Someday, Maybe They'll Find That Wonderful "Generic Democrat"

But so far, they're stuck with trivial and/or unintelligent people.  Thank heaven.

Obama's in trouble.  After the national convention, a presidential candidate ought to see a 10-15 point bounce...nothing.  Not only that, but McCain's surprise pick of Sarah Palin, an energetic corruption-buster and staunch social conservative from Wasilla, Alaska, has been earning praise from the conservative base--and, just as importantly, millions in campaign contributions.  The pick upstaged the DNC and started the excitement of the GOP convention early.  Obama has already looked seriously wishy-washy and trite in a one-on-one debate with McCain; the Arizonan maverick is clearly a better debater than the Chicago machine pol.  And in one nationally televised debate, the feisty and intelligent Palin will reveal Biden to be an old, establishment blowhard and an intellectual lightweight.  The Obama campaign is looking more and more like failed Democratic campaigns past, whereas the McCain camp has energy and the promise of serious reform.  For the second time in as many presidential elections, a Democrat will speak on the first day of the Republican National Convention.

Everything's coming up roses for the GOP.

Nota: DDT

This has little to do with current events, but a recent disagreement with a friend leads me to provide this list of sites with information on DDT -- and the fact that it is most certainly not dangerous.

• Steven Milloy:  "DDT:  The Bald Eagle Lie."  Putting some of these Green movement lies to rest.
• RachelWasWrong.com:  "Is DDT Safe?"  Erm...yes.
• RachelWasWrong.com:  "DDT and Wildlife."  Friends forever.
• The Volokh Conspiracy:  "WHO Backs DDT Use."  International consensus, suckers!

(Not a complete list, but I wanted to get some down.  Enjoy.)

At The End Of The Game, They Still Have To Go Back To Utah

On the other hand, they won, so I guess they made the best of a bad situation.

So did Rich Rodriguez, but it wasn't enough.  The numbers don't necessarily reflect this, but...Nick Sheridan was much, much worse than Steven Threet.  Threet wasn't that great.  The O-line wasn't good.  The WRs aren't meant for this system.  The linebackers figured it out in the second half, too late to stop Utah from gaining a decisive advantage.

The good:

• My dad came down for the game; it was fun to hang out with him again.
• My dad managed to scalp a ticket for sixty bucks in the seventh row at the 50-yard-line.  Holy frick.
• Utah fans are pretty nice folks.
• Special teams are looking good.
• The second-half defense was the real defese, in my opinion.
• The inexperienced LBs learned fast, and the D, impressively, held Utah under 30 second-half total yards.
• Later on, Li'l Brother pulled another semi-"Sparty, No!" in losing to Cal.  So at least there was some satisfaction today.

The bad:

• The QBs are not good.  Sheridan's "hometown hero" campaign didn't last long.
• My dad and I switched seats--mine was in the student section--after half, and the M alum sitting next to me was SO WHINY.  I kinda wish I'd told him off.  On the other hand, he DID pay a lot of money for that seat for the whole year...but no.  No excuse.
• Greg Matthews got injured.
• All the positions that were question-marks came down on the "alarming" side.
• We need to win games that are close.  Yes, yes, this game wasn't ACTUALLY, REALLY close.  Not REALLY.  Not 25-23 close.  But still, when all you need is to get into FG position and you basically go backwards...

Optimism:  Reps, reps, reps.  Especially on the O-line, this is important.  We will improve.
Pessimism:  So how many games we win this year?  2?  3?

Nah, I think we win more than 2-3 games.  I think we do get better.  And I'm impressed with the D, despite their first-half awfulness, for holding a very good Utah team the way it did in the second half.  Our offense will not be Notre Dame 2007.

I do, however, revise my predictions down:  a bowl game would be an accomplishment for this team.  But if we aren't significantly better--smoother, at least--next year, something went very wrong.

OH, I forgot one in the "good" category:  The Illinois--Mizzou announcer said "It doesn't make sense to hold anything back now!"  We know, we know!  Yay.

