Thursday, December 28. 2006
 One of the pleasures of getting into this blog world a bit is seeing, with my own eyes, how many bright people there are out there who see things the way I do. For a Boston person, that's consoling enough, but to find people in my general profession - which tends very liberal and pacifist, if not intellectual/passive - who have arrived by similar paths to a somewhat shared current thinking is plain wonderful.
If we are all wrong, at least we can be wrong and stupid together. I am thinking of such psychologically-minded folks as Neo-neocon, Shrinkwrapped, Dr. Sanity, Assistant Village Idiot, and SC&A. And One Cosmos. Gagdad Bob's thoughts on Thomas Sowell's recent piece is an example of the kind of applied psychological take on things that gives me delight. One quote: What most seems to annoy leftist intellectuals about the free market is that, not only is it something that they cannot control or understand, but it accomplishes its task much more effectively and efficiently than the most brilliant person -- or group of people -- ever could. Sowell cites a famous essay which pointed out that no single person knows enough to produce so much as a single lead pencil. That is, "there is no single individual anywhere who knows how to grow the wood, mine the graphite, produce the rubber, and manufacture the paint." And yet, no one need ever worry that there won't be enough pencils, so long as we don't interfere with the process: "Complex economic processes cause all these things to be done and coordinated by a wide variety of people, just in order to produce something as simple as a lead pencil. Multiply that by a hundred or a thousand when it comes to the complexity of producing a car or a computer."
Indeed, it takes a village to make a pencil, but not an African village, and not a village in Afghanistan or in the jungles of Ecuador. A special kind of village, with certain kinds of values and motivations and cultural structures, knowledge, interests, and freedom of opportunity. I especially enjoy the famous pencil example because, as you may recall, Henry David Thoreau's family made their money from their pencil factory. Henry worked there for a while, and apparently made some significant improvements in the manufacture of the Thoreau Pencil, until he decided that he didn't want to work on Maggie's Farm no more, and decided to be a writer and a public intellectual, living off his family's money. In addition, of course, the pencil was the original keyboard. Quill pens must have been terrible to write with, and I am sure they scratched the heck out of the monitor screen. It has been a wonder to me that so many folks in the mind and soul-treating professions are so non-freedom-minded, when these professions are designed to free people from their inner demons which restrict their taking on life freely, cheerfully, and energetically, in the way they see fit, and taking their own chances and making their own choices - in free societies. Freedom is what they are all about, and why psychoanalysis and psychotherapy are never permitted in totalitarian states. Does every human have a slavish, dependent side to them? Of course. Many days I wish to be nothing but a pampered pet, with a simple life - except I'd be bored in 40 minutes and begin doing something I wasn't told to do. The wonderful possibility is the possibility of governing oneself according to aspirations for higher levels of maturity and autonomy. And that, Dear Readers, is a culture-specific aspiration, rooted in Protestantism; in the notion of "every man his own King," (and every man his own priest as well). And, with the keyboard, "every man or woman his own pamphleteer," like the wacky Sons of Liberty, pasting our visions of freedom to the walls of the alleys of the world, hoping some passerby will stop and read. On the same subject, see our recent Liberty, Who needs it?, or, even more recently, Give me Liberty or Give me Health. Equality is for farm animals. While Orwell remains one of my political guiding lights, Huxley really nailed the danger of "well-intentioned, rational" soul-crushing tyranny in Brave New World. Pure, soul-less logic requires tyranny, as the wise Plato said. Our blogging shrink friends remember that psyche means "soul," not mind, as Bettelheim made so clear in Freud and Man's Soul. The soul needs space! I will conclude today's rambling sermon with a Dylan quote from My Back Pages: A self-ordained professor's tongue
Too serious to fool
Spouted out that liberty
Is just equality in school
"Equality," I spoke the word
As if a wedding vow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.
A quote from a Brewton piece, Federalism vs. Totalitarianism, which uses a Maggie's piece as a starting point: As Aristotle observed around 2,300 years ago, some humans are by nature slaves, that is people who prefer to be taken care of, rather than to take responsibility for themselves. Hilaire Belloc in The Servile State (1912) described those effects of the Fabian, gradualist process that was called creeping socialism in the United States. Voters gain more welfare-state benefits, but the cost always is surrender of some degrees of personal freedom.
Wednesday, December 27. 2006
From Wizbang's piece, with which I whole-heartedly agree: Ford, though, played the genial, amiable elder statesman role to the hilt. He played his golf. He showed up for certain ceremonial events, when called for -- but like he had over the rest of his life, never sought the limelight. Ford will now be at the center of the limelight one last time, as a nation that rejected him 30 years ago now pays its last respects to one of the most decent men to ever hold the highest office in the land. Rest in peace, Gerry. You did right by us. It just took us a while to realize just how well you did.
