Category Archives: Political Commentary

Will There Always Be An England?

David Frum reviews a new history.

And this seems related: The rejection of the West:

As the great 15th century Arab historian Ibn Khaldun observed, societies that get rich also tend to get soft, both in the physical sense and in the head. Over the past two centuries, Western societies, propelled by the twin forces of technology and capitalist “animal spirits,” have created a diffusion of wealth unprecedented in world history. A massive middle class emerged, and the working class received valuable protections, not only in Europe and America, but throughout parts of the world, notably East Asia, which adopted at least some of the Western ethos.

The current massive movement of people from the Middle East, Africa and Asia to Western countries suggests the enduring appeal of this model. After all, people from developing countries aren’t risking their lives to move to North Korea, Russia or China. The West remains a powerful beacon in the “clash of civilizations.”

Yet a portion of these newcomers ultimately reject our culture and, in some cases, seek to liquidate it. They do this in countries where multiculturalism urges immigrants to register as “victims,” and not indulge in Western culture, as did most previous immigrant waves. After all, why assimilate into a culture that much of the cultural elite believes to be evil?

Perhaps the biggest disconnect may involve young immigrants and their offspring, particularly students. Rather than be integrated in some ways into society, they are able, and even encouraged, not to learn about “Western civilization,” which is all but gone from campuses, with barely 2 percent retaining this requirement.

The dominant ideology on college campus – “cultural relativism” – leaves little room for anything other than a nasty take on Western history and culture. Many students, whether of immigrant parentage or descendants of the Mayflower, have only vague appreciation or knowledge of Western civilization, making them highly vulnerable to such pleading. They often go through college now with only the vaguest notion of our history, the writings of the American founders, the philosophy of the Enlightenment, our vast cultural heritage or the fundamental principles of Christianity or, if you will, Judeo-Christianity.

This will not end well.

[Update a while later]

First link was wrong, fixed now. Sorry!

Space Exploration Delenda Est

Not really Christmas related, but I was working on a section of the report about this, and realized that I hadn’t blogged it at the time, a few days ago. Pew Research released an opinion poll, in which they asked “what role the US government should play in advancing space exploration,” in the context of a broader poll asking what the government role should be in a wide range of activities. For “space exploration,” the public was basically split according to Pew, with almost half favoring a government role, and almost half favoring little or none. But there was a crucial assumption in the question: That everyone agreed on what “space exploration” meant.

I think polls like this are meaningless, because the public is so ill informed, and the notion of “space exploration” so (no pun intended) nebulous. Planetary probes? Space mining? Space settlement? Astronomy? The answer is going to depend very much on what the individual thinks that space exploration is. That’s why I’ve declared warfare on the phrase.

Social Justice

…comes to Whoville:

I have been “othered.” I have been mocked and ignored. I have been forced to live in red-lined areas of the community. I have been slandered and slurred and libeled and smeared. I have been treated, quite simply, the way one might treat a “monster.”

The hate ends now. It ends today.

You want your Christmas back? Seriously? The colored lights and the jingtinglers and floobfloobers? The roast beast? The Who Whompers? Want to know what I want back? I want the land your people stole from me. I want an awareness of exactly how I’ve suffered for the past two centuries. I want an acknowledgment that your Who Privilege has perpetuated a system in which people like me have been kept down (ironically by being exiled above) and forced to accept and use the language of oppression.

Finally.

George W. Bush And Christmas

Why he never left the White House until the day after:

After a few years, curiosity finally got to the former Washington Times reporter and he asked a low-level administration official why.

“I still remember what she said,” Curl wrote. “’So all of us can be with our families on Christmas.’”

“Who was ‘us’? Hundreds and hundreds of people, that’s who. Sure, the reporters who covered the president, but also dozens and dozens on his staff, 100 Secret Service agents, maybe more, and all of those city cops required whenever the president’s on the move in D.C.,” Curl added in his column.

However, things seemingly changed when Obama took office.

“[T]his president would never delay his trip to his island getaway. He’s off every year well before Christmas. Hundreds and hundreds head off with him, leaving family behind,” Curl wrote.

Some people have class, others are narcissists and leaches on the wealth of the taxpayer.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Barack Obama’s top ten violations of the Constitution this year. Note that this implies that there were many more.

Troops Die In Afghanistan

..and the Washington Post decides it’s all about Obama:

He’s dead now but the thing you have to worry about is how this might spoil Obama’s 600th round of golf.

Don’t think about these minor characters.

Think only of this Hero, the Star of Our Movie, in a difficult moment on his Hero’s Journey. The deaths of these walk-ons with no lines aren’t important, except to the extent they cause him to reflect, or feel a moment of triumph in…. golf.

At least when he’s golfing it minimizes the damage he’s doing to the country.

[Update a few minutes later]

Speaking of the WaPo, here are the ten stupidest things about it portraying Ted Cruz’s kids as monkeys.

The Food Fight Over Government Nutrition

No, the Republicans aren’t “politicizing it”:

For decades, the government has advised Americans on what they should eat. The advice isn’t just advisory; it drives everything from school lunches and agricultural subsidies to marketing for those bowls of candy we call breakfast cereal. But the science behind this enterprise has always been shaky.

Yes. And Michelle’s lunch program continues to constitute literal, physical child abuse.