The Right Ideas

Oliver Kamm writes today in The Guardian--that's right, Britain's premiere lefty publication--that the world is safer today than before the advent of George W. Bush. (!) Read the whole fascinating and thought-provoking article.

I agree with his basic analysis that the 9/11 attacks moved Bush's foreign policy philosophy in a better direction, but his execution was poor. In my estimation, Bush has been correct in believing that there is, as Kamm notes, a fundamental link between terrorist organizations and the regimes which harbor and aid them, as Hussein's indisputably did. Kamm adds, and I agree, that he was correct to understand that the Islamist radicals do not hate us because of our role in the region, but because our society's liberties, our tolerance of different moral systems, identifies us with Satan in a very real way. (It's not mere hyperbole, as when a tenured university professor calls Bush "Satan" while watching Keith Olbermann and sipping cognac. But I needlessly imperil myself.) His philosophies rightly led to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but poor execution and mismanagement led to problems in both places--however, in fits and starts, both states are making progress under a renewed and rethought American offensive.

The Democrats, meanwhile, have taken almost every angle possible on the war in order to gain political points. They have abused the president abroad--a big no-no---demanded a draft, visited Islamic autocrats for a pleasant chat, tried to retreat because the Iraq War is immoral, tried to retreat because we should only do what's strictly in our best interests, tried to retreat on a timetable regardless of position on the ground, tried to ignore any progress and play up the defeats, and tried feebly to get the president to maybe say he might possibly at some time potentially withdraw our troops from Iraq once they captured Congress because they knew that actual retreat would be political suicide, as opposed to talking about retreat. (Whew!) Ascendant in the polls though they are, it does not vindicate them from their shameless politicking of America's national security. Despite the good intentions of the pacifist and the anti-war protester on the street, the behavior of Democrat congressmen has been an absolute disgrace. The crowning glory was Harry Reid declaring the surge "lost" before it had begun.

On Boumediene

George Will defends the Court's decision in the case, PowerLine's Scott Johnson criticizes Will.

Nothing makes a citizenry, or a faction of the citizenry, angrier than when the nation's unlected highest court makes a decision with which they disagree. However, Supreme Court decisions must be criticized in a cautious and moderate way, an independent judiciary being necessary to the maintenance of freedom in any democratic system of government. Not having studied law, much less constitutional law, I am also hesitant to criticize the decisions of five justices who are among the most intelligent and thoughtful law experts available in this country.

But everyone else is doing it, so why not give it a shot? George Will's main objections to the critics are that there have been worse decisions, the majority justices are intelligent people, the decision is to provide only the right to request a hearing, and the right of habeas corpus is important to the restraint of governmental power. All of these are true, but they are also irrelevant in different degrees.

The habeas right is very important in the restriction of government, but it has never before been applied to prisoners of war and/or non-citizens. To do so makes little sense. Even granting that POWs and non-citizens have this right, the Constitution provides for a suspension of the habeas right for just such a time as this. The fact that five intelligent Supreme Court justices made this decision is no defense, considering that four also opposed it vehemently. Seven justices were responsible for the disastrous Roe case. The fact that the case provides merely the right to request a hearing, and not a hearing per se, will serve to moderate the consequences of this ruling, it's true, but the right to request a hearing is still a right to a hearing, provided one chooses the right court. (And there's always a sympathetic court.) It does not change the fact that people who have never been accorded Constitutional rights, and with good reason, have been accorded Constitutional rights in a way that will have serious negative consequences for our nation's security.

George Will does make one other point--that military tribunals allow hearsay evidence and evidence produced under compulsion. Well, they aren't courts who hear the cases of citizens charged with committing a crime. They're courts designed to deal with cases having to do with military personnel and prisoners of war, and thus have proper jurisdiction over the detainees at Gitmo. What's more, their fairness is well attested.

The result of this decision will not be more humane treatment of prisoners of war. (And, despite mythology still prevalent today, the Guantanamo Bay facility is one of the most humane holding facilities in the history of warfare.) Instead, such prisoners will be shipped secretly to other nations for imprisonment and interrogation by far less civilized means, or they will simply be interrogated and killed quickly.

A New Blogger! And A Request For An Old Blogger.

There's a new blogger in town, and her name is Alcazal. (Well, that's more like her online alias, you creepy Internet stalkers you.) She took over an older group blog and converted it to her own personal uses, here. Visit, visit!

Also, ThinkCarpeDiem...come back! If you're reading this, I mean. I forgot to link you on my sidebar, but I promise I will if you start blogging again...

About The Cartoon On Top Of My Blog...

I may have mentioned before that Day By Day, by Chris Muir, while conservative politically, can be a little risque. It's still an interesting and funny cartoon, and it will continue to be featured on my site as a source of controversy and thought.

Just a little disclaimer.

