Politics and Culture

I don't necessarily disagree with this point in Stephen Hayward's article:

Conspicuously missing, however, are the intellectual works. The bestseller list used to be crowded with the likes of Friedman's "Free to Choose," George Gilder's "Wealth and Poverty," Paul Johnson's "Modern Times," Allan Bloom's "The Closing of the American Mind," Charles Murray's "Losing Ground" and "The Bell Curve," and Francis Fukuyama's "The End of History and the Last Man." There are still conservative intellectuals attempting to produce important work, but some publishers have been cutting back on serious conservative titles because they don't sell. (I have my own entry in the list: a two-volume political history titled "The Age of Reagan." But I never expected the books to sell well; at 750 pages each, you can hurt yourself picking them up.)

I'd like to explain the lack of conservative books. The great society, which mainstreamed government dependence and greatly increased government involvement in human relations and the economy, occurred from the 60s to 1980. The sexual revolution and other cultural upheavals took place congruently with the economic changes.

Conservative intellectuals responded with the books above once there was sufficient data to take the liberal changes to task. Except for gay marriage, the issues are the same. Therefore, what the gentlemen above said in their groundbreaking books, applies today. That's why you get more books about corruption and misdeeds than groundbreaking ideas: We know the arguments. Even the books Hayward writes aren't about new ideas, but histories. Do you have anything new to add, Mr. Hayward?

Now, what are left intellectuals putting out? We have George Lakoff playing semantic games: "Don't say 'government health care,' say 'health insurance reform.'" Moral equivalency between Palestinians and Israelis instead of the United States and Soviet Union. Government programs for everything. Regulation for everything. The most popular liberals in the country are Michael Moore, Keith Olbermann, Jon Stewart, Thom Hartmann, Rachel Maddow, the Kos guy, Frank Rich, and Arianna Huffington. Ooohh, scary amount of brains in that group.

Anyways, that's the way I see it.

My contribution of the David Brooks-talk radio debate:

David Brooks lists some supposed talk radio losses. Among them are the South Carolina primary where McCain beat talk radio darlings Romney, Huckabee, and Thompson; and the Rush Limbaugh open conspiracy to defeat Obama in some Democratic primaries. It's really an odd way of looking at talk radio or any media organization. By his logic, the New York Times, colleges, and labor unions are worthless because George Pataki managed to win the New York governorship. Is NPR more relevant than conservative talk radio or The New Republic? How many elections have they affected?

Talk Radio gets a message out. Sometimes it's effective, like during the immigration debate and now, health care; and sometimes it doesn't overcome other transmitters of opinion or sheer political forces.

Brooks' error is to think in extremes, to insist that talk radio and conservatives claim themselves to be something, and then to attack them when they don't meet the lofty goals David Brooks himself set up for them.

The correct way to see talk radio is as one of many media choices, one that millions of Americans choose to be influenced by. It happens to be the one most hospitable to Republicans because it focuses on ideas instead of glamor or production, but it's still only one. David Brooks would have conservatives abandon these Americans. And then what, Mr. Brooks? Would Republicans do better electorally by not having their ideas articulated in long media segments with no interruptions? The people who listen to talk radio would do what: read David Brooks columns?

Glenn Beck doesn't speak for Middle America? Well, who does? Should Beck quit saying the things that part of middle America believes because he can't speak for all? How stupid does David Brooks think people are?

Newsflash: ABC, Jon and Kate, Paula Abdul, and Joe Biden don't speak for middle America either. Nobody does because nobody can.

Even talk radio isn't one monolithic group. They vary in substance and approach. I choose Medved, Bennett, and Prager over Beck, Limbaugh, and Hannity, but people have different tastes: As long as a particular host isn't saying anything evil or dishonest like Alex Jones and, sometimes, Savage do; people shouldn't begrudge others their opinion-source preferences.

Now, if Brooks wants to attack specific personalities or ideas instead of the medium itself, that would be much more honorable.

