There's something about asymmetrical warfare. If you can use a cheap rocket propelled grenade to take out a tank, then you've got an advantage because it costs a lot more to replace the tank than it does to buy more RPGs.
For almost a year now, the entire media-government-political complex has been obsessed with one thing: destroy Sarah Palin by any means necessary. Their goal is to get her to follow Dan Quayle's example and slink quietly away to wherever it was in flyover country that he came from.
And it has been somewhat effective. If her name comes up in casual conversation, half the things attributed to her were instead uttered by Tina Fey on Saturday Night Live. In the hospital today, I saw her face on a magazin cover with the word DIVORCE plastered on her. There's a full court press that's been ongoing nonstop well after the election and well after her departure from the office of Governor of Alaska.
But something funny has started happening. Mrs. Palin got a facebook account. And she's been posting to it. Now, when I post something here, I figure maybe a couple friends might see it and it goes no further. But when Sarah Palin posts to her facebook page, there's a lot of people who notice and read it. This includes people who have heard the latest scurrilous rumors and are hoping for a juicy tidbit, and the uncommitted middle who are wondering why the Dems and their media lapdogs are hyperventilating.
Everyone who sees her facebook posts can see for themselves that Sarah Palin is not Tina Fey. She doesn't write like she's an idiot, how can that be?
This is leverage. It costs Sarah Palin nothing but her time to write up a facebook post. Contrast that with the money it takes to run a big astroturfing campaign and to marshal the efforts of state-run media to get the Dems' message out.
But Mrs. Palin's facebook posts will languish in obscurity unless something drives traffic to her site. And what better to drive traffic than the morbid curiosity of watching a train wreck. Come on Democrats, you know she's caribou Barbie white-trash, keep coming back to see her say something embarrassing, like "death panels." And read every word for some little clue, or tidbit of gossip about her marriage. Check back early and often.
And you Democrats know that if you don't stop demonizing her, she'll be a viable political figure in 2012. You can't have that. Perhaps you should shop around some more rumors about her family.
Try not to notice you're making people curious to find out more about the target of your Two Minute Hate.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Monday, August 17, 2009
What I learned making an epub eBook
I happen to own an Amazon Kindle and a SONY Reader. I've taken it upon myself to learn out how to make every eBook that I own readable on both devices. Sadly, the only eBook format that works on both devices is PDF. But PDF expects a specific page size and my readers happen to have different display sizes. I've decided to convert everything on my Amazon Kindle to MOBI format and everything on my SONY Reader to epub format.
Removing DRM from eBooks is a violation of Federal law or maybe just talking about it is. So, I've been messing about with Gutenberg texts. And other freely available texts. A couple days ago I stumbled upon a CD-ROM full of Puritan texts. I saw one and decided to convert it into an ebook. I intended to use Calibre to convert the ebook from epub to mobi. But first, I'd have to make a good looking epub file.
The first thing I learned was that the CD-ROM wasn't as good as the web, b/c the book was in PDF and it was easier to start with this html.
The first thing I learned was that WinZip can read epub files, because epub files are just zip files with a differently named extent. Just put all the HTMLs in a zip, rename the file extent. And add a few "extras." (I'll come back to this.)
The second thing I learned was that the epub file may look good in Calibre and on the Kindle, but fail miserably on the Sony Reader. The next step was to figure out how to validate the epub. And I found this site helpful.
The validation process told me the obvious: convert html to xhtml. Mostly by changing all <br> elements to <br/> and all <hr> elements to <hr/>. And the error messages eventually directed me to all but one fix that I needed to make.
If your HTML has any illegal characters, e.g. an accented 'e' like this, é, you'll get absolutely no help figuring out what the bad character is or where it occurs. You'll want to convert it to an escaped version: é or you'll get a useless error message like this: "I/O error reading" without any clue as to where or what the problem is.
After you get an epub that passes validation. You're not done, because the SONY has a limitation. It can't handle any single chapter that's more than 100k in size. Thus you'll have to split all the content into pieces that are smaller than that.
Let's suppose you've got a set of cherry XHTML files in a zip file. It's still not an epub file until you've added the extras I mentioned above. You'll need to add files named:
1) mimetype that holds "application/epub+zip"
2) toc.ncx that defines a table of contents
3) content.opf that defines the contents of the epub.
4) container.xml that names content.opf
These extras were a little intimidating for me to dream up from scratch. So I cheated. I used Calibre to convert a tiny PDF to epub. Then I started replacing and extending the parts and pieces until I had replaced the tiny PDF's content with the desired book's content. Moving step by step through the various files, I could study each change in isolation and get an idea of why things worked or didn't.
In the end, if you're going to mess about with Gutenberg ebooks, you really want to put the extra effort into making them look pretty. This means googling around to find an picture of the book's cover. Or if you're artsy, design your own cover. Or if you've got the book in dead-tree format & scan it. And then there's the business of setting up the table of contents. I think you'll want to aim for a table of contents that fits on a single screen. Finally, you'll want to properly identify the book's publisher and isbn number. I usually look up the book on Amazon and copy whatever metadata I find there. Quality is a matter of attention to detail.
This is my latest foray into the realm of "bookmaking" and I know I've got a lot of learning to do.
Removing DRM from eBooks is a violation of Federal law or maybe just talking about it is. So, I've been messing about with Gutenberg texts. And other freely available texts. A couple days ago I stumbled upon a CD-ROM full of Puritan texts. I saw one and decided to convert it into an ebook. I intended to use Calibre to convert the ebook from epub to mobi. But first, I'd have to make a good looking epub file.
The first thing I learned was that the CD-ROM wasn't as good as the web, b/c the book was in PDF and it was easier to start with this html.
The first thing I learned was that WinZip can read epub files, because epub files are just zip files with a differently named extent. Just put all the HTMLs in a zip, rename the file extent. And add a few "extras." (I'll come back to this.)
The second thing I learned was that the epub file may look good in Calibre and on the Kindle, but fail miserably on the Sony Reader. The next step was to figure out how to validate the epub. And I found this site helpful.
The validation process told me the obvious: convert html to xhtml. Mostly by changing all <br> elements to <br/> and all <hr> elements to <hr/>. And the error messages eventually directed me to all but one fix that I needed to make.
If your HTML has any illegal characters, e.g. an accented 'e' like this, é, you'll get absolutely no help figuring out what the bad character is or where it occurs. You'll want to convert it to an escaped version: é or you'll get a useless error message like this: "I/O error reading" without any clue as to where or what the problem is.
After you get an epub that passes validation. You're not done, because the SONY has a limitation. It can't handle any single chapter that's more than 100k in size. Thus you'll have to split all the content into pieces that are smaller than that.
Let's suppose you've got a set of cherry XHTML files in a zip file. It's still not an epub file until you've added the extras I mentioned above. You'll need to add files named:
1) mimetype that holds "application/epub+zip"
2) toc.ncx that defines a table of contents
3) content.opf that defines the contents of the epub.
4) container.xml that names content.opf
These extras were a little intimidating for me to dream up from scratch. So I cheated. I used Calibre to convert a tiny PDF to epub. Then I started replacing and extending the parts and pieces until I had replaced the tiny PDF's content with the desired book's content. Moving step by step through the various files, I could study each change in isolation and get an idea of why things worked or didn't.
In the end, if you're going to mess about with Gutenberg ebooks, you really want to put the extra effort into making them look pretty. This means googling around to find an picture of the book's cover. Or if you're artsy, design your own cover. Or if you've got the book in dead-tree format & scan it. And then there's the business of setting up the table of contents. I think you'll want to aim for a table of contents that fits on a single screen. Finally, you'll want to properly identify the book's publisher and isbn number. I usually look up the book on Amazon and copy whatever metadata I find there. Quality is a matter of attention to detail.
This is my latest foray into the realm of "bookmaking" and I know I've got a lot of learning to do.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
More Stupid Republicans, Please
You can tell the difference between a Republican who's going to lose a political contest from one who's going to win by one simple criterion: How stupid is he?
We all know that Ronald Reagan was an amiable dunce who somehow managed to win two presidential elections by landslides and win the Cold War, then hand the presidency to his Veep (who demonstrated how much smarter he was when he called Reagan's domestic policies "voodoo economics"), George H W Bush.
Eight years after that mental colossus was defeated, his doltish son, an alcoholic frat boy or something, George W Bush, ran for president. This man was so stupid he ended up controlling both houses of Congress and the White House.
That's some kind of stupid, huh?
Now, younger Bush might have been called "stupid" by the press, but that doesn't mean he was a Conservative or a Reaganite. And his statist propensities persuaded the Libertarian bloc of the Reagan coalition to look elsewhere. Nevertheless, Bush was a lame duck and there was no need for him to be stupid any longer.
(One delightful irony is to read Jonah Goldberg's book "Liberal Fascism" and see him squirm at the question of whether Bush was a fascist. When you hear "Big Government Conservatism" just think fascism and it be clear. No, this isn't what the lefties saying, "Bushitler," had in mind.)
Then the Republicans figured that disloyalty and craven media pandering was exactly what the party needed to reward and they nominated the smartest guy in the room (just ask him) John McCain. (This was the point where I quit calling myself a Republican.)
Somehow the boffins running the McCain campaign screwed up. They thought, "if the Democrats have an affirmative-action presidential nominee, we'll counter with an affirmative-action vice-presidential nominee. Little did they know, that Sarah Palin was not going to be a hick non-entity that politely (and quietly) provided eye-candy while McLame lost the election.
Mrs. Palin did what she was hired to do. She got guys like me to pull the R lever on election day. Don't blame me, I voted for Sarah and what's his name.
She also drove the lefties, the Democrats, and the media elites nuts. Which is a blessing really. I used to take National Review and the Trojan-Horse Conservative commentators they publish seriously. I know better than to heed them now, thank you, Sarah.
You see, Sarah Palin, is stupid.
