Squaring the Culture

On the whole, I really don’t give a damn what famous people do, except as it affects the central affairs of the culture. I enjoy movies as literature or escape, but I do know the difference between the character in the plot and the actor in front of the camera (not to mention the director behind the camera and the producer behind the project,) and I try not to let my opinion of their loud but usually inconsequential off-screen idiocy affect what I think of the art in front of my face.

That said, the recent arrest of famous movie director Roman Polanski (Rosemary’s Baby, Chinatown) after his having fled sentencing for a statutory rape conviction 30 years ago, followed by the mindless and unfortunate defense of said scumbag by certain media liberals, gives me an excuse to rehearse some of the fundamentals of American legal philosophy, fundamentals about which a truly astonishing number of people are completely clueless. When a case like this hits the public, we hear all sorts of blather from people whose sense of justice has been contorted by noble-sounding phrases they don’t understand any better than a cat understands cosmology. So, here we go, sensible answers to contorted blather:

Blather: The victim has forgiven him, so he should go free.

Nothing could be less relevant. American criminal law is not about obtaining retribution for the victim, nor about protecting the victim, nor anything about the victim. The branch of American law concerning victims obtaining compensation for losses sustained by the acts of others is called “tort law,” and is pursued in civil courts, not criminal courts. In American criminal law, the injured party is society. That’s why criminal trials are always called “the state versus [criminal's name],” or “the county versus [criminal's name],” not “[victim's name] versus [criminal's name].” The criminal is, by virtue of his or her acts, considered to have damaged society by committing acts designated by the legislature as criminal acts, and stands to be punished by society. The victim is important primarily for establishing the fact that a crime has been committed and for furnishing the details of that crime. Consequently, the victim has neither power nor right to stop the state from executing sentence on the criminal who injured him or her — particularly not, as in this case, after the criminal has been found guilty in court.

Blather: we should have compassion, because Polanski has been through so much.

Perhaps. Penalties for criminal acts are established by acts of the legislature, and they are usually established as a range of penalties rather than a specific penalty. For example, the penalty for armed robbery might be imprisonment in a maximum security facility for from 5 to 25 years, and a fine ranging from $1,000 to $50,000. The reason for the large range of possible penalties is so the judge, upon hearing the circumstances of the case, the defendant’s value to society, the unfortunate circumstances leading to the crime, or any other mitigating fact, can adjust the penalty to suit the need. In other words, the judge does have the power to change the outcome in response to things like how hard Polanski’s life has been, if he thinks that is relevant.

However, the judge does not have the power to punish the criminal less that the lowest penalty established by the legislature. Why? Because the legislature has not given him that choice, and it’s the legislature that establishes the law. If we really think the law should allow a person committing a particular act to go free if the circumstances are sufficiently heart-breaking, it is up to the legislature to specify that in the formation of the law. Once the law is established, if you really think the penalty is too harsh and should be less, the correct move is to write to your state representative and lobby for a change in the law. (You also have extraordinary recourse, like petitioning the governor for a pardon.)

Blather: We should forgive Mr. Polanski. This is the Christian thing to do. So, he should not be arrested.

Yes, we should forgive Mr. Polanski, inasmuch as he has sinned against us. Forgiveness is for the offended, and it’s necessary for their mental health (on the other hand, if he did not sin against me, I have neither need nor power to forgive.) We should also have a great deal of compassion for both the criminal, whose life has probably been ruined by the arrest, and the victim, whose life has usually been damaged by the crime, and also for the families of both. And we should continue to express that compassion as the criminal goes through the legal process of having the particulars of his crime established in court, and later through the process of paying the penalty for the crime.

Forgiveness and compassion are personal responses. Exacting a penalty for a crime is a social response. There is no conflict between them. One can forgive the criminal and still cooperate with the process of exacting the penalty for the crime. Cooperating with the state as it prosecutes the criminal does not constitute unforgiveness. Recall the philosophical position discussed in the first Blather/Response, above — the crime is committed against society, not against the victim. Recall the limits of the court system discussed in the second Blather/Response, above — the penalty is set by the legislature, not by the court, nor by the victim. If “we” are going to forgive the criminal, that option must be established by the legislature, or it will not be possible after the fact.

Blather: he didn’t really rape her, it was just statutory rape.

Don’t say this to my face, you’re likely to get something thrown at you. Like a fist.

First of all, the facts of this case, which are not in dispute, establish that despite all the alcohol and drugs there was no consent, so it really was rape. But beyond that, the theory of the law — with which I agree completely — is that children below a certain age are not capable of making sensible choices about sex. Their curiosity, their inexperience, their raging hormones, their unrealistic expectations, their delusions of immortality, their lack of moral maturity, all make them more easily susceptible to agreeing to things that more mature minds would recognize as dangerous and ill-advised. It is always the adult’s responsibility to steer the child (teenager) away from the danger. The adult failing in that responsibility is taking advantage of the teenager’s natural curiosity; that is the crime. The adult is the one who is supposed to know better.

Yes, I know that every teenager in existence insists that they’re fully capable of making sensible decisions about sex. They all also say they’re ready to drive a car; we all know what the safety stats say about that. The sheer inability to comprehend the dangers is part of the immaturity that the law recognizes.

