Month: October 2009

Op-ed number nine for Liberty Features Syndicate, this cleared back on September 23rd.

Long a subject of derision from conservatives, the National Endowment for the Arts ran into more trouble earlier this month when it was revealed NEA funding was granted to artists for creating works of art designed to promote President Obama and his domestic policy agenda. This was a clear case of the taxpayer-supported NEA stepping outside the ideals under which it was created.

While some form of federal funding for the arts has occurred practically since our nation’s founding, the National Endowment was created by an act of Congress and signed by President Lyndon Johnson in 1965 as part of the Great Society. Instead of shilling for a particular candidate or issue, the endowment’s original charge was to “help create and sustain not only a climate encouraging freedom of thought, imagination, and inquiry, but also the material conditions facilitating the release of this creative talent.”

The NEA survived a funding cut in the mid-1990’s brought on by a controversy over NEA-funded artists Andres Serrano and Robert Mapplethorpe, among others, but the current allegations are much more severe because the funding supposedly went to art designed to fit a political agenda.

Obviously it’s nothing new that artistic works are created for the purpose of glorifying a person or an entity – one need only look at the Sistine Chapel or any of the numerous monuments around Washington, D.C. as examples of art intended to deify or pay tribute to a person or group. Indeed, most of the newer examples about Washington were paid for at least in part by taxpayer dollars.

Yet the idea of art sanctioned by a governing body leaves it too broadly open to interpretation as to what is reasonable or proper, particularly in this age of political correctness we live in. Further, one needs to wonder about the vanity of a leader who uses public funds to engage in political propaganda masquerading as artistic effort rather than allowing free expression and encouraging the improvement of public taste and culture.

Those who are not the prototypical starving artists should not be fed on the taxpayer’s dime, regardless of whether public tastes favor their works or not. Needless to say, what is considered beauty is in the eye of the beholder and one man’s masterpiece might get quizzical looks from someone else; in either case the decision should not come at the cost of a taxpayer-funded grant. Millions of people make the choice on their own to cultivate and promote culture through donations and their patronage of many worthwhile artistic events. It’s clear the public good is not well served by government picking and choosing winners in the artistic field, and using art to promote a self-serving political agenda reeks of the practices of the worst tyrants the world has known.

In a political climate as charged as ours coupled with a government set on bailing out its friends in the business world, this usage of the National Endowment for the Arts for crass political purposes places the onus on Congress to finish a job it half-heartedly started a decade ago. It’s long past time to save the American people over $150 million and withdraw federal funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. Simply convert the NEA into a completely private entity and let them compete in the free market just as millions of those who make their living in the artistic field manage to do every day.

Then if artists wish to promote a political agenda at least it won’t be paid for through funds confiscated from the American taxpayer.

Michael Swartz is a Liberty Features Syndicated writer.

The eighth of the continuing series of op-eds I’ve done for LFS, this originally cleared September 21st.

Back in August civil liberty activists were appalled to find that the Obama Administration was openly encouraging supporters of the Democrats’ health care plan to report items they thought inaccurate to an e-mail address set up for that purpose. Hundreds reported getting unsolicited e-mail messages from the White House, purportedly to set them straight on the facts as Obama’s team presented them. After much initial public outcry, the flap over the “flag@whitehouse.gov” e-mail address dwindled down.

A new report made the news this week, however, and this time the crosshairs have been trained on a number of popular social networking sites such as Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter. It was revealed that the White House is collecting and storing comments and videos placed on its respective social networking sites but is not advising users or asking for their consent about the data collection. This runs counter to the vow made by President Obama back in January that he would make an “unprecedented” effort to “establish a system of transparency, public participation and collaboration” during his tenure.

The practice is defended by Obama’s apologists, saying that the information is required to be collected by the Presidential Records Act (PRA). But the PRA, which dates back to 1978, only requires the collection of “documentary material”, meaning “all books, correspondence, memorandums, documents, papers, pamphlets, works of art, models, pictures, photographs, plats, maps, films, and motion pictures, including, but not limited to, audio, audiovisual, or other electronic or mechanical recordations.” Eventually it may be up to a court to decide whether comments left on a social networking website fall under any of these categories but in the meantime it provides a chilling effect on discourse, particularly on that critical of Obama’s policies.

Another development in this area finds President Obama seeking to extend three provisions of the PATRIOT Act, further angering supporters who were enraged with the original adoption of these restrictions under former President Bush.

Obama asked Congress last week to consider extending three portions of the PATRIOT Act dealing with the seizure of certain business records, roving wiretaps, and apprehending so-called “lone wolf” terrorists. While this administration still seeks to close down the holding facility at Guantanamo Bay, try suspected terrorists on our soil and grant them as non-citizens and enemy combatants full Constitutional rights for their defense, conservatives rightly fret that these tactics could be used to further stifle lawful dissent.

It’s not a difficult step to take from fighting the real threat of Islamic terror within our borders to perhaps something akin to this situation. Imagine a businessman and TEA Party organizer who made a comment on the White House Facebook site opposing socialized medicine or some other initiative thought to run counter to Constitutional government. Would it not be out of the realm of possibility for Big Brother to run through his business records in order to harass him into silence? The next step could be listening in on his private conversations as a perceived “lone wolf” threat.

This example, mythical as it may be, was certainly an argument for making the PATRIOT Act a temporary one. Placing the reins of our nation in the hands of an appeaser can be the prelude to taking an act enhancing national security in a time of threat from without and standing the intent on its head. A President who twists “love thy neighbor” into “love thy enemy” and “hope and change” into “snitch on our opponents” deserves to be stripped of as much power as legally possible.

Michael Swartz is a Liberty Features Syndicated Writer.