Insights Into Academia

Today's topic: nonsense and its prevalence in academia. Read on!

Today, see-Dubya posts about the British professors' union, the Universities and Colleges Union, which is poised to introduce new rules to harass Israeli and Jewish professors and institutions. Even if you--like me--do not believe that Hitler and his cronies were right-wingers at all, still one must admit that anti-Semitism has often been a right-wing phenomenon. Today, however, anti-Semitism is much more prevalent on the Left. And it isn't backwoods hicks, the electoral bogeyman of elitist progressives; it's college and university professors.

In other news from see-Dubya, the UCU has refused to help the British Government identify potential jihadists on college campuses. Here's the reasoning: "Universities must remain safe spaces for lecturers and students to discuss and debate all sorts of ideas, including those that some people may consider challenging, offensive, and even extreme. The last thing we need is people too frightened to discuss an issue because they fear some quasi-secret service will turn them in."

There is a valuable question here about the level of academic freedom on college campuses, and I will not presume to answer that question here. But set that aside for a moment. The reasoning of the UCU is totally disingenuous in light of their anti-Israel rules changes. No commitment to truth--which should be the central aim of institutions of higher learning--can be found here. That sort of commitment ended when universities became political tools, and predictably so; after all, politics is not about truth, but about power. Now, so are universities--and because they are controlled by the political Left, they demonize some groups in order to kowtow to others. Increasingly, the focus on Jihadism has given them an opportunity to cast new groups in the same old roles: Israel is a capitalist, colonialist Western power, and the Arabs represent a large, oppressed indigenous underclass. (Ignore the supreme challenges from its neighbors that Israel has faced since its founding, the truly older claims to "indigenousness" possessed by Israelis, and the vast wealth of surrounding oil states that fight Israel indirectly through proxies like Hezbollah.) The idea of the underclass fighting the overclass, the indigenous peoples fighting the colonialists, has immense appeal to academic leftists; thus, the truth takes a back seat to power plays like this: overt exclusion of Israelis, covert encouragement of jihadis.

Moving on...

Yesterday, the Los Angeles Times published an excellent column by Professor Crispin Sartwell, who teaches philosophy at Dickinson College. In it, Dr. Sartwell notes the recent attempt at the University of Colorado to raise an endowment to fund a professor of conservative studies and uses it as a springboard to discuss the politics of American academia. Read an excellent tidbit:

That the American professoriate is near-unanimous for Barack Obama is a problem
on many levels, but certainly pedagogically. Ideological uniformity does a
disservice to students and makes a mockery of the pious commitment of these
professors simply to convey knowledge. Also, the claims of the professoriate to
intellectual independence and academic freedom, supposedly nurtured by tenure,
are thrown into question by the unanimity. Professors are as herd-like in their
opinions as other groups that demographers like to identify -- "working-class
white men," for example. Indeed, surely more so.

That's partly just a result of the charming human tendency to nod along with whomever is sitting next to you. But it's also the predictable result of the fact that a professor has been educated, often for a decade or more, by the very institutions that harbor this unanimity. Every new generation of professors has been steeped in an atmosphere in which the authorities all agree and in which they associate agreement with intelligence -- and with degrees, jobs, tenure and so on. If you've been taught
that conservatives are evil idiots, then conservatism itself justifies a
decision not to hire or tenure one. Every new leftist minted by graduate
programs is an act of self-praise, a confirmation of the intelligence of the
professors.

That this smog of consensus is incompatible with the supposedly
high-minded educational mission of colleges and universities is obvious. Yet
higher education is at least as dedicated to the reproduction of Obama-ism as it
is to conveying information. But academics are massively self-deceived about
this, which makes it all the more disgusting and effective.

The good doctor--an anarchist, and neither a conservative nor a liberal--lends his relatively disinterested voice to the chorus of conservative critics that has decried the deliberate exclusion of conservatives from academic departments. (Learn about the remarkable case of Mark Moyar, the brilliant author of Triumph Forsaken, here.) This distressing tendency is a major reason that I myself elected to pursue secondary teaching certification in Latin rather than a Ph.D. in Classical Studies, against the counsel of my professors. I can think of at least one fellow conservative student who has expressed anxiety about his chances of obtaining a tenured position once he achieves his doctorate.

Too often, academic freedom is nothing more than the freedom to believe that whatever academia says is true.

Liberals And Conservatives Just Have Different Moral Values...?

