The Desperation-of-Deprivation Myth

From Mark Steyn, at National Review, "The West has incentivized non-productivity on an industrial scale" (via Glenn Reynolds).



Just go read it all.

'Descent Into Evil'

I had this at the blog-item finder, and now it's an essay at New York Post, from John Hinderaker:

What makes the present such a frightening time is that a number of nightmarish phenomena that we had thought consigned to the dustbin of history are reappearing. Rioters in the streets. Burning buildings. Plunging markets and the threat of depression. The scent of socialism in the air.



Who, as of, say, 1989, could have imagined that in barely 20 years, what was then known as the Free World could sink so far?



What we are seeing in London and other English cities is an outpouring of evil. To try to explain evil as the result of something else is almost always a mistake.

'I don't call it a riot... I call it an insurrection of the masses of the people...'

When the riots first broke out I checked over at a couple of the anarchist "occupy everything" blogs and it seems like a lot of them are silent, apparently frustrated at the slow development of revolutionary consciousness. But one needn't look too hard to find deep sympathy for the hooligans (at Comment is Free, for example). Hard-left progressives see in the micreants' criminal thuggery some long needed blows against the capitalist state, even if those were mostly just some deviant losers robbing the shelves blind of goods for which they actually had enough money to purchase. It's not deprivation driving unrest, but hatred of conventional goodness, nurtured by decades of socialist progressivism, manifest in the left's deliberate breakdown of the common family structure, which has left generations of "yobbers" free to destroy property and the sense of sanity in society. Jawa Report posted this video, of Darcus Howe, in which he calls the unrest some kind of dialectical historical moment, "London's Thuggery, Murder, Neo-Marxist, Socialist, etc., etc. Mahem + USDayofRage."

Not surprisingly, BBC is now apologizing for suggesting that the bloke might have been involved. See Telegraph UK, "London riots: BBC apologises for accusing Darcus Howe."



We are witnesses the Mad Maxification of society in the early 21st century.

The Collective Pathologies of Postmodern America

From Victor Davis Hanson, at National Review, "Snapshot of a Sick Society."

'I Love Rich People'

From Katie Kieffer, at Townhall, "Why I Hope the Rich Get Richer":

We hurt ourselves by envying, over-taxing and slandering the rich. Anti-wealth public policies will only persuade independently wealthy Americans to shut down their businesses, stop hiring and retire early to their hammocks in the tropics. On the other hand, if we “love” the rich, we will receive the love back in the form of ample jobs, loans, innovations and investments.

Come to think of it, I'm amazed at how infrequently we hear this argument. A great essay. (Via Linkiest.)

The Myth of the Extraordinary Teacher

From Ellie Herman, at Los Angeles Times:

The kid in the back wants me to define "logic." The girl next to him looks bewildered. The boy in front of me dutifully takes notes even though he has severe auditory processing issues and doesn't understand a word I'm saying. Eight kids forgot their essays, but one has a good excuse because she had another epileptic seizure last night. The shy, quiet girl next to me hasn't done homework for weeks, ever since she was jumped by a knife-wielding gangbanger as she walked to school. The boy next to her is asleep with his head on the desk because he works nights at a factory to support his family. Across the room, a girl weeps quietly for reasons I'll never know. I'm trying to explain to a student what I meant when I wrote "clarify your thinking" on his essay, but he's still confused.

It's 8:15 a.m. and already I'm behind my scheduled lesson. A kid with dyslexia, ADD and anger-management problems walks in late, throws his books on the desk and swears at me when I tell him to take off his hood.

The class, one of five I teach each day, has 31 students, including two with learning disabilities, one who just moved here from Mexico, one with serious behavior problems, 10 who flunked this class last year and are repeating, seven who test below grade level, three who show up halfway through class every day, one who almost never comes. I need to reach all 31 of them, including the brainiac who's so bored she's reading "Lolita" under her desk.

I just can't do it.

Keep reading to get to the myth of extraordinary teachers, although I'll add this part:

I understand that we need to get rid of bad teachers, who will be just as bad in small classes, but we can't demand that teachers be excellent in conditions that preclude excellence.

Actually, I'm not even sold on the idea of "really bad" teachers. Some aren't that great and probably shouldn't be teaching. I can think of a couple of professors at my college who have absolutely no social skills, and hence have a hard time reaching a comfortable or appropriate level of interaction with their students. But I also often hear reports about how such-and-such teacher changed some student's life. It's that level of interaction that gives meaning. The students I'm able to help most are generally those who take the time to break from the routine of just showing up. I'll be there to help students, inside the class and out. I'm especially thankful when students make an effort to attend office hours and share with me their own challenges or difficulties. That's when I can assess what needs to be done, and I can design some kind of extra program of help or attention, from either myself or other resources on campus. But all those stories Ms. Herman shares about her students, well, I have some as well. It's the inside of education that's not always known or understood. A lot of this is economic disadvantage, but a lot is just the way things are, that not every student who comes to us turns out as a Ph.D. candidate to Harvard. You make a difference where you can, helping students to learn and move forward. And hopefully you get a little recognition in return, even if it's just a well-needed thank you for your efforts.

On Making Love and Having Sex

From David Solway, at Pajamas Media (via Instapundit):

Today there is no doubt that we tend compulsively to think in terms of object, function, or mechanism whenever we consider the incalculably human. Love is something to be “worked at” like a problem in mathematics that must be solved for the sake of its practical application. Friendship is called a “support system.” A Pascalian terror before the cold immensity of the universe is excessive “stress,” as if one were absorbing too much force for the mental “structure” to distribute and resolve successfully. For post-structuralists, a novel or a poem is only the manifestation of an “abstract model.” Wisdom is a kind of “flexible adaptability.” Desire is libidinal “tension” which must be “discharged.” And what was once called “making love,” an expression that however glibly it was employed still retained the implication of a genetic mystery, is today airily dismissed as “having sex,” a phrase which seems to concede in the direction of honesty but really betrays our attitude of therapeutic mechanism — like having an enema, a check-up, or an operation. Sex is an excellent way of running the machine.

