But in a global economy, bottom-up economics makes more sense. Bottom-up economics holds that:

1. The growth of the American economy depends largely on the productivity of its workers. They are rooted here, while global capital and large American-based global corporations are not.

Is there even a relation between these two sentences?  Sentence 1: economy depends on productive worker.  Sentence 2: workers are here, global capital is not.

2. The productivity of America workers depends mainly on their education, their health, and the infrastructure that connects them together. These public investments are therefore critical to our future prosperity.

There are several arguments that I have against this. 

First, any action that the government does involves force and coercion.  That's a fact.  If the government institutes all of the things that Reich lists, then the only way for them to happen is for the government to go into your pockets with force, even so far as the possibility of killing you.  Never mind that me, you, or my creepy next door neighbor may not want to get involved, Reich will make sure to get that money from you.

Second, if money goes through the hands of politicians it will be used, in essence, as campaign funds.  As nice as it would be to have someone solve your problems, Politicians will use that money as a political advantage (and if they don't, then another politician who is willing to use it as a political advantage will, because they'll have a political advantage the other guy doesn't).  Therefore, Politicians won't be giving anyone eduction, health care, or infrastructure that is a benefit of "the productivity of American workers", but will rather use that money to line the voting boxes for themselves.

Third, the government is wasteful and inefficient.  For the reasons in the second point, but also that Capitalism is a much more efficient system than Statism/Socialism.

3. Global capital will come to the United States to create good jobs not because our taxes or wages or regulatory costs are low (there will always be many places around the world where taxes, wages, and regulatory costs are lower) but because the productivity of our workers is high.

This statement: "Global capital will come to the United States to create good jobs not because our taxes or wages or regulatory costs are low," is just ignorant.  Of course Global capital will go to places where taxes, wages, and regulatory costs are low!  Why do you think that so many American businesses are going to India, because being a vegetarian makes workers more efficient?

4. The answer to our energy costs is found in the creativity and inventiveness of Americans in generating non-oil and non-carbon fuels and new means of energy conservation, rather than in access by global oil companies to more oil. So subsidize basic research and development in these alternatives.

Look, I don't disagree with what he's saying here, but he gets to the point of creativity and inventiveness in a backwards manner.  Government intervention stifles innovation, while free markets invigorate innovation.  Where money flows it creates greater competition.  In a competitive market, the person who creates the most efficient, cost effective, and most superior product wins money.  Rather than, "let's do it for the benefit of the country!"  This really falls under "feel good, unrealistic ideologies" versus the real world.

5. Finally, in order to avoid a recession or worse, it's necessary to improve the financial security of average Americans who are now sinking into a quagmire of debt and foreclosure. Otherwise, there won't be adequate purchasing power to absorb all the goods and services the economy produces. (As to "moral hazard," the financial institutions that did the lending had more reason to know of the risks involved than those who did the borrowing.)

This is the absolute worst of all.  This should definitely be considered "feel-onomics".  The absolute biggest problem with Socialism is that it causes more Socialism and dependence on the government.  It is amazing that someone with a Ph.D in Economics doesn't appear to grasp the whole story behind the "quagmire of debt and foreclosure".  For anyone interested in the real story: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/07/bankrupt_exploiters.html, by Thomas Sowell, one of Cedric and my favorite economic and politicial philosophers.

 Domestic Policy: Barack Obama has, as Shelby Steele has recently pointed out in the Wall Street Journal, pushed us forward somewhat culturally by refusing to play the race card. Obama has made new rules for black politicians who wish to be viable to the entire American electorate: you may not use America's racial past as a means to stigmatize whites with the taint of moral turpitude. But the contradiction that Obama represents in another regard is troubling, as Steele also notes elsewhere. That is to say,  Barack Obama employed self-reliance, the supreme American virtue, to become a successful man; the problem, though, is that he seems ready, as president, to pursue a muted form of identity politics by proposing a plethora of social welfare programs.

  If one visits the "Issues" page from the homepage toolbar of Obama's campaign website, one will be dazzled by the blizzard of programs he intends to create, all of them redolent with such terms as "outreach," "protection," "access," and "care." The details are overwhelming, and extremely vague. There are more programs proposed than anyone could possibly oversee competently or even have time to implement. There seems to be not a little disingenuousness in it all, as if we are being manipulated into feeling inferior for not having thought up all these programs ourselves. There's a program for almost any conceivable thing that could happen to you. Ultimately, though, the "Issues" page is unreadable: too many details couched in vagueness. After awhile you just can't go on.

  Now, there are a couple of motifs that run throughout: more money needs to be spent, and (this one is only implied, not explicitly stated by the site), there should be more solutions from government, from the outside, so to speak. That is, Obama seldom touches upon counter-productive subcultures and attitudes that are causing considerable difficulties (his recent speech to the NAACP on personal responsibility notwithstanding). It's always up to an external agent to solve the problem: more money, more accountability from government, more access, more outreach, more "care." It's never one's own fault, it's the government's. He says he's asking you to believe in the power of us all to change Washington: that means, between the lines, that it's not your fault, that it was the government that messed up your life (and it's supposed to get you out of the consequences of your own behavior).

  We've had four decades plus of Great Society programs, and they have proven to be a collective failure: they undermine self-reliance; they're primarily designed to relieve whites of guilt stigma; they lower standards and competitiveness by catering to the unprepared; and they keep blacks vulnerable in perpetuity to white largesse. Obama disagrees, however: his "Issues" page is chock-full with a vengeance of more social engineering. These Obama programs are so omnipresent that as individual programs they necessarily get watered-down to meaninglessness: they're just vehicles for simplistic, "soaring" rhetoric. It's hard to believe he pays more than lip-service to them. The sad fact about Obama is that he purposely appeals to what is most unhealthy in us-- that will to nothingness, as Nietzsche put it, that will to the end, that desire for everything difficult in life to just go away.  Sometimes he presents himself as Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, but mostly he presents himself as a father figure,  theatrically teaching his children self-sufficiency.

