Friday, November 19. 2010
Related to our morning links comments about exposing the totalitaranism of the Left, read Vanden Heuvel: Send Hither a Swarm of Bureaucrats.
Vanden Heuvel's advice is yet more dreary evidence that the left's desire to transform America into some socialist paradise takes precedent over democratic processes. Day by day, thanks to twits like Vanden Heuvel, the left reveals its decidedly undemocratic character.
All of the name-calling of Conservatives as "fascists" and "Nazis" is pure projection. Conservatives want less government control and involvement in life - not more. Conservatives do not want to be controlled - or to control.
Thursday, November 18. 2010
Robert Bernstein, former Chair and president of Random House, and founding Chair of Human Rights Watch, details the many failings of HRW. If you want it summed up in one piece, by someone both knowledgeable and devoted to human rights, this is the one to read.
I won't go into all the ways HRW has gone seriously astray. But, below, is Bernstein's appeal to college students with which he concludes:
In closing, let me make a statement to whichever students choose to listen: When I was in Israel, I talked to 18 year-olds, both boys and girls, who were not going to college but instead were going into the army for three years and then for one month a year until 45 or 50 years old. They’ve been doing this for 60 years. And most of them have faced some kind of danger during that period. They are not involved in the peace process. They are involved in the defense of their country and have to hope that their government will avoid war. I also think of the Palestinian 18 year-olds – particularly those in Gaza who can’t get jobs because their economy is not thriving. I believe it is not thriving specifically because their government is bringing in arms and Israel is trying to stop them. And their government is preaching genocide. Many of these students can’t afford college and that leaves jihad as their only opportunity. If college students can help bring the human rights movement back to trying to make the Universal Declaration of Human Rights truly universal in the Middle East, they will be making a valuable contribution.
If credible human rights watch is to have a future, and a worthwhile impact, it will depend upon the next generation of leaders. The current prominent NGOs, HRW, Amnesty, and most of the lesser known ones involved in the Middle East have surrendered their mission to terrorists and thugs.
Those who are suffering from terrorists and thugs are watching, and waiting, too long.
Does Human Rights Watch care? It just took $100-million from George Soros, "which should offset nicely the income lost from core donors who've walked away in the wake of a host of scandals." Read more
P.S.: As you'll read in Bernstein's speech, Natan Sharansky was one of the inspirations for Bernstein, and many others. Here is Sharansky recently at the San Diego Jewish Federation's event Celebrating Jewish Heroes (yes, that's Peter Yarrow, of Peter, Paul & Mary introducing him):
Celebration of Jewish Heroes - Natan Sharansky from Brad Slavin on Vimeo.
From Mead's excellent Pretty in Pink? Obama’s Dark Night of the Soul (my bold):
In January 2009, newly inaugurated President Obama believed that the road to success as president lay in pleasing the kind of intellectuals and the high priests of the liberal religion whose esteem he had long sought and pretty much always obtained. He seems to have thought that groups like the editorial board of the New York Times actually represented some serious force in American life. He also seems to have believed that with a few tweaks here and there what passes for political orthodoxy among the intelligentsia of the civil service unions provides a coherent and practical governing philosophy for the United States and that the aspirations of the most legalistically minded of the human rights community describe a feasible path toward world peace. He believed that if we were nicer to the leaders of other countries they would be nicer to us – with one important exception. He believed that if the President of the United States shook his little finger, the Prime Minister of Israel had no choice but to tremble and obey.
Read it all. Link above. I did not vote for the guy - I voted for, and gave max money to, the other, more harmless, doofus.
Wednesday, November 17. 2010
I agree with Cutler in the WSJ about early voting. In fact, I disagree with absentee voting and mail voting in general except for overseas military. If you want to vote, show up on Election Day with ID in hand, and do it the right way. Otherwise, don't vote.
WSJ: Too many voters are making decisions when horse-race coverage dominates the news, attention to issues is limited, and key debates haven't taken place.
Tuesday, November 16. 2010
This morning, my 5th grader Jason asked me to help him choose a handicap for him to write an essay about for “abilities” day. I suggested “idiot savant”, since it demonstrated an advanced ability despite a severe disability.
