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"It's a very clever initiative to improve people's lives, but it's not a complete success," a user of the bikes said. "For a regular user like me, it generates a lot of frustration," she said. "It's a reflection of the violence of our society and it's outrageous: the Vélib' is a public good but there is no civic feeling related to it."
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Political Parties
Presidency
No, such praise is not sarcasm from a birther, Teapartier, or other such anti-intellectual dregs--it comes from the Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, Rocco Landesman. (See my earlier post on Mr. Broadway Bombast.) Scott at Powerline quotes his boast:
This is the first president that actually writes his own books since Teddy Roosevelt and arguably the first to write them really well since Lincoln. If you accept the premise, and I do, that the United States is the most powerful country in the world, then Barack Obama is the most powerful writer since Julius Caesar. That has to be good for American artists.
Scott deftly dispatches this error-plagued nonsense. I would add: In praising Bacon, Locke, and Newton as his greatest heroes, Thomas Jefferson claimed that his rival Alexander Hamilton had named Julius Caesar as his. This attribution was intended to underline Hamilton's reputation as a "monocrat"--no friend of the principles of 1776. Praises of Caesar and of Mao, obeisance to dictators, despots, and Nobel committees, assaults on an aggressive press-- what more does this Administration need to do to separate itself from the principles of 1776?
Political Parties
Politics
Politics
Politics
Religion
Ross Douthat sees that the Pope understands the world stakes in his opening to the Anglicans: It's about standing up to Islam.
Where the European encounter is concerned, Pope Benedict has opted for public confrontation. In a controversial 2006 address in Regensburg, Germany, he explicitly challenged Islam's compatibility with the Western way of reason -- and sparked, as if in vindication of his point, a wave of Muslim riots around the world.By contrast, the Church of England's leadership has opted for conciliation (some would say appeasement), with the Archbishop of Canterbury going so far as to speculate about the inevitability of some kind of sharia law in Britain.
There are an awful lot of Anglicans, in England and Africa alike, who would prefer a leader who takes Benedict's approach to the Islamic challenge. Now they can have one, if they want him.
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Presidency
The problem isn't his personality, it's his policies. His problem isn't what George W. Bush left but what he himself has done. It is a problem of political judgment, of putting forward bills that were deeply flawed or off-point. Bailouts, the stimulus package, cap-and-trade; turning to health care at the exact moment in history when his countrymen were turning their concerns to the economy, joblessness, debt and deficits--all of these reflect a misreading of the political terrain. They are matters of political judgment, not personality. (Republicans would best heed this as they gear up for 2010: Don't hit him, hit his policies. That's where the break with the people is occurring.)Very well said, indeed.
Journalism
As I rarely parse an Obama speech and I never watch Fox news (not getting it and other cable news in my basic cable package, so I have no idea who Glen Beck is), maybe I can offer some unprejudiced insight into the recent contretemps. Krauthammer attempts a principled objection--though he misses the point about Madisonian factions: Factions are not "legitimate"; they are by definition unjust groups, who misuse the fundamental commitment to liberty. So the real objection to Obama's shunning of Fox (he spent a couple hours before a group of leftist journalists dismissing it as "talk radio") is his assault on liberty--his misunderstanding of the freedom of the press.
For all their leftist inclinations, a significant number of journalists don't want to be known as anyone's stooge. The Fox infection will spread quicker than the swine flu.
As evidence see the NY Times on Fox's effect on the MSM:
White House officials said [...] they noticed a column by Clark Hoyt, the public editor of The Times, in which [leftist Clarence Thomas hater] Jill Abramson, one of the paper's two managing editors, described her newsroom's "insufficient tuned-in-ness to the issues that are dominating Fox News and talk radio." The Washington Post's executive editor, Marcus Brauchli, had already expressed similar concerns about his newsroom...."This is a discussion that probably had to be had about their approach to things," [Obama political strategist David] Axelrod said. "Our concern is other media not follow their lead."