Not only would that require real work and research, however, but I suspect that it's not any particular thing any show host says but that certain people just want the whole thing to vanish.

Or, grow up, Mr. Brooks.

Should Joe Wilson apologize? Let's see:

1. Obama is essentially, though not technically lying. The health care plan isn't "designed" to cover illegal immigrants, but it probably will, as congress refuses to take steps to stop verification. There won't be anything called "death panels," but government will decide "best practices." Government will include abortion coverage as sure as I'm typing on my school's Lenovo R61.

Thus, Obama invokes the Greg Brady "exact words" defense, wherein one can use syntactical analysis to overwhelm the author's intent or craft a phrase in such a way to mask one's meaning.

Greg gets grounded

It’s right for people to point this out.

However, right in the middle of a speech might not be the best time. If the public allows the shouting down of controversial presidential statements, it may set an unpleasant precedent.

On the other hand, Obama indirectly called Joe Wilson a liar, first.

2. Obama abuses his joint-session address privilege. A national crises like 9/11, OK. An oval office talk like what President Bush used for immigration and the Surge would have been more appropriate in this case. Asking opposing congressmen to be the president’s campaign props robs the congress of dignity.

Conclusion: I think Wilson should apologize for being rude, but make clear the points above.

The Politics:

Will Joe Wilson's statement be seen as a ray of truth through deciept, like Joseph Welch's question to McCarthy, "Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?" (not saying it was a ray of truth, just that it was perceived as such) or as a burst of mean-ness, playing thus into a Democrat stereotype of Republicans.

**update**

Wilson apologizes.

It's easy to get riled up when somebody on your side dresses down a representative from the other, but conservatives should not call Democratically-elected officials, "Nazis," even if the officials brought it up in the first place. To call somebody a "Nazi" is to impute that he's a mass-murdering pagan. Democrats do not advocate mass murder. Some Democrats are socialists, but socialism is block-headed and freedom-sapping, not evil.

Let's keep our wits about us and show some respect to our Democratic neighbors.

That aside, I liked when the gentleman thanked his congressman for letting him keep his own health care. Think about it.

On a related note, Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism may be the most influential political book of the decade. The Marine in the video's knowledge of Nazi industrial policy is strait from the book.

While at Barnes and Noble, buying a game of Yikerz, I happened upon a book by apparent idiot David Neiwart called: The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right (how I hate conservatives and am willing to dig up fringy stuff to smear the 50% of the population I don't agree with). As I leafed through it, I happened upon a section dealing with Goldberg's book. Liberal Fascism is so influential that lefty morons like Neiwart feel the need to deal with Goldberg's book before calling Rush Limbaugh a fascist. Oh, how he must yearn for the good old days when a liberal could just associate conservatives with Nazis and call it a day.

Sure, it's fun to show the profound hypocrisy of those who spent the past eight years in a political and personal hate-fest with George Bush condemn this picture. You can see plenty of examples at the NRO Corner.

The indignant reaction to this picture demonstrates that offense as a central tenets of art is a farce. Offensive art is really just a way for the artist to emotionally patronize viewers who sympathize with the his hatreds.

It calls attention to just how atrophied liberals' moral vocabulary has become when the only criticism they have of anything is that it's "racist."

Despite it's usefulness as a teaching aid, it's still wrong to put up these pictures (Yes, I know I'm putting it up, but to condemn it) for the following reasons:

1. It's success is dependent upon and it's presence encourages, hatred.
2. It's probably not a good idea to use this level of hatred for somebody who hasn't actually done evil, but just has a bunch of bad and badly-worn ideas, for it encourages stupid comparisons and leaves us unable to react to true evil. We see this lack of perspective when people compare Sarah Palin to the president of Iran and Bush to Hitler.
3. It's disrespectful to an elected official, which hurts everybody a little.
4. It takes the focus away from the issues or, to the extent that it focuses of them (socialism), deals with them in an unintellectual "meme" manner.
5. It's a bad example for children who are already struggling with an idiotic and shallow culture.
6. It's dumb as politics; it repels nice moderates.

