Memo to the NRA:

Attorney General Eric Holder says the Obama administration wants to reinstate the ban on sales of assault weapons. Aside from this being a predictable outcome of the general election, unlikely to decrease violent crime anywhere, and will mainly just make the NRA mad, am I wrong to engage in a little headscratching over its intended purpose, i.e. to help Mexico control drug warfare? We're going to enact sweeping gun control in America to help...Mexico? Come on. I'm sure the anti-gun lobby can produce a better argument than that!

But don't worry. I'm sure it's just another one of those mythical laws. It'll never happen, so don't start your postcard campaign [until it's too late to produce any opposition momentum, *snicker snort*].

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Hair

I know she thinks it's neat, but making clothes out of human hair just isn't tasteful; it's frankly pretty weird. It's not even efficient (considering that you don't have to wait 40 years to get your cotton or wool or linen--even if we disregard the manufacture of synthetic fibers), and therefore isn't thrifty, either.

I suppose it is one way to get into the record--or history--books. But kudos to Ms. Cioanca for using her own hair.

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Freedom, Relatively Speaking

Right, Left, and Center are relative terms, as today's editorial page in the Wall Street Journal reminds (Obama Wants to Move the Center Left). The policy territory of the left and right shifts with time, of course, resulting in some degree of conceptual fluidity. The terms "Right" and "Left" have roots in the French National Assembly after the Revolution of 1789 and have come to dominate political short hand ever since. Despite their dominance in political discourse, the terms possess almost limitless power to confuse.

Consider, for instance, that I once heard John Ashcroft was described as a "Fascist" because he advocated and enforced the Patriot Act (none of which rise to the level of totalitarian control), which allowed in some cases warrantless wiretapping and mandated communication between various intelligence agencies, like the CIA and FBI. While it's true that Fascists made heavy use of domestic intelligence and surveilance, notoriously to ferret out and exterminate Jews, Soviet Communists used similar methods for only slightly different ends. For a tour de force on why the use of "fascism" to describe inherently right-wing politics is not only confusing but in many ways simply dishonest, I recommend taking a look at Jonah Goldberg's recent book, Liberal Fascism.

I thing Goldberg is largely correct to argue that both Fascism (National Socialism) and Communism (Leninism-Stalinism) are both creatures of the Left, with a few real distinctions, notably that the former did not seek to absolutely abolish the concept of private property. But perhaps the single most important distinction between the paradigmatic 20th century ideologies is that Fascism believed in a mythical and utopian past, while Communism postulated a mythical and utopian future. I don't want to spend a lot of time untangling the "left" from the "right" because in some ways it's a pointless exercise, and because I'm probably one of the least qualified to attempt it.

But there's a point to be made here. Eric Hoffer, an odd character but also an incisive observer of the 20th century ideologies, concluded that the important dichotomy to be made was between "mass movements" and "autonomy." He became deeply suspicious of all collective endeavors (including Nationalism, Fascism, and Communism) and resolved that only when a person had ceased to have expectations of the future could he be truly autonomous and thus resist the perilous plunge into collective endeavor. Though his ideal of radical autonomy is both impractical and probably hazardous to mental and emotional health, Hoffer rightly faulted the emotional weakness of human beings and their susceptibility to inspiration, because those features, combined with economic and social instabilities achieved radical and destructive reorganizations of society. And in the case of Germany, the existence of a democratic system proved to be no great hindrance.

While Hoffer's ideal of absolute personal autonomy (including radical 'presentism' or lack of expectation for the future) is undoubtedly impossible, even undesirable, there are two valuable things we can learn from his argument. First, that the potential for totalitarianism exists within "backwards" and autocratic societies (like Russia) as well as within Western democratic societies. Second, that the natural alternative to collectivization is self-reliance.

So, while Obama may have some difficulty shifting the "center" of American politics "leftward" (defining the shift will prove a herculean task in its own right), I think we've already seen that Americans, like most of Western Civilization, are prone to give up their (relative) autonomy in exchange for economic security from the national government. That's why the epic waste of a "Stimulus" package was signed into law less than 30 days from its writing and why American banking is being incrementally nationalized. As with many of Obama's hopes, this one is largely rhetorical: the shift in favor of collectivization began long before he took office. That is the story of the "first" New Deal, which began, unsurprisingly, during the same decade in which Germany gave up its freedom to a dictator promising economic health, political and military dominance, and a recovery of national greatness.

