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Respect the Office
By Brian | September 7, 2009 | Share on Facebook
Four years ago, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, I wrote this about the way the nation was treating President George W. Bush:
This is a bad sign for our country. Much as Watergate lifted the
Topics: Political Rantings | 32 Comments »
32 Responses to “Respect the Office”
Someday, it would be nice to live in a country where anyone gives a damn about factual accuracy. You have this habit of drawing parallels — “gee, a lot of people are pissed off at Obama, just like a lot of people used to be pissed off at Bush” — which gives this veneer of moral equivalence to the two sides.
There is no such equivalence. With no specific offense intended towards your friend, people who think Obama is indoctrinating the nation’s youth into a socialist paradise are, by their own admission, ignorant. Ignorant of socialism. And ignorant of Obama’s policies. A socialist government does not bail out banks and car companies. A socialist government nationalizes them. Furthermore — a socialist government believes that nationalization is a moral good, and will argue in favor of it from first principles.
If someone wishes to argue that Obama is too liberal, I’m glad to have that debate — I think he’s far too moderate. But when someone drops the word socialist, proving that they’ve already been drinking from the indoctrination punchbowl, generally that discussion is going to be a waste of breath.
On the other hand, those of us who opposed the Bush administration (and continue to oppose continued policies therefrom), generally made cogent and detailed arguments against the facts known at the time — and have had those arguments displayed as prescient as more facts were revealed later. (Or, to put it another way before you point to straw men arguments — *I* made cogent and detailed arguments on limited data, and have generally been proven more correct as more data were released.) Sorry, but if you’re surprised that Tom Ridge says that the alert system was used for political purposes, you simply weren’t paying attention. But at the time, those who did were called Bush-haters — and gee, they still are, here and elsewhere.
Facts matter. Sometimes, the partisans on one side or the other are actually correct. My side — which is to say “progressives” (and not “Democrats”) — has a track record of which I’m proud, and no one seems to give a damn.
At one time, Americans who self-identified as educated were embarrassed when they were shown to be profoundly misinformed. And people who had a track record of being correct gained credibility in public debate.
Me, I think it’s about time we stopped arguing with furniture. I’m not going to draw a distinction between the people too ignorant to know that Obama is not a Nazi, those too ignorant to know that Hawaii is a state, and those too ignorant to know the difference between socialism and Keynesian capitalism. I’ll instead hope that some minority of the ignorant — including myself, if I happen to show any — can still feel shame about the gaps in their education, and learn to do better.
http://www.salon.com/comics/tomo/2009/09/08/tomo/index.html?source=rss
This isn’t about supporting Bush or supporting Obama. This is about showing respect to the President of the United States, even when (especially when) you disagree with him.
I’ve long had bones to pick with those who unfairly criticized the Bush administration, and I have similar bones to pick with those who unfairly criticize the Obama administration. Beyond my quest for fair and constructive criticism, I draw no implicit paralells between the two.
But I will draw paralells between those who called Bush a Nazi and those who call Obama a socialist. And I do believe that the same caustic attitude that lead some to accuse Bush of “rewriting the Constitution” is what causes people to accuse Obama of “systematically ruining the country.”
There’s debate and then there’s hyperbole. And when hyperbole becomes the accepted form of communication, the debate is either drowned out or ceases to exist.
What I don’t understand is this blanket concept of “respecting the president because he is the president.”
If George Bush slapped Laura Bush in the face, would you respect him?
If George Bush shot and killed a man without provocation, would you respect him?
And here’s one to ponder…
I never thought GW Bush was evil, however:
If a President is not smart enough to realize that his VP and other non-elected officials are manipulating him in order to fill their pockets (at the expense of American lives, no less), would you respect him?
Obama, Clinton, George H Bush…these are incredibly intelligent men. Whether or not you like their politics, they earned our respect.
GWB only earned our disrespect – particularly when he ran for a second term at a position for which he was highly unqualified.
While I agree with Jeff that Obama is too moderate for my preferences, my position on the left does not include a call for socialist revolution. I am invested in change from within the system, and that doesn’t work if its value is undermined from either/any side. My children heard in is much detail as they wanted or were ready for what I objected to about President Bush as a person and as a politician, and certainly as someone who represented specific policies. But I did not make references to smells of sulfur in the White House (though I explained them when used by others), and I called him President Bush (even though I also discussed with them my concerns about how he ended up in the office, both times).