Santa Ana Enclave Tops Orange County In Proportion of Single-Parent Households

I visited Census Tract 750.03 in Santa Ana last week. The Los Angeles Times reported that the area's Willard neighborhood has the highest proportion of single-parent households in Orange County. See: "A community of single parents."

I grew up in Orange, the city next door, and spent a lot of time in this part of Santa Ana as a kid. There's a street graphic at the Times' article. Here's the intersection at Main and 17th Street. My buddies and I used to skateboard at that building across the street, where that blue "for lease" sign is located. The flowerbeds are banked (or they were banked, until the property owners installed a brick perimeter around the flowers to thwart the skaters):

Here's a shot looking back at the corner where I was standing in the picture above. That's an illegal immigration law office. The fruit vendor, with the ice cooler, was selling cantalopes and mango slices to customers in their cars:

More pictures. At the top of the stairs a sign is printed in both English and Spanish:

Climbing back in the van to cruise around the neighborhood, I see a man walking north on Main Street with a sleeping back and personal belongings:

Turning right, I head South on Main Street. A couple of blocks up a see throngs of people congregating, near a bus stop and in front of an insurance office. Traffic slowed and I rolled down the window to snap a photo. A Latino man was working as a sign-spinner. He ducked down when I raised my camera. Probably an illegal alien making some money under the table:

Driving West now, across Broadway, an accountant's office:

The neighborhood is a migrant enclave, which helps explain the large number of single-parent households:

Although Orange County has the lowest proportion of single-parent households in Southern California, Santa Ana stands as the highest in that category, with 12,023, or 16%. Laguna Woods, a small city in South County, has the fewest, 21, or 0.2%.

The roots of this anomaly can be found in Santa Ana's decades-long history as a magnet for immigrants.

This part of the county was converted from orange groves to single-family housing to apartments, said G.U. Krueger, a housing expert in the area. Now, Santa Ana is one of the most densely populated cities in the country.

Michael Ruane, director of the OC Community Indicators Project, which studies trends in the county, said Santa Ana has always stood out statistically because of residential overcrowding, high school dropout rates and the educational level of adults.

But it's also one of the least expensive areas in the county.

"That's why you would live there, or have to, or be unable to move from there," he said.

There's a lot of poverty here as well. At the corner of Durant and Washington, a local Head Start center:

Heading East, Willard Intermediate School (discussed at the Times) and across the street a Mexican civil rights history mural:

Back over at the Los Angeles Times:

Laura Arreola, 43, may be one of those people. She's lived in various apartments off Parton Street for 14 years. All of her four children have attended schools in the area, where empty strollers sit on overgrown lawns and dusty toys spill onto the sidewalk.

Merchants hawk fried pork bellies and produce from white trucks that serve as gathering points for children. In this tract, more than three-quarters of the households include children.

But the only open space in the neighborhood is the local school, Willard Intermediate, which serves as the de facto park. Children also play in alleyways and the church's patio [nearby St. Peter Evangelical Lutheran Church].

Another mural, on Washington across from the school. This one records the promise of education to lift kids out of what looks like is some kind of desolation:

A couple of kids and either their grandmother or another older caregiver. It was about 4:00pm. School's out for summer and a lot of parents were still out working. The woman was speaking Spanish:

Food trucks on just about every corner. The second one was covered with graffiti, which was unusual. The food vendors were clean and organized, a part of the neighborhood. Reminds me of Mexico:

Despite the glum statistics at the Times, I didn't see a lot of social disorganization. There was very little graffiti on the walls. This batch below was few and far between:

Frankly, I found people to be enterprising. The food trucks are totally cool. And the food's tasty:

It's a Spanish-speaking enclave, however. People spoke Spanish in their interactions with each other and the woman spoke Spanish when she served me.

Santa Ana is the county seat and prides itself as an all-American city. It's a mostly Latino/Mexican-American city, and for whatever reasons --- language, low educational attainment, poverty and family breakup --- many in the community remain economically and socially distant from the larger economic mainstream of the society. That's not to say it's not a nice place. Just a lot different from what more demographically stable communities would exhibit.

How Long Will it Take for Jobs to Come Back?

I used to read chapters from Greg Mankiw's introductory economics textbooks in grad school, when I took seminars in international political economy. Mankiw blogs, but he's quite the opposite of Paul Krugman: more conservative and, especially, humble. We can see that in his essay yesterday at the New York Times, "Three Questions for America's Financial Future." On the jobs picture:

Looking ahead, an open issue is whether the recession will leave scars that prevent a return to jobless rates that were considered normal just a few years ago. A striking feature of today’s labor market is the rise of long-term joblessness. The average duration of unemployment is now almost 40 weeks, about twice what it reached in previous recessions. The long-term unemployed may well lose job skills and find their future prospects permanently impaired. But because we are in uncharted waters, it is hard for anyone to be sure.

Actually, one of my favorite writers of all is Victor Davis Hanson. A classicist and military historian, he's also unmatched on political and social commentary on issues ranging from culture to farming to immigration. See his essay from Saturday, "Thoughts on a Surreal Depression":

Here in Fresno County, in the heart of California’s San Joaquin Valley, the official unemployment rate in February to March ranged between 18.1 and 18.8 percent. I suspect it is higher in the poorer southwestern portions, especially near my hometown of Selma, about two miles from my farm.

Since 2000 we have both lost jobs and gained people, and the per capita household income is about 65% of California’s average, the average home price about half the state norm.

