Maggie's Farm

Reposted from May, 2005:

Haven't read the book, and never saw South Park either. I don't watch TV - total waste of life. But Anderson's book is rapidly becoming a Big Book, so I had better take a look at it real soon. It concerns the culture wars.  There is a very nice interview in Frontpage by Jamie Glazov with Brian Anderson, author of South Park Conservatives: The Revolt Against Liberal Media Bias.

Among his statements in the interview:

"Technology has radically undermined this liberal media dominance. South Park Conservatives is in part a brief history of new media, and I show how talk radio, cable television (above all Fox News), and now the Internet and blogosphere have brought right-of-center views and perspectives long excluded by the media mainstream right to the heart of national debate. The change has taken place virtually overnight: the oldest of these media, political talk radio, is really only 15 years old or so, and the newest, the blogosphere, didn’t really exist five years ago." 

 And (this is becoming a familiar theme):

"In the academy, change is harder to achieve, because the tenure system has guaranteed a certain kind of intellectual—reflexively left-wing culturally and often quasi-socialist or out-and-out Marxist in their views on political economy—remains the norm. Left-wing professors are going to hire other left-wing professors and give tenure to other left-wingers. The difficulties experienced by cultural and political conservatives or even defenders of the Western cultural tradition in getting tenure means fewer and fewer of them go into academe. "

Read the interview.    

McCain too "mavericky" for you? Mitt too unelectable for you? Hillary and Bill too morally-challenged? Barry O. too lightweight and commy?

It was ever thus. If you want government to reflect your own views, then run for office yourself. Otherwise, cheer up, quit grumbling, and spend some time with the Spring Wayside catalog.

Photo: Rose Double Delight, from the catalog.

PS: I do not know who to vote for today. McCain might be able to win an election, but I agree far more with Mitt's current positions. Since appointments to the Supremes is my bottom line, and requires winning, I may hold ye olde schnoz and go with John. Sorry, Mitt - you are one fine fellow and deserve better, but I do not see you winning a national election this year.

PPS: We need a Gardening category on the blog.

Editor's note: Indeed we do. I created one, but it will take a while to backtrack. BTW, I am going with Mitt. Tough decision: practicality vs. policy. You are correct, B. - it was ever thus. In this life, we never get exactly what we want, except for lovely roses.

This is a re-posting from April, 2007:

We posted a QQQ last week from the fiery Mark Levin: "When was the last time you heard a Liberal talking about liberty?"

They never do. The term "liberal" is a misnomer, as classical liberalism was about freedom and firm limits to state power. The "new liberalism" is about expanding state power and parentalism over the citizens. And, as I always say, power, unlike wealth, is a zero sum game.

The New Liberalism is Authoritarian Populism, more or less, with a socialist reflex, and has a very high tolerance for state involvement in, and control over, our lives. Hence the Left's past idealization of Stalin, and current idealization of Castro and Chavez. And, of course, FDR.

On Maggie's Farm, we are classical liberals of the "Live free or die" variety. We feel that is what America is all about, and why we are the shining city on a hill - not because of our government, but because of free people. The government is not America.

This fundamental subject comes up because our editor emailed me a piece in Salon cited by a reader in response to Mark Levin's rhetorical question.

 It is an essay by Walter Shapiro in favor of repealing the Second Amendment. (The fact that legislation has effectively already repealed the Second Amendment for criminals and madmen carries no water for him. He doesn't want me to have guns.)

So it is a good example of New Liberalism. Here is the key quote:

Only in a nation forged by 18th century concerns about liberty and states' rights do firearms have a hallowed place in the Constitution.

How revealing. "Concern" about freedom and liberty is now obsolete, and replaced by...what? Let me share something: I know the "elites," and I am down with them, socially. And they have no more common sense than the fingernail of my pinkie.

Thank God that the New York delegation to the Constitutional Convention, and a few other delegations, insisted on the Bill of Rights. Most delegations thought it was unnecessary, and that such freedoms were implicit in the battles they had fought.

Perhaps Mr. Shapiro would be happier if he also could advocate a movement to repeal Amendments 9 and 10 also.

 Amendment IX

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment X

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

Or why not just repeal the whole darn thing? We could replace it with this, and have a nice Bloomberg-style, Hillary-style dictatorship of the elite who are way smarter, of course, than us folks, and know what is best for us. After all, we are too stupid, and liberty is so scary.

