Wednesday, September 12. 2007
 The essay in Opinion Journal is subtitled "The cultural contradictions of libertarianism." This is a subject of great interest to me, and Kay Hymowitz is one of my heros - and someone who I am happy to have doing my thinking for me. A quote:
On the one hand, libertarians make a fetish of freedom; it is their totalizing goal. On the other hand, libertarians depend on the family--an institution that, in crucial respects, is unfree--to produce the sort of people best suited to life in a free-market system (not to mention future members of their own movement). The complex, dynamic economy that libertarians have done so much to expand needs highly advanced human capital--that is, individuals of great moral, cognitive and emotional sophistication. Reams of social-science research prove that these qualities are best produced in traditional families with married parents. Family breakdown, by contrast, limits the accumulation of such human capital. Worse, divorce and out-of-wedlock childbearing leave the door wide open for big government. Dysfunctional families create an increased demand for state-funded food, housing and medical subsidies, which libertarians reject on principle. And in courts all over the country, judges who preside over the manifold disputes occasioned by broken families are forced to be more intrusive than the worst mother-in-law: They decide who should have primary custody, who gets a child on Christmas or summer holidays, whether a child should take piano lessons, go to Hebrew school, move to California, or speak to her grandmother on the phone. It is a libertarian's worst nightmare. A libertarian, according to Brian Doherty, "has to believe" that "the instincts and abilities for liberty . . . are innate," that we possess "an ability to fend for ourselves in the Randian sense and to form spontaneous orders of fellowship and cooperation in the Hayekian sense." But this view of the relationship between the individual and society is profoundly and demonstrably false, especially when applied to the family. Children do not come into the world respecting private property. They do not emerge from the womb ready to navigate the economic and moral complexities of an "age of abundance." The only way they learn such things is through a long process of intensive socialization--a process that we now know, thanks to the failed experiments begun by the Aquarians and implicitly supported by libertarians, usually requires intact families and decent schools. Libertarianism did not have to take this unfortunate turn. Ludwig von Mises himself warned that the attempt (of socialists) to undermine the family was a ploy to strengthen the state. Hayek, too, grasped the family's role in upholding the free market. Coming of age in Europe around the time of World War I, he stressed the state's inefficiency but also warned, more generally, of the limits of human reason. "Hayek's economics was rooted in man's ignorance," Mr. Doherty writes; so were his political views, which included both an enthusiasm for freedom and a Burkean respect for customs and institutions.
Read the whole thing. I think what Hymowitz is getting at, along with the many Libertarian thinkers she discusses, is that "fetishist freedom" is insane, and that freedom can only exist within the context of a strong culture of family, responsibility, duty, morality, and maybe even religion. The Founding Fathers recognized this well. The "diversity," "tolerance," and "multiculturalism" movements are destructive by undermining the cultural foundations that permit freedoms to prosper. We see the sad consequences of that in Europe today. On Maggie's Farm, we tend not to be "freedom fetishists." We are Constitution Fetishists, however, and we believe that individual freedom must enter strongly into the equation whenever government seeks to do something - that the balance must always tip in the direction of freedom. We believe that because it is in the nature of people in government to try to accumulate power at the expense of the individual and the locality. In other words, we believe (I think) that our government, like other public institutions like schools and the military, exists to provide the conditions for individual freedom and the human spirit to prosper. Photo: Ayn Rand
Uncle Jay explains congressional vacation time. Video.
Quote from piece in the NYT: The Clinton campaign has been monitoring coverage of the Hsu case. “We don’t think the Hsu story has broken through with voters at this point,” one Clinton adviser said. “And we’re going to keep trying to make sure it doesn’t overshadow her message.”
I think this story reminds everyone of the Clinton sleaze factor. The story would be great for Obama, except he was a recipient too. Consider how large - if not fatal - this story would be for a Repub candidate.
At Tangled Web. Funny how similar it sounds to the arguments - and the political reasons - for more immigrants to the US.
 That air strike by Israel into Syria was a good story. Wish we had more details h/t, Roger Simon.
