Saturday, September 15. 2007
Friday, September 14. 2007
 Fred Thompson hits the right notes for me when he talks about federalism, a topic of little interest to either of the George Bushes, nor to any Dems.
A quote from Edwards' piece at TCS: There has been a void in the Republican presidential race. The GOP candidates have spoken about immigration, taxes, social issues, and the war in Iraq. Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani, and John McCain have also spoken frequently about Ronald Reagan in order to position themselves as the political heirs to the great president. The candidates, however, have overlooked a central idea that animated Reagan's view of government. That was federalism, the constitutional principle that the federal government's responsibilities are "few and defined" as James Madison put it. Reagan believed that the federal government had grown too big and swallowed up too many activities that, in the words of the 10th Amendment, should be left to the states and the people. Education, welfare, food stamps, and other such activities were not properly federal roles in his view. Here is Reagan kicking off his run for the presidency on November 13, 1979: "The federal government should do only those things specifically called for in the Constitution. All others shall remain with the states or the people ... The federal government has taken on functions it was never intended to perform and which it does not perform well. There should be a planned, orderly transfer of such functions to states and communities."
Sadly, accomplishing that goal was another story. Read the whole thing.
 So says Hillary Clinton.
Yikes! Is our country that bad? Warshawsky in American Thinker discusses. If it's so bad, how come everyone with grit in the world wants to come here for freedom and opportunity? Maybe if we change it and make it less amenable, they will stop wanting to come?
A day or two ago The Barrister posted Kay Hymowitz on "Freedom Fetishes," which addressed the conflicts within Libertarianism. A good case in point is Moderate Voice's piece on legalizing prostitution. A pure Libertarianism might suggest, as the latter piece does, "Why not? No-one is harmed, consenting adults, etc., so who cares?" What's the correct answer?
Thursday, September 13. 2007
From Bruce Thornton's Fighting at a Disadvantage in City Journal: Even a cursory survey of world history explodes these romantic clichés and noble-savage fantasies. The West’s sins have been the sins of humanity everywhere. But the goods of the West—political freedom, consensual government, human rights, rationalism, and respect for the individual, to name a few—are unique to the West and account for its success. Just ask the millions of non-Western Others who every year risk their lives to migrate to Europe and America, even as virtually nobody goes in the other direction. Indeed, the ignorance of history makes multiculturalism possible. People who have never learned about the uniqueness of ancient Greece will make a bestseller out of a book like Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel, which argues that the West’s ascendancy is an accident of geography and the distribution of plant and animal species. Such people won’t think to ask why the Greeks flourished, inventing consensual government and political freedom, when they shared the same climate, plants, and animals as the Egyptians and Persians. In the post-9/11 context, and before it, multiculturalism predisposed many in the West to look on Muslims primarily as fascinating Others, victimized by Western racism, imperialism, and colonialism. We rationalize Islamic terror and place the blame for it elsewhere—on ourselves. We saw such self-flagellation in the days after 9/11, when numerous Western intellectuals, most notoriously ex–University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill, blamed the terrorist attacks on American crimes and rationalized 9/11 as the “justice of roosting chickens,” as Churchill’s speech was titled. The therapeutic sensibility that now dominates our public thinking reinforces this tendency to excuse Islamic terror.
Read the whole thing. (h/t, Sissy via a comment)
 Remember that famous lady who sued Winnebago after she put her RV into cruise control on the highway, then walked to the back for a cup of coffee?
She claimed that Winnebago had not made it sufficiently clear to her that cruise control couldn't drive the vehicle. When some people do idiotic things that defy the most elementary common sense resulting in "accidents," they see dollar signs. When most people do dumb things, however, they just blame themselves and leave it at that. What is the difference between those two categories of people? Read about Slate's Emily Bazelon at Overlawyered. How can any manufacturer anticipate every moronic thing a person might do with a product? They would need to hire teams of morons as product testers. Are such cases really about personal responsibility, or are they just about a class of greed-intoxicated people who are comfortable with ripping off businesses and their insurors? Image: A Winnebago of the sort that cannot drive itself down the road. For that, you need the more expensive model.
Re illegal immigration: Somebody must think I am an idiot if they think I would fall for this manipulative horse poop. Using kids to achieve one's political goals is close to child abuse. And why isn't the kid with his mom, anyway?