In some sense, all the ideas that are born on the Berkeley or Stanford campus, in the CSU and UC education, political science, and sociology departments, and among the bureaus in Sacramento are reified in places like Selma — open borders, therapeutic education curricula, massive government transfers and subsidies, big government, and intrusive regulation. Together that has created the sort of utopia that a Bay Area consultant, politico, or professor dreams of, but would never live near. Again, we in California have become the most and least free of peoples — the law-biding stifled by red tape, the non-law-biding considered exempt from accountability on the basis of simple cost-to-benefit logic. A speeder on the freeway will pay a $300 ticket for going 75mph and justifies the legions of highway patrol officers now on the road; going after an unlicensed peddler or rural dumper is a money-losing proposition for government.

The subtext, however, of most of our manifold challenges here in the other California are twofold: we have had a massive increase in population, largely driven by illegal immigration from Latin America, mostly from Oaxaca province in Mexico, and we have not created a commensurate number of jobs to facilitate the influx.

I often ask business people on the coast why there are not more industries in places like Selma other than agricultural related work that is locale specific. I would sum up their responses as something like the following: Our workforce does not have the educational and linguistic skills to justify, in global terms, the amount of wages and benefits necessary to employ them, hence jobs are mostly in service and government. Software engineering, computers, or Silicon Valley-like industry are out the question. But apparently so are large manufacturing jobs, despite an abundant workforce. As I understand employers, they seem to suggest that steel pipe, electrical wire, or radios would not be better manufactured or fabricated here, and yet still cost two to three times more than a counterpart assembled abroad.

In addition, they believe that the state government would look upon any employer of a large industry not as a partner that would alleviate unemployment and lessen county expenditures, but more or less a sort of target to regulate, advise, lecture, and chastise, both to justify the expanding government regulatory work force and to achieve a fuzzy sort of social justice. There are, of course, large plants and businesses here, but hardly enough to absorb the thousands entering the work force.

The result is about one in five adults is not working in the traditional and formal sense. A morning drive through these valley towns confirms anecdotally what statistics suggest: hundreds, no, thousands, are not employed. Construction is almost nonexistent. Agriculture is recovering, but environmentally driven water cut-offs on the West Side (250,000 acres), increasing mechanization, and past poor prices have combined to reduce by tens of thousands once plentiful farm jobs.

My dad moved to Fresno in the mid-70s and I graduated from Fresno State in 1992. If you ever want to get the feel of what it must have been like during the Great Depression, take some country drives around the Central Valley --- in towns even more remote than Selma --- and you'll be taken back into your own Grapes of Wrath experience. The Democrats make this bad enough, but it's a statist anti-entrepreneurial regulatory stranglehold that's killing employment and the quality of life for large segments of society. I'm noticing it even in parts of the O.C., where unemployment was less than 2 percent in 2000. Hope for the best, I guess, but prepare for the worst.

The End of Family Practice

Or, at least the end of the neighborhood family practitioner who knows everyone's name, some of the same folks he spends time with out on the lake.

This is one more of those reports on the decline of traditional America, at New York Times, "Family Physician Can’t Give Away Solo Practice." It's Dr. Ronald Sroka in Maryland, who's been in practice for 32 years. He was looking to sell the practice, but no buyers. Sheesh, he couldn't give it away:

He tried to sell his once highly profitable practice. No luck. He tried giving it away. No luck.

Dr. Sroka’s fate is emblematic of a transformation in American medicine. He once provided for nearly all of his patients’ medical needs — stitching up the injured, directing care for the hospitalized and keeping vigil for the dying. But doctors like him are increasingly being replaced by teams of rotating doctors and nurses who do not know their patients nearly as well. A centuries-old intimacy between doctor and patient is being lost, and patients who visit the doctor are often kept guessing about who will appear in the white coat.

The share of solo practices among members of the American Academy of Family Physicians fell to 18 percent by 2008 from 44 percent in 1986. And census figures show that in 2007, just 28 percent of doctors described themselves as self-employed, compared with 58 percent in 1970. Many of the provisions of the new health care law are likely to accelerate these trends.

“There’s not going to be any of us left,” Dr. Sroka said.

RTWT at the link. And there's a video as well, at NYT's homepage.

When my wife and I moved to Orange County, in 2000, to get resettled for my new job at LBCC, we ended up looking through a big fat book of doctors who were part of our Blue Cross HMO. We picked a doctor just by the sound of his name, and we've been happy ever since. It's been just like the family doctor we had as kids. The doctor gets to know you. He's friendly and even offers his own personal counseling if necessary. It feels like the old days.

Yet it's been quite different with the pediatricians. Our oldest son was 5 when we moved down here from Fresno, and the first doctor we found --- also looking in the HMO physicians catalog --- was a prick. When my son was referred to a specialist for breathing problems, we ended up going with the new doctor, who had a large practice in Newport Beach, with about a half-a-dozen doctors. We're still visiting that office. Our youngest son is 9 and he's had a couple of different doctors from that medical group, but for a while it was just one women who was a specialist on learning disabilities. She helped us with some attention issues my son was having, and it worked out really well. But it's definitely a crap shoot if you don't have good references. You're picking names out of a book and ending up with these fancy, modern multi-physician practices where you'll be lucking if the doctors remember your kids' names. It's a nightmare, frankly, especially with a baby. So I can relate to this story about Dr. Sroka in Maryland. It's just him at the office. Unless he has some other local doctors to fill in for him on call he's screwed. That's why no one wanted to buy his practice. Here's the quote from NYT:

Indeed, younger doctors — half of whom are now women — are refusing to take over these small practices. They want better lifestyles, shorter work days, and weekends free of the beepers, cellphones and patient emergencies that have long defined doctors’ lives. Weighed down with debt, they want regular paychecks instead of shopkeeper risks. And even if they wanted such practices, banks — attuned to the growing uncertainties — are far less likely to lend the money needed.