  Some selections: "...by holding schools accountable for making sure these students complete school..." (you probably won't have to study very hard here, if the school has to make sure you graduate). "We must promote economic development in Mexico to decrease illegal immigration." (Then we'll promote it in Central America, so as to reduce that other illegal immigration into Mexico itself.) "We can only compete if our government makes the investments that give us a fighting chance." (That is, we can only compete for the freebies if they're out there available.) The point here is that, for Barack, the government always has to do something first before you are obligated to subject yourself to "free" competition.

  There is nothing substantive behind the fashionable oratory. As Thomas Sowell has pointed out again and again, dogma and agendas blind one to the real and destructive consequences of mistaken policies. These policies are short-term at best but are insisted upon for decades. This is the tragedy of the combination of vanity and altruism.

T.D.

Thank you for visiting.

Next due: Friday, August 1: The Timeliness of Barack Obama: Part Three

It was government intervention in the financial markets, which is now supposed to save the situation, that created the problem in the first place.

Laws and regulations pressured lending institutions to lend to people that they were not lending to, given the economic realities. The Community Reinvestment Act forced them to lend in places where they did not want to send their money, and where neither they nor the politicians wanted to walk.

Now that this whole situation has blown up in everybody's face, the government intervention that brought on this disaster in is supposed to save the day.

I also have a deep admiration for Thomas Sowell (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Sowell), economist, writer, and former Yale professor. He has a knack for explaining economics and the application of its principles in a way that even someone as math-challeneged as I can understand. In contrast, Robert Reich's socialist rantings about minimum wage never made any sense to me.

Also on my personal "most admired" list is Shelby Steele (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelby_Steele), the historian who looks impartially at our past and writes about it with care and passion. There's Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarence_Thomas), whose clear mind and integrity should be used as a model for all aspiring lawyers. There's Michael Steel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_S._Steele), the former Maryland lieutenant governor, whose reasoned positions on the proper role of government should be included in college texts. There's also Tony Evans (http://www.tonyevans.org/site/c.feIKLOOpGlF/b.2017593/), founder of the Urban Alternative, and Dallas pastor and teacher, whose biblical messages on society and relationships have inspired me and millions of others.

You may have heard in passing about Frederick Douglass (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Douglass), the former slave and abolitionist whose intellect stunned and shamed his contemporaries; and Martin Luther King, Jr. (http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=16500), whose prescient letter from a Birmingham jail still gives me goose bumps because of its eloquence and substance (inconveniently for current-day activists, he was a - gulp - Republican, and you can bet your bottom dollar that's one salient point never mentioned in liberal speeches). But you might not have heard of former ambassador Alan Keyes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Keyes), who has yet to be bested by anyone with whom he has debated, black or white.

These are all distinctive men and women with impressive credentials; they're role models for all Americans of every color who dream of living a good and successful life in America, and their names should be included on those February Black History Month lists of luminaries. The only name I ever see is MLK, because the politicians on the left have claimed him as one of their own. But the politics of these men and women were and are conservative, and most belong/ed to the Republican Party, so you won't hear much about them. If you do, the coverage will be negative.

It is shameful that these black public figures are condemned by their contemporaries for their divergence from liberal philosophies. (The Democratic Party slogan - "We believe in diversity. Unless your views are different from ours.") These conservatives are shunned by colleagues, are told they're "acting white" (which, apparently, must be something really bad), and are ridiculed for their political views. Their achievements are dismissed or ignored by members of their own race, liberals, and the media.

It is a disgrace that marginal and dubious characters like Angela Davis, Louis Farrakhan, Barack Obama and Jesse Jackson are celebrated, while people like the ones mentioned above are derided for their convictions and their courage, and undervalued as important contributors to our national heritage. When the next Black History Month rolls around in February, I'll be watching, as always, to see if these competent, and extraordinary individuals will be celebrated by our country. But I won't hold my breath.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/07/are_facts_obsolete.html

As the hypnotic mantra of "change" is repeated endlessly, few people even raise the question of whether what few specifics we hear represent any real change, much less a change for the better.

One of the most naive notions is that politicians are trying to solve the country's problems, just because they say so-- or say so loudly or inspiringly.

Politicians' top priority is to solve their own problem, which is how to get elected and then re-elected. Barack Obama is a politician through and through, even though pretending that he is not is his special strategy to get elected.

Perhaps a defining moment in showing Senator Obama's priorities was his declaring, in answer to a question from Charles Gibson, that he was for raising the capital gains tax rate. When Gibson reminded him of the well-documented fact that lower tax rates on capital gains had produced more actual revenue collected from that tax than the higher tax rates had, Obama was unmoved.

he question of how to raise more revenue may be the economic issue but the political issue is whether socking it to "the rich" in the name of "fairness" gains more votes.

Since about half the people in the United States own stocks-- either directly or because their pension funds buy stocks-- socking it to people who earn capital gains is by no means socking it just to "the rich." But, again, that is one of the many facts that don't matter politically.

What matters politically is the image of coming out on the side of "the people" against "the privileged."

Obama is for higher minimum wage rates. Does anyone care what actually happens in countries with higher minimum wage rates? Of course not.

Economists may point to studies done in countries around the world, showing that higher minimum wage rates usually mean higher unemployment rates among lower skilled and less experienced workers.

That's their problem. A politician's problem is how to look like he is for "the poor" and against those who are "exploiting" them. The facts are irrelevant to maintaining that political image.

Raising taxes, increasing government spending and demonizing business? That is straight out of the New Deal of the 1930s.

The New Deal was new then but it is not new now. Moreover, increasing numbers of economists and historians have concluded that New Deal policies are what prolonged the Great Depression.