How did the West secularize politics and governance? Book review by Kirsch in the NY Sun George Will: A war seeking a mission. He makes a good point: What "forced" America to go to war in 2003 -- the "gathering danger" of weapons of mass destruction -- was fictitious. That is one reason this war will not be fought, at least not by Americans, to the bitter end. The end of the war will, however, be bitter for Americans, partly because the president's decision to visit Iraq without visiting its capital confirmed the flimsiness of the fallback rationale for the war -- the creation of a unified, pluralist Iraq. After more than four years of war, two questions persist: Is there an Iraq? Are there Iraqis?
Hsugate? It is all reminscent of Bill Clinton's China connections. Scott at Powerline sums up the recent news reports. How smokers saved Iraq. Surber More on the dark side of diversity. Driscoll Was 9-11 a "failure of human understanding"? Boston Herald. Pretty to think so. The BEEB, predictably, takes it to a fully dishonest extent: It's America's fault. That sort of propagandizing and lying to kids infuriates me. Unfortunately for the world, the Islamist terrorists are driven by religious hate and nothing more.
Tuesday, September 11. 2007
 As quoted from Daniel Pipes in Democracy Project's Long Wars and Revisionism:
The outcome of the "war on terror," I submit, will have less to do with breakthroughs in avionics or intelligence coups than with the degree to which civilized people understand the nature of their enemy and join together to fight it. That means liberals remembering, as Canada's Salim Mansur put it, that "Liberal democracy is no less an armed ideology than [is] Islamist ideology." What does the future hold: 2001's slogan of "United We Stand" or more of today's deep fracturing? The answer may well be decisive. The historical record gives me some reason for optimism, as until now the Western democracies have prevailed. For that to happen again, learning about Islam and Muslims will be part of the requisite preparation.
Cheryl Miller reviews Liza Mundy's Everything Conceivable, an expose of the infertility industry, in The New Atlantis. Mundy's apparently emotional book, and Miller's review, provide a good example of how medical technology stretches our assumptions about how life is meant to be. Some people are venturing into strange territory indeed. I find it all creepy, and it seems to present all sorts of conundrums to my libertarian, religious, and conservative self (selves?) - not to mention to my plain common sense. A quote: This lack of concern for the best interests of children is nowhere more striking than in Mundy’s treatment of the debate over donor anonymity—whether donor-conceived children should have the right to know the identity of their donor. Mundy describes without comment the search of one lesbian couple for an anonymous sperm donor. The couple already had a daughter, Chloe, who had been conceived with the help of a male relative. Originally, the women had planned for the man to be a kind of uncle to their child, but after Chloe was born, they felt “he was beginning to regard himself as a father.” The women told the relative to back off, and went on to conceive a second daughter with an anonymous donor. Chloe is still young, but Mundy never asks what her feelings might be in the future (and naturally never examines the plight of Chloe’s father, either). The story is disturbing especially when juxtaposed with another later in the book. Dakota, a man now in his twenties, grew up in San Francisco in a lesbian household. Like Chloe’s parents, his mothers asked a friend to be their donor with the understanding that he would be involved in Dakota’s life. But when Dakota’s non-biological mother became jealous of his relationship with his father, she cut off contact between the two. Dakota occasionally sees his father and his half-siblings in the neighborhood, but he has no relationship with them. “We live parallel lives,” he explains. “I’m angry that so much time has passed and every day I lose more time not knowing these people. I’m never going to get it back.” Might this be Chloe’s future too? And what of her younger sister?
I am linking an excellent piece which I wish I had written by Eric at Classical Values entitled A Different Kind of Education. One quote: ...Glenn Reynolds links Mario Loyola, who thinks defeatism is built into the Democratic Party by a sort of Hobson's choice: I must say that I sympathize with the bind that Democratic leaders are in somewhat. Defeatism is forced upon them by their base. That's why they have no choice but but to insist that Iraq is going disastrously badly, that it was all a mistake, and that we should get out now. Where they have no choice but to acknowledge that progress has been made, they must insist at all costs that President Bush's policies have had nothing to do with it. It is a matter of political reality. Their base will throw them back into the minority if they say anything else. If that's the Democratic base, then the Democratic base is defective. Years of pacifist indoctrination have taken their toll. I think this dishonest mindset is part of the legacy of the Vietnam war draft deferment system: ...young men who in normal times could have been expected to form an officer core were, though the draft deferment system, transformed into a malignantly dishonest force which is now one of the most powerful political forces in the country. At the core is an insistence that cowardice (which is the antithesis of virtue) is a virtue. People who have defied the wisdom of the ages by making such a grotesque logical error, are in my view rendered incapable of admitting error at all. I often think debating such a point of view is a useless exercise in the absurd.
