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George Will explains Obama’s dependency agenda at CPAC 2010

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From Muddling Towards Maturity: George Will’s speech at the 2010 CPAC convention. He is a moderate conservative.

Part 1:

Topics: the conflict of freedom and equality, equal outcomes vs equal opportunities, wealth redistribution vs liberty, dependency on government, public sector vs private sector, cash for clunkers, state capitalism, credit, crony capitalism, subsidizing failure, TARP, profit and loss, risk, incentives, freedom to succeed or fail, cradle to grave welfare, SCHIP, socialized medicing, single payer health care, social security, medicare, vouchers, school choice, public education, public option, choice and competition, inter-state commerce.

Part 2:

Topics: health savings accounts, private property, stewardship and ownership, drug companies, health insurance, dependency agenda, entitlement mentality, lawsuits, trial lawyer lobby, tort reform, personal responsibility, stimulus, public and private sector wages and benefits, union payoffs, income tax, moral hazard, death tax, envy, farm subsidies, bureaucracy, schools vs families.

Here’s the graph he mentions of who pays for taxespays for taxes. High earners pay for everything and the low earners pay for nothing. High earners don’t depend on government but low earners do depend on government.

Part 3:

Topics: crisis as a means to enlarge government, manufacturing a crisis using massive deficits, environmentalism as a manufactured crisis, how bigger government means small individuals with less freedom, structure of american government, the founding fathers, free will, personal responsibility, small government.

By the way, many people are saying that Glenn Beck’s speech was the best of the conference. And you can watch it here at Caffeinated Thoughts. The best part starts at 25:25 minutes in where he explains being broke and turning his life around, and talking about the freedom to fail and personal responsibility.

UPDATE: ECM sent me this article about George Will’s appearance on ABC’s This Week.

Video:

Excerpt:

TERRY MORAN, HOST: There’s a sense that something is broken in Washington summed up this week by Senator Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) who announced his retirement. I think it’s fair to say he’s leaving in disgust. Here’s what he had to say.

SENATOR EVAN BAYH, (D-IND.): I have had a growing conviction that Congress is not operating as it should. There is much too much partisanship, and not enough progress. Too much narrow ideology, and not enough practical problem solving. Even at a time of enormous national challenge, the people’s business is not getting done.

MORAN: Is he right, George?
GEORGE WILL: Well, it’s hard to take a lecture on bipartisanship from a man who voted against the confirmation of Chief Justice Roberts, the confirmation of Justice Alito, the confirmation of Attorney General Ashcroft, the confirmation of Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State. Far from being a rebel against his Party’s lockstep movement, Mr. Bayh voted for the Detroit bailout, for the stimulus, for the public option in the healthcare bill. I don’t know quite what his complaint is, but, Terry, with metronomic regularity, we go through these moments in Washington where we complain about the government being broken. These moments have one thing in common: The Left is having trouble enacting its agenda. No one when George W. Bush had trouble reforming Social Security said, “Oh, that’s terrible – the government’s broken.”

News

John Stossel’s documentary about public schools and school choice

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Awesome: (41 minutes)

The documentary features Jay Greene, and his book “Education Myths”, which I recommend.

Here’s an article from Jay P. Greene in National Review.

Excerpt:

This year, when you hear President Obama and congressional Democrats talk about increasing government spending to create jobs, you should understand that it isn’t really about jobs. It’s about paying off powerful interest groups that helped these Democrats gain power — a fact that’s clear from the billions they’ve directed to education.

Last month, President Obama held a jobs summit, after which he urged Congress to spend some of the money being repaid by bailed-out banks on programs to address unemployment. The House of Representatives responded by drafting legislation that, according to the Washington Post, “provides $23 billion to help states pay teacher salaries.” The curious thing is that education has actually seen an expansion in payrolls over the last two years, while every other major sector of the economy (save health care) has seen huge job losses.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of people employed peaked in November 2007. Over the next two years, the private sector lost more than 7 million jobs. The construction industry lost more than 1.5 million jobs. Manufacturing lost more than 2 million jobs. The education-and-health-services category, however, added more than 900,000 jobs.

My previous post on education featured a video on school choice from the Cato Institute.

News

Parental rights under attack in Poland and Canada

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First, Poland, from Life Site News. (H/T Neil Simpson)

Excerpt:

A controversial bill that critics say would significantly infringe on the rights of parents to bring up their children according to their values has passed first reading in the Polish parliament.

Incorporated into the bill, titled “On the Prevention of Family Violence,” which deals with a variety of issues, is a clause that says, “It is forbidden for persons holding parental power over children to implement corporal punishment, cause psychological pain or to humiliate them in any other form.”

According to the Polish Labor and Social Policy Ministry guidelines, psychological violence includes, “making the child ashamed, imposing one’s own opinions on the child, criticizing the child continually, controlling the child, restricting the child’s social contacts,” as well as “criticizing the child’s sexual behavior.”

Furthermore, the bill would give social workers authority to take children from families if someone suspects parents are in contravention of these guidelines or if it is believed there is a danger they may in the future “harm” their children this in way.

This is really bad, especially for those of us who think that respectful disagreement about controversial is an important part of learning and growing. That’s what shopping malls are for: to buy presents to make up for all the frank disagreement! But there has to be the disagreement first, otherwise how can people really be honest with one another, and change their minds?

Then Canada, also from Life Site News. (H/T Neil Simpson)

Excerpt:

Public school children in Hamilton, Ontario will not be permitted to withdraw from classes that promote homosexuality, according to the Hamilton Mountain News. At the same time, according to a leaked document obtained by a local journalist, teachers are being instructed to tell parents who object to the curriculum that “this is not about parent rights.”

At the end of January, the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board (HWDSB) hosted a professional development day dedicated to “equity” training, where they distributed a sheet to teachers with “quick responses” they can offer to parents who object to the school board’s “anti-homophobia” curriculum.

That document was obtained by journalist Mark Cripps, and posted on the website of the Hamilton Mountain News. Cripps observes that the handout “basically indicates parents have no rights when it comes to their child’s education at the HWDSB.”

In addition, Cripps reports that, “The board says no child will be excused from the class when topics of homosexuality are brought into the classroom.”

The school board is developing a new equity policy, as required of all boards under the Ontario Ministry of Education’s equity strategy, announced last year. Among other things, the Ministry is requiring all boards, Catholic and public, to develop a plan for combating “homophobia.”

The sheet given to the HWDSB teachers specifies that teachers do not “condone” the removal of children from classes that deal with homosexuality.

This is the kind of thing that terrifies even marriage-minded men like me, who have been saving and preparing for marriage our entire lives. Can you imagine what would happen if my future children said the wrong thing in public and they were seized by the government? I don’t doubt for a second that some of Obama’s nominees would see nothing wrong with seizing children from parents who don’t agree with them on moral issues. Chai Feldblum and Kevin Jennings come to mind. Even government-run public schools are quite vicious in making sure that parents are forced to pay for secular-leftists schools so that they have no money left over to choose a school more suitable to the worldview of the parents.

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