Festivus: We're Back With an Axe to Grind

Dearest Reader,

As some of you may have noticed, while most of you have been blissfully ignorant, your favorite porcupine themed conservative blog has not posted in some time. Mortgages had to be paid, children had to be raised, and speaking for myself, there were fish in the streams and rivers around our nation’s capital that needed to be caught. This is not to say that John Dos Passos Dos and I don’t enjoy writing articles to lay out ‘the way we see it’ or, at times, to badger and ridicule one another through snarky and snide slights buried within an otherwise valid piece of opinion writing.

The goal of the PT was to bring a NeoCon and an anarchi…err…Libertarian together to lament about the lost soul of our beloved party by circumstance. As writers and editors we have lost sight of this.  In a temporary moment where I found myself both nostalgic and sentimental, and after one too many glasses of Blanton’s, I let John convince me that the PT was worth reviving.  That as writers and as men, we still had something to say.

Finding ourselves in a new year, just over a month out from December 23rd (better known as Festivus), I’m going to take a moment to channel my inner Frank Costanza and air my grievances:

1. The impeachment is neither important nor interesting.

   Our friends on the left thought they had Donald Trump with the Mueller investigation.  When the Mueller Report was released, it was a dud. Some things happened that were questionable, but all in all, nothing of substance to prosecute.  Instead of calling it a day and focusing on actually finding a candidate who could take on President Trump in 2020, the Dems doubled down. They brought forth impeachment hearings on some of the shakiest grounds imaginable (even by Swamp standards).

   
   This just solidifies that the Democratic Caucus is terribly outmatched when it comes to procedure. Sure they impeached the president, but what did they gain? In the weeks after the impeachment the reds got redder and the blues bluer. That just doesn’t win national elections. So realizing the dud they had on their hands, Nancy ‘The Clapper’ Pelosi decides that she is going to hold on to the articles of impeachment and delay their arrival to the upper chamber. Why? According to Pelosi, it’s because the Senate was unwilling to allow for witnesses.  In reality, it’s because she realized that Mitch McConnell is a master of procedural rules in the Senate and would scoot this whole matter along to a quick acquittal.

   
   After weeks of holding out Pelosi did what Democrats do best. She folded.  The House held a vote and the articles of impeachment have been delivered. The whole matter is a monumental waste of time. Trump will be acquitted. He will campaign on how the Dems did their best, but once again, no one can put Donny in a corner.

   
   To be clear, Trump is not a paragon of morality. We should not raise our children to use him as a compass for how to navigate life. His election and subsequent administration has been mired by controversy after controversy, many started by the man’s own twitter account. But what I’m getting at is that numerous presidents have committed impeachable offenses, their poll numbers were either high enough to avoid the matter or the lower chamber didn’t have the prerogative to initiate impeachment hearings.  The new Left’s beloved former leader Droney McPeaceprize (known by some as Barrack Obama) is among that list. Did he get congressional authorization for every use of force? Would his administration’s bumbling and obfuscation after the failed ATF plot ‘Fast and Furious’ not have qualified under the articles that Trump is being impeached? You may feel differently about the matter, but I see many similarities.

   
   My opinion is that we should just get rid of impeachments. It is an aspect of the constitution that has aged poorly. When written, term limits did not exist. Thanks to the public being sick of Franklin ‘Scoot After Any Skirt in the Room’ Roosevelt and his four terms as president, the congress ratified the 22nd amendment. Additionally, the impeachment proceedings are not about ‘protecting the Republic’ they are almost entirely politically motivated. Gerald Ford was at least being honest when, as leader of the House Republican Conference, he argued that high crimes and misdemeanors might as well be whatever a majority of the House of Representatives defined it to be, and would vote for.
   The whole process if flawed, the House of Representatives have proven to be ineffectual investigators ignoring or valuing certain evidence over others based on who is sitting in the Speaker’s chair. Let the people decide who serves as the head of state. And if we make a mistake…so be it.