That's interesting. It shows again how social changes --- especially affluence and the pursuit of leisure --- have influenced the way coming generations view traditional occupations.

In any case, what can you do I guess?

More later ...

Portugal Seeks Financial Bailout From European Union

At WSJ, "Portugal Pleads for Rescue: Bailout Request — Europe's Third — Will Test the Euro Zone":

LISBON—Running out of money and paralyzed by a political crisis, Portugal said Wednesday it would ask the European Union for a financial bailout—setting up a crucial test of the bloc's emboldened efforts to contain its sovereign-debt crisis.

Portugal is the third nation in the 17-member euro zone to turn to its peers for help, and one that has long been seen as a firewall between small economies whose bailouts are painful but manageable and large economies—like Spain—whose infection would set the crisis on a far darker course.

After days of pressure in financial markets, Prime Minister José Sócrates told Brussels authorities Wednesday that he needed help, and late that evening broke the news to his countrymen in a televised address.

It has appeared inevitable for weeks. Portugal has struggled to raise cash from wary financial markets, and its persistent deficits are draining state coffers.

Politics are at a standstill: Two weeks ago, Mr. Sócrates's government collapsed after parliament rejected his latest bid to rein in Portugal's budget. Mr. Sócrates had adamantly refused to countenance a bailout. Wednesday night, he said he had no choice.

"It is time to assume the responsibility to the country," Mr. Sócrates said in his speech. "It is in the name of national interest that I tell the Portuguese people that we need to take this step."

The country's been running continual budget deficits for thirty years and chronic unemployment is a way of life for large segments of society. Portugal's a basket case --- and a case study in where today's progressive left will take the U.S. under Democrat Party spending and taxing programs.

See, "Government Shutdown Showdown: Obama, Republican and Democratic Congressional Leaders 'Narrow the Issues': Obama Meets John Boehner, Harry Reid at White House in Bid to Facilitate Spending Deal." And all the latest budget news at Memeorandum.

'Antiwar' Protesters Call for Revolution in U.S. — Nationwide ANSWER Rallies Ignored by Mainstream Media Organizations

This isn't news to me, although I'm glad that a growing number of bloggers and citizen journalists are paying attention. The Los Angeles ANSWER organizers held their annual march in Hollywood on Saturday, March 19th. I had my taxes done that day and missed it, but veteran protest photographer Ringo was on the scene, and he reports: "Anti-War Demonstration, Hollywood, CA - March 19th, 2011." I've been focused lately on Israel and the rising tide of global anti-Semitism, and recall the ANSWER folks are at the forefront of the campaign for a new Jewish Holocaust. Naturally, the "push-the-Jews-to-the-sea" crowd was well represented in Hollywood. I'll have more on this in continuing coverage here. Meanwhile, Rebel Pundit has an excellent report from the event in Chicago on March 19th: "Exclusive: Chicago Media Covers Up Socialist Revolution Extravaganza!!" (also at Breitbart and Memeorandum).

After arriving at the protest, we began to notice a trend in the message of the day. The message was transitioning back and fourth between ‘Anti-War, and ending the occupation of Iraq’, to a ‘blatantly obvious and proud Communist/Socialist revolutionary’ message. Threats of taking to the streets, with directives to become ungovernable and to mimic the revolutions spreading across the Middle East and North Africa were prominent in the speeches, most of which were given by radical left wing socialist activists and organizers.

There was clearly no intent on anyone’s behalf at the rally to cover up their radical views. However, in each case of the local mainstream media coverage, (CBS 2 News, NBC 5 News and ABC 7 News) it appears there may have been a deliberate intent to conceal this prominent message, that was delivered loud and clear by the protesters and speakers, or perhaps they decided to just simply ignore it, hoping it wouldn’t be noticed. In ABC 7 Eyewitness News’s coverage, they didn’t even mention the words; socialist, communist, or revolution once. However our footage reveals this was a prominent and consistent theme present during the entire march, and to no one’s surprise, considering the radical ties of those who organized it.

Rebel Pundit argues for a media cover-up of the revolutionary agenda, but that's pretty much standard operating procedure. Some of the first days of the Wisconsin budget protests saw the exact same comparisons between the U.S. and the Middle East (Mubarak), although it was mostly bloggers that brought the news to the wider audience. Last year's pro-immigration march in Phoenix was dominated by communists calling for revolution and the destruction of nation-state borders. I specifically highlighted mainstream coverage of the march at the Arizona Republic and the Los Angeles Times. They treated the event, with dishonest reports and photos of children protesters, etc., as a "civil rights" march. Meanwhile, we've got leftists who continue to insist that revolutionary agitation --- not to mention the left's global anti-Israel campaign of annihilation --- is "imaginary" and the product of a "persecution" complex. It's thus all around us, the lies and subterfuge relentlessly grinding away at the basic fabric of society, warping young minds with anti-American, pro-Holocaust propaganda. Add on top of this the growing black bloc movement of anarchist violence, which despite the "anarchist" label is really about state destruction to prepare for the communist takeover, and folks can get a pretty good picture of the current revolutionary agenda on today's progressive left. Also reporting: Another Black Conservative, The Blast, Left Coast Rebel, and Weasel Zippers.

Chris Wragge, CBS 'Early Show' Anchor, Gets Hot On-Air Fantasies for Actress Vanessa Hudgens

Another case for academic douchebag Scott Eric Kaufman.



Hudgens is 21 years-old and fabulous, but see Greg Hengler, "CBS Anchor Entertains Pornographic Fantasies of H.S. Musical's Vanessa Hudgens":

40-year-old Chris Wragge, anchor for CBS's "Early Show," could not restrain his pornographic fantasies from the family-friendly, national network television show. As you will see and hear, he tries to move on quickly after drinking a nice cold glass of stupid.