Whether I liked his personal conviction that God had chosen him to be president, or his policies on many many issues, he was still my President, and I wanted him to be responsible for and to me and those with similar convictions – if I don’t respect the office merely because I disagree with – and perhaps don’t respect – the holder of the office, then I am without a president, and that’s not a good place to be.
If nothing else, it seems to give the holder of the office free reign to ignore my concerns and convictions, as I have separated myself from the policy.
Even a cursory knowledge of 20th century history (and I admit that I have more than a cursory knowledge myself) demonstrates quite quickly that George H.W. Bush was not a fascist, and that Barack H. Obama is not a socialist. To apply either label to either president is to do damage to the study of history, but more importantly, also to opportunities to work for change (whatever change we each may want) within our political system.
I agree with Craig that not all politicians deserve our personal respect (and I’d hope that any president who committed murder wouldn’t be president long).
I very much agree with Jeff that there are too many facile comparisons out there between President Obama and President Bush that gloss over what we know to be real and substantive differences on profoundly important levels.
But I also agree with Brian that a certain level of respect for the office and civil discourse is necessary if productive change is our goal. I’m glad Brian’s friend is happy with the speech, and I’m glad she was able to read it and then able to see that it didn’t say what she feared it would. Many who view the president similarly to her are no longer capable of doing that; they will find a devil in the details because it is all they can see any longer, no matter what is really there. When that happens, it precludes any political change, whatever your goals.
@Craig – I think it’s important to note that when politicians truly do things to lose our respect for them personally, history has shown our propensity for throwing them out of office. Examples: Richard Nixon, Rob Blogojevich, the various congressmen over the years who have sexually assaulted or mistreated others while in office. You could even make the argument that Bill Clinton’s actions vis-a-vis the women in his life got him awfully close to being thrown out, but that gets into the witch-hunt that was Whitewater, etc., so it probably clouds the issue.
Your assessment of George W. Bush’s intelligence, and many of the concerns Janet highlights rise, in my opinion, to a disagreement with his policies and the execution thereof. And, as Janet so eloquently said, arguing that these disagreements make him unfit to hold office or unworthy of our respect, take you out of the productive debate that can change those policies, which is never a good thing.
So, that said, let me defend myself against the person who calls me ignorant and uninformed…when the government takes over the auto industry, supports the banking industry, gives people money to buy cars, and talks about nationalizing health care, what else are we talking about? Obama has set out to grow an unwieldy government to which the proletariat, I mean citizenry, of this country turns for every necessity.
So, Jeff, with due respect, when a President sets out to create a system that is government controlled rather than allowing a free market solution to a problem, what are we to think his agenda is? The cost for all of this added government intervention will be more tax burden and less freedom of choice.
Now, let’s talk about respecting the office. My personal feeling is the President Obama has done enough to strip the office of dignity by bowing to foreign leaders, walking the earth apologizing for our “bad behavior”, and his own verbal missteps. Now, to be clear, I don’t say the GWB was the best President we ever had. I don’t think he was very intelligent, nor do I think he was a great orator, however, his political ideaologies, for the most part, were more in step with my own than this President’s. And I don’t trust this President. I think he is dangerous for this country in so many ways, and I see all of this unconditional support for him as scary. For those of us who aren’t on the Obama-train, it looks like this country is on an electric kool-aid acid trip and just can’t see what is really happening. And so, yes, maybe it is overly reactionary to oppose the President speaking to school children, but it is because we are genuinely afraid of this man and what he seems capable of doing to this country. These are our children, our most precious resources and the future of our country, indeed the world. Having had the opportunity to see the comments in advance, I don’t have a problem with it. It was the uncertainty of what he would say to these children that had me questioning why it needed to be in a setting where children were absent their parents, their most valuable moral compass.
I’m not a “Who Moved My Cheese?” kind of person, I can tolerate change. What I can’t tolerate is the systematic dismantling of the fundamental principles upon which the founding fathers began this nation. At least that’s how I see it. Now I am prepared for you to call me crazy, off-balance, a racist, or any of the other myriad things that left-leaning folks call us Conservatives these days. And there is no need for me to respond because as we all know, when one is sane in an insane place, the more you protest your sanity, the crazier you look. For the record, I am an Ivy League educated person, with a near genius IQ, I am not a racist, a bigot or a gun fanatic. I believe in freedom of speech, the pursuit of happiness, the legalization of both marijuana and gay marriage, and in working hard to achieve a better station in life. Just for the record.