The Moral Power Of Ideas

ALERT: Before reading, please understand that this book's opinions and conclusions are not exactly or necessarily my own. I shall comment on them after I finish explaining them. They are summarized here, gentle reader, for your curiosity and reflection. End alert.

Peter Schweizer, a research fellow at the Hoover Institute at Stanford, has compiled research in his new book, Makers and Takers, that purports to show that conservatives are pleasanter, more responsible, more ethical, and more productive members of society than are liberals. Here is a column he wrote for the Daily Mail Online about it. A portion:

The statistics I base this on come from the General Social Survey, America's
premier social research database, but they are just as relevant to the UK, as I
believe political belief systems drive one's attitudes, regardless of where you
happen to live.
Those surveyed were asked: 'Is it your obligation to care
for a seriously injured/ill spouse or parent, or should you give care only if
you really want to?' Of those describing themselves as 'conservative', 71 per
cent said it was. Only 46 per cent of those on the Left agreed.
To the
question: 'Do you get happiness by putting someone else's happiness ahead of
your own?', 55 per cent of those who said they were 'very conservative' said
Yes, compared with 20 per cent of those who were 'very liberal'.
It's been
my experience that conservatives like to talk about things outside of themselves
while progressives like to discuss themselves: how they are feeling and what
their desires are. That might make for a good therapy session but it's not much
fun over a long dinner.

Read it all; there are a lot more interesting statistics to look at, all with the same conclusion drawn by Schweizer: in almost every way that a citizen can be considered to be so, conservatives are better people than liberals.

Okay, gentle leftist reader, that's the end of the part where you clench up like Jimmy Carter in Tel Aviv. Well, maybe the end. Soon more like Frank Rich in Kansas. Anyway.

I'm sure that Schweizer is aware that such research does not show that all conservatives are better people than all liberals, and it would be ridiculous to think so. But the point, and I think Schweizer's point here, is not to call liberals selfish and evil people; instead, the point is that the political philosophies that animate the Left are often both symptom and cause of a grinding materialism and self-centeredness. It insists that human happiness, and thus the efficacy of government, can be read from a series of statistics about wage trends, income inequality, and employment; it insists that social obligations are an impediment to freedom that cannot be allowed to stand.

As people break from the bonds of family and church for the sake of freedom, and as they sink into economic bondage for the sake of egalitarianism, they seek meaning more and more from material sources: leisure, comfort, longevity. Indeed, all these things are increasing rapidly; it is a testament to how wrong the liberal philosophy is that our ever-wealthier society is growing even more rapidly in discontentment and despair. Those of us who hang on to our social responsibilities and duties, our traditions and customs, seem to be closer to finding real happiness.

This is why I place such an emphasis on Obama's speech to the San Francisco liberals: it is terribly revealing of his materialism, his insistence that the blue-collar workers of Pennsylvania ought to find meaning from money and possessions rather than from God, family, and tradition. He never considered that they might be happier that way. Barack is the exciting new priest of an old and failed philosophy, a vain hope for people whose lot is unending despair.

Wow, serious post today. Well, cheers!

The Only Thing We Have To Fear Is Being Scared Into Massive Change

Gregg Easterbrook, an amusing if often wrong sports commentator and political writer, gets it right today and in a major way: he gives us the numbers to show that not just the rich, but also the poor and middle class are better off today than they were five, eight, ten, twenty, thirty, forty, and fifty years ago:

The case that things are basically pretty good? Unemployment is 5.5%, low
by historical standards; income is rising slightly ahead of inflation; housing
prices are down, but the typical house is still worth a third more than in 2000;
94% of Americans do not have threatened mortgages, and of those who do, most
will keep their homes.

Inflation was up in 2007, but this stands out because the 16 previous
years were close to inflation-free; living standards are the highest they have
ever been, including living standards for the middle class and for the
poor.

All forms of pollution other than greenhouse gases are in decline;
cancer, heart disease and stroke incidence are declining; crime is in a
long-term cycle of significant decline; education levels are at all-time
highs.

Sure, gas prices are up, the dollar is weak and credit is tight – but
these are complaints at the margin of a mainly healthy society...

Campaigning in Pennsylvania in April, Hillary Clinton said "We need to go
back to the prosperity of the 1990s," a comment that drew loud, enthusiastic
applause. Converted to today's dollars, per-capita income in the Keystone State
is 23% higher than in 1990. People may think Pennsylvania was more prosperous in
the past, but the state is better off today. The same can be said for most
(needless to say, not all) parts of the country and most demographics. Most are,
right now, the best-off they have ever been.

Yet, Easterbrook points out that a shocking 78% of people think that the U.S. is worse off today than five years ago. Erm...why?

