SOME PHILOSOPHY
The Maverick philosopher: "There are other people for whom truth counts for nothing, but power for everything.... They project their own lust for power into everyone else interpreting everything that is manifestly not a power-move as latently a power-move. There are plenty of leftists like this. Taking their cue from Nietzsche, they assume that everything is power at bottom. Die Welt ist der Wille zur Macht und nichts anders! "The world is the will to power and nothing besides!" Supported by this assumption, they set out to unmask (deconstruct) phenomena that manifestly are not power-driven, for example, attempts to state what is the case. Compare my comments on Stanley Fish in "Of Truth and Fish". Power-mad themselves, these leftists project lust for power into everyone and everything. It is a curious pars pro toto fallacy: one takes a phenomenon one finds in oneself, lust for power, and then interprets everything else in terms of it".
Kant was a libertarian! "Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) is a highly significant resource for classical liberalism and libertarianism. Not only can one rely upon Kant's account of the foundations of morality to derive libertarian principles: Kant's own specifically political philosophy is written very much in a classical liberal vein that opposed paternalist government while emphasizing the centrality of the individual's property rights.... In the Metaphysics of Morals [Metaphysik der Sitten], Kant claims that each individual has only one innate right, that of freedom. It is because of this right that one's person may not be arbitrarily coerced, and not because of a right to property that covers self-ownership. "Freedom (independence from being constrained by another's choice), insofar as it can coexist with the freedom of every other in accordance with a universal law, is the only original right belonging to every man by virtue of his humanity""
Human rights vs. animal rights: Review of Tibor R. Machan's "Putting Humans First": "The only book I have encountered that views today's environmental movement from a historical and philosophical perspective and convincingly argues why we have been on the wrong track. Machan then lays out a simple blueprint for man's future interaction with the planet and animal kingdom. "Putting Humans First" should become the gold standard for warm and friendly human beings endeavoring to understand and explain why, though we may love animals and nature, they are intrinsically inferior to humans."
"There does exist therefore, gentlemen, a law which is a law not of the statute-book, but of nature; a law which we possess not by instruction, tradition, or reading, but which we have caught, imbibed, and sucked in at Nature's own breast; a law which comes to us not by education but by constitution, not by training but by intuition-- the law, I mean, that should our life have fallen into any snare, into the violence and the weapons of robbers or foes, every method of winning a way to safety would be morally justifiable. When arms speak, the laws are silent; they bid none to await their word, since he who chooses to await it must pay an undeserved penalty ere he can exact a deserved one." (Marcus Tullius Cicero, Cicero:The Speeches with an English Translation, "On Behalf of Milo", infra, p. 17)
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Saturday, September 18, 2004
ELSEWHERE
Leftist journalists occasionally let their real thoughts out. Note this comment from one such elitist in her interview with Jay Leno: "But surely "Jaywalking" [Leno's man-in-the-street segment] shows you what morons Americans are." How Leftists hate ordinary people! I wonder how it is that "morons" have created one of the freeest, most dynamic, most prosperous, most powerful and most generous nations the world has ever known?
It looks like the "National Review" article about biased bookshops that I linked to yesterday has got some response at least. See here. Note that they do not deny that conservative customers are often treated contemptuously.
I guess President Wilson must have been a "neocon": "The world must be made safe for democracy," Woodrow Wilson declared in 1917. Ever since (and arguably before), that imperative has occupied a central place in U.S. foreign policy. Democratic and Republican presidents alike have seen the need to spread liberty abroad to protect liberty at home."
Condescension compulsory: "My DNA theory came to me on Monday evening last as I listened to Greta Van Susteren reporting. She had a ranting, angry liberal as a guest against the backdrop of the Republican convention. Said liberal complained of white males, Republicans and the dominance of the former in the latter. Susteren pointed out that Bush had Colin Powell, Rod Paige and Condi Rice in his Cabinet. Undaunted, the liberal DNA kicked in, "Bush just picked them, and they happened to be black. He didn't pick them because they were black." Blacks who are chosen for their competence don't count as true blacks?"
Arnold Kling: "The Democrats, in my view, are neither hawks nor doves. They are ostriches. Some of the ostriches disparage nations like Australia and Italy that stand with us and instead fantasize about forging a coalition out of the unwilling nations of France and Germany. They have faith in the United Nations, even as the Sudan and Iran thumb their noses at that body."
Old media and new media: "That's what is most fascinating about the elimination of media entry barriers, the rise of distributed journalism, and the new influx of reporting and commentary from outside the professional guild. The new outlets aren't displacing the old ones; they're transforming them. Slowly but noticeably, the old media are becoming faster, more transparent, more interactive -- not because they want to be, but because they have to be."
Invisible Heart questions this claim about Ralph Nader: "More than any other single person, Ralph Nader is responsible for the existence of automobiles that have seat belts, padded dashboards, air bags, non-impaling steering columns, and gas tanks that don't readily explode when the car gets rear-ended. He is therefore responsible for the existence of some millions of drivers and passengers who would otherwise be dead." He is permalink-deprived so scroll down to his post of March 4th. He shows that the steepest fall in deaths occurred long BEFORE St. Ralph.
Maybe I am a sentimental old fool but I was really touched by the blogger who found God's mercy even in the events of 9/11.
I seem to be posting a lot on EDUCATION WATCH lately and even SOCIALIZED MEDICINE seems to be getting almost daily postings.
For more postings, see GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH and EDUCATION WATCH. Mirror sites here, here, here and here
**************************
Anti-Americanism is in epidemic proportions in France and Germany but most people don't realize that it is in epidemic proportions in South Korea too. And what do those three countries have in common? They were liberated by America. And what is probably the most pro-American country in the world? Poland. They liberated themselves. Ego defeats rationality all the time.
The conflict between conservatives and Leftists is not usually a conflict between realists and idealists. Mostly it is a conflict between realists and big egos who will say anything to win applause
Comments? Email me or here. If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.
********************************
Leftist journalists occasionally let their real thoughts out. Note this comment from one such elitist in her interview with Jay Leno: "But surely "Jaywalking" [Leno's man-in-the-street segment] shows you what morons Americans are." How Leftists hate ordinary people! I wonder how it is that "morons" have created one of the freeest, most dynamic, most prosperous, most powerful and most generous nations the world has ever known?
It looks like the "National Review" article about biased bookshops that I linked to yesterday has got some response at least. See here. Note that they do not deny that conservative customers are often treated contemptuously.
I guess President Wilson must have been a "neocon": "The world must be made safe for democracy," Woodrow Wilson declared in 1917. Ever since (and arguably before), that imperative has occupied a central place in U.S. foreign policy. Democratic and Republican presidents alike have seen the need to spread liberty abroad to protect liberty at home."
Condescension compulsory: "My DNA theory came to me on Monday evening last as I listened to Greta Van Susteren reporting. She had a ranting, angry liberal as a guest against the backdrop of the Republican convention. Said liberal complained of white males, Republicans and the dominance of the former in the latter. Susteren pointed out that Bush had Colin Powell, Rod Paige and Condi Rice in his Cabinet. Undaunted, the liberal DNA kicked in, "Bush just picked them, and they happened to be black. He didn't pick them because they were black." Blacks who are chosen for their competence don't count as true blacks?"
Arnold Kling: "The Democrats, in my view, are neither hawks nor doves. They are ostriches. Some of the ostriches disparage nations like Australia and Italy that stand with us and instead fantasize about forging a coalition out of the unwilling nations of France and Germany. They have faith in the United Nations, even as the Sudan and Iran thumb their noses at that body."
Old media and new media: "That's what is most fascinating about the elimination of media entry barriers, the rise of distributed journalism, and the new influx of reporting and commentary from outside the professional guild. The new outlets aren't displacing the old ones; they're transforming them. Slowly but noticeably, the old media are becoming faster, more transparent, more interactive -- not because they want to be, but because they have to be."
Invisible Heart questions this claim about Ralph Nader: "More than any other single person, Ralph Nader is responsible for the existence of automobiles that have seat belts, padded dashboards, air bags, non-impaling steering columns, and gas tanks that don't readily explode when the car gets rear-ended. He is therefore responsible for the existence of some millions of drivers and passengers who would otherwise be dead." He is permalink-deprived so scroll down to his post of March 4th. He shows that the steepest fall in deaths occurred long BEFORE St. Ralph.
Maybe I am a sentimental old fool but I was really touched by the blogger who found God's mercy even in the events of 9/11.
I seem to be posting a lot on EDUCATION WATCH lately and even SOCIALIZED MEDICINE seems to be getting almost daily postings.
For more postings, see GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH and EDUCATION WATCH. Mirror sites here, here, here and here
**************************
Anti-Americanism is in epidemic proportions in France and Germany but most people don't realize that it is in epidemic proportions in South Korea too. And what do those three countries have in common? They were liberated by America. And what is probably the most pro-American country in the world? Poland. They liberated themselves. Ego defeats rationality all the time.
The conflict between conservatives and Leftists is not usually a conflict between realists and idealists. Mostly it is a conflict between realists and big egos who will say anything to win applause
Comments? Email me or here. If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.
********************************
Friday, September 17, 2004
LYING
Some excerpts from a very good article:
"You can no more expect the "rule of law" to function without a core precept centering on truth than you could expect your human body to function without a heart. The two are inseparable. Those who treat casually the truth governing a society formed around the "rule of law" are inviting a lawlessness (anarchy), which will inevitably follow. Law and order cannot coexist with condoned falsehood.