His teacher had never heard of idiot savant! (Jason had the dictionary definition with him, to enlighten her.)
After school, we went to the annual Scholastic book fair. There wasn’t a single classic of literature, even in a child version. There wasn’t a single biography of a great person. There weren’t any geography books. There were no science books.
Jason reads at a 7th grade level. He read The Count Of Monte Cristo a few months ago. He invented something last term that a patent attorney is looking at now. He is in 6th grade math, doing elementary algebra.
I asked the teacher at the cash register where the classics were. She pointed at Diary Of A Wimpy Kid!
I asked where any books were beyond the 4th or 5th grade level ones there. She pointed at a cook book, saying that is difficult.
I guess that is why she is a teacher. Pablum is easy. And, this is one of the highest rated public schools in San Diego County.
At Maggie's, we love the charms of both town and country - when they get it right. The decline of industrial urbanization and the (government-subsidized) rise of the suburbs - with the move of industry and corporate offices to the suburbs, have left many cities as hollow cores of their former selves.
Lively people like to live in cities if they are vibrant, safe, interesting, attractive - and if there is work. For example, much of Manhattan is so appealing that few can afford to live there.
Malanga at City Journal: The Next Wave of Urban Reform - Mayors Cory Booker and Dave Bing fight to save two of America’s most distressed cities. One quote:
Since the mid-1960s, many big-city mayors and Washington policymakers had argued that the problems plaguing America’s cities—rising crime, deteriorating schools, sluggish economies, and social dysfunction—resulted from national and global economic forces that urban politicians were powerless to resist. Out of that period came an array of ambitious federal programs to aid city residents and revitalize struggling urban neighborhoods. Even though the programs—many of them carried out under the banner of the War on Poverty—did little to boost cities’ fortunes, the refrain that urban woes were Washington’s responsibility became commonplace among mayors and remained so for nearly three decades.
But just a few years after the summit, America witnessed the rise of a new group of mayors who rejected the notion that the federal government—or anyone else—should be their savior.
Read the whole thing. Malanga tells the story well. Link above.
Friday, November 12. 2010
President Obama, are you listening? Or, would you rather raise taxes and regulatory costs on smaller businesses?
The Chronicle of Philanthropy reports a study by the Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund and Ernst & Young that, not only do entrepreneurs create more jobs, entrepreneurs give more to charity than large, established companies.
Entrepreneurs give twice as much of their profits to charity as more-established companies, according to new research released today by the Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund and Ernst & Young.
Entrepreneurs, the study found, allocate a median of 3 percent of their corporate profits to charity. That is more than double the median 1.2 percent of profits found in The Chronicle’s latest corporate-giving survey of the nation’s largest companies.
Not only that, but "Nearly 70 percent said they started supporting charities while building their business, before it was successful."
The above is the title of Boortz' post this week. It is indeed plunder. He quotes Bastiat:
"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that justifies it."
Frederic Bastiat
People are finally waking up to this issue. Lasky at American Thinker: The GOP's First Target Should Be Government Worker Salary and Benefits:
There has been a long-running vicious cycle playing out over the years. Politicians (mostly, but not exclusively, Democrats) have been signing generous agreements with government workers and their unions. In return, the government workers provide a solid voting block, and the public employee unions can use their enlarged dues to funnel money to Democratic campaigns. There was a reason -- beyond their leftist ideological beliefs and animus towards businesses -- that both Barack and Michelle Obama counseled people to go to work for the government. Those government workers become a special interest group in the pockets of Pelosi and company.
Who is greedier: the government unions who want stuff extracted from the taxpayers by their political allies, or the struggling taxpayers who produce the money in the first place?
Thursday, November 11. 2010
From Michael Novak's God Bless the Tea Party:
In his first two years, the president convinced many millions of Americans that he wants to make the U.S. more like European welfare states. The American people hate the very idea, and they simply rebelled.
Tuesday, November 9. 2010
My cheerful, voluble friend at our local Cumbie/24-hr gas station has been working the night shift for 8 months. He's about 25, a recent single Jamaican (legal) immigrant who lives with his Mom. He is not a Rastaman. His Mom is a hospital aide who also moonlights as a home helper. She sings in the church choir.