Read the whole thing.
 "You haven't earned the right to be war-weary." Willisms. Indeed. The only people suffering in this war are the soldiers and their families, and it's part of their dangerous profession to do so for the rest of us. It is not "suffering" to hear the news in our comfortable seats as we dine on our chips, salsa, beer and Twinkies.
The politicization of this "small war" is a damn shame, and simply gives hope to those who want to destroy a free Iraq. Like it or not, we will be there for a long time and as soon as the bad guys realize that, some of the scumbags will find something better to do - like getting married and getting a job and trying life as sane, honest, peaceable citizens. Heck, we are still in Korea, and nobody complains about that except me. Furthermore, I was a skeptic about invading Iraq and figured Bush Sr. had some very good reasons to hold back (and he did). Am I a "moron dead-ender"? I don't think so. Some things are difficult: consider curing cancer, getting rid of cockroaches from a NYC apartment, eliminating crime, weeding the garden, removing corruption from New Jersey politics, killing terrorists one at a time - but it doesn't mean you don't work at them. "Can do." Moslem Jihadists are the cockroaches of the world today, and they are going to be with us for a long time because they believe they are pleasing their god by killing infidels. If some of them want to die in Iraq, fine by me. Related to above: Attack Machine considers "Copperheads Redux." Belgium: Bring back the Duchy of Burgundy. EU Referendum Time Magazine regrets the invention of the automobile, forgets how their magazine gets delivered. Blair Obstruction of justice? Gov. Eliot Spitzer's "black car meetings." You want a burger, and the burger wants to be eaten. Consenting adults, right? LA may limit fast food in some neighborhoods. As Coyote notes, this is mini-fascism. How are the Polar Bears faring? Small Dead Cute Baby Seals The worst school in America. Front Page Is there anything good about men? An essay/speech by Prof. Roy Baumeister to the American Psychological Assoc. (h/t, Minding the Campus) One quote: Culture has plenty of tradeoffs, in which it needs people to do dangerous or risky things, and so it offers big rewards to motivate people to take those risks. Most cultures have tended to use men for these high-risk, high-payoff slots much more than women. I shall propose there are important pragmatic reasons for this. The result is that some men reap big rewards while others have their lives ruined or even cut short. Most cultures shield their women from the risk and therefore also don’t give them the big rewards. I’m not saying this is what cultures ought to do, morally, but cultures aren’t moral beings. They do what they do for pragmatic reasons driven by competition against other systems and other groups.
Image is from the Harrison Hot Springs Sand Sculpture Tournament of Champions. What kind of cool sand to they have there?
This is a re-post from last year's "2996 Project," in which 2996 blogs each remembered one of the 2996 victims of the attack on New York.  John Michael Grazioso, 41, was killed in the attack on One World Trade Center. I have been assigned by the 2996 Project to remember this man, who was an eSpeed salesman for Cantor Fitzgerald, the company which lost more of its employees than any other.
I do not know much more about him other than that he commuted from Middletown, NJ. But I can imagine that he was a hard-nosed sales dude with whom you'd be glad to grab a beer after work. He looks like a racket-ball player, and maybe a deer-hunter, and surely a poker-player. And he looks like he lifted, and like he had two little daughters that he loved more than life itself. He looks like a real American guy. God bless him and his family. Michelle points us to a classic piece by Peggy Noonan: I just called to say I love you.
Monday, September 10. 2007
 "It appears we have appointed our worst generals to command forces, and our most gifted and brilliant to edit newspapers. In fact, I discovered by reading newspapers that these editor-geniuses plainly saw all my strategic defects from the start, yet failed to inform me until it was too late. Accordingly, I am readily willing to yield my command to these obviously superior intellects, and I will, in turn, do my best for the Cause by writing editorials - after the fact."