If she were only as smart as I am, she'd have done what I expected her to do: Demonstrate she can run Alaska for the next two years then move on to something bigger. Instead, she quit the governorship, citing spurious ethics complaints and slanders. Just a fortnight later, when someone said she was divorcing her husband, private-citizen Palin could sue the fellow for slander. And after the fellow's remarkable implosion, slanderers have to be more circumspect. Haven't heard anything about ethics complaints, either.
And Sarah Palin is stupid because she used two words, "Death Panels."
This was a horrible thing to say. Republicans could call Obama socialist, and point how much ObamaCare was like national socialism, but doing so runs afoul of Godwin's Rule of Nazi Analogies. Instead, she said, "Death Panels," and everyone felt the words like blood red painted fingernails on chalkboard.
The lefties caught the vapors. Some fainted and the rest said, "that Palin has gone too far." The Trojan-Horse Conservative commentariate nodded in agreement, knowing how embarrassed they'd be at the next Beltway cocktail party. "There are no Death Panels in this bill... There are?.. Uh, let me get back with you on that."
It even gave pause to union thugs busting heads of Tea Partiers at town-hall meetings.
Death Panels. The AARP is a key front group for the Democrat party. Their leadership had been bought off along with everyone else. BUT the words "death panels" wonderfully concentrated the mind of anyone aged and infirm. When you're stupid like Sarah Palin, you realize a sick geezer will cost ObamaCare money, but a dead one won't.
Death Panels forced the AARP to listen to their members. They could either go along with their Obama, or they could lose their credibility as an advocate for the aged. And geezers vote. Sorry, Barry.
Thus Death Panels have been struck from ObamaCare. (I wonder what else is in this bill my Congressman & Senators have not read.) Who'd of thought that old folks were the exact point where political pressure could be most effectively applied?
Sarah Palin sure is stupid, isn't she? I wish more Republicans were stupid like that.
We all know that Ronald Reagan was an amiable dunce who somehow managed to win two presidential elections by landslides and win the Cold War, then hand the presidency to his Veep (who demonstrated how much smarter he was when he called Reagan's domestic policies "voodoo economics"), George H W Bush.
Eight years after that mental colossus was defeated, his doltish son, an alcoholic frat boy or something, George W Bush, ran for president. This man was so stupid he ended up controlling both houses of Congress and the White House.
That's some kind of stupid, huh?
Now, younger Bush might have been called "stupid" by the press, but that doesn't mean he was a Conservative or a Reaganite. And his statist propensities persuaded the Libertarian bloc of the Reagan coalition to look elsewhere. Nevertheless, Bush was a lame duck and there was no need for him to be stupid any longer.
(One delightful irony is to read Jonah Goldberg's book "Liberal Fascism" and see him squirm at the question of whether Bush was a fascist. When you hear "Big Government Conservatism" just think fascism and it be clear. No, this isn't what the lefties saying, "Bushitler," had in mind.)
Then the Republicans figured that disloyalty and craven media pandering was exactly what the party needed to reward and they nominated the smartest guy in the room (just ask him) John McCain. (This was the point where I quit calling myself a Republican.)
Somehow the boffins running the McCain campaign screwed up. They thought, "if the Democrats have an affirmative-action presidential nominee, we'll counter with an affirmative-action vice-presidential nominee. Little did they know, that Sarah Palin was not going to be a hick non-entity that politely (and quietly) provided eye-candy while McLame lost the election.
Mrs. Palin did what she was hired to do. She got guys like me to pull the R lever on election day. Don't blame me, I voted for Sarah and what's his name.
She also drove the lefties, the Democrats, and the media elites nuts. Which is a blessing really. I used to take National Review and the Trojan-Horse Conservative commentators they publish seriously. I know better than to heed them now, thank you, Sarah.
You see, Sarah Palin, is stupid.
If she were only as smart as I am, she'd have done what I expected her to do: Demonstrate she can run Alaska for the next two years then move on to something bigger. Instead, she quit the governorship, citing spurious ethics complaints and slanders. Just a fortnight later, when someone said she was divorcing her husband, private-citizen Palin could sue the fellow for slander. And after the fellow's remarkable implosion, slanderers have to be more circumspect. Haven't heard anything about ethics complaints, either.
And Sarah Palin is stupid because she used two words, "Death Panels."
This was a horrible thing to say. Republicans could call Obama socialist, and point how much ObamaCare was like national socialism, but doing so runs afoul of Godwin's Rule of Nazi Analogies. Instead, she said, "Death Panels," and everyone felt the words like blood red painted fingernails on chalkboard.
The lefties caught the vapors. Some fainted and the rest said, "that Palin has gone too far." The Trojan-Horse Conservative commentariate nodded in agreement, knowing how embarrassed they'd be at the next Beltway cocktail party. "There are no Death Panels in this bill... There are?.. Uh, let me get back with you on that."
It even gave pause to union thugs busting heads of Tea Partiers at town-hall meetings.
Death Panels. The AARP is a key front group for the Democrat party. Their leadership had been bought off along with everyone else. BUT the words "death panels" wonderfully concentrated the mind of anyone aged and infirm. When you're stupid like Sarah Palin, you realize a sick geezer will cost ObamaCare money, but a dead one won't.
Death Panels forced the AARP to listen to their members. They could either go along with their Obama, or they could lose their credibility as an advocate for the aged. And geezers vote. Sorry, Barry.
Thus Death Panels have been struck from ObamaCare. (I wonder what else is in this bill my Congressman & Senators have not read.) Who'd of thought that old folks were the exact point where political pressure could be most effectively applied?
Sarah Palin sure is stupid, isn't she? I wish more Republicans were stupid like that.
Friday, August 14, 2009
The Amazon Kindle DX
Wednesday night after the writers group I was chatting with some friends. One of them said, "You should read The Yiddish Policemen's Union." And I agreed, I should. It's been a couple people who've recommended that book to me, and I'd agreed then, too.
This time, I thought, "Ho, Ho, this will be good." I excused myself and ran out to my car, I retrieved my Amazon Kindle DX. This is a fairly pricey bit of kit, but I'm a gadget fiend and my wife is tolerant of my excesses. I returned and sat down to show my friend the ultimate coolness.
I turned on the Kindle's radio and patiently waited for a connection to the Kindle store. Finally, it came back and I entered into the search box, "The Yiddish Policemen," figured that was enough and hit enter. A short wait. Nothing.
I tried something else. The Kindle isn't the easiest thing to type on so I kept thinking I'd typoed or something. No joy. Then I tried "Chabon" and I got a few hits. I found a hyperlink from the Amazon page to everything written by "Michael Chabon." It came back with a list of three books.
None of them were anything I'd ever heard of, and all the books that I had heard of were absent.
"Way to go, Amazon." Then I realized they were just reflecting the decision of the publisher. "Way to go, Harper Collins." Instead of gloating about what a great device the Amazon DX was, we went back to the previous conversation about what makes a corporation "evil" and what Amazon did last month deleting "1984" off customers' Kindles without permission.
This is what's known as a market failure. I was quite willing to pay whatever Harper Collins was willing to charge to buy a copy of this book. They weren't willing to sell it, but there are other books in the world I can read.
This time, I thought, "Ho, Ho, this will be good." I excused myself and ran out to my car, I retrieved my Amazon Kindle DX. This is a fairly pricey bit of kit, but I'm a gadget fiend and my wife is tolerant of my excesses. I returned and sat down to show my friend the ultimate coolness.
I turned on the Kindle's radio and patiently waited for a connection to the Kindle store. Finally, it came back and I entered into the search box, "The Yiddish Policemen," figured that was enough and hit enter. A short wait. Nothing.
I tried something else. The Kindle isn't the easiest thing to type on so I kept thinking I'd typoed or something. No joy. Then I tried "Chabon" and I got a few hits. I found a hyperlink from the Amazon page to everything written by "Michael Chabon." It came back with a list of three books.
None of them were anything I'd ever heard of, and all the books that I had heard of were absent.
"Way to go, Amazon." Then I realized they were just reflecting the decision of the publisher. "Way to go, Harper Collins." Instead of gloating about what a great device the Amazon DX was, we went back to the previous conversation about what makes a corporation "evil" and what Amazon did last month deleting "1984" off customers' Kindles without permission.
This is what's known as a market failure. I was quite willing to pay whatever Harper Collins was willing to charge to buy a copy of this book. They weren't willing to sell it, but there are other books in the world I can read.
Sunday, August 09, 2009
Two Revolutions
Please forward this to flag@whitehouse.org and flag it "fishy."
If you're a student of history, you may have heard of "The American Revolution" and if the scope of your historical interest is restricted to the 20th Century, you may have heard of "The Russian Revolution." If you think there is no difference between the two, you may believe recent propaganda emanating from state-run media.
A few months ago, President Obama claimed that he was the only thing standing between the bankers and the mobs. This was when the only "tea party" anybody had heard of was in Boston. Now I'm watching "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" and the perpetrator is a former Baader-Meinhof gang member fomenting Revolution through domestic terrorism. The writer had the terrorist conflate his Marxist direct-action with the tea-party rallies.
This week Democrats called Tea Partiers "Nazis," and Republicans called the government-worker union members who roughed up Tea Partiers "brown shirts." Good work guys. I call "Godwin's Law."
Once upon a time I was interviewed for a security clearance. They put me on a polygraph machine and asked if I'd ever been a communist or supported any communist cause. I had to answer, "yes" or "no." My answer then and now is, "No."
This was in 1980. Hitler and the Nazi party had died a decade before I was born. Then I was asked if I had ever been a fascist or supported a fascist political party. This question made absolutely no sense. I tried to make sense of it. I did intend to vote for Reagan and he was pretty far to the right.
So, I asked, "What's a fascist?" I had no idea what fascism meant then. My inquisitor explained that he was asking about the guys Hitler palled around with. And I answered, "No," only because "Hell, No," wasn't allowed. Apparently the boffins at the NSA had seen "The Boys From Brazil" or "They Saved Hitler's Brain."
