Losing their religion

Side-by-side articles on CNN illustrate why liberal appeals to religion always fail.

The first introduces us to a modern martyr:

When John Dominic Crossan was a teenager in Ireland, he dreamed of becoming a missionary priest. But the message he's spreading about Jesus today isn't the kind that would endear him to many church leaders.

Crossan says Jesus was an exploited "peasant with an attitude" who didn't perform many miracles, physically rise from the dead or die as punishment for humanity's sins.

Crossan, the co-founder of the Jesus Seminar*, is a typical modern liberal Christian. Far from being the martyred scholar of the CNN article, he sits right in the mainstream of Mainstream Christianity, that ever-shrinking, fading portion of Christendom that dominates Religious Studies departments across the fruited plain. His Jesus is, not surprisingly, just the kind of guy Crossan imagines himself to be.  Liberals always manage to make gods in their own image; they are the kind of gods who would chant at a union rally one day and cry on Oprah the next.  But he would never, ever, make someone feel bad**.

The second is like unto it:

A coalition of progressive Christian leaders*** has taken out a full-page ad that asks “What would Jesus cut?” in Monday’s edition of Politico, the opening salvo in what the leaders say will be a broader campaign to prevent cuts for the poor and international aid programs amid the budget battle raging in Washington...

The ad and the broader campaign are aimed mostly at a spending measure passed by the Republican-led House of Representatives that cuts $61 billion from current spending levels, including cuts to Head Start, the Women Infants and Children (WIC) program and international aid programs.

Religious liberals love to de-power Jesus. Being Unitarians to the extent they are theists at all, they eliminated his deity quite early.  Being philosophically of the materialist school, they can't have a god who interferes with the universe, so out go his miracles. Jesus walked on water?  Well, that was really ice. A wind parted the Red Sea for Moses. And on and on.

Then once they have cut him down to a first century Caesar Chavez wannabee who lived and died**** in a little backwater province of a defunct empire 20 centuries ago, for some reason they try to appeal to him as some sort of an authority on contemporary fiscal policy.

Now, let me ask a really stupid question: Why would I give a rat's ass what some 2000-years dead, exploited "peasant with an attitude" cared about taxes?

* Which, honest-to-God, 'votes' on the real sayings of Jesus by having scholars drop white or black marbles into a bag. This uber-scientific methodology has determined beyond dispute that the only two authentic words in the "Our Father" are, wait for it, "Our Father."
** unless that person was a Republican.
*** a euphemism for professional religionists who are drawn like loose iron filings to the magnet of political power. Jesus with power? Perish the thought. But a president is the kind of power they can get behind.
**** And stayed dead this time

Jim Bowie should have used handguns

This is what think tanks are for

I agree with the Democrats:

The House embraced two bills Friday breathing life into new state commissions responsible for figuring out how to shrink Kansas government...

Piling commissions on top of task forces on top of councils won't result in better state government, said House Minority Leader Paul Davis, D-Lawrence.

"I fail to see how appointing a commission is going to help us in trying to shrink the size of government," he said. 

Before ink was dry on House Bill 2194 and House Bill 2120, Senate President Steve Morris, R-Hugoton, said comparable state government panels formed for this purpose had produced forgettable work.

Piling commissions on top of task forces on top of councils is generally the Democrats' bailiwick, so it might be wise to listen to them when they say it won't work*. In this case, there are already a couple of think tanks in Kansas - most notably the Heartland Institute - who probably already have a made-to-order study** sitting in a filing cabinet somewhere. Appointing a bunch of 'connected' individuals, who are the kinds of people invariably appointed to such commissions, and asking them how the state can avoid such transparent wastes of money as stupid commissions might not be the best way to get a usable answer. These are the kinds of people who seriously propose that asking seniors to make Social Security appointments online is a valuable suggestion for getting the government's costs under control.

* Whether the Dems are really interested in shrinking state government is a separate issue altogether. However, if they are on board, it's probably wise to give them as much rope as they ask for.
** or seven.

Why I hate Liberalism

In one convenient paragraph:

You've seen the massive rallies going on in Ohio, Indiana and Wisconsin, well now lawmakers are bringing the same anti-middle class tactics to Topeka. Just today they passed HB2130, denying a voice to working Kansas families. A group of grassroots activists are holding a rally on the Capitol steps this weekend. This is your chance to make your voice heard and tell Gov. Brownback that he needs to put working Kansans before big business.

