Saturday, May 8. 2010
Gremlins - evil gremlins - kept our site down all day today. This is good, from Bergner at Weekly Standard: Europe Is No Model - The genius of American politics.
No regular American would want to be anything like Europe, however much we like to visit them to try to experience their interesting and colorful history, and to hear their quaint accents and languages. The real Disney Europe is what I call it. A receding, suicidal civilization. The charm comes from their having been frozen in time by insane governments - not from their present condition.
Go see it before it disappears and becomes a subject for anthropological study.
Tuesday, May 4. 2010
Taking offense, these days, seems to confer the moral authority of sacred victimhood rather than to identify one as a hypersensitive twit, as a disguised bully, or as a manipulative schemer.
I don't know how that happened, but two can play: Offense works both ways.
Thursday, April 29. 2010
From Smith's The Ghetto-ification of America at Pajamas:
What big government has done to the nation’s inner cities and poor blacks is nothing short of a moral crime. Unless the Democrats are stopped, a lesser though damaging crime will be committed against every other community. Ghetto-light may be your neighborhood all too soon.
It is reminiscent of Dalrymple's observations in the UK which I linked a week or so ago.
Wednesday, April 28. 2010
Many of our readers are impressed by Charles. He has had an interesting life. Here's his Wiki bio.
Tuesday, April 27. 2010
Excellent, from Daniel Pipes: In Europe, Remorse Has Turned to Masochism. He nails it. One quote:
... it is Europe’s very readiness to acknowledge its faults that prompts self-hatred, for societies that do not engage in such introspection do not lacerate themselves. Europe’s strength is thus its weakness. Although the continent has “more or less vanquished its monsters,” such as slavery, colonialism, and fascism, it chooses to dwell on the worst of its record. Thus his book’s title, The Tyranny of Guilt. The past, with its violence and aggression, is frozen in time, a burden Europeans expect never to throw off.
Related, Sowell's Misusing History: Inhumanity, like humanity, is universal.
Monday, April 26. 2010
I mumbled briefly about Positivism last week, alluding to its potential as a fuel for hubris. No philosophy is the "cause" of human evil and destructiveness, but Human Nature is. Pure rationalism (if there is any such thing) is a frightening way to run the world, or to run anything.
This weekend, in timely fashion, I stumbled on a review of Grayling's latest screed against irrationalism by the esteemable John Gray. One quote from the thoughtful review:
Reading Grayling, it is hard to resist the impression that he believes Western civilization would be much improved if it did not include the Judeo-Christian inheritance. Absurd as it is, there is nothing new in such a claim. It is one of the most venerable clichés of Enlightenment thinking, and Ideas that Matter is a compendium of such dated prejudices. When Grayling condemns religion on the grounds that “a theory that explains everything, and can be falsified by nothing, is empty,” he takes for granted that religions are primitive theories, now rendered obsolete by science.
Friday, April 23. 2010
J. Robert Smith has exactly the right metaphor at American Thinker. Who gets to be Zoo-Keeper, though?
Speaking of zoos, Dalrymple recently visited some government zoos in the UK, and it was not pretty. Old steel towns where the main jobs involve welfare administration.
Via Chicago Boyz:
…There is also the problem of the elite’s lack of humility. I’m a pretty smart guy, and I think I could do a decent job of re-ordering the world if given absolute power.
But … It wouldn’t be right. It is not up to me to tell my fellow humans how to live. I think bowling, for instance, is stupid, though many people enjoy it. What/who gives me the right to tell bowlers that they should be going to the symphony instead?
But nobody is forcing me to go bowling and nobody is using my tax dollars to subsidize bowling, so I don’t care. Not my business, and not a problem. This is the essence of liberty.
For a thought experiment, substitute guns, french fries, or abortion for bowling above and see how you feel. The realization that you do not have the Moral Authority to try to construct a perfect world that eliminates what you dislike is the essence of humility. Many very bright people lack humility.
Wednesday, April 21. 2010
An ideologue is attached to an ideal regardless of facts.
A cynic believes that selfish self-interest is the primary motivator, especially of others.
A skeptic habitually doubts or questions conclusions of others.
A critic develops judgments based on the merits of the situation or argument.
A freeman uses civil and political rights and liberties, to enjoy life.