Whatever goes wrong in the country or around the world is telecast 24/7,
making us think the world is falling to pieces – even when most things are
getting better for most people, even in developing nations. If a factory closes,
that's news. If a factory opens, that's not a story. You've heard about the
factories Ford and General Motors have closed in this decade. Have you heard
about the factories Toyota, Honda and other automakers opened in the U.S. in the
same period? The jobs there have solid, long-term prospects.

The relentlessly negative impressions of American life presented by the
media, including the entertainment media, explain something otherwise puzzling
that shows up in psychological data. When asked about the country's economy,
schools, health care or community spirit, Americans tell pollsters the situation
is dreadful. But when asked about their own jobs, schools, doctors and
communities, people tell pollsters the situation is good. Our impressions of
ourselves and our neighbors come from personal experience. Our impressions of
the nation as a whole come from the media and from political blather, which both
exaggerate the negative.

So...what you're saying is that the media are around to be sensational rather than present the simple facts? You're saying their narrative is designed to make you feel angry about what's really a pretty good situation? It's sort of like they...shoot first, and ask questions later. Sort of like a...drive-by?

Once again: On the "drive-by media," Rush Limbaugh gets there years ahead of Mr. Easterbrook.

Anyway, the "bad economy" we keep hearing about, the millions of people struggling, do not exist. It is not happening. It is a complete and total myth. The definition of "poor" in this country, literally, still gets you multiple TVs and a garage. Nevertheless, people are being frightened into accepting large-scale and irrational changes to the economic structure of society, in no areas more than in gigantic regulations on carbon--something that effects every area of your life--and health--which not only encompasses every area of your life, but also consists of over 10% of the national economy.

The only thing we have to fear is fearmongers demanding more power over your life.

Another Comment And Reply

I spent way too much time this morning replying to a single comment, so I'm just posting it as a regular post (again) because if I'm going to spend that much time on it, then darnit! The five people who read this blog should see it: "Anonymous" writes:

interesting ... though from Michelle Obama's speach they seem to be
promoting a "more free" american, which of course means a more "care-free"
american (no need to bother with health care, education, the works, heck why
bother at all, right?). Though it is true that what Obama is suggesting will
limit american freedom, I do think he could benifet american pride, which is
been lacking greatly. I mean, how many people do you know who don't vote or
barely follow the race? I know I know a lot. I think he's really pushing
americans to take action. Which is needed. Yet, the question is how far is too
far?

I myself am a believer in the equality of opportunity and better education.
I think taxes need definite tweaking (sales tax=stupid, but legalizing marijuana
and taxing it that instead wouldn't be a bad idea). schools whos building is
condemned, with no books or computers not getting any funds while other schools
get a new pool or tennis court = stupid. It's all public, and it's the
governments job to educate, so therefore public education should be equal, it is
a RIGHT denied to these schools because the more money is out of the question,
so other schools would lose money (and really there's only about 1/46 of schools
that have the right amount of money). hmm how much have we spent on the war in
Iraq?

oh and tax cuts make sense since we as a nation are in debt ... even though
that is almost the exact same amount of money needed to make schools whos
buildings are condemed (but kids still go there) be ... well legal(I'm mocking
bush and his timing, not you and your beliefs).I do believe americans need to
have more responsibilities as citizens, and I believe that a boost in the
economy would make problems like health care go awayyet ... how are we going to
boost the economy? The reason many people I know hate politics, and politicians,
and especially republicans is because since republicans have a history of
supporting big bussiness, and big bussiness through contracts and money and
power take away freedom believe it's the republicans campaigns that take away
"liberty".

People say "representing the african american's intrests, or the
homosexuals intrests, or the animal rights interests is only concentrating on
the minority of the country, and not the majority"... yet, how many people are
big bussines CEOs, or millionares, or even make over 80 grand a year?not
many..... and how many americans can't afford what they coul 8 years ago,
because of gas prices, jobs, education prices and even the war?a lot.

Did you know that everytime Kerry's numbers went up in the last election a
new terror elert thingy was sent out ... and people know about that ... whic of
course is very discouraging

people feel large towers all around them ... whos offering them back their
freedom in a way they understand and if they dont understand, is that their
fault, or the fault of a lack of intelect?

Did you know that if a school doesn't meet standards in test scores they
will lose funds rather than gain funds to make the school better.

They way I understand it Democracy is about what the majority wants.the
question is who is the majority?Also, how does not making it legal for gays to
marry differ at all from forcing people to do things?you can't vs. you
mustliberty sounds limited in both to me.

I mean, bush did a lot more damage than billions of dollars in debt ......
have you ever heard of Karl Rove ... you should look up things he's done in the
past ... ... it's frightening ...also, any attack isn't on you, it's my general
frustration with all parties. I mention republicans more because honestly I'm
befuddled by the idea of anyone who obviosly researches their oppinion to join
any political party ...... why? ... cuz they all crazy!!

oooooooooooh and what I was trying to say is that corporations have the
same right as a person, but people aren't equal to them. When it comes to things
like computers(Microsoft) and even health care we are overcharged (I got a cat
scan once ... 1,500$ ... it took 15 minutes) but we can't do anything about it
...