Putting new restrictions of international trade, in order to save American jobs? That was done by Herbert Hoover, when he signed the Hawley-Smoot tariff when the unemployment rate was 9 percent. The next year the unemployment rate was 16 percent and, before the Great Depression was over, unemployment hit 25 percent.

One of the most naive notions is that politicians are trying to solve the country's problems, just because they say so-- or say so loudly or inspiringly.

Politicians' top priority is to solve their own problem, which is how to get elected and then re-elected. Barack Obama is a politician through and through, even though pretending that he is not is his special strategy to get elected.

You can read the entire article here.

I have wonder where he stands on the issues since all he has talked to this point is about "change".  I keep asking myself what does he mean by "change". Mr Sowell seems to echo my feelings on the "change" message:

As the hypnotic mantra of "change" is repeated endlessly, few people even raise the question of whether what few specifics we hear represent any real change, much less a change for the better.

So, does Mr Obama get any specifics on his "change".  From a previous post, I mention that it appears the "change" he proposes is a re-run of sorts.  My comment:

From what I have learned, Mr Obama wants to apply policies to our economy that were tired in 1930s and foreign policies that were used in 1970s.  This change sounds a lot like a re-run.

Mr Sowell reiterates it in this example:

Raising taxes, increasing government spending and demonizing business? That is straight out of the New Deal of the 1930s.

The New Deal was new then but it is not new now. Moreover, increasing numbers of economists and historians have concluded that New Deal policies are what prolonged the Great Depression.

Putting new restrictions of international trade, in order to save American jobs? That was done by Herbert Hoover, when he signed the Hawley-Smoot tariff when the unemployment rate was 9 percent. The next year the unemployment rate was 16 percent and, before the Great Depression was over, unemployment hit 25 percent.

I'll admit that what was tried under the Hoover administration did not work, but FDR's plan did not help either as many people would lead us to believe. What got us out of it was World War II. But, this seems to be overlooked.

But, with all this talk of "change", one must look at what Mr Obama is doing now.  He is positioning himself towards to the center again on these same issues, which is typical of modern day politicians.  Ignore what I have said, but know I am on your side.

Mr Sowell's provides several examples of what the politician does:

Politicians' top priority is to solve their own problem, which is how to get elected and then re-elected.

What matters politically is the image of coming out on the side of "the people" against "the privileged."

A politician's problem is how to look like he is for "the poor" and against those who are "exploiting" them.

Mr Obama is no exception to this.  Another fine example is Mr Bill Clinton.  Of course, own representatives and senators can be included in this list.  As Mr Sowell clear states in the following sentence:

The facts are irrelevant to maintaining that political image.

The Democratics are always good at this and always seem to get the upper hand in controlling the government with the help of the MSM.  Unfortunately, the Democratic do not ever acknowledge this fact as  Mr Sowell concludes this piece:

The consequences for the country come later.

A lot of what Mr Obama has said as been tried and did not work very well. Can we afford to try it again?

I remember reading where certain brand-name companies who sell their products in grocery stores often will put the word "NEW!" on their packaging to get a boost in sales. The actual change in the product itself could be nothing more than adding four milligrams more of riboflavin. But that doesn't matter to the consumer. Apparently just seeing that magic word is enough to persuade a shopper to throw the item in their buggy without even checking to see just what is 'new' about it.

That being said, I have long been mystified at the ease with which starry-eyed Obama supporters are willing to stock up on his special brand of Kool-Aid. Granted their candidate has some exciting qualities -- he's young, he's hip, he has a great stage presence and he speaks with authority. But as Thomas Sowell so eloquently points out, he is still short on that important little ingredient called substance.

In an election campaign in which not only young liberals, but also some people who are neither young nor liberals, seem absolutely mesmerized by the skilled rhetoric of Barack Obama, facts have receded even further into the background than usual.

As the hypnotic mantra of "change" is repeated endlessly, few people even raise the question of whether what few specifics we hear represent any real change, much less a change for the better.

Certainly it's a brilliant stroke of marketing on Obama's part. But what about this "Change!" that is stamped all over Barry's packaging? A look at the few specifics he has provided on the economic front shows us that nothing new is being proposed at all --  just the same old 'New Deal' politics presented  in a fresh shiny charismatic package.  As Sowell points out:

Raising taxes, increasing government spending and demonizing business? That is straight out of the New Deal of the 1930s.

The New Deal was new then but it is not new now. Moreover, increasing numbers of economists and historians have concluded that New Deal policies are what prolonged the Great Depression.

Putting new restrictions of international trade, in order to save American jobs? That was done by Herbert Hoover, when he signed the Hawley-Smoot tariff when the unemployment rate was 9 percent. The next year the unemployment rate was 16 percent and, before the Great Depression was over, unemployment hit 25 percent.

So the ideas are actually quite old. But they are part of a populist strategy that will appeal to the average voter who is unsatisfied with his or her life and wants something or someone to blame.

Sowell then goes on to examine the mindset that is catching on at an alarming pace in this country -- the idea that Washington is here to make our lives better:

One of the most naive notions is that politicians are trying to solve the country's problems, just because they say so-- or say so loudly or inspiringly.

Politicians' top priority is to solve their own problem, which is how to get elected and then re-elected. Barack Obama is a politician through and through, even though pretending that he is not is his special strategy to get elected.

And he is certainly very good at pretending he is not. A few short months ago he even had yours truly fooled. Although I knew he was a liberal and would never have voted for him on that fact alone, I was impressed by what appeared at the time to be a certain amount of integrity. Unlike Hillary, he didn't give off that phony air of trying to be everything to everyone. And what most struck me at the time was that he seemed to be taking the high-road on race. It was, to say the least, refreshing.