I got this email from the Kansas union of state employees, and it pretty much encapsulates everything I hate about liberalism.  It's not that workers try to get more money; I do the same, though in other ways.  It's not even that they want to join together to do so. It's that I insist that words have meaning*. Maybe I'm anal-retentive that way, but as the above managed, in four sentences, to commit a class three assault on the meanings of words, I figured the least I could do was deconstruct it here.

So here goes:

You've seen the massive rallies going on in Ohio, Indiana and Wisconsin, well now lawmakers are bringing the same anti-middle class tactics to Topeka.

It is interesting how, though government unions are what is under assault in the aforementioned state capitols, unions play no part in this equation; instead it is the "middle-class" that sits in the legislators' sights.  While many union people are middle class, the middle class is not a union, nor are most middle class people unionized, nor, once one steps out of the hallowed halls of government work, are even a significant percentage of them members of a union**. The fact that legislators across the fruited plains are trying to rein in government unions has nothing to do with the middle class and everything to do with a certain part of it: people who work for the government who happen to belong to a union. Besides, my English-major daughter would tell me that this sentence is an abomination simply from a structural perspective.

Just today they passed HB2130, denying a voice to working Kansas families.

HB2130, passed today by the Kansas house, forbids the Kansas direct deposit system from processing donations to Union PACs.  Whether it's a good idea is questionable - I rather think I would vote against it myself. Whether it denies a voice to working families is not.  "Working families" is not a synonym for "unionized state workers," and "can't donate to union PACs via direct deposit" does not deny anyone a voice: anyone can still say what they wish and donate to anything they wish. They just have to write a check like I do***.

A group of grassroots activists are holding a rally on the Capitol steps this weekend.

"Grassroots" is a wonderful euphemism that lends credibility to any effort, though it is supposed to mean the rank-and-file as opposed to the leadership of an organization.  However, when the executive director of an organization organizes a rally, does that not automatically destroy its grassroots nature? Of course it does.  In this case, all manner of organizations are taking part, organized by their leadership. And while the rank and file will be there, those ranks and files have something in common: most of them are classified government workers. It is not a "group of grass roots activists," it is a government union rally.

This is your chance to make your voice heard and tell Gov. Brownback that he needs to put working Kansans before big business.

Ignoring the switching of "unionized government employees" for "working Kansans," this is quite possibly the biggest lie of all. 'Big business' has nothing to do with the rally nor is it the reason for the rally. It's a mere bogey. In reality, government union members are rallying to protect the money they get from the paychecks of other working families****. These unions want more money not from 'big business,' but from the paychecks of Kansans, and they want to be able to funnel that money as easily as possible to union PACs, from which point it will be poured in a 10-1 ratio into the campaign coffers of Democratic candidates, who will then 'negotiate' with those unions over the workers' pay.

If this were a grassroots rally for working families, it would be seeking goals which would benefit all working families. Instead, it is a rally by a very specific group of people - those who live off tax money - organized by the professional leadership of their groups, for the purpose of taking more money from Kansas taxpayers. It is, in fact, as close to the opposite of what it claims as can be imagined.

All that said, I have to admit that I've been very happy with the GOP's efforts at the state level to defund one of the major underpinnings of the professional left, that segment of society that makes its living from the taxes that the actual grass roots pays. And I'm not at all surprised at the left's attempts to fight back. If it weren't for the gutless Republicans at the national level, I might be tempted to become a Republican myself.  As it is, should they be successful in their attempts to marginalize the stompers and screamers who will likely assemble in Topeka on Saturday, I shall content myself to fight them from the right.

In the mean time, maybe I'll do a little rain dance on Saturday morning. The grass roots can always use a little water.

* Liberals, on the other hand, insist that words have emotional impact, as when Cait48 claimed that the study of Thomas Jefferson's writings was "banned in Texas" because the school board dropped a requirement to teach Enlightenment philosophy in high school.  Texas, up to that point, had been a huge producer of 15-year-old natural law philosophers, I guess.
** Fewer than 7%, according to the BLS.
*** After all, I can't donate to the KFL PAC via direct deposit. It's simply not an option. It's also not an undue burden for pro-life voters.
**** I don't deny that union members can be members of working families, but I do deny that the subset is equivalent to the set.

There's actually a more complicated explanation

Than the one given by the union:

"There has been a coordinated campaign for the last 30 years to undermine the American middle class by weakening the power of workers to collectively bargain to raise their wages," said Mary Kay Henry, president of the Service Employees International Union, which represents nearly 2 million workers, many of them public employees.

