Category: folly

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crime and punishment folly general freedom ideological culture media and media people national politics & policies

Shadow Boxing with “Nazis”

Ben Shapiro, Jane Coaston, The New York Times, Nazis, violence, free speech, First Amendment

Voltaire’s prayer, “make my enemies ridiculous,” has been granted to Ben Shapiro.

The New York Times has graced its pages with the writings of one Jane Coaston, who, in “The Hollow Bravery of Ben Shapiro,” accuses the brilliant intellectual pugilist Mr. Shapiro for “shadow boxing meant to pander to his conservative fans.” 

And while she admits the truth that “campuses tend to be hostile places to conservatives like Mr. Shapiro, Charles Murray and Heather Mac Donald,” she insists that “the notion that they are the cultural underdogs is bogus.”

Failing to back up her “cultural underdog” thesis in any way, Coaston’s essay wanders off, evading the street and campus violence by leftist activists who, until recently, were given de facto license by mayors and college administrators to shout down, beat up and “de-​platform” people they called “fascists.”

By just glossing over all this, Ms. Coaston is pandering to her audience — certainly not challenging it, which is precisely what she accuses Mr. Shapiro of doing.

Amusingly, I noticed this journalist arguing earlier this year that “you should punch Nazis in the goddang face.”

But Antifa and other “Nazi-​punchers” aren’t in the habit of sending out questionnaires before planting fist to face or bike lock to noggin. 

Which brings us to the ridiculous. She minimizes the extent to which Ben Shapiro and others have been threatened (and their fans violently attacked) by mobs shouting against “fascism” and “Nazis.” And yet she provided not merely the intellectual ammunition for this practice, she provided the declaration of war.

Maybe she has a career in politics.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Categories
folly general freedom ideological culture media and media people moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies Popular Regulating Protest U.S. Constitution

Force Over Persuasion

free speech, BLM, Black Lives Matter, tolerance, censorship

Today’s campus radicals assert that free speech is bad because it “gives voice” to people with hateful, dangerous views.

Does that argument seem at all familiar? It is the old RightThink rationale for censorship.

A recent Spiked “Unsafe Spaces” event at Rutgers (“Identity Politics: the New Racialism”) was interrupted by now-​too-​famiar shouts and out-​of-​turn questions and invective. Kmele Foster, one of the panelists, had been explaining how important free speech rights were to the civil rights protesters in the 1960s, and to Martin Luther King in particular.

At “that precise moment,” as Reason’s Matt Welch puts it, the shouts of “Black lives matter!” began. And continued.

But more interesting than this bullying? Some of the more coherent theses articulated by the interrupters. One woman, CampusReform relates,

yelled in response to the panelists that she doesn’t “need statistics,” later complaining that “the system” controls facts.

“It’s the system. It’s the institution,” she said. “Don’t tell me about facts. I don’t need no facts.”

Well, the moment you prove immune to any fact is the exact point in time that you’ve given up on rationality, free inquiry, and maybe even civilization itself.

It’s so 1984-ish.

And it demonstrates the old idea that, when you can no longer reason or allow others to express different opinions … or even discuss the factuality of this or that contention, you have only one other option: force. 

Become bully.

Or tyrant.

Civilization is the triumph of persuasion over force. Being against free speech is to reverse that.

The acme of barbarism.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability folly ideological culture insider corruption media and media people moral hazard national politics & policies responsibility too much government

Choice Corruption

Harvey Weinstein, donor, democrats, corruption, sex scandal, boycott,

What is corruption? said no jesting Pilate ever. 

But please, stay for an answer.

A week ago, Jimmie Moore pleaded guilty to filing a false campaign finance report in order to conceal a $90,000 payment to drop out of a congressional race. Moore is a former Philadelphia judge (heavens). The nearly one-​hundred-​grand came from the incumbent he was challenging: Congressman Bob Brady (D‑Pa.).

Moore, who implicated Rep. Brady in the scheme, now faces as many as five years in prison. Brady, for his part, has yet to be charged.

A pro-​life politician’s 15-​year tenure in Congress has ended. Tim Murphy (R‑Pa.) has resigned following revelations that he had urged the woman with whom he was having an extramarital affair to have an abortion. Additional bad behavior — “a culture of abuse and a culture of corruption” in his congressional office — was detailed in an in-​depth Politico exposé.

But for the biggest scandal story, go Hollywood. Movie mogul Harvey Weinstein has been ousted from The Weinstein Company upon allegations that he had committed criminal sexual assaults for decades. As a huge donor to the Democratic Party, questions abound. Which Democrats had knowledge of Weinstein’s behavior and yet remained silent?

That ‘look the other way’ rot has already spread to a media/​entertainment institution: Saturday Night Live. Last Saturday night, observers were surprised that SNL did not feature even one joke at liberal Weinstein’s expense. 

