WE BUILT IT: A Reply to Beau Weston

I originally intended to merely comment on a blog post authored by William J. (Beau) Weston (who writes as Gruntled Center) dated August 28, 2012, in  w­­­­­hich he supported the President’s recent attack on American business.  I soon realized that if I wrote the comment I wanted to make, I would hijack his blog.  Accordingly, you, gentle reader, should probably read that blog first.

Welcome back.  And away we go………..

Nice try, Beau, but to quote the late Governor of Texas, Ann Richards, “that dog won’t hunt.”

You start by changing what the President said to what you wish he had said.  You have every right to wish whatever you want, but what the President said was "If you've got a business, you didn't build that."

That leaves you with two choices:

 

He is a distinguished legal scholar, a graduate of two of the most prestigious universities in America and a long-time adjunct faculty member at a third--  Columbia University and Harvard Law, magna cum laude, where he was president of the Harvard Law Review, and then a Lecturer and Senior Lecturer  in Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago (not “professor” as so many talking heads have proclaimed).  He is therefore presumed to be smart enough to frame his own answers and to say what he means to say.

Alternatively, he is an empty suit who cannot speak “off-the-cuff” and must be tied to a teleprompter to spout the words created by his handlers.  This option scares the hell out of me, inasmuch as he is the man who has the power to start WWIII.

Accordingly, like Horton, I believe the President meant what he said and said what he meant.  In that “it takes a village to raise a child” mindset so beloved by the Democratic Party, he asserted that people who took a risk and started an enterprise that that succeeded—where countless others fail—owe it all to a benevolent state.  Hogwash! 

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life.

I’m sure there was.  My First Grade teacher, Miss Bessie Smothers, taught me and countless other Missourians (including my Dad), to read.  She did it in a class that, in my case, had 36 students, no aides, no air conditioning, no computers and white boards, no televisions, and only the occasional film strip with a record keyed to narrate what was going on.  She was a common sense woman and was proud of her profession and her students.  I doubt that she would have been standing with her hand out, demanding a share of a business established and nurtured into success by someone who was in her class 30 years before.

My high school speech teacher, Miss Mary Blackburn, was a great teacher.  For 42 years, she turned out students who could speak clearly, who could debate with attention to detail and a mastery of facts, and who were comfortable on their feet in front of crowds.  I am sure that she would not have demanded a share of the profits of a law firm founded by a former student which became successful after years of 2800 hour work years by the founder and the failure of many firms started at the same time.

Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive.

Can’t argue with that one.  They were soldiers and scientists and pioneers who risked much, sometimes all, to create, defend, and grow our Nation.  And I suspect that damned few of them would expect anything from those who succeeded by their own hard work, other than the thanks and respect due them for their efforts.

Somebody invested in roads and bridges.

Well, the taxpayers—and no one else—paid taxes to build roads and bridges to connect this expansive land of ours.  While their taxes may be viewed by politicians who made nothing, sold nothing, and took no personal risks, as “investments,” most taxpayers saw the roads as a positive improvements of public lands and used them.  They sure didn’t look for any direct return on their “investment.” They didn’t demand that those citizens who didn’t pay taxes, or who did pay income tax resulting only from jobs created by the risk takers, re-pay their “investment.” All citizens were free to use the bridges and roads.

 If you’ve got a business -- you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.  The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet. 

 (Emphasis in original blog.)

Professor Weston says “I believe this is obviously true.”  I say “Hold on there, Cowboy.”



Contrary to Al Gore’s claim, neither he nor government research created the internet.  Educational institutions and private research companies did. The original research that led to the development of the internet started in the UK in the early 1960s.  The first “net” in the United States, circa 1969, linked the School of Engineering at UCLA with a non-governmental research firm, SRI International.  A couple of years later, Utah and UC-Santa Barbara joined that net, and by 1972, there were about 15 schools and research firms in the net.

In 1981, the National Science Foundation did unveil its Computer Science Network, but by then, commercial internet service providers (ISPs) were sprouting up, and within a decade the NSF’s net closed.  By 1995, the internet was free of the controls imposed by the original developers.

 In the mid-90s, the first web server appeared at CERN in Switzerland, where the world’s first super collider was being built.  At about this time, perhaps one per cent of the exchange of information was passed over the net.  After the appearance of commercial ISPs, the net flourished, and by about 2009, more than 97 percent of all electronic two way communication passed over the net.

The Americans who were part of this growth were people with vision and the courage to put all they had on the line, people who were willing to work insane hours and to hire others to work 40 hour weeks for a reasonable wage and who got paid first before the “boss” saw a dime.  But according to the President, the entrepreneurs are leeches who owe their success to government. 

