Category: ideological culture

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crime and punishment ideological culture

Becoming What You Oppose

A bombing, then a shooting. Norwegians reel from the Oslo and Utoya massacres. The casualty count has hit the nineties.

Early reports mentioned jihadist terrorism, but the malefactor appears to be Norwegian, white, and Christian. “It’s not just that Anders Behring Breivik is not a jihadist,” wrote Jesse Walker at Reason.com. “It’s that he hails from the wing of the right that defines itself by its opposition to jihad, and to the leftists that it sees as jihad’s enablers.”

Like so many examples of jihad in the Mideast, Breivik’s “anti-jihad jihad” is as puzzling and self-defeating as was the anarchist “propaganda by the deed” of just over a century ago, as pointless as it is horrific.

What’s worth noting is the demonstration of that too-human propensity to adopt the tactics of one’s enemies. Desperate, hate-filled zealots of Islam commit horrible crimes, indiscriminately killing innocents. Everyone with a lick of sense opposes such horrible actions (including most Muslims). But some people really worked up about this decide not only that “some have got to pay,” but that terrorism itself is worth emulating.

Human history is filled with such irrational over-reaction: feuds, vendettas, even wars.

Norway’s prime minister immediately assured everyone that his government’s reaction will be “more democracy, more openness.” “More democracy” might be vague, but he foreswore naivety, and besides, the sentiment is spot on. We who oppose violence must never resort to matching the criminals’ criminality.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
ideological culture

Another Worthwhile Lesson for Muggles

We in middle-class, muggle America can learn something from Harry Potter.

My daughter got me reading the J.K. Rowling’s fantasy series years ago. I eagerly followed the growth of an 11-year-old to a young man of 18. This “boy who lived” was orphaned as a baby when He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, the evil, dark Lord Voldemort killed Harry’s parents. For seven books, Voldemort tries to kill Harry. For seven books, Rowling imparts some important lessons.

At the end of the second book, the wise headmaster Dumbledore, tells Harry, “It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” The fourth outing even made the case for term limits. “You are blinded,” Dumbledore tells a selfish government minister, “by the love of the office you hold.”

So, when the final movie, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows—Part 2, was released last Friday, I was one of those buying tickets . . . at a cheapskate Sunday showing with two of my kids.

Once again, the movie climaxes with a cogent moral.

Continue reading “Another Worthwhile Lesson for Muggles”

Categories
education and schooling ideological culture

Johnny Can Be Indoctrinated

Government schools in Frederick County, Maryland, deem the third grade the appropriate time to push a political agenda. Cindy Rose found this out when her daughter came down with the flu and read a textbook, Social Studies Alive! Our Community and Beyond, at home.

Mrs. Rose calls the book “socialistic.”

Judge for yourself. On page 104, it reads: “Child care is important, but it is not free for most people in the United States. Families have to pay for child care. It can be very expensive. In some countries, child care is a public service. For example, in Denmark and Vietnam, child care is free or costs very little. This makes it easier for parents to work. Do you think child care should be a public service in your community?”

Rose took her complaint to the school board, which suggested that the book’s slant might be balanced by other materials — but could point to no evidence it was being balanced. Those defending the textbook insist that it teaches critical thinking, but as one school board member asked, “Do you get much pushback from an 8 or 9-year old?”

Only if the book explained marginal utility and the Thomas Theorem would I put much stock in the “critical thinking” excuse.

“The entire slant of the book,” Cindy Rose argues, “is . . . the idea of government running your life.”

Thankfully, my wife homeschools our children. I can tell you that’s not one of the lessons.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
ideological culture too much government U.S. Constitution

The 14th Amendment Escape Clause?

Just as Tea Party representatives begin to bring the Constitution back into vogue, primarily to curb the power and spending of Congress, an innovative interpretation of the 14th Amendment floats around the capital, finding enthusiastic supporters amongst advocates of never-ending debt accumulation.

You see, Congress has limited the debt, by law, since 1917. And has raised that limit umpteen times (ten times this past decade). Now that Tea Party Republicans are using the debt limit to negotiate cuts in spending, the pro-spending forces are becoming frantic.

And clever.

