The View from Right Field

Freedom of Political Speech May Depend on 2016

Back in October, I wrote a post I titled “The ‘Freedom Caucus’ Is Missing the Point: You Have to Win Elections to Get Stuff Done.”  The main point of the post was this:  President Obama is now doing most of what he is doing through executive orders and administrative action.  If the Republican candidate for president doesn’t win in 2016, the next Democratic president will continue doing this.  The Freedom Caucus, et al., are missing the fact that many of the things they want the House Republicans to do will turn off so much of the middle 20% of the electorate, which is where elections are won, that the result will be a Democrat winning next November. 

Which is why I think it is so important to play the long game and focus on winning the election next November, instead of doing things to excite some part of the Republican base now.  I have been hoping to write a similar post on foreign policy, but I have not be able to get to it.  However, there is another issue where the result next November is just as important: the First Amendment and freedom of speech – especially political speech.

Back when I was in law school, and William Rehnquist was being appointed to the Supreme Court, liberals (as they were then called) were the absolutists (or pretty much absolutists) on freedom of speech.  Justice Hugo Black¹ was famous for carrying around a copy of the Constitution and quoting the First Amendment in response to questions on freedom of speech.  He would say things like this:

Imagine How Much Barack Obama Could Have Gotten Done If He Were Bill Clinton

In an article last week about Syrian refugees coming to the United States, Heather Wilhelm wrote about President Obama’s response to the concerns and objections of various governors/Republicans:

“For his part, Obama opened his heart, attempted to understand where his opponents were coming from and turned on some good old-fashioned charm.”

Obviously, Ms. Wilhelm continued:

“Just kidding!  Visibly irritated, he ripped his opposition, lumping them together as a bunch of sniveling cowards afraid of widows and orphans.”

Ms. Wilhelm is not a supporter of the President so her sarcastic comments may not be a surprise.  On the other hand, they have an element of truth to them.  And they fit with a comment that President Obama made in a recent interview in GQ magazine:

First, It Was "Where’s Waldo?" Now, It’s Where’s President Obama?

Do you remember those books that started coming out in the late 1980s, “Where’s Waldo?”  The title character, Waldo, would be somewhere in a big two-page picture spread.  The idea of the book was to find Waldo in each picture.  Even though Waldo was always dressed in the same red and white shirt and hat, it was not easy to find him.  Sometimes you would swear he was nowhere to be found.

The Economist has just published the 2016 edition of its annual “The World in ____”.  On the cover of the magazine are the world’s leaders, apparently arranged in order of importance or relevance.  The fun is trying to identify the various world leaders on the cover and to see where they are ranked.  Not surprisingly, Angela Merkel is front and center.  The United States is well represented, with Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen and Hillary Clinton right next to Chancellor Merkel.

ISIS Kills 129 in Paris. President Obama Gets Mad at Republicans.

With everything happening in the world, it is understandable President Obama got upset at his press conference Monday.  Except it wasn’t ISIS or the terrorists in Paris that upset him most.  It was, of course, the Republicans, the enemy he seems to hate the most.

In particular, the President was irritated by calls from certain Republicans suggesting that, given at least one of the terrorists involved in the Paris killings may have traveled to Europe on a Syrian passport, perhaps we should just admit Christian refugees from Syria and not Muslim:

“When I hear folks say that, well, maybe we should just admit the Christians but not the Muslims; when I hear political leaders suggesting that there would be a religious test for which a person who’s fleeing from a war-torn country is admitted, when some of those folks themselves come from families who benefitted from protection when they were fleeing political persecution – that’s shameful.  That’s not American.  That’s not who we are.”

A couple of comments.  First, it’s nice to see “no drama Obama” get passionate about something, though it would be nice if, at least once, it could involve getting mad at somebody other than Republicans.

East Germany Comes to Mizzou

Earlier this week I wrote a post I called “East Germany Comes to Tibet.”  You can find it, and the reason for the title, here.  Now it appears that East Germany may be coming closer to home.

Following up on everything that has been happening at the University of Missouri, the MU Police Department sent out an email Tuesday morning, with a subject line of “Reporting Hateful and/or Hurtful Speech”:

“To continue to ensure that the University of Missouri campus remains safe, the MU Police Department (MUPD) is asking individuals who witness incidents of hateful and/or hurtful speech or actions to:

• Call the police immediately at [phone number redacted]. (If you are in an emergency situation, dial 911.)

