| Sunday, August
1, 2010
Great article by Lee Harris
Jerry:
I don't know if you have seen this article by Lee
Harris about the Tea Party, but I find it very thoughtful. I picked it up
through a link at Instapundit. Harris contends that the Tea Party is not
really trying to advance new ideas as much as they are trying to advance an
attitude: "Don't tread on me." It is a backlash by average people with
common sense against the elite decision makers who seem to have none.
http://www.hoover.org/publications/policy-review/article/5387
Harris wrote an excellent article several years ago
about fantasy ideologies that is brilliant. In case you have not seen it,
here it is:
http://www.hoover.org/publications/policy-review/article/6232
Take care,
Hugh Greentree
There is no real dilemma facing conservatives
regarding the Tea Party movement. The situation happens often.
The Tea Parties are a populist movement. It is
not particularly cohesive, and the very name -- an acronym for Taxed
Enough Already at the beginning of the movement although it seems less
used now -- says much of it. It is on a national scale very much like what
periodically used to surface in local government: Good Government
movements, generally referred to by politicians as "googoo's". Boss Flynn
in "You're The Boss" (a book that seems to be nearly unobtainable
but once was required reading for political science students) discusses
this in detail. Such movements are powerful, but they don't generally
change the system, because they are united mostly by fervor and have
little organiation. They are powerful when the come into existence but
they have no sustaining power.
That's the conventional wisdom, anyway. Now the
Tea Parties are pretty well upset with Obama, and rightly so, but they
don't have and don't intend to have any great agreement on the fundamental
conservative principles. For example:
Edmund Burke said long ago
"To Provide for us in our necessities is not in
the power of Government. It would be a vain presumption in statesmen to
think they can do it. The people maintain them, not they the people. It is
in the power of Government to prevent much evil; it can do very little
positive good in this or perhaps anything else."
http://mises.org/daily/867
Now this is a general principle, stated at about
the time of the American Revolution. There are obvious exceptions:
government responses in times of disaster come to mind -- and even the
principle can be argued. Think of it as a vector, a default: government
isn't likely to do this well. Is there not a better way that doesn't
involve coercion? Tocqueville addressed this well: in America,
particularly, "the associations" did much of the "positive" work that in
Europe was assigned to government. From Burke's time onward the
obligations of the Government toward "the deserving poor" have been
debated, both in America and Britain. Recall that in England there is no
objection to Government deriving obligations from religious principles; it
is, after all, by law, a Christian nation with the Queen as the head of
the Established Church. The came debates happened in the United States,
but we are not allowed to use religious obligations in our calculations.
In both nations the principle of helping the
deserving poor transmogrified into "entitlements" which have become
monstrous obligations to the point where they are no longer discretionary
spending and nothing can be done about them, even when they oblige all of
us to pay enormous pensions to those whose job was to take money from the
productive and hand it out to the non-productive, deserving or not. The
notion that the Government cannot provide for us in our necessities and
can do very little positive good seems to come from a long way off. The
nature of what Government can and cannot do, and ought and ought not to
do, is not even agreed on among all Conservatives.
Conservatives do not need for the Tea Party
movement to embrace the general principle that by and large Government
does little good. It does not need for the Tea Party to engage in debates
at that level. At the moment it is obvious to nearly everyone that the
Government has undertaken far too much, that it is not doing even what we
all agree it should do very well, and that it is time for a change. We can
all, Conservative, Libertarian, Jeffersonians and Hamiltonians,
Federalists and anti-federalists, agree that we are Taxed Enough Already,
and that we do not have Good Government; that it is time to turn the
rascals out.
Until that is done, until we are no longer
government by Creeps and Nuts and a system that generates positive power
feedbacks, discussions of where we must go and what is best are not so
important; but there will come a time when this sort of discussion is very
important.
John Adams did not begin as Mad Dog Adams eager
for revolution. He disapproved of his radical cousin Sam. But there came a
time...
==
You wrote: "The Reagan people, Democrat and
Republican, never coalesced into a party built on conservative principles,
or indeed any principles as all. The lesson was, I think, that the nation
certainly needs to rally those who have had enough."