Game Day

I'll write another post about the ridiculous and inevitable column about change at U-M with Rodriguez, but not now.  I'm tired from my last rant, and anyway today is, as Bob Ufer would say, the holy day of obligation for the religion that is Michigan football.  (Did I blaspheme enough there?  Maybe more later.)

We are running a cuhrazy system.  Our coach has a Southern-ish accent.  Michigan Stadium has two big chunks of steel on it.  We have someone on our team named "Martavious."  I am part of the student section.  Yes, lots of change at Michigan this year, and all of it very exciting.  "Martavious" can be re-arranged to spell "I'm a sour vat."  The guy who might be "the guy" at QB is a former walk-on from Saline.  Our offensive line currently consists of a returning mediocre starter, one of those beaded curtains, and a maize-and-blue painted rock that was pressed into service after injuries to Mark Huyge and Cory Zirbel, but who has reportedly "picked things up quickly" and may challenge for a starting spot.  Our linebackers are named Evans, Panter, and Ezeh.  These are among the frightening things about Michigan football as I sit here awaiting the opening kickoff.

But I guess there's only one way to find out...

GO BLUE

Lynn Henning Is Stuck In The 20th Century

It has been a LONG time since I posted, due to moving and adjusting to a new place.  (ANN ARBOR, WHOO!)  But here I am again, gentle readers, and writing about Michigan football.  Or rather, about bad journalism pertaining to Michigan football.

First, Lynn Henning, writing for the Detroit News.  He thinks Michigan and Michigan State will now both be perennial Top 25 football teams.  (I disagree, and not just because of my distaste for MSU athletics, but I'll get to that after I point out some of his horrifying logic.)  "Each school got it right, as 2007 proved with Mark Dantonio at Michigan State..."  Erm, no.  John L. Smith's first year at MSU was better than Dantonio's, and was more of an improvement from the previous year's team.  One can only hope that things turn out similarly.

"Miles, who is so much a clone of the late Schembechler that he even speaks in Bo's clipped sentences, would not have taken U-M football into the 21st century."  I cannot tell you how much I hate the phrase "into the 21st century" in football.  Teams will still run the I-form, the Wishbone, the Flexbone, the Power I, the Shotgun, the Pro Set, and Offset formations.  They will run the triple option, the wing-T, West Coast, the Run 'n' Shoot, the spread, and pro-style offenses.  Some will become preponderant, others will wait their turn; someone will invent new schemes, and everyone will incorporate some of its elements into their offenses.  The idea that Miles is stuck in the 20th century is ludicrous.  And in any case, I'll take that if it means national championships (Miles = very yes).  (That said, I like Rodriguez and I'm glad we hired him.  What I don't like is ridiculous statements.)

"Those near-miss losses were not coincidental. They were the product of a vastly strengthened Spartans team that was lacking, on one play or another, the experience or athleticism that might have tipped the game MSU's way."  Again, see John L. Smith's first year.  And Weis's first year.  And Willingham's first year.  And a lot of coaches' first years.  Moreover...OH, they just lacked experience or athleticism.  What else is there?  Intelligence?  If that was the Spartans' "strengthened" aspect, it wasn't apparent to me.

"They tabbed a head coach with presence, character and experience who knew Michigan State and, most important, its neglected recruiting potential."  "Neglected recruiting potential" seems kinda funny for a team that climbed as irrationally high as 16th in the rankings at one point during the tenure of the last coach, whose superior recruiting was also praised by journalists.  But....eh.  (Also, what "presence"?  The "presence" of a sullen 5-year-old after losing to Michigan last year?)  Now, I know MSU's 2009 recruiting class is, so far, ranked in the top ten, but I'll get to that later.

"'First base was a bowl game for us (a loss to Boston College at last year's Citrus Bowl).'"  Henning helpfully inserted this addendum into a quote from Dantonio.  The only problem is that they lost to Boston College last year in the Champs Sports Inc. Dot Com Classic Presented By Florida Citrus Sports...not the "Citrus Bowl," which has now existed for several years as the "Capital One Bowl" and was won, 41-35, by the University of Michigan over the University of Florida.  (Didn't he say something about coming into the 21st century?)

