On ABC’s public affairs program, “This Week with Christiane Amanpour” two very interesting comments were made during the roundtable discussion on Sunday, January 23. First, the dyed-in-the-wool progressive, Paul Krugman, said this about President Obama’s change in character after the 2010 mid term elections:
I think the model is something like Clinton who, in fact, mostly was just riding on a successful economy which was successful . . . for reasons which had mostly nothing to do with him. But he was able to be a very popular President by presiding over that, by providing competent management on those things you could control. I think that is Obama’s model now. . . .
Seconds later in answer to a question from the host, George Will reported on a lunch conversation he had recently had with Austan Goolsbe, Obama’s Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers:
Amanpour: . . . [B]ut when it comes to real conclusions how do you kickstart and how do you make a dent in that 9.4 figure? Will: You don’t. I had lunch this week with Austan Goolsbee who was your guest a few weeks ago. He said, “Look, people seem to feel that in the basement of the White House somewhere there’s an enormous switch and you go down and throw it and jobs are created.” The fact is that the terrible frustration in the White House must be that everything that really matters is beyond their control, which is how to create jobs. It’s not going to happen because of the government.
The following is a 2008 video in which the newly tapped Chairman Goolsbee explained that after Obama’s inauguration they would be ready to come in with a bang to change the job picture. He specifically distinguished this type of ‘hands on’ activist government policy from the sort of “wait and see” if things get better policy which he derisively characterized as the policy of the previous administration.
Which Goolsbee is right? The one who admits, after two years in power, that there is no switch that a government can throw to do something about nagging economic problems, like unemployment. Or the one who came into power in 2008 saying that he recognized that when the ball was in Obama’s hands and that he (Obama) would actively manage the use of federal government economic power against the economic problems facing the country. Is Krugman being serious when he says that Clinton’s successful economy was not of his own doing even though Clinton, like Obama, came into power during a recession (remember his election motto, “it’s the economy stupid”) and he has always taken full political credit for the economic turnaround?
I hope that both Krugman and Goolsbee really do understand now that the economic tools in the hands of the government have limitations in terms of raising all boats in a national economy. If it were not so we would be in perpetual sunshine and happiness because politicians would promise and use the magical tool or tools. I hope that they also realize that when the government acts it is really only able to pick economic winners and losers. For instance, the Fed kept interest rates low and the politicians used Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to hype up the housing market for several years in a way which made people happy. In fact this made a lot of identifiable people prosperous but only for a while. On the other hand the hangover which will last for a number of years is going to be suffered by the rest of us as the price we pay for the government providing short term benefits to high flying home buyers, home builders, mortage originators, financial marketers and bankers. The reaching of such a realization by these two prominent political economists concerning the limitations of the government’s power over the economy will be very good news indeed if it translates into greater prudence on the part of future political economists as to what they promise.
Before I have my say about the political aftermath of the tragic shootings in Arizona let me address the human aftermath. I pray for the repose of the souls of the dead. I pray that the Lord’s healing grace touch each of those injured. And finally, I pray that the Lord’s comfort and consolation embrace the families of the dead and injured.
After the tragedy, U.S. Rep. James Clyburn has become so concerned about the stimulation of latent violence by the speech of his political opponents, particularly Sarah Palin, that he has this to say on the Bill Press Show between minutes 8 and 11 (click or paste link below):
What Rep. Clyburn has not made public, however, is anything specific about what is actually being said that he believes is so frightening and inciteful to violence that it must be addressed by censorship. Rather than giving specifics about the language which concerns him, this is what Clyburn follows up with:
‘Free speech is as free speech does,’ he said. ‘You cannot yell ‘fire’ in a crowded theater and call it free speech and some of what I hear, and is being called free speech, is worse than that.’*
I am confused. What in particular is being said by Palin or any other opposition leader that Clyburn thinks important to restrain? If not concerned about any specific words is Clyburn possibly concerned with the vehemence with which the opinions are stated? Should stating any and all political opinions in emotion laden terms be something which is banned because of its potential to cause a violent reaction in those who hear it? Or is it the combination of the emotional tone and what they say which concerns him? Remember, Clyburn believes that there is something about this political speech which he believes is on a par with, no is even worse than, shouting fire in a crowded theater? I conclude, in the absence of a clear explanation by Clyburn of what concerns him, that everything Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh has ever said troubles him and, importantly, what they say and how they say it is, in his opinion, calculated to and intended to stir fatal passions. Distilled to it’s basics this appears to be his point.
So it is Palin & Co.’s provocative manner when they state their basic philosophy, a philosophy anathema to Clyburn, which he believes threatens to bring about violence in America. Clyburn apparently believes that those who embrace and vehemently advocate a limited role for the federal government foment thereby a culture of violence and are a clear and present danger. It is her philosophy which resists enlargement in federal government power which is the real reason that he says of Palin that, although attractive she “is just not intellectually capable of understanding” the connection between what she advocates and the potential for violence. Interestingly, however, the dimwitted or sick people to whom she directs her emotional statements understand the call to violence implicitly contained therein or it wouldn’t be dangerous speech, would it?