It's possible they never will coalesce. Heinlein wrote
this:
"Political tags--such as royalist, communist,
democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and. so forth--are never
basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want
people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are
idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest
number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in
altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort."
I have a theory. The Catch 22 of politics is that the
sort of person who thinks people should not be controlled is exactly the
sort of person who is allergic to having political power. I have watched
many good conservatives in politics simply decide that they have no desire
to be in that club, and retire or otherwise fade away. Fred Thompson made a
pretty big splash at first, but it was clear almost from the beginning of
his short campaign that he didn't have any real urgency to be in political
office. He's not the only example, either.
The people who live and breath to control others do
have this urgency. In spades. If conservatives tend to follow George
Washington's example, but liberals have a single-minded thirst for power,
the rest is simple natural selection.
In short, the kind of people you really don't want to
be in charge of things are exactly the sort who desperately want to be in
charge of things. And the reverse.
I've speculated in the past that we might have done
better over the years simply selecting our leaders by lottery. I'm not sure
we could have done any worse. Haven't some of our greatest leaders been
those who had leadership dropped on them instead of lusting after it?
Tom Brosz
But that is the point. By limiting the power that
government has -- or by dividing that power among many jurisdictions and
among many institutions -- you hope to make it less important. See
Jefferson, here
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch8s41.html .
"In questions of
power, then, let no more be heard of confi-
dence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the
chains of the Constitution."
http://www.questia.com/PM.qst%3Fa%3Do&d%3D76953750
There would have been no Republic had we not been
blessed with Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin...
=============
Fred on WikiLeaks...
http://www.lewrockwell.com/reed/reed183.html
"Two ways exist of looking at WikiLeaks, the site that
publicizes secret military documents and videos. The first is held
self-interestedly by the Pentagon and by Fox News, the voice of an angry
lower-middle class without too much education. These believe that
Wikileakers are traitors, haters of America, who give aid and comfort to the
enemy and endanger the lives of Our Boys."
"The other view, held usually by people who have some
experience of Washington, is that the Pentagon is worried not about the
divulging of tactical secrets, but about public relations. WikiLeaks doesn’t
endanger soldiers, insists this way of looking at things, but the war
itself, and all the juiceful contracts and promotions and so on entailed by
wars."
Fred has much more to say, but the above is probably
the limit to my "fair use" quoting...
Charles Brumbelow
While I often agree with Fred, and I do not
disagree that it is better to be open than closed as a society, there are
legitimate secrets, and the names of those in the villages favorable to
our cause is one of those secrets. Leaking high policy is one thing;
fingering a village elder so that he and his family can be beheaded is
another. WikiLeak drips blood.
And see view
============
The Roman Question
I know I'm not practical or even nice. A lot of that
is your fault. You got me reading Roman history oh those many years ago. Now
I ask myself what I call the "Roman question". How would the Romans have
dealt with our seemingly impossible modern difficulties.
It came to me while watching a National Geographic or
Science Channel TV show on the efforts to keep the Leaning Tower of Pisa
upright. They showed a series of modern engineering miracles, all of which
had failed. I wondered how it was that this tower that was built without
modern machines and materials couldn't be repaired by all of the world's
greatest engineers? So I speculated on how would the Romans long before the
Renasissance would have tackled the problem. When you think of it this way
you realize that there is no real problem at all, only a set of self imposed
limitations that cripple us. All a Roman engineer would have to do would be
to take the tower apart stone by stone, repair the foundation and put it
back up again. A gang of unskilled slaves could do all it in a few weeks
with nothing more than a pencil to mark the pieces for reassembly.
So what would the Romans do about illegal immigration?
Barbarian agriculturists did cross the late empire's borders. The Romans
killed them when they could. The sensible thing to do today - which is never
suggested - is to bomb Mexico. We shouldn't have to build a fence to keep
Mexicans out. The Mexican government should build one, to keep their people
in, and they would too if we increased their motivation. But of course there
is an even simpler solution that the ancients would have employed - slavery.