From "Crazy Ann:" Democrats claim Gen. David Petraeus' report to Congress on the surge was a put-up job with a pre-ordained conclusion. As if their response wasn't.
Democrats yearn for America to be defeated on the battlefield and oppose any use of the military - except when they can find individual malcontents in the military willing to denounce the war and call for a humiliating retreat.
It's been the same naysaying from these people since before we even invaded Iraq -- despite the fact that their representatives in Congress voted in favor of that war.
Read Coulter's entire summary of the history of logical inconsistencies regarding Iraq, at Human Events. The story tells of the setting of a new low for the concept of "loyal opposition."
Wednesday, September 12. 2007
From Flopping, who has a few more good 'uns: 
 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
Uncle Jay explains congressional vacation time. Video.
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.
At Tangled Web. Funny how similar it sounds to the arguments - and the political reasons - for more immigrants to the US.
Tuesday, September 11. 2007
 As quoted from Daniel Pipes in Democracy Project's Long Wars and Revisionism:
The outcome of the "war on terror," I submit, will have less to do with breakthroughs in avionics or intelligence coups than with the degree to which civilized people understand the nature of their enemy and join together to fight it. That means liberals remembering, as Canada's Salim Mansur put it, that "Liberal democracy is no less an armed ideology than [is] Islamist ideology." What does the future hold: 2001's slogan of "United We Stand" or more of today's deep fracturing? The answer may well be decisive. The historical record gives me some reason for optimism, as until now the Western democracies have prevailed. For that to happen again, learning about Islam and Muslims will be part of the requisite preparation.
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.
 "You haven't earned the right to be war-weary." Willisms. Indeed. The only people suffering in this war are the soldiers and their families, and it's part of their dangerous profession to do so for the rest of us. It is not "suffering" to hear the news in our comfortable seats as we dine on our chips, salsa, beer and Twinkies.
The politicization of this "small war" is a damn shame, and simply gives hope to those who want to destroy a free Iraq. Like it or not, we will be there for a long time and as soon as the bad guys realize that, some of the scumbags will find something better to do - like getting married and getting a job and trying life as sane, honest, peaceable citizens. Heck, we are still in Korea, and nobody complains about that except me. Furthermore, I was a skeptic about invading Iraq and figured Bush Sr. had some very good reasons to hold back (and he did). Am I a "moron dead-ender"? I don't think so. Some things are difficult: consider curing cancer, getting rid of cockroaches from a NYC apartment, eliminating crime, weeding the garden, removing corruption from New Jersey politics, killing terrorists one at a time - but it doesn't mean you don't work at them. "Can do." Moslem Jihadists are the cockroaches of the world today, and they are going to be with us for a long time because they believe they are pleasing their god by killing infidels. If some of them want to die in Iraq, fine by me. Related to above: Attack Machine considers "Copperheads Redux." Belgium: Bring back the Duchy of Burgundy. EU Referendum Time Magazine regrets the invention of the automobile, forgets how their magazine gets delivered. Blair Obstruction of justice? Gov. Eliot Spitzer's "black car meetings." You want a burger, and the burger wants to be eaten. Consenting adults, right? LA may limit fast food in some neighborhoods. As Coyote notes, this is mini-fascism. How are the Polar Bears faring? Small Dead Cute Baby Seals The worst school in America. Front Page Is there anything good about men? An essay/speech by Prof. Roy Baumeister to the American Psychological Assoc. (h/t, Minding the Campus) One quote: Culture has plenty of tradeoffs, in which it needs people to do dangerous or risky things, and so it offers big rewards to motivate people to take those risks. Most cultures have tended to use men for these high-risk, high-payoff slots much more than women. I shall propose there are important pragmatic reasons for this. The result is that some men reap big rewards while others have their lives ruined or even cut short. Most cultures shield their women from the risk and therefore also don’t give them the big rewards. I’m not saying this is what cultures ought to do, morally, but cultures aren’t moral beings. They do what they do for pragmatic reasons driven by competition against other systems and other groups.
Image is from the Harrison Hot Springs Sand Sculpture Tournament of Champions. What kind of cool sand to they have there?