A friend, who has become increasingly liberal as he has progressed through college, recently sent me an article that purports to shed light on why conservatives and liberals have honest misunderstands that lead to name-calling. I wish I still had it--and I may be able to coax it out of him again--but its title was something like, "'Are Conservatives Stupid, Or Evil?" The article's surprising (to its readers) conclusion: Neither! Liberals are simply more concerned with how proposed policies will affect everyone involved, while conservatives are more concerned with in-group loyalty, purity, and respect for authority.

Now, I'm a strange conservative because I'm a strange person. By that, I mean that I have made political philosophy a much deeper area of study and thought than the vast majority of Americans. My liberalism--that is, American conservatism--is grounded in a conception of the proper scope of government that also happened to be the major contributor to the United States Constitution. It has its roots in John Locke, the Baron de Montesquieu, and several others. This conception was transmitted to me partially through my father, and partially through a man I consider to be an intellectual hero nearly unparalleled in American history: William F. Buckley. It is not based on feelings or good intentions; it is a intellectual belief.

Doubtless, the political views of some conservatives stems from a respect for authority, purity, and the in-group. But my classical liberalism, and those of many of my friends, is based specifically on government non-intervention, and none of those moral values from which conservatives' views supposedly stem. But it is easy to see how a liberal, like those whose research is used to support the article's argument, would perceive conservatives' values in this way.

When progressives look at policy, they do indeed look at its effects on various groups. In fact, this is their main viewpoint for policy. Their intent is to make groups equal; thus, affirmative action counteracts the corrupt power relationships between race and gender groups, progressive income taxation counteracts the corrupt power relationships between rich and poor, etc. From this standpoint, it is easy to see how conservative views could be seen as deliberately unequalizing. In some cases, particularly the issue of gay marriage, this might possibly be a fair characterization. But in the case of flat taxation, lowered government spending, and decreases in government services, conservative concerns are not about power relationships between citizen groups, but simply between the government and the citizenry.

This concept is so foreign to most modern liberals' minds--and to the minds of people in general, often--that it usually does not even occur to them. When it is made explicit, it is more often an object of wonder than a position seriously to be debated. More harmfully, history has been often written by Progressives--whose devotion to cartoonish images of reality that constitute a sort of modern Big Lie is legendary and continues to this day--who have forgotten many important details of that important time in our nation's history when progressivism overtook classical liberalism as the nation's most influential political philosophy. (This is the reason that I consider Jonah Goldberg's book to be so crucial to a real understanding of America's political history, as well as modern liberalism in general.)

Are conservatives evil? Dumb? Morally different? Not at all; they are the out-group of an elite cultural liberalism that, contrary to conventional wisdom, favors above all things purity, the in-group, and respect for the authority of government.

Argh! More Posting Promised

I've posted far less than I would like, mostly due to work. However, there is another cause: Jonah Goldberg's brilliant and important book, Liberal Fascism. Here is one brilliant summation of why liberals (the real kind) such as myself despise progressive governance:

"The village may have replaced 'the state,' and it in turn may have replaced the fist with the hug, but an unwanted embrace from which you cannot escape is just a nicer form of tyranny."

(The "village" of which he speaks is Hillary Clinton's village which it apparently takes to raise a child. This means, to Clinton, that there "really isn't any such thing as someone else's child"--her words. Yipes. New meaning to the term "nanny state"?)

Excuses, Then Inspiration

I'm working on a bit longer, more polished essay-style post rather than the traditional random-thought-or-gut-reaction-to-news-story musing. To that end, there will be no morning post and possibly no evening post.

On the other hand, I figured I would provide you, gentle reader, with some real inspiration. Therefore, partake:







The Michigan Marching Band, I have recently discovered, was the first to be awarded the Sudler Trophy, in 1981. A description:

The purpose of the Sudler Trophy is to identify and recognize collegiate
marching bands of particular excellence who have made outstanding contributions
to the American way of life. The Sudler Trophy is awarded annually to a college
or university marching band which has demonstrated the highest musical standards
and innovative marching routines and ideas, and which has made important
contributions to the advancement of the performance standards of college
marching bands over a period of years.

No marching band may win more than once. All Big Ten schools except Wisconsin and Minnesota own a Sudler Trophy; Michigan State, for those of my readers hailing thence, won theirs in 1988.

