Robert Kagan writes an obituary on his blog in the Washington Post for Irving Kristol, who passed away recently. But it’s the comments which some of the Post’s readers have submitted which are really interesting. Here’s a sampling of their expressions of bereavement:
- Irving Kristol did two things for which he can never be forgiven: 1. He founded the American Enterprise Institute, from whence everything that is putrid about Washington emanates. Its influence on America has been malign.(That it was/is Dick Cheney’s favorite place to give his speeches says enough.) 2. He fathered Bill Kristol, who — along with Robert Kagan — co-founded PNAC, the cabal of neo-con crazies and Zionists who polluted the Pentagon and the Bush White House with their plans, drawn up in the late 1990s, for the invasion of Iraq (and Iran). …
- It’s time for zionists like you Kagan to be measured for a rope….
- For deacades Mr. Kristol and his son have done more to stratify, fragmant and damage this country than anyone except “Old Nick” himself, Milton Friedman. …
- May Irving Kristol rot in Hell …
- The passing of Irving Kristol is a very glorious occasion. I can’t wait to take a dump in this scumbag’s grave.
When Ted Kennedy passed away recently, I disabled comments to prevent anyone from heaping abuse on the recently dead. Although I am irredeemably an uncouth armpit-scratching, nose-picking, gum-chewing reactionary, I had the residual instinct to remember some basic manners. But now I see how provincial that was, and stand in wonder at how my political betters intuitively the raise the level of the debate as they would raise the seat of a commode. It’s a teaching moment. What fineness of feeling! What exquisite turn of phrase! And all in a Washington newspaper, too.
The vitriol makes one wonder on what common ground the left and right can still meet. In a recent speech, Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested that intemperate language was driving the country toward extremism and violence. So is the answer better decorum, as exemplified for example, by the left? Is “hate speech” causing extremism or is something else going on?
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A study of civil wars by two Oxford economists, Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler suggested that really intractable arguments are rooted in a competition for resources. The other talk — about ‘grievances’, ‘history’, ‘slights’, etc — was less important than the brass tacks. In other words, in most cases conflicts were over power and resources. The abstract of their study reads:
Of the 27 major armed conflicts that occurred in 1999, all but two took place within national boundaries. As an impediment to development, internal rebellion especially hurts the world’s poorest countries. What motivates civil wars? Greed or grievance?
Collier and Hoeffler compare two contrasting motivations for rebellion: greed and grievance. Most rebellions are ostensibly in pursuit of a cause, supported by a narrative of grievance. But since grievance assuagement through rebellion is a public good that a government will not supply, economists predict such rebellions would be rare. Empirically, many rebellions appear to be linked to the capture of resources (such as diamonds in Angola and Sierra Leone, drugs in Colombia, and timber in Cambodia). Collier and Hoeffler set up a simple rational choice model of greed-rebellion and contrast its predictions with those of a simple grievance model.
Some countries return to conflict repeatedly. Are they conflict-prone or is there a feedback effect whereby conflict generates grievance, which in turn generates further conflict? The authors show why such a feedback effect might be present in both greed-motivated and grievance rebellions. The authors’ results contrast with conventional beliefs about the causes of conflict. A stylized version of conventional beliefs would be that grievance begets conflict, which begets grievance, which begets further conflict. With such a model, the only point at which to intervene is to reduce the level of objective grievance.
Collier and Hoeffler’s model suggests that what actually happens is that opportunities for predation (controlling primary commodity exports) cause conflict and the grievances this generates induce dias-poras to finance further conflict. The point of policy intervention here is to reduce the absolute and relative attraction of primary commodity predation and to reduce the ability of diasporas to fund rebel movements.