So after another long winded, and kind of unclear comment, I challenge you,
since democracy is about representing the people, or the majority, and the US
"liberty, freedom and justice for all" where's the liberty in our daily lives?
Where's the "free market" in the economy? doesn't the market just naturally make
it's OWN rules/barriers, which then makes itself inefficient?

Here's my unreasonably long response:

Thanks, as always, for the compliments!

As usual, there was much
too much there to respond to everything I disagreed with, so I’m going to try to
narrow it down a bit, and take one general shot at the whole.
J

It is not the job of “the government” to educate. To the
extent that it is government’s job at all, it is the job of state governments to
educate, and not the federal government. This is part of the important
separation of state and federal powers outlined in the Constitution. This
fact also negates the idea that the money used in the Iraq War should have been
used for education; the federal government’s most important job is national
defense, and education is not one of their jobs at all.
Schools in the United
States have more money than schools anywhere else in the world. The most
heavily-funded school districts—those in Washington, D.C., that have around
$14,000 per pupil—are also among the worst in the Western world. Schools
are not underfunded; instead, they are doing a very poor job with the money they
already have. That being the case, it makes sense to take money away from
failing schools: the possibility of a lack of money provides an incentive
for schools to do a better job. It’s the same concept behind firing bad
employees. The idea has worked wonders in the Florida state school
system.
This is perhaps the most important point: Democracy is
definitely about what the majority wants, but America is not a democracy.
It is a republic. We elect representatives who go to Washington, D.C., and
our state capitals to discuss and vote on matters of state. We have a
Constitution to prohibit those officials from taking actions that infringe upon
our rights. The Founders spoke at length on the danger of the “tyranny of
the majority,” which is the same thing you’re speaking of approvingly.
This is why democracy is not inherently good: who cares whether it’s a
tyrant or fifty-one percent of a country that takes away your freedoms?
What’s most important are the freedoms.
It’s not totally clear what you mean
by the market creating its own rules and barriers and therefore becoming
inefficient. However, you’re likely talking about inefficiency in a way
very different from how economists talk about inefficiency. I would
encourage you to read an economics book to learn about such things. I
would recommend Basic Economics, by Thomas Sowell…he’s a great economist and a
great philosopher. Anyway, the fact is that markets exist for everything,
and no one can control that or take it away. All things face scarcity, and
everything has a price, whether it is expressed in money, time, or the fact that
you could have done or bought something else. You can’t make it so that a
market is gone; you can just admit that it’s there and work through that, or
pretend it isn’t and suffer the entirely predictable consequences. For
example, one consequence of everyone only paying a co-pay on health care because
they have insurance provided by the government or a company is that we’ve seen
dramatic inflation in health-care costs over the last fifty years. People
in general are surprised and angry, but economists predicted this
repeatedly. If we privatized health care, health care prices would drop
massively.
Political parties are a necessary part of politics. The
United States’s winner-take-all electoral laws means that only two political
parties at a time can ever be truly viable. This two-party system, which
can seem crazy because of the strange coalitions it produces, also performs the
important task of slowing the pace at which government takes action, which is a
very good thing. Parties do not themselves have a philosophy; they are
simply vehicles for philosophies to gain influence. Refusing to be active
in one means taking oneself out of the possibility of having any influence in
politics. The alternatives are worse: parliamentary systems that
have many political parties inevitably result in hasty, bad government action
because philosophies are considered to have mandates. One-party
systems…well, that’s obviously the worst. The last thing we need is
national “unity” on government action; that is the surest road to tyranny.
What we need is vigorous debate and disagreement.

Now I’d like to
make a few general statements about your comment. First, I’m going to make
a list of things you said that were totally unsupported by any
facts:

--The tax cuts cost the government the same amount of money
that schools need to be repaired. (Tax cuts do not, strictly, “cost” the
government money. Tax cuts have a way of stimulating the economy, which
then causes tax revenues to be higher. This is, in fact, exactly what we
saw: tax revenues increased 29% between, I think but can’t remember
exactly, 2004 and 2005. That is huge. In any case, I’d feel better
about your analysis if you told me specifically how much money, in your
estimation, schools need to become…I guess, good. Or what the tax cuts
actually consisted of.)
--Republicans support big business. (This is
almost entirely a non-factual stereotype. Republicans receive their
biggest support from the small businesses, and there is a very good reason for
this. High regulations drive small companies out of business because they
create high overhead costs that large companies are able to afford. In
this way, regulations are actually beneficial to bigger companies, because they
give them a bigger market share. This is why a lot of big business people
actually associate themselves with the Democratic Party. Think about that
the next time you hear about corporate executives pleading with Congress for
more government regulation on their corporations, which happens all the
time.)
--Businesses take away freedom through money, contracts, and
power. (How that could even be true is beyond my ability to
comprehend. Nevertheless, I realize that it is a powerful idea to
many. Anyway, if you could provide examples of how a business has done
this, or how they even could do it(!), then I could more adequately rebut this
opinion.)
--Many Americans are worse off today than they were eight years
ago. (Unemployment is low, inflation is still low, and the entire
country—with the exception of our state—has experienced a nearly seven-year
economic boom. We have not faced a single quarter of recession since
perhaps 2002, even when Hurricane Katrina ravaged an entire area of the
nation.)
--When Kerry’s numbers went up, Bush used terror alerts to push them
down again. (This is simple conspiracy theory unsupported by
reality.)
--The debt is all Bush’s fault. (Debt has two sides:
taxation and spending. Taxation depends on economic performance and tax
levels. Tax levels went down over Bush’s term, while economic performance
improved dramatically. Spending, on the other hand, and especially social
spending, ballooned massively. That was, for the most part, a result of
old-style liberal social programs like Medicare and Social Security. If we
phased these programs out, the debt would shrink quickly.)
--Karl Rove has
done many frightening things. (This is mostly a stereotype. I defy
you to find one frightening thing Karl Rove has done. He’s mostly a
liberal bogeyman whom most people like when they meet him.)
--Microsoft
overcharges for computers. (Microsoft doesn’t sell computers. Apple
does, and they charge far more for the same computer than any other company I’m
aware of.)

Whew! Okay, finally: I appreciate very much
your comments on my blog, as I appreciate all comments on what I have to
say. Especially those that make me think, or that make me take the time to
fully explain what I think on a subject. At the same time, I notice that
many of the opinions you express in those comments are not really supported by
any facts at all and/or are based on extreme stereotypes, like the “Republicans
supporting big business” meme. I know you’re an intelligent person and a
thinker, and that you’re very interested in these issues; however, I think you
have a haphazard, spur-of-the-moment way of thinking about them that hurts your
analysis and results in conclusions that don’t really make sense. I say
not to discourage you from commenting, but to encourage you to have a more
focused style—you have a good heart and a good mind, and your voice would be
much more powerful if it gained clarity and focus.

And a follow-up:

The country is not really doing badly. At all. Even in Michigan, which has
been in, technically speaking, a one-state depression, people are generally
doing well. That's not to say there's not a lot of doom and gloom out there. But
it isn't justified.

I'm going to ask you to look at the country. Look at how it's doing. Not at
how people SAY it's doing, but how it's actually doing. And be happy! Then
you'll see how unreasonable it is when (inevitably) liberals complain about the
way things are.

There simply is no crisis here. This would be a good thing to think about
the next time people accuse conservatives, ironically, of using fear to
manipulate the electorate.

Also: ThinkCarpeDiem! I think it would be best for you to continue blogging, because it's important for you to express your thoughts on your own rather than simply go after someone else expressing his opinion. I don't say that because I don't like you commenting on my posts--I do. What I'm saying is that it's important to express your own philosophy/ideas, not merely criticize someone else's. Then maybe I can leave comments for YOU to read :)

Obamessiah Watch: Talk Radio "Delusions"

Camille Paglia today called out talk radio for their delusions about Barack Obama:

Meanwhile, conservative talk radio, which I have been following with interest
for almost 20 years, has become a tornado alley of hallucinatory holograms of
Obama. He's a Marxist! A radical leftist! A hater of America! He's "not that
bright"; he can't talk without a teleprompter. He knows nothing and has done
less. His wife is a raging mass of anti-white racism. It's gotten to the point
that I can hardly listen to my favorite shows, which were once both informative
and entertaining. The hackneyed repetition is numbing and tedious, and the overt
character assassination is ethically indefensible. Talk radio will lose its
broad audience if it continues on this nakedly partisan path.

If only, Camille, if only. Hey, wait, she didn't present any argument to refute what talk radio is saying here! Let's look at the evidence.


--Marxist. Hmm, well, he did basically tell a group of San Francisco progressives that right-leaning proletarians were suffering from false consciousness. Probably just a coincidence...

--Radical leftist. Okay: He was in charge of the Harvard Law Review--not exactly a bulwark of political moderation--was a community activist for the radical leftist group ACORN, has a longtime mentor who ran a black separatist church, and offers the most sweepingly leftist platform in the history of American politics.

--A hater of America. Well, I've never actually heard talk radio claim this, so Camille's telling a little fib here. Although it is a little puzzling why Obama would want to "reshape" a country he sees as "great." But that's really neither here nor there. Now, Michelle Obama is a different story: she claims she was never proud of America before Barack Obama looked like he might win the nomination, and that America is "downright mean." Tough stuff, kids.

