Without the American Dream, There Would be no America

American Thinker 

In 1922 renowned British author and theologian G. K. Chesterton wrote a travelogue of his tour of the United States, leading off with the proposition that America was unique among the world’s nations. It was not simply shaped by borders or a shared language; it was created based on a distinct creed -- a bold assertion of principles that gave rise to its existence.

That creed consisted of thirty-five words that began the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence. The watershed document not merely delineated the infractions against the colonies by the British sovereign, it also put forth a sublime statement that God-given rights to live freely also granted people the ability to chart their own destiny: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

This simple, audacious statement captured what came to be called the American Dream: the possibility that a synergistic combination of individual freedom and self-determination held the potential to lead to a fulfilling and happy life. Thomas Jefferson wisely exchanged philosopher John Locke’s original statement that included a right to property with “the pursuit of happiness,” a term broad enough to extend past physical possessions to encompass a larger view of human flourishing. It would turn out to be the source code of American Exceptionalism.

These principles inspired the founding of a new nation, despite its imperfections. Ironically, they were written by an aristocratic Virginia slave owner in a country where one fifth of 3.5 million people were enslaved and excluded from the Declaration's vision. Realizing that promise required a civil war and many years of civil rights activism.

The idea of self-determination has remained remarkably strong, especially considering the substantial social, economic, political, and technological changes over the past two and a half centuries. At the heart of this inspiring American ideal is the belief that individuals can work toward their chosen place in life. The state does not assign anyone's job, career, or future, nor is anyone guaranteed a fulfilling life -- satisfaction ought to come through effort. A reward provided without work is often viewed as an empty one, but achieving fulfillment by striving can make it more meaningful. Even those born into wealth or privilege find more respect if they build their own lives instead of leaning solely on family fortune.

Likewise, there is no guarantee that one’s dreams or “happiness” will materialize the way they are envisioned, if at all. Failing, often many times, begets goal shifts and new opportunities. Post-New Deal/Great Society America set some guardrails of support for those whose circumstances adversely affected their ability to live and flourish independently. Nevertheless, the emphasis remains on creating a future through decisions and actions based on our interests, talents, motivations, risk assessments, and resourcefulness. Equal opportunity does not mean equal outcome. Life may be like a box of chocolates, but you never have to pick just one to find the flavor that approximates your goals and dreams. When failure proves insurmountable, it can spark fresh possibilities.

The term "American Dream" was coined in 1931, during the country's worst economic crisis. Charles Truslow Adams, a former stock investor turned writer and historian, introduced the concept in his book The American Epic.

…[T]he American dream, [is] that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to his ability or achievement… It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of a social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and to be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.

The American Dream strongly appealed to immigrants, easily aligning with their desire for a better life. After fifty years of rising immigration during the Great Wave period of 1870–1924, Adams went on:

…[T]he American dream that has lured tens of millions of all nations to our shores… has not been a dream of merely material plenty, although that has doubtless counted heavily. It has been much more than that. It has been a dream of being able to grow to fullest development as a man or a woman, unhampered by the barriers which had slowly been erected in older civilizations, unrepressed by social orders which had developed for classes rather than the simple human being of any and every class. And that dream has been realized more fully in actual life here than anywhere else….

Adams referenced the source of the American Dream to Jefferson and his words in the Declaration. There is ample evidence supporting his claim that the American Dream exists. Both immigrant and native-born entrepreneurs have significantly shaped society, ranging from notable figures of the past such as Carnegie, Pulitzer, Hershey, and Ford to contemporary innovators like Jobs, Brin, Musk, and Bezos.

Just as the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and later amendments established legal support for inalienable rights, capitalism enabled countless Americans to pursue their ambitions. Through accessible finance, immigrants and native-born citizens could start small businesses -- whether restaurants, grocers, barbershops, or bodegas -- which provided both independence for their owners and jobs to others in their communities.

Some built empires by creating novel products or services. Edison's motion picture inventions launched a new industry, but immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe who opened thousands of movie theatres and started large film studios in the 1910s transformed it. By the 1930s motion pictures were the country’s fourth largest industry. Companies like Paramount, Warner Brothers, MGM, Columbia, Universal, and Twentieth Century-Fox (now Twentieth Century Studios), remain today.

After World War II, a triumphant America emerged as leader of the free world, set against the threat of expanding communism. During this pivotal time of forging a new national identity, the post-war American Dream became tied to the notion of the "American Way," where working hard, finding a career niche, and saving could lead to a secure, middle-class life and its most visible achievement, home ownership. Rising incomes, free college, and low-interest home loans through the G.I. Bill shifted aspirations in the late 1940s and 1950s from rags-to-riches stories to achieving a stable and comfortable middle-class life.