This raises the possibility that, despite Nancy Pelosi’s fears, the real cause of increasing animosity isn’t heightened rhetoric: on the contrary, the heightened rhetoric may itself be the result an intensified competition for power. It’s a symptom and not the cause. My guess is that the effect of concentrating wealth and power in government hands has created a prize which is distorting civil relations, like some singularity which is warping the space around it and pulling everything into its maw. When the pot of gold is indivisibly concentrated in one place, a winner-take-all game ensues, or as Collier and Hoeffler put it, “a simple rational choice model of greed-rebellion” is enforced. The trash-talk follows.
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Part of what is going on is the notion that one’s identity, one’s status as a good person, rests on your political opinions. Which requires that anyone who disagrees must, of course, be a bad person. With political-opinion-as-status-game, disagreement has to be ad hominem, it is built in. Turn political opinions into such a status game and intemperate, unforgiving language follows.
The problem with the centralising resources in the government argument is that would imply the higher the government spending level of GDP, the more bitter the politics and political debate. I am not sure that is what we see across Western democracies.
I would, however, argue that the more diverse a society, the more difficult it is to get broad agreement on public policy. So, the Nordic model works for a highly homogeneous society, a more limited government model for more diverse societies. If we add that factor in, the argument may have more power: welfarism becomes not merely a substitute for imperialism but more abrasive a form of colonising one’s own society, since it is more likely to “rub people the wrong way”.
“the real cause of increasing animosity isn’t heightened rhetoric: on the contrary, the heightened rhetoric may itself be the result an intensified competition for power”
Anyone who has a shred of libertarianism in their being knows the truth of this.
Were government smaller and less capable of granting material favors, people would care a great deal less about who was in power. In fact, it would matter a great deal less empirically.
The trash-talk follows.
My most optimistic scenario for the Obama era is that the Left’s demagogic overreaching will cripple appeals to victimhood as the deciding source of political power. The more people see and hear Obama, the less they see him as a black man and the more they see an arrogant, garden variety asshole who’s defining color is that of power and money. we may just be on the cusp here, people.
I would also add that while people in the center/right and libertarians sometimes do demonize the ‘other’, they are largely capable of tolerance and decency regarding differences of opinion.
Not so the postmodern left, which is obliged by their creed to literally automatically denote anyone who deviates the slightest bit from their cant as irredeemably evil and in need of destruction. Examples for this abound – look at the Worst Speaker Ever as an example – but the real showcase of this is the education industry.
It’s sobering to follow the above link away from the BC to Kagan’s blog… like going on a field trip into the putrid underworld of sewers where society’s waste pools. Without an occasional look down there, we forget those networks even exist. You see, children, what happens when we flush our toilets?
Moreover, what is the point of Kagan even posting in this format? His commentors are indistinguishable from a Youtube thread… the latest contribution goes something like this:
“Let us be clear. Irving Kristol was one of those who supported and pushed for the invasion of Iraq. THE INVASION OF IRAQ WAS AND STILL IS A MISTAKE. I use capital letters here because there are still some people out there that, despite all facts to the contrary, believe to the contrary and virtually none of the neoconservatives have apologized to the….”
You get the idea. I truly feel sorry for Kagan, though. Perhpas a traditional column in print would suit him better. Because there is no point for him — or anyone else — to read past his own writing. Everyone here at BC should peek in on Kagan’s blog & get a whiff; it will make you appreciate what we have here.
Wretchard, thanks for building this splendid house on the hill, and for keeping the plumbing in tiptop shape.
The fight gets as low and dirty as the lowest and dirtiest participant. Wretchard, your sense of decency is like folded napkin tents at a paper plate cookout, Samwise carrying his salt cellar, or Joshua making his men wait and wash before they came home. Hopefully it’s just enough humanity to bring us all back to sanity, because into the sewers we will have to go.
“Collier and Hoeffler compare two contrasting motivations for rebellion: greed and grievance.”
I propose that there is a deeper set of embedded instructions going on here. Their perception and their projection is causing a feedback loop for them. They are stuck. Everyone has heard the argument from the left that the reason it didn’t work is that the people weren’t committed or some outside force caused the failure of the plan.
