Perplexities of the Nations

Communism, Fascism, Capitalism

2012-01-25T11:04:00.000-08:00

The State of the Union address brought up the issue of government controls over business. In reviewing the linked article, I found the following observation on where Marx went wrong:

Interestingly, almost everywhere Marxism triumphed: Russia, China, Cuba, Vietnam, etc., all skipped the capitalist phase Marx thought pivotal. Instead, they slid straight from pre-industrial feudal conditions into communism; which essentially entailed reversion back to feudalism supplanting the traditional aristocracy with party cronyism – before dissolving into corrupted variants of state capitalism economically similar to fascism.

As usual, Marx got it backwards.

It’s also ironic that even as orthodox Marxism collapsed due to economic paralysis, cultural Marxism predicated on race, sex and identity politics thrives in “Capitalist” America. The multiculturalists substituted race where the Soviets and Maoists saw only class. America’s civic crusade has become political correctness, aka cultural Marxism, preoccupied with race. Socialism wheels around again.

The entire article is very interesting. Recommended.

The Truth Is Out There

2011-09-05T10:21:00.000-07:00

Bill Whittle's latest video is out. Like "Open Blogger" notes at Ace of Spades:

Have you ever had an incomplete thought rattling around your mind? You can almost put it into words but it remains elusively amorphous? Bill Whittle has the uncanny ability to take that pile of mental toothpicks and glue them into an Eiffel Tower of reason.

The video starts out a little on the feisty side, with an unflattering characterization of Pacifica Radio. But it gets good at about 4 minutes, and he brings the whole thing together by the end of the piece. Wow.

I keep a button tuned to Pacifica Radio, just to check up on what is going on with the Far Left from time to time. Every once in a while, they have something that sounds reasonable on the station. But they also run some really challenging programming, like interviews of representatives of such victim groups as the "National Man-Boy Love Association" or the "Bondage and Discipline Community" (the latter persecuted more through ridicule and misunderstanding than through legal action. Their feelings are hurt.) I wrote down some of the details of programming I caught before and during May Day last year. Whew.

Dennis Prager has observed that (at least in the United States) people who accept the concept of faith in the realm of religion are more likely to look for realism in other areas of life. Those who reject religion in which God is the final authority on morality often accept the irrational easily in many other aspects of life, including politics. Pacifica Radio is a case in point. I don't think your typical Baptist radio station would be likely to run a program claiming that if you get Lyme disease, you should be grateful that Kudzu vine has taken over the South, because it took over so that it could cure you (how is not clear). The belief that we should listen to the "wisdom of plants" rather than turn to Western Medicine (because it is based too much on reason) is "one of many truths" on Pacifica Radio, where they make fun of Baptists.

So, is there anything you could do to help keep people like those who run Pacifica Radio from taking over the country? In 2010, Bill Whittle wrote an interesting piece called The Iceberg which may give you some ideas.

The "Debt Ceiling Crisis" and the Left's addiction to demonization

2011-08-06T23:46:00.000-07:00

Frank J. Fleming has a little fun with the exaggerated language from the Left:

Wow, that whole debt-ceiling debate was scary. For a while there, it looked like a few radical extremists were going to keep the country from going further into debt. And then where would we be? Without all the free stuff we like, because some people are stuck on the primitive notion that a budget should balance? I think you can say without hyperbole that people who think like that are literally terrorists, except a million times worse.

What makes people think the government should spend less money than it brings in? Probably racism. Also, a lust for violence. Because there is no logical reason for the government to spend less. None.

I do know one reason people keep bringing up as to why we should spend less: Because otherwise we leave the debt for future generations. But no one ever explains why that’s a problem.

Read the whole thing. Heh.

The Norwegian massacre and the Left's addiction to demonization

2011-08-06T23:37:00.000-07:00

After the terrible Norwegian massacre, the Mainstream Media and others on the Left were quick to label the assassin as a "fundamentalist Christian". But this designation was apparently wishful thinking on the part of the Left which hates "fundamentalist Christianity". Timothy Dalrymple:

What exactly, then, is Breivik’s “Christianity”? He cares not for Christ or Christianity, but for Christendom. Rod Dreher gave perhaps the best definition I’ve seen so far. Breivik, he says, “sees the faith much as the Nazi leadership did: as a European tribal religion that can be instrumentalized to provide the basis for an ethno-cultural war against the Other.” The Nazis were not fond of what Breivik calls “religious Christianity.” Hitler, rightly, did not believe that “a personal relationship with Jesus Christ” would suit his purposes. Personal devotion, a living and breathing relationship with a God who is Love and a Son of God who teaches the love of enemies, does not “instrumentalize” well into the wholesale slaughter of Jews, gypsies, political prisoners and Christian resisters. Neither does it instrumentalize into the murder of 85 innocent children. . . .

Being a Christian can mean many things, Breivik says. It can mean that “you believe in and want to protect Europe’s Christian cultural heritage.” . . . .

Indeed, in his account of the secret meeting that reconstituted the Knights Templar, the largest contingent is “Christian atheist.” . . .

Why the self-appointed guardians of nuance want to ignore these facts — that Breivik was no kind of Christian in the ordinary sense, but more like an agnostic committed to Christian symbols for pragmatic reasons — in their rush to portray Breivik as a “Christian fundamentalist” or “Christianist” (which Andrew Sullivan uses to associate Breivik with conservative American Christians), is a question well worth asking.

Cathy Young presents factual information to counteract the "blame the Jews" theme which has also emerged from the terrorist rampage.

Clifford May points out the inconsistency of the mainstream media with regard to labeling people as terrorists:

Exploiting atrocities to settle political scores through guilt by association is a nasty game, but if we are going to play it, I’d look elsewhere. I’d start with Reuters or, more precisely, what we might call the Reuters Doctrine. After the attacks of 9/11, there were individuals and groups (emphatically including the policy institute I head) making the case that terrorism should be defined as the use of violence against civilians to further a political cause, and that expressing a grievance by intentionally killing other people’s children is never justified.

We argued that civilized people, of whatever religion or nationality, ought to be able to agree on this principle, and, if they did, then those who target innocents would be seen only as terrorists, unequivocally condemned by the “international community.”

Reuters disagreed. The global news agency took the position that “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.” This expression of moral relativism was embraced by many in the media, on the far left and far right, in academia, government, and transnational organizations. And that may indeed have paved the way for Breivik — who unquestionably fancies himself a fighter for European freedom — to believe he could use terrorism to focus attention on his grievances without de-legitimizing those grievances. If it works for militant Islamists, why not for a militant Norwegian?

May also includes in his piece a number of helpful notes to young readers concerning the way the mainstream media has changed over the years, as classical liberalism has largely been replaced by leftism (with regard to open-mindedness, the ability to examine one's own positions objectively, support for freedom of speech, etc.) Read the whole thing.

Ten Ways Progressive Policies Harm Society's Moral Character

2011-07-19T16:15:00.000-07:00

Agree with him or not, this piece by Dennis Prager is a good example of writing with clarity (I sometimes think his writing would be better with more examples, but I thought this piece was well-written for a short summary). Read the whole thing. As usual with Prager, I didn't find a single "weasel word" in the piece. Kicker at the end.

If you'd rather watch a video, he did short one with the same theme earlier. I hope that most people would fall somewhere between the extremes in how much government they think is good: no government (true anarchy with its risks of destruction) and really big government (national or international egalitarian government with its risks of totalitarianism). But about the only people agitating for anarchy today are faux anarchists who want to see Western Civilization fall so they can build a new, utopian system. Progressive policies which lead toward really big government, on the other hand, remain popular. The ten moral downsides which Prager identifies are:

1. The bigger the government, the less the citizens do for one another.

The greatest description of American civilization was written in the 19th century by the Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville. One of the differences distinguishing Americans from Europeans that he most marveled at was how much Americans — through myriad associations — took care of one another.

2. The welfare state, though often well intended, is nevertheless a Ponzi scheme.

As a result, virtually every welfare state in Europe, along with many American states, like California, is going broke.

3. Citizens of liberal welfare states become increasingly narcissistic.

4. The liberal welfare state makes people disdain work.

5. Nothing more guarantees the erosion of character than getting something for nothing.

And the rhetoric of liberalism — labeling each new entitlement a “right” — reinforces this sense of entitlement.

6. The bigger the government, the more the corruption.

Of course, big businesses are also often corrupt. But they are eventually caught or go out of business. The government cannot go out of business. And, unlike corrupt governments, corrupt businesses cannot print money and thereby devalue a nation’s currency, and they cannot arrest you.

7. The welfare state corrupts family life.

8. The welfare state inhibits the maturation of its young citizens into responsible adults.

9. As a result of the Left’s sympathetic views of pacifism, and because almost no welfare state can afford a strong military, European countries rely on America to fight the world’s evils and even to defend them.

10. The leftist weltanschauung sees society’s and the world’s great battle as between rich and poor rather than between good and evil.

This is what produces the morally confused liberal elites that can venerate a Cuban tyranny with its egalitarian society over a free and decent America that has greater inequality.

Bastille Day and La Marseillaise

2011-07-15T07:23:00.000-07:00

I was thinking yesterday that it's a wonder that La Marseillaise is still the French National Anthem: "To Arms, Citizens", etc. Doesn't quite fit with the current culture of Social Democracy and multiculturalism in Europe. Does any Western country have a fiestier National Anthem? Or a more rousing one? The version from Casa Blanca reminds us that tyranny is a recurring danger. On the other hand, Bastille Day also reminds us that revolutions don't always turn out as hoped.

Walter Russell Meade is on a roll. He has a wonderful piece about the Fall of the Bastille.

Anyway, for your holiday reflections, five takes on the French Revolution : Charles Dickens, Maximilien Robespierre, Albert Camus, the Marquis de Lafayette and your Via Meadia host.

I hope that a significant percentage of high school and college students still knows who Dickens, Robespierre, Camus and Lafayette were.

Maximilien Robespierre:
If virtue be the spring of a popular government in times of peace, the spring of that government during a revolution is virtue combined with terror.

And of course, terror got a little out of hand during the French Revolution and eventually took even Robespierre's life.* I don't know if Meade intended a connection, but he also put up a short post on the Spirit of Marie Antoinette Alive and Well in the Hamptons. Heh.

* A great deal of the terror came as the result of the attempt to "purify" the country with regard to egalitarianism, (which takes "equality" far beyond the American Founders' emphasis on Equality Before the Law) and other principles which animated the revolutionaries.

It's remarkable to me how many 20th Century tyrants from around the world spent time in Paris before embarking on their careers of tyranny. Many of those tyrants also espoused the idea of "purifying" their own countries. Not something you would expect when visiting modern-day France.

Happy Independence Day

2011-07-04T22:22:00.001-07:00

Well, Calvin Coolidge seems to be popular today, on account of his thoughts at the 150th birthday of the Declaration of Independence. Jeff Jacoby discusses President Coolidge's speech:

Since ancient times there had been many revolutions . . . What makes America's founding extraordinary, observed the 30th president, is that it was the first to be based not on blood or soil but on a set of philosophical ideas about the nature of mankind and therefore of government. Other nations have their deepest roots in ethnicity, tribal loyalty, or military conquest. America, uniquely, was dedicated to a proposition - to the fundamental, self-evident truth that all men are created equal and the political ideas that flow from that truth. . . .

Jeff Goldstein has some thoughts on the Constitution today, apparently prompted by a very interesting note from Dr. Larry Arn:

The 4th of July cover article of Time magazine claims that the Constitution is irrelevant.

Frightening. . . .

The Constitution does not allow us to do whatever we want to do. In the words of James Madison, the Constitution was framed out of the belief that “it is the reason, alone, of the public, that ought to control and regulate the government. The passions ought to be controlled and regulated by the government.”

The genius of the Constitution lies in its having a definite meaning on the fundamentals – that every individual has rights, that the people are sovereign, and that the governmental powers must remain separated – while leaving wide latitude to local government, or the people themselves, on issues not specifically addressed in the Constitution. . . .

Liberty. Equality. Self-government.

If the Fourth of July is a celebration of these things, it is a celebration of the Constitution as much as the Declaration of Independence. No constitution in history has proven itself more deeply committed to these principles, and no nation has been more richly blessed in return.

The basic truth within the Constitution is that the government cannot have limitless power, for the simple reason that government is made up of people. A Constitution with no definite meaning gives free reign to the passions of those people within and without the government. A Constitution with a meaning honored and obeyed becomes a guardian of all people, for it sustains a government that is strong within its defined powers but limited in order to protect the liberty and equality of citizens.Instead of scoffing at those Americans concerned that their federal government has overrun its limits in the name of energy and modernity, perhaps Time should consider what an American President said about the principles of the Declaration and the Constitution on the 150th anniversary of July 4th, 1776:
"It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers."

- Calvin Coolidge
July 5, 1926

Read the whole thing. Follow the link to President Coolidge's full speech. And Goldstein discusses in another post some philosophies which threaten our independence from government tyranny. For example:

The loss of a controlling idea about how interpretation works — how it comes to count as interpretation in the first place — has led us down the path where meaning is determined not by a true appeal to the foundational documents intended to constrain the power of a centralized authority, but rather by a judicial oligarchy, where one vote, determined by nothing more than partisan ideology, a felicity with signifiers, and a supposed unshakable fidelity to prior rulings, takes the place of our Constitution and Declaration as the law of the land for 300 million + people. . . .

We shan’t go down without a fight. Once this country is unrecognizable as this country, the time will come once again to declare our independence. . . .

Or, maybe we could start now to educate children once again about how our country began. There are even some resources available for TV. Remarkably, the token conservative in this round-table, George Will, is allowed to finish his thoughts. He did a good job of defending the Constitution.

Police extorting political support in Wisconsin

2011-03-31T13:46:00.000-07:00

Iowahawk:

Wisconsin state employee union woos Wisconsin small business support with threats of severed horse heads

Well, he is a satirist. But union supporters HAVE been "doubling down" on intimidation of local businesses as a crucial election approaches. Among other nasty practices. The videos are interesting. But this is more worrisome - Ann Althouse:

I can’t get my head around the concept of police involvement in boycotting businesses. That reads like pure corruption. I can’t believe it’s being done openly. Can someone explain to me how you can even argue that it is acceptable for police to extort political support from citizens?

Interesting to consider the circumstances under which extortion is effective.

Is California next? The legendary Democrat WILLIE BROWN, who managed California politics for years, is worried about pension costs?

Bill Whittle: Michael Moore's Right

2011-03-31T11:14:00.000-07:00

Ace: Bill Whittle: "Michael Moore's Right: We Can Balance the Budget By Taking Money From The Rich. Ah, but there's a catch. Great video; stay with it." Allahpundit: Long, but it has to be.

First came the video by Mary Katherine Ham's analysis of Michael Moore's simple, elegant solution to America's financial crisis.

The reviews above concern Bill Whittle's visual illustration of a more detailed Iowahawk blog post on Moore's Madison speech ON VIDEO. Iowahawk is a genius. Bill Whittle, a screenwriter, provides the images to make his words memorable.

One thing you have to say about Michael Moore is that he is effective in persuading and energizing his intended audience. Since Moore declared war on the government of Wisconsin, Governor Walker's poll numbers have been going down, and now the Left is engaging in a deceitful and intimidating campaign to unseat a supreme court judge in Wisconsin. (They are also going door-to-door for signatures on recall petitions, while misrepresenting the language of the petitions.)

There are powerful psychological reasons for the allure of liberal social policies even in the face of economic disaster. Mark Steyn characterizes two very different types of protesters in the London protests and riots against modest cuts in government benefits, in The Human Right to Suspend Reality, then makes the following observation:

In a democracy, there are not many easy ways back from insane levels of “social” spending, and certainly not when the leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition panders to the mob by comparing them to anti-apartheid activists.

Michael Moore is apparently proud of his recent appearance on the Colbert Report. Note, starting at about 6 minutes and 30 seconds how viciously and falsely he characterizes America's 400 billionaires, from Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to the "littler Mubaraks" like Oprah Winfrey. Who could really believe that Bill Gates and Oprah Winfrey are conspiring to concentrate ALL of the money in the United States into the hands of exactly 400 people? But it's the emotion that counts -- no evidence needed.

I am in no position to judge the deepest intentions of America's billionaires, but I would imagine that not all of their motives are altruistic. However, the leadership of the Left proclaims that it knows EXACTLY what "the rich" are thinking. Might this be a form of projection? The Left tends to think of money as power more than classical liberals, libertarians or conservatives do.

The leadership of the Left knows that its primary weapon is to demonize some person or group on the other side. "Personalize and Polarize", as Saul Alinsky liked to say. It is impossible for them to portray those on the other side as having ANY honorable motives. Their worldview REQUIRES them to attribute evil motives to others, because the record of the left's economic policies has been consistently disastrous (given enough time).

Questions for Michael Moore: If these 400 billionaires are conspiring to control ALL of the wealth in the United States, WHY DO MANY OF THEM GIVE AWAY SO MUCH OF THEIR MONEY TO CHARITY? And why do they have so many employees? And to whom do they sell products or services? What is the true nature of their wealth?

Compare Moore's economic philosophy with that of Abraham Lincoln.

I don’t believe in a law to prevent a man from getting rich; it would do more harm than good. So while we do not propose any war upon capital, we do wish to allow the humblest man an equal chance to get rich with everybody else. …. I want every man to have the chance — and I believe a black man is entitled to it — in which he can better his condition — when he may look forward and hope to be a hired laborer this year and the next, work for himself afterward, and finally to hire men to work for him! That is the true system.

p.s.: While taxes for corporations are not fairly distributed in the U.S., tomorrow the United States will have the worlds highest corporate tax rate. Not only that, but no country leans on upper-income households more than the U.S. for tax revenues. And then there's this little bit of fact to counter Mr. Moore's scary scenario of total control of America's assets by 400 very rich people:

I like to point out that the low rate at the top of the income scale is an artifact of the lower capital gain rate, that it doesn't count the double taxation of corporate income, and the fact that people usually get to the very top of the income scale once, when they sell their business or some other big asset in capital gain transactions.

In other words, most rich people reach high, temporary income levels by giving up control of the businesses or stocks which made them rich. There is, over a period of decades, a fair amount of turnover in the richest families in America. But Michael Moore will present only the worst possible characterization of "the rich" because it is part of his strategy.

Meg McArdle via Instapundit: THE RICH REALLY ARE DIFFERENT: Their Incomes Fluctuate More. “This is one of the reasons that we can’t fix all our budget problems with higher taxes on the rich – if we do that, revenues are going to collapse dangerously every time there’s a recession.” McArdle quotes Robert Frank:

Nearly half of California's income taxes before the recession came from the top 1% of earners: households that took in more than $490,000 a year. High earners, it turns out, have especially volatile incomes--their earnings fell by more than twice as much as the rest of the population's during the recession. When they crashed, they took California's finances down with them.

Mr. Williams, a former economic forecaster for the state, spent more than a decade warning state leaders about California's over-dependence on the rich. "We created a revenue cliff," he said. "We built a large part of our government on the state's most unstable income group."

As far as I can tell, if Michael Moore had his way, there would be no risky investments because there would be no rich people. Only people toiling happily under the direction of the Federal Government (or the Revolutionary Council or whatever), which would magically provide good jobs, good wages and benefits to all of the 300 million people in America. It would be a Worker's Paradise. Sort of like Cuba. THE POSSIBILITY OF BILLIONAIRES TAKING ALL YOUR MONEY WOULD VANISH.

Captains of Capitalism set out to CHANGE capitalism

2011-03-25T11:06:00.000-07:00

Via the New York TImes, GE's profits are now highly dependent on its tax strategy:

The company reported worldwide profits of $14.2 billion, and said $5.1 billion of the total came from its operations in the United States.
Its American tax bill? None. In fact, G.E. claimed a tax benefit of $3.2 billion.

In other words, you've been paying taxes to GE! Unfettered Free Enterprise rules in the United States! Everybody follows the same rules! Heh.

Ace says:

Via Nathan Wurtzel . . . who reminds us that until earlier this year GE owned the pro-tax MSNBC. Well, pro tax for the little people, not them. Big difference.

Which gives me an excuse to link the fantasy video in which Chris Matthews Tells the Truth. Rich Democrats DO seem awfully good at evading or avoiding taxes: John Kerry docking his yacht out of state to avoid taxes amd Clair McCaskill's maneuvers to avoid taxes on her plane are just two recent examples. Of course, the very rich don't necessarily have to be Democrats to find ways to avoid paying taxes. But high tax rates motivate the very rich to seek help from government in finding loopholes or other ways to avoid paying "their fair share". Watch what they do, not what they say.

Special deals for certain corporations can be more damaging to the economy than loopholes for individuals because they provide the favored companies with an unfair advantage over competitors. "As The Washington Examiner’s Tim Carney has reported, days after President Barack Obama’s inauguration, Immelt wrote to GE shareholders:

[W]e are going through more than a cycle. The global economy, and capitalism, will be ‘reset’ in several important ways. The interaction between government and business will change forever. In a reset economy, the government will be a regulator; and also an industry policy champion, a financier, and a key partner."

Hmmm. "regulator, industry policy champion, financier and key partner." WHERE HAVE WE SEEN THIS KIND OF RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN GOVERNMENT AND INDUSTRY BEFORE? ITALY? What could possibly go wrong?

Tigerhawk on Obama and the Fortune 500:

. . . I wish that the president would stop catering to the Fortune 500 tools. These are not the companies that innovate. They don't create a lot of American jobs in the long run, they are big enough to lobby for legislation to protect their entrenched businesses, their CEOs consort with politicians partly for the fun of it, and they are in general willing and inevitable participants in the government-corporate complex. If President Obama really wants to motivate business, he will start paying attention to the next several thousand companies, which are the real engine of growth and innovation in the great American prosperity machine.

Meanwhile, Left-wing billionaire George Soros is reportely quietly planning to push for 'a grand bargain that rearranges the entire financial order.' Because, you know, American leadership at present is "unacceptable" to Mr. Soros, who wants to use us as guinea pigs in his grand design to establish a global sheriff. I wonder if he is boosting greater power for China at the expense of India? We know he thinks America is awful, but does he think India is worse than China because the people are somewhat more free?

