We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
h/t, Laughing Squid. We like storms. Our mettle must be tested, and humility taught. The only people who get hysterical about snow are the retarded people on the TV news.
In New England, you can still see some old tumbledown icehouses around. Household refrigerators were not in common use until the late 1920s. It was iceboxes until you could afford an electric refrigerator. A properly-built icehouse could store ice for over a year.
Some psychoanalysts like Kohut and Kernberg have theoretical ideas about it. Sometimes I think that the word, and whatever idea exists behind the idea, is a sociocultural construct more than anything else.
That is not to say that we are not individuals with our own personality tendencies.
Years back, a popular notion among liberal thinkers was something called
"imperial overstretch." This was the idea that America's far-flung
foreign-policy commitments could bankrupt the country. Mr. Obama
believes this, and before Chuck Hagel started talking the other day, he
was supposed to explain it. In his State of the Union speech next
Tuesday, Mr. Obama will say again that Washington, after Iraq and
Afghanistan, needs to "invest" at home. But isn't the federalization of
pretty much everything in a diverse country like the U.S. just another
exercise in imperial overstretch?
The weapons of political campaigns are images and sound bites
designed to inspire the emotions of fear and hope. Obama won the
presidency in 2008 on a campaign of hope; he won re-election in 2012 on a
campaign of fear.
Hope works, but fear is a much stronger and more compelling emotion.
In a political campaign, it is directed at one’s political opponent.
Democrats exploit this emotion to the hilt; Republicans often seem too
polite to even use it.
The other emotion, hope, is not only weaker, it is at odds with
conservatives’ basic pessimism, and their skepticism about political
solutions. Unlike progressives, conservatives don’t expect cosmic
results from political programs – saving the planet, creating a just
world. Consequently, for Republicans, hope is less effective as a
political appeal.
The Muslim Middle East is indeed changing, but it is changing back to
what it once was, casting off the last remains of modernity imported
from the West, and bringing back the reign of the Burqa, the sword and
the prophet. In the West time moves forward, in the East it only moves
backward. And so the spring will never come for Islam. Instead it will
act out the same bloody rituals of Jihad, the killing of infidels and
the civil wars, the slaves building civilizations, the masters molesting
young girls and then beating them to death out of fear that the
children might not be theirs.
During the years in which the British government incrementally took away
most gun rights, the notion that a citizen had the right to armed
self-defense came to be seen as vigilantism. Authorities refused to
grant gun licenses to people who were threatened, claiming that
self-defense was no longer considered a reason to own a gun. Citizens
who shot burglars or robbers or rapists were charged while the real
criminals were released. Indeed, after the Martin shooting, a police
spokesman was quoted as saying, “We cannot have people take the law into
their own hands.”
That's a quote from Insty. Does Insty have any kids? I don't think so, but I don't know for sure. If he does not, then he does not appreciate the essential baby-sitting and child-care function of public education.
Home schooling is a fine alternative to government schools (designed for the poor), private schools (designed for the upper middle classes, and for parents desiring a religious education) and home teaching and tutoring (for the wealthy).
The invention of social studies is quite a story. Government psycho-social engineering of the masses. Brave New World. Did it work? Private schools rarely had such a thing, but they have History and Geography.
It's not in as bad shape as Detroit, but Blue State and Blue (corrupt) local governance have driven most of the jobs away - along with vast numbers of middle- and working-class people. (The prosperous fled in the 50s and 60s.) Therefore, there is no "housing shortage." Housing is cheap, but they will kill you with the property taxes. Thus the old city has no vitality or appeal whatsoever except to urban explorers like us. Death spiral.
What does a pilot do in a death spiral?
The solution is not to bulldoze the city. It's to bulldoze the government. However, at this point the government is basically in the control of government unions and welfare recipients, all feeding on the dry bones of the cadaver. Thus, despite its amenities and opportunities, basically politically hopeless. It's sad.
If they appointed me Dictator of Bridgeport for a few years, I could begin to fix it. Change is good! The first thing I would do is to create a citywide enterprise zone with no corporate or business taxes. Second, I would cut property taxes in half. Might be tough going for a couple of years until markets react, and bankruptcy might have to happen because sometimes you need a fresh start. Third, I would eliminate all government housing. Rents are so low there, anybody can pay them on a welfare or disability check. Fourth, I would make government unions illegal. Fifth, I would prosecute the local Mob with vengeance, no mercy. Everybody knows who they are, and people claim they are in bed with the unions. Sixth, I would eliminate all zoning regulations. Seventh, I would make all schools charter schools - no government-controlled schools. Eighth, a cop or guard on every block, with stop-and-frisk. Well, I could go on and on, but the general idea would be to return such a city to the policies which existed when it became a thriving city, before the socialists, planners, and taxers took over when they realized they could tax and plan the place to death.
It would be an interesting experiment. If it failed (but how could it be worse?), I'd take the fall.
