Maggie's Farm

Being conservative isn't cool in Hollywood, where cool, if mindless, fashion rules. If the GOP choses to become the Grumpy Old Party, it doesn't help. The GOP needs to be the party of cheerful, expansive, good-humored optimism.

But back to Hollywood, a place I believe to be only one small cultural step ahead of Las Vegas and one small step behind Winnipeg. Breibart has a piece on Hollywood: Cons in the Closet. A quote:

My father-in-law, Orson Bean, an author, comedian and actor, was once blacklisted as a Communist back in the '50s. Ed Sullivan called him to say he could no longer book him on the show. Fifty years later, and after a sharp ideological metamorphosis, Orson says it's harder now to be an open conservative on a Hollywood set than it was back then to be a Communist.

Oxford Medievalist has it exactly right, and George Soros is footing the bill.

Michelle quotes Insty:

Glenn Reynolds spells it out: “…the intent is to limit the ability of people like Limbaugh or O’Reilly to drive stories in the mainstream news as we get closer to the election. Expect more of this, with more targets.”

Farming is improving in Greenland, for the time being, at least. Eskimos hardest hit.

Maybe they could get a job like everybody else, and try a nice side-order of potatoes along with their Polar Bear steaks, seal blubber, and Canadian Club.

With a job, the Eskimos could afford some sun-block, too.

I am old enough to remember sun-tanning lotion. It was kind of like grease, and similar to Polar Beat fat.

On the 50th anniversary of Kerouac's On The Road, we consider whether the book is worth reading, and whether its characters are of any interest - or is it just a road diary of an ordinary sociopath and his partner? Anthony Daniels in the New Criterion. One quote:

He (Kerouac) was the harbinger, though not the originator or only begetter, of an age in which every intelligent person was expected, and came himself to expect, to forge his own soul unguided by the wisdom of his ancestors. Convention was henceforth to be rejected not because it was wrong (for such reasoning might suggest that some, perhaps many or even most, conventions were right), but simply because it was convention: that is to say, an assault on the individual’s sovereignty over himself, a kind of lèse-majesté of the ego. There were to be no short cuts provided by others; everyone was to work everything out for himself by the bright light of his own ratiocination, and live according to what he found.

The attempt to achieve the impossible is seldom attractive in its consequences; in this case, it led to an inflamed individualism without individuality, and mass self-obsession without genuine self-examination.

That is rough, but probably true not only of most of the beat authors, but of much of my generation in our adolescence...and maybe beyond adolescence. A sort of historical discontinuity, leading nowhere except to self-indulgence.

Photo: Jack Kerouac

Hero of Alexandria, of course (c.10-70 AD). He also may have invented the use of the windmill, and built a wind-powered organ (h/t, Stumbing and Mumbling).

Who knew they had organs back then, before churches and before rock bands? 

Hindsight Bias, by the Great Kling at TCS.

Because we all have thousands of thoughts every day, the odds that we might have some good ones is inevitable. And, sadly, the "Law of Unintended Consequences" is always in force too: it's a law of nature, so we should never be surprised by unfortunate results.

h/t, Small Dead Heffalumps

Six black athletes beat up and stomp a white kid at school. How did this become a racism incident worthy of the attention of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton? Simon at Classical Values. One might think that this would be the sort of thing they would wish to avoid.

It's a neat trick to beat someone up and then claim victimhood, but I guess that kind of upside-down stuff is all the rage these days. Pomo logic, you know. We lawyers can learn a thing or two from this. It's the old saw about the kid who killed his parents, then asked for mercy from the judge for being an orphan.

But, on the other hand, is beating up kids in the playground a real crime? Raging hormones, etc. Isn't it normal?  I got beat up once in junior high school, and was too ashamed of losing the fight to tell anybody. (I did, eventually, get even with the jerk in a highly sadistic and thoroughly-satisfying manner. He is now a very successful real estate developer, and is still a first-class jerk.)

Good comments - thanks

The cartoon below was posted at The Moderate Voice. In 25 words or less, deconstruct the verbal, visual and invisible text, taking into account gender roles, victimization, Marxism, Transgender Theory, the fact that "freedom" is a capitalist delusion, the Patriarchy, Imperialism, the Illegal and Immoral War in Iraq, Abortion Rights, the environmental crime of diaper use, George Bush's Psychology with special reference to his desire to kill women and children and his hypocritical unwillingness to kill unborn children fetuses, the U.N.-guaranteed Basic Human Right to Have Your Neighbor Pay Your Family's Medical Bills, and, of course, Everything That is Wrong With Amerika. 

On a serious note, though, I ask whether Bush is supposed to be the parent. I say "no."

Totten interviews Lt. Col. Mike Silverman. One quote:

“What’s the most important thing Americans need to know about Iraq that they don’t currently know?” I said.

“That we’re fighting Al Qaeda,” he said without hesitation. “[Abu Musab al] Zarqawi invented Al Qaeda in Iraq. The top leadership outside Iraq squawked and thought it was a bad idea. Then he blew up the Samarra mosque, triggered a civil war, and got the whole world’s attention. Then the Al Qaeda leadership outside dumped huge amounts of money and people and arms into Anbar Province. They poured everything they had into this place. The battle against Americans in Anbar became their most important fight in the world. And they lost.”

h/t, Gateway

Aimee at Historical Christian takes a detailed look at the past and present role of much-maligned and historically-abused indulgences (h/t, Dr. Bob).

I do not know a lot about Catholic practice, but I liked what I read. I am a somewhat religious man. I worship and seek a relationship with a God of Truth and Mercy, through Jesus. I believe that sin is sin, and that action is required to undo it. I believe that sin alienates us from God and from our fellow humans. I believe that we are all sinners - but that's no excuse.

