by Will Wilkinson

Remember America’s can-do, point man in the war on drugs, the so-called “Drug Czar?” Well, if you like czars, you’ll love President-elect Barack Obama. He’s proposing a new “technology czar,” he’s considering a “climate czar,” and he’s even floated the idea of a “car czar.”

In tough times like these, America does not need a dose of tragic Russian authoritarianism. America does not need more czars.

Did you know that the Constitution does not mention czars even once? I know, weird. The president’s cabinet is composed of heads of various executive offices. These offices, like the Department of Education, are generally proposed by the president and approved by Congress. But the president can create new sub-cabinet-level offices more or less at will—which is where most so-called “czars” dwell.

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Duncan’s efforts have largely amounted to pouring new wine into old bottles with little to show for them.” In other words, counterfeit. 

And here’s a quote from the Investor’s Business Daily editorial. 

“Duncan also had ties to the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, founded and financed through the efforts of ex-Weather Underground terrorist William Ayers. Ayers saw the CAC as a chance to radicalize Chicago public school teachers and students.”

And currently only 17% of eighth graders can read at an 8th grade level in Chicago schools overseen by Arne Duncan, the Obama education secretary designee. 

“In 2007, only 17 percent of eighth graders tested at or above grade level in reading in Chicago Public Schools—the school system administered by Arne Duncan since 2001.
Students in eighth grade are those most likely to have been in the Chicago system for a majority of Duncan’s tenure.”

CNSNews.com used the scores for these students to best determine the results of Duncan’s administration.

And what the president I think is trying to accomplish is a psychological stimulus package. -New York Governor David Patterson

Slight of hand….misdirection….occuring only in the mind…that’s what liberals are best at…dreams and fairytales.

It’s somewhat reminiscent of Jimma Carter’s “Crisis of Confidence” Speech in 1979. He “feels your pain” and ” shares your dreams” -This is just a different psychological stimulus package from another liberal loser.

It didn’t work in ‘79.’ It won’t work now.

From Bill Moyer’s interview with New York Governor David Patterson.

BILL MOYERS: You and other governors met with President-elect Obama in Philadelphia recently to talk about this budget crisis. But to help you and the other 42 states that are in such trouble, he’s going to have to go deeply into debt at a time when we’re suffering a crisis because of debt.

GOVERNOR DAVID PATERSON: I think that that is a seeming paradox. But the way I would explain it is that medications you’d never take when you’re well but you take them when you’re sick to help you get well but then you know you can’t keep doing it.

In other words, there’s a point that some of the conservative governors, Governor Sanford of South Carolina, they’re right that there’s a well.

And there’s a point that if you just keep spending and you just keep borrowing, you’re going be in a further crisis.

And what the president I think is trying to accomplish is a psychological stimulus package.

When you see people working again repairing bridges and building train tracks, when you see the dollar available to spend again, then the economy will grow and we can go back to I think a far more pragmatic governing principal.

Obama using the potency of the presidential bully pulpit and the media to convince Americans that up is down, left is right, the earth is flat and gravity—really, truly, cross-their-hearts—simply doesn’t exist.

Why? As she told a Florida reporter on a YouTube video that has been viewed by hundreds of thousands:

“Because I never thought this day would ever happen. I won’t have to worry about putting gas in my car. I won’t have to worry about paying my mortgage. You know. If I help [Obama], he’s gonna help me.”

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Recent data suggests that many borrowers who received help with mortgage modifications earlier this year tended to re-default on their payments, a top U.S. banking regulator said on Monday.

“The results, I confess, were somewhat surprising, and not in a good way,” said John Dugan, head of the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, in prepared remarks for a U.S. housing forum.

“Put simply, it shows that over half of mortgage modifications seemed not to be working after six months,” he said.

From Lance Haynie’s Site

And the accused won’t be able to look to the Supreme Court for help: Anthony Kennedy’s “evolving standards” of justice will evolve to match the new “spirit of the time,” providing a 5-4 majority for the administration.

Meanwhile, of course, Obama’s other appointments will be filling up the rest of the U.S. district judiciary at a rapid clip, with nobody able to stop them.

And, of course, the cheerleading media wil enthusiacticall back all of these lefty maneuvers.

It’s all in the name of one-man/one-vote democracy, dontcha know?

Soft tyranny is an idea first coined by Alexis de Tocqueville in his 1835 work entitled Democracy in America.

In effect, soft tyranny occurs whenever the social conditions of a people hinder any prospect of hope among its members, with soft tyranny comes hope lost and freedom lost for the individual and a movement for the good of the collective.

C.S. Lewis in his work “The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment” expresses that this soft tyranny is the most oppressive because we as a people are tormented day and night for our own good.

“Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies.

The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” -C.S. Lewis from “The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment.” 

I believe President Obama on January 20, 2009 with the power of his pen will increase the power of the State over the individual implementing a soft tyranny.

Out of this tyranny is a government that believes that it must decide what’s in the best interest of their citizens, as opposed to the people themselves. -LEX REX

The Next Right

The answer to the strategy question of “How can the FairTax be enacted?” is both simple and hard: one Congressional district at a time with each step forward reinforcing the grassroots works of others.

The larger answer is that only the full participation of the American body politic has the power to overcome the entrenched interests in Washington, D.C. that surround the income tax system.

The good news–and bad news– is that the benefits of the income tax system are largely confined to those in and around Congress while the disadvantages and destructive effects of direct taxation affect the entire nation.

Implicit in such strategy questions are two more fundamental questions: can the many overcome the politically powerful few and, most significantly in my view, does our form of democracy still work when the majorities’ interest requires change by the political elite?

The FairTax is, seen in this light, is nothing less than a test of the fundamental promise of the Framer’s vision of a representative democracy. 

Even the potential of the FairTax to solve the current economic crisis by restoring consumer confidence, allowing distressed home owners the increased take home pay to satisfy mortgage obligations and attract a predicted $10-$15 trillion of foreign investment into our economy does not trump the power and profit motives of income tax system defenders.

Fairtax.org