The trouble is that almost everyone is ignorant of what fascism is. It's all that Hitler stuff, right? Presumably, National Socialism was not a form of Socialism? And those who oppose Socialism, in the form of socialized medicine at a Federal level, do not belong to that socialist heresy that competes with Stalinist Communism?
This is absurd because of the blood libel that Leftists have perpetrated against Conservatives and Libertarians for all my life. Nazis are Socialists. They're a different kind of Socialist than Communists, but they are socialists nonetheless.
If someone says William F. Buckley, or Ronald Reagan, or Rush Limbaugh is a crypto-fascist, ask yourself the question, "What Would Adolph Do?" Would he cut your taxes? Would he shrink your government? Would he RIF federal employees? Would he support the NRA? Would he treat you like a citizen not a subject? Did any of these things happen in Nazi Germany? No, all opposites happened there.
It's called "Totalitarian" government for a reason.
Here's the entire matter in a nutshell: How much government do you want? Do you want a lot more government? Or do you want less government? The American Revolution threw off the British Crown to get less government. The Russian Revolution threw off the Czar and they got a LOT more government. Same with the French Revolution. Tea partiers are engaging in political activism.
They're being regarded as Revolutionaries, but they don't realize their opposition is the one overthrowing the American government with force and violence.
People think that because Tea Partiers oppose Obama's socialism that they're Republicans. Bad news for you GOP. They're sick of your me-too socialism. There's more pent-up demand for less government than any time I've seen since the Carter years. If that pent-up demand cannot find an outlet, reread the Declaration of Independence.
If you're a student of history, you may have heard of "The American Revolution" and if the scope of your historical interest is restricted to the 20th Century, you may have heard of "The Russian Revolution." If you think there is no difference between the two, you may believe recent propaganda emanating from state-run media.
A few months ago, President Obama claimed that he was the only thing standing between the bankers and the mobs. This was when the only "tea party" anybody had heard of was in Boston. Now I'm watching "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" and the perpetrator is a former Baader-Meinhof gang member fomenting Revolution through domestic terrorism. The writer had the terrorist conflate his Marxist direct-action with the tea-party rallies.
This week Democrats called Tea Partiers "Nazis," and Republicans called the government-worker union members who roughed up Tea Partiers "brown shirts." Good work guys. I call "Godwin's Law."
Once upon a time I was interviewed for a security clearance. They put me on a polygraph machine and asked if I'd ever been a communist or supported any communist cause. I had to answer, "yes" or "no." My answer then and now is, "No."
This was in 1980. Hitler and the Nazi party had died a decade before I was born. Then I was asked if I had ever been a fascist or supported a fascist political party. This question made absolutely no sense. I tried to make sense of it. I did intend to vote for Reagan and he was pretty far to the right.
So, I asked, "What's a fascist?" I had no idea what fascism meant then. My inquisitor explained that he was asking about the guys Hitler palled around with. And I answered, "No," only because "Hell, No," wasn't allowed. Apparently the boffins at the NSA had seen "The Boys From Brazil" or "They Saved Hitler's Brain."
The trouble is that almost everyone is ignorant of what fascism is. It's all that Hitler stuff, right? Presumably, National Socialism was not a form of Socialism? And those who oppose Socialism, in the form of socialized medicine at a Federal level, do not belong to that socialist heresy that competes with Stalinist Communism?
This is absurd because of the blood libel that Leftists have perpetrated against Conservatives and Libertarians for all my life. Nazis are Socialists. They're a different kind of Socialist than Communists, but they are socialists nonetheless.
If someone says William F. Buckley, or Ronald Reagan, or Rush Limbaugh is a crypto-fascist, ask yourself the question, "What Would Adolph Do?" Would he cut your taxes? Would he shrink your government? Would he RIF federal employees? Would he support the NRA? Would he treat you like a citizen not a subject? Did any of these things happen in Nazi Germany? No, all opposites happened there.
It's called "Totalitarian" government for a reason.
Here's the entire matter in a nutshell: How much government do you want? Do you want a lot more government? Or do you want less government? The American Revolution threw off the British Crown to get less government. The Russian Revolution threw off the Czar and they got a LOT more government. Same with the French Revolution. Tea partiers are engaging in political activism.
They're being regarded as Revolutionaries, but they don't realize their opposition is the one overthrowing the American government with force and violence.
People think that because Tea Partiers oppose Obama's socialism that they're Republicans. Bad news for you GOP. They're sick of your me-too socialism. There's more pent-up demand for less government than any time I've seen since the Carter years. If that pent-up demand cannot find an outlet, reread the Declaration of Independence.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
What do you expect of me?
I was cruising the various right-wing blogs and saw a discussion of Miss California who happens to believe the same thing about gay marriage as President Obama, and for that distinction alone she has been nominated for sainthood by the right. She is an attractive woman who has been photographed as you can see here (scroll down to the last picture).
The photograph shows this young lady holding up a wall and looking backwards. From the look on her face she seems to be inviting the cameraman or someone to assist her in the holding up that wall. Presumably, someone beset by less pure thoughts might think her come-hither look inconsistent with her professed Christianity.
And that's what I'm on about right now. I'm a Christian. What do you expect of me? Should I go around in a white sheet and lynch folks who aren't like me after the fashion of the antagonist in The Foreigner? Should I engage in all manner of sexual misdeeds whilst preaching whatever Reverend Dimsdale preached in The Scarlet Letter? Do you expect me to wag my finger at Ms. Carrie Prejean and insist that she should dress more like Ms. Susan Boyle?
Ms. Prejean is a single lass. And anyone who's read their fair share of Jane Austen novels knows that the raison d'être of every single girl is to attract a rich Colonel Brandon, Mr. Darcy or Mr. Knightley, and marry him. Nothing wrong with that.
(Why yes, there is a tongue in my cheek. I hoped you'd notice.)
This whole matter suffers from a misapprehension of what Christianity is. It isn't a set of legalisms designed to trip up those less holy than oneself--a sort of moralistic king of the hill where the more righteous knock down the less righteous with a lot of blamestorming. Primarily Christianity is a mechanism for getting rid of one's sin. The role of Law in Christianity is to convince ourselves of our own failings. The role of Christ in Christianity isn't to provide quotes from the Sermon on the Mount, but to die on the Cross providing a mechanism for granting mercy to some.
If you don't understand this, and you've felt the sting of a guilty conscience, then I think you may be inclined to play your game of king of the moral hill. Every time you push a Christian down, you can call him or her a hypocrite and explain away your stinging conscience with something like, "I'm not perfect, but I'm better than that." Or suppose you lose the game of king of the moral hill. Then you can say, "well, at least I'm not a stick-in-the-mud like him."
Christianity really isn't about that kind of game. It's one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread. Everyone gets justice or mercy. I happen to need mercy, and I seek it in Christ. It isn't just that I want a "get out of hell free" card, because if I'm going to be saved from my sins, I'm going to have to be saved from doing more sins. And I'm counting on Christ to make that happen in my life. What you can expect from me is a halting, imperfect transition from what I'm doing now to what God expects from me.
The photograph shows this young lady holding up a wall and looking backwards. From the look on her face she seems to be inviting the cameraman or someone to assist her in the holding up that wall. Presumably, someone beset by less pure thoughts might think her come-hither look inconsistent with her professed Christianity.
And that's what I'm on about right now. I'm a Christian. What do you expect of me? Should I go around in a white sheet and lynch folks who aren't like me after the fashion of the antagonist in The Foreigner? Should I engage in all manner of sexual misdeeds whilst preaching whatever Reverend Dimsdale preached in The Scarlet Letter? Do you expect me to wag my finger at Ms. Carrie Prejean and insist that she should dress more like Ms. Susan Boyle?
Ms. Prejean is a single lass. And anyone who's read their fair share of Jane Austen novels knows that the raison d'être of every single girl is to attract a rich Colonel Brandon, Mr. Darcy or Mr. Knightley, and marry him. Nothing wrong with that.
(Why yes, there is a tongue in my cheek. I hoped you'd notice.)
This whole matter suffers from a misapprehension of what Christianity is. It isn't a set of legalisms designed to trip up those less holy than oneself--a sort of moralistic king of the hill where the more righteous knock down the less righteous with a lot of blamestorming. Primarily Christianity is a mechanism for getting rid of one's sin. The role of Law in Christianity is to convince ourselves of our own failings. The role of Christ in Christianity isn't to provide quotes from the Sermon on the Mount, but to die on the Cross providing a mechanism for granting mercy to some.
If you don't understand this, and you've felt the sting of a guilty conscience, then I think you may be inclined to play your game of king of the moral hill. Every time you push a Christian down, you can call him or her a hypocrite and explain away your stinging conscience with something like, "I'm not perfect, but I'm better than that." Or suppose you lose the game of king of the moral hill. Then you can say, "well, at least I'm not a stick-in-the-mud like him."
Christianity really isn't about that kind of game. It's one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread. Everyone gets justice or mercy. I happen to need mercy, and I seek it in Christ. It isn't just that I want a "get out of hell free" card, because if I'm going to be saved from my sins, I'm going to have to be saved from doing more sins. And I'm counting on Christ to make that happen in my life. What you can expect from me is a halting, imperfect transition from what I'm doing now to what God expects from me.
A Call For Socialism
I am no fan of socialism. But there are some non-individualist solutions I readily endorse: insurance companies. These work by spreading risk around so that no one person bears the entire cost of whatever hazard is being insured against. This works and it is in a sense a socialist solution even when the government isn't involved.
I am a big fan of tools. I like building things and finding just the right tool in my shop. At Harbor Freight I'm like a kid in a candy store. But there are tools I cannot afford, but would dearly love to own. And I wouldn't buy them even if I could afford them because I wouldn't use them enough to justify the expense. Like a laser cutter. I'd dearly love to own one of those. Or a 3D printer. Or a CNC milling machine. Or a 3D scanner.