But after the Jeremiah Wright revelation broke, I soon began to realize that Obama's real strategy is to let others speak for him on the more controversial issues while he stands around looking and sounding presidential. If a firestorm erupted... as it already has a time or two... he could always distance himself without getting his own empty suit singed.

Yes people will call him on these tactics and yes he will look bad a time or two... or twelve. But ultimately what will matter to Democratic and centrist voters is his presence and his ability to look leader-like. That combined with the repetition of carefully chosen buzzwords like "change" and "hope" will likely be all he needs to win this election. McCain, as I have often said, is Bob Dole redux. Nothing about him says 'new' and I just don't see him getting in the Oval Office when so many Americans are wanting newness for newness' sake.

Those are the sad facts, folks. Maybe by 2012 the spiked Kool-Aid will have worn off and Americans will be ready for the real, bonifide "get government the hell out of our lives" kind of change. Until then, buckle your seatbelts...

Click below for the rest of Sowell's excellent (as usual) column:

Are Facts Obsolete?

"El sufragio es un derecho, pero también es un deber; un deber que va más allá de depositar la papeleta en la urna y que implica el análisis riguroso de las alternativas y de lo que éstas puedan significar para el futuro de la nación."

Thomas Sowell approaches things from a manner similar to mine.  Since his background is also in economics, most of his positions and thoughts are based in how the economy will be affected by actions taken (or not taken) by the government.  Interesting reading.

Thomas Sowell was born in North Carolina and grew up in Harlem . As with many others in his neighborhood, he left home early and did not finish high school. The next few years were difficult ones, but eventually he joined the Marine Corps and became a photographer in the Korean War. After leaving the service, Sowell entered Harvard University , worked a part-time job as a photographer and studied the science that would become his passion and profession: economics.

After graduating magna cum laude from Harvard University (1958), he went on to receive his master's in economics from Columbia University (1959) and a doctorate in economics from the University of Chicago (1968).

In the early '60s, Sowell held jobs as an economist with the Department of Labor and AT&T. But his real interest was in teaching and scholarship. In 1965, at Cornell University , he began the first of many professorships. His other teaching assignments include Rutgers University , Amherst University , Brandeis University and the University of California at Los Angeles , where he taught in the early '70s and also from 1984 to 1989.

Sowell has published a large volume of writing. His dozen books, as well as numerous articles and essays, cover a wide range of topics, from classic economic theory to judicial activism, from civil rights to choosing the right college. Moreover, much of his writing is considered ground-breaking -- work that will outlive the great majority of scholarship done today.

Though Sowell had been a regular contributor to newspapers in the late '70s and early '80s, he did not begin his career as a newspaper columnist until 1984. George F. Will's writing, says Sowell, proved to him that someone could say something of substance in so short a space (750 words). And besides, writing for the general public enables him to address the heart of issues without the smoke and mirrors that so often accompany academic writing.

In 1990, he won the prestigious Francis Boyer Award, presented by The American Enterprise Institute.
Currently Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute in Stanford , Calif.

Obama and McCain

By Thomas Sowell
Thursday, June 05, 2008

Now that the two parties have finally selected their presidential candidates, it is time for a sober-- if not grim-- assessment of where we are. Not since 1972 have we been presented with two such painfully inadequate candidates. When election day came that year, I could not bring myself to vote for either George McGovern or Richard Nixon. I stayed home.

This year, none of us has that luxury. While all sorts of gushing is going on in the media, and posturing is going on in politics, the biggest national sponsor of terrorism in the world-- Iran-- is moving step by step toward building a nuclear bomb.

The point when they get that bomb will be the point of no return. Iran 's nuclear bomb will be the terrorists' nuclear bomb-- and they can make 9/11 look like child's play.

All the options that are on the table right now will be swept off the table forever. Our choices will be to give in to whatever the terrorists demand-- however outrageous those demands might be-- or to risk seeing American cities start disappearing in radioactive mushroom clouds.

All the things we are preoccupied with today, from the price of gasoline to health care to global warming, will suddenly no longer matter.

Just as the Nazis did not find it enough to simply kill people in their concentration camps, but had to humiliate and dehumanize them first, so we can expect terrorists with nuclear weapons to both humiliate us and force us to humiliate ourselves, before they finally start killing us.

They have already telegraphed their punches with their sadistic beheadings of innocent civilians, and with the popularity of videotapes of those beheadings in the Middle East .

They have already telegraphed their intention to dictate to us with such things as Osama bin Laden's threats to target those places in America that did not vote the way he prescribed in the 2004 elections. He could not back up those threats then but he may be able to in a very few years.

The terrorists have given us as clear a picture of what they are all about as Adolf Hitler and the Nazis did during the 1930s-- and our 'leaders' and intelligentsia have ignored the warning signs as resolutely as the 'leaders' and intelligentsia of the 1930s downplayed the dangers of Hitler.

We are much like people drifting down the Niagara River , oblivious to the waterfalls up ahead. Once we go over those falls, we cannot come back up again.

What does this have to do with today's presidential candidates? It has everything to do with them.

One of these candidates will determine what we are going to do to stop Iran from going nuclear-- or whether we are going to do anything other than talk, as Western leaders talked in the 1930s.

There is one big difference between now and the 1930s. Although the West's lack of military preparedness and its political irresolution led to three solid years of devastating losses to Nazi Germany and imperial Japan , nevertheless when all the West's industrial and military forces were finally mobilized, the democracies were able to turn the tide and win decisively.

But you cannot lose a nuclear war for three years and then come back. You cannot even sustain the will to resist for three years when you are first broken down morally by threats and then devastated by nuclear bombs.

Our one window of opportunity to prevent this will occur within the term of whoever becomes President of the United States next January.

At a time like this, we do not have the luxury of waiting for our ideal candidate or of indulging our emotions by voting for some third party candidate to show our displeasure-- at the cost of putting someone in the White House who is not up to the job.