Additionally, CollegeSports-Fans.com's Michael Shull, a well-travelled fan of both football and marching bands, ranked the MMB #10 on his Top Ten Marching Bands list in 2007: "Having seen the Michigan Marching Band in person on many occasions, I can tell you that this is a group which is rich in tradition with one of the most recognizable fight songs in the history of college athletics." The only other Big Ten school to appear was, of course, the Ohio State Marching Band, at #2. The University of Wisconsin received honorable mention.

I Am A Heretic

My friend "ThinkCarpeDiem" has posted an objection to this post about the competition between liberalism (i.e. modern conservatism) and progressivism (i.e. modern liberalism). Unless there is an outcry for it, I shall not post that objection--you can look at the link yourself--but I think the counter-comment I wrote clarifies my position on this issue. Read on:

TCD:
Thanks for the comments. I think you may have misunderstood
what I wrote, because I'm not entirely sure what relation your comment has on my
post. But I shall attempt a response.

1. I think your impression is that I mean that liberals are not smart. That's not what I said at all, and in fact there are many quite intelligent progressives both in the past and now. What I said was that progressivism is not an intellectual movement;
it isn't about philosophy, it's about action. It has certain underlying
assumptions, primarily that government has the authority to take action in any
area of life if it may improve people's lives. It assumes that all those
opposed to the sort of government action they desire are either immoral,
ignorant, or insane. These facts can be traced throughout the history of
progressivism.

2. I don't believe progressives are inferiors. I do believe they are incredibly wrong about the role of government, and dangerously so. I do not flinch from speaking the truth that communism, fascism, syndicalism, and many other utopian dreams were--and are--motivated by the same or similar ideals expressed in the modern progressivist movement. Finally, I do not respect those who, having reflected upon the situation, would unhesitatingly choose to take away my freedoms for their view of a better society. There are many who would choose to take away my freedoms without inspecting where such a choice takes them or what motivates it. But the
sort of person who has thought about it and still chooses to enslave me to their
utopian vision is the sort of "well-intentioned busybody" that C.S. Lewis
decried and who is worthy of no respect or admiration, only contempt and
defiance.

3. I know that your dream is that good-natured debate and
reflective thought will bring everyone to a consensus about what should be done,
or at least amicable disagreement. The problem is that there is no debate
between classical liberalism and progressivism. There is no intellectual
defense of progressivism that has been presented for many years, because
progressives for many years have not considered themselves in need of
defense. Their good intentions, reverence for "science," and impulse to
action are all the evidence they need that they are right and their opponents
are wrong. This is the reason that progressivism has become a secular
religion. Classical liberalism is then not simply a competing view to be
debated, but a heresy to be demonized.

Whither The GOP: Positives and Negatives

Yuval Levin wrote a piece for Commentary recently, entitled, "Not Quite Dead," in response to an obituary written by George Packer of The New Yorker for a political philosophy--you can guess which one. Here's an interesting bit:

Let me suggest two things he might have noted. First of all, the kind of
intellectual turmoil and self-searching he cites would be almost unimaginable on
the left, today or at most points in the past half century. Conservatism is an
intellectual movement in a way that American liberalism generally hasn’t been.
For a long time, American liberals could draw their ideas from the European
Left, and from the socialist experiment. The fall of communism—which certainly
ended an era for the Right, and left many conservatives searching for a clear
purpose—was far more of a challenge to the Left, and one the left has yet to
recover from, or even fully engage. Clintonian triangulation helped pass the
time for a while in the 90’s, and anti-Bushism has helped since, but what is the
worldview underlying Obama’s and Clinton’s platforms today? The relative absence
of heated arguments about that question on the left is not a sign of strength.

As Jonah Goldberg would point out--what? I'm reading his book, alright?--modern liberals (i.e. progressives) would rather not probe their philosophical foundations, since it has a genealogy that goes back to Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the French Revolution, and more recently Karl Marx, with the discomfiting philosophical off-shoots of fascism and communism. Moreover, progressivism is all about improving mankind, both in its external environment and internal character. Thus, they have no need for a political philosophy beyond this; there is need only for science to tell us what government ought to do, and do it. Fascism, Communism, and the Wilsonian experiment, the New Deal, and the Great Society are all experiments toward this goal.

Conservatism--that is, classical liberalism--on the other hand, is uniquely an intellectual and philosophical entity. Unlike progressivism, it has always been fed through discourse and argumentation rather than action. This is undoubtedly a time in which progressives see the door open for bold new experimentation in government problem-solving, but with the continuation of conservative stalwarts such as National Review, Commentary, and The Weekly Standard, as well as the burgeoning blogosphere and new and important thinkers, it is also a time of intellectual rebirth for classical liberalism.