Perception. What one perceives is for that one the absolute truth.
Projection. What one does so that they don’t perceive themselves outside the norm.
The LEFT. Retarded development manifested in infantile behaviors. Basically at the two year old level.
Like the General said, “Don’t get stuck on stupid, son”.
So now that the LEFT proposes to force the rest of us down the road to perdition. Do we as gentlemen let them in the interest of being seen as morally superior? NO we do not. No more than you would let your whining teenager take the car out on his own before he has matured enough to have a reasonable chance at returning home unharmed and without citations from the local LEO.
Can we assert our dominance with words and speeches? Will a victory in the arena of ideas cause the perception of the LEFT to change? NO, because the American LEFT is in the unique position of security. There is no police state that sweeps you off the street and deposits you dead in the landfill. There are no roaming vigilante groups or Taliban to crack heads as payment for dissension.
So TSOS (Those Stuck On Stupid) will continue to project their perceptions onto those that do not stand up and sing the same tune as they do. Will we see the formation of LEFT wing militias such as the SDS if Obama and the left lose power in 2010? I would think so. But I won’t say absolutely yes. We have seen Obama’s call for a student corps of green shirts funded and as powerful as the US military for “internal security” operations…
It really is all about the power. The current party in office will not and can not rest until their power is unchallenged. They have proven their bona fides in their pursuit of that goal.
The only remaining issue is to decide who will oppose them and to what degree.
Have they gone so far as to abbrogate the compact that formerly bound us all together? If so, then what?
What Patriot Front said.
Wretchard’s articles and the responding comments by the Belmont Club community are consistently a delight, honor and education to read and consider. I read many online sites, but decline to add my voice to most simply because the comments are uncivil, and therefore (I believe) unhealthy to be immersed in.
Wretchard, thank you for your explanation of Collier and Hoeffler’s theory- I couldn’t make sense of it until reading your last paragraph. If we consider how the power of intrusive government certainly seems to be growing, and threatens to grow dramatically with the proposed government healthcare, it makes sense that stronger resistance would be expressed publicly.
Best regards, Peter Warner.
My guess is that the effect of concentrating wealth and power in government hands has created a prize which is distorting civil relations, like some singularity which is warping the space around it and pulling everything into its maw. When the pot of gold is indivisibly concentrated in one place, a winner-take-all game ensues, or as Collier and Hoeffler put it, “a simple rational choice model of greed-rebellion” is enforced.
It is **always** a struggle for power and resources, regardless of the society, regardless of the economic system. What changes, at least IMO, are the numbers of persons involved and the scope of their influence.
The violent labor strikes & lockouts in American history were at some level an expression of the fight about who gets to control how much. (A history that gets considerably more complicated when you consider the role of labor leaders as their own third party, not synonymous with the workers themselves.)
But the difference between, say, the Homestead Strike here in Pittsburgh in 1892 and an anti-government rebellion when the government has appropriated far too much wealth and power for itself, is that even at their most powerful, Carnegie and Frick did not possess a fraction of the power over the lives of their workers that a leftist government has over its workers.
Wage slaves … tax slaves … yes, on that level, the two workers’ parties are treated very much the same … an “employer” trying to grind out every last bit of productivity from the worker for the express purpose of increasing the wealth of the “employer” … and with the worker being utterly disposable once his or her physical and/or mental capability to produce declines. (Carnegie Steel would just lay you off … Dr. Emanuel et al will shunt you off into a dirty hospital corridor to die.)
Make no mistake, a lot of American taxpayers are sensing the attitude that our government has towards us and, understanding the current power differential, we find that attitude appalling and alarming. Ideally, we would love to change both the attitude and the power differential … but leftist mentalities die hard. If the attitude does not change, then that leaves only the power differential to be disrupted and restored to Constitutional terms.