Blather: It was 30 years ago. Isn’t there a statute of limitations or something?

There’s an excellent reason for statutes of limitations; peoples’ memories fade, and it becomes impossible to establish the facts of a case after several years have passed. However, those don’t apply here. The arrest was made, the prosecution took place, Polanski’s guilt was established in a court of law well within the limits of the statute. He just ran away before the court had a chance to pass sentence. So, no, there’s no statute of limitations. And it makes no sense to just let the guy go because he got away with not paying for his crimes for 30 years. That’s 30 years of pretending that the law didn’t apply to him; it’s high time that he was dispossessed of that illusion.

Blather: Polanski is a great artist, and has produced truly amazing art. He should not be arrested.

He also is a rapist, and contributed powerfully to producing an insecure society in which young women are not safe from predators. Polanski has been recognized for his art, and has grown wealthy from it. He should also eat the fruit of the other production I mentioned.

Insofar as you disagree, please reread Blather/Response item #2: the judge already has the power, granted by the legislature, to take the excellence of the man’s art into account when passing sentence. But he does not have the power to ignore the law.

Besides, do we really want to uphold the precedent that says that the laws that apply to the rest of us, do not apply to those who are rich, famous, or particularly good at what they do? Is it not the very essence of justice in a free society that everybody is equal before the law, regardless of their station?

Blather: everybody knows that child predators cannot be cured. We should lock him up and throw away the key.

There are a lot of different types of child predators. Some are very difficult to cure. None are impossible. The recovery rate from pedophilia is roughly the same as the recovery rate from drug addiction; a lot of the issues are the same. The law needs to be able to distinguish intelligently between different circumstances. The issues involving a 40-year-old man who routinely entices small children away from their mothers and keeps a houseful of snuff porn are different from the issues involving a 23-year-old who dates a 17-year-old, though both may be prosecuted under the same law. The law needs to be written to distinguish between them.

If there are particular pedophiles who are judged to be an ongoing danger to the community, that fact needs to be recognized by the legislature and incorporated into the law punishing those particular crimes. The current state of “Megan’s Law” enforcement and state sexual predator registration is abysmal, and ignores vital principles of liberty. Whatever laws we do make concerning child molestation, must conform to the boundaries of the Constitution.

Please feel free to add additional blather points in the comments, below, and I’ll be glad to give my opinion, or to listen to yours. I don’t care all that much about Mr. Polanski. I do care about the law.

Since I posted this morning on the President’s focus on obtaining the Olympics for his political mentors in Chicago, I’ll ask the question everybody else is asking today:

Why is it that the President has time to focus on Olympics for Chicago, but no time to discuss Afghanistan with his field commander?

CNN.com, July 20, 2008:

“… we have to understand that the situation is precarious and urgent here in Afghanistan. And I believe this has to be our central focus, the central front, on our battle against terrorism,” Obama said Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

“I think one of the biggest mistakes we’ve made strategically after 9/11 was to fail to finish the job here, focus our attention here. We got distracted by Iraq,” he said.

Obama said troop levels must increase in Afghanistan.

“For at least a year now, I have called for two additional brigades, perhaps three,” he told CBS. “I think it’s very important that we unify command more effectively to coordinate our military activities. But military alone is not going to be enough.”

Obama traveled to eastern Afghanistan on Saturday to visit American forces under NATO’s Regional Command East, the coalition’s Combined Joint Task Force said. Obama is joined by Sen. Charles Hagel, a Republican from Nebraska, and Sen. Jack Reed, a Democrat from Rhode Island…

“We need a sense of urgency and determination. We need urgency because the threat from the Taliban and al Qaeda is growing and we must act; we need determination because it will take time to prevail. But with the right strategy and the resources to back it up, we will get the job done,” they said in the statement.

And yesterday, we heard that the President has spoken to his theater commander in Afghanistan only once since he took office, and that the theater commander perceives a critical need for more troops.

“I’ve talked to the president, since I’ve been here, once on a VTC [video teleconference],” Gen. Stanley McChrystal told CBS reporter David Martin in a television interview that aired Sunday.

“You’ve talked to him once in 70 days?” Mr. Martin followed up.

“That is correct,” the general replied.

This revelation comes amid the explosive publication of an classified report written by the general that said the war in Afghanistan “will likely result in failure” if more troops are not added next year.

Progressive blogs have raised the point that Obama is simply refusing to micro-manage the situation. However, the question being raised at this moment is a question of raising troop levels — and Obama declared his support for increasing troop levels in Afghanistan ‘way back in July of 2008. Surely there is some happy medium between micro-managing and ignoring a crying need that he’s already committed to meeting. Surely that medium is not being achieved.

If Afghanistan is the central front in the war against terrorism, then I believe the President has just declared the war against terrorism a very, very low priority.

I have another question: if the Olympics were not being considered by Obama’s own city, or by individuals to whom Obama was politically beholden, would he be so interested? Might the reason he has little time for Afghanistan be that Afghans do not vote Democratic in American elections? I’m just asking.