 Hitler on Federalism. Volokh's piece begins thus:
One of the relatively few underanalyzed major topics in the extensive academic literature on federalism is the relationship between federalism and totalitarianism. A potential advantage of decentralized federalism is that it might serve as an obstacle to the establishment of an oppressive totalitarian state. Yet most scholars have largely ignored this possibility. One writer who didn't, however, was Adolf Hitler, who had this to say on the subject in Chapter 10 of Mein Kampf (which is devoted to German federalism):
"Might serve"? Definitely serves. That was the original deal, aka the US Constitution. It's easy to forget the degree of sovereignty the states had, before signing the deal - and long after the deal, until Lincoln re-wrote the deal. Not that he was wrong about the slavery issue, but our modern, post-FDR, post-LBJ federal government has us all becoming 50% slaves. What's the difference? Well, voting is the difference. We are free to vote ourselves into benevolent federal slavery. The Volokh piece is here. We agree with the point which is made. Centralized power is always a threat to freedom - even when it is elected. It is in the nature of government to accrue power over the lowly, ignorant and inept masses, using any excuse at hand. You can always find a "well-intentioned" reason to assert distant federal power over the people, and forget that the people are meant to be sovereign in the USA. The American ideal was meant to be "every man a Lord of his domain," guided by God and his (or her) conscience and interest. FDR was the worst criminal, in this regard. That well-intentioned, arrogant, noblesse-oblige aristocrat was a natural totalitarian, but I doubt he ever really knew it. (Harold Ickes, and other advisors, knew it, though - and made the most of it.) The Civil War and Jim Crow gave state's rights a bad name, but I am inclined to believe that, generally, states and localities have the right to be wrong sometimes. That is part of what freedom is meant to guarantee: dumb mistakes are part of freedom. As is paying the price for them. Neither wisdom, nor common sense, resides in Washington, DC; it resides elsewhere - in our people in our towns, the hard-working real people who lead honest lives, and ask no-one for anything. Washington, DC obtains most of its power from the income tax, and the ignominious power of vote-buying with OPM - and is thus intrinsically corrupt. But many will vote away their personal freedom for a bowl of lentils, especially when they feel spiritually and personally uncertain, frail, and lacking in a "support system".
While Jimmy Carter has written himself out of history, his book was an opportunity for Oren to review the long history of American Protestant support for a Jewish nation. One quote: Generations of Christians in this country, representing a variety of dominations, laymen and clergy alike, have embraced the concept of renewed Jewish sovereignty in Palestine. The passion was already evident in 1620, when William Bradford alighted on Plymouth Rock and exclaimed, "Come, let us declare the word of God in Zion." Bradford was a leader of the Puritans, dissenting Protestants who, in their search for an unsullied religion and the strength to resist state oppression, turned to the Old Testament. There, they found a God who spoke directly to his people, who promised to deliver them from bondage and return them to their ancestral homeland. Appropriating this narrative, the Puritans fashioned themselves as the New Jews and America as their New Promised Land. They gave their children Hebrew names--David, Benjamin, Sarah, Rebecca--and called over 1,000 of their towns after Biblical places, including Bethlehem, Bethel and, of course, New Canaan.
Whole piece at Opinion Journal.
 When you read something like this piece at Driscoll, you have to wonder why Americans - and people from all over the world - are not lining up to emigrate to Cuba.
After all, it's the fun place to live, where everyone is happy, almost nobody has to go to work, and there are no problems. Oh - I almost forgot. Free medical care and free education too! Nobody needs money! And no-one needs religious superstitions, because you are already in paradise. So you can sleep in on Sunday morning! That is true freedom! Fidelito does did it all for you, because of his great love for his people!
Saturday, December 23. 2006
Al Zawahiri ("Call me 'Al'") delivers his Christmas message. Great. Via Driscoll
 Bush's former speechwriter, Michael Gerson, wrote a piece about the idealistic strain in the Republican Party for Newsweek, which was highlighted by YARGB and Ankle Biting, among others.
