Highway 99
Monday, May 31, 2004
Interesting passage from Dinesh D'Souza's The Virtue of Prosperity (page 75 of the paperback edition):
And he cites sources to back up his facts.Today's poor people in the United States spend less than half their income on basic necessities. Some people may be surprised to learn that 50 percent of Americans defined by the government as "poor" have air-conditioning, 60 percent have microwave ovens and VCRs, 70 percent have one or more cars, 72 percent have washing machines, 77 percent have telephones, 93 percent have at least one color television, and 98 percent have a refrigerator. Not only are poor Americans today better housed, better clothed, and better fed than average Americans were half a century ago; in many respects they live better than the average western European does today.
I have asked before why more Americans are not familiar with this sort of information. If the Republicans are on the ball, they will begin a concerted effort to make sure people are taught things like this, even if it means the Republicans have to buy ad time themselves to get the word out.
Sunday, May 30, 2004
A couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine and I stumbled across the realization that both of us had, for quite some time, been having flashbacks to a W.B. Yeats poem, "The Second Coming." I think Yeats had the atmosphere of World War I in mind when he wrote it, but the nightmarish images fit the current situation of the War on Terror so closely, it's eerie. Perhaps, if you're familiar with the poem, you've been hearing echoes of it in the back of your mind, too. In case you're not familiar with it, here it is; for a poem written in 1921, it captures the zeitgeist of 2001-2004 alarmingly well.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
Thursday, May 27, 2004
Thank you, Tony.
Read the whole thing, and be grateful every day for such an ally.EXTRA UK TROOPS TO IRAQ
A further 370 troops are being sent to Iraq, Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon has announced.
They will supplement the 8,000-plus UK soldiers already based around the southern city of Basra.
Wednesday, May 26, 2004
Interesting analysis of the current state of the Labour Party from The Australian.
Blair is, as usual, unflinching.
And you've got to admit, Blair has all the right enemies.
I never thought I would be saying this, but I am beginning to feel hatred for the Tory Party. They are betraying the war effort, their own country, and the most important alliance in world history.
But I still love Margaret Thatcher. Her legacy will endure. And she stands tall compared to others who need not be named.
Tuesday, May 25, 2004
Now here's a political affiliation I never would have guessed. From the article "Big Hat Bigger Mouth," on page 50 of this week's TV Guide (article apparently not on the TV Guide website):
Say what? A Democrat wrote these lyrics? Hasn't Toby Keith heard that pro-military patriotism was permanently voted out of the Democratic Party platform at its 1968 convention?[Q:] Do you get tired of being asked about politics since "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue"?
[A:] Any time I state my opinion, I get fallout. People ask how I feel about "Courtesy" being used in the war, written on tanks or on bombs or whatever. "Courtesy" was not written for the Iraq war. It was written for the attack on the U.S. and the invasion of Afghanistan. But when I say that, I get fallout that I'm trying to backpedal. That's what's frustrating. But whatever you say, you gotta live with it.
I do about 10 big military things a year, a couple of things for the president, and that's as much as I can do. I don't just want to be known for that, or affiliate with a party or a cause. It's a tremendous honor and I have respect for all the troops, right up to the commander in chief. I'm a Democrat, you know. Most people think I'm a Republican.
Monday, May 24, 2004
The June 2004 issue of Liberty magazine (apparently no on-line version) features three articles on the Free State Project: "A Revolution by Other Means," "Freedom in Our Lifetime," and "Reclaiming the American Frontier."
One passage in "A Revolution by Other Means" clarifies the situation I noted in a previous post, that the membership numbers took a dip after the Free State had been chosen:
There's some other material about the politics of the FSP that I might excerpt in the coming days -- too busy right now.The Free State membership agreement originally allowed members to opt out of any states they wouldn't move to, and 1,021 founding members, about 20% of the total membership at the time of the vote and mostly from western states, opted out of New Hampshire.
I will note, however, that as of today the Free State Project membership stands at 5,755. They seem to be growing at a healthy pace once again. Perhaps the publicity in Liberty will give them an added boost.
