David Brin, Charlie Stross: only a virtuous people

David Brin pushes the Democratic party line. He mentions the ill-behaved Left, but never pushes them back. He is a scared little boy who does not with to thwart the kleptocratic, anti-republican longings in his own party:

• "When faced with American public defection from elite preferences outcomes on certain policy issues that involve many difficult tradeoffs of the kind that democracies, with much jostling and argument, are supposed to work out among many different groups, Friedman extols the example of … China’s political system, because it’s both enlightened and autocratic?"
• "To Krugman — and, apparently, to most Obama-supporting Democrats — there’s no such thing as legitimate opposition."
• SF Protesters to Obama: Please Be a Dictator!
• Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y., Barack Obama should simply rule by decree, issuing executive orders for everything. He then slammed Tea Party Republicans for refusing to cooperate with Obama, and compared them to criminals.
• Washington proposes a Reich Flight Tax: "Mr. Schumer would surely bridle at having his exit-tax policy compared to that of the Nazis, as would Mr. Boehner, so let me be clear: The Reichsfluchsteuer was originally imposed not by the Nazis, but, rather, on December 8, 1931, by the pre-Hitler, centrist government of Heinrich Brüning, who had a doctoral degree in economics."
• Jacob Heilbrunn, "Is It Time To Abolish Congress?"
• MSNBC's Ed Schultz said President Obama should "put the boot on the neck of BP" and act like a "dictator" in his Oval Office address tonight.
• "It’s hard to come up with new ways to describe the Obama administration’s improvisational approach to the Affordable Care Act’s troubled health insurance exchanges."

Linked from the fever swamps found over here. This is simply a panic piece which hopes you've never noticed that the Far Left and the Far Right wrap around. Brin and Stross seem to think Democracy is awesome, especially when it intrudes into every part  of your life. Sensible people know better.

In the meantime, I would like to leave you with the wise words of a man Messrs Brin and Stross would undoubtedly despise: "Let me add, that only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters."

Well, now you see what the people above think of you.

Trust, the MSM and abortion

This is hilarious. Dave Weigel (a liberal “conservative” for the MSM) admits reporters are overwhelmingly Democratic (we knew that, 85%) but keeps saying that Amanda Marcotte (classic Limbaugh feminazi) and William Saletan (reliably Progressive technical writer) “covered” the grand jury report. Said report reads like the Grand Guignol, but let us see how Marcotte “covered” it (link at that article):

• “Abortion provider Dr. Kermit Gosnell and some of his staff members have been charged with eight counts of murder”
• “It was a little hard to find reliable information on Gosnell in the sea of anti-choice hysterics online”
• “Until more information is available, I would advise caution on jumping to conclusions about the charges of murder on the seven babies.”
• “The accusation resemble a fairly routine accusation leveled by anti-choicers at doctors”
• “it's possible that Gosnell is guilty of the charges, but one should take the history of this particular claim into account before jumping to conclusions.”
• “Gosnell ran a crappy clinic”
• “pro-choice community exerts quite a bit of effort trying to improve the quality of abortion care”
• “That shady abortion providers get patients at all is something we can safely blame the anti-choice movement for”

I like the word “safely” there. And finally this bit deserves quotation in full:

These particular charges involve late-term abortion, and all I could think upon reading the news story was, "I wish these women could have gone to Dr. George Tiller," because he was renowned for the quality of care provided at his Kansas clinic. But sadly, that wasn't even an option, even for those who could afford it, as Dr. Tiller's life was taken by an anti-choice extremist in 2009.

This is not journalism, this is inoculation: the careful, planned release of information designed to minimize the effect upon your side and maximize the damage to the other. Note the bringing up of Tiller: his murderer was convicted and imprisoned immediately. Gosnell was allowed to continue his horror show without even visits from the department of public health for years. Somehow, a solitary killer (and would-be terrorist with a previous conviction, how the hell was he on parole?), denounced as a coward and criminal by Operation Rescue, is worse than a storefront multiple murderer operating with government complicity.

Most doctors in this country are pro-choice, and many would like to provide abortion, but as Slate 's Emily Bazelon demonstrated in the New York Times , the stigma of doing so makes it that much harder to do

Yes, Amanda, and between journalism and erasing the visible signs of that stigma, we can see which you prefer.

Hat tip to Instapundit.

Orson Scott Card And Superman’s Klansman Roots

The Atlantic posts on America’s most, critical, at-risk resource: “The Real Problem With Superman’s New Writer Isn’t Bigotry, It’s Fascism, Orson Scott Card’s anti-gay beliefs would do more than contradict the Man of Steel’s inherent goodness.” Basically, it's another glue-huffing piece on the shocking news that not all Americans love all the gays 100%.