Lying is a particularly vicious and destructive fault. There is no doubting that in times of weakness or imprudence most all of us have employed a lie on occasion. But it is only the depraved or demented that would not come to realize its insidious properties. Indeed, lying is one evil equally condemned by not only God, beginning with the Eighth Commandment,1 but by all secular cultures that wisely give preeminence to the "common good" and "right reason," based on the natural law in their governing policies.
Any nation or culture that comes to granting license to lying has initiated its own death warrant. Yet, that very process is well on the way in our nation today....
Although lying is a fault that all of society has occasion to confront, it is noted to be particularly focused in our day with the practitioners of the ideology which is now popularly referred to as "liberalism." In fact, the ideologies of liberalism, socialism, Marxism, and communism are all wedded, and proceed from the same brood house. It should be pointed out that "liberal" is a term adopted by the socialists themselves in seeking to disassociate from the stigma that had become attached to that ideology. I need not here reiterate what recent history has revealed pertaining to the lethal properties of these particular "...ism's". "Evil empire(s)" is one apt description of their outcomes when allowed to assume power.
Lying is an acknowledged tool of socialism/Marxism as not only taught by Marx but as incorporated in certain Marxist constitutions. Vladimir Lenin, a devoted follower of Marx and a father of the societal and world-wide disaster that came to be known as Communism, had the following words to say of their governmental intentions: "The lie is sacred, and deception will be our principal weapon."....."
**********************************
Some excerpts from a very good article:
"You can no more expect the "rule of law" to function without a core precept centering on truth than you could expect your human body to function without a heart. The two are inseparable. Those who treat casually the truth governing a society formed around the "rule of law" are inviting a lawlessness (anarchy), which will inevitably follow. Law and order cannot coexist with condoned falsehood.
Lying is a particularly vicious and destructive fault. There is no doubting that in times of weakness or imprudence most all of us have employed a lie on occasion. But it is only the depraved or demented that would not come to realize its insidious properties. Indeed, lying is one evil equally condemned by not only God, beginning with the Eighth Commandment,1 but by all secular cultures that wisely give preeminence to the "common good" and "right reason," based on the natural law in their governing policies.
Any nation or culture that comes to granting license to lying has initiated its own death warrant. Yet, that very process is well on the way in our nation today....
Although lying is a fault that all of society has occasion to confront, it is noted to be particularly focused in our day with the practitioners of the ideology which is now popularly referred to as "liberalism." In fact, the ideologies of liberalism, socialism, Marxism, and communism are all wedded, and proceed from the same brood house. It should be pointed out that "liberal" is a term adopted by the socialists themselves in seeking to disassociate from the stigma that had become attached to that ideology. I need not here reiterate what recent history has revealed pertaining to the lethal properties of these particular "...ism's". "Evil empire(s)" is one apt description of their outcomes when allowed to assume power.
Lying is an acknowledged tool of socialism/Marxism as not only taught by Marx but as incorporated in certain Marxist constitutions. Vladimir Lenin, a devoted follower of Marx and a father of the societal and world-wide disaster that came to be known as Communism, had the following words to say of their governmental intentions: "The lie is sacred, and deception will be our principal weapon."....."
**********************************
ELSEWHERE
WHAT? "U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell says he hopes to be able to remove Saudi Arabia from the State Department list of religiously intolerant countries."
There is an article in "National Review" (full copy here) about American bookshops that I find quite amazing. It records the immense lengths American booksellers go to in order to suppress the circulation of conservative books. And the sales clerks in American bookshops appear to be the worst offenders. There is a heap of comments here from lots of other American conservatives confirming the truth of the story. I cannot imagine any such thing happening in Australia and I have certainly never encountered any shred of it. I guess Australia just is both a less polarized and more conservative country. But the story is of course yet another instance of how instinctively Leftists rely on censorship. They just cannot afford for the full truth on anything political to become known.
AOL users: A lot of your email is getting bounced back to the sender without being delivered at the moment. It has been happening to emails that I have sent to various AOL users over the last week or so. Get yourself a Yahoo address would be my advice.
An amusing article here about the editor of "Harpers" magazine. He says conservatives have no ideas despite the fact that he used to publish heaps of articles by conservatives when the magazine was independent. Now that the magazine depends on grants from Left-wing foundations for its survival, he has changed his tune, funnily enough! His only explanation for the influence that conservative ideas now have is the influence of conservative foundations. But Leftist foundations are miles bigger than conservative ones so he again reduces himself to absurdity. He is also the clown who wrote a report about what happened at the GOP convention before the convention had actually commenced! What loonies Leftist foundations hire! I guess they don't have much choice.
Scott Burgess has a report about an addled Left-wing journalist who found what she regarded as just about a perfect human society in southern Bavaria but who could not handle the fact that all the people concerned were white! Her "solution" to the non-existent "problem"? They need some blacks! Leftists just hate ordinary people so cannot bear to see them happily getting on with their own lives. Destroying people's happiness is their specialty. They are just fundamentally destructive people.
There is a great advertisement for an IBM electric typewriter here. Dan Rather will no doubt be bidding.
That good ol' "projection" again: "Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry accused President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney of running a 'shameful and outrageous' campaign to win reelection. In an interview conducted by Time magazine, Kerry said Republicans are desperate to hold on to the White House and will use any means necessary to do so.... 'I think the president's unwillingness to walk away from those comments makes it clear that he and the vice president will say anything and do anything to get elected and hold onto power,' Kerry said"
Left-leaning and Nobel prize-winning South African novelist Nadine Gordimer is trying to censor a biography of her. A South African reader writes: "All because Roberts used certain quotes from her that reveal the serpent behind the mask. Gordimer always portrays Afrikaners as really dumb, low-class fools in her work - she is a racist. Even fellow lefties here in SA call her "humourless". Her books don't sell in SA. Only the Swedes think she's a great writer."
"One of Toronto's Jewish groups wants to tear a piece off PETA. The Canadian Jewish Congress is furious over a People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals campaign called "Holocaust on Your Plate" that compares animals being slaughtered with Nazi death camps".
What a nasty headline -- from Reuters, of course: "Miss America to Showcase More Skin, Less Talent"
There is a new blog called Catholic Kerry Watch.
For more postings, see GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH and EDUCATION WATCH. Mirror sites here, here, here and here
**************************
Anti-Americanism is in epidemic proportions in France and Germany but most people don't realize that it is in epidemic proportions in South Korea too. And what do those three countries have in common? They were liberated by America. And what is probably the most pro-American country in the world? Poland. They liberated themselves. Ego defeats rationality all the time.
The conflict between conservatives and Leftists is not usually a conflict between realists and idealists. Mostly it is a conflict between realists and big egos who will say anything to win applause
Comments? Email me or here. If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.
********************************
WHAT? "U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell says he hopes to be able to remove Saudi Arabia from the State Department list of religiously intolerant countries."
There is an article in "National Review" (full copy here) about American bookshops that I find quite amazing. It records the immense lengths American booksellers go to in order to suppress the circulation of conservative books. And the sales clerks in American bookshops appear to be the worst offenders. There is a heap of comments here from lots of other American conservatives confirming the truth of the story. I cannot imagine any such thing happening in Australia and I have certainly never encountered any shred of it. I guess Australia just is both a less polarized and more conservative country. But the story is of course yet another instance of how instinctively Leftists rely on censorship. They just cannot afford for the full truth on anything political to become known.
AOL users: A lot of your email is getting bounced back to the sender without being delivered at the moment. It has been happening to emails that I have sent to various AOL users over the last week or so. Get yourself a Yahoo address would be my advice.
An amusing article here about the editor of "Harpers" magazine. He says conservatives have no ideas despite the fact that he used to publish heaps of articles by conservatives when the magazine was independent. Now that the magazine depends on grants from Left-wing foundations for its survival, he has changed his tune, funnily enough! His only explanation for the influence that conservative ideas now have is the influence of conservative foundations. But Leftist foundations are miles bigger than conservative ones so he again reduces himself to absurdity. He is also the clown who wrote a report about what happened at the GOP convention before the convention had actually commenced! What loonies Leftist foundations hire! I guess they don't have much choice.
Scott Burgess has a report about an addled Left-wing journalist who found what she regarded as just about a perfect human society in southern Bavaria but who could not handle the fact that all the people concerned were white! Her "solution" to the non-existent "problem"? They need some blacks! Leftists just hate ordinary people so cannot bear to see them happily getting on with their own lives. Destroying people's happiness is their specialty. They are just fundamentally destructive people.
There is a great advertisement for an IBM electric typewriter here. Dan Rather will no doubt be bidding.
That good ol' "projection" again: "Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry accused President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney of running a 'shameful and outrageous' campaign to win reelection. In an interview conducted by Time magazine, Kerry said Republicans are desperate to hold on to the White House and will use any means necessary to do so.... 'I think the president's unwillingness to walk away from those comments makes it clear that he and the vice president will say anything and do anything to get elected and hold onto power,' Kerry said"
Left-leaning and Nobel prize-winning South African novelist Nadine Gordimer is trying to censor a biography of her. A South African reader writes: "All because Roberts used certain quotes from her that reveal the serpent behind the mask. Gordimer always portrays Afrikaners as really dumb, low-class fools in her work - she is a racist. Even fellow lefties here in SA call her "humourless". Her books don't sell in SA. Only the Swedes think she's a great writer."
"One of Toronto's Jewish groups wants to tear a piece off PETA. The Canadian Jewish Congress is furious over a People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals campaign called "Holocaust on Your Plate" that compares animals being slaughtered with Nazi death camps".