Third Rail: Americans Oppose Cutting Entitlements

Well, we're gonna need booming economic growth, and frankly an increasingly globalized immigration policy, if we don't go bankrupt first. At WSJ, "Poll Finds Support Lacking for Entitlement Reductions":

Less than a quarter of Americans support trimming Social Security or Medicare to tackle the country's budget deficit, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll that illustrates the challenge facing lawmakers seeking voter support for altering entitlement programs.



The poll, conducted between Feb. 24 and 28, found strong opposition for cuts to these entitlement programs across all age groups and ideologies. Even tea party supporters, by a nearly 2-to-1 margin, declared cuts to Social Security "unacceptable."



The poll, however, revealed willingness by some respondents to make sacrifices to keep the programs from going broke.



Well over half of Americans favor bumping the retirement age to 69 by 2075, up from 66 now. An even larger share supports reducing retirement and Medicare payments to wealthier Americans.

The opposition against entitlement cuts comes four months after voters elected a crop of governors and conservative federal lawmakers who campaigned against government spending. Congressional Republicans have focused so far on cuts to discretionary spending. But a small group of U.S. senators in both parties has begun talks over changes to entitlement programs, as well as to the tax code.



House Republicans want to make entitlement reductions a key part of their next budget, while several likely 2012 GOP candidates vow to propose ways to shore up the finances of Social Security and Medicare as part of any campaign.



But Republican Bill McInturff and Democrat Peter Hart, the pollsters who conducted the survey, said it raised warning signs for anyone proposing cuts to those programs, which provide retirement benefits to seniors and help pay for their health-care, and to Medicaid, a health plan for the poor. The costs of those programs, which already make up 43% of federal spending, are expected to balloon in coming years.

More at the link.



Before you know it, folks won't be able to retire with full benefits until their 70s. Maybe that's good, but a lot of people are physically unable to work that long. And there's lots of economic pessimism at the poll. Check this out:

Americans remain clearly torn on the big questions of the national debt, government spending and the role of government in promoting jobs. Eight in 10 respondents said the growing federal deficit threatened to affect their family's future, but 62% also feared the effect of widespread cuts to government spending. Meanwhile, by a wide margin, more people saw job creation as a higher priority than deficit reduction.

It's a classic problem of the modern welfare state. As government grows to accommodate increasing demands for economic security, the political system gets locked into a collective action problem that disables the systems capacity to respond to economic crises. The going would be a tad bit easier if the voters dump the Democrats in 2012, which will be tough but not impossible, especially of economic growth remains tepid. See, "Federal deficit on track for a record this fiscal year: Government debt to exceed U.S. economy."

Washington Budget Battle Raises Specter of Government Shutdown

The Wall Street Journal reports otherwise, "Ryan Says Not Looking for Government Shutdown." But previously at Investor's Business Daily, "Will D.C. Budget Standoff Repeat 1995? GOP Hopes Not":

2011 is starting to look eerily like 1995. GOP lawmakers and a Democratic president are far apart on the budget, raising the specter of a government shutdown. Republicans are readying Medicare and Social Security reform plans, easy fodder for Democrats.



Republicans hope the parallels end there. Voters blamed the GOP for the 1995 shutdown.



"It's possible that we are seeing" a repeat, said Matt Bennett, vice president for public affairs at the centrist Third Way. "In 1995, the Gingrich revolutionaries demanded tough budget cuts and took it to a government shutdown. It appears Speaker Boehner is responding to the more strident people in his caucus."

More at the link, and also at the Louisville Courier-Journal, "Washington heading for a possible shutdown."



Frankly, I think the 1995 comparison is just too nifty for the media to pass up. Ace of Spades had a piece the other day which showed some Republicans with little ideological principle when it comes to reining-in government. See, "Um: Half of Republican Caucus, Especially Leadership and Old Guard, Votes With Democrats To Block Additional $22 Billion in Cuts."

Okay, I give up. I wanted to give this two party system a try. Forget it. It's time for a third party, the Tea Party.



The GOP is dead to me. Hal Rodgers and posturing lying phony Eric Cantor need to be replaced.



The Republican Party



If you like your ruinous behemoth tax-parasite government, you can keep your ruinous behemoth tax-parasite government.



And that is is promise we will definitely keep. Because, in the end, that's the one thing that matters to us.

I'm going to be keeping an eye on this over the next few days. The GOP needs to be on the right side of history. Hundreds of billions can be cut just for starters, as many have pointed out, and Ace is going to have my vote if the GOP leadership caves to Democrat-progressive spendapalooza politics. So until later, check out NYT's morning report, "As House Votes to Cut $60 Billion, Standoff Looms."



IMAGE CREDIT: The People's Cube.

Pam Bondi, Attorney General of Florida, to Continue Multi-State Challenge to ObamaCare

At WSJ, "The States Versus ObamaCare":

This week begins the inauguration and swearing-in ceremonies for newly elected officials all over the country. One thing many of us have in common is that the voters rewarded us for our outspoken opposition to ObamaCare.

The electorate's decisive rejection of the Obama administration's policies reveals a pervasive concern over the federal government's disregard of fundamental aspects of our nation's Constitution. No legislation in our history alters the balance of power between Washington and the states so much as ObamaCare does.

The tactics used to pass the health-care bill gave all Americans ample warning of the constitutional wrongdoing that was about to occur. Concerns were raised in the summer of 2009 over the constitutionality of the individual mandate and other portions of the bill, yet the president and Congress proceeded full-steam ahead. In the Senate, the much-ridiculed "Cornhusker Kickback" gave Nebraska an all-expenses-paid Medicaid expansion program. Due to public pressure, the provision was eventually removed from the final law.