I think these people bear watching. But we're too busy watching the Marxist incitements of Michael Moore, who's only a millionaire, and a former SEIU official.

Kind of reminds me of the rumor that Jamie Gorelick is on President Obama's short list to head up the FBI, even though she's the "Typhoid Mary of policy fiascos." If the villains from Enron should be in prison for cooking the books, so should she. Being a reliable Washington Democratic insider has its privileges. But even though she's not in prison, her name makes all the other candidates seem wonderful by comparison.

Progressives in American History

2011-03-23T22:39:00.000-07:00

Jonah Goldberg reminds us that things could be worse with regard to the political actions of the Commander in Chief.

I'm thinking of an American president who demonized ethnic groups as enemies of the state, censored the press, imprisoned dissidents, bullied political opponents, spewed propaganda, often expressed contempt for the Constitution, approved warrantless searches and eavesdropping, and pursued his policies with a blind, religious certainty.

Oh, and I'm not thinking of George W. Bush, but another "W" – actually "WW": Woodrow Wilson, the Democrat who served from 1913 to 1921.

President Wilson is mostly remembered today as the first modern liberal president, the first (and only) POTUS with a PhD, and the only political scientist to occupy the Oval Office. He was the champion of "self determination" and the author of the idealistic but doomed "Fourteen Points" – his vision of peace for Europe and his hope for a League of Nations. But the nature of his presidency has largely been forgotten.

That's a shame, because Wilson's two terms in office provide the clearest historical window into the soul of progressivism. Wilson's racism, his ideological rigidity, and his antipathy toward the Constitution were all products of the progressive worldview. . .

An extremely interesting piece which briefly outlines the beginnings of the progressive movement in the United States and discusses the changes in progressivism over the years.

Personal note: My grandmother briefly lost her citizenship during Wilson's administration because she was married to a German immigrant.

Ed Driscoll recounts how Progressives decided, starting in the mid-nineteenth century, that they should start from zero in a variety of ways. And later, that they should go forward, into the past. Glenn Reynolds comments: Reminds me of this Neal Stephenson quote: “The twentieth century was one in which limits on state power were removed in order to let the intellectuals run with the ball, and they screwed everything up and turned the century into an abattoir. . . . We Americans are the only ones who didn’t get creamed at some point during all of this. We are free and prosperous because we have inherited political and value systems fabricated by a particular set of eighteenth-century intellectuals who happened to get it right. But we have lost touch with those intellectuals.”

Michael Knox Beran: When compassion turns to coercion

The past three years have witnessed a renewal of faith in progressive social policy, a faith embodied in President Obama's pledge to lead an administration dedicated to "change we can believe in." It is a faith that, in an earlier incarnation, made one liberal, the Columbia teacher and literary critic Lionel Trilling, uncomfortable.

In his book "The Liberal Imagination," published in 1950, Trilling pointed to the "dangers which lie in our most generous wishes." Progressives, Trilling observed, believe that through the "rational direction of human life" they can alleviate misery. But the reformers, Trilling showed, are too often oblivious of the truth of their own motives.

In his 1947 novel "The Middle of the Journey," Trilling probes this hidden impulse in his portrayal of Gifford Maxim, a character modeled on his Columbia schoolmate and legendary Soviet spy-turned-anti-Communist Whittaker Chambers. "And in the most secret heart of every intellectual ... there lies hidden ... the hope of power, the desire to bring his ideas to reality by imposing them on his fellow man," Maxim says. This hope tempts the progressive to embrace coercive policies in the name of social equity. "The more we talk of welfare, the crueler we become," Maxim says. "How can we possibly be guilty when we have in mind the welfare of others, and of so many others?"

Former SEIU official plans to destabilize the economy again

2011-03-22T23:28:00.000-07:00

This guy is more serious about redistribution than Michael Moore.

But don't worry, he's going to give Wall Street's money to YOU. No word on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's money. He plans to start the revolution by focusing the hatred of the people on JP Morgan Chase in early May. (May Day communist celebration, perhaps)?

Big firms such as this make an easy target for hatred after the government bail-outs. But the consolidation of firms into entities which are considered "too big to fail" is, more often than not, favored by complex government regulation.

I think a separation of political power from the ability to amass wealth is critical for long-term prosperity. Corporations which are "too big to fail" become dependent on government to prop them up. This is a sign of decline in both equality before the law and in the firms which are dependent on government for special favors. Other corporations, especially those without special government connections, don't know how to proceed with their businesses when regulations are fickle. Fickle regulation was one of the ways FDR's administration inadvertently lengthened the Great Depression.

It would be better if we had more financial firms which were big enough to be stable, but not so big that they were "too big to fail". I believe that it is better for such firms to go bankrupt if they are mismanaged than for the government to rashly set aside the rule of law and property rights in the process of "saving" them. And it didn't help that these firms were forced by the government and "community activists" to make loans to people who would be unlikely to pay the loans back.

I believe that a separation of political power from the ability to amass wealth is critical for long-term survival of our culture.

Lerner said that unions and community organizations are, for all intents and purposes, dead. The only way to achieve their goals, therefore--the redistribution of wealth and the return of "$17 trillion" stolen from the middle class by Wall Street--is to "destabilize the country."

Lerner's plan is to organize a mass, coordinated "strike" on mortgage, student loan, and local government debt payments--thus bringing the banks to the edge of insolvency and forcing them to renegotiate the terms of the loans. This destabilization and turmoil, Lerner hopes, will also crash the stock market, isolating the banking class and allowing for a transfer of power.

What I can never figure out is why people like this are so obsessed with the concentration of money, but seem totally fine with a concentration of political power. Maybe because they believe that THEY wiill have the power. And this variant on the old "Cloward-Pivens Strategy" still seems predictably short on details concerning what happens between the "destabilization" and the utopian new egalitarianism which the "destabilization" will bring about. BUT WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?

Well, right off the bat, it would likely devastate the 401k retirements of most older Americans. When George Soros set out to destabilize the Bank of England, he made many British widows and widowers very poor.

And has Lerner ever heard of "hyperinflation"? Would he care if hyperinflation stole money from everyone? What about a deflation which would make debts unpayable? Which way would the destabilization go? Either way, it would cause grave problems in the lives of ordinary people. Would his dream of a utopian egalitarian society be worth the suffering he would cause?

Business Insider notes Lerner was forced out of SEIU last year for spending millions pursuing some kind of plan that looked a lot like this.

But you know who's scary? The Tea Party, man.

Libya: Whatever you think, a lot of people probably disagree with you

2011-03-22T22:12:00.000-07:00

What do you think the U.S. approach to the Libyan crisis should be? Some varied responses here. Could be interesting to review later. Liberals are divided in their opinions. Conservatives are divided in their opinions. Some foreign tyrants are still pulling for Qaddafi. The UN undermines Obama.

March 21: Anti-war movement not dead, but subdued.

Hugo Chavez, reported March 22: End Capitalism, which may have destroyed life on Mars

“I have always said, heard, that it would not be strange that there had been civilization on Mars, but maybe capitalism arrived there, imperialism arrived and finished off the planet,” Chavez said in speech to mark World Water Day. . . .

He added that the West’s attacks on Libya were about water and oil reserves.

Bolivian President, March 22: Isn't it time to revoke Obama's Nobel Peace Prize? Most Americans disagree.

President Barak Obama, March 22: installing a democratic system that respects the people’s will.?   Needs clarification. He sounds too much like a neocon here.

White House, March 22: We're not at war with Libya.  Interview of Hillary Clinton. Planning on handing off power to an undetermined group of people. President Obama cutting short his Latin American trip.

Congress, March 22: No "King's Army" in U.S.?

Joe Scarborough: Republicans have become the party of reckless interventionism.

David Brooks: The problem with multilateralism.

France proposes political steering committee to guide Libyan operations.

March 23: Center-left TNR weighs in with "What the Left got wrong".

The Hill: President Obama struggles to define mission  Glenn Reynolds offers some ancient guidance:

If you strike at a king, you must kill him.

Michael Kinsley: How did this happen?

Eric Posner: An imperial presidency?

Austin Bay:

Candidate Obama may have pursued smart politics (for the tactical purpose of gaining power) by mainstreaming ‘Bush lied, people died’ and other inflammatory nonsense. The intent was to impugn the motives of those of us who saw the GWOT enterprise as the best choice among many terrible choices. Libya, however, reveals Candidate Obama’s foreign policy prescriptions, billed as smart diplomacy by liberal media operatives, as more balderdash for the dustbin of history. It also calls into question just how smart the politics of 2005 to 2009 will ultimately prove to be for Obama and the Democratic Party.

President Obama: The exit strategy is to stick around, sort of? NOTE: Jazz Shaw writes today about the blatant hypocrisy at the heart of the UN “R2P” doctrine on which Obama relied.

Ace: Germany withdraws from the "Remarkable Coalition". Jeff G. weighs in: "If only we'd been warned."

Ace links VDH: with some "coherent principles" for conservative criticism of the Libyan operation. Then Ace goes on to discuss the current cognitive dissonance of the Left. Interesting.

. . . when they see a Qadaffy killing rebels, they don't understand. They're confused -- aren't heroes supposed to be on the side of justice and liberation?

But they've spent their whole lives ripping into America for doing just that.

Their only resolution of this contradiction is It's okay when we do it, because our hearts are pure.

On the other hand Gingrich is playing politics on this issue in an unsupportable way. More.

Fouad Ajami: The right thing at last.

Who said this?

President Obama Redefines the Term "Exit Strategy" . . . .

Doesn’t sound like an exit strategy at all.

What it does recall is Lewis Carroll.

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.

Down the rabbit hole?

Joe Lieberman said WHAT?

Joe Biden: Was the President's decision to use force in Libya an impeachable offense?

March 23: What is the basis of our Libya policy? National interest? "Aligning our interests and our values"? Who is in charge?

Andrea Mitchell discusses the emerging "vision" for Libya and defines the Obama Doctrine:

1) "When you have a catastrophe you can avert"

2) "and the benefits outweigh the costs"

3) "and you have an international or multilateral support"

4) "Go for it."

As Ace points out, # 1 almost always exists. #2 is a judgment call. #3 - GWB did this too, except that France was not on board. I wonder if the President agrees with Ms. Mitchell. Maybe we'll find out someday.

March 24: Jonah Goldberg on sterile, impersonal terms for war. Peter Wehner: "Muddled thinking creates muddled language".

Michael Moore has a simple, elegant solution

2011-03-22T21:04:00.000-07:00

Mary Katharine Ham analyzes Michael Moore's statement that "This country is not broke." Much less Wisconsin. Because the assets of America's billionaires are not THEIRS, they are a "national resource". The video is well-done. Some of the points which get simplified in the video are clarified in MKH's companion piece linked above:

Moore would argue, of course, that those jobs would simply be nationalized and “belong to all of us” after the wealth of their creators is sapped, but who exactly would have an incentive to make Berkshire Hathaway, Microsoft, or Oracle profitable if all of the money they made was considered a “national resource?"

Margaret Thatcher was right: "The problem with socialism is that eventually, you run out of other people's money". And the idea that the property of all private individuals belongs to the State is extremely dangerous (See video at 4 minutes). Even if a government does not go so far as to claim sovereignty over your time, the loss of property rights can affect the poor even more easily than the rich.

The Left tends to conflate money with power, so many of them think that Oprah Winfrey, Bill Gates and the rest of the "400 little Mubaraks" are as oppressive in relationship to Americans as Mubarak was in relationship to the Egyptians. Like most tyrants, Mubarak stole from his people. But he was also dependent on foreign aid to fund his thefts. He was able to extort this money from the West because of his political power.

Weakening the importance of property rights makes everyone more vulnerable to the government. There are ways to moderate the somewhat aristocratic compensation packages in many big corporations without government intervention. Ironically, with the exception of intervention to prevent the growth of monopolies, government regulation tends to favor the formation of "too-big-to-fail" organizations which depend on special favors from the government to protect their market share.

Allahpundit comments about the video:

In a world of cheap demagogues, few come cheaper than this.

One question, though: When he says America isn’t broke, are we sure he’s referring to the budget? My sense of this guy isn’t that he wants to rob the rich blind to eliminate annual deficits and pay down the debt, it’s that he wants wealth transfer in its rawest form — literally confiscating bank accounts (or taxing them into oblivion) and carving up the principal for distribution to people below a certain income level. Not only would all of the entitlements that are destined to cripple the federal government sooner or later stay in place, but in Mooreworld, they’d probably be expanded. Yet somehow, in some way, that $1.3 trillion wealth transfer from Larry Ellison et al. to the poor that he has in mind would solve everything. What a magical elixir socialism is.

But why stop with the ultra-rich?

What would the United States gain if in fact the government did confiscate the wealth of the so-called rich and taxed at 100% all the income above $200,000.00 per household per year?

Using the latest statistics from the IRS, in 2004 there were 2.7 million adults with a net worth above $1.5 million. If the government were to seize all the wealth above the $1.5 million threshold, Washington would realize a one-time windfall of $4.0 Trillion -- and no one would again attempt to accumulate wealth. Assuming it was applied to the national debt (unlikely with the Left in charge as they would spend it) the national debt would only be reduced from $14.5 Trillion to $10.0 Trillion.

Assuming Michael Moore and Company decide that $200,000.00 per year is sufficient for any household, then in 2008 (the latest IRS statistics) the 6.9 million filers that had adjusted gross income above $200,000.00 would have forfeited all their income above that ceiling to the government. The one-time gain to Washington D.C.: $221.0 Billion; but in the future no one would work long enough to earn more than $200,000.00 per year. Tax revenues in subsequent years would never increase unless tax rates are raised which are self-defeating and historically results in even lower tax receipts.

The long-term impact on the economy and the country would mirror that of the failed socialist nations throughout history.

Text of Moore's speech here. The Nation thinks Moore is on the right track. Reason doesn't, of course. After they tax the rich, who will they tax next? Remember that for many elite liberals, taxes are for the little people.

The age of white guilt and the disappearance of the black individual

2011-03-22T10:02:00.000-07:00

An amazing 1999 essay by Shelby Steele, a man born to a white mother and a black father, like the President. He's older than the President, and his family was on the forefront of the Civil Rights movement. He believes that today's institutionalized white guilt leads to blacks donning a "mask" of group identity rather than adding strength to their group by developing as individuals. Every phrase in this essay seems well-placed, and I believe it is worth careful study. It is quite long for today's short attention spans, and therefore makes a useful subject for study by students wishing to expand their capacities to follow a line of argument.

One day back in the late fifties, when I was ten or eleven years old, there was a moment when I experienced myself as an individual--as a separate consciousness--for the first time.

He draws several distinctions between life for blacks before and after 1965, and discusses shifts in "black identity" over time. He discusses his personal experiences with the "corrupting influences" of institutionalized white guilt.

This essay helps to explain a lot of things, like:

• How "liberalism" abandoned classical liberalism to conservatives and libertarians
• Why black activists beat up conservative blacks and set fire to their vehicles
* Why "black leaders" waged a vicious campaign to get Larry Elder kicked off the air
• Why TODAY'S liberals (actually, leftists) demonize the people who disagree with them
• Why Thomas Sowell so resented Francis Fox Pivens' theories
• Why Francis Fox Pivens fought so hard against Thomas Sowell's concerns for personal freedom
• Why so many former participants in the Civil Rights Movement have turned against the Left

Near the end of the essay, Steele writes about a black author who left America during the Age of Racism, returned to America during the Civil Rights Era then returned to Europe again. I have emphasized points which seem important to me:

James Baldwin once wrote: "What Europe still gives an American is the sanction, if one can accept it, to become oneself." If America now gives this sanction to most citizens, its institutions still fiercely deny it to blacks. And this society will never sanction blacks in this way until it drops all the mechanisms by which it tries to appease white guilt. Guilt can be a very civilizing force, but only when it is simply carried as a kind of knowledge. Efforts to appease or dispel it will only engage the society in new patterns of dehumanization against the same people who inspired guilt in the first place. This will always be true.

Restraint should be the watchword in racial matters. We should help people who need help. There are, in fact, no races that need help; only individuals, citizens.

This essay also shows a little of how Steele's thinking about the future President Obama developed. He believed that Candidate Obama would become trapped by the need to present different "masks" to his black and white audiences. He hoped that Obama would eventually be able to rise above the "masks" to express his individuality. The two "masks" could be characterized as the "Jesse Jackson model" - demanding compensation from whites who felt guilty - vs. the "Oprah Winfrey model" - offering redemption to whites who felt guilty. Steele puts it more elegantly, of course. The President surprised Steele by winning the election. But that was not the last of the President's struggles.

The president always knew that his greatest appeal was not as a leader but as a cultural symbol.

The President now often seems more comfortable with the symbolism of being President than with the duties of office. He even suggested recently that it would be easier to be President of China. People are starting to seem him more as an individual than they did during his campaign, and to treat him like "The President" rather than as a symbol.

Hat tips: I tracked down this article via Mickey Kaus, who was writing about consolidation of affirmative action and civil rights bureaucracies. He linked to John Rosenberg, who also wrote an interesting piece on "Diversity" as Tribalism. His latest post links the remarkable Shelby Steele essay discussed above.

If by now you haven’t thought of Shelby Steele and his soul-searching writing about white guilt, you should have. . .

Today whiteness is stigmatized by liberals like Yglesias in much the same fashion that blackness has been stigmatized by white racists. . .

Update: Ideas like affirmative action, quotas, etc. may not have started as as result of the black civil rights movement in the U.S.: "Former NY mayor Ed Koch reveals new evidence of genuine anti-Semitism on the part of Franklin Delano Roosevelt:"

The transcript of those discussions, which Dr. Medoff cites, reveals what FDR said about the status of the 330,000 Jews living in Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia: “The number of Jews engaged in the practice of the professions (law, medicine, etc) should be definitely limited to the percentage that the Jewish population in North Africa bears to the whole of the North African population. . . The President stated that his plan would further eliminate the specific and understandable complaints which the Germans bore toward the Jews in Germany, namely, that while they represented a small part of the population, over fifty percent of the lawyers, doctors, school teachers, college professors, etc., in Germany, were Jews.”

Of course, among the Jews of Europe and the Middle East who had traditionally faced limitations on their rights to hold property, etc., education was one way of surviving (and their religion encouraged education, too).

Why liberals can't communicate with conservatives

2011-03-09T11:02:00.000-08:00

Well, this is just one of the reasons, actually. Nobel Prize Winning Economist and NYT columnist Paul Krugman said today with an expression of superiority that he usually didn't follow conservative sites. Kind of funny.

Crooked Timber is the most liberal site to which I keep a live link in my sidebar. Smart people there, and they usually don't get violent or obscene in their discussions. So I have something in common with Paul Krugman. Heh. Once in a while, I even join a comment thread. Anything I write has to be airtight or I am ripped to shreds (intellectually).

It's easier for liberals to stay in an "echo chamber" than it is for conservatives, because conservatives are exposed to liberal thought through the media all the time. To hear conservative stuff, you have to CHOOSE it.

Krugman recently presented statistics to back up his position that in "low-tax, low-spending" Texas the educational system was so inept as to be immoral. Iowahawk, working outside his normal specialty, ripped Krugman's statistics to bits in half an hour, with an even more devastating follow-up piece.

Pride cometh before the fall, Professor Krugman. Even one of the people he admires at Crooked Timber wondered why Krugman was so sloppy when I brought up Iowahawk's first piece in a comment thread. Maybe Krugman should stick to economics if he's going to keep his mind closed except to people who already agree with him and can say what he thinks in a different way.

National Public Radio doesn't want federal funding anymore.

2011-03-08T11:36:00.000-08:00

Ron Schiller, the outgoing head of NPR's nonprofit foundation and senior vice president for development, wants to end federal funding of NPR. Too restrictive. The linked video shows him angling at acceptance of funding from people representing themselves as dedicated to spreading the acceptance of Sharia Law. Claire Berlinsky, who has lived in Turkey for 5 years and encourages Western outreach to moderate muslims, is very upset.

The video was produced by one group of a small, new contingent of conservative and/or libertarian activists who have decided to use some of the Left's own tactics against it. In this case, their tactics have something of a Borat/Michael Moore vibe. These tactics make many on the Right uncomfortable. There is argument about whether "we need to be better than the Left" or whether the tactics more typical of the Left give the Left a dangerous advantage. But you can't say that the output of these new activists is not enlightening.

This video comes at a very bad time for NPR (which is probably why the group who did the video released it now). NPR puts out some good music and scientific programming. I like the Thomas Jefferson Hour, too. Used to really like Prairie Home Companion until Garrison Keillor became to bitter to listen to. I think it's a good place to find out how the Left is thinking -- you get calm, reasonable voices rather than what you find at many openly lefty sites. But maybe it's time to stop public funding so supporters can choose the programming they prefer. It would certainly end a lot of controversy.

Some of the words of the NPR VP are pretty astonishing. Crime novelist, Hollywood screenwriter and former supporter of leftist radicals Roger Simon comments. He also links an unedited version of the video.

What this video reveals is a festival of projection. . . .

“The Tea Party is fanatically involved in people’s personal lives and very fundamental Christian — I wouldn’t even call it Christian. It’s this weird evangelical kind of move.”

“Tea Party people” aren’t “just Islamaphobic, but really xenophobic, I mean basically they are, they believe in sort of white, middle-America gun-toting. I mean, it’s scary. They’re seriously racist, racist people.”

As someone who supports many Tea Party views and is a former civil rights worker and also the next thing to an atheist, I had to laugh at that one. But that’s nothing compared to this:

“I think what we all believe is if we don’t have Muslim voices in our schools, on the air … it’s the same thing we faced as a nation when we didn’t have female voices.”

Holy Moly! It’s hard to imagine Betsey Lily sat there without comment, considering Sharia law — supported on their website by the people in front of her — has the some of the most Draconian provisions against women in recorded history. . . . .

. . . . I will suggest another explanation: They are stupid. Lost in a delusional world of political correctness, the elders of NPR have forfeited the ability to think critically. They simply can’t see the facts anymore — or don’t care to. It’s too threatening to their limited weltanschauung. Hence, you get idiotic projections such as Schiller’s statement of how dumb Republicans are and how what America needs is more educated elites. . . .

Whew. Why don't you tell us what you REALLY think, Roger?