Lisa, I’ve been avoiding debating Jeff on the issues here, because my point was more about how we treat the President and the office. But for the record, I think it’s disingenuous for Jeff to wave off claims of socialism because President Obama didn’t nationalize the banks. There are at least three large companies under direct federal control now (CitiGroup, Chrysler and GM), and AIG was run by a government appointee for most of 2009. Some of his other policies (more czars than cabinet positions? Government approval of compensation packages? Government approval of the composition of tobacco products?) also smack of direct government control, rather than tougher regulations and/or enforcement of the law. It is these things that make the Salon comic misleading – concerns about what has happened, not about what might happen.
That said, your conclusion that Obama intends to turn America into a socialist nation is, in my opinion, off the mark. I think he has the best interests of the country at heart, but doesn’t trust private industry or private citizens to do the right thing without him. As I’ve said before, it’s ironic that the most inspiring President we’ve had in almost 30 years chooses to seek results by mandate, rather than by inspiring others.
More to my original point, though, my problem starts when your disagreements turn to unconditional distrust, and when you switch from “I don’t trust this President” to “WE are genuinely afraid of this man.” When you speak for yourself, you make cogent (although debatable) arguments. When you speak for the “royal we,” you sound to me like a missionary – one who wants to convert the non-believers to the “Obama is evil” camp.
I’m suggesting that your policy disagreements should be enough to spark debate, and that this sense of communal mistrust leads only to apprehension about the most innocent of things (like a “work hard and stay in school” speech that you liked when you read the actual content).
Sorry, Jeff, I ain
No arguments at all with your points — Bush is not Hitler or Mussolini, and the parallels I drew were just that, illustrative parallels. Also agreed that the fascism attack works much better as a red meat rhetorical device when preaching to the choir; it doesn’t win converts.
That said, I have two emotional arguments which argue against my rational agreement, as follows:
1) As I mentioned, that socialism charge has worked to marginalize the left since the 1940s, and it still works today, 20 years after the Cold War ended. Historically, that’s a bit odd, since it was the Cold War which fueled anticommunist fervor; before that, communism was a fringe movement here, but not reviled. International Labor Day celebrates a protest held in Chicago.
That’s one thing which the American right does really well: they attack us as traitors, and we respond with Marquess of Queensbury rules. “Heavens, no, we couldn’t possibly allow a discussion of fascism into mainstream political debate!” Pick another word if you like; our side needs to someday learn a command of rhetoric which allows us to move public opinion as easily and cheaply as their side does.
My thinking: on the global political spectrum, Bush is far from Mussolini. However, within the much narrower American spectrum, yes, there’s an antidemocratic impulse on the right which deserves words like “fascist” and “totalitarian”. Our refusal to use them (outside of media which preaches to the choir, that is) cedes too much territory to the other side. It’s about time we took up the mantle and started wrapping ourselves in the flag from time to time — history says that we’re quite entitled to do so.
2) Beyond that, it’s an ongoing argument I have with Brian that Bad Things Can Happen Here. I don’t think America has a magic inoculation against the infection that killed the Weimar Republic. It’s my opinion that certain people on the right — and this group I will unhesitatingly call “evil” — have a strategy in place to sweep back to power when another terrorist strike occurs. I certainly think that impulse will be strong enough to win elections, much as it did in 2002 and 2004, but I would like to see a stronger American meme against fascism and totalitarianism, to prevent America from going along with their worst impulses if they resume control.
(Aside to Brian: no, not all Republicans. Not even most. But highly placed ones, speaking for the Republican party? Absolutely.)
Jeff: you can’t just redefine words that already have meanings if the current meanings don’t fit your arguments. To wit:
The President sending troops into battle is not murder. “Murder” has a definition, and that ain’t it. Wrong? Immoral? Ill-fated? Badly executed? All valid arguments if you want to make them, but it’s not murder, and you can’t call it murder and then use that as justification for branding him “evil.”