2. Stop blaming the Bureaucracy. It all starts in Congress.

   Since the Carter administration, bureaucrats have become the de facto target of all “right wingers.” We say that are “lazy” or “unskilled.” Does the federal bureaucracy tend to vote for democrats? Yes. Do I blame them? No. When Woodrow ‘Just Make Me King Already’ Wilson was still a lowly academic at Bryn Mawr College, he wrote an essay, “The Study of Administration” wherein he laid out what would become a foundational treatise of what has become the field of public administration. He posited that the political administration and the bureaucratic administration should be wholly separated so as to ensure that the bureaucracy and uphold the fleeting political sentiments. To some, this is ‘classic King Wilson’, but he wasn’t advocating for the replacement of a citizen centric/rule by the governed system (at least not at that point). He believed that the bureaucracy needed to be manned by highly specialized individuals and function as a professional cadre with no allegiance to politics. Unfortunately both for the country and the bureaucracy, Wilson did not continue to hold these sentiments when he took office. He re-segregated the civil service and did everything in his power to bend government to his will.

   
   For my entire professional career I have worked in, with, and around the bureaucracy at every level of government. Many times drawing a salary funded by you, dear reader, as Joe Taxpayer. From early in my childhood I felt what, as a practicing and devout Catholic, I can only describe as a calling to an avocation which served the people and not simply the bottom line. In my time in the bureaucracy I can attest that parts of Wilson’s dream is still alive and well, I have had the pleasure of working with some incredibly hard working, intelligent (sometimes even brilliant), and wholly committed bureaucrats who care about their role and the work they produce and the people they impact.
   I will concede that the bureaucracy is too large and does need to be reigned in. But the culprit is not the bureaucracy itself or the bureaucrats manning their posts. The real target of our frustration is our own elected officials in Congress.  As we all know, it is Congress that wields the power of the purse. Every added agency, program, and hire is a direct result of a policy which has been passed by those chosen to represent the people. If there is one aspect of the current administration that I find myself continually impressed by, it is the willingness to trim some of the most burdensome regulations imposed by the previous administration, and more importantly oppose new regulations. This is one promise President Trump has delivered upon.

   
   In a June 2019 interim report, released by the Council of Economic Advisors, noted that the Trump administration has undertaken twenty federal deregulatory actions which would save American consumers and businesses a whopping $220 billion per year once they go into full effect. This action would raise real incomes by 1.3%.

   
   The issue is that it has become all too easy to blame the faceless bureaucracy, the men and women in the gray flannel suits who clock in every morning and fulfill the statutory requirements of the laws passed by our legislature. What many fail to come to terms with is that as conservatives we tend to write off demographics as “unwinnable”. Inner-city? Unwinnable. Youth vote? Unwinnable. Government employees? Unwinnable.  We need to not only extend the olive branch (not stopping the constant attack) and start recruiting, and dare I say it, forcibly taking over. We should encourage our youth to serve our nation’s civil service. The best and brightest can serve their nation by taking their principled approach to government and holding a seat at the table when it comes to designing the application and administration of the policy.

3. A New Party of Ideas…Maybe Even a Compromise

   I have never understood the self-righteousness and pride of our elected officials for their record of voting ‘no’. There are entire congressional careers which have been filled with the ‘no’ vote with very few original ideas coming out of their respective office. We must stop deifying the hard liners and recognize that their stances will net few returns for our causes. Numerous members who share our distaste for a government run healthcare system have voted ‘no’ (as they should have, it is a very bad idea), but the GOP’s answer/alternative has been lacking. We can’t hope to win the hearts and minds of the coveted middle 50% of America without bringing something of value to the table. The party that fails to innovate has little hope of surviving. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather the GOP didn’t go the way of the Whigs.

   
   I see only one alternative to rectify our current course. Our legislature must actually do its job the way the founders intended. There is a reason why the House and Senate are set up in Article I; they are the big show. They were supposed to be the bold who guided our nation through well thought out policy which was poignant for the times (a representative only has two years to get things done before facing reelection) and responsible (a senator enjoys six years of comfort before being made to account for their sins…er…actions). Our elected representatives must, in no uncertain terms, craft policy. Not just any policy, but passable policy that can make it through committee and onto the floor. Then they must put in the same effort to build consensus not only within the GOP, but across the aisle. If we stop being the party of opposition, we can be the party of inspiration. That is the goal, the gold standard, and the epitome of what it means to be a public servant.