Image: Constitution Hall, Philadelphia

I cannot understand willing suicide-bomber Jihadists, but I can understand being willing to die for a (good) cause, and can imagine doing so.

But I cannot even imagine a sort of human who could imagine using mentally disabled kids as remote-controlled bombs. It is sub-human - no - satanic, as far as I am concerned. I have at least as many devilish thoughts as the next guy, but I never would have had that idea nor, I would like to believe, would your average Moslem.

No American, even the most sympathetic multiculturalist, knows what it might be like to inhabit the soul of a person who would do such a thing - for any reason. Everyone knows these people are barbarians, but most are too polite to say so. However, the Western notion of "polite" does not go far in the Middle East, where different codes are in operation.

People have spoken to me about Western secular humanism and making a religion of human life. As a Christian, I do not believe that human life is the most precious thing. A gift, perhaps, but during most of human existence it has been "poor, nasty, brutal and short," and more of a burden than a gift.  It is unique - a world miracle - that Western civilization has arrived at a point at which it is unthinkable to use a dog, much less a human, as a guided missile against innocents. We have largely escaped the "brutal and short," except for our sociopaths.

Quantitative differences, accumulated, become qualitative differences. In radical Islam, we are dealing with something that is beyond our civil, soft, and sentimental comprehension. If they would leave us alone, I think we would be more than happy to leave them alone in their own Dark Ages like a historical zoo, an anthropological curiosity, a quaint tourism destination, or a Disney show - to emerge from cocoon when ready. Meanwhile, don't tread on me, because a soft and decadent Rome already went through a barbarian invasion and it did not work out well.

I do not want these people to like me.

(If this is incoherent, it is because Mark Levin is screaming in my ear with McCain Derangement Syndrome. And, mind you, I was a Fredhead, but I always simply vote for my most Conservative and electable choice. If I can be convinced that Mitt can win a national election, I will vote for him. I am old enough to know that one must always hold one's nose when voting.)

Editor's note: Our loyal reader AVI notes, in a comment, that NPR reported this story tonight simply as another suicide bombing. Incredible...but not. NPR is our BBC, omitting inconvenient facts when they do not fit their ideological biases.

Surber attempts to inject some rationality into Conservatives. It may be true that Leftists seem to own the Dem Party, but Conservatives do not own the Repub Party. If the Repubs cannot be a "big tent," they will never regain power.

It's a center-right country, not a right-right country and, if you will pardon my pontificating, politics is about compromise - even when it hurts. I'd like to be a purist too, but the reality of other voters, with other views, keeps getting in the way... and it always will.

It is a truism that MSM economic news is always spun to be dire, or on its way to becoming dire, as long as Repubs are in power in DC.

The entirely predictable burst of the housing bubble in many parts of the country will hurt for a while (but I think it will ding markets more than people with jobs outside of construction), and of course the markets are in a tizzy due to the credit markets, but the US economy is still chugging along. Job growth remains strong, and note Surber today on manufacturing orders, and Rattner in the WSJ: Let's get real about the economy.

I will grant that recessions are usually only seen in the rear-view mirror, but the Maggie's Farm Chief Economist predicts slower GDP growth, but no meaningful recession, in 2008. He also predicts a bull market in election-year economic fear-mongering.

Related: How is the housing market in your county doing? Countrywide tells you. (h/t, piece on the subject at TigerHawk)

Related: Mankiw discusses an equation indicating a 35% chance that we are in a recession now.

I have no problem with their clan supporting Obama, but since we're on the topic of sociopathy (entry immediately below), here's Wizbang on Ted and Family - the Democrats' Royal Pain. Apparently none of them seems capable of holding down a job, so they go into politics.

Related: Regarding Evita, Roger Simon says "End the Monarchy" - and this:

The recent public display of arrogant, hot-headed Bill hopefully is starting to wake people up to this. Do we really want eight more years of the Clinton family saga, all their lies and self-deception? Suppose this turns out to be true? Do we really want to have to deal with that? And is there anyone out there who is honestly willing to bet it isn't possible?

Even though The New York Times doesn't seem to care and is willing to ignore this noblesse oblige in their slavish and banal endorsement of Hillary the other day, their own Frank Rich is beginning to smell a rat.