This is a re-post from last year's "2996 Project," in which 2996 blogs each remembered one of the 2996 victims of the attack on New York.  John Michael Grazioso, 41, was killed in the attack on One World Trade Center. I have been assigned by the 2996 Project to remember this man, who was an eSpeed salesman for Cantor Fitzgerald, the company which lost more of its employees than any other.
I do not know much more about him other than that he commuted from Middletown, NJ. But I can imagine that he was a hard-nosed sales dude with whom you'd be glad to grab a beer after work. He looks like a racket-ball player, and maybe a deer-hunter, and surely a poker-player. And he looks like he lifted, and like he had two little daughters that he loved more than life itself. He looks like a real American guy. God bless him and his family. Michelle points us to a classic piece by Peggy Noonan: I just called to say I love you.
Monday, September 10. 2007
A quote from Rick Moran's OBL, Thompson, and the Long War: We are at war. We have been at war for 30 years. If the netroots want to parse the definition of war or even try and pretend that this is not so, it hardly matters. Radical Islamists believe they are at war with us. They believed it before there were netroots, before there was an internet. And they will continue to believe it no matter who is president, no matter what foreign policy we espouse, and no matter what their apologists and appeasers here and abroad would have you believe. This then, is The Long War – a struggle against an ideology that threatens more than our complacency, more than our sense of security, and more than the illusions we have of our invincibility. It is a war against the secular, nebulous, undefinable freedoms we enjoy in the west versus the dogmatic holy writ of the Koran and those who warp and twist its teachings for their own murderous ends. How big a threat is the global jihad being waged against the United States and the west? I agree with the left that the threat should be kept in perspective. I do not agree with the left when they attempt to minimize it. Fred Thompson’s take on OBL and The Long War is just about right: “Bin Laden being in the mountains of Pakistan or Afghanistan is not as important as there are probably al-Qaida operatives inside the United States of America,” Thompson said. Bin Laden is considered the man behind the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. The former Tennessee senator and actor argued that “bin Laden is more symbolism than anything else. I think it demonstrates to people once again that we’re in a global war.” Thompson said the al-Qaida leader and the Iraq war must be seen as part of the larger war on terrorism. “It’s one that bin Laden and people like him are heading up and we need to catch him and we surely need to deal with him, but if he disappeared tomorrow we still have this problem. If Iraq disappeared tomorrow, we’d still have this problem,” Thompson said.
More on Soros and Moveon: Yes, I question Moveon's patriotism. More about today's ad at Powerline. In fact, I believe that they, and Soros, have a powerful dislike of America, regardless of their views on the Iraq war.
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.
 We were going to write about this, but our friend Oxford Medievalist did it first. It's about the Iraq report, and undermining Petraeus' credibility.
With Soros (via MoveOn) and the Dems, who is the puppet and who is the puppeteer? Stratfor, via Tigerhawk, considers the Dem strategery in all of this.
Sunday, September 9. 2007
Gateway posts video of John Gibson's darky hilarious comparison of Keith Olberman (who I have never seen) and Osama's broacast. h/t, Never Yet Melted
Friday, September 7. 2007
Regarding the CNN series "God's Warriors," Christiane Amanpour said this: "In the Western and in the developed world, perhaps here in the 21st century we would have expected secularism and governance and politics to be what governs our daily lives," Amanpour told the bloggers. "We would not have expected, and perhaps we still don’t expect, religion to play such a real, present role in our daily lives, politics, and culture."
Who is "we"? What governs my daily life is family, having friends, making a living and juggling bills, being a Christian with a relationship with God, reading books, playing tennis, maintaining the homestead, planning this Fall's hunts, and riding and caring for the horses - not necessarily in that order. Oh - and trying to toss a half-decent post on the blog when I have a spare moment. I only care about politics and governance to be a good informed citizen - and because it is so screwed up these days: I wish I didn't have to think about it. Ms. Amanpour is a fruitcake. Whole story at Evangelical Outpost.
A quote from a Sept. 6 piece by Iraq The Model: The war is going to be long because it's a war of ideas—the conflict is not going to be a localized one and will have different forms because I believe the whole world is concerned and will take part in one way or another.
Identifying and supporting the true moderates would be a fair weapon to use in this war and I think American and the rest of the free world will keep trying to support positive reforms towards a better life to defeat the ideology of death.
More news from Iraq the Model: Omar has moved to NYC.
|
