Category: ideological culture

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Accountability ideological culture media and media people moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies

The Revenge of the Gatekeepers

watchers, watchmen, media, fake news, fact check, illustration

We saw glimmerings last year when Twitter began to selectively enforce “policy” against some (Milo Yiannoupolis) and not against others (the hordes of leftists who threatened to assassinate Donald Trump).

You could see it in Hillary Clinton’s campaign; after Trump won, it loomed to eclipse all reason.

And on Thursday I noted Congress’s reaction.

I refer to the hysteria over non-Democratic “memes” and “fake news” that trumped the erstwhile gatekeepers of the Fourth Estate and the political classes — including the lobbying and bureaucratic cliques — and stymied the ascension of Mrs. Clinton to the Most Powerful Office in the Whole Wide World.

Now Facebook has come on board with a way to combat this freewheeling flow of ideas.

Fact-checking.

Hayley Tsukayama, writing in the Washington Post, explained the new program:

The social network is going to partner with the Poynter International Fact-Checking Network, which includes groups such as Snopes, to evaluate articles flagged by Facebook users.

If those articles don’t pass the smell test for the fact-checkers, Facebook will pass on that evaluation with a little label whenever they are posted or shared, along with a link to the organization that debunked the story.

The problem, here, is not a First Amendment issue: Facebook is not the government; when it tampers with your communications, it does not break the law.

The problem is that the Internet’s self-proclaimed fact-checkers are not exactly fair-minded, or even capable of sticking to the facts. I quoted Nietzsche yesterday (“there are no facts, only interpretations”), today I will merely reference Ben Shapiro, who has a history with false fact-checkers, and riff off of Juvenal: who will fact check the fact checkers? (Obvious, I know.)

Meanwhile, the folks behind new social media service minds.com offer an innovative posting promotion system, and promise never to sneakily favor some ideas over others.

The proper response to a business firm’s discriminatory policy is to provide market pressure.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability crime and punishment ideological culture media and media people national politics & policies

Savagely Killing Conversation

Michael Savage, police, murder, killing,, justice, Bernie Sanders

“You think the police deserve to be killed?” That’s what talk show host Michael Savage asked his caller yesterday.

What brought that on?

A self-described liberal woman named Teri had called The Savage Nation. Though not a Trump supporter, she “did not have the antipathy for him that most liberals did.”

“[U]nderneath his brashness and braggadocio,” Teri had thought, “there actually beat a heart for America.” But after his numerous initial appointments, she is now “terrified.”

On air, Teri admitted that her preferred candidate for president had been independent (not turned Democrat) Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Savage called Sanders a “con man” — a “race-baiter” who “attacked the police regularly.”

That’s when he inquired if it was her desire to see police officers murdered. To which, she replied, “No, my husband was a police captain.”

Savage: “That’s amazing. How could you vote for a man like Bernie Sanders, who hated the police and used the police as a weapon to stir up minorities?”

Teri: “Believe it or not, my husband actually supported him, too.”

Savage: “Why would a police captain support Bernie Sanders?”

Teri: “Well, my husband was a very honored and honorable policeman.”

Savage: “You mean, all the police who were killed deserved to be killed?”

Savage, indeed. Does he really believe that a person criticizing certain police behavior or seeking reform necessarily thirsts for the blood of innocent police? Really?

Or does he simply hope to shut down any thoughtful conversation about the injustice in our criminal justice system?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Michael Savage, police, murder, killing,, justice, Bernie Sanders

 

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government transparency ideological culture national politics & policies U.S. Constitution

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to a Reform

Trump, protest, conservative, centrist, right, illustration

Going into the presidential race, last year, Donald Trump was far from a typical Republican.

His rich man braggadocio, his prior support for abortion, and much else, put him culturally at odds with the social conservative wing of the GOP. He dared heap scorn on neoconservative foreign policy strategy, sacrosanct since Reagan on the right. He has supported many Democratic programs, not the least of which is the Gephardtian protectionism that pulled in so many moderate Democrats.