It would be interesting to see just what the chart looks like when plotting the data of vitriolic comments Teddy v Kristol. My supposition supported by my perception is that Kristol will invite a Large pile vs a smaller but significant pile for Teddy.
It seems fitting that these two polar opposites would pass in our year of quickening. Almost as if it were preordained that the Lions of yesteryear pass on so that the crown of the movements are in the possession of young and vigorous leaders for the coming physical conflict.
A distinction needs to be made between on the one hand the politicians who serve the elite masters who actually hold the real power and on the other hand the multitude of partisan supporters of these political servants. Among the politicians who faithfully service their masters, there are no conflicts at all; all agree to follow their orders. For example when the masters of Goldman Sachs, AIG, and Citibank among others felt the need to raid the taxpayers wallets to ensure the ultra high standard of living of their senior executives, both Republicans and Democrats immediately got that gleam in their eyes and put their game faces on; Henry Paulson, Nancy Pelosi, George W Bush, Barney Frank, Chuck Schumer, Chris Dodd, Ben Bernake, all stood together singing Kumbaya so that Goldman Sachs and friends could get nearly a trillion dollars from US taxpayers; basically enslaving taxpayers for generations as indentured debt slaves. Whenever the masters need a little something, a war in Iraq, tax cuts, maintaining the health care status quo; they may order a little Kabuki theatre from time to time from their political servants but this is just to keep up appearances that democracy still exists in the United States. The final outcome is never in doubt.
Where the real vitriol is found is among the supporters of these politicians. Subconsciously at least these supporters are well aware that there isn’t an inch of difference between the political parties. But the conscience side of these partisans cannot accept this despairing reality so they scream ever louder at each other to help make believe that there is actually a debate going on. And this is just so pathetic.
The masters are wise enough to change the face of their political servants often enough so that inevitably the partisans are forced to humiliate themselves by attacking actions that a year ago they cheered. The left was ecstatic when a shoe was thrown at a President but suddenly a shout of “You lie” represents the highest form of racism. The left were aghast at the invasion of Iraq but now that Obama is President where have Code Pink gone? The right worship at the royal feet of an authoritarian right wing President and call for any hippies who fail to toe the government line to be shot on sight but as soon as a left leaning President comes to office it’s time for militias and talk of rebellion and revolution. Goldman Sachs got trillions so the right obsesses about ACORN getting millions just to make themselves feel better.
So while there certainly is a lot of painfully shrill noise coming from the grandstands, on the field, where the real power is, all is hunky-dory and each player serves his true master.
There are two issues that this thread brings to mind. Both are occasioned by the return of the trolls on the last thread.
The first topic is the distinction between internal conflict and external intervention. Externally injected manipulation in a domestic competition for resources within the political market can exaggerate tensions geometrically. This becomes a positive feedback loop in which restrictions on discourse are pealed away among the internal players. We have two forms of external overt manipulation to consider. First are the SVR trolls who inject memes or false data into the conversation here or at KOS which is eventually picked up at a cocktail party attended by a NY Times stringer. The second is the injection of financial resources from overseas, whether by Soros or by the Gaza phone banks that sent possibly hundreds of millions of dollars to Obama for the election.
The second topic concerns blog management. How do we deal with trolls? The two models are that of Charles Johnson on Little Green Footballs and that evidenced here on the Belmont Club. When CJ detects someone he determines is a troll he blocks or bans them. The difference is I believe that a ban means that your record of postings are erased from the data base, a fate similar to being “expunged” from Harvard. Here commentators who spread false or malicious information are generally tolerated except in the most extreme circumstances. Now to be clear I am assuming for the sake of argument, despite the fact that I was blocked, that CJ might be correct in his basic principles and accurate in his judgements as to the intents of those he does not want commenting in his house.