Senator John McCain has been criticized in this column many times. But, when all is said and done, Senator McCain has not spent decades aiding and abetting people who hate America.

On the contrary, he has paid a huge price for resisting our enemies, even when they held him prisoner and tortured him.

The choice between him and Barack Obama should be a no-brainer.

"Nothing more useless than a Christmas tree the day after Christmas,"  someone has said.

Not so with the flag. Not so with the Red, White and Blue. Not so with the Stars and Stripes--the banner, the ensign--of the United States of America. Not so with that cherished piece of cloth that in itself has negligible value, but that becomes a storied tale of honor when pristine strength and gallant endurance  is woven betwixt its threads.

Today, the 5th of July, within our enduring banner reposes all honor that reflected there at yesterday's dawn and at dusk of evening. For our prized flag, today, the 5th of July,  there is no place in the mud of gutter or in the decay of trash heap.

Today, the 5th of July, that amazing signal beats in the wind--an agent of hope and equity and freedom. Today, the 5th of July, with absolute assurance, flies the symbol of the greatest country on the planet. No stripping of agency, no negating of authority, no cowardice, no subjugation. 

Today, the 5th of July, the day after our birthday celebration, where, across the land, we pull out all stops; where we march parades and mount long and loud speeches and grill our finest meats and launch our hottest firecrackers--today, the 5th of July, there is no cessation of flag waving, no poverty of spirit, no paucity of patriotism. The flag lives, the flag waves. There is none like it.

There is no place on earth like the United States of America, just no place. On this, the 5th of July, there are yet people who love this country and who willingly offer their lives for its hallowed truths.

Navy Seal Mikey Monsoor was one such gallant young man.

The flag is safe. The flag endures.

The voice of President Bush breaks with emotion as he awards posthumously the Medal of Honor to Mr. Mikey Monsoor.

___________________________________________________________________________________________

My devotional blog is here.

Related articles:

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Why progressives aren’t patriotic

The Fourth of July is a patriotic holiday but patriotism has long been viewed with suspicion or disdain by many of the intelligentsia. As far back as 1793, prominent British writer William Godwin called patriotism "high-sounding nonsense."

Internationalism has long been a competitor with patriotism, especially among the intelligentsia. H.G. Wells advocated replacing the idea of duty to one's country with "the idea of cosmopolitan duty."

Perhaps nowhere was patriotism so downplayed or deplored than among intellectuals in the Western democracies in the two decades after the horrors of the First World War, fought under various nations' banners of patriotism.

In France, after the First World War, the teachers' unions launched a systematic purge of textbooks, in order to promote internationalism and pacifism.

Books that depicted the courage and self-sacrifice of soldiers who had defended France against the German invaders were called "bellicose" books to be banished from the schools.

Textbook publishers caved in to the power of the teachers' unions, rather than lose a large market for their books. History books were sharply revised to conform to internationalism and pacifism.

The once epic story of the French soldiers' heroic defense against the German invaders at Verdun, despite the massive casualties suffered by the French, was now transformed into a story of horrible suffering by all soldiers at Verdun-- French and German alike.

In short, soldiers once depicted as national heroes were now depicted as victims-- and just like victims in other nations' armies.

Children were bombarded with stories on the horrors of war. In some schools, children whose fathers had been killed during the war were asked to speak to the class and many of these children-- as well as some of their classmates and teachers-- broke down in tears.

In Britain, Winston Churchill warned that a country "cannot avoid war by dilating upon its horrors." In France, Marshal Philippe Petain, the victor at Verdun, warned in 1934 that teachers were trying to "raise our sons in ignorance of or in contempt of the fatherland."

But they were voices drowned out by the pacifist and internationalist rhetoric of the 1920s and 1930s.

Did it matter? Does patriotism matter?

France, where pacifism and internationalism were strongest, became a classic example of how much it can matter.

During the First World War, France fought on against the German invaders for four long years, despite having more of its soldiers killed than all the American soldiers killed in all the wars in the history of the United States, put together.

But during the Second World War, France collapsed after just six weeks of fighting and surrendered to Nazi Germany. At the bitter moment of defeat the head of the French teachers' union was told, "You are partially responsible for the defeat."

Charles de Gaulle, Francois Mauriac, and other Frenchmen blamed a lack of national will or general moral decay, for the sudden and humiliating collapse of France in 1940.

At the outset of the invasion, both German and French generals assessed French military forces as more likely to gain victory, and virtually no one expected France to collapse like a house of cards -- except Adolf Hitler, who had studied French society instead of French military forces.

Did patriotism matter? It mattered more than superior French tanks and planes.

Most Americans today are unaware of how much our schools have followed in the footsteps of the French schools of the 1920s and 1930s, or how much our intellectuals have become citizens of the world instead of American patriots.

Our media are busy verbally transforming American combat troops from heroes into victims, just as the French intelligentsia did-- with the added twist of calling this "supporting the troops."

Will that matter? Time will tell.

Again Mr Sowell opens the piece by sharing how patriotism was viewed and how evidentually the French teacher union addressed this after World War I.

The Fourth of July is a patriotic holiday but patriotism has long been viewed with suspicion or disdain by many of the intelligentsia. As far back as 1793, prominent British writer William Godwin called patriotism "high-sounding nonsense."

Internationalism has long been a competitor with patriotism, especially among the intelligentsia. H.G. Wells advocated replacing the idea of duty to one's country with "the idea of cosmopolitan duty."

Perhaps nowhere was patriotism so downplayed or deplored than among intellectuals in the Western democracies in the two decades after the horrors of the First World War, fought under various nations' banners of patriotism.

In France, after the First World War, the teachers' unions launched a systematic purge of textbooks, in order to promote internationalism and pacifism.

