The myth of a democratic socialist society funded by capitalism is finished

Quote of the Day for Thursday, September 6th, 2012: Janet Daley, in The Telegraph, explaining to her fellow Britons why “We should tune in to the Romney and Ryan show”: What is being challenged is nothing less than the most basic premise of the politics of the centre ground: that you can have free market economics and a democratic socialist welfare system at the same time. The magic formula in which the wealth produced by the market economy is redistributed by the state – from those who produce it to those whom the government believes deserve it – has go...

The Communist Party was my Nurse Ratched

Movie Director (e.g. “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”) and Czechoslovakian expatriate Milos Forman had an op-ed in the NY Times last week, using his experiences under communism as a context for criticizing the use of the term “socialist” to describe President Obama: The Communist Party was my Nurse Ratched, telling me what I could and could not do; what I was or was not allowed to say; where I was and was not allowed to go; even who I was and was not. Now, years later, I hear the word “socialist” being tossed around by the likes of Rick Perry, Newt Ging...

The western world is an end state: the comfy couch at the end of history

Quote of the Day for Wednesday, January 19th, 2011: Walter Russell Mead, writing at The American Interest on the on-going decline – and largely unconsidered future – of the structures underpinning modern life in the West: The word ‘developed’ contains an important assumption: that a historical process known as development (closely related to modernization — another problematic word) not only exists throughout the world, it culminates in a known end which has already been reached.  This word implies that countries like France, Canada and our ow...

Free Speech and the Peaceful Public Order

I arrived home from my sister Mary’s funeral Saturday evening, and saw that Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and several other people had been shot during some kind of meet-and-greet in her congressional district. I’d never heard of Giffords, but was discouraged that such a thing would happen – it’s hard enough just given our political process to get good people to run for public office, and it was of course a terrible tragedy for the people involved. It seemed to me that it had been a long time since something like that had happened. As I read t...

I can’t image that socialists are very good chess players.

Quote of the Day for Thursday, January 6th, 2011: Some pseudo-anonymous commenter calling him/her/it-self “rabbit,” commenting on David Thompson’s blog, on a post about an article written by an English genius who is advocating what is for all intents and purposes the public annexation of spare bedrooms in “under-occupied” English houses: I can’t image that socialists are very good chess players. They can never seem to see more than one move ahead. Priceless. Don’t even ask me how I ended up reading that post – never mind the comments – but this com...

Idealism Unencumbered by Reality: Obamacare, pt.1

George Orwell, in his 1946 essay “Politics and the English Language” said: “Political language . . . is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” There is no more apt description of the political discourse that has defined the “healthcare” issue in this country over the past year. Now that we’ve seen what the Democratic leadership has proposed for legislation, would it be out of line to suggest that someone might owe Joe Wilson an apology? Of course, it was almost impossible to know ...

Eat the Rich?

So, a majority of people in the country, at least according to this poll, want somebody else to pay for the looming health care program – you know, like those rich people,  who are most likely rich because they’re cheats, anyway. Why am I not surprised? Isn’t this just the perfect embodiment – and inevitable end-result – of modernism’s rejection of personal responsibility in favor of paternalistic political super-structures? I suppose I exaggerate though; the actual end-results of these left wing muggings of the rich have not...

Slander as Political Fashion

Boy, am I growing weary of the political environment. What George W Bush did for for international relations with his “with us or against us” rhetoric, Barack Obama is doing to the political climate within the country with his treatment of political dissent. Of course, nations actually do operate in an environment of mutual belligerence, which is forever flaring up as actual warfare in some corner or another, whereas nations are supposed to operate, internally, with a civility stemming from civitas, but why split hairs? Perhaps it’s unfair to blame Obama...