It’s the Constitution. Which is old and hasn’t been usefully updated for the 21st century — something we should be doing through social media, starting with archaic and useless institutions like the electoral college, or Senate representation (because clearly it’s unfair that California have 2 senators and Wisconsin have 2 senators when California is bigger).
When Ezra Klein floated this idea a month or so back I suggested that the left was working on its messaging for just such a push to destroy the republic and replace it with a pure democracy, where the mob, which the left will run through large urban centers, will vote themselves your money and the Democrats their power. Less populated states will have to bend to the will of more populated states — and politicians could save themselves time and effort by having to pander only to the large urban centers, ignoring in some cases entire areas of the country.
This will be peddled as a kind of representative “fairness” — note Zakaria’s use of the “one man, one vote” trope — when in fact it will serve to kill off the last remnants of federalism standing between the left and its desire for complete centralized control of the country.
The founders and framers saw what would happen. The only direct elections they advocated were for those in the House. They did this to protect against populism and, ultimately, majority tyranny — while keeping power vested in the separate states.
Sooner or later, this country is going to have a second civil war. At which time I’m taking back some of the beach front property. Bet your ass on that.
(h/t Mark Levin)
now if you have a post with cenk uygur i’ll have the trifecta today
What is it with these fucking Indians today? They always seem so agreeable when I buy Slurpees from em’.
cenk uygur should be in istanbul smoking hash.
Done. I am truly afraid we are done.
Who would have ever thought that the Book of Revelations was right and bearing down on us like a freight train??
In the fifties – nah. Now?…
Now? I am scared shitless. And I have a lot of brown rice and a semi-automatic pistol. Something I would never have even imagined as an American. Something I would have rejected as unthinkable even four years ago. I hate guns, but have come to the conclusion that I need one to help me, my girlfriend, and my son survive what is coming.
Apparently, the Revolutionary war was an exercise in futility. Fucking rich white pricks, who should never be compared with Aristotle, Newton, Plato, and the most amazing thinkers in the history of the world. Stupid old greedy white men!
“Hey! Dey stoles all my monies, man! Motherfuckers!”
Bummer…Education IS important. But what the hell do we call”edu-obsifucation” now?
I suggest you get to the range and get over your hatred of guns. If you hate them, you will never learn how to use them properly. Either that or get rid of the one(s) you have and forget it, as you’ll be more dangerous to yourself than you would be to anyone else.
If we should scoff at Zakaria (and I think we should, heartily), still, I’m not sure who knows what’s the problem with the US, in the broadest possible sense of “the problem”. I mean, shit, it’s big for one thing. And bewilderingly multitudinous for another. Pound all that together in a mortar with the linkages to the rest of the world (bigger and more multitudinous yet), then multiply by a medium sized factorial of combinations and whoowee, that’s starting to look a little out of reach.
I’d like to throw out a bit of Jeff bait, if I may. Saw on the news tonight that Ruth Bader Ginsberg, the poor dear, believes sex discrimination can be so subtle that Wal-Mart managers are may not be aware of their discriminatory practices.
At least that’s the way her dissent was summarized.
Zakaria has a case of China envy that’s almost as big as Friedman’s.
The problem is that those of us who believe in what the Constitution is all about, have not given sufficient attention to Franklin’s words: “A republic, if you can keep it.”
I would place the beginning of the end at the point where elementary education became a public utility where those with an agenda of voting themselves riches from others’ pockets, could monopolize the shaping of our nation’s future culture.
I’m not sure there’s a way to save the America we’re in now, but I hope the next attempt takes heed of these lessons.
I’d like to nominate this subject matter. So arrogant, and yet so utterly wrong.
FWIW, rice is already dead, and the pistol ain’t much good for killing any real tasty critters.
I wonder if this marks a departure from the usual method of pretending that fairly plain language in the U.S. Constitution is incomprehensible, and therefore a totally foreign ‘interpretation’ is superior to reasonable, good faith attempts to understand the written text? Regarding things like the “disproportionate representation” of the United States Senate and the electoral college – I’ve often thought that they remain in place solely because we have yet to descend through the rabbit hole into enough of a Judicial Wonderland that a Judge or Justice would declare the United States Constitution unconstitutional. I would say that this appears to be an inevitability, the people having been conditioned to accept every bit of legal sophistry thus far no matter how self-evidently ridiculous.
Strip off the rot. Tear it down to the frame, and rebuild. But first, we’ll hit the wall. Better buckle up.
Yeah, that pesky Constitution, always getting in the way of creating the Worker’s Paradise. Of course, after watching one Worker’s Paradise after another become hell on earth you’d have to be an idiot to keep pushing the notion. Or have been thoroughly indoctrinated into doublethink.
It’s the old story of the tour group of committed leftists who visited Russia. Every one was convinced that Russia was paradise, but they all brough their own toilet paper…
i see the leftards are using 3rd world people that are colored “americans”* now to attack the old “white” usa.
*globalist aren’t americans or anything else by definition regardless of citizenship
Shouldn’t we get started studying the stuff the founders went out of their way to study? At least, I think they took Aristotle and Plato, Cicero and Aquinas, Machiavelli and Hobbes, Locke and Montesquieu seriously before they got down to the business of framing a government. And if we’re (speaking loosely of course, meaning someones among us) going to go back to mending what they created, even if only to recapture it intact as they intended it (which, by the way, I don’t think is necessarily the way to go, but merely the least intrusive, so to speak), wouldn’t we all be best served by knowing what they knew, even if only in the crippled manner of those burdened by intervening histories and ideas which will also be necessary to strip away before we know what it is (was) we’re dealing with?
“Dispropotionate representation in the Senate”…Dude, is guy woefully ignorant of US history, or has the mask simply fully slipped and he’s pushing the first ingredient of the full-on statist transformation; the connivance of “one man, one vote” parlaimentary system that places like the Soviet Union used to rubber-stamp the top-down command and control of an entire nation.
The representation would only be “disproportionate” if Senators served “at large”. Until the perversion of the 17th amendment, the Senators represented the interests of the individual state they hailed from.
Fareed doesn’t understand what a republic is or that the consent to govern comes from the people governed; or simply doesn’t believe that.
Rewrite the U.S. Constitution? What could go wrong?
Fareed, take some time to check out Article V of that document you refer to.
An amendment to the U.S. Constitution may be ratified in three ways (hey look those old white founding guys actually built in a re-write process, anticipating that Fareed would suggest this in 2011–spooky!):
The new amendment may be approved by two-thirds of both houses of Congress, then sent to the states for approval.
Two-thirds of the state legislatures may apply to Congress for a constitutional convention to consider amendments, which are then sent to the states for approval.
Congress may require ratification by special convention.
Final ratification requires approval by three-fourths of the states.
So Mr. Zakaria, there you go, knock yourself out.
Well, I personally agree with you sdferr. But I think you’d have to convince the AFT and NEA to make time in between the indoctrination sessions that passes for education in public schools and universities these days.
There are some private academies and universities where it may be better, but by-and-large it’s power-point and “social justice” classes all the way.
I wasn’t aiming quite that high Bob. I’ve little interest in persuading the AFT or NEA of anything, honest. Burn them! Ha.
Nah, I just meant us. Who give two shits. y’know. us.
Well I thought that was kind of understood amongst us here. Still, it may be nice to re-acquaint ourselves, or read for the first time, the fellows you mention; to get a better understanding of where our founders were coming from.
Kind of like some of the scripture study of the Mass we do in the Catholic Church, but, you know, regarding the Constitution.
If anyone should mention that to him, he would most likely respond with a blank stare. Of course, ask 95% of this year’s
high schoolcollege graduates about Article V and you’d equally likely get the same.It’s harder than it looks though I think. Take for instance, today’s decision from the Supreme Court on Wal-mart, or rather, just this tiny fragment of it: “…are steeped in a corporate culture that perpetuates gender stereotypes.” That’s from J. Ginsberg, I think. (I grabbed it hastily from over at Althouse.)
Now, corporate “culture”. What would any one of the founders have made of that? Not much, I’d wager, unless it were to guess that somehow we’ve figured out how to grow corporations from out of the ground like wheat. So. Culture, which drops from our lips with great ease — where the hell did that come from? And why? What was the question that prompted culture as an answer?
Or, again, take “gender” stereotypes. I don’t think the framers would have had the least trouble with stereotypes as a concept, but gender? In place of the perfectly good term sex? They were no way no how that prudish. But J. Ginsberg is.
“So. Culture, which drops from our lips with great ease — where the hell did that come from?”
posted previously by jg:
“…the minds of self-appointed, self-deluded, would-be liberal elites, whose supposed intellectualism, it is often found upon even cursory probing, is but a carefully crafted veneer, made up of ready-made signs, referents, markers, and other bits of iconography that they hope will point to a possession of knowledge, to suggest it, without their ever having to do the hard work of actually collecting it.”
“The problem is that those of us who believe in what the Constitution is all about, have not given sufficient attention to Franklin’s words: “A republic, if you can keep it.”
I would place the beginning of the end at the point where elementary education became a public utility where those with an agenda of voting themselves riches from others’ pockets, could monopolize the shaping of our nation’s future culture.
I’m not sure there’s a way to save the America we’re in now, but I hope the next attempt takes heed of these lessons.”
I am not so sure that there is a way to save America (we have waited too long to teach our children about the Lord God, we are pussies), but you do have a way with words.
My God, McG., we are in big trouble. There is no way to deny it anymore. we talk, but we do nothing. I just don’t know what to do, except to make my son hate me for telling him his teachers are full of shit. Doesn’t work, unless I take him to Six Flags.
Flying assholes rule! And I am very afraid of what is bearing down on us…
best to you and yours
TLD
zakaria was a wee little man a wee little man was he
baked fareed is good 7th inning stretch eats
Well, I’m thinking off the top of my head here, but the road to the ease with which “culture” is so easily used get’s it’s start in modern sociology; guys like Max Weber attempting to explain the distinct differences in the behaviors of groups.
That was further extrapolated to sub-cultures within larger groups. And that, coupled with post-modern notions of moral relativism and situational ethics, concepts that would likely seem ridiculous to the founders of our nation, has led the term to be wantonly applied to any splinter group, no matter how specific.
That’s just off the top of my head though, and requires more contemplation. Possibly involving a good cigar and some tawny port (elitist!).
Take another one Bob. Nowadays you can look almost anywhere, whether to the left or to the right and see people say “blah blah blah the right side of history”. Barry O will say it and Glenn Beck will say it. Howard Dean will say it and so will Sarah Palin.
So, here we are, yammering Hegelianisms one and all, most of the time without the first idea what we’ve gotten ourselves into, but oh no, we wouldn’t want any relativism creeping into our discourse.
But History? Hell yeah!
““blah blah blah the right side of history”. Barry O will say it and Glenn Beck will say it. Howard Dean will say it and so will Sarah Palin.”
beck concurs with the doi that your rights come from the creator and that man cannot take them away. i’ll wager palin, palin, palin agrees. baracky and the doc dean not so much. who’s being relativistic?
Yeah, the whole “right side of history” turn of the phrase says more about the outlook and vision of the utterer than anything else; and is fundamentally an empty phrase that implies some sort of inevitable direction, and ultimate evolution, that events are headed in. Hegelian indeed, with the whole emphasis on “history”.
I also never got the whole notion that the state itself was somehow above the individuals that constitute it. But I guess that’s an inherent bias based on being an American. Or, you know, poor reading comprehension :)
Admittedly, it’s been a while since I read any Hegel, full disclosure and all…
palin, palin, palin
a nod to mr. abe
newrouter, yo, wake up.
“Yeah, the whole “right side of history” turn of the phrase says more about the outlook and vision of the utterer than anything else”
so you’re for the arab/persian muslims throwing the jews into the sea or against? sometimes the choice is clear.
“newrouter, yo, wake up.”
i missing something about your view. i just had deep fried deepak.
I don’t think it’s an empty phrase Bob. What it is is a profound concept foreign to the mode of thought of the founders (mostly) who hadn’t encountered the idea in its fulness since it hadn’t been worked out yet. See comment 36 in the Define “working” thread as a for instance. (wordpress won’t take the link, sorry)
“(wordpress won’t take the link, sorry)”
“From the political point of view, it is also evident that the fundamental notion of the social progress had to become at once much clearer and firmer, and finally more dominating for Condorcet, than it could have come into being for Montesquieu.”
link
Are you addressing me newrouter? I would think you’d know my answer to this.
It’s also a wholly undemocratic concept. It’s generally employed in service of an unpopular aim or after an electoral defeat as another means of saying – without being explicit – that one side (the losing side) will not take “no” for an answer.
I believe Mark Steyn made the observation about a similar phenomenon with the EU – to paraphrase, the big heads in Brussels propose policy x, and it is put to a vote in the member countries and policy x is rejected. Each electoral cycle policy x is put to a vote until people are sick of hearing about it. At one point policy x passes, after which it is heresy to propose that it be reconsidered or voted on ever again. It’a how the Left-wing version of democract works – the self-regarded elites decide on a policy and the electorate gets to vote about it only until they make the right decision.
Wow, I just had an interesting encounter of the VDH kind.
Went downstairs to get a fresh iced-tea and biscuit and arrived just in time to catch a glimpse of the disappearing torso and legs of a thief in my kitchen (where I keep my bike, is what I’d guess he was after) scrambling to get out my backdoor. Doesn’t seem like he took anything, but I sure as hell didn’t hear him coming in.
it’s a lot cause of obama’s war on jobs and it’s gonna get worse I’m afraid
“Are you addressing me newrouter?”
only the folks who think that using obscure history will right the world. most of of us are nea certified stupid.
“scrambling to get out my backdoor.”
motion activated lights discourage that behavior. youth or flash mob?
In all candor, I know nothing of Condorcet, and would have to research him on order to even understand the quotation you provided.
(Thanks for the link newrouter)
Crepe soles for creeping. Shit he was quiet. Creep souls for thieving. Bugger all.
I’m not getting it; are you busting my chops or speaking rhetorically to others? I guess I’m NEA stupid as well…
sdferr,
Were your doors locked? How did he get in so quietly?
Bob, wordpress is giving me the devil tonight, but google or bing “OUTLINES OF AN HISTORICAL VIEW” and go to the entry under Online Library of Liberty, where the entire Outlines of an historical view of the progress of the human mind is available for reading. It kind of represents the origin of progressivism. Comte, on the other hand — the origin as a follower of Condorcet — of positivism, or scientific physics. Comte invented sociology.
No, the rear door into the kitchen is open with only the screen in place. It was not latched (never has been as I recall).
How he got in? Little guy, most likely a Mexican fella, so the floors didn’t squeal too much, and crepe soles. That and a bunch of practice, I’ll wager. Plus, I’ve got a noisy fan running up here in the computer room covering the ambient sound. Had the fan not been on, I think I’d have heard the footsteps. But there ain’t no living upstairs without a fan, no way, no how.
That should read “scientific social physics”, sorry for the flub.
Yep, and locks. Those measures discourage but don’t stop criminals.
In this economic climate, you’d expect crime to be way up…but in fact it’s been steadily falling in all categories for at least 19 years.
Of course, those stats are cold comfort to sdferr right about now. That’s scary stuff, and hope you’re ok (physically and emotionally), sd.
Yeah, I had a brief squirt of adrenaline to have to cope with, but other than begrudgingly latching the screen and carrying my baseball bat/rolling pin upstairs, I’m ok. Been thieved here before, but only on the out of doors type stuff.
Glad to hear you’re OK sdferr. And I’ll check out the piece you reccommended.
I know it’s a pain in the arse, but maybe you should consider some serious door lock, or maybe a surveillance system; at the very least the motion activated lights. It’s surprising to hear that you have that kind of thing going on where you live.
But really, it can happen anywhere.
“I’m not getting it; are you busting my chops or speaking rhetorically to others?”
no. we’re in a perilous time. there’s a need to bring nea educated folks(those who care) up to speed quickly. that’s what beck et al are trying to do. mr. jg’s lament about original intent i find valid but at this junction well not so good. we don’t have alot of time to right the ship.
You know I keep hearing this and I just.don’t.buy.it. Much as the unemployment numbers are selectively put out by the feds at 9.1 but unemployment is really at 17-19% so sayeth the ADP, FICA intake numbers, U6 and the like.
Police departments publish stats on crime. Do you really think they are going to publicize that they suck at it? Our kids’ cars (in the driveway, we don’t have a 4 car garage) have been broken into twice. Both times we called the cops. Both times the cops responded and refused to file a report. Oh, we could go down to their offices, if we really wanted to, which was strongly discouraged as ‘insurance rates are established by crime reports by neighborhood’ and well, nice little insurance rate you got there…
Several local news exposes have reported that the locals are ‘reclassifying’ crimes and that the numbers are royally f’ed up. The only ones that are passably correct are the murder stats and well, I guess it’s kinda hard to avoid the truth in those as they are reported on TV nightly.
There are reports almost daily of copper thieves that are making the local news. Home invasion robberies are also on the rise locally. Those are also high profile. The fact that every local Walmart and Target now has an off duty police officer stationed on premises to assist security? ‘These are not the droids you are looking for’
We never locked our doors. Even going on vacay, we didn’t do much to worry about it. Now? The doors may or may not always be locked, but we are much more situationally aware in our own fucking neighborhood that we used to have to be. We had freaking drug dealers move in a block away and they were finally busted and now that house is ‘foreclosed.’ It only took about 30 calls to the police to have them notice. Cars coming at all hours and they were finally busted prom night for underage drinkers. THAT got a response. Oh, and they were white, in their late 30s with kids… I firmly believe the car breakins were related to the strange folk in the neighborhood from all the drug activity.
I see your point newrouter, and you’re right that there are a lot of folks to bring up to speed quickly. But I think there’s room for deeper contemplation among folks that are so inclined.
But you’re right that there someone needs to be able to explain to short attention span types just what it’s all about.
Silly sdferr, there is no
godphilosopher king but Nietzsche, and Heidegger is hisprophetherald (Derrida his valet, Foucault his pisspot boy…).It’s a thing Comte had, that applied notion of the philosophers (of course, as he understood them, not as those silly metaphysicians understood them) ruling. This was the point of sociology as Comte laid it out. Nietzsche, a more decent sort, would have none of it.
From Stephanie’s “it never happened if we didn’t record it” I’d say local law enforcement is on the “right side” of history, which is to say, on the side of Europeanization.
(Amazing how everything around here just seems to hang together somehow!)
Nietzsche more or less tossed out the entire canon, didn’t he? Based on ontological incertitude or something?
I’m basing the premise on Allen Bloom’s Closing of the American Mind
(Sorry to hear about your misshap. I’m a big believer in bear traps, but I understand most local constabularies frown upon them.)
Thieves in the night? Creeping around in the dark on crepe soles? There goes the neighborhood.
Since the Nazgul came to Crickhollow, it’s just not safe anywhere in the Shire anymore.
Nietzsche looked at Hegel, Marx and his lot (as well as the sociologists related to them, though on other grounds) and said this about them:
They “give” us the last man. Not acceptable, from where N. stood.
You know what dissuades would be robbers? Large canines, and I don’t mean teeth. Or, you know, guns.
Guns stop theives-dead. Kind of like “Raid” and bugs.
Get yourself a Colt Dragoon. Then you don’t have to be afraid of no booger man.
(Sorry, just concluded my True Grit double feature)
If only the French revolutionaries had paused momentarily before getting all guillotiney, they might’ve avoided a lot of needless bloodshed, and not failed miserably.
I once owned a Colt Dragoon. A huge pistol, but like all Colts, suffered for not having a topstrap over the cylinder, and was therefore structurally inherently weak.
Period Remingtons were da bombs.
Nietzsche’s last man was Democratic Man, comfortable in his prejudices and content to consume the mass-produced commodities afforded him by the industrial revolution.
This.
Out of more than 110,000 employees, how many have direct access to passenger’s luggage? This is the sort of shit that is producing bullshit crime stats…
I guess the crime victims were on the wrong side of statistics…
As Jeff says – This is who they are. Credentialed morons who believe the rest of us will just ignore their BS and obfuscation. Which we mostly did when the Kucinich’s of the world were portrayed as fringe even in the democrat party. Now they are standing shoulder to shoulder with the ‘mainsteam’ leftists and I’m left wondering how stupid we really were…
I suppose, putting your quote together, with my quote from Bloom. Nietzsche’s Last Man was in fact Democratic Socialist Man, aka Homo Euroweenieus, now that I think about it.
Amen on the Remington New Model Army .44, serr8d. Love what Clint Eastwood did with it to John Russell and his boys in his High Plains Shane.
OK, here’s the definitive replica 1858 Remington ‘Zombie Getter‘. I did not know that was available with conversion cylinders. Now there’s another one on my ‘to acquire’ list.
I need more footnotes. I get some from context but miss others.
I always wanted one of these myself.
Since I have no idea what you were talking about here and here, I say it serves you right bh.
rhodendron is a nice flower
ever greening
it lasts forever
but it can’t beat the strand power
We had some cool guns in the Navy. My personal favorite was the M61 Vulcan in 20 Mike-Mike. But I hear the rail gun that the Senate dweebs cancelled in the last few days was far cooler.
I mean, I always got how the military was ultimately under civilian control. But I don’t get the Senate cancelling the rail gun and the chemical laser when both programs are ahead of schedule, enjoying great success in achieving their milestones, and who’s expenditures represent an infinitessimal fraction of the defense budget.
This is some of that social program payback BS, and more Democrat determination to willfully squander our the strategic advantage of our technology. Which, you know, only helps our wanabee neer-peer adveraries.
Ernst,
Verdict?
BTW, buttons has a picture of the CN Tower as his avatar, I see.
;^)
Touche. With the diacritic on the e that I don’t know how to do. Or when I should do it most of the time.
I suppose the difference is that I find what you guys are talking about interesting. Hence, in the public interest, you should oblige me. And, for other reasons, that I might later rally to my cause when I later think of them.
You answered your own question, Bob.
Well, so he stole my wallet. Damnit. Just got an e-mail from the credit card peoples noticing “unusual” purchases. So waiting on a cop to come by.
It’s the exception that proves the rule about remaking John Wayne movies Spiny.
John Wayne over Jeff Bridges on a technicality (Jeff Bridges isn’t the Duke)
Hailee Steinfeld was a damn sight better than Kim Darby
Matt Damon was better than Glen Campbell
Barry Pepper did a good job of playing Robert Duvall
Josh Brolin was less successful as Jeff Corey.
I prefer Carter Burwell’s score to Elmer Bernstein’s, especially in the showdown. When Bridges’ Cogburn comes down on the Lucky Ned Pepper gang like the Angel of Death, it sounds like it; whereas with Bernstein, if you’ve heard one of his western scores, you’ve heard them all, Even John Williams isn’t that lazy.
Happy to oblige. Try to pull “The German Connection” (Part Two, section one) out of this if you can bh.
Or better yet, read the whole thing, as they say.
Thanks, Ernst. Cheers.
(That’s better than a footnote, btw. 24 years later and I’m already reading it in the public domain?)
bh, I’ve haven’t listened to this in awhile, but it couldn’t hurt (along with the rest of the series linked at the side there).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8QxMe16b38&playnext=1&list=PLCCAB28D733DC90D2
Nice.
Thanks, sdferr. Cheers as well.
Oh, you wanted a footnote:
If Ann Coulter had hired me, the endnotes to her latest book wouldn’t be the mess that they unfortunately are.
Heh, while I’ll admit that I’ve always preferred footnotes to endnotes, I guess I was just remarking that links are superior in that rather than simply referencing it, you linked the complete work. That I could immediately read in its entirety. So, better than a footnote.
Yes, I’m occasionally amazed by the now commonplace.
Like cellphones, which I refer to as hyper-Marconi-links.
I love footnotes almost as much as I detest cell phones bh. You can settle a lot of old scores in your footnotes, if you know what you’re doing.
Outta here.
Sdferr, so sorry about the break-in and theft. It’s remarkable that the credit card companies have the ability to detect unusual purchases so quickly. Still, it’s a pain to replace everything.
I live in the older charming downtown area of a small town where many of the houses are rentals. Several of the houses on my block have a frequent turnover of tenants. The long-term renters and home owners look out for each other and keep an eye on the transient renters. The men in last two couples who rented a house two doors down were wife-beaters in addition to other unsavory habits. They were both out of there within two weeks (one couple was there for a week; the landlord is conscientious — she assisted the first beaten wife and took her to the police –but has trouble finding decent renters).
The best defense against thieves is owning things they would not dream of stealing — like books.
We don’t need to reframe. The current frame is just fine. It’s the half ass remodeling we’ve done over a couple centuries that needs to be replaced.
No to reframing, but wouldn’t it be a good idea to know the foundation they based everything on?
It’s not just those of Indian decent who are going Progressively insane. Today’s lead WSJ editorial seems to be by a Princeton colleague of Paul Krugman who is enamored of Keynes and is worried about how we shall destroy the nation through spending cuts.
He starts off by doing a qoute from Keynes but leaving out a bit of it.
The full quote is…
It. would leave a differnt taste than the partial one floated. He then throws out a strawman which he proceeds to flog through the entire piece.
It’s not that government spending doesn’t create jobs it is that it does so much less efficiently than the same money spent in the private sector, that the jobs created by government tend to distort the economy twisting investment away from productive areas and into politically desired areas.
That because the governmental spigot is dependent on the decisions of a very few that it can flip on or off for a given business in a trice unlike the private market which moves more slowly in this way an can be anticipated by a business which can adjust itself to take advantage of changed market conditions.
Those are punishable offenses in Harry Reid’s America, didn’t you know?
Here, Ill summarize Zakaria’s argument.
“You people, with your Constitution, are blocking the imposition of “‘The Rule of The Elites.'”
That South Dakota or Alabama even has a say at the table is galling to them; that they are needed to effect things is bile writ large.
There. Fits in a tweet.
I bought one of the S&W Schofield Model 3 reproductions from their Performance Center back in 2000 when they re-introduced the gun. It was horrible. Terrible flaws for a gun that cost so much and was supposed to be a limited edition collectible. I sent it back for a refund.
[…] have just read a very interesting post by Jeff Goldstein over at Protein Wisdom. A highlight: Fareed Zakaria knows the problem with the […]
If you’re the architect or the GC, absolutely. Hell, if you’re inclined to know, by all means do. But if you’re swinging a hammer, all you really need to know is where the nails need to be.
If the American republic’s existence depends on a sudden mass national popular embrace of Montesquieu, Aristotle and Aquinas, we’re entirely screwed.
A talking head on the tube doesn’t like the way the government of the USA is organized. I have never in my life ever heard of such a thing happening! Never! /sarc off
When someone with some actual power and authority starts proposing changes and gets listened to by people more serious than talking heads, I’ll start panicking. Not until then.*
*BTW – if I recall correctly there were some people back in the 1970’s-1980’s who lamented that the USA did not have a parliamentary system, which was obviously much better. And, IIRC, there were those who lamented our revolving door leadership, that we couldn’t have department heads of long standing who could really understand the world scene, like Andrei Gromyko.
I notice that those complaints don’t seem to be around as much today.
geoffb that article is really the epitome of pointy-headed progressivism masquerading as economic thought. I could spend the morning fisking the entire article (the “Confidence Fairy” makes an appearance), but let’s just look at his solution:
Those Republicans sure are evil know-nothings. But the solution to our economic crisis is tax cuts and deficit reduction.
motionview,
Just before was this one which if certain things are bolded destroys his whole “argument”, so I did bold them.
Of course the elephant in the room that is never to be spoken of is that lower tax “rates” increase tax revenue while increasing jobs in the private sector, which then combined with less spending brings down the deficit from both ends. That’s a real win-win.
I suspect the WSJ allowed the op-ed just for the luz factor.
Not Navy but these flew out of my home town for many years and I’ve always felt as this guy does about the A-10 Thunderbolt and its wonderful 30mm.
Ah the ‘Cereal Killers’. I think that was the 172d FS, which is now in the airlift business.
…without addressing why businesses aren’t hiring, which has very little to do with the present and everything to do with a murky and unpredictable future.
Anybody who thought a tax credit — A TAX CREDIT! — would survive very long while the government continued to grow and its debt swallowed up more and more of the economy, would be eligible for involuntary commitment to a mental institution, and by that I mean one that lacks the perks of Congress.
You guys wouldn’t be talking about the A-10s that used to fly around Battlecreek, would you?
Yes.
OT, but in a splendid example of PDS (public display of stupidity), asshat Chicago-based labor union lawyer Thomas Geoghegan tries to explain to us idjits why aerospace leader Boeing wanting to build their newest airplane in the redneck, cousin-loving, beer-swilling, gun & religion-clinging South is the beginning of the end of our technological society.
Behold.
For a good list of many of the Southern-based high technology manufacturers, look here.
Also OT, more news from the “we have to pass the bill before we know what’s in it” file:
This is a doozy:
That pile of hooey is full of them.
They used to come right over my apartment when I was living in Comstock geoff.
Cool. We live just North of the airport in line with the runway and would see them everyday. The sound of freedom flying.
That pile of hooey is full of them.
You’re not kidding!
“…moving work on the Dreamliner from a high-skill work force ($28 an hour on average) to a much lower-wage work force ($14 an hour starting wage)?” Comparing starting wage to average wage? That’s not even subtle.
“This country is in a debt crisis because we buy abroad much more than we sell.” Um, no. Not even close.
“In the 1990s the company went from the high wage union North to the low wage South and was bankrupt by 2000.” So you’re saying that your union damaged the company so severely that it couldn’t survive even after it moved to a more employer-friendly location? ‘Cuz that’s how I read it.
“In terms of the finished product, the labor cost is minuscule: $14 in hourly wage, at most.” Yes, that’s right. Boeing is going to all this trouble to save fourteen bucks.
“If that sounds unfair to the South, it is union busting that has inflicted the real unfairness in the region: income inequality and inferior schools.” This is from a Chicago lawyer, people. You wanna bet that his kids played and studied with the rabble that Obama was organizing back in the day?
“At this moment especially, deep in debt, we cannot afford to let another company like Boeing self-destruct.” They’re not going to self-destruct, Tom; they’re going to move production overseas, out of the reach of you and the NLRB. At least be man enough to admit it.
It is a message that corporate America has delivered over and over: Don’t go to engineering school, don’t bother with fancy apprenticeships, don’t invest in skills. Funny, last I checked, the market for engineers was way, way better than the market for labor lawyers.
No rational person wants to take on college or even community college debt to come out and work on the Dreamliner—which should be the country’s finest product—for a miserable $14 an hour. Yeah, because Boeing pays their engineers the same as they pay their machinists.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to open the door and let the stench dissipate from my office.
The A-10 is an amazing aircraft, from an engineering standpoint, with performance points that are near perfect for the application of close air support. It can “loiter” nearly forever, is armoured like a tank, built expressly for survivability as well as attack, and can continuously orbit on station just inside a 1/2 mile diameter path; an amazing feat indeed for those that understand aircraft flight dynamics, and what it would take to be able to sustain such a maneuver.
Oh yeah, and there’s that mother-lovin’ 30 Mike-Mike gun and it’s depleted uranium rounds…
Impressive indeed, and surely a welcome sight to our ground forces whenerver the fit hits the shan.
This seems to be saying that A-10s and 172d FS intersect completely, which I don’t think has ever been true.
But one of us could be wrong, or I might have misunderstood, or an entire universe full of other malfunctions in communication.
BTW what Weinbaum doesn’t say is that A-10s are alive and well and still kicking ass after all these years. But probably that’s common enough knowledge that he doesn’t need to.
Dude should avoid the current issue of Newsweek where most of the blue hells resided at the bottom of the educational pile. The top state? Texas.
Sucka.
As to income inequality… I get really pissed when liberal Yankees move in and their companies don’t readjust their salaries downward to reflect their ‘new normal.’ Damn straight they demand the salary adjustment moving from say Austin to New York. Shit should work in reverse, too… for the ‘equality.’ Nothing worse than Jersey shore trash ‘moving on up’ due simply by relocating to redneck heaven. Dammit we have standards!
You wanna bet that his kids played and studied with the rabble that Obama was organizing back in the day?
If Obama were still merely a part-time adjunct lecturer mis-teaching Con Law, and M’Chel was doing whatever it is that Klingons do, Obama’s girls wouldn’t be playing and studying with the children of the rabble.
BTW what Weinbaum doesn’t say is that A-10s are alive and well and still kicking ass after all these years. But probably that’s common enough knowledge that he doesn’t need to.
Isn’t the Warthog one of those things that’s perpetually on the chopping block, despite it’s proven utility?
110th ANG unit in Battle Creek.
With the Dems it should read because of its proven utility.
I get to listen to the 114th FW these days. It’s not the same sound, but it still sounds like freedom.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairchild_Republic_A-10_Thunderbolt_II#Operators
@Stephanie in #55:
I agree, that has to do with the way they frame the stats. It’s fundamentally shifty, but the numbers are out there and available (from the government itself) for anyone to calculate the “true” unemployment rate. I did that for an economics end of term project about 9 months back and came up with something in the mid 20’s for “true” unemployment (true is a dicey word here, as there is no set definition of what it means in the context of unemployment…do you count the people who don’t want jobs? The military? The incarcerated? And on, and on…)
Back to your argument about crime…
To go with that, you’d have to buy that nearly all police departments across the US of A were engaged in the same dishonest reporting procedures. Like a massive conspiracy…or one of the biggest instances of happenstance ever. Without dismissing it out of hand, I do have to admit to a little trouble buying that.
I cannot comment on that, as I haven’t seen those local reports.
Those have been falling as well.
If there is misreporting, it is nearly universal and has been persisting for nearly two decades. Is it possible that some crime has been “defined away” much as unemployment has? I suppose, but then I’d like to know how that works (as it is at least clear how it works to define it away for unemployment).
More likely, I think, is this is a case of perception -vs- reality. Your crime, locally, may well be up. However, set against a national trend crime is down. Therefore, you percieve crime is worse…for you it may well be.
The A10 is a lovely plane. When I was in Desert Storm, ever we would hear the gun on the A10…it sounded like victory, and let us know we were being watched over.
“More likely, I think, is this is a case of perception -vs- reality. ”
so is “reality” youts gang banging stores? a culture that thinks a prison fashion statement should be admired is doomed.
Seth, thanks for the response… I think it is a matter of redefinition and dissuasion mixed in with charging a lesser charge (which is a legalese redefinition anyways).
Source.
A quick google search turns up similar stories from a vast cross-section of the US…
I spent a lot of time in the WSA tower at Ramstein, and saw a lot of awfully cool stuff including full blown, world class airshows (though this happened a couple of years after I left, thank you, God.) from that perch. But nothing was more entertaining than watching the Warthogs play. Even from the tower, they’d just suddenly and quietly appear over the treeline before jacking the throttle and GTFO.
It did occur to me that they were practicing how it would work to bomb me, but I still loved it.
A-10 pass; he’s flying pretty low…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gk1birpB6QA
That’s the beauthy of approaching on the deck at relatively high, but still subsonic, velocities. Often you can’t be heard until you’ve already passed overhead…