What a nasty headline -- from Reuters, of course: "Miss America to Showcase More Skin, Less Talent"
There is a new blog called Catholic Kerry Watch.
For more postings, see GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH and EDUCATION WATCH. Mirror sites here, here, here and here
**************************
Anti-Americanism is in epidemic proportions in France and Germany but most people don't realize that it is in epidemic proportions in South Korea too. And what do those three countries have in common? They were liberated by America. And what is probably the most pro-American country in the world? Poland. They liberated themselves. Ego defeats rationality all the time.
The conflict between conservatives and Leftists is not usually a conflict between realists and idealists. Mostly it is a conflict between realists and big egos who will say anything to win applause
Comments? Email me or here. If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.
********************************
Thursday, September 16, 2004
SOME MORE ECONOMICS
Minimum wages destroy both jobs and employability: "When I discuss minimum wages in class I tell my students that one of the best ways to get a high-paying job is to get a low-paying job and work your way up. The minimum wage can put the least employable out of work and have permanent negative effects when training and work skills not acquired in youth are difficult to accumulate later on.... David Neumark and Olena Nizalova look at the how exposure to the minimum wage in the past impacts workers today. They find that teenagers who grow up in states with a minimum wage that is significantly and consistently higher than the federal minimum have lower earnings and work less a decade or more later when those workers are in their late twenties. The negative effects are larger for blacks, for whom the minimum wage tends to be more binding.... The bottom line? If you don't work at McDonald's when you are a teenager, don't expect to manage a McDonald's when you are middle-aged."
The origin of the income tax: "'The freedoms won by Americans in 1776 were lost in the revolution of 1913,' wrote Frank Chodorov. Indeed, a man's home used to be his castle. The income tax, however, gave the government the keys to every door and the sole right to change the locks. Today the American people are no longer the master and the government has ceased to be the servant.... Adjusting for inflation, in the 81 years between the enactment of the income tax in 1913 to 1994, government spending increased 13,592%!"
A reader writes: "This article shows that the number of Australians on full time welfare support has gone from 1 in 20 in the early 1960s to 1 in 5 today. The welfare lobby and 'social justice' advocates seem to be on a business as usual track. You don't have to be a libertarian or even a conservative to criticise these numbers. Many ordinary Australians would say that Australia was a fairer and more equal society in the 1960s than it is today. The welfare lobby needs to redirect their focus from welfare expansion to welfare targeting."
Walter E. Williams: "The truly rich don't deserve all the political hype we hear; they're only a tiny percentage of our population and not that important. According to recent U.S. Treasury statistics, the top 1 percent of income earners have an adjusted gross income that starts around $300,000. While $300,000 or $400,000 a year is nothing to sneeze at, it's a far cry from being rich; it's not even yacht-and-Gulfstream-jet money. The truly rich Americans are those with assets like Bill Gates ($46 billion), Warren Buffett ($43 billion) and Paul Allen ($21 billion). All told, there are about 275 Americans in the billionaire club. Having just a couple million dollars in assets doesn't merit much respect as riches.The 99 percent plus of the rest of us can safely ignore the truly rich."
What the Left won't tell you: "The twentieth century contrasts sharply with the record of the two preceding centuries. In every measure we have bearing on the standard of living, such as real income, homelessness, life expectancy and height, the gains of the lower class have been far greater than those experienced by the population as a whole, whose overall standard of living has also improved".
**************************
Minimum wages destroy both jobs and employability: "When I discuss minimum wages in class I tell my students that one of the best ways to get a high-paying job is to get a low-paying job and work your way up. The minimum wage can put the least employable out of work and have permanent negative effects when training and work skills not acquired in youth are difficult to accumulate later on.... David Neumark and Olena Nizalova look at the how exposure to the minimum wage in the past impacts workers today. They find that teenagers who grow up in states with a minimum wage that is significantly and consistently higher than the federal minimum have lower earnings and work less a decade or more later when those workers are in their late twenties. The negative effects are larger for blacks, for whom the minimum wage tends to be more binding.... The bottom line? If you don't work at McDonald's when you are a teenager, don't expect to manage a McDonald's when you are middle-aged."
The origin of the income tax: "'The freedoms won by Americans in 1776 were lost in the revolution of 1913,' wrote Frank Chodorov. Indeed, a man's home used to be his castle. The income tax, however, gave the government the keys to every door and the sole right to change the locks. Today the American people are no longer the master and the government has ceased to be the servant.... Adjusting for inflation, in the 81 years between the enactment of the income tax in 1913 to 1994, government spending increased 13,592%!"
A reader writes: "This article shows that the number of Australians on full time welfare support has gone from 1 in 20 in the early 1960s to 1 in 5 today. The welfare lobby and 'social justice' advocates seem to be on a business as usual track. You don't have to be a libertarian or even a conservative to criticise these numbers. Many ordinary Australians would say that Australia was a fairer and more equal society in the 1960s than it is today. The welfare lobby needs to redirect their focus from welfare expansion to welfare targeting."
Walter E. Williams: "The truly rich don't deserve all the political hype we hear; they're only a tiny percentage of our population and not that important. According to recent U.S. Treasury statistics, the top 1 percent of income earners have an adjusted gross income that starts around $300,000. While $300,000 or $400,000 a year is nothing to sneeze at, it's a far cry from being rich; it's not even yacht-and-Gulfstream-jet money. The truly rich Americans are those with assets like Bill Gates ($46 billion), Warren Buffett ($43 billion) and Paul Allen ($21 billion). All told, there are about 275 Americans in the billionaire club. Having just a couple million dollars in assets doesn't merit much respect as riches.The 99 percent plus of the rest of us can safely ignore the truly rich."
What the Left won't tell you: "The twentieth century contrasts sharply with the record of the two preceding centuries. In every measure we have bearing on the standard of living, such as real income, homelessness, life expectancy and height, the gains of the lower class have been far greater than those experienced by the population as a whole, whose overall standard of living has also improved".
**************************
ELSEWHERE
Peg Kaplan says why the use of forged documents by CBS to discredit GWB is a big deal. I am amazed that they keep defending themselves. A quick "we were conned" would have saved a lot of their reputation. One wonders whom they are protecting -- i.e. did the documents come directly from the Kerry campaign? NRO has the story about a much earlier "Rathergate" scandal that now seems generally forgotten. (Via Dick McDonald).
Further to my post about the "Could America be Satan" seminar, Dave Huber has some information about how away with the fairies these guys really are.
An Islamic "spiritual leader" speaks about the recent bombing of the Australian embassy in Indonesia: ""I suspect that America and Australia themselves are behind the [embassy] bombing, for two reasons: one, the US issued a travel warning before the bombing. It means they already knew in advance; and two, the bomb intentionally exploded about the embassy gates which made victims of ordinary people, who are Muslim. It means it is aimed at pushing Islam into a corner. On these two indicators, I suspect the US and Australia are behind the bombing".
Film on Cat Torture Draws Protesters in Toronto: I love the conflict between animal rights protesters and the PC art nazis. Such decisions for Leftists: protest the animal cruelty, or support some disgusting so-called "artist's" right to expression?
O'Reilly selling out? "OK, I have finally had enough with Mr. Switzerland, aka Bill O'Reilly. I started getting annoyed when he made comments such as " I think Kerry is a good guy, I could sleep well at night if he were President." Then I became angry when he criticized the Swift vets and refused to have an open discussion about the topic... The more I listen to this blowhard the more I feel he is a wanna-be elitist. I get the feeling that he wished he could leave that damn 'right wing' Fox and become anchor for one of the big networks".
John Kerry has been criticizing the Bush administration's approach to North Korea. But even the New York Times has put up another view: "The Bush administration's customary approach to North Korea, based on consultation with North Korea's neighbors and skepticism of its motives, is exactly what is necessary." A "mulitilateral" approach is what Kerry keeps demanding for Iraq so a naive person might think that a multilateral approach to North Korea would be approved of. But who said Leftists have to be consistent? Not John Kerry!
Carnival of the Vanities is up again with its usual survey of the week's blogospheric wisdom.
There is a very irate email up on EDUCATION WATCH about government funding for Australian private schools. New posts on SOCIALIZED MEDICINE too.
For more postings, see GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH and EDUCATION WATCH. Mirror sites here, here, here and here
**************************
Anti-Americanism is in epidemic proportions in France and Germany but most people don't realize that it is in epidemic proportions in South Korea too. And what do those three countries have in common? They were liberated by America. And what is probably the most pro-American country in the world? Poland. They liberated themselves. Ego defeats rationality all the time.
The conflict between conservatives and Leftists is not usually a conflict between realists and idealists. Mostly it is a conflict between realists and big egos who will say anything to win applause
Comments? Email me or here. If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.
********************************
Peg Kaplan says why the use of forged documents by CBS to discredit GWB is a big deal. I am amazed that they keep defending themselves. A quick "we were conned" would have saved a lot of their reputation. One wonders whom they are protecting -- i.e. did the documents come directly from the Kerry campaign? NRO has the story about a much earlier "Rathergate" scandal that now seems generally forgotten. (Via Dick McDonald).
Further to my post about the "Could America be Satan" seminar, Dave Huber has some information about how away with the fairies these guys really are.
An Islamic "spiritual leader" speaks about the recent bombing of the Australian embassy in Indonesia: ""I suspect that America and Australia themselves are behind the [embassy] bombing, for two reasons: one, the US issued a travel warning before the bombing. It means they already knew in advance; and two, the bomb intentionally exploded about the embassy gates which made victims of ordinary people, who are Muslim. It means it is aimed at pushing Islam into a corner. On these two indicators, I suspect the US and Australia are behind the bombing".