She contends that corporate America, in an effort to keep middle-class wages in check, doled out hundreds of millions of dollars to support Republicans running for statewide offices.

And CNN, in its investigative reporting best, merely notes that "organized business interests" spent $828 million on the last election cycle at the state level, while organized labor spent a whole lot less.  The impression, of course, is that these businesses all give their money to Republicans and that's why they won and boo hoo hoo it's not fair. The union spin is that Republicans get all this business money in order to drive down your paycheck. It's a deceptively simple story, with an emphasis on 'deceptively.'

It's just not that simple, and it can be shown to be not that simple by actually looking at who gives to whom. The Republicans for their part really are simple: very few union dollars go to Republicans - on the order of 10% - ergo the vast majority of their money came from 'business interests.'  But what of the Dems? Where did their money come from? It's easy to say "unions" until we look at the numbers.

To pick a totally random* example, Cindy Neighbor is a good Kansas Democrat**. Whence came her campaign funds? Well according to CNN's source, other than the 25 grand of her own money she spent, these are the First Tier ($1000) donors:
Kansas Dental Association
Kansas Medical Society
Kansas NEA
Kansas Optometric Association
Kansas Contractors Association
Kansas Hospital Association
Johnson County Democrats
A T & T

I only see 1 union in that group of 8, and 1 party donation. You can follow the money down and you'll find more unions and you'll find trial lawyers and other reptilia, but you'll also find companies like Cox Communications and Southern Star Central Gas Pipeline company.

But before we ask why this is, I want to take a look at one other oddity, If you click on the Kansas Dental Association, it will become quickly apparent that they gave money to a lot of people running for office, 151 of them in total.  Since there were only 110 offices up for election, it's obvious they were playing both sides of the fence***. In fact, their top gifts went mostly to Republicans, but there were a few Dems like Cindy Neighbor and Dennis McKinney in there as well, and a whole lot of Dems in the lower tiers.

Why were those Democrats in there? It's not because they like teeth more than their Republican opponents, but because they were in large part incumbents.  Remember back when the Dems ran everything in Washington? They were able to outraise the GOP. Now that the GOP has the house, they are able to outraise the Dems. This difference is not in union money - which always goes to Democrats - it is money from 'organized business interests.' This leads us to an obvious conclusion that unions are embarrassed by and CNN is too busy covering Justin Bieber's new haircut to be bothered with: Unions and Businesses give for different reasons. 

Unions give money to Democrats because they are bosom buddies, both ideologically and functionally: the Dems favor laws that favor unions, whereas the unions direct-deposit worker and taxpayer money into Democratic coffers. On the other hand, business interests give to incumbents because they need to buy access to government, whether it is run by Democrats or Republicans****. The Dental Association gives Cindy $1000 because it wants to be able to talk to her when she gets re-elected (she didn't, alas), not because it wants to drive down the wages of those nice young ladies who clean your teeth twice a year.

* random in the sense that I didn't know what the numbers were going to look like before I picked her and I have no reason to suspect that she differs from other Dems.
** She actually used to be a Republican, before the lovely and gracious Rogue stole her precinct seat, so there's a bit of history there. In fact, many Kansas Democrats of note, including our last governor and penultimate attorney general, used to be Republicans.
*** In fairness, they also gave to people who were not running, like state senators.
**** This is not to say that businesses don't prefer Republicans; of course they do, especially the Washington kind that are indistinguishable from Democrats behind closed doors.

It's like TK at the Optometrist*

FWIW, it looks like the various doctor groups in Wisconsin are displeased that a number of their members decided to hand out tourniquets at the rallies without actually looking for blood first.

* Who asked the doctor, in all earnest, "Are you going to suck on my eyeball?"

Enough is enough

for the President told me so:

[April 01, 2008] The Democratic presidential candidates are criss-crossing Pennsylvania this week, dropping in at gas stations and truck stops to convince voters they've got the best plan to tackle soaring gas prices and Big Oil profits...

Obama, meanwhile, said Monday a crackdown is needed on oil companies.

"[We] need a president who can stand up to Big Oil and big energy companies and say enough is enough," Obama said Monday.

