Paul, posting on Powerline has an interesting observation.
If our curent economic woes continue for, say, two years or if the economy crashes to new depths, a populist backlash is almost inevitable.
* * *
Michael Lind senses the danger, and captures it well in this possible epitaph for the Dems: "First they came for the bankers; then they came for the CEOs; then they came for the liberals." * * *
Throw in a depression or prolonged recession on their watch, and there will be hell for the Democrats to pay.
Lind urges the Democrats to "stop the suicide." But the Dems can't be expected to stop being Dems, particularly in the midst of the "we won" euphoria.
Link here.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Monday, February 16, 2009
Sunday, February 15, 2009
mph on the Porkulous Bill
This courtesy of mph on Politics for Pros:
1. High IQ doesn't necessarily correlate with wisdom or real smarts.
2. My original comment had to do with *believing* what Obama said, and I ascribed that to basically stupid people. *Belief* in his campaign promises is not the same thing as deciding to vote for him or supporting him.
3. The high I.Q. individuals who voted for him had the *audacity* to *hope* that he meant what he said on the lefty issues so near and dear to their hearts. They didn't necessarily believe he'd do everything he said he would do, which half the time was unclear because Obama shaped his message for the audience, resulting in many contradictions.
4. Other high I.Q. individuals who voted for him did so with the *audacity* of *hope* that, despite his leftist background and words, he really didn't mean what he said, and that he would actually govern from the middle.
5. Then you have the people who voted for him because he was a Democrat and not Bush, regardless of what Obama had to say.
I.Q., smarts or wisdom don't have much to do with that group.
But, anybody who actually believed the campaign promises and really expected him to follow through....well, what can I say.
To the extent Obama was not a cipher, he was, by background, a person with poor judgment in associates, who chose them for what they could do for him; a legislator who kept his options open by voting *present* instead of taking a stand, and who, on the rare occasion he did take a stand, did so on an extreme abortion issue; a law professor, who never published and who confined himself to boutique Constitutional law courses that dealt with victimology; a community organizer who taught the rabble how to take their case to city hall, and who later, during his brief stint as a lawyer, actually worked for the kind of slumlords he used to oppose as an organizer.
So, it should have surprised no one that he was merely *present* on the stimulus package when he bounced it to San Fran Nan and her cohorts to draft instead of providing the contours and footprint as a President who is a leader would do.
And the least surprise at all was the fact that he didn't have the final bill on his website for 5 days before he signs.
Yeah, right.
$20 says he himself will not have read any significant portion of it by the time he signs a bill the entire contents of which no one really knows. He was only able to tout it and to get away with outright lies about the contents because of a fawning and compliant press.
So I ask you: the press is surely composed of many high I.Q. people, but where Obama is concerned, does anyone actually think they're very smart?
1. High IQ doesn't necessarily correlate with wisdom or real smarts.
2. My original comment had to do with *believing* what Obama said, and I ascribed that to basically stupid people. *Belief* in his campaign promises is not the same thing as deciding to vote for him or supporting him.
3. The high I.Q. individuals who voted for him had the *audacity* to *hope* that he meant what he said on the lefty issues so near and dear to their hearts. They didn't necessarily believe he'd do everything he said he would do, which half the time was unclear because Obama shaped his message for the audience, resulting in many contradictions.
4. Other high I.Q. individuals who voted for him did so with the *audacity* of *hope* that, despite his leftist background and words, he really didn't mean what he said, and that he would actually govern from the middle.
5. Then you have the people who voted for him because he was a Democrat and not Bush, regardless of what Obama had to say.
I.Q., smarts or wisdom don't have much to do with that group.
But, anybody who actually believed the campaign promises and really expected him to follow through....well, what can I say.
To the extent Obama was not a cipher, he was, by background, a person with poor judgment in associates, who chose them for what they could do for him; a legislator who kept his options open by voting *present* instead of taking a stand, and who, on the rare occasion he did take a stand, did so on an extreme abortion issue; a law professor, who never published and who confined himself to boutique Constitutional law courses that dealt with victimology; a community organizer who taught the rabble how to take their case to city hall, and who later, during his brief stint as a lawyer, actually worked for the kind of slumlords he used to oppose as an organizer.
So, it should have surprised no one that he was merely *present* on the stimulus package when he bounced it to San Fran Nan and her cohorts to draft instead of providing the contours and footprint as a President who is a leader would do.
And the least surprise at all was the fact that he didn't have the final bill on his website for 5 days before he signs.
Yeah, right.
$20 says he himself will not have read any significant portion of it by the time he signs a bill the entire contents of which no one really knows. He was only able to tout it and to get away with outright lies about the contents because of a fawning and compliant press.
So I ask you: the press is surely composed of many high I.Q. people, but where Obama is concerned, does anyone actually think they're very smart?