In case anyone out there is interested, I'm pretty sure that yesterday I paid more for gasoline than I've ever paid before in my life. (Before adjustment for inflation, admittedly.) It was $2.42 per gallon -- or, technically, $2.419 per gallon -- for the plain unleaded, no-frills, 87 octane stuff. Just four days earlier, I paid $2.30 ($2.299), though at a different gas station, which might make a difference in the price.
Amazingly enough, however, I feel no impulse to hate Bush just because OPEC is screwing with the law of supply and demand.
Just caught the end of Bush's speech. What I heard, I liked, but I won't have much of an impression until I get to watch the whole thing, which I taped. (Knew I wouldn't make it home from work in time to see it all.)
Sunday, May 23, 2004
You might have heard by now that the May 15th Economist fell for an internet hoax purporting to show that states whose populations have high average IQs voted for Gore and states with lower average IQs voted for Bush.
Well, as if to make up for their laxity in perpetuating a false rumor, the nice folks at The Economist have at least supplied me with some data I was curious about. Also in the May 15th issue, on page 100 of the dead-tree edition, we find that
Almost 2% higher than the U.S. unemployment rate. Wonder why we haven't heard more about this? I've posted in the past about the way Democrats tout socialism, especially socialized medicine, and then in the next breath complain about the "high" unemployment here in the U.S., while conveniently overlooking the much higher unemployment levels in socialist countries like France, Germany -- and Canada.[u]nemployment also fell in Canada, from 7.5% in March to 7.3% in April.
Someone needs to call them on this continuing hypocrisy and publicize the facts to Americans. Every American should know about the sky-high jobless figures in socialist countries. Republicans -- and ad agencies responsible for Republican campaign commercials -- where are you on this issue?
Washington Times columnist Diana West explains how political correctness in her children's public school drove her to start home-schooling.
Of particular note: West mentions that "a couple of prominent Baptists have crafted a resolution for next month's Southern Baptist Convention that will urge the 16.3 million members of the denomination to pull their kids from the nation's public schools."
Wow. This bears watching. If their resolution passes and 16.3 million people actually do begin withdrawing their kids from the public school systems all over the country, how might that shake up the educational establishment?
A few bloggers and their commenters have been offering guesses as to the identity of the American magazine journalist who confessed her desire for failure in Iraq to Daily Telegraph reporter Toby Harnden. So, what the heck, here's my entry: Eleanor Clift of Newsweek.
Professional asshole Andy Rooney got done ranting a few minutes ago about how the Iraqi prisoner-abuse scandal is possibly a harbinger of the decline and fall of America. What a shithead. I wonder if Rooney has any idea of the backlash that's been building against this sort of media overkill. Probably not. He strikes me as the sort who only tunes in to the establishment news sources he appears on. No wonder he seems so out of touch with the world.
I've often wondered over the years just how much money CBS pays him each week to spout this crap.
Saturday, May 22, 2004
You could see this coming.
Show weakness to one group of terrorists, and every other terrorist on earth will take note.ETA rejects government plans for limited reform
Basque guerrilla group ETA rejected Spanish government proposals for limited reforms of the constitution on Saturday and said it was time to push for Basque self-determination.
Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero -- elected in a surprise victory days after al Qaeda-linked train bombings in March -- has proposed limited reform of the statutes governing Spain's autonomous regions.
If Zap hadn't yet realized the wages of appeasement, presumably he will now. Unfortunately, now is too late.
Thursday, May 20, 2004
Quagmire, Mon Amour?
Read the whole thing.Ivorian Block Said to Plan Murder of French Soldiers
Civil war broke out in Ivory Coast in 2002 but in January of last year, France negotiated a cease-fire between Ivorian authorities and a rebel army, granting the rebels a place in a new power-sharing government. President Gbagbo accepted this but it infuriated the Ivorian public who are angry with France for making such a concession to the rebels and, in their view, imposing it on Ivorian authorities. A wave of anti-French sentiment has come over the country and tensions are high, especially since the murder of a French reporter in IC last October. French peace-keepers are now in a hostile country and having to repel insurgent attacks. Meanwhile, the rebels have recalled their representatives from the government.