The New Abolitionist Imperative

As the drama of Virginia Governor Ralph “Coonman” Northam, abortion enthusiast and racist moonwalker, continues to unfold, the revelation of seemingly multiple incidents of past racism have entirely overshadowed his abhorrent abortion comments. While every aspect of the Northam ordeal deserves discussion (WFB Jr. Jr. does a great job doing so here), it is truly unfortunate that after a fleeting moment of national attention and discussion, the world’s leading cause of death fell yet again to the background.

Brushing aside the abortion conversation is nothing new: newly announced 2020 independent presidential candidate Howard Schultz recently did exactly that while appearing on the View, stating “I think the most important thing facing the country right now is not the issue of abortion or the cultural issues that divide us.” But relegating abortion to a “cultural” or, as is likewise common, “social” issue is about as reasonable as describing America’s history of slavery in the same terms. While many balk at drawing parallels between slavery and abortion, the similarities are often unavoidable and this case is no exception: the abysmal practice, once condoned and protected legally (the justification of which hinging on pseudoscientific arguments, such as phrenology, that denied the humanity of an entire subset of people) cannot be viewed as a minor “cultural issue” for which differences of opinion are valid and acceptable.

It was for this reason that a large portion of the Whig Party in the mid-1800’s defected and formed the Republican Party: there was a scientific and moral imperative to abolish slavery, and they recognized it. So to now with abortion. While the pro-choice movement has shamed pro-lifers into softening language and has reframed the argument into a women’s health issue, the fact that as a nation we are condoning and legally protecting the mass killing of preborn lives is every bit as morally and scientifically indefensible as slavery; as with founding father slaveholders, it is this barbarism which will plant an asterisk by the accomplishments of today’s leaders and thinkers when looked upon historically. As such, there exists now a new abolitionist imperative to end this practice.

When viewed through a lens of intellectual honesty and objectivity, the scientific arguments for where a life begins are unassailable. Conception is the earliest stage of human growth, at conception all of required characteristics of life as defined biologically are met, and conception is the point at which a unique set of human DNA is created. The science is clear: life begins at conception, regardless of how one may feel about that fact.

Though on the surface it seems paradoxical, this case has been articulated by Peter Singer, one of the best known voices for abortion rights. In an interview with the San Francisco Review of Books, Singer stated “My view of when life begins isn’t very different from that of opponents of abortion. It isn’t unreasonable to hold that an individual human life begins at conception. If it doesn’t, then it begins about 14 days later, when it is no longer possible for the embryo to divide into twins or other multiples.” In the same interview he dismissed viability as being a suitable metric in this conversation, as it “varies with the state of medical technology, and for that reason doesn’t seem a good place to draw a line.”

Singer justifies abortion by applying the philosophical concept of “personhood” as being different than being a human being. Because Singer holds this view from an intellectually honest perspective, he cannot define an unborn human as not having achieved the standards of “personhood” and also make the claim an infant has, arguing that “the fact that a being is a human being, in the sense of a member of the species Homo sapiens, is not relevant to the wrongness of killing it; it is, rather, characteristics like rationality, autonomy, and self-consciousness that make a difference. Infants lack these characteristics. Killing them, therefore, cannot be equated with killing normal human beings, or any other self-conscious beings. This conclusion is not limited to infants who, because of irreversible intellectual disabilities, will never be rational, self-conscious beings. We saw in our discussion of abortion that the potential of a fetus to become a rational, self-conscious being cannot count against killing it at a stage when it lacks these characteristics - not, that is, unless we are also prepared to count the value of rational self-conscious life as a reason against contraception and celibacy. No infant - disabled or not - has as strong a claim to life as beings capable of seeing themselves as distinct entities, existing over time”.

While I profoundly disagree with Singer regarding abortion and infanticide, he is among the few that follow this “personhood” distinction to its only logical conclusion. Singer has taken much criticism for this position, but I would argue that this is the only logical pro-choice position. If you consider yourself to be pro-choice, but are uncomfortable with infanticide or even with denying that an infant is a person, you are holding an inconsistent position.

