Tag Archives: Lyndon Johnson

Strictly Right Radio episode 75

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Strictly Right is back for a new year of cutting edge conservative analysis. On this episode, Ari takes a look at the incoming House GOP, the move to repeal Obamacare, the failures of big government, and some acts from the theater of the absurd. All that and more on the first Strictly Right of 2011.

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“Most Productive” Congresses are the Worst Kind of Congresses

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With the 111th Congress finally out of Washington, the Left’s toadies in the media are all pushing the same talking point: that the ousted Congress was the “most productive Congress since the Great Society”:

Is a productive Congress supposed to be a good thing? The 111th Congress was very busy, passing horrendous legislation that the vast majority of people opposed – that is why Nancy Pelosi is no longer the Speaker of the House.

‘Productive’ Congresses have been the greatest bludgeon used against liberty. The Hundred Days of the 73rd Congress, often cited as the most ‘productive’ Congress in history, was quite possibly the most harmful 100 days in American history. In just 100 days, Congress rammed through much of President Roosevelt’s New Deal, among the worst and most damaging legislation ever passed.

Likewise, the 89th Congress, which passed the bulk of President Johnson’s Great Society, is often praised for their ‘productivity.’ Is the government ever going to read us the score from the Great Society? Instead of ending poverty, the government scheme fostered dependence degradation. In fact, the Great Society played a seminal role in the destruction of minority families.

In contrast, the 52nd United States Congress, which sat for 13 months in their two year term, passed little of note. They weren’t concerned with “spreading the wealth around,” there was no imposition of “fairness,” and there was no debate over “tax cuts for the rich” because there was no income tax (and the sky didn’t even fall).

In the 1920s the government controlled 2 per cent of Gross Domestic Product. A law was passed limiting the height of buildings in Washington D.C. because government officials were worried that tall buildings would emphasize the irrelevancy of the government. If only we still had that ‘problem.’

With Obamacare passed, the government is poised to takeover 6 per cent of the economy in one fell swoop. ‘Productive’ should not be a compliment when applied to Congress. In fact, ‘productive’ is probably the worst thing a Congress can be. The last thing a Congress should do is hurry through masses of legislation, especially bills that no one has read.

Rather than ‘productive,’ Congress should be prudent. Every bill should be carefully considered, with arguments from all sides given voice. Elected officials should only vote on a bill when all alternatives have been considered. If that means less legislation is passed, all the better. Bring on a ‘do nothing’ Congress – for about the next hundred years.

Afghanistan: There is no Substitute for Victory

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From the time Allied boots set foot in Afghanistan, pundits have been eager to draw comparisons between the wars ins Afghanistan and Vietnam. The most common refrain is that just like Vietnam, Afghanistan is an unwinnable war. In reality, that is the wrong conclusion. In fact, Vietnam was absolutely a winnable war, and in fact was won, for a time. Likewise, Afghanistan is also a winnable war. However, the two wars do share some commonalities.  The most striking similarity between Afghanistan and Vietnam is the criminal incompetence of the Democratic Party.

One of the most often used quotes about war comes from William Tecumseh Sherman, who said “war is hell.” Going to war is always a difficult decision, yet sometimes it is a necessary one. In his farewell address before the Congress, General Douglas MacArthur explained:

I know war as few other men now living know it, and nothing to me is more revolting.…

But once war is forced upon us, there is no other alternative than to apply every available means to bring it to a swift end.

War’s very object is victory, not prolonged indecision.

In war there is no substitute for victory.

General MacArthur made those remarks after he was relieved of duty for expressing his frustration that the President would not allow him to win the Korean War in 1951. Sadly, his remarks fell upon deaf ears. America’s next major military confrontation came in the jungles of Vietnam. There, under President’s Kennedy and Johnson, the United States military was severely shackled, once again not allowed to win.