The party of Margaret Thatcher, still coasting downhill.
So Michael Howard is now undermining the war effort, and in the pages of The Independent, no less. Well, if you're going to undermine the War on Terror, I guess that's the place to do it.Opposition leader Michael Howard has attacked Tony Blair for his "shoulder-to-shoulder" relationship with George Bush.
Mr. Howard accused the prime minister of keeping "secret" any advice or disagreement with the US president.
The opposition leader calls for a more open and "candid" approach, in an article in The Independent today.
If Howard really wants to transform the image of the Tory Party from one of opportunism and lack of principle, this is not the way to do it.
The ultimate New York Times article. It's so blatantly slanted that if you didn't know better, you'd swear it was a parody. But it isn't. Or at least it's no more a parody than any other New York Times article. It's headlined "73 Options for Medicare Plan Fuel Chaos, Not Prescriptions," it's by John Leland, and it's hilarious.
Wednesday, May 19, 2004
I was disappointed to learn that Aaron Copland was apparently an unrepentent Communist his entire life. In "Composers for Communism," in this month's Commentary magazine, Terry Teachout explains why I and a lot of other people might find this news surprising:
While I was growing up, a cry of "McCarthyism!" could shut down a lot of discussions. Indeed -- if memory serves -- I was taught more about McCarthyism in school than I was taught about the crimes committed in the name of Communism. It's only been in recent years that I've come to appreciate how badly I was misled about the dangers of Communism and the heroism of the people who worked to stop it.Meanwhile, here at home, the alleged Communist sympathies of Aaron Copland, the composer of such quintessentially American works as Billy the Kid and Rodeo, faded from view as the word "McCarthyism" became synonymous with "persecution" in the lexicon of American liberalism; in time, the subject of Copland's political views ceased to be discussed, or even mentioned except euphemistically by most critics and scholars. In, for example, Aaron Copland: The Life and Work of an Uncommon Man (1999), the first full-length biography of the composer, Howard Pollock referred to Life's coverage of the Waldorf conference as marking "the beginnings of Copland's victimization by the hysteria now known as McCarthyism." But he said nothing whatsoever about the conference itself, much less about what Copland--and Shostakovich--said and did there.
. . . The mere fact that Copland had a relationship with the Communist party was long unknown to those too young to recall the American musical scene in the 30's. Instead, it was taken for granted that anyone who sought to tie him to the Communists was peddling McCarthyite slanders.
Tuesday, May 18, 2004
Today, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher will bring to the floor of the House a bill designated H.R. 3722, which would make it legal for doctors and hospitals to refuse extensive medical services to illegal aliens. Hospitals would still be required to provide life-saving emergency treatment to illegals, sufficient to get an illegal safely to an airport for return to his or her home country. But the current situation, in which the American taxpayer is forced to subsidize AIDS treatment or cancer treatment or organ transplants for anyone who can manage to sneak across the border, would become a thing of the past.
I wish this bill would be voted into law, but I suspect the odds are heavily against it. Still, it will be interesting to see who votes in favor today, and who against.
Monday, May 10, 2004
Tom at the Bluebook Authority thinks he's found a reason besides sheer bigotry and ideology for CNN International's vicious anti-Americanism.
This is a point I have not seen noted anywhere else. Good for Tom for spotting it and reporting on it -- it sounds like an important angle to me. I pity Tom, though, stuck watching CNN International for lack of any alternatives in his current digs in Switzerland.The answer to all this lies between Zain Verjee and Jim Clancy's anti-Americanism. The commercials. Follow the denero [sic].
Almost all of the commercials are advertising Middle East countries or businesses. How can they be impartial when those who are most biased are paying the bills?
They can't. CNN International has been bought by the Jihadists.
Since it looks like al-Sadr's days may be numbered -- unless the new photos and video coming out of Abu Ghraib over the next few days are so horrible that they actually do spark a nationwide uprising against us -- you might be interested in reading the details of the legal case against him. You can find that info here. The article covers not only the best-known charge against al-Sadr, the murder of moderate cleric Abdul Majeed al-Khoei a year ago, as well as lesser-known charges such as ordering other murders and embezzlement; it also notes that the new Iraqi government will probably reinstate the death penalty, which had been abolished by the Coalition when they took over last year. Last month I expressed disgust that the death penalty had been abolished in Iraq, because I figure there are so many people there who need to receive it. Looks like the odds of their getting what's coming to them are better than I thought.