Today, politicians often speak of the American Dream as a vague indicator of personal wellbeing. But perhaps it's worth revisiting the American Dream as described in the Declaration and by Charles Truslow Adams: the freedom to pursue success in any chosen path, from running a corporation or corner bakery to maintaining a family farm or starting a tech firm. As AI reduces or replaces human labor, we must rise to the challenge by embracing creativity and adaptability. We should make thoughtful choices about our long-term goals, understanding that our pursuit of happiness requires us to adjust our dreams throughout life. Striving will be as important as ever.

If the American Dream goes away, both in practice and in collective memory, we will be a fundamentally different, unrecognizable nation, and a poorer one for it, both materially and in spirit.

Podcast thread for May 2nd

 

Zzzzzzzz.

The Real-Time Collapse of American Society

American Thinker 

During the past 50-plus years, there has been a decline in the formality of workplace office attire, an increase in little children calling adult neighbors and relatives by their first names, and an increase of “sloppy Joe” or “sloppy Jane” clothing on our college campuses.  In our largest city — New York — fare evasions on buses and subways are at an all-time high.  The misbehavior in our public schools has reached intolerable levels.  All sectors of everyday life are in decline.

Bus drivers in NYC are not as likely as in past years to insist that passengers pay their fares in order to ride the bus.  And in the NYC subways, as in the years before Rudy Giuliani became mayor, more and more riders are jumping turnstiles and, after jumping the turnstile, opening one of the locked gates for a minute to allow friends or strangers to enter without paying.

Office attire is more “casual” than ever.  Now, in midtown Manhattan where there are thousands of business offices, we find fewer and fewer men wearing ties and jackets.  The women are also casually dressed.  There is an assault on what is now being called “formal attire.”  This reflects a deep-seated sense that hierarchies of competence are deemed less important.  Even years after COVID, many are still working from home in their pajamas or torn jeans, and this is perceived by many as an improvement over forced compliance to “office subcultures.”  

In addition to the above-noted “informality,” we are seeing the fruit of 50 years of feminism.  Gloria Steinem came into the limelight in the 1970s.  Since then, marriages are down, births are down, and depression medications are being prescribed at high levels.

Also, college admissions over the decades after the 1960s would no longer be based mainly upon SAT or ACT scores, high school grades, and extra-curricular participation.  Rather, ethnicity and a family’s income would be factored in.  DIE under the pre-DIE rubric of affirmative action began in earnest in the 1970s.  Black students who were deemed victims of racial prejudice because they had graduated from low-performing high schools (which, presumably existed and which they were forced to attend because of institutional discrimination) had their admission requirements for colleges adjusted downward to compensate for their historical victim status.

This writer taught writing at Penn State in the 1970s, and the two lowest performing students in a class of 70 were black American affirmative action admissions.  At that time, I was all for this discriminatory admissions policy and called it “just” and “fair,” failing to consider the rights and education of the two deserving students who had been excluded so these two could be admitted.  Was it right for the higher education system to be merit-based for many, but ethnically based for others?  

In an excellent article, William Brangham says, “Math and reading scores have dropped to their lowest levels in more than two decades among high school seniors.”  Brangham interviews a couple of experts, and they emphasize the increase in absenteeism from schools and the presence of cell phones producing lower results.  However, this writer would emphasize as well the lackadaisical, undisciplined psychological and moral climate of our society.

With the lack of emphasis on authority, on discipline (not just discipline of cell phone use while in school), on religious and moral values such as laid out in the Ten Commandments, on obedience and cooperation, on extensive reading and writing assignments, and on tests that from an early age require considerable memorization — in short, the education values of the 18th century through the 1970s (although Jewish and Christian biblical moral values such as prayer and Bible reading were mistakenly outlawed in the early 1960s and should be reinstated) — we see the decline of educational achievement and competencies.

In one high school where I was a full-time teacher, on my first day of teaching, a 9th-grade female student stood at the back of the class and threatened me by saying, “We got rid of the other three teachers, and we’re going to get rid of you, too.”

On another day, in a course that covered the Middle Ages and feudalism, I asked, “What was the feudal manor?”  One of the twin sisters who were in the class raised her hand, and when I called on her, she answered, “Those are nice shoes and socks you’re wearing.”

In another class, a student was chasing a girl around the classroom as I was beginning the day’s lesson.  When I told him to resume his seat, he became so angry that he began attempting to remove the laminate on his desk with his fingernails.  When I spoke to him, I told him he did not have to be angry and that he would have plenty of time to be with Tawana after the class, and that he could not destroy his desk.  There was no need for him to be so angry.  But when he re-entered the class, he continued to destroy the top of his desk, and security had to be called to remove him.