As for the entrepreneurs who failed, you never saw government saying “You didn’t fail on your own.  There was a teacher somewhere in your life who failed. Somebody helped to create this American system that let you down.  Sorry about that bridge that collapsed because Congressman Hotair’s cousin, the general contractor, used substandard materials.  If you’ve got a business -- you didn’t build that. We all did.  So here’s our share because we were in this together.”  Nevah hachee, GI.

I do believe as Professor Weston and most Americans do, that God created the entire universe and still actively superintends it.  But I also believe that he made Abraham what we would call a successful man, with huge flocks and broad lands, while others worked for Abraham as shepherds, and cooks and laborers who depended on Abrahams’s success for their sustenance. Ol’ Abe was out in front and exposed, and most of the others would not have changed places with him on a bet.

Finally, the good Professor goes off on paean to Sociology: “The major insight that sociology brings to this problem is that privilege creates a whole ladder of unearned benefits that help us 'build it.'" 

That’s giving a lot of credit to one of the softest of the soft sciences.  Sociology studies “outcomes,” and says silly things like “[a]nd the greatest privilege is not realizing that you are privileged.”  How do you quantify that?  How do you test it to see if the hypothesis is correct? Two atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen always combine to make water.  But each person is different.  Al Gore, a son of privilege, ended up in Vietnam while Bill Clinton, hardly a son of privilege, went to Oxford and protested a war, giving aid and comfort to the people who were trying to kill Al and a whole bunch of other people (including yours truly).

I once was a member of a major law firm in Philadelphia.  The lawyer who founded the firm (certainly not me!) was rightly proud of the fact that he grew up in a row house in South Philadelphia.  He worked his way through Penn, and started a small, two-man shop that, in 30 years became one of the largest and most successful firms in America.  It succeeded because he hired folks who shared his vision, his work ethic—although he and his first partner were the two hardest working men in the firm—and his drive to succeed.  But, in the end, until recently, even senior members were ultimately employees of the firm.  The governments that taxed the business, the support staff, the vendors who supplied the firm, and the attorneys were all paid before the two partners.  That was the risk they took, and in a bad year it could bite them.  On the other hand, in a good year, they reaped the reward of their risk-taking.  They did not do so because of privilege—they did so because they put themselves and their families on the line. 

The attorneys hired by the firm were top notch people, great trial lawyers and skilled professionals.  They “contributed” to the success of the firm only because the founders created a venue for others to succeed. 

And Barak Obama and Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi were nowhere around.  

 

THE SELECTION OF PAUL RYAN

Mitt Romney made the right call.  I don't know if it will help or hinder his chances for success in November, but it does show that the Romney (now the Romney-Ryan) campaign will be more about  the facts and new ideas than their opponent's touchy-feely scare-mongering retreat to the out-moded aims and harmful effects of 1932 and 1965. 

Ryan is one of the most intelligent people in our current government.  He speaks the truths that others are unwilling to utter.  The federal behemoth takes from and spends altogether too much of the people's money on things that are not the within the sphere of federal responsibility.  We are going broke kowtowing to special interests that are all take and no give.

Now, the American electorate may be too selfish or too stupid to take his words to heart, but when Ryan speaks, we surely ought to listen.  Even if the R-R team loses in November, we can go back and listen to Ryan's utterances to understand what happened and why when the biggest bubble of them all finally bursts

ANOTHER SPECIAL HONOR DILUTED

I went to the post office the other day to buy stamps and mail a snail-mail letter!  (Wait for gasps and shudders to subside.)  I noted the the national colors were at half-mast.

"Who died," I asked. The clerk at the counter gave me a puzzled look.  "Why is the flag at half-mast?"

He didn't know, but actually went back to check.  "It just came in this morning," he said.  "The President ordered all flags to be at half-staff (sic) until Friday for the Sikh shooting."

I have nothing against the Sikhs, or the movie-goers in Colorado, or the people at Virginia Tech, but why not just permanently fly the flag at half-mast if we're going to dilute this time-honored tribute to nothingness.  I remember when flying the flag at half-mast was a rarity, reserved for those special instances when the entire nation, or a part of it, was actively mourning.  The national colors were so flown only in the case of the death of a President, a Senator (in his home State), a Congressman (in his home district), a justice of the Supreme Court, or some other national figure. And, of course, the flag at a national cemetery was half-masted during the actual interment of a deceased member of the Armed Forces, or a deceased veteran.

In other words, this honor was reserved for someone who actively did something more for the Nation than going to church, or to a movie, or to class.  I chalk up  this dilution to two factors:  our elected leaders are willing to render meaningless what once was a real honor, all for a political benefit, and our schools no longer teach American History and Civics in any recognizable form.

I wonder how many of the Sikhs and the movie-goers (other than the members of the armed forces) ever rendered appropriate honors to that same flag while they were alive?  Just wonderin'.