I don't listen to the political coverage on NPR much, but I have heard some quite balanced news commentary on occasion. They have conservative commentators on some shows concerning domestic politics. Of course, most of their politically-connected coverage is slanted way to the liberal side. As demonstrated in the video, many people who work there think that liberal thought is more-or-less synonymous with intellectual thought.

I was struck by one bit of apparently unconscious bigotry on NPR not long ago when on a news program, three people were discussing a new aide appointed by President Obama who had a reputation for outreach to "the other side". One commentator assured the other two that the appointee had solid liberal credentials, clearly demonstrated by the fact that he was deeply involved with a private organization which helped third world children. But conservatives give far more to private charities, on average, than liberals do. Conservatives also volunteer more hours and give more blood.

Liberals tend, on average, to favor compassion administered through government (there are a lot of exceptions, particularly among famous liberals who become spokespersons for charities or who start foundations). But the commentators just seemed to assume that no conservative would do even private charity work for children in the third world, so this appointee's involvement "proved" he was a liberal. The indoctrination runs deep in the liberal elite echo chamber.

UPDATE: Ed Morrissey has another interesting point about this statement by the NPR exec:

Schiller goes on to describe liberals as more intelligent and informed than conservatives. “In my personal opinion, liberals today might be more educated, fair and balanced than conservatives,” he said.

Like those liberals gathered in Madison that kept comparing Scott Walker to Hitler, Mussolini, and Mubarak, and who accused Walker of “exterminating” union members? Well, to be fair, Schiller may never have heard about those. After all, he probably gets his news from NPR. . . .

I wonder if the NPR Exec thinks of Sharia Law as "fair and balanced"? Or is he being condescending, with the attitude that while "The West" has a responsibility to be fair and balanced, he would never be so crass as to expect a reciprocal sense of fairness from the people to whom he is speaking?

Housing or Homes?

2011-03-04T16:43:00.000-08:00

From a man who has lived among the poorest of the poor, my pick for today's Thought Piece.

What happens when a dream goes wrong? Alexander von Hoffman of the Joint Center for Housing Studies, Harvard University described the various postmortems of something that was unquestionably dead: the Pruitt-Igoe Housing project.

Read the whole thing. Watch the video at the end.

Then you might want to scan the comments. Lots of fascinating life experiences are represented in these comments, from several different countries. There are lots of politically incorrect thoughts in there, some better than others. There are several observations about why high-density housing works in places like Singapore, but not in places like Pruitt-Igoe. Plus some thoughts on the "social-engineering" architects like Le Corbusier, ("Le Corbusier adopted his pseudonym in the 1920s. . . in the absence of a first name, it suggests a physical force as much as a human being." whose goals in designing buildings included weakening bonds between people. It would all be so efficient and well-planned. Lots of people in lots of countries thought he was a genius.

Le Corbusier does not belong so much to the history of architecture as to that of totalitarianism. . . Clearly, he was not alone; he was both a creator and a symptom of the zeitgeist. . .

Below are a few comments I thought were interesting. But there are others.

#10. Demolition video from YouTube, by an Austrian guy.

#20: - written by a guy who once ran a homeless shelter

Pat Moynihan told LBJ he would destroy Black families with his new welfare program. The old sociologist was right. Most families then – including Black ones – had 2 married parents living at home. Not now, thanks largely to Welfare. Now over 80% of the poor are never-married moms and their children – and very dysfunctional too. These families are the major source of poverty in the U.S. Also the major source of violent young criminals, 70% of whom are fatherless. . .

....the key to slums and dangerous housing is not architecture, nor government programs. It is the 2-parent family. As you noted Blert, boys need a father badly, especially when they get bigger. (Girls do too, although for somewhat different reasons.)

That is where we need to focus. If the stable, 2-parent, enduring family built on marriage can somehow be restored, the slums will lose most of their horror.

Otherwise, each new generation of fatherless kids becomes a civilization-destroying onslaught of new Barbarians.

When the number of fatherless children becomes too large, a family or society cannot provide enough acceptable male role models. During the Great Depression, a period of low crime in spite of widespread poverty, the marriage rate among Blacks was higher than among Whites.

#23: It's not just big projects which have problems

On the connection between Section 8 housing and high crime rates, below is a link to an article titled “American Murder Mystery,” from the July/August 2008 Atlantic. It discusses the findings of a criminologist and housing expert (a married couple) studying changing crime patterns in Memphis. . .

#69. Wretchard pipes in on his own thread: What all this means for us today:

. . . . Maybe housing isn’t about housing at all. Back in the Tondo Days, we had people negotiating with the Marcos administration who wanted to demolish the Foreshore and relocate everyone to Sapang Palay, Bulacan, where there wasn’t a hope in hell of employment.

The people who lived in Tondo were there because they found a niche in the ecosystem as ragpickers, small tradesmen, day-laborers in nearby factories, or in service industries like home laundry and domestic service. That whole ecosystem would be bulldozed over and its human contents sent off to a rural area.

It was a recipe for disaster, but you couldn’t convince the planners, who had degrees from pretty good universities, to see that. Later, they relented and decided to reclaim some more land from the Bay and turn it into the Dagat-dagatan estate, which at least would be nearby. . .

But if housing is not about homes, then what? PR has already been mentioned. Other objects come to mind. Housing could be about votes. It is almost always about money and the subprime crisis is in some way the perfect confluence of PR, money and votes. It was the perfect vehicle to achieve all these non-homing goals. Here was an “affordable housing” project, which was good PR, for which people were to be eternally grateful through votes. And it made a pile of money too — for a while — and for some.

And then, like some terrible, virtual Pruitt-Igoe the whole subprime thing imploded and its ruin is still upon us. The fragments are still raining down. So maybe Barney Frank is right: housing has lasting value, at least for his own political faction. See he’s still in office. Yet Dionne Warwick may have been right too. “A House is not a Home”. In fact, homes have been broken up to fit people into housing. You have whole communities of single-parent, unemployed, poor people where once you might have had communities of relatively familial, employed poor people. Homes for housing is a poor trade.

But at least the machine has the votes. And of course, for the connected, there is also the money. “The poor we will always have with us.” So the only question is how to make a buck off of them.

#90. Wretchard gets REALLY politically incorrect. Beginning with an Australian example this time.

Update: #105: "Car 54 Where Are You?" Herman Munster before he was Herman Munster.

MSNBC losing contact with reality

2011-02-26T07:01:00.000-08:00

From the most egregious to the least, several instances in which commentators on MSNBC have lost contact with reality in an apparent move to narrow their audience down to the hard-core "reality-based community".

Commentator 1

Chris Matthews repeats - with his own layer of apparent make-believe - Media Matters' vicious smear that Mike Huckabee called for Ethnic Cleansing of the West Bank in an interview reported by the Associated Press. Dennis Prager examines the issue in a short audio clip. Prager points out some of the dangers of such a despicable lie. It puts Huckabee's life in real danger.

Everybody knows that Arabs vote and participate in government in Israel. At least one Arab town in Israel, given the opportunity to leave the State of Israel, declined. Huckabee's position as described in the AP report does NOT require expulsion of Arabs on the West Bank, despite Chris Matthews' definitive statement that "You've got Huckabee saying he's gonna clear out all the Arabs in the West Bank, just get rid of them all!".

And even the Left (well, not the hard left, but at least most Democrats in Congress) came to a position of supporting Jews living in parts of the Left Bank (oops, West Bank - Heh.) and other areas claimed by the Palestinians shortly before Condoleeza Rice expressed concern about a certain development proposed in the West Bank. The American position hardened considerably during the Obama administration. Curtailing Israeli settlements again became a big focus of American foreign policy (slightly simplified and exaggerated in the video. Recent events have changed the focus somewhat).

Although Huckabee's position is now very different from that of the Obama administration, how do Media Matters and MSNBC justify extrapolating the wild claim about "ethnic cleansing" from Huckabee's comments? One of the few times Prager has EVER recommended suing someone.

Commentator 2

Lawrence O'Donnell has been moved into Keith Olberman's prime time slot. Here, Lawrence O'Donnell reaches deep into his own mind to find racist intent in a cartoon about food. He also claims that the cartoonists' portrayal of President Obama is out of line with the exaggerations of other political cartoonists. Quote:

In your most recent cartoons, Bush's ears have become so large they look like airplane wings.

I don't draw Bush as a human being any more. He's become a cartoon character who also has a beak-like nose and circles for feet -- just two simple black circles. I draw Bush smaller and smaller as his incompetence grows larger and larger.

Obama's big ears in the cartoon in question were nowhere near as big as Bush's big ears here (though they did look a little like bat ears. And you know how everybody hates bats). Of course, no cartoonist ever portrayed Bush with the features of an animal Or as a monster. They leave that to commentary on Israel.

And then there's lefty political illustrators.

O'Donnell also told his viewers where the creators of the cartoon live, and made some pretty wild suggestions about how people should harass them in their private lives. Typical of the Left. You know: sending busses full of union members or ACORN associates to picket at people's personal residences and all. The Left is really into the personal destruction of people who don't agree with them. "Shut up or you'll be next" is the message for the rest of us.

In a more comical vein, O'Donnell also went ballistic over a Republican Congressman sleeping in his office. This is only O.K. when Democrats do it, apparently. When Republicans do it, it's tax fraud. One certainly can't expect someone from the Democratic Party to be meticulous about paying their taxes.

Commentator 3

I don't think that I would rate Rachel Maddow's recent "False" rating by Politifact (in her claim that Gov. Walker is lying about a budget shortfall in Wisconsin) as her absolute worst departure from the truth. And in this case, she could have just been accidentally selective in reading her source document. But really she should be more careful. Her first "False" rating by Politifacts involved more work in uncovering the falsehoods. And here, she helps David Letterman along in a whole string of falsehoods.

Departure from the above on MSNBC

MSNBC is still not entirely monolithic. On Morning Joe recently, commentators concluded that the coverage of the Wisconsin union protests probably did show some liberal bias. I wonder which way the network will go in the future?

Dad warned me about professors in the social sciences

2011-02-08T08:01:00.000-08:00

Instapundit picked up an article from the New York Times about a social scientist who identified a new "outgroup" - conservatives. About time:

He polled his audience at the San Antonio Convention Center, starting by asking how many considered themselves politically liberal. A sea of hands appeared, and Dr. Haidt estimated that liberals made up 80 percent of the 1,000 psychologists in the ballroom. When he asked for centrists and libertarians, he spotted fewer than three dozen hands. And then, when he asked for conservatives, he counted a grand total of three.

“This is a statistically impossible lack of diversity,” Dr. Haidt concluded . . .

Heh. This just cracks me up. Hundreds of highly-educated people who study patterns of discrimination professionally are shocked to discover what most everyone else already knew -- that THEY are currently discriminating against an "outgroup". Many of them really do live in a little intellectual bubble. Makes you wonder where else their limited focus blinds them to understanding what is going on in the world. Tigerhawk has further observations:

Er, have any of you ever met a social psychologist? They are an intimidating bunch. . .

Reason #42 why the "academic freedom" justification for tenure is a crock, by the way.

Anyway, the relevant professional society debated and but ultimately rejected an affirmative action program for conservatives, for which I suppose we should all be grateful. The last thing conservatives need is to sully their ranks with social psychologists.

I left a comment. Wonder if I'll get flamed? Tigerhawk gets some traffic:

My Dad taught at a college with a more conservative faculty and staff than most colleges. He observed during the early 70s that the sociology professors were reliably the rudest people at any faculty function - talking loudly during speeches, leaving en masse during speeches or at other inappropriate times while projecting a sense of boredom and derision, etc.

Maybe social scientists are still stuck in the 60s and 70s with regard to their prejudices against conservatives. Daniel Henninger recently suggested that the irrational belief among the liberal elite that the Right is inherently violent can be traced back to an essay written in 1964. I think the backlash to the media's delusional focus on the Tea Party after the Arizona shootings was kind of a surprise to some of the people who deeply believe that the Right is dangerous.

Stevie Wonder:
When you believe in things that you don't understand, then you suffer.
Superstition ain't the way.
Hey, hey, hey.

Take a little break to listen to the video linked above. It's from Sesame Street. Two drummers, great bass guitar and brass, kids on percussion. Everything comes together. The music was definitely better than men's fashion back then.

UPDATE: Dad did not warn me about economics professors: STEPHEN DUBNER ON POLITICAL BIAS IN ACADEMIA:

“It is interesting — and sobering — that two fields, psychology and economics, that we rely upon to describe and amend bias in the world are themselves so susceptible to bias within the ranks of their practitioners.”

It also may lead many people, reasonably, to dismiss much of their work as politically tainted and untrustworthy.

Ronald Reagan's 100th Birthday

2011-02-06T22:15:00.000-08:00

Tear Down This Wall.

Background of the speech:

Our friend Peter Robinson was the man who wrote the speech. . . .

Part 2

John Hinderaker: How Ronald Reagan made me a conservative pundit

I grew up in a Republican family, became a left-winger when in college and was a Communist for a while. By 1976 I was a garden-variety liberal Democrat. I voted for Jimmy Carter, enthusiastically, in that year. But then the wheels came off. Gas shortages, inflation, chronic unemployment--"stagflation," previously thought impossible by most economists--and weakness overseas. Liberal pundits scolded young people for expecting more. They said that America's decline was only natural, and we should all get used to it. The best course, according to the liberal consensus, was to move toward a state industry model like Germany's or Japan's. . . .

But shortly after the Reagan administration ended, something strange happened. The Left tried to rewrite history. A veritable cottage industry sprang up, consisting of journalists, politicians and pseudo-economists who tried to convince Americans that what they had lived through in the 1980s never really happened. I would have thought such an effort must be doomed to failure--who you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes?--and that revisionist history isn't possible until the eyewitnesses have passed from the scene. But no! The idea that the Reagan administration had been a disaster for most Americans was actually taken seriously in many quarters. . . .

I don't know who Rocketman is, but he makes some interesting observations, categorized under "Rants":

Where 2 years ago we saw magazing covers with Obama as FDR, today we see them with the President embracing Reagan. And the MBM (make-believe-media) has been working hard in order to exploit every opportunity to refer to something Obama has done or said as being “Reagan-esque”. . . .

No matter how studiously Obama or the progressive left imitate Reagan, they will never be able to be like him. That’s because to them, Reaganism is a certain pose to be modeled, a scene to be played, “optics” to be achieved, a tone to be struck, another phony affectation that can be mastered.

60 Minutes Retrospecitve: Reagan in historic video clips defines fascism, criticizes the Republican Party (many of these criticisms are still valid today) and describes the process by which the mainstream media build stories to fit their desired narrative.

Wanna be a professional blogger? Ed Morrissey made it.

2011-02-02T14:36:00.000-08:00

There are some Mommybloggers out there who have hit the big time, but I only follow a couple of them with any regularity at all. A few Mommybloggers make quite a bit of money through endorsements and advertisements. (Caution to Mommybloggers: get permission before writing about family members, especially children, in any depth). A larger number make a little money by placing ads on their blogs.

There are Mommyblogs (and some Daddyblogs) out there which appeal to specialized audiences - special needs kids, empty nesters, etc. In fact, there are specialized blogs out there for just about any interest. Ace (mild language warning) recently compared blogs and discussion forums to the intellectual salons of old - a way for people to continue their education into adulthood. But the more specialized the interest, the less likely a blog is to have a following large enough to generate a respectable amount of money. And most bloggers don't go into blogging as a career. But some have found careers by blogging. Two who have are The Anchoress (an assertively Catholic blogger who sometimes comments on politics) and Ed Morrissey, who writes mostly about politics.

I started following blogs becauseI was concerned about the way the media covered politics. So most of the blogs I follow include at least some political content. The Anchoress, Elizabeth Scalia, writes about her "blogfather", Ed Morrissey on the occasion of an interview by Nick Gillespie of Reason TV. Scalia got paying jobs writing (and later editing) due to her ability to gain a following as a blogger.

When he started blogging, Morrissey was running call centers for the alarm industry. He started blogging because he thought it was one thing he could do to help his country. His first blog, Captain's Quarters (motto: "Thus every blogger, in his kind, is bit by him who comes behind") got Scalia interested in blogging. It was one of my favorites as I started looking into the blogosphere, too. She writes:

. . . Ed managed to blog in a way that was smart, gentlemanly and fair and I thought I might be able to do that, too.

Heh. Clearly I have not managed to be as smart, gentlemanly or fair as he, but I am glad I took the plunge; blogging has changed my life, very much for the better — both personally and professionally — in that it has taught me how to slow down, take a breath and consider the Marquis of Queensbury Rules before jumping into a fray. I sometimes do revert to Bad Lizzie, but I am learning how to be more gentlemanly; it’s slow-going since, as long-time readers know, I was raised by blade-in-mouth barbarians.

Still I credit my blogfather for the lessons, and also for the encouragement. . .

Scalia now edits the columns of Ed's wife, Marcia, who lost her sight in her twenties due to diabetes, at the Patheos website.

Hard-core libertarian Nick Gillespie's interview with Morrissey is very interesting. It reveals that Morrissey started blogging when his wife was in the hospital. Similarly, Glenn Reynolds, an even bigger name in the blogosphere, started blogging when his wife was very ill. Most of the first crop of bloggers started out spending money on their blogs rather than making money. Blogging in its early days was full of interesting people who wrote just because they wanted to. The vast majority of bloggers still do.

If you're hoping to make money blogging (directly or indirectly) someday, you probably need to count on writing for the love of it for some time first. And keep your day job.

The Mainstream Media's Delusional Focus After the Arizona Shootings

2011-02-02T05:40:00.000-08:00

I thought it would be a good idea to document some of what happened in our national media following the terrible Arizona shootings, for future reference.

Following the lead of CNN and the New York Times --- Paul Krugman in particular, the Mainstream Media and a few politicians on the Left started immediately to make the connection between the Arizona shootings, Sarah Palin and the Tea Party. And they got details about the shooting wrong, too. Local media and alternative media did a better job. And much commentary in the MSM was more responsible than news reporting. Don't miss Dr. Krauthammer's take. He is a psychiatrist, after all.

The origins of Loughner's delusions are clear: mental illness. What are the origins of Krugman's?

Or should we call the Mainstream Media the "Make-Believe Media"? Compare the continuing references to "civility" in connection to the Arizona shootings (in order to connect the shooting in people's minds to the early false reports) with the incidents the MSM doesn't report nationally because the victim is conservative and/or there is no possibility to connect the perpetrator with conservative motives.

I think Krakatoa made an interesting point early on in the media frenzy:

Pretending that you can compartmentalize all the woes in the world into one neat box of causation called "Republican/Conservative/Colonialist White Male bigotry" gives you the illusion of the power to easily deal with those problems.

There's another reason that they lie: Misinformation gets results.

Glenn Reynolds wrote a piece in the WSJ about the Politics of Blood Libel on the Left. Sarah Palin later used the term "blood libel" in a statement, leading to a furious reaction from the Left and defenses of the use of the term from the Right - and even from Alan Derschowitz. (scroll through search results) Ann Althouse quickly compiled a little list of violent incidents which the Left tried to pin on conservatives. Jim Treacher on Twitter: "So what term would the left prefer for how they're using lies to try and connect their political opponents to murder?"

Ed Driscoll, February 1: "No Matter How Cynical You Get, it is Impossible to Keep Up"

New York magazine, November 16th, 1992:

I think the effect of Fox News on American public life has been to create a level of cynicism about the news in general. It has contributed to the sense that they are all just out there with a political agenda, but Fox is just more overt about it. And I think that’s unhealthy.

Bill Keller, the New York Times executive editor, yesterday.

Keller added: We have had a lot of talk since the Gabby Giffords attempted murder about civility in our national discourse, and I make no connection between the guy who shot those people in Tucson and the national discourse. But it is true that the national discourse is more polarized and strident than it has been in the past, and to some extent, I would lay that at the feet of Rupert Murdoch.

From the comments - Shannon Love:

You’ve got admire the technique the same way you admire any good con.

By simply repeating they don’t believe there is a connection over and over again, they can plant the idea that there is a connection just by shear repetition. Eventually, when people hear about the shooting their minds will instantly associate that with Fox News, Palin and whomever else they wish.

It’s pysch 101, basic formative association.
They revealed their unprincipled and irrational biases in their rush to judgment about the shooting and now they are using their denouncement of their own mistake as a smear.

NoahP:

We live in an era almost without grace. The Missoula Community Theater stages the Mikado with lyrics calling for the beheading of Sarah Palin to applause and laughter. Following national exposure by the indispensable James Taranto in “The Best of the Web Today”, we get nonapology apologies but no apology to Sarah Palin and her family.

And if some deranged Leftist should harm her or her family would the NYT and their ilk take any responsibility? Not a chance.
James Taranto. . . this incident is shocking but not surprising. For all the bogus accusations being thrown at Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin, genuinely hateful political rhetoric is commonplace in the art world, even in art that is not overtly political. . . .
Californio:
Wait – Didn’t the Times initially report that the Tucson incident should be blamed on Sarah Palin and the Duke Lacrosse team?

“We got the narrative right but the facts wrong…”

Remember how eager the MSM is to place blame on the Right as the 2012 elections approach.

Democratic Pollster Mark Penn: What Obama really needs is an Oklahoma City moment.

Earlier Related Posts:

The Establishment: Observations of Shannon Love on changes in the Left during the last 40 years.

CNN puts itself "in the crosshairs": Examples of irresponsible reporting and deceptive reporting - including sneakily deleting lines from the President's speech.

The Disturbing World of the Arizona Shooter: Legitimate issues which the mainstream media IGNORED while trying to blame Sarah Palin for the shooting.

Perry Mason could teach today's reporters a few things: How to restore some credibility to the media. How readers can spot deceptive news reports. Poll showing distrust of media.

The New Civility in Washington D.C.: Representative Cohen compares Republicans to Nazis. Not the person I would expect to do something like this. Fascinating.

Libeling the Right: The only way the Left can win in America: Because Leftist policies are failing around the world in front of our eyes.

Newsweek finds a new way to keep the Big Lie alive: Including false suggestion through cover art. Despicable. Also, Daniel Henninger explains the origins of the Left's belief that the Right is violent.

More "adjustments" of temperature data from the CRU?