“It’s a New York thing,” quipped Producer Lorne Michaels when questioned about the omission.*

I’m not big on launching boycotts at every turn. But how could anyone who values evenhandedness turn on SNL next Saturday — or the following — as if nothing had happened?

Who needs these jesters covering for corruption?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

 

* Audience members at a rehearsal said there had been a Weinstein joke, which garnered a big laugh, but it was apparently pulled from the live broadcast.

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Accountability folly general freedom ideological culture media and media people national politics & policies

Throwing in (and out) the Towel(s)

symbolism, crying, outrage, Hurricane Irma, gaffe, ideology, Trump

There is a time and a place for everything. Including the truth.

You do not proclaim that Uncle Eben was a skinflint miser and a sour old puss at his funeral. (You wait for the reading of the Will.)

Immediately upon Puerto Ricans coming up for air, after the devastation of Hurricane Irma, President Trump went for a visit. At one point, he threw paper towels out at a crowd, as if he were a sports star throwing … cloth towels. And he noted, after a pro forma expression of regret at loss of life, how shockingly low was the number of deaths.

For these and other such “gaffes” Trump has been roundly, hysterically criticized. 

But a good portion of the American people has ceased to care about such matters. Sure, Trump says some worse-​than-​inelegant things, gives new twists to “photo opp.” But the over-​reaction on the left and in the media (but I repeat myself) seems to have completely inoculated vast hunks of American humanity — who now choose to see the humor in all this.

It’s time, at last, to learn a new lesson: Political Man does not live by symbols alone.

No matter how hard he (she/​zhe?) tries.

In today’s political environment, it might help us all if we gave up the symbolic battles and discussed actual policies and principles. After all, the substantive ideological divide is deep enough.

It seems certain: continued over-​reaction in the Symbolism Department will prove feckless.

Americans increasingly don’t give a feck.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability folly ideological culture national politics & policies responsibility

Politics as Painfully Usual

deficit, congress, budget, folly, Medicare, tax cuts, fiscal responsibility

The crazed nature of our leaders’ willingness to spend beyond revenue, and accumulate debt, is not limited to one party. Both Democrats and Republicans are responsible for their outrageously perverse fiscal policies. 

Their irresponsibility hides in plain view, and can be seen in most of the major policy discussions of our time. Take two: 

  1. the Democrats’ idea of putting every American on Medicare and 
  2. the Republicans’ current tax reduction bill.

Though the Republicans often pretend to be all about something called “fiscal conservatism,” their murky tax plan is not fiscally sound. Not yet, anyway — after all, it is “evolving.”

And I expect it to get worse, not better.

“The current plan proposes about $5.8 trillion in tax reduction offset by about $3.6 trillion in base-​broadening offsets, meaning that it would result in a $2.2 trillion deficit increase over the next decade,” Peter Suderman summarizes over at Reason.

They have a number of cuts in the works, but also plan to spend more on defense and the like. The debt would go up.

But if the Republicans are hypocritical and irresponsible, the Democrats add sheer insanity to their irresponsibility. 

“Medicare for All” is pushed by Senator Bernie Sanders, who serves Vermont, where a similar universal system was enacted, only to be repealed after it proved unaffordable even with huge tax increases. All single-​payer/​socialized medicine proposals would require whopping tax increases to work, and the increases in spending would inevitably yield greater deficits.

Besides, Medicare is heading for financial Armageddon. Adding more burdens to a system that they cannot (or simply will not) now make solvent? 

Only a politician could consider such a “solution.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Art by John Goodridge on Flickr

 

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folly ideological culture media and media people national politics & policies

A Special Place in Heck?

Hillary Clinton, Trump voters, Trump, women, woman, vote, election, democracy,

Former First Lady scolds women for not voting … for a former First Lady.

Yes, “Michelle Obama,” the BBC headlined last week, “scolds female Trump voters.”

Need you ask why? You probably have already guessed.

“Any woman who voted against Hillary Clinton voted against their own voice,” Mrs. Obama remarked at a Boston conference.

Though a majority of women who voted cast their ballots for Mrs. Clinton, a slightly smaller majority of white women voted for Donald Trump.

And to those women who did not vote for Hillary? “Well, to me that just says, you don’t like your voice.”

The idea that one woman candidate can serve as “the voice” for all women is not merely absurd. It is sexist. But it is something that this most recent First Lady shares with the former First Lady who just lost a major election. Yes, Hillary Clinton has said much the same kind of thing. And Madeline Albright, Secretary of State under Clinton’s husband’s command, famously argued “there is a special place in hell” for women who refuse to toe the line and vote Clinton II.

Heck, there is a special place for women who think, appraise and choose against social pressure: America. Here people matter as individuals, as persons, not as members of their race, religion, sex, or … political party.

But the arrogance of these women leaders shows no understanding of effrontery. “You like the thing you’re told to like,” Mrs. Obama belittled female Trump voters.

Truth is: women were repeatedly told to like Hillary for president. But they refused to do as they were told, which is why Mrs. Clinton and Mrs. Obama are attacking them.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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