In fact, perhaps the most effective media purveyor of conservatism (next to Rush and Fox) is C-Span radio and news. (Have I let the cat out of the bag?) For without its coverage of otherwise obscure think-tank speakers and panels, many eminent conservative voices would get no significant hearing at all. And their book programs may be the best thing on tv (save the excellent baseball playoffs this year).
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Education
Elections
Education
Fellow students are giving the Georgetown sophomore grief for advertising a $10 an hour job to drive him around, schedule him, wash and fold his laundry, etc.: He's "just full of himself." But isn't this the logical conclusion of what David Brooks wrote eight years ago, in his "Organization Kid"--that undergraduate students schedule virtually everything and as a result devote no time for many of the most important things a bright student should be doing? A sample from Brooks:
There are a lot of things these future leaders no longer have time for. I was on [the Princeton] campus at the height of the election season, and I saw not even one Bush or Gore poster. I asked around about this and was told that most students have no time to read newspapers, follow national politics, or get involved in crusades:
As silly as the Georgetown kid may appear, he appears to be following out student logic.
Pop Culture
Foreign Affairs
The report obtained by USA TODAY cites failures on biosecurity policy by the White House which the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction says has left the country vulnerable. The commission, created last year to address concerns raised by post-9/11 investigations, warns that anthrax spores released by a crop-duster could "kill more Americans than died in World War II" and the economic impact could exceed $1.8 trillion in cleanup and other costs."
Health Care
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Presidency
Matt Franck takes a whack not only at Obama's decriminalization policy but at some conservative defenders of it who see a respect for federalism:
By announcing the non-prosecution of marijuana cases only in those 14 states that legalize some use of the drug for medical purposes, the administration has effectively proclaimed that federal law means one thing in those 14 states, and something else in the other 36. That could readily give rise to equal protection claims in the 36 states where the federal government still considers itself free to prosecute.
Moreover: "Worse, by conditioning the prospect of prosecution on the presence or absence of state laws that contradict a nationwide federal prohibition, the Justice Department has effectively subjected the validity of federal law to the will of state legislators." As a prelude to relaxing drug prosecution generally, "This way evinces Professor Obama's usual respect for the Constitution: he rolls his own."
Politics
Political Philosophy
Education
The Founding
David Bobb has a sound and perceptive commentary on President Obama's refounding of the nation's political principles. Whether it be health care or eroticism for autos, Obama's refrain has been for a "new foundation." Bobb, Director of Hillsdale College's Washington, DC Kirby Center, documents this reckless audacity and commends the real founding and the discipline it demands and the freedom it protects.
Do we recognize the threat and have the resources and spirit to resist it? Do we know what we will have lost?
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Education
The NY Times presents a symposium on reading on a Kindle/computer versus reading a printed book. Each participant offers something worthwhile considering. (David Gelernter is the one identifiable conservative.) My question, which the academics consider more or less, is whether students read any more. At the beginning of a course I ask students to note books they have read that have influenced the way they think and act. The list is thin--maybe someone will list the Bible or an Obama book. You never see a book from political science. Now, more than when Aristotle questioned whether the youth are fit to study politics, the inclination of the young to indulge their passions meets the least intellectual resistance. Given our technology, books or rather reading (books are too long and require too much effort) becomes just another way to fulfil desires: the ideal reading is the cookbook* (with lots of pictures). It is a rare education that shows students another way of looking at books.
*There are variants on such how-to books, but this is a family-friendly site.
Politics
Pop Culture
Before being involved with the video Jennifer Gil's only goal was to get through high school, get a job and make money.
"I had no big plans, no big aspirations," Jennifer said. "Making the video, and seeing everything that's happened since then because of it, has changed me. Now more things matter to me."
Jennifer has a simple message for the symposium.
"If people want to make change they have to act," said Jennifer, who hopes to be the first Latin American president. "Gandhi said, `Be the change you want to see in the world.' That's how I want to live."
She also wants to address education.
"Everybody wants us to go to college, but with all the cuts, how are we supposed to do that?" Jennifer asked. [Emphasis mine]
Who can refrain from applauding the self-starting sentiment Ms. Gil seems to advocate and the trajectory of her story seems to vindicate? If you want big things in your life, make them. Do them. Find them. Just so. Bravo for her. But doesn't the second part of her comments (i.e., the whiny part about budget cuts making college impossible) seem to undercut everything her experience and her noble philosophy ought to have taught her?
