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Thank You Mr. President

by Christopher Chantrill
January 29, 2006 at 9:55 pm

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AS YOU DELIVER your State of the Union speech this week, Mr. President, and enter the sixth year of your presidency there is something I want to say. It is “Thank you, Mr. President.”

You have achieved three important things in the last five years, Mr. President, and that’s as good as it gets.

First of all, you have responded to the challenge of Islamic rich kid Usama bin Laden and his twisted observance of the Turkish defeat at the gates of Vienna on 9/11 back in 1683.

Secondly, you have put our American wealth-creation machine back on track after the scare of the Great Tech Bear Market of 2000 to 2003 when the NASDAQ declined by over 75 percent.

And now it looks as though you have ended the poisonous Bork era, the twenty years of shame in which liberal interest groups made sport of assassinating the characters of conservative Supreme Court nominees.

Three big things, Mr. President. They say that a president should limit himself to three big things for his time in office, else he will dissipate his energies on ephemera. That puts you in the home stretch already, you fortunate son.

In the matter of the War on Terror, especially in the moment of clarity after the Hamas win in the Palestinian elections, we can now begin to see the wisdom of the strategic moves you made in the months after 9/11. It is good that you have interjected our brave armed forces along the border between Sunni and Shia in Iraq, complicating the task of anyone trying to achieve Islamic strategic concentration.

Strictly speaking, our western team should not be at any disadvantage from the Islamicist gang, but you never know, especially now that we can see that appeasement is not just an accident of the 1930s but a recurrent temptation for many of our progressive friends. In the past it has taken courageous leadership to bring the appeasers to the moment of reality when the scales fell off their eyes. You have certainly done your part to bring this moment to pass in our times.

On economic policy you have proven to be a safe pair of hands pushing through, against the foolish resistance of Congress and the blind ignorance of the Democrats, the necessary income tax rate cuts that have put our great economy back on track and restored its animal spirits. At the moment of trial, three or four years ago, you avoided doing anything stupid and thus spared us any replay of the decade of misery that our grandparents suffered in the 1930s.

As of the time of writing it looks like the Alito nomination is over—bar shouting, as my grandfather used to say. For twenty years we conservatives have bridled and raged at the brutal borking of well qualified, honorable Republican judicial nominees. For twenty years, like Dorothy’s Aunt Em, we have wanted to tell the wicked Democratic witches what we thought of them, but because we are conservatives, we couldn’t. But now, with the successful nominations of Roberts and Alito, you have brought the Bork era to a close. This is a great moment in our nation’s history, because with your steadfast leadership you have ended a great injustice without breaking the peace.

It is sad, Mr. President, that during your administration our Democratic friends have seemed to be unable to accept defeat in good faith and with a good grace. One of the most important skills in conflict is to know how to conduct a retreat in good order. The Democrats are failing to do this, and their failure is worse than a crime, it is a blunder. But you have been determined since the start of your campaign for election in 2000 to restore dignity to the office of the presidency. As your assistant (http://www.radioblogger.com/archives/january06.html#001337) Karl Rove recently said: “This president treats the opposition with dignity and respect.” We thank you for that, Mr. President.

Many things have been said about you in the last five years, Mr. President, many foolish words and a few wise ones. But we who are your supporters want you to know, as we have anxiously observed you from year to year, that we understand how much you carry the troubles of the world on your shoulders. We understand that you can never crow, as your predecessor did, “I love this job!” Today, the job of the leader of the free world is too serious for that.

On behalf of all Americans, Mr. President, we wish you well in this critical year of 2006 as you work to keep Americans safe and prosperous, and work to realize your vision of an America that rewards responsibility with opportunity. We live and work in confidence that under your leadership the State of the Union is sound.

Christopher Chantrill blogs at americanmanifestobook.blogspot.com.

Buy his Road to the Middle Class.

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Faith & Purpose

“When we began first to preach these things, the people appeared as awakened from the sleep of ages—they seemed to see for the first time that they were responsible beings...”
Finke, Stark, The Churching of America, 1776-1990

Mutual Aid

In 1911... at least nine million of the 12 million covered by national insurance were already members of voluntary sick pay schemes. A similar proportion were also eligible for medical care.
Green, Reinventing Civil Society

Education

“We have met with families in which for weeks together, not an article of sustenance but potatoes had been used; yet for every child the hard-earned sum was provided to send them to school.”
E. G. West, Education and the State

Living Under Law

Law being too tenuous to rely upon in [Ulster and the Scottish borderlands], people developed patterns of settling differences by personal fighting and family feuds.
Thomas Sowell, Conquests and Cultures

German Philosophy

The primary thing to keep in mind about German and Russian thought since 1800 is that it takes for granted that the Cartesian, Lockean or Humean scientific and philosophical conception of man and nature... has been shown by indisputable evidence to be inadequate. 
F.S.C. Northrop, The Meeting of East and West

Knowledge

Inquiry does not start unless there is a problem... It is the problem and its characteristics revealed by analysis which guides one first to the relevant facts and then, once the relevant facts are known, to the relevant hypotheses.
F.S.C. Northrop, The Logic of the Sciences and the Humanities

Chappies

“But I saw a man yesterday who knows a fellow who had it from a chappie that said that Urquhart had been dipping himself a bit recklessly off the deep end.”  —Freddy Arbuthnot
Dorothy L. Sayers, Strong Poison

Democratic Capitalism

I mean three systems in one: a predominantly market economy; a polity respectful of the rights of the individual to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and a system of cultural institutions moved by ideals of liberty and justice for all. In short, three dynamic and converging systems functioning as one: a democratic polity, an economy based on markets and incentives, and a moral-cultural system which is plural and, in the largest sense, liberal.
Michael Novak, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism

Action

The incentive that impels a man to act is always some uneasiness... But to make a man act [he must have] the expectation that purposeful behavior has the power to remove or at least to alleviate the felt uneasiness.
Ludwig von Mises, Human Action

Churches

[In the] higher Christian churches... they saunter through the liturgy like Mohawks along a string of scaffolding who have long since forgotten their danger. If God were to blast such a service to bits, the congregation would be, I believe, genuinely shocked. But in the low churches you expect it every minute.
Annie Dillard, Holy the Firm

Conversion

“When we received Christ,” Phil added, “all of a sudden we now had a rule book to go by, and when we had problems the preacher was right there to give us the answers.”
James M. Ault, Jr., Spirit and Flesh

Living Law

The recognition and integration of extralegal property rights [in the Homestead Act] was a key element in the United States becoming the most important market economy and producer of capital in the world.
Hernando de Soto, The Mystery of Capital

presented by Christopher Chantrill

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