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Masterpiece is probably too strong of course, but this speech he gave at the Cato Institute was impressive.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/art...le_106463.html
Here are some excerpts
"In 1964, the man running against Johnson was Barry Goldwater who, to the superficial observer, appeared to lose because he carried only six states. When the final votes were tabulated, 16 years later, it was clear he had won. It was, however, a contingent victory.
In 2007, per capita welfare state spending, adjusted for inflation, was 77 percent higher than it had been when Ronald Reagan was inaugurated 27 years earlier. The trend continues and the trend is ominous. Fifty-one days ago the president signed into law health care reform, that great lunge to complete the New Deal project and the Great Society, that great lunge to make us more European. At exactly the moment that this is done the European Ponzi scheme of the social welfare state is being revealed for what it is.
There is a difference. We are not Europeans. We are not, in Orwell's phrase, a "state-broken people." We do not have a feudal background of subservience to the state. No, that is the project of the current administration - it can be boiled down to learned feudalism. It is a dependency agenda that I have been talking about ad nauseam.
Two recent examples. First, when the government took over student loans, making it the case that the two most important financial transactions of the average family - a housing mortgage and a loan for college - will now be transactions with the government, they included a provision that said there will be special forgiveness of student loans for those who go to work for the government or for nonprofits. Second, one third of the recent stimulus was devoted to preserving unionized public employees' jobs in states and local municipalities. And so it goes. The agenda is constant."
(Emphasis added by me). While a city manager in Bell, CA draws a $750k salary to manage a city of about 40k residents and the average Oakland cop makes $160k a year and the residents of those cities are ready to grab pitchforks in protest, I'm sure this stimulus disaster will play real well in the Fall and even into 2012.
Then Will draws on the comparison between James Madison and Woodrow Wilson (those who read Will's stuff are familiar with this):
"Let me give you a framework to understand this extraordinarily interesting moment in which we live. I believe that today, as has been the case for 100 years, and as will be the case for the foreseeable future, the American political argument is an argument between two Princetonians: James Madison of the class of 1771, and Thomas Woodrow Wilson of the class of 1879. I firmly believe that the most important decision taken anywhere in the 20th century was the decision where to locate the Princeton graduate college. Woodrow Wilson, then Princeton's president, wanted it located on the campus, others wanted it located, where it in fact is, up on the golf course away from campus. When Wilson lost that, he had one of his characteristic tantrums, went into politics, and ruined the 20th century.
I'm simplifying a bit. Madison asserted that politics should take its bearings from human nature and from the natural rights with which we are endowed, and which preexist government. Woodrow Wilson, like all people steeped in the 19th century discovery that history is a proper noun - History - with a mind and a life of its own, argued that human nature is as malleable and changeable as history itself, and that it's the job of the state to regulate and guide the evolution of human nature and the changeable nature of the rights we are owed by the government that - in his view - dispenses rights."
The last part of this quote is scary:
"Madison said rights pre-exist government. Wilson said government exists to dispense whatever agenda of rights suits its fancy, and to annihilate, regulate, attenuate, or dilute others. Madison said the rights we are owed are those necessary for the individual pursuit of happiness. Wilson and the Progressives said the rights you deserve are those that will deliver material happiness to you, and spare you the strain and terror of striving.
The result of this is now clear. We see, in the rampant indebtedness of our country and the European countries, what Yuval Levin has called a "gluttonous feast upon the flesh of the future." We see the infantilization of publics that become inert and passive, waiting for the state to take care of them. One statistic: 50 percent of all Americans 55 years old or older have less than $50,000 in savings and investment. The feast on the flesh of the future is what debt is."
He ends with some optimism:
"In Athens, the so-called "cradle of democracy," the demos (a Greek word for "the people") have been demonstrating, in recent days, the degradation that attends people who become state-broken to a fault - who become crippled by dependency and the infantilization that comes with it. We shall see. I think America is organized around the very principle of individualism, which I can illustrate with what is, I promise you, the last baseball story.
Rogers Hornsby, the greatest right-handed hitter in the history of baseball, was at the plate, and a rookie was on the mound. He was, quite reasonably, petrified. The rookie threw three pitches that he thought were on the edge of the plate, but the umpire called, "Ball one! Ball two! Ball three!" The rookie got flustered, and shouted at the umpire, "Those were strikes!" The umpire took off his mask, looked out at the rookie, and said, "Young man, when you throw a strike, Mr. Hornsby will let you know."
Hornsby had become the standard of excellence. If he didn't swing, it wasn't a strike. We want a country in which everyone is encouraged to strive to be his own standard of excellence and have the freedom to pursue it. There are reasons to be downcast at the moment. Certain recent elections have not gone so well. Let me remind you, however, of something, again going back to 1964. In 1964 the liberal candidate got 90 percent of the electoral votes. Eight years later the liberal candidate got 3 percent of the electoral votes. This is a very changeable country.
Recall the words of the first Republican president who, two years before he became president, spoke at the Wisconsin State Fair, with terrible clouds of civil strife lowering over the country. Lincoln told his audience the story of the Oriental despot who summoned his wise men, and assigned them to devise a statement to be carved in stone, to be forever in view and forever true. They came back ere long, and the statement they had carved in stone was, "This, too, shall pass away."