This row of old buildings appeared fully-occupied by Hispanic immigrants, neat, clean, and pleasant but nowhere to go except the abundant old churches, and no street life.
Why are Republicans so reluctant to name the victims of Democrat
policies, particularly the victims among America’s minority communities
and working classes? Why don’t Republicans identify Democrats as a
threat to those communities as Cuomo declared Republicans a threat to
women? How can you win a war when the other side is using bazookas and
your side is using fly swatters?
Defending the victims of job destroyers is morally and emotionally
stronger than defending rich “job creators.” It creates sympathy and
arouses anger. It inspires concerns about justice. It’s how the
Democrats’ recruit and energize their troops. It’s the way — the only
way — Republicans can neutralize the Democrats’ attacks on them as
defenders of the rich, and return their fire: by framing them as the
enemies of working Americans and the middle class.
During Obama’s four years in office, African Americans – middle-class
African Americans – lost half their net worth as a result of the
collapse of the housing market. That’s one hundred billion dollars in
personal assets that disappeared from the pockets of African Americans
because of a 25-year Democratic campaign to remove loan requirements
for homebuyers. Yet in 2012, Republicans were too polite to mention
this!
The fingerprints of Barack Obama, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and
Barney Frank were all over the subprime mortgage crisis. The campaign to
remove loan requirements for African American and other minority
borrowers started with Jimmy Carter’s Community Reinvestment Act. It
snookered thousands of poor black and Hispanic Americans into buying
homes they couldn’t afford, which they then lost. How traumatic is the
loss of one’s home?
By securitizing the failed mortgages, Democratic bundlers on Wall
Street who had poured $100 million into the 2008 Obama campaign made
tens of millions off the misery of those who lost their homes. In other
words, with the help of Clinton, Frank and Obama, Wall Street Democrats
made massive profits off the backs of poor black and Hispanic Americans.
But Republicans were too polite to mention it. Here was a missed
opportunity to neutralize Democrat attacks on Republicans as the party
of the rich and exploiters of the poor. It was an opportunity to drive a
giant wedge through the Democratic base.
The bottom line is this: If Republicans want to persuade minorities
they care about them, they have to stand up for them; they have to
defend them; and they have to show them that Democrats are playing them
for suckers, exploiting them, oppressing them, and profiting from their
suffering.
From Michelle Rhee: My Break With the Democrats - As a lifelong Democrat, controversial education reformer Michelle Rhee never thought she’d support school vouchers. Until she did. InRadical, she details her transformation:
Here’s the question we Democrats need to ask ourselves: Are we beholden to the public school system at any cost, or are we beholden to the public school child at any cost? My loyalty and my duty will always be to the children.
Not everyone bought it. In fact, most of my Democrat friends remained adamantly opposed to vouchers. It was interesting, though: they were always opposed to the broad policy, but they could never reconcile their logic when thinking at the individual-kid level.
Sunny takes it to the sanctimonious, phony and manipulative emotional appeals. h/t, reader. Like we need celebs to feel terrible about the slaughter of children by satanic persons.
Long-time readers know that my experience teaches me that retirement is often a poor state of affairs for the average American male. Many deteriorate physically and mentally. I have one 92 year-old client who goes to the office every day after swimming a half-mile at the Y. Work keeps him young. He does indulge in 4 weeks of vacation travel each year, however, and has great-grandkids around the house all the time. Nice, balanced life. First wife died, now on his second but she is not doing too well now.
A beautiful life, really, although he is not wealthy. He still has a mortgage, which I think is a smart thing to have. Bought his current home for $37,000, now has a $200,000 mortgage on it and it is worth around $700,000. today.
I have been updating his will and trusts for over 25 years, when he first thought he was getting old.
As I have often said, there is no useful general definition of happiness. Unhappiness and misery are much more easily defined.
Do all people need a sense of mission or purpose to be "happy" - other than the basic mission of survival and comfort? I very much doubt it. The wonderful psychiatrist Victor Frankl was indeed sustained by his search for meaning in the camps, but that is far from ordinary life and he was far from an ordinary man.
For me, contentment is a good, loyal husband, a good love life, good work, enjoyable if sometimes difficult kids, good friends and good acquaintances, exciting hobbies and sports, integrity and a clean conscience, a dog, a relationship with God, and books to read. Changing the world is a fool's errand for crazy people and narcissists who do not want to focus on the substance of their own brief lives. Can't do without them, though. Part of the fabric.
For 40 Years, T
Long-time readers know that my experience teaches me that retirement is often a poor state of affairs for the average American male. Many deteriorate physically and mentally. I have one 92 year-old client who goes to the office every day after swimming a half-mile at the Y. Work keeps him young. He does indulge in 4 weeks of vacation travel each year, however, and has great-grandkids around the house all the time. Nice, balanced life. First wife died, now on his second but she is not doing too well now.
Maybe we all need to learn the hard way, but there is so little time to fail. It's a truism that we can learn more from failures than from successes.