Finally...I guess it's true that the two could exist as Top 25 programs, but I don't think they will.  Recruiting plays an enormous role in college football.  Michigan is a national brand, State, for the most part, a local one.  Michigan is ramping up its out-of-state recruiting, particularly in Florida (receiving, now, several commitments from NFL feeder Pahokee, for example).  MSU is doing worse outside Michigan, but much better inside it--for now--largely because Michigan high schools run a system closer to Dantonio's than to Rodriguez's.  That will, and has already begun, to change as high schools adopt the spread option in order to produce recruits for U-M (see Detroit Cass Tech).  It is also a particularly good year for recruiting in the state.  Even as Michigan has neglected in-state recruits, they have received the recruits that fit its system well--notably speedy scat back Teric Jones.  I could be wrong, obviously, so I'm not saying this will definitely be the case, but...the available evidence suggests to me that things will go on in pretty much the same way they have in this state.  And...if so...GOOD.

The Battle of Saddleback Church

The two major presidential candidates recently participated in a debate hosted by the enormous and influential Saddleback Church in California and moderated by its ultra-famous pastor, the author of the heavily-merchandised The Purpose-Driven Life, Rick Warren.  Byron York has two good columns on the subject, here and here.  I'd like to comment on another, poorer, column, which can be found here.

Joan Walsh's monstrosity bears the title, "Are We Now an Officially Christian Nation?"  Like, are we now officially using the word "officially" a bit too loosely?

I marvel at Barack Obama's courage going into the lion's den of evangelical Saddleback Church, where the membership skews Republican.  I truly believe his kind of leadership will be crucial in moving the country forward after the polarizing Bush administration.

Pay attention, by the way, to what Joan Walsh apparently considers courageous, and what she does not.  Anyway, the concept of the "polarizing Bush administration" has always been somewhat laughable to me, especially considering his early, concerted, rebuffed efforts at reaching out--think No Child Left Behind, which was widely panned at the time by conservatives as pandering to the Senate Democrats such as Ted Kennedy, whose partnership was critical to the bill's passage.  But no matter; after all, according to the Left's definition of "bipartisan"--"We all agree that liberals are actually right"--Bush's would be a fairly polarizing presidency.  And that's just about the only way Barack Obama's presidency wouldn't be.

McCain occasionally does semi-courageous political jaunts--he went on an American poverty tour this spring, but when nobody was looking, at the height of the Obama-Clinton race, and (more to his credit) he visited the NAACP last month.

Oh, and McCain was kinda-sorta courageous when he visited the NAACP.  And he, erm, didn't do it as a political stunt.  But those guys'll only make TV ads that suggest Republican politicians are personally responsible for lynchings; the evangelicals are just vicious!

Walsh plays up his being "comfortable talking about his Christian faith."  All right, but then:

On the other hand, that bothered me a little bit too.  I'm not sure why Obama voluntarily sat down for a nationally televised conversation about his private religious faith with a relatively conservative Christian leader, as though that's a reasonable station of the cross, so to speak, for a major American presidential candidate.  There's no doubt Rick Warren's congregation has done good things on social justice issues, especially AIDS, but Warren has made no secret of his extreme views on abortion and gay rights (as well as his support for the Iraq War).  Obama visiting the church, speaking there?  Smart politics.  Attending a nationally televised forum, almost as big a deal as a debate, at such a church?  I think that was wrong.

Where do I start here?  Of course it bothered her; she clearly finds Christians, on the whole, distasteful.  (Unless, of course, they can be Christians who, like Obama, use their religion mostly as a vehicle for liberal politics.)  Beyond that, Walsh not only doesn't understand why a presidential candidate should take part in a debate held by evangelical Christians; she thinks it was "wrong." (!)  Wrong to address a major group of voting citizens, wrong to allow evangelical Christianity, as an institution, to influence our government.  Clearly, the only institutions that should be allowed to influence politics are liberal special-interest lobbying groups like the NAACP, NARAL, moveon.org, and so on.  You know, people who don't hold "extreme views" (read: views that are different from mine).  And if Walsh thinks that opposing the defining-down of marriage and believing that life begins at conception are "extreme" views, she's either been spending too much time on the Left Coast or watching too much TV.  As far as Obama's "private" religious views, we might remember Russell Kirk and the fact that all political disagreements are, at their root, theological disagreements.  We might also remember C.S. Lewis:  "No Christian and, indeed, no historian could accept the epigram which defines religion as 'what a man does with his solitude.'"