Take heart; here are a few past presidential elections that featured only progressives, after which liberalism lived on:

1912 (Progressive Party endorsed Teddy Roosevelt, Wilson ran as the progressive hero of Princeton)
1916 (Charles Evans Hughes had a progressive track record, Wilson was Wilson)
1928 (revered progressive Herbert Hoover won this, no politcal conservative he)
1932 (Hoover wasn't going fast enough for progressives anymore)
1936 (Republican Alf Landon supported much of the New Deal)
1944 (Thomas Dewey accepted most of the New Deal)
1948 (Thomas Dewey vs Truman)
1952 (Eisenhower continued the New Deal, and Adlai Stevenson was a famed progressive leader)
1956 (see before)
1960 (leftist Nixon vs militarist Kennedy)
1968 (Nixon vs revered progressive Humphrey)
1972 (McGovern. Nuff said.)
1976
1988
1992
1996
2000
2004

Okay, that leaves 1920's Harding, 1924's Coolidge, 1940's Wendell Wilkie, 1964's Barry Goldwater, and 1980's and 1984's Ronald Reagan. Harding was philosophically better than Wilson and certainly left the country in better shape, but hardly distinguished himself. Coolidge basically represented the American resentment toward progressivism that lingered after Wilson's suppression of domestic dissent. Thereafter, Wendell Wilkie managed to win nomination only because of Republicans' distrust of its party's more distinguished but dovish aspirants. 1964 was a watershed moment, as the first truly classical liberal nominee in forty years managed to become the Republican nominee. The New Conservatism, by now the intellectually robust movement it is today, then gave us Ronald Reagan in 1980.

Some leading lights have faded, but new ones are coming. Until then, keep standing up to those who would take away your freedoms.

Socialism Watch

Representative Maxine Waters (D., Venezuela) yesterday threatened a major oil executive with "socialization" of the oil industry if off-shore drilling didn't produce lower gas prices:

Link: sevenload.com

At least she's honest about which direction she wants America to go, unlike Barack Obama; if your philosophy is that the government exists to solve problems, then what better aspiration could there be than government take-over of large, crucial industries?

Now, at present these are merely the ravings of (I believe) the same notoriously batty representative who also asked NASA spokeshumans on the House floor if the Pathfinder robot saw our flag on Mars. In this instance, she also couldn't come up with the correct word for what she wanted to do: "nationalize." On a deeper level, she couldn't possibly be ignorant of what generally happens to oil production--key to lowering prices--when the government takes over...could she? (See Mexico and Venezuela for results.) But under the influence of the Obamas, Clintons, and Edwardses of the world, our nation inches closer to this possibility.

Of course, if government did take over the oil industry, the prices would likely be raised on purpose, if they could get away with it. After all, gas usage contributes to global warming! Modern liberalism--or, to use the correct term, "progressivism"--is all about making a better world and a better people through government policy. As Jonah Goldberg has written, it's what inspired Leninism in Russia, Nazism in Germany, Fascism in Italy, and the vast government experimentation of the Wilson, Roosevelt, and Johnson administrations.

Waters's socialist remark should be a reminder of what is at stake in this coming election--although McCain is as close to a progressive as self-proclaimed "conservatives" get. Her party, should a Democrat win the presidency, will have a nearly free hand to attempt to engineer society however it wishes. Caveamus...let us be wary.

Blogging Shall Return...

...tomorrow, or possibly tonight. Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about you, gentle reader! I have, however, sacrificed your general enlightenment in favor of earning a few bucks, for I must go to work today.

However, I shall leave you with a fantastic column--by one of my favorite classicists, Victor Davis Hanson--about the colonels who have turned Iraq around, their possible promotions to general, and commanders in American history who have won wars by rejecting the conventional wisdom of the Army establishment. Enjoy!

Whither The GOP: A Short History

In the 1930s, the progressive craze nearly destroyed the Republican Party. The twin crises of the stock market crash of 1929 and World War II frightened the nation into accepting enormous amounts of government control, taxation, and spending, and the Democrats owned it all. The Republicans, still embracing the classical liberalism of the 1800s and 1920s, were nearly destroyed, left at one point with 18 senators in total.