2011-02-01T05:39:00.000-08:00

The BBC recently came out with a dramatic article stating that 2010 was the warmest year since 1850 (widely recognized as the last year that temperatures dropped at the end of the Little Ice Age.)

The WMO analysis combines data from three leading research agencies, and is regarded as the most authoritative.

The three records are maintained by the US-based National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) and National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), and jointly in the UK by the Hadley Centre and the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU).

Then two scientist looked at the original data from the CRU in East Anglia (of Climategate fame) and found that temperature data had been altered.

Comparing the actual data for each year, from 2001 to 2010, with that given in the press release shows that for four years the original figure has been adjusted downwards. Only for 2010 was the data revised upwards, by the largest adjustment of all, allowing the Met Office to claim that 2010 was the hottest year of the decade.

One wonders why the data from the UK would need to be changed, apparently for publicity purposes, when the data released by "denier" Roy Spencer's university already showed 2010 to be in a statistical tie with 1998 for the warmest year in 40 years. Didn't that quite fit publicity needs?

These kinds of discoveries of altered data just keep happening. And not just in climate science. There are several reasons for this.

One disturbing thing about alterations in temperature data by climate scientists, starting several years ago with IPPC data, is that the scientists who revise the data typically refuse to say why or how they determined that historical data should be changed.

The discovery of alterations in the data from the CRU comes close on the heels of another scandal in the UK involving the failure of the Met Office to predict the cold winter there:

. . . . the weather service caused a sensation by making the startling claim that it was gagged by government ministers from issuing a cold winter forecast. Instead, a milder than average prediction was made that has been resoundingly ridiculed in one of the worst winters in a century.

Hollywood, Howard Zinn and the Fellowship of the Ring

2011-01-27T18:44:00.000-08:00

Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky deconstruct The Fellowship of the Ring. "I’m pretty sure this is a parody, but, really, how can you tell the difference?" Heh.

Radical historian Howard Zinn died a year ago today. But his influence is still very strong. It would be fine to have the viewpoint of a radical historian broadly considered in America if so many people did not consider it to be the ONLY VALID viewpoint.

Recommended as companion reading to Zinn's signature book: Paul Johnson's A History of the American People.

Former radical Ron Radosh wrote a piece in Minding the Campus the day after Zinn died:

Howard Zinn's death yesterday affords us the opportunity to evaluate the remarkable influence he has had on the American public's understanding of our nation's past. His book A People's History of the United States, published in 1980 with a first printing of 5000 copies, went on to sell over two million. To this day some 128,000 new copies are sold each year. That alone made Zinn perhaps the single most influential historian whose works have reached multitudes of Americans. Indeed, Zinn found that his book was regularly adopted as a text in high schools and most surprisingly, in many colleges and universities. . .

Zinn was aided in getting his book attention by two youthful neighbors, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. When both became movie stars, they used their celebrity to popularize Zinn's work and to help bring it to a wide audience. As Damon told the press recently, Zinn's message showed that what our ancestors rebelled "against oftentimes are exactly the same things we're up against now." Zinn himself added a few weeks ago that his hope was that his work will spread new rebellion, and "lead into a larger movement for economic justice."

So, Matt Damon --- from the ultra-rich, insulated, shark-filled artificial world of Hollywood (a world rife with nepotism, cronyism and people who believe themselves to be very important) --- imagines himself to be one of the common folk within Zinn's "continuous rebellion of the masses against oppression" narrative. Figures. Sort of reminds me of the French aristocracy play-acting as shepherds and milkmaids to escape the intrigues of the Court.

From Zinn's perspective, history should not be told from the standpoints of generals or presidents, but through that of people who struggle for their rights, who engage in strikes, boycotts, slave rebellions and the like. Its purpose should be to encourage similar behavior today. Indeed, Zinn candidly said that history was not about "understanding the past," but rather, about "changing the future." That statement alone should have disqualified anyone from referring to him as a historian.

Zinn did not exempt President Barack Obama who he thought was both "a mediocre" and "dangerous president" from his criticism. In the last article he wrote, that appeared in The Nation last week, Zinn argued that Obama's foreign policy was "no different from a Republican," that he was "nationalist, expansionist, imperial and warlike." As for his proposed domestic programs, he found them "limited" and "cautious." He also did not approve of the apparent decision to try those responsible for 9/11, and referred to them as "suspected terrorists," who "have not been found guilty."

Zinn was certainly entitled to his perspective, widely held by many in the academy, but its danger lies in the favorable reception he often got from those who know little. As one of his proteges, Dave Zirin, writes on The Huffington Post: "With his death, we lose a man who did nothing less than rewrite the narrative of the United States." That, precisely, is the problem.

Back in the day when there was still a difference between "liberal" and "leftist", Zinn was investigated by the FBI, like many of the Hollywood Left. They were later successful in demonizing those who questioned their communist affiliations, and the dominant Hollywood culture still endlessly brings up the blacklisting of those years -- while they blacklist others who don't agree with their ideology.

Orson Bean is old enough to have been blacklisted once in Hollywood for being a communist ("kind of cool, except for losing your career") and again for becoming more conservative. He describes the second blacklisting as much more difficult. Bean's difficult experiences helped lead his son-in-law, Andrew Breitbart, to rebel against the Hollywood Left and become a libertarian/conservative activist. Funny how these things are connected.

Ultimate Recycling

2011-01-26T12:42:00.000-08:00

It's hard to imagine that someone who went to school at Berkeley and who writes as well as Richard Fernandez was once affiliated with a street gang that prowled around a smoky garbage dump.

I finally ran into a photoblog which accurately conveys something of the landscape in certain scenes of my novel, No Way In. The My Sari-sari Store site is a treasure-house of images that capture a world that very few people, least of all the better sort of indigenes, will ever know. The photoblog is subtitled Happyland: a look into the world of the utterly, utterly poor. That is a title of genius which could only have been generated by somebody who truly “knows” that millieu and can be used to describe the entire civilization of the islands. It is not entirely facetious. The people who live in Happyland feel the same sorrow, but also the same joy that every human being feels.

“Sa Tondo man, ay may langit din” is code phrase which means that “we too can reach heaven” and is often uttered in an undertone to assert a fundamental equality of humanity with those who zip by in automobiles. It is the key to deciphering the us versus them dynamic of a Third World society of which the diplomatic set usually knows only the upper crust. The people eating the food salvaged from dumpsters, or living off the trash are brothers in their own way, to the poor in Cairo and those who want a better life. That is the half we should get to know if we want to understand what the societies of our “allies” are really built on. There is value to running around with the English speaking elite, and swap stories of common memories at Georgetown, but it is the people of Happyland, who, in whatever language, make up the bulk of those who are aspirational.

Take a look through the photos:

The photos are great. They are not compositions of pity, but depictions of people whose sufferings while not to be underestimated have a humanity that is not undervalued. I am particularly grateful to Happyland photos for depictions of scavenging, which readers will remember from the book. Note this scavenging is the genteel stuff, not the hard core demonic scene that characterized Smokey Mountain. . .

I looked up an old Belmont Club post I remembered from before the blog was moved to Pajamas Media, when I only knew Fernandez as "Wretchard". It is about hazards facing the very poor, including those at Smokey Mountain in the Philippines:

. . . Many years ago I actually lived for some months in and around a dump site far worse than the one which collapsed. It was known as Smokey Mountain; and the infernal fires which arose from it night and day were caused by the spontaneous combustion of organic material underfoot. If anything resembled a terrestrial version of hell, it was Smokey Mountain at night with garbage trucks snaking up the hill amidst pillars of fire and smoke, attended by what seemed innumerable legions of imps. The site was featured in many documentaries which purported to show the horror of life in the Third World, but I can tell you, from first hand experience, that the denizens of Smokey Mountain considered themselves to be comparatively lucky. They had a guaranteed income. . .

A tremendous amount of recycling was achieved in this way. What you have to understand is that the garbage which finally settled to the bottom of Smokey Mountain had been stripped of its last usable material. It was picked clean. Most of Manila's cardboard, a considerable percentage of its glass bottles and quite a bit of its scrap metal came from the labor of thousands of scavengers. From a certain point of view it was the epitome of "appropriate technology". It was almost fantastically "Green". And come to think of it, it was mostly honest labor.

For those who think that understanding a "carbon footprint" is all there is to knowing about environmentalism, a spell in the Third World would be an interesting experience, though I'm damned if I can say what lesson it conveys. As for myself, I can distinctly recall reading Ignazio Silone's Bread and Wine during that period, a novel about a revolutionary in Italy whose passwords were "never a rose without a thorn". Yes indeed. Never a rose without a thorn.

UPDATE: Wretchard describes in the comments some of the features of society in the Phillippines which make "Happyland" almost inevitable, and how those conditions could be changed.

Newsweek finds a new way to keep the Big Lie alive

2011-01-24T05:21:00.000-08:00

NEWSWEEK, the magazine that the Washington Post sold for one dollar, makes a new effort to remain relevant. They devise a way to further the big lie about a connection between the Arizona shootings and the Tea Party -- indirectly but very obviously, with cover art of an assassin wrapped in an American flag.

The cover story by Jonathan Alter is more than 2,000 words. And what one word does not appear in that article? Zeitgeist.

Remember when Newsweek used to do reporting?

There is absolutely no excuse for Newsweek's false image of America-loving assassins now that so much is known about the Arizona shooter. Even if they believe The Narrative with all their hearts. The astute Andrew Klavan, way back on January 9:

. . . Indeed, the Left’s hysterical response to all who disagree with it — that they are racist or sexist or “phobic” or somehow reminiscent of Hitler — has become so predictable that satirists, from the libertarian Greg Gutfeld to the liberal Jon Stewart, have made fun of it in routines.

But never mind that, because the Left’s sudden talk about incendiary political rhetoric in the wake of the Arizona shooting isn’t really about political rhetoric at all. It’s about the real-world failure of leftist policies everywhere—the bankrupting of nations and states by greedy unions and unfundable social programs, the destruction of inner cities by identity politics, and the appeasement of Muslim extremists in the face of worldwide jihad, not to mention the frequently fatal effects of delirious environmentalism. Europe is in debt and on fire. American citizens are in political revolt. Even the most left-wing president ever is making desperate overtures to his right.

But all that might be tolerable to leftists if they weren’t starting to lose control of the one weapon in which they have the most faith: the narrative. The narrative is what leftists believe in instead of the truth.

The Arizona shooter lived in his own dark little world. The Left's utopian dream world is a brighter place, but it isn't sustainable. It's falling apart before their eyes. Their dark side is becoming more transparent as they become more desperate, and as alternative voices are more accessible.

Daniel Henninger explains one foundation of "The Narrative".

There has been a great effort this week to come to grips with the American left's reaction to the Tucson shooting. Paul Krugman of the New York Times and its editorial page, George Packer of the New Yorker, E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post, Jonathan Alter of Newsweek and others, in varying degrees, have linked the murders to the intensity of opposition to the policies and presidency of Barack Obama. As Mr. Krugman asked in his Monday commentary: "Were you, at some level, expecting something like this atrocity to happen?"

The "you" would be his audience, and the answer is yes, they thought that in these times "something like this" could happen in the United States. Other media commentators, without a microbe of conservatism in their bloodstreams, have rejected this suggestion.

So what was the point? Why attempt the gymnastic logic of asserting that the act of a deranged personality was linked to the tea parties and the American right? Two reasons: Political calculation and personal belief. . .

The divide between this strain of the American left and its conservative opponents is about more than politics and policy. It goes back a long way, it is deep, and it will never be bridged. It is cultural, and it explains more than anything the "intensity" that exists now between these two competing camps. (The independent laments: "Can't we all just get along?" Answer: No.)

The Rosetta Stone that explains this tribal divide is Columbia historian Richard Hofstadter's classic 1964 essay, "The Paranoid Style in American Politics." Hofstadter's piece for Harper's may be unfamiliar to many now, but each writer at the opening of this column knows by rote what Hofstadter's essay taught generations of young, left-wing intellectuals about conservatism and the right. . .

Read the whole thing. They REALLY MUST believe that Repulicans are dangerous. Noam Chomsky is quoted below. His textbooks recently sold more than any other author at the UCLA bookstore (don't know if he's still the top seller). He has said, among other things, that we have to be balanced in our thinking about Pol Pot's killing fields in Cambodia - considering the benefits as well as the losses. Pol Pot's goal was to totally obliterate the people's memory of their culture so he could build a new, pure one. The only "benefit" I know of is that he killed off practically everyone who knew how to farm, so the "non-evil" people (those who weren't considered dangerous because the didn't wear eyeglasses or exhibit any significant sign of education) had nothing to eat.:

“The latest election....you could almost interpret it as a kind of death knell for the species," (said) Chomsky, an emeritus professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology."

Oh, boy.

And remember that libeling the Right is the only way the Left can win.

Libeling the Right: The only way the Left can win* in America

2011-01-23T23:02:00.000-08:00

Dennis Prager:

Last week, following the murder of six people and the attempted murder of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona, the American people were given a vivid display of the single most important tactic of the left: libeling opponents.

Most Americans have been naively and blissfully unaware of this aspect of the left's arsenal against the right. But now, just as more Americans than ever before understand the left's limitless appetite for political power in an ever-expanding state, more Americans than ever before understand that a key to the left's success is defaming the right.

Read the whole thing, or listen to this related audio. One of the few times I've heard Prager yell.

The Left is starting to have a hard time getting people to believe The Narrative, because leftist policies are failing all over the world.

* Although sometimes the Republicans help them out by doing stupid stuff which they can exaggerate, mock and misrepresent. Non-progressives will usually only vote for a leftist if they think the Right is worse.

Obscure Kennedy History

2011-01-22T11:37:00.000-08:00

The Memorial of the Inauguration of JFK

The 50th anniversary of JFK's inauguration seems to have brought out the history buffs. At the 50th anniversary commemoration at the Kennedy Center, they read a poem by Robert Frost, but not the one he recited at the inauguration, nor the one he had intended to read:

Both of these poems are pugnacious, echoing of American exceptionalism, and a bit bloody. The Kennedy's decision to trade them out for "The Road Not Taken," is an interesting one.

Instead, they chose the "The Road Not Taken", which I memorized as a child (got my only standing ovation at school from reciting a Frost poem). The rejection of history at the commemoration is one more indication of how much the dominant culture's values have changed in 50 years. (Though I think "Left on Left violence" actually started out as "Left on Liberal" violence. The political rhetoric of the Democratic Party under Kennedy included many elements of classical liberalism). We need to start using more specific language.

The Prelude to Watergate

Fifty years ago next week, Richard Nixon stood uncomfortably on the Capitol's inaugural platform and watched his rival John F. Kennedy being sworn in as president. "We won" the election, Nixon fumed, "but they stole it from us."

Indeed, the dirty tricks that helped defeat Nixon were more devious than merely the ballot-stuffing of political lore. In one of the least-known chapters of 20th-century political history, Kennedy operatives secretly paid off an informant and set in motion a Watergate-like burglary that sabotaged Nixon's campaign on the eve of the election. . . .

Indeed, the mysterious break-in to recover Nixon's incriminating financial documents convinced him that such burglaries were standard practice in national politics. Nixon vowed that he would never be caught unprepared again, and he ultimately established his own corps of hard-nosed operatives to carry out espionage and sabotage, which culminated in the botched break-in a dozen years later at the Watergate office of the Democratic Party.

A half-century afterward, Washington still lives with the residue of the Kennedys' little-known dirty trick, which helped unleash our modern scandal culture and continues to influence politics and media today.

So, it wasn't just Joe Kennedy paying off the Daley machine in Chicago to stuff ballot boxes? The author of this piece has written a book about the rise of the modern scandal culture during this time period. It's still with us.

Keith Olbermann: First Casualty of the New Civility?

2011-01-21T23:17:00.000-08:00

Or maybe the first casualty of the buyout of NBC and its subsidiaries like MSNBC from GE by Comcast. Al Franken is upset because the FCC approved the sale, which he thinks increases the corporate control of the media. He may have a valid point. But it's better than government control. And GE is a very big corporation, too. Franken didn't seem too upset by it's control of the NBC family of stations. GE seemed to get some really special treatment during the Democrat-controlled 111th Congress. And:

The FCC just approved GE’s sale of MSNBC’s parent company — NBC/Universal — to Comcast. The Obama administration just hired GE’s CEO to a big position.

I think some moves are being made behind the scene.

Hey, Olbermann, this was the president you wanted.

Don't feel too bad for Keith. Word is he'll still get his 7 million per year salary for the next couple of years or so. Conservative Bloggers Hardest Hit. Really. Larry O'Donnell and Ed Schultz are hateful, too, but they just don't have Olbermann's mockable ability to project self-importance. Olbermann has a touch of a sense of humor, too.

Say is isn't so, Keith:  Keith Olbermann GREEDY? But he's a Progressive. Forgetting about the Little People on his staff? Not possible. He's a Progressive.

James Taranto: "My one regret in life so far: I was "Worst Person in the World" only once. Proud of having beaten out both Louis Farrakhan and John Stossel, though."

Memories:

The keyboard  Video

Daily Caller got under Keith's skin by buying his .com domain name.

Keith takes personal responsibility for Tucson.  Week in review by someone who watched so we didn't have to.

B-b-but… what’s going to happen to the new civility now? "Just kidding. Enjoy your new martyr, lefties!" Keith's farewell broadcast video.

Snark from the Left: He who must not be named.  (watch video)

The New Civility in Washington D.C.

2011-01-21T17:57:00.000-08:00

Well, that didn't last long. Why is it that almost certain that when liberals (or Democrats) accuse conservatives (or Republicans) of some sin, it is a sin which they have just committed themselves or are planning to commit in the near future?

Relatively moderate Democrat Steve Cohen compared Republicans to Nazis with regard to the health care bill. Even though Hitler promoted government-run health care. He later said that he was really only comparing their lies to Nazi propaganda. But they weren't lying.

Ironically, Cohen had at one time been attacked in an extremely uncivil manner by more liberal Democrats and was defended by conservatives and libertarians.  I heard as a guest on Dennis Prager's program -- TWICE (once when being smeared by his Democratic primary rival (with references both to the KKK and to his Jewish heritage - go figure) and again after his election when his request for membership in the Congressional Black Caucus was rejected even though he represents a majority-black district. I thought he sounded pretty reasonable and have read mostly good things about him.

He seems to have changed. Note Cohen's ridiculous comparison of the Tea Party to the KKK (with a little reminder of the Nazis thrown in) on radio in the first video here. This vicious, bigoted characterization was accepted nonchalantly by the hosts of the program, probably because they are used to stereotyping Tea Partiers as the wrong kind of white people.  They've chosen their designated villain, and no evidence is necessary. (Update: one of these Young Turks is evidently ideological enough to be tapped to come on board at MSNBC after Olbermann's departure).

The second video includes an earlier news report about his Democratic Party primary rival connecting Cohen to the KKK. This is way too ironic to make sense. Maybe he developed Stockholm Syndrome after he was elected due to pressure by the liberal Democratic juggernaut in the 111th Congress.

Congressman Cohen's speech on the house floor presented an opportunity for a civility test for liberals. Would they speak out against what Cohen said? Jon Stewart did.  (language alert)

Iowahawk is not what most people would call a liberal, but this is very funny. Note the recycle link at the bottom of the piece.

Are there any better ideas for increasing civility in Washington D.C.? How about a return to the principles of classical liberalism?   Some advice from George Washington would probably not hurt, either.

Negotiating childhood disabilities

2011-01-20T08:03:00.000-08:00

Movie review of "The King's Speech" with a link to an interview of the leading actor:

I grew out of a stutter when I was a kid so long ago that I had almost forgotten it, but watching "The King's Speech" over the holidays brought back some painful memories. The "King's Speech" is a wonderful movie, the kind that just about the whole family can enjoy together without embarrassment and that audiences spontaneously applaud when the credits start rolling (as the one we were in did).

Also at Powerline, Thomas Sowell (now 80) wrote a book about fighting through the special education establishment in dealing with his son's disability. Recommended by parents.

Perry Mason could teach today's reporters a few things

2011-01-19T14:05:00.000-08:00

Too many reporters in the big national news organzations today take a very superficial, predictable approach to their stories. They shape their stories to fit a pre-determined template, usually based (wittingly or unwittingly) in their political ideology and consistent with stories by their colleagues.

Similarly, in the Perry Mason mysteries on TV, we usually first saw a "Designated Villain" story line, typically set up by the real villain or an accomplice. This story line was usually reinforced by biased witnesses and (unintentionally) accepted by unbiased witnesses and the prosecution. If Perry Mason had not challenged the "Designated Villain" story line in the TV dramas, ALL of his clients would have lost in court.

In the fictional world of Perry Mason, the police and prosecution were usually honorable even if they didn't dig deep enough during their investigations. Unfortunately, in the real world, not all police or prosecutors are this unbiased and honorable as the ones in these TV dramas. And Perry Mason (like professor K.C. Johnson) would have faced additional challenges in the real world.

We would hope that reporters would act fairly and honorably in gathering and reporting as much pertinent information on their stories as possible - just as we would hope that prosecutors would look into all the evidence fairly before charging a suspect. Assuming honorable intentions and adherence to established ethical standards, if the prosecution had used some of the investigative techniques used by Perry Mason in the TV stories, there would be fewer people falsely accused of murder in these TV dramas. Similarly, if reporters in the mainstream media (and their editorial support) did a little more investigation and/or reported fairly on what they found, there would more truth in their reporting and less drama when their reports are challenged by the NEW MEDIA, readers or viewers.

So, how do we spot bias or falsehoods in news stories?

Perry Mason is not conducting classes for incurious or biased reporters (or for their readers or viewers). And most reporters don't have a Della Street or Paul Drake to do research for them, even if they wanted to present a fair and accurate story. So I guess we'll have to turn to attorney Gabriel Malor for a detailed explanation of how bias and false conclusions are introduced into a story.

Malor demonstrates how a (probably idealistic) reporter for CNN reinforced his desired narrative to present a story which would "make a difference", by focusing on a designated villain and reinforcing his case that this villain was a genuine villain without presenting any facts whatsoever to support this designation. Read the whole thing. The CNN report came AFTER the initial flurry of national media reports blaming the Tea Party and Sarah Palin for the Arizona shootings had been shot down. There was no excuse for this desperate attempt to keep "The Narrative" alive:

This type of slime job relies on several techniques common to bad fiction, but the central trope is the Designated Villain.