Oh, by the way, Walsh thinks Warren treated McCain much better than Obama.  He kept saying "mhmm" and "um-hm" during Obama's answers!  For a member of the mainstream media, you'd think she'd have seen bias before; of course, I suppose seeing isn't perceiving.  She probably never noticed it until this savage example of partisanship.

The next paragraph is simply so trite, so filled with unabashed vapidity, that I find myself unable to post it all at once.  It must be enjoyed bite by bite.  "I thought he used this opportunity...to hammer home his worldview and the specific policies he knows he and Saddleback members have in common--from the Supreme Court justices he wouldn't reappoint to arguing his crazy hawkish view on the Russia-Georgia conflict."  In the first place, are we twelve, Ms. Walsh?  "Crazy hawkish"?  Beyond the teeny-bopper lingo, I guess it just doesn't take much to be a "hawkish" these days, considering that McCain's response to Russia's invasion of Georgia is to...I don't know, say it was wrong?  Oh, and he wants to "persuade the Russian government to end violence permanently and withdraw its troops from Georgia," place "international monitors" in "war-torn areas," and "ensure that emergency aid lifted by air and sea is delivered."  Quit harshing my conquest!

"My reaction to that creepy pandering was, simply, oy.  But the crowd loved it."  Does it really amount to "creepy pandering" when a presidential candidate says something the crowd agrees with?  Ms. Walsh does know that, despite the likely political composition of her own personal group of friends, there are people out there who sincerely believe differently from her, doesn't she?  Those people voting Republican aren't just hoaxes perpetrated by the military-industrial complex, represented primarily by Halliburton.  (But how could such people live in a civilized state, like California?  Indeed.)

I shudder even to place the next one on my blog, but I must press on:  "He played his prisoner of war role to great advantage as well."  Let's remember the "courage" of Barack Obama, at which Ms. Walsh "marveled."  What exactly is her definition of courage, anyway?  Simply being someone with whom she agrees?  John McCain wasn't an actor in a movie in which he was a prisoner of war.  Nor was his camp like Bridge Over the River Kwai or Stalag 13.  He was actually tortured.  Ms. Walsh, unlike you or Barack Obama, the most difficult period of his life wasn't the WGA writer's strike, or that time there was a really long line at Starbucks.  I'm not saying that makes him a better presidential candidate; I'm not really saying anything about him.  But this statement reveals not only Ms. Walsh's fatal unseriousness, but also an unseriousness that plagues society in general.  Despite recent complaints, we have more material prosperity than has ever existed in the world; very few can remember a time when things were much worse.  It's no wonder, then, that people forget what it took to generate and sustain this prosperity.

"I'm sure he did himself a little bit of a favor just by going.  We'll see.  The Jesus I believe in wishes he hadn't felt he had to, but maybe that's just me."  Ms. Walsh, I suspect that it's more than just "maybe":  The Jesus you believe in, evidently, is just you.

Links, 8-15-2008

• Gerard Baker:  Georgia:  Europe Wins a Gold Medal for Defeatism.  "If shifting moral blame won't relieve us of our responsibilities then surely defeatism will."  Europe and its moral degeneration.
• Thomas Sowell:  Whose Special Interests?  "Since unions are losing the game under the current rules, their obvious answer is to change the rules."  Open-ballot measure touted as worker's rights breakthrough really is about intimidating workers into doing the union's bidding.  Guess which presidential candidate strongly supports it?
• Kathleen Parker:  The Beauty of Imperfection.  "Democracy is messy."  I think she means "freedom is messy," but no matter.  Chinese Olympics stuff.
• Mona Charen:  The 3 A.M. Phone Call Is Real.  "Americans had already expressed misgivings about Barack Obama’s preparedness for the harsh world we inhabit. This laboratory test can only increase that anxiety."  Yeah, B.O. called for a U.N. Security Council resolution to halt the violence.  Guess who has a Security Council veto?
• James E. Carter and James C. Miller III:  President Obama's Economy.  "The combination of profligate spending and higher tax rates created a substantial drag on the economy. It didn’t help that President Obama has presided over one of the most protectionist administrations in decades."  A "look ahead."