That’s the headline on the top of the Drudge Report this morning. Drudge has never had to retract a story, but…

FOX-TV CHICAGO ORDERED NOT TO RUN ANTI-OLYMPICS STORY
Sun Sep 27 2009 21:56:11 ET

A local TV station that reported on Chicagoans NOT wanting the Olympics has been told NOT to run the report again, insiders tell the DRUDGE REPORT!

The Chicago Olympic Committee told FOX Chicago that its broadcast “would harm Chicago’s chances” to be awarded the games.

The station’s news director ordered staff to hold fire after the report aired once last Thursday morning, claims a source.

Chicago is making a bid for the 2016 Olympics. Apparently, this is very, very important to the President of the United States, so important that he has an Olympics office in the White House and is making a trip to Copenhagen to visit the Olympic Committee.

However, there is a group in Chicago that is openly supporting the competing bid from Rio de Janero, in Brazil. In fact, there are as many Chicagoans opposing Olympics in Chicago as defending them. They fear it will be a windfall for corrupt politicians and contractors, but a huge drag on the economy of the city, which is already nearly bankrupt. They created an ad, which you can see below, that highlights their opposition to the Olympic bid, and they aired it on Fox News Thursday morning.

According to Drudge, Fox has been ordered not to run the ad again by Chicago’s Olympic Committee.

This is an intriguing claim. I can’t imagine anybody other than the owners of Fox News that would have the authority to order the news organization to do anything. To say they were “ordered” to drop the ad suggests a claim of greater authority, and possibly a threat. The story has no explanation, though.

Bossing people around seems to be the Chicago way, and also seems to be becoming the American way under President Obama. This story is of a piece with last week’s under-reported story concerning Humana insurance, which was threatened by the White House with lawsuits if they continued to send their customers political ads explaining how Obama’s health care plans threatened their benefits. It’s also of a piece with the thuggery of the Obama campaign’s attempts to control stories about candidate Obama that they did not want the public to hear. It is no surprise to those of us who were keeping our eyes open during the campaign, but it is becoming increasingly clear that President Obama hates free speech, and, like any dictator attempting to control the minds of the people in order to retain power, is doing whatever he can to end it.

Orders Fox not to run an ad? Orders them?

I know the White House has approached news organizations on patriotic grounds in the past, asking their assistance regarding war efforts; there are times when national security might be compromised by a story, and for the sake of defending the nation or protecting the troops, the President needs to ask for the cooperation of private news organizations. This is sobering, but not unheard of.

However, what we’re seeing here is not about national security, it’s about a city’s power brokers gaining wealth by winning a bid for Olympic games. This is not even a proper topic over which to ask a news organization not to run stories.

Steve Bartin explained the appeal of the Olympics to the corrupt city bosses in Chicago in an article a couple of weeks ago; basically, the Olympics present a marvelous opportunity for graft, enriching those who are fortunate enough to have connections at city hall. For everyone else, though, Olympics have been financial disasters, resulting in enormous long-term debt and seldom paying off vendors and businesses with the level of business they’ve been promised. The Chicagoans for Rio site explains in some detail. So does the No Games Chicago site. Basically, members of the one party that rules Chicago want to enrich themselves by breaking the city financially. This is corrupt.

Corruption is the enemy; it is the thing that must be rooted out first, if the United States is ever to become a viable nation again. The current administration promised to do this, but they seem to be a more virulent strain of the disease rather than the cure. If the Tea Party movement does not have the effect of rooting out corruption in both parties, both in Washington and in state capitols across the nation, it will have been a failure. Government must be smaller, but it must also be honest.

Hat tip to Michelle Malkin, who was on top of this story from the beginning. Her article is eye-opening. And she adds more today, too.

The Fraser Institute is offering prizes to students for videos that answer the question, “What is the appropriate role of government in the economy?” Students who can answer this question can get a piece of $10,000 in cash and electronics prizes in the Fraser Institute’s 2009 Student Video Contest. Full contest details can be found at: www.fraserinstitute.org/videocontest.

Courtenay Vermeulen
Education Programs Assistant

The Fraser Institute
Direct: (604) 714.4533

Toll free: 1.800.665.3558 x 533
courtenay.vermeulen@fraserinstitute.org

The Fraser Institute is an independent international research and educational organization with offices in Canada and the United States and active research ties with similar independent organizations in more than 70 countries around the world. Their vision is a free and prosperous world where individuals benefit from greater choice, competitive markets, and personal responsibility. Their mission is to measure, study, and communicate the impact of competitive markets and government interventions on the welfare of individuals.

The video to the left is from the recent sting operation by independent reporters regarding the Baltimore office of ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. We all know the story by now; the reporters pose as pimp and prostitute, the workers give them advice how to game the tax laws. (You can read about how the project came about here.)

Yesterday, ACORN filed suit in Circuit Court for Baltimore City against Andrew Breitbart, the owner of the Big Government blog on which the films were presented, and against Hannah Giles and James O’Keefe, the two reporters who posed in the video. They seek punitive and compensatory damages for their ruined reputations, and they seek an injunction to stop the circulation of the videos. Good luck with the latter — they’re on YouTube and they’ve gone viral.