Rather than engage in careful reasoning from proposition to conclusion, Clyburn says something which he hopes will result in something he really likes, muzzling his political adversaries. He wants Sarah Palin to either keep quiet or change her worldview to one more in line with his own. If anything said by Palin, Limbaugh or Beck created the same clear and present danger that yelling fire in a crowded theater does, it would already be illegal. Without a single citation to dangerous speech targeted at the congresswoman or anyone else (other than the cockamamie idea of the ” crosshairs targeting of Giffords’ district” as politically vulnerable somehow incited violence against her), Clyburn thinks that Palin-speak is worse than yelling fire in a crowded theater. It is pretty clear that speeches and diatribes recognizing the tautology that enlarging the power of the federal government must, by definition, limit the power of other lower governments and the people themselves, just does not create a clear and present danger of violence. If Clyburn believes that the act of speaking in various ways about this basic tautology stirs up potentially fatal violence it is incumbent upon him to quote the words, clearly describe the tone in which they were said and explain how these things together create the equivalent of shouting fire in a theater.
Clyburn can’t and won’t do this hard headed reasoning and connecting the dots. He would rather hide behind the idea that that Palin’s just dumb. If she asks for explanation Palin would be admitting that she was too stupid to get it. The idea that Palin just “doesn’t get it” doesn’t even try to explain his point. It’s like he’s taking the position that the cool kids know something the square kids don’t and Palin will never be cool until she admits that the cool kids are cooler than she ever will be.
Is it ever okay to muzzle a truthteller or someone who is trying to do their best to be a truthteller? One would have thought that people like Clyburn, who is a member of a generation and a group of the people who are rightfully proud of having “spoken truth to power” would celebrate this, right!!! If you ask him, John Kerry is also a man who tried to speak truth to power about a very serious subject.
Was it John Kerry’s free speech which stirred up Bill Ayers to engage in the bombings of the US Capitol or Pentagon? Regardless of what you believe about John Kerry as a truthteller, should he have been muzzled? More recently, should we have made vituperative anti-Iraq war speeches illegal? Remember what Hillary Clinton said about that in a very vehement way indeed:
And how about this typical Keith Olbermann diatribe which you don’t even have to listen to and you still know what’s in it? Should this be banned? Considering the messenger and the ratings I suppose this is a bit less than frightening.
Oh well, they took this Olbermanism down but you know what I mean, don’t you? Maybe it was too much even for MSNBC
I will never agree to turning off or limiting free political speech unless there is a clear and present danger of imminent violence. I am also saying that it is in the nature of strongly held beliefs to express them strongly. The ability to speak out on strongly held beliefs has it’s own benefits in addition to the attempt to convince others. Standing up for what one believes to be the truth is important. It is not wrong, it is right. In fact everything about speaking the truth is important.
I return to this blog’s theme of a clash of worldviews. Clearly Rep. Clyburn formative memories come from a time and place when his opponents were willing and ready to injure him for his demands for social equality. This has clearly etched itself deeply into his character. I cannot and will not blame him for this. He understandably has strongly held beliefs. I will, however, refer back to a poll taken last summer by the Rasmussen organization which gives much insight into this issue. On June 24, 2010 in an article titled, 48 Percent See Government Today as a Threat to Individual Rights Rasmussen reported:
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 48% of Adults see the government today as a threat to rights. Thirty-seven percent (37%) hold the opposite view. Fifteen percent (15%) are undecided.
Most Republicans (74%) and unaffiliateds (51%) consider the government to be a threat to individual rights. Most Democrats (64%) regard the government as a protector of rights.
Is Clyburn’s reasoning in his attack on Palin’s intelligence not a clear enough example that much of the rancor we find in the debate over public policy is actually no less than an fundamental clash of worldviews?
Free speech and freedom of the press are the most basic protections built into our way of life. Along with freedom of religion these rights are our most basic “civil rights.” These are the rights with which we protect our right to liberty and all of the rights derivative of that human liberty. That fact was crystal clear to the founders in the 1780’s and it remains crystal clear to thoughtful people today. Sarah Palin is just as smart as Rep. Clyburn. They just come from vastly different experiences. The truth as to why Clyburn holds the opinions which he holds is contained in the words of JFK:
We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.
Rep. Clyburn is telling us in relatively clear language that he is afraid of other Americans, particularly it appears, that he is afraid of white people. He can’t tell the difference between those who oppose his big government agenda now and those who appeared ready to injure him at the time of his civil rights struggle. This is understandable given his formative years and his resultant worldview but it does not mean that the rest of us must sacrifice our inalienable right to free speech to make him feel more comfortable. As a congressman he’s the one in power now and he must at least tolerate, if not actually listen to, the voices of the people he would govern.
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