Oh NO!!I felt, this afternoon, the same way that I felt right after I saw the news about the passing of
Colonel David Hackworth (on May 4th), and of
Dr. Sam Francis (on Feb. 15th) -
shocked and
saddened.
It was revealed this morning that, on Monday, one of the most brilliant political and economic thinkers in contemporary America had suffered a heart attack,
resulting in his sudden passing.
Jude Wanniski [
www.wanniski.com] was the principle founder of the modern supply-side economics movement -
something that shaped what
would become the cornerstone of
Reaganomics, which
would lead our nation out of the depths of depression, and
greatly contribute to our
victory against the
Evil Empire.
In more recent years,
Mr. Wanniski had received a great deal of criticism, for his often-provokative, and highly-controversial '
Memo on the Margin' articles;
especially since 9/11 and the Iraq war, when he would comment on foreign policy matters. Though a conservative Republican leader, he was so distressed by the way the Bush administration had handled these issues, that
he became one of
the Republicans who endorsed
John Kerry for President in the last election (
the first time in decades that he'd cast a Democrat ballot for that office). An independent-minded expert, he has offered to serve as a political and economic advisor for Republicans, Democrats, and independents. The most notable political leader who Wanniski profoundly influenced - other
than Ronald Reagan - was
Jack Kemp, who, as a result,
became an advocate for supply-side economics (
from which we got the
Reagan tax cut).
I disagreed with some of Mr. Wanniski's viewpoints and topical themes, but
his writings [also see
here and
here] were quite entertaining to read - something that cannot be said for most columnists (whether conservative, liberal, or otherwise).
There is a lot more that I could say about
Jude Wanniski, and about these issues... For now, however, I am going to link to an annotated web version of the introduction to the most-recent reprinting of Mr. Wanniski's ground-breaking book,
The Way the World Works.
National Review magazine chose this book, originally published in 1978, as one of the 100 most influential books of the Twentieth Century. This introduction, to
the 4th edition (the 20th anniversary publishing), was written by another supply-side conservative political theorist, our good friend
Bob Novak.
Introduction to the 1998 edition of
The Way the World Works -
Robert D. NovakBuy the Book 
"Economic truth is a lever that can move governments, move history...the economic model that we've created truly has become what Jude Wanniski described as 'the way the world works." -- U.S. President Ronald Reagan, December 1988
Most of those reading this entry will not have recognized the name of Jude Wanniski - including probably most conservatives. That is quite unfortunate.
The above-mentioned passings of Colonel Hackworth and Dr. Francis failed to get the media attention - even among the "conservative" outlets - that they so richly deserved. (The Blogosphere was a little better -
at least in
the Colonel's case - that's why it's good that we have this new form of expression and information sharing.)
Both Colonel Hackworth and Jude Wanniski were affiliated with
World Net Daily, and that superb web publication had a news item on each of their passings. [
*] [
*]
I have yet to see anything at TownHall.com - though Polyconomics and Wanniski.com have been Citizen Groups there for some time.TownHall.com now has this news featured on
their front page.
After I found out about his death this afternoon [
via Antiwar.com, where I also first found out about the passing of Colonel Hackworth in May, and the passing of Dr. Francis in February], I mentioned to
Alex that I am afraid that the key figures of traditional American conservatism seem to be passing away. At
last year's National Conservative Student Conference, I discussed the
deficiency of traditionalist conservatism within our generation. Hopefully,
some of that is
turning a
round...
The fact that many of the leaders of traditional American
conservatism are aging (it figures...) - or
have already
passed away - shows that those of us in the younger generation need to be strong, and need to be ready to take over, as we maintain our values of movement conservatism and republican liberty.
posted by Aakash at 11:56 PM
The Wall Street Journal Could Learn From HerLast week
was the first of the semester - and
my first week as a
Graduate Student, here [still!] at the University of IL at Springfield. Even before school [re-]started, things were very hectic -
with the State Fair, the political scene, getting ready for grad school, etc... There were several key decisions that needed to be made. I hope I made the right ones.
(This is an entry that I meant to post, as a follow-up to my last one. I should have done it before now...) As I've been working to get essays and other work finished for courses, I found, a refreshing - and somewhat amusing - piece on the American Patrol (Voices of Citizens Together)
website:
From
19-year old student Lauren Payne:
Hello there,
I am 19 years old and I live in Maryland. I would like to get involved in helping to prevent illegal aliens from being here and getting our rights. What can I do to help? Last semester, I did my term paper in college on the case against illegal immigration. It was 10 pages long and was so powerful that even my liberal teacher (who didn't want me to write on that topic at the beginning) changed her mind about the issue after reading it. Maybe I could send it to some politicians and it might change their minds too?
Thank you! --- Lauren Payne
Here's the paper. Enjoy!
Update (9/5/05): You can view or download Lauren's paper as a PDF file here.
