The hypocrisy poisoning America

by Fabius Maximus
Summary: America’s largest problems don’t appear in the in the headlines, but between the lines. Such as the hypocrisy poisoning our politics. Here are some recent examples — and a simple solution.

“The health of a people comes only from its inner life — from the life of its soul and its spirit.”
— Words on a granite memorial stone in Berlin marking where Walther Rathenau “fell on this spot by the hand of a murderer.”

Bill Clinton and his liberal defenders.

The liberal establishment worked overtime to whitewash Bill Clinton. They ignored the stories about his mistreatment of women: Kathleen Willey (sexual assault), Juanita Broaddrick (rape), and Paula Jones(sexual harassment). For example, Ms. Jones said that a State  Trooper summoned her — while working — to a hotel room, in which Governor Clinton dropped his pants, exposed himself, and asked for oral sex. Just like Harvey Weinstein. And Gennifer Flowers (sex, admitted by Clinton). Plus the most famous, Monica Lewinsky. Since there was definitive evidence for Monica’s story about oral sex (eventually admitted by Clinton), liberals — including feminists — lied the most loudly about her.

Sidney Blumenthal told journalists that “Monica Lewinsky was a stalker, an unstable minx who had been threatening Clinton and telling him that if he didn’t have sex with her she would say he had anyway.” Charlie Rangel (D-NY) said: ”That poor child has serious emotional problems. …She’s fantasizing. And I haven’t heard that she played with a full deck in her other experiences.” Maureen Dowd (NYT columnist, 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Commentary) called her: “a ditsy, predatory White House intern who might have lied under oath for a job at Revlon.”

Now feminists wonder why women have been reluctant to tell their stories about harassment by powerful men. Now liberals talk about investigating — perhaps impeaching — Trump for treating women badly.

Conservatives and the fiscal deficits

It is sad that something this obvious need be said: Republicans criticize Democrats for deficit spending, then run up mind-blowing deficits — mostly by cutting taxes for the rich. Republicans viciously attacked Obama for eight years about deficits. See the graph showing the change in the federal debt as a percentage of GDP (from the Politics That Works website.)

• Blue on the left, with small increases in the debt. The exception is Nixon — by his record, one of the 20th century’s greatest liberal presidents.
• Red on the right, with large increases in the debt. The exception is Obama, in whose term the US suffered a financial decline like 1929-1930 — but responded appropriately with stimulus programs that mitigated it into a severe recession (details here).

Now the Republicans plan a third round of massive deficits to further erode the government’s solvency. Between the tax cuts for corporations and new spending, the 2019 federal deficit will be roughly $1.2 trillion. When they eventually bankrupt us, the 1% — richer than ever — will be ready to pick up the pieces.

Democrats ignoring Obama’s attacks on the Constitution

The echoes of Trump’s inauguration had not faded before Democrats accused him of attacking the Constitution. They were oddly silent during the Obama years — during which Obama tore large rips in the Constitution.

Obama’s Clean Power Plan.

Obama’s Clean Power Plan was one of his signature accomplishments. Bold, sweeping, and with a weak basis in the Constitution. Laurence Tribe, liberal icon and Professor of Law at Harvard, testified under oath at a hearing about the CPP before the House Subcommittee on Energy and Power Chairman (of the Energy and Commerce Committee). Red emphasis added.
“EPA possesses only the authority granted to it by Congress. It lacks “implied” or “inherent” powers. Its gambit here raises serious questions under the separation of powers, Article I, and Article III, because EPA is attempting to exercise lawmaking power that belongs to Congress and judicial power that belongs to the federal courts. The absence of EPA legal authority in this case makes the Clean Power Plan, quite literally, a “power grab.”
“EPA is attempting an unconstitutional trifecta: usurping the prerogatives of the States, Congress and the Federal Courts all at once. Burning the Constitution should not become part of our national energy policy …” {Full transcript here.}

Obama’s unilateral approval of the Paris Climate.

No matter what you think of the Paris Climate Agreement (many climate activists thought it worse than worthless), Obama’s approval of it was blatantly unconstitutional. For a sad perspective on this, in no other democracies did one person approve the agreement (a treaty by another name). It was approved by a cabinet in India and Israel, and by the legislatures of everybody else that approved it. See the details here. Respect for law still exists elsewhere, just not much in America.