The Designated Villain, like its counterpart the Designated Hero -- about which I wrote here in relation to the President -- occurs when an author violates the "Show, Don't Tell" rule. A character is treated by the author and the other characters as the villain of the work even though the character hasn't actually done anything to justify this treatment. Quite simply since the protagonists oppose him, he must be the bad guy, even if all his evil occurs off screen and is barely mentioned. The villainy has to be assumed by the reader.

Like the Designated Hero, the Designated Villain is very much present in modern reporting. Fortunately, unlike fiction in which the reader has no choice but to accept the assumptions made by the author, we do not have to accept the assumptions of reporters. Here are just a few the CNN reporter uses to designate the Tea Party as the villain of both the Tucson shooting and, illogically, racist violence that occurred fifty years ago:

Malor demolishes the assumptions inherent in the CNN smear job, with the help of Google. Remember as you read his piece that reporters can access Google, too. Not to mention search engines designed precisely to help the media present accurate stories. And the layers of editors and fact-checkers which are supposed to increase our confidence in the Mainstream Media. An example of information which could have easily been found by CNN if they were really interested in reporting the truth:

Please, please, please click the second link and watch the whole thing to see the Tea Partiers asking Giffords not to treat them like "a mob" and Giffords talking about the Tea Party and swastikas. That's how far from reality the CNN reporter wanders. Rather than shouting her down, the Tea Partiers tried to get her to state her positions and treat them with respect. In return, she slandered them with a Nazi comparison.

We need to teach the kinds of analytical skills demonstrated in Gabriel Malor's piece to ALL STUDENTS. Particularly in journalism school, if reporters want to restore some trust in the mainstream media.

This is the problem with designating a villain outside of fiction. The assumptions necessary to make it work depend on the reader to be utterly ignorant of reality. In the real world, charged political rhetoric is common and rarely leads to violence. But to liberals, it is a feature of "right-wing" political speech and someone always ends up getting hurt. Evidence? No evidence required. . .

Fortunately, the "working press" (particularly the local press) did a better job that the elite national press on this overall issue. And the New Media helped get the truth out, too.

The Disturbing World of the Arizona Shooter

2011-01-19T08:50:00.000-08:00

The initial campaign to connect in people's minds the Arizona shootings with "violent eliminationist rhetoric" from the Right continues in the modified form of a campaign to "tone down" violent rhetoric in politics and the media. We are now witnessing a more subtle and devious way to connect idea of violent rhetoric from the Right with the Arizona shootings. And it deflects attention from the issues which should be under discussion as a result of this terrible tragedy.

This red herring is especially disingenuous after the shooter's friends have said that he was "on the left" politically in high school then apparently stopped watching the news, didn't listen to the radio and stopped taking sides in the normal political process. But he was obsessed with the 2007 "new-age" anarchist internet movie "Zeitgeist". Produced BEFORE Sarah Palin and the Tea Party were in the national news. The shooter was also reported to have said in 2007 that Representative Giffords was a "phony" because she did not answer to his satisfaction his irrational question about government and grammar. He may have also developed a certain obsession with her. None of his acquaintances seem to connect him IN ANY WAY with "right wing" politics. RS McCain links Dan Collins, a father whose child developed a rare form of childhood-onset schizophrenia, concerning the thought processes of schizophrenics.

Pima college has release a disturbing video in which the shooter talks about what he is thinking as he walks around campus. It makes Collins' heartbreaking observations come to life. Drew M. says this about the video:

This appeared last night and the reaction from folks on Twitter and email was that it's a tough watch.

The guy is genuinely disturbed. We knew that but to hear and see it so clearly is pretty shocking.

I would love to sit with Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, Paul Krugman and the like to watch this. Then when it's over, I'd like them to explain to me how they think this broken and damaged man was in any way influenced by the 'tone' of our political discourse. . . .

Also read his quote from a commentator in the New York Times about the misuse of this tragedy to further a political agenda. (The Times has backed off its original story line, probably due to the rapid response of competitive voices and real journalists).

Getting back to the Zeitgeist thing: The Zeitgeist movie's producers, like many new-age types, paid attention to conspiracy ideas from across the political spectrum. But the style of their movie was typical of activist art from the Left, and the movie won an award at a lefty film festival. No wonder, since it attacked Christianity, suggested that the U.S. government was complicit in 9/11 and warned against "banking interests" and secret plots to start wars.

On the other hand, it also stated that the income tax is unconstitutional. I haven't yet fully figured out why "truther" anarchist filmmakers who hate Fox News often get along very well with big-government leftists at rallies and activist film festivals. I would expect anarchists and big-government leftists to be ideologically incompatible. But then again, sometimes lefty anarchists espouse some big-government ideas -- which sort of makes them atypical anarchists.

Somehow, I am not confident that Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, Paul Krugman and the like will now condemn violent rhetoric and images in left-wing activist "art" like they condemned violent rhetoric and images from the Right. Art must reflect freedom of expression (unless it is critical of one of the Left's more fashionable "communities" of the moment). These commentators cannot be consistent and retain their affinity with today's progressives. And they already have a designated villain.

CNN puts itself "in the crosshairs"

2011-01-19T08:00:00.000-08:00

This coordinated attempt to shut down vivid speech by the Right is getting very, very silly. In a calculated sort of way. Don Surber makes some important points about surrendering the language* to the Left. From the comments:

I’ve told them what it takes, for us to stop that and return to civil discourse:

WE’LL STOP THE YELLIN’ … WHEN Y’ALL STOP THE LYIN’!

Byron York documents that before banning 'crosshairs,' CNN used it to refer to Palin and Bachmann.

. . . Mark Preston, CNN's senior political editor, referred to another controversial politician, Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann, as being "in the crosshairs." "Michelle Bachmann is raising lots of money, raising her national profile," Preston said on September 14. "She is in the crosshairs of Democrats as well."

It turns out Preston was back on CNN's air on Tuesday, discussing Palin's recent interview on Fox News. "We saw her on Fox News last night where she is a paid contributor," Preston said. "A kind of a friendly setting, but she defended herself from all the criticism that's been directed at her regarding a Web site that she had put out where she had used crosshairs over 20 Democratic candidates.

NOT TRUE. The crosshairs were over congressional districts on A MAP. Not over candidates. Sort of like the Democratic Party maps with bullseyes over congressional districts. Was Prestons mischaracterization sloppiness or a calculated effort to suggest more violent imagery, do you think? Either way, it's not acceptable for a senior political EDITOR. York comments:

"Crosshairs" again. Just for the record, CNN anchors, reporters and guests did absolutely nothing wrong with their use of the word in the last month and before. It would be impossible, at least for any reasonable person, to argue that the network's use of "crosshairs" in any of the various contexts it was used, was an incitement to violence by anyone, anywhere. But by announcing that "we're trying to get away" from "crosshairs" and other allegedly incendiary language, CNN is aligning itself with those who blame "rhetoric" for the killings. And by doing that -- plus inviting the public to "hold us accountable" -- CNN could open itself up to an examination of its own uses of the word and accusations that it helped create an environment that led to violence. Does that make any sense at all?

Read the whole thing.

* Richard Fernandez has similar thoughts:

CNN is now apologizing for the use of the word “crosshairs” in general political speech, as shown in the video after the “Read More” jump. The implication is that the word itself has been used to facilitate a hate crime. That is untrue, as former New York City Mayor Ed Koch observes. But maybe the belief is that if a lie is repeated for long enough then it eventually becomes true. Then power follows. “Real power is the ability to define what the fight is about.” The entire discussion moves into a rigged casino. Control words and you control truth. George Orwell understood this so well that he believed one of the first things every totalitarian ideology does is redefine the words in a language, purposefully, forcefully and relentlessly. In his novel 1984, he called this artificial language of totalitarianism Newspeak. . .

From the comments:

Orwell, indeed, is required reading. “1984″ should be read at least every couple of years (like the Bible?), just to keep us Westerners on our toes. (Dispensations will be available for those who have had to actually live that nightmare.)

Though in this, Orwell merely echoes Humpty Dumpty—another one of my intellectual heroes. . . .

UPDATE: More deception from CNN. And from the New York Times and Salon:

The New York Times did this earlier, deleting Obama's line about whether incivil debate caused the Tucson shooting -- "It did not," Obama said, fairly directly, contradicting the New York Times' Narrative.

. . . The Narrative is more important than a president's actual words, so the actual words had to be changed to reinforce The Narrative. . .

Can't. Stop. The Narrative.

Reality-based community or community-based reality?

They're like the dead in Sixth Sense -- they only see what they want to see. So they don't know that they're... ghosts of a fallen age.

Kind of seems like that sometimes.

The Establishment

2011-01-17T22:22:00.000-08:00

I remember when the Left railed against "The Establishment" in vigorous, and somtimes violent, ways. Shannon Love:

Why is the left hypocritically pushing so hard for “civility” in our political discourse? Why did they try to use the Tuscon shootings to suppress the passionate expression of non-leftists?

I think the answer is simple: Passionate, sometimes even inflammatory, expression is the tool of the revolutionary not the establishment and today, leftists are the establishment.

Plus this interesting observation:

We live today in a looking-glass world in which those who call themselves “progressives” fight for the past and established policies while those who call themselves “conservatives” fight for the future and innovation.

Read the whole thing.

Getting Real about Israel

2011-01-17T21:41:00.000-08:00

Melanie Phillips discusses the abandonment of the field of battle in the "information war" to the Left and to those in the UK and in Israel wishing to destroy Israel.

Clarity
Clarity
Clarity

From about the 7 minute point, you may recognize some phenomena which occur in the U.S. as well.

UPDATE: Perhaps someone is taking Phillips seriously. There have been some lucid responses to the American mainstream media's framing of Israel as the "Designated Villain". The devious "Designated Villain" journalistic technique seems to be very popular with our mainstream media's reporters. It's a way to editorialize while seeming to report the news. These smear jobs would be far more acceptable if "designated villain" pieces were included in the opinion pages rather than presented as news reports. The letter to the editor of TIME magazine by Ron Dermer linked above is an exceptional example of:

Clarity and balance

You might want to follow the links to read responses to various other biased reports by our mainstream media.

Martin Luther King Jr. Commemoration

2011-01-17T09:13:00.000-08:00

It's a reminder of what our culture has lost to read the Letter from Birmingham Jail. Which political leaders in our day write in a way which provoke reactions like this so long after the words have been put on paper? And how many of today's college students would be able to appreciate the allusions King made to parts of the then commonly-understood cultural heritage of our country?

UPDATE: William Bennett in 1986 on MLK's change in his field of study from sociology to theology:

Martin Luther King turned to the greatest philosophers because he needed to know the answers to certain questions. What is justice? What should be loved? What deserves to be defended? What can I know? What should I do? What may I hope for? What is man? These questions are not simply intellectual diversions, but have engaged thoughtful human beings in all places and in all ages. As a result of the ways in which these questions have been answered, civilizations have emerged, nations have developed, wars have been fought, and people have lived contentedly or miserably. And as a result of the way in which Martin Luther King eventually answered these questions, Jim Crow was destroyed and American history was transformed.

Plus, comments on some inherent weaknesses in scientific studies, particularly in the social sciences.

Here's a thought-provoking review of a book about MLK's funeral.

The country itself seemed to quake in the shooting's aftermath. Fear of more assassinations and riots was rampant. The Vietnam War raged. President Lyndon Johnson had just announced that he would not seek reelection. The FBI manhunt for King's killer had gone global.

Yet Atlanta stayed calm. . .

King catalyzed positive changes in our society. New weaknesses seem to pop up as we correct old ones. But it's worth remembering King's dream on this day.

UPDATE: Don't forget Sudan's slaves.

p.s.: Did you know that the pacifist Martin Luther King was an advocate of gun rights? Like many other civil rights leaders. Apparently, Michael Moore thinks King was a racist.

The Tea Party is motivated by sex

2011-01-15T07:15:00.000-08:00

New theory from the legendary leftist professor of sociology and political science Frances Fox Piven. The audio also reveals a number of additional dopey, bigoted stereotypes about the characteristics of people attracted to the Tea Party. The ONE thing she doesn't mention is the Tea Party's alarm at the aggressive efforts of the 111th Congress and the Obama Administration to take more control and power over large parts of the economy and larger parts of people's incomes, to spend money indiscriminately and to leave the bill for future generations:

That's why they say at their crazy rallies, "I am angry" - they have no follow-up line . . .

The disappointing move to the right in the last election was all because of a slight increase in all-white voters over 65 years of age. Meanwhile, in the real world, Shock CBS Poll: 77% of Americans are Extremist Teabaggers, Want to Cut Government Spending.

She is also disappointed in President Obama for not redistributing more wealth. Wonder if President Obama's former press secretary Robert Gibbs would include her among those in the "professional left" whom he told off? He thought they were being unrealistic about how far the President could go in imposing their preferred policies, given the makeup of the American electorate.

Don't you feel better knowing that our elite academics are this out of touch with what is really going on?

On the other hand, maybe she knows that what she is saying has no basis in fact, but is following the old precepts of "dialectical materialism": only statements which advance the cause of socialism are true.

Her musings on sex and the Tea Party seem to be consistent with the level of careful research which went into some of her highly practical prescriptions for improving our society:

1. The way to get government to give everyone a guaranteed annual income is to bankrupt the government by intentionally overloading the welfare system. What could go wrong?

2. The unemployed should develop an angry identity in the U.S., sort of like the angry people protesting against the insolvency of the governments in Greece and elsewhere in Europe. What could go wrong?

Right now, I'm thinking that taking on tens of thousands of dollars of extra debt to study with the best-known professors in the "soft sciences" may not be such a good idea. Iowahawk had this figured out a long time ago. Classic.

Compassionate Tyranny

2011-01-15T00:06:00.000-08:00

“The urge to save humanity is almost always a false-front for the urge to rule it.” – H. L. Mencken

Great minds . . .

“It is said that power corrupts, but actually it’s more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power.”
~David Brin

Camus said something similar I believe. Something like “The salvation of humanity is the alibi of all tyrants.”

“Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.” –Daniel Webster

Support Alternative Media: Some recommendations

2011-01-14T07:26:00.000-08:00

The irresponsible "rush to narrative" of the Mainstream Media after the shootings in Arizona last weekend demonstrated that the majority of the "Mainstream" media falls to the left of President Obama's position concerning how news should be reported. And the big media outlets utterly failed to accurately report what was happening at the shooting site. For example, many outlets reported that Representative Giffords was dead. Too bad that journalism schools now teach that the job of reporters is to "make a difference" rather than to "report the news".

The standards for accuracy in journalism which we relied on in the past seem to have been abandoned. There was little curiosity concerning legitimate issues surrounding the shootings. Thankfully, there is still some input from the right side of the political spectrum on the opinion pages of major papers. And it's important to give credit to the lefties when they do a good job. But in terms of reporting, you will often need to go elsewhere to avoid the "rush to narrative". Local reporting was more accurate than the big national media organizations in this case, and good local reporters should be supported. But where do you go for alternative information on national stories?

If you are a committed progressive/liberal, you need to understand other points of view. Unless you want to become as ineffective in conversations with the Right as this (Brutal satire alert). You aren't likely to find adequately-detailed alternative viewpoints unless you seek them out. Often, even conservatives have difficulty articulating the philosophical or practical bases for their positions.    If you are a moderate liberal, classical liberal, libertarian or a conservative, you need correct information.  Incorrect assertions are quickly shot down in the center-right blogosphere (and on the "classic" center-left blogs, which are sometimes linked by the sites below). Some interesting sites you could check out and browse occasionally:

If you're short on time, INSTAPUNDIT (libertarian law professor Glenn Reynolds) provides links to sites from across the political spectrum, typically with very short commentary. Note: don't expect him to be a conservative. He's very libertarian on social issues. Monday mornings are a good time to glance through the first page - he usually includes a weekend roundup. The search function on the site is quite good. In addition to issues concerning law and politics, he often links pieces on medical and scientific advancements (including nanotechnology and "green" technologies); books and book reviews; photography, cooking, music and assorted other subjects. He rounds up tips on disaster preparedness and recently defended President Obama on the issue of civil defense. Reynolds started blogging to avoid constant worrying when his wife's life was in danger due to a heart condition. She's a clinical psychologist with expertise in violent children who blogs as Dr. Helen.

REAL CLEAR POLITICS presents a convenient overview of the issues of the day, linking mainstream media sites as well as journals and blogs from across the political spectrum without commentary. A good place to go for the text of speeches (on the day they are given or the day after). Their own commentary leans right, although they invite guest commentary from the left.

Don't believe balance is necessary? The New York Times was probably the worst offender (outside of television) in pushing a pre-determined political narrative concerning the Arizona shootings. They often seem to set the "narrative" for other mainstream media outlets. Ed Driscoll posts on the question: How do you solve a problem like Paul Krugman?   He links the Ace of Spades website, where you can find some crude language (think "South Park Conservatives" - or maybe "South Park Libertarians"). The language is not as bad as on many lefty blogs, but you might want to stick with links to ACE OF SPADES from more "work-safe" and "home-safe" sites. Ace can be brilliant (for an agnostic, sometimes crude, epileptic attorney) and there are other good (if often snarky) writers at this site. The link here is disturbing, but because it tells the truth -- not because of gratuitous obscenity. “New York Times Tells Lie Big Enough To Earn It Another Pulitzer.” Ouch!!!!. So mean, Ace. Do you think you're on Comedy Central or something?

POWERLINE BLOG (three conservative, Ivy League-type attorneys) puts in a plug for PAJAMAS MEDIA which was started after RatherGate as a loose confederation of libertarian, conservative, classical liberal and international bloggers with a plan to provide a real alternative to the Mainstream Media. Their flippant name comes from mockery of the bloggers "writing in their pajamas in the basement" who challenged the Mainstream Narrative concerning RatherGate -- and beat the "layers of fact-checkers and editors" in the mainstream media (particularly in high-budget television). They have now started producing videos like the Trifecta commentary at the link. Some of the videos are more "professional" than others. PajamasMedia has also started an entertaining and informative group blog, The Tatler, with short entries along the lines of those in the (establishment conservative) National Review's THE CORNER

BELMONT CLUB is one of my favorite sites, for unusual essays inspired by the news and written by Richard Fernandez (Wretchard) - a former Filipino revolutionary who was educated at Berkeley (and elsewhere in the U.S.) and lives in Australia. The place to go if you want to join a discussion about "black swans", "white swans" or developments in network communication. I'm also partial to CLAUDIA ROSETT, a real journalist who monitors the excesses and insanities at the United Nations and elsewhere. MICHAEL TOTTEN is an independent journalist who reports on the Middle East FROM the Middle East.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON is our neighbor from up the road in Selma. He's a raisin farmer, Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, and a former Professor of Classics at Fresno State. Sometimes he strays from one topic to another in blog posts, and Wretchard periodically comments on these stream-of-consciousness posts. When VDH writes an essay which sticks to a single subject, it is often brilliant. His dual experience working the land and teaching in academia gives him an unusual outlook. And then there are his studies of ancient civilizations, languages and his familiarity with modern Greece. As one of the few scholars of ancient and modern warfare in the country, he was an advisor for the movie "300".

Outside the current Pajamas Media umbrella, there's TIGERHAWK, the CFO of a medium-sized medical device company. He's a libertarian/conservative who listens to NPR and reaches out to liberals he loves  from time to time. He blogs on Blogspot, just like me and Professor Jacobson. I also like Ed Morrissey at HOT AIR. He used to have an independent blog called Captain's Quarters. He's a conservative. His wife, Marcia, is blind and has undergone a kidney transplant. She blogs at Patheos. TOM MAGUIRE specializes in careful reading. Something not done often enough in today's fast-paced news cycle. Sense of Events posts interesting pieces from a Christian perspective. The Anchoress is even more assertively religious (Catholic) in her writing but often has some very interesting insights into political developments.

There are many other interesting voices out there. You'll find them at links to those above.

For sites on the Right which occasionally play as fast and loose with the facts as the New York Times regularly does, you could look into the tabloid-style Breitbart sites, Big Hollywood, Big Government, Big Journalism and Big Peace. Breitbart is an activist, like most young journalists today (but on the other side politically from most of them). He is quite confrontational, eliciting howls and venom from the Left, which is used to taking advantage of the typical meek responses from the Right to their lies, bigotry and organized mischaracterizations. Expect uneven quality at these sites - sometimes very good, sometimes with amateurish characteristis. Expect these sites to make errors, but to correct them faster than the New York Times and to give responsible critics space to respond.

I recommend that you avoid the fever-swamp, conspiracy theory-loving sites of all political persuasions, or that you be realistic about their nature when you check them out.

Reports from Eastern Europe

2011-01-06T10:44:00.000-08:00

Eastern European governments begin seizing private pensions. Meanwhile, France and Ireland "use" the money in government-structured pensions for other purposes.

Andrew Klavan:

"Free people can treat each other justly, but they can't make life fair. To get rid of the unfairness among individuals, you have to exercise power over them. The more fairness you want, the more power you need. Thus, all dreams of fairness become dreams of tyranny in the end."

On the other hand, Romanian witches are using spells to protest new taxes. Guess you have to scare 'em somehow.

The Case Against Principles in Government

2011-01-06T10:16:00.001-08:00

Follow the link.

Humility - Farewell to the 111th

2011-01-06T08:52:00.000-08:00

John Boehner's speech impressed some people. Ace:

All the right notes, and I think he means them. What he's stressing is not the details of governance but the central assumption of it -- democracy, where the people rule.

Video at the link.

Roger L. Simon:

Like much of the world that doesn’t live Inside the Beltway, I was only marginally aware of John Boehner until some months ago when it was becoming clear he might be the next speaker. And even then I wasn’t impressed. The man-tan look made me assume he was just another shallow pol.

I was wrong. As of now, I have done a total about-face. In his speech today, John Boehner showed himself to be among the most impressive figures on our political landscape, and he did it by being that rarest of things in politics: a humble human being.

Compare and Contrast. Or, you might prefer to Compare and Contrast.