Following Senate passage, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi planned to "deem-and-pass" the federal health-care bill, a constitutionally suspect procedure of passing a bill without actually voting on it. Instead, the speaker allowed the House to vote on the Senate version of the bill without amendments, and Congress subsequently used a parliamentary maneuver called budget reconciliation to "fix" the flawed bill. In the end, not a single Republican voted for the legislation.

Unwilling to acquiesce to such a blatantly unconstitutional act, Florida and 19 other states challenged the new law and its requirement that nearly every American purchase health insurance. The lawsuit is based on the common sense notion that an individual's decision not to purchase health insurance is not an act of "commerce" that can be regulated under Congress's constitutionally enumerated powers. Unsurprisingly, the Obama administration has invoked shifting and contradictory arguments in its efforts to defend the indefensible.

More at the link, and the interview above was with Greta last night.

The Powerful Corpse of Radical Progressivism

I've been dealing with death-chant progressives all week, so I thought I'd share a few comments on the left that have become available within a short time frame.

At the letters to the editor yesterday, at WSJ, "If Liberalism Is Dead, It's a Very Powerful Corpse":

R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. declares that liberalism, as a political movement, is dead ("Liberalism: An Autopsy," op-ed, Dec. 4). Given the permanently expanding role of government, the effective rollback of key elements of the 1996 Welfare Reform Act, 99 weeks of unemployment insurance, the redefinition of marriage, ObamaCare and the explosive growth over just the last two years of thousands on thousands of government employees taking home six-figure salaries, it doesn't appear that liberalism's being "dead" makes all that much difference.

That the liberal label has an appeal to only 20% of the electorate is nothing to celebrate because it shows that even with its dwindling numbers, liberalism will nearly always win on policy. In the West Virginia Senate race, Gov. Joe Manchin trounced his Republican opponent by wrapping himself in the conservative label, something that is very easy to do as we keep defining conservatism down, to appeal to any and every viewpoint.

If he'll check the pulse of policy, I think Mr. Tyrrell will find that liberalism is alive and well, and that it is conservatism which has slipped way past rigor mortis and has started to rot.

Douglas Johnson

Chicago

More letters at the link, but Mr. Johnson's really sets the tone. Never underestimate the left's low hanging fog of death. It's hard to destroy.

Another interesting comment was at my post this morning, "Leftists Chant for the Death of Ann Althouse — UPDATED!!" Althouse linked, perhaps sending this fellow over:

Murgatroyd said...

Charles Krauthammer nailed it: "To understand the workings of American politics, you have to understand this fundamental law: Conservatives think liberals are stupid. Liberals think conservatives are evil."

Anyone who disagrees with a left-winger is by definition evil. Anyone who disagrees with a left-winger and demonstrates that the left-winger is wrong is beyond all possible redemption, and must be hated with the white-hot intensity of the heart of the sun.

Yeah, well, this week sure proved it. Murgatroyd's reference is to Charles Krauthammer, "Speaking of stupid liberals, angry conservatives."

And then there's the big story on Columbia's David Epstein, who has been chared with incest following an alleged three-year relationship with his 24 year-old daughter. Robert Stacy McCain has the epic post on this, "Palin-Hating Columbia Professor, Huffington Post Blogger, Busted for Incest." Flopping Aces digs through the lefty comments at PuffHo. And there's a thread at Memeorandum. But Rob Taylor at NewsReal really exposes the zombie corpse of progressivism, "Leftism Causes Rape and Incest":

The breakdown of traditional morality and taboos, many of which have been a part of Western Civilization since pre-Christian times, is an essential part of leftism but it is naïve to think that it is the only driver of the normalization of sexual predation on the Left. Instead we must look to Marxism’s most fundamental value for an explanation of leftists’ acceptance and promotion of sex crimes – the abolition of private property.

When leftists talk about the abolition of private property, they extend that to your work, whatever that may be (including the “sex work” of adult entertainers and prostitutes), and even to your body. More dangerously the Left teaches that people have an absolute right to sexual gratification no matter how that gratification is achieved. Thus, men who are not having whatever perversion they’ve delved into satisfied are being “oppressed” by the withholders of the sex they crave. This is why groups like NAMBLA can exist on the fringes and be treated as legitimate political and ideological opponents.

But on the individual level, this idea that no woman should be off limits, that it is “selfish” to deny sexual pleasure to others, plays out in horrific scenarios of abuse and depravity. That David Epstein was a neo-Marxist can be gleaned from his occasional blog posts at Huffington Post, and that he thought it a fine idea to have sexual relations with his own daughter is ample evidence of his acceptance of the Marxist belief that the traditional family is outdated and in need of being dissolved. But he is not an anomaly.

Methodologically, we can't show that neo-Marxist progressivism is THE causal factor in the kind of incestuous deviance in David Epstein's case, but we certainly can infer powerful weight to the obliteration of morality and social taboos that is central to the left's nihilist program of death and destruction.

Interestingly, Ann Althouse links again, this time with the legal debate over adult consensual incest: "A Columbia professor is arrested for incest — but isn't there a constitutional right to incest between consenting adults?"

Yet even with that, the powerful corpse of radical progressivism lurks over the entire culture, leaving its deathly shadow of predation across the land. And thus it's good to hold tight to Douglas Johnson's words above, to stay on guard and keep the pressure on: "I think Mr. Tyrrell will find that liberalism radical progressivism is alive and well, and that it is conservatism which has slipped way past rigor mortis and has started to rot."

