Category Archives: Political Commentary

Political Commentary, Science And Society

A Whitewash

67 Comments

…of Climaquiddick.

I’m struggling to say something polite about this. By way of an illustration, can you imagine the reaction if a scientist reported in the safety literature that there was a critical flaw in the design of a nuclear power station, but told policymakers that everything was fine? Do the committee really think it’s fine to hide important information from policymakers so long as you report it in the literature?

Astonishing.

Or it should be astonishing. Unfortunately, it’s become increasingly difficult to be astonished at these power mongers.

Business, Economics, Political Commentary

Federal Mandates

28 Comments

…meet the real world:

The pressure of this law will eventually force restaurants like Davanni’s to reduce consumer choice as a way of managing the overwhelming burden of maintaining their disclosures. Smaller chains that succeed in satisfying their customers and managing their business used to be rewarded with growth, but this law will put an artificial cap on expansion at 19 locations. That means that fewer people will find jobs, and even in existing stores, money that may have funded more jobs will instead go to reprinting the same menu boards over and over again. And all of this comes because political elites think that people are too stupid to know that a pizza is fattening or how to access information that already exists in much more efficient formats than menu boards.

When will we wake up from this Atlas Shrugged nightmare?

[Early afternoon update]

One nation, under arrest. With liberty and justice for none.

I think we should just throw out the entire federal code and start over.

Political Commentary, Satire

My Epiphany

30 Comments

All right, many months into his presidency, I have come to realize that I was completely wrong about the president.

He is not an empty suit, as I once claimed. Through his brilliant leadership, and unsurpassed powers of persuasion, he has shepherded legislation through the Congress that will make all of our lives and health better, and for which we will all be grateful as a nation for decades to come.

I was once skeptical, but I was a fool. This legacy, just the first of many — beginning the healing of the planet through long-overdue constraints on carbon emissions; finally allowing the working man to be a union man as God and Jimmy Hoffa intended; creating a lasting peace in the Middle East with a Palestinian state from the river Jordan to the Mediterranean, and a Pax Iraniana under the sober nuclear leadership of the mullahs in Teheran, a stable nuclear stalemate in the Korean peninsula, the returning of Taiwan to its rightful owners in mainland China –will go down in history as only the minor accomplishments of the greatest American president ever.

How foolish was I to think that he would lose the Congress in the coming election, when so many stood bravely by his bold initiatives? What insanity possessed me to imagine that the America people would punish, rather than reward him and his party for their paternal and sacrificial deeds for all of us? How could I have criticized them for only doing what was right, and just, and fair, in the face of such disgusting criticism and hatred from the evil right wingers? How could I have been so wrong? Is there any hope for me?

From this day forward, I pledge my troth to the Democrats, the saviors of our nation, the party of selflessness and compassion. No longer will I selfishly demand that I keep any of the fruit of my own labor, because I now understand that it was never mine, but only that of the people. Henceforth, I will work not for myself, or my family, but only for the greater good.

I can only ask, how did it take so long for me to see the light? What foolish ideology blinded me to righteousness, and my duty to my fellow citizens and humans on the planet? How did I live for so many years without feeling the pain of my obvious disgusting selfishness? How can I ever be forgiven?

Even if I finally, after decades, do the right thing, and pull the Donkey lever this fall, is there any hope for my redemption?

But lest I be viewed as someone completely uncritical of The One, let me provide one bit of criticism.

His space policy is a disaster. We no longer have a goal.

Under the Evil Bush, we had a plan. A plan to send a few astronauts a couple times a year, at a cost of several billion dollars per trip, to the moon. It was a noble plan, an ambitious plan, and one that would have had the nation enthralled to watch, as a few noble ciivil servants cavorted on the lunar surface, displayed on our low-energy-consumption foot-powered televisions.

But with the cancellation of Constellation, the dreams of watching government employees kicking up selenian dust, for tens of millions per kick, have been shattered. The nation will no longer have the opportunity to be inspired. Instead, we will have to content ourselves with hundreds, perhaps thousands of people in low earth orbit, doing what they want to do instead of following NASA’s flight plans. They might even go beyond earth orbit without official permission, upsetting the natural order of the heavens. I am dismayed to the highest degree by such a laissez faire approach to opening up the universe to humanity, and can’t imagine how such a visionary president could allow such a thing.