This morning at 6 AM he announced to me "Hey, Boss, good news. They finally agreed to up my hours. Now I'll be able to work a minimum of 55 hrs/wk instead of 45."
"Do they pay you time and a half for OT?" I ask.
"Of course they do, man. Every hour over 40. The good thing is, now I can begin to put some money aside. You watch me man, I'm gonna need an investment advisor soon."
I asked "How about 60 hours minimum? I did that when I was young."
"That's my goal." he replied. "If I keep doing a good job at 55 hours and don't make mistakes, they will let me have 60. I already worked 60 last week with my extra OT."
"Beats selling beads to tourists at the beach?"
"Oh man, I thank God every day that my Mom made me come to America with her. She forced me, man. I had no choice. She is fat and mean. I was a ganja beach bum. Next week, I'll be an investor. I'm thinking of buying some some Apple Computer."
"What's your goal?"
"I'm gonna have my own Cumbie franchise. Be my own boss. Work 100 hours if I want. Hey, do you think I should buy gold or Apple Computer?"
"I think you should buy your own computer first."
"Hey, I already have that. I am online, man. I taught myself. I read everything there. I read Bloomberg news. These old guys come in early, they say 'Are the papers in yet?' Behind the times, man."
A spirited young lad with Jamaican high school and no college, enthusiastically inventing and building a life in America from scratch, with unlimited opportunity in front of him. Ya gotta love it. I want this kid here.
Saturday, November 6. 2010
From an excellent essay at NAS, College Application Essays: Going Beyond "How Would You Contribute to Diversity?":
Would the Yale admissions office look favorably on the student who answered, “I have found ‘diversity’ to be a cudgel by which self-appointed elites attempt to enforce their preferences over others. Diversity to me has been the experience of having my individuality denied, suppressed, and demeaned. It is a word that summarizes a smarmy form of oppression that congratulates itself on its high-mindedness even as it enforces narrow-minded conformity."
No, any student really seeking admission to Yale wouldn’t say such a thing. But chances are very good that a great many students harbor insights very much like that. They know their ethnic or racial categorization, their socio-economic status, and other such characteristics matter far more to admissions offices than their actual thoughts about who they are.
Applicants, of course, are savvy enough to feed the admissions office whatever sort of PC BS they want to hear.
Well, here's my answer to the application diversity question:
"As a middle-class, hard workin', gun-totin', Scripture-readin', horse-ridin', golf hackin', military-respectin', cigar-smokin', freedom-lovin', Scotch-drinkin', heterosexual-and-married-for-life, cranky, preppy, WASP American country club Conservative who likes to make money, I think I would add remarkable diversity to any academic program or workplace. Indeed, I think people would be quite interested in, and would benefit from, my peculiar old-timey Yankee views and my exotic life style. I believe I am an 'underrepresented minority,' and thus deserving of your most serious and special consideration despite my unfortunately-pasty skin tone."
Thursday, November 4. 2010
 Big lies, small lies, creative and manipulative "narratives," etc. are what much of politics is all about. We know that politics is a more humane substitute for war.
(We also know that, as virtuous souls, Conservatives always hold the high moral ground. Always.)
That aside, I am still puzzled by the shorthand of "Left" and "Right." It makes no real sense, as Wiki explains well.
If today people use those words nowadays to signify collectivism vs. individualism and freedom, why don't we use those words instead?
Jonah Goldberg notably dealt with these issues in his Liberal Fascism.
OK, but what about Adolf Hitler? Left or Right? This via Doug Ross:
"I have learned a great deal from Marxism, as I do not hesitate to admit. The difference between them and myself is that I have really put into practice what these peddlers and penpushers have timidly begun...I had only to develop logically what Social Democracy repeatedly failed in because of its attempt to realize its evolution within the framework of democracy. National Socialism is what Marxism might have been if it could have broken its absurd and artificial ties with the democratic order." -- Hitler to Rauschning, The Voice of Destruction, pg. 186
I found another one, too:
"It is thus necessary that the individual should come to realize that his own ego is of no importance in comparison with the existence of his nation; that the position of the individual ego is conditioned solely by the interests of the nation as a whole ... that above all the unity of a nation's spirit and will are worth far more than the freedom of the spirit and will of an individual. .... This state of mind, which subordinates the interests of the ego to the conservation of the community, is really the first premise for every truly human culture .... we understand only the individual's capacity to make sacrifices for the community, for his fellow man." Adolph Hitler, 1933.