Boehner's big gavel kind of reminds me of Nancy's horrible "victory walk", (which she staged in order to accuse the Tea Party of being racist and/or violent) but I guess Boehner has a different meaning in mind.

Hope the new Congress can rein in some of the excesses of the 111th Congress. The great Thomas Sowell:

Runaway "stimulus" spending, high unemployment and ObamaCare are all legitimate and important issues. It is just that freedom and survival are more important.

For all its sweeping and scary provisions, ObamaCare is not nearly as important as the way it was passed. If legislation can become laws passed without either the public or the Congress knowing what is in those laws, then the fundamental principle of a free, self-governing people is completely undermined.

Reducing Social Divisions and Inequality: When Liberal Pundits Fight

2011-01-04T05:43:00.000-08:00

Do you increase social cohesion and reduce social inequality by reducing income inequality through taxation, or by limiting cultural and racial diversity, for example, by limiting immigration? Follow the Links to read about some in-fighting among liberals* on this issue. Starting off, conservative/libertarian Tom Maguire points out that the same data can lead to different conclusions if you haven't accounted for all variables:

Yesterday Nick Kristof delivered a daft column invoking income inequality as a proxy for social inequality and arguing that inequality is stressful and bad. . .

The obvious conclusion, based on the examples presented by Kristof, is that racial diversity creates undesirable social stress. An obvious public policy implication is that immigration should be discouraged. Believe it or not, Kristof did not reach those conclusions, since they don't fit his narrative. Instead, he rode the data to his preconceived destination, which is that we need to tax the rich and spread the wealth. Yeah, yeah - if you aren't going to let the data tell its story, why send it on stage? Or, if the data leads to unacceptable conclusions, maybe the premises are wrong (e.g., maybe social stress is bad but it is a necessary consequence of achieving other goods.)

Well. As if on cue, the Times has a front-pager telling us how they reduce income inequality and maintain social cohesion in laudable Japan - they kick out foreigners, thereby propping up wages. . .

OK, it looks like national suicide to me and it could never work in America (nor should it be attempted at this level, although we need stricter border control and workplace enforcement), but this is a country Nick Kristof is holding up as our goal.

Mickey Kaus notes differences between the famous New York Times columnist Paul Krugman and less famous liberal (and libertarian/liberal) commentators on the issue of immigration. Some of whom seem to have a tendency toward name-calling.

Somewhat-related Graphs: Median income vs. incomes for the top 1% in America over time. Update: Tom Maguire has no mercy.

* Well, Mickey Kaus is more moderate than the rest - with some libertarian leanings. I sure wish his Democratic primary challenge to Barbara Boxer had been more successful. But he made some good points with very little money.

Southern Europe's Young See Little Benefit in Education

2011-01-04T05:22:00.000-08:00

THE NEW YORK TIMES REPORTS on a "Doomed Generation" of highly educated young Europeans who can't find work??? Pigs fly.

Young people in Europe start to understand the looming demographic crisis.

With pensioners living longer and young people entering the work force later — and paying less in taxes because their salaries are so low — it is only a matter of time before state coffers run dry.

“What we have is a Ponzi scheme,” said Lawrence Kotlikoff, an economist at Boston University and an expert in fiscal policy.

Glenn Reynolds: "Funny how it seems to work out this way everywhere that high-tax, high-regulation schemes are tried, but young people are usually dumb enough not to realize who gets hurt the most. And what happens when a higher education bubble bursts:"

In Italy, Ms. Esposito is finishing her lawyer traineeship at a private firm in Lecce. It pays little but sits better on her conscience than her unpaid work for the government.

“I’m a repentant college graduate,” she said. “If I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t go to college and would just start working.”

John Hinderaker:"It seems to me that the Times conflates several rather distinct issues in chronicling the malaise of Europe's young. It is not obvious that accumulating "certificates" is the optimum path to gainful employment. Europe has long tended to prize credentials over actual productivity, but that is probably a secondary issue in the current crisis. . .

That is what happens when government inserts itself into every employment decision and when labor unions are given quasi-official powers and status. The result is economic disaster, a disaster first suffered by the young. What has happened in Europe, especially Southern Europe, is a flashing red alert, warning the United States not to follow the same path of government interventionism and union empowerment"

Instapundit reader concerning the demographic problems discussed in the New York Times article:

Mark Steyn has been warning about this for years, most notably in his book America Alone. Except when he broaches the subject he’s accused of being a right-wing lunatic.

Reynolds: "Well, yes. As with the Hitler/Stalin pact, one must not only have the right opinions, one must have them at the correct time."

Wretchard has additional thoughts on the Times piece, including the phenomenon of educated Europeans moving to Latin America for job opportunities:

So for some Europeans it is Costa Rica or bust; where one of the virtues, in common with most of the Third World, is that there are almost no rules. The absence of regulation must make the non-Western world something like the frontier, where both disaster and great fortune seem to lurk right around the corner. . . .

The Hard Left's Latest Ideas for Improving Society

2011-01-03T11:42:00.000-08:00

Honored professor of sociology and political science Frances Fox Piven, co-author of the Cloward-Piven Strategy, has some timely advice for the unemployed in America. She wants to foster again what they call over at Protein Wisdom the "blind rage of Cloward-Piven":

they have to develop a proud and angry identity and a set of claims that go with that identity. They have to go from being hurt and ashamed to being angry and indignant

You might think of it as encouraging a generalized, emotional sort of covetousness for revolutionary purposes. Ron Radosh:

What she is calling for is nothing less than the chaos and violence engulfing Europe.

The Cloward-Piven Strategy was one part of American history about which I knew very little until a couple of years ago, when people started pointing out that some of its ideas had contributed to the financial meltdown. ACORN's* agitation for home loans for high-risk borrowers helped to crash the real estate market in the U.S., and very nearly the financial system of much of the West. Of course, they had big assists from brilliant Ivy League computer modelers on Wall Street and their friends in Government, with their slick computer models for the bundling of bad loans with good loans (and all the reckless behavior which accompanied the acceptance of those models). Of course, you can't discount government borrowing and fractional lending by banks. (Too bad American banks were not allowed, or even encouraged, to be as realistic as Canadian banks.)

But the West's financial system is still limping along. So far, the hoped-for (by Cloward-Piven types) Rise of the Proletariat Masses to build a glorious new world on the ashes after their planned collapse of the structure of Western civilization has failed to materialize. Even if they did succeed in bankrupting New York City back at the height of their influence. I remember news stories about the bankruptcy of New York City and its relationship to high welfare costs. I DON'T remember hearing that there was a deliberate movement to overload the welfare system. I wonder why the press suppressed this bit of information?

Wall Street and Government financial hotshots (in the recent financial crisis) and the Cloward-Piven bunch (in their dreams to change the world) exhibited a remarkable lack of forecasting abilities. This gives one slight pause about revolutionizing the entire world's economy based on Global Warming computer models and utopian plans for redistributing wealth. Apparently the recent Cancun Climate Conference was more about Climate Justice than about reducing greenhouse gasses. Even though some UN bureaucrats seem to have some doubts about giving all that money to corrupt, brutal African dictators (or perhaps even to common uneducated Africans). And they may have a point, given the irresponsible reactions of Greeks to the money flowing to their government from other European counties. Although poor, Greece was not exactly a third-world country when the money started flowing in without much effort on the part of the populace. And when the government ran out of money -- REALLY ran out of money -- the reaction was rage. Would not even more irresponsibility be expected if third-worlders were suddenly awash in money they didn't earn?

The trouble is that the Hard Left has always been better at taking over and/or destroying existing institutions than at building new ones.

Frances Fox Piven can look to recent models for her dream of an angry identity-formation from Americans who have been hurt financially by the economic crisis. Richard Fernandez (nom de blog: Wretchard) provides some additional education on the rise of ANARCHY, once again, in Europe.

In fine anarchists are Red Guards of the European Left, a collection of dupes formed inside the vast and creaky infrastructure of Marxism to advance the interests of one faction against another faction. It is impossible to understand the politics of the Left without grasping that it is all about deniable intimidation. The real problem European anarchism solves is how to send bombs without seemingly sending them, or how to trash the Tory party headquarters in London without really doing it.

Just as Mao’s Red Guards were never about themselves, always about Mao, anarchists are about a larger political question: what is the correct political line? Once the Red Guards of China had resolved that in Mao’s favor they were allowed to rampage for a time to bring hatred down upon themselves and subsequently suppressed, hapless tools to the very end.

Read the whole thing. Wretchard was once part of a genuine rebellion himself (in the Philippines) and he interacted with revolutionaries who had various ideological reasons for participating in the rebellion. Some of these revolutionaries seemed more threatening to him than the corrupt, autocratic government against which he was rebelling.

Wretchard's commenters often have some interesting ideas, too. If you make a comment which he thinks brings something important to the conversation, he may comment on it, as well. Glenn Reynold notes a few clarifying comments from others on various types of anarchists - some more responsible than others. A "true anarchy" doesn't sound at all appealing.

I wonder how many generations ahead Fox Pivens was thinking when she called for this angry, indignant reaction from the unemployed in America? Has she ever considered Thomas Sowell's perpetual question to the utopian thinker, "And then what?"

BLAST FROM THE PAST (circa 1980), Thomas Sowell takes on Frances Fox Piven in the last part of this 6-minute video. He was really feisty back then. Sowell and Fox Piven don't seem to have persuaded each other much in the intervening years.

Additional reading: Life and Death in Shanghai is the story of a remarkable woman's experiences with the Red Guard and the Maoist government after being identified as an "enemy of the people".

Wretchard comments on VDH's latest piece comparing the behavior of the Left in Greece and California. Can the Left be brought to understand to the reality of the dire situation they are in?

So Hanson says, why not let them have it but make it clear that the state will have to pay for it? Let them see for themselves where the path leads if they won’t listen to reason. . . . .

Maybe they won’t listen to experience either, just as certain types of people keep trying the same thing while hoping for different results. They will press on despite failure, despite debacles and just press the keys harder. But under no circumstances will “sorry, we won’t loan you anything at any interest rate, so please by all means riot all you wish” get anyone else off the hook. Because other people are permanently on the hook. The whole point of socialism is precisely that it’s built on somebody else’s money. If it were built with their money it would be capitalism.

WH Auden observed that “all sins tend to be addictive, and the terminal point of addiction is damnation.” If the Left the world over has reached the point where they have got to have their fix, then neither reason nor experience will be persuasive. . .

The Hard Left aside, even more moderate young Social Democrats of Europe are starting to wake up to the consequences of not asking Sowell's question, "And then what?" in their social planning. As reported by the NEW YORK TIMES? Similar education bubble coming to a state near you. Demographic issues may be a little different.

Video showing the lighter side of Marxism in NYC linked at the bottom of this post.

* Does ACORN really have BILLIONAIRE supporters who need to be informed of their business plans like, maybe, George Soros? Seems odd for a group focused on financial equality. But then, Soros has justified destroying currencies in his stated quest to create more equitable governments.

UPDATE: An old Stalinist is also delighted by the world's financial difficulties. Even Fox-Piven had evolved beyond loving Stalin, I believe.

Predictions for 2011

2011-01-01T21:47:00.000-08:00

Predictions are perilous things. It's usually best not to take yourself too seriously when you make them, because hubris is often followed by nemesis. But never mind, it was always about social control, anyway. "Titillated by coercion"?

The pundits at National Review seem to have a sense of this as they make their predictions. John Derbyshire's predictions about China might not be what you would expect. His wife is from China. Conflicting information here and here. Follow the link on the Instapundit posts.

YouTube University: Milton Friedman Explains Libertarianism

2011-01-01T09:24:00.000-08:00

Although currently allied with conservatives, libertarians are not exactly like the typical conservative. The late Milton Friedman explains libertarianism in a 1999 interview with Peter Robinson. You can watch the whole thing a one time, or in shorter segments. You might want to consider where you fall on the continuum between supporting the maximum possible individual liberty on one hand OR mandating equality of outcome as well as providing safety, services, etc. through government action on the other hand.

Peter Robinson looks "inauthentic" on a motorcycle. But in this classic interview he asks Milton Friedman some tough questions about his libertarian positions. A college semester in 25 minutes.

Want shorter classes?

What is a libertarian?

What produced the dark and dirty London of Charles Dickens?

Are regulators like the FDA necessary to safeguard consumers? I could tell some stories to support either a yes or no position.

Should the government mandate that nutritional labels be placed on food packaging?

Of 14 cabinet departments, Milton Friedman says he would only keep a handful.

MORE: The kinds of interviews you don't see on TV anymore (radio interviews sometimes still provide this kind of exchange):

GREED 2 minutes. Kudos to Phil Donahue for asking good questions, then listening.

Federal Reserve and the New Deal, Chrysler bailout in 1979, automobile industry. 10 minutes.

Economics of medical care 9 minutes

Why it isn't necessary to change elected officials in order to change government. One minute.

The four ways to spend money.3 minutes

Local vs. Federal Government Spending, increasing production of goods and services (what the Greens want us to keep to a minimum). 3 minutes

Auld Lang Syne

2010-12-31T12:43:00.000-08:00

Elizabeth Scalia on her remembrances of the Kennedy years and Auld Lang Syne. She also links a piece on food shortages here in the Central Valley, one of the great food-producing regions of the world. It is relevant to some of our personal challenges, and those of our friends. Peggy Noonan talked with several people about their impressions of the song we sing every year:

"Auld Lang Syne" — the phrase can be translated as "long, long ago," or "old long since," but I like "old times past"—is a song that asks a question, a tender little question that has to do with the nature of being alive, of being a person on a journey in the world. It not only asks, it gives an answer. . . .

But "the interesting, more serious message in the song is that the past is important, we mustn't forget it, the old has something for us."

So does the present, as the last stanza makes clear. The song is not only about those who were in your life, but those who are in your life. . . .

A lot of food for thought on New Years Eve day. Hope everyone is looking forward to a wonderful New Year.

Michael Crichton, Science and Global Warming

2010-12-24T11:13:00.000-08:00

The late Michael Crichton describes the "nasty, unfair, brutal" response of his fellow liberals in the Global Warming camp to his book, State of Fear. He supported a traditional scientific approach over the post-normal approach to science favored by global warming alarmists. Entire interview is here. Critique of An Inconvenient Truth here. Note that Crichton died before Climategate confirmed many of the points he made in these videos.

Michael Crichton talks with high school students:

1. Although he does not name the Sierra Club, he gently explains to students how the lawsuit filed by the Sierra Club helped lead to the deaths of 30 million people - "more people than Hitler and Stalin together killed". People of color.

2. Should environmentalism be a religion?

3. His personal interest in people's attraction to totalitarianism.

4. Second-hand smoke

Richard Fernandez looks back at the alarmism concerning Global Cooling in the 1970s, to which Crichton made reference. Prominent Global Warming alarmist James Hansen was just a lowly computer model developer back in those days of global cooling alarmism. I don't think he got nearly as much publicity (or money) then as he does now.

. . . . . Can a New Ice Age be blamed on America? If it can, then it’s real. Otherwise it is false. Over the coming years and beyond my lifetime, historians may wish to apply this formula: V = American Policy multiplied by the absolute value of any variable. It’s always America’s fault.

And of course, whatever problem with the climate emerges in the future, The Left Must Be Put In Charge.

Because the Liberal Elite is always right. Somewhat brutal, but hilarious. There are a lot of people just like this on the Left. Especially in academia.

Mao's Great Leap to Famine

2010-12-16T06:50:00.000-08:00

Just a reminder that, at one time, Chinese peasants were escaping to North Korea to avoid starvation, rather than the other way around. Aside from the deaths during the revolution, the "cultural revolution", etc.,

In all, the records I studied suggest that the Great Leap Forward was responsible for at least 45 million deaths.

Between 2 and 3 million of these victims were tortured to death or summarily executed, often for the slightest infraction. People accused of not working hard enough were hung and beaten; sometimes they were bound and thrown into ponds. Punishments for the least violations included mutilation and forcing people to eat excrement.

Yet more than a decade later, thousands of students at American universities were still reverently carrying around Mao's Little Red Book. And even today, many intellectuals continue to believe that Marxism could work if only the right people were in charge. The New York Times recently ran a puff piece on Marxists pontificating and playing in New York City.

Glenn Reynolds:

Communists are as bad as Nazis, and their defenders and apologists are as bad as Nazis’ defenders, but far more common. When you meet them, show them no respect. They’re evil, stupid, and dishonest. They should not enjoy the consequences of their behavior.

Dennis Prager: "The bigger the government, the more of its citizens' lives it 'owns'."

A small example of what happens when government officials implement their great ideas about how to achieve "progress":

Mao encouraged the establishment of small backyard steel furnaces in every commune and in each urban neighborhood. Huge efforts on the part of peasants and other workers were made to produce steel out of scrap metal. To fuel the furnaces the local environment was denuded of trees and wood taken from the doors and furniture of peasants' houses. Pots, pans, and other metal artifacts were requisitioned to supply the "scrap" for the furnaces so that the wildly optimistic production targets could be met. Many of the male agricultural workers were diverted from the harvest to help the iron production as were the workers at many factories, schools and even hospitals. As could have been predicted by anyone with any experience of steel production or basic knowledge of metallurgy, the output consisted of low quality lumps of pig iron which was of negligible economic worth.

. . . According to his private doctor, Li Zhisui, Mao and his entourage visited traditional steel works in Manchuria in January 1959 where he found out that high quality steel could only be produced in large scale factories using reliable fuel such as coal. However he decided not to order a halt to the backyard steel furnaces so as not to dampen the revolutionary enthusiasm of the masses. The program was only quietly abandoned much later that year.

Substantial effort was expended during the Great Leap Forward on large-scale but often poorly planned capital construction projects, such as irrigation works often built without input from trained engineers. . . . .

Despite these harmful agricultural innovations, the weather in 1958 was very favorable and the harvest promised to be good. Unfortunately, the amount of labor diverted to steel production and construction projects meant that much of the harvest was left to rot uncollected in some areas. This problem was exacerbated by a devastating locust swarm, which was caused when their natural predators were killed en masse as part of the Great Sparrow Campaign.

Although actual harvests were reduced, local officials, under tremendous pressure from central authorities to report record harvests in response to the new innovations, competed with each other to announce increasingly exaggerated results. These were used as a basis for determining the amount of grain to be taken by the state to supply the towns and cities, and to export. This left barely enough for the peasants, and in some areas, starvation set in. During 1958-1960, China continued to be a substantial net exporter of grain, despite the widespread famine experienced in the countryside, as Mao sought to maintain "face" and convince the outside world of the success of his plans.

Even more democratic nations can face serious unintended problems due to the sincere efforts of government officials and their favored business allies to implement their good intentions. Especially when the government exempts itself from criticism.

Illustrative Video: GREAT MOMENTS IN UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES

Note that the tragic dimension of unintended consequences attaches itself like a lamprey to public-sector derring-do rather than quaint lab accidents and kitchen-based discoveries.

Bipartisanship, "No Labels"

2010-12-14T10:47:00.000-08:00

Some interesting developments in the "tax deal between Obama and the GOP":

1. At the joint press conference between President Obama and former President Clinton, President Obama left to attend a Christmas party, leaving Clinton to defend his positions. Paul Gigott:

“I love the symbolism of two Democratic presidents — not one, but two — endorsing Bush tax cuts, saying, ‘We need them crucially to help the economy’.”

During the press conference, President Clinton called conservative Charles Krauthammer's piece (calling the tax deal "the swindle of the year")"brilliant". Krauthammer quipped:

The fact that he praised me means that my career is basically over, although perhaps — I think NPR has an opening, I think the Juan Williams spot. …

Or I could return to psychiatry. The House Democrats could really use someone right now. They’re very agitated. I would go into that caucus and just do a Valium spray and get all of ‘em at once.

2. Bernie Sanders, the declared socialist in Congress, decided to filibuster. Other progressives are also up in arms. But on the other hand, they have been pushing the "No Labels" meme. President Obama starts a "charm offensive" with new Republican leadership in private, while promising to fight them in public.

President Obama made one especially deceptive statement about the Republicans' position on tax cuts which totally destroys any possibility of bipartisan good will:

"When they expire in two years, I will fight to end them," Obama said. "Just as I suspect the Republican Party may fight to end the middle-class tax cuts that I've championed and that they've opposed."

He's apparently still a class warrior at heart. He has indicated several times that he considers his role that of a "community organizer" (although one who is a "strong leader" rather than one who stays in the background while pushing power down to the people according to Saul Alinsky's "rules for radicals".)

Did Stalin commit genocide, or just mass murder?

2010-11-23T20:55:00.000-08:00

Does it really matter?

An interesting book review by Illya Somin:

Absent Stalin’s malign influence, Naimark contends, the regime probably would not have committed mass murder or genocide on such a large scale. There is little doubt that Stalin’s paranoia and sadism influenced Soviet policy. Nonetheless, I think Naimark overstates the importance of Stalin’s personal role. Most of the major repressive policies and institutions — including the secret police and the Gulag slave labor camps — of the Soviet state were begun by Lenin, not Stalin. As historians such as Richard Pipes have shown, even the terror famine was a reprise of the first Soviet effort to collectivize agriculture in 1918–21 (which also led to a famine in which millions died). Leon Trotsky, Stalin’s main rival for power after Lenin’s death, attacked Stalin on the grounds that his policies were too generous to “bourgeois” elements and otherwise not repressive enough. Had Trotsky defeated Stalin, life for most Soviet citizens might have been just as bad or even slightly worse. One of the very few ways in which Stalin was harsher than Trotsky was in his much greater willingness to kill and imprison members of the Communist Party elite. Here, Stalin’s extreme paranoia about possible rivals for power really did make a big difference. Under Trotsky, the party comrades would have suffered a lot less; the rest of the population would not have been so fortunate.

More generally, Stalin’s policies were far from unique in the communist world. Almost every other communist regime engaged in very similar mass murders, including in countries like China and Cuba where the rulers had a high degree of autonomy from Soviet control.

Check out the discussion in the comments.

The New York Times and Stalin

During Stalin's forced starvation of Ukranian peasants, New York Times reporter Walter Duranty falsely refuted the true stories of starvation by other Western reporters. He won a Pulitzer Prize for his lies.