I think it's worth reading because the Repub Party is, like any party, a mix of views and philosophies. Furthermore, I think many Repubs are, like me, a mix of contradictory and philosophically inconsistent views, ranging from the radical Libertarian to the socially "progresssive." Indeed, almost all Republicans these days are "big government Republicans." There's no big movement to eliminate Medicare, is there? It's just a matter of degree. For me, and for most of us bred-in-the-bone proud Yankees at Maggie's Farm, I think it boils down to something like this: We distrust Federal power. We distrust state power less, and local power even less. We are Federalists partly because it is a bulwark against excessive centralized power, and we lean Libertarian because power, unlike money, truly is a zero-sum game. We are sympathetic to CS Lewis' statement: Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
Here's a quote from Gerson: Campaigning on the size of government in 2008, while opponents talk about health care, education and poverty, will seem, and be, procedural, small-minded, cold and uninspired. The moral stakes are even higher. What does antigovernment conservatism offer to inner-city neighborhoods where violence is common and families are rare? Nothing. What achievement would it contribute to racial healing and the unity of our country? No achievement at all. Anti-government conservatism turns out to be a strange kind of idealism—an idealism that strangles mercy.
But there is another Republican Party—what might be called the party of the governors. It is the party of Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida, who has improved the educational performance of minority students and responded effectively to natural disasters. It is the party of Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, who mandated basic health insurance while giving subsidies to low-income people. Neither of these men embrace big government; both show convincing outrage at wasteful spending. But they have also succeeded in making government work in essential government roles—not a small thing in a post-Katrina world.
The future of the Republican Party depends on which party it wants to be—the party of purity, or the party of the governors. In that decision, Republicans should consider: any political movement that elevates abstract antigovernment ideology above human needs is hardly conservative, and unlikely to win.
There is an "idealism that strangles mercy" - and there is government power that strangles freedom, self-reliance, autonomy, and emotional and spiritual maturity - and thus cripples humankind. I'm not saying I agree with all that Gerson says, but it's well worth the read, here.
Wednesday, December 20. 2006
Dean Barnett has a brief and to-the-point essay at HH. And yes, he claims moral certainty - our moral certainty - if we wish to continue as we have.
 It's an old joke -- that, eventually, in a true "nanny state," everything not forbidden will be mandatory.
The above noted in a piece by Jay Tea on how MA is considering extending the Nanny role that Mayor Bloomberg has in NYC. And he accurately points out that, of all things Americans ingest, alcohol is the most problematic. A trans-fat never killed anyone, after all. Meanwhile, also in MA, there is a move to revive sodomy laws - for health reasons! The gays will love that one. Maybe "health" and "safety" are our new, narcissistic religions, worshipping our oh-so-precious, irreplaceable selves? Or is it control just for the sadistic fun of it? Why don't I find such things simply silly or amusing? Because if the government can rationalize controlling things like this, they can rationalize controlling anything and everything - whether for "my good" (because I am an drooling idiot and cannot feed myself) or for the "common good" (because I don't matter as an individual). That is, fascism - whether our "very caring" leaders are elected or not. So it isn't funny. Image: Mary was not an evil nanny. Update. Related: The state cannot love you, at Never Yet melted
Tuesday, December 19. 2006
 "Big Government needs little Hitlers".
Ain't that the truth. It's a new tagline of the UKIP, as discussed at Samizdata. And in that context, Moonbattery announces the return of It Takes a Village- a quote: As summed up by Human Events, the book dismisses the traditional family as inappropriate for the modern world. "The village" — i.e., government bureaucracy — should take its place. This point of view may explain why Shrillary opposed relief from the marriage tax, and favors publicly financed divorce — which she would treat as "a public health issue," presumably covered under HillaryCare.
For the view of the world which is close to that of us Maggie's Farmers, try Villainous Company on Free Will vs. The Nanny State. A classic blog rant on the subject of responsibility. A long quote, from a section on marriage: Because Dad made a decision, long ago, that his happiness was the only thing that mattered. How many people, over the years, will try to step in and take the place of that "man" who walked away from his vow, from a marriage that there was really nothing wrong with, from a promise, not that he would always "feel" love, but that he would always practice it, no matter what? In sickness, in health, for richer, for poorer, 'til death do us part. Only he didn't mean what he said. He couldn't be trusted. That small boy learned a valuable lesson, early in life. It is dangerous to trust. People make decisions on the basis of trust, like the decision to make yourself economically and emotionally vulnerable by having a child who will impose a lifelong responsibility on you. One that, on the basis of that promise, you thought would be shared between two people. This is a less obvious case, and no one in today's world is likely to argue for coerced enforcement of marriage vows. But that is not the point. The point is that it is not invalid to disapprove of irresponsible behavior. It is not wrong to wish people would do the right thing. It is not impolite to notice when other people's tendency to avoid their responsibilities keeps spilling over into your life and causing problems for people who would never dream of doing those things. And above all, it is not beyond the pale to observe that in our oh-so-tolerant quest to be nonjudgmental we have, perhaps unintentionally, also done away with many of the restraints on human behavior that used to encourage the more weak-willed members of society to buck up and stick it out when the going got tough. We used to call this being ashamed of yourself. But in today's climate so little invokes a feeling of shame that we have a woman who lies and cheats on her husband actually asking a therapist if this can ever be "wrong"? And other people defending her actions. Bizarre.
