In today's column, contumelious liberal columnist Joel Connelly characterizes Republicans who seek to limit taxpayer funding for the National Endowment for the Arts as Nazis:
With a view of culture more befitting the Third Reich than the Third Millennium, reactionaries in Congress set out in the mid-1990s to kill the National Endowment for the Arts ... Efforts to smash the NEA were eerily reminiscent of the famous statement by Reichmarshal Hermann Goering: "When I hear the word 'culture,' I reach for my revolver."Good thing that Connelly is above name-calling! But more to the point, Nazis banned and exterminated cultural works they found offensive. The NEA's critcs do not object to culture. Their only aim is to limit federal taxpayer subsidies and let individuals and private institutions pay for art. Is Connelly really so bad at his job that he fails to understand the distinction? Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at May 16, 2007 10:37 AM | Email ThisSeattle became a hotbed of resistance to the knuckle draggers of the late 20th century.
Isn't this about I'm right; you're wrong?
Fight a better fight, please.
Posted by: Jim Harrison on May 16, 2007 10:58 AMThis is another one of those clever rhetorical questions so confusing to our YLM's isn't it??
[/sarcasm]
Posted by: Ragnar Danneskjold on May 16, 2007 11:01 AMIf Connelly, or anyone else for that matter, can show me where, in the enumerated powers given to Congress, spending money on art is authorized, I'm all ears.
Amendment X: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved for the States respectively, or to the people.
Posted by: Heartless Libertarian on May 16, 2007 11:23 AMI'll say it again: George Bush is Hitler!
Posted by: pudge on May 16, 2007 11:23 AMSweeeeeet.
(Well, maybe three now!)
Posted by: pudge on May 16, 2007 11:27 AMIf "artists" are worthy they will attract benefactors AND buyers (other than Ron Sims and his corrupt government). I, for one, see no need to enhance prisons, sewer facilities and bus stops with "art".
Regarding PBS: when will they become accountable to the public the pays for them? I thought so.
"Public" education controlled on a FEDERAL level is an absolute failure: string up the embalming IV and bury it already.
Privatize the postal service: they are a lumbering bolated bureacracy with more damned useless employees than Walmart and they STILL lose money all the while being rude and unaccountable for pathetic service.
Posted by: Ragnar Danneskjold on May 16, 2007 11:30 AMNobody addresses the core statement of Stefan, namely that government funding is the issue, not "cultural control". No, they change the subject and talk about "faith based pork".
When did the topic of faith based pork come up in the article?
Nobody gives a rat's hind end about what PRIVATE funding does with its money for the arts.
The other attacks Stefan directly, not the issue. Again, a classic liberal tactic, rant at the person so to ignore the issue at hand.
Learn that Modern Liberals are not "liberal" in their thinking, rather they are the true one-world movement, taking individuality and freedom as their intended casualties.
Modern Liberalism ignores facts, and rants at those who reasonably wish to discuss issues. They are the true enemy of the 21st century United States.
Posted by: bigdawg on May 16, 2007 11:32 AMWhat Republican candidate wouldn't want to make this publicly funded enterprise inclusive of all the population? To incorporate real diversity in its selection and reporting of current events? To satisfy the taxpayers that equal numbers of Red-Staters and Blue-Staters are royally pissed at the end of each broadcast day, rather than simply the Red-Staters who have been the designated demons of the last 30 years of public broadcasts?
Come on Republicans, show NPR and PBS what diversity really means.
Posted by: Insufficiently Sensitive on May 16, 2007 11:36 AMSecond comment, Acid Brain posted:
The disassembling of institutions like education and the arts and re-establishing them under a new control authority was one of the first things the Nazis did at the local level to gain support from the disenfranchised.
OK, so then you should rail against public education and public funding of the arts! Originally they were under PRIVATE control, until some in power decided to fund them with a new control authority in the government.
Thanks for pointing out that the NON-NAZI thing to do is to remove Federal control/funding of these institutions... And thereby implying those who argue to keep Federal funds/control are, in effect, Nazis...
Posted by: Edmonds Dan on May 16, 2007 11:39 AMThat's the bottom-line!
The vast majority of self-proclaimed "artists" call themselves artists because it sounds better than admitting you are "life-style unemployed".