Besides, as he has famously stated, Democrats loved him, asked him for money, and (not coincidentally) gave him praise . . . right up until he started his campaign under the Republican banner. Then he was excoriated as sexist, racist, xenophobic, Ugly Americanist. Ivanka, his eldest daughter — extraordinarily close to him — was a registered as a Democrat recently enough that she couldn’t even vote for him in the primary.

Ideologically, he has been all over the map.

So one might reasonably think he would govern as a centrist. A non-humble Jimmy Carter retread, perhaps.

But he has assembled the most conservative cabinet in our lifetime. Far more conservative than Ronald Reagan’s. Predictably, Democrats are freaking out.

Why the move “rightward”?

Well, if all the Democratic leadership plus most of the moderate Republican leadership have come out strongly against you — in high moral dudgeon — what point is there to appease them?

The cost of the Trump anathematization strategy may become all too clear in Trump’s first Hundred Days.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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education and schooling ideological culture meme too much government

The Ignorance of Experts

RIchard, Feynman, science, ignorance, experts, meme

Richard Phillips Feynman May 11, 1918 – February 15, 1988) was an American theoretical physicist known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics, and the physics of the superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium, as well as in particle physics for which he proposed the parton model. For his contributions to the development of quantum electrodynamics, Feynman, jointly with Julian Schwinger and Sin-Itiro Tomonaga, received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965.

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“Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.”

—Richard Feynman

(address “What is Science?“, presented at the fifteenth annual meeting of the National Science Teachers Association, in New York City (1966), published in The Physics Teacher, volume 7, issue 6 (1969), p. 313-320)

 

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ideological culture media and media people national politics & policies responsibility too much government

Climate Change Assertions

Scott Pruitt, EPA, Global Warming, Climate Change, illustration

I know Scott Pruitt, Donald Trump’s pick to head the EPA; he replaced the egregious Drew Edmondson as Oklahoma Attorney General.

Pruitt seems like a good man.

But Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt) says different. “Mr. Pruitt’s record is not only that of being a climate change denier, but also . . .”

Wait: that “climate change denier” charge is everywhere. But all I’ve seen is assertion.

It would indeed be weird were he — or anyone — to deny the reality of climate change. Way back in my Seventies’ youth, I saw all sorts of climate change articles . . . predicting a new Ice Age.

Decades later, the headlines began to change: Global Warming was in.

But note: those Seventies’ articles usually mentioned that the world had been heating out of the recent Little Ice Age, with the thaw beginning before the dreaded Industrial Revolution.

I bet that what our new Trump pick really believes is that

  • warm weather is generally better than cold weather;
  • CO2 is not a poison as such (plants thrive with more carbon dioxide);
  • every major climate model has predicted more warming than we’ve experienced; and
  • stifling progress to offset poorly understood climate events would be disastrous, especially for the poor.

Betting aside, what does Pruitt believe? The Advocate actually repeats the disproven “97 percent of climate scientists” meme to pile on the abuse*, but did link to a National Review article Pruitt co-authored with Alabama’s attorney general.

They did not deny climate change, merely insisting that “the debate is far from settled.” More importantly, they argued that governments should not intimidate energy companies in service to the climate cause. Instead, they called for open debate.

Shocking!

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* The Advocate also irrelevantly charged Pruitt with “transphobia.” But then, Trump’s Small Business Administration pick, Linda McMahon, has also been tarred with the “climate denier” charge, which is as irrelevant to an SBA head as vegetarianism would be for a Secretary of Treasury.

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Original (cc) photo by Gage Skidmore on Flickr

 

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Common Sense folly ideological culture porkbarrel politics

A Futility Triptych

wind, turbine, boondoggle, wind power, climate

Port Angeles is a quaint town on the Strait of Juan de Fuca, in Washington State. It now sports three state-of-the-art wind turbines. Which were purchased with more than just generating electricity in mind.

“They were also meant to educate folks about wind power,” City Councilwoman Sissi Bruch said recently.