Beware the totalitarian temptation.

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Racism Talk

This morning as I surveyed the news a relatively small story caught my eye:

BOSTON -- The man who identified himself as the "cooperating witness" in a bribery sting that led to charges against a former Massachusetts state senator and a Boston city councilor says he will no longer help federal authorities.

His reason? He couldn't participate in sending any white people to jail:

Businessman Ronald Wilburn tells The Boston Globe he was used by the FBI to topple two black politicians, while four months after the first arrest, no white officials have been charged.

Now it's entirely possible that Mr. Wilburn knows some white folks who ought to go to jail with Dianne Wilkerson (who is famous for having been caught stuffing money into her bra) but won't for some specious reason, but I can't help thinking he sounds remarkably spiteful all the same.

This prompts me to reflect on the furor blowing over Attorney General Eric Holder's remarks to employees at the Justice Department. To review: Holder contends that since Americans don't talk about race very much, we have a "nation of cowards" and that until we become courageous enough to personally chat about race, we'll continue to have problems with racism.

What Holder said is offensive certainly, though that shouldn't prevent us from facing the possibility of its truth. The fact of the matter is, however, that Americans are constantly bombarded with chatter about race. The subject isn't taboo at all. But being honest about it seems very much against the dictates of political correctness. Racial disparities in everything are supposedly caused by racism. But what if that's not at all the case? What if that assumption prevents us from examining more likely causes?

Heather MacDonald took up this line of argument in her characteristically erudite way in yesterday's City Journal. It's worth a careful read. She cites several items Holder ought to consider addressing with an openness to causes other than racist attitudes: the electorate, crime statistics, education, and the family. Here's what she says about education:

Commentators on NPR’s “black” show, News and Notes, recently groused about the lack of black policy experts on the Sunday talk shows but ignored the possibility that the education gap might have something to do with it. Blacks, they said, need to be twice as qualified as whites to get a job. Let’s look at the evidence. The black high school drop-out rate approaches 50 percent. On the 2006 SAT, the average score in the critical-reading section was 434 for blacks, 527 for whites, and 510 for Asians; in the math section, 429 for blacks, 536 for whites, and 587 for Asians; and in the writing section, 428 for blacks, 519 for whites, and 512 for Asians. America’s lousy showing in international math, science, and reading tests compared with Japan and Western Europe is influenced in large part by the low scores of blacks and Hispanics. If blacks and Hispanics performed at the level that whites do, the U.S. would lead all industrialized nations in reading and would lead Europe in math and science, according to a study published in the Phi Delta Kappan in 2005.
Likewise, after their first year of legal education, 51 percent of blacks labor in the bottom tenth of their class; two-thirds reside in the bottom fifth. Blacks are four times as likely as whites to fail the bar exam on the first try. Until such achievement disparities are eliminated, any allegations of racial discrimination in the absence of proportional numbers of black policy wonks—or law partners, chemists, engineers, or investment bankers—is absurd, especially when the nation’s elite institutions are doing everything they can to recruit black students, professors, and employees. Perhaps Holder could confront the stigma against academic achievement among many black youth, who deride studying and staying out of trouble as “acting white."

Until all people are judged by the "content of their character" (as Martin Luther King Jr. said was his goal) we'll continue to be a nation of cowards. But today's standards of political correctness forbid exactly that: individual character should always be left completely unevaluated, while mere statistical disparity is pronounced to be clear evidence of societal injustice. In reality, the really cowardly thing is to avoid the truth for fear of giving offense.

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Why We Love Texas

I know Texans can be sort of snooty about their rough and ready independent style, but you have to admit: they do some pretty good political theater down there.

Get a load of this.

It begins:

CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
WHEREAS, The Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the
United States reads as follows: "The powers not delegated to the
United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the
States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people";
and
WHEREAS, The Tenth Amendment defines the total scope of
federal power as being that specifically granted by the
Constitution of the United States and no more; and
WHEREAS, The scope of power defined by the Tenth Amendment
means that the federal government was created by the states
specifically to be an agent of the states; and
WHEREAS, Today, in 2009, the states are demonstrably treated
as agents of the federal government...

It gets better, so read it all.