I'm looking at using these tools for individual, onesey-twosy projects. Like a pinewood derby car. Or a wooden case for my Sony Reader. I can't justify the expense for a few, little projects.
I don't think I'm alone in this. There are a lot of guys and gals who'd love to have temporary access to some of these wonderful machines. Sometimes you can "know someone" at a company with a model shop, but if you don't, I have a proposal.
Someone either in the private sector, or in the public sector, can set up a public workshop and fill it with tools like I've just described. Given the moribund manufacturing sector in this region, such machines could be had cheaply. Then this workshop can be made available to hobbyists, entrepreneurs, anybody who can afford either a monthly membership fee or an hourly access fee. The workshop would hold classes on how to make simple projects using each tool and on safely using each tool. And after you've passed a safety course, you could use each tool.
This would put some expertise into the hands (and minds) of people who might not have marketable skills at present. It'd provide an interesting diversion for the hobbyist.
I don't think I'd be writing this if I lived in San Francisco. I think I'd just drop by and buy a membership at the TechShop.
I am a big fan of tools. I like building things and finding just the right tool in my shop. At Harbor Freight I'm like a kid in a candy store. But there are tools I cannot afford, but would dearly love to own. And I wouldn't buy them even if I could afford them because I wouldn't use them enough to justify the expense. Like a laser cutter. I'd dearly love to own one of those. Or a 3D printer. Or a CNC milling machine. Or a 3D scanner.
I'm looking at using these tools for individual, onesey-twosy projects. Like a pinewood derby car. Or a wooden case for my Sony Reader. I can't justify the expense for a few, little projects.
I don't think I'm alone in this. There are a lot of guys and gals who'd love to have temporary access to some of these wonderful machines. Sometimes you can "know someone" at a company with a model shop, but if you don't, I have a proposal.
Someone either in the private sector, or in the public sector, can set up a public workshop and fill it with tools like I've just described. Given the moribund manufacturing sector in this region, such machines could be had cheaply. Then this workshop can be made available to hobbyists, entrepreneurs, anybody who can afford either a monthly membership fee or an hourly access fee. The workshop would hold classes on how to make simple projects using each tool and on safely using each tool. And after you've passed a safety course, you could use each tool.
This would put some expertise into the hands (and minds) of people who might not have marketable skills at present. It'd provide an interesting diversion for the hobbyist.
I don't think I'd be writing this if I lived in San Francisco. I think I'd just drop by and buy a membership at the TechShop.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
"The Foreigner" is really about Democrats & Union thugs
My wife scored free tickets to a play downtown, "The Foreigner," and I came within epsilon of walking out. The play is a remarkably bigoted achievement. It teaches that:
1) people with English accents may be neurotics, but they're invariably the smartest people in the room.
2) people with Southern accents may be good or evil, but they are invariably stupid.
3) preachers are venal manipulators altogether willing to destroy anyone who stands between themselves and a donation
4) Christianity is just another word for racist hate-monger
I was about to leave when it struck me that the post-modern method of deconstruction fits quite nicely here. For one thing, the main antagonist sounded exactly like Jimmy Carter. Every time the preacher came out, I thought of killer rabbits and smiled. And then there was his flunky, a big, stupid, superstitious Klansman who threatened violence to get his way. Heh. Just like a union organizer.
So then, if every time they said, "Christian" I mentally substituted "Democrat" and every time they said, "Klan" I mentally substituted "Union." And everything made perfect sense. I relaxed and enjoyed the play.
Now, you may not agree with my politics in which case, please feel free to find your own substitutions.
Good art tells the truth. If you're going to make the preacher the antagonist, his villainy must ring true to the essential nature of preachers. However, if all you're writing is propaganda, your free to set up a cardboard villain and then paste the label of your favorite out-group onto him. Don't like Nazis, Commies or hippies? The antagonist works equally well. Just paste a different label on the cardboard cut-out.
This is the challenge to the artist. Don't write propaganda. Or if you must, simply recycle the other guys' propaganda and switch around the labels as I've demonstrated. If you're selling to a particular market you can pander to their bigotry. But it is better to capture human nature as it is, people are not cardboard antagonists or protagonists. Everyone is a mix of the noble and the venal. That should be depicted so ambiguously that Democrats see the protagonist as one of their own and the antagonist as one of the out-group. And simultaneously Republicans will do the same.
You may be happy that Democrats are in complete control of the government. But when 51% of the people vote Democrat that means there's 49% who didn't. Why do you want to alienate 49% of your market?
If you tell the truth of the essential nature of each of the characters in your play, you needn't paint yellow stars or scarlet letters on people's breasts. The audience will do so according to their own bigotry. But the truth of those characters' goodness or evil will shine through and you'll have done your job as artist.
1) people with English accents may be neurotics, but they're invariably the smartest people in the room.
2) people with Southern accents may be good or evil, but they are invariably stupid.
3) preachers are venal manipulators altogether willing to destroy anyone who stands between themselves and a donation
4) Christianity is just another word for racist hate-monger
I was about to leave when it struck me that the post-modern method of deconstruction fits quite nicely here. For one thing, the main antagonist sounded exactly like Jimmy Carter. Every time the preacher came out, I thought of killer rabbits and smiled. And then there was his flunky, a big, stupid, superstitious Klansman who threatened violence to get his way. Heh. Just like a union organizer.
So then, if every time they said, "Christian" I mentally substituted "Democrat" and every time they said, "Klan" I mentally substituted "Union." And everything made perfect sense. I relaxed and enjoyed the play.
Now, you may not agree with my politics in which case, please feel free to find your own substitutions.
Good art tells the truth. If you're going to make the preacher the antagonist, his villainy must ring true to the essential nature of preachers. However, if all you're writing is propaganda, your free to set up a cardboard villain and then paste the label of your favorite out-group onto him. Don't like Nazis, Commies or hippies? The antagonist works equally well. Just paste a different label on the cardboard cut-out.
This is the challenge to the artist. Don't write propaganda. Or if you must, simply recycle the other guys' propaganda and switch around the labels as I've demonstrated. If you're selling to a particular market you can pander to their bigotry. But it is better to capture human nature as it is, people are not cardboard antagonists or protagonists. Everyone is a mix of the noble and the venal. That should be depicted so ambiguously that Democrats see the protagonist as one of their own and the antagonist as one of the out-group. And simultaneously Republicans will do the same.
You may be happy that Democrats are in complete control of the government. But when 51% of the people vote Democrat that means there's 49% who didn't. Why do you want to alienate 49% of your market?
If you tell the truth of the essential nature of each of the characters in your play, you needn't paint yellow stars or scarlet letters on people's breasts. The audience will do so according to their own bigotry. But the truth of those characters' goodness or evil will shine through and you'll have done your job as artist.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Why John Galt Matters
I'm referring, of course, to the protagonist of Atlas Shrugged.
You don't have to be a Reagan Republican, Randian Objectivist, or Burkean Conservative to understand one critical fact about humanity: though we are created equal, and we stand before the law as equals, and we shall be judged by deity as equals, nevertheless, we are not equally productive. I happen to be quite inept at government BS paperwork and this keeps my accountant happily employed. And I do other things better than she does.
Human inequality is a multidimensional thing. I write software for a living. I'm told that there is a factor-of-ten difference between the most productive and the least productive software engineers. Compare the output of these 10X more productive programmers working a 90-hour workweek versus the low-productivity guy who works eight-to-four then out the door.
Contrast the contribution to society of someone with a ton of education and experience versus a high school drop-out on drugs. Consider the societal impact of the former working long hours versus the latter working the minimum.
Scale this up across an entire society and compare two competing societies. The Soviet Union had the best mathematicians on the planet. And there was more oil in Siberia than in Saudi Arabia. In 1917 the Russian economy was the fastest-growing on the planet. Yet, that turned around and somehow the Soviet Empire collapsed. Jimmy Carter notwithstanding, America won the Cold War.
I think you can see where this is going. I think there's a reason why the Soviets lost and Ronald Reagan won the Cold War. We could call it his brilliant strategy, but nobody acknowledged that when he was alive. I think the reason is found in this waggish remark common in the Soviet Union: "they pretend to pay us and we pretend to work." This makes me think that a lot of Russians were doing just enough to get by. And it didn't much matter whether they were high-skilled, high-productivity, or low-skilled, low-productivity.
Jimmy Carter blamed his failures on us. On malaise. Then came Ronald Reagan who pushed through tax cuts. Unlike Mr. Bush he talked about shrinking budgets, governments, and regulation. But the big thing was that he cut the income tax rates on the highest margins.
Suppose I work 40hrs. And I pay some percentage of that in taxes. The rate at which I am taxed for the 41st hour is the maximum tax rate I'll pay. Suppose further that I'm a high-skilled and high-productivity. I'll be paid more per hour than the high-school drop-out on drugs. If you think that's unfair, remember that I'm creating more value per unit time. But if I'm giving most of it back in taxes, why should I work myself to death.
This is how Atlas shrugs. It isn't an overt, dramatic "strike" by the producers, but the accumulation of tens of millions of decisions to knock off a little early or linger a bit over lunch.
You don't have to be a Reagan Republican, Randian Objectivist, or Burkean Conservative to understand one critical fact about humanity: though we are created equal, and we stand before the law as equals, and we shall be judged by deity as equals, nevertheless, we are not equally productive. I happen to be quite inept at government BS paperwork and this keeps my accountant happily employed. And I do other things better than she does.
Human inequality is a multidimensional thing. I write software for a living. I'm told that there is a factor-of-ten difference between the most productive and the least productive software engineers. Compare the output of these 10X more productive programmers working a 90-hour workweek versus the low-productivity guy who works eight-to-four then out the door.
Contrast the contribution to society of someone with a ton of education and experience versus a high school drop-out on drugs. Consider the societal impact of the former working long hours versus the latter working the minimum.