On yet another occasion, a girl student in my sophomore class refused to take her assigned seat and said, “I sit wherever I want to sit.”  Although she was a sophomore, she was 19 years old, and one day stood by the window and was trying to raise it.  I called out to her that Board of Education rules said that windows could not be opened more than six inches, but she quickly lifted the sash of the window and jumped out.  Fortunately, it was “only” a drop of eight feet; she had strong legs and did not get injured.

The above behaviors are only an abbreviated list of what this teacher faced every day, all day, for five-plus years in a high school that had eighteen security guards and two full-time policemen assigned to it, as well as metal detectors where students entered the building.  This was more than thirty years ago.  But the anti-social behavior had been in place years before I even began there.

The disruptive atmosphere in the school is an out-picturing of a wave of disruption, dislocation, and breakdown of our institutions that many believe shows tolerance for differences — but it represents a collapse of order, ethics, and decency that afflicts most of our institutions.

There is a collapse of order, obedience, skills, institutional structure, respect for authority, and public decency throughout society.  The moral foundations are in a state of near collapse, and we are near collapse, but the denial continues.

Against All Enemies, Foreign and Domestic

American Thinker 

If a country cannot defend itself from external attacks and will not defend its own internal culture, then that country won’t long last.  This isn’t a controversial point, is it?  Nations survive when they are capable of securing their borders from invaders who wish to conquer them.  Nations endure when they are capable of preserving their own historic cultures. When they can do neither, foreigners take over and either kill, enslave, or convert the locals.  That’s human history in a nutshell.

Do you remember when people were handing over their DNA to genealogy-mapping businesses that trace family lineages, and most of the modern inhabitants of Turkey were greatly offended to discover that they are actually Greek?  Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan joined other prominent Turks in condemning popular ancestry companies for revealing an uncomfortable truth: Most Turkish citizens are descendants of Bronze Age Greeks whom Islamic peoples from Central Asia conquered.  After the Ottoman conquest of their lands, the Greek ancestors of today’s Turks chose conversion over death or second-class social status.  Just as the Turks are really Greeks, Egypt’s Muslims are the descendants of Christians, and Iran’s Muslims are the descendants of Persian Zoroastrians.  Wherever Islam conquers, the old ways — cultures, beliefs, religions — are discarded and forgotten.

Do you think future inhabitants of Great Britain, Germany, and France will be similarly offended when they discover their own genetic links to the Celts, Gauls, Teutons, and Anglo-Saxons?  Will they be shocked to realize that their ancestors were once devout Christians?  Will they deny the truth of their ancestors’ Islamic subjugation just as Turkey’s citizens do today?  

Europe’s “fundamental transformation” (to borrow Barack Obama’s euphemism for totalitarianism) is already occurring swiftly.  “Muhammad” is the most popular baby name in the United Kingdom, and it is quickly becoming the most popular baby name across much of Europe. 

France and Germany continue to close Christmas markets and cancel public festivals for unstated reasons, but French and German citizens know exactly why the cultural celebrations that they love are disappearing: Islamic terrorists target these events to murder Europeans.  European “authorities,” such as they are, are more concerned with Muslims’ feelings than Europeans’ lives.  

The Muslim mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, sympathizes with Islamic immigrants who stab locals and tourists but criticizes victims (and those who wish not to be murdered by Islamic terrorists) for being “Islamophobic.”  By downplaying the threat of Islamic terrorism and pretending that the greatest danger to Britain is “white supremacy,” Khan is conditioning the British people to accept their subjugation.  The Brits used to say, “Keep calm and carry on.”  Now they say, “Keep calm and surrender.”

In an ISIS-produced magazine called Invade and within an article series entitled “Terrorize Them!” Islamic State terrorists are urging Muslims to kill British patriot Tommy Robinson.  To the best of my knowledge, U.K. authorities have done nothing to protect Robinson from those who wish to murder him.  They would rather imprison Robinson for “hate speech” than say anything negative about the bloodthirsty cult that suicidal Westerners defend as the “religion of peace.”

Three weeks ago, a group of men brutally raped a young woman outside the Epsom Methodist Church in Surrey, a county south of London.  Police have claimed not to have “sufficient information” to provide the public with identifying characteristics regarding the rapists, but there is widespread belief among the locals that the attack fits the familiar pattern of Islamic rape gangs in the U.K.  When local Brits refused to be “politically correct” about the animals raping British women, the Surrey Police released a statement warning locals that law enforcement “will not tolerate disorder” because, as the BBC reported, “This may lead to additional tensions within our local communities.”  One infuriated social media commenter responded, “In the UK, without exaggeration, alleged racism is now considered a worse social evil than actual rape.”