The New York Times recently ran a puff piece on Marxists pontificating and playing in New York City. It is unthinkable that the New York Times would run a puff piece on "Fascists pontificating and playing" in New York City. But Mussolini's brand of fascism, for example, was far less destructive and brutal than Marxist communism has been (though the two ideologies held much in common in both theory and practice).

One begins to get an impression of the hold that Marxism has had on our intellectuals for so many decades. If only the right people had tried it, utopia would be have been achieved. But since the West won't accept revolution, it's better to socialize Western countries a little at a time.

UPDATE: Video at the link - Marxist study groups and games in NYC. Yes, there are still REAL Marxists in America. Who read Stalin's works for ideas.

Thought for the Day

2010-10-26T21:51:00.000-07:00

"Pride is at the bottom of all great mistakes."

-John Ruskin

From Forbes.

Moderate Muslims, Rational Islamic Theology

2010-10-20T23:05:00.000-07:00

Claire Berlinski contrasts the moderate Muslims she lives around in Turkey with radical Muslims. Start the video, then go to full screen for better video quality.

On Ricochet (a blog-like discussion forum), she discusses a new book concerning a time, prior to the ninth century, when Islamic theology may have been more conducive to reason than it is today.

The answer ... completely hinges on God’s relationship to reason in Sunni Islam. Is God reason, or logos, as the Greeks would say? If God himself is reason, then it is hard to close the mind because one would then be closing oneself to God. This, in fact, was the view of the first fully-developed theological school in Islam, the Mu‘tazilites. The Mu‘tazalites asserted the primacy of reason, and that one’s first duty is to engage in reason and, through it, to come to know God. . . .

However, the school of theology that arose to oppose the Mu’tazilites, the Ash‘arites, held the opposite. Unfortunately, by the end of the ninth century, they prevailed and became the formative influence in Sunni Islam. For the Ash‘arites, God is not reason, but pure will and absolute power. He is not bound by anything, including his own word. Since God is pure will, He has no reasons for his acts. Thus what He does cannot be understood by man. One of the things that God does is create the world, which also cannot be understood. . . .

Interesting reading if you're up for some academic cross-talk.

There's a lot most of us don't understand about Islam.

The Chilean Mine Rescue, Chris Matthews, Two Presidents

2010-10-14T11:55:00.000-07:00

While the world celebrated, Chris Matthews took this story as an opportunity to become completely unmoored from reality, declaring to the head of the AFL-CIO that if the miners had been tea-partiers, they would have been dead in two days.

Ann Althouse:

What that shows is that Matthews — in stereotypical liberal fashion — has forgotten the way private individuals cooperate and help each other. The government and only the government must be the source of all beneficence. If you don't want the government to solve all your problems, you must think you and everyone else can be 100% self-reliant.

A couple of simple questions for Mr. Matthews:

If Tea Partiers are so consumed by an “every man for himself” philosophy, why are their gatherings typically so well-organized and why do they leave, say, the National Mall spotless?

If unions, on the other hand, are so dedicated to cooperation and respect for others, why did so many of their buses leave before the OneNation rally was over, leaving some speakers to speak to a few stragglers? And why did they trash the National Mall?

Unions are just as subject to corruption and decline as business and government are. When unions are protected in their declined state by government, decline is likely to get worse.

The President of Chile called for international help from the best and the brightest, promising to keep bureaucracy from interfering. As a result, the rescue came much sooner that the December estimate. In contrast, during the Gulf Oil Spill, President Obama rejected most international help for months. He refused to suspend the Jones Act, which kept the Dutch and others from helping directly. Apparently, in the President's mind, the interests of unions outweighed the interests of fishermen and others whose jobs were threatened by the oil spill. The Jones Act specifies that foreign entities working with our government (including in disasters) must be unionized. It has been suspended by other presidents in the past in emergencies. (Oh, and EPA regulations requiring near-perfection in equipment for removing oil from water also prevented much oil from being removed from the gulf by the Dutch). Many people were disappointed with the President's response. Chile's politics and culture seem to be in an ascendant phase, in comparison.

The rescue of Chilean miners recalls an earlier rescue

2010-10-14T08:39:00.000-07:00

A wonderful story. A leader emerged who "rallied the troops" to cooperate in a disciplined survival regimen. A strong leader is crucial in desperate circumstances, but command-and-control leadership is less effective when conditions are not so dire. The President of Chile also contributed to the general air of competence in response to this emergency.

An interesting perspective on the miner rescue from Daniel Henninger: Capitalism saved the miners.

Some will recoil at these triumphalist claims for free-market capitalism. Why make them now?

Here's why. When a catastrophe like this occurs—others that come to mind are the BP well blowout, Hurricane Katrina, various disasters in China—a government has all its chips pushed to the center of the table. Chile succeeds (it rebuilt after the February earthquake with phenomenal speed). China flounders. Two American administrations left the public agog as they stumbled through the mess.

Still, what the political class understands is that all such disasters wash away eventually, and that life in a developed nation reverts to a tolerable norm. . .

Chile has a new American hero from the private sector. But NASA, a U.S. government agency, provided a lot of help in Chile, too. Somehow, the flexible Chileans seemed to be able to coordinate government and private help.

Wretchard recalls another dramatic rescue of 33 men which required perhaps even greater flexibility in the responses of the rescuers, not to mention extraordinary courage on the part of some of them.

Zero Tolerance for Speaking Truth to Power

2010-09-24T22:55:00.000-07:00

Rep. John Conyers asked comedian Stephen Colbert to leave the committee room rather than present live "testimony" concerning immigration. Donald Sensing compares the media reactions to testimony by Stephen Colbert and Christopher Coates on the same day:

Colbert 1,300; Coates 196

That's the count on Google News' leads of the coverage of the testimonies of comedian Stephen Colbert and Dept. of Justice official Christopher Coates. Colbert testified before the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law. Coates appeared before the US Civil Rights Commission. . . .

Note that the major media covered Colbert exhaustively, but were conspicuously absent from covering Coates. That was left almost completely to online media, especially blogs. From curiosity, I watched NBC News primetime broadcast. Colbert was the lead story. There was no mention ever of Coates. And they wonder why their viewersehip is plummeting?

Fortunately and commendably for Colbert, his "testimony" was dripping with all the sober gravitas it deserved. . . .

Coates told the commission that he was testifying as a whistle blower since he had been instructed by his DOJ superiors not to speak.

You know, some more "zero tolerance" that this administration has for speaking truth to power, especially when the power is them and the truth is, well, the truth.

Read the whole thing. Interesting take on Colbert's apparent realization that it was absurd that he had been asked to testify about immigration.

More on the Coates testimony. Interesting links. Possible legal ramifications for cases with minority plaintiffs. Criticism of AP story, kudos for real journalism.

Josh Gerstein reports the story for Politico. Gerstein's story is a model of good journalism.

Background: Older posts on the New Black Panther case which Coates discussed in the hearing (and related issues of equality before the law) here, here and here.

Coates must be an extraordinarily strong individual to have remained in the DOJ after his demotion for supporting equality before the law. His testimony, against the orders of his superiors, probably ends any possibility that he could return to his career at the DOJ. But it was probably over before now, anyway. One of his subordinates had already quit to become a whistleblower. Going public may actually reduce the hostility which Coates must have been facing within the DOJ as a whistleblower. Here is an account of what he said at the going-away event at the time of his demotion.

Of course, there's a possibility that the Colbert appearance was not planned as a diversion, but was just another devastatiing unforced error by this Congress.

Nancy Pelosi on "Hollywood-American" Colbert: “He’s an American. He has a point of view.” From the comments:

“He’s an American. He has a point of view.” I thought Congress sought testimony from people with some expertise. There are fifty people in front of the local Home Depot who know more about this than Colbert.

North Korea: Run by and Emperor

2010-09-22T10:07:00.000-07:00

Dennis Prager interviewed the author of a new book on the ordinary lives of North Koreans. She noted that North Korea is not a typical communist country, but rather one run by an emperor. Dennis pointed out that most Communist countries are run by emperors, even when the horrors don't get as bad as those in North Korea, China or Cambodia.

She noted that in NK, the people are the possessions of the government. Dennis pointed out that the bigger the government, the more of its citizen's lives it "owns".

Happy Constitution Day

2010-09-17T15:25:00.000-07:00

Restoring Madison's Vision

Can the Constitution be sustained in such a large country?

Toqueville and today's America. Did he miss some developments that make "soft despotism" less attractive? Something to think about.

Obsession with the Feelings of Muslims

2010-09-17T15:17:00.000-07:00

The Ground Zero Mosque has become a soap opera. Inspired by the opposition to the mosque's location, a publicity-seeking Pastor threatening to burn Korans set off the Muslim World, asked for, and got, a message from the White House, and also got a "friendly warning" from the FBI before calling off his stunt. Spengler (via Tigerhawk) comments on larger implications in the big, nasty world of international intrigue:

Meet the Reverend Terry Jones, asymmetrical warrior. It appears that pinpricks can produce chain reactions in the Islamic world. The threat may be termed asymmetrical because Islam is more vulnerable to theological war than Christianity (or for that matter Judaism).

As the youngest of the major religions (apart from Sikhism), Islam must defend its historical narrative more fiercely than the older religions. Islam never withstood the withering criticism of Enlightenment scholars from Spinoza to the Jesus Project determined to discredit sacred texts. And because the Koran is not a human report of God's word, like the Christian and Jewish bibles, but rather the "uncreated word" of Allah himself, any challenge to its authority cuts at Islam's credibility. The fact that Islam has established neither a Magisterium in the Catholic sense, nor an authoritative tradition like that of Orthodox Judaism, leaves it decentralized, divided and fractious. . .

Russia has more urgent reasons to sow discord in Muslim countries, and centuries of experience in doing so. Simply because America has committed its reputation and resources to stability in the Muslim world, Russia has an interest in promoting the opposite. Russia views the world as a chessboard, in which pressure on the flanks increases its control of the center of the board. Moscow's on-again, off-again deal to supply Iran with an advanced anti-missile system, for example, represents a bargaining chip that it can use with Washington for a variety of purposes.

There is a deeper Russian interest in fostering Muslim weakness, though. Before mid-century the Russian Federation likely will have a Muslim majority. . . .

But back in the U.S., the liberal elite wants to reach out to Muslims. James Taranto, September 16:

The real problem here is that the liberal elite has responded to 9/11 in a totally inappropriate way. When the only tool you have is a hammer, the cliché goes, every problem looks like a nail. To American liberals, every problem looks like the civil rights struggle, the original one of which was their last real moral, cultural and governmental success.

That is why the liberal elite sees 9/11 less as a national security challenge than as an imperative for a kind of affirmative action aimed at ensuring that "inclusiveness" extends to Muslims. . . . And of course it is what Americans everywhere see in the obnoxious plan to build a fancy 15-story mosque adjacent to the site of an Islamic supremacist atrocity.

But whereas white Americans collectively had a great deal to atone for in their historical treatment of blacks, it is perverse and offensive to suggest that 9/11 leaves Americans with an obligation to atone to Muslims. . . .

Multiculturalists cheering on the Cordoba House

2010-08-20T13:10:00.000-07:00

I left a comment at US News and World Report piece by Robert Schlesinger concerning the "new nativism" in the U.S. which is the alleged cause of the Cordoba House controversy, spacing changed here:

The Cordoba Initiative Hardens Differences

The current controversy over this project, and the hardening of positions on all sides, was almost certainly anticipated in advance. I think Victor Davis Hanson got it right. The initial choice of the title, "Cordoba House" for the (now) Park51 complex and the continued use of "Cordoba Initiative" for the project means different things to different people:
"Cordoba is as much a mythical construct of a long-ago multicultural paradise so dear to elite liberals as it is a fantasy rallying cry to Islamists to reclaim the lost Al-Andalus. . . So Cordoba is a two-birds-with-one-stone evocation: in the liberal West proof of one’s ecumenical bona fides; in the Middle East proof of one’s Islamist bona fides."
But even beyond Islamist vs. multiculturalist fantasies about Cordoba, there are reports of Muslim scholars who are convinced that this is a Jewish plot to connect Islam with 9/11.

Everything is so simple to proponents of multiculturalism like Mr. Schlesinger. The "new nativism" in America, as characterized by over-the-top statements by a distant third-place candidate in a primary election in Tennessee, can be the only explanation for the widespread disapproval of the "Cordoba Initiative". Because multiculturalists are in a "group think" intellectual world, they believe that everyone else must think the same way.

And Mr. Schlesinger is certain that this project would "enrage" bin Laden. How does he know that? Hasn't bin Laden repeated western liberal talking points in his most recent messages to the world?

Why wouldn't he be happy about the completion of an Islamic cultural center topped by two floors of mosque, erected in place of a building which had been damaged by parts of one of the 9/11 planes, scheduled to be opened on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, when the Ground Zero memorial will not even be finished? Even if the backers say that they are trying to promote understanding between "people of the book" (excluding atheists and practitioners of Eastern religions, of course)?

Positions do seem to be hardening. People pick out the most extreme positions to characterize others' views. For example, concerning a previous comment, I don't thnk that most honor killings are conducted in accordance with sharia law, or that genital mutilation is part of sharia law, even though both practices occur with impunity in areas where sharia law is considered to be the law of the land. On the other hand, Mr. Schlesinger should not pretend that sharia law is not making inroads in several countries where Muslims are currently pushing against western-style law.

Seriously, VDH has some fascinating thoughts on the cynical brilliance of this project, plus some corrective world history.

And here, he debates Alan Dershowitz concerning the ADL's opposition. Other contributors at VDH's website: Raymond Ibrahim and a "citixen comment" by Karen Lugo.

RELATED: From Twitter

Jim Treacher:

How about "Not-at-Ground-Zero Mosque-Type-Structure for People Who May or May Not Be Muslims, Not That We're Judging"? Kind of a mouthful...

New rule: Turning down a job is now a violation of religious freedom.

If construction crews refuse to work on the #911DebrisFieldMosque, then the religious-freedom-fighters will. Pack a lunch,

Iowahawk:

Of all the arguments in favor of the mosque, I think the "opponents are subhuman racists" one is the most persuasive.

But it's not the one Howard Dean is making. For a change.

Who feels threatened by the Ground Zero Mosque Issue?

2010-08-19T12:48:00.000-07:00

Nancy Pelosi wants investigations into who is funding those who want the Cordoba House moved further away from Ground Zero. Wretchard:

Pelosi’s remarks provide an insight into a world in which nothing happens unless it is bought and paid for. Since these are the rules the denizens of that universe have lived by, they cannot conceive of a world that does not run on pure corruption. . . .

The important thing to remember is that Pelosi’s call for an investigation into those opposed to building of the mosque are geared towards preventing any further discussion on the subject, not expanding it. Since the administration and its allies control vast prosecutorial resources and powers of publicity, an investigation of the Ground Zero mosque’s backers and those opposed will certainly focus on the opposition. The backers will be given a free ride.

Read the whole thing. Watch the videos.

And read this intelligent piece by The Anchoress about conditions under which a mosque would not have seemed so threatening, and follow the links for other viewpoints:

The crater in Lower Manhattan has become a permanent aching void, but nature abhors a vacuum and so from its empty depths something must arise. In a near-decade that “something” could have taken the form of a park, or a memorial, or a glistening new tower, and the construction of a mosque two blocks thence would have been nothing more than a reinforcement of the notion of American Exceptionalism and what Madeline Albright called The Indispensable Nation, and the narrative would have been a stirring one:
“. . . brought to her knees, Can-Do America has rebuilt and moved on; a proposed mosque two blocks from the new construction only emphasizes her broad shoulders, her self-assurance, her commitment to liberty; it demonstrates to the world the strength that America draws from her own character and constitution, and from knowing who she is . . .
All of that would have been a psychological victory over the spectre of terrorism; it would loom large in the minds of the world and a mosque built in its shadows would only be a mosque, unremarkable in a nation dedicated to freedom of religion.

But. . . .

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, herself a victim of abuse, was driven from the Netherlands for speaking about abuse of women in the name of Ialam. Here, she writes on the clash of civilizationa.

Thomas Sowell at 80

2010-08-19T02:51:00.000-07:00

A national resource. Entire "Uncommon Knowledge" interview at the link. Part 3, on loss of personal responsibility in America and degradation of Harlem since he lived there in the 1940s.

Peter Robinson says Sowell is popular among college students today. One fan puts up quotes and links to Sowell's columns on Twitter. Sowell's closing advice to college kids,

It doesn't matter how smart you are unless you stop and think.

Sowell also believes that people were "bigger" during Brokaw's Greatest Generation

Were the people more real when America was less rich? Hope we don't throw away what they built.

Obama's Popularity dropping in the Arab world, too?

2010-08-13T07:18:00.000-07:00

President Obama faces, among other problems, difficulties among former supporters. the current instability in Iran and the controversy over the proposed mega-mosque at Ground Zero. Wretchard now writes about the falling poll numbers for Obama in the Arab world.

When respondents were asked to name the world leader they admired most, Obama’s standing was less than 1%. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was cited most often (20%), followed by last year’s top pick, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez (13%), and Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad (12%).
The hope that appeasement would be rewarded by respect has earned the President a kick in the nose. Perceived strength generates its own legitimacy in rough places; Arabs who have traditionally feared Persia now believe it has a right to build nuclear weapons. They have watched Iran push the President’s flaccid arm down to the table and drawn their own conclusions. The policy of apologizing for America has not won friends or influenced people; it has not even delegitimized Iranian expansionism. It has produced the contrary result.

Wretchard also describes the desperate search for magic words to bring back the domestic approval seen during of Obama's campaign and inauguration, in the face of our current perilous circumstances.

Jon Stewart Show: The Racism Card is Maxed Out

2010-08-12T11:16:00.000-07:00

"A shot of common sense from the unlikeliest of sources: "

TigerHawk:

This is very good, although probably NSFW in our modern high liability workplace, where all the various "cards" remain in full force and effect.

Mosque at Ground Zero?

2010-08-12T10:32:00.000-07:00

Does opposition to a mosque at Ground Zero mean you're a xenophobic, Islamophobic American hater-of-the-other?

Not necessarily. One prominent Muslim scholar claims that the plans for the Ground Zero Mosque are evidence of a nefarious plot by the Jews to discredit Islam!!! Read the whole piece. A teaser:

When the pope comes to London next month, he is going to be greeted by substantial numbers of protests organized by people calling for his arrest and accusing him of the wildest hatreds. Yet we do not hear that critics of the pope are bigoted, “Christianophobic.” Nor even if they were should it cause any alarm. But Islam is different.

Why? It goes back to the “phobia” business. Arachnophobia is an irrational fear of spiders and claustrophobia is an irrational fear of small places. They are irrational because most small spiders and most small spaces do not kill you. There are, however, very sensible reasons to be fearful of many forms of Islam. Commuters in London and Madrid know why. As do Dutch filmmakers. And so do the numerous Muslim-born writers, artists, and musicians who spend their lives in hiding for fear of murder from their erstwhile co-religionists for “crimes” like “apostasy” and literary criticism.

But the cowardice in identifying this and cringing stupidity of what passes for intellectuals and commentators in America, like the U.K., today is staggering. . .

For Muslims, the answer to radical Islam may well be some nice official version of Islam that hasn’t yet been discovered. But for free and open societies, the answer to radical Islam is not Islam. It is free and open societies. It doesn’t matter what Muslims believe, anymore than anybody else. But it matters how they behave. . . .

Your Tax Dollars at Work: The Ground Zero Imam is being sent by the U.S. State Department on a good-will trip through the Middle East. What could go wrong?

Meanwhile, the church which was crushed when the towers fell has not been re-built due to bureaucratic obstacles. This demonstrates a double standard as officials rush to approve the building of the 13-story mosque in time for it to open on the 10th anniversary of 9/11. Note: part of one of the planes hit the building where the mosque is proposed.

Is Obama Obsolete?

2010-08-11T10:30:00.000-07:00

Fouad Ajami:

Mr. Obama could protest that his swift and sudden fall from grace is no fault of his. He had been a blank slate, and the devotees had projected onto him their hopes and dreams. His victory had not been the triumph of policies he had enunciated in great detail. He had never run anything in his entire life. He had a scant public record, but oddly this worked to his advantage. If he was going to begin the world anew, it was better that he knew little about the machinery of government.

He pronounced on the American condition with stark, unalloyed confidence. He had little if any regard for precedents. He could be forgiven the thought that America's faith in economic freedom had given way and that he had the popular writ to move the nation toward a super-regulated command economy. An "economic emergency" was upon us, and this would be the New New Deal.

There was no hesitation in the monumental changes Mr. Obama had in mind. The logic was Jacobin, the authority deriving from a perceived mandate to recast time-honored practices. . .

Read the whole thing.

On the lighter side: The "Professional Left" goes after Obama's Press Secretary for giving them a small taste of what he routinely dishes out to conservatives. Keith Olberman pontificates from his reality-based universe. Jaw-droppingly wrong. But very funny. Nate Silver, who formerly blogged at nasty, hard-left, Soros-funded Daily Kos, is also linked on HotAir, above. Roundup of "Professional Left" reactions.

Gibbs retreats. Well, sort of. Will he have to go back to trashing only conservatives? Stay tuned to the White House.

Iran - Then and Now

2010-08-11T10:17:00.000-07:00

In college, I had a pretty modern Iranian roommate. She usually wore rather tight bell-bottomed jeans. She and her friends were somewhat negative about the Shah, whose regime had allowed her to come to the U.S. They had heard about the Ayatollah in France who might improve human rights in Iran. Lots of Iranians felt the same way. But when "the revolution" came, she quickly became suspect because she had lived in America. In those days, back in Iran before the Revolution, Iranians dressed like this.

NOW, women are gang-raped and murdered by government militias for failing to cover themselves sufficiently. And 12-year-old girls are encouraged to become prostitutes, in "temporary marriages" near religious shrines. With permission of their father or male guardian. To protect public morality. There is unrest in Iran again. Before the American action against Saddam Hussein, hated (by the Left) "neo-conservative" Michael Ledeen had recommended non-military action to support revolutionary forces in Iran rather than invasion of Iraq. He hasn't changed his mind.

