…to the Great Depression and New Deal
Category Archives: Political Commentary
(Right)Winging It At The DHS
Jonah Goldberg, on the hypocrisy and misplaced paranoia of the left (and the MSM, but I repeat myself) in seeing “rightwing extremists” behind every tree, while ignoring the real threats:
When Hollywood filmed the Tom Clancy novel The Sum of All Fears, it changed the real villains from jihadi terrorists to a bunch of European CEOs who were secret Nazis. Because “everybody knows” that’s where the real threat lies.
Sen. John Kerry belonged to an organization of vets that considered assassinating American politicians. (Kerry denied participating in those meetings.) Barack Obama was friends with, and a colleague of, a terrorist whose organization plotted to murder soldiers and their wives at a social at Fort Dix. A young Hillary Clinton sympathized with the Black Panthers, a paramilitary gang of racist murders and cop killers.
Bring that up and you’re a paranoid nutcase out of Dr. Strangelove.
But if you’re terrified of a bunch of citizens who throw tea in the water and demand lower taxes and less government spending, well, that’s just a sign of political seriousness.
Also, as John Miller points out, these people have gotten way too much mileage out of Tim McVeigh. And if his goal was to increase the power of the political “right,” it had exactly the opposite effect, blunting the Republican momentum from the 1994 elections.
Nurturism’s Last Stand?
John Derbyshire has some thoughts about the latest attempt to defy human nature and biological determinism:
…remember that the human sciences differ from the physical sciences in an important way. We have been acquainted with galaxies, quarks, genes, superconductors, neurons, and tectonic plates for only a few decades. We have been observing each other — our fellow human beings — with very keen interest for several dozen millennia, since homo sap first showed up and formed social groups. We should therefore expect far fewer surprises in the human sciences than in the physical sciences. The reasonable expectation is, that the human sciences mostly just validate and quantify what we always kinda knew. Striking, dazzlingly counter-inutitive results show up a lot in the physical sciences. In the human sciences they ought to be rare. When such results are announced, they should be approached with even more than the scientifically-normal amount of skepticism.
Both social conservatives and the left have a huge ideological investment in the tabula rasa theory of humans. Social conservatives because it is necessary for them to believe that homosexuals are made, not born, and leftists because they always seek to remold man in the image of their utopia, to fit him in their procrustean bed of equality and “fairness.”
Deep Kimchi For Iraq
Why, after the manifest failure of the North Korea negotiations, is the man in charge of them being assigned to Baghdad?
Where Was The Rage?
Greg Gutfeld wonders why the media missed the real story of the tea parties.
A Rant About Libertarian Morons
Reason TV editor Nick Gillespie goes verbally medieval on the (supposedly) libertarian idiots who voted for Barack Obama:
Question to the folks, including some of the libertarian persuasion (you fools!), who were bullish on Obama back when the alternative was John McCain, the Terri Schiavo of presidential candidates: When are you going to admit that Barry O stinks on ice? That for all his high-flying and studiously empty rhetoric he’s got the biggest presidential vision deficit since George H.W. Bush puked on a Japanese prime minister (finally, revenge for that long run of Little League World Series losses in the ’70s!). If you’re the president of the United States and you’re talking about goddamn traffic jams and you’re proposing high-speed rail as anything other than an unapologetic boondoggle that will a) never get built and b) never get built to the gee-whiz specs it’s supposed and c) be ridden by fewer people than commuted by zeppelin last year, you’ve got real problems, bub. And by extension, so do we all.
There’s more.
Another Failed Federal Initiative
Despite the claims of MADD, the federally imposed minimum legal drinking age of 21 doesn’t save lives. But it does restrict the freedom of adults, and erodes federalism. In fact, that 1984 act (under Reagan) is one of the reasons that I don’t miss Elizabeth Dole.
More Idiocy In Austin
Two years after the worst school massacre in history, some students and faculty are walking out of class to demand to the Texas legislature that they remain helpless victims. And we have the usual stupidity from a law professor who, despite sensible comments from Eugene Volokh, gets the last moronic and historically ignorant word. From the conclusion:
Paul Finkelman, an Albany Law School professor and former UT history and law professor, said that from a constitutional standpoint, the Texas Legislature has the right to allow concealed carry on campus, but he questioned the logic of state legislators.
“I think no one ever accused the Texas Legislature of being smart,” Finkelman said. “It seems to be an inordinately stupid plan because it means any lunatic can come on campus with a gun.”
Yes, and of course, that couldn’t possibly happen unless the legislature makes it legal for permit holders to come on campus. I mean, we saw how effective Virginia Tech’s gun-free zone was. Apparently, the lunatic just hadn’t gotten the memo.
He said he was surprised that anyone in Texas would consider wanting to have guns on state campuses, particularly UT.
“Given the history of UT when someone climbed up a tower and started shooting people, … what are these people thinking?” Finkelman said.
Perhaps they’re thinking that it was a good thing that there were armed students on campus that day, who got their guns from their cars and lockers, and saved many lives by keeping the shooter pinned back in the tower until the police arrived.
He said the Supreme Court rulings have basically said they are free to regulate fire arms.
“The sociological evidence is clear that if guns are handy, people will use them,” Finkelman said. “Having such a rule is an encouragement of death and mayhem at the University of Texas. There is no other way to describe it.”
Yes, if guns are handy, and people are being shot at, they will use them. Guns don’t stop people from shooting people, people with guns do. In fact, if you really want to encourage death and mayhem at a university, put up a sign that effectively says: “hundreds of densely packed unarmed victims inside.” It worked a real treat in Blacksburg two years ago.
Red Dawn, Take Two
While I’m sure that some of my more deranged readers fantasize that I watch it over and over, I’ve actually never seen the movie “Red Dawn
NASA’s Budget Options
Jeff Foust has a link to a new report from the Congressional Budget Office. It doesn’t paint a pretty picture. I have to agree with “Red” in comments:
…if you consider that the goal of the Vision for Space Exploration was contributions to science, security, and economics in the context of strong commercial and international participations, none of these options will carry that out. They all involve Constellation/Ares, which is more or less the opposite of those goals. One aspect of this opposition is that the options that don’t postpone Constellation involve reducing science and aeronautics missions that actually do contribute to science, security, and economics (eg: using similar launchers and satellites to those used by defense and intelligence agencies)…
…With Science and Aeronautics already having taken huge reductions due to Shuttle and Constellation in recent years, and Obama’s push for Earth observations, fuel-efficient planes, NASA education, etc, I doubt that the science/aeronautics cut scenarios will happen. With such huge Federal debt/deficits and many agencies enjoying tons of money and sure to want to keep it that way, I doubt NASA will get the big budget boost scenario, either.
Basically, the numbers don’t work without major commercial participation, and getting control of out-of-control NASA areas like Constellation, Shuttle, and some larger science mission plans.
Emphasis mine. Unfortunately, there’s no sign that any of that is happening. The Ares zombie continues to plod forward at the cost of billions, and commercial participation remains minimal. And it’s unlikely to happen as long as becoming spacefaring remains politically unimportant, and in an environment in which pork dominates progress.
[Evening update]
Clark has another comment:
NASA needed innovative hardware architectures and mission designs to make Constellation “sustainable and affordable” as instructed in the VSE. Instead it chose Ares I and Orion and now all the budget scenarios are bad.
Funny, that.