Totalitarian Faith

I've noticed lately that radical progressives get particularly pissed when you call them out as nihilist. I discussed this recently in a lengthy essay, "Anti-Intellectualism and the Marxist Idea." At issue there were some of the objections of BJ Keefe from September, and he reissued them just last week, and I responded again, "Navigating Past Nihilism." While BJ claimed I had "twisted" the meaning of nihilism, he never did actually offer his own definition. The issue has popped up again, as Amanda Marcotte has gotten peeved at my descriptions of leftists as nihilist, and she's spouted off her frustration on Twitter and in at least two posts at Pandagon. She has, for example, attempted to smear me as a "moron" who "pretends" to know what nihilism means. It's fair to say that nihilism is deployed with a range of meaning, although it's not fair for leftists to attack me for ignorance while simultaneously refusing to provide a counter exegesis. As noted, my traditional usage focuses on leftist abandonment of historical norms of morality, along with the concomitant campaign of destruction on Judea-Christian ethics.

In recent posts I've focuses more narrowly on Friedrich Nietzsche's thesis of the social obliteration of God. And unbeknownst to poor Amanda, I've provided a dictionary definition at "Navigating Past Nihilism," and the link there goes to Professor Sean Kelly's recent piece at New York Times. So basically, leftist lamebrains cited here and elsewhere can just STFU.



In any case, I'm reminded of David Horowitz's The Politics of Bad Faith: The Radical Assault on America's Future. He writes, at pages 28-29, on a June 1990 forum held by the Organization of American Historians. The prominent author Christopher Lasch announced that the West had "won the Cold War," upon which he was immediately denounced --- with "outrage and scorn" --- by the radical historians in attendance. Horowitz indicates how the episode reveals the left's epistemic closure on the failures of revolutionary socialism:

The refusal to confront the past meant that leftists could resume their attacks on the West without examining the movements and regimes they had supported, and thus without proposing any practical alternative to the societies they continued to reject. The intellectual foundations of this destructive attitude had already been created, in the preceding decades, in a development that Allen Bloom described as the "Nietzcheanization of the Left" --- the transformation of the progressive faith into a nihilistic creed.



Nihilistic humors have always been present in the radical character. The revolutionary will, by its very nature, involves a passion for destruction alongside its hope of redemption. While the hope is vaguely imagined, however, the agenda of destruction is elaborate and concrete. It was Marx who originally defended this vagueness, claiming that any "blueprint" of the socialist future would be merely "utopian" and therefore should be avoided. The attitutude of the post-Marxist left is no different. Since the fall of Communism, radical intellectuals have continued their destructive attacks on capitalism, as though the catastrophes they had recently promoted posed no insurmountable problem to such an agenda. "I continue to believe," wrote a radical academic after the Soviet collapse, "that what you call 'the socialist fantasy' can usefully inform a critque of post-modern capitalism without encouraging its fantasists and dreamers to suppose that a brave new order is imminent or even feasible."



But how could a responsible intellect ignore the destructive implications of such an attitude? The socialist critique is, after all, total. It is aimed at the roots of the existing order. To maintain agnosticism about the futures that might replace the reality you intend to destroy may be intellectually convenient, but it is also morally corrupt ....



To raise the socialist ideal as a critical standard imposes a burden of responsiblity on its advocates that critical theorists refuse to shoulder. If one sets out to destroy a lifeboat because it fails to meet the standards of a luxury yacht, the act of criticism may be perfectly "just," but the passengers will drown all the same. Similarly, if socialist principles can only be realized in a socialist gulag, even the presumed inequalities of the capitalist market are worth the price. If socialist poverty and socialist police states are the practical alternative to capitalist inequality, what justice can there be in destroying capitalist freedoms and the benefits they provide? Without a practical alternative to offer, radical idealism is radical nihilism --- a war of destuction with no objective other than war itself.

And from page 57:

Totalitarianism is the possession of reality by a political Idea --- the Idea of socialist kingdom of heaven on earth; the redemption of humanity by political force. To radical believers this Idea is so beautiful it is like God Himself. It provides the meaning of a radical life. This is the solution that makes everything possible; the noble end that justifies the regrettable means. Belief in the kingdom of socialist heaven is faith that can transform vice into virtue, lies into truth, evil into good. In this revolutionary religion, the Way, the Truth, and the Life of salvation lie not with God above, but with men below --- ruthless, brutal, venal men --- on whom faith confers the power of gods. There is no mystery in the transformation of the socialist paradise into Communist hell: liberation theology is a satanic creed.

Amanda Marcotte has offered no definition nor defense of nihilism. She has however attacked those of faith as insane, citing atheist phenomenon Richard Dawkins as her source of authority: The God Delusion. It's easy to understand why, for by rejecting the eternal goodness of God, she can justify the destructive radical progressivism that drives her ideological program. That program is nihilist. It is, following Nietzsche, the utter abandonment of the social commitment to morality and right. She, like her fellow radicals, rejects morality in favor of hedonism and license, and hence rejects any larger meaning within a body of faith that is God.

Navigating Past Nihilism

Back during the racist Pale Scot episode, BJKeefe rejected David Horowitz's equation of leftist ideologies with the doctrines of epistemological nihilism. Of course such references are common, so I responded in the comments:

The left has recycled Soviet Marxism-Leninism, giving a pass to the murder of 100s of millions. When those apologies for totalitarianism --- what leftist refer to as "actually existing socialism" --- become a defense of a failed ideology, all you have left is utter nothingness, hence nihilism.

In response, BJ babbled something about my attempting to "twist the definition of nihilism to fit your own preconceived notions."

Well, actually not, according to Merriam-Webster:

1a : a viewpoint that traditional values and beliefs are unfounded and that existence is senseless and useless b : a doctrine that denies any objective ground of truth and especially of moral truths.

2a : a doctrine or belief that conditions in the social organization are so bad as to make destruction desirable for its own sake independent of any constructive program or possibility b capitalized : the program of a 19th century Russian party advocating revolutionary reform and using terrorism and assassination

I tend to focus on the rejection of moralism (1b), which is clear in my longstanding discussion of the anarcho-socialist and the neo-communist left, but also the left's ideology of death and destruction (2b).