The benefits of our hosts more tolerant approach are twofold. First the limitation of external information even false information limits your knowledge of what the other side is saying. There is an Intelligence function that benefits from being aware of what the SVR or other Other’s talking points are. That is only true when the exterior agent is crude and easily identified. When they are sophisticated it can get harder to separate the wheat from the chaff.
A second benefit of the more tolerant approach is that restrictions become by their nature progressive. As dissenting voices are removed the ones that remain practice self censorship. These devolves into a positive feedback loop and reduces the conversation to an echo chamber which can be of little use to the one guiding the conversation.
Personally I would probably be less tolerant than our genial host but I see the benefits in his approach.
“Self government” is mistaken by too many to mean the ability to choose representatives to govern. This is, as you all know, completely incorrect. It is the concept of governing our selves. A while ago, Wretchard commented on how freedom is a curse to many people, who either do not want or are otherwise incapable of governing their own lives. According to the “Plan”, and I guess it’s still in there somewhere, in order to extend insurance to those individuals, my rights to choose my own insurance and doctor must be taken away.
Is liberty currency? Is all desire for currency greed? Is it greedy, a deadly sin, to desire liberty?
I believe greed and grievance have met to create a really great storm. (Not perfect, though.) On the one hand, the tax system is absurd and our debt is reaching a tipping point. On the other, our liberty is being eaten away in a very tangible, real world, day-to-day manner. (Unlike the perceived destructions of liberty supposedly heaped on us by the Patriot Act.)
My grievance is this… I want the right to choose, and to CHANGE, my insurance and/or doctor as I see fit, at prices the market determines. The deficit spending runs a distant second place.
This is a struggle for power, between ME and the federal government. Is it any wonder so many conservatives feel so powerless? And my only hope is the return of Republicans to majority in 2010? Right…
The quote from Jesus is “ no one is good, except God alone.” However, we are seeing an alignment so stark that it can not be ignored. The Acorn people listen to someone describing how they are going to import 12 year old girls from El Salvadore to use as prostitutes and not only don’t blink an eye, they are eager to help them. The head of SEIU Local 100 is reported to be a convicted pedophile. Influential advisors to this president espouse views (mass sterilization and forced abortion) that could have come from Hitler’s inner circle. The president himself supported a law that would let babies that survived an abortion die among a pile of rags in a utility closet. And we must not forget that the model societies these people yearn for resulted in the mass murder of millions. Maybe the contrast is between evil and less evil but the heart of what we are now calling liberalism/progressivism is black indeed. I think there are a lot of democrats that may wish to reconsider this alliance.
I admit I wrote to Wretchard (re: Kennedy) about my disappointment in his assessment of the characters of BC members. Because I think all of the comments would be unflattering to Teddy but fair. But I respect this is his blog, his call.
What I saw in DC on 9/12 was nothing like any previous political rally I saw from the media, admittedly 9/12 was my first ever protest/march, so I have no personal experience to compare in this kind of things. There was real anger at ‘what have you done to my country’, but no vitriol. Most people I met are just like myself, something done in the past year had finally motivated us enough to participate and to act for the first time.
That is why I truly believe there is a huge difference of ‘moral adults’ comparing to what you see on general comments sections of those dumping grounds. When those on the left are able to discard their own vitriol, then and only then is there any worthwhile effort to find common ground.
And that was the main reason I asked here if any one still think there is a ‘gentlemanly’ way possible of resolve the coming conflict. According to the consensus I got, we have to ‘grow whiskers’ (and bear such burden) to fight werewolves.