This line of thinking would seem to be the ideological origin of the recently passed bill in New York and with the proposed bill in Virginia. Polling has consistently shown that Americans overwhelmingly do not support the concept of late term abortions, and it should follow that most Americans would then be uncomfortable (to say the least) with the idea of infanticide. Most pro-choice positions, then, are rooted in ill-conceived, ill-defined, or outright intellectually dishonest logical origins. An example is the completely disingenuous nonsense abortion stance peddled by the likes of Senator and former Vice-Presidential nominee Tim Kaine, who describes himself as being personally opposed to abortion, but politically pro-choice:

If abortion were not the ending of a life, there is absolutely no reason to be “personally opposed”; in fact, I would be personally for it: I have a wife, a daughter, and five younger sisters who know and will always know well that I would never presume to be more capable or equipped of making decisions about their lives than any of them are and moreover I would never have a desire to do so.

But the science makes it clear that each abortion is the ending of a life. Singer, one of the most important ethical thinkers of our time and ardent abortion supporter, makes it clear that there is no personhood line that doesn’t likewise apply to killing infants. And it is universally agreed upon, across creed and culture, that the murder of innocent life is inherently wrong. At this time, there is no fight more worthy, no fight more necessary, than the fight to save the millions of innocent lives being taken every year in our country. This is the right side of history.

- John Dos Passos Dos

More Than Egg On His Face: The Fall of Ralph Northam

What a week it has been in my favorite commonwealth, Virginia.  Politics and partisanship run deep in the Old Dominion, but for the most part, it tends to be governed with a light touch and Richmond tends to stay out of the national spotlight.  As the old saying goes, “when it rains, it pours”.  Virginia has been treated to a back-to-back political spectacle usually only reserved for the commonwealth’s role as a bell weather for now larger downstream elections will pan out.

On Tuesday, House Bill No. 2491 was debated and subsequently went viral on social media.  Similar to the recently passed, Reproductive Health Act, the bill would have reduced restrictions on and allowed later term abortions.

As can be seen in the heated debate between Delegates Kathy Tran and Todd Gilbert, Tran concedes that the bill would allow for an abortion to be performed through the third trimester.  Delegate Gilbert seeks clarification as to whether the abortion can be performed until the end of the third trimester, Tran replies “Yep. I don’t think we have a limit in the bill.”

Seeking to back up his party’s agenda to loosen restriction and expand late-term abortions, Governor Ralph Northam proceeded to add fuel to the fire during a radio interview on Wednesday where he described a hypothetical situation where an infant who is unlikely to survive after birth could be left to die without any attempt to resuscitate the infant.  After the interview many were left dumfounded wondering whether a sitting governor, and trained medical professional, had condoned infanticide.

While this could provide ample ammunition for a full length piece about the evolution of the pro-life movement in the United States and the recent rash of pro-choice legislation making its way through state houses recently – Hint, hint, to my esteemed co-editor John Dos Passos Dos, it’s getting a little lonely on this site without you – the primary focus of this article is about what came up just days later and what is likely to lead to the unceremonious fall of Governor Ralph Shearer Northam.

Just days after putting his foot squarely in his mouth, the conservative blog, Big League Politics released a piece which shows Governor Northam’s 1984 yearbook from his time at the Eastern Virginia Medical School.  The yearbook displays what one would expect to see on any red-blooded American man’s page: a dapper photo in a jacket and tie, a laidback picture in jeans and a cowboy hat, and a picture with a fast car.  What has stood out and caused the Governor’s second ‘doggonit’ of the week is a final picture of two young men – one in blackface the other dressed a member of the Ku Klux Klan – drinking beers.  That’s right.  Let that sink in.

To add further context to this photo, just two years later, former Governor Douglas Wilder would be sworn in as the first African American Lieutenant Governor of Virginia.  This picture didn’t take place in a time “before they knew any better”.  The excuse “it was a different time back then” doesn’t holds water.  Northam has graduated from the Virginia Military Institute, commissioned in the Army, and was in his last year of medical school.  He most certainly should have known better.

Initially, Ralph Northam released an apology video on Friday where he confirmed that he was indeed in the photo (though he did not state which costume was his) and stated that he was deeply sorry for the decision he made to appear in the photo and for the hurt that he has caused both then and now.

Since that apology, and presumably after watching the 2000 instant classic “It Wasn’t Me” by Shaggy, Northam has reversed course and is now stating that he was not in the picture.  Supposedly, he had “reflected with family and classmates from that time” which affirmed his conclusion that he was not either of the people in the photograph.  He also came out and admitted that though he was not the person in blackface in the yearbook photo, he had attended a party that year which he “darkened” his face as part of a Michael Jackson costume.  For an added cringe, here is Governor Northam having to be told by his wife, Pam Northam, that a press conference responding to racist photographs isn’t the time nor the place to show the press corps that he can still moonwalk.