THE SOVEREIGN FRANCHISE

A perfect democracy, a 'warm body' democracy in which every adult may vote and all votes count equally has no internal feedback for self correction. It depends solely on the wisdom and self-restraint of citizens ... which is opposed by the folly and lack of self-restraint of other citizens. What is supposed to happen in a democracy is that each sovereign citizen will always vote in the public interest for the safety and welfare of all. But what does happen is that he votes his own self-interest as he sees it ... which for the majority translates as 'Bread and Circuses'. 
  
Bread and Circuses is the cancer of democracy, the fatal disease for which there is no cure. Democracy often works beautifully at first. But once a state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer or parasite, that day marks the beginning of the end of the state. For when the plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them, they will do so, until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened condition the state succumbs to an invader -- the barbarians enter Rome.

Lazarus Long in Time Enough For Love by Robert A. Heinlein

Can someone please explain to me why actions taken by a sovereign state to ensure that the sovereign franchise is exercised only by citizens actually entitled to vote has become a sin?

I am catching up on the news after a hectic week and saw that the Attorney General spoke to the NAACP  (sort of an NRA for liberals), and "vowed" that the Justice Department would “remain aggressive” in challenging new restrictions on voter access to the ballot.

“In our efforts to protect voting rights and to prevent voting fraud, we will be vigilant and strong,” Mr. Holder said. “But let me be clear: we will not allow political pretexts to disenfranchise American citizens of their most precious right.”

Holder and his boss and the Democrat party have been livid that a number of States and Commonwealths have enacted statutes requiring citizens to show a photo identification at the polls.  He was especially outraged that the new Texas statute allows concealed handgun permits to be used, but not student identification cards.  He carefully ignores the fact that no one has to do a background check to get a "student id", but to buy a gun or get a concealed carry permit requires a law enforcement records check.   Too bad the 9/11 hijackers were allowed to use student ids before they boarded their planes that awful Tuesday morning.

Holder went on, claiming that  that nationally “only 8 percent of white voting age citizens" lack a photo id, "while 25 percent of African-American voting age citizens” lack a government-issued photo identification card. . After claiming that many legitimate voters without a photo ID “would have to travel great distances to get them, and some would struggle to pay for the documents they might need to obtain them,” he added, “We call those poll taxes.”


Well, good for him.  No talking points here in an election years.  Oh, maybe there have been other protests, but certainly no one else has compared a legitimate exercise of the regulatory power of the States over its voting rolls to poll taxes.  Except

June 12, 2012:  "These laws are the new Jim Crow laws of our times.” —Maryland Sen. Ben Cardin (D)  

June 21, 2012:  "They're going after Eric Holder because he is supporting measures to overturn these voter suppression initiatives in the states. This is no accident. It is no coincidence. It is a plan on the part of the Republicans." — House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi

"December 7, 2011:  "They’re pushing laws designed to change election outcomes by reducing voting, repressing turnout and turning the clock back to the days of Jim Crow. This is the exact opposite of where our country needs to go." — Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.)

“We November 14, 2011:  "We are are witnessing a concerted effort to place new obstacles in front of minorities, low-income families and young people who seek to exercise their right to vote. A poll tax by another name would smell as vile.” — House Minority Whip, Steny Hoyer, D. Md

I note also that the folks who are complaining are the ones who need lots and lots of non-citizens to vote so they can recapture the glory days of the Pelosi House, something they are unlikely to do so long as only American citizens are allowed to exercise their sacred franchise.  They remind me of an activist working with "undocumented", i.e., criminal, aliens back when California was considering barring children of illegal aliens from getting the same tuition as California citizens in California colleges.  "We're not asking for anything extra," she said.  "We just want our fair share."  The statement was made in an NPR story, and, of course, no one at National People's Radio reminded her that their fair share was back in their home countries.

More importantly, where was Mr. Holder when a group of armed Black Panther thugs posted themselves outside a Philadelphia polling place in 2010 and kept voters from voting?  As I recall, his Civil Rights division ruled that voter intimidation laws apply only to white people keeping black people from voting.  That whirring sound you hear is Dr. King spinning in his grave.

I also wonder how many black citizens are wondering why the first black attorney genderal, representing the administration of the first black president, is allowed to casually insinuate that black folks are too lazy, too shiftless, too stupid, to obtain a valid photo identification card.  To get into the NAACP convention to hear Holder, you had to present a valid photo id!  If Mitt Romney had made such a statement, they would be erecting a cross to hang him on.

Holder concluded by saying  

The arc of American history has always moved toward expanding the electorate.  It is what has made this nation exceptional. We will simply not allow this era to be the beginning of the reversal of that historic progress. 

The historically-illiterate will tut tut and nod appreciatively.  What Holder was describing, of course, was the move to include disenfranchised AMERICAN CITIZENS--women, freed slaves, non-property owners--in the electorate.  No one who worked for those proper inclusions ever envisioned granting the franchise to citizens of the rest of the world.  That would be an invitation to "bread and circuses."