To be fair, Ms. Gil is a very young woman and this kind of intellectual inconsistency is not at all surprising in the young. But it appears to be something that is encouraged by their mentors, those now offering them accolades (including the President) and by the very content of the film that they produced. Another student involved in the production of the film told members of the California Assembly, "We are not the same. We want to do things that make a difference and we will not just sit by and watch while this whole economy thing gets worse." No. They won't sit by. But why not, instead of agitating on behalf policies that will get other people to do something about the poverty they face, simply work and produce and strive (as, clearly they have demonstrated an amazing capacity to do). Why not "be the change you want to see" in your own world? I'm just sayin' . . .
Politics
Congress
Not according to Dr. No, aka Senator Tom Coburn, md, who seeks to kill National Science Foundation funding for the eclectic discipline. Political scientists banged their begging bowls to save their fed funding.
The latest Nobel Economics Prize winner, political scientist Elinor Ostrom, might note the disappearance of a free rider: No "tragedy of the commons" here, just the comedy of con-artists. Ostrom, former President of the American Political Science Association, presented this paper on her approach to the study of politics, known as public or rational choice, a school of thought that often supports conservative policy objectives. A President who earned her Nobel!
UPDATE: I hadn't noticed that Ostrom's paper is supported, in part, by the National Science Foundation. More on the limits of rat choice later.
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Ashbrook Center
Congratulations to this month's winners of a No Left Turns mug! The winners are as follows:
Jeffrey Valladolid
Michael Wallace
Amy Marie Taylor
Charles Hanks
Susan Banton
Thanks to all who entered. An email has been sent to the winners. If you are listed as a winner and did not receive an email, contact Ben Kunkel. If you didn't win this month, enter October's drawing.
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Environment
Race
University of Maryland students take up their school President's challenge and write a local history of slavery and its role in its founding. This is a serious work (only 48 pp, rtwt), with wonderful graphics, full of information and sober insights: The Declaration did have a great influence on freeing slaves. Did you know, though, that free blacks could not own dogs, but that they did own slaves?
The students conclude that their University had antebellum roots in both slavery and free labor policies. After the Civil War state segregation policies thwarted national policy, which was color-blind:
By the end of the 19th century, the Maryland Agricultural College had become the University of Maryland, a federal land-grant college. In 1890, new congressional legislation, the second Morrill Act [the first was signed into law by Abraham Lincoln], stipulated that there be no "distinction of race or color" in the use of funds the federal government supplied. However, the school's trustees, deeply committed to maintaining a racially exclusive institution, refused to accept black students at the College Park campus. Instead, they allocated one-fifth of the Morrill funds to the Princess Anne Academy on the Eastern Shore for the education of black students. Black students were no longer excluded from higher education in Maryland, but they were segregated and barred from the College Park campus.
Given the bad stuff we have seen coming out of the University, it is a relief to see some good work.
Politics
1. Several people have written fearing or hoping that I might be near death because I haven't been posting lately. I appreciate the concern, I guess. But we postmodern conservatives or 21st century Thomists don't believe that the doctrine "I blog, therefore I am" is realistic. All is well and I'm at a nice conference in Savannath, maybe the most beautiful city in America.
2. This conference is rife with young conservatives. And, naturally, they were all grousing with disbelief at breakfast over Obama's big Nobel win. The African American lady who was serving breakfast was glaring at them, thinking, I'm sure, that these people won't pass up any opportunity to let our president have it. She may, properly understood, have a point. Who cares who gets that fairly silly prize? It's not like Obama ran for it, as far as I can tell. No good president could possibly get it. And if they want to give it for pretty words that signify almost nothing, it doesn't pick my pocket or break my leg.
3. Whether the Republicans make big gains in Congress in 2010 will depend mostly on the state of the economy unless there's the reality or perception of dangerous foreign policy weakness. It would be better if the Republicans had either big brains or an effective leader or two, but that probably won't be the key. Anxiety is trumping ideology with the swing voters these days. No two economists agree on what things will be like a year from now, and it's difficult for we Republicans to know what to hope for.
