Hennessy's View

Here are the top Hennessy’s View posts of each month of 2012, scientifically selected by . . . me.

January

The Gabrielle Giffords shooting by lunatic Jerod Lee Loughner was the biggest news event of the month. The cynically attempted to use the tragedy for political gain.  The left failed.

February

The Arab Spring began last winter. When Mubarak was on the ropes in Egypt, some questioned whether or not his fall would be good for the region and the world. Other questioned whether it would be good for Egyptians. Still others blindly rooted for Mubarak’s death.  These last were the American Idiots. I suppose they’re still cheering the de-Christianization of Egypt.

March

If you look at the world as a fixed pie, you begin fighting others for your piece.  If you see the world as a limitlessly growing pie, you join others and get about baking.

April

I went to the Tucson Tea Party with Jim Hoft and Dana Loesch.  I met Larry Schweikart, author o A Patriot’s History of the United States and other great books and movies. 

May

Benjamin Hennessy graduated from high school.  I love all my children, but this was very special accomplishment for Ben. And the school’s approach demonstrated what education could be in the United States, if we have get over the 19th century factory model.

June

Obama made it worse.

July

What’s your FICA score?  For Millennials, your payroll taxes are a sign of things to come. Don’t be fooled by temporary FICA breaks—you’ll pay in the end and the through the teeth.

August

Warren Buffett wrote an ill-advised op-ed calling for higher taxes on the rich.  Months later, he sued the government to avoid paying back taxes on his businesses.  Never take tax advise from a man who stands to make billions if high taxes drive investors toward annuities. (Buffett owns lots of insurance companies.)

September

The St. Louis Tea Party kicked off its After Party program: a 12-month project to repair the fabric of society.  Big goal? You bet.  But we can do it.  After all, we’re Americans.

October

Occupy Wall Street’s celebration of defecation had just begun. 

November

The Republican Establishment begins asserting itself violently against the Tea Party movement. 

December

Finally, I ended 2012 with a 4-part series on what we can learn from Charles Dickens’s classic, A Christmas Carol.

So that’s my list.  You can see my archives here—by Date, Category, or Word Cloud. But I’d really like to see your list to top stories of 2011. Use the comments box below.

Thanks and Happy New Year,

Bill Hennessy

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Dig this opening paragraph –>

As the marathon for the presidency, 1980, begins to quicken, the American electorate is in a singularly sour and pessimistic mood. Not only is the public naturally worried about the economy, energy and inflation, but it doubts things will improve much. The country is anxious to find strong leaders —the evidence is overwhelming—and the public has little faith that Jimmy Carter has the ability, let alone the programs, to solve the nation’s problems. Clearly, the search has begun for a candidate who is seen to have the sort of leadership qualities that Carter is thought to lack.
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,920594,00.html#ixzz1XEIEFbL6

September 10, 1979.  I remember that year, that month.  I owned St. Louis Cardinal Football season tickets, bought with money I earned cutting grass and shoveling snow. Ottis Anderson debuted with 190+ yard game against the Dallas Cowboys.  I was playing football, too, at St. Mary’s High School. My Epiphany baseball team had just lost the 1979 Junior Boys City-County Championship in the final game. (We won the following season.) And the Iranian hostage crisis was still two  months away.

Substitute unemployment for inflation, Obama for Carter, and 2012 for 1980, and this Time story could run tomorrow.

I blogged about the remarkable similarities between America’s worst president, and the man aspiring to succeed him, with Change Is All You Need, January 7, 2008. 

Carter was all about change. He offered an “outsider’s perspective” of Washington, a popular image two years after Nixon resigned. Carter spoke of reaching out to our enemies, a popular position one year after Saigon fell. Carter spoke of renewing American values, a popular sentiment as violent crime and drub abuse rates soared.

On Labor Day, Matt Stoller told Salon.com readers What Democrats Can Do About Obama. 

From the debt ceiling fiasco to the recent rescheduling of a jobs speech at the behest of Speaker Boehner, it has not been a good summer for President Obama. Like Chinese water torture, Gallup’s daily tracking poll has shown a steady and unrelenting drip of bad news. He has been in and out of the high 30s for his approval, and in the low to mid-50s for his disapproval.

Later, Stoller declared that “Obama has ruined the Democratic Party.”  He went to predict a possible future for Democrats under Obama:

If the economy worsens going into the fall, and the president continues as he has to attempt to cut Social Security, Democrats might be facing a Carter-Reagan scenario. Reagan, at first considered a lightweight candidate, ended up winning a landslide victory that devastated the Democratic Party in 1980. Carter wasn’t the only loss; many significant liberal senators, such as George McGovern, John Culver and Birch Bayh, fell that year.