Well, I'm sure el Presidente has figured out by now the difference betweening campaigning and ruling*. Whether or no, I'm sure Exxon's quarterlies are going to look pretty good, so long as they don't have any assets in Egypt. Or Libya. Or Tunisia. Or anywhere else in the Middle East for that matter.  While it's too early to say, the likelihood that all these producing nations are going to turn into property rights-respecting democracies is, well, as thin as Turkish prison gruel.

But that's not the point**, which is a little more mundane.  As of today, oil has popped up 6% to well over $90, the dollar is under 80 (77 and change) and gold is still well over $850.  That being the case, all of my personal economic warning lights are now flashing a very lovely shade of fire engine red. I'm not sure what that means, the numbers being completely arbitrary, but I'm pretty sure the next six months or so will not be boring. So we've got that going for us.

* the electorate, however, still clings to the illusion that one has to do with the other.
** Neither that it's Obama's fault or that he could have avoided it. It is what it is.

Not that this is a daddy blog

But sometimes you just gotta daddy blog.

UPDATE: we just got the final court hearing date: March 31, 9am. It will be about 48 hours shy of 4 years since the police dropped off two little bundles of joy.

Happy days are here again

Prechter displays the contrarian's lament:

I last spoke to Mr. Prechter about six months ago [and the market] has risen more than 30 percent since his gloomy pronouncement.

Did the powerful rally surprise him? “It certainly did,” he said. In a lengthy e-mail, however, he pointed out that he hadn’t said the big crash would take place overnight.

Does he still believe that the catastrophe is coming? Oh, yes, he said, adding that, if anything, the recent good news for investors has made the outlook over the next several years much worse. “The market,” he said, “appears much more dangerous today than it was last summer.”

Having called at least 12 of the last 2 market declines, a pair of them successfully, Robert Prechter has certainly earned his Bear Scout merit badge*. But he also illustrates the problem of being a Permabear, that gloomy prognosticator who sees a crash in every downtick. Crashes happen from lows, not highs, so looking at the very near future, I just don't see one**, at least not so long as Gentle Ben keeps pouring money into the system.  After all, it's got to go somewhere, and my 401(k) is as good a place as any. Nor am I the only one who sees it that way.

But just as Mr. Prechter is wrong for ignoring the world of money outside p/e averages and yeilds, he's probably incorrect on his call for any specific low, especially one as low (300, I think) as he has made. The Dow will never get that low because those who define the averages will change them just as they change them today, adding growing companies in place of dogs.  When a company goes bust, it is replaced by another which, almost by definition, has better business prospects***.

He's right about the market being overbought, and he's right about it being expensive, but those do not mean it will go down, much less crash, in the short run. They don't mean anything at all except that it is overbought and expensive, that the risk are high and the rewards low relative to other times. The fact so bandied by contrarians that markets turn when everyone is bullish does not mean that when everyone is bullish the markets will turn.

That said, he's unlikely to be wrong forever. America is on an unsustainable fiscal path, and the end could come unexpectedly quickly. Even then, pure inertia is likely to keep the stock markets up for longer than many expect. Doubtless his thirteenth, fourteenth, or fifteenth crash call will be a charm.

* Yes, I'm fully aware that Bear Scout is actually a rank, not a merit badge. Work with me here, people.
** Contrarian alert!
*** Index changes are a major if widely ignored factor in the market's propensity to go up over the long run. This is not unlike how stores that go bankrupt are not counted in next year's retail sales numbers, which as a result return misleadingly optimistic figures.

Spontaneity

Wisconsin high school student "protest" the Governor's plan to stomp the teachers' union.

UPDATE: Would it help to confuse it if we ran away more?

MADISON, Wis. – Police officers were dispatched Thursday to find Wisconsin state lawmakers who had apparently boycotted a vote on a sweeping bill that would strip most government workers of their collective bargaining rights.

The lawmakers, all Democrats in the state Senate, did not show up when they were ordered to attend a midday vote on the legislation.

Apparently it takes 20 senators for a quorum, the Repubs have 19, so since all the Democrats bravely turned their tails and fled, there can be no vote.

Sick of it

I'm too busy this week/month studying the dissolution of European society in the 15th Century* to spend too much time on the same thing happening to our own, so I figured I'd just whine about some stuff and then go back to class.

1. Social workers, as a class, are worthless. I have met a few who were fantastic; they were smart, knowledgeable, helpful, and really cared about the kids. Most of them, however, are formerly messed-up kids themselves** who are out to save the world armed only with a master's degree in child psychology and oodles and oodles of compassion for the Noble Oppressed Poor(tm). It generally takes them six months to burn out completely, after which point they will spend the rest of their careers losing paperwork for 40 hours a week.