“Criminal” also has a definition. And while you may think that Buchanan, Grant and Hoover were amongst our worst presidents, none of them were convicted of committing crimes. And so I stand by my statement that politicians who commit crimes are usually thrown out of office. And sorry – not meeting with your approval (or the approval of the political opposition) is not a crime.
“Socialism” also has a definition. Dictionary.com uses this one: “a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.” Citigroup and AIG are majority-owned by the government today, and neither has gone bankrupt, so the bankruptcy laws don’t apply one whit. GM and Chrysler did go bankrupt, but they came out of them with >50% government control. And in both cases, the laws of bankruptcy court (secured creditors get paid off at 100 cents on the dollar before unsecured creditors get paid at all) were summarily ignored and/or changed. I’m not sure where you got the idea that socialism only occurs if the government shuts down private industry and turns production into a federal department. The definition allows for many more shades of grey. If my friend Ilya is still reading this (doubtful), he could likely tell you stories of how private companies were handled in the old Soviet Union.
Oh, and this?
The [bankruptcy] court appoints a receiver and controls certain aspects of corporate operation. . . there is absolutely no legal corpus which is so resolutely capitalist in scope and theory as bankruptcy law.
I KNOW you’re not suggesting that there is no difference between the judicial branch and the executive branch. That would positively Cheney-esque of you…
“Free market” also has a definition. You seem happy to pretend that it means “no government intervention whatsoever,” and then proceed to declare it a failure over and over again. Short of the bartering of ancient times, I can’t think of a single free-market system that didn’t involve some kind of “rules of the road.” The financial system almost failed but did not. The US Healthcare system, which provides healthcare for 85% of its citizens, is badly in need of fixing, but to call it “failed” is just political poppycock – regardless of how many people say it over & over again…
As for the rest of your “our side needs to…” because “the other side has … for decades,” you just reinforce what I said to Lisa above. “Others agree with me & I can name names” does not add credence to your argument. In my opinion, it’s just justification for moving the debate out of the facts and into the hyperbole (“evil,” “fascist,” “socialist” – take your pick). As this discussion is demonstrating, both sides accuse the other of not having facts (even though both do), both sides accuse the other of cherry picking (both do), and neither side proves anything to anybody.
At when it’s over, the President (any President) is out to destroy the country and our way of life. Amazingly, though, the country is never destroyed and our way of life continues unabated. But the constant failure of the country to collapse does not deter whichever group’s turn it is to spout this stuff…
“You might define their freedom as fascism, but no, no, no, at the time that was done, the progressives thought Mussolini was a good guy. They thought that was the ultimate system of government.”
I wasn’t aware when I wrote my post that the lunatic fringe right (audience: 2.odd million) was calling us fascists. So by all means, it makes perfect sense for us to remain polite and mannerly. Wishing I could see Janet’s spit-take when she reads this quote.
Take it from this Republican: Glenn Beck is an entertainer – no more, no less. His job performance is measured by the number of people who watch his show. And history has shown that the number of people who watch is correlated more highly to the amount of controversy he generates than it is to the amount of sense he makes. That’s why Olbermann (another entertainer) quotes him all the time.
It’s one thing when the “they” in your arguments is Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld. It’s quite another when it’s Beck, Limbaugh and Hannity. Those folks were elected by nobody and represent nobody. I don’t care how many people watch their tripe…
You have this knack for eliding over intellectual debates which have been going on for centuries, by declaring them obviously over in your own mind. To wit:
1. War is not murder.
2. Entertainment is not political.
Trust me, if you want a PhD in either philosophy or communications, there is ample area in both fields to write a 500-page masterwork on the history of both debates, and to leave plenty of room for the people who will come after you to add to the work.
I don’t feel like getting into a 5,000 word essay on the moral philosophy of war, so I’ll just ask you this: if war is not murder, then what do you call Saddam Hussein’s use of chemical weapons on civilians during the Iran-Iraq war? Or, if you like, the firebombing of Dresden or the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? (Civilian casualties in Halabja: ~4,000; Dresden: 30,000 – 130,000; Hiroshima: 66,000; Nagasaki: 39,000.)
Most people have a sliding scale of moral judgment on the above, usually based on which uniforms are worn by the bombers and the dead. My sliding scale is based on whether they’re wearing uniforms or civvies. But the sliding scale I completely reject is the idea that if you kill enough people, you can’t call it murder.