(The article goes on, carefully if ignorantly tracing Superman’s Klansman roots.)

Meanwhile, a box on the same page links to an article on the decidedly mixed results from Steven Spielberg’s whitewash, so to speak, of the overt, negative racial stereotyping in the Tintin books: “Overcoming Tintin’s Racism by Ignoring It.” (Mixed, as apparently removing all minorities is hardly satisfying either.)

I respectfully submit to the Atlantic their own advice.

(The Atlantic makes no mention of how Card plans to merge labor, corporate power and the state, oddly enough.)

Nuance versus meaning

NUANCE:

• Clemons: Contrary to wide reports, Chuck Hagel actually likes gays.
• Goldberg: Contrary to wide reports, Chuck Hagel actually likes Israel.
• Wright: Never mind what mainstream Democrats and Republicans are widely saying about Chuck  Hagel, neocons run a filthy smear machine.

Why does anyone listen to Robert Wright?

Michigan is waking up from a bad dream

Diocletian used this logic to nail the feet of “those filthy serfs” to the land for a thousand years. I guess some people never got enough of a good thing. Garfinkle may be Jewish; if so, perhaps that is distorting his values. Many people dislike being tied down.

(As a Jewish American, Garfinkle is likely to be Ashkenazi: his cultural memory of Europe does not involve violent capture and punishment as a valuable chattel that fled the master’s estates. As a member of a once-undesirable class, his cultural memory holds the supremely reluctant honor of a torchlit parade to the borders of the kingdom, not being forced to stay.)

Newsflash: China was a massive labor sink isolated from the West because of Chinese racism and xenophobia, then Red Fascist ideology and good old-fashioned Communist self-genocide. My father and grandfathers did not have to compete against Chinese labor because we lost China to Mao; my great-great grandfathers were spared, to a far lesser extent, by the Manchu.

It is the end and deflation of the biggest market distortion in history that has dropped this unprecedented labor force on us: the end of the Chinese nation’s isolationism and its emergence in the global market. The water is leveling in the glass and it is a hell of a ride. As Michael Barone noted about immigration: China’s supercheap labor market is not some malign dragon we must venture forth and slay with trade guilds and protective tariffs, but a particular product of a particular time. It will end. This painful time for American labor will end. As it is, we are under tremendous pressure and we are quickly shedding our bad habits: overpaid, featherbedding unions, the forced socialism of employer-based health care.

This is Bastiat’s simplest lesson: That which is not seen. Why is economics so hard to some?

Eric Cantor: we endowed the POTUS with massive, sweeping powers. Who knew some asshole would try to abuse them??

Or that Agencies that Do Nothing But Regulate Without Check Or Hindrance would grow out of control?

It’s a pity Eric Cantor cannot bring himself to the STUPIDLY OBVIOUS conclusion that allowing the Executive to make regulatory law (from the ICC on) is a MASSIVE MISTAKE.

But then the Republicans would be forced to confront their own Cuntitude. Not. Gonna. Happen.

Ten Things Everyone Should Read About Health Care

FreedomWorks’ Dean Clancy has republished Ben Domenech’s list of articles called “Ten Things Everyone Should Read About Health Care.” Good stuff on what is broken, how it broke, and how to fix it. I will be reading it and commenting on each article, linking back to this blogpost.

Unlimited Quantitative Easing

Market monetarism is Keynesianism in Monetarist drag. It is based on inflating the currency, on Quantitative Easing. And the Federal Reserve is hoping you won't notice.

Ben Bernanke just held a press conference and declared a market monetarist stance, namely growth and inflation targets. Economist Tyler Cowen called today Scott Sumner Day. Sumner is the blogger at The Money Illusion. Basically, this is Sumner's idea. (Paul Krugman is also a fan.)

So what is his idea? Nothing but endless Quantitative Easing:

Today the Fed adopted one of those three recommendations; open ended QE.

Whats changed since June? That’s pretty easy to answer; Woodford’s paper was obviously very influential, and that changed the politics on level targeting. So Woodford also deserves a lot of credit. It’s not as specific as Woodford or I would like, but it’s something. More specifically it’s a dog whistle that Bernanke hopes the markets will hear, but which he also hopes will be missed by the Tea Party.

Sumner spells it out some more:

Bernanke emphasized that monetary stimulus is not like fiscal stimulus, it actually reduces the budget deficit. That’s right.