Fall Fixtures

It's that time of year again!  (via Adam Rittenberg's Big Ten Blog on ESPN.com)

Three Michigan State football freshmen are facing misdemeanor charges of failure to obey police.

And they say Michigan State has no tradition!  Anyway:

Safety Charles Burrell, defensive end Cameron Jude and walk-on receiver Mitchell White were cited June 30 for fleeing from campus police when approached and ordered to stop near Snyder Hall, said Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III.

Fortunately for the sake of justice, East Lansing police are fairly experienced in the art of apprehending people of, for whatever reason, less-than-average intelligence.  Despite Dantonio's intense conditioning, which was just as intense as Mike Barwis, and Michigan State's really just as good as Michigan and ha your basketball team sucks Chris Webber hahahahaha *sob and down another Pabst*, the players couldn't evade the police.

It just....wouldn't seem like college football without a warrant out for a Michigan State player's arrest.  THIS IS SPARTA! (in a nutshell):

Links, 8-14-2008

• Charles Krauthammer:  How to Stop Putin.  "The Russia-Georgia cease-fire brokered by France's president is less than meets the eye."  But only because the Russian troops are still moving.
• Senator John McCain:  We Are all Georgians.  "The Georgian people have suffered before, and they suffer today."  *nodding*
• President Mikheil Saakashvili:  Russia's War Is the West's Challenge.  "The Russian leadership cannot be trusted -- and this hard reality should guide the West's response."  Yes, and probably.
• Victor Davis Hanson:  Brave Old World.  "Brace yourself -- we may be on our way back to an old world, where the strong do as they will, and the weak suffer as they must."  Back to (a state of) nature.
• Dodge Billingsley:  Politics Is Local.  "The truth is, both the Ossetians and Abkhazians are happy to side with Moscow."  Interesting counterpoint from a long-time student of Georgia's military.

Cogitationes, 8-12-2008

• Our nation has a tendency to blame elected officials whenever something goes wrong, the implication being that these problems could have been prevented or solved with relative ease.  The news media provides an army of experts and pundits who reinforce this belief, since there is no shortage of people who have never had to make a more serious decision than what hair growth product to purchase who, if something does go wrong, know exactly what should have been done.  Democracies are uniquely intolerant of viewpoints that don't reflect the ideas of at least a large minority, and so no one goes on television to say that a certain problem is or was unavoidable, unforeseeable, or insoluble.  Well, I may not have a big audience, but I'll say it.  There is no real solution to the conflict in Georgia.  And, for all practical purposes, there never was.
• All that said, there are lessons to be drawn from this.  One is the sad fact that military strength and the expectation of its employment is the only real way to stop vile people from acting vilely.  Goodwill only goes so far, and only with others with a modicum of goodwill; brute force is sometimes needed, because sometimes there are brutes.  Another lesson can be drawn about the importance of energy-producing nations.  Russia will never face resistance from France and Germany, because that nation has become almost the sole supplier of energy to Europe.  If Russia completes their de facto conquest of Georgia, they will acquire as well the only pipeline from the Caspian Sea to Europe that had been independent of them:  that running from Baku, Azerbaijan, to the Mediterranean coast of Turkey at Ceyhan.  The United States, and our European allies, need to have a rational strategy for energy independence, including both transitioning to alternative sources of energy and to domestic oil production.  We need it, not because of the phantasm of global warming, but to counter rising threats from hostile and aggressive petro-empires.
• This lesson, however, deserves its own bullet point.  Its own cogitatio, if you will.  This will seem an unfair point, but I assure you, gentle reader, that it is only that:  a seeming.  The Guardian is Britain's premier left-wing publication, and a reliable standard for leftism around the world.  Resultantly, there is hardly a publication that can be more reliably counted upon to condemn America and its allies and justify its enemies.  Jonathan Steele delivers the predictable rebuttal against the community of common sense here.  It is a masterpiece of what amounts to moral equivalence, a charming renewal of the Western Left's long tradition of useful idiocy, once employed in the aid of international socialism, now in the aid of nationalist neo-tsarism.
• Speaking of the media!  Some will remember that last year there were rumors that several news organizations, notably the Los Angeles Times, had information about a presidential candidate's illicit affair.  Citing ethical reasons, all declined to publish that news--and, if I may say, it would have been admirable if those were truly the reasons.  Although personal integrity and strength of character are important qualities for a leader, there is still something grotesque about the gleeful publication of their various personal misdeeds.  (Readers will remember, or at least be informed, that President Clinton abused his power to get a job for his mistress, then obstructed justice and lied about it under oath.  These are not personal issues; these are felonies.)  Now, to put it frankly, there is no way in hell that ethics played a role in the decision not to publish this news.  After all, we are speaking of the news media here.  I therefore noted to friends at the time that the candidate was likely a Democrat; after all, if it were a Republican, the news would have been published before even being edited.  My liberal friends scoffed; some months later, the New York Times published a front-page spread about John McCain's possibly having had an affair with a female lobbyist nine years earlier, based solely on the testimony of two disgruntled former staffers.  During the last week, we discovered that, in fact, the LA Times's adulterous politician was a Democrat.  Jennifer Rubin discusses this "embarrasment" here.  My guess is that it's less "embarrassment," and more "wishing they hadn't been caught."