The GOP, however, managed to retake Congress once the war ended, but the damage was done. The sweeping new powers of government could not be turned back. Truman continued the New Deal policies, and Eisenhower sustained them. Classical liberalism, now termed "conservatism," was on the decline. In this environment, William F. Buckley lighted a small candle called the National Review, in the hopes of pushing back the lengthening shadow of government control against which no one else resisted. This candle grew into the flame of Barry Goldwater, the first representative of the "New Conservatism" and the first victory over the old conservatism of anti-Semitism, on the one hand, and elitist big government policies on the other. National Review grew in influence among Republicans, but still the GOP tactic of being watered-down Democrats dominated with the election of Richard Nixon in 1968 and the nomination of Gerald Ford over Ronald Reagan in 1976.

The flame was fanned into a wildfire by 1980, as the big-government policies of James Carter and his predecessors sent the economy into a downward spiral that defied Keynesian analysis, featuring both inflation and unemployment--previously considered an impossibility. The New Conservatism, by now firmly entrenched in the Republican Party, pushed Ronald Reagan into the presidential nomination and then into the White House after a crushing victory over Carter. This new paradigm in the Republican Party tolerated a more moderate George H.W. Bush to ascend to the presidency, then made an impact on the Democrats as Bill Clinton moved his party to the right with his "New Democrats." Newt Gingrich counterattacked by pointing out the big-government policies that Clinton, despite his promises, actually pushed through, and his 1994 Contract With America, based primarily on decreasing government spending and term limits for legislators, unelected a sitting Democratic speaker of the house and retook both houses of Congress. The partisan battles roared on until 2000, when George W. Bush promised to move his party to the left with "Compassionate Conservatism." Winning the 2000 election by a sliver, Bush proceeded to enact several large federal programs while simultaneously paying slight attention to conservatism with two modest tax decreases. This method of taking over previously Democratic territory by moving left worked for a few elections, as Republicans saw unprecedented mid-term election gains in 2002 and even more in 2004.

However, the price was steep. Demoralized conservatives, after having campaigned against Kerry and Gore, found themselves with no one to turn to. The excitement of 2004 evaporated and was replaced by a serious malaise, manifesting itself first in the massive electoral defeat of 2006. While conservatives weren't paying attention, congressional Republicans became first-class purveyors of pork barrel spending and big-government solutions. They became indistinguishable from Democrats, and this shift was led by none other than Senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham.

With the presidential primary approaching, consevatives tried to determine their course. Mitt Romney was a successful Republican from a very blue state, but his serious lack of consistency was problematic. Rudy Giuliani seemed solid, but had never held even statewide office, and his pro-choice and pro-gay marriage views were worrying in regard to Supreme Court appointments. John McCain was a war hero and an old stalwart among the conservative ranks, but his 2000 rejection of conservatism, his craving for the media's love, and his decided lack of higher conservative principle were troubling. Huckabee related well with the evangelical element of the GOP base, but outside of his rhetoric, there wasn't much real conservatism to be found. Ron Paul, of course, represented the conspiracist, anti-Semitic, isolationist Old Right. Fred Thompson was conservative in all the right ways, had a good track record, and was a phenomenal speaker, but he didn't have the energy or dedication for the campaign trail.

The result of all this confusion was John McCain, mostly because people liked his toughness and believed him to be the most electable due to his centrism.

We find ourselves today not with a conservatism that fails to excite, but with a GOP leadership that fails to be conservative. This is the fundamental failing of the GOP, that they are trying to steal the Democrats' natural territory--a doomed effort, to say the least--by giving up their own ground. They have failed to be an alternative, so no one is choosing them.

We need to give conservatives a choice again. But how? Tune in for the next blog post!

Today's GOP: The Problem

My little series about the future of the GOP happened, luckily, to coincide with a fantastic but depressing column by Robert Novak about congressional Republicans' latest lunacy:

On May 9, Flake sent Boehner a candid letter: "We need more than individual
members of the Republican leadership to state their opposition to the bill. We
need the leadership to use its good offices to explain the importance of
sustaining the president's veto as opposed to advising members to 'vote their
districts.'"

Boehner, waiting four days before responding, last Tuesday
rejected the "vote their districts" escape for House Republicans: "I believe
they should also vote their consciences, and cast their votes in a manner
consistent with the small government principles upon which our party was
founded." Boehner took the floor Wednesday to speak against the bill.

But nobody cracked the party whip. On the contrary, Minority Whip Roy Blunt voted
for the bill. So did Republican Conference Chairman Adam Putnam, who was seen
whipping votes for passage. House Republicans voted 100 to 91 to approve the
bill (with only 15 Democrats in opposition), assuring an overriden veto.
Similarly, in the Senate, Republicans voted 35 to 13 for the bill, and the only
Democrats opposing it were Rhode Island's two senators.