Make no mistake, the Northam ship is sinking. The Democratic Party of Virginia released a tweet on Saturday morning stating “We made the decision to let Governor Northam do the correct thing and resign this morning – we have gotten word he will not do so this morning”.  Major national players within the Democratic party have also joined in calling on Governor Northam to resign, including Crooked Hillary, the dancing machine AOC, and Virginia’s creepy uncle Tim Kaine.

While it does the heart good to see major political figures on the Left not partake in the hypocrisy, as we have come to know them for, there are still cronies who are comparing Governor Northam’s yearbook to now Associate Supreme Court Justice, Brett Kavanaugh’s infamous yearbook.  There is just one difference.  Brett “I like beer” Kavanaugh wasn’t in blackface or in a Klan robe. If he had been, he wouldn’t be an Associate Justice. Kyle Smith, from The National Review, wrote an excellent piece which further shows how any comparison between the two is indefensible.

As stated previously, at this time, Governor Northam has no plans on resigning his office.  He continues to reiterate how sorry he is for the hurt he has caused but is unwilling to accept the personal responsibilities and consequences of his office. The once easy going, gentile, Southern Democrat’s reputation has been ruined and he is now unable to lead the state.  I’d like to bid farewell to Governor Ralph “Coonman” Northam, dedicated racist and infanticide enthusiast, Virginia deserves better.

- William F. Buckley Jr. Jr.

Likeability is Not About Gender

On Thursday, while a video (released Wednesday by an apparently extraordinarily misguided QAnon-affiliated Twitter account) of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez dancing as a high schooler reenacting the famous dance scene from The Breakfast Club went viral, a slew of articles (here, here, here, and here, but there are many more) arrived with more or less the same thesis: the concept of “likability” is sexist and that the term “unlikable” is reserved for competent and qualified female candidates, rarely applied to their male counterparts, largely written in response to Politico article from Monday discussing Elizabeth Warren’s ability to overcome “likability” concerns (here).

It is true that “likability” should not be a major consideration in determining whether a candidate should be President of the United States; Article II of the Constitution says nothing about “likability” (frankly, much of the modern presidential role is absent from Article II as well, but that’s a different discussion). But elections are decided by the more activated base and/or the swing votes. Is the party loyalist who doesn’t always vote going to be more likely to be energized by charisma or by a bore? Will the not very political, undecided voter who votes with the gut be swayed by the drone or the inspired? Should is nice, but my should president is Silent Cal, and the man would be unelectable today.

The results of this can be seen when looking at almost any modern presidential election, going back at least to Richard Nixon sweating next to the charismatic, handsome, and youthful John F. Kennedy in the 1960 Presidential Debate. Consider Bubba playing sax on The Arsenio Hall Show vs. the older, prudent Bush 41. Consider Dubya, the man everyone wanted to drink a beer with, who met Laura in a backyard barbecue and, love at first site, married her three months later vs. the robot or the smug guy who married into a ketchup fortune. How about the young and effortlessly cool, gifted orator and community organizer from humble beginnings?

At the risk of writing what could be construed as a puff piece about a politician whose politics I absolutely abhor, here are some subjective statements that are about as inarguable as opinion can be: the aforementioned viral video of Rep. Ocasio-Cortez is absolutely endearing. Beyond the video, she is charismatic and charming. She is relatable, with her down-to-Earth, mixed bag childhood and adolescence, her leaked bartending pictures, and her finger-on-the-Millennial-pulse tweets. She has moxie. She is, in a word, likeable.

 Another subjective, but inarguable statement: Hillary Clinton could not be more different. Her speeches are tortuous. The various affectations she accrues to pander to this crowd or that reek of inauthenticity. She can’t seem to help coming off as condescending and arrogant, even to her supporters. Her entire demeanor is that of someone who feels entitled to the Presidency and is expecting coronation. Of course, Hillary and Trump were both historically disliked, but as concisely as can be stated, Hillary was disliked in the wrong places and that is why she lost (the most accurate assessment of why she lost was actually written before she lost by, of all people Michael Moore. There is much to take issue with in the assessment, but it is certainly more accurate of an assessment than anything in Clinton’s full book of excuses, which is incidentally the type of book an unlikable person writes).