Yes, he was just another messianic Leftist dictator with a zealous faith in governmental benevolence and altruism - at gunpoint. Just one amongst the number of Socialist mass-murderers of the 20th Century. I think Hitler would have argued against being part of any "Right."
Statist, collectivist people should be called that - or just called Socialist. People like me can be termed Constitutional-Conservatives-with-a-broad-Libertarian-streak. I guess it's no wonder people look for a shorthand for that, but "Right" doesn't fit.
VDH on the O's press conf:
Obama was elected largely because of public furor over Bush/Iraq. The fawning media hid his socialist background. He ran as a centrist. The Wall Street meltdown wiped away the small McCain/Palin lead. Obama in his hubris took that flukish set of events and reinvented them into proof that he could deliver to the left a once-in-a-century EU-style socialist makeover of America. That effort polarized the country, stalled the recovery, and terrified the private sector into stasis. Obama, who was always himself given something (take your pickHarvard admission, Harvard Law Review billet, Chicago Law School tenure offer, Noble Peace Prize, etc.) without requisite achievement, is thus stunned that the economy is not an animate Law dean whom he can hope and change into compliance. So naturally he is angry and has turned to almost everything in the past that worked: the race card, the get-out-the-minority vote card, the enemy Republican bad actors, the greedy rich takers, etc.. But now none of the old them bogeymen work; the more that tactic is tried, the more the economy stalls and the people get angry. Its that simple. He can talk all he wishes, but until he offers fiscal responsibility, private sector encouragement, reassurance of adhering to singular American capitalism, and pro-jobs tax policies, he will continue more of these Orwellian, thinking-out-loud press conferences.
Monday, November 1. 2010
This is what it's all about, from the admirable Rasmussen in the WSJ: A Vote Against Dems, Not for the GOP.
Voters don't want to be governed from the left, right or center. They want Washington to recognize that Americans want to govern themselves.
A quote from the article:
Central to the Democrats' electoral woes was the debate on health-care reform. From the moment in May 2009 when the Congressional Budget Office announced that the president's plan would cost a trillion dollars, most voters opposed it. Today 53% want to repeal it. Opposition was always more intense than support, and opposition was especially high among senior citizens, who vote in high numbers in midterm elections.
Repubs need to read the message carefully. Voters are rightly on guard and suspicious these days.
 Most of the time, anyway. I did vote for Lieberman running as an Independent, rightly or wrongly, because the Repub did not have a chance and I did not care for the Dem.
For national elections, I vote Party most all the time. Why? Because when they get to Washington they cease to be individuals, and become captive of their party caucuses. That's the way it works.
Whether smart or dumb, free-thinking or robots, they have to play the game if they want to get anywhere. The leaders call the plays.
Thus, in the end, you are voting for a vote in Congress, not for a person. In primaries, I vote for my preferred candidate, but in national elections I vote Repub only because their caucus is more Conservative than any alternatives.
Voting for "who you like better" is childishly naive and foolish in the extreme. You aren't voting for who you want as a social acquaintance.
If you vote for a Dem, no matter how much you may personally prefer the guy or gal as a social companion, all you are really doing is to put another vote in the Left's pocket. Parties vote as herds, in Congress. That's why they have people called "Whips."
A vote for a Dem is a vote for the current Obama agenda. If you like the Dem approach to life, by all means vote for whomever they are running.
Otherwise, don't.
Thursday, October 28. 2010
Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury comic strips have been featured on newspapers� funnies pages for four-decades. Some newspapers have moved the strip to their editorial pages, since their theme is often � aside from unfunny � starkly and one-sidedly political.
In a Slate interview, Garry Trudeau unknowingly satirizes himself.
Slate: How does the current political era stack up against eras past? Is it more or less funny? Is there more or less material?