Republicans, though, should avoid overconfidence.  In 1979, the GOP field sported a candidate unlike any other in generations.  Reagan already led Carter in opinion polls as of the September 10, 1979, Time edition. A new Reagan has yet to emerge from the apck of 2012 Republican candidates.  Plus, the GOP of 1980 had a stronger bench that its 2012 edition.  (By the same token, the Democrat Party of 1980 was still pro-American. I would not say the same for its current version.)

Still, this recent New York Times story seems to echo the 1979 story on Carter:

Americans are more pessimistic about the nation’s economic outlook and overall direction than they have been at any time since President Obama’s first two months in office, when the country was still officially ensnared in the Great Recession, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

Amid rising gas prices, stubborn unemployment and a cacophonous debate in Washington over the federal government’s ability to meet its future obligations, the poll presents stark evidence that the slow, if unsteady, gains in public confidence earlier this year that a recovery was under way are now all but gone.

The similarities between Carter and Obama grow stronger every day, as our nation weakens. It’s up to us to muddle through to the next election.  If we can, that shining city on a hill is still within our grasp. 

I think the Gipper would want us to try.

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It’s 2011.  The Tea Party movement is almost two years old. 

Two years after the Boston Tea party, the Revolutionary War was well underway. In April, 1775, British Lieutenant General Gage sent troops to Concord, Massachusetts, to seize a garrison held by revolutionaries.  It didn’t go so well for the Brits.

By 1776, the Continental Congress declared our independence from Great Britain citing human rights.  With words that echo through the centuries, we declared that human beings have certain rights, and:

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Where does this new American Revolution go now? 

Last night, I celebrated the New Year as do most New Years: by myself, watching subdued, almost depressed events in Las Vegas and New York.  The moment gave me a chance to ruminate as midnight approached: what next?

Here’s a short list that came to mind:

1.  Let’s Have a Tea Party:  After reading the numerous news accounts about 2010 being the Year of the Tea Party, I realized that I may have underestimated the impact of the movement.  That’s easy to do, I think, where you’re in the middle of something.  It’s clear now, though, that the world sees this rebellion as something to advance, to to admire, or to fear.  That deserves a party.

2.  Let’s Paint the Future:  I say and write this a lot.  I will continue to say it and write until it gains some ascendency.   The Tea Party movement – or whatever we call its evolutionary posterity – needs to move from defense to offense.  Offense includes proposing substitutions for the present system.  For example, how do we wind down Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security to minimize or prevent disruptions to people’s lives?  How do we restructure the tax system to both pay off our national debt and to encourage economic growth? What will education look like after we eliminate the Department of Education? 

3.  Let’s Broaden Our Interests:  At some point in the recent past, philosophers stopped applying philosophy to the world and began looking at philosophy as an end in itself.  That’s when the world stopped taking philosophy seriously.  The philosophers had isolated themselves from real life.

If we narrowly study only the Constitution, US History, the Founders, etc., we will become very dull, except to the few others who study nothing but this narrow subject. The world will compartmentalize us away, as it has philosophy.

Conservatives need to use our understanding of the founding principles, not as ends in itself, but as a guideline to apply right reason to problems of the day. 

I mention this repeatedly, too,  because I sense many of us becoming insular in our studies. Erudition requires breadth of knowledge, especially in adjacent matters. Depth in some area is central, of course, but it’s not the end.  Once you’ve hit water, digging deeper won’t make the water cooler or clearer.

* I used the term After the Tea Party.  I don’t think the name “tea party” should or will go away.  But I think we need to broaden our thinking.  The tea party era must give way to the leadership era.  If we stop moving, we die. 

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The year that ends tonight didn’t begin a year a go tomorrow.  Nor does it have a number. 

I’m not sure when this year started or what to call it.  And, as surprising as it may sound, I don’t think I’ll miss it.

Call it the year of the tea party.  It lasted 22 months.

We accomplished only two things, really, in this massive human wave. 

1.  We reminded ourselves that we, the people, can still roar.

2.   We may have aborted the rebirth of international socialism.

Our work isn’t over, but at midnight we cross a threshold.  The Tea Party movement leaves childhood.  As an organization, we’re young adults. The world becomes less forgiving. 

Movements don’t think or decide. The folks who people them do.  If we try to continue the tactics and antics of this year, we’ll arrest our own development. 

If, however, we keep a narrow focus while maturing our methods and broadening our knowledge, we’ll continue to grow.

It’s been a long, very long, year.  But there’s ages left to go.

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