Obama’s assassination of US citizens.

The Constitution specifically forbids the President to punish citizens without trial. Nor can Congress can do so. This is deeply rooted in US history. During the Civil War Lincoln directed Francis Lieber to issue rules of conduct for war, which were included in General Order 100, signed by Lincoln on April, 1863. See Section IX, entitled “Assassinations.”
“The law of war does not allow proclaiming either an individual belonging to the hostile army, or a citizen, or a subject of the hostile government, an outlaw, who may be slain without trial by any captor, any more than the modern law of peace allows such intentional outlawry; on the contrary,it abhors such outrage. The sternest retaliation should follow the murder committed in consequence of such proclamation, made by whatever authority. Civilized nations look with horror upon offers of rewards for the assassination of enemies as relapses into barbarism.“
In 1975 Justice Stewart delivered the opinion of the Supreme Court that “the Star Chamber has for centuries symbolized disregard of basic individual rights” (source). Obama assassination order — issued without any form of judicial or even executive review — gives Americans less rights than Brits had before that infamous tribunal (Wikipedia).  No, this was not a killing on a “battlefield.”  For details about this precedent-breaking act, see these posts.

• Another nail put in the Constitution’s coffin, but we don’t care.
• Code red! The Constitution is burning.
• Every day the Constitution dies a little more.
• And what do our Constitution-loving conservatives say about our government’s assassination programs? — SPOILER: they love them!

The unifying thread to all these

Like most things in America, these things happen for a good reason. We approve of them when done by “our” side and condemn them when done by our political foes. But our foes don’t care about our opinions. Liberals can only influence  leaders of the Democratic Party. Conservatives can influence only leaders of the Republican Party.
The hypocrisy afflicting America is ours. That is good news, since it means the solution is under our control. All that is need is our will to change.

“Every country has the government it deserves.”
— Joseph-Marie, Comte de Maistre. From Lettres et Opuscules (1811).

For More Information

If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. See all posts about the Constitution, about the New America, about Reforming America: steps to new politics, and especially these…

1. Important: the Constitution is dying.
2. What comes after the Constitution? Can we see the outline of a “Mark 3” version of the United States?
3. Thomas Jefferson saw our present peril. We should heed his warning.
4. Rome speaks to us. Their example can inspire us to avoid their fate.
5. America isn’t falling like the Roman Empire. It’s falling like Rome’s Republic.
6. Alert! Our institutions are hollow because we don’t love them.
7. Let’s use the New Year to start the reform of America. — It is only February. Let’s start now.

A great book reminding us about the secret power source of the Constitution

A Machine That Would Go of Itself: The Constitution in American Culture

By Michael Kammen (the late professor of history at Cornell).
“The Constitution occupies an anomalous role in American cultural history. For almost two centuries it has been swathed in pride yet obscured by indifference: a fulsome rhetoric of reverence more than offset by the reality of ignorance.”
From the publisher…
“Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Michael Kammen explores the U.S. Constitution’s place in the public consciousness and its role as a symbol in American life, from ratification in 1788 to our own time. As he examines what the Constitution has meant to the American people (perceptions and misperceptions, uses and abuses, knowledge and ignorance), Kammen shows that although there are recurrent declarations of reverence most of us neither know nor fully understand our Constitution.
“How did this gap between ideal and reality come about? To explain it, Kammen examines the complex and contradictory feelings about the Constitution that emerged during its preparation and that have been with us ever since.
“He begins with our confusion as to the kind of Union we created, especially with regard to how much sovereignty the states actually surrendered to the central government. This confusion is the source of the constitutional crisis that led to the Civil War and its aftermath. Kammen also describes and analyzes changing perceptions of the differences and similarities between the British and American constitutions; turn-of-the-century debates about states’ rights versus national authority; and disagreements about how easy or difficult it ought to be to amend the Constitution.
“Moving into the twentieth century, he notes the development of a ‘cult of the Constitution’ following World War I, and the conflict over policy issues that persisted despite a shared commitment to the Constitution.”