Film on Cat Torture Draws Protesters in Toronto: I love the conflict between animal rights protesters and the PC art nazis. Such decisions for Leftists: protest the animal cruelty, or support some disgusting so-called "artist's" right to expression?
O'Reilly selling out? "OK, I have finally had enough with Mr. Switzerland, aka Bill O'Reilly. I started getting annoyed when he made comments such as " I think Kerry is a good guy, I could sleep well at night if he were President." Then I became angry when he criticized the Swift vets and refused to have an open discussion about the topic... The more I listen to this blowhard the more I feel he is a wanna-be elitist. I get the feeling that he wished he could leave that damn 'right wing' Fox and become anchor for one of the big networks".
John Kerry has been criticizing the Bush administration's approach to North Korea. But even the New York Times has put up another view: "The Bush administration's customary approach to North Korea, based on consultation with North Korea's neighbors and skepticism of its motives, is exactly what is necessary." A "mulitilateral" approach is what Kerry keeps demanding for Iraq so a naive person might think that a multilateral approach to North Korea would be approved of. But who said Leftists have to be consistent? Not John Kerry!
Carnival of the Vanities is up again with its usual survey of the week's blogospheric wisdom.
There is a very irate email up on EDUCATION WATCH about government funding for Australian private schools. New posts on SOCIALIZED MEDICINE too.
For more postings, see GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH and EDUCATION WATCH. Mirror sites here, here, here and here
**************************
Anti-Americanism is in epidemic proportions in France and Germany but most people don't realize that it is in epidemic proportions in South Korea too. And what do those three countries have in common? They were liberated by America. And what is probably the most pro-American country in the world? Poland. They liberated themselves. Ego defeats rationality all the time.
The conflict between conservatives and Leftists is not usually a conflict between realists and idealists. Mostly it is a conflict between realists and big egos who will say anything to win applause
Comments? Email me or here. If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.
********************************
Wednesday, September 15, 2004
ECONOMICS
Why Americans work longer: "It's become a common refrain: American workers are badly overworked, driven to a loss of leisure, sleep and possibly sanity by their material and status obsessions... Most U.S. workers positively still crave getting a shot at overtime hours during a boom period.... people do not want to trade off work for leisure beyond a certain point... A 40-hour week, despite inevitable time preference differences across population groups, seems overall a sensible, natural level. Moreover, it is the weekend that Americans seek to preserve more than the eight-hour workday."
Myths and legends of union accomplishments: "The bottom line is that no union can successfully get a compensation package beyond the market value of their members without resort to force. In a free and competitive market employees who demand more money than the state of the labor market indicates will end up jobless. It is that simple. Attempts to force the market to accept higher than market wages, are generally made by keeping other workers from participating in the artificially high-wage structure. Workers are hurt so others may prosper."
The truth about globalization: Review of Jagdish Bhagwati's In Defense of Globalization: "Globalization in fact reduces poverty and the use of child labor, fosters women's rights, promotes respect for democratic norms, enriches culture, and even sustains the environment. Multinational corporations are not wreaking havoc by leveling wages and labor standards across the globe. In fact, they raise them... Looking more closely at developments within Asia bolsters the point. Who can doubt, Bhagwati asks, that the dramatic reductions in poverty in China and India came about only when these countries began integrating with the world economy, mimicking the tactics of Japan, Korea, and Singapore? Trade and foreign direct investment boost growth, and growth reduces poverty".
*************************
Why Americans work longer: "It's become a common refrain: American workers are badly overworked, driven to a loss of leisure, sleep and possibly sanity by their material and status obsessions... Most U.S. workers positively still crave getting a shot at overtime hours during a boom period.... people do not want to trade off work for leisure beyond a certain point... A 40-hour week, despite inevitable time preference differences across population groups, seems overall a sensible, natural level. Moreover, it is the weekend that Americans seek to preserve more than the eight-hour workday."
Myths and legends of union accomplishments: "The bottom line is that no union can successfully get a compensation package beyond the market value of their members without resort to force. In a free and competitive market employees who demand more money than the state of the labor market indicates will end up jobless. It is that simple. Attempts to force the market to accept higher than market wages, are generally made by keeping other workers from participating in the artificially high-wage structure. Workers are hurt so others may prosper."
The truth about globalization: Review of Jagdish Bhagwati's In Defense of Globalization: "Globalization in fact reduces poverty and the use of child labor, fosters women's rights, promotes respect for democratic norms, enriches culture, and even sustains the environment. Multinational corporations are not wreaking havoc by leveling wages and labor standards across the globe. In fact, they raise them... Looking more closely at developments within Asia bolsters the point. Who can doubt, Bhagwati asks, that the dramatic reductions in poverty in China and India came about only when these countries began integrating with the world economy, mimicking the tactics of Japan, Korea, and Singapore? Trade and foreign direct investment boost growth, and growth reduces poverty".
*************************
ELSEWHERE
You couldn't make this stuff up: Note this timetable of "The Center for Global Tolerance" and see what is scheduled for 16th. -- a seminar on "Could America Really Be Satan?". That's funny enough but look who is leading the seminar: Keith Crudup! Well-named! I almost think it must be a spoof but I fear it is not. Leftists really are weird enough to think it promotes tolerance to label hundreds of millions of people as being Satan. Hate-speech is just normal for them.
Leftists encourage Muslim terror: "How many lives have left-wing statements cost Israel? In a damning condemnation of the Israeli left, a new book about the battles known as the Oslo War quotes Hamas leaders saying that the behavior of Israel's left-wing encourages them to continue their terrorist attacks."
Gay marriage is good for mental health: " That's what the American Psychological Association (APA) said at its annual conference this summer, when it passed a policy statement that same-sex couples should have the right to marry.... Why would the APA take such a stance in this stormy political climate? Halpern herself acknowledged the riskiness of the move. 'We're going out on a limb', she said. The answer of why they did it, I think, has nothing to do with mental health and everything to do with politics".
Doomed Dems? "The modern Democratic Party cannot survive the reelection of President George W. Bush and another four years of Republican control of both Congress and the White House. No brag. Just fact. The modern Democratic Party is the party of government. Its growth is the health of the state--and vice versa. Over time, all the party's building blocks are dependent on continuous support and reinforcement by the power of the central government...."
Hee! Hee! The Swedes are discovering what their wonderful tolerance, neutrality and political correctness leads to. One excerpt: "Malmo, Sweden. The police now publicly admit what many Scandinavians have known for a long time: They no longer control the situation in the nations's third largest city. It is effectively ruled by violent gangs of Muslim immigrants. Some of the Muslims have lived in the area of Rosengard, Malmo, for twenty years, and still don't know how to read or write Swedish. Ambulance personnel are attacked by stones or weapons, and refuse to help anybody in the area without police escort"
Are women inherently more caring and more "relational" than men? "The chief architect of this essentialist idea is Carol Gilligan.... In the early 1980s, she laid out a new narrative for women's lives that theorized that women have a unique, caring nature not shared by men. Her ideas have revolutionized the psychology of women and revamped curricula to an unprecedented degree.... But how many are aware of the critics of her theories about women's moral development and the relational self? Many scholarly reviews of Gilligan's research contend that it does not back up her claims, that she simply created an intriguing hypothesis that needs testing. But the relational self has become near-sacred writ, cited in textbooks, classrooms, and the news media".
Bias against the South: "Ah, there's nothing like igniting an electronic civil war from coast to coast. My Wednesday column on news media bigotry toward the South got lots of folks worked up. Some critics -- journalists and normal, well-adjusted people -- thought I was claiming the South to be superior. No. But our region does have something to offer this nation besides being a ''people- having-sex-with-farm-animals'' punch line for comedians. Census numbers and a rising Electoral College vote count bear that out. The South is becoming a preferred place to raise families in a strong environment of devout faith and other values Americans want in a post-9/11 age."
Peg Kaplan has found a rant by a devoted Democrat (almost sounds like a soon-to-be former Democrat!) -- and she really nails her party and her party's current candidate for president.
Clayton Cramer has a good sense of humour. Further to the recent accusation that bloggers are just guys in pajamas, Clayton comments: "I don't blog in pajamas. Sometimes, I only blog in underwear. But to avoid causing panic and fear, I never blog naked."
I received a rather interesting email from a reader about Leftist immaturity. See here
I have just put up a revised version of my silly sayings collection -- with a few minor additions and a few long-overdue corrections. See here.
For more postings, see GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH and EDUCATION WATCH. Mirror sites here, here, here and here
**************************
Anti-Americanism is in epidemic proportions in France and Germany but most people don't realize that it is in epidemic proportions in South Korea too. And what do those three countries have in common? They were liberated by America. And what is probably the most pro-American country in the world? Poland. They liberated themselves. Ego defeats rationality all the time.
The conflict between conservatives and Leftists is not usually a conflict between realists and idealists. Mostly it is a conflict between realists and big egos who will say anything to win applause
Comments? Email me or here. If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.
********************************
You couldn't make this stuff up: Note this timetable of "The Center for Global Tolerance" and see what is scheduled for 16th. -- a seminar on "Could America Really Be Satan?". That's funny enough but look who is leading the seminar: Keith Crudup! Well-named! I almost think it must be a spoof but I fear it is not. Leftists really are weird enough to think it promotes tolerance to label hundreds of millions of people as being Satan. Hate-speech is just normal for them.