General Robert E. Lee, 1863
A quote from Rick Moran's OBL, Thompson, and the Long War: We are at war. We have been at war for 30 years. If the netroots want to parse the definition of war or even try and pretend that this is not so, it hardly matters. Radical Islamists believe they are at war with us. They believed it before there were netroots, before there was an internet. And they will continue to believe it no matter who is president, no matter what foreign policy we espouse, and no matter what their apologists and appeasers here and abroad would have you believe. This then, is The Long War – a struggle against an ideology that threatens more than our complacency, more than our sense of security, and more than the illusions we have of our invincibility. It is a war against the secular, nebulous, undefinable freedoms we enjoy in the west versus the dogmatic holy writ of the Koran and those who warp and twist its teachings for their own murderous ends. How big a threat is the global jihad being waged against the United States and the west? I agree with the left that the threat should be kept in perspective. I do not agree with the left when they attempt to minimize it. Fred Thompson’s take on OBL and The Long War is just about right: “Bin Laden being in the mountains of Pakistan or Afghanistan is not as important as there are probably al-Qaida operatives inside the United States of America,” Thompson said. Bin Laden is considered the man behind the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. The former Tennessee senator and actor argued that “bin Laden is more symbolism than anything else. I think it demonstrates to people once again that we’re in a global war.” Thompson said the al-Qaida leader and the Iraq war must be seen as part of the larger war on terrorism. “It’s one that bin Laden and people like him are heading up and we need to catch him and we surely need to deal with him, but if he disappeared tomorrow we still have this problem. If Iraq disappeared tomorrow, we’d still have this problem,” Thompson said.
More on Soros and Moveon: Yes, I question Moveon's patriotism. More about today's ad at Powerline. In fact, I believe that they, and Soros, have a powerful dislike of America, regardless of their views on the Iraq war.
 I met Erik Erikson on a couple of occasions, and was an admirer of the man. A lovely, sweet, gentle, dignified guy. Apparently, some think his work is obsolete. I think Young Man Luther, about Martin Luther, is wonderful work even if I don't agree with most if not all of his premisses.
His outlining of the typical "stages" of life, with their typical conflicts, holds up very well. The psychological capacity to handle the challenges that life presents is the key to relative satisfaction in life (the links in the quote box don't work): 1. Basic trust v. Mistrust. Birth to 1 year. From warm, responsive care infants gain trust or confidence that the world is good. 2. Autonomy v. Shame and Doubt. 1-3 years. Children start to use new mental and motor skills, and want to choose for themselves. Autonomy is created when the parents alow reasonable freedom and don't force or shame the child. 3. Initiative v. Guilt. 3-6 years. Children use play to experiment with what kind of person they might become. If the parent demand too much self-control the child might become insecure with who they are. 4. Industry v. Inferiority. 6-11 years. Children learn to work and cooperate with others. Negative experiences may lead to feelings of incompetence and inferiority. 5. Identity v. Identity diffusion. Adolescence. The adolescence tries to discover 'Who am I, and what is my place in society?' The resolution (or not) of this will result in your views on your future adult roles. 6. Intimacy v. Isolation. Young adulthood. Young people work on establishing intimate ties with others. Because of early disappointments an individual may not be able to form lasting relationships. 7. Generativity v. Stagnation. Middle adulthood. Generativity means giving to the next generation through work, children, or caring for other people. Failing to do this can make you feel that your life is meaningless. 8. Ego integrity v. Despair. Old age. In this final stage, people reflect on what type of life they led. If they are not happy with their life, they feel despair and fear death overmuch.
Like all stage theories, his is just a rough guide based on a lifetime of talking with people. "Typical" does not mean "right," and everybody struggles, at least at times, to do life. Erikson's work fits in well with that of George Vaillant, whose life work has been studying the way people cope with life. Good solid stuff.
In Belgium there are two communities. One are called Walloons and they speak French, the others are called Flemings and they speak a kind of low Dutch. They can't live together. After the war, we should make two states, one known as Walloonia and one as Flamingia, and we should amalgamate Luxembourg with Flamingia. What do you say to that? US President Franklin D. Roosevelt to Oliver Lyttelton (Lord Chandos) of the British War Cabinet, 1942
Belgium was part of Holland until 1830. It is just another artificial state, and may be on the verge of falling into pieces. The above quoted from Crisis in Belgium at Brussels Journal.