2. I don't know anything about Egypt***, but I think it's a little silly for people to say that American policy "failed" because Mubarak stepped down. You know, there really are things happening in the world that are not primarily about us. 

3. In the immortal words of Eric Cartman, Democrats piss me off. Well, actually, they don't.  But their incessant whining does make my teeth hurt on occasion.

4. When was Vox replaced by some Susie Matchmaker doppelganger?  I used to really enjoy reading him, but his place has recently started reminding me of Badger Meyer's bedroom.

5. Wisconsin is doing everything right when it comes to unions. 10 minutes after this is signed, they need to expand it to police and firefighters as well.

On the bright side, we signed the last papers on the adoption today****.  So whatever else happens, all is well with the world, all things considered.

* and Custer.  That last attack was a really bad idea in retrospect.
** 'formerly' only because they have overcome the 'kid' part.
*** after, oh, 400ad or so.
**** famous last words, I know.  It also has a lot to do with point 1 being point 1.

Gonna buy five copies for my mother...

That's because they're not going to fix it

Erskine Bowles looks over the financial abyss:

Erskine Bowles, the Democratic chairman of the [President's Commission on Deficit Reduction], said the White House budget request goes "nowhere near where they will have to go to resolve our fiscal nightmare."

They know, ok? And they are not going to fix it. The President's budget is not just more unbalanced than any other budget ever submitted to Congress, it's a fraud* which counts on magical revenues, rosy scenarios, and outright lies to get the deficit down to seventeen hundred thousand million dollars. Even the reasonable if puny suggestions of Bowles' commission are ignored.

Anyone with a room temperature IQ knows that a government with $x in revenues cannot spend 80% more than that indefinitely, which, considering that SocSec is likely in permanent deficit, is the best that the President's budget proposes. They can't even do it for very long. This is not in doubt, it's not in question. Governments that borrow close to half of their spending eventually go broke, all governments, and it usually doesn't take very long.

The New Republicans are arguing over public radio, and by the squeals coming from my inbox it looks like the House has a fair chance of killing it**. That's all well and good: it needs to be killed off, torn up by the roots, and the ground where it once stood salted using a gas-burning rototiller. But that's not even a measurable part of the problem. It's good and perhaps even necessary, but it is pissing in Lake Superior from a budget perspective. But it is not a serious approach to the budget problem. And it is not meant to be. The GOP does not have the guts to deal with the budget problem seriously. The Democrats are hopeless.

The problem is not going to be fixed. It is not going to even be mitigated, but instead this fiscal insanity will go on until it cannot go on anymore, until this car full of drunk teens slams full speed into the tree or a bridge that brings their revelry to a halt. Once that fact is accepted, all there is left to ponder are the consequences, and none of them are good for most people.

* All budgets are frauds, of course, and Rosy Scenario has been the true budget director going back at least five administrations.  But usually she comes up with better numbers than this.  The old gal must be getting close to retirement.
** The Senate will doubtless put if back in, however.

Your argument is invalid

Strange idea for a socialist

Obama leaves Bush holding Marx's bag:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Obama administration wants to shrink the government's role in the mortgage system -- a proposal that would remake decades of federal policy aimed at getting Americans to buy homes and would probably make home loans more expensive across the board.

Abolishing Fannie and Freddie would rewrite 70 years of federal housing policy, from Fannie's creation as part of the New Deal to President George W. Bush's drive for an "ownership society" in the 2000s.

Despite the (legitimate) screams of Republicans about the health care debacle, Obama has shown himself to have greater capitalist or at least market tendencies than el presidente pasado. Bush may have talked a good game about the free market, but he didn't actually believe in it, as is evidenced by his ill-fated attempts to make everyone middle class suburban homeowners via socialist finance*. There are two ways to make housing "affordable:" you can let the market pick the price at which the most people will be able to purchase the most house, or you can artificially drive down payments by guarantees, subsidies, and socialization.  Bush chose the second, Obama it seems is choosing the first**. It is only fair to give the man his due, especially as he will via this action legitimize a whole lot of other market reforms.

