Category Archives: Media Criticism

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

What The “Republican Establishment” Really Means

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It’s about the spending, stupid:

The current trajectory of American government spending is one in which spending by government in general, and by the federal government in particular, just keeps on growing as a share of the economy, further and further crowding out the space occupied by free private citizens and businesses in the private sector. Worse, much of this happens automatically, without the consent of the governed in any but the most perfunctory way: discretionary spending is designed to grow because budgets are set by using the prior year’s spending as a baseline, and entitlement and public employee benefit spending – which consume a far larger share of spending – grows by itself in the absence of any affirmative legislation to stop it. The federal government has not passed a budget in nearly 1,000 days (President Obama’s State of the Union speech will mark the 1000th), yet spending has continued to grow, and will continue to grow as far as the eye can see – a dramatic change in our country taking place on auto-pilot – unless dramatic action is taken in response to stop it. Jack’s magic beans have nothing on public spending.

And the growth of spending bleeds over into every other issue. Federal spending comes with strings attached, and those strings reduce the independence of the states and burrow the arms of the federal octopus ever further into the area of social policy. Institutions like churches, schools, and hospitals become hooked on federal money, and have to dance the federal tune. Spending gets earmarked and targeted to favored people, businesses and groups, making society less equal and government less ethical. Spending distorts energy markets, housing markets, and markets for higher education, creating bubbles and inefficiency. And that’s before we even get to the metastatic growth of federal regulation. And eventually, runaway domestic spending saps our ability to adequately fund our national defense.

There is general philosophical agreement among both Republicans and conservatives about all of this. Where the fault line lies is in exactly how far we are willing to go to do something about it.

If we don’t do something, America as we knew it is over.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space

Some Serious Space Policy Questions For Mitt

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I hope that @BretBaier asks something along these lines:

So, Governor, if you want to talk space policy, let’s talk space policy. How about answering some serious questions, instead of pretending that it’s an unserious subject, of no value except to mock your opponent?

In 2008, you said that you supported President Bush’s Vision for Space Exploration, a fundamental part of which was a manned lunar base. Now you criticize Newt Gingrich for the same thing, and imply that it is a frivolity. What happened in the interim to make you change your opinion?

How much do you think that a “lunar colony” would cost? How do you think that Speaker Gingrich would propose to bring one about? Do you think that he would agree with your characterization of his plans? If you don’t know the answers to these questions, on what basis are you criticizing him?

If we are not going to settle the moon and other locations in the solar system, what in your mind is the purpose of having a human spaceflight program? Why are we doing it?

In 2009, when President Obama came out with a new space policy that emphasized competitive commercial services for crew delivery to orbit, and the development of new technologies that would make human spaceflight beyond earth orbit much more affordable, Newt Gingrich was one of the few Republicans to come out in support of it (Bob Walker and Dana Rohrabacher were others). Do you agree with Speaker Gingrich that this is a more promising and cost-effective direction for the program, or do you support the Congress in its demand that NASA spend billions on a giant rocket that won’t fly for many years, and for which no payloads are defined or funded? Or do you have some other proposal?

What would a Romney space policy look like? Given that you’ve elevated the topic in the campaign, I think that those of us to whom space is important deserve to know.

And Bret, if you’re looking for a “gotcha,” probably the second one works best.

History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Let Freedom Ring

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Some thoughts on today’s holiday:

we were still blessed by Providence to have had him, because he was the right man at the right time. It was he who rose to be the leader and articulator and symbol of the civil-rights movement, a “dream deeply rooted in the American dream,” and not the loathsome racist Elijah Mohammed or the criminals of the Black Panther movement or even Malcolm X and his late embrace of mainstream Islam. Would any of these men, or the frauds and swindlers who claim to be “civil rights” spokesmen today, give a speech that ends this way?:

This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with a new meaning, “My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.”

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

There is no one like him comparable today. He was a Republican for a reason. His modern heirs are leftists.

Economics, Education, Media Criticism, Philosophy, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

Ameritopia

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A review:

That Levin wrote this book now demonstrates not his passion for the United States, but his awareness that he is a statesman defending natural law at a pivotal moment in human history: the United States in decline represents a far different thing than the failure of Europe’s utopianism. The key lies in recognizing John Locke’s accomplishment for what it objectively is, which Levin does with Part Two of Ameritopia. John Locke’s Second Treatise is properly understood as the “black monolith” moment for human history.

Utopian thinking has never represented brilliance or historical greatness; if it did, there wouldn’t be utopians in every age and nation and we wouldn’t be littered with the evidence of their perfect failure rate. Utopianism instead represents the simplest of philosophical thinking: trying to make survival easier not with innovation but with brute force. Indeed, a defining characteristic of utopian thought is neglect of the math and economics of the idea — details for the philosopher class to hammer out later while the leader poses for portraits.

But Locke is different — there is only one Locke. His recognition of natural law did not occur soon after man had the time to think, but 9700 years later; much trial and error of society came before his discovery. Which is: man feels violated if he is to lose his life to another, or if he has his liberty or property taken, and no system of laws can prevent that emotion or halt actions taken because of it. Therefore laws cannot be arbitrarily chosen by men, but must exist only to defend the rights of the individual. Under this we necessarily thrive, otherwise we are doomed.

Utopians have always otherwise been in the position of trying to replace a tyrannical system. But now, post-Locke and de Montesquieu and the Founders, the utopians are in a position of destroying that pivotal discovery, which presently exists nowhere else on Earth or in time but in the U.S. Constitution. Levin, with Ameritopia, shows that he recognizes this urgency: he is criticized for his “anger” on the air — how do you keep your voice down once you understand what is presently being threatened?

If you’re going to purchase the book, I hope you’ll do it here.