--"not that bright." Okay, maybe there's something there. However, it's not too much of a stretch to think that a guy who talks about an asthmatic needing a "breathalyzer" and then corrects himself and says "inhalator" might not be the sharpest Parisian in the commune. Add in the fact that he claims he managed to travel to fifty-seven states during his campaign, and you have to conclude that if this man had an "R" next to his name you know the legitimacy of his entirely Ivy League education would be called into question.

--the teleprompter thing...well, see before. Oh, I forgot the "My grandmother is a typical white person" comment. Inspiring!

--"knows nothing"--hey, I just remembered the part where he claimed he was born because of Selma, which happened two years after his birth. And didn't he claim that his uncle liberated Auschwitz while he was serving in Germany in World War II, even though Auschwitz is in Poland and was liberated by the Russians? Anyway, yeah, she's got a point here, I'm sure.

--"done less." Well, umm...what HAS he done? I guess voting party line is an accomplishment. Of a sort. Oh yeah, he managed to beat carpetbagger Alan Keyes in a Senate race after his first opponent was caught in a shocking sex scandal and forced out of his candidacy. Must've been tough.

--Ahh, Michelle Obama. Well, we don't really know a lot about her, except that she's not the biggest fan of the United States historically and she thinks we're all a bunch of meanies. There's a rumor that someone has a videotape of her railing against whites at that hilarious church they attended for nigh on twenty years, but just rumors. She wrote a pretty radical thesis in college, from what I hear, but that was in college. So who really knows? In all seriousness, this is Paglia's only potential good point here.

--"overt character assassination." Hehe. Is it character assassination if someone didn't have much to begin with? Or if it's just reporting on character suicide?

--"ethically indefensible." Yeah! No bad-mouthing the messiah. He's the messiah.

Grudgingly, McCain

If you look back at the entire run of this blog--maybe four and a half months--you will find that I was not always the prospective McCain-votin' blogger that I am now. In fact, I wrote scathingly about the man in several posts. I seriously contemplated rebelling and voting third party or not at all. But back then, I wasn't a college graduate, and now I am, and with that--apparently--has come maturity. McCain's got my vote this November.

That's not to say that McCain has gotten better, or my principles have changed. He has my grudging support in the same way that Eisenhower and Nixon had the reluctant endorsement of National Review in their times. Today, there is no single publication that has the influence among consevatives that National Review did then--which is, of course, a good thing. But some conservative publications have been less than responsible in their treatment of this presidential race. Ron Paul got a lot of traction and gained a small, loyal following of the same extremist, right-wing isolationists that William F. Buckley kicked out of the movement half a century ago. Certain blogs--admittedly, 0nce including my own--have kept up a steady drumbeat of criticism against McCain, even as he has become the clear Republican candidate and even as he will clearly face Barack Obama, the most radical leftist ever to gain the Democratic nomination.

John McCain has some views that are extremely distasteful to conservative ears. He wants government to take immediate, costly action to solve a global warming that no one knows is coming or what its effects might be. He still thinks his unconstitutional campaign finance reform bill was a good idea. His attempts at passing a disguised amnesty bill for illegal aliens are well-documented. He even has the funny idea that the salaries of corporate executives are somehow the people's business. (Mac: The stockholders can pay their executives whatever they want. It's their money. For now, anyway.)

On the other hand, he's light-years ahead of Barack Obama and his platform full of the same old liberal "solutions" and, somehow, also full of "change." Even more than that, McCain has some policy plans that provide a good first step toward a decline in the size and scope of government. He will certainly be better on judges than Obama, who would certainly nominate the sort of activist judges that have been the Left's major mechanism for advancing their agenda during the last decade. McCain has also not shown the sort of naivete and downright ignorance Obama has in discussing foreign affairs.

Although the principles he espoused were timeless, I believe that we are reaching the end of the Reagan Era, politically. His landmark election in 1980 reorganized American politics, just as Roosevelt's election did in 1932. John McCain is not quite the visionary one wants representing one's party at such a time, but he can be a good delaying tactic while we find someone who is. Moreover, we need to refocus from stopping the long march of increasing government and start developing strategies for shrinking it and presenting to the American people a vision of a freer nation.

But this sort of progress will only come about through the Republican Party, and we cannot fool ourselves into thinking otherwise. Philosophies are not electoral forces, but party organizations are. Just as the Reaganites did in the Seventies, we need to work to promote real conservatism, a real agenda of freedom, in the party that will have us. And sometimes that means holding your nose and punching the ticket for Gerald Ford.