Leftists encourage Muslim terror: "How many lives have left-wing statements cost Israel? In a damning condemnation of the Israeli left, a new book about the battles known as the Oslo War quotes Hamas leaders saying that the behavior of Israel's left-wing encourages them to continue their terrorist attacks."
Gay marriage is good for mental health: " That's what the American Psychological Association (APA) said at its annual conference this summer, when it passed a policy statement that same-sex couples should have the right to marry.... Why would the APA take such a stance in this stormy political climate? Halpern herself acknowledged the riskiness of the move. 'We're going out on a limb', she said. The answer of why they did it, I think, has nothing to do with mental health and everything to do with politics".
Doomed Dems? "The modern Democratic Party cannot survive the reelection of President George W. Bush and another four years of Republican control of both Congress and the White House. No brag. Just fact. The modern Democratic Party is the party of government. Its growth is the health of the state--and vice versa. Over time, all the party's building blocks are dependent on continuous support and reinforcement by the power of the central government...."
Hee! Hee! The Swedes are discovering what their wonderful tolerance, neutrality and political correctness leads to. One excerpt: "Malmo, Sweden. The police now publicly admit what many Scandinavians have known for a long time: They no longer control the situation in the nations's third largest city. It is effectively ruled by violent gangs of Muslim immigrants. Some of the Muslims have lived in the area of Rosengard, Malmo, for twenty years, and still don't know how to read or write Swedish. Ambulance personnel are attacked by stones or weapons, and refuse to help anybody in the area without police escort"
Are women inherently more caring and more "relational" than men? "The chief architect of this essentialist idea is Carol Gilligan.... In the early 1980s, she laid out a new narrative for women's lives that theorized that women have a unique, caring nature not shared by men. Her ideas have revolutionized the psychology of women and revamped curricula to an unprecedented degree.... But how many are aware of the critics of her theories about women's moral development and the relational self? Many scholarly reviews of Gilligan's research contend that it does not back up her claims, that she simply created an intriguing hypothesis that needs testing. But the relational self has become near-sacred writ, cited in textbooks, classrooms, and the news media".
Bias against the South: "Ah, there's nothing like igniting an electronic civil war from coast to coast. My Wednesday column on news media bigotry toward the South got lots of folks worked up. Some critics -- journalists and normal, well-adjusted people -- thought I was claiming the South to be superior. No. But our region does have something to offer this nation besides being a ''people- having-sex-with-farm-animals'' punch line for comedians. Census numbers and a rising Electoral College vote count bear that out. The South is becoming a preferred place to raise families in a strong environment of devout faith and other values Americans want in a post-9/11 age."
Peg Kaplan has found a rant by a devoted Democrat (almost sounds like a soon-to-be former Democrat!) -- and she really nails her party and her party's current candidate for president.
Clayton Cramer has a good sense of humour. Further to the recent accusation that bloggers are just guys in pajamas, Clayton comments: "I don't blog in pajamas. Sometimes, I only blog in underwear. But to avoid causing panic and fear, I never blog naked."
I received a rather interesting email from a reader about Leftist immaturity. See here
I have just put up a revised version of my silly sayings collection -- with a few minor additions and a few long-overdue corrections. See here.
For more postings, see GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH and EDUCATION WATCH. Mirror sites here, here, here and here
**************************
Anti-Americanism is in epidemic proportions in France and Germany but most people don't realize that it is in epidemic proportions in South Korea too. And what do those three countries have in common? They were liberated by America. And what is probably the most pro-American country in the world? Poland. They liberated themselves. Ego defeats rationality all the time.
The conflict between conservatives and Leftists is not usually a conflict between realists and idealists. Mostly it is a conflict between realists and big egos who will say anything to win applause
Comments? Email me or here. If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.
********************************
Tuesday, September 14, 2004
HAPPINESS
I see that the excellent Arnold Kling had a good jab a little while ago at the "happiness" critics. We have known since at least the times of ancient Lydia and King Croesus that money does not necessarily make you happy. And Hollywood has been proof of it for years. St. Paul too was pretty scathing about money in 1 Timothy 6:10. But Left-leaning economists and psychologists seem to have realized all that only in the last few years. "So if we take your money away it won't hurt" is their conclusion. Odd that people do seem to get really peeved if you rob or defraud them, though! And ask anybody if they would rather spend their own money or have someone else spend it instead and there is not much doubt about what the answer will be. And that's the point: What people want matters. If some arrogant git claims that he can spend my money better than I can, he deserves to be treated like the con-man he is. The fact that overall level of happiness is mainly a personality disposition or trait which remains fairly stable across a wide range of circumstances (e.g. some people are almost always happy and others are almost always mournful) does NOT mean that people are uninterested in improving those circumstances or getting the occasional "high". But Leftists don't care what people want, of course. "We know what's best for you" is their lying mantra.
Marginal Revolution has lots of interesting links on the subject too.
From my point of view as a psychometrician, however, the whole field of happiness measurement is pretty suspect. I spent 20 years measuring psychological traits and have had many papers published on that subject but I have always regarded the measurement of psychological states as too difficult for me. Why? Because what people say about their states seems to be almost the same as what they say about their traits. The best-known example of an attempt to measure both states and traits in the same field is almost certainly Spielberger's work on state/trait measurement of anxiety and I have myself worked with Spielberger's questionnaires. But I found that the questions used to index the two gave generally interchangeable results: People who described themselves as anxious "at the moment" were also highly likely to describe themselves as anxious "in general". And that is not necessarily just a measurement problem, either. It surely stands to reason that people who are anxious "in general" are also more likely to be anxious on any given occasion. That implies to me that very short-term changes in states may be detectable (e.g. the "high" someone gets on being told they have won a lottery) but the sort of medium term change economists are looking for probably is not.
Yet given that traits are by definition both stable and general behaviour tendencies and given that they are almost always shown to be highly genetically inheritable, any consideration of traits as an economic variable is surely beside the point. Economists are looking for the results of something, i.e. a change of some sort, and something that is inherently not very susceptible to change is surely a strange place to look for change. So it seems to me that any study of happiness as an economic variable must specifically look at states or "moods" -- and that does not generally seem even to be attempted. And the tradition of mood research in psychology exemplified by Joe Forgas and others usually seems to treat moods as short-lived rather than as being the sort of long-lasting change that economists have been looking for.
And a cross-cultural note might not go astray here either. There have for many years been international surveys done which purport to find out which countries have the happiest people. But the big difficulty that the researchers found was that happiness is not always an adequately translatable concept. Perhaps the most surprising case of that is that even a language as closely related to English as German does not have any real equivalent to our word "happiness" (nor do they have a good equivalent for our word "pink" and nor do we have anything like an adequate translation of their word "Reich"). The commonest German translation is "gluecklich" but that really means "lucky", and I well remember an old German Jewish man with whom I was discussing that many years ago. He told me: "gluecklich I am but happy I am not". He meant that he was lucky to have escaped Hitler but still missed much of his old life. So can we really have as a key economic variable something that is not even translatable into German?
*********************************
I see that the excellent Arnold Kling had a good jab a little while ago at the "happiness" critics. We have known since at least the times of ancient Lydia and King Croesus that money does not necessarily make you happy. And Hollywood has been proof of it for years. St. Paul too was pretty scathing about money in 1 Timothy 6:10. But Left-leaning economists and psychologists seem to have realized all that only in the last few years. "So if we take your money away it won't hurt" is their conclusion. Odd that people do seem to get really peeved if you rob or defraud them, though! And ask anybody if they would rather spend their own money or have someone else spend it instead and there is not much doubt about what the answer will be. And that's the point: What people want matters. If some arrogant git claims that he can spend my money better than I can, he deserves to be treated like the con-man he is. The fact that overall level of happiness is mainly a personality disposition or trait which remains fairly stable across a wide range of circumstances (e.g. some people are almost always happy and others are almost always mournful) does NOT mean that people are uninterested in improving those circumstances or getting the occasional "high". But Leftists don't care what people want, of course. "We know what's best for you" is their lying mantra.
Marginal Revolution has lots of interesting links on the subject too.
From my point of view as a psychometrician, however, the whole field of happiness measurement is pretty suspect. I spent 20 years measuring psychological traits and have had many papers published on that subject but I have always regarded the measurement of psychological states as too difficult for me. Why? Because what people say about their states seems to be almost the same as what they say about their traits. The best-known example of an attempt to measure both states and traits in the same field is almost certainly Spielberger's work on state/trait measurement of anxiety and I have myself worked with Spielberger's questionnaires. But I found that the questions used to index the two gave generally interchangeable results: People who described themselves as anxious "at the moment" were also highly likely to describe themselves as anxious "in general". And that is not necessarily just a measurement problem, either. It surely stands to reason that people who are anxious "in general" are also more likely to be anxious on any given occasion. That implies to me that very short-term changes in states may be detectable (e.g. the "high" someone gets on being told they have won a lottery) but the sort of medium term change economists are looking for probably is not.
Yet given that traits are by definition both stable and general behaviour tendencies and given that they are almost always shown to be highly genetically inheritable, any consideration of traits as an economic variable is surely beside the point. Economists are looking for the results of something, i.e. a change of some sort, and something that is inherently not very susceptible to change is surely a strange place to look for change. So it seems to me that any study of happiness as an economic variable must specifically look at states or "moods" -- and that does not generally seem even to be attempted. And the tradition of mood research in psychology exemplified by Joe Forgas and others usually seems to treat moods as short-lived rather than as being the sort of long-lasting change that economists have been looking for.