Links, Russia Invades Georgia Edition

• George Will:  Russia's Power Play.  "Who remembers 1934?  Or anything."  Usual brilliance.
• Victor Davis Hanson:  Moscow's Sinister Brilliance.  "The Russians have sized up the moral bankruptcy of the Western Left."  More on this later.
• William Kristol:  Will Russia Get Away With It?  "Dictators aren’t moved by the claims of justice unarmed."  Wait...they aren't?
• Robert Kagan:  Putin Makes His Move.  "The next president had better be ready."  You're telling me.

Today, Some Poetry

This is an original, inspired by a visit to one of my oldest, deepest loves: Lake Michigan. As a disclaimer, this is by no means supposed to be a historically faithful account of my visit.



Reflections on a Pier in St. Joseph

“You will find poetry nowhere, unless you bring some of it with you.” – Joseph Joubert

The sun descends upon the lake,
The inland sea I call my own,
Straggling brilliance in its wake,
And I watch it here alone.

Is it me that sinks beneath the foam?
An idea buried in too-real stuff?
But the realm of night is not its home,
It rises soon enough.

Drink in the colors, the purples and blues,
Breathe in the lake and its sounds,
Watch the clouds drift, the sun’s rays diffuse,
It’s a simple beauty I’ve found.

When the golden orb falls through the threshold of night,
I’ll be left on its doorstep, my eyes full of shade.
But its windows will open, reveal stars, bold and bright,
And the glory in them God has made.

Now seagulls calling, each one to each,
Greet my ears with a familiar old cry.
I welcome them, gathered on the edge of the beach,
Comrades in sunsets gone by.

As my eyes meet the sun’s swift-fleeing, reddening gaze,
I think upon him and he thinks upon me.
My envy is of the splendor that crowns all his days
And his of the spark, my mystery.

All Creation groans, its true face turned away,
Away from man’s eyes, except God change his heart.
For then its right image meets clear light of day,
And the poet reveals through his art.

I'd Like To Thank Myself. This Couldn't Have Happened Without Me.

Or my two hundred and ten bucks.

This is me, holding the culmination of my entire life's work.

Five glorious season tickets, obscuring the two other equally glorious tickets, the glorious season T-shirt voucher, and the glorious flecks of spittle on my mouth.  I have a glorious problem.

The Evidence, Yo

Ahem.

Tom, a faithful commenter and a good friend, asked for my sources on the tie between gay marriage and dissolution of the family in those nations that have legalized the former; he also wanted evidence that links legalization of gay marriage with weakening of families.  I can do both at once:  The indispensable Stanley Kurtz has done the research for us.