Politics
Pop Culture
Brutal murderers on death row or imprisoned politicians get themselves nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in order to prove their continued worth to humanity. To see how this is done, check the process for nomination, and the qualifications for nominators. Peter Schramm should nominate the Ashbrook Center--for something. He and many of his academic colleagues are qualified to do so.
A better nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize would have been this Romanian (try to ignore the frightening photo) who writes mostly in German about life under Communism. Herta Mueller snagged the Nobel Prize in Literature instead.
Foreign Affairs
The Nobel Prize Committee should be in the business of conferring celebrity on unknown human-rights and peace activists toiling in the most god-forsaken parts of the world; the people who really need the attention (and even the money). It should be in the business of angering powerful tyrants by giving their victims a moment in the sun. Choosing Barack Obama, who practically orbits the sun already, accomplishes the exact opposite of that.This is the way small "l" liberals worth their salt (which ought to include, by the way, all respectable American "conservatives") used to think and talk and distinguish themselves from the pettiness and puerile servitude that marks the behavior of great manipulators and the great boot-lickers of the world. The conferring of this award to Barack Obama seems to be of a piece--as its opposite and equal reaction--with the rejection of Chicago for the Olympics. It begins to appear that the world believes we can be played.
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Conservatism
"I am one of the 'great unwashed masses' (despised by purists) who is struggling with the steep learning curve in American politics. I am also one who has read some of the articles complaining about us with revulsion . . . Recognize that we are not stupid, you aren't the only ones who would like to stuff a napkin in Beck's mouth at times. [On the other hand] [r]ealize that Beck treats us with respect, as do all of the Fox hosts and guests. What do you offer us? Stop griping, start sharing your knowledge, and help us get up to speed or please duct tape your keyboard."
Conservatism
"Is Conservatism Brain-Dead?" Steve Hayward asks in the Washington Post. His diagnosis is that the patient is, at least, on the critical list: "The brain waves of the American right continue to be erratic, when they are not flat-lining."
The source of the ailment is the unhappy and unbalanced relationship between conservative intellectuals and activists. There used to be, in the golden "Age of Reagan" from 1964 to 1989, a sustainable division of labor between them. The activists relied on the intellectuals for ideas and rhetoric, and the intellectuals were happy for the activists to mobilize voters and constituencies. "Today, however, the conservative movement has been thrown off balance," says Hayward, "with the populists dominating and the intellectuals retreating and struggling to come up with new ideas."
Perhaps, says Hayward, conservative intellectuals are "simply out of interesting ideas," the kind that would provide "compelling alternatives to Obama's economic or foreign policy." Nature abhors a vacuum. If the National Honor Society types have stopped saying illuminating and useful things, the sarcastic kids who jeer from the back of the classroom at Right Wing High will speak up more often, setting a different tone.
Important as it was to conservatism's political strength, the old division of labor between intellectuals and activists will be hard to restore. John Derbyshire laments the absence of "middlebrow conservatism." The lowbrow conservatism of talk radio is "energizing and fun," he says, but routinely caters to "reflex rather than thought." Talk radio reassures down-the-line conservatives that there's no need for them to reassess and modify their old ideas, investigate new ones, or doubt their own intellectual and moral superiority to liberals. What it doesn't do, according to Derbyshire, is "speak to that vast segment of the American middle class that lives sensibly - indeed, conservatively - wishes to be thought generous and good, finds everyday politics boring, and has a horror of strong opinions."
Winning a hearing and votes from that vast and electorally crucial segment is partly a matter of tone. Derbyshire laments that conservatives can't or won't express themselves with the "studied gentility" and "affectless voices" of National Public Radio, relying too often on "bullying bluster" rather than "bringing a sportsman's respect for his opponents to the debate."