Sunday, February 8, 2009
LeRoi Moore
LeRoi Moore, the saxophonist for the Dave Matthews Band, died August 19, 2008, as a result of complications from an ATV accident in Virginia. He had broken ribs and a punctured lung. My motorcycle accident, on May 25, 2008, resulted in 5 broken ribs and a broken clavicle that very nearly punctured a lung. I recovered, but easily could have gone the way LeRoi Moore did. I thank the Lord for giving me more time on earth. RIP LeRoi Moore.
Dave Matthews Band - #41 - Funny bloopers R us
Dave Matthews Band - #41 - Funny bloopers R us
Friday, February 6, 2009
Perfect Storm of Liberalism Dissipated to Scattered Showers
Jonah Goldberg, over at the National Review shares his views of the stimulus bill.
The stimulus bill has failed. Barack Obama has failed. The Trojan Horse of Hope and Change crashed into the guardrail of reality, revealing an army of ideologues and activists inside.
* * *
Obama and his party were undone by their hubris. There was just too much muchness in the bill. The once impressive support from conservative economists evaporated. Right-wing radio has been having one long tailgate party celebrating Obama’s overreach. According to the polls, voters are souring on the whole thing.
The stimulus bill has failed. Barack Obama has failed. The Trojan Horse of Hope and Change crashed into the guardrail of reality, revealing an army of ideologues and activists inside.
* * *
Obama and his party were undone by their hubris. There was just too much muchness in the bill. The once impressive support from conservative economists evaporated. Right-wing radio has been having one long tailgate party celebrating Obama’s overreach. According to the polls, voters are souring on the whole thing.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Anne Wortham - No He Can't
No He Can't
by Anne Wortham
Fellow Americans,
Please know: I am black; I grew up in the segregated South. I did not vote for Barack Obama; I wrote in Ron Paul's name as my choice for president. Most importantly, I am not race conscious. I do not require a black president to know that I am a person of worth, and that life is worth living. I do not require a black president to love the ideal of America
I cannot join you in your celebration. I feel no elation. There is no smile on my face. I am not jumping with joy. There are no tears of triumph in my eyes. For such emotions and behavior to come from me, I would have to deny all that I know about the requirements of human flourishing and survival – all that I know about the history of the United States of America, all that I know about American race relations, and all that I know about Barack Obama as a politician. I would have to deny the nature of the "change" that Obama asserts has come to America .. Most importantly, I would have to abnegate my certain understanding that you have chosen to sprint down the road to serfdom that we have been on for over a century. I would have to pretend that individual liberty has no value for the success of a human life. I would have to evade your rejection of the slender reed of capitalism on which your success and mine depend.
I would have to think it somehow rational that 94 percent of the 12 million blacks in this country voted for a man because he looks like them (that blacks are permitted to play the race card), and that they were joined by self-declared "progressive" whites who voted for him because he doesn't look like them. I would have to be wipe my mind clean of all that I know about the kind of people who have advised and taught Barack Obama and will fill posts in his administration E2 political intellectuals like my former colleagues at the Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.
I would have to believe that "fairness" is the equivalent of justice. I would have to believe that man who asks me to "go forward in a new spirit of service, in a new service of sacrifice" is speaking in my interest. I would have to accept the premise of a man that economic prosperity comes from the "bottom up," and who arrogantly believes that he can will it into existence by the use of government force.. I would have to admire a man who thinks the standard of living of the masses can be improved by destroying the most productive and the generators of wealth.
Finally, Americans, I would have to erase from my consciousness the scene of 125,000 screaming, crying, cheering people in Grant Park, Chicago irrationally chanting "Yes We Can!" Finally, I would have to wipe all memory of all the times I have heard politicians, pundits, journalists, editorialists, bloggers and intellectuals declare that capitalism is dead – and no one, including especially Alan Greenspan, objected to their assumption that the particular version of the anti-capitalistic mentality that they want to replace with their own version of anti-capitalism is anything remotely equivalent to capitalism.
So you have made history, Americans.. You and your children have elected a black man to the office of the president of the United States , the wounded giant of the world. The battle between John Wayne and Jane Fonda is over – and that Fonda won. Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern must be very happy men. Jimmie Carter, too. And the Kennedys have at last gotten their Kennedy look-a-like. The self-righteous welfare statists in the suburbs can feel warm moments of satisfaction for having elected a black person. So, toast yourselves: 60s countercultural radicals, 80s yuppies and 90s bourgeois bohemians. Toast yourselves, Black America . Shout your glee Harvard, Princeton , Yale, Duke, Stanford, and Berkeley.
You have elected not an individual who is qualified to be president, but a black man who, like the pragmatist Franklin Roosevelt, promises to – Do Something! You now have someone who has picked up the baton of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. But you have also foolishly traded your freedom and mine – what little there is left – for the chance to feel good. There is nothing in me that can share your happy obliviousness.