The two employees who were captured on video have been fired by ACORN. The organization has frozen hiring until an investigation is complete. Congress has cut off federal funding for the organization. ACORN claims damage was done to its reputation, and claims also that the two employees, Thompson and WIlliams, suffered “extreme emotional distress” as a result of the video. Also, the lawsuit claims that O’Keefe and Giles violated Maryland law by taping audio without the consent of the people being taped.

What’s wrong with this picture?

Put yourself in the place of a legitimate citizen organization. You’ve been visited by a hostile team of reporters who are aiming at ruining your reputation. They’ve discovered a pair of rogues working in one of your offices, and broadcast the video of these two clowns violating your organization’s clear intent and helping criminals establish businesses that hide their crimes and steal from the taxpayers. Your reputation has suffered, your donors are running for the hills, and you want compensation.

Why the hell are you concerned about the “extreme emotional distress” of the two human sewers that the reporters discovered? These two are the reason the reporters were able to ruin your reputation! You should be suing them! Sure, it makes sense also to sue the reporters to get compensation for the damage, but you should be suing these employees for every penny they earn for the rest of their lives, for bringing their garbage into your legitimate place of business and making your organization look like a criminal enterprise. You should be spreading memos throughout the organization with pictures and descriptions of those two, saying “If you do what these two did, expect to be fired, jailed, folded, spindled, mutilated, and have teams of flesh-eating lawyers gobbling the income from your estate for the rest of eternity.”

CNN’s story on the matter cites a relevant falsehood (without identifying it as a falsehood.) It says:

ACORN — the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now — said O’Keefe and Giles also attempted to capture similar videos at ACORN offices in other cities but failed.

What they do not say is that O’Keefe and Giles claim exactly the opposite — that they visited exactly five ACORN offices, and obtained exactly five videos of employees helping them break the law. They had no trouble finding ACORN employees to help them, because that’s what ACORN does: it helps people break the law.

So why is ACORN listing the pain and suffering of these employees in the lawsuit? Simply because the lawsuit is not aimed at producing justice. They know other employees are engaged in precisely the same activity. They hire them to do that. If they went after the employees like a sane organization would, they would lose all their employees overnight. So they can’t do that.

The purpose of the lawsuit, frankly, is to discourage honest people from attacking ACORN, so they can continue to operate without scrutiny. They want people to think twice before blowing the whistle on their criminal enterprise. And the purpose for listing the pain and suffering of criminals in the complaint is to throw more mud on the wall to see what sticks. If they manage to get a judge to award them compensation for the suffering of these two, all that much more pain for the reporters who dared to cross them. It can’t hurt their lawsuit, so they do it.

The lawsuit is not about justice, not even a little. The whole picture does not look like a legitimate organization seeking redress of real grievances. It looks like a criminal enterprise engaging in warfare.

ACORN has the right in the United States to sue in court to seek compensation for damages. That’s the legal side, and the rights of individuals, regardless of how vicious or immoral they might be, must be protected equally, or none of us are safe. Courtesy of one of my commenters, allow me to quote a conversation from the 1966 film A Man for All Seasons, between Sir Thomas More and his son-in-law to be, William Roper:

William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
William Roper: Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that!
Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!

Having said that, I want to be clear: I believe that what these reporters did was morally right. I believe that ACORN is a deeply corrupt organization, from top to bottom. I believe that ACORN’s employees were doing precisely what they were hired to do, and that they were fired solely for appearance’s sake. I do not believe any other conclusion is possible.

And I believe this lawsuit is an evil act.

The phrase that comes to my mind is from the prophet Isaiah, where he condemns the Israelites for fasting with wrong motives: he says they pray and fast in order to “strike with a wicked fist.” (Isaiah 58:4, New American Standard Version) That’s what ACORN is doing here. They got caught doing what they do. They are using the laws of the land to punish the righteous for exposing them, to make sure nobody else ever exposes them again without thinking twice. They want to perform their evil deeds in the dark, as evil people always do. So they use the laws to punish the righteous.

This is not, by far, the only sort of misuse of the system we call “Justice.” Research has established that one of the greatest contributors to the costs of medical care is what we call “defensive medicine,” medicine that serves no purpose other than to protect the doctor, and more to the point, the insurer, against lawsuits. This has become necessary because people use the courts, not to get justice, but to get rich. They sue if the doctor makes an error (which is common enough, since doctors are human,) or if nature deals them a bad hand and they can blame the doctor somehow. They reason, “The doctor has lots, and I have only a little, so why shouldn’t I get some of it?” The sort of thinking that says “I should only ask for what is just” has vanished from our culture. So has the sort of thinking that says “I should offer what is just,” because lawsuits have driven that sort of thing underground. One does not admit error, because that puts you at risk in the lawsuit. We have become corrupt, and our corruption has broken the system of justice.

I’ve begun a series of articles reviewing theological thinking about politics in the American colonies before the American Revolution. It’s a bit boring, but the reason I’m doing it is so I can wrap my mind around what it might take to build, from the ground up, a society that honors God’s laws, that rewards righteousness and discards wickedness as though it were garbage. The current American system does not do that; it rewards wickedness, and protects it.

