Good news
Wednesday, November 5th, 2008 By Mike Maurer
Sometimes the only thing worse than “no” is “yes.”
Congratulations to President-elect Obama.
It’s worth remembering that he has performed a great, great service to the country in ridding us of dominating Clinton influence. Richard Posner has a line about how lies are used, to the effect that the liar whom everyone knows is lying is the most damaging, because it “disparages the very notion of truth.” That was the Clintons all over. The most interesting thing about them was not them, but the willingness of important organs of society to tolerate them.
Obama hasn’t really lied to any greater degree than any politician does. Of course he played himself as much more moderate than he is, but that’s pretty standard. Indeed, it’s even good news for conservatives. We’ll certainly get our full dose of socialism, but it would have been much worse if he were running outright as a socialist. On the big issue, free market economics, the vocabulary and the ideas, which are the most important things, are still ours. The question is whether this is a dying ember or one that will reignite. Certainly it won’t burn again without serious work by serious people.
Congratulations to state Sen. Steve Stivers, who won the Pryce seat and will go to Congress. He’s a good person, an unusually good one, and it’s nice to see such a one go to such an institution.
Bad news for Ohio school choice. The Ohio House of Representatives is gone Democrat. Will the state senate be able to protect our children? I’d have to rate it as doubtful. Political action, parents and interest groups, might save those children, but the prospects are not good.
Tremendously good news that state Rep. Josh Mandell was returned. There are some free market, free individual elected officials left. He joins John Adams. Maybe the now minority Republicans will elect a principled conservative as their leader in Bill Batchelder. The cynical political strategists will be delighted or appalled by that possibility, depending on who is signing their checks, as they all believe principles are a sure route to failure. Never mind that they’ve been free riding on Ronald Reagan’s political capital for more than a quarter century.
We are about to see what socialism can bring us, with the only restraint being the socialists’ own fears of the weakness of their ideas and their views about how to lie to people-plus, one hopes, Americans’ belief in the individual. Astonishingly, McCain was tanked by a market collapse brought on by government, when he really should have been tanked by half a dozen other things. Just as astonishingly, though not surprisingly, government wasn’t blamed, but free choice was. We’re going to see a similar attack on health care, which is also largely socialized, but is discussed as if it is a free market. Government messes things up, and the fix is more government. Good luck on that spiral.
Well, back to the 1970’s it is. Reagan and Friedman are dead, but like Marx and Roosevelt, they’ll be back.
UPDATE: Of course it’s being reported now that the Ohio 15th race has not been decided, so congratulations to Sen. Stivers is premature.