Trudeau: I no longer compare them. Each era is the best of times, worst of times. Besides, I'm a pointillist, just working my tiny little piece of the canvas. I'm not so good at perspective.
Having said that, I can tell you that there have been some periods when cartoonists were definitely in clover. Watergate was the perfect subject, because every day brought fresh outrages. Everyone was on his game, and we felt unconstrained, because Nixon's wounds were self-inflicted. Monica was good for cartooning, but it was only one running joke. Bush's misrule�accidental war, torture, Katrina, etc.�provoked great cartoons, but there was so much associated tragedy, there wasn't much fun in it.
Then,
Slate: Who's the hardest politician to satirize, and why?
Trudeau: Believe it or not, Obama's very tough for business. The contradictory characterizations of him as fascist or socialist only serve to confirm the truth�he's a raging moderate. And satirists don't do well with moderates, especially thoughtful ones. In addition, Obama rarely makes gaffes and has no salient physical or temperamental features. And sinking popularity isn't a critique. Even SNL's main rap on him is his unflappability, hardly a vice in a world leader.
Trudeau says in the interview that �Any obvious satirical target I pass up is usually spared because of a failure of imagination.�
The interview would make a good comic strip, wouldn�t it?
From Sheby Steele's A Referendum on the Redeemer:
...isn't the tea party, on some level, a reaction to a president who seems not to fully trust the fundamental decency of the American people? Doesn't the tea party fill a void left open by Mr. Obama's ethos of bad faith? Aren't tea partiers, and their many fellow travelers, simply saying that American exceptionalism isn't racism? And if the mainstream media see tea partiers as bumpkins and racists, isn't this just more bad faith�characterizing people as ignorant or evil so as to dismiss them?
Our great presidents have been stewards, men who broadly identified with the whole of America. Stewardship meant responsibility even for those segments of America where one might be reviled. Surely Mr. Obama would claim such stewardship. But he has functioned more as a redeemer than a steward, a leader who sees a badness in us from which we must be redeemed. Many Americans are afraid of this because a mandate as grandiose as redemption justifies a vast expansion of government.
Wednesday, October 27. 2010
How does Garrison Keillor know me this well, without having ever met me? This describes me to a T:
[Republicans have] transmogrified into the party of hairy-backed swamp developers and corporate shills, faith-based economists, fundamentalist bullies with Bibles, Christians of convenience, freelance racists, misanthropic fratboys, shrieking midgets of AM radio, tax cheats, nihilists in golf pants, brownshirts in pinstripes, sweatshop tycoons, hacks, fakirs, aggressive dorks, Lamborghini libertarians, people who believe Neil Armstrong�s moonwalk was filmed in Roswell, New Mexico, little honkers out to diminish the rest of us, Newt�s evil spawn and their Etch-A-Sketch president, a dull and rigid man suspicious of the free flow of information and of secular institutions, whose philosophy is a jumble of badly sutured body parts trying to walk. Republicans: The No.1 reason the rest of the world thinks we�re deaf, dumb, and dangerous.
Truth is, I am a registered Repub but think of myself as a Conservative, despite my always testing out as "Centrist." Why is Gary so angry? Why are Lefties always angry? I am almost never angry, but often cranky and indignant.
Why does Gary hate me? I have enjoyed his humor very much over the years, but his politics are puerile and hyper-emotional.
I should add that I am a "know-noting flat earther" too. Yep, that's me: an Ivy Chem major and dumb as a post, clinging to my Bible and guns for dear life.
Tuesday, October 26. 2010
 I suppose people would classify me as a member of the American "elite."
Like several of us Maggie's Farmers, WASP New England roots, prep school and double-Ivy-educated, fairly well-bred with a good pedigree, decent table manners when sober, a semi-entertaining but pedantic dinner companion, and in a supposedly-respectable profession. I am a member of blue blood clubs (and clubs that used to be), and I try to watch my grammar. I wear tweed jackets and a bow tie in order to emphasize my existence - and my adherence to tradition. I avoid a flashy life style, and buy my work clothes at good old, fashionless Brooks Brothers like my Dad and Grandpa. I am not wealthy, but relatively comfortable for now, with my kids through with college.
Yes, I am in some elite category, for better or worse. But not an elitist, I think.