(h/t Derbyshire)

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Making Our Streets Safer

Boston, MA:

Late Monday afternoon, a courageous woman confronted her sub machine gun-toting attacker and disarmed him before he could fire a shot. She then held him until authorities could arrive.

***

But the authorities didn’t arrive. The woman stomped off with the weeping attacker in her arms as she said in angry tones, “I tried to tell you nicely! I don’t like those things in my car!” The unhappiness of a toddler seems a small price to pay for the strong intolerance we all must show for resort to violence.

This is the sort of nonsense that passes for politically correct morality these days. It’s nonsense precisely because violence has legitimate uses in society—or we wouldn’t tolerate the holsters that complement police officer uniforms. Instead of forbidding guns, why not make the effort to thoughtfully address the ugly things we find in every human heart?

The answer, I think, is one that ought to make us ashamed of the culture we’ve developed. Our public philosophy is built around the single imperative to be “non-judgmental,” so there is no socially acceptable way to address matters of the heart. The only permissible means of altering behavior are external, so we ban guns and take the plastic ones away from toddlers. Similar thoughts have led us also to frustrate parents’ attempts to mold children’s moral sense. We have declared that spanking and all other forms of corporal punishment are species of the violence we make such a self-righteous show of abhorring. But there is no malice in spanking, as there is in assault, rape, and murder.

The unspoken, and perhaps unimagined, purpose behind this external view and symptom-focused solution to violence is to make an internal morality superfluous and unnecessary. It seems to me that our world is desperate to cling to the belief that man is inherently blameless and good, even if we must put him in chains to prove it. What madness is this?

Is it not more noble to believe that the human being ought to learn self-control and moral goodness in order to be a steward of his physical freedom?

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Wilder's Ride

Geert Wilders was expelled forcibly from England because of his bizarre views of Islam. Or so some say:

Thanks to the Government’s ban, Mr Wilders - who allows no room for debate about his strident anti-Islamist views - could not be exposed for his own intolerance. He has instead claimed the moral high ground by calling the Government “cowards”. Even moderate Muslims seemed to play into his hands: the ban was supported by the Muslim Council of Britain.

If Mr. Wilders is as kooky as they say he is (and he just might be), then why isn't the Muslim world laughing at him and his ridiculous statements?

They're not, and that should give us pause.

Wilders is not advocating tolerance of the Muslim faith. Oh, no! He sees in Islam a civilizational threat to the free West, and one to be confronted, arrested, and defeated. Does this mean he must be known to us as an enemy of freedom?

Some would argue that it makes him a very dangerous enemy of freedom. Others, like Bruno Waterfield, say that while Wilders is no exponent of free speech, he still has a right to say his piece:

An elected European politician was invited by a British parliamentarian (albeit an unelected one) to speak in Westminster's House of Lords (albeit a chamber that should be scrapped).

There is a convention here, and it is an important one, that governments do not interfere in such contacts unless a threat to security is a clear and present danger.

Britain has smashed this convention to bits.

Indeed.

If you're curious about what Wilders was going to say to the British Parliament, you can read it on Diana West's blog. It is no very inspiring bit of statesmanship, but it makes an argument we should consider: if we would keep the West free, there are certain things we cannot tolerate, and Islam should join the ranks of Facism and Communism as being one of them.

Wilders may be wrong, certainly. But we should at least make it permissible to admit he may be right.

I think I'm going to re-read The Flying Inn, a fanciful 1914 novel by G.K. Chesterton. He, at least, understood that there was an enormous clash between Islamic and Western civilizations--and his novel was the grimly humorous result. Maybe Wilders should read it too. He'd have at least one companion in the form of Patrick Dalroy, I daresay. Though I fancy Dalroy was a smidge cleverer.

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Oh, Big Boxmart, Will You Hire Me?

I have a confession to make. I'm half ashamed of this, but I enjoyed JibJab's lampoon of Wal-Mart. It was funny, as just about everything JibJab produces is. See it for yourself (also see if you can forego an involuntary chuckle).

Nevertheless, since I first saw it I've thought it both unjust and untruthful. Which makes it bad. But it's useful as a caricature of how it has become popular to view Wal-Mart. The irony is that this doesn't seem to impact Wal-Mart's bottom line, so I wonder how many people really believe that Wal-Mart is evil.