Under President Johnson, most famously, the United States subscribed to the idea of ‘limited war.’ The ‘whiz kids,’  a group of highly educated liberals with no military experience, who ran the Defense Department, did not believe in ‘victory.’ Instead, the Johnson administration sought to ‘communicate’ with the Vietnamese through a series of contracted military engagements, with no intention of obtaining outright military victory. While this view may seem enlightened in the West, it was seen as weakness in the East. The Vietnamese communists knew all they had to do was out-wait the Americans and they would win. Until Nixon took over, the American military was forced to fight a war that was only unwinnable because of the constraints put upon them by an incompetent president.

Picture that – a group of over-educated liberals ignoring military advice, refusing to state that victory is the objective, turning a war into a quagmire. Hard to believe.

There are two real lessons people should take from Vietnam. First, let the military win. The United States military could win, if only politicians would allow them too. It is entirely unacceptable for politicians to declare wars, then constrain the military. The Lemay doctrine should always be employed:

“a nation should think long and hard before it goes to war. But once that decision is made, then that nation should be willing to hit the enemy with every conceivable weapon at its disposal to end the conflict as quickly as possible. If a nation is not willing to do that, it should not go to war in the first place.”

(Lemay: The Life and Wars of General Curtis Lemay, p.96-97)

Any time this doctrine is not used, the result is a disaster. It was not used in Korea, it was not used in Vietnam and it has not been used in Afghanistan. It is time for President Obama and his whiz kids to get out of the way. If Afghanistan is the “good war,” as Obama and the Democrats said throughout the 2008 election season, than the only acceptable conclusion to the war is victory. However, when asked, President Obama said, “victory” is not necessarily the goal in Afghanistan.

Over the weekend, Peggy Noonan wrote in the Wall Street Journal that the McChrystal controversy has forced us to focus on Afghanistan. With his renewed focus, President Obama should examine what General MacArthur said, that, “in war there is no substitute for victory,” and allow General Petraeus to craft his strategy around that principle.
The second lesson is much simpler – Democrats should never be put in a position of public trust. They are weak, arrogant, and incompetent – a lethal combination.

'4/20'

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In case you have a job, family or modicum of self-respect, you may not be aware that yesterday, April 20th, was ’4/20′ – a day celebrated by the unemployed, university students and other core Democratic constituencies, wherein marijuana is smoked en-masse. Around the world, April 20th has become a day that celebrates lawlessness, immaturity and downright stupidity. The numbers are staggering; in Boulder alone 12,000 – 15,000 people gathered to smoke drugs in public. Pictures from the Daily Mail show what we have come to:

These people are actually out in public advertising that they are drug users. The next picture is of a child participating in the ‘festivities’

How old could that child possibly be? Where are his parent(s)? Today the traditional Judeo-Christian values that have made Western civilization the greatest civilization in human history are under assault every day from the relentless left.  They want to chase all religion out of the public square, and replace it with their sick moral relativism that is founded upon the notion that “if it feels good, do it.”

Many of today’s problems stem form a leftwing socialist welfare state that destroys the family. The left seeks to replace the traditional wage earner with the government. Through the policies of Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson and now Barack Obama, the left has been waging a full scale war to dismantle traditional families. With  families destroyed, the left has a free hand to peddle their poison. Whereas children used to learn morality at home and from religious institutions, without strong families, the government is left to be the arbiters of morality.

The primary agency through which leftwing cultural poison is dispensed is college and university campuses. While some parents may think their children are learning important lessons at school, in fact, they are being taught to shun religion, ignore their parents, hate the private sector and trust  benevolent big government and spread the deadly vision of moral relativism. It is no coincidence that  many of the ’4/20′ revelers were university students.

The left has been succeeding in its war against the family. As I have written about before, illegitimate birth rates are up. Single motherhood is praised as though it is some ideal worth striving for, not a sad and difficult reality to be avoided. Religious teachings, prayer and the like are banned at schools. When society condones bad behavior and  denigrates traditions that have been proven to be effective over time we ought to not be surprised when the dregs of society gather to blow smoke in our faces.