If you can stomach it, read the whole thing. We've come a long way since 1994! (Although, for my friends who hold the fantastical belief that Democrats are more committed to low spending: I don't know what to tell you.)

As Novak writes, the story of this bill's passage is the story of today's GOP. It is a party currently without a philosophy apart from how best to get elected.

Unfortunately for them, that philosophy is, basically, idiotic. The track record for Republicans when trying to become Democrat Lite--"We'll spend a lot, but not as much as the Democrats because we're small government people!"--they lose. But they don't seem to get that.

House and Senate members of both parties understand that earmarks and pork barrel spending for their districts is a way to buy votes and make constituents dependent on them and their built-up seniority and committee membership spots. If all you want to do is win elections, you know that's a tool in your toolbox, and both parties partake generously.

But you have to understand, as well, that high spending and low congressional restraint are exciting on an intellectual level for the Democrats' liberal electoral base. On the other hand, high spending is fundamentally demoralizing to the Republicans' conservative electoral base. So if this is your chosen strategy as a Republican, there's a built-in disadvantage in it if you have an R next to your name.

This is precisely what we're seeing: Republicans are not excited about this election. Why should they be? We have a presidential candidate who is to the left of every presidential candidate we've run since Nixon and Ford. We have a president who defends conservative principles only when convenient, and otherwise seems to take a default welfare-state tack--think No Child Left Behind, on which he worked closely with Senate Democrats, or the Medicare prescription drug benefit, or countless other bills. We have a congressional caucus that punishes members for being too conservative fiscally: Jeff Flake is likely the nation's staunchest and most courageous opponent of congressional largesse, and is deliberately kept out of the party leadership.

Meanwhile, Democrats are winning with very little pandering to political opponents; in fact, they've espoused a platform that is likely more left-wing than any platform since Woodrow Wilson promised to remake American society in 1912. (Perhaps even more left-wing than that.) Why? That is a subject for tomorrow's post.

Political Philosophy Matters

John Hinderaker of PowerLine posted this attack on John McCain made by Iowa Democratic Senator Tom Harkin:

Republican presidential candidate John McCain's family background as the
son and grandson of admirals has given him a worldview shaped by the military,
"and he has a hard time thinking beyond that," Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Ia., said
Friday.

"I think he's trapped in that," Harkin said in a conference call with
Iowa reporters. "Everything is looked at from his life experiences, from always
having been in the military, and I think that can be pretty dangerous."

Harkin said that "it's one thing to have been drafted and served, but
another thing when you come from generations of military people and that's just
how you're steeped, how you've learned, how you've grown up."

Hinderaker notes that this comment functions to exclude any military volunteer--much like all of our currently serving soldiers--from political discourse. Fair. But there's a bigger point to be made here about how Leftists think, what their philosophy is.

I once had a friend tell me that I wouldn't oppose government social spending if I was poor. This argument always takes me aback, a bit, but that's because it doesn't adhere well to rules of logic. (It's a sort of ad hominem fallacy.) But the entire Leftist philosophy is based on ad hominem fallacies that come down from such thinkers as Karl Marx. Socialism, Feminism, and Critical Race Theory all depend on a sort of identity politics: You can't understand racism, sexism, or class exploitation unless you're an oppressed person. You're an oppressed person by belonging to a certain group. Not in that group? Don't think oppression exists? Well, you just can't see or understand it because of who you are. It's easy to see the epistemological problem here; is the Emperor really wearing clothes?

One of the favorite oppressed underclasses of Democrats is military draftees who oppose(d) the war they participated in. American war heroes are in precisely the opposite camp. The only truly legitimate voices, to the modern liberal, are those of select "oppressed" groups--oh, and the modern liberal himself, since he/she is their protector and spokesman. It should never be a surprise that a war hero is denigrated for being a war hero.

To the modern liberal, the United States is often symbolic of imperialistic, racist, sexist, and capitalist hubris--bear with my caricature--and in a similarly symbolic way, those who fight us are the heroes. Thus Che Guevara--now-famously honored with a poster in a Houston campaign center for Barack Obama--and Alger Hiss are idealized and romanticized, while true heroes like John McCain and Oliver North are despised.

Falling Off Of...THE CLIFFS OF INSANITY!

In keeping with DBD's Princess Bride theme for the day.