In case there are Brits who are still confused, this is how the English will “fundamentally transform” themselves out of existence.  As writer Samuel Short inveighed against British authorities’ proclivity for protecting Islamic rape gangs from public backlash, “They would rather leave their country in the hands of barbarians than turn their backs on diversity and tolerance.”  Islamic conquerors, Short argues, “don’t need guns or armies to take Great Britain, they’ve captured the minds of natives who are willing to go to their own execution.”  

This is how the United Kingdom forsakes its historic heritage and sleepwalks toward the same fate as the Greeks of Turkey.  “Political correctness” kills.  The people who benefit from “political correctness” conquer.  Any questions?

How do European nations expect to survive if they are incapable of defending their own borders?  When in the history of the world has a nation flourished because other nations were willing to defend it from conquest?  A country that cannot protect itself is either a colony or vassal state.  Yet the Europeans have fluttered around for eighty years since WWII depending upon military assistance from the United States.  

The Second World War should have provided Europe’s leaders resounding clarity as to the importance of their own territorial security.  They scoffed at a weakened Germany after the Great War, and Germany made the nations of Europe suffer for their collective hubris.  While the victors of WWI rested on their laurels, the Germans rebuilt their military and conquered.  If it were not for the combined efforts of the United States and the Soviet Union, Europe would have gone to the Nazis.  

That should have been a profound wake-up call for any civilization that wishes to persist.  If you are not prepared to militarily defend your nation, then your nation is on borrowed time.  

We Americans are taught in school how important the Marshall Plan was to reinvigorate the economies of Western Europe.  We are taught about how vital the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was to keep the Soviet Union’s Iron Curtain from descending upon the whole continent.  Still, it is difficult for most Americans to comprehend why the European Union — a federation that has over a hundred million more people than the United States — can’t yet provide for its own defenses.  Is eighty years not enough time to rebuild and secure the nations of Europe?

What is it about Europe that puts it in such a state of disadvantage that even with a population four-thirds the size of America’s, it must depend upon America’s military to exist?  Could it be that it has spent the public’s taxes on too many welfare programs and too few weapons?  Could it be that it has preferred to wage an imaginary war against the weather than to prepare for an actual war against real enemies?  Could it be that Europe doesn’t actually want to survive?  

Eighty years after being gifted a third chance to live free from the yoke of German tyranny, an unelected European Commission now rules over the continent, and an unelected German, Ursula von der Leyen, presides over the Union as president.  What the German “ruling class” learned after Hitler is this: It’s easier to conquer Europe with bureaucracy than with tanks.  When European citizens are mostly disarmed and the militaries of European countries are mostly for show, an army of bureaucrats can seize control over everything.

Generations of Europeans have been indoctrinated to be squeamish around firearms.  Europe’s “ruling class” regularly disseminates news of “gun violence” in the United States.  But the crucial distinction that protects Americans from the same suicidal folly of Europe is the Second Amendment’s protection of our God-given right to self-defense.  A well-armed American continent means that ordinary citizens remain at all times prepared to defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.  A country unwilling to defend itself is a country that will not live.

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Two New Indictments Illuminate China’s Unconventional War Against The U.S.

China doesn’t need missiles to attack the United States. 

They’re already using hackers, spies, and meth engineers.

The Federalist

Two federal indictments unsealed this week provide fresh evidence that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is waging an unconventional war against the United States, one that targets American lives, security, and scientific edge through hacking and industrial-scale drug trafficking.

On April 27, Chinese national Xu Zewei appeared in a federal court in Houston after being extradited from Italy. He faces a nine-count indictment for hacking campaigns between 2020 and 2021. According to prosecutors, officials of China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS) and Shanghai State Security Bureau (SSSB) recruited Xu and co-conspirator Zhang Yu in early 2020 and instructed the pair to break into U.S. universities and steal research on vaccines, treatments, and testing from leading immunologists and virologists.

This case highlights two critical issues. First, during those early days of the pandemic, the CCP sought solutions to a crisis of its own making by stealing valuable information from America. Meanwhile, the party relentlessly covered up the virus’s origin (lab leak theory) and its failure to share vital and timely information with the world prevented many nations from seizing a crucial opportunity to respond effectively. As a result, we endured more than two years of measures that ultimately proved ineffective (i.e. lockdowns and masks) in controlling the spread of Covid-19, inflicting severe damage to our economies and well-being.

Second, Xu and Zhang should not be viewed as mere rogue hackers operating solo from basements out of boredom. The indictment reveals that at the time, Xu worked for Shanghai Powerock Network Co. Ltd., and Zhang for Shanghai Firetech — companies that function as extensions of the Chinese state’s cyber army.