Even if a new, pitch-perfect conservatism gets all that right, however, there's still the problem of substance. As Ramesh Ponnuru writes in the current National Review, ""The principal sources of the Left's revival are not difficult to identify: the years of denial that our strategy in Iraq was failing; stagnant wages; Republican corruption; the financial meltdown.... Republicans must... present plausible solutions to voters' concerns about health care, wages, and so forth--particularly if the results of Democratic policies are not unambiguously disastrous."
David Frum makes the same point: "We lost in 2008 in large part because we had not governed successfully over the previous eight years. More than political tactics, more even than media, what matters in politics is results. If national incomes had grown by 1% a year under George Bush instead of stagnating, Al Franken would have lost [Minnesota's Senate election] in a landslide."
Wonky inventiveness will be a necessary condition for discharging this political duty, but not a sufficient one. Conservatives still have to resolve, or at least manage, the tensions within their coalition. In a huge, diverse country with a strong historical and structural bias toward a two-party system, large, strange and tense coalitions will be a permanent problem for both parties. Some of the strains within the liberal coalition were made clear during the 2008 contest between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. (They were voiced memorably by the national president of the machinists' union.)
John Derbyshire outlined one of the fault lines in the conservative coalition six years ago when he discussed 'metropolitan conservatives," an issue he revisits in We Are Doomed. Metro-cons, to take a couple of particulars, believe in evolution and oppose laws outlawing homosexual acts between consenting adults. According to a fair amount of polling data, these positions put the metro-cons to the left of more than 40% of the America population, which means it probably puts them to the left of at least 80% of the people who voted for McCain/Palin. Derbyshire describes the metro-con's anomalous situation concisely: "I dislike modern American liberalism very much, and believe it to be poisonous and destructive; yet I am at ease in a roomful of New York liberals in a way that, to be truthful about it, I am not in a gathering of red-state evangelicals. Setting aside our actual opinions about this, that or the other, I am aware that in the first gathering I am among people with whom I have, at some level, a shared outlook; and in the second gathering, not."
His resolution of this tension in 2003 was unpersuasive. Admitting that it would be "the legions of real, authentic conservatives out there in the provinces" who would keep conservatism politically potent Derbyshire says, "God bless them all for keeping America strong, free, and true to her founding principles. If the price to be paid is a sodomy law here, a high-school Creationism class there, well, far as I am concerned, that's a small price indeed."
This doesn't sound like a sufficient basis on which to hold together a political movement. Rather than indulging ideological preoccupations they cannot endorse, conservative intellectuals need to emphasize a posteriori reasoning in their thinking and writing. The best way to make conservatism viable is to focus relentlessly on the tangible, the particular and totally legitimate preoccupations of their fellow-citizens. In a speech at the outset of his New York mayoral campaign in 1965 William Buckley said, "The purpose of politics is to do, to the limited extent it is possible to do anything by government action, something for the people of New York, to whom is owed, by good government, the security of their liberties: to work without harassment, to live without a crushing fiscal overhead, to educate their children with minimum interference from extrinsic distractions, to walk confidently in the streets, and sleep quietly at night. Public action is needed to secure these private ends."
Ronald Reagan employed the same idiom to great effect, such as when he asked Americans, in his debate with Jimmy Carter, "Are you better off than you were four years ago? Is it easier for you to go and buy things in the store than it was four years ago? Is there more or less unemployment in the country than there was four years ago? Is America as respected throughout the world as it was four years ago? Do you feel your security is safe, that we're as strong as we were four years ago?" One of the reasons those questions helped elect Reagan president was the subtle and powerful way they drew wider and wider circles, starting from private and mundane concerns, then connecting them to ones about the nation's economic vigor and its strength and reputation in the world. The rediscovery of those habits of thought and speech will be necessary to restore the intellectual and political health of American conservatism.
Politics
Conservatism
Politics
Conservatism
Politics
Congress
NYT quotes at length Matt Spalding's Senate testimony on ever-expanding government and the Czar controversy:
And I conclude by noting that we have a dilemma between the current Congress that tends to give away large amounts of authority -- for instance, in the TARP bill, which gave the secretary of the Treasury extensive delegation of power, $700 billion to purchase troubled assets; low [sic.: that's "lo"--where is the proofreader! :-). UPDATE: The NYT goofed; my apologies] and behold we now own General Motors and we have a "car czar." Setting aside the policy, was that Congress's intention?