And a cross-cultural note might not go astray here either. There have for many years been international surveys done which purport to find out which countries have the happiest people. But the big difficulty that the researchers found was that happiness is not always an adequately translatable concept. Perhaps the most surprising case of that is that even a language as closely related to English as German does not have any real equivalent to our word "happiness" (nor do they have a good equivalent for our word "pink" and nor do we have anything like an adequate translation of their word "Reich"). The commonest German translation is "gluecklich" but that really means "lucky", and I well remember an old German Jewish man with whom I was discussing that many years ago. He told me: "gluecklich I am but happy I am not". He meant that he was lucky to have escaped Hitler but still missed much of his old life. So can we really have as a key economic variable something that is not even translatable into German?
*********************************
ELSEWHERE
I wonder if this ever happens in the USA? Australia's governing conservative party has selected an open lesbian as one of its parliamentary candidates in the forthcoming Federal election. As far as I know there are to be no open homosexuals representing Australia's major Leftist party -- though the leader of the Greens (Bob Brown) is homosexual. The lesbian woman concerned, Ingrid Tall, is a good candidate -- photogenic, intelligent, well-spoken and well-known on TV. How strange that those "homophobic" conservatives recognize merit when they see it! It may be noted that the same "racist" Australian conservatives put the first black (Neville Bonner) into Australia's Federal parliament. Note that BOTH major Australian political parties oppose homosexual marriage so the claim that opposition to homosexual marriage is "homophobic" does not stack up.
Jeff Jacoby has a great summary of John Kerry's "jokes"
Wayne Lusvardi gives another elaboration of his "Straussian" interpretation of why the USA is at war in Iraq. He sees the U.S. presence there as a warning to neighbouring Muslim states.
LOL: "Obviously pandering for votes, candidate John Kerry announced that he would immediately ban the dumping of Canadian garbage in Michigan if elected president." I guess he figures that they have already had enough garbage from him.
Leftist "compassion" vanishes when most needed: "Vagrants in Key West and many homeless have taken up residence in "safe zone sleeping areas" built earlier this year. The city offers showers, laundry facilities, and other amenities... a real problem the city is faced with today is what to do with the homeless population when the entire population of the city has been told to evacuate due to Hurricane Ivan. Well, it appears that some have piled into aging vehicles and left, but those remaining are apparently expected to fend for themselves when Hurricane Ivan hits the island".
Further to my post yesterday about FDR, there is a good note on PID about how FDR's "New Deal" harmed the poor.
There are some new postings up on SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS.
For more postings, see GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH and EDUCATION WATCH. Mirror sites here, here, here and here
**************************
Anti-Americanism is in epidemic proportions in France and Germany but most people don't realize that it is in epidemic proportions in South Korea too. And what do those three countries have in common? They were liberated by America. And what is probably the most pro-American country in the world? Poland. They liberated themselves. Ego defeats rationality all the time.
The conflict between conservatives and Leftists is not usually a conflict between realists and idealists. Mostly it is a conflict between realists and big egos who will say anything to win applause
Comments? Email me or here. If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.
********************************
I wonder if this ever happens in the USA? Australia's governing conservative party has selected an open lesbian as one of its parliamentary candidates in the forthcoming Federal election. As far as I know there are to be no open homosexuals representing Australia's major Leftist party -- though the leader of the Greens (Bob Brown) is homosexual. The lesbian woman concerned, Ingrid Tall, is a good candidate -- photogenic, intelligent, well-spoken and well-known on TV. How strange that those "homophobic" conservatives recognize merit when they see it! It may be noted that the same "racist" Australian conservatives put the first black (Neville Bonner) into Australia's Federal parliament. Note that BOTH major Australian political parties oppose homosexual marriage so the claim that opposition to homosexual marriage is "homophobic" does not stack up.
Jeff Jacoby has a great summary of John Kerry's "jokes"
Wayne Lusvardi gives another elaboration of his "Straussian" interpretation of why the USA is at war in Iraq. He sees the U.S. presence there as a warning to neighbouring Muslim states.
LOL: "Obviously pandering for votes, candidate John Kerry announced that he would immediately ban the dumping of Canadian garbage in Michigan if elected president." I guess he figures that they have already had enough garbage from him.
Leftist "compassion" vanishes when most needed: "Vagrants in Key West and many homeless have taken up residence in "safe zone sleeping areas" built earlier this year. The city offers showers, laundry facilities, and other amenities... a real problem the city is faced with today is what to do with the homeless population when the entire population of the city has been told to evacuate due to Hurricane Ivan. Well, it appears that some have piled into aging vehicles and left, but those remaining are apparently expected to fend for themselves when Hurricane Ivan hits the island".
Further to my post yesterday about FDR, there is a good note on PID about how FDR's "New Deal" harmed the poor.
There are some new postings up on SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS.
For more postings, see GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH and EDUCATION WATCH. Mirror sites here, here, here and here
**************************
Anti-Americanism is in epidemic proportions in France and Germany but most people don't realize that it is in epidemic proportions in South Korea too. And what do those three countries have in common? They were liberated by America. And what is probably the most pro-American country in the world? Poland. They liberated themselves. Ego defeats rationality all the time.
The conflict between conservatives and Leftists is not usually a conflict between realists and idealists. Mostly it is a conflict between realists and big egos who will say anything to win applause
Comments? Email me or here. If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.
********************************
Monday, September 13, 2004
CONSERVATIVES DON'T NEED TO EMBRACE LEFTIST PRESIDENTS
I have written on this before (see here and here) but American "liberals" seem to have conservatives so thoroughly conned on this that I feel I will still be saying it on my deathbed.
In domestic (internal) politics, it is clear to all that a Democrat President speaks at most only for those who elected him. But this somehow seems to get lost sight of in external (international) politics. The world usually sees what a Democrat President does as representing America, the American Left agrees with that and for some reason most conservatives buy into it. It does not happen with recent Presidents very much. Many American conservatives, for instance, would not be happy with Clinton bombing Christian Serbs who were giving Muslims a taste of their own oppressive medicine. But farther back in history things get blurred. I want to deal today with the case of F.D. Roosevelt, whose war with Japan is now almost universally approved of:
That conservatives ever "own" anything that America's first socialist president did is truly amazing. Lots of people still buy into the lie that FDR "cured" the great depression by his "New Deal" policies but the plain fact of the matter is that at the end of FDR's first two terms in office, the depression was just about as bad as ever (though under the financial management of the conservative Neville Chamberlain Britain had substantially recovered). It was only the war that got America moving again. And a large part of the reason for that was that around that time FDR started co-operating with business instead of attacking it. How he ever thought that attacking business would cure unemployment remains an utter mystery. It is business that creates jobs so if you want more jobs created you have to encourage business, not make circumstances more difficult for it. And it was in fact FDR's policies that transformed a normal cyclic depression into the Great Depression. In previous depressions governments had largely just sat tight. FDR was the first one to try big government interventions to cure it -- with the predictable result of making it worse.
And the idea that FDR was on the side of the poor is typical Leftist deception. His New Deal in fact harmed millions of poor people. Note this comment: "For defenders of the New Deal, perhaps the most embarrassing revelation about New Deal spending programs is they channeled money AWAY from the South, the poorest region in the United States. The largest share of New Deal spending and loan programs went to political 'swing' states in the West and East - where incomes were at least 60% higher than in the South. As an incumbent, FDR didn't see any point giving much money to the South where voters were already overwhelmingly on his side."
But that is just a preamble. It is the war with Japan that was most tragic. But before I go onto that, another small preamble is needed: The essence of conservatism (as I set out at great length here) is "You leave me alone and I will leave you alone" and in international politics that translates to isolationism -- which is of course a great tradition among American conservatives and among Americans generally. The great majority of Americans want the rest of the world to solve its own problems. Leftists such as FDR, on the other hand, believe that they know what's best not only for America but also for the rest of the world. They are coercive interventionists. They want to do the solving of other people's problems and are prepared to use force to impose their solutions if necessary.
So when world events were in turmoil in the 1930s, Roosevelt wanted to intervene and impose his solutions to the various conflicts around. In particular, he wanted to intervene against Japan in the war between China and Japan -- despite the fact that the Chinese themselves were nowhere near being defeated by the attacking Japanese at that stage. He also wanted to intervene in the war between Germany and Britain despite the fact that Britain had at that stage already won the Battle of Britain. FDR's big problem, however, was the isolationism of the ordinary American. They did not want a bar of his grand international schemes. So he had to bring about the one circumstance wherein even conservative Americans will willingly go to war with other countries -- when America is attacked. And FDR brought that about by virtually forcing the Japanese to attack. He cut off their oil supply, which Japan mainly got from California at that stage. He did it of course in the form of an ultimatum to withdraw from China or else -- knowing of course that the bushido code of the Japanese miltary would never allow them to accept such dictation from outside. They would rather commit suicide than give in -- which is precisely what they proceeded to do in slow motion, beginning with their futile attack on Pearl Harbour. So all the loss of American and Japanese lives in the Pacific lies at FDR's door, not at the door of the Japanese.
FDR was very nearly as big a war-monger as Hitler. Since both were socialists and hence lovers of coercion, that is not surprising. FDR did after all at one stage refer to Mussolini as "that admirable Italian gentleman" and got some of his authoritarian economic ideas from Mussolini (who also impoverished his country). So please don't defend FDR's great war of destruction against the brilliant Japanese. The only benefit to China was to give them Mao Tse Tung!
As a postscript, it might also be noted that FDR undoubtedly knew in advance of the Pearl Harbour attack. British and American cryptographers had been decoding Japanese diplomatic and naval messages for some time at that stage. But FDR warned no-one at Pearl Harbour. It suited him for Americans to die there.