Scale this up across an entire society and compare two competing societies. The Soviet Union had the best mathematicians on the planet. And there was more oil in Siberia than in Saudi Arabia. In 1917 the Russian economy was the fastest-growing on the planet. Yet, that turned around and somehow the Soviet Empire collapsed. Jimmy Carter notwithstanding, America won the Cold War.
I think you can see where this is going. I think there's a reason why the Soviets lost and Ronald Reagan won the Cold War. We could call it his brilliant strategy, but nobody acknowledged that when he was alive. I think the reason is found in this waggish remark common in the Soviet Union: "they pretend to pay us and we pretend to work." This makes me think that a lot of Russians were doing just enough to get by. And it didn't much matter whether they were high-skilled, high-productivity, or low-skilled, low-productivity.
Jimmy Carter blamed his failures on us. On malaise. Then came Ronald Reagan who pushed through tax cuts. Unlike Mr. Bush he talked about shrinking budgets, governments, and regulation. But the big thing was that he cut the income tax rates on the highest margins.
Suppose I work 40hrs. And I pay some percentage of that in taxes. The rate at which I am taxed for the 41st hour is the maximum tax rate I'll pay. Suppose further that I'm a high-skilled and high-productivity. I'll be paid more per hour than the high-school drop-out on drugs. If you think that's unfair, remember that I'm creating more value per unit time. But if I'm giving most of it back in taxes, why should I work myself to death.
This is how Atlas shrugs. It isn't an overt, dramatic "strike" by the producers, but the accumulation of tens of millions of decisions to knock off a little early or linger a bit over lunch.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
How To Go John Galt
With the recent political events there has been renewed interest in Ayn Rand's novel, Atlas Shrugged wherein the character John Galt leads a strike of the producers against the takers.
You may be aware that the tax base has narrowed so that 60% of the American populace can vote themselves goodies from the other 40%, particularly the richest 20%. This may motivate some rich guys to "Go John Galt."
This note tells you how!
First, you have to quit engaging in productive activity.
Second, you have to stop paying taxes. If you do it right, you can pretend your tax cheating is "an honest mistake." Or you may live in a high tax state. And the way to address that is by moving from a high tax state to a lower tax state. Suppose you live in Illinois with higher taxes. Just move to Virginia or Maryland.
Third, if you've read Atlas Shrugged you know the book depicts an economic collapse instigated by John Galt and his allies. To really do the John Galt thing, you've got to substantially and materially contribute to an economic collapse.
Conversely, you might not appreciate these "wreckers." You might think think people who do such things are criminals. Perhaps we can identify those who've already gone John Galt.
First, who does less productive activity, or does more anti-productive activity than a government official? Second, when the guy running the IRS is a tax cheat as well as the chairman of the House Ways & Means committee, tax-paying is definitely optional for some people. Third, the unicorn of hope and change has pursued disastrous economic policies that have has chased capital out of the financial markets. Presumably, George Soros is done shorting the markets.
So, who is John Galt?
You may be aware that the tax base has narrowed so that 60% of the American populace can vote themselves goodies from the other 40%, particularly the richest 20%. This may motivate some rich guys to "Go John Galt."
This note tells you how!
First, you have to quit engaging in productive activity.
Second, you have to stop paying taxes. If you do it right, you can pretend your tax cheating is "an honest mistake." Or you may live in a high tax state. And the way to address that is by moving from a high tax state to a lower tax state. Suppose you live in Illinois with higher taxes. Just move to Virginia or Maryland.
Third, if you've read Atlas Shrugged you know the book depicts an economic collapse instigated by John Galt and his allies. To really do the John Galt thing, you've got to substantially and materially contribute to an economic collapse.
Conversely, you might not appreciate these "wreckers." You might think think people who do such things are criminals. Perhaps we can identify those who've already gone John Galt.
First, who does less productive activity, or does more anti-productive activity than a government official? Second, when the guy running the IRS is a tax cheat as well as the chairman of the House Ways & Means committee, tax-paying is definitely optional for some people. Third, the unicorn of hope and change has pursued disastrous economic policies that have has chased capital out of the financial markets. Presumably, George Soros is done shorting the markets.
So, who is John Galt?
Saturday, March 07, 2009
Blue Man Nuke
Last night I made the mistake of rounding up the usual suspects and going to see the movie, "Watchmen." Bottom line: there is no reason for any Republican to watch this movie, and I suppose, there's no reason for any Democrat to watch this movie, either: just save your money for the next Michael Moore movie.
I suppose "Watchmen" tries to overcome some of the stereotypes and tropes of the comic book. The characters are "deeper" than comic book action heroes. Deeper characterization in the sense of having internal contradictions. Yeah right. If you look for a message in this film it may be that the immanent is corrupt and the transcendent is indifferent.
There's the latex-clad eye-candy. Her story arc goes from unhappy childhood, to stealing the blue man nuke from his first love, to dumping this god for the dork, dithering a bit between them, then settling on the dork. I figure dorkman, who inherited his fortune the old fashioned way, inheritance, was a better meal ticket than the naked blue god.
Justice is for cranks. The crank justice of the all-in-one judge, jury and executioner. Rorschach is the narrator of the film and his character has a nicely noir flair about him. He's the one who investigates the crime that serves as the inciting incident. His flawed sense of justice and morality serves as an interesting counter-point to the machinations of the oh, too, predictable villain of the piece. His reward for solving the crime is fitting of the writer's nihilism.
Then there's Dorkman. He's the guy the comic-book reader identifies with. He stumbles through this film. He's told he needs to grow up. I saw no evidence that he ever did or that don't think he even wakes up from his somnolent stumble through this narrative.
EVERY a movie that depicts the smartest man in the world is set in the same universe as Idiocracy. Let's see, smartest man in the world, accumulates the greatest fortune in the world, how does he use it? 1) surround himself with ancient Egyptian kitsch, 2) fly blimps with his name plastered on the side over Manhattan, 3) leave evidence of his crimes on a computer, 4) password-protect his secrets with a password taped to the underside of the computer keyboard, 5) reveals his plan in comic-book villain fashion then says he's not a comic-book villain.
Meanwhile a number of minor characters populate the film like the little birds and stuff in the margins of Mad Magazine: Richard Nixon, Ted Koppel, Pat Buchanan, etc. It would help if the actors they'd chosen had been made up to at least vaguely resemble these public figures. Politics casts an omnipresent, baleful stench upon this film. The ultimate political solution advanced by the film is paternalistic, which makes sense given the stupidity of everyone inhabiting this world.
Let us now turn our attention to the Blue Make Nuke. If you've seen the movie trailers, you've seen all the memorable scenes of the movie. He is endowed by a nuclear accident with godlike powers. And being a god means you can be indifferent about covering up your junk. In fact, that's one of the central themes of the book: to be transcendent is to be indifferent.
In the world of Watchmen, if there is a God, s/he/it is indifferent to the human condition. The god of Watchmen is a cerulean cgi construct. One does not love this god with all of one's heart, because he's likely to be checking email during coitus. And what, precisely, does this character do with his godhood?
C.S. Lewis wrote an essay, "Men Without Chests," and the only chest worthy of note in this film belonged to the eye-candy in latex. But in the essay, "chests" was used in a metaphorical sense of ordinate affections: loving the good and hating the evil. There is evil in this film, but only a crank would confront it and oppose it. And only a sleep-walking child would endorse the sentiment.
I walked out of the film and said, "That's two and a half hours of my life I won't get back."
I suppose "Watchmen" tries to overcome some of the stereotypes and tropes of the comic book. The characters are "deeper" than comic book action heroes. Deeper characterization in the sense of having internal contradictions. Yeah right. If you look for a message in this film it may be that the immanent is corrupt and the transcendent is indifferent.
There's the latex-clad eye-candy. Her story arc goes from unhappy childhood, to stealing the blue man nuke from his first love, to dumping this god for the dork, dithering a bit between them, then settling on the dork. I figure dorkman, who inherited his fortune the old fashioned way, inheritance, was a better meal ticket than the naked blue god.
Justice is for cranks. The crank justice of the all-in-one judge, jury and executioner. Rorschach is the narrator of the film and his character has a nicely noir flair about him. He's the one who investigates the crime that serves as the inciting incident. His flawed sense of justice and morality serves as an interesting counter-point to the machinations of the oh, too, predictable villain of the piece. His reward for solving the crime is fitting of the writer's nihilism.
Then there's Dorkman. He's the guy the comic-book reader identifies with. He stumbles through this film. He's told he needs to grow up. I saw no evidence that he ever did or that don't think he even wakes up from his somnolent stumble through this narrative.
EVERY a movie that depicts the smartest man in the world is set in the same universe as Idiocracy. Let's see, smartest man in the world, accumulates the greatest fortune in the world, how does he use it? 1) surround himself with ancient Egyptian kitsch, 2) fly blimps with his name plastered on the side over Manhattan, 3) leave evidence of his crimes on a computer, 4) password-protect his secrets with a password taped to the underside of the computer keyboard, 5) reveals his plan in comic-book villain fashion then says he's not a comic-book villain.
Meanwhile a number of minor characters populate the film like the little birds and stuff in the margins of Mad Magazine: Richard Nixon, Ted Koppel, Pat Buchanan, etc. It would help if the actors they'd chosen had been made up to at least vaguely resemble these public figures. Politics casts an omnipresent, baleful stench upon this film. The ultimate political solution advanced by the film is paternalistic, which makes sense given the stupidity of everyone inhabiting this world.
Let us now turn our attention to the Blue Make Nuke. If you've seen the movie trailers, you've seen all the memorable scenes of the movie. He is endowed by a nuclear accident with godlike powers. And being a god means you can be indifferent about covering up your junk. In fact, that's one of the central themes of the book: to be transcendent is to be indifferent.
In the world of Watchmen, if there is a God, s/he/it is indifferent to the human condition. The god of Watchmen is a cerulean cgi construct. One does not love this god with all of one's heart, because he's likely to be checking email during coitus. And what, precisely, does this character do with his godhood?