That said, the AP business writers miss a really important point when claim that Obama's reforms "would probably make home loans more expensive across the board." In one sense - the sense that measures loans solely by interest rates - they are correct: home interest rates when neither guaranteed or subsidized by the government will probably be higher. What that means in practice is that house prices will likely be lower, especially with the elimination of the 30-year mortgage.  People can only afford so big a mortgage payment***, so higher interest rates generally mean lower housing prices. Driving housing prices higher was an inevitable consequence of the government making housing 'affordable,' housing will actually become affordable as soon as the government stops underwriting the market.  Bad for the people who bought oceanfront condos at the top, but hey, life's a beach.

* As well as his preposterous loaning of unrecoverable billions to GM and Chrysler. That it was Obama who pushed both through bankruptcy is to his credit and Bush's eternal shame.
** except in relation to student loans, which likewise ought to be eliminated, and for the same reasons.
*** and they generally buy as much house as they can afford.

Neuter logic

I've talked about Moonbat bumper sticker philosophy before, but I came across another such mystery this morning that had me thinking. In one of those weird coincidences that life tends to wipe on your carpet, this one was also on the back of a black Subaru Outback, driven by a crop-haired woman*. In the back seat of said vehicle roamed a rather large dog who was apparently the subject of the sticker.

The sticker said, "My Dog Saves Lives. He's Neutered."

Now the mystery obviously has to do with how these two sentences could be logically related. To understand the first, I immediately looked to see if the dog was perhaps a Saint Bernard carrying one of those little casks**. That failing - he was obviously of the "shepherd mix" variety - I mused that perhaps he had undergone CPR training, was a rescue swimmer, or volunteered his weekends in Afghanistan sniffing out IEDs on the roadsides. He was wearing dog tags, so that's a possibility.  But either way, I was still unable to connect the statements.

Perhaps they were related by type: Saving lives is good, neutering your dog is good, so logically they belong together on the bumper sticker. But that failed to satisfy, because sunshine and novels about goblins are good, too, and they weren't there. It sure wasn't a very comprehensive list.

Then it hit me: neuter logic says that you save something not by keeping it in existence, but by keeping it from existence. This noble canine is saving lives that do not exist and which will never exist because he's neutered, sort of like all the award-winning buildings that I have saved because I never became an architect. It's almost perfect moonbat logic, because the more puppies he doesn't have, the more lives he has saved, and therefore the more lives the proud**** owner has saved vicariously. And by projecting forward a few (non-existent) generations, the Moonbat can theoretically save an infinite number of lives. It's like a chain letter of good karma, except that your name never rolls off the top line.

* I hate to perpetuate stereotypes, but good grief.
** I always wanted to a be rescued by one, especially one carrying Captain Morgan-and-Coke, but I was lost once and he didn't show up***, and I'm afraid to try again.
*** Instead, someone sent a French poodle with some Perrier, in which I stewed him. French cooking is overrated, I think.
**** The dog did not look proud. He knew what I was reading and seemed rather embarrassed that his owner was telling perfect strangers of his (lack of) testicles.

And here I thought *my* asterisks were worthless...

In which I pretty much laugh

At liberal horror:

AOL Inc.’s deal to purchase the Huffington Post is more than a bet on the website’s financial prospects. It’s a wager on the ability of co-founder Arianna Huffington to build an online media empire, analysts say. 

So Ariana is now a corporate mogul. A capitalist. A sellout. Good for her.

But bad for her hordes of horrified liberal followers. What about all that stuff she said about corporate controlled media? The evils of corporate money? The soullessness of corporate guidelines and corporate policies and focus on the bottom line? How can Arianna continue to be the same corporation-hating bomb-thrower* progressives know and love while assimilating her clever little "reality-based" platoon into the borg of stupidity that is AOL?  She can't be, because she never was that, any more than most leading progressives are anti-corporation. They are only opposed to corporations - and corporate money - that they do not control**.

Not that it will matter a whit in the grand scheme of things. AOL is what it is, and Arianna's brand of no-holds barred progressivism does not appear any stupider being featured there. In fact, it may have finally reached home at last. 

* that she's been for 15 years. Before that she was a corporation-loving bomb thrower.
** Which is why they hate the Koch brothers but love George Soros.

The road more traveled

Sarah misses the point again

SANTA BARBARA, Calif., Feb 4 (Reuters) - Republican Sarah Palin said on Friday an explosion of government spending and debt under President Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats had put the United States on "the road to ruin." ...

"This is not the road to national greatness, it is the road to ruin," Palin said of the growth in government spending, budget deficits, joblessness and housing foreclosures under Obama. "The federal government is spending too much, borrowing too much, growing and controlling too much," she said.