As for the entertainment theory: entertainers have affected political debate for at least 2,000 years. Ever read any Greek or Roman plays or epic poems? Anyone ever tell you why they included what they did?
Suffice to say, if anyone at Annenberg heard you dismiss Beck as “just an entertainer” who doesn’t affect the political process, the field of scorn created would likely set your hair on fire next time you came back to campus. Beck is part of a social structure which validates, intensifies, and purifies the beliefs of his viewers. Olbermann, of course, does the same. As an outsider to both groups, your position should not be dismissive, it should rather be to ask what is being validated.
Sigh. Haven’t even gotten to the previous comment yet….
I didn’t say “War is not murder.” I said “The President sending troops into battle is not murder.” A soldier can most certainly commit murder. A President can also commit war crimes (which is what Hussein was convicted, and ultimately executed, for).
So, calling George W. Bush a murderer is factually inaccurate, political hyperbole. I don’t need a 5,000 word essay on the morality of war to know that.
I also didn’t say that “Entertainment is not political,” nor did I say that it “doesn’t affect the political process.” Certainly, Beck, Limbaugh, Hannity, Olbermann and the rest are political. So are Stewart, Maher, Letterman and Leno. And while we’re at it, Dylan and Springsteen. What I said was “Those folks were elected by nobody and represent nobody.”
So, suggesting that Glen Beck or Rush Limbaugh represent the Republican Party is factually inaccurate. They may coincidently represent the views of some Republicans, which is all fine & good, but the recent meme that they are now the leaders of the Republican Party is political hyperbole. Again, no PhD required.
Under American law, there are any number of reasons why you don’t need to be the triggerman to commit murder. Of course, imperial presidents don’t have to worry about prosecution–but if you want to rest your argument on what charges can be brought in court, then you’re arguing that 50% of all murders committed are not, in fact, murders as they never go to trial.
As for “representing the Republican party”, I don’t think I claimed that, as I don’t believe it’s factually accurate to claim that anyone can represent a coop of decapitated chickens. I was arguing against your formulation of “entertainers, neither more nor less.” My thinking is that Glenn Beck is more relevant to political debate than Jessica Biel. My thinking is also that it’s fairly fucking dangerous that we’ve simultaneously created a political culture which encourages disruptive dissent (starting, IMO, with the coordinated Republican attack on 2000 vote counts), along with a culture where people bring assault rifles to public fora.
You want me to draw a logical proof connecting Beck and Limbaugh to that change in the political dialogue? Can’t do it. You want me to point out that some things should be obvious to anyone paying attention? Glad to do so.
Ironically, I agree with quite a lot of what you say, just not when you conjure up an idea that a government has independent means to “buy” as many companies it desires, outside of making the nation collectively owning those companies. Maybe, I have a wrong idea of where the government gets its funds…
Brian, I can’t, in fact, tell you of stories of private companies in the old USSR. They did not exist then, pure and simple (or, at least, did not exist in a legal sense of the word). And I do not consider myself any sort of expert on the workings of socialist economy. I simply reserve the right to call a “socialist” anyone whose approach to economic and/or social policies leads to a centralized government control at the expense of private enterprise and to removal of market-based incentives for innovation, competition and advancement in the name of egalitarian goals. I’m too scarred by the real thing.
That being said, you’d be surprised, Jeff, how often I end up arguing more or less your side when in company of my old friends, who’d sign with their own blood under Lisa’s “Obama is dangerous to this country in so many ways”… Oy!
Jeff: I think our differences here boil down to the semantic. You seem to be trying to convince me that America’s system of government is still capitalist, not socialist and that President is a member of the Democratic party, not the Socialist party. If that’s the case, then you win – I have no argument with you on either point.
But what they did teach me at Wharton (and, I should note, just to keep the snark points even, they obviously didn’t teach you), is that labels aren’t absolute.
Our government didn’t simply “invest a metric assload of money” into these companies and then get out of the way. Nor did they, as I would have liked to see, invest the money to get the companies through the short-term crisis, impose a new set of regulations on all companies in those industries to discourage the phenomenon that created the crisis, and then get out of the way and allow the regulations to work.
Our government invested in these companies, and then used those investments, plus media pressure, plus public outrage over sideshow issues like executive compensation and corporate jet usage (about which they are generally correct, but which amount to a tiny fraction of the overall problem), plus the bully pulpit of the President, plus some creative and retroactive rewriting of bankruptcy laws, to direct the daily operations of these companies to varying levels of degree.
