02.28.10
When they do it with science, I get big-time pissed
. . . but, as an academically trained historian, when they do it with history, ICBMs come out of my ears.
The clear intent is to make government everyone’s source of everything
This sounds like something John Podesta and Andy Stern would cook up.
02.26.10
He surely has other visions of his personal future, but history may tap him on the shoulder
Mona Charen on Mitch Daniels and the Pub short list for 2012. He’d be fabulous, but he’d have to be fully committed.
Striking a balance between ensuring safety and encouraging exploratory zeal
Charles Krauthammer’s column today, “Toyota and the Price of Modernity,” raises an interesting point.
The fact is that progress – technological and industrial advancement – is about moving into uncharted territory, much like pioneers advancing on the frontier (or astonauts stepping onto the surface of the moon). No one can possibly predict all the variables that will come into play when something new is invented or discovered.
It’s as if we’ve crossed some kind of threshold, and now we have some kind of perception that there is a “system,” like rules of a game, by which we can systemetize the forward push of human ingenuity. The fact is that there is no “system.” As Krauthammer says, we should certainly not trivialize skirting of the pontential for peril that a maker of a product has indeed ascertained to be present. On the other hand, it would be refreshing to see our culture once again nod admiringly in the presence of boldness and robust belief that invention basically leads to good.
A beautiful sight: Pubs with spines
I didn’t have a lot of time to stay moment-by-moment abreast of the summit today, but reading the immediate post-pow-wow coverage makes it clear that those with a keen and principled interest in human freedom and the resucitation of the United States of America had it all over the jackbooted socialists .
02.24.10
Another development that is – all together, now – unexpected!
New home sales reach a record low in January. The “hints at potential trouble” phrase is an amusing touch, too.
“If only it ended there”
David Harsanyi on Ron Paul’s CPAC straw-poll victory, and its implications for whether libertarianism will now be taken more seriously or less. As Harsanyi states, Paul is a fundamentally unserious person, a crank with kinky obsessions like ending the Fed.
There are, as Harsanyi points out, two main branches of libertarianism these days: the silly branch (Lew Rockwell, Paul Craig Roberts, Ron Paul), and the grown-up branch (Reason magazine, Neal Boortz, the Cato Institute). The whole movement’s main problem, though, and the reason it never does better than it does in polls or elections, is its excrutitatingly theoretical nature. The basic premise of both branches is that you can be absolutist about human freedom starting right now, this very second. A thorough understanding of history shows that what is realistic and noble to work for is a maximization of human freedom.
You have to look around you and see that there are entire nation-states (and non-state actors with wide networks) in the throes of absolutely mad ideologies that have at their cores the destruction of our freedom-based way of life. In other words, you have to count on war as a constant in the human predicament.
Also, this business of pressing for the legalization of vices like prostitution (as sick an activity as humans have ever devised; it has elements of both slavery and cannibalism) and use and sale of addictive narcotics fails to take into account a little thing called the social fabric.
In short, one way of describing the difference between a libertarian and a conservative is that the former will say, “What your neighbor is doing on his own property is non of your business if it doesn’t hurt you,” whereas the latter will say, “What he is doing has ramifications beyond the confines of his property and it is a noble use of my freedom to do all I can to persuade as many people as possible that it is morally wrong.”
Yes, freedom is central to human well-being. But, unless on is a nihilist, one eventually concludes that there is a point – a moral point – to human existence. That has to be part of the conversation.
02.23.10
“A perfect snapshot of the West at twilight”
One of life’s great delights is reading a piece of writing in which one of the age’s most magnificent writers has outdone himself. This is even true when the subject of the writing is a grim reality.
Such is the case with Mark Steyn’s Feb. 19 column. He employs one of his well-known literary techniques: starting into a discussion of something that doesn’t seem even peripherally related to his real topic, and then showing how it’s absolutely of a piece with it. The English pancake race and the Arizona resort hotel have everything to do with our esssential non-seriousness about Iran’s nuclear program.
Actually, while he goes about it in a markedly different – and much more skillful – way, he covers the same terrain I did in my Sunday column. The leviathan nanny state preoccupies itself with all manner of infantile micromanaging of private life, and utterly neglects to keep us safe from our self-declared enemies.
You can just read the Steyn piece for the great writing, but it’s almost certain that your sense of alarm will be heightened as well.
It’s in situations like this that Reasonable Gentlemen can get us into real trouble
I’d been think this since I heard TCM talk about loan guarantees for nuke-plant construction: That is sounds like an interesting move in and of itself, but that it’s really a ploy to incrementally lure Pubs into signing on to “green” technology.
And with three characters like Graham, Lieberman and Kerry working together to craft an “acceptably biparitsan” energy bill, it becomes crucial for grown-ups to keep their wits about them.
Along with TCM, Congress and socialist health care, the American people are reaching consenus about
. . . the actual prospects of the economy in the hands of the Freedom-Haters.
Reclaiming the stupid party is really going to be a lot of work – this hour’s edition
Mitt Romney endorses McCain for re-election as Arizona senator. (And while BN endorses Hayworth, it comes with this qualifier: He needs to knock off the birther crap, and right now.)
And Scott Brown shows symptoms of Reasonable Gentleman Syndrome, voting for cloture on the jobs bill, andusing terms like “bipartisanship” and “put politics aside.” His election remains glorious, since it roars loudly the mood of the electorate, as well as making it likely that socialist health care is a dead issue. Still, we must expect him to mute our excitement with great frequency.
You may have to read this a couple of times to get over your incredulity
And swallow your coffee first so it doesn’t splatter all over your keyboard.
TCM wants Andy Stern to sit on this deficit reduction panel.
The main culprits were politically correct lending, localized housing regulations, and the Fed fiddling with interest rates
Thomas Sowell on why “Wall Street greed” doesn’t hold up as an explanation for the housing bust.
02.22.10
Beautiful and glorious – today’s edition
Two MSM offerings in which you see the term “failing” applied in an overall way to TCM’s presidency.
An AP story about his latest attempt to salvage socialist health care, and
A CBS poll about his performance.
There have been those of us who, from the outset – that would be early 2008, maybe even fall of 2007 – who were not afraid to say they hoped for this. An America-hating radical with a perverted vision of what he wanted to transform this country into, a pathological narcissist who has never been told anything in his whole life other than that he was a fabulous rock star, needed to be stopped dead in his tracks at the first available opportunity.
Thank God that is now happening.
Memo to the GOP: Give up being the stupid party and embrace conservatism without reservation.
Now that TCM’s plan is out there
. . . Pundit and Pundette have coverage of such phenomena in its wake as the CBO’s inability to score it, and the latest display of Robert Gibbs’s sinister deceitfulness.