The system actually protects righteous people if the people are, on the whole, righteous. The reason the system protects wickedness is that the land is full of wicked people. We have become corrupt, and have earned our demise. We need to resurrect righteous thinking; we need to mark the money-grubbing that abuses the system as the evil that it is, and we need to resist that sort of thinking when it arises within ourselves. We need to call corruption by its name, and we need to root it out from among us, “…each one looking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted.” (Galatians 6:1)

The cure begins in the mirror; each of us bears the responsibility to become righteous, and the responsibility to learn to think, speak, and act like righteous men and women. The only version of this that will bear legitimate fruit is the version that relies on God, Himself, to build righteousness in us. No counterfeit will produce anything worthwhile. The mere fact that one calls oneself “Christian” (or any other denomination) does not produce what’s needed. It’s just as easy for a Christian to get greedy or foolish as it is anybody else. What we’re after is not religious words, but godly behavior; not church attendance, but decency.

There can be no other foundation for a righteous nation; the laws that defend liberty, defend wickedness where wickedness is common. The only solution is to make wickedness uncommon.

John Adams’ name has risen in esteem recently, as historians rediscover the mark he left on the fledgling nation, so I’ll end this by recalling his warning issued to militiamen of Massachusetts in 1798:

We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other.

We are no longer a moral and religious people, so ACORN is free to strike with wicked fists against the righteous who expose their criminality. This does not have to be, but the cure begins right there where you sit.

A senior citizen in Milwaukee decided this bank robber was endangering his wife, so he took him down single-handed. This is just hilarious, actually, and I say “Bravo!” to the elderly gentleman who had the cojones to tackle a 23-year-old kid. Watch:

Notice the bank customer who decides to help out by kicking Mr. Bank Robber while he’s down, at about the 47 second mark. Can’t say I blame her, though I’m sure it didn’t help much. Incredibly, some imbec… er, commenter at YouTube thought she should be arrested for assault for doing that. I can see that; I sure wouldn’t want anybody kicking me if I were robbing a bank…

Hat tip to This Ain’t Hell (but you can see it from here).

…Andrew Breitbart’s next bombshell is going to fit right in. Patterico, Q and O, and Power LIne — just to name a few — are all picking up Breitbart’s hints that a major scandal will break tomorrow, involving the Obama administration using the National Endowment for the Arts to encourage artists to produce art arguing for Obama administration policies that are currently being debated. Meanwhile, Breitbart’s Big Hollywood site offers its own “Pregame Report,” supplying the background against which their story is expected to appear (if you’re going to read only one story, this is the one to read.)

The basic story is already about a month old: early in August, the National Endowment for the Arts invited a number of public artists, producers, promoters, movers, shakers, and apparently at least one public relations firm with astroturfing experience, to participate in a conference call to discuss how they could all cooperate with the President’s initiatives. One of the participants on the call, a Los Angeles filmmaker and consultant named Patrick Courrielche, felt the conference call was unusual and improper — the NEA’s charter is to facilitate the development of new and under-funded artists, not to engage in propaganda for the sitting government — so he wrote about it on Breitbart’s Hollywood expose’ blog, Big Hollywood. This led to a completely unbelievable denial from Yosi Sargent, the Director of the Office of Communications for the NEA, that he had sent out the invitations to the conference call — invitations under his credential and with his signature. Yosi has since vanished from the post, without explanation. Just a few days ago, George F. Will launched an essay denouncing the practice, and decrying the Obama administration’s turning artists into lobbyists; and today, we’re seeing a flurry of reports setting the stage for a new expose`.

Courrielche explained the call:

On Thursday August 6th, I was invited by the National Endowment for the Arts to attend a conference call scheduled for Monday August 10th hosted by the NEA, the White House Office of Public Engagement, and United We Serve. The call would include “a group of artists, producers, promoters, organizers, influencers, marketers, taste-makers, leaders or just plain cool people to join together and work together to promote a more civically engaged America and celebrate how the arts can be used for a positive change.”

…

Backed by the full weight of President Barack Obama’s call to service and the institutional weight of the NEA, the conference call was billed as an opportunity for those in the art community to inspire service in four key categories, and at the top of the list were “health care” and “energy and environment.” The service was to be attached to the President’s United We Serve campaign, a nationwide federal initiative to make service a way of life for all Americans.

…

We were encouraged to bring the same sense of enthusiasm to these “focus areas” as we had brought to Obama’s presidential campaign, and we were encouraged to create art and art initiatives that brought awareness to these issues. Throughout the conversation, we were reminded of our ability as artists and art professionals to “shape the lives” of those around us. The now famous Obama “Hope” poster, created by artist Shepard Fairey and promoted by many of those on the phone call, and will.i.am’s “Yes We Can” song and music video were presented as shining examples of our group’s clear role in the election.

Civic engagement — to partisan politics, at the behest of the President. A Presidential call to “positive change” — meaning a strictly partisan agenda. National service — to the man in the White House, and to his policies. Not service to the nation; not service to Liberty, nor to Democracy, nor to Mom, Apple Pie, and The Girl He Left Behind. “I pledge to serve Obama.” Something in us tells us that this is just wrong.