(Isn't it remarkable how, sometimes, young people can have more sense, and better judgement, than our politicians in Washington? :-)
posted by Aakash at 11:10 AM
See I Told You SoNot too long ago, I had warned that if the Republicans don't take a strong stance for immigration reform, and against illegal immigration, the Democrats could steal that issue away from us. Historically, support for the
immigration reduction and
immigration reform movements has been a cause that
was actually supported by Democrats and liberals... Due to
issues relating to
labor,
economic justice,
minority rights, and
environmental and
ecological concerns.
Just yesterday I think, in one of my comment posts (I don't recall where), I linked to
this comment post, which links to my
past writings, regarding the issue of Democrats retaking the immigration reform issue, and attempting to ride it to victory. After the
more-recent Hillary comments along
this tactical line, I should have re-published that piece. I am afraid that if the Democrats had
followed that strategem in 2004, they may have been able
to have won the election.
That is why it is so imporant that our party take a firm stance on this issue... Maybe I should have mentioned this election-related aspect of this situation, when I brought it up at
last year's statewide
College Republicans convention (when Jim Oberweis had spoken). I should perhaps have mentioned that if we don't take a firm stance on this matter,
as Mr. Oberweis did in the 2004 primaries, then the Democrats could use this against us.
I have a ton of things that I need to accomplish this week, and right at this time, I need to be making preparations our activites at the
Illinois State Fair... Thursday is "Republican Day" at the Fair, and the day after that is when
our CR organization has been given a table in the widely-traveled GOP Tent at the Fair. There is a lot of stuff that I need to do to prepare for this... I am still working as well, and this is also move-in week
for campus. I have to go to campus right now for something, in fact, regarding our GOP activities at the Fair... However (despite the fact that I have a backlog of entries that still need to be posted), I wanted to post this entry now, especially since I found, via the
American Patrol website,
that Rush actually took up this very issue (the potential Democratic taking - actually,
re-taking, of this issue from us, to try to better their chances at the ballot box).
I've been commenting about
Hush Bimbo Rush Limbaugh and
Sean Vanity Hannity lately, since I recently began listening to talk radio at work. While I have big problems with them on a lot of stuff [
see this excellent recent article by a real conservative columnist], I wanted to share this material from Rush's website, before it disappears (it will soon be available only to those who pay that enormous amount to become Rush subscribers). Check it out; it's actually very good:
Monday, August 15, 2005
See, I Told You So: Democrats Beating GOP on ImmigrationRush: I want to talk about something that I warned you people about many times, certainly in the past month and beyond, and the subject is immigration -- and what was my warning? My warning was to the Republicans: "If you don't get a handle on this, if you don't come up with some kind of policy fast, if you don't make it look like this is a big issue that you care about, the borders, national security, and a bunch of illegals in this country taking jobs, if you don't get on this, the Democrats are going to beat you to it, and this is going to have a profound effect if the Democrats are able to pull this off, as soon as the 2006 and certainly the 2008 elections," and, lo and behold, here I am..."
Update (8/24/05): It seemed that just one day after I published this entry, that page at Rush's site had - quite predictably - gone behind the blubbery curtain of "24/7" subscriber-only content. This is an important issue, however, and I am going to make that transcript available online - though possibly for just a limited time (or until the EGO, errr, I mean EIB Network threatens to sue).
Rush has left out the fact that Democrats have historically (and even
somewhat up into
the 1990s) taken a good stance on this issue [which I mentioned in
my piece on this topic], but that show segment is pretty good. Rush mentions that he has gotten e-mails from people
blaming him for giving the Democrats the idea to do this (to try to take this issue, like with the recent actions of
Gov. Bill Richardson [D-NM]...
and now Gov. Janet Napolitano [D-AZ] as well). But this is false... You shouldn't blame Rush for something that's been discussed for awhile; if anything, you should blame
me!
;-)
More on this soon...
posted by Aakash at 6:26 PM
A Congressional Race... Today?I found out, via
Rush today (yes, I'm still listening, for some reason...), that
there is actually a
U.S. House of Representatives race today. This is a solid Republican district... or at least it's supposed to be.
Jean Schmidt (R) vs.
Paul Hackett (D)
The results are being tabulated now...Who will win tonight?
Update (8-6-05): Today was apparently the national "Work Like A Dog Day"... I commented to a couple of my co-workers that this seemed appropriate, considering that we had to get as much as we could accomplished before the week's end. I should may have some more time now, and I will share my thought's about this Ohio congressional race, and other current issues.
In case you hadn't heard, a winner is this race was declared that same evening, despite the closeness of the race, and a voting machine crashing in the final county to be counted. Despite who is believed to have prevailed in this race (an outcome that could have been flipped, had the election instead been held yesterday or the day before), I think that the true winner - actually winners - of Tuesday's U.S. House race were actually Paul Hackett and Bob Taft. [No, not that Bob Taft... But another Bob Taft.]
More on this soon...
posted by Aakash at 7:54 PM