• Give the communications operator a summary of the incident, including location.

• Provide a detailed description of the individual(s) involved.

• Provide a license plate and vehicle descriptions (if appropriate).

• If possible and if it can be done safely, take a photo of the individual(s) with your cell phone.

Delays, including posting information to social media, can often reduce the chances of identifying the responsible parties.  While cases of hateful and hurtful speech are not crimes, if the individual(s) identified are students, MU’s Office of Student Conduct can take disciplinary action.”

The View from Right Field’s Tagline

It’s time to change the tagline for my blog.  I changed it to “The Cubs will win as a team … in 2015” in early February in honor of Ernie Banks.  It was the slogan Billy Williams came up with at Ernie’s funeral because it sounded so much like Ernie.  And the Cubs did “win as a team” in 2015.  They didn’t win quite as many as we hoped, but they won a lot more than we expected.  And that is what we will remember.  Just like we always remembered Ernie.

Helmut Schmidt, RIP

Helmut Schmidt, Chancellor of West Germany from 1974 to 1982, passed away today in Hamburg, Germany.  Herr Schmidt became Chancellor in 1974, when Willy Brandt resigned after it was discovered one of his top aides was an East German agent.  Herr Schmidt lost the chancellorship to Helmut Kohl in 1982, when the Free Democrats left its coalition with the Social Democratic Party and allied with Helmut Kohl’s Christian Democrat Union.  Herr Schmidt continued to speak out and play a role in German political life until his death.

Perhaps the most important thing of the prior paragraph, and in Helmut Schmidt’s career, is that he was Chancellor of West Germany and he died in Germany.  Even though Helmut Schmidt was no longer chancellor by 1989/1990, he played a key role, while he was chancellor, in the policies that protected the West in the late 1970s and early 1980s and helped set the stage for German unification in 1990.

In the late 1970s, it was Helmut Schmidt who first called public attention to the Soviet Union’s placement of SS-20 medium-range nuclear missiles in Eastern Europe.  Chancellor Schmidt called for the West to respond and supported NATO’s “double-track” policy of deploying cruise and Pershing 2 missiles in the West Europe while at the same time negotiating with the Soviets to limit, or eliminate, medium range missiles in Europe.

26th Anniversary of the Fall of the Wall

There have been, and are, many walls.  But there was only one “Wall”.  And it fell 26 years ago today.  A great day – and a wonderful anniversary.

East Germany Comes to Tibet

We recently traveled to China.  One of the highlights of the trip was Tibet.  Tibet was wonderful.  Unlike the rest of China (at least the rest of China we saw), the air was clear (little industry means little pollution) and the traffic was manageable.  Plus the Potala Palace and other sights were magnificent. 

But perhaps what my wife and I noticed the most were the banners everywhere.  And what the banners reminded us of – East Germany.

I have not traveled to a lot of Communist countries.  Just East Germany (in ’79 and ’82) and Czechoslovakia (in ’82) and now China (Communist politically).  What we noticed in East Germany (but not Czechoslovakia) were the billboards with the political slogans.  For example, this one:

which I would translate as “With the power of socialism for the insurance of peace!”  Another one we saw read: “Against imperialistic confrontationism: Knowledge and deeds for the protection of peace and socialism.”¹  It was as if the government was trying to convince the people of how good things were and how important it was to support the government. 

Closing Guantanamo

Closing the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has been a priority for President Obama since the day he took office, if not before.  But he has not been able to do it, largely because Congress hasn’t let him.  Bill after bill has been passed tying his hands.  President Obama will be sending a plan to Congress to get approval to close the detention center, but that would require the transfer of some detainees to prisons in the United States, and Congress isn’t cooperating.  This is from an article in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal:

“[L]awmakers have settled on legislation continuing a ban on transferring detainees to the U.S. through 2016.

The House is scheduled to vote on that bill, the National Defense Authorization Act, on Thursday [i.e., yesterday], to be followed by a vote in the Senate later this year.  It is expected to pass both chambers.