 We were going to write about this, but our friend Oxford Medievalist did it first. It's about the Iraq report, and undermining Petraeus' credibility.
With Soros (via MoveOn) and the Dems, who is the puppet and who is the puppeteer? Stratfor, via Tigerhawk, considers the Dem strategery in all of this.
It's about time. Those rankings turn college "quality" into a dumb horse race, entirely overlooking what might be the best schools for a given kid. Schools have identities and a wide variety of different strengths and weaknesses, none of which can be captured in a ranking any more than you can rank individual people on overall "quality."
Ron Howard's new film. Trailer.
 Mass without a priest? I did not know that the Prof was a converted Roman Catholic. The Eucharist requires a priest in Catholicism.
Is Fred a lightweight? Reason Here we go again: Is Shakespeare Shakespeare? More on those "uninsured millions." Conspiracy to Keep You Poor and Stupid. Luskin consludes: Which brings us to the ultimate question: Does it make any sense to destroy a health care system that 5 out of 100 people do not have adequate access to?
A computer program to translate hieroglyphics and cuneiform. h/t, cool links from Flares. A fine meditation on Mother Theresa's "dark night of the soul." Anchoress Socialism: Is the debate over? Solim at Volokh. I thought it was done. When "carrying" was normal: Charlotte Bronte's dad, and related handgun topics.
Sunday, September 9. 2007
 Opie sent us this one:
A man and his dog were walking along a road. The man was enjoying the scenery, when it occurred to him that he was dead. He remembered dying, and that the dog walking beside him had been dead for years. He wondered where the road was leading them. After a while, they came to a high, white stone wall along one side of the road. It looked like fine marble. At the top of a long hill, it was broken by a tall arch that glowed in the sunlight.
When he was standing before it he saw a magnificent gate in the arch that looked like mother-of-pearl, and the street that led to the gate looked like pure gold. He and the dog walked toward the gate, and as he got closer, he saw a man at a desk to one side.
When he was close enough, he called out, "Excuse me, where are we?"
"This is Heaven, sir," the man answered.
"Wow! Would you happen to have some water?" the man asked.
"Of course, sir. Come right in, and I'll have some ice water brought right up."
The man gestured, and the gate began to open.
"Can my friend," gesturing toward his dog, "come in, too?" the traveler asked.
"I'm sorry, sir, but we don't accept pets."
The man thought a moment and then turned back toward the road and
continued the way he had been going with his dog. After another long walk, and at the top of another long hill, he came to a dirt road leading through a farm gate that looked as if it had never been closed. There was no fence.
As he approached the gate, he saw a man inside, leaning against a tree and reading a book.
"Excuse me!" he called to the man. "Do you have any water?"
"Yeah, sure, there's a pump over there, come on in."
"How about my friend here?" the traveler gestured to the dog.
"There should be a bowl by the pump."
They went through the gate, and sure enough, there was an old-fashioned hand pump with a bowl beside it. The traveler filled the water bowl and took a long drink himself, then he gave some to the dog. When they were full, he and the dog walked back toward the man who was standing by the tree.
"What do you call this place?" the traveler asked.
"This is Heaven," he answered.
"Well, that's confusing," the traveler said. "The man down the road said that was Heaven, too."
"Oh, you mean the place with the gold street and pearly gates? Nope. That's hell."
"Doesn't it make you mad for them to use your name like that?" "No, we're just happy that they screen out the folks who would leave their best friends behind."
 The New Yorker, despite its antique, loony brie-and-chardonnay radical chic politics, still has the ability to find writers who can make any subject interesting. Such as wine fraud.
Now we are going for a little ride before the rain comes. The vet seems to have cured the gimp in my usual comfortable ride (a hunter, not a quarter horse), who/which I can compare to the ride of an old BMW 650 cruising bike. Smooth.
Gateway posts video of John Gibson's darky hilarious comparison of Keith Olberman (who I have never seen) and Osama's broacast. h/t, Never Yet Melted
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