This was very interesting.  It seems our predecessors had encountered similar actions on how to display one's patriotism.  It is amazing that like the French teachers, our modern today education system is re-writing our own history by watering it down to promote the same things in the 1930s.  Some of our modern day leaders are concern about this action as was other leaders of the 1930s:

In Britain, Winston Churchill warned that a country "cannot avoid war by dilating upon its horrors." In France, Marshal Philippe Petain, the victor at Verdun, warned in 1934 that teachers were trying to "raise our sons in ignorance of or in contempt of the fatherland."

But they were voices drowned out by the pacifist and internationalist rhetoric of the 1920s and 1930s.

Mr Sowell goes on to ask whether it mattered? Well, what happen to French during World War II?  Mr Sowell writes,

... France collapsed after just six weeks of fighting and surrendered to Nazi Germany. At the bitter moment of defeat the head of the French teachers' union was told, "You are partially responsible for the defeat."

Mr Sowell shares how French leaders who arose during World War II thought of the government's actions prior to the war:

Charles de Gaulle, Francois Mauriac, and other Frenchmen blamed a lack of national will or general moral decay, for the sudden and humiliating collapse of France in 1940.

It is interesting to see how history repeats itself. Do we as Americans want to follow in these steps?

Consider this when we vote this fall.

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For people on the left, however, blacks are trophies or mascots, and must therefore be put on display. Nowhere is that more true than in politics.

The problem with being a mascot is that you are a symbol of someone else's significance or virtue. The actual well-being of a mascot is not the point.

"(The federal government) can never be in danger of degenerating

into a monarchy, an oligarchy, an aristocracy,

or any other despotic or oppressive

form so long as there shall remain any virtue

in the body of the People."

-- President George Washington, Feb. 7, 1788

Within those two quotations lies the crux of the global warming (oops! "climate change") position on the state of nature today. 

Back when I was a young, flaming liberal, whatever I read in the Atlantic Monthly or Time magazine became gospel to me.  Twenty years later, I've seen and experienced enough to know that just because a bunch of scientists dependent on government grants reach a concensus that global warming is a huge, manmade crisis that has to be handled immediately, doesn't mean there is a global warming crisis.  Why should I take their word for it when there are just as many scientists (specializing in meteorology) who say differently?

In science, there is no such thing as a concensus.  A thing is either proven, or it's a hypothesis.  And a peer review is just another word for, "yeah, I've read it and it seems fine to me."  So I'm not swayed by Mr. Gore's charges that we are evil or ignorant if we don't sign on to his hype.  I first question his motives - what does he have to gain from his noise-making? 

Many politicians want to make a name for themselves, be relevant, leave a legacy.  Mr. Gore lost an election he feels he should have won (and by the  way, the NY Times and other publications paid for a recount, which turned up evidence that he did, indeed, lose the election, and it wasn't because of any shenanigans pulled by his opponent, either).  If he isn't bitter about a loss that changed the shape of history, he sure acts like a man who is.  When the whole country came together in the days following 9-11, even people in his own party were glad George W. Bush was at the helm to handle the attack so promptly and vigorously.  Ouch!  That had to hurt Gore's keen sense of righteousness. 

But I digress.  It has now been shown, (by no less than a schoolchild in another country!) that the poor, drowning polar bears in Mr. Gore's nonsensical movie were pulled from a Hollywood movie scene.  Sheesh!  All those sophisticated journalists who make big claims to honor the truth and dig deep for facts rushed to the fore.  Say it ain't so!  But sadly, it turns out that the only inconvenient truth in Mr. Gore's production is that he and his filmakers were so intent on shoving their Glorious Cause down our throats that they faked some of the footage. 

No matter - since they agreed with his premise anyway, members of the media decided that truth wasn't important.  They stayed with the program and continued to spew so much hype about global warming that other people jumped on the bandwagon.  This is how rumors get started. 

Scientists who specialize in weather have repeatedly written that they differ with the "concensus" posited by Mr. Gore and his followers.  They're portrayed as moneygrubbing sell-outs who work for oil companies - despite the fact that they don't!  I'm no scientist myself, I'm just a professional writer who enjoys digging for facts.  As a citizen, I'm obligated to pay attention to what's going on around me so I can make solid decisions based on the best information I can find.  So, what have I found?

Certainly no evidence that we've reached a crisis requiring the kind of sacrifice Mr. Gore and his crowd are blabbering about.  If people want to give up their larger cars to drive something smaller, fine.  If they want to recycle their trash, fine again.  They're entitled to their opinion.  But at this point, that's all the global warming "crisis" is.  It's an opinion from people who want to tell me how to live my live, who want my money to go toward their causes. 

Uh uh.  Not as long as I have a voter's card and a mind of my own.

By Thomas Sowell

Now that Senator Barack Obama has become the Democrats' nominee for President of the United States, to the cheers of the media at home and abroad, he has written a letter to the Secretary of Defense, in a tone as if he is already President, addressing one of his subordinates.

The letter ends: "I look forward to your swift response."

With wars going on in both Iraq and Afghanistan, a Secretary of Defense might have some other things to look after, before making a "swift response" to a political candidate.

Because of the widely publicized statistic that suicide rates among American troops have gone up, Senator Obama says he wants the Secretary of Defense to tell him, swiftly:

"What changes will you make to provide our soldiers in theater with real access to mental health care?"

"What training has the Pentagon provided our medical professionals in theater to recognize who might be at risk of committing suicide?"

"What assistance are you providing families here at home to recognize the risk factors for suicide, so that they may help our service members get the assistance they need?"

"What programs has the Pentagon implemented to help reduce the stigma attached to mental health concerns so that service members are more likely to seek appropriate care?"

All this sounds very plausible, as so many other things that Senator Obama says sound plausible. But, like so many of those other things, it will not stand up under scrutiny.