Read it all.
Monday, December 18. 2006
In 1948, Bethlehem was 86% Christian. It is now 2%. Why? LGF
Sunday, December 17. 2006
Saturday, December 16. 2006
 Linked by Dr. Bliss below, but here, again. One heck of a speech.
"We dare not tempt them with weakness...." This is my sort of Democrat. I remember watching this, on black and white TV. "We shall pay any price..."
Bolivians march for freedom from the oppressive Morales government.
 LaShawn has often compared the Duke lacrosse players' case to the Scottsboro Boys.
It brings new meaning to the term "railroaded." The Scottsboro Boys were literally railroaded to court. Indeed, injustice is horrifying - regardless of color. But slowly, justice may be victorious in this sad tale of the corrupting temptations of power. Wouldn't it be a fine thing if all these guys go to law school, after learning first-hand about injustice? Image: Charles Weems was one of the Scottsboro Boys
Friday, December 15. 2006
CAIR's latest, at Powerline.
From a Samuelson piece - Farewell to Pax Americana - in WaPo, quoted at American Future: The trouble is that strength—measurable and impressive—does not translate directly into power. Power is the ability to get others to do what you want. Here, America is weaker.
Our pal, Right Wing Howler, has been shut down by CAIR. Mock Christians and Jews all you want, but do not touch the religion of peace or you will be beheaded. Quick - get the ACLU's phone number...
Thursday, December 14. 2006
It's Christmastime. Must be the traditional time for atheists and the terminally intolerant to complain about church bells.
 Thanks to Jimmy Buffett for providing some of our titles this week. This below quoted from a piece about tribalism (a subject which we recently discussed), which addresses freedom, Iraq, Vietnam, Thomas Friedman, etc, from Shrinkwrapped:
...his theory was that the people who live between thirty degrees north and south parallels of latitude (the Equatorial Region) are different than those who live in more temperate climates. In that region it is relatively easy to wrest a living from nature through hunting, gathering, and subsistence farming. There are also abundant materials for building crude shelters from the elements. Because the temperatures are warm, the main purpose of shelter is protection from rain or hot sun. On the other hand, nature is very strong in these latitudes. Insects and the elements attack any structure as soon as it is put up. Periodically typhoons/hurricanes, tsunamis, and earthquakes occur, destroying shelters and lives. As a result the people develop a philosophy that they can’t fight nature. Therefore, they don’t spend much time, money, or effort on building shelter. And since food is readily available they don’t see the necessity to plan ahead for their food supplies or to save up for a possible famine. He believed the people of the tropics were very resistant to the ideas of democracy and capitalism because they were still too close to the old ways of tribalism. This meant the tradition of strong or big-man leaders, not building lasting infrastructure, and living in the moment rather than planning and investing for the future.
Wednesday, December 13. 2006
Should a jury of twelve Texans have the power to destroy a major American business? Coyote looks at the absurdity of the trial bar. Yes, SUVs roll over. That is why they do not call them "sports cars."
Our blog friend Dr. Sanity just cannot lighten up, even during Christmastime. One quote from a new passionate piece which I wish appeared on the NYT Op-Ed page: The rise of neoconservatism represents the only modern intellectual counter and the only known antidote to the infection of postmodernism and its resultant toxic effects on philosophy, rhetoric, and politics.
In order to succeed in undoing and undermining the clear and unambiguous evidence of socialism's and communism's utter human toxicity, the totalitarians of the political left had to undermine nothing less than reality, reason, and truth. Furthermore, they had to deconstruct and invalidate human consciousness, making sure that the everyone understood that the only apparatus available to humans for perceiving reality--the mind--was completely unreliable, and that the evidence of the senses must therefore be discounted. This intellectual strategy resulted in a pervasive cultural relativism and intellectual nihilism that permeated all aspects of society and intellectual thought. Words and language were redefined to mean whatever one wanted; history was deconstructed--ostensibly to expose it's lies, but really to render it meaningless; and the ideas and values that were the foundation of Western civilization were mocked and shown by postmodern "logic" to be no better than any other random ideas.
 It is painful for many old-time ornery New Hampshire Yankees to watch their state change.
But there are less of those folks now, relatively speaking. Two-thirds of NH residents were born outside of the state, and arrive with different values, and different politics. It's a sad thing for other Yankees, too, who have counted on NH to hold the fort for traditional Yankee values of endurance, thrift, honor, independence, grumpiness, and the Live Free or Die spirit which basically wants to tell the govt to f-off. Story about it in the CSM. Image is Robert Frost's farmhouse.
|