Remember: the problem is not inflating or deflating the money supply. The dreaded Keynesian bugaboo is the awful, nasty rabbit from Monty Python's Holy Grail: the "Liquidity Trap." This is the idea that money earning no interest and being slowly eaten by inflation will never be pulled out and invested. This is, of course, completely ridiculous.

The real problem is public confidence in economic growth. As Ludwig von Mises noted in The Theory of Money and Credit, this is a monetary solution to fiscal and policy problems. Quit telling investors you hate them, quit confiscating their money, and wealth, real wealth goods and services will flow. Till then, Bernanke is not only whistling past the graveyard, he's decked out in garlic and wolfsbane.

p.s. Market monetarism from Wikipedia: "In contrast to traditional monetarists, market monetarists do not believe monetary aggregates or commodity prices such as gold are the optimal guide to intervention. Market monetarists also reject the New Keynesian focus on interest rates as the primary instrument of monetary policy."

Harry “Goodlife” Harrison dies

Well, I mean, doesn’t it sound that way? And how does the Guardian boast about legalistic tax immunity? Are they that cynical and duplicitous, or do they just not care?

Gore Vidal, 1925-2012

I prefer Mr Vidal’s fiction and essays (most of them) to Mr Buckley’s (particularly his later, more orotund style). Politically, of course, it is the opposite. I don’t trust artists’ political opinions: they don’t really study these things.

Creation is a good novel, once one gets past the few Vidal-isms therein. (Martin Amis noted that one must write “disinterestedly” to make good art, which is why self-inserting authors, or their opinions, go down so poorly so often, and why Vidal’s political novels and later work suffer.) You may be offended by Myra Breckinridge; certainly, if homosexuality squicks you, I don’t recommend you read it, any more than I would advise someone who faints at the sight of blood to watch a Hammer Studios Dracula film. Christopher Isherwood, Vidal’s close friend, wrote to Vidal that he thought MB was a kind of self-portrait: when I compare Myra Breckinridge with the sequel, Myron, I can see the change in Vidal’s outlook: Myron is an angry, negative polemic.

Kalki was a great, downer-ending science-fiction story: the only proper SF Vidal ever wrote. Messiah was also very good, as were The Judgment of Paris, Julian and 1876, especially since there were fewer real figures in the last (historical) novel, so less temptation. (Vidal’s crush on James A. Garfield is rather amusing.)

Palimpsest was a good memoir, though it cribbed much of his own previous writing on himself and his acquaintances, but it cribbed well.

For the essays: basically, anything Vidal wrote on Art is worth reading. His prose could achieve a kind of water-clear transparency at those times, something he never, ever could do with politics.

p.s. One normally calls this clarity “limpid” or “pellucid,” sadly, those words are so abused I leave them out here.

p.p.s. Hillsdale College has Buckley's papers, including his excellent
“On Experiencing Gore Vidal”. Sadly, no direct URL exists: type “gore vidal” in the search bar and click to page two.

McCartney’s personal sexuality

ETA: I used to wonder if Paul McCartney was bisexual. Actually, now I don't, partly on the strength of this interview. If Paul has a trope that led him to write these lyrics, I would say he likes making fun of his own homebody-ness. Anyway, back to my half-baked theory, now discredited, I think.

There’s not much evidence, but I think it could be true. Consider that in Prick Up Your Ears, the Beatle picking up gay playwright Joe Orton to discuss another Beatle movie screenplay is McCartney.

Consider also the lyrics:

“Jet”: “And Jet, I thought the major was a lady suffragette.”

“Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da”:

Happy ever after in the market place
Molly lets the children lend a hand
Desmond stays at home and does his pretty face
And in the evening she's a singer with the band

Or “Get Back”:

Sweet Loretta Martin thought she was a woman
But she was another man.
All the girls around her say she's got it coming
But she gets it while she can.

They keep explaining these as mistakes. Well, Mr McCartney sings this soi disant mistake over two lines; more than a mere substitution. Also note the matching of the pronoun: Desmond does his pretty face.

Perhaps Mr McCartney simply enjoys sexual confusion as a comedic gambit: he’d be hardly alone. People like casting Lennon as the adventurous one but there are good reasons against that. Lennon grew up without a father or other male role model. McCartney grew up with a musician dad and apparently learned a lot from him. The latter type tends to be more secure and more willing to experiment (or be seen as such). Lennon’s childhood would create a personality more likely to be hostile to bi- or homosexuality.

Again, no proof. And yes, I am open to charges of projection, I know. But I do wonder.