May 25, 2004: "Unhealthy Half-Truths"
May 31, 2004: "Going Dutch?"
June 3, 2004:  "No Explanation"
July 21, 2004: "Dutch Debate"
February 23, 2006: "Standing Out"

I do not, of course, mean for these to be definitive.  But at the very least, this evidence must give us pause.  Marriage is an indispensable element of a stable and civilized society.  It is certainly reasonable to believe that defining marriage down--from one man and one woman to any two people who love each other, from being inseparable from parenting to being independent of it--might weaken it as an institution.  And that is certainly no triviality.

Do some Christians oppose gay marriage because they oppose homosexuals themselves?  Of course, and that is wrong, and sad.  It gives proponents of gay marriage an opening to attack their opponents.  But those who seek to legalize gay marriage have also been irresponsible; instead of engaging in an honest debate, they have used the same tactics as the environmental movement, the welfare-state movement, and the race-baiting industry in impugning the motives of their opponents, calling them names, and shouting them down.  Sadly, in all likelihood, these tactics will work.  Then we can experience its effects on the institution of marriage for ourselves.

Links, 8-6-2008

Rather late, I know, but what the heck?

• Jay Nordlinger:  The Road to Beijing, Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.  (More will come, so head over to NRO for those.)  Fellow Michigander discusses issues relating to China and the Olympic Games in Beijing.  As always, his focus is the despotism of the "People's Republic", its many human rights abuses, the heroic dissidents of the regime, and the reactions of Westerners.
• Kathryn Jean Lopez:  What's the Matter With Kansas?  The story of a public servant's hard battle fighting serious crimes committed by Planned Parenthood.
• Walter Williams:  A Nation of Thieves.  Professor Williams reviews a new book on the dangers of the welfare state.  Typically, a gem.

A Facebook Argument, Shifted

A friend of mine placed several posts on my facebook wall ridiculing the idea that liberal policies of large welfare-state programs and centralization have caused social decay.

"Oh, I see. The grinding materialism is the Democrat's fault. :p Funny, the party that called for Americans to contribute to the war on terrorism by "going to the store" now decries materialism. :p"

I, of course, am neither the Republican Party, nor George W. Bush, nor is the Republican Party George W. Bush.  Dubya here said a very non-conservative thing, which both you and I deride.

"How are institutions of family and church being 'deliberately eroded', exactly? Is there legislation being passed requiring divorce? Have we passed a bill barring people from attending churches, synagogues, and mosques? Or are you concerned that familial and religious structures unfamiliar to you are springing up to allow people who don't fit into society's narrow view of what is the "right" way to live, to allow familial, religious, and communal support to the non WASPs of society?"

The institution of the family is being eroded quite deliberately.  Many prominent and influential education professors (and men such as Richard Dawkins, incidentally) proclaim outright that their goal is to turn children away from their families.  (Curiously similar to the approach Nazi Germany took toward children.)  The intellectual history of liberalism is full of the ideas of socialization and the erosion of church and family as opposed to community and nation.  Consequently, many of the policy ideas and ideals that have been handed down to a liberal community that has, for some decades now, been in a state of intellectual torpor have the consequence of destroying certain inherently conservative institutions.  This, although such sentiments would only actually be expressed forthrightly by those inhabiting the deepest fever swamps of the American academy.

Even when liberals are not openly attacking these institutions, their policies are inherently anti-family, anti-church, and materialistic.  Individuals are necessarily dependent on others, and large welfare-state programs make them more dependent on the state, less dependent on community, family, and church.  This is demonstrably the case, as churches are significantly less important sources of charitable activity now than before the public dole, and many of the old community organizations, such as the lodges, are non-existent.  Moreover, the liberal idolization of universal economic security reflects their belief that either material existence is all there is, or that material security must be supplied before higher things can be thought of.  But it is little wonder that people who believe only in material existence become materialists; it is often, however, a great wonder to some when those to whom material security has been given become more grasping, more acquisitive.  Liberals, ironically, want to enlarge a middle class whose bent, historically, has always been that of material gain.