This 1% could have bought a whole bunch of asphalt pavement.
Joel is merely pandering to his LEFTIST PINHEADED KLOWN pals who lap this touch-feely stuff up cuz they feel guilty about making so much dough from Mommy & Daddy or Grandma Trust-funds, High Tech & Real Estate Inflation.
1% for the Arts is like salve to heal the guilt sores of the KLOWNS....with other people's money!
Posted by: Mr. Cynical on May 16, 2007 11:44 AMWrong question. He doesn't want to clarify; he wants to muddle. Obfuscate, for Pudge's benefit. The same as blurring the line between legal and illegal immigrants. It isn't lazy journalism or scholarship as OP suggests; it's the use of a habitual mechanism designed to inflame lazy readers that don't demand a clear and concise recitation of the facts...a recitation free of pejorative associations.
What happens with Connelly, et al, is that his readership (and please forgive the "which came first, the hen or the egg" problem that brings us to this point) consists of an undemanding public that is comfortable with the interpretation of any and all news through blue lenses, seeking validation of the liberal mindset. For them, it is either not possible to consider a topic without shading the meaning, or it is deemed not important to do so. Probably both.
And if there's any truth to a mind body connection, the poor state in which he keeps his body must be having an effect on his mind.
Posted by: jeff B. on May 16, 2007 12:00 PMThis justifies violating the Constitution? So any time there's a common-good reason for taking away my civil rights, it's OK for the government to do it? I'll remember that the next time habeas corpus, wrrantless wiretapping, free speech zones, etc. come up.
What does Article I, Section 8 say about however many projects that have been funded for decades?
Um, that they never should have been funded in the first place. And that continued funding continues to violate the Constitution.
Do you like using the internet or using interstate highways? These services are not explicitly defined in the constitution either.
You are forgetting the final clause of Section 8, which allows the Congress to execute implied powers, as long as they are deemed necessary and proper for executing the enumerated powers. So in order to regulate interstate commerce, Congress can establish a national bank.
So, the Congress can -- and does -- reasonably say that the support of the Internet and the interstate highway system is related to, for example, interstate commerce. Of course, it's a matter of opinion, and the Court has traditionally let the Congress judge what is "necessary and proper." And I generally agree with that precedent.
I think we spend way too much on federal roads, but that some spending is warranted. I think funding on the root infrastructure of the Internet is clearly "necessary and proper" for regulation of interstate commerce.
But I've never seen a single argument that even makes a valid attempt at showing how arts funding is "necessary and proper" for execution of an enumerated power. Want you should try to come up with one?
Education, too. Some will feebly point at interstate commerce, saying we need an educated populace to encourage commerce. But aside from the stretch of logic that requires, it also ignores the fact that the Framers specifically rejected education as a valid object of federal funding, specifically for the reasons I mentioned, and there's nothing that's happened in our country to change that. We just decided to ignore the clear intent of the Tenth Amendment.
EXACTLY! ... and the dirty little secret is that it DEVALUES the work of ALL artists.
Cream can't rise to the top when it's constantly being blended with crap.
And perhaps the whole point of the common good, nobody better, anti-competition crowd.
Posted by: Ragnar Danneskjold on May 16, 2007 12:08 PMFace it Acid Brain, many artists are losers. They cannot function in the free market or society in general....so they scam tax dollars.
Do you really believe a Statue of Lenin is the appropriate use of our tax dollars?
You do realize, of course, that federal arts funding is a violation of our civil rights?
That would be the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution. It says the federal government can only do what the Constitution says it can do. And there's nothing in Article I, Section 8 that states (or, as per the "elastic clause," implies) that the federal government has any authority to fund the arts.
You can compare people who want to get rid of all federal arts funding to the Nazis, but it seems to me that you're the one who favors taking away my civil liberties as enshrined in the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution.
He, showing his complete ignorance of the Constitution, replied:
If what you said had the least bit of truth to it, the Supreme Court would have been asked log ago to rule on legality of NEA.
jc
Just amazing. I know being a Constitutional scholar is not a prerequisite for being a columnist, but he is completely ignorant about one of the amendments in the Bill of Rights! Sigh. Score one for public schools!