In my life, since my arrogant youth, I have dedicated myself to learning new things every day. We isolated and insulated elites can learn a heck of a lot of wisdom, and a lot about life, from getting away from the elites. America has no class system. Wise and savvy people are found everywhere, in equal proportions. Fools, also.
Most people are like me, just another human: Part fool, part smart, part insane, and a teeny bit wise. The latter came from life, not school.
The regular American fellow with his boots on the American ground and struggling on the American soil knows more about life than any elites in Washington. The "problem" is that most regular American folks do not seek power over others - and thus do not seek political careers unless they are personally insecure or failures (there are rare exceptions).
The tea party warns of a New Elite. They're right.
Elites are the people who overestimate themselves and underestimate misunderestimate others.
Monday, October 25. 2010
The Instyman posts something which might almost be considered a blog post instead of an Instyism. Good stuff, with some Heinlein for dessert. One quote:
The main problem with the new elite is that theyre not an elite at all. That is, they arent particularly smart, or competent. They are credentialed, but those credentials arent so much markers for smartness or competence, or even basic education, as they are admission tickets to the Gentry Class, based on good standardized test scores. Thats fine ETS was berry, berry good to me but it doesnt have much to do with ability to succeed, or lead, in the real world. Worse yet, it seems to have fostered a sense of entitlement.
"Read the whole thing."
Those so-superior French must have crappy lives, so retirement is all they have to look forward to.
From Foreign Policy's The Spectacle of the Society - France's half-century social-spending spree is coming to an end -- and Nicolas Sarkozy is stuck holding the bag.
The drama of rewriting the postwar social contract is taking place across Europe. Over the past generation, globalization has challenged Western economic dominance and forced wages downward throughout the industrialized world; the economic crisis that began in 2008 delivered the coup de grace.
Read the whole excellent cautionary tale.
The moral of the story, I feel, is this: when government becomes too dominant a part of life, people become more childlike and thus, instead of feeling gratitude towards their "leaders," they have entitlement tantrums when they feel deprived.
Is America unique in having many work settings in which managers feel the need to have "forced retirement" by age 70 or 75? And is America unique in having so many people who build second careers after retirement?
Anchoress linked this quick online test from 2008. Yes, I know online quizzes are dumb.
Some folks think we at Maggie's are being facetious when we term ourselves a Centrist website, but that's how I came out on the quiz: Socially Moderate, Economically Conservative - Centrist.
Most of my friends view me as a Conservative, but maybe Conservatives are Centrists nowadays.
Sunday, October 24. 2010
Well, I hesitate to term these "professional" conferences, because by my definition unionized people cannot really be considered professionals. But, putting that aside, here's Academic Conferences: the Oppressed Versus the Oppressors. One quote:
A preliminary program for the National Council of Teachers of English conference (Nov. 18-21, Orlando) lists a session, "Leading Out Our Profession Through Advocacy," that blames Ronald Reagan (whatever happened to blaming Bush?) for scripted lessons and mandates handed down to classroom teachers in the cause of school reform: "During the Reagan years, systems and structures were set in place so that corporate giants and government would have more control over education," resulting in policies such as No Child Left Behind and now even the Obama Race to the Top. The NCTE workshop's answer to all that? "Critical reflection, dialogue, and action toward an educational reform and advocacy that enables teachers and learners to collaborate, explore, engage, and renew ourselves through positive, empowering, professional advocacy."
If I can peer clearly through the edubabble, I think this is a union training session. Not certain, though. By the way, what's a "learner"?
Saturday, October 23. 2010
Somebody asked me this weekend what is meant my the common legal term "in the state's interest."
When you think about it, it does sound like a term from feudal times; an odd turn of phrase for a democratic republic. On the other hand, in socialist or communist countries, they use the term "the peoples' interest" as a euphemism for the same thing.
There is a good brief definition and discussion here, as the term applies in the US.
My problem with this basic legal concept, when I think about it a little with my small brain, is this: What happens when The State becomes a special interest of its own, looming over all other interests? Well, James Madison et al anticipated all of that, didn't they? Very shrewd and wise old dead guys with unfashionable ethnicities.
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