And it might be noted that the wartime internment of Japanese Americans that Leftist historians now routinely condemn America for was in fact the doing of FDR, a fellow Leftist. It was NOT the doing of Americans generally and it was certainly not the doing of American conservatives.
I am not in general a Buchanan-ite but Buchanan does know his history so I cannot resist closing with this comment from Buchanan: "As for FDR, he was the greatest politician of the 20th century. But why call a president great whose government was honeycombed with spies and traitors, and whose war diplomacy lead to the loss of 10 Christian countries of Eastern Europe to a Muscovite despot whose terrorist regime was the greatest enemy of human freedom in modern history?". And if you don't like Buchanan, J.F. Kennedy had similar views. See here.
It is a revealing commentary on Leftist mentality that the 9/11 attacks which precipitated America into its present foreign wars are seen by many on the Left as a put-up job too. They are so dishonest themselves that they cannot tell fake from reality.
******************************
For more postings, see GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH and EDUCATION WATCH. Mirror sites here, here, here and here
**************************
Anti-Americanism is in epidemic proportions in France and Germany but most people don't realize that it is in epidemic proportions in South Korea too. And what do those three countries have in common? They were liberated by America. And what is probably the most pro-American country in the world? Poland. They liberated themselves. Ego defeats rationality all the time.
The conflict between conservatives and Leftists is not usually a conflict between realists and idealists. Mostly it is a conflict between realists and big egos who will say anything to win applause
Comments? Email me or here. If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.
********************************
I have written on this before (see here and here) but American "liberals" seem to have conservatives so thoroughly conned on this that I feel I will still be saying it on my deathbed.
In domestic (internal) politics, it is clear to all that a Democrat President speaks at most only for those who elected him. But this somehow seems to get lost sight of in external (international) politics. The world usually sees what a Democrat President does as representing America, the American Left agrees with that and for some reason most conservatives buy into it. It does not happen with recent Presidents very much. Many American conservatives, for instance, would not be happy with Clinton bombing Christian Serbs who were giving Muslims a taste of their own oppressive medicine. But farther back in history things get blurred. I want to deal today with the case of F.D. Roosevelt, whose war with Japan is now almost universally approved of:
That conservatives ever "own" anything that America's first socialist president did is truly amazing. Lots of people still buy into the lie that FDR "cured" the great depression by his "New Deal" policies but the plain fact of the matter is that at the end of FDR's first two terms in office, the depression was just about as bad as ever (though under the financial management of the conservative Neville Chamberlain Britain had substantially recovered). It was only the war that got America moving again. And a large part of the reason for that was that around that time FDR started co-operating with business instead of attacking it. How he ever thought that attacking business would cure unemployment remains an utter mystery. It is business that creates jobs so if you want more jobs created you have to encourage business, not make circumstances more difficult for it. And it was in fact FDR's policies that transformed a normal cyclic depression into the Great Depression. In previous depressions governments had largely just sat tight. FDR was the first one to try big government interventions to cure it -- with the predictable result of making it worse.
And the idea that FDR was on the side of the poor is typical Leftist deception. His New Deal in fact harmed millions of poor people. Note this comment: "For defenders of the New Deal, perhaps the most embarrassing revelation about New Deal spending programs is they channeled money AWAY from the South, the poorest region in the United States. The largest share of New Deal spending and loan programs went to political 'swing' states in the West and East - where incomes were at least 60% higher than in the South. As an incumbent, FDR didn't see any point giving much money to the South where voters were already overwhelmingly on his side."
But that is just a preamble. It is the war with Japan that was most tragic. But before I go onto that, another small preamble is needed: The essence of conservatism (as I set out at great length here) is "You leave me alone and I will leave you alone" and in international politics that translates to isolationism -- which is of course a great tradition among American conservatives and among Americans generally. The great majority of Americans want the rest of the world to solve its own problems. Leftists such as FDR, on the other hand, believe that they know what's best not only for America but also for the rest of the world. They are coercive interventionists. They want to do the solving of other people's problems and are prepared to use force to impose their solutions if necessary.
So when world events were in turmoil in the 1930s, Roosevelt wanted to intervene and impose his solutions to the various conflicts around. In particular, he wanted to intervene against Japan in the war between China and Japan -- despite the fact that the Chinese themselves were nowhere near being defeated by the attacking Japanese at that stage. He also wanted to intervene in the war between Germany and Britain despite the fact that Britain had at that stage already won the Battle of Britain. FDR's big problem, however, was the isolationism of the ordinary American. They did not want a bar of his grand international schemes. So he had to bring about the one circumstance wherein even conservative Americans will willingly go to war with other countries -- when America is attacked. And FDR brought that about by virtually forcing the Japanese to attack. He cut off their oil supply, which Japan mainly got from California at that stage. He did it of course in the form of an ultimatum to withdraw from China or else -- knowing of course that the bushido code of the Japanese miltary would never allow them to accept such dictation from outside. They would rather commit suicide than give in -- which is precisely what they proceeded to do in slow motion, beginning with their futile attack on Pearl Harbour. So all the loss of American and Japanese lives in the Pacific lies at FDR's door, not at the door of the Japanese.
FDR was very nearly as big a war-monger as Hitler. Since both were socialists and hence lovers of coercion, that is not surprising. FDR did after all at one stage refer to Mussolini as "that admirable Italian gentleman" and got some of his authoritarian economic ideas from Mussolini (who also impoverished his country). So please don't defend FDR's great war of destruction against the brilliant Japanese. The only benefit to China was to give them Mao Tse Tung!
As a postscript, it might also be noted that FDR undoubtedly knew in advance of the Pearl Harbour attack. British and American cryptographers had been decoding Japanese diplomatic and naval messages for some time at that stage. But FDR warned no-one at Pearl Harbour. It suited him for Americans to die there.
And it might be noted that the wartime internment of Japanese Americans that Leftist historians now routinely condemn America for was in fact the doing of FDR, a fellow Leftist. It was NOT the doing of Americans generally and it was certainly not the doing of American conservatives.
I am not in general a Buchanan-ite but Buchanan does know his history so I cannot resist closing with this comment from Buchanan: "As for FDR, he was the greatest politician of the 20th century. But why call a president great whose government was honeycombed with spies and traitors, and whose war diplomacy lead to the loss of 10 Christian countries of Eastern Europe to a Muscovite despot whose terrorist regime was the greatest enemy of human freedom in modern history?". And if you don't like Buchanan, J.F. Kennedy had similar views. See here.
It is a revealing commentary on Leftist mentality that the 9/11 attacks which precipitated America into its present foreign wars are seen by many on the Left as a put-up job too. They are so dishonest themselves that they cannot tell fake from reality.
******************************
For more postings, see GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH and EDUCATION WATCH. Mirror sites here, here, here and here
**************************
Anti-Americanism is in epidemic proportions in France and Germany but most people don't realize that it is in epidemic proportions in South Korea too. And what do those three countries have in common? They were liberated by America. And what is probably the most pro-American country in the world? Poland. They liberated themselves. Ego defeats rationality all the time.
The conflict between conservatives and Leftists is not usually a conflict between realists and idealists. Mostly it is a conflict between realists and big egos who will say anything to win applause
Comments? Email me or here. If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.
********************************
Sunday, September 12, 2004
YET MORE ECONOMICS
Veto needed: "The White House yesterday warned of a presidential veto of a $142.5 billion spending bill if Democrats pushed through an amendment that would block new Labor Department rules on overtime pay. House Democrats contend that millions of workers could lose their overtime pay under the rules. Lawmakers said they had enough Republican support to approve the amendment, leading the GOP leadership to put off a vote yesterday."
From poverty to prosperity: "Workers are no longer concerned merely with wages and salaries; they are increasingly interested in saving and investing -- in the process of wealth creation. One can't get rich on wages; the only way to get rich is to earn, save and invest. I cringe when I hear the rhetoric of class warfare, which seems to have become the raison d'etre of the Democratic Party, whether they are ranting about 'the people versus the powerful' or increasing taxes on the 'top 2 percent.' They just don't get it."
Engagement is working: "Protectionists in the United States who point to large and growing trade deficits with China and to increased U.S. investment in China should not be allowed to block trade liberalization by injudicious use of national security and human rights arguments. Further liberalization of U.S.-China trade is a win-win strategy and can play an important role in promoting peace and prosperity. Containment would do the opposite."
Farm subsidies should be plowed under: "I discovered that many people in my small town are receiving tens of thousands of dollars in farm subsidies. I recognized most of the names on the list, some farmers and some not. The nonfarmers included a doctor, a banker, and a former elected representative! This made me wonder: If I know so many farmers and nonfarmers who receive sizeable incomes from subsidies in my own small community, how much money is doled out throughout the United States?"
*********************************
Veto needed: "The White House yesterday warned of a presidential veto of a $142.5 billion spending bill if Democrats pushed through an amendment that would block new Labor Department rules on overtime pay. House Democrats contend that millions of workers could lose their overtime pay under the rules. Lawmakers said they had enough Republican support to approve the amendment, leading the GOP leadership to put off a vote yesterday."
From poverty to prosperity: "Workers are no longer concerned merely with wages and salaries; they are increasingly interested in saving and investing -- in the process of wealth creation. One can't get rich on wages; the only way to get rich is to earn, save and invest. I cringe when I hear the rhetoric of class warfare, which seems to have become the raison d'etre of the Democratic Party, whether they are ranting about 'the people versus the powerful' or increasing taxes on the 'top 2 percent.' They just don't get it."