As the regime increasingly wages war against itself, the comings and goings of seemingly powerful people have become almost impossible to sort out. There have been repeated purges in the ranks of the Revolutionary Guards, and the supreme commander, Gen. Jafari, has now publicly stated that many senior officers had actively sided with the opposition. Why then, the general was asked, had he not punished them properly (with torture and death)? His answer was telling: it’s better to convince them of the error of their ways.

This is a surprising answer, to be sure, but after all it is the same answer that the supreme leader has implicitly given to the much asked question: why have you not properly punished the leaders of the Green Movement, Mousavi and Karroubi? In both cases, the regime is afraid to move decisively against their opponents. Khamenei & Co. are real tough guys when it comes to torturing and killing students, political activists, homosexuals, Bahais, Christians and women. But even when it comes to their favorite targets — the women — they retreat in the face of strong protests, as in the recent case when they suspended the stoning of a poor woman unfairly accused of adultery. Her plight has attracted international attention, and the regime backed off.

Conservative? Then you must hate "the other".

2010-08-10T05:27:00.000-07:00

Dennis Prager:

A Washington Post columnist writes a serious column about what could be a parody of conservative positions. If you want to see yourself in the liberal mirror, read on.

Yglesias:

This year, us-vs.-them controversies are proliferating,

And it's all because of the economy. Especially the hatred and zenophobia. Because according to the dominant ideologies of today's left, money and power trump most other moral issues. Most of the Left is also very concerned about their notions of equality and "diversity". VDH has a few alternative ideas about the reasons for the present conflicts in our society and politics.

Yes, one walk across the Yale or Stanford campus circa 1975, and one could see pretty clearly what sort of culture that bunch would create when it came of age and was handed power. If that is reductionism, so be it.

And Yglesias is truly worried about "America's commitment to religious freedom"? Please.

Actually, he's sort of on the same page with Glenn Beck with regard to the right of Muslims to build a mosque at Ground Zero.* But there is a very strong current within today's Left which is bent on destroying the influence of traditional religions, except for the one which is an actual, physical threat to it.

Because, when you don’t confront real evil, you hate those who do.

The greatest challenge for the Israeli position isn’t in the media. It’s on the typical college campus. Because there, the truth doesn’t matter. . .

Yes, this unwillingness to show judgment, for judging simply means discerning between two ways, will cause destruction.

To not discern, to lack judgment, is not a mark of intelligence. In fact, a lack pf perception is as handicapped as being actually blind.

* Update: I don't listen to Glenn Beck often, but now he is on early-morining radio, and I heard him say that he had changed his mind, based on the increasing evidence of ties to terrorist groups among the backers of Cordoba House. How the Gutfield gay bar could get around zoning restrictions. The Democratic governor of New York is offering State help if the backers will move the mosque further from Ground Zero.

Update 2: Paul Mirengoff does a miniFisk on the Yglesias piece.

The Power of Narrative: History of World War II

2010-08-06T21:32:00.000-07:00

Via Instapundit, Tigerhawk links Wretchard: “It is a measure of the power of narrative that we publicly grieve more for the deaths of our enemies than those of our allies in a war that is now fading quickly from human memory.”

As the New York Times remembers Hiroshima, try this quiz. Name the two greatest losses of civilian life in the Pacific war. Hint. In both cases the civilian casualties were greater than Hiroshima’s. In one case the event took place on American soil.

Casualties
Hiroshima 70,000–80,000
Battle of Manila 100,000
Nanjing 300,000

Check out the Belmont Club comment thread, too.

Those killed at Hiroshima, and later Nagasaki, were killed in spite of their
being non-combatants.

Most of those killed in Manila and the vast majority of the slain in Nanjing
were killed because they were non-combatants. Wherever the Japanese went, the slaughter started after resistance ceased.

When the Americans carried the day, the killing stopped as soon as the victory was won.

We've nothing to apologize for.

And for a powerful example of how to counter the "narrative", go back to the link at the top of this post and watch the Bill Whittle vs. Jon Stewart video linked by Glenn Reynolds.

A feisty view here.

The value of returning to original source documents when studying history.

Judge Walker's Ruling: Egging On Conflict, Re-affirming Power

2010-08-05T14:57:00.000-07:00

What a nightmarish can of worms Judge Walker has opened with his haughty, earth-shaking decision on Proposition 8. It is clear that the Left will never settle for the Rush Limbaugh-Elton John Compromise.

Wretchard:

Although the debate over Proposition 8 is going to be argued in terms of the legal doctrine of equal protection, in the light of recent developments in Arizona, Missouri and Texas, it is inevitably going to seen as another tussle between the Feds and the States, between the Center and the Periphery, and unlikely as it may seem in the case of California, between Red and Blue. What is interesting about these disputes is that they seem to be multiplying and increasing in frequency rather than diminishing. Conflicts normally either disincentive the parties from further argument or egg them on. In this case, the eggs have it. The question is: why?

Later, in the comments, he provides some of his own thoughts:

Leaving the morality and religion out and only the politics in, JC in KZ probably has it right. Marriage, or whatever you want to call it, is part of something that sits underneath the civilizational rules. It’s rooted in biology. In the statistical distribution of human genes. It’s like VmWare running under a number of different operating systems. It is argued that the practical problems of homosexuals can only be solved by getting the OS to take over the VmWare. But that makes the solution far more complicated than it has to be or maybe even infeasible.

It is politically difficult to sell a solution stated in terms that are intuitively — I will not say rationally but intuitively — repellant to 90% of the population. There are other ways to meet the practical needs of homosexuals without resorting to cramming it down the majority’s throats in this particular way. But the Left will have this way and no other.

There’s a certain petulance to this insistence which goes far beyond the actual scope of the problem. In fact, it’s not a debate about homosexual rights at all. It is about who gets to officially define human nature more than anything else. Human nature must be made infinitely adaptable to the requirements of the planners. Otherwise there would “high beauties forever beyond their reach”.

I’ll wager that one day the Left will decide gays have no rights. And on that day they will have none.

I don’t think this is about “legislating morality” either way. It is about power. It is an unnecessary, gratuitous and pointless dispute in a world where it is easier to live and let live. And that meaninglessness is the reason it is so compelling to the left. What is power but the ability to insist on the pointless?

Wretchard's statement about future betrayal of gays by the Left is a little shocking. But he has personal experience with perfidy by leftists. And maybe "pointless" is an over-statement. The conflict DOES provide lots of employment among the ruling class. As illustrated in Iowahawk's report on this
wedgeapalooza.

Update: Random thoghts by Victor Davis Hanson on Angry America. He's our neighbor from up the road. He's a farmer and an academic. He knows about real life, ancient history and theoretical, idealized life. The kicker comes at the end.

Gay marriage - A simple issue? Really?

2010-08-05T08:28:00.000-07:00

When I was in elementary school, there was exactly one child among two classes my age, 50 or more children, whose parents were divorced. Well, for a few months there was a second girl, who became my best friend, whose mother was divorced. She and her mother moved suddenly, and we never got a chance to say good-bye. There were no children in my class who were living with deliberately single mothers. Some things have changed since then.

Changes in technology (birth control) and law (no-fault divorce, etc.) decreased the importance of marriage in society. And theories from the Left have knocked marriage first one way and then the other. In my lifetime, marriage has been portrayed by the Left as a meaningless piece of paper, as slavery, as an expression of patriarchy and authoritarianism, as an institution within which any woman who has sex is being raped, as an arrangement of temporary convenience, as in "starter marriages", and as many other things. Lots of people have felt lots of pain as a result of these various theories. NOW, marriage is suddenly a constitutional right. Until the Left comes up with another goal.

People are starting to talk about some of the legal problems which are posed by same-sex marriage. Like what do you do with the "presumption of paternity" in the case of a lesbian marriage? Or annulment based upon a non-consummated marriage? The law books must be full of wording that will need to be changed, all because of the insistence that the definition of ONE WORD be changed. What about the Rush Limbaugh-Elton John Compromise?

Gay marriage seems to me to pose the danger of making marriage less attractive to heterosexual men, especially in "at-risk communities" where young men already think of "Sperm Donor"as an ideal family role.

For one thing, the NYT reported that about half of gay married men in Massachusetts do not consider sexual fidelity to be particularly important. Understandably. So, if gay and straight marriage are "totally the same", why shouldn't straight men expect that their wives will be cool with hubby having sex with other people? If your girlfriend doesn't like that idea, why get married and face conflict over your desire for other women? Is there any value to the idea of marriage as a "civilizing bridge between the sexes", requiring both partners to rein in their natural inclinations for the benefit of the partnership? Should the word "marriage" be made so broad that such social responsibilities become less obvious?

And then there's the recent liberal theme that fathers are, at best, second-rate mothers. Never mind increased pathologies among youths in fatherless homes. Or "daddy-hunger" among young children. Signs of "daddy hunger" such as a child having to be "pried from the leg" of a male day care worker every day are interpreted not as signs of distress over the absence of a father, but as evidence that the child-care worker makes a fine father substitute. When a boy suggests that his two mothers can find a dad to move in with them, it's just "cute". Mentioning those phenomena in a concerned way will soon be "hate speech" directed at a protected minority.

The Left has characterized the idea that children do better if their fathers are involved in their lives as irrational bigotry. President Obama was apparently totally off-base when he tried to convince young black men to take more responsibility for their children. Sometimes I wonder if the President's opposition to same-sex marriage might be partly due to his difficult experiences as a community organizer in Chicago, dealing with a culture dominated almost totally by women (with the men often entering gangs instead of staying with the mothers of their children).

If fathers get no respect for any unique contribution as a parent, WHY NOT be the sperm donor for a lesbian couple instead of marrying? Or brag about your "baby mommas" raising your kids with their own mothers (since two women make the ideal parenting team). This would be in line with some old British/American feminist and socialist positions which seem to be making a come-back now. Though limiting the number of male children is not being pushed currently.

The feminist position on sex education remains:

What is important here is to separate sex from procreation

And hence, from parenthood. As liberal policies have done in the South Side of Chicago.

The push to encourage acceptance of gay and bisexual relationships as "normative" also seems to be having an effect in "at risk" populations. A friend who works at a Job Corps reported that a very high percentage of the students, upwards of 40%, self-identified as gay or bisexual, with a high percentage of those claiming to be bisexual. I am bracing for the liberal push for "bisexual marriage rights".

During the relatively short period in ancient Greece when male homosexual relationships were revered as "purer" than those with women, because there were no concerns of marriage or inheritance, bisexual behavior increased dramatically. And the independence and status of women were also reduced in Athens during this "golden age", with sequestration and veiling of upper-class wives. Prostitutes had more freedom than other women. But at that time, marriage and homosexual relationships were thought of separately.

Who knows what bisexual "family relationships" will be promoted in the near future by the "marriage is a constitutional right" crowd? Whatever they are, they will not fit the ideal model demonstrated by large-scale studies, which show that the best environment for growing children is in a stable, low-conflict home with both biological parents. (As far as I know, most of the smaller comparative studies with same-sex parents compared those families to heterosexual families with divorced and re-married or co-habiting parents, due to the small number of children raised from infancy in a same-sex household).

I was not particularly surprised that many young women in the Job Corps would claim to be bisexual, as more information is coming out recently concerning the "fluidity" of female sexual orientation. Plus all the stories about women in Hollywood and elsewhere who seem to change their sexual orientation, and pornography directed at men which feature lesbian sex.

But my friend said that there was also a high percentage of young men who claimed to be bisexual. Interesting how the old hard-left theme that sexual orientation is just a matter of "social conditioning" is now making a comeback, after the Left spent years trying to convince us that sexual orientation is totally immutable. The truth is likely somewhere in the middle, with many women being more "flexible" in their sexual attractions. More information needed. Exciting, unsettling times ahead.

Why does the Left HATE conservatives?

2010-08-04T02:43:00.000-07:00

Dennis Prager:

Of all the recent revelations to come out of JournoList, an e-mail list consisting of about 400 liberal/left journalists, perhaps the most telling is the depth of their hatred for conservatives. That these journalists would consult with one another in order to protect candidate and then President Obama and in order to hurt Republicans is unfortunate and ugly. What is jolting is the hatred of conservatives on display, as exemplified by the e-mail from a public-radio reporter expressing her wish to personally see Rush Limbaugh die a painful death — and the apparent absence of any objection from her fellow liberal journalists.

Every one of us on the right has seen this hatred. I am not referring to leftist bloggers or to anonymous comments by angry leftists on conservative blogs — such things exist on the right as well — but to mainstream, elite liberal journalists. There is simply nothing analogous among elite conservative journalists. Yes, nearly all conservatives believe that the Left is leading America to ruin. But while there is plenty of conservative anger over this fact, there is little or nothing on the right to match the Left’s hatred of conservative individuals. . .

From Karl Marx to today, the Left has always hated people of the Right, not merely differed or been angry with them. The question is, why?

Here are three possible answers.

First, the Left thinks the Right is evil. . .

Second, when you don’t confront real evil, you hate those who do. . .

. . . The enemies this administration is prepared to name are the Republican party, the tea parties, Fox News, and talk radio. . .

Third, the Left’s utopian vision is prevented only by the Right.

From its inception, leftism has been a secular utopian religion. As Ted Kennedy, paraphrasing his brother Robert F. Kennedy, said, “Some men see things as they are and say, Why? I dream things that never were and say, Why not?” That exemplifies left-wing idealism — imagining a utopian future. There will be no poor, no war, no conflict, no inequality. That future is only a few more government programs away from reality. And who stands in the way of such perfection? Conservatives. How could a utopian not hate a conservative?

. . . The problem is that this hatred does not decrease when the Left is in power.

Hatred of conservatives is so much a part of the Left that the day the Left stops hating conservatives will mark the beginning of the end of the Left as we know it.

Read the whole thing. Do his observations square with yours?

Charles Rangel, Maxine Waters and Arizona Sheriffs?

2010-08-02T23:07:00.000-07:00

To repeat myself just a little, Wretchard has an interesting take on the sudden end to Charlie Rangel's special status, which for many years exempted him from "the rules". In reference to the inability of our Ruling Class to notice danger signals around them, he writes:

No better symptom of the absence of alarms is the genuine astonishment of Charles Rangel that it is illegal to break the law. Almost as a matter of course he concealed hundreds of thousands of dollars in income, used Congressional letterhead to solicit donations for private causes, took four rent controlled apartments for himself. Innocently. He probably didn’t think he was doing anything wrong. Things had been so sweet, so long that even after he was offered the chance to negotiate his way out of 13 separate violations of House rules and federal statutes he simply refused to believe it was happening. . .

1. Those whom the gods will destroy, they first make mad with power.

Charles Rangel’s problem is that the old world has picked this moment to suddenly die underneath him. He won his last race with 89% of the vote, as big a margin as you can get outside of North Korea or Syria. Now he faces 13 counts at the hands of colleagues who are his “friends,” but maybe not “friends” enough to lose their next election on his behalf. It’s unfair in a way. Nick Nyhart of the Huffington Post says that because the “whole system” is guilty, Charlie Rangel shouldn’t be singled out for punishment. He wants the Republicans on trial too and hopes Rangel doesn’t have to face ethics charges. “Rep. Rangel may be the one in the spotlight today, but it’s the whole system that’s guilty.” He might be right at that. But he should be careful what he wishes for. The road is like a river. Once you step on to it, there’s no telling where it takes you. . . .

But what could Charles Rangel and Maxine Waters possibly have in common with Arizona sherrifs facing the dilemma of a federal government unwilling to enforce immigration laws? I find this observation to be very astute. Read the whole essay. We're on the brink of some very serious breakdowns in the way we have been accustomed to the world working:

Although Charles Rangel, Maxine Waters* and Arizona sheriff Paul Babeau have nothing obvious in common, a single thread runs through their recent actions. Each is unwilling to be reined in. Rangel and Waters are thumbing their noses at the Congressional ethics committees attempting to investigate them for corruption. In the instance of the sheriff, he is pushing back against what nearly 70% of the population regard as the irrational immigration policy of not enforcing it. The other side is pushing back too — at the law. “Undocumented and unafraid” was the slogan of 22 self-confessed illegal aliens who sat in five Senator’s offices in the Capitol. . .

“Civil disobedience”, once a term of honor used by those who fought tyranny, now means “I’m walking out with the TV from the store and you can’t stop me.” If Maxine Waters, Charlie Rangel and the “undocumented and unafraid” bunch are willing to simply tear up the tickets in the face of law enforcement, and law enforcement, as typified by Sherrif Joe Arpaio are determined to issue the tickets anyway, what impends is not a simple “failure to communicate” but a warning that the legitimacy of the system is under attack. Fewer and fewer know the rules any more. And the word that everything is there for the taking is leaking out. News that a Mexican drug cartel has put a price on Sheriff Arpaio’s head isn’t really so surprising. . .

Pinal County (Ariz.)_ Sheriff Paul Babeu said, “What’s very troubling is the fact that at a time when we in law enforcement and our state need help from the federal government, instead of sending help they put up billboard-size signs warning our citizens to stay out of the desert in my county because of dangerous drug and human smuggling and weapons and bandits and all these other things and then, behind that, they drag us into court with the ACLU.” President Obama who ran on being post-everything has partnered with everyone. The result is that no one knows whose side he is on; and that engenders a feeling of betrayal in everyone who thought he was on ‘their’ side.

The problem is that when public policy and its enforcement mechanisms blink on and off like a broken intersection stop sign nobody knows if the signal is meant to be obeyed or not. Eventually people who stare at the light decide ‘not’. . . . .

2. The wheels of God grind slowly, but they grind very fine:

The designers of the American political system set it up to tolerate local dysfunction — the Federal system established limits on power and created firewalls against the spread of the consequences of their abuse. But those limits were inconvenient to the boundlessly ambitious. Since World War 2 the narrative has been of increasingly putting the central government in charge of everything. The Super New Dealers are here. That centralized the risk as well. Once the firewalls on imbecility have been dismantled the inevitable consequence, as in the case of the global financial system, is that limits to their dysfunctional effects are removed as well.

Then you have a cascading effect. One reason why systems often don’t fail gradually is because small changes, each seemingly inconsequential in itself, can come together and enable each other. The blaze just jumps when it exceeds a certain temperature. Just as people often think they have more money than they have, the system had less ‘give’ than its masters believed. Now the challenge on the left will be, not as they believed, to ensure their permanent majority, but to simply ensure that the bills are paid and that their routine instructions are followed. It’s an ancient process, one already known to the Greeks. Hubris, which was defined as “ruin, folly, delusion” is often followed by Nemesis. That wasn’t hard to guess thousands of years ago. But for some moderns, who would have thought it?

3. When it gets dark enough, you can see the stars.

Are things dark enough now that we can see the stars, or will things get worse first?

"Rep. Maxine Waters is vowing to fight charges that she violated House ethics rules. But Waters may face an uphill battle. . .

. . . Frank inserted language in the TARP that enabled OneUnited to draw $12 million in aid. Frank did this even though OneUnited had what the Post calls a "mixed" record of lending to minority communities. That's a charitable characterization. According to the Globe, the handful of mortgages the bank had written in recent years were mainly to wealthy clients in chic locations, including the South End and Martha's Vineyard, despite the bank's stated mission to support Boston's urban communities. . .

In addition, OneUnited had run afoul of regulators for buying its executives a Porsche. Other perks included a $6.4 million beachfront mansion in Santa Monica the bank says it used to conduct business. . . .

OneUnited has missed all but one of six scheduled payments to the Treasury Department. . .

More on Our Ruling Class

2010-08-02T10:22:00.000-07:00

Further to the Codevilla essay, Wretchard discusses Caroline Glick's article on the foreign policy implications of The Essay Read Round the World. Plus thoughts on Niall Ferguson's positions, presented in Australia: Ferguson describes how rapidly empires can fall.

The Bourbon monarchy in France passed from triumph to terror with astonishing rapidity. The sun set on the British Empire almost as suddenly. The Suez crisis in 1956 proved that Britain could not act in defiance of the US in the Middle East, setting the seal on the end of empire.
But those things happen only to the denizens of history. People who live in the today usually think they are different. So despite evidence of dramatic change, people who have spent their whole lives among the policy certainties of the postwar period find it difficult to accept they may have to build a world of their own from first principles. Ferguson asks his audience: “what would you do in a world without America? Has the question even crossed your mind?” . . .
Australia’s post-war foreign policy has been, in essence, to be a committed ally of the US. But what if the sudden waning of American power that I fear brings to an abrupt end the era of US hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region? Are we ready for such a dramatic change in the global balance of power? Judging by what I have heard here since I arrived last Friday, the answer is no. Australians are simply not thinking about such things.
But if the Australians are not thinking about it, the Chinese are certainly preparing for it. . . .

Don't know if I am ready for China to be "policeman to the world".

More:

If the love of money is the root of all evil, the lack of it is the cause of the fall of empires. Ferguson gave some examples:
Think of Spain in the 17th century: already by 1543 nearly two-thirds of ordinary revenue was going on interest on the juros, the loans by which the Habsburg monarchy financed itself.

Or think of France in the 18th century: between 1751 and 1788, the eve of Revolution, interest and amortisation payments rose from just over a quarter of tax revenue to 62 per cent.

Finally, consider Britain in the 20th century. Its real problems came after 1945, when a substantial proportion of its now immense debt burden was in foreign hands. Of the pound stg. 21 billion national debt at the end of the war, about pound stg. 3.4bn was owed to foreign creditors, equivalent to about a third of gross domestic product.

Alarm bells should therefore be ringing very loudly indeed in Washington, as the US contemplates a deficit for 2010 of more than $US1.47 trillion ($1.64 trillion), about 10 per cent of GDP, for the second year running.
But alarm bells aren’t ringing in Washington. The entire alarm system has been disabled, disconnected, perhaps scrapped. Anyone who wants to turn it back on will have to root through the dumpster to see if any usable parts can still be retrieved. No better symptom of the absence of alarms is the genuine astonishment of Charles Rangel that it is illegal to break the law. Almost as a matter of course he concealed hundreds of thousands of dollars in income, used Congressional letterhead to solicit donations for private causes, took four rent controlled apartments for himself. Innocently. He probably didn’t think he was doing anything wrong. . . .

Everyday evidence of the existence of a Ruling Class:

The Academic-Industrial Complex: University presidents on corporate boards, etc.

Social Privilege and the career of Elena Kagan. Written by a lefty.