I wasn't the only one to wonder, as it turns out. Charles Platt wrote an interesting first-hand account of his new appreciation for the big-box store. He details his experiences as an entry-level employee at the retailing giant, from the hiring process to daily work. Among the interesting tidbids are the remarkable number of applicants to work at Wal-Mart, the autonomy that employees generally have on the sales floor, and the active encouragement given to self-improvement and customer satisfaction.

When he settles into describing the much-impugned (and clearly low) hourly wages of Wal-Mart employees, he recalls that co-workers had found other retail jobs to pay much less. He goes on to observe what is much more worthy of our concern:

The blunt tools of legislation or union power can force a corporation to pay higher wages, but if employees don't create an equal amount of additional value, there's no net gain. All other factors remaining equal, the store will have to charge higher prices for its merchandise, and its competitive position will suffer.

This is Economics 101, but no one wants to believe it, because it tells us that a legislative or unionized quick-fix is not going to work in the long term. If you want people to be wealthier, they have to create additional wealth.

To my mind, the real scandal is not that a large corporation doesn't pay people more. The scandal is that so many people have so little economic value. Despite (or because of) a free public school system, millions of teenagers enter the work force without marketable skills. So why would anyone expect them to be well paid?

That, indeed, is tragic! The swipe Platt takes at union power is apt, though. I recently spoke to a very contented union employee of Verizon. He loved being a technician, he said, but he really liked the union-secured benefits.

"My employer offered me the opportunity to become an engineer--even paying for school--but I decided it wasn't worth it. Sure, I'd get a 100% match for the first 8% of contributions to my 401(k), but I'd have to give up my pension. Managers and engineers don't get pensions--they're not in the union. I like being a technician, and the benefits are better than what the salaried positions get."

While I'm all in favor of doing a job you love, I can't help shaking my head. Someone evidently thought this man could achieve more with his innate abilities, but the union's benefits actively discouraged his upward mobility. Whatever else unions may do, they certainly don't add value to employees and make them more competitive in the job-market. On the contrary, it shelters them from competition and keeps them from advancing intellectually or skills-wise.

Wal-Mart, it turns out, is far from being a sinister bogeyman, running 'honest factory workers' out of their jobs, but demonstrates an extremely efficient retailing model. Perhaps Wal-Mart is, as Platt says, "the best friend we could ask for."

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Don't We?

Senator Chuck Schumer doesn't think Americans care about earmarks:




Perhaps the Senator from New York has forgotten that he doesn't speak for Americans in general, but for New Yorkers. Perhaps he has forgotten that one of the favorite topics of John McCain and Sarah Palin was earmarks, and that they garnered over 40% of the popular vote.

Nah. I'd say he's a pretty smart guy.
Maybe he's just hoping really, really, really hard that we're not watching this on YouTube.

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Three Commuters on the Train Platform

I overheard a short exchange concerning the Stimulus Package this morning while waiting for the train to arrive:

Commuter 1: “…because it’s actually two separate bills, and the House and the Senate have to meet in some kind of committee before they can send it on to him.”
Commuter 2: “Yeah. Isn’t that funny? I never knew they had to do that before. It’s amazing how we have a government that allows so much involvement from citizens, but we didn’t really pay attention.”
Commuter 3: “Um, yeah. I know. But we have a president now who has open disclosure about everything! It’s on YouTube and podcasts and radio and TV and all. He wants us to know what’s going on. And he doesn’t say ‘we’; he says ‘I’. I like that.”

And I’ll bet you can’t guess which one of these comments was made by the 20-something-year-old high-school teacher.

Isn't it ironic that in the midst of all the transparency, the "open" president is trying to rush a Stimulus bill through Congress so fast we still don't really know what's in it?

For example, did you know that:

Your medical treatments will be tracked electronically by a federal system. Having electronic medical records at your fingertips, easily transferred to a hospital, is beneficial. It will help avoid duplicate tests and errors.

But the bill goes further. One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and “guide” your doctor’s decisions (442, 446). These provisions in the stimulus bill are virtually identical to what Daschle prescribed in his 2008 book, “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.” According to Daschle, doctors have to give up autonomy and “learn to operate less like solo practitioners.”

Keeping doctors informed of the newest medical findings is important, but enforcing uniformity goes too far.

