Maggie's Farm

Some friends are leaving soon for a ten-day Ireland golf trip.

There seems to be some agreement that the Royal County Down Golf Club is the best links course in the world. They will also play Ballybunion and some of the other famous links courses. I find it pleasant that Ballybunion has their etiquette listed at their site.

That's Nicklaus at the 4th tee in 2001.

I found the link to Keith Thompson's 2005 SF Chronicle op-ed piece, titled Leaving the Left: I can no longer abide the simpering voices of self-styled Progressives in a comment somewhere recently. I cannot recall whether I had read it in the past or not, but I post it because it sounds much like what happened to my thinking in my 30s.

Like most well-educated Protestant families in New England at the time (and much less so, today), I was raised in a soft-Left-oriented home. You know: "Joe McCarthy was the devil, but Joe Stalin meant well and besides, the Russians have free medical care." (The only Socialist we were willing to hate was Hitler.) This was combined with a solicitous condescension towards blacks, the "poor" people who worked with their hands, and any other convenient "victim" group. We "cared" about them, or so we convinced ourselves in our self-admiring superiority - but we didn't really know any of them very well, and had no clue about how they ran, or planned, their lives.

What else did we take on faith? That the UN would bring an end to war, that higher taxes (on other people) were a very good idea, that pacifism usually made sense even in the face of an enemy ("Better Red than Dead"), that FDR was a great president, that the world of business - as compared to the "professions" - was tainted with "selfishness" and thus dishonorable, that patriotism was jingoism and nationalism a bad thing, that there was no real "evil" (other than Conservatives), and that DDT was a terrible thing. Socially "nice" stuff like that.

(Of course, we took many good, solid things on faith too, but that's another story and another blog post.)

We all felt smugly virtuous, I think, and quite superior to the ignorant and presumably unwashed masses who cast votes for "idiots" like Nixon and Barry Goldwater instead of for the enlightened ones who only wanted to "help them."

That was before I fully appreciated how much Americans - and I - appreciate our freedom from government power and intrusion. And what a sturdy, thrifty, resourceful, practical, independent, hard-working bunch we Americans really are. I will never forget my first lesson in this on a summer job during high school, but it took years of exposure to real life and to real people to cure me of my malady which was, at the bottom of it, I think, related to pride: the sickest form of pride - the notion that we - the fortunate and privileged "intelligentsia" - the bien-pensants - knew what was best for other folks and for the country. We were educated in everything except humility, common sense, and an adequate appreciation for freedom. Life's wisdom cannot be taught. Only learned.

So, to return to a quote from Thompson's essay, which is similar to, but better than, the one I would have written:

I grew up in a northwest Ohio town where conservative was a polite term for reactionary. When Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of Mississippi "sweltering in the heat of oppression," he could have been describing my community, where blacks knew to keep their heads down, and animosity toward Catholics and Jews was unapologetic. Liberal and conservative, like left and right, wouldn't be part of my lexicon for a while, but when King proclaimed, "I have a dream," I instinctively cast my lot with those I later found out were liberals (then synonymous with "the left" and "progressive thought").

The people on the other side were dedicated to preserving my hometown's backward-looking status quo. This was all that my 10-year-old psyche needed to know. The knowledge carried me for a long time. Mythologies are helpful that way.

If you never read it, please do so.

Good to see you Overlawyered folks visiting - check us out while you're here - you might like Maggie's Farm -

Re-posted from April 15, 2006 - forgot to post it on Tax Day. (As the weather improves, we like to go like totally Green and virtuously recyle old pieces a little bit, on weekends. To save Gaia.)

Here's my story for Tax Day. I could tell you far worse, but why spoil a nice day?  As regular readers know, I live in a small, charming New England town in central Connecticut, not too far from Hartford, with no crime and with no problems, except made-up ones like the crisis of having Coke machines in the High School.

When Robert Frost wrote "Mending Wall," his sentence "Good fences make good neighbors" was intended to be ironic, at the least. But fences do matter, in life.

The folks who owned our little farm built a pool many years ago near the edge of the river - it's a nice trout stream which borders the southern end of our place. Yes, the pool was built before anyone ever heard of the word "wetlands." Nice pool, perfect for smoking an Uppmann Magnum next to, with a glass of Scotch, while dangling one's feet in the water, listening to the river and the birdies, and just generally enjoying being a late-middle-aged American fellow.