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/art...le_106463.html
Here are some excerpts
"In 1964, the man running against Johnson was Barry Goldwater who, to the superficial observer, appeared to lose because he carried only six states. When the final votes were tabulated, 16 years later, it was clear he had won. It was, however, a contingent victory.
In 2007, per capita welfare state spending, adjusted for inflation, was 77 percent higher than it had been when Ronald Reagan was inaugurated 27 years earlier. The trend continues and the trend is ominous. Fifty-one days ago the president signed into law health care reform, that great lunge to complete the New Deal project and the Great Society, that great lunge to make us more European. At exactly the moment that this is done the European Ponzi scheme of the social welfare state is being revealed for what it is.
There is a difference. We are not Europeans. We are not, in Orwell's phrase, a "state-broken people." We do not have a feudal background of subservience to the state. No, that is the project of the current administration - it can be boiled down to learned feudalism. It is a dependency agenda that I have been talking about ad nauseam.
Two recent examples. First, when the government took over student loans, making it the case that the two most important financial transactions of the average family - a housing mortgage and a loan for college - will now be transactions with the government, they included a provision that said there will be special forgiveness of student loans for those who go to work for the government or for nonprofits. Second, one third of the recent stimulus was devoted to preserving unionized public employees' jobs in states and local municipalities. And so it goes. The agenda is constant."
(Emphasis added by me). While a city manager in Bell, CA draws a $750k salary to manage a city of about 40k residents and the average Oakland cop makes $160k a year and the residents of those cities are ready to grab pitchforks in protest, I'm sure this stimulus disaster will play real well in the Fall and even into 2012.
Then Will draws on the comparison between James Madison and Woodrow Wilson (those who read Will's stuff are familiar with this):
"Let me give you a framework to understand this extraordinarily interesting moment in which we live. I believe that today, as has been the case for 100 years, and as will be the case for the foreseeable future, the American political argument is an argument between two Princetonians: James Madison of the class of 1771, and Thomas Woodrow Wilson of the class of 1879. I firmly believe that the most important decision taken anywhere in the 20th century was the decision where to locate the Princeton graduate college. Woodrow Wilson, then Princeton's president, wanted it located on the campus, others wanted it located, where it in fact is, up on the golf course away from campus. When Wilson lost that, he had one of his characteristic tantrums, went into politics, and ruined the 20th century.
I'm simplifying a bit. Madison asserted that politics should take its bearings from human nature and from the natural rights with which we are endowed, and which preexist government. Woodrow Wilson, like all people steeped in the 19th century discovery that history is a proper noun - History - with a mind and a life of its own, argued that human nature is as malleable and changeable as history itself, and that it's the job of the state to regulate and guide the evolution of human nature and the changeable nature of the rights we are owed by the government that - in his view - dispenses rights."
The last part of this quote is scary:
"Madison said rights pre-exist government. Wilson said government exists to dispense whatever agenda of rights suits its fancy, and to annihilate, regulate, attenuate, or dilute others. Madison said the rights we are owed are those necessary for the individual pursuit of happiness. Wilson and the Progressives said the rights you deserve are those that will deliver material happiness to you, and spare you the strain and terror of striving.
The result of this is now clear. We see, in the rampant indebtedness of our country and the European countries, what Yuval Levin has called a "gluttonous feast upon the flesh of the future." We see the infantilization of publics that become inert and passive, waiting for the state to take care of them. One statistic: 50 percent of all Americans 55 years old or older have less than $50,000 in savings and investment. The feast on the flesh of the future is what debt is."
He ends with some optimism:
"In Athens, the so-called "cradle of democracy," the demos (a Greek word for "the people") have been demonstrating, in recent days, the degradation that attends people who become state-broken to a fault - who become crippled by dependency and the infantilization that comes with it. We shall see. I think America is organized around the very principle of individualism, which I can illustrate with what is, I promise you, the last baseball story.
Rogers Hornsby, the greatest right-handed hitter in the history of baseball, was at the plate, and a rookie was on the mound. He was, quite reasonably, petrified. The rookie threw three pitches that he thought were on the edge of the plate, but the umpire called, "Ball one! Ball two! Ball three!" The rookie got flustered, and shouted at the umpire, "Those were strikes!" The umpire took off his mask, looked out at the rookie, and said, "Young man, when you throw a strike, Mr. Hornsby will let you know."
Hornsby had become the standard of excellence. If he didn't swing, it wasn't a strike. We want a country in which everyone is encouraged to strive to be his own standard of excellence and have the freedom to pursue it. There are reasons to be downcast at the moment. Certain recent elections have not gone so well. Let me remind you, however, of something, again going back to 1964. In 1964 the liberal candidate got 90 percent of the electoral votes. Eight years later the liberal candidate got 3 percent of the electoral votes. This is a very changeable country.
Recall the words of the first Republican president who, two years before he became president, spoke at the Wisconsin State Fair, with terrible clouds of civil strife lowering over the country. Lincoln told his audience the story of the Oriental despot who summoned his wise men, and assigned them to devise a statement to be carved in stone, to be forever in view and forever true. They came back ere long, and the statement they had carved in stone was, "This, too, shall pass away."
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