A Vision For The Future

Barack Obama has vision. Well, that's not precisely true; he has articulated a vision. It is a vision of an America remade, reborn, reinvigorated. An America without inequality and without boundaries and limits. Most of all, an America unified. It all sounds very nice, but like everything politicians say--and Barack Obama has been revealed to be nothing more than a politician, shady associations and all, and a radical one at that--this vision deserves scrutiny.

One part of this vision is equality. Equality is a founding principle of this country, but it has several different meanings. This distinction is nowhere more important, philosophically, than in the splitting of modern "liberalism," which favors equality of outcome and equality between groups, and liberalism classically conceived, which favors equality of individuals before the law. These separate conceptions--which both sides conceive of as being obvious--have never been on more open display than in the recent bans on racial preferences/affirmative action passed in California and Michigan. Obama is a standard-issue modern liberal on this issue, mostly emphasizing differences between rich and poor. In order to serve this conception of equality, the loser is to be liberty; more income will be confiscated in order to redistribute it to others.

A second characteristic of Obama's vision is that it is a moral vision of politics. In this vision, Americans will treat their bodies better, other people better, their environment better, their neighbors better. In terms of health, this will mean, inevitably, state attacks on activities that harm people's health, mostly unpopular things like smoking and overeating. (Not drinking or marijuana, though, as two examples, mostly for political reasons.) It will mean mandates against activities perceived as "harming" the environment--whatever that means at the time. It will mean treating the world as though all national leaders, however they came to power and whatever their policies are, have concerns that are as legitimate as our own, even--and especially--when they don't. Finally, helping other people is the sort of morality that most Americans can line up behind. However, the question of whether that is a proper job for the government is a legitimate question--though it won't be treated that way. And Obama's vision is for an increased governmental role in charity. In all these cases, the loser--again--is liberty.

This brings us to the most frightening part, to me, of Obama's vision, which is unity. Unity, again, is nice, but what kind of unity is it? There is partisan unity, and there is bipartisan unity. Bipartisan unity is when members of the two major philosophical persuasions can agree on something; partisan unity is when members of one philosophical persuasion all agree on something. Obama's, clearly, is not a bipartisan unity. And why not? His moral vision cannot be disagreed with, at the risk of sounding unsympathetic to those who are less fortunate. And this is the danger: that those who belong to one of the dominant philosophical traditions will actually be ostracized in the name of unity. In fact, this is just what is happening whenever Obama shoots back at McCain for criticizing him. That is a perilous road.

Here, again, the loser is freedom of thought and debate--if not in code, at least in the social realm. This is the defining characteristic of Barack Obama's vision: we have certain moral values, and these will be emphasized at the expense of freedom. In the light of the last hundred years of history, this should be absolutely terrifying.

The Misuse-ity of Hope!

Wow, I was gone from blogging for a long time! Okay, back to business.

Since Barack Obama has now won the nomination, prepare for a potential series of posts--especially if I feel like it--about the man against whom I will be campaigning vociferously. I promise, I won't talk about how his supporters regard him as the second coming of Jesus Christ himself. Well, no, the other thing...the opposite. Right, I WILL be talking about that.

Sort of.

Hope is a good thing, depending on whom you talk to. It motivates us to accomplish goals. (On the other hand, it can disappoint us bitterly if it was unfounded in the first place.) Hope speaks to all of us, because all of us have ambitions and dreams. Barack Obama knows that hope is important to Americans in particular; we are a hopeful people. Obama was attacked for invoking Ronald Reagan during the campaign, but one can understand why: Reagan, too, effectively based his presidency on hope for America's future at a time when that future looked anything but bright. Moreover, people vote for the person, not the issues, and what better person to illustrate hope than a black man raised by a single white mother? (Beyond that, who better to appeal to liberals than a private-school-educated Harvard and Columbia grad who was a community organizer for the radical group ACORN and attended a radical black separatist church for twenty years? But I digress.) Republican opponent John McCain, on the other hand, is an old white man from a long line of high-ranking military officers, and a Vietnam War veteran to boot. Ho-hum.

But hope alone isn't all that great; it has to be in something. Something worthwhile--hopefully. (Ha! Erm.) Ronald Reagan's was a hope in people--ordinary people, helping other people in their neighborhoods and beyond. His was a dream of the potential of individual Americans participating in their communities, in their families, exercising their freedom to help their fellow man. He rightly recognized that state involvement in this process curbs that community involvement when he said that the most terrifying words in the English language are, "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help." History bears this out. Most people know about the Lion's Club; perhaps fewer people remember the Oddfellows, the Elks Lodge, and others. Lion's Club does excellent work helping the blind, but it--and the others--used to be more than that: they were voluntary associations to bring people in the community together and help its members when they were in need. With welfare and other redistribution programs, these organizations no longer had a serious purpose. That's just one example in a larger story.