Engagement is working: "Protectionists in the United States who point to large and growing trade deficits with China and to increased U.S. investment in China should not be allowed to block trade liberalization by injudicious use of national security and human rights arguments. Further liberalization of U.S.-China trade is a win-win strategy and can play an important role in promoting peace and prosperity. Containment would do the opposite."
Farm subsidies should be plowed under: "I discovered that many people in my small town are receiving tens of thousands of dollars in farm subsidies. I recognized most of the names on the list, some farmers and some not. The nonfarmers included a doctor, a banker, and a former elected representative! This made me wonder: If I know so many farmers and nonfarmers who receive sizeable incomes from subsidies in my own small community, how much money is doled out throughout the United States?"
*********************************
ELSEWHERE
Your government will protect you: "The Food and Drug Administration has repeatedly urged antidepressant manufacturers not to disclose to physicians and the public that some clinical trials of the medications in children found the drugs were no better than sugar pills, according to documents and testimony released at a congressional hearing yesterday. Regulators suppressed the negative information on the grounds that it might scare families and physicians away from the drugs, according to testimony by drug company executives. For at least three medications, they said, the FDA blocked the companies' plans to reveal the negative studies in drug labels, and in one case the agency reversed a manufacturer's decision to amend its drug label to say that the drug was associated in studies with increased hostility and suicidal thinking among children.
Church takes on the regulation goons: "A Nashville judge yesterday found a pastor and his Antioch church in contempt of court for refusing to stop providing daily child care temporarily as ordered. The decision follows a months-long refusal by the Priest Lake Community Baptist Church to register as a daily child-care service with the state. Anyone caring for five or more unrelated children is required to be licensed by the state, but state officials found on several occasions that 13 children were being cared for at the church. Church officials could not be reached for comment yesterday. Church members maintain that it is only operating a daily 'Bible camp' and should be immune from state regulation. Church officials said they don't want the state dictating its curriculum and are concerned that the state could affect its religious teachings. They pledged a long fight of defiance."
A libertarian hawk: "I find it sad that so many otherwise bright libertarians seem so unreflective about war. Some of my favorite freedom-loving publications have steered their editorial styles into the hashish den of protest music and anti-Bush priggishness. Some of my favorite think tanks issue press releases almost daily, calling for the immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq, calling for the US to extend Constitutional privileges to enemy combatants, and claiming that it will be impossible to bring democracy and the Rule of Law to the Middle East.... My guess is that there are others who would like to see less of this accretion of libertarians around the Dove. I am one of those who doesn't fancy the idea of staring down the point of a chemical warhead before I decide to act. (Even if such warheads turn out to be a chimera today, they won't likely be tomorrow.) In the nuclear age, when the degree of certainty that you will be attacked is at fifty percent, you are as good as done for in terms of your ability to protect yourself. Thus, preventive action in a world of uncertainty is, unfortunately, the only reasonable course".
Fairness is in the eye of the beholder: "I don't recall that I've ever heard any rational man or woman seriously suggest that people or groups be treated unfairly by other people or groups. Meanwhile, I've heard a whole lot of people demand their fair share of fair treatment. This strikes me as eminently reasonable and, well, fair. The problem that's been blatantly brought home to me lately, however, is that those demanding fair treatment are somehow deeply offended and even angered when that same fair treatment is given to others."
Psychologist Kagan rediscovers heredity: "The ancient Greeks were right, Kagan believes. There is such a thing as temperament - although his discussion of innate personality traits relies on EEG probes and brain-stem activity, not any musings on the four humors. The book centers on studies that Kagan and Snidman began in 1986 with 500 infants. Roughly 20 percent of the babies who screamed at toys and other unfamiliar stimuli grew into 11-year-olds who were shy with interviewers and who showed biological signs of alarm in stressful situations. By contrast, 33 percent of the calm, cool tykes grew into composed, sociable preteens"
Anti-Americanism nothing to do with America: "In this post-ideological age, anti-Americanism fills the void left by defunct belief systems. It has become a powerful trend in international politics today-and perhaps the most dangerous. U.S. hegemony has its problems, but a world that reacts instinctively against the United States will be less peaceful, less cooperative, less prosperous, less open, and less stable.... But an equally important force propelling anti-Americanism around the world is an ideological vacuum. Political scientist Francis Fukuyama was right when he noted that the collapse of the Soviet Union also meant the collapse of the great ideological debate on how to organize economic and political life.... Capitalism's victory left the world without an ideology of discontent, a systematic set of ideas that are critical of the world as it exists. There is always a market for an ideology of discontent --it allows those outside the mainstream to relate to the world...."
For more postings, see GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH and EDUCATION WATCH. Mirror sites here, here, here and here
**************************
Anti-Americanism is in epidemic proportions in France and Germany but most people don't realize that it is in epidemic proportions in South Korea too. And what do those three countries have in common? They were liberated by America. And what is probably the most pro-American country in the world? Poland. They liberated themselves. Ego defeats rationality all the time.
The conflict between conservatives and Leftists is not usually a conflict between realists and idealists. Mostly it is a conflict between realists and big egos who will say anything to win applause
Comments? Email me or here. If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.
********************************
Your government will protect you: "The Food and Drug Administration has repeatedly urged antidepressant manufacturers not to disclose to physicians and the public that some clinical trials of the medications in children found the drugs were no better than sugar pills, according to documents and testimony released at a congressional hearing yesterday. Regulators suppressed the negative information on the grounds that it might scare families and physicians away from the drugs, according to testimony by drug company executives. For at least three medications, they said, the FDA blocked the companies' plans to reveal the negative studies in drug labels, and in one case the agency reversed a manufacturer's decision to amend its drug label to say that the drug was associated in studies with increased hostility and suicidal thinking among children.
Church takes on the regulation goons: "A Nashville judge yesterday found a pastor and his Antioch church in contempt of court for refusing to stop providing daily child care temporarily as ordered. The decision follows a months-long refusal by the Priest Lake Community Baptist Church to register as a daily child-care service with the state. Anyone caring for five or more unrelated children is required to be licensed by the state, but state officials found on several occasions that 13 children were being cared for at the church. Church officials could not be reached for comment yesterday. Church members maintain that it is only operating a daily 'Bible camp' and should be immune from state regulation. Church officials said they don't want the state dictating its curriculum and are concerned that the state could affect its religious teachings. They pledged a long fight of defiance."
A libertarian hawk: "I find it sad that so many otherwise bright libertarians seem so unreflective about war. Some of my favorite freedom-loving publications have steered their editorial styles into the hashish den of protest music and anti-Bush priggishness. Some of my favorite think tanks issue press releases almost daily, calling for the immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq, calling for the US to extend Constitutional privileges to enemy combatants, and claiming that it will be impossible to bring democracy and the Rule of Law to the Middle East.... My guess is that there are others who would like to see less of this accretion of libertarians around the Dove. I am one of those who doesn't fancy the idea of staring down the point of a chemical warhead before I decide to act. (Even if such warheads turn out to be a chimera today, they won't likely be tomorrow.) In the nuclear age, when the degree of certainty that you will be attacked is at fifty percent, you are as good as done for in terms of your ability to protect yourself. Thus, preventive action in a world of uncertainty is, unfortunately, the only reasonable course".
Fairness is in the eye of the beholder: "I don't recall that I've ever heard any rational man or woman seriously suggest that people or groups be treated unfairly by other people or groups. Meanwhile, I've heard a whole lot of people demand their fair share of fair treatment. This strikes me as eminently reasonable and, well, fair. The problem that's been blatantly brought home to me lately, however, is that those demanding fair treatment are somehow deeply offended and even angered when that same fair treatment is given to others."
Psychologist Kagan rediscovers heredity: "The ancient Greeks were right, Kagan believes. There is such a thing as temperament - although his discussion of innate personality traits relies on EEG probes and brain-stem activity, not any musings on the four humors. The book centers on studies that Kagan and Snidman began in 1986 with 500 infants. Roughly 20 percent of the babies who screamed at toys and other unfamiliar stimuli grew into 11-year-olds who were shy with interviewers and who showed biological signs of alarm in stressful situations. By contrast, 33 percent of the calm, cool tykes grew into composed, sociable preteens"
Anti-Americanism nothing to do with America: "In this post-ideological age, anti-Americanism fills the void left by defunct belief systems. It has become a powerful trend in international politics today-and perhaps the most dangerous. U.S. hegemony has its problems, but a world that reacts instinctively against the United States will be less peaceful, less cooperative, less prosperous, less open, and less stable.... But an equally important force propelling anti-Americanism around the world is an ideological vacuum. Political scientist Francis Fukuyama was right when he noted that the collapse of the Soviet Union also meant the collapse of the great ideological debate on how to organize economic and political life.... Capitalism's victory left the world without an ideology of discontent, a systematic set of ideas that are critical of the world as it exists. There is always a market for an ideology of discontent --it allows those outside the mainstream to relate to the world...."
For more postings, see GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH and EDUCATION WATCH. Mirror sites here, here, here and here
**************************
Anti-Americanism is in epidemic proportions in France and Germany but most people don't realize that it is in epidemic proportions in South Korea too. And what do those three countries have in common? They were liberated by America. And what is probably the most pro-American country in the world? Poland. They liberated themselves. Ego defeats rationality all the time.
The conflict between conservatives and Leftists is not usually a conflict between realists and idealists. Mostly it is a conflict between realists and big egos who will say anything to win applause
Comments? Email me or here. If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.
********************************
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