Hat tip to that fine Italo-Australian lady the WogBlogger for the article on the case against al-Sadr.
Sunday, May 09, 2004
I just watched 60 Minutes. It's just about the only dinosaur-network news show I can still stand to watch on a regular basis, and each time I see it, I'm reminded of why I quit watching the old networks. Thank God for C-SPAN and Fox.
Tonight featured a segment that started out showing the photos of abuse of Iraqi prisoners and then immediately segued to a story on the My Lai murders.
If they can't turn Iraq into Vietnam one way, they'll try another way. If at first you don't succeed . . .
This is exactly the sort of thing Victor Davis Hanson writes about in his latest column (see my last post). It could end up killing us yet.
Another in Victor Davis Hanson's series of superb essays on how the West, and America in particular, must steel itself psychologically to win the War on Terror.
Friday, May 07, 2004
SOMEBODY TELL TED RALL THAT THIS IS WHAT WE ARE FIGHTING.
WHAT WE ARE FIGHTING IS NOT CALLED AN INSURRECTION. WHAT WE ARE FIGHTING IS CALLED EVIL.SLAVE THREAT TO TROOPS
A Shi'ite cleric in Basra has told worshippers that anyone who captures a female British soldier can keep her as a slave.
Wednesday, May 05, 2004
Bill O'Reilly interviewed Ted Rall last night.
You can read an abridged transcript of the interview here.O'Reilly: All right, I got it. You don't believe that the Taliban should have been removed, correct? You don't believe this.
Rall: Oh, I think it's a great thing the Taliban are gone. I just think that we've replaced the world's worst regime with one that's even worse.
Part of what I reacted to in the interview won't come across in the transcript. I'd seen a couple of photos of Ted Rall before, but this was the first time I'd ever seen him on TV. There was something about him I found vaguely off-putting, even setting aside what I know about his beliefs. Or maybe I wasn't really setting aside what I know about him; maybe that's impossible, and my perception of him was colored accordingly.
I suppose Rall deserves some slight credit for picking Fox News as the forum in which to confront his critics. Shame, though, that he didn't choose to go on Fox's regular evening news show. Brit Hume could have shredded him more effectively than O'Reilly did.
Ever since people began discussing the replacement for the World Trade Center, almost immediately after 9/11, I've felt like I was out of step with almost everyone else because I really wanted to see the Trade Center rebuilt as close to the original plan as possible. I disliked the idea that the terrorists would be allowed to wipe out such an important, vibrant, living place. They saw it as a symbol of American capitalism, of globalization, of creativity and dynamism and change -- and so did I. Their reasons for wanting to destroy it were my reasons for wanting to rebuild it. Every time I'd see the pre-9/11 skyline of New York suddenly appear in a movie or TV show, inwardly, I'd wince. (More than two-and-a-half years later, I still do.) As the proposed plans for replacements began to show up in the media, I found there wasn't a single one I really liked. Most struck me as kind of ugly. More important, most struck me as largely dead space, in every possible sense. They were empty, devoid of activity, as if commercialism or industry would pollute the sacred ground the new buildings would be built on.
But those three thousand people died working -- trading, hustling, building up the economy, changing the world a little bit every day, and overwhelmingly for the better. I wanted to see that throbbing, teeming life resurrected -- either to the original specifications, or else bigger and better than ever. Say, an extra twenty-five feet higher, just to rub the Islamofascists' noses in it.
But, as far as I could detect, virtually nobody felt the same way about it as I did.
In the past few days, however, I've discovered that there are a lot of other people who feel the same way about it. They have even organized themselves into a movement called Team Twin Towers.
If you're interested in supporting them, they've got a petition here that you can add your name to. I'm not sure about the legal standing, since it doesn't appear that you can actually put an electronic signature on the petition, but if enough people add their names, it could garner some welcome publicity for their cause, and perhaps catch the eye of the authorities in New York.
