What if the European Jews had followed it?
Category Archives: Media Criticism
The Metaphysics Of Theft
Thoughts on societal entropy:
Where does this all end — these open borders, unsustainable entitlements and public union benefits and salaries, these revolving door prisons and Al Gore-like energy fantasies?
We are left with a paradox. The taxpayer cannot indefinitely fund the emergency room treatment for the shooter and his victim on Saturday night if society cannot put a tool down for five minutes without a likely theft, or a farmer cannot turn on a 50-year old pump without expecting its electrical connections to have been ripped out. Civilization simply cannot function that way for either the productive citizen or the parasite, who still needs a live host.
I will make a wild leap and suggest that a vast majority of Americans are reaching the point where they accept that the blue statist paradigm is reaching its logical end and simply cannot go on any more, given that it is antithetical to human nature itself. There is not always a Germany for every Greece.
That which cannot continue, will not.
Former Astronaut Bernard Harris
An interesting interview. He’s being a little too politically correct here, though:
…in the 21st century we need teachers who teach math and science to have expertise in math and science. So there needs to be an upgrade there, and refocus on how much we value those teachers. As you know, in this country, we don’t pay our teachers all that well. We need to rethink that.
The problem isn’t that we don’t pay teachers well, at least on average. The problem is that we don’t pay the valuable ones enough, and we pay the worthless ones far too much, thanks to the unions. We need to be able to adequately compensate the teachers who have actual useful knowledge to impart, and get rid of the ones who don’t. This would all start by eliminating the worthless, or to be more accurate, negative-value, “education” major.
Jon Stewart
…bully.
This is particularly appalling after his pathetic attempt to defend himself against his mindless attacks on Fox News yesterday on Fox News Sunday.
E. J. Dionne
…racist.
It’s who they are. It’s what they do.
Is Islam Intrinsically Radical?
Some useful thoughts from Barry Rubin:
4.There are no moderate Muslims — is it a myth created by liberals?
Funny, I know a lot of them and they don’t seem a myth to me. But they are about 1 percent, have little power, and Western governments show no sympathy for them. Again, the problem is NOT that no moderate Muslims exist. The problem is: A.) Radicals are portrayed as moderates repeatedly in the West or pretend to be such; and B.) the number of moderates is very limited, they have little influence, and they are constantly intimidated.
But there are millions of anti-Islamist Muslims all over the world. They may be traditionalists, they may be nationalists, and they may be moderates. Yet their interpretation of Islam is different from that of the Islamists. We should remember that it wasn’t long ago when revolutionary Islamists were viewed as virtual heretics. The fact that Islamists draw on normative Islam doesn’t prove that they have the only or the correct interpretation of Islam.
It is ridiculous to claim that radical Islamists aren’t “real” or “proper” Muslims. But it is equally ridiculous to claim that all Muslims must be Islamists or they aren’t following their religion.
There are three camps in the West in understanding this issue:
* Islamists represent the “right” interpretation of Islam and thus there cannot be moderate Muslims. This is the view taken by many on the “anti-jihad” side. It isn’t wrong because such a view is “bigoted” or isn’t helpful tactically. It is wrong because it doesn’t correspond to the facts and realities.
* Islamists have hijacked the real Islam which is a religion of peace. That is the position of “politically correct” people, the idea that dominates Western governments, the mass media, and academia. This view is equally ridiculous. Islamists can cite the Koran, the hadith, and many other sacred writings to justify their positions. They didn’t make this stuff up. Violent jihad, treating non-Muslims as dhimmis, and antisemitism are not new ideas which emerged from the minds of a tiny minority.
* There is in Islam, as in other religions, a struggle over interpretations. Different sides can cite texts and precedents. Were the Spanish Inquisition, the Crusades, and the worst excesses of the past the “real” Christianity? Of course not. And Christianity changed over time. Many debates and battles took place. The problem with Islam is not its “essence” but its place on the timeline. In Western terms, the debate in Islam is in the sixteenth or seventeenth century, with powerful forces wanting to return to the seventh century.
My view, the third one, can be summed up as seeing two people fighting over control of the steering wheel in an automobile speeding down the road. Both can claim ownership of the car. As an anti-Islamist Iranian intellectual once put it, the minute someone says that Islam must be interpreted in any one way they are wrong.
There’s a lot more to read there, and no just on Islam.
Rick Perry
…versus Rousseau. This is why I refuse to dignify leftists with the word “liberal.”
[Afternoon update]
I liked this comment on the debate with a Perry/Obama race:
Candidate Perry: My state gained a million jobs with no state income tax and a part-time legislature that meets every other year.
Candidate Obama: But Bush was my predecessor. I inherited what he left.
Candidate Perry: Ditto.
Heh.
Fanny And Freddy
I’m not a big David Brooks fan, but he takes the political class to task much more than he’s usually willing to in today’s column.
Morgenson and Rosner write with barely suppressed rage, as if great crimes are being committed. But there are no crimes. This is how Washington works. Only two of the characters in this tale come off as egregiously immoral. Johnson made $100 million while supposedly helping the poor. Representative Barney Frank, whose partner at the time worked for Fannie, was arrogantly dismissive when anybody raised doubts about the stability of the whole arrangement.
Most of the people were simply doing what reputable figures do in service to a supposedly good cause. Johnson roped in some of the most respected establishment names: Bill Daley, Tom Donilan, Joseph Stiglitz, Dianne Feinstein, Kit Bond, Franklin Raines, Larry Summers, Robert Zoellick, Ken Starr and so on.
Of course, it all came undone. Underneath, Fannie was a cancer that helped spread risky behavior and low standards across the housing industry. We all know what happened next.
The scandal has sent the message that the leadership class is fundamentally self-dealing. Leaders on the center-right and center-left are always trying to create public-private partnerships to spark socially productive activity. But the biggest public-private partnership to date led to shameless self-enrichment and disastrous results.
It has sent the message that we have hit the moment of demosclerosis. Washington is home to a vertiginous tangle of industry associations, activist groups, think tanks and communications shops. These forces have overwhelmed the government that was originally conceived by the founders.
The reckoning started last November, but the real one is yet to come.
Stagflation May Be Here
You don’t say. Unexpectedly! too…
As Glenn often says, a repeat of Carter is a best-case scenario.
[Update a few minutes later]
Really? You don’t say. Stagflation creates a dangerous position for the economy.
Obama Supporters Try To Defend His Middle-East Policy
An epic fail:
Let’s consider this:
A. Britain, France, Italy, and Germany all announced they would vote against unilateral independence before Obama did anything. He didn’t twist their arms; they took the lead.
B. There is no evidence that Obama has tried to twist anyone’s arm in Europe on this issue. Quite the opposite, he’s tried to get them to endorse his program of: We’ll get Palestine independence real fast so they don’t need to go to the UN. In other words, it is an appeasement strategy.
C. No, he has not given “ultimatums”; he’s just said he’s against it and will vote against it. In saying that, he’s assuming that it will go to the UN. An ultimatum is when you threaten someone with serious consequences unless they give in. He has not done so.
D. “He knows Israel is [our] only ally in the Mideast.” This is the most interesting sentence of all. No public action Obama has taken demonstrates that in any way. We only have the ritual pro-Israel statements. And such things as continued good military relations are not expressions of Obama’s personal views, but of Defense Department policies and sheer inertia.
Unfortunately, failure doesn’t distinguish this policy from any of his others.