I go to down to our little Town Hall,  just to stay on the right side of the law, to make a cautious inquiry. Town Hall sits in a nice old colonial house in the center of town, with a brick addition on the back. "It's about a pool fence," I tell the receptionist, who is doing nothing at all. "P&Z", she replies. I go up the stairs to P&Z, and wait for 20 minutes while it is decided that it is OK with the all-wise and all-knowing government for someone to install central vacuuming in their house.

"It's about a fence," I finally am able to say. "Go the Building Dept." I go to Building Dept., where there are two guys hanging around the desk. "It's about a pool fence." The guy is friendly and helpful. "Show me where on the map."  I show him the property, and he says "Got to go to Wetlands first."

I am now running short on time. I go down the stairs and to the back to Wetlands. The nice young lady takes about 20 minutes to determine that the obvious fact that my property abuts a river. "You can't build a new fence there - that's a high-velocity flood zone."

"But I am required to have a fence around the pool", I insist, "because the town requires it". And then I made a foolish error, mainly because I was impatient and had limited time. "The old fence was washed away when Katrina blew through here in the fall, so all I need to know is whether it is OK to replace it."

"An unfenced pool? That is a zoning violation. I am obligated to inform the P&Z inspector."  I sputtered "But but but..I only need to replace it."  She replied "We will need it inspected first, but you are probably currently in violation, because we take pool safety seriously in this town. But construction in a wetlands flood zone will require a variance and a hearing which will take several months to schedule. You can begin by filling out these forms", she said, handing me a packet about one inch thick. "Honestly, I might suggest to you that you get a local lawyer to represent you in this matter, because these issues become complicated, especially when you want something grandfathered."

I'm a lawyer. But I know little about Land Use law. So I am supposed to hire some goofball who plays golf with the folks in Town Hall for a $2000. retainer?

As I leave, I wonder why there is no law for a fence on the river. Heck - a kid or turtle or fish or moron could drown in that. And no-one can see my pool from any other house or road, so it hardly qualifies as an "attractive nuisance." But I don't mind that much. Just another dumb law - we all get used to them in this era in which government tries to be everyone's parent. Too bad people who go into government tend not to be too...um...swift. As everyone knows, but that's OK.

And I also wonder about this: We must have fences around pools, but not around rivers and ponds and lakes - or the ocean. And no fences to protect our national borders. Which is more important? I don't mind being Frost's practical but un-soulful neighbor: I will gladly provide both my pool fence, and my national border fence.

The law may be an ass, but it's the law. But when it takes a specialized lawyer to understand the law, it's a big problem - and expense - for everybody. If our laws are not comprehensible, everybody loses. Except us lawyers.

The laws regarding the importation of any Cuban products - including cigars - into the US are unambiguous and harsh.  However, I do not think that they are enforced with any vigor.

These laws seem to be a testament to the political power of the Cuban emigree population in Florida, who (rightly) hate Fidel so much that they are (wrongly, I feel) willing to harm all Cubans economically.

Re cigars, the history is that, prior to the embargo in the 60s, it was Cuban tobacco that was in demand - not Cuban cigars (which were a small part of the market). The best hand-made cigars were built with Cuban tobacco fillers and Connecticut wrappers in Miami, Tampa, and New Jersey.

Editor:  Juan Paxety corrects some of The B's assumptions, in the comments.

From our brother-in arms Coyote:

Todd Zywicki has a nice post on the The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle Class Mothers and Fathers are Going Broke by Professor Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi. 

In his writings on the tactics for engineering the communist state, Karl Marx talked a lot about the need to "proletarianize the middle class."  This has been a very popular tactic among leftish writers and politicians today, attempting to convince the middle class that they never had it so bad.

No doubt. Let's inculcate a sense of grievance in those two-income middle-class families, so they will turn to the State for rescue. The fact is, we have two-income families because people want more money, and desire a higher standard of living than the average single-income middle class family in 1970.

Ah, but they have less disposable income than in 1970 - and here's why (from the linked pieces):

Discretionary income has shrunk from 46% to 25% of total income - and taxes account for all of that reduction. The governmental solution, no doubt, will be to raise their taxes to provide more "free services." 

That's the Gramscian tactic: tax 'em 'til they feel poor, then apply incremental Marxism until they own your soul and you become a grateful serf of The State at The People's Tractor Factory #23.

For details, read the links above.