Matt's full statement to Senator Feingold's subcommittee is here.
Conservatism
Not since Jimmah' donned the sweater has there been so much apparent anguish over a made-for-TV crisis of confidence. Now, it would be putting it much too strongly to say that I think this question of the "de-intellectualization" of the conservative movement is much ado about nothing. It would be putting it too strongly to suggest that I think all worries about excessive populism on our side are nothing more than intellectual snobbery and foppishness masquerading as genuine concern about the truth of the matter. It's not only that. There is real and legitimate concern for the direction of the movement--most especially because it does not appear (at least for the moment) to be moving anywhere. It does not seem to be dynamic or persuasive . . . at least not to groups not already inclined to be persuaded. So it is perfectly natural and certainly healthy to ask questions about why we seem to be up against a wall.
But it is still fair to say that a good bit of this existential questioning is less a crisis and more a bit of preening self-indulgent, narcissistic and . . . dare I say, cowardly exhibitionism? (And no, a cowardly exhibitionist is not an oxymoron.) In addition to some precious and sentimental nostalgia about conservatism's so-called "Glory Days" (you know, back when there were only three or four national publications with a conservative bent), I'd also add that there's an unseemly amount of whining coming from some quarters in the conservative intellectual class about not getting the "recognition" that they deserve . . . especially when it comes to cash. Well, duh!? It seems rarely to occur to many a would-be philosophic soul that he ought to be content when he's not offered a cocktail laced with hemlock. And when he's lucky enough to be at all gainfully employed in the "occupation" of public philosophizing, perhaps he should content himself with the possibility that one of his more marketable students might popularize a few of his ideas and, thereby, score for himself some of the lucre, fame, and "recognition" this teacher thinks that he, himself, deserves. Perhaps that famous student might also throw the teacher a bone of thanks. But then, perhaps not. No matter. If and when those thanks are offered, a good number in this bunch will not be satisfied . . . they will find some fault in the work of their proteges and continue their lament about the stupidity of the world. Philosophers like that will never rule--however much the world needs their wisdom. Reagan was no philosopher, maybe. But he waxed philosophic when he noted that it was amazing how much one can accomplish when he's not concerned about who gets the credit.
In that spirit, I find very little with which to quibble today in this fine post from Jonah Goldberg--though I'd heap even more praise on Steve Hayward's measured and thoughtful piece in last Friday's Washington Post. I'd also note that Steve was very clever to give the thing the title he gave it . . . and that Peter Schramm is right to note that the Huffington Post was not clever enough to read beyond it (much less into it). No Straussians there, I guess . . . but you'd think they'd find a few to hire . . . if for no other reason than translation purposes. But . . . let it go.
(See also Jonah's USA Today column on Glenn Beck and I will repeat my admonition not to miss the podcast with Steve Hayward over at Infinite Monkeys.)
It seems to me, however, that apart from the most obviously annoying aspects of this complaint about the "crassness" of the conservative movement (which I admit strikes me mainly out of a sentiment of disgust with its lack of charity for ordinary well-meaning people doing the best they can with limited political leadership and busy lives that are not--gasp!--dedicated to the study of politics) there also seems to be an amazing amount of missing the point. Which is funny, considering that so much of the criticism stems from a concern for a supposed lack of reflection on the Right.
If conservatism has hit a wall or if it has maxed out as a movement and is incapable of persuading anyone other than the masses it's already garnered to itself, is the fault with the natural inclinations of sentiment that lead so many to conservatism or, rather, is the fault with some aspect of its argument that remains unpersuasive (or unknown) to the yet unpersuaded? The sense of so many people that conservatism had been taking it in the shorts until talk radio (and a host of other popularizers) came around and made it cool to be conservative again is not simply wrong. Tired as the argument may be, it is true that conservatives have long been in the minority in the media, in the arts, in the corridors of most leading universities and even in the classrooms of the minor league ones (to say nothing of the elementary and secondary education systems). People were not simply wrong to suggest that "if only" conservatism could "get its message out there" the support would follow. Political movements, after all, are not (or, rather, ought not to be) fraternities or sports teams that pride themselves on their exclusivity. Conservatism certainly did need a PR campaign of sorts. And beginning in the early to mid-1990s, it began to get one. It was built . . . and they did come--at least they came to listen or to watch and even, sometimes, to read. The lament now seems to be that those who came did not, in that listening and watching, learn properly to play the game from watching the commercial.