The first thing Sarah misses is that one could substitute "Bush" for "Obama" and the entire above would still be true. Obama is the biggest spender, but Bush was second. He has run the biggest deficits, but Bush was second. He has the greatest number of foreclosures* since Bush. Sarah neglects** to mention Bush in deference to her Republican audience, many of whom voted for and with Bush in doing what Obama has exceeded Bush at doing***. Obama is Bush on steroids, but he is still Bush. And he is still Bush because Bush is still Woodrow Wilson who is still Teddy Roosevelt.

Which is the second thing Sarah misses. The road to national greatness IS the road to ruin. The road to national greatness has always been the road to ruin, and that path was set as soon as the original Progressives set us on the road to greatness by giving us something to do in the name of America.

What does "national greatness" demand? It ever and always demands an overweening sense of national purpose, no?  Whether it is Making the World Safe for Democracy or waging a Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism, national greatness demands a big government to carry it out.  It is no different than the Gorax trying to establish a sense of international purpose with his quixotic campaign against sunshine - what he's trying to do is justify a huge, coercive entity to lead us all into a bold future or our own design. Reagan's national greatness demanded a huge military and huge deficits. Perhaps it was worth it - I tend to think it was - but one cannot deny that all the things Palin complains about are merely the price of what she wants. National Greatness is belligerent by its very nature****. It is self-deceptive, making us think that we are better, smarter, and deservedly more blessed of God than our fellow creatures. And it is prideful above all. As such, it is merely an onramp to the Road to Ruin.

America has no enemies in the world comparable to the Soviet Union that Reagan stared down.  We won. Yes, there are terrorists in the world, for the world is a very bad place.  There are Kim Jong Ils and there are whoever will end up on top in Egypt.  How many divisions can they land in New Orleans? None.

Therefore, rather than seeking national greatness, I suggest we follow in the wise footsteps of Warren G. Harding and pursue a return to normalcy, a policy of shutting up, working hard, and raising our families in relative peace and quiet. Rather than trying to give 19th Century Western government to 6th Century Asian tribesmen, we could pursue a quiet America that does not wave its junk at everyone, which results in us having to hide our junk from the TSA. Give up the pride of greatness and replace it with the quiet pursuit of happiness. Pride is expensive, bigger than even our national credit limit. Ask the Brits and the Spanish and the Dutch and the Romans and the Nazis and everyone else who made "national greatness" a priority how that worked out for them. That we expect our own answer to be different is testament to how far we have already traveled that well-trodden road.

* Not that foreclosures are a problem, they are simply her metric.  I actually think foreclosures are a good thing, as they are the undeniable evidence that people have more house than they can reasonably afford. The sooner the foreclosure, the sooner they can escape their debt-slavery to our demonic banking system. The fact that it makes house prices go down is simply icing on the cake.
** and neglected when it mattered.
*** Think of it as T-Jack criticizing Favre for throwing interceptions.
**** or as the theme song to Team America: World Police so crassly put it, the verse that begins "America, Fuck Yeah!" always ends with "So lick my butt and suck on my balls."

Despair

Deja vu all over again

Breaking news from 1979, or so it seems:

A group of angry Egyptian men carjacked an ABC News crew and threatened to behead them today in the latest and most menacing attack on foreign reporters trying to cover the anti-government uprising...

I'm pretty sure the "Death to America" chants will be coming along in pretty short order. Plenty of news outlets will tell you those words have been absent from the rioting thus far, perhaps relying on the old disclaimer about past performance and future results - just because the Iranian Revolution devolved into an American hatefest, that doesn't mean Egypt's must.  True enough. But there are times where past performance is quite indicative of future results, and rampaging mobs of Moslems generally provide those times.

Besides, this is not the point in the Revolution when that stuff usually happens anyway.  The Shah was a puppet and he was in the US - that made "Death to America" chants a useful tool when the rioting was just getting underway. America obviously stood in for the hated ruler and rallying them against America was rallying them against the Shah.  In this case, like the case of the Russian Revolution and even the French Revolution, finding an external enemy will be the first order of business of the new government, whoever that is, while they are quietly getting rid of the internal enemies. Whether we support Mubarak or not will make no difference in about a month, I'll wager. He'll be gone, and we will be one entity the new government can rally a very large percentage of hungry and angry citizens against.