Category Archives: Social Commentary

Fall Colors

Lileks:

The weather’s been warm, or what passes for warmth in our state of ever-diminishing expectations. Fifty, fifty-two; cloudless sky; mellow sun. Most of the trees are now participating, although a few just go from green to dull green, like adults invited to a costume party who prefer to put on an old pair of glasses and consider that sufficient. Sunday winds separated the hardy from the weak, stripping some trees with the frenzy of starved piranhas.

Pictures, too.

Barack Obama’s Narrative Delusions

Thoughts from Andrew Klavan:

Within the narrative cloud created by these journalists, Obama remains safe in his illusions while the rest of us suffer the consequences. He believes that playing the president and being the president are much the same thing. It is as if Bruce Willis believed he could save a skyscraper full of people by jumping off the roof clutching a fire hose.

For those of us who face the world head on? We don’t need Mulder and Scully to tell us: the truth is out there. Obama has lost the gains of the Iraq war and sacrificed the lives of our soldiers in Afghanistan to no purpose. He has alienated our allies in Germany, France and, God help us, Saudi Arabia, while playing the fool for our enemies in Iran and Russia. He has ruthlessly curtailed free speech by abusing the powers of the IRS against his political opponents, spying on and persecuting journalists, and encouraging the imprisonment of a video maker to suit his political ends. He has brutally hobbled our economy with anti-business regulations written by the very legislators who brought on the recession in the first place. And now, through lies and corrupt political machinations, he has saddled us with a chaotic and overbearing health care law that, even when operational, will never be worth its weight in debt and curtailed liberties.

But other than that, it’s great.

[Update a while later]

A phalanx of lies:

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been opposed to government health care because, as I’ve said in at least two books, it fundamentally redefines the relationship between the citizen and the state into one closer to that of junkie and pusher. But that’s a philosophical position. Others prefer constitutional arguments: The federal government does not have the authority to do what it’s doing. Dear old John Roberts, chief justice of the United States, twisted himself into a pretzel to argue that, in fact, the government does. But he might as well have saved himself the trouble and just used Nancy Pelosi’s line: Asked by a journalist where in the Constitution it granted the feds the power to do this, she gave him the full Leslie Nielsen and said, “You’re not serious?” She has the measure of her people. Most Americans couldn’t care less about philosophical arguments or constitutional fine print: For them, all Obamacare has to do is work. That is why the last month has been so damaging to Big Government’s brand: In entirely non-ideological, technocratic, utilitarian terms, Obamacare is a bust.

I think, and hope, it was a regulatory policy bridge too far.

Public Schools

Who is stupider? It’s pretty tough to choose. But this is a point I hadn’t considered:

…as smarter people abandon public schools, the dumber ones who remain have more impact. They should be subjected to public humiliation, in the hopes that they’ll learn, or at least serve as an example to the others.

I wonder if we aren’t already in a death spiral in that regard.

The Latest Front In The War On Women

Now the cruel patriarchy (if by “patriarchy,” you mean Emily Yoffe and Ruth Marcus) is suggesting that maybe getting plastered at college parties isn’t the greatest idea:

If two people rush into a lion’s den and one decided to wear a dress made out of thinly sliced prime rib, she’s probably the one who is going to get eaten. This isn’t blaming the girl… it’s teaching her not to be the one wearing the Lady Gaga meat dress. But apparently offering any sort of parental advice on risk avoidance and minimization is crossing a line for some people. Maybe it’s a tacit admission there are parents who fail to do a good enough job preparing their children for the world. Perhaps it’s viewed as depriving their young freshmen offspring their “rights” to go out for the “fun” of “having a few too many” which is a “right of passage.” (I actually saw that one in one of the comments. I couldn’t make that up if I tried.)

This is obviously even more outrageous than not forcing Catholic law schools to give their students free contraceptives.