We hear that these people are hard workers - OK, let's capture them and put
them in barracks like those seen in the movie "Cool Hand Luke". There were
plenty of chain gangs in America as late as the thirties for criminals and
of course all illegal immigrants are by definition criminals. Don't send
them back at least don't send them back until we've had them work for us for
a decade or so. The problem evaporates like dew in the desert.
What would Scipio Amelianus do in Afghanistan? He
might recognize that the mountains and high country were inhospitable to
civilized troops. Salting that earth wouldn't be enough to deny it to the
enemy. He would probably use anthrax. When there are no safe refuges for
rebels, Afghanistan ceases to be much of a problem. This could be done by
hand with troops in protective gear - no high tech needed. But unmanned
aerial dispersion might be quicker. Eventually the spores would lose their
effectiveness and would need to be renewed. Pundits always cite the
mountainous geography of Afghanistan as the reason why it has so long been a
source of violence. We could change that easily enough.
Domestically we are said to have out of control
spending for entitlements. But do we really? The Romans had their own
problems with the corn dole initiated by Saturninus and increased by Clodius.
But Julius and Augustus both simply eliminated it it at least for a while by
fiat. Obama has instituted rule by fiat again (executive order). His
Republican/Libertarian successor could therefore simply abolish AFDC and/or
public employee unions.
So how big are our problems today? I would argue they
are minuscule, if they only exist because we choose to not adopt effective
countermeasures available to us for millennia. Of course I don't really
expect anyone to adopt my suggestions. It wouldn't be nice. But such a
thought experiment does give you some perspective.
P
We have other means available to us. We have not
the will. I do not regret that we do not have the will to slaughter and
enslave our enemies; but that we do not have the will to build fences?
============
Afghanistan
so you are a bright guy and want to decide on
Afghanistan?
Think again:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-10726746 .......
There isn't much more in Europe or the US. "There
are really very few places where you can learn Dari or Pashto. Dedicated
studies on Afghanistan exist but are very scattered," says German expert
Thomas Ruttig.
He speaks Pashto and Dari, and has been working on
Afghanistan for 25 years. In a paper released this month, he writes:
"There does not seem to be a comprehensive recent English-language book or
article dealing with the types of Pashtunwalai (codes of honour) among
Pashtun tribes in Afghanistan."
IMHO this is a key interview:
http://www.aan-afghanistan.org/index.asp?id=506
B.G.: The US military has
realised by now that the Afghan society is a barely penetrable jungle –
with its more than fifty ethnic groups, thousands of tribes, religious
groups, mystical brotherhoods, mafia networks, village communities and
nomads’ camps, with the clienteles of political actors, the militias of
the warlords, bands of robbers and urban neighbourhoods, plus marriage
alliances, professional guilds and internationally networked trade and
bazaar structures. In such a jungle, even the most gutsy rambo with his
high-tech gear is quickly lost. Drones with cameras, GPS systems or
Recce Tornados [German military reconnaissance aircraft] are not of much
help there – but perhaps the ethnologist who goes into the field armed
with a note pad and a pen and who has developed methods to permeate such
social undergrowth.
Commentary by Thomas Ruttig on
leaked documents:
http://www.aan-afghanistan.org/index.asp?id=937
uwe
=============
Food for thought......
A Clean Desk Is The sign of an Idle Mind!
Saw these photos on the Internet about a person's mind
and his desk... Here are a few samples.........
(William F. Buckley)
( (Nat Hentoff)
(Albert Einstein)
Chaos Manor
Need we go any further...........geez
Perhaps not strictly fair, but...
==============
Subj: Corruption: Middle East meets West
From Professor Bernard Lewis, _Faith and Power_, p.
141:
>>In democratic corruption, you make money in the
marketplace, and you use that money to buy power; in Middle Eastern
corruption, you seize power and use the power to make money. ... In Israel,
one sees an interesting compound, reflecting the mixed cultural heritage of
the country, brought by Jews who came from both the Christian and Islamic
worlds, and who brought some of the ways of those worlds with them.<<
Rod Montgomery==monty@starfief.com
=============
Sounds like a bit character from one of your novels
Jerry:
Ran into this post -- a history professor, ex-USAF --
via another link; words fail me:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-astore/
our-militarys-disturbing_b_664543.html
"A subtle change has been happening right before the
eyes of Americans. Our troops are being told they're no longer primarily
citizen-soldiers or citizen-airmen; they're being told they're warriors.
