Category: ideological culture

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ideological culture media and media people national politics & policies political challengers

Democracy — Oh, My!

Rockettes, democracy, inauguration, Trump, media, entertainment, illustration, association, voluntary

The President-elect has had some difficulty booking celebrity acts for his inauguration. And instead of taking this as a cue to trim down on celebratory excess, his team has extended the guest performer list to include New York’s world-famous chorus line dancers, the Rockettes.

The leggy, sequined showgirls might seem a perfect fit for the President-elect’s celebration — more, say, than a ballet troupe, or a string quartet — but one among the Rockettes protested.  Being a part of a performing team might seem a dream job, but not for Phoebe Pearl. She was, she wrote on Instagram, “overwhelmed with emotion,” and not in a good way. She felt “embarrassed and disappointed” that the gig “has been decided” for her.

She feels . . . coerced.

Dan Avery, writing before Christmas, characterizes the contract as a matter of “force.”

Welcome, Ms. Pearl, to the world that most American workers already know.

But the silliness reached high pitch with actor George Takei, who tweeted: “The members of the Rockettes and the Mormon Tabernacle are like all of us: Forced to go along with something horrible they didn’t choose.”

Democracy — oh, my!

Most people have had to put up with democratic results they did not like. Are Democrats only now understanding this?

To a degree, I sympathize. Which is why I want limits placed on government. Perhaps Democrats should have thought of this every time they cheered as their elected candidates increased presidential power. Did they not realize that someday they might lose?

And if you want a right of refusal, make sure it is in your contract.

The Rockette does not have a leg to stand on.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment general freedom ideological culture media and media people Second Amendment rights

The Truth About Gun Control

gun, control, gun control, freedom, Confucius, disarm, defense, Mencken, illustration

Confucius said that our first task is to “rectify the language.”

That amounts to word control, but we probably should not take that too literally. We cannot “control the language.” Instead, we should take caution: error often rests upon improper word choice.

Take as an example not word control, but . . .

Gun control.

Which, Thomas Sowell reminds us, isn’t what it seems to be. “The fatal fallacy of gun-control laws in general is the assumption that such laws actually control guns,” Sowell wrote on the first day of winter. “What such laws actually do is increase the number of disarmed and defenseless victims.”

A new wisdom? No. Sowell, in 2016, is disabusing The New York Times for its inanities regarding the bearing of arms. In 1925, H. L. Mencken took on The Nation.

Gun control, Mencken wrote, “would not take pistols out of the hands of rogues and fools; it would simply take them out of the hands of honest men.”

Sowell argues that, no matter how irrational spree and mass murderers may seem, they “are usually rational enough to attack schools, churches, and other places where there is far less likelihood of someone being on the scene who is armed.”

Mencken noted that the gunman of his day “has great advantages everywhere. He has artillery in his pocket, and he may assume that, in the large cities, at least two-thirds of his prospective victims are unarmed. But if the Nation’s proposed law (or amendment) were passed and enforced, he could assume safely that all of them were unarmed.”

Maybe, following Confucius*, we should call laws against concealed carry not “gun control” but “citizen disarmament.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* “Confucius” is the Western name for Kong Qui (551-479 B.C.E.), the great Chinese sage. He was often referred to by the honorific Kong Fuzi, meaning “Grand Master Kong,” which Jesuit missionaries to China in the 16th-century Latinized to “Confucius.”

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general freedom ideological culture media and media people national politics & policies political challengers responsibility too much government

Whack the Bob

pendulum, noose, politics, left, right, change, Republicans, Democrats

It’s a truism in politics: the pendulum swings. Now, around the world, we see a deep swing rightward:

  • Brexit, and the collapse of Britain’s Labour Party;
  • Donald Trump, and the routing of the Democrats;
  • German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s turnaround on Muslim refugee acceptance; and,
  • in France, the rise of the National Front’s Marine Le Pen.

Over the weekend, the Washington Post reported on events in Poland. There, the Law and Justice Party is not only making sweeping changes of a pro-family, religious conservative nature, it has also grown in popularity.

Fearing an anti-intellectual “neo-Dark Age,” the Post finds cause for that worry in the fact that the Poles are downplaying evolutionary science in government school curricula.*

Before the big freak out, note the why of this: the dominant progressive-left paradigm has proven itself incapable of dealing with the challenges of the present age — most being caused by their own policies. Worse yet, those on the vanguard left have become moral scolds and petty language tyrants.

Yes, political correctness is one of the big offenders, here.

So, of course there’s a backlash.

But, turnabout being fair play, if the move to the “right” goes too far — as it probably will — we can expect another swing leftward.

Isn’t it time to give that pendulum bob a whack, to initiate something like an equilibrium position? Many of today’s problems are caused by partisans trying to force their kind of change down others’ throats. There is an alternative: limit government, setting it to just a few tasks, letting society evolve naturally, without forced central planning.

That would be “evolutionary,” and thus neither rightist nor revolutionary-left. Call it neo-Enlightenment.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Poland’s new government has become scary, by reducing transparency, limiting press access, purging the government news network of anti-rightist journalists, hiking subsidies to traditional families and the elderly, shelving the gay marriage issue and allowing local governments to cut back on granting public protest permits. Not all of these are equally frightening, of course. Why should any government be allowed to maintain a government-run news agency? (Ideological purges come with the territory.)

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ideological culture individual achievement national politics & policies

Ditch Your Male Doctor

woman, female, doctor, gender, medicine, illsutration

It’s the Christmas season, so wait to do this until the New Year, but . . . be sure to fire your male doctor.

He’s a quack.

At least, that seems to be the gist of James Hamblin’s “Evidence of the Superiority of Female Doctors,” a report in The Atlantic on a new Harvard School of Public Health study.

“Patients cared for by female physicians,” Hamblin writes, “had lower 30-day mortality than did patients treated by male physicians.” The rate for female physicians was 11.07 percent and for males 11.49 percent.

Though a “modest” difference, it’s still “clinically meaningful.”

The study (conducted by an all-male team) tracked more than 1.5 million Medicare patients treated by nearly 60,000 general internists.

“If male physicians were as adept as females, some 32,000 fewer Americans would die every year — among Medicare patients alone,” concludes Hamblin. “[T]hese numbers may be what it takes to spur equal (or better) compensation and opportunity for female physicians.”

NBC News played the equal pay angle as well: “Many hope the new study pushes hospitals to promote and pay women equally.”

Still, in a poignant moment of concern for the lesser sex, correspondent Kristen Dahlgren advised, “Maybe not a reason to ditch your male doctor, but there might be lessons to learn from his female colleagues.”

Indeed, the study explained that “physician sex by itself does not determine patient outcomes,” arguing instead that “differences in practice patterns between male and female physicians” must be investigated.

Smart.

The other thing, of course, is that every doctor, male or female, is an individual — not merely an XX- or XY-chromosome carbon copy.

Sex isn’t everything.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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

The Revenge of the Gatekeepers

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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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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