It is unfortunate that the first major female candidate for president was someone as utterly unlikeable as Hillary Clinton. But while “likability” is unlikely to be a good metric by which to judge a presidency, it is certainly a good metric, if a bit intangible, for predicting the winner of a presidential election. And this is why “likability” is worth talking about.

The Elizabeth Warren defenders behind the barrage of “likability is sexist” articles would have perhaps made better use of their time making the case for Warren’s likability, rather than jumping to bias accusations. Warren is certainly more likeable than Clinton (a low bar, but she clears it easily), though she isn’t AOC-level likable. Warren’s main problems are her disastrous genetic test reveal, her “Pocahontas” nickname (easily the best Trump has devised), and her extremely radical left-wing policy stances. But as far as likability goes, she has a backstory (if she can get away from the Native American stuff), can give a decent speech, and comes across as an actual human person. In the words of Obama in 2008, she’s “likeable enough”.

- John Dos Passos Dos 

Make Comedy Great Again

A recent 50 minute set from comedian Louis C. K. has leaked on Twitter and roughly two minutes of it have sent Twitter into yet another outrage frenzy. During portion in question, Louis C.K. pokes fun at the idea of being told to refer to individuals by the plural pronouns “they” and “them,” and at the seriousness and prominence of the Parkland school shooting survivors. He does not mention the Parkland students specifically, but is almost certainly referring to them when he talks about teens testifying before Congress and when he states “you went to a high school where kids got shot, why does that mean I have to listen to you? Why does that make you interesting? You didn't get shot. You pushed some fat kid in the way and now I gotta listen to you talking?”

None of this is really constitutes uncharted territory for Louis C. K., who built his entire career on jokes of this nature: for the unfamiliar, his rise to fame was filled with envelope pushing, whether discussing having sex with dead children or describing in extreme detail graphic sexual acts, and made frequent use of words such as “N****r” and “F****t” (see literally any Louis C. K. set for examples). Before Louis C. K.’s fall from grace following the 2017 sexual misconduct allegations against him, he had become one of the most prominent and highest paid comedians in the world, and yet very rarely (if ever) found himself in the “hot water” of the humor police. So make no mistake: the outrage following these most recent jokes is not about the jokes themselves, but rather about the man himself.

More discussion on the events that transpired and on the requirements for his path to redemption would surely be useful, as would a deeper dive on the broader and age old “art vs. artist” debate (for my part, if you’re able to retroactively dismiss and stop watching “Annie Hall,” “American Beauty,” and “Chinatown,” et al, then more power to you, but I’m not there myself). But for the sake of argument, let’s pretend this was actually about the jokes.

It’s easy to dismiss “low” and “crass” comedy as sophomoric and dumb, but some of the world’s great art is littered with it. Mozart was a big on scatalogical humor (so much so that there is an entire Wikipedia page dedicated to the topic, found here). And I don’t know that it would be unreasonable to say that about 75% of Chaucer is dick and fart jokes (in fact, that director Pier Paolo Pasolini understood this is what made his 1972 version of “The Canterbury Tales” such a delight). The outrageous and unsafe can, in fact, be funny. Moreover, it can poignant in a way that the safe and conventional cannot.

Throughout his career, Louis C. K. has sought to do this: nearly every joke he has made, no matter how crude, how vulgar, seeks to act as a kind of commentary. These jokes are no exception. While most have taken the path of least resistance and commented on the surface level “offenses,” there are questions in these jokes that deserve consideration. Despite the references to the non-binary gender crowd and Parkland survivors, the jokes aren’t about them; Louis C. K. wants to know about a much broader group, a new royalty that creates and enforces the new rules of social etiquette and conduct. He wants to know who they think they are and from where they believe this power comes.

As Sonny Bunch of Washington Free Beacon put it in 2015 (Policing Comedy and Defining Terms of Debate) “When we decide what others are allowed to joke about, we decide what is allowed to be discussed, period. It narrows the terms debate”. Like a self-fulfilling prophecy, this new royalty has called foul, as if on cue. If we continue to outline content parameters for comedians, not only will comedy cease to be funny, it will also cease to matter.

 - John Dos Passos Dos