Quoted from Jihad Watch:

The Bush Administration has been unable to understand Islam. It has been willfully incapable of understanding Islam. Failing to understand it, wanting not to delve too deeply into the matter or listen to those who have done so, and preferring to fashion a policy based on the children's game of "let's pretend," this incoherent and confused administration seeks the explanation elsewhere for the relentless hostility of Muslim states and peoples. This hostility has never, not one whit, been mitigated by the receipt of vast sums, tens or hundreds of billions, in "aid" from Western countries (really a disguised Jizyah), while the American government, while Bush, while Rice, look for the explanations -- "poverty" and "lack of freedom" and anything else that can be offered up -- for that hostility, that meretriciousness, those smiles-with-murder-in-our-hearts behavior of, for example, our "staunch allies" in Egypt, and Saudi Arabia (those Al-Saud, a primitive but exceedingly rich tribe, all daggers-and-dishdashas, with sneers of cold command on their seemingly cloned faces). They look, that is, for everything but the texts and tenets of Islam, that any "defector" from Islam -- Wafa Sultan, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Ibn Warraq, Ali Sina -- could tell them about, and which the writings of any legitimate Western scholar of Islam (Schacht, Lammens, Snouck Hurgronje, Jeffrey, and dozens of others) would confirm.

Read the whole thing. (h/t, Israpundit)

The political reformers of the 1960s brought us the modern primary system along with a vast array of grassroots- and foundation-supported activist political organizations. It was all intended to usher in a time of increased political engagement based on values and ideology rather than simple party power and patronage supported by the supposed, if imaginary, "pocketbook voters" of the past.

It was to be a new dawn for democratic politics - think about Common Cause - and it essentially replaced the smoke-filled back rooms full of shrewd old politicos with the money-people of today that purists, but few money-hungry candidates, now bitch about.

Jon Shields, in In Praise of the Values Voter in The Wilson Quarterly, explains that the (largely) left-tilted activists of the time believed that an ideological intensification of the parties, with an increase of "values voters," would culminate in the grand debate between liberals and socialists, which the socialists would win - leaving nobody motivated to build new businesses or to create new, profitable ideas.

It didn't turn out that way, because, while the Left took over the Dem Party which embraced their new values, the gradual rise of a mainstream Conservative America arose as a powerful force with its own values. Shields explains the disenchantment of the Left with "values voters:"

The chief answer is that they lost their enthusiasm for “values voters” because those voters turned out to have the wrong values. One of the great political ironies of the past few decades is that the Christian Right has been much more successful than its political rivals at fulfilling liberal thinkers’ hopes for American democracy. Liberals built an array of ­well-­funded public-interest groups such as Common Cause, Environmental Defense, NARAL ­Pro-­Choice America, and the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. But most of these organizations asked little more of their supporters than ­check­book activism, and some were entirely supported by foundations. The Right, on the other hand, built genuinely grassroots organizations, including Operation Rescue, the Christian Coalition, and Concerned Women for America, whose members mobilized millions of disaffected evangelical citizens through ­church-­based networks. In his famously despairing account of Americans’ civic involvement, Bowling Alone (2000), Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam conceded the point, without appearing to find much solace in it: “It is, in short, among Evangelical Christians, rather than among the ideological heirs of the sixties, that we find the strongest evidence for an upwelling of civic engagement.”

Read the whole thing. I think it explains a lot. Conservative-Libertarian as I am, I think I would prefer to see less ideological parties. (I'd also offer the observation that generally, as one moves from the national stage to more local politics, ideology becomes less prominent and less important. In my town, you could not tell who is Dem or Repub from our discussions of the school budget: they are all trying to figure out ways to extract more money from State and Federal grants.)

Image: No "values" there: you can read about the history of NYC's Tammany Hall here.

I never saw anything racist about Little Black Sambo. The crafty Indian hero of the story makes the tigers run in circles until they turn into butter, and then puts it on a pile of pancakes.

But maybe I am plain blind, because I also cannot see how The Three Little Pigs could be offensive to Moslems (although I know they don't eat pigs, but what does that have to do with anything?). Since "some" Moslems do not care for dogs, monkeys, Jews, Christians, Buddhists, alcohol, theater, T&A, and many other good things, perhaps it might be safer just to go the whole hog and ban books and TV if one is afraid of getting bombed or beheaded.

Funniest of all is the worry about offending the "building trades." That's a joke, right?

Well, as I always say, this insanity on the part of "Government Agency" pussies offends the hell out of me.