Chinese State-Sponsored Hacking

Their case exposes a crucial and often overlooked element of Chinese state-sponsored hacking. While the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) manages its own dedicated hacking unit, the Chinese government also enlists contractors and private companies to conduct cyber operations against foreign entities, all under the watchful eye of government officials.

By leveraging the private sector for these hacking endeavors, Beijing has amplified its capacity to target foreign institutions, all while ensuring plausible deniability in case these hackers are apprehended.

The pair were also linked to the notorious HAFNIUM (Silk Typhoon) group, which exploited Microsoft Exchange vulnerabilities to compromise nearly 13,000 organizations worldwide, including universities, law firms, think tanks, and defense contractors, between late 2020 and early 2021.

The lack of an extradition treaty between the U.S. and China often allows these hackers to evade justice for their crimes. Thus, it is remarkable that a high-profile hacker like Xu was apprehended in Italy while vacationing and successfully extradited to the U.S. His indictment and forthcoming trial will shed light on Beijing’s cyber operations and send a strong message to other hackers in China, including Xu’s co-conspirator Zhang, that accountability is on the horizon and that justice ultimately prevails.

A Second Indictment: The Meth Engineers

On the same day Xu was indicted, federal prosecutors in New York charged two other Chinese nationals, Wenfeng Cui (“Vincen”) and Fan Pang (“Jerry”), with conspiring to build and export an industrial-scale methamphetamine production facility capable of churning out nearly 900 pounds of meth per day.

A single lethal dose of methamphetamine is around 200 mg, with reports of some deaths occurring even at lower doses. At this rate, one day’s planned output could theoretically kill millions. In essence, what Cui and Pang designed was akin to a weapon of mass destruction.

Even more alarming, the two successfully built a prototype last summer. Additionally, they revealed to undercover agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) just how simple it is to ship essential chemicals for meth synthesis from China to the U.S. while disguising their true nature.

By December, the two had sent tens of thousands of pounds of specialized machinery and equipment from China to Europe, with the intent to create a facility for industrial-scale meth production.

Fortunately, law enforcement successfully apprehended the Chinese duo in New York City this February. Shortly after their arrest, authorities seized shipping containers filled with dangerous equipment at a port in Europe. In announcing the charges against these individuals, U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton emphasized the gravity of the situation, stating, “Their goal was terrifying in its ambition. The potential harm of this scale of methamphetamine on our streets should give all New Yorkers and all Americans pause.”

Cui and Pang’s arrest doesn’t eliminate such a threat completely because they allegedly indicated to DEA undercover agents that researchers at China’s most prestigious state-run institution, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, are working on developing similar mass-scale meth production machinery.

There is compelling evidence that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) may be waging a covert drug war against the United States. As the largest global supplier of fentanyl precursor chemicals, China has played a crucial role in exacerbating America’s overwhelming opioid crisis. Despite numerous complaints from U.S. officials, China continues to support companies that produce these harmful precursors and synthetic drugs, showing a blatant disregard for the consequences.

Moreover, a ProPublica report highlights alarming collusion between Chinese diplomatic officials and transnational criminal organizations that oversee marijuana cultivation and distribution throughout the U.S., affecting states from California to Oklahoma and Maine.

If Cui and Pang are to be believed, and China’s leading scientists are indeed developing technology for large-scale meth production, this suggests that the Communist regime may be intentionally inundating the U.S. market with various drugs as part of a strategic plan to destabilize America.

While many Americans still view U.S.-China competition as purely economic or military, the CCP clearly sees it differently. It is using every tool, be it state-directed hackers, proxy companies, or drug precursors, to weaken American society, steal our intellectual property, and seek to gain leverage on key issues like Taiwan.

The successful extradition of Xu from Italy shows that accountability is possible even without a U.S.-China extradition treaty. But law enforcement victories alone are not enough. The United States must treat the CCP as the strategic adversary it is. That means hardening our cyber defenses, cracking down on precursor chemicals at the source, and confronting Beijing’s whole-of-society assault with a whole-of-government response. Our adversary is not constrained by conventional rules, and we can no longer afford to be tied to outdated norms either.

SCOTUS Decision Striking Down Racial Gerrymandering Shows Alito Plays The Long Game

Alito has a history of trying to figure out what can get him to five votes and how to use those votes to move the needle.

The Federalist

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito doesn’t always write a majority opinion that gives conservatives exactly what they want when they want. Sometimes, he writes decisions that get the needed five votes to make a majority — and move the needle in the long term.

He did it again this week in Louisiana v. Callais.