I’m just having a heck of a time grasping exactly what that is. What is the difference, I ask myself, between Obama calling for “an attitude of service” in this fashion, and, say, Ronald Reagan taking his cause to the airwaves to win the support of the people? Why do I find the latter profoundly American and satisfying, and the former, foreign and chilling?

When I said, two days ago, that ACORN’s core mission is a fraud, what I meant was that ACORN pretends to be non-partisan and non-profit so that it can use tax dollars to pursue a partisan agenda. This is against the law for a good reason. American politics has always attempted to create a firm barrier between governing and campaigning, with the understanding that allowing government to use public funds to engage in partisan campaigns is a form of tyranny — it forces taxpayers to spend their money for campaigns to which they have not agreed. Governors may put into practice whatever policies they can persuade the legislature to support and the courts to approve, and do it with public funds, but campaigning is to be done on the candidate’s own dime.

It has always concerned us, furthermore, that a government with the power to engage in propaganda could manipulate the public in such a way as to retain power and take away liberty. Free artists, advertisers, and writers are always welcome to participate in the public arena, of course, but we draw the line at government involvement. Presidents, Senators, Representatives, Department Secretaries, National Security Advisors — these are all expected to use their public platforms and their newsworthiness to advocate their particular policies in public, but they are most emphatically not encouraged to buy advertising to make that case, using public funds. There are laws against these things.

Both Yosi Sargent and Patrick Courrielche raised the image of government using art, TV, movies, images, media to shape the public mind. Courrielche correctly invoked Noam Chomsky’s term, “manufacturing consent.” We have a government based on the consent of the governed, and we value the free, public processes by which citizens are encouraged to find facts and make up their own minds. We deplore the trends that encourage citizens to make those crucial decisions on the basis of 10-second sound bites. What are we to say of a government-run, taxpayer-funded effort to manufacture consent for its policies? How can a people remain free when the government has the power to manufacture the basis for its own legitimacy?

For this reason, the fact that Armstrong Williams was paid by the Bush administration to talk up No Child Left Behind was troubling. Far too few conservatives raised objections to this — I plead guilty myself, here, I did not write about it but I recall making excuses — but if it was not frankly illegal, it was certainly a breach of an important barrier in the American psyche. We knew it was unacceptable. Fortunately, Williams also knew it was, and vowed never to do it again.

The complicity of the American news business with the Obama administration is a little bit different, but even more problematic. While advocacy for or against a particular policy or set of policies is expected, the people in question are expected to maintain a certain distance; they are not to become part of the political machine of the government. If they want to advocate in favor of a government policy with which they happen to agree, fine; that’s protected. But to take instructions from the government regarding what to report, or how, or when?

This is why President Bill Clinton’s use of media shills to front his policies was so disturbing. Cokie Roberts and Brian Williams are supposed to be independent of the government, that’s what makes them valuable. If they abandon both profit motive and professional commitments to Truth and Objectivity, and become instead servants of the government, or worse, servants of the man leading the government, the press can serve no useful purpose in a free society; it becomes merely a tool of tyranny. And of course, that is why the wholesale commitment of entire news organizations to the service of the Obama administration has been so frightening. The networks doing this deserve far worse than the mere obscurity they will obtain.

I do not believe I have ever heard, before the Obama administration, effort devoted to a partisan cause referred to as “public service,” except in the general sense that citizenship calls for active participation. For the administration to call “service” that which serves their partisan campaign, but to call “mob rule,” or “naziism,” or “hysteria,” or “hate,” that which opposes it, is to move a step closer to outlawing their opposition. It’s bad enough, but still acceptable within our system, when partisans of either side brand their opponents “evil,” and their own causes “good;” but Obama’s nomenclature makes it official. And it is this official branding of the opposition as “evil” that makes Obama’s exercise a rebuttal of democratic society. By doing so, Obama says “I do not choose to participate in the American system; I choose to end that system.”

Immediately I can hear partisans of the left demanding that I denounce the Bush administration for calling its critics irresponsible, in order to be fair. I will not. It is possible to debate and disagree with a policy without doing so in a manner that empowers the enemies of our armed forces engaged in battle. Some Democrats did this, and deserved no criticism, but many others crossed a bright, red line (not to mention violating the law) by publishing classified material and then broadcasting it around the world in such a way as to empower the men who were killing American soldiers. Worse than that, some Democrats deliberately engaged in activity to undercut the policy of duly elected officials, and to ruin the reputations of those elected officials in a clear attempt to foil their policies; this is one tiny step short of a coup d’etat. These are activities that go beyond what is permissible even in a free society. This is not legitimate advocacy.

Nor is the Obama NEA initiative legitimate advocacy. It is the death of a free society if it is permitted.

Patrick Corrielche ended his article with this excerpt from the conference call, along with his reaction:

And if you think that my fear regarding the arts becoming a tool of the state is still unfounded, I leave you with a few statements made by the NEA to the art community participants on the conference call. “This is just the beginning. This is the first telephone call of a brand new conversation. We are just now learning how to really bring this community together to speak with the government. What that looks like legally?…bare (sic) with us as we learn the language so that we can speak to each other safely… “

Is the hair on your arms standing up yet?