Indeed, they're reminded of this linguistic turn in "creeds" that many of
them (and often their families) display with pride."
The horror! Of course, as a Navy brat and the father
of an Iraq-vet Marine, my first response is, "Well, yeah, that's the Air
Force for you," but that slanders a lot of brave men and women in the USAF.
Sheesh.
Here's where I got this link from:
http://theothermccain.com/2010/07/30/
william-astore-makes-lindsey-graham-sound-macho/
. ..bruce..
-- Bruce F. Webster
Don't know what to tell you...
==============
Rolling Thunder Tribute
(Be certain to watch both the short videos - how does
this Marine do it?)
For those of you who are not familiar with "Rolling
Thunder," every year on the Sunday before Memorial Day, 3,000 veterans on
motorcycles, hundreds of which rode completely across the country, LA to DC
with "Ride for the Wall" leave the Pentagon, pass Arlington Cemetery and
parade through Washington DC straight down Constitution Ave.
It is a tremendously moving experience. Absolutely
fantastic. It is estimated that 3 Million people, families, veterans,
bikers, and folks of all kinds pack Washington DC over the Memorial Day
Weekend for this event.
There is something else that also is very special
about it.
One Marine, referred to as the saluting Marine, stands
there on Constitution Ave and salutes at attention for three straight hours
and never drops his arm. It was 92 degrees there on Sunday.
That has to kill your arm standing at present arms for
three solid hours. The heat must be unbearable in dress blues. He did take a
drink of water with his left hand, but never dropped his right.
George W Bush used to meet every year with the leaders
of Rolling Thunder before the parade began.
President Obama does not.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gfnmDGk0KM&feature=related
The following video is of SSgt Chambers talking on why
he renders the honors to the Rolling Thunder.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62br6dtd6yQ&NR=1
Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where
there is not a path and leave a trail-Walt Whitman
=============
Shocking
Jerry,
This is too much:
So much for transparency.
Under a little-noticed provision of the recently
passed financial-reform legislation <http://www.foxbusiness.com/topics/politics/financial-reform.htm>
, the Securities and Exchange Commission no longer has to comply with
virtually all requests for information releases from the public, including
those filed under the Freedom of Information Act.
The law, signed last week by President Obama, exempts
the SEC from disclosing records or information derived from "surveillance,
risk assessments, or other regulatory and oversight activities." Given that
the SEC is a regulatory body, the provision covers almost every action by
the agency, lawyers say. Congress and federal agencies can request
information, but the public cannot.
http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2010/07/28/
sec-says-new-finreg-law-exempts-public-disclosure/
Yeah, let's give the people who slept through the
sub-prime scandal while banks loaned to unqualified buyers. Can me crazy,
but having Congress Critters who don't read the laws they pass making sure
everything is copacetic twixt the SEC and the public seems less than
comforting. Can't have those terrorists making freedom of information act
requests, can we? The words "little-noticed provision" seem to be coming up
a lot lately and I suspect we'll be hearing those words for the next few
decades. *groan*
-- BDAB,
Josh
"Men stumble over the truth from time to time, but
most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened." —Winston
Churchill
“The opinion of ten thousand men is of no value if
none of them know anything about the subject.” —Marcus Aurelius
But this is to become the most open
Administration in history.
==========
Hot fudge sundae falls in 2182 (0.05%)
Jerry,
Hot fudge sundae falls in 2182 (0.05% probability of
impact)
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/07/28/
massive-asteroid-hit-earth-warn-scientists/?test=latestnews
Quoting:
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/
dangerous-asteroid-impact-earth-2182-100727.html (no text
differences)
Jim
=============
SUBJECT: Training a Robot to flip a pancake.
All that is missing is the robot swearing in the
initial trials!
http://thereifixedit.com/2010/07/23/
white-trash-repairs-first-pancakes-then-the-world/
Cheers,
Mike Casey
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