Indulgences, which are a current Roman Catholic practice, are part of the way sin can be addressed. One quote:

The practice of indulgences dates to the very earliest days of the Church, where it existed in nascent form (though the term “indulgence” did not come into use until later).  It is based on revelation, is closely associated with repentance and forgiveness of sins, and the understanding and practice of it has and continues to develop. 

From the beginning it was a spiritual practice and did not involve money, but primarily involved prayer, fasting, and almsgiving to the poor.  It wasn’t until around the 11th century (when Europe was moving from a barter economy to a money economy, and money became more widespread) that a donation of money to the Church according to one’s means, as a work of charity, began to be accepted as a spiritual practice that could result in an indulgence.

Read the whole, meaty thing. (It is fitting, but just by chance, that I post this on Yom Kippur.)

Protein Wisdom begins with this quote from Hanson,

What is stranger is why Columbia university tried to invite a terrorist to speak who denies the first holocaust and advocates a second one. This is not a matter of free speech but of common decency and the most elemental common sense.

and uses it as a starting point to lecture the great Hanson on his ignorance of Correct Pomo Thought. The amusing piece is here, in which it is clearly explained why Summers is banned and Ahmadinejad is welcomed.

Regardless of how she frames it, Hillarycare 2.0 entails a federal take-over of a large sector of our economy - a piece of our economy which is particularly important to us. Why doesn't she focus on the auto industry, and provide us all with government Yugos?

The mythical 47 million uninsured is the excuse. The reason is power, vote-buying, and the relentless need of the Left to control and socialize private enterprise, effort, and achievement - one industry at a time.

The tactic is time-honored: Manufacture a "crisis," then propose an anti-market government solution which strips a citizen of one more piece of his autonomy. Or one more piece of his adulthood, as I often term it, because government-controlled medical treatment is truly the assumption of an "in loco parentis" role.

As I see it, Hillary was humiliated with Hillarycare 1.0. If she is elected, she wants to have a mandate in hand to take over medical treatment this time around.

Bruce Kesler, who is a blogospheric expert on the topic, in Snake Oil Reform - a few quotes:

She proposes that all this will not come at increased government regulation, but ignores that her proposals would gut the private insurance industry while placing the remainder under tight government controls, in effect establishing a semi-private sham for nationalized health care.

She, also, doesn’t mention the uniformity, sluggishness in keeping abreast of the latest developments and the squelching of the incentives to develop them, and ultimately treatment rationing that is inevitable when the overwhelming costs come due of the promises.

But, by then, the promises' hollowness although seen and suffered will be virtually irreversible as the private market no longer exists.

Precisely. Isn't that what always happens? Government programs always create new problems, which then require further government programs to try to fix. He notes:

She proposes expansion of existing government programs to guaranteed coverage for all, but doesn’t mention that the states that have instituted guaranteed coverage regardless of health condition, and community rating to provide the same premium regardless of age, location or condition, have seen sharp escalation in premiums for the younger and healthier, increased government costs, and have not reduced the number of uninsured. (See this multi-year study.)

The way I see it, vast federal programs like this never work, but once they exist, and fail, you can never get rid of them.

... she doesn’t mention that her and others’ figure of 47-million uninsured is inflated by at least double, as it includes a majority who are here illegally or who can afford coverage but choose not to be self-responsible.

Even nationalized health care apologist Ezra Klein notes that all her promises almost sound like she “washes your car.”

In response to my little post on societal codes and that version of the Code of the West, Gwynnie sent me the Cowboy Ettiket below. (A reader also sent me the Larimer County, Colorado, Code for Newcomers: it is tough, and certainly does not encourage anyone soft or risk-averse to move there.)

Don’t squat with your spurs on.

Don’t interfere with something that ain’t botherin’ you none.

Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance.

The easiest way to eat crow is while it’s still warm. The colder it gets, the harder it is to swaller.

If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop diggin’.

If it don’t seem like it’s worth the effort, it probably ain’t.

 It don’t take a genius to spot a goat in a flock of sheep.

The biggest troublemaker you’ll probably ever have to deal with watches you shave his face in the mirror every morning.

Never ask a barber if you need a haircut.

If you get to thinkin’ you’re a person of some influence, try orderin’ somebody else’s dog around.

Don’t worry about bitin’ off more’n you can chew; your mouth is probably a whole lot bigger’n you think.

Always drink upstream from the herd.

Generally, you ain’t learnin’ nothing when your mouth’s a-jawin’.

Tellin’ a man to git lost and makin’ him do it are two entirely different propositions.

If you’re ridin’ ahead of the herd, take a look back every now and then to make sure it’s still there with ya.

Good judgment comes from experience, and a lotta that comes from bad judgment.

When you give a personal lesson in meanness to a critter or to a person, don’t be surprised if they learn their lesson.

When you’re throwin’ your weight around, be ready to have it thrown around by somebody else.

Lettin’ the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier than puttin’ it back.

Always take a good look at what you’re about to eat. It’s not so important to know what it is, but it’s sure crucial to know what it was.

The quickest way to double your money is to fold it over and put it back into your pocket.

Never miss a good chance to shut up.

OK, those are a bit jocular, but codes like the Larimer County one are dead serious. The more I think about social/societal codes, the more important I realize that they are. Sociologists probably think about this a lot. Codes of behavior - not skin color, not wealth, not national origin - are what distinguish "tribes", and tribes are communities of trust in which the behavior of others is predictable, comprehensible, and based on shared assumptions, morals, and sets of values.

Old postcard: Long's Peak from Bear Lake, Estes Park, Larimer Co, Colorado

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

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.

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.

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.

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.