C.S. Lewis wrote an essay, "Men Without Chests," and the only chest worthy of note in this film belonged to the eye-candy in latex. But in the essay, "chests" was used in a metaphorical sense of ordinate affections: loving the good and hating the evil. There is evil in this film, but only a crank would confront it and oppose it. And only a sleep-walking child would endorse the sentiment.
I walked out of the film and said, "That's two and a half hours of my life I won't get back."
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
In the wagon or pulling the wagon?
I just happened upon a graphic that divided the country into 5 quintiles. (For those of you who voted for Obama, that means the bottom 20%, next to bottom 20%, middle 20%, next to top 20%, and top 20%.) It was a bar graph that showed the difference between the money the government spends on the households in that quintile, minus the money households pay to the government in taxes. The bar graph broke it down by state and federal spending. Good news! 60% of the country is getting more government spending than they're paying in taxes.
Ronald Reagan described it like a wagon with some people riding in the wagon and some people pulling the wagon. And our current tax code is structured so that an effective ruling majority of the electorate is riding in the wagon. The next-to-top quintile is getting screwed by the government, but it's only one sixth as bad as the top 20%.
This is not sustainable. It certainly makes more sense for someone to live in the bottom three quintiles than in the top two. I suppose some altruistic souls really dig their patriotic duty to pick up the tab for the politicians who are buying votes with the tax receipts. But how long does it take before they just shrug and say "Who's John Galt?"
I have been wondering whether someone could actually pull off a producers' strike like in Atlas Shrugged and I think the answer is no. There are some true geniuses out there who cannot be replaced, but a lot of mediocre types would be the scabs to break the picket lines. Instead of a dramatic societal collapse as in "Atlas Shrugged" the 2nd stringers will plug the gaps to varying degrees of adequacy. The really great talents who are tired of pulling the wagon can just shift their energies to non-taxable pursuits.
And it isn't as if anyone will hightail it to Galt's Gulch. Just live in a place where the cost of living is cheap and make just enough to live comfortably. Stop and smell the roses. Life is short. I figure smart money will find more friendly places for capital than the USA (It won't be Europe.) or shift assets into tax shelters.
One thing I learned about Democrats in the early '80s is that they are cool with high taxes because they intend for other people to pay them: They make sure they leave loopholes in the tax code for trust-fund kids like the Kennedy family. That's what tax-free municipal bonds are for. There's a reason why the teleprompter-messiah's appointees have tax problems.
So, capital, along with the talent and sacrifice that might go into creating some serious wealth will just go into hiding. And this is a good thing, when unemployment hits 30%, all the John Galt types will be working two days a week and puttering in their back yards on do-it-yourself projects. One doesn't need a lot to live simply. and that's what these hippy-dippy types all say we gotta do. Pass the granola, man, and make room in the wagon.
Ronald Reagan described it like a wagon with some people riding in the wagon and some people pulling the wagon. And our current tax code is structured so that an effective ruling majority of the electorate is riding in the wagon. The next-to-top quintile is getting screwed by the government, but it's only one sixth as bad as the top 20%.
This is not sustainable. It certainly makes more sense for someone to live in the bottom three quintiles than in the top two. I suppose some altruistic souls really dig their patriotic duty to pick up the tab for the politicians who are buying votes with the tax receipts. But how long does it take before they just shrug and say "Who's John Galt?"
I have been wondering whether someone could actually pull off a producers' strike like in Atlas Shrugged and I think the answer is no. There are some true geniuses out there who cannot be replaced, but a lot of mediocre types would be the scabs to break the picket lines. Instead of a dramatic societal collapse as in "Atlas Shrugged" the 2nd stringers will plug the gaps to varying degrees of adequacy. The really great talents who are tired of pulling the wagon can just shift their energies to non-taxable pursuits.
And it isn't as if anyone will hightail it to Galt's Gulch. Just live in a place where the cost of living is cheap and make just enough to live comfortably. Stop and smell the roses. Life is short. I figure smart money will find more friendly places for capital than the USA (It won't be Europe.) or shift assets into tax shelters.
One thing I learned about Democrats in the early '80s is that they are cool with high taxes because they intend for other people to pay them: They make sure they leave loopholes in the tax code for trust-fund kids like the Kennedy family. That's what tax-free municipal bonds are for. There's a reason why the teleprompter-messiah's appointees have tax problems.
So, capital, along with the talent and sacrifice that might go into creating some serious wealth will just go into hiding. And this is a good thing, when unemployment hits 30%, all the John Galt types will be working two days a week and puttering in their back yards on do-it-yourself projects. One doesn't need a lot to live simply. and that's what these hippy-dippy types all say we gotta do. Pass the granola, man, and make room in the wagon.
Sunday, February 01, 2009
Jobs: Created and Eliminated
Last night I saw the movie "New In Town." And it is a tad predictable. The hot female executive goes to someplace in Minnesota and meets the hot male union rep. The movie then proceeds to follow the romantic comedy trajectory. As you know, the romantic comedy has a darkest moment near the end of the film. In this case, the evil corporate types demand the female protagonist eliminate half the factory's jobs.
Just now I'm watching the news and learned how the hot female governor of the state of Michigan will create a passel of jobs.
So that's how things work? Corporate types eliminate jobs and politicians create them. That's a great solution to the movie plot. Let old man Potter buy up the factory, close it down and eliminate all the jobs. Then nice Mr. Smith who's gone to Washington will create new ones. Right?
Here's a question: Where do jobs come from in the first place? Are they spoils handed out by politicians to their voters? Are they annuities extorted from "the rich" by unions?
And how much should that job pay? Politicians make a big deal of raising the minimum wage. But why don't they raise it to real money: Just raise the minimum wage to $500 and everyone with a full time job will be a millionaire! You're probably thinking that your current employer can't afford to pay you that much. Not a problem, if you're job is eliminated, the politicians can just create some more.
Just now I'm watching the news and learned how the hot female governor of the state of Michigan will create a passel of jobs.
So that's how things work? Corporate types eliminate jobs and politicians create them. That's a great solution to the movie plot. Let old man Potter buy up the factory, close it down and eliminate all the jobs. Then nice Mr. Smith who's gone to Washington will create new ones. Right?
Here's a question: Where do jobs come from in the first place? Are they spoils handed out by politicians to their voters? Are they annuities extorted from "the rich" by unions?
And how much should that job pay? Politicians make a big deal of raising the minimum wage. But why don't they raise it to real money: Just raise the minimum wage to $500 and everyone with a full time job will be a millionaire! You're probably thinking that your current employer can't afford to pay you that much. Not a problem, if you're job is eliminated, the politicians can just create some more.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
The Republican Branding Problem
I just read on Ace of Spaces that Mr. Charles Krauthammer proposes in a cover article a new tax on gasoline.
We have to seriously question the "branding" of talking heads. The crowd we have are not conservatives. There seems to be something in the water at the National Review and Weekly Standard.
This incident makes me doubt that Mr. Krauthammer would echo Mr. Reagan's sentiment that government is not the solution, but government is the problem. When talking heads start talking about raising taxes in anything but disparaging terms we have to think seriously about what exactly conservatism means.
If the Reagan Revolution is dead, I know one set of fingerprints on the knife in its back. It's not like I'm picking on Mr. Krauthammer (who I've previously been favorably inclined toward), we've got a systemic problem afflicting pretty much every commentator of note.
We should have known we were screwed when the first Republican said "big government conservatism" with a straight face. Mr. Tom Delay gave us fair warning when he said there was no fat in the federal budget to cut. Mr. Bush and Mr. Krauthammer may say many things we like on many topics, but we can't call them conservatives.
The "branding problem" of the Republican party goes deeper than the corruption of guys like Ted Stevens. It goes to the whole notion of what "conservatism" means. I'm not saying that the Republican party ought to kick out the big-government types, but we can't let such folk go around calling themselves conservatives.
You can be less liberal than Mao Tse Tung without being a conservative. I remember scoffing when some C-Span talking-head reported on what the "conservative blogs" were saying about the Republican Convention and she cited a demented fellow who might be many things, but he's no conservative.
So, I propose that we put every putative conservative on trial for actually being conservative. And if we find no evidence to convict, or significant evidence to the contrary, we quit acknowledging and start challenging any representation of that person as a conservative. This should start with both George Bushes extend to every politician and commentator in Washington and New York. We should say, "you're a very nice man, and a loyal Republican (John McCain excepted), but you're no Conservative (John McCain included).
We have to seriously question the "branding" of talking heads. The crowd we have are not conservatives. There seems to be something in the water at the National Review and Weekly Standard.
This incident makes me doubt that Mr. Krauthammer would echo Mr. Reagan's sentiment that government is not the solution, but government is the problem. When talking heads start talking about raising taxes in anything but disparaging terms we have to think seriously about what exactly conservatism means.
If the Reagan Revolution is dead, I know one set of fingerprints on the knife in its back. It's not like I'm picking on Mr. Krauthammer (who I've previously been favorably inclined toward), we've got a systemic problem afflicting pretty much every commentator of note.
We should have known we were screwed when the first Republican said "big government conservatism" with a straight face. Mr. Tom Delay gave us fair warning when he said there was no fat in the federal budget to cut. Mr. Bush and Mr. Krauthammer may say many things we like on many topics, but we can't call them conservatives.
The "branding problem" of the Republican party goes deeper than the corruption of guys like Ted Stevens. It goes to the whole notion of what "conservatism" means. I'm not saying that the Republican party ought to kick out the big-government types, but we can't let such folk go around calling themselves conservatives.
You can be less liberal than Mao Tse Tung without being a conservative. I remember scoffing when some C-Span talking-head reported on what the "conservative blogs" were saying about the Republican Convention and she cited a demented fellow who might be many things, but he's no conservative.
So, I propose that we put every putative conservative on trial for actually being conservative. And if we find no evidence to convict, or significant evidence to the contrary, we quit acknowledging and start challenging any representation of that person as a conservative. This should start with both George Bushes extend to every politician and commentator in Washington and New York. We should say, "you're a very nice man, and a loyal Republican (John McCain excepted), but you're no Conservative (John McCain included).
