From my most recent NRO article, on the Obama administration’s remarkable overreach: “The battle between the big-government enforcers of a low-birthrate, materialistic, and anti-spiritual society with a deemphasized family, and the enlightened traditionalists who believe life is sacred and that the family should suffer less trespass from the overbearing secular state, could be reaching a political and societal climax. Neither Obama nor Santorum nor Romney is the ideal protagonist for such a mighty showdown, but the competing beliefs are the real combatants, and the administration’s position is much more fragile than it seemed to realize. Whatever happens, many will note the administration’s impulse, and the correlation of forces that caused it to backtrack so quickly.”
Whether you agree or disagree, your comments are, as always, most welcome.
Government enforces materialism?
I thought materialism was an outgrowth of successful free-markets and unbridled advertising.
You know, the very things Republicans habitually accuse Democratic administrations of stepping in the way of.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseGosh, Frank, that was trenchant . . . except that Lord Black, being an educated man, was referring to philosophical materialism . . . as in, Marx's "dialectical materialism," something a nice, totalitarian, cultural Marxist like you should be able to relate to.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThere's also the fact the free markets, being free, allow individuals to use their own discretion (dare I say, conscience?) to determine the level of materialism they wish to adopt.
When markets are rigged by the government freedom is the first casualty. Materialism is very nearly mandated: zero-sum economic assumptions pit one citizen against the other and encourage the politically connected to shift their costs to private individuals. A Hobbesian struggle for life's necessities, courtesy of grabby bureaucrats.
The government class has always shown more greed than the productive class. Just look at how the Democrat party treats market entrepreneurs (compared to how they treat political entrepreneurs).
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI hope the GOP continues to vignorously contest Obama on this issue, nominates Santorum for President, and formally becomes the party of Anti-Birth Control. That would accurately reflect the party today, and would surely be a winner in November.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIndeed
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMr. Black writes: "“The battle between the big-government enforcers of a low-birthrate, materialistic, and anti-spiritual society with a deemphasized family, and the enlightened traditionalists who believe life is sacred and that the family should suffer less trespass from the overbearing secular state,"
Talk about overblown rhetoric. The contraception rule doesn't require any individual, religious or not, to use contraception. This is about the power of the religious institutions, period. Dressing it up as an affront to individual, "enlightened traditionalists" is partisan and dishonest.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHHS solved itself a tricky political problem by declaring certain benefits free, ordering insurance companies to distribute them, and not allowing the cost to be passed on.
Pop-culture luminaries have nodded with approval, so let's apply that ingenuity to our fiscal problems: Order the major entitlement programs to continue distributing their benefits, declare them free, and eliminate the taxes and borrowing that are crushing our nation's health.
Surely, Doug Kmiec wants the poor to pay less taxes, right? Surely he thinks Obama's accounting methods are sound. What's the word they use? Sustainable.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseKind of odd that all of a sudden the liberals are silent about that "wall of separation" they are always trumpeting. Must only run one-way...
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseRe: “The battle between the big-government enforcers of a low-birthrate, materialistic, and anti-spiritual society with a deemphasized family, and the enlightened traditionalists who believe life is sacred and that the family should suffer less trespass from the overbearing secular state..."
I would offer that Santorum is the closest to being an enlightened traditionalist in the bunch. I would also offer that he appears to be the only one with the convictions and backbone to face the challenges.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseGood lord, such histrionics.
On one side, is Obama who wants to increase access to contraceptives. On the other side are Catholic women of reproductive age, 98% of whom already use contraceptives.
lol, what a battle!
In the mean time , Democrats and the white house cant believe their luck that Republicans are talking about contraceptives and abortion in the middle of a global economic crisis and looming war in Iran.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe study you are quoting from was of "catholic women of child-bearnig age TRYING TO AVOID PREGNANCY". Wow, a shocker that people trying to avoid pregnancy would use the very products intended to do so. AND in that study "contraception" methods included the rhythm method, which is not "a contraceptive" at all.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseObama wants to increase access to contraceptives with out people's money through organizations against contraception institutionally. An awful lot of the 98% contraceptive using women seem angry anyway.
And the president is hardly able to fix a global economic crisis, much less our national economic crisis, nor has he shown much ability to stymie Iran's quest for nuclear weapons. Israel and Pannetta are the sabre rattlers. So these issues hardly eclipse what the president's health care plan has done to people who object to it.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI love the way liberals assume that "access to" means someone else pays for.
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