blackmun leading the charge, created this policy. It can’t be called a law because Congress nor THE people ever voted on this.

A woman in Texas was forbidden by law from having an abortion on demand. At the time the law in Texas allowed abortion only “by medical advice for the purpose of saving the life of the mother.” And of course, her life was not in danger. This case gave the SCOTUS an extraordinary moment in history.

Blackmun made policy by establishing which trimester a fetus was protected under the Constitution. In other words, he determined when a fetus became a human being – although many and the state of Texas believed that at the moment of conception it is a human being –  and therefore, when it was provided rights and protection under the state.“Blackmun specifically declared that the unborn child was not a ‘person’ under the fourteenth amendment and thus, had no equal protection rights.” Mark Levin/Men in Black

This is how more absurd it got: “Blackmun constructed a hyper-technical analysis to break down the rights of the mother and the state. In the first trimester, the decision to abort must be left up to the mother’s physician. In the second trimester, the state may regulate abortion procedures to promote its interest in the mother’s health. In the third trimester, in the interest of protecting the unborn child, the state can regulate and even ban abortion, except where, by medical judgment, it is necessary to preserve the mother’s life or health.” Men in Black

And keep in mind Blackmun was not talking about the ‘state’ of Texas. He was talking about the federal government when he used the word ‘state.’

“To be true to its constitutional role, the Supreme Court should refuse to be drawn into making public policy, and it should strike down legislation only when a clear constitutional violation exists.” Men in Black

The result is that the justices impose their own personal theories and biases on issues that the constitution does not address and is outside their purview.

The right  – or not – to abortion should be the people’s decision. It’s a morality issue and therefore has no place in the courts. It should be struck down and given back to the states and their citizens to decide. This is an issue that does not find cover under the invisible “right to privacy” which does not even exist in the Constitution.

The Supreme Court has become a legislative body by the de facto creation of policies.  And unfortunately we have president who plans to continue to appoint policy making justices.

Lest we forget: