Thank God For Barack Obama

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Hillary Clinton could not have carried off the feat so effectively as has BHO. His singular achievement has been to awaken and energize the essential conservatism of the American plurality.

The robust elitism of Mrs. Clinton could not have rivaled the malignant narcissism of Obama -- a narcissism which prevents him from concealing effectively his sinister and wholly pernicious anti-American agenda.

The president has created for himself a persona* that some have seen as magisterial, sanctifying and noble. But a little scratching at the surface reveals a buffoon, profoundly ignorant of history, lacking a foundation in common knowledge and common sense, innocent of the values of the Western Tradition, but keenly attuned to Marxist principles. His persona might have been more skillfully crafted -- more marketable -- with the benefit of a true understanding of "America as it is".

It is frankly amazing that the American heritage of distrusting the centralized power of government has not entirely been bred out of our citizens -- casualties of K12, academe and the media. But apparently some notions of individual sovereignty yet persist.

Middle America seems to have awakened sufficiently to perceive the threat that Obama poses to the the nation. One can hope that it will lead -- even modestly -- to a revival of appreciation for founding principles. Thank God for Barack Obama.

____*
Because the narcissist has no innate sense of self, he creates a persona -- an image -- of what he wants to be. In the words of Drew Pinsky (The Mirror Effect), "The key to understanding the Narcissus myth is not that he fell in love with himself, but that he failed to recognize himself in his own reflection."

The Palin Fault Line

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More interesting, perhaps, than Sarah Palin herself is the hysterical reaction she elicits -- from the left especially, but also from a few on the moderate right. It is a phenomenon. It is a war of social and political memes. A war between WASP America and "America as it should be".

As I see things, the characteristic reactions from the left are essentially different in kind from those on the right. The left is visceral, suggesting that Palin is seen as an existential threat (about which more); their reactions are marked by expressions of fear, anger, rage and a deep-seated hatred. The right shows more restraint, suggesting that differences may be more about turf -- political poaching -- and contention over conservative orthodoxy.

On the grand scale we see that a proxy war is being fought in America. The person and candidacy of Sarah Palin are incidental as a cassus belli; she is a symbol of a 'dangerous' worldview. She represents traditional American values and ideas of American exceptionalism so despised and feared by the institutional left. It is also about liberal lifestyles derivative of its own contrarian values.

In this essay I aim to say more about lifestyles (as an expression of social and political values) and less about worldview. The latter I will dispose of with the broad strokes of postmodernist philosophy and some of its most pervasive and pernicious subsets: multiculturalism and militant secularism, relativism and, in particular, elitism.

Politics-as-war. The punishment dealt to Sarah Palin by the elitist left is astonishing, both in scope and virulent meanness. She was attacked on every front: by her political enemies in Alaska (for which some justification might be found) by the usual suspects in print and TV media, by organized Democrat lawyers and (as MediaMatters chortles) by activist bloggers.

What is it about Sarah Palin that provokes the left to become so animated? To mobilize its army of destroyers so quickly? Is it her political views? I think not. She may be closer, politically, to Fred Thompson than to others on the early Republican slate. But Fred Thompson never caused much stir among the opposition. Unlike other candidates, Palin does not honor elitist rules -- the legacy from the childrens' rebellion of the 60's -- that demands political correctness and insincere comity toward that element of the opposition that resists demonization. In short, she is herself, and she has the effrontery not to join the club.

Elitist society in America grows and gains political power as a consequence of expanding government, which itself is increasingly elitist. Since its power is attenuated by pluralist notions asserting the competence of private citizens to make decisions, it is the natural enemy of pluralism. Jonah Goldberg points to the elitist component of big government:

It [fascism] was objectively and proudly populist while at the same time fascists openly argued for an elite cadre of superior, if not super, men who would run the country. The Leninists had a similar argument with all that avant-garde of the proletariat and whatnot. In America, I think a big, big, big part of the problem is the permanent civil service bureaucracy which is naturally sympathetic to big government and parties that champion big government. These governmental elites, in collusion with academia and the "helping professions," take it upon themselves to find new ways to "run" the society. [Emphasis mine]

He adds:

Whenever a political movement arises — like American conservatism — which challenges the elite-bureaucracy's authority they are accused of working against "the people" and the "downtrodden." Just look at all of the silly things people say about John Bolton. Journalists are key to this process because they share the bureaucratic elite's vision of both government and the masses.

The divide between Sarah Palin and the left, I believe, is fundamentally a proxy for that between elitism and pluralism.

She is elite, without being elitist. That is a thing the left cannot abide. The aura (self-arrogated) of moral and intellectual superiority is the liberal shibboleth for success, power and political entitlement. Elitism has the characteristics of membership in an exclusive club which rewards mediocrity and achievement alike. In the case of the former it masks, by general consent, personal and professional shortcomings. The tenured second-rate intellectuals of academe, writers and pundits for whom untested assumptions serve in the place of facts, bureaucrats and elected officials who rise by virtue of crafted appearances and in-network support rather than merit — all persons whose inadequacy is concealed under the mantle of club membership. To be sure, there are true elites in the club, but they hold the conceit that their achievements (in whatever field) entitle them to determine the course of the politea.

Elitism is not exclusive to liberals; it is all too common on the putative right. But, in my view, elitism is the defining characteristic of the left and a minor — if disturbing — attribute of the right.

Which returns us to Sarah Palin. She has elite bona fides, but she refuses to “play fair” (by elitist rules), thereby threatening to expose the the life-sustaining (read narcissist “supply”)* fiction of elitist superiority. She has shown a ‘dangerous’ and threatening willingness to name persons, things and ideologies for what they are. And that calls for circling the wagons.

*—-
Narcissist “supply” is the sum of inputs required to maintain an exalted self-image. For the narcissist it has an existential quality, sustaining the very life of the psyche. It is equivalent to the supply of drugs in substance addiction. I think that idea goes a long way toward explaining the sheer magnitude of the visceral hate-fear response from the far left. Elitism and bullying are prominent manifestations of narcissism.

Note 1: usually I avoid 'psychologizing', but I have come to think ideas about narcissism are justified by common sense and experience; more, I believe they have the virtue of explanatory power in analyzing irrational non-adaptive behavior.

Note 2: I rather like Sara Palin, but mostly because of her ability to set the wolves to howling. Jim DeMint would be my choice if he chooses to run.

Alien Obama - Part II

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Given a provenance as dubious and murky as that of our current president, an antique would find no market among careful buyers. Matters of interest include his mentors, associates and academic and professional records. Yet we have invested the treasure and security of our nation in a cipher -- Barack Hussein Obama.
Who is this man? What do we know about him? By deliberate concealment the public record is scant, but to many of us the little that is known is in no way reassuring. What we do not know may be even less so.

"Birtherists" is the derisive term coined (presumably by the left) to mock citizens who have a legitimate interest in verifying the details of his birth. Elitists of all political stripes assert that the question is settled and to pursue it further is unworthy and smacks of conspiracy paranoia. Though attributed to the strawman malign far right, I believe the desire for definitive resolution has popular support.

The verification of Obama's birth alone, however, focuses much too narrowly. It is a proxy for a plethora of other information deliberately concealed or suppressed. The concealment of information, in itself, raises questions.

Those questions include troubling personal and political associations, lack of information (records, grades, papers) regarding his education, early trips to Pakistan and elsewhere in the Middle East, close connections with the Socialist party in Chicago, his communist mentor in Hawaii, the absence of written records.... The list goes on. Yes, these are things we have been able to learn, but only in the most superficial way. The president and persons with whom he was associated refuse to add probative detail. As many writers have already noted, Mr. Obama's record -- opaque as it is -- would disqualify him government employment requiring security clearance.

So in what way is President Obama an alien? I believe (despite K12, academe and the media) there remains a strong current of individualism, common sense and distrust of government among most Americans; core beliefs and opinions that are shared by the great majority but not by Mr. Obama and his cohort on the hard left. Two issues, for example, are the sanctity of life and the second amendment, but those differences with mainstream America are only ideological symptomatic of foreign worldview.

Therein, I believe, lies the clear disconnect that defines Obama as alien. In his speeches, actions, writing and thinking he has shown himself to be postmodernist, Eurocentric and elitist. He views The Constitution (which is at the heart of American values) as a malleable document that impedes the exercise of dirigiste government power. He is not a patriot in the deeply embedded American sense, seeing himself – as do all 'enlightened' persons – as “a citizen of the world”. How much at variance he is with the mainstream is suggested by a citation from the Washington Post:

Traditional values in the United States, Baker found, are very different than in other nations. Unlike nations where collective identity is based on common ancestry, in the United States, he wrote, the imagined community is "a shared set of ideas." These are the ideas of the Constitution: personal liberty, equality, democracy and the rule of law. America was invented, not inherited. Our traditional values don't come from the fatherland, the volk or an ancient regime. Nor are our most basic shared values a selection of moral positions held by conservative American Christians.
Seen in this way, it is clear that traditional American values are alive and well. Constitutional ideals have unchallenged legitimacy, as do the worth of family, religion (or spirituality) and national pride. This is a stark contrast to the countries that have radically rejected their traditional values: Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Japan and the former Eastern Bloc nations.

I close with an anecdotal reference that seems telling. Even allowing for the giddiness of campaign fatigue -- putting myself in the candidate's position -- I simply cannot imagine myself ever uttering the phrase, "57 states" or the revealing, "America as it should be."

Alien Obama - Part I

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When we think of aliens our imagination may turn to the spacemen of the Roswell, NM or to the melded Robert Heinlein* sort. Of more recent vintage, sliders, conjured up by sci-fi writers who follow eleven-dimension physics -- parallel universes in "inner" space. Or infiltrated spies. More mundane, we may simply consider immigrants -- especially those reared outside the Western Tradition.

Whatever the kind of alien, the term conveys a sense of strangeness, otherness. It means strange, foreign, of or belonging to another. A person who is among us but not of us. It is notable that"Alien" and "Alias" derive from a common root.

Which brings to our president. Is he an alien or an alias, or both? If an alias, we might say, Obama A.K.A.... How to finish the sentence? Is he an original thinker or is he a creature of puppeteers? As I said in an earlier post, we know what he is by his actions and by those of his words that manage to make sense. But we do not know who he is.

I confess that I find it extremely difficult to understand, let alone characterize Mr. Obama and his stranger-than-Haight-Ashbury cohort. Most of their pronouncements are, to me, so outrageous -- so alien -- that I hardly know how to respond. Cognitive overload.

Of many examples, here are two. Mr. Obama on several occasions has put forward his view of "negative" and "positive" rights. Negative rights (one suspects that the adjective was deliberately chosen for its darker connotation) are the very ones spelled out in the Bill of Rights -- those crafted to protect the people from the otherwise inevitable abuse of government power. Positive rights -- those Mr. Obama favors, on the other hand, are those which would enable the government to exercise its power over the people -- always for "good" purposes, of course!

Then there is his stated and demonstrated disdain for notions of private property. Wealth is accumulated for the purposes of sharing -- redistribution; private enterprise, on its face, is not compatible with that view. These ideas are certainly alien to our founding principles.

James Lewis, in a fine article appearing in the American Thinker, captures the idea especially well.

And yet the Obama "birther" debate is important. What's important about it is the feeling a growing number of Americans have in their bones that Obama is foreign -- to our traditions, loyalties and shared understandings about the nature of America. In a way the legal debate matters less than that bone-deep sense that Obama is fundamentally "Other than American".

[snip]

This is not a secret. Obama is foreign to America in a way that has little to do with his birth certificate. He could be American-born and still think in this very anti-American way. A lot of people are. But whatever he is legally, there is not a shred of doubt that he is steeped in an Anti-American way of thinking.



In the concluding Part II I will try to point out that the more we learn about Mr. Obama the more questions are raised.


-----*
Stranger in a Strange Land

Good Government? A Challenge to Readers (Revisited)

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This is a shot across the bow of the statist ship. Or perhaps a Socratic-style taunt. It poses, in any case, a question (or is it a thought-experiment?) that wants an answer.

This is a challenge that, given the wholly pernicious initiatives of the present administration -- healthcare reform, cap and trade, stimulus doles and nationalization of the private sector -- seems to have more urgent relevance than it did at the time of first posting.

The challenge is simple enough, really. It is this:

Cite an example of a serious problem in contemporary society -- social, political or economic -- that is not caused by or exacerbated by government.

.
To date this challenge has elicited few comments, and no satisfactory answers in any forum. But in this era of trope and chains -- well, who knows?.

Marxist Obama

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Which is simply calling a spade a spade. While I can only guess at Barack Obama's motives, and motivations -- who he is as a man -- what he is, behind the evanescent mask of language, is plain enough.

He is a Marxist. 1. To elaborate I would add, consequently anti-American 2. and devoutly anti-capitalist.

Now the president's liberal (and robot conservative) defenders will object to the term -- arguing, as is their custom, only at the margins -- but the evidence is plain enough. His earliest and subsequent associations point us toward making that judgment, but his words and the policies he favors can leave no doubt. Obama's policies and his stated intentions to re-shape America (the world, if it cooperates) reflect clearly those of Marxists past and present.

Besides definitional objections, certain 'conservatives' who carry the memes of the 60's (comity at any cost) will say there is nothing to be gained politically by using the term. That may be so, but, as the left amply demonstrates, denying the truth of a matter does not make the truth go away. Denial is a refuge of comfort, but it carries danger. 3.

I make my case by examining Mr. Obama's policies, pronouncements and actions in the context of his work.

Foreign Policy. Honduras provides a telling current example of the president's views. Here the president chooses to view the lawful (constitutional) ouster of President Zelaya as a coup. It is hard to imagine a reason other than his wish to preserve congenial relations with Zelaya's communist allies, the Castros and Hugo Chavez and his contempt for democratic government. The popular uprising against the theocracy in Iran -- a provocative sworn enemy of the US -- barely drew Obama's notice. He has been hostile toward toward the only fully functional democratic government in the Middle Easy and our traditional ally, Israel.

The US Economy. As famously and unintentionally revealed in a recorded statement to 'Joe-the-plumber' Mr. Obama believes that justice is achieved by the redistribution of wealth. He encourages class warfare by his words and taxation policies. He has seized private business, abrogated the sanctity of contracts by fiat and uses every means further to accrue power to the federal government. The obscene 'stimulus' package, the drive toward socialized medicine and the devotion to taxing by 'cap and trade' in response to the mythical anthropocentric global warming are designs to destroy the US economy. Obama's repeated claim that he intends to rebuild the economy "from the bottom up" fairly boggles the mind. Paving the Road to Serfdom is a shovel-ready job.

Obama's Church. Liberation Theology is a religious denomination created in Latin America about 50 years ago. It is the result of a Faustian bargain between leftist Catholics and Marxists designed to suit their mutual purposes. The publicized preachments of Rev. Wright
supported by his colleague, Father Pfleger, are not aberrations, but rather the mainstream of the politicized church. And doubtless congenial to Mr. Obama.

There is much more to be said about President Obama, but I want to confine myself to the case at hand. If he succeeds in his pernicious objectives -- domestic and foreign -- the future, as game theorists say, will cast no shadow.
--------
1. The matter of political definitions is not an easy one. It is complicated by the fact that Marxist nations and movements have, absent any structural or philosophical change, taken to calling themselves Socialist -- presumably because the term is seen as more benign. But by far the greater problem is the fact that no combination of political, social and economic systems and the ideas that drive them will precisely fit a general definition. I view Marxism as the political heritage of the theories of Marx: dialectical materialism, critical theory of capitalism and revolutionary theory. Ideas that form a consistent thread from Gramci to Alinsky. To be sure the lines between the various surviving forms of collectivism blur, but the Marxist strain -- the most virulent -- tends to unify them.
2. "American" in the sense of the Founders and of history through the middle of the last century. -The America he may be for is a Utopian construction, centrally planned.
3. Denying the existence of a threat -- small, medium or existential -- is to yield the means and readiness to combat it. A herpetologist who calls a rattlesnake by another name and attributes to it innocuous qualities is unlikely to enjoy a long career.
The avoidance of properly descriptive language often makes us feel safer. I was once a jury foreman in a murder case. The case was simple and the evidence clear, but one juror could not agree with the verdict. "I understand the evidence and the law, but when I look at the defendant I just can't believe he's a murder."

The Presidency: Above Obama's Pay Grade

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Last night's preemptive prime-time performance was an exercise in vagueness, evasion, dissembling and sophistry. He preached the liberal vision to the media choir, but he did not inform.

Perhaps the dog ate his homework. Whatever the case, He was clearly (and typically) unprepared with the facts or details ("specificity") of even the fundamental issues bearing on the healthcare (now called 'insurance') 1. reform he ardently advocates.

In his opening remarks he offered the standard complaints about the economy he inherited and congratulated himself on progress contradicted by evidence. The American economy, he asserted, cannot compete in this century; that's because we have not reaped the (illusory) windfall of good jobs that will inevitably follow from investments in clean energy. He went on to note poor graduation rates, how much money is spent on healthcare and claimed that his reforms would (somehow?) be an integral and essential part of a new, robust economy.

It is plain that Mr. Obama is comfortable with his grand, statist Utopian vision; less so that he understands economics, Western history, human nature writ large and individualism in contrast to collectivism. When he speaks the sheer breadth of his empirically incorrect assumptions is stunning.

Under certain circumstances, the President's rhetorical style -- speaking confidently in sweeping generalities, using class and group stereotyping, offering anecdotal strawmen to inspire sympathy or condemnation -- is effective. Those favorable circumstances consist, simply, in not being called to account. On the rare occasion that one of his generalities or assumptions is timidly challenged, he simply replies with more generalities and assumptions. Because he is quick to show a subtle, masked anger (a new meaning for 'bully pulpit'), he tends to intimidate those who question him.

Which brings us back to the press conference. The questions about healthcare reform remain not only unanswered but increasingly muddled.

A few observations.

In connection with costs Mr. Obama said they would not be borne "on the backs" of the middle class. That phrase is generally attested to collectivists who believe that the economy is a zero-sum game. It is not.

The president, using his customary anecdotal strawman, advanced the idea that physicians are driven by financial considerations (an unnecessary tonsillectomy) rather than the welfare of the patient. If that is true, what evidence do we have? An example of stereotyping and assumption.

Based on the information of record, the Cambridge police officer who arrested Prof. Henry Gates acted prudently, legally and with admirable restraint. Mr. Obama -- having admitted he didn't know the facts -- was quick to seize the moment to voice a litany of racial canards not apposite the case, and condemn (as chief law-enforcement officer) the intelligence, motives and lawful actions of Sgt. Jim Crowley. As is often the case, the Bible (if nothing else, an insightful and enduring study of the human condition) offers a terse and cogent bit of wisdom: He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him. 2. In the case at hand the presumption of shame may be without merit.

This press conference ('presser', now viral among media) demonstrates a significant contrast between Mr. Obama and recent former presidents. They were interested and in easy command of the issues at hand; he was not.
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1. Lexical morphing in the service of obfuscation

2. Prov. 18.13

Frog Fantasy: A Case for Healthy Skepticism

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No, this is not about the Frog Prince. Rather, it is a cautionary note about politicized science and equally politicized supportive op-eds.
Readers will recall the frenzied cries from the left bemoaning the wanton destruction of nature by a greedy and callous entrepreneurial society. Instant the amphibian equivalent of the Noble Savage -- the noble frog. A defenseless victim of the depredations of unrestrained and pernicious capitalism, the frog was elevated in status (at least for the ad hoc polemic of the moment) to the finest of God's creatures. How could we so long have ignored his pain?

With that wonderful mixture of outrage, moral superiority and frantic worry about eschatalogical implications so often found among self-anointed elites, Nicholas D. Kristof tells us (NYT) It's Time to Learn from Frogs: "Some of the first eerie signs of a potential health catastrophe came as bizarre deformities in water animals, often in their sexual organs." Having set the stage he continues, "Frogs, salamanders and other amphibians began to sprout extra legs. In heavily polluted Lake Apopka, one of the largest lakes in Florida, male alligators developed stunted genitals."

This is terrible! What can be the cause? Mr. Kristof, in due course, explains: "Apprehension is growing among many scientists that the cause of all this may be a class of chemicals called endocrine disruptors. They are very widely used in agriculture, industry and consumer products."
He goes on to paint a picture of the horrors portended for humans: genital deformities, misshaped sexual organs and cancer, early puberty in girls, obesity, insulin resistance and diabetes, effects on male and female reproduction, breast development and cancer, prostate cancer, neuroendocrinology, thyroid, metabolism and obesity, and cardiovascular endocrinology, brain development and sperm counts.

Now this is scary stuff; it scares researchers too: “Among some scientists, there is real apprehension at the new findings — nothing is more terrifying than reading The Journal of Pediatric Urology…” and a Johns Hopkins professor tells us: “It’s scary, very scary.”
Mr. Kristof concludes with this exhortation: “Those deformed frogs and intersex fish — not to mention the growing number of deformities in newborn boys — should jolt us once again.”

Which brings back – full circle -- to the frog.
An interesting article by editor Matt Walker appeared in Earth News on June 25 – fortuitously three days before the Kristof piece in the Times. The Headline reads: Legless frogs mystery solved. Mr. Walker cites Stanley Sessions, …“an amphibian specialist and professor of biology at Hartwick College…”, who says:
“Deformed frogs became one of the most contentious environmental issues of all time, with the parasite researchers on one side, and the 'chemical company' as I call them, on the other… There was a veritable media firestorm, with millions of dollars of grant money at stake [bolding mine].”

Prof. Sessions, working with Brandon Ballengee, a colleague at University of Plymouth in the UK, found that the problem was not unique to the US. After further collaborative study and observation, they discovered that dragonfly nymphs were snacking on tadpoles – the tasty bits, such as extremities and eyes. A fascinating short video (embedded in the article) persuasively seems to confirm their findings.

Matt Walker concludes, saying: "Sessions is careful to say that he doesn't completely rule out chemicals as the cause of some missing limbs. But 'selective predation' by dragonfly nymphs is now by far the leading explanation, he says."

So we cannot yet know the true effects of endocrine disruptors; they may turn out to be as devastating as Mr. Kristof and the scientists he cites predict. Whatever the case I think we may imagine that the “millions of dollars of grant money will no longer follow the frog.

Pat Santy Quits Her Blog. I’ll Miss Her

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Dr. Patricia Santy is a practicing psychiatrist and a prolific, though careful, conservative writer with a good command of politics, economics and social phenomena. To say that her resume is an impressive is to master understatement.

I first came to her blog, Dr. Sanity, in the course of researching narcissism (about which more, perhaps, in a future blog). I found a wealth of information in her own work and a number of useful links to good resources on the subject. I returned several times to her website and found that she brought valuable insights and knowledge to a wide range of subjects (the threat of Islam, Liberalism, government and private madness...), that she wrote well on topics of interest to me and, above all, that she's fun to read.

Now I am not enamored of the field of psychology (nor any of the "soft" sciences, save economics) because, in my experience, practitioners who write and speak tend to wrap their prose in obscurity and jargon and proceed from unwarranted assumptions (facts would be nice) to sweeping conclusions even less warranted. Worse, their prose is stultifying (APA writing guidelines?) and opaque. But what I discovered in Dr. Santy’s writing was a consistent clarity, a congenial style and -- best -- she elevates psychology to what it should be: disciplined, statistically and clinically tested observations of human nature not wanting in common sense.

Although Dr. Santy has decided to quit blogging (temporarily, one hopes), I recommend visiting her site, enjoying the archives, and following the many good links she has put up.
In her July 6 posting she explains her reasons for retiring her blog.

God bless Pat Santy. And, as I said in the header, I'll miss her. I won't be alone.

Fruits of K12 and Low Pop Culture

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The real sadness regarding the two vignettes that follow lies in the fact that they are so unexceptional.
A young woman tells us what is important in her life and identifies her concerns.
And, as Mary Grabar observes, a young man shows his fealty: “I thought of the people I saw on the MARTA train I took to downtown Atlanta that afternoon, especially the young man accompanied by a scantily clad young woman and three little children. He wore braids and a pendant with a photo of Obama. I would have bet money that he, like many of the students I have taught at my community college, did not know who Hitler was, much less Mussolini.”

It is well that the Founders are dead.

Palin Resigns: Defeat or Strategy?*

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Most pundits on both sides of the political divide seem to agree that the Alaska governor has capitulated. Being somewhat contrarian by nature I'm not ready to call for taps signaling the end of Gov. Palin's political career. But prediction is shaky enough when one knows the salient facts, so I won't hazard one.
What bothers me is the fact that I see her as the proxy (Joe-the-plumber writ large) for conservatism. Anyone who rises to prominence as a symbol of the right can expect the potentially ruinous assaults by the media and the largely corrupt legal system, themselves now proxies of the left. Political intimidation is meant to induce fear. That fear, I believe is very real, and I think it does much to explain the growing timidity of the Republican party. In today's America political correctness is more about cowardice than comity or principle.

So if Sarah Palin is, indeed, out of the picture, who will replace her? Is there a farm team for new conservative leadership?

Which, perhaps ironically, brings us to the tea parties. These widespread public assemblies have two advantages: they are large and amorphous, meaning they are not clearly defined groups with formal structure that can be individually identified and singled out for Alinsky-style destruction or “reform”, and they are numerically large, which weakens the credibility of ridicule. Join them, support them. Too many proud nails may be too much for the liberal hammer. They may contain the seeds of new leadership.

*-----
This posting began as a comment to: http://rightwingnuthouse.com/archives/2009/07/03/palin-retreats/ (hostile territory)

The Awful Specter of Standards*

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To the extent that the problem of hypocrisy can be reduced to a simple cause I would submit that it rests – for conservatives -- on the adherence to standards, writ large. For liberals it is something else entirely.


What kinds of standards? Those traditional in Western culture, particularly – but not exclusively – normative ones: standards of social behavior, decency, honor, objective truth, intellect, principle, language and performance in one’s endeavors. Adherence to standards is, in a word, discipline. Standards that motivate, on the one hand, and constrain on the other.

The petulant, adolescent rebellion of the 60’s was an overt rejection of traditional standards and attendant norms. And it was a wholesale rejection, somewhat reminiscent of the phenomenon that followed the French Revolution. Agin’ what is and for what ain’t. Although he rebellion may have been driven more by demographics than ideology, many of the ‘new’ ideas it internalized had been brewing for half a century

I think that a case can be made that a desire for constraints and a natural sense of good and bad, right and wrong inhere, hard-wired, in human nature, and are probably associated with survival. If they are deliberately ignored or willfully denied one is exposed to nagging phantasms of loss and guilt. A post-Kierkegaardian nihilism. Enter here the specter of standards – not quite destroyed -- to remind the left of the existential angst that eternally besets them.

Conservatives, by definition, embrace tradition, and they are represent a constant scold to the left for their forfeiture of essential structure. Though we often fail to meet them, they are still our standards. This may explain why the left is so hostile to established religion (not in the Constitutional sense) and to the military, where tradition and discipline are foremost.

The left holds the amoral high ground.

Having foresworn intellectual discipline the left trades on emotion – the lowest common denominator. By “lowest” I do not mean least important, but rather least governable, for it operates at the limbic level. It is infantile, requiring no standards beyond the operative and strategic ones of empathy or anger that a situation may demand. It seeks its own ends (power) without any scruple save the primal, self-affirming need to believe they – persons and ends -- are good.

And so we return to hypocrisy. Better, perhaps, “hypocrisies”, since the hypocrisy of the left is qualitatively different from that of the right. For the right hypocrisy lies in articulating standards and failing through weakness to meet them; for the left hypocrisy is simply the pretense of owning standards. Employed as a means to power, It is a weapon taken from the arsenal of the right and used against it. Otherwise it is without meaning. As there can be no shame without honor, so there can be no hypocrisy without standards.

As the experience of the 20th Century illustrates, the political victories of the left may be ultimately hollow, Pyrrhic and haunted, but they are extremely pernicious. As to liberals, better they be true hypocrites.

* ---------------------
Note: this post is a near-verbatim reprint of a comment submitted to PJM, Victor Davis Hanson on 07/02. Here is the link.

Note To Readers on Format Change

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I recently added the "Read More" feature to this blog. The changes do not apply to former postings, but in future you will see a lead paragraph or so and then be able to jump to the full article if you choose. That should tidy up the main page a bit.

Suicide by Government: The Obama-Kavorkian Connection

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Most readers will remember that Dr. Jack Kavorkian came to public notice because he was overtly engaged in the medical specialty of euthanasia. His clients, who were terminally ill and/or in constant, unbearable pain, engaged him to hasten their demise in a quick and humane manner. The courts ruled that his activity was illegal and ordered him to desist. He did not, and he was consequently imprisoned.

Mr. Obama and his party are similarly engaged, but with multiple “clients” – the American polity. Similarly, the plurality of that polity has entered a contract with government to assist them in the matter of assisted suicide. This analogy is sound but limited. When we broaden our examination we find notable differences between Dr. Kavorkian and the Obama government.
First, the polity is reasonably healthy and without severe pain. Second, the manner of death will be neither humane nor quick. Third, and most importantly, there is the matter of informed consent. Dr. Kavorkian, to his great credit, was careful in the extreme to ensure that those under his care (and their families) were perfectly informed regarding alternatives to suicide, and what could be expected in the final moments if they opted for death. And finally, the government will not be subject to prosecution.

We have proceeded from analogy to metaphor. Now, let us consider facts.
Security – economic, political and existential – has and continues to be aggressively undermined. We begin with economic security. The conceit of piety rather than the care of probity drives policies that are certain to weaken or destroy the economy. The wanton spending and printing money in the name of a litany of Utopian purposes seizes money from those who have earned it and distributes it among those who are content to live on government largesse in lieu of honest labor. Under current economic policy America is destined to become a third-world nation – Obamastan, if you like. Despite the stated intention of narrowing the gap between rich and poor, that gap will remain. But it will now be between a ruling bureaucratic aristocracy, on the one hand, and everyone else on the other. Worse than the loss of wealth will be the continuing and accelerating usurpation on personal liberty. Once liberty is surrendered the state will become totalitarian and ultimately murderous. (1)

In the matter of defense diplomatic and military decisions are being taken that make America appear weak in the eyes of our enemies. A posture of appeasement invites challenge from other nations on fronts military, political and economic. The most immediate threat, Islam (2), seems to have escaped this administration's notice; or, perhaps, they seek the comfort of denial. In either case failure to confront aggression in the Middle East serves only to encourage it. (3)

Voting for the services of Dr. Obama seems to have been unwise.

(1) The reader may ask if I am not taking an eschatological view of the world. I would reply that one has only to glance over his shoulder at recent history to note the appalling number of deaths in totalitarian (esp. Socialist/Communist) states. Excluding Nazi Germany, a million times 149.

(2) I use 'Islam' rather than the PC circumlocutions such as, 'Islamist', 'Militant Islam', etc. Diana West has a good article on the matter of corrupted language and the assertion of the right to free speech.

(3) It is vital that we recognize that Islam, in particular, is the natural and enduring enemy of liberty and democratic forms of government that flow from it and – ideally – support it. Where Islam does not threaten violence, it is corrosive to representative government (as we see clearly in Western Europe and increasingly in America).

Strange Affinities (updated 7/16/2009)

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Persons or groups of persons sometimes ally themselves with others who have historically mistreated them. I have two examples in mind -- the Jewry's affinity for liberalism and the blacks' for Islam. I have been puzzled and perplexed for a long time as to why so many Jews ally themselves with the left. In the 20th Century (and perhaps before) it is the left that has visited the very worst devastation upon them. And it is ironic that Jews have been prominent in the early stages of evil and totalitarian regimes, i.e., Soviet and German styles of fascism. Those very regimes, once they achieved power, systematically set about purging, killing and imprisoning Jews.
As to the blacks and Islam, I'll treat with that subject in a later posting.

For readers interested in the question posed I recommend three interesting articles. The first, European Left Is More Dangerous for Jews than the European Right, by Soeren Kern at Brussels Journal points to the fact that European Jews a militantly anti-right, while it is the left who are virulently anti-Semitic. To all appearances there is some form of cognitive dissonance --denial -- at work; a failure to recognize the world as it is.
The next two articles were posted at Gates of Vienna.
The second article, Road Rage: Ode to Madness for Politically Incorrect Russian-Jewish Choir, by Lev Lakritz is a lighthearted lament. A Soviet emigre in the 70's, newly-arrived in America, recognizes that the left is his enemy, but drops his guard against liberalism. The result is that -- over the years -- public schools and university have indoctrinated his children in ways similar to those used by the Soviets in earlier generations. Mr. Lakritz' article is entertaining and instructive, but a number of readers took him to task for implied elitism and glib generalizations. The comments may be as instructive as the article.
The last article, Critique of the Culture of Kevin MacDonald, by Takuan Seiyo is more scholarly, and it covers just about all the ground regarding the Jewry's attraction to the left. When you've read it some questions may remain, but you'll know the ground.

Two links added to update this post: See Abraham M. Miller, PJM, and this by Lauri B Regan at American Thinker on Alan Dershowitz.

The Economist, Hardware Stores, Free-range Chickens and Immanuel Kant

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The Economist, like so many other mainstream publications, has become little more than a hardware store of received opinion. That fact is a great comfort, though, to many on the Left; one can shop with confidence, knowing exactly what products will be available and what prices are to be expected. They need not concern themselves with the true cost of shoddy merchandise.

Think of modern liberal orthodoxy as the Great Supply-house that efficiently and widely distributes items of dogma to uncritical retailers – universities(1), media and political elites (rather, elitists). While the products are substandard, (using a fitness-for-use criterion) they do have the virtue of immanent durability.

Since the orthodoxy of the Left (almost by definition) controls the market, it perceives no need for product innovation. Ironically, it is captive to its own creation, and absent significant competition, it is supremely self-confident, often to the point of arrogance.

Which leads me to a recent article in The Economist ‘Newspaper”, How to Fix the Republican Party. For those who find my hardware store metaphor congenial there will be little need for me to parse the article, which in essence argues, “lay down your principles at the water’s edge – join us and you will find success”. I only add that what it represents is a weary and all-too-common(2) recycling of received dogma.

It seems to me that the difference between liberals and the Republican “center” resembles the distinction between caged and free-range chickens; the latter may enjoy a more varied diet, but both remain chickens fed on dogma of one sort or the other.

“If I have a book which understands for me, a pastor who has a conscience for me, a physician who decides my diet, and so forth, I need not trouble myself. I need not think, if I can only pay – others will readily undertake the irksome work for me.”(3)


(1) Here, I think, lies a weakness in the metaphor. Universities might better thought of as manufacturers rather than retailers. In truth, they are both.

(2) Sadly, the notion that exchanging principle for political success is the certain route to Republican revival is shared by many within the party. What the “pragmatic” Conservative perceives as the “center” in actually the Liberal center.

(3) Immanuel Kant from 1794 essay. Here, he later advocates “…throwing off the yoke of tutelage…”.

Note: this submission is a proprietary cross-post.

Because They Can: The Power To Exclude

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Jacqui Smith, the British Home Secretary, has included on her list of persons banned from England the name of talk-show host Michael Savage.

Now Savage is not high on the list of well-known public Conservatives that I admire. Emotion (see previous post) and the sense of outrage trump careful reasoning in his polemic. He is deliberately provocative, and he is aggressive, often to the point of being obnoxious, but he does not encourage hate or violence.

The Left, however, is ever ready to characterize provocative* challenges as "hate-speech". They fear Savage precisely because emotional outrage is their own lingua franca, and they know it is psychologically powerful and an effective means to short-circuit debate.
Luc Van Braekel, a too-rare Belgian who speaks out in defense of free speech, is a featured writer in today's Brussels Journal. His article includes short video clips of recorded statements by Jacqui Smith and Michael Savage.

This incident, taken together with the Geert Wilders affair and others, clearly shows that Britain's fear of tolerating offensive speech has become pathological. Political Correctness, as I have said before, is nothing more nor less than cowardly dishonesty masquerading as comity and good will.

*----
The difference in meaning between "provocative" and "inflammatory" is worth noting.

The Madness of Crowds

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The tension between emotion and reason is a natural and fundamental part of the human condition. It is a fact of life, and, when kept in balance, it is useful to the ends of civil society.
But when the equilibrium is upset to extremes -- in either direction -- there is a price to be paid.

Social groups of all kinds and sizes experience periodic swings toward one pole or the other over time. An example of this phenomenon that is often used applies to literature, philosophy and the fine arts: it is the historical shift between the poles of Romanticism and Classicism. The primary characteristics of Romanticism are the free rein of emotion, freedom from constraints, the rejection of tradition and a purely rational (apriori) world-view, while those of classicism are intellect, discipline, respect for tradition and a skeptical (empirical) world-view. The scope of these pendulum swings between emotion and reason, however, is much broader than the example of Romanticism and Classicism. These oscillations may affect the outlook and actions of entire societies to include nations and groups of nations. They transcend language barriers.

What fuels and drives these shifts from one pole to the other? Because individuals -- let alone societies -- are so complex and complicated, I think satisfactory explanations will always elude us. But there are certainly clues: demographic changes, wealth or poverty, technology, trade, manipulation by elitists or governments, natural disasters and war to list only a few. How difficult the matter is can be shown by attempting to understand the divergence of the two major wings of the Enlightenment. On the one hand, there was the French, which largely shaped Continental Western Europe, and on the other, the Anglo (and its American subset) that shaped the West beyond the Continent. It would be oversimple to assert that the emotion-reason conflict was the cause of the different strains of the Enlightenment, but that argument would not be without merit.

From the divergence of the French and Anglo schools of Enlightenment thought we have inherited the intellectual, social, political and economic polarities of Modern Liberalism and Conservatism. (*)

As I wrote at the beginning, a balance between reason and emotion is useful. It is emotion that causes us to act, and reason and experience that shapes and directs action toward desirable ends. Now reason, being subject to human limitation, often fails. But actions driven by excessive emotion and ungoverned by reason almost always fail.

How does one know when emotion has become excessive? The answer is fairly obvious: when persons or groups become so emotionally invested in cherished ideas that they deny reality in order to preserve them, emotion has become excessive.

What are the consequences of excessive emotion? Again, the answer obvious: our survival and our prosperity in the world depends upon our seeing it as it is -- objectively. If we do not, or will not, recognize existential threats or facts and situations that are not conducive to our welfare, we are acting in ways that are destructive to our own survival and our own welfare.