Consider some of the unprecedented events that have taken place in just the last eight months (since Obama took office):
These are but a few examples. We are still a capitalist society. Like Ilya, I shudder at comments like “President Obama is destroying America” (as much as I shudderred about the comments that President Bush was doing the same). I believe the economy will rebound, and private industry and innovation will once again flourish. I also believe that those who achieve wild success will earn wild fortunes, and that they will continue to withstand the jealousy and cheap political potshots that come with that success, especially when it serves politicians’ goals to employ it.
But to suggest that there is nothing different or unusual about how President Obama has approached this recovery, and to not see the similarities to what Ilya calls “the real thing,” is, in my opinion, the view that only comes by looking through Obama-colored glasses.
Snarky rejoinder: well, if I’m going to be called a communist, I might as well act like a communist.
Actual reply: I’m not modifying the meanings of my political opponents; I’m pointing out logical flaws in their arguments. If you think I’m relying a bit too heavily on rhetoric to do so, I’ll respond by saying that I think the right has my side beat on rhetoric by a country mile.
I agree with quite a lot of what you say, just not when you conjure up an idea that a government has independent means to
Well, now you’re arguing in circles, because if a company is bought when it’s in trouble, it’s typically dismantled and/or integrated into the buyer’s company (see: JPMorganChase buying Bear Stearns, Wells Fargo buying Wachovia, Bank of America buying Merrill Lynch, etc.). Your point was that Obama isn’t nationalizing these companies, right?
Brian: under the arrogant and misguided belief that they can run the company better than the people that got it where it is.
Jeff: You
OK, this is like arguing with a deaf (or, in this case, blind) person. Rather than quoting myself, just go back and re-read comments 8, 14, and 22 (especially the detailed, bullet-point list of heavy-handed government oversight in #22).
I appreciate that you’re likely having the same argument with dozens of people, and that many of them are spouting some Republican talking points at you, but when you’re talking to me, please either refute the facts I’m giving you or concede the point. Don’t just repeat what you said two weeks ago as if the discussion had never happened. For that, I can watch a cable news channel…
so sick I am of listening to the propped-up princes of the status quo bitching and moaning about the precise methods concerning how they were bailed out from economic ruin. But hey, Wall Street is getting paid handsomely again, and only industrial union employees are still getting fucked, so I guess it worked out okay in the end for everyone. Right?
Yeah, right. If you think I’m a “propped-up prince of the status quo,” then you haven’t read the megabytes I’ve written about the complex web of inter-dependencies that caused this financial crisis, the changes the administration has already passed and proposed for the future, and the additional regulations I’d like to see them pass.
And, for the record, I’m not bitching and moaning about the methods that have been used. I have said many times, that I think the bailouts were mostly successful. The argument came from you trying to convince me that unless Obama shuts down the government, changes his party affiliation to “Socialist,” reconstitutes the United States as a socialist nation, and replaces the Constitution with Karl Marx’s Greatest Hits, then nothing he is doing can be mentioned in the same breath as socialism.
Oh, and as for Wall Street getting paid handsomely and only industrial union employees bearing the brunt of this, remind me to introduce you to the thousands of former colleagues of mine who lost their jobs in the last twelve months. Just today, in fact, a former employer of mine let go 20% of its domestic senior executives. Yeah – we’re just having a freaking’ party over here…
Ugh. Talk about a fact-free argument. A few talking points:
1) First president to appoint a czar: Ronald Reagan.
2) Number of people designated as
Yes, the merry-go-round continues onward. As I keep saying, what you call heavy-handed government intrusion are actions which you wouldn’t even blink at if any other entity had fronted the capital involved. Your argument would have merit (perhaps) if this government regulation were absent the billions of dollars invested–or trillions of dollars fronted to float the financial system.
Your stirring defense of the free market system is ignoring the core tenet of capitalism: those with capital are those with a voice, which is scaled to the amount of capital they invest. You can argue against government investment entirely, or you can take the capital and the power it engenders.
I appreciate that you
A false choice. As we’ve discussed ad nauseum on these pages, government investment has been pervasive throughout American industry. But never before has it provided these kinds of “powers” to the government.
You
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