And the activists, politicians and bureaucrats responsible for the $107,516 purchase achieved that, surely. Just not the way they intended.

You see, based on current Bonneville Power Administration rates, the turbines — described by Paul Gottlieb of the local Peninsula Daily News as “windmill-like” — are expected to “produce $1.50 a month in savings.”

The city council members express regret about that, and admit these monuments to enviro-consciousness are a boondoggle. But they insist: they never expected the generated electricity to pay back the investment. From what I can tell, the generated electricity won’t even pay back their maintenance cost, though Mr. Gottfried did not clarify that in his Daily News report, mainly because the maintenance costs are as of yet unknown.

Further, as a result of Port Angeles’s wet, salty-air environment — they are located in a park by the Strait — they are not expected to last past 25 years.

But it gets worse! They are not even running yet. They await Underwriter Laboratories inspection and approval. They stand motionless.

Monuments to the futility of wind power.

OK, the futility of wind power in most locations.

The turbines do look cool. I like their vertical design. I merely suggest one alteration (for efficiency of message): the blades should be shaped as dollar signs.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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wind, turbine, boondoggle, wind power, climate

 

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Accountability folly ideological culture media and media people moral hazard national politics & policies privacy property rights responsibility too much government

A Hailstorm of Orthodoxy

global warming, climate change, skeptic, Pielke, science, illustration

Don’t worry, scientist Roger Pielke, Jr., informs us. He is doing fine — he has tenure.

It is too bad, though, that he no longer works in climate science.

He was drummed out of that endeavor by journalists, big-monied foundations, and the White House.

Climate Scientist

Are you skeptical? Well, drill down into the Podesta emails on WikiLeaks. There you can read infamous billionaire Tom Steyer gloating, “I think it’s fair [to] say that, without Climate Progress, Pielke would still be writing on climate change for 538,” a popular website. Pielke has not been published there at all since 2014.

Pielke had made the mistake of publishing the results of his research. He claims not to be heretical on the main points of the current orthodoxy. But Pielke ticked off all the wrong people with his demonstration that the evidence did not back up the climate change movement’s much-repeated charge that the weather has gotten more traumatic as the planet has gotten warmer.

Pielke relates all this in a fascinating Wall Street Journal commentary, “My Unhappy Life as a Climate Heretic.” Pielke is actually somewhat philosophical about the political and foundational forces arrayed against him — expressing more dismay at his betrayal by journalists and academics.

“You should come with a warning label,” jested one journalist who had merely quoted him. “Quoting Roger Pielke will bring a hailstorm down on your work from the London Guardian, Mother Jones, and Media Matters.”

This “hailstorm” is more widespread and damaging than the results of global warming itself. It effectively distorts both scientific research and the news.

Thus, a political orthodoxy rides herd over public opinion. Over us. By squelching good journalism and honest science.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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ideological culture media and media people moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies porkbarrel politics responsibility too much government U.S. Constitution

Diversity, Identity, and the Liberal Implosion

identity, diversity, politics, individualism, rights, individual, illustration, crowd

“To paraphrase Bernie Sanders, America is sick and tired of hearing about liberals’ damn bathrooms.”

Finally. Some sense from the New York Times.

Mark Lilla, in “The End of Identity Liberalism,” delivers a valuable lesson about political correctness — without once mentioning the term “political correctness.”

Now this is a lesson we can get behind.

The problem is “diversity.” The center-left became so obsessed with it that it helped sink the last election for Hillary Clinton, Democrats at large, and the coherence and legacy of President Barack Obama.

“However interesting it may be to read, say, about the fate of transgender people in Egypt,” Lilla wrote in the Friday think piece, “it contributes nothing to educating Americans about the powerful political and religious currents that will determine Egypt’s future, and indirectly, our own.”

Fixating on diversity of gender identity and racial make-up in business and government has scuttled the rights-oriented approach of the older liberalism.

Alas, Lilla is not talking about the liberalism of J.S. Mill or Lord Acton. He is talking about FDR.