I quite agree. There's more commentary where that came from.

It's time for the Stimulus to stall while we figure out what's in it. More transparency please.

UPDATE:

Here's another example of some not-quite-transparent Obama shenanigans: politicizing the census. John Fund writes at the Journal:

"There's only one reason to have that high level of White House involvement," a career professional at the Census Bureau tells me. "And it's called politics, not science."

Obama? Partisan? Nah. Can't be!

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Politics Of Fear

During the last administration (of the dreaded warmonger Bush the Terrible), I don't think a week passed that I didn't hear some complaint about how the Republicans were manipulating the public with what they termed "the politics of fear." The problem, according to our left-wing friends, was that the administration was playing Oil-Pong with public money and national good-will, and scaring us into footing the bill. They were hopping mad--and many still are.

But it turns out they don't actually object to the politics of fear. Al Gore produced a film predicting the end of the world and Jim Hansen said we have only four years to reverse catastrophic climate change--or it'll be too late. And now President Obama threatens that the economy will collapse if the government doesn't do something huge and right away. The situation is so dire that we can't afford to debate a debt-financed government expenditure that will double the national deficit at a stroke.

It gives a whole new meaning to the old "carrot-and-stick" approach to diplomacy. Applied to domestic policy a la hopeandchange, Obama traipses all over the American landscape for two solid years telling everyone that the era of fear is over and that 'we are the ones we've been waiting for', that hope has arrived at long last and change is on the way. And like a collectively sensible ass, we lurched after the carrot. But fewer than 20 days after the inauguration we're rubbing our backsides as we get the stick--if we don't pass this gargantuan stimulus right now, we're going to lose our jobs.

So much for the end of the politics of fear.

That's not to say that fear isn't an entirely rational response, or that the politics of fear is always illegitimate. In fact, Saturday's post (Courage!) was an argument from the premise that our fear of economic recession is entirely justified. But it also recognized that government is not a net "producer" economically speaking. Some of its economic functions are indispensable (i.e. providing a forum for the remedying property disputes, as in tort law), but on the whole, government does not actually create wealth. Prosperity is the result of a net-productive population.

There is more to this argument, but it will keep for another day. But for our purposes here, let us recognize that this central fact about the productivity of government is lost in the current scramble. We have a big problem, so we need a big solution. And since we need a big solution, we need a big agent. Which leaves us with the Federal Government. Apparently.

I had a lengthy discussion with a friend of mine recently in which he admitted that the government bears some of the responsibility for the economic crisis but...you guessed it: government is the only thing that can inject enough liquidity to make the economy recover. No matter that it previously bungled economic policy by creating perverse incentives in the housing-loan market, it's a "big problem" requiring a "big solution" which only a "big government" can provide.

With blind faith like this being treated like prudence, I'd say nationalization of the whole economy is all-but-inevitable. I think it's safe to say I'm thoroughly terrified.

Here's to the Politics of Fear.

Courage!

I'm with Jonah. This is creepy. But it isn't just creepy: it's shallow and unfounded feel-goodism masquerading as courageous hope.

Establishing the ideal of self-government is a remarkably difficult thing; it is only slightly less difficult than retaining it. Too easily to we reverence the man and forget that his office has limits prescribed by a document more than 200 years old. The Constitution requires that each look to himself first...but we are more democratic now. The tyranny of mob-rule lurks in every corner.

Agent Kay was right: people are indeed "dumb panicky dangerous animals". There are few indeed who will not jump at the chance to be saved from the responsibilities of liberty. But lest we think wavering courage in the face of uncertain times a creature peculiar to our own times, we have only to seek the reconstructed text of a speech that graces our public vocabulary with the remembered phrase, "Give me liberty or give me death!"

Patrick Henry spoke in 1775, less than a month before the famous battles of Lexington and Concord, and without the benefit of hindsight. The temptations of illusory hope were as real then as they are now, and faced with a choice between the endless economic growth regardless of irresponsible credit, and immediate economic ruin with the hope of recovery on more solid ground, we should stand with Henry in considering this a choice between liberty and slavery. Like Henry, we should declare that, "whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it."