But I cavil about trivia. Such a minor policy error shouldn’t prevent him from his rightful place. A Nobel Peace Prize in anticipation of his achievements, while well deserved, is an insignificant award. No, he must be honored in a manner more befitting his accomplishments, present and future. He is not worthy of Mount Rushmore, or rather, his reputation would be sullied by an appearance next to such pedestrian predecessors as Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln, though the progressive Teddy Roosevelt might be a fitting accompaniment, even if shadowed by the great Obama. No, we need to add to the mountain, and build a new level for The One, above those previous poseurs. And we should rename the mountain, from Rushmore, to a more appropriate Rushless, to honor him for his vanquishing of that talk-show blowhard, who has so unpatriotically hoped for his failure. For the greatest man in American, no — in world history. we can do no less.

[Thursday morning update]

Sigh…none so blind as those who will not see. Half of the country doesn’t think our national savior should be reelected.

• Obama’s standing on four key personal qualities, including being a strong and decisive leader and understanding the problems Americans face in their lives, has dipped. For the first time since the 2008 campaign, he fails to win a majority of people saying he shares their values and can manage the government effectively.

• Twenty-six percent say he deserves “a great deal” of the blame for the nation’s economic problems, nearly double the number who felt that way last summer. In all, half say he deserves at least a moderate amount of blame.

The blame directed at his predecessor, former president George W. Bush, hasn’t eased, however: 42% now give Bush “a great deal” of blame, basically unchanged from 43% last July.

• By 50%-46%, those surveyed say Obama doesn’t deserve re-election.

Ingrates.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

The Kristallnacht

23 Comments

…that isn’t happening:

The Daily Beast’s John Avlon insists that Vanderboegh’s rallying cry, combined with some threats and broken windows, make “the parallels, intentional or not, to the Nazis’ heinous 1938 Kristallnacht . . . hard to ignore.”

Actually, it’s really, really easy to ignore the parallels. During Kristallnacht, Nazi goons destroyed not just 7,000 store windows but hundreds of synagogues and thousands of homes. Tens of thousands of Jews were hauled off to concentration camps by the Nazis, who had been in total power for half a decade.

This combination of state power and murderous, genocidal intent is nowhere on display in America today, not in the Obama administration (contrary to what some overheated right-wingers claim) and certainly not among out-of-power conservatives and “tea partiers.” It’s amazing anyone needs to point this out, but a few fringe libertarians’ throwing bricks to beat back an expansion of government is not the same thing as the tightening fist of the National Socialist Third Reich. Indeed, it’s an anti-American slander to suggest anything like it is going on here, and it cheapens the moral horror of the Holocaust.

Don’t tell that to the Democrats and their media transmission belt, who largely turned a blind eye to partisan vandalism and extremist rhetoric against Republicans for eight years but now express horror at what they claim to hear from the right.

Their libelous audacity and hypocrisy is breathtaking.

Business, Economics, Political Commentary

Hope

34 Comments

…and change:

The U.S. standard of living, says superstar Northwestern University economist Robert Gordon in a new paper, is about to experience its slowest growth “over any two-decade interval recorded since the inauguration of George Washington.” That’s right, get ready for twenty years of major-league economic suckage. It is an event that would change America’s material expectations, self-identity and political landscape. Change in the worst way.

…America faced a similar turning point a generation ago. During the Jimmy Carter years, the Malthusian, Limits to Growth crowd argued that natural-resource constraints meant Americans would have to lower their economic expectations and accept economic stagnation — or worse. Carter more or less accepted an end to American Exceptionalism, but the 1980 presidential election showed few of his countrymen did. They chose growth economics and the economy grew.

Now they face another choice. Preserve wealth, redistribute wealth or create wealth. Hopefully, President Barack Obama will choose door #3. Investing more in basic research (not just healthcare) would be a start, as would slashing the corporate tax rate. A new consumption tax would be better for growth, but only if it replaced the current wage and investment income taxes. Real entitlement reform would help avoid the Reinhart-Rogoff scenario. The choices made during the next few years could the difference between America in Decline or the American (21st) Century.

Unfortunately, we have to wait at least two and a half more years to get rid of Jimmy Carter II.

Political Commentary, War Commentary

Who Lost Chechnya?

15 Comments

Putin should be asking himself, “Why do they hate us?”

In the Caucasus itself, the brutal policies of Putin and his local henchmen have managed to totally alienate most of those that had not already been killed or driven into exile, and have given a huge boost to the jihadists at the expense of the centuries-old moderate Sufi Islam of the region. His failure has come at a staggering cost. The region’s economy has essentially collapsed, with unemployment rates of up to 80 percent, complete dependency on Moscow subsidies for bare economic survival, and “total corruption” as the rule, according to the Kremlin itself.