What has been widely publicized in the media is that suicides among American troops have gone up. What has not been widely publicized is that this higher suicide rate is still not as high as the suicide rate among demographically comparable civilians.

No one needs to be reminded that suicide is a serious matter, whether among soldiers or civilians. But the media have managed to create the impression that it is military service overseas which is the cause of suicides among American troops, when civilians of the same ages and other demographic characteristics are committing suicide at an even higher rate at home.

Moreover, this is not the first time that military service overseas has been portrayed in the media as the cause of problems that are worse in the civilian population at home.

The New York Times led the way in making homicides committed by returning military veterans a front page story, blaming this on "combat trauma and the stress of deployment." Yet the New York Post showed that the homicide rate among returning veterans is a fraction of the homicide rate among demographically comparable civilians.

In other words, if military veterans are not completely immune to the problems found among civilians at home, then the veterans' problems are to be blamed on military service-- at least by the mainstream media.

Does Senator Obama know how the rate of suicides or homicides among military veterans compares to the rate of suicides or homicides among their civilian counterparts? Do the facts matter to him, as compared to an opportunity to score political points?

Perhaps even more important, do the media even care whether Senator Obama knows what he is talking about? Or is the symbolism of "the first black President" paramount, even if that means a President with cocky ignorance at a time of national danger?

The media have been crucial to Barack Obama's whole candidacy. His only achievements of national significance in his entire career have been media achievements and rhetorical achievements.

Perhaps his greatest achievement has been running as a candidate with an image wholly incompatible with what he has actually been doing for decades. This man who is now supposedly going to "unite" us has for years worked hand in glove, and contributed both his own money and the taxpayers' money, to people who have sought to divide us in the most crude demagogic ways.

With all his expressed concern about the war in Iraq, he has not set foot in Iraq for more than two years-- including the very years when progress has been made against the terrorists there.

You don't need to know the facts when you have cocky ignorance and the media behind you.

The piece, titled Cocky Ignorance, can be found here.

Sowell clearly has problems with Barack Obama that stem from something deeper than policy disagreement. He chastises the freshman Senator from Illinois for having the audacity to write a letter to the Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates and the temerity to end it with "I look forward to your swift response."

But what was the letter about? It must have been something bad to get Thomas Sowell so up in arms. Was Obama threatening to disband the military? Was the letter about criminal investigations in the Defense Department?

No, it was about the high suicide rate of military personnel and ways to combat mental illness in soldiers and veterans. Something Mr. Sowell, himself a veteran, says is not an issue.

However, in making his argument against the brash Illinois Senator, Sowell does something he supposedly abhors, he relies completely on generalities, mentioning vague statistics, but never substantiating or citing them.

Sowell makes frequent mention of "demographically comparable civilians" in his analysis:

"What has not been widely publicized is that this higher suicide rate [among soldiers] is still not as high as the suicide rate among demographically comparable civilians."

"the media have managed to create the impression that it is military service overseas which is the cause of suicides among American troops, when civilians of the same ages and other demographic characteristics are committing suicide at an even higher rate at home."

"the homicide rate among returning veterans is a fraction of the homicide rate among demographically comparable civilians."

Who are these "demographically comparable civilians?" Where can they be found? And what makes them demographically comparable anyway? Do they all work in industries where violence is commonplace? Do they all suffer the same high levels of stress and separation from their families for months at a time?

The problem is that Mr. Sowell never explains what this mysterious group is or who is a part of it, but he relies on it as the basis for this borderline incoherent response to a letter written by Sen. Barack Obama and sent to Defense Secretary Gates.

And in the end, Mr. Sowell's argument sounds remarkably similar to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's response when asked about homosexuals at Columbia University.

Suicides? That is not a problem. I don't know where you are getting your information, but we do not have suicides.

Mr. Sowell, if you want to accuse someone of not having the facts when making their opinion; if you want to accuse someone of not knowing what they are talking about; then, sir, you must produce some facts yourself so that we the readers can be sure you know what you're talking about.

Now that Sen. Barack Obama has become the Democrats’ nominee for president of the United States, to the cheers of the media at home and abroad, he has written a letter to the secretary of defense, in a tone as if he is already president, addressing one of his subordinates.

The letter ends: “I look forward to your swift response.”

With wars going on in both Iraq and Afghanistan, a secretary of defense might have some other things to look after, before making a “swift response” to a political candidate.

Because of the widely publicized statistic that suicide rates among American troops have gone up, Sen. Obama says he wants the secretary of defense to tell him, swiftly:

“What changes will you make to provide our soldiers in theater with real access to mental health care?”

“What training has the Pentagon provided our medical professionals in theater to recognize who might be at risk of committing suicide?”

“What assistance are you providing families here at home to recognize the risk factors for suicide, so that they may help our service members get the assistance they need?”

“What programs has the Pentagon implemented to help reduce the stigma attached to mental health concerns so that service members are more likely to seek appropriate care?”

Certainly these matters should be addressed. And I have no doubt they already ARE being addressed... with or without our hero Barack's intervention.

Meanwhile, Sowell uses a lesser known statistic to put this sobering trend into better perspective:

No one needs to be reminded that suicide is a serious matter, whether among soldiers or civilians. But the media have managed to create the impression that it is military service overseas which is the cause of suicides among American troops, when civilians of the same ages and other demographic characteristics are committing suicide at an even higher rate at home.

Moreover, this is not the first time that military service overseas has been portrayed in the media as the cause of problems that are worse in the civilian population at home.

The New York Times led the way in making homicides committed by returning military veterans a front-page story, blaming this on “combat trauma and the stress of deployment.” Yet the New York Post showed that the homicide rate among returning veterans is a fraction of the homicide rate among demographically comparable civilians.

In other words, if military veterans are not completely immune to the problems found among civilians at home, then the veterans’ problems are to be blamed on military service — at least by the mainstream media.