We face a reckoning for economic sins that no amount of credit or expenditure can avert, for indeed they are at the roots of the problem! Demanding that the biggest and most lascivious spender of us all spend yet more so that we may be absolved is but the vomiting of an alcoholic unwilling to be sobered. We ought to be ashamed.

If we must face penury, we will teach our children thrift. But let our proud cry be heard: "Only let me be free, and I shall be glad to be poor!"

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Saving The West

People struggle to define what they believe only when they are challenged seriously. That's not always a fault, but it's certainly a fact. It should come as no surprise, then, that some in the West are trying to define the heart and soul of Western Civilization even at this late date. I highly recommend this very thoughtful piece by Roger Scruton at City Journal.

Though the West has been seriously challenged repeatedly throughout its history, most of the threats have come from Western Civilization itself, as in the twin 20th century cases of extreme nationalism and totalitarian socialism prove. We have yet to finish dealing with those two catastrophic strands of Western thought, but we are nowhere close to grasping the heart of our newest struggle (even as we approach a decade of explicit awareness) with Islamic terrorism, or as it is alternately known, radical Islamism.

It is with this new struggle that Scruton is concerned, and he makes a reasonable argument for the central place that forgiveness and irony occupy in Western culture. He further contends that the idea of citizenship, so central to post-Enlightenment governance, cannot replace "social membership" or stand for a deeply personal "brotherhood". Citizenship, he says, is only really good for providing a basis for conflict-resolution.

I would put the case more strongly still: the Enlightenment in its approach to the concept of secular citizenship actually took for granted the social benefits of Christianity while repudiating the institutional well from which they spring. And so I would argue that one cannot reap the benefits of Judeo-Christian tradition (i.e. forgiveness) without first accepting the source of the tradition. So what Scruton really needs is a re-Christianization of the West.

But even if we disagree about that, he's certainly right about his characterization of the existential struggle we face with radical Islamism:

The confrontation that we are involved in is thus not political or economic; it is not the first step toward a negotiation or a calling to account. It is an existential confrontation. The question put to us is: “What right do you have to exist?” By answering, “None whatsoever,” we invite the reply, “That’s what I thought.” An answer can avert the threat only by facing it down; and that means being absolutely convinced that we do have a right to exist and that we are prepared to concede an equal right to our opponents, though only on condition that the concession is mutual. No other strategy has a remote chance of succeeding.

Indeed, Islamic terrorists are utterly implacable. They are to be opposed on every front and in every conceivable way. Even in our favorite mode--that of reasonable negotiation--they are searching for ways to undermine our very existence. Only by denying them their object at every turn can we ultimately triumph over this enemy of the West.

Scruton concludes that our "culture of repudiation" is wrecking the West and that a renewed consciousness of what makes Western Civilization great is the bedrock on which a strong and successful defence against Islamic terror must be built:

[W]e should emphasize the very great virtues and achievements that we have built on our legacy of tolerance and show a willingness to criticize and amend all the vices to which it has also given undue space. We should resurrect Locke’s distinction between liberty and license and make it absolutely clear to our children that liberty is a form of order, not a license for anarchy and self-indulgence. We should cease to mock the things that mattered to our parents and grandparents, and we should be proud of what they achieved. This is not arrogance but a just recognition of our privileges.
We should also drop all the multicultural waffling that has so confused public life in the West and reaffirm the core idea of social membership in the Western tradition, which is the idea of citizenship. By sending out the message that we believe in what we have, are prepared to share it, but are not prepared to see it destroyed, we do the only thing that we can do to defuse the current conflict.

Undoubtedly our struggle to define Western Civilization in opposition to current threats will continue, but Scruton's argument for the recovery--or even rediscovery--of the enduring foundations of the West is a good stroke in the right direction.

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Family Matters...and Marijuana

Some really big news came out this week: Michael Phelps admitted to smoking dope.

Maybe I’m just numb to this sort of thing, but come on people! Is this really news? It fits the template of athletic elites behaving badly perfectly! In fact, it fits the template of celebrities behaving badly. And the template of the materially successful behaving badly too! So why are people upset? Or to put it more accurately in this case, why is it such big news that it's not big news ("shrugs" and "perspective" are common themes in reports, but there is still a regular feeding frenzy around the event)?