Barack Obama's hope is that of a world improved, reshaped by the state. Before you tell me that "reshaped" is an exaggeration of his words, read this column by Jonah Goldberg, containing this Obama gem: "This was the moment--this was the time--when we came together to remake this great nation..." (Does he think it's a great nation, or does he want to remake it? Or does he want to remake a nation that's already great? These questions answer themselves one way or another.) He insists that he dreams of America coming together, of Americans helping each other. But if you think he means that he trusts Americans to give voluntarily of their time and money, think again. Instead, he means to take the sphere of morality out of Main Street, USA, and move it to the office buildings of Washington, D.C. That is the fundamental mistake of modern liberalism: it means to make morality an issue of governance, rather than of private will.

This is its appeal to many Christians, and its downfall when compared to actual Biblical teaching. Christians rightly believe that their duty is to help the sick, the poor, the needy: "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world" (James 1:27, NIV). But just as Christianity emphasizes loving those around us, so too it emphasizes a separation between the Church and the state: "Then he said to them, 'Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's'" (Matthew 22:21b, NIV). At question here was the payment of taxes, but it also gives us an important principle for understanding the relationship between Christianity and the state. If charity is in Caesar's sphere, then by all means empower him to conduct charity. But if it belongs rather to God, then Caesar must not get hold of it. The state is not, nor can it be, an instrument of grace. As Jonah Goldberg wrote in Liberal Fascism, politics cannot be redemptive. Anyone who tells you otherwise is truly a totalitarian; for this reason, hope in the state's ability to change the world was central to Nazism, Fascism, Communism, and Roosevelt's New Deal.

The idea does not make us feel good, and therefore does not often get much traction, but politics must be taken with a healthy dose of skepticism, whether the candidate in question is a war hero, a powerful speaker, a Baptist minister, or an actor. Government cannot be a realm of hope for us; indeed, such an idea could not be more terrifying. It is the ultimate primrose path, taken with the highest intentions, to a totalitarian hell. In the Aeneid, the prophet Laocoon, who warned the Trojans not to bring the horse into their city--it was here, in fact, that Vergil coined the phrase, "Beware of Greeks bearing gifts"--was an unsavory character, but he was right. Likewise, beware politicians proclaiming hope. Hope is not theirs to proclaim.

Fascist Multiculturalism Rears Its Head In England

Adolph Hitler's brand of fascism, and in fact much of American progressivism even through the Thirties, was built around notions of racial strength and purity. Jonah Goldberg traces this grouping tendency to the Sixties' race riots--specifically the violent black separatist movements, many of which were based on black racial supremacy--and today to the left wing's explicit use of racial politics to divide Americans into groups based on culture and race. Of paramount importance to them is that "white culture" not influence those of other ethnic, racial, and religious backgrounds. Even at the large missions conference in Urbana, Missouri, one of my friends heard a talk about racial and ethnic justice, and how healing begins when we learn to take pride in our ethnic backgrounds; this notion, the fascistic undertones of which are obvious, is an obsession on the Left, and especially college campuses. Of course, this typically leaves white Christian males who buy into it still feeling a bit less than racial and ethnic pride--after all, when someone talks about "injustice," it's "his people" who are the offenders. As Jonah Goldberg put it, white men are the new Jews.

Sometimes this notion is revealed a bit more clearly--especially in nations without a Constitution to protect its citizens from intrusive government. So, as Allahpundit reports, a group of police officers in Britain accosted a pair of Christian ministers for dropping leaflets in a largely Muslim area and for talking to several young Asian men about Christ. From the original report: "He said we were in a Muslim area and were not allowed to spread our Christian message. He said we were committing a hate crime by telling the youths to leave Islam and said that he was going to take us to the police station." As Allah notes: "In America, as far as I know, hate crimes constitutionally can only be charged in connection with another criminal offense. You can’t be charged with hate; you can be charged with assault and have your sentence enhanced if they prove the assault was motivated by hate. Thoughtcrime + actual crime = hate crime, in other words. In the U.K., it sounds like they’re flirting with knocking out that pesky “actual crime” element and just going the whole nine Orwellian yards. " If you think he's being hyperbolic, read this article that Allahpundit also posts to. Orwell: Your version of tyranny, at least, will likely never reach American soil, but your homeland has begun to buy into it.

Set aside the question of whether you think that Christian missions are morally right. (Though I believe they are not merely right, but morally required.) Set aside your gut reactions about ministers speaking about their beliefs to those who hold other beliefs. There is, quite simply, no sense in which the government has the right to go about preventing people from sharing what they believe is true about the world.

But this is what happens when the law becomes a cultural and racial tool: Inevitably, it becomes a hammer with which to strike against whatever group is disfavored at the time. You can thank the Founding Fathers that we in America have the right--at least nominally, though not on most college campuses--to offend whomever we want, to have whatever opinions we want, and to debate about them with anyone we want. In the United Kingdom, such freedom of thought is on the wane.

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.