Picture below fold

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1. Sherrilyn A. Ifill is both wrong and right. Judge Sotomayer did say a racist thing, technically, if you define racist as the dictionary does:

rac·ism (rszm)
n.
1. The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.

She said:

Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging. Justice [Sandra Day] O’Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases…I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, as Professor [Martha] Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life..

Here we have an allusion to actual and meaningful natural differences and the allegation that Latinas would not only make different choices, a problem in itself as judges are supposed to not take that stuff into consideration, but "better" ones.

(I personally don't think physiology affects wisdom: it's available to all sincere people. I don't know if Sotomayor would consider my mom, a Latina, wise, but if my mom were on the supreme court, she'd not only allow the death penalty, but offer to carry out the sentence herself.)

So, yes, what Sotomayor said fits the definition. On the other hand, I don't really think that Sotomayor is a racist- she's a liberal. There's a difference. Liberals say things that fit the criteria for racist speech, but they don't really believe it. What liberals try to do in this regard is achieve equality, which is their one sacred dogma. One way to straighten a see-saw is to lift the low side. The other way is to lower the high side. Sometimes liberals feel that the lower side has to "make up" it's low time by spending time as the higher half. It's the reason why Marxist-inclined race movements say that the oppressed can't be racists- the oppressed have no power (more here).

This is what Sotomayor was doing. Whereas O'Connor stopped at equal, Sotomayor wanted to make up a little for past slights by saying that Latinas are not only equal, but better.

Some conservatives like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh are also being unfair to Sotomayor because immediately after that passage Sotomayor said:

“Let us not forget that wise men like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Justice Cardozo voted on cases which upheld both sex and race discrimination in our society. Until 1972, no Supreme Court case ever upheld the claim of a woman in a gender discrimination case. I, like Professor Carter, believe that we should not be so myopic as to believe that others of different experiences or backgrounds are incapable of understanding the values and needs of people from a different group. Many are so capable. As Judge Cedarbaum pointed out to me, nine white men on the Supreme Court in the past have done so on many occasions and on many issues including Brown.”

Here, Sotomayor returns to the correct (my) position.

So, how should Republicans handle Sotomayor? I know what appeals to me and that is, calm, non-sensational, non-nitpicking, truth. How would this strategy sound like in a hearing:

Justice Sotomayor, what is your position on this? Do you agree with this decision? What's your general philosophy?

In other words, this is a teaching moment for Republicans. Contrast and illuminate.

Christopher Buckley makes a good case here- for a 100% inheritance tax.

First, what makes Sarah Palin a religious extremist? Really, I'd like to know. Can C. Buckley really have fallen into the "anybody who's more religious than me is an extremist" pit of provincialism?

And this thing about temperment! It betrays Buckley's preoccupation with style, as if nothing that can happen as a result of policy in the United States would affect him.

Well, my friend, you got me. I'll cop to getting Obama wrong, though it seems a bit early to give up on him entirely; who knows, perhaps he'll view this egregious budget misstep as a "teachable moment."

At the same time, perhaps you might admit to some nervousness about granting Limbaugh keeper-of-the-tablets status. Rush Limbaugh has done a lot for the conservative movement and is to be congratulated. But he is also doing something to it now, and it is far from clear that it's for the good.

Our choice, last fall, was between an angry 73 year old with a legislative record far from consistently conservative, who nominated as his running mate a know-nothing religious extremist; on the other side was an appealing, thoughtful man who--for a brief shining moment--seemed to be more than the sum of his ideological parts.

If I had to vote all over again, I'd pull the same lever. Maybe I'm obtuse. Or maybe I just haven't yet entirely given up on the old audacity of hope.

Meanwhile, my fellow elitist David Brooks has issued a clarion call to moderates of all persuasion to rally to prevent Obama from ruining what's left of the U.S. economy. Let us march!