Remember, now, that Phelps is one of the most decorated Olympians in modern history…and that his much-sought endorsement went not to Wheaties but to Kellogg’s Frosted Corn Flakes. But before he made Olympic history with 8 gold medals in 2008 (does anybody doubt that there are too many separate swimming events?), he ate like no athlete should—pizza and eggs galore, he seemed to have no concern whatsoever for the volume of fat and cholesterol he consumed (not that that's a bad thing--it just isn't very "correct"). Everybody knew we had a live one on quite a while ago. So why is there angst?

No less than Kathleen Parker argues that the problem is we’ve made marijuana illegal and we shouldn’t have. Despite Parker’s terrible treatment of Sarah Palin (I’m still not over that!), I’ll grudgingly agree that it might be better to have possession and use of the popular weed classed a misdemeanor rather than a felony, but surely this won’t explain what’s at the heart of the matter? Why would people be upset about it at all?

The reason, I think, has to do largely with the concept of “role models”. The theory goes that since children tend to be fascinated by sports, they’ll also tend to emulate the behavior of high-profile athletes. In practice, however, I would dare to guess that it’s somewhat different: parents, frustrated by the lack of regard their children (often teenagers) show for them, hope against hope that they’ll somehow learn good behavior from the people they admire. Perhaps the hope isn’t wrong, but having any serious expectation that it will work out that way is a serious abdication of parental responsibility.

Parents cannot make their children do good—and even if they could, it would be unwise for them to exercise such control over their progeny. At least one of the goals of good parenting is training children to be self-regulating and responsible people, as well as law-abiding and peace-loving citizens. Children will learn that best from the people they see most often. Against every conceivable appearance, children still get most of their primary impressions about life from their parents.

Is it too much to ask that sports be about sport? We want to see Phelps win the gold, of course, partly because we like to see Americans win, but also in part because we like to see sports played well. But sports cannot stand for all that is good and right; certainly athletes will fail just a we all periodically fail. So let’s avoid projecting our own responsibilities for the moral upbringing of children onto athletes and celebrities and get on with the business of life. If we do, I daresay the dollar value of Phelps’s picture on a box of cereal will plummet significantly. It’s up to us.

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How deep is the doo-doo?

It seems America is in even worse shape than the most alarmist of us thought. I give you Nancy Pelosi:



I guess I became jobless a few days ago...along with literally everybody else.

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Hawthorne on The Fiscal Crisis and Global Warming

Nathaniel Hawthorne, that is. Wait, wait! Listen:

He was one of the martyrs to that terrible delusion, which should teach us, among its other morals, that the influential classes, and those who take upon themselves to be leaders of the people, are fully liable to all the passionate error that has ever characterized the maddest mob. Clergymen, judges, statesmen--the wisest, calmest, holiest persons of their day--stood in the inner circle round about the gallows, loudest to applaud the work of blood, latest to confess themselves miserably deceived.

Hawthorne, of course, refers to the judicial murder of Matthew Maule (for the crime of witchcraft) in The House of The Seven Gables, but I can't help wondering if he didn't put his finger on something important: there is nothing magical about the powers of government. They are wielded by ordinary people with ordinary limitations. They may be very clever politically or rhetorically, but they are mere men and women after all.

With respect to the financial crisis President Obama said in his George Mason University speech,

It is true that we cannot depend on government alone to create jobs or long-term growth. But at this particular moment, only government can provide the short-term boost necessary to lift us from a recession this deep and severe. Only government can break the cycle that is crippling our economy, where a lack of spending leads to lost jobs, which leads to even less spending, where an inability to lend and borrow stops growth and leads to even less credit. [Read the whole text of this speech here.]

I'm not convinced, however. We have witnessed dramatic increase, not decrease, in the government's involvement in economic matters over the past few years, so it strikes me as odd that so many (notably at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland) would fault the "completelyunfettered market" [Angela Merkel's words] for the recent banking crisis. More than likely perverse incentives created by government intrusion set the conditions and wound the clock for collapse. But the template has been struck (just as it was with witch-hunting in Puritan New England) and no sensible objection can be heard above the din of the mob of righteously angry elites.

The same thing has been true for years on the matter of "Global Warming" (or, as it is more popularly known today, "Climate Change"). Despite a demonstrable recent cooling trend, there are those who claim--rather conveniently--that we have only "four years" to fix the mess...or certain doom awaits.

Do I see torches floating ominously through the trees?

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