The case arose after Louisiana created a second majority-black congressional district after a lower court said that the state’s original congressional map (which had one majority-black district) likely violated Section 2. The high court ultimately ruled that Section 2 is designed to enforce the Constitution’s prohibition on intentional racial discrimination but that “Unfortunately, lower courts have sometimes applied this Court’s §2 precedents in a way that forces States to engage in the very race-based discrimination that the Constitution forbids.”

In other words, the decision doesn’t blow up Section 2 of the VRA, as some on the left hypothesized or feared it would. It also doesn’t do what Clarence Thomas — who wrote a concurring opinion that said he “would go further and hold that §2 of the Voting Rights Act does not regulate districting at all” — wanted it to do.

Instead, it’s actually “*better* than getting rid of section 2 outright, because it means section 2 can be used to CHALLENGE majority-minority districts (for impermissibly using race),” as Article 3 Project’s Senior Counsel Will Chamberlain said on X.

This ruling reflects the same Alito that The Federalist’s Editor-in-Chief Mollie Hemingway describes in her new book, Alito: The Justice Who Reshaped the Supreme Court and Restored The Constitution.

What Alito has shown — and what Hemingway reports on in her new book — is that he plays the long game. Alito has a history of trying to figure out what can get him to five votes and how to use those votes to move the needle. Alito himself said as much in 2022:

“If a justice is assigned to write an opinion for the Court, the justice has to try to get at least four colleagues to agree, and that can be a difficult process. What is ultimately produced may be quite different from what the author or any other member of the majority would prefer.”

Such reality was evident in Alito’s majority opinion in the Hobby Lobby case, which held corporation owners are exempt from the Obamacare contraceptive requirement if it burdens their religious beliefs.

As Hemingway explained, “The decision was not an unqualified win for religious adherents, as Justice Anthony Kennedy’s concurrence emphasized the limited scope of the ruling.”

But, Alito had a “tact” that “made him more likely than Scalia to keep a fragile majority together,” Hemingway reported, noting that Kennedy was reluctant to join the majority opinion.

Alito is also able to bring a coalition of justices together with his tactical line of questioning.

In Minnesota Voters Alliance v. Mansky, Andrew Cilek was temporarily barred from voting because he wore a Tea Party shirt to a polling location and a Minnesota law prohibited the wearing of “political” apparel to polling locations, Hemingway explained in her book. During oral arguments, Alito asked the lawyer defending the statute a series of hypothetical questions about how different articles of clothing would be judged under the statute. Eventually, Alito asked whether a shirt with the Second Amendment would be considered political, to which the attorney said yes. Alito followed up by asking whether a shirt with the First Amendment would be considered political, prompting the court to laugh after he showed he absurdity of the statute, as Hemingway explains.

“Prior to oral arguments, Supreme Court handicappers thought the case would be closely divided,” Hemingway wrote. “In fact, Chief Justice Roberts’ majority opinion, which made heavy use of Alito’s colloquy in oral argument, was joined by seven justices, including the liberals Ginsburg and Kagan.”

Alito’s ability to use questioning to help guide the court to a place where more justices are willing to sign on underscores his unique position on the bench.

Then there are cases where Alito may not get everything he — or other justices — want (as Alito alluded to in 2022), but ultimately helps set the groundwork for future additional victories, or, as Hemingway describes, “Alito [shows] the deft way he handles bad precedents when the Court is not ready to overrule them in American Legion v. American Humanist Association.”

In that case, a World War I memorial cross that sat on public land was challenged under the Establishment Clause. The court ultimately ruled that there is an exception for historical monuments under the Lemon Test, which is a test the high court created in 1971 to determine if a government action violates the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause.

Justice Stephen Breyer joined the majority while Thomas wrote that he would have taken the ruling a step further and overruled the Lemon test in all contexts. But as Hemingway explains, three years later in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, “Gorsuch’s majority opinion relied on Alito’s American Legion opinion in overruling Lemon …”

“One of Alito’s former clerks, Professor Joel Alicea of the Catholic University of America’s law school, explains how the justice’s patient, tactical approach achieved the previously elusive goal of rescuing Establishment Clause jurisprudence from the confusion of Lemon and putting it on sound originalist footing: ‘While Justice Alito’s opinion in American Legion may not have been as pure or as satisfying as many originalists would have liked, it demonstrated a masterful ability to navigate the practical, doctrinal, and theoretical difficulties of moving the Court in an originalist direction in the face of internal disagreement amongst the justices — and to bring about exactly the result that originalists seek,'” Hemingway reported.

As Alito has shown in case after case, he is able to craft opinions that build coalitions and set the groundwork for additional victories. Narrowing the use of Section 2 in Louisiana v. Callais is yet just another example of Alito teeing the ball up, as Chamberlain pointed out.