For there are some people who have a way of turning up their noses at PR campaigns. This stuff is beneath them, don'tcha know? It's rather vulgar and tasteless . . . and, besides, it's short on subtlety and substance. Yeah . . . it is. And so . . . what's your point? It brought conservatism an audience . . . this is where the intellectuals are supposed to enter, stage right. And to their credit, many did. In the twenty plus years I've been at this stuff, I don't recall a time before now when I'd meet with as many folks in day-to-day ordinary life who could rattle off names that I recognize from what I had previously considered to be only scholarly or obscure reading. I don't recall a time when my unwillingness to purchase cable television seemed to put me at a disadvantage in recounting arguments from leading thinkers when accosted by my parents or their friends or people I run into at my kids' school or in the grocery store. I don't recall them ever suggesting that I go get a book or check out an article in a conservative journal before the advent of FOX News. But now it happens with a regularity that I ought to find humbling . . . that is, I would, if I weren't already so humble. ;-)
So why are the priests in the temple now complaining that the masses now have the printing press and are learning to read? My suggestion to them is to learn to offer a coherent political argument and then learn to make a persuasive political case for it. Yes, this is difficult work--much harder than communing with your peers. It's wonderful that you've enjoyed your years in the intellectual wilderness and that you've made good use of your time at the monastery communing your intellectual equals. But now you are called upon to edify the huddled masses . . . show us. Where's the beef?
The beef . . . or, rather, my beef with too many conservative intellectuals is that a good number of them seem to lack an understanding of the nature of the thing they seek to combat. What is today's liberalism? While they obsess and fret about liberalism's or (more accurately) progressivism's victories, not enough of them are asking the obvious questions they ought to be asking about why progressivism is still fighting the battles that it began more than 70 years ago. After 70 plus years, why hasn't progressivism been as utterly successful in transforming American politics and the American character as they seek to be? Why does every success of progressivism come wrapped up with in a paper that looks, amazingly, like our very own Constitution? Why are so many Americans still inclined to be conservatives (in the American rather than in the British sense of the term)? And why, given all of that, does conservatism seem to have such a rebellious sort of energy to it these days?
Jonah hints at it when he suggests that this is a "moment" (though only a "moment") for conservatives to gird their loins and shout "NO!" That's true, though incomplete. It's not just that we like to oppose change for opposition's sake. And it's not just that we're in a re-grouping mode after the defeats of the last election and the stunning audacity of the White House's current occupant. It's that the nature of the changes proposed is decidedly contrary to SOMETHING. Hmmm . . . what could that be? What is it that conservatives, in their bones and in their hearts (if not always so clearly in their heads) want to conserve?
I will leave it on this note: if conservatism these days looks a little rebellious, a little loud and a little uncouth, it ought to be remembered that the Constitution and laws our intellectuals love to revere came after the Revolution . . . that is to say, only after the principle of government with the consent of the governed was secured could we move on to a rational debate about the best ways of securing it in perpetuity. I don't suggest that we need the equivalent of a revolution before we can get on with more rational political discourse at this time. We've already had our revolution and, God willing, I pray we never need another one. We've already put into place an instrument designed to preserve the principles of that Revolution. For more than 230 years, it has done that job with an amazing amount of efficiency; even in spite of the head-on efforts of three-generations of progressives. But the Constitution, though not "living" as the Progressives would have it, is neither a dead nor mechanical thing. It will not work in perpetuity without a citizenry firmly dedicated to the principles that caused us to create it. We do not need another revolution, but we do have to rescue the principle of government by consent (and all that it implies) before we can expect to see a turning down of the political volume. As long as that principle is under assault by a significant portion of the political class, Americans will do what Americans have always done best. We are an ornery people at heart. It takes ornery people to do something so audacious as to declare that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with unalienable rights . . . It takes an ornery people to imagine that self-government is a possibility in a world that is much more familiar with despotism.