[Anne Wortham is Black, an Associate Professor of Sociology at Illinois State University and continuing Visiting Scholar at Stanford University 's Hoover Institution. She is a member of the American Sociological Association and the American Philosophical Association. She has been a John M. Olin Foundation Faculty Fellow, and honored as a Distinguished Alumni of the Year by the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education. In fall 1988 she was one of a select group of intellectuals who were featured in Bill Moyer's television series, "A World of ideas." The transcript of her conversation with Moyers has been published in his book, A World of Ideas. Dr. Wortham is author of The Other Side of Racism: A Philosophical Study of Black Race Consciousness which analyzes how race consciousness is transformed into political strategies and policy issues. She has published numerous articles on the implications of individual
rights for civil rights policy, and is currently writing a book on theories of social and cultural marginality. Recently, she has published articles on the significance of multiculturalism and Afrocentricism in education, the politics of victimization and the social and political impact of political correctness. Shortly after an interview in 2004 she was awarded tenure.]
by Anne Wortham
Fellow Americans,
Please know: I am black; I grew up in the segregated South. I did not vote for Barack Obama; I wrote in Ron Paul's name as my choice for president. Most importantly, I am not race conscious. I do not require a black president to know that I am a person of worth, and that life is worth living. I do not require a black president to love the ideal of America
I cannot join you in your celebration. I feel no elation. There is no smile on my face. I am not jumping with joy. There are no tears of triumph in my eyes. For such emotions and behavior to come from me, I would have to deny all that I know about the requirements of human flourishing and survival – all that I know about the history of the United States of America, all that I know about American race relations, and all that I know about Barack Obama as a politician. I would have to deny the nature of the "change" that Obama asserts has come to America .. Most importantly, I would have to abnegate my certain understanding that you have chosen to sprint down the road to serfdom that we have been on for over a century. I would have to pretend that individual liberty has no value for the success of a human life. I would have to evade your rejection of the slender reed of capitalism on which your success and mine depend.
I would have to think it somehow rational that 94 percent of the 12 million blacks in this country voted for a man because he looks like them (that blacks are permitted to play the race card), and that they were joined by self-declared "progressive" whites who voted for him because he doesn't look like them. I would have to be wipe my mind clean of all that I know about the kind of people who have advised and taught Barack Obama and will fill posts in his administration E2 political intellectuals like my former colleagues at the Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.
I would have to believe that "fairness" is the equivalent of justice. I would have to believe that man who asks me to "go forward in a new spirit of service, in a new service of sacrifice" is speaking in my interest. I would have to accept the premise of a man that economic prosperity comes from the "bottom up," and who arrogantly believes that he can will it into existence by the use of government force.. I would have to admire a man who thinks the standard of living of the masses can be improved by destroying the most productive and the generators of wealth.
Finally, Americans, I would have to erase from my consciousness the scene of 125,000 screaming, crying, cheering people in Grant Park, Chicago irrationally chanting "Yes We Can!" Finally, I would have to wipe all memory of all the times I have heard politicians, pundits, journalists, editorialists, bloggers and intellectuals declare that capitalism is dead – and no one, including especially Alan Greenspan, objected to their assumption that the particular version of the anti-capitalistic mentality that they want to replace with their own version of anti-capitalism is anything remotely equivalent to capitalism.
So you have made history, Americans.. You and your children have elected a black man to the office of the president of the United States , the wounded giant of the world. The battle between John Wayne and Jane Fonda is over – and that Fonda won. Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern must be very happy men. Jimmie Carter, too. And the Kennedys have at last gotten their Kennedy look-a-like. The self-righteous welfare statists in the suburbs can feel warm moments of satisfaction for having elected a black person. So, toast yourselves: 60s countercultural radicals, 80s yuppies and 90s bourgeois bohemians. Toast yourselves, Black America . Shout your glee Harvard, Princeton , Yale, Duke, Stanford, and Berkeley.
You have elected not an individual who is qualified to be president, but a black man who, like the pragmatist Franklin Roosevelt, promises to – Do Something! You now have someone who has picked up the baton of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. But you have also foolishly traded your freedom and mine – what little there is left – for the chance to feel good. There is nothing in me that can share your happy obliviousness.
[Anne Wortham is Black, an Associate Professor of Sociology at Illinois State University and continuing Visiting Scholar at Stanford University 's Hoover Institution. She is a member of the American Sociological Association and the American Philosophical Association. She has been a John M. Olin Foundation Faculty Fellow, and honored as a Distinguished Alumni of the Year by the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education. In fall 1988 she was one of a select group of intellectuals who were featured in Bill Moyer's television series, "A World of ideas." The transcript of her conversation with Moyers has been published in his book, A World of Ideas. Dr. Wortham is author of The Other Side of Racism: A Philosophical Study of Black Race Consciousness which analyzes how race consciousness is transformed into political strategies and policy issues. She has published numerous articles on the implications of individual
rights for civil rights policy, and is currently writing a book on theories of social and cultural marginality. Recently, she has published articles on the significance of multiculturalism and Afrocentricism in education, the politics of victimization and the social and political impact of political correctness. Shortly after an interview in 2004 she was awarded tenure.]
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