Some of them now argue that Section Four of the 14th Amendment would allow the president to raise the debt limit without Congressional permission. After all, “The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.”

At first blush this makes some sense, until one realizes that the 1917 law is, in fact, “the authorization” mentioned in the very clause — at which point the argument collapses faster than the integrity of politicians in closed session.

Still, the idea of the Executive Branch interposing between Congress and the people — like “state nullification” interposed, in James Madison’s very words, between the federal government and the people — is worth thinking about. And Congress could reinstate the president’s power to “impound” funds designated by Congress that he judges not authorized by the Constitution.

But you won’t find pro-spending forces advocating that.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
free trade & free markets ideological culture national politics & policies

Desperate Times

“War is the health of the state.”

A generation after Randolph Bourne coined this maxim, followers of John Maynard Keynes — the architect of peacetime over-spending by governments — pushed their master’s notions to their illogical conclusion, saying that “war gets a country out an economic slump.” Why? How? You see, only in wartime does government spend so much money, command so many resources.

But War Keynesianism makes little sense. Wars are actually quite bad for the economy — if economy is understood as “people in general.” And though we often hear that “World War II got us out of the Great Depression,” it’s worth noting that times were tight during the war, and that after VE and VJ Days, when the U.S. government pulled back on spending, Keynesian economists feared the country would spiral back into depression. To their surprise, after a short period of adjustment, the economy took off.

Indeed, not only does War Keynesianism make no sense “in theory,” the facts disprove it, as economic historian Robert Higgs has ably and repeatedly demonstrated. And yet, he recently lamented that the truth is just not getting out there: Intellectuals keep pushing the silly doctrine. Sad.

It’s easy to see why, though. Big governments are spinning out of control, and the intellectual case for them is as bankrupt as their own financials. Insider intellectuals are desperate.

War is the ultimate desperate measure.

Today the U.S. is at war in five different countries.*

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan (drone attacks), Yemen (drone attacks)

Categories
ideological culture

Continental Divide

Today’s ideological impasse is not well understood.

To be a modern “liberal” or “progressive” means generally to favor governmental ways of accomplishing things over private ways, especially over voluntary economic transactions.

Programs such as Arizona’s “Clean Elections” law, discussed yesterday — like similar ideas elsewhere — are designed to make “things better” by preventing certain types of voluntary behavior and distributing taxpayer money (forcefully extracted money, mind you) to people who play by certain established rules.

This seems like “justice” and “fairness” to progressives. It seems more like tyranny and bullying and grand theft to me.

The biggest division — the ideological analog of a continental divide — may be the very picture we have of government. Whatever good intent there is, I see government as Force Institutionalized. So, of course I want it limited, by constitutions and whatnot, its scope reduced so that voluntary (non-governmental) interactions can take center stage in our social life.

I believe that paper constitutions are not enough, though, and that government must be checked by Joe and Jill Citizen, who have to live under it, pay taxes to support it, and in good conscience assent (or at least adapt) to its presence in their lives.

Progressives prefer not to look at the “naked force” aspect of government, and see only what they think it can do “for us.” I worry what it will do “to us.” As Tom Paine once wrote, “It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from his government.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
ideological culture initiative, referendum, and recall

What’s Next, Democracy?

Not all votes are democratic, for — as Stalin pointed out — it’s not who votes that counts, but who counts the votes.

Same for “town halls” and public discussions: Politicians regularly hold meetings with constituents the main point of which is to make sure that nothing too challenging gets aired.

This being the case, you might guess my reservations about “deliberative polling” in the “What’s Next California” vein.

This weekend three hundred “randomly selected” Californians gathered in Torrance to undergo what looks to be a three-part process:

  1. Submit to polling on the major issues facing the crisis-ridden state.
  2. Gather to discuss the issues, with fact-sheets in hand, and lecturers to listen to and answer questions.
  3. Submit to polling at the end of the session, to see how many of the participants’ ideas have changed.

Project founder James Fishkin is obviously interested in the initiative process, but just as obviously interested in seeing it lean more towards a “progressive” direction. Of the three opinions on the program featured at Zócalo Public Square, I lean towards Tim Cavanaugh’s: “By combining polling with top-down instruction from a panel of ‘experts,’ deliberative pollsters hope to determine how voting would change if voters’ opinions could be forced into compliance with establishmentarian thinking. . . .”