Yes, we'll need reflection and choice to shepherd us through this rescue mission. But we're also going to need to rally the troops around the right ideas before we can begin, in earnest, to rein them in.
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Polansky and Letterman may approach Jean-Jacques Rousseau's depravity, but they could surely not withstand his withering criticism of the terpitude of actors and other artists. That is the tension Richard Reeb explores, at that Rocky Mountain mainstay, Backbone America, founded by the redoubtable John Andrews. Artists regard themselves as "creative" gods, when in fact they are typically puerile reflections of their times. That postmodernism lies at the heart of Obama's writings, too, for he is at heart an artist.
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Apparently Michael Moore is less of a union man than he claims to be:
The porcine provocateur is promoting his anti-Wall Street jeremiad by giving free tickets to unions, but the American Federation of Teachers has turned them down because Moore didn't hire any members of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees.
And I thought he stayed out of the gym because someone told him it was a sweat shop!
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Poor boy made good, Michael Moore says "capitalism did nothing for me, starting with my first film." In fact, he says, " I had to pretty much beg, borrow and steal," he said. "The system is not set up to help somebody from the working class make a movie like this and get the truth out there."
Hard work, individual initiative, and compeition, isn't that what capitalism is about?
Moore's comments remind me of this essay on "Capitalism After the Crisis," by Luigi Zingales, who writes that:
In a recent study, Rafael Di Tella and Robert MacCulloch showed that public support for capitalism in any given country is positively associated with the perception that hard work, not luck, determines success, and is negatively correlated with the perception of corruption. These correlations go a long way toward explaining public support for America's capitalist system. According to one recent study, only 40% of Americans think that luck rather than hard work plays a major role in income differences. Compare that with the 75% of Brazilians who think that income disparities are mostly a matter of luck, or the 66% of Danes and 54% of Germans who do, and you begin to get a sense of why American attitudes toward the free-market system stand out.
Moreover, ZIngales notes that:
When the government is small and relatively weak, the way to make money is to start a successful private-sector business. But the larger the size and scope of government spending, the easier it is to make money by diverting public resources. Starting a business is difficult and involves a lot of risk -- but getting a government favor or contract is easier, and a much safer bet. And so in nations with large and powerful governments, the state tends to find itself at the heart of the economic system, even if that system is relatively capitalist. . . .
The situation is very different in nations that developed capitalist economies after World War II. These countries (in non-Soviet-bloc continental Europe, parts of Asia, and much of Latin America) industrialized under the giant shadow of American power. In this development process, the local elites felt threatened by the prospect of economic colonization by American companies that were far more efficient and better capitalized. To protect themselves, they purposely built a non-transparent system in which local connections were important, because this gave them an inherent advantage. These structures have proven resilient in the decades since: Once economic and political systems are built to reward relationships instead of efficiency, it is very difficult to reform them, since the people in power are the ones who would lose most in the change.
Finally, and this is the point that gets us back to Moore:
The United States was able to develop a pro-market agenda distinct from a pro-business agenda because it was largely spared the direct influence of Marxism. It is possible that the type of capitalism the United States developed is the cause, as much as the effect, of the absence of strong Marxist movements in this country. But either way, this distinction from other Western regimes was significant in the development of American attitudes toward economics.
Moore doesn't recognize that distinction between supporting the free market and supporting businesses. The danger, of course, is that the more government does, the more conncetions, rather than talent, hard work, and intelligence matter.
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Some in that group will even get additional money from the government because they qualify for refundable tax breaks. The
ranks of those whose major federal tax burdens net out at zero -- or
less -- is on the rise. The center's original 2009 estimate was 38%.
That was before enactment in February of the $787 billion economic
recovery package, which included a host of new or expanded tax breaks." Only some of the implications of this are touched on in the story. Interesting, no?
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