Category Archives: Media Criticism

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, War Commentary

Benghazi

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What really happened?

I think he is ashamed. Here’s what I’ve been assuming happened: It looked like our people were overwhelmed and doomed, so there was shock, sadness, and acceptance. But then the fight went on for 7 or 8 hours. The White House folk decided there was nothing to do but accept the inevitable, and then they witnessed a valiant fight which they had done nothing to support. It was always too late to help. It was too late after one hour, then too late after 2 hours, then too late after 3 hours…. When were these people going to die already? After that was all over, how do you explain what you did?

You lie, apparently. And I don’t think he’s ashamed at all. I’ve seen little evidence that he has any sense of shame.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Technology and Society

Thoughts On Gun Control

Too much common sense from Robert Levy, so the politicians won’t pay any attention.

[Update a couple minutes later]

The public disapproves of Obama’s gun policies by 54-42%. Actually, they seem to disapprove of almost all of his policies. Think in particular about the 2-1 opposition to his deficit policy as he spouts his lies tonight. There was no majority who voted for Barack Obama. Those who put him over the top were voting against the demon Romney, per the Obama campaign strategy.

[Update a few minutes later]

This seems related: the war on drugs, overcriminalization and militarized police raids.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space

The Space Review

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Happy tenth anniversary to Jeff, who is asking the big space policy questions for the next ten years.

[Update a few minutes later]

I have to comment on this:

“NASA needs to have more than one half of one percent of the federal budget,” Bingham said at the FAA conference last week, emphasizing he was speaking only for himself. That call has been echoed by others in recent years who have sought to at least double NASA’s share of the federal budget to one percent.

There is no magic “correct” percentage of the federal budget that NASA should get. Traditionally, it used to be about one percent, but the budget hasn’t actually declined that much. It’s now half a percent because of the monstrous budget growth in other areas over the past several years, and NASA didn’t keep up. NASA should get as much budget as it needs to accomplish its assigned tasks, regardless of the budget percentage. Of course, since some of its assigned tasks are wasteful and useless, like Jeff Bingham’s Senate Launch System, it could actually be doing a lot more with the money that it’s being given, if Congress wouldn’t force the agency to waste so much.

Media Criticism, Philosophy, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Social Commentary

The Intrinsic Violence Of The Left

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Andrew Klavan, with some thoughts on the invisible (and voluntary) versus the very visible hand of the Left, as most recently demonstrated by L’Affaire Chris Dorner:

The left has never bought into the central revelation of the Enlightenment: things are made to work perfectly fine without much control from above. This Enlightenment insight was inspired by the earlier work of Isaac Newton who discovered that God didn’t have to move the stars around in the sky or cause the apple to fall to earth. The Big Dude had cleverly put machinery in place that worked pretty much on its own. The economist Adam Smith translated this insight into economics when he pointed out that individuals working in their own interest frequently promote the interest of everyone as if by an invisible hand. The founders translated the idea into politics by creating a system in which individuals could act without too much government interference. These geniuses didn’t trust in individual goodness, not at all. They trusted in the handiwork of the Creator — that is, they trusted the overall human system was built to work without kings and aristocrats — or a democratic mob — forcing people to do what they wanted.

Jean Jacques Rousseau, the founding saint of modern leftism, rejected that Enlightenment wisdom. He hated the modern world and thought humanity had been better off in a state of noble savagery. In that state, Rousseau believed, men were truly free because their laws naturally followed the general will. If people in the corrupt modern age violated the general will, they had to be “forced to be free.”

The logic of Rousseau led to the guillotine.

As it led to the deaths of tens of millions over the past century. And of course, it is one of the reasons (but of course by no means the only one) that they don’t want us to have guns. They assume that they are as willing to kill for their ideology as they are, and we (or rather, they) can’t have that.

[Monday morning update]

More Huffpo readers who support mass murder. See, he’s got a grievance, so it’s perfectly understandable why he’d kill innocent people.