Chris Arndt's blog, Apologies Demanded, has led me to a fantastical land of global warming craziness exposed for the entertainment of--hopefully--increasingly many. Global Warming Insanity documents the crazy things people do and say about the upcoming secular apocalypse and the Green code of conduct. (Think the Jesus statue from Scrubs, only with global warming instead of abortion. "No candescent lights!" "But what about our freedoms?" "Oh, yeah, I forgot. That's different then." "Really?" "NO CANDESCENT LIGHTS!" And so on.) Anyway, without further ado, the relevant story that I couldn't keep myself away from posting even though I promised to start a series about the Republican Party's future:

On Monday, Dr. Arthur Robinson of the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine will release the names of 31,000 American scientists who are skeptical about global climate change. There will be a statement attached to their collected signatures, the result of OISM's Petition Project.

Consensus: WHY WON'T YOU DIE!? Anyway, there will be a follow-up post to...follow. Darnit, now I've started on a different movie theme...

Can't Touch This

Obama cannot be touched, apparently.

It's not okay to hint that Barack Obama is an appeaser, even if you're really suggesting that about Jimmy Carter. Even if it actually makes a good point.

It's not okay to say that Barack Obama won't do a good job of protecting the nation. That would be an unacceptable personal attack.

There are other examples--including the racism column from The New Republic that I linked to a few days ago--but the fact is that any attack on a black politician (as long as he's a Democrat) is either a thinly-veiled appeal to Americans' supposed subconscious racism or an irresponsible lowering of the level of discourse, even when the attack is a legitimate issue.

This isn't a new politics; it's the old politics of manipulating public opinion by trying to form a certain image of yourself and a certain image of your opponent. Barack Obama is fashioning himself as the candidate who is above it all, who can work on a bipartisan basis (to enact strongly partisan legislation, shhh!), and, on a deeper level, who can absolve us all of guilt about the racial discrimination in our past. John McCain, on the other hand, represents the old way of politics (hehe, he's old!): personal attacks--how dare he say I'm less than fully qualified to run for president! for example--and the like.

Okay, end rant. My next post will be the first in a series, hopefully, about the future of the Republican Party. You stay classy, small number of readers.

Choose Your Oppressed Minority

One of the delightful features of the current Democratic primary is the battle between Democratic gender pandering and race pandering. Two columns today highlight the issue.

First, The New Republic's John Judis writes about implicit racism against blacks hurting Obama in the Democratic primary and the general election. Here's a bit of it:

What role, exactly, will that be? No one knows for sure, but the field of political psychology offers some clues. In recent years, scholars have been combining experimental findings with survey data to explain how race has remained a factor in American elections--even when politicians earnestly deny that it plays any part at all. In 2001, Princeton political scientist Tali Mendelberg summarized this research in a pathbreaking book, The Race Card. Her provocative analysis is hotly debated and far from conclusive; political psychology, after all, is not a hard science. Still, her ideas and those of other academics help to shed light on what has happened so far in the primaries and what might unfold once Obama wraps up the nomination. Their findings suggest that racism remains deeply embedded within the psyche of the American electorate--so deep that many voters may not even be aware of their own feelings on the subject. Yet, while political psychology offers a sobering sense of the difficulties that lie ahead for Obama, it also offers something else: lessons for how the country's first viable black presidential candidate might overcome the obstacles he faces.

You can read it yourself--though it's very long--but I can sum it up for you. Before 1970, there was explicit racism on bipartisan lines. After that, there was mostly only implicit racism all from Republicans...why, after all, did they oppose busing and affirmative action? Now, all Republican politicians that attempt to portray a Democratic opponent in a negative light are using racial code words to exploit voters' unconscious prejudices. Barack Obama will have a difficult time overcoming those Midwestern rednecks who don't even know they're racist. (By the way, how come those white blue-collar voters don't see how in-touch the Democrats are?) We've heard it all before, but this time it's backed up by university researchers whose tenured jobs are based entirely on the idea that blacks are systematically oppressed and prove it using experiments with severely flawed methodology and the useful recourse of calling your detractors racists.

What do the feminists have by way of response? Marie Cocco, writing for RealClearPolitics, decries the sexism that she says has ruined the Clinton campaign. She writes about all the things she won't miss, providing a hilarious litany of past anti-Hillary shenanigans. Then, this:

Most of all, I will not miss the silence.