Conrad Black: Canada's path back to prosperity

 Mark Carney leaves room for hope but there is little sign that he is about to do what's necessary

Last year, I supported the Conservatives in the federal election because the Liberal government of the previous 10 years had produced large net capital outflows, presided over Canada’s decline in the rankings of the most prosperous countries per capita, conducted a suicidal war on the petroleum industry, self-defamed the country for attempted genocide of First Nations, was a useless member of the western alliance and did not deserve a fourth consecutive term in office.

 I had seen Mark Carney as a central banker in Canada, where he was a scene-stealer when the prime minister, Stephen Harper, and the finance minister, Jim Flaherty, guided us through the 2008 financial crisis.

 I also saw him in the United Kingdom, where, as governor of the Bank of England, he had plunged the bank into absurd controversies about global warming and parroted the Cameron government’s nonsense about Europe.

His successor has renounced his dire predictions of the consequences of Britain withdrawing from the European Union.

He paid no attention whatsoever to British reservations about lack of democracy in the European Union, where the commissioners shower the entire population of the combined membership with authoritarian communiques and are not remotely answerable to the so-called European Parliament, much less the electorate.

The British are right to be hesitant to subordinate the institutions that they have carefully built up over nearly 1,000 years to the well-intentioned but unfledged institutions of Brussels and Strasbourg.

Carney ignored all of this. Although he won the election on a spurious misrepresentation of U.S. President Donald Trump as a ravening dragon assaulting the pure Canadian snow maiden of the north, almost everything is fair in politics, he is our prime minister and I wish him success.

His principal strength in the polls continues to be his supposed ability to stand up to Trump. This is just posturing. After then-prime minister Justin Trudeau told Trump that the Canadian economy would collapse if he imposed the tariffs he was considering, and because Canada had not made a respectable contribution to its own defence since the retirement of Brian Mulroney in 1993, and because, like most foreigners, Trump does not see much difference between an English-speaking Canadian and an American from a northern state, it seemed to him logical for the two countries to federate. At no point was he threatening to occupy or annex Canada.

I strenuously criticized some of Trump’s reflections on Canada, including directly to him personally, and supported some of Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s rather draconian proposed countermeasures, including threatening to add a surcharge to electricity exports to the United States.

It was an outrage for Trump to liken Canada’s conduct to that of Mexico, which was complicit in the illegal entry of millions of people into the United States, including many thousands of dangerous criminals, and which systematically sought to create unemployment in the United States by attracting American manufacturing  to Mexican cheap labour for export under free trade to the U.S.

The attempt, announced in Carney’s speech at Davos, to mobilize the “middle powers” in resistance to the abuse of the hegemons, and then going to Beijing to pander to the worst hegemon, is nonsense. If Canada was governed well, it would be seen by everyone to be one of the most important countries in the world.

Instead of trying to mobilize a gaggle of grumbling little powers, we should concentrate on becoming a power ourselves. The world envies not only our proximity to the globe’s greatest market, but the fact that the Americans have not seriously bothered us for over 200 years, a comment that very few other countries in the world can make about their neighbours.

The world is finally adjusting to the end of the Cold War and of the Soviet Union. Former U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt knew that if the U.S. did not maintain some presence in western Europe and the Far East, all of Eurasia could be dominated by forces hostile to democracy and the security of the United States would be endangered in every generation, and he defeated the isolationists. But after the Cold War, the U.S.S.R.’s collapse and reunified Germany’s integration into the democratic West, western Europe is perfectly able to defend itself against Russia, which has floundered ineffectually about in Ukraine for longer than the Russo-German war between Hitler and Stalin. Russia is no serious threat to western Europe.

The U.S. doesn’t care what goes on in other countries as long as it is not threatened. All the talk of China catching the United States as the world’s greatest economic power has stopped. The U.S. can now be less indulgent of countries that have been accustomed to taking advantage of it in exchange for not fraternizing too intimately with America’s rivals.

This is the context for Trump’s greater nationalism, not any ambition to “break Canada.” Of course, we should try to diversify trade, roughly 70 per cent of which is now with the U.S. But building exports elsewhere will be a lengthy process. We must start by reducing our corporate tax rate to below the U.S level (21 per cent). Otherwise, we will not attract foreign investment and our comparative GDP per capita will continue to fall.

Carney removed the federal carbon tax, and has attempted to reduce inter-provincial trade barriers and encourage major infrastructure projects, and he has announced an increase in defence spending and is creating a sovereign wealth fund. I was in Calgary last week and many well-connected people are confident that he will promote a new pipeline and assist oil and gas exports.