Athenian-style public deliberation? Not really. The experts aren’t polled, so it’s obvious that they aren’t expected to modify their opinions.

Besides, in a real democracy, the people would do their own research and bring along their own experts.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
ideological culture

Are Canada a Thug Nation?

Has Canada crossed the line? Was the post-hockey rioting in Vancouver the last straw? Should we toss Canada in a cell and throw away the key?

Al Capone once famously claimed he didn’t “even know what street Canada is on.” But I think we know that, kidding aside, Canada is a big and populous place, having somewhere around 34 or 35 million people, almost as many as Binghamton.

At any time, some of these millions are behaving well, others badly. With perhaps a few exceptions that we can debate in psychology class, every individual human being is responsible primarily for his own conduct, not that of anyone else.

So why does a New York Times story, “Hockey Hangover Turns Into Riot Embarrassment,” report that after Canadian thugs went on a rampage when their team lost a hockey game, “a nation that takes pride in its reputation for peaceful coexistence wrestled with questions about possible flaws in the national character”?

First of all, “the nation” didn’t fret about this. Certain people did.

Second, thugs who use sports and team rivalries — or trade agreements or any other grievance — to rationalize random destruction are nothing new in the world. Journalist Bill Buford published a visceral account of the British soccer-thug scene. Read Among the Thugs and you’ll know that the conduct of the rampaging rioters has nothing to do with the “national character” of either most fans or the little old lady down the street.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
ideological culture

Fingernail Adjustment

The oldest method of fraud is the classic merchant’s trick of “putting finger to the scale,” in days before pre-packaging. Buy a pound of grain? Watch the seller’s hands, make sure they’re clear of the measurement device . . .

Some climate scientists might have been engaging in similar rigging of measurement, in this case of the sea’s much-prophesied rise, as FoxNews.com reports:

The University of Colorado’s Sea Level Research Group decided in May to add 0.3 millimeters — or about the thickness of a fingernail — every year to its actual measurements of sea levels, sparking criticism from experts who called it an attempt to exaggerate the effects of global warming.

So, instead of putting a finger on the scales, they’ve put a fingernail’s worth of bias to the data.

The scientists say they have to offset for other factors in the land-sea ratios, and, for all I know, they are correct. But in the context of the “global warming” debate it doesn’t look so good, especially when what we hear from climate change alarmists includes scant talk of complex, offsetting factors. Indeed, in that light, the repeated fingernail addition looks like a piling onto the data, to make the evidence match the prophecy.

Ideally, scientists would not ever dumb down their opinions — or skew their forecasts — to the point where we become suspicious of every complexity they add to their models.

But, as we have learned, we don’t live in an ideal world.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
free trade & free markets ideological culture

Auto Bailouts & Obama Bombast

I never expected a Washington Post writer to so soundly assail a presidential stream of pro-bailout nonsense.

In a “Fact Checker” column entitled “President Obama’s phony accounting on the auto industry bailout,” Glenn Kessler concludes that a “virtually every claim” by the president in recent comments about the auto industry “needs an asterisk, just like the fine print in that too-good-to-be-true car loan.”

President Barack Obama says General Motors will rehire all workers laid off during the recession. But he’s referring to only a sliver of the 68,000 employees General Motors has dropped from its work force since 2006.

Obama says Chrysler has repaid “every dime” it got from taxpayers “during my presidency” — years ahead of schedule. But he omits four billion forked over to Chrysler during the last month of the Bush presidency! So . . . Chrysler has repaid every dime except four billion dollars. (That’s 40 billion dimes, by the way.)

And so forth. Kessler leaves the job of analyzing the wisdom of shoveling billions of taxpayer dollars into the coffers of failing firms to others. So he doesn’t observe that capital forcibly rerouted into “creating jobs” in foundering enterprises cannot be turned to more productive uses in the more successful enterprises from which the capital was grabbed. This is another fact Obama neglects.

It’s not the 2008 presidential campaign any more. Maybe the left-leaning press will no longer automatically bail out Obama when he distorts the truth?

Let’s see where we are in mid-2012.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.