There's also someone named Peter Fegan, who as far as I know is not a part of the organized Team Twin Towers movement, who nonetheless has published an essay titled "More Thoughts on the World Trade Center" in which he proposes a near-identical rebuilding but also adds some intelligent suggestions for changes in the new buildings.
The odds are against them succeeding. One of the new proposals has been chosen, though technically the decision has yet to be finalized. I'm not getting my hopes up. But I do wish Team Twin Towers luck.
Actually, there's only one thing I dislike about wanting to rebuild the towers: It means I have something in common with (aaarrrgh!) John Kerry.
Oh well. Knowing Kerry, he's probably changed his mind on the subject by now.
Robert Kilroy-Silk, whom I wrote about here and here when he got in hot water for a controversial and completely accurate column he wrote about Arab culture, is reportedly considering running for political office.
I posted earlier on the death of Officer Stephan Gray, the first member of the Merced Police Department ever killed in the line of duty. I am glad to be able to report that the prime suspect in Officer Gray's murder has now been captured.
Great minds think alike. Re my last post: Mark Steyn weighs in on what went wrong with Thatcher's revolution -- namely, that it didn't go nearly far enough.
When I posted on Saturday about why the British are so hard on their prime ministers, I didn't realize I was writing just a few days before the 25th anniversary of Thatcher's ascension as PM. I should have known -- Thatcher's one of my heroes. Let Saturday's post be my small tribute to her.But the result is that the Thatcher revolution is uncompleted. Nobody in 2004 seriously thinks the Government should run airlines or that working people should live their entire lives in state housing - though what now seems obvious to all required extraordinary political will by a few 25 years ago. And, on any honest account of 21st-century Britain, most of the problems derive from the unThatcherised sectors, in which the post-war, centralised, bureaucratic conventional wisdom still holds.
. . . Mrs Thatcher privatised British Telecom, British Airways, British Leyland. But we still have a nationalised British political culture: the reflexive gripe that, if something's wrong with your local hospital or your local school, it ought to be fixed by some secretary of state in a Whitehall department. It never will be. But the way to get some dynamism and creativity into the system is to denationalise the problems, and make them local issues to be solved locally, in a thousand different ways. As Mrs Thatcher recognised, the British are an inventive people. Unfortunately, though she freed them to apply that inventiveness to their economic life, they're artificially prevented from applying it to everything else. It's time to complete the revolution.
Saturday, May 01, 2004
For years now, I have wondered why the British are so rough on their prime ministers. It looks to me like they're much harder on their leaders than we are on our presidents.
This is not, as you might imagine, something I started thinking about while watching the recent treatment of Tony Blair. It actually goes back to the days of Margaret Thatcher, when I first began paying systematic attention to British politics. (Or at least as systematic attention as you could pay, in those pre-Web days.) To this day I am taken aback by the intense and widespread hostility directed at Thatcher.
And do I really need to go into the gory details of John Major's premiership?
In fact, I remember hearing a few times over the years that people in the British news media consider their American counterparts ridiculously deferential (something most Americans would have trouble believing). And I get the impression that Europeans in general think the American people have too much faith in the U.S. government.
So, why so much more bile directed at prime ministers than at presidents?
I've isolated two factors that I think account for a great deal of the difference. One factor has to do with very broad cultural and political differences between the two countries; the other factor is a specific constitutional mechanism that is present in one country but not in the other.
(1) The broad cultural difference: The British simply expect their government to do much more for them than Americans expect their government to do. While Britain is not nearly as socialist as most countries on the European continent, it is obviously much more socialist than the United States.