The rest of Sowell's excellent commentary may be found here.

by Thomas Sowell.

Now that the two parties have finally selected their presidential candidates, it is time for a sober— if not grim— assessment of where we are.

Not since 1972 have we been presented with two such painfully inadequate candidates. When election day came that year, I could not bring myself to vote for either George McGovern or Richard Nixon. I stayed home.

This year, none of us has that luxury. While all sorts of gushing is going on in the media, and posturing is going on in politics, the biggest national sponsor of terrorism in the world— Iran— is moving step by step toward building a nuclear bomb.

The point when they get that bomb will be the point of no return. Iran's nuclear bomb will be the terrorists' nuclear bomb— and they can make 9/11 look like child's play.

All the options that are on the table right now will be swept off the table forever. Our choices will be to give in to whatever the terrorists demand— however outrageous those demands might be— or to risk seeing American cities start disappearing in radioactive mushroom clouds.

All the things we are preoccupied with today, from the price of gasoline to health care to global warming, will suddenly no longer matter.

Just as the Nazis did not find it enough to simply kill people in their concentration camps, but had to humiliate and dehumanize them first, so we can expect terrorists with nuclear weapons to both humiliate us and force us to humiliate ourselves, before they finally start killing us.

They have already telegraphed their punches with their sadistic beheadings of innocent civilians, and with the popularity of videotapes of those beheadings in the Middle East.

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They have already telegraphed their intention to dictate to us with such things as Osama bin Laden's threats to target those places in America that did not vote the way he prescribed in the 2004 elections. He could not back up those threats then but he may be able to in a very few years.

The terrorists have given us as clear a picture of what they are all about as Adolf Hitler and the Nazis did during the 1930s— and our "leaders" and intelligentsia have ignored the warning signs as resolutely as the "leaders" and intelligentsia of the 1930s downplayed the dangers of Hitler.

We are much like people drifting down the Niagara River, oblivious to the waterfalls up ahead. Once we go over those falls, we cannot come back up again.

What does this have to do with today's presidential candidates? It has everything to do with them.

One of these candidates will determine what we are going to do to stop Iran from going nuclear— or whether we are going to do anything other than talk, as Western leaders talked in the 1930s.

There is one big difference between now and the 1930s. Although the West's lack of military preparedness and its political irresolution led to three solid years of devastating losses to Nazi Germany and imperial Japan, nevertheless when all the West's industrial and military forces were finally mobilized, the democracies were able to turn the tide and win decisively.

But you cannot lose a nuclear war for three years and then come back. You cannot even sustain the will to resist for three years when you are first broken down morally by threats and then devastated by nuclear bombs.

Our one window of opportunity to prevent this will occur within the term of whoever becomes President of the United States next January.

At a time like this, we do not have the luxury of waiting for our ideal candidate or of indulging our emotions by voting for some third party candidate to show our displeasure— at the cost of putting someone in the White House who is not up to the job.

Senator John McCain has been criticized in this column many times. But, when all is said and done, Senator McCain has not spent decades aiding and abetting people who hate America.

On the contrary, he has paid a huge price for resisting our enemies, even when they held him prisoner and tortured him. The choice between him and Barack Obama should be a no-brainer.

Just Thinking 5/28/08 by Gianluca Rottura

Does anyone realize 2008 is almost half over?

Does facebook have to tell everyone else if 2 people send each other
a message, or a notification, or a kiss, or an invite?
Why must everyone know everyone else's business?

Who would ever DARE buy those dirty ass jackets hanging up high outside stores on Orchard Street?
Who says, " Yeah give me that dirty bubble goose jacket. The one where pigeons fly around
and bump into. I also like the fumes that jacket has absorbed since 1998 when you put it there." ?

I know it's a cliche but seriously, what happened to Michael Jackson?

Athletes and movie stars make many many many times more money than most CEO's.
Is this fair? Unfair? Please explain.

If pharmaceutical companies supposedly create diseases, then why wouldn't they
cure some to appear charitable and just invent more to sell more drugs?
And if they just "want to make more money" then why don't they find a cure and
rake in record profits?

I hate these wanna be cool stupid fitting rooms where there is NOWHERE to put your
clothes you are considering purchasing and the ones you are to take off.
It's not cool. It's stupid.

Speaking of stupid clothing stores, I am surprised none have started taking pictures or videotaping
their customers with the new clothes on so they can see how they like them.
Considering all the dumb trendy things people do, this should be next.

The candidate of "hope" wants to meet face to face with America's enemies to persuade them.
Wait....isn't that unilateral?

So this is how it is. People who grow up in the middle of nowhere escape to New York
to be "who they are" Then they go out of their way to make fun of the people back home
so to distinguish themselves from them. And of course they are talking about stupid fat Americans.
But these newly created and disguised creatures are what exactly?
They pretend to be hipsters or European or at least influenced by Europe.
To see a specimen, go to any of Batali's restaurants and meet the waiters and waitresses and "sommeliers"
who go on and on about what food should be and how Americans just don't know food,
Really? You're interested in the real mozzarella? Have you even heard of Battipaglia?
Really? Cheese on Pasta with shellfish is no good? Yes that's right, but why? Please explain. Any idea?
Last year you were rolling around in mud and cheap beer and now you want me to take you seriously?
My point: Waste your own time on trying to define yourself.

You want socialized medicine?
Go to the DMV or Post Office and imagine those workers (with that specific work ethic) with surgical masks on.

2 Great Thomas Sowell Quotes:

1) "One of the ways in which people are similar is in the lengths to which they will go in order to show that they are different."

2) "Some people who think it is wrong to tell children to believe in Santa Claus nevertheless think it is all right to tell adults to believe that the government can give the whole population things that we cannot afford ourselves. Believing in Santa Claus is apparently bad for children but OK for adults."