"For a man who opposes gay marriage and thus opposes 10% of America's right to have access to a family to suggest the left is eroding family and church is mighty hypocritical. :p"
 
The idea that not getting married precludes ever having a family doesn't even pass the smell test, as the irrepressible Professor Williams might say.  But here we have only to take a look at those nations where gay marriage has been allowed:  divorce and illegitimacy rates have skyrocketed, even beyond the norms for Western nations.  My friend introduces the typical shrill accusation of social liberals here--"You just don't like these things because you're ignorant!"--which is founded not in reason but in the sort of excessive stereotyping that now passes for enlightened discussion on college campuses.  If marriage and family, both important institutions that provide the glue for any society that can be called civilized, do not mean specific things, then they are meaningless.  We should not be surprised, when they are diluted, that they are less respected.  Moreover, we should not be surprised when churches that acquiesce to the radical ideology of gay marriage see less people in their pews; why attend a church that stands for nothing you couldn't stand for at home?
 
I shall provide my comments on the second part tomorrow.
 
See you!

Cogitationes, 8-4-2008

• A friend of mine, with whom I often talk about politics, history, philosophy, and the like, shared an idea with me that he'd been pondering.  He believes that the concept behind Maslow's "hierarchy of needs" has come largely to dominate the modern consciousness.  The hierarchy, taken from Maslow's 1943 paper "A Theory of Human Motivation," proceeds thus:  physiological needs, safety, love/belonging, esteem, self-actualization.  Each need must be met before a human can proceed to the next.  Specifically, my friend noticed that people seem to have the idea that material needs must be met before one can meet spiritual needs--what Maslow placed under "self-actualization."  Of course, as he pointed out, history and experience do not support these claims.  Material privation often fosters spiritual strength.  Jesus said, "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God" (Luke 6:20), and, "How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!" (Mark 10:23).  Karl Marx hated religion because of its role in keeping the poor relatively content with their economic lot, and expressed as much when he said that religion was the opiate of the masses.  When do we most turn to God:  when life is good, or when we have nothing else to depend on except Him?
• A few of my friends and I traveled to Stevensville, Michigan, Friday and Saturday to visit a friend of ours who is a summer intern at the nuclear power plant there.  While getting ready for the rest of the day, I happened to glance out of the window in the shower in our friend's apartment; my eyes met a wild conflagration of native, untended flowers and trees that helped me to appreciate anew the natural splendor of our state's western half.  But then something stopped me in my tracks:  Towering above it all were the golden arches of corporate empire, the ubiquitous McDonald's "M."  It's a source of some amusement to me that the same people who want universal economic equality deride large producers of mediocrity like Wal-mart and McDonald's, since Wal-mart and McDonald's are the only methods whereby that universal equality could be attained.  To paraphrase Tocqueville, equality lessens suffering through the propagation of mediocrity.  The empire of equality cannot afford to leave any beauty, any excellence untouched in its unstoppable expansion.
• In Stevensville, we watched one of my favorite movies of all-time:  UHF, starring "Weird Al" Yankovic.  Goofy humor, TV and movie parodies, a line-up of low-profile actors (including a pre-Seinfeld Michael Richards), and a David-versus-Goliath story--it doesn't get much better than that.  For listeners of Rush Limbaugh, this movie is the source of the "Spatula City" commercial.
• I just remembered this.  My friend from the first bullet-point also told me something interesting about conservatism and conservatives.  It seems to me as though conservatism will have trouble finding a foothold as large government and large business tear down traditional and local institutions.  My friend reminded me that conservatives must have a sense of the tragic, of the passing of old things.  And I do.  And as nostalgic as I can get, consevatives are not here to keep things the same--and who would want things to be the same?  Rather, we're here to ease the transitions through which society proceeds.  After all, as Burke would remind us, those transitions are divine in origin, and cannot--nor should they-- be stopped.  Our job is to keep society from precipitous plunges and violent convulsions, and to be living reminders of the timelessness of certain bedrock principles.

Later, guys!

I'm Back!

This deserves a post all its own.  I'm back after a LONG hiatus.  No excuses, really.  Just cogitating, not feeling particularly writer-y, at least not blog-style.  But I owe it to you, gentle reader, to continue to express my unique flavor of conservatism in this age of unceasing motion.  Moreover, how could I deprive my readership of my half-educated insights into Michigan football?