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Libertarianism vs Social Conservatism
I'm a Libertarian. And I'm a Social Conservative. There are a lot of parts of the Social Conservative bit I will die for. Other parts, I just say, "meh." And I don't think I'm the only Social Conservative who thinks this way.
1) Abortion: this is a human life in every instance and there's no chance I'll bend even a millimeter. I frame this as a human rights issue, not a moral one. The fetus is what? an animal? a tumor? a human without rights? a human with rights? Answer the question.
I'm not against stem cell research, either. I'm all for it unless you add the word "fetal." Fetal stem cell research by my way of looking at it is cannibalizing parts of one human for the benefit of another human. If you disagree, prove to me that a fetus isn't a human.
2) Sex, drugs, and rock & roll: meh. Who you take to bed is your business and not mine. If God says "thou shalt not," and you think otherwise, that's your problem with Him not me. Don't mess with the sacraments of any church or say what moral standards the church can't hold and we'll get along fine.
3) Prayer in school: meh. When I was a lad, my sainted mother the separatist Baptist Fundamentalist that she was thoroughly disapproved of the sort of compromised blended ecumenist prayers bandied about in public forums. That rubbed off on me.
Creationism and Intelligent Design (they are different things). I want free inquiry about questions of origins, but it's not a hill I'll die on. If you're upset that some state school wants to teach Darwinism, switch to a private school that doesn't.
Personally, I prefer the separation of school and state. Less opportunity for indoctrination or similar mischief.
So.
Can we agree on these boundaries and live together in the same party? I think so. Maybe we won't go to the same church, or maybe we'll bicker on a personal level, but as far as the civil realm of governance is concerned we've got issues of the proper role of government (minimal) that we hold in common to unite us.
What would Reagan Do?
1) Abortion: this is a human life in every instance and there's no chance I'll bend even a millimeter. I frame this as a human rights issue, not a moral one. The fetus is what? an animal? a tumor? a human without rights? a human with rights? Answer the question.
I'm not against stem cell research, either. I'm all for it unless you add the word "fetal." Fetal stem cell research by my way of looking at it is cannibalizing parts of one human for the benefit of another human. If you disagree, prove to me that a fetus isn't a human.
2) Sex, drugs, and rock & roll: meh. Who you take to bed is your business and not mine. If God says "thou shalt not," and you think otherwise, that's your problem with Him not me. Don't mess with the sacraments of any church or say what moral standards the church can't hold and we'll get along fine.
3) Prayer in school: meh. When I was a lad, my sainted mother the separatist Baptist Fundamentalist that she was thoroughly disapproved of the sort of compromised blended ecumenist prayers bandied about in public forums. That rubbed off on me.
Creationism and Intelligent Design (they are different things). I want free inquiry about questions of origins, but it's not a hill I'll die on. If you're upset that some state school wants to teach Darwinism, switch to a private school that doesn't.
Personally, I prefer the separation of school and state. Less opportunity for indoctrination or similar mischief.
So.
Can we agree on these boundaries and live together in the same party? I think so. Maybe we won't go to the same church, or maybe we'll bicker on a personal level, but as far as the civil realm of governance is concerned we've got issues of the proper role of government (minimal) that we hold in common to unite us.
What would Reagan Do?
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
The Broken Party
OK, I held my nose and voted for McCain. We've had a systemic problem with Republicanism for several years. The Republican party has demonstrated in the last two elections that it is broken. After the 2006 loss there was not enough done to fix the party. Why didn't the party leadership take a delivery from the clue train?
I'm not thinking we should kick anyone out of the party, but we've got to be smarter about who we're listening to. Ronald Reagan is dead. We need someone else who can speak articulately to small businessmen and libertarians and values voters without embarrassing the country-club set.
I think that we've seen country-club presidential candidates in both Bushes, Dole, and McCain. The civil war within the Republican Party is about to start. Mitt Romney strikes me as yet another country-club candidate. The bizarre whispers that Sarah Palin was a drag on the campaign or that she had "gone rogue" appear to have come from Romney stringers.
It is my earnest hope that Sarah Palin will emerge as the next leader of the Republican party. If not her, I'll look to another neo-Reagan like Bobby Jindal. I have a hard time believing that yet another country-club Republican can unite the party and assemble a winning coalition to reboot the Republican party.
I expect to see a lot more class-warfare in the next four years. Ronald Reagan effectively fought class-warfare because the guy from Dixon, IL positioned himself as the alternative to Rockefeller Republicanism. We'll need someone who isn't old money or married to it to lead us out of this Babylonian captivity. I don't think that person is Mitt Romney.
I'm not thinking we should kick anyone out of the party, but we've got to be smarter about who we're listening to. Ronald Reagan is dead. We need someone else who can speak articulately to small businessmen and libertarians and values voters without embarrassing the country-club set.
I think that we've seen country-club presidential candidates in both Bushes, Dole, and McCain. The civil war within the Republican Party is about to start. Mitt Romney strikes me as yet another country-club candidate. The bizarre whispers that Sarah Palin was a drag on the campaign or that she had "gone rogue" appear to have come from Romney stringers.
It is my earnest hope that Sarah Palin will emerge as the next leader of the Republican party. If not her, I'll look to another neo-Reagan like Bobby Jindal. I have a hard time believing that yet another country-club Republican can unite the party and assemble a winning coalition to reboot the Republican party.
I expect to see a lot more class-warfare in the next four years. Ronald Reagan effectively fought class-warfare because the guy from Dixon, IL positioned himself as the alternative to Rockefeller Republicanism. We'll need someone who isn't old money or married to it to lead us out of this Babylonian captivity. I don't think that person is Mitt Romney.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Who's John Galt?
Ayn Rand wrote a novel, Atlas Shrugged, that I read when the Soviet empire was imploding. It made perfect sense at the time as the events in the novel, depicted in the US, were mirrored in events in the Soviet Union.
What I didn't realize at the time was that the "strike" against the "looters" described in the Atlas Shrugged had already occurred in the United States. And that strike was only broken by the rise of Nazi Germany and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
Consider the crash of 1929. It was a major correction as a market bubble popped. It also caused reverberations from Wall Street to Main Street. My grandparents were impoverished and my parents lived with the concern about another depression. My father's friend would invariably ask, "Do you think we'll have hard times, Don?" A generation of Baby Boomers learned to roll their eyes in response to exhortations to economize from their Depression-baby parents. Today, a lot of economists claim that the hard times were prolonged by our politicians response to the crisis.
Here's the problem. Economic corrections are painful and politicians are compassionate people. Yes, they're corrupt and self-serving in too many cases, but you'll never meet a politician who really doesn't feel your pain. And they want to relieve your pain if they can. They'll get reelected if they relieve your pain. Governments relieve economic pain by putting money into the hands of those who hurt most. This takes a number of forms: unemployment benefits, bailouts of critical industries, welfare, entitlements and college tuition grants. But some of these analgesics can be habit forming, like morphine they cause dependence. The greater the pain of an economic correction, the greater the likelihood that the government will be pressured to apply pain-killers. If pain-killers become addictions the electorate will demand more of them.
Governments can pass various laws, but they cannot repeal the law of gravity. They can set up rules for coordinating economic activities in an orderly fashion. But governments can't create wealth out of nothing. Governments can print money, borrow money, and raise taxes. This wealth can be given to those who are hurt by an economic correction. But this wealth is taken from someone. There's a book out there called "The Forgotten Man" about the Depression. I've not yet read it, but I suspect this book's "forgotten man" is not unlike John Galt of "Atlas Shrugged."
Someone has to create wealth and that's done by working. Tonight I watched the movie, "My Man Godfrey," wherein several pointed remarks are made about prosperity being right around the corner and "The only difference between a derelict and a man is a job." In a capitalist country, rich people need things done and they give jobs to people willing to do those things. Or you take what you have, and create a job out of it. In rich countries, those who work harder make more money and they spread the wealth around by buying stuff or hiring others. This is just common sense. It is deprecated by those wiser minds who call it "trickle down" and they hope to change this.
In this country we tax income but not wealth. This enables many wealthy people to live off their trust funds, and this frees up their time to do things like become Senators. This system is very good for maintaining the status quo. It makes it harder for new money to displace old money. This is what I realized when I was hanging out with Democrat community organizers who liked money and tax breaks as much as Republicans. If you're Ted Kennedy, you can stay rich and make everyone else pay for the goodies you buy votes with.
Certain Republicans who are wiser than I am (just ask them) say that the Reagan Revolution is dead. They think the Republican party should move to the center. They now think the McCain campaign that was crafted according to their design along these lines should be rebooted. These same Republicans claim that neo-Reaganism is a cancer to the Republican party. There's an old saying that seems apt, "It's not the mountains ahead of you that grind you down; it's the sand in your shoes." Mr. Brooks and those like him have been the sand in the Republican campaign this year.
The Republican party certainly has a branding problem. And it may not be the political party that is needed to oppose those who would grow an already bloated government and lead us further down "The Road To Serfdom."
I've never been consumed with blind ambition. Depending upon how the election turns out, ambition will only earn you a higher tax bracket. Should I go out on strike? Ask John Galt?
What I didn't realize at the time was that the "strike" against the "looters" described in the Atlas Shrugged had already occurred in the United States. And that strike was only broken by the rise of Nazi Germany and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
Consider the crash of 1929. It was a major correction as a market bubble popped. It also caused reverberations from Wall Street to Main Street. My grandparents were impoverished and my parents lived with the concern about another depression. My father's friend would invariably ask, "Do you think we'll have hard times, Don?" A generation of Baby Boomers learned to roll their eyes in response to exhortations to economize from their Depression-baby parents. Today, a lot of economists claim that the hard times were prolonged by our politicians response to the crisis.