But compared to today’s “identity liberalism,” FDR’s burdensome promises look like sheer genius. And Lilla understands at least one thing about diversity: “National politics in healthy periods is not about ‘difference,’ it is about commonality. And it will be dominated by whoever best captures Americans’ imaginations about our shared destiny.”

He does not bring up the real liberal message: that the way to find commonality is to avoid making government all things to all people. It is to limit its scope, instead, so the president of the United States isn’t every school’s bathroom monitor.

Perhaps an essay on The End to Hubristic Liberalism is required?

Another day. And probably another paper.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Original (cc) photo by James Cridland on Flickr

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Accountability general freedom ideological culture media and media people nannyism Regulating Protest responsibility too much government

Tyranny’s Days Are Numbered

Castro, death, Cuba, Communism, freedom, illustration

Fidel Castro, the Cuban dictator for half a century, died Friday night.

“Although Castro was beloved by a legion of followers,” The Washington Post acknowledged, “detractors saw him as a repressive leader who turned Cuba into a de facto gulag.”

Many on the American left — especially in Hollywood — have been surprisingly enamored of Castro, and the supposed “accomplishments” of better education and healthcare delivery in his socialist paradise.

I guess we must all weigh whatever policy advances were made against Mr. Castro’s faults.

As the New York Times detailed: “Foreign-born priests were exiled, and local clergy were harassed so much that many closed their churches. . . . a sinister system of local Committees for the Defense of the Revolution that set neighbors to informing on neighbors. Thousands of dissidents and homosexuals were rounded up and sentenced to either prison or forced labor. . . . jailing anyone who dared to call for free elections. . . . imprisoning or harassing Cuban reporters and editors.”

Fidel Castro’s death reminds me of Irving Berlin’s jazz tune about Adolf Hitler, When That Man is Dead and Gone:

What a day to wake up on

What a way to greet the dawn

Some fine day the news’ll flash

Satan with a small mustache

Is asleep beneath the lawn

When that man is dead and gone

Saturday morning, that news finally flashed for Cuban Americans in south Florida. Followed by jubilation. Horns honking. Smiles, cheers and songs. Jigs were danced.

Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz — that dictator, the person who imprisoned and murdered many seeking freedom — is dead and gone.

For now, sadly, his brand of tyranny continues through brother, Raúl Castro. But its days, too, are numbered.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Castro, death, Cuba, Communism, freedom, illustration

 

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free trade & free markets general freedom ideological culture media and media people

In the Black

Christmas, Black Friday, family, values, trample, hypocrisy

“Black Friday,” reads a meme making the social media rounds. “Because only in America [do] people trample each other for sales one day after being thankful for what they already have.”

Thankfulness is vital, I agree. But I’ve been up at the crack of dawn to “cash in” on Black Friday sales, and I’ve never witnessed any violence of any kind. Not a smidgeon. Not that it doesn’t happen — we’ve all seen the videos. It just isn’t the usual experience.

In fact, the camaraderie of strangers is one of the endearing aspects of standing in line waiting for a big box store to open at some forsaken hour.

Trust me, I’m decidedly not an enthusiastic shopper, so participating in Black Friday wasn’t my idea. My youngest daughter wanted to experience it. And taking a businesslike approach to Christmas shopping, she needed the savings. I liked her interest and initiative and so I said, yes, to getting up at 5:00 am.

But after staying up late talking with friends and relatives, that early alarm hit hard.

What I liked, in order, were: being with my daughter, our sleep-deprived sense of humor, the rush of doing something new, and a comforting visit to Starbucks.

For years, I rode this father-daughter Black Friday fast lane. But not this year. At age 17 (her, not me), with her social life and work, she’s got better things to do than partake in dawn shopping raids.

Still, if she ever asks me to go with her on Black Friday, I’ll be up and at ’em, thrilled for the opportunity.

Why? I know what I’m thankful for. What really matters.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Christmas, Black Friday, family, values, trample, hypocrisy