All of this portends well, though little has come of it in his first year. My greatest reservation about Mark Carney is that he truly believes in Brussels-like government: highly educated bureaucrats determining what is best for vast populations, with little accountability.

The European project has done a magnificent job of uniting the continent but has been an economic failure: between 2008 and 2024, EU GDP per capita (in current dollars) grew by 16.5 per cent, compared to 74 per cent in the U.S. This is no model for Canada to emulate.

We have a more civil society than the United States and most of my life it has been nearly as prosperous. But not anymore. We must focus immediately and fiercely on narrowing that gap and turning our mighty treasure house of a country into the envy of the world. Mark Carney leaves room for hope but there is little sign that he is about to do that.

National Post

 https://nationalpost.com/opinion/canadas-path-back-to-prosperity

 

Dems Revive Court-Packing Threats After Being Told They Can’t Do Racist Gerrymandering

After being told states can’t partake in racist gerrymandering, Democrats are renewing their threats to pack the Supreme Court once they regain power.

The Federalist

In the name of “norms” and “democracy,” radical Democrats are renewing calls to pack the U.S. Supreme Court should they regain control of the federal government.

The wave of alarming threats came about after the high court handed down a ruling in Louisiana v. Callais on Wednesday that nuked states’ ability to use race in the redistricting process. As The Federalist reported, the decision effectively gives states leeway “to eliminate majority-minority districts that were carved out under past interpretations of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act — interpretations that benefited Democrats.”

Clearly fearful it could jeopardize their political power, Democrats wasted no time in using the 6-3 decision — which fell along ideological lines — as an excuse to revive their threats to pack the Supreme Court with left-wing ideologues once given the reigns of Congress and the White House. Such threats were widespread during Joe Biden’s presidency but conveniently became less common once Donald Trump returned to office.

While attacking the conservative justices’ recognition that America has a colorblind Constitution, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries telegraphed his willingness to embrace his party’s court-packing plan if handed the speaker’s gavel. In a recent interview, he emphatically stated that “everything is on the table” when it comes to “deal[ing] with” a court that’s ensuring adherence to the country’s founding legal document.

“The Supreme Court is a disgrace. And then, in the new Congress, we’re gonna have to do something about the Supreme Court,” Jeffries said. “And let me be very clear: Everything is on the table — everything — to deal with this corrupt MAGA majority that is issuing political opinions that are designed to bolster the prospects of the Republican Party. And we will not allow them to succeed.”

The far-left Demand Justice issued a similar veiled threat in apparent support of such efforts. President Josh Orton — who boasts a background in Democrat Party activism — issued a statement following Callais‘ release, in which he smeared the Supreme Court for its decision and said it “must face fundamental reform if it is to once again serve our democracy.”

Demand Justice is notorious for its slanderous campaigns against Republican judicial nominees and past support for court-packing. The group also notably partook in the left’s destructive efforts to keep Brett Kavanaugh off the Supreme Court, and recently disclosed plans to block future Trump nominees to the high court should vacancies arise.

Longtime media hack Mehdi Hasan was much more explicit in his calls to pack the Supreme Court with left-wingers who would forgo proper jurisprudence in favor of political activism on the bench. The paperwork American wrote on X, “If the Democrats don’t make rebalancing and expanding the Supreme Court a top priority for whenever (if?) they next get into power, then I don’t know what to say anymore. The GOP-packed court is the biggest block on progress in this country and has been for a while.”

America-hating Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., took a break from sympathizing with terrorists to put out her own ill-conceived statement. Seemingly incapable of crafting a cogent argument, the congresswoman tweeted, “Term limits for the Supreme Court. Enforce a binding Code of Ethics. Impeach these corrupt justices. Expand the Court.”

The left-wing rag known as The Bulwark ran an article from one of its editors calling on Democrats to “expand” SCOTUS once they retake power.

These more recent calls come days after Democrat strategist James Carville pressed for his party to “expand the Supreme Court to 13” on the first day they regain total control of Congress and the White House. He specifically advised Democrat candidates not to talk about such radical policies on the campaign trail.

“If the Democrats win the presidency and both Houses of Congress, I think on day one, they should make Puerto Rico, D.C. a state, and they should expand the Supreme Court to 13. F-ck it, eat our dust,” Carville said. “The 2000 election, [Republicans] stole it; they’ve stolen … Supreme Court seats; they’ve gerrymandered everything that you can; and the only way to fight this is don’t run on it [and] don’t talk about it. Just do it.”

Carville seemingly reaffirmed his support for court-packing following the Callais decision’s release. While attacking the high court, he referred to the conservative justices as “sons of b-tches” and more specifically called Chief Justice John Roberts a “f-cking clown,” according to RealClearPolitics.