Here's the problem. Economic corrections are painful and politicians are compassionate people. Yes, they're corrupt and self-serving in too many cases, but you'll never meet a politician who really doesn't feel your pain. And they want to relieve your pain if they can. They'll get reelected if they relieve your pain. Governments relieve economic pain by putting money into the hands of those who hurt most. This takes a number of forms: unemployment benefits, bailouts of critical industries, welfare, entitlements and college tuition grants. But some of these analgesics can be habit forming, like morphine they cause dependence. The greater the pain of an economic correction, the greater the likelihood that the government will be pressured to apply pain-killers. If pain-killers become addictions the electorate will demand more of them.
Governments can pass various laws, but they cannot repeal the law of gravity. They can set up rules for coordinating economic activities in an orderly fashion. But governments can't create wealth out of nothing. Governments can print money, borrow money, and raise taxes. This wealth can be given to those who are hurt by an economic correction. But this wealth is taken from someone. There's a book out there called "The Forgotten Man" about the Depression. I've not yet read it, but I suspect this book's "forgotten man" is not unlike John Galt of "Atlas Shrugged."
Someone has to create wealth and that's done by working. Tonight I watched the movie, "My Man Godfrey," wherein several pointed remarks are made about prosperity being right around the corner and "The only difference between a derelict and a man is a job." In a capitalist country, rich people need things done and they give jobs to people willing to do those things. Or you take what you have, and create a job out of it. In rich countries, those who work harder make more money and they spread the wealth around by buying stuff or hiring others. This is just common sense. It is deprecated by those wiser minds who call it "trickle down" and they hope to change this.
In this country we tax income but not wealth. This enables many wealthy people to live off their trust funds, and this frees up their time to do things like become Senators. This system is very good for maintaining the status quo. It makes it harder for new money to displace old money. This is what I realized when I was hanging out with Democrat community organizers who liked money and tax breaks as much as Republicans. If you're Ted Kennedy, you can stay rich and make everyone else pay for the goodies you buy votes with.
Certain Republicans who are wiser than I am (just ask them) say that the Reagan Revolution is dead. They think the Republican party should move to the center. They now think the McCain campaign that was crafted according to their design along these lines should be rebooted. These same Republicans claim that neo-Reaganism is a cancer to the Republican party. There's an old saying that seems apt, "It's not the mountains ahead of you that grind you down; it's the sand in your shoes." Mr. Brooks and those like him have been the sand in the Republican campaign this year.
The Republican party certainly has a branding problem. And it may not be the political party that is needed to oppose those who would grow an already bloated government and lead us further down "The Road To Serfdom."
I've never been consumed with blind ambition. Depending upon how the election turns out, ambition will only earn you a higher tax bracket. Should I go out on strike? Ask John Galt?
Friday, October 10, 2008
Can An Anchor Have Coattails?
Only one of two things are true: Either Barak Obama is a crypto-socialist, neo-stalinist goon due to his alliances with people like Mr. William Ayres, Mr. Jeremiah Wright & ACORN or "he is a decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared of as president of the United States." I do not see how both assertions can be true simultaneously.
In recent days, Mr. McCain has been running ads linking Mr. Obama to America-hating radicals. One is not guilty of anything for associating with such people. But alliances with such people form a reasonable basis for drawing inferences about a candidate's unstated policy aims and fitness for high office. However, these ads mean absolutely nothing if the candidate in question is "a decent person."
Given this contradiction, how do I know Mr. McCain won't similarly nullify any other part of the narrative he has crafted about his opponent's unfitness for office.
This is the central contradiction of the McCain campaign. Andy McCarthy at National Review said it here: "Someone is either a terrorist sympathizer or he isn't; someone is either disqualified as a terrorist sympathizer or he's qualified for public office."
In recent days, Mr. McCain has been running ads linking Mr. Obama to America-hating radicals. One is not guilty of anything for associating with such people. But alliances with such people form a reasonable basis for drawing inferences about a candidate's unstated policy aims and fitness for high office. However, these ads mean absolutely nothing if the candidate in question is "a decent person."
Given this contradiction, how do I know Mr. McCain won't similarly nullify any other part of the narrative he has crafted about his opponent's unfitness for office.
This is the central contradiction of the McCain campaign. Andy McCarthy at National Review said it here: "Someone is either a terrorist sympathizer or he isn't; someone is either disqualified as a terrorist sympathizer or he's qualified for public office."
It's Democracy, Stupid
I think organized criminal vote fraud is traitorous. It is an attack upon DEMOCRACY. We may disagree about taxes or abortion, but DEMOCRACY should transcend our partisan interests. If someone does not, then we really can't expect him to abide by elections he doesn't like. We have to ask every candidate for public office whether he believes in DEMOCRACY and whether that belief has anything to say about ACORN.
Every election year just before the election we get stories or larger and more widespread cases of vote fraud. These frauds aren't coming from First Baptist Church or the NRA, but from ACORN. I don't understand why this kind of organized crime isn't pursued by RICO charges? I don't understand why the government uses my tax dollars to support ACORN. I don't understand why the Congress tried to add pork from the $700B bailout package to ACORN.
Obviously, someone in Washington does not believe in Democracy
Every election year just before the election we get stories or larger and more widespread cases of vote fraud. These frauds aren't coming from First Baptist Church or the NRA, but from ACORN. I don't understand why this kind of organized crime isn't pursued by RICO charges? I don't understand why the government uses my tax dollars to support ACORN. I don't understand why the Congress tried to add pork from the $700B bailout package to ACORN.
Obviously, someone in Washington does not believe in Democracy
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
Feminism
In the movie, "The Princess Bride," Inigo Montoya says, "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." I think the national conversation about Mrs. Sarah Palin and feminism is another instance of a word being used whose meaning is in doubt.
Feminism has an appeal because it touches upon fairness and equality. People are differently abled, but nobody is better or worse just because they're a man or woman, black or white, Jew or Greek. I've always thought feminism was about this sort of equality.
Rush Limbaugh coined the term feminazi some years ago to describe "liberal, pro-abortion fanatics." It should be noted that he intends by this usage not a synonym for "feminist," but he describes a specific set of political policy aims. Can you assert equality of the sexes without asserting liberal, pro-abortion policies?
Recently, Camile Paglia has written that Mrs. Palin is "reshaping the persona of female authority." Ms. Paglia is a feminist and an intellectual who enjoys straying from the establishment group-think about what constitutes feminism.
Perhaps we need to distinguish between "feminist" and "establishment feminist" to avoid Rush's feminazi term. Certainly, Mrs. Hillary Clinton is an establishment feminist, but she is no fanatic. But Mrs. Palin is not an establishment feminist.
What prompts this outburst is an essay that I read by someone named Katie Granju who does not like Mrs. Palin. More accurately, after acknowledging Mrs. Palin's accomplishments she thinks it wrong that Mrs. Palin act "like all of these opportunities and open doors just fell into her lap because of her own good luck and hard work." Ms. Granju seems to think that Mrs. Palin owes ideological fealty to establishment feminists. (This sense of "you owe me" is a great way to live a miserable life and become a miserable person.) Presumably brave Norma Rae was out there toiling in some factory, or brave Erin Brockovich was toiling in some legal aid office, or a dozen other brave movie scripts were written so that forever after, all ambitious women would kneel and kiss the ring of establishment feminists.
Feminism's legitimacy comes from equality. However, establishment feminists seem to think that they are more equal than other women. It is fair to include or exclude people from the abortion movement based upon their pro-choice vs pro-life positions. But equality is not abortion. And equality must also be between women, too.
Establishment feminism is a postmodern phenomenon, as such it is preoccupied with power. Equality and power are often conflated in this case. Thus establishment feminism encounters an existential threat when an empowered woman does not share their policy aims. Her very existence suggests that a woman needs an establishment feminist like a fish needs a bicycle. I think this explains Palin Derangement Syndrome.
Feminism has an appeal because it touches upon fairness and equality. People are differently abled, but nobody is better or worse just because they're a man or woman, black or white, Jew or Greek. I've always thought feminism was about this sort of equality.
Rush Limbaugh coined the term feminazi some years ago to describe "liberal, pro-abortion fanatics." It should be noted that he intends by this usage not a synonym for "feminist," but he describes a specific set of political policy aims. Can you assert equality of the sexes without asserting liberal, pro-abortion policies?
Recently, Camile Paglia has written that Mrs. Palin is "reshaping the persona of female authority." Ms. Paglia is a feminist and an intellectual who enjoys straying from the establishment group-think about what constitutes feminism.
Perhaps we need to distinguish between "feminist" and "establishment feminist" to avoid Rush's feminazi term. Certainly, Mrs. Hillary Clinton is an establishment feminist, but she is no fanatic. But Mrs. Palin is not an establishment feminist.
What prompts this outburst is an essay that I read by someone named Katie Granju who does not like Mrs. Palin. More accurately, after acknowledging Mrs. Palin's accomplishments she thinks it wrong that Mrs. Palin act "like all of these opportunities and open doors just fell into her lap because of her own good luck and hard work." Ms. Granju seems to think that Mrs. Palin owes ideological fealty to establishment feminists. (This sense of "you owe me" is a great way to live a miserable life and become a miserable person.) Presumably brave Norma Rae was out there toiling in some factory, or brave Erin Brockovich was toiling in some legal aid office, or a dozen other brave movie scripts were written so that forever after, all ambitious women would kneel and kiss the ring of establishment feminists.
Feminism's legitimacy comes from equality. However, establishment feminists seem to think that they are more equal than other women. It is fair to include or exclude people from the abortion movement based upon their pro-choice vs pro-life positions. But equality is not abortion. And equality must also be between women, too.
Establishment feminism is a postmodern phenomenon, as such it is preoccupied with power. Equality and power are often conflated in this case. Thus establishment feminism encounters an existential threat when an empowered woman does not share their policy aims. Her very existence suggests that a woman needs an establishment feminist like a fish needs a bicycle. I think this explains Palin Derangement Syndrome.
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