As we roll on into year two of the Age of Obama, a few thoughts about politics and society from a frequently implacable conservative:

• Have you ever heard a liberal say that the government doesn’t have a role in any given segment of American life unless that segment is something that the average citizen finds positively repellant?
   
• It’s fascinating how often discussions about health care begin with the question of whether or not health care is a right.  It’s a rhetorical trap designed to make anyone who says no seem inhumane.  And frankly the case for an answer in the positive is pretty weak.

The rights enumerated by the early classical liberals – life, liberty and property – were rightly thought to be constituent parts of the very nature of man (property is a harder sell, because it is contingent on human institutions, which may be why Jefferson chose “the pursuit of happiness” instead for the Declaration).  The supposed “right” to health care is what is called a “positive right” – something that requires provision by others (and thus violates the provider’s freedom).

It seems to me that a more sober answer is that health care is a necessity, as are things like adequate food and transportation. But we don’t have universal, government-provided meals or cars. Rather we create a relatively free market and subsidize those who are too poor to participate. Why can’t that model work for health care?

• There doesn’t seem to be a world leader outside of Israel who is both serious and vocal about the tremendous threat being posed by Iran.  Conservatives are right to criticize the Obama Administration for its fecklessness on the issue, but they ought to consider how Iran’s ascendancy is informed by the war in Iraq.

Regardless of how you feel about the invasion and the deposing of Saddam Hussein, taking Iraq out of the picture was destined to embolden Iran – its chief rival in the region. That’s not necessarily undercutting the case for the Iraq war.  World War II was entirely justified, but removing Germany from the balance of power in Europe was destined to strengthen the Soviet Union’s hand.  It’s foolhardy to think that Iran hasn’t been delighted by the absence of the only power in the region that provided a meaningful check on its ambitions.

• Scott Brown is a top-notch politician: charming, engaging, attractive, intelligent and witty.  Discussion about him as a future presidential candidate, however, is both premature and symptomatic of our growing political shallowness. Like Sarah Palin and Barack Obama before him, Brown’s main selling point is that he’s telegenic, possesses a compelling biography and can fire up a crowd. While those are arguably necessary traits for a good president, they’re not sufficient ones. And they’re beginning to make our presidential elections feel like elaborate reality shows.
  


• Usually it’s a sign of desperation when you hear political staffers claim that their boss isn’t succeeding because of poor communications. That generally means an elected official is sinking under the weight of an unwieldy policy yet isn’t willing to change course. However, I think there may be something to it on the war front.

President George W. Bush got into real trouble with the American people when no one could make a particularly compelling case for the war in Iraq (at least on national security grounds) anymore.  Americans don’t like massive policies that come without digestible rationales. The war in Afghanistan is quickly careening towards that place. I’d like to more fully support the efforts of President Obama and General Stanley McChrystal, but have yet to hear a palatable explanation of the national security interest that remains in peril more than eight years after the fall of the Taliban.

• What does it say about the two major parties (and American government in general) that the nation’s best period (at least on the domestic front) in the last two decades came with a moderate Democratic President and a strong Republican Congress?     
   
• Republicans won the tax issue on a national basis decades ago. Democrats may not have repented, but you’ll be hard-pressed to find a Democratic office-holder outside of the deepest blue congressional districts in the country promising to raise taxes ala Walter Mondale in 1984. The public has spoken. It’s a little perplexing, then, that trade is still such a contentious issue. After all, a tariff is just a targeted (and often enormous) increase in the sales tax.
   
• A source in the hospitality industry recently told me of a major Los Angeles hotel where union members are allowed to sport their advocacy buttons and chant “Si, se puede” on the job, but where employees are prohibited from wearing “I Voted” stickers on Election Day lest they cause offense.
   
• Watching major sporting events like the Super Bowl, it’s always amazing to see the crowd come together in reverence for the singing of the national anthem. The United States has very few universal rituals anymore, and the anthem is a wonderful exception. Watching the display made me think of a phrase used as the title of a book on classical education a few years ago: “The Grammar of our Civility.”
   
• Does anybody else find it odd that liberals who see themselves as the eternal voice of the little guy are the biggest opponents of the Electoral College?
   
• Any “civil rights leader” still left in America doesn’t deserve the title unless his or her primary focus is on public education reform.
   
• This is a tough time for conservatives in America.  Every time I’m tempted to despair however, I recall a poignant bon mot: “How often we fail to realize our good fortune in living in a country where happiness is more than a lack of tragedy." True today. True always.