Puns aside, I was shocked and a little amazed when a commenter on a recent thread insisted that the only criminal behavior exhibited by ACORN has been from a handful of employees going overboard in collecting voter registrations. It appears that the mainstream press has succeeded in misleading at least one seemingly intelligent Democrat into ignoring a veritable flood of damning evidence. It’s not the first time.

I’ve said for years, and believe it to be profoundly true, that the proper definition of “Democrat” is “an American voter who still believes that what he reads in major newspapers and hears on television news programs is accurate.” Once a person has learned that the press is systematically lying to them in order to make them support their agenda, which is written for them by the Democratic party, they tend to find alternative sources for the truth — after which, it’s pretty difficult to remain a good Democrat.

So, for all you Democrats out there, and for Republicans and Libertarians who have not been keeping up with the evidence, here are a handful of pithy links that will apprise you of the fuller picture of the organization calling itself the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.

Notice that it is an association: there are actually more than 300 separate organizations in the network, all carefully organized in such a way as to defeat any efforts to penetrate the maze and understand how they interact. It’s actually a deliberately structured shell game that enables a group of people who describe themselves in their own internal documents as “central and indispensable to the Progressive enterprise of gaining and using political power” to present themselves to the IRS and the Federal Election Commission as a non-profit enterprise engaged in non-partisan efforts to register voters and obtain housing loans.

ACORN, in short, is a criminal enterprise.

Here are the opening paragraphs from the Staff Report of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform issued July 23, 2009, entitled “Is ACORN Intentionally Structured as a Criminal Enterprise?”

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) has repeatedly and deliberately engaged in systemic fraud. Both structurally and operationally, ACORN hides behind a paper wall of nonprofit corporate protections to conceal a criminal conspiracy on the part of its directors, to launder federal money in order to pursue a partisan political agenda and to manipulate the American electorate.

Emerging accounts of widespread deceit and corruption raise the need for a criminal investigation of ACORN. By intentionally blurring the legal distinctions between 361 tax-exempt and non-exempt entities, ACORN diverts taxpayer and tax-exempt monies into partisan political activities. Since 1994, more than $53 million in federal funds have been pumped into ACORN, and under the Obama administration, ACORN stands to receive a whopping $8.5 billion in available stimulus funds.

Operationally, ACORN is a shell game played in 120 cities, 43 states and the District of Columbia through a complex structure designed to conceal illegal activities, to use taxpayer and tax-exempt dollars for partisan political purposes, and to distract investigators. Structurally, ACORN is a chess game in which senior management is shielded from accountability by multiple layers of volunteers and compensated employees who serve as pawns to take the fall for every bad act.

The report, which is 88 pages long, goes on to document how ACORN has failed in its fiduciary responsibility to contributors and employees, violated IRS regulations, violated its own corporate charter, engaged in activities forbidden to not-for-profit enterprises, and engaged in voter registration fraud, embezzlement, and organizational mismanagement. You can read the report here. If you don’t want to wade through 88 pages, you can read the release from the Republicans on the House Oversight Committee here.

By the way, notice, at the end of the quote block, above, that designating a few employees to take the fall for the criminal behavior of the entire organization is actually a strategy.

Here’s a link to an article discussing a plea agreement made by a senior ACORN employee at the national level, in response to an indictment brought in Las Vegas, NV, indicating a nationwide conspiracy by directors of ACORN to engage in widespread voter registration fraud and illegal remuneration of registration workers.

Here’s a link to an article documenting that the instructions for the quota system that produced the “handful” of violations is actually in ACORN’s instruction manual that gets used nationwide. The author of this article is a former ACORN employee, and is not a Republican.

Here’s a link to an article citing previous ACORN involvement in union-related embezzlement and fraud.

Here is a discussion of ACORN’s corporation shakedown process, which I regard as a clear violation of the RICO statute.

ACORN was in fact begun as a spin-off from the National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO). The NWRO was created deliberately to overload the welfare system in an attempt to bring capitalism to its knees and instigate a revolution; that was the stated intent of the founders. ACORN’s conduct in voter registration makes an astonishing parallel; they don’t seem to be attempting to stuff the ballot box, but they do seem to be attempting to overload the system in such a way as to make it unworkable. The recent sting operation reported by Big Government blog reveals that they also do what they can to game the system for the benefit of illegals of various sorts. And, the core operation of the organization is itself a huge fraud: by creating a false front of voter registration and home loan counseling organizations, they obtain federal funds and tax exemption, which they then put to partisan, political purposes in a systematic fashion.

ACORN/Obama fusion image borrowed from Michelle Malkin. Ms. Malkin gives Photoshop credit to Leo Alberti, so I will, too.

UPDATE: I knew when I posted this that there would be lots of links that added bits of information, and I determined in advance that I was content with the sketchy details I’d provided. However, one reader added a link to the Cloward-Piven strategy put into play by the National Welfare Rights Organization, which was the organization from which ACORN spun off. This, I think, is crucial information regarding the organization, so I’m going to add the link here.

Read about the Cloward-Piven strategy at Smart Girl Politics (and your monitor will look like a gift for a baby shower, but that’s what you get for visiting a site called “Smart Girl Politics.” )

I’m also adding the link to my own article that explains President Obama’s connection to ACORN, for anyone that has not read it.

