The Closing Arguments

Charles Krauthammer makes the case against Obama:

The anemic economy, the revulsion with governmental incompetence and the sense of national decline are, taken together, exacting a heavy toll on Democratic candidates. After all, they represent not just the party now in government but the party of government.

These are the closing arguments in the case against the Obama Administration. And Krauthammer barely scratched the surface of issues like Benghazi, his unprecedented executive overreach (and abdication, of everything he “didn’t know about”, and Fast & Furious.

Though don’t underestimate potential voter fraud in several places like Colorado. (And just general GOP campaign incompetence, though Dem candidates like Bruce Braley and Senator Mark Udall win this time around for dumb candidate statements). There will likely be run-offs in GA and Louisiana, so the election won’t end on Tuesday.

Age of Reagan

This is an important point about President Reagan:

To begin with perhaps the most important distinction: Reagan was indeed a great champion of human freedom, just as his admirers say, and a nemesis of statism. Nevertheless, he was no simplistic, doctrinaire libertarian.

The core of Reagan’s thought lay not primarily in his love of freedom, as powerful as that was, but in something else, something captured in the epitaph on his grave, which quoted his own words:

I know in my heart that man is good. That what is right will always eventually triumph. And there’s purpose and worth to each and every life.

For Reagan, human dignity—not human freedom—came first. This idea permeated his political career.

As early as 1957, in a commencement address at Eureka College, his alma mater, he defined the Cold War as “a simple struggle between those of us who believe that man has the dignity and sacred right and the ability to choose and shape his own destiny and those who do not so believe.” For Reagan, human dignity was what enabled human freedom—that is, the ability of each individual to “shape his own destiny”—not the reverse.

President Reagan captured the times, and it's no surprise that this next generation of conservative presidential candidates want to connect with him and want voters to associate. But this emphasis on "dignity" is a critical distinction. Without dignity, there can be no liberty or freedom, because you lose your free will. And right, at a time when dependency and debt and hopelessness permeates our inner cities and culture, perhaps only someone like a Paul Ryan can speak in this voice. I'm not sure any of the other candidates can articulate that as well.

Scary World

As a frequent flier, it is unnerving to hear that the second healthcare worker who treated Thomas Eric Duncan flew on an airplane shortly before being diagnosed with Ebola. So crazy. I mean, God only knows who may be diagnosed next. That poor nurse, that innocent victim. There is too much scary at times. I guess the world was a scary place when we were children...the long-ago threat of a nuclear war and the Soviet Union was what kept you up at night. And that threat dissipated as the Soviet  Union broke up. It's been nearly 25 years since the Berlin Wall fell, and I still remember watching Germans scale the wall on that night in November, out of joyful anticipation that the physical wall was falling, along with the political divides that had carved up a continent for over 40 years.

But now? Think of all that has happened in this past year, from Boko Haram to ISIS to ongoing violence in Syria, to the downed jetliner and the missing Malaysian jet. To sickness that children are carrying with them as they cross the border, a strange polio-esque violence that paralyzes and kills other innocents. You lose track and move past last week's threat to prepare for something even wilder than your typical imagination.

I think about how many flights I've taken in the last six weeks...to Norway and to Seattle and Portland and Montana and soon to Utah. And trains and metros and buses and ships. We're all vulnerable, and I don't think the Weekly Standard is scare-mongering when it says a terrorist could contract Ebola and still fly to the United States, vomit all over the New York expressway. Remember, I was at Harris Teeter last weekend when some hipster-looking kid asked to cut in front of me in line because he needed to buy anti-vomit medication. That today raises alarms. You don't know. It's a failure of imagination to assume that whatever the next threat will be is one that we can anticipate. No one once upon a time through a jetliner could crash into a skyscraper. That is why they call it terrorism.

But we live our lives and we accept that our common humanity makes us realize that man is largely decent. And we cannot live in fear, because that is no life. But it is a scary world, and we're naive to pretend that convoluted reasons to keep borders open is nothing but a triumph of political correctness. The world may ultimately a humane place, but Ebola doesn't know that.

Northern Lights

Seeing these on the Hurtigruten cruise was a highlight of our time in Norway. Check out this video of the northern lights.