I believe that Modern Liberalism (largely identified with the Far Left) collectively exhibits the effects of excessive emotion in their thought and behavior, and that destructive outcomes are certain to follow.

For an interesting analysis apposite this posting, please see Liberal Amnesia = Hysterical Amnesia (4/29/09). My comments derive from a mostly historical perspective, but Dr. Sanity's blog offers much that is instructive from the perspective of psychology. The author uses the term "hysteria" where I use "excessive emotion", and he says this:

Hysteria is a concept characterized by a wide variety of physical and mental symptoms that result from dissociating one's cognitive functioning from one's emotions and/or behavior. The psychological defense that makes this happen is known as dissociation.
For the hysteric, emotions are primary and are not subject to objective reality.

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(*) "Conservatism" is the natural heir of Eighteenth Century Liberalism. I agree with Milton Friedman, and others, that the latter term is the better one.

History: Islam and the Crusades

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At the Gates of Vienna blog I found this series of eight short videos that follow the history of the crusades. Historically accurate and engaging (if a bit scary), they are sobering and instructive. Warning to multiculturalists: this series is not Politically Correct!
Among other things, it is clearly shown that -- in contrast with Utopians of the modern West -- Muslims have no illusions about who they are.

An Adventure for Serious Readers

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Takuan Seiyo continues putting together a serious and engaging opus in From Meccania to Atlantis, complete with some interesting metaphors and a wide range of useful references. It is an ambitious and thoughtful polemic affirming the Western tradition in times of trouble.

Using the Invasion of the Body Snatchers as a metaphorical foundation to explain the hold that postmodern philosophy has gained on contemporary Western thought, he enumerates the historical causes and the self-destructive effects on modern society.

Meccania demands more than a casual reading, and the work has grown to some length, now in its tenth installment. Mr. Seiyo's writing contains some of the overreach to be expected in polemic, but his assertions are well documented, provocative and thoroughly entertaining. I find myself looking forward to his next installment in the way that an earlier generation did to serialized Dikens novels.

While Mr. Seiyo, like many other writers in the conservative tradition, identifies and condemns the long and growing list of collectivist follies, he does it with considerably more insight and skill than other writers I know of. Not content, he says, with merely describing the mindless retreat from the Western canon, he promises to offer practical and lawful remedial strategies. Whether he can deliver remains to be seen.

The Cost of Political Evasion and Misdirection

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There are times when we make embarrassing mistakes. We can acknowledge the error and try to prevent a recurrence or we can practice deception on ourselves and others to minimize damage. Most of us, I suspect, do both at one time or another. Human nature, as I see it.
But for certain politicians the rewards for the latter course are enormous; the risks for the former unthinkable.
This post by Alex Epstein may shed light on the sorry state of the economy as well as that of some of our elected officials.

Timely Renewal of Ideas

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In is interesting to see the way ideas ebb and flow through the public consciousness. Some are current for a time, fade away and then re-emerge, newly apposite to changing circumstance. As books fall from best-seller lists, so do they occasionally return years later.
I am thinking of Ayn Rand's "Objectivism" (the ideas) and Atlas Shrugged (the books). This submission by Amit Ghate to Pajamas Media is instructive.

Response to Threats: Productive and Otherwise

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For those among us who find themselves wondering about the passiveness and denials of the left (and, increasingly the center) Dr. Joy Bliss, of Maggie's Farm, probes for answers from the perspective of psychiatry. I found this article (Part I) on Dr. Sanity's blog, and I think it is a useful analysis.

Some Thoughts On Equality

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The notion of generalized human equality is a staple – a mantra – of collectivists. Like so many of the ideas floated by the left, it sounds good, it rings with noble sentiment, but it is bereft of intellect and its meaning is corrupt. The applied, functional meaning is rather more like human leveling. The equality of persons, correctly and narrowly defined, exists only in the sight of God and the blindness of justice.
As history suggests and science makes clear, no two persons are identical, i.e., equal; at a minimum they will have physical, emotional and mental characteristics that will distinguish them from one another and from everyone else.
We are told that government (God help us!) must establish Equality of Opportunity among its citizens. But what can that mean? If persons are not equal, their opportunities cannot be equal. Some will say, “it ain’t fair”, and they will be correct. It is the way of the world. The concept of fairness is, after all, a human construction, and when prudentially applied – voluntarily and by free men – it may well benefit society.
But when we set out to impose “fairness” we are acting contrary to fact, reason and human nature. But that is precisely what the left is determined to do.
In socialist Western Europe, people become extremely disturbed about wide disparities in income, and we now see a similar uneasiness here in the emerging rhetoric of class warfare and in the eagerness of the political left to redistribute wealth.
When government uses its powers of armed, coercive force to impose a regimen of fairness on the polity there is little reason to hope for restraint, the preservation of individual liberty or helpful outcomes.
For a century and more we have seen the ruinous consequences to society of collectivist governments, but we seem to have learned not a thing.

Good Government? A Challenge To Readers.

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The challenge is simple enough, really. It is this: cite an example of a serious problem in contemporary society -- social, political or economic -- that is not caused by or exacerbated by government.

For readers who are vaguely troubled about the conditions of American society but uncertain about what is wrong, as well as those who know that serious problems exist but do not understand their causes, I recommend reading an essay (The Law) by Frederic Bastiat. Bastiat was a French economist concerned with the abuse of government power in France during the first half of the 18th Century. But The Law might just as well have been written about 21st Century America. He wrote with insight, wit and clarity, and his work explains much about what we are now facing.