These categories may to some extent co-exist in each individual. But, to the extent any of us move predominantly from freeman or tolerant critic to habitual skepticism, or to being a cynic or ideologue, even when moved by others’ intrusion into our rights and liberties, we surrender some or much of our enjoyment.
The trick is to retain our focus on being a freeman (or freewoman, but I’ll use freeman here throughout).
If we don’t, we become susceptible to manipulation of ourselves or becoming manipulators of others. One can’t be securely free when others are not.
Soldiers volunteer knowing that life-and-death choices determine their and others’ fate. In effect, they are determined to be freemen.
The really religious know that opening their heart to G-d gives them freedom to enjoy themselves and others.
The true citizen participates and demands that chosen leaders respect all as freemen.
Look at history. Those whose names and legacy are most treasured were freemen.
Look at yourself. What are you? Really.
If not a freeman, you've surrendered.
Tuesday, April 20. 2010
"I can’t understand how these same people who distrust the power of large corporations tend to throw all their trust and faith into government. The government tends to have more power (it has police and jails after all, not to mention sovereign immunity), is way larger, and the control mechanisms and incentives that supposedly might check bad behavior in governments seldom work."
Coyote, in his And People Trust Government?. Well, the polls say most people do not. However, America is divided between those who want to be left alone and those who want stuff. At present, that is the gist of what Vanderleun terms The American Argument.
Similarly, Betsy addresses the two visions of government. In my view, too few Americans today see liberty as something precious, and I often wonder how many people would prefer to be slaves and serfs (as long as those terms aren't used) in exchange for life's necessities.
Friday, April 16. 2010
Now, the pursuit of power is a zero-sum game: you acquire power only by taking it away from someone else. The pursuit of money, however, is not a zero-sum game, which is why it is a much more innocent human activity. It is possible to make a lot of money without inflicting economic injury on anyone. Making money may be more sordid than appropriating power—at least it has traditionally been thought to be so—but, as Adam Smith and others pointed out, it is also a far more civil activity.
Irving Kristol, as quoted in Chicago Boyz' Paying Higher Taxes Can Be Very Profitable. How many times have we said the same thing here at Maggie's? The pursuit of power is what is sordid and sick, but everybody has to make an honest living.
Thursday, April 15. 2010
Not Your Grandpa's Britain Department: "Mr. Davey said he's better off unemployed than working." Hey, there's the spirit to build a new Jerusalem!
h/t, William Blake:
Tuesday, April 13. 2010
 Gagdad Bob's Great God Almighty, I'm Free at Last! Now, Who Stole My Chains?! connected with a topic on which I have been reflecting lately, namely, how avidly people sometimes cling to symptoms and pathologies and, indeed, can feel lost without them.
In my field of work, we have to be careful with such things, following the lines of "If you break it, you own it," and "Primum non nocere."
Also, "Never let the perfect be the enemy of the good." Or, as I usually phrase it, "the good-enough."
I was much affected by Erich Fromm's Escape from Freedom when I was in college.
People vary in how much freedom they can handle, whether from internal or external chains. I prefer the chains I deliberately select for myself.
Jeff Goldstein posted a serious essay, “The Descent of Liberalism”. One quote:
A CNN poll conducted in February found that 56 percent of those questioned think the federal government has “become so large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens.” The social reformer inspires in many Americans today the same dread he once inspired in John Stuart Mill, who in 1855 wrote that almost “all the projects of the social reformers in these days are really liberticide — Comte particularly so.” Such projects, Mill predicted, would lead to “a despotism of society over the individual, surpassing anything contemplated in the political ideal of the most rigid disciplinarian among the ancient philosophers,” and stood “as a monumental warning to thinkers on society and politics, of what happens when once men lose sight in their speculations, of the value of Liberty and Individuality.”
Liberals dismiss such fears as mere right-wing hysteria.
Monday, April 12. 2010
We have seen what happens when climate science is politicized. Here'a a taste of what happens when medicine gets politicized.
Sunday, April 11. 2010
 Ferguson's excellent essay at Weekly Standard, titled Nudge Nudge, Wink Wink: Behavioral economics—the governing theory of Obama’s nanny state, quotes the Prez:
“Far more is now known about regulation—not only about when it is justified, but also about what works and what does not. .??.??. In this time of fundamental transformation, that process—and the principles governing regulation in general?—should be revisited.”