Today’s entry in the review of pre-Revolutionary sermons introduces the Great Awakener himself, George Whitefield, the premier preacher of the Great Awakening. He preached the sermon “Britain’s Mercies, and Britain’s Duty; Occasioned by the Suppression of the late Unnatural Rebellion” at the New Building in Philadelphia, in August of 1746.

The “late Unnatural Rebellion” to which he referred was the Jacobite rebellion of 1745, the attempt by Bonnie Prince Charlie, scion of the Stuart kings, to raise a rebellion in Scotland, with some minor help from the French. Charles had landed in Scotland, raised a small army, and beaten a roughly equivalent army of loyalists to secure a foothold; however, he’d thereafter been thrashed soundly, and had to flee to Ireland. Whitefield was exultant because the Stuart kings had, according to him, connections to Rome, and therefore were given to violence and barbarity and threatened to impose Catholicism and remove Protestant liberties (I cannot speak to whether this fear was sound or not). In their place on the throne were the Hanover kings, George II at that moment. Whitefield felt that King George was a model of toleration and wisdom, and that the British realm was the happiest and most free in the world under his leadership. It was his son, Mad King George III, against whom the colonies eventually rebelled and gained their independence.

Coincident with the suppression of the Jacobite rebellion, Britain and the colonies were also allies in the War of Austrian Succession (known in the colonies as King George’s War,) also involving enmity with France. That war was mostly fought in central Europe since it was primarily a land grab by Prussia against Austria (Britain was allied with Austria, and France with Prussia), but an unlikely band of colonials had recently captured a major French stronghold at Louisbourg, in Nova Scotia, and a French fleet sent to liberate it had been wrecked at sea. Britain’s involvement in the Austrian Succession war on the continent probably explains the momentary defeat of the loyalists in Scotland at the hands of the Jacobite rebels, since the experienced troops were all overseas.

Whitefield’s sermon used Psalm 105:45 as a text: “That they might observe His Statutes, and keep his Laws.” It’s an explanatory clause at the end of a recitation of God’s goodness to the family of Abraham, claiming that God’s purpose in being good to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and their descendants, was to encourage them to keep His commandments. Whitefield recited what he considered to be a similar set of Providential events, showing God’s favor on Britain and her colonies in the defeat of the Jacobites by British forces under the leadership of the young prince William, and really in the entirety of British history. On the basis of that Providence, he argues passionately for British subjects to devote themselves to keeping God’s commandments diligently.

The wonderful and surprizing manner of GOD’s bringing about a reformation in the reign of King Henry the Eighth — his carrying it on in the blessed reign of King Edward the Sixth — his delivering us out of the bloody hands of Queen Mary, and destroying the Spanish invincible Armada, under her immediate Protestant successor Queen Elizabeth — his discovery of the popish plot under King James — the glorious revolution by King William — and, to come nearer to our own times, his driving away four thousand five hundred Spaniards, from a weak (tho’ important) frontier colony, when they had, in a manner, actually taken possession of it — his giving us Louisbourg, one of the strongest fortresses of our enemies, contrary to all human probability, but the other day, into our hands (which may encourage our hopes of success, supposing it carried on in a like spirit, in our intended Canada expedition) — These, I say, with the victory which you have lately been commemorating, are such national mercies, not to mention any more, as will render us utterly inexcusable, if they do not produce a national reformation, and incite us all, with one heart, to observe GOD’s Statutes, and keep his Laws.

For our purposes, the most interesting feature is the connection in Whitefield’s mind between liberty and Protestant religion. To be sure, the liberty he values is mostly freedom from the influence and imagined tyranny of the Roman church (Catholicism), but it also includes the toleration of both political and religious conscience by the Crown. This is crucial to understanding the later introduction of the separation between church and state; Whitefield, like his later counterparts, had no notion of banning religion from public life, but simply of preventing an overbearing church hierarchy like Rome from controlling the government. Nearly all the later denunciations of religion by colonial writers of the period have such an overbearing hierarchy clearly in mind.

This sermon also illustrates the mindset of religious colonials in seeing the hand of God in the conduct of kingly policy, and in the fortunes of the nation. This was common for the time.

Whitefield was known for his spellbinding oratory, so it is likely that the impact of this particular sermon was greater than one might imagine upon reading it. University of Tennessee English Prof Michael Lofaro wrote of Whitefield that he “is central to the understanding of eighteenth century America. . . . The success of his itinerant ministry in the colonies indirectly hastened the break with England by increasing the number of dissenters and, by forming them into loosely affiliated, intercolonial, interdenominational ‘congregations,’ perceptibly encouraged American independence” (American Writers Before 1800, p. 1581, as cited in Sandoz, Ellis, ed., Political Sermons of the American Founding Era, 1730-1805, p.120). Clearly, though, Whitefield considered himself a loyal subject of the British Crown.

The image of George Whitefield preaching is from George Whitefield: a biography, with special reference to his labors in America; Belcher, Joseph; New York : American Tract Society; 1857.

I grabbed this from the .sig block of a reader over at RedState, and I’m not sure who the artist is, but it does capture the entire Democratic party mentality in one, brief clip. Click on the image for a larger version.