A huge percentage of British people live in "social housing," or what Americans would call public housing. Most medical, dental, and vision care is provided by the National Health Service. A much larger percentage of Brits than Americans rely on public mass transportation than on cars. Nearly all education -- even in religious schools! -- is publicly provided. (I'm not even sure whether there are any private colleges or universities.) Similarly, nearly all cultural institutions -- museums, libraries, theaters, orchestras -- are publicly funded. Most of the British movies I've seen in recent years seem to have an opening credit indicating some government sponsorship. (Oh, and remember the mighty BBC?) I'm a little hazy on how many private employment agencies there are, but I have the impression that British people rely more heavily than Americans do on government channels to get a job. Self-defense by any means is, for all practical purposes, outlawed; you are supposed to trust completely in the government to protect you (and your home and your family) in a way that would probably spark a revolution if it were to be tried in America. British taxpayer money even supports the Church, for heaven's sake. The prime minister actually appoints the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Until a wave of privatizations in the last twenty years, utilities such as electricity and phone service were provided directly by the government. Basic industries such as steel, cars, and airlines were government-owned and -run. Petroleum still is.
And this doesn't even count the unemployment and welfare benefits that to most Americans would seem mind-bogglingly generous. These include "child benefit," which is a monthly payment people get from the government for each child they have. (No, I'm not kidding.)
What Americans would also find hard to understand is that almost all of this activity is controlled by the national government. There are no states, of course, and by American standards the counties and towns control very little. From what I've read, I get the impression that even birth, wedding, death, divorce, and adoption certificates, and driving licenses, are issued at the UK level, although something called a "registration district" is involved. Public employees that we think of as being contracted with on a local level, such as teachers, police officers, and firefighters, are contracted with in Britain on a national level.
In short, to a degree most Americans would find difficult to appreciate, the expectations the British people have for the basics of a decent and enjoyable life are concentrated in one place: the national government.
Some people might find it paradoxical that the British people seem to have higher expectations of their government and simultaneously a lower opinion of their government than Americans have of theirs.
But I don't think it's a paradox; I think there's a direct causal link.
Socialism does not work. It runs counter to human nature; it cannot work. No government can deliver what the British people expect their government to deliver. Their high expectations insure disillusionment.
Unfortunately, socialist thinking is so much a part of British culture by now that it never seems to occur to most people that their expectations are part of the problem. Each new prime minister is greeted with great enthusiasm as the one who will finally make it all work.
Great expectations are inevitably followed by great disappointment. No prime minister can make work a system that is so fundamentally flawed. And when it becomes apparent that this latest prime minister is, like the others, doomed to fail, the resulting backlash is ferocious.
And because of the structure of the British national government, the impact of the backlash is not widely distributed. There are no three separate branches of government in a parliamentary system. The prime minister is head of both the executive and the legislative functions. And, unlike senators, members of the House of Lords are not elected; those who are not hereditary are appointed. Also, the prime minister is the official, elected leader of his political party. So when the backlash hits, it hits the prime minister, often with crippling force.
(2) It is after the backlash sets in that the second difference starts to make itself felt: the presence or absence of a two-term limit for the head of state.
It took me a long time to become aware of the importance of this difference because its effects are so subtle. The constitutional amendment restricting presidents to a maximum of two four-year terms was meant to curb presidential power, and that is the benefit still associated with it. But there is an additional benefit I have not seen remarked upon elsewhere: The moment a president is elected, we are all aware, consciously or unconsciously, of the outside limit of just how long we are going to have to put up with this guy. And that awareness, I have come to believe, contributes to the greater amount of patience we seem to feel toward our president compared to the patience the British feel toward the prime minister. If things are not going well, neither the American public nor the president's political party need to take active steps to get rid of him. Time will do the job for us. In a way its creators never envisioned, this constitutional mechanism relieves American politics of one important source of tension.
In contrast, the open question of when a prime minister will step down aggravates any negative feelings toward him that may have accumulated.
You might recall an early Saturday Night Live sketch featuring John Belushi as The Thing That Wouldn't Leave, a cheerfully oblivious guy who would stay on and on at parties while his friends and hosts would resort to increasingly desperate measures to dislodge him from their home.
That's the way it looks to me as I watch British politics from this side of the water. When socialism fails again, and the backlash starts, the prime minister begins to take on in the public's eyes the aura of The Thing That Wouldn't Leave. And that just makes the backlash worse.
(Note: Appearances to the contrary, the content of this post was not specifically designed with May Day in mind.)