Gee whiz, it sounds very "scientific." My response to the notion that my supposed betters need to regulate and nudge me and my life is not printable on a family website such as Maggie's. I do not care whether it "works" or not. Mussolini made the trains run on time, too.
I believe that our Maggie's team and our readers know far more about life than Barack Obama or Cass Sunstein will ever know.
Friday, April 9. 2010
From Spruill on student loans and government obesity:
(A) point I made during the student-loan debate is that it has demonstrated the process by which a basically conservative citizenry can be made to accept a much larger federal government. Step one, subsidize an activity through the private sector, gradually getting the public to think of the subsidy as an entitlement. Step two, get the government more involved through the direct provision of the activity. Step three, denounce the old subsidy as corporate welfare en route to arguing that the government should be the sole provider.
If anyone counters that the government should stop subsidizing the activity, call him a radical (and possibly racist) throwback. If anyone tries to defend the status quo, call him a corporate shill.
Related, see How 100 million lose insurance under Obamacare. Many will no doubt be eager for a government plan...if that's all there is.
Wednesday, April 7. 2010
Which Side Are They On? American labor unions and how they got that way. It begins:
Labor unions in the United States were not always tied to the Democratic party and to a leftist ideological agenda. Once upon a time, the American Federation of Labor (AFL) stood at odds with the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO); the former resisted statist labor law changes and leftist union policies beginning in the 1930s and the latter supported them.
The AFL and the CIO united in 1955, but two decades before, William Green, president of the older AFL movement, denounced the CIO in terms familiar to present-day tea party critics of the Obama administration. On September 7, 1937, as reported in the Washington Post, Green assailed CIO leader John L. Lewis for “subordinating the welfare of workers to personal political ambitions .??.??. and encouraging communistic support.” Green warned that CIO ambitions could “pave the way to a fascist dictatorship.”
Monday, April 5. 2010
 From Dr. Bob:
In truth, why would anyone choose to go into this profession today? Why would any sane man continue to practice medicine in this environment? Why, indeed, do I continue in this insanity?
I have heard such from many colleagues lately.
Related at American Thinker: What Obamacare will cost doctors.
Sunday, April 4. 2010
Bastiat and the politics of plunder. h/t, Lucianne
More good on the topic from Q&O
Friday, April 2. 2010
 From Barone's Tea partiers embrace liberty not big government:
Polls and recent election results tell us that racial minorities and the so-called "educated class" -- the people who expect their kind will administer centralized institutions -- still take the side of the Progressives. Most Americans, however, are rejecting the path of dependence and are intent on declaring their independence once again.
It's a good straight-forward piece on the history of the well-intentioned but obsolete and antiquated American Progressive movement. It's not 1900 anymore.
As we say here ad nauseum, freedom, unlike wealth, is a zero-sum game. I will prefer freedom with poverty and insecurity any time over the alternative. Patrick Henry was my ancestor. Been there, done that. Governments underestimate The People, for their own insane and selfish reasons. We are not children, although government has the power and the guns and the courts which we gave them to make us medieval serfs again if they wish to do so. For the Greater Good, naturally - and for the wittle bitty chirren.
Tuesday, March 30. 2010
I think it's a useful concept. Here's how these folks define it.
Sunday, March 28. 2010
In the wake of Obamacare, the MSM has been busy this week reinventing a partisan myth - the myth that Conservatives and "regular Americans" are violent, white, chronically angry, racist, homophobic, greedy, selfish, mouth-breathing troglodytes.
Shrinks know all about myth creation, because most peoples' life stories are personal myths. These political myths, however, are deliberately constructed, mass ad hominen smears on millions - including me. I do not mind non-violent political anger at all, but I do mind smears.
Just a few posts on the recent propaganda I noticed today:
- The Washington Post Reminds You, All Criticism of the President Is Racist
- Powerline: More Thoughts On Liberal Political Violence
- "Dozens" show up at Nevada Tea Party
- Jammie: Frank Rich Loses Me at Kristallnacht
Saturday, March 27. 2010
I don't want you to bail out my mistakes, America, and I don't want to bail out yours. Take your lumps! It's the free market; prices have to find their real level. I'm underwater in my stocks, and nobody cares. It will come out OK in the end.
Paraphrased from Larry Kudlow, on the radio this morning re government support of artificially high housing prices.
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