No doubt there's a long body of Western philosophy that examines the impact of nihilism on scientific developments and social thought. Thus, folks into these more refined discourses on nihilism --- that to which I suspect BJKeefe alludes, but does not elaborate --- may find the discussion from Sean Kelly interesting, at New York Times, "Navigating Past Nihilism":

“Nihilism stands at the door,” wrote Nietzsche. “Whence comes this uncanniest of all guests?” The year was 1885 or 1886, and Nietzsche was writing in a notebook whose contents were not intended for publication. The discussion of nihilism ─ the sense that it is no longer obvious what our most fundamental commitments are, or what matters in a life of distinction and worth, the sense that the world is an abyss of meaning rather than its God-given preserve ─ finds no sustained treatment in the works that Nietzsche prepared for publication during his lifetime. But a few years earlier, in 1882, the German philosopher had already published a possible answer to the question of nihilism’s ultimate source. “God is dead,” Nietzsche wrote in a famous passage from “The Gay Science.” “God remains dead. And we have killed him.”

There is much debate about the meaning of Nietzsche’s famous claim, and I will not attempt to settle that scholarly dispute here. But at least one of the things that Nietzsche could have meant is that the social role that the Judeo-Christian God plays in our culture is radically different from the one he has traditionally played in prior epochs of the West. For it used to be the case in the European Middle Ages for example ─ that the mainstream of society was grounded so firmly in its Christian beliefs that someone who did not share those beliefs could therefore not be taken seriously as living an even potentially admirable life. Indeed, a life outside the Church was not only execrable but condemnable, and in certain periods of European history it invited a close encounter with a burning pyre.

Whatever role religion plays in our society today, it is not this one. For today’s religious believers feel strong social pressure to admit that someone who doesn’t share their religious belief might nevertheless be living a life worthy of their admiration. That is not to say that every religious believer accepts this constraint. But to the extent that they do not, then society now rightly condemns them as dangerous religious fanatics rather than sanctioning them as scions of the Church or mosque. God is dead, therefore, in a very particular sense. He no longer plays his traditional social role of organizing us around a commitment to a single right way to live. Nihilism is one state a culture may reach when it no longer has a unique and agreed upon social ground.

More at the link, but that sounds fair enough to me, if a bit minimalist. Basically, societies that have lost an agreed upon consensus of the appropriate, of the boundaries of social mores and values, have become nihilist in the sense Sean Kelly offers. It's not just a matter of religious faith but the social construction of moral right and political order. To the extent today that radicals attack traditional values as extreme --- attacks on proponents of heterosexual marriage, for example --- we've clearly lost a good deal of the decency that derives from a more fundamental set of commitments. The left not only rejects those commitments, but is intent to literally destroy those who stand in the way. Recall Diana West's essay following the passage of Prop 8 in 2008: "The State is Being Set." And the left's dishonesty and anti-intellectualism continued in the federal courts. See Michelle's, "Judicial activism + far Left radical activism = Courtroom intimidation."

And of course this is true in so many other areas, on issues of war and peace, the science of climate change, and the existence of Israel. The anti-intellectual foundations of the today's left --- foundations that are in essence nihilist as discussed --- are destroying individuals and societies. Melanie Phillips' book covers much of this ground as well: The World Turned Upside Down: The Global Battle over God, Truth, and Power.

Back over at Kelly's essay, the discussion assesses whether societies can reach accomodation over values, perhaps so that the ideal of faith in God is not the sine qua non for a life of virtue. Specifically, we could reject the notion that non-believers are automatically nihilist, and Kelly cites the great American novelist Herman Melville for inspiration. So yes, the debate might continue. But for me it's not so much faith per se, but that of commitment itself to the pursuit of the good, and what we've seen repeatedly is how the left rejects that goodness, and when leftists can't win fair and square they resort to dishonestly, intimidation and violence. As Kelly notes earlier in the essay: "The threat of nihilism is the threat that freedom from the constraint of agreed upon norms opens up new possibilities in the culture only through its fundamentally destabilizing force."

And one of those agreed commitments is that we treat those of different races with respect --- that is, we don't abuse them with racist attacks and, even worse, defend those attacks with the most reprehensible evasions and distortions of truth imaginable. But unfortunately, that's the going program at RepRacist3's dungeon of nihilist hatred, where folks there think of me as the opposite of albino Johnny Winter. Nope, no colorblindness at RepRacist3's stalking nihilist asshat central:

These are bad people, well outside the accepted normative commitments of decency and right in society.

GOP Rolls Out Strategy of Confrontation

At LAT, "GOP Resolve Dominates the Agenda in Congress":

Republicans rolled out a confrontational, no-compromise strategy this week that may carry long-term risks, but has put them in position to dominate the lame-duck session of Congress and marginalize President Obama's agenda.

Among congressional Republicans, confidence levels are so high that they are barreling over what might be considered standard political traps. As they fight to preserve tax cuts for the wealthiest taxpayers, for instance, they are prepared to let unemployment insurance benefits run out for 2 million jobless Americans unless offsetting spending cuts can be found.

Republican Senate leaders on Wednesday threatened to derail a bill that had previously received bipartisan backing — a food-safety measure — on the grounds that nothing should move until a deal on tax cuts is reached.

The White House and congressional Democrats have been largely reduced to symbolic responses, such as House passage Thursday of an extension of middle-class tax cuts. Republicans in the Senate have vowed to block it because it did not include an extension for the wealthy.

The Democratic bill was greeted scornfully by Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R- Ohio), who described the exercise as "chicken crap."

Yeah. And progressive heads exploded at that.

More later.

Meanwhile follow developments at Memeorandum and The Other McCain.