More significant still for the long-term, a decade of Putin has achieved something that seventy years of Soviet Communist rule were unable to do: generate a nearly universal animus for Russia and the Russians among the locals. The result has been an ongoing mass exodus of ethnic Russians from the region bringing their share of the population from more than a quarter in the 1980s to less than 10 percent today. Indeed, places like Chechnia, Ingushetia, and Dagestan seem to be on their way to becoming Russian-free, except for the few in mixed marriages. Given this reality on the ground, it is difficult to imagine Moscow holding onto these territories except through an unsustainable military occupation.

And more subway bombings. He’s uncorked the Jihadi bottle.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

More Thoughts On “Progressives” And Eugenics

33 Comments

Jonah Goldberg has some follow-up thoughts from his earlier post:

Which brings us to the first emailer, who sees eugenics as “social Darwinism” on speed. I think this a very common way of thinking about social Darwinism and eugenics, and I think it is entirely wrong. The salient point about social Darwinism, as laid out by Herbert Spencer, its chief author and the man who coined the phrase “survival of the fittest,” is that it was an argument for radical libertarianism. Spencer was a passionate foe of statism. He was precisely the “‘Laisser Faire’ individualist” Webb had in mind. This is why it is so infuriating when liberal historians and intellectuals blame Spencer for eugenics, Hitler, etc. Spencer would have been horrified at all that. Why it should continually be news to some liberals is beyond me: but the Nazis were not laissez faire.

The missing piece of the puzzle is what the historian Eric Goldman and others have called “reform Darwinism.” This was the view that Darwinism legitimized state interference on eugenic grounds. Holmes’s expressed desire to use the law to “build a race” was quintessential reform Darwinism. Buck v. Bell was reform Darwinism. Holmes’s ridicule of Spencer in Lochner was perfectly consistent with Holmes’s statism and his reform Darwinism. The problem we have today is that any concept of reform Darwinism has dropped out of the discussion. All people remember is the term “social Darwinism,” which is supposed to describe both Hitlerism (hyper statist) and radical laissez faire (the opposite of hyper statism). Social Darwinism may be bad on any number of fronts (bad politics, bad science, bad philosophy, bad morals, etc.) but it isn’t statist.

Leftists who attempt to distance themselves from Hitler like to emphasize the (trivial) differences between Hitlerism and Stalinism, while ignoring the much more important commonality — both were murderous totalitarianisms, and (as Jonah notes) hyperstatisms. The difference was pretty much transparent to the user. And the notion that Nazism was “right wing” doesn’t sit very well with the notion that libertarianism is. Something has to give in this mindless left/right taxonomy.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space

The Goal Remains The Same

9 Comments

Laurie Leshin attempted to tamp down the mindless hysteria over the new space policy yesterday:

The new plan represents “a change in approach and philosophy, but not a change in goal,” said Laurie Leshin, NASA deputy administrator for exploration, in a speech yesterday at a Marshall Institute event on space exploration policy in Washington. “The goal remains the same: to see human explorers out in the solar system.” The new focus on “sustainable and affordable” human space exploration isn’t that new, she said, noting that it was emphasized back in 2004 by the Aldridge Commission that evaluated the Vision for Space Exploration (a committee she served on when she was a professor at Arizona State University.) “We’ve come back to needing to have new and enabling approaches in order to make this a sustainable program for the future.”

To emphasize the need for technology development—one of the cornerstones of the new plan—to enable sustainable human space exploration, she put up a chart showing the mass needed to carry out the latest version of NASA’s Design Reference Mission for human Mars exploration. “If today, with today’s technology, decided we wanted to go to Mars, our mission would have a mass about 12 times of the space station,” she said. “It’s just impossible.” Various technologies, from reducing cryogenic boiloff to in situ resource utilization, can get it down to a more manageable level, she said. “It’s not that these technologies are nice to have, they’re absolutely required if we’re going to have a sustainable path out into the solar system.”

I wish that people would understand what a hopeless dead end Constellation was. Regardless of the new policy direction, its rotting carcass had to be cleared from the road. I assume that we’ll be seeing a lot more details and specifics in the coming weeks and months (probably at the National Space Symposium in Colorado Springs in a couple weeks).

[Update a few minutes later]

One of the things that encourages me about the implementation of the new policy is that Dr. Leshin, the new head of the Exploration Directorate, was on the Aldridge Commission, and understands better than most the need for affordability and sustainability recommended by that body. I suspect she’ll do a lot better job than Mike Griffin’s NASA of implementing all, or at least most of the Aldridge recommendations.