I will not miss the deafening, depressing silence of Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean or other leading Democrats, who to my knowledge (with the exception of Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland) haven't uttered a word of public outrage at the unrelenting, sex-based hate that has been hurled at a former first lady and two-term senator from New York. Among those holding their tongues are hundreds of Democrats for whom Clinton has campaigned and raised millions of dollars. Don Imus endured more public ire from the political class when he insulted the Rutgers University women's basketball team.

Here's the gist of this shorter article: Pundits and politicians are using sexist images like a scolding mother or a nagging wife to exploit voters' implicit biases, and they're getting a pass for it. In fact, they're betraying Hillary Clinton, a distinguished stateshuman who has done a lot for make benefit of glorious party of Democrats. (Instead, her campaign is not success, and she will be execute.) The truth of the matter, of course, is that the Democrats are understandably sick of the Clintons' politics of personal destruction--a tactic which, unlike what Dems would have you believe, was perfected by the pair's machine during the Nineties, long before the name Monica Lewinsky became widely known. But the dark secret that the DNC doesn't want you to know is this: the Democrats have long based their tactics on pandering to demographic groups, and they think they can afford to offend women, but not blacks. They don't think feminists will riot at the convention, the way an Al Sharpton might. (Those racists! Or are they sexists?)

This is the true greatness of this primary season. Clinton and Obama barely differ in their policy stances. They're both richer-than-rich folks who grew up as children of privilege, now trying to use their gender and race identities to appeal to regular Americans. And, magically, it's tearing the Democratic party apart.

Here's to you, Operation Chaos.

global warming is not great

John Hinderaker at PowerLine Blog posts about the inconvenient fact that the Earth has not warmed since 1998.

He also brings up the Argos temperature buoys. You know, the ones that discovered a slight cooling in the Earth's oceans over the last five years, and whose accuracy was therefore questioned because it didn't fit the capital-T Truth.

I graduated from Michigan State University last week. At our convocation, the speaker was Gro Harlem Brundtland, a former prime minister of Norway; she came into our country, received an honorary degree from one of our universities, and denounced an official of our government (the great Antonin Scalia, to be precise) for being a "denier." Some of my fellow students snorted in disgust as she tickled their stereotypes--that evil genius Antonin Scalia! Of course he wouldn't listen to a sainted former head of state of the enlightened nation of Norway!--but I refused to clap. This intellectual thuggery is embarrassing, but not unexpected. If we needed any proof that society needs religion, this is it: what happens when an entire continent embraces atheism? They find some other faith to grab onto and bash people over the head with.

Indoctrination High

(I'm back! Sorry for the long cessation of blogging, but I've been extremely busy post-graduation. I should now be back for regular blogging.)

This one really burns me.

My sister, a junior in high school, was watching another of our sisters in her spring play, when a classmate started goading her about why she didn't believe in global warming. After giving an answer, several other students started berating her about it. Finally, when she tried to leave, one asked her, "Why are you a Republican?" Sick of the whole thing, my sister said--awesomely--"Because I have eyes to see!" They continued to accost her, and she said that she'd tried to explain it to them for years. The teacher who was in charge of the play walked in at that moment and said, "That's the problem with rational arguments; you can't stand up under them."

This is a fantastic statement considering the anti-rational means of spreading the religious faith and zealotry of liberalism employed by this guy: a few students boisterously gang up on another--and, by the way, much better--student, then a teacher walks in and backs up those other students without recourse to rational debate. This is the same teacher that has been spouting his opinions and (often wrong) facts in class as though they were true: global warming is real, corporations are evil, religion's got it all wrong, and Alger Hiss was innocent. (That last one is especially hilarious, considering that the great Whittaker Chambers used Soviet documents to prove that he was in fact guilty of spying for the Soviets.)

This sort of behavior--and, to be completely frank, historical ignorance--is unacceptable in a high school teacher.

Blogging WILL Be Back!

Hey all. I know I've been lax lately, but hey...I'm busy! I carried the College of Arts and Letters banner at convocation at the Breslin Center on Friday then checked out and left to visit some very dear relatives in Spring Arbor around 9:30 PM. Saturday, we made it back to East Lansing and I went to the Classical Studies graduate reception at 10:00 AM, then I graduated at 1:00 in the MSU Auditorium. On Sunday I began a major organization project in my old room at my parents house in Newaygo--where I shall summer, once again--and didn't manage to finish. Today, I am in Madison Heights, visiting my girlfriend and her family before she leaves for Ecuador to study at the University of St. Francis in Quito. This is why blogging has been down, and will continue to be so for the next few days.

However--and this is a veritable promise--I shall return. Stay tuned.