The Era of Intended Adverse Consequences

The Aspen Times (CO) ^ | July 17, 2014 | Melanie Sturm

[Aspenhuskerette]

“Too often … we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought,” President Kennedy famously asserted before Yale’s class of 1962.

Denouncing political debates that “bear little or no relation to the actual problems the United States faces,” Kennedy urged policymakers to Think Again before engaging in “false dialogues” that “distract our attention and divide our efforts.”

He believed “the very future of freedom depends upon the sensible and clearheaded management of the domestic affairs of the United States” and a “vigorous economy” — quaint concerns 52 years hence.

Because today’s political discourse is so dishonest and domestic affairs so muddled, we’re living in an era of manufactured social strife. Creating policy impasses, politicians pick unnecessary fights over our constitutional system’s commitment to individual liberty and the rule of law, transforming dissenters into black-hearted villains with sinister agendas.

Faux hysteria and fearmongering — especially in an election year — are potent tools for squeezing money and outrage from voting blocs whose “rights,” they’re told, are under assault.

Witness the feverish backlash to the Supreme Court’s recent Hobby Lobby decision.

[Aspenhuskerette]

From the article:

"Like the Hobby Lobby case, the escalating humanitarian crisis on the Southern border would have been avoidable if the government had merely followed the law. After all, what distinguishes America is our healthy respect for the law. Instead, pro-amnesty appeals and the Obama administration’s de facto “open border” policies created powerful magnets for migrating multitudes."

[Organic Panic]

If the government followed the law bureaucrats would be forced to handle things like road maintenance and dog catching. The millions upon millions of useless unemployable idiots that infest the administrative state would be unemployed. Morons like Harry Reid and Nasty Pelosi would have nothing to crow about on the pile of refuse they caused.

[kristinn]

Very good column that unfortunately is competing for attention with news of the plane down in Ukraine.

[familyop]

"If the government followed the law bureaucrats would be forced to handle things like road maintenance and dog catching. The millions upon millions of useless unemployable idiots that infest the administrative state would be unemployed."

Well said and true.

Heavy Hitters: Top All-Time Donors, 1989-2014
http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/list.php
American Fedn of State, County & Municipal Employees $60,949,129 [Democrat] 81% [Republican] 1%”
National Cmte to Preserve Social Security & Medicare $10,414,606 [Democrat] 82% [Republican] 17%

Leviathan (Uncle Sam employs more people than you think)
National Review ^ | 02/03/2011 | Iain Murray
"...nearly 40 million Americans employed in some way by government."

Spendthrift ways are ways of government-linked socialists.

About "70 million" people are receiving good incomes but are also steeped in debt and can't borrow more for big ticket items.


The Aspen Times...interesting.

[jurroppi1]

AFSCME is probably one of the biggest political donors period. I parked next to a twit who drives a smart car with leftist stickers plastered all over it. I’ve seen one she has on other cars and it drives me batty “I’ll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one”. I suppose unions aren’t people either since both unions and corporations are made up of people; people who are rowing to the same beat (or mostly they are anyhow).

The is scant difference between a corporate board of directors and union upper echelon. If AFSCME and its dues paying members who don’t have a say in where political contributions go can contribute politically, then corporations should rightly be able to follow suit.

leftist just don’t like corporations because they tend represent free expression, which ironically doesn’t jibe with their real world-view.