You’ve printed my letter to Washington Post
Describing my glee at demise
Of one of the people I despise the most
And act with a so feigned surprise
That I could have written a scurrilous screed
About one so recently dead
Forgetting that he was the planter of seed
That led to George Bush, enough said
I strongly object to the way I’m portrayed
By Belmont Club and its commenters
Repelled by the sheer lack of grace that’s displayed
By racist and hate filled fomenters
And while I’m consumed by emotions of hate
And sniff at my opposite number
It’s you on the right who befoul the debate
With likes of that creep Joe the Plumber
And Sarah the Palin my god what a dope
And evil George Bush the destroyer
Of everything good in this country of hope
Including my Acorn employer
Thank goodness for people like Nancy and O
We need their firm guidance to lead us
And as I recoil from the stink of our foe
I thank god we’ve hatred to feed us
Those motherless bastards who sit on the right
Those divers of cesspool corruption
Deserve to be spit on till they see the light
And cheer on Obama’s eruption
Like burst on the scene to renew all our dreams
Of what our fair country could be
And when he is through everyone so it seems
Will be thoughtful and civil like me
14. Urban B.
My thoughts exactly. We have seen the beginnings of the “Movement of Individuals” in the Tea Party and 9/12 movements. The verified 1.7 million people who marched on Washington D.C. to show their opposition to Statism/Socialism created a stream of ideology that may form or may not depending on the reaction of Govt to the protest into a raging swollen river that will wash clean the detritus blocking the halls of Congress. I personally believe that we will see wholesale change in Congress only if there are men and women who will run on the single issue of governmental reduction and reform. They may run as Democrats or Republicans to take advantage of the party structure that limits the viability of third party candidates to inconsequential posts. The primary elections are where the revival of the Constitutional Republic can gain a foothold.
12. KdB.
So in your not so humble opinion. Just whom are the “true Masters”? Please elucidate us. I would really like to know.
#1. Lorenzo (from Oz):
Part of what is going on is the notion that one’s identity, one’s status as a good person, rests on your political opinions. Which requires that anyone who disagrees must, of course, be a bad person.
I think that observation is very true, but to the current political class this is a feature not a bug. In the past governments generally tried to smooth over social conflicts, especially those within their own borders. Now most of their policies are geared toward identifying and fanning grievances amongst groups, and then transfering wealth or creating privileges for the supposed “victims.”
What this really does is to transfer power to the political class, many of whom are essentially amoral opportunists. Why do they crave power? For the same reason a crack head wants his crack. It makes them feel good, they crave it, and all other things in life take a distant second seat.
What a way to start the day! First of all our host leads off with a very thoughtful discussion on a topic well remarked in the media, including a self description that had me laughing out loud (nose-picking, armpit-scratching? I won’t believe it!), then Walt leaves me rolling on the floor with his latest bit of poetry. In between we have some outstandingly thoughtful analysis. Great! Thanks to all for a happy start to the morning. F
P.S. Walt: a serious question. I get spam occasionally from an online poetry group inviting me to submit material. Since I don’t write poetry that anyone would read, I ignore them. But I have noted their continual warning: they do NOT accept submissions with recognizable rhyme or meter. Do you find yourself ostracized from the modern poetry community because your work is so — well — good?
Ok, now that we’ve navel-gazed about what causes conflict, what are we going to do about it? There are a good many in the South who still grieve over the loss of the Civil War, and they seemingly cannot let go of it. But we don’t see them getting all hot and bothered about it. But we do see it in all its foul forms from those on the left (wretchard’s quotes from the Post are perfect examples). So what do we do?
So many here sound like ivory tower observers, making academic commentary about the manner in which the ship is sinking. And as the water rises above your ankles, still you engage in pedantic, “My, isn’t that interesting!” chit chat!
Gooooood Grieeeeeeeef!
Although I am irredeemably an uncouth armpit-scratching, nose-picking, gum-chewing reactionary
Substitute “non-antisemite” for “reactionary,” Richard, and it will explain much.
Snippets woven together to explain Nancy Pelosi’s fear:
Battle Hymn
Cromwell
One a fantasy, the other history. I leave it to the reader to decide which is which.
Worth watching, IMHO
I’ve read a lot of Paul Collier, including “The Bottom Billion.” I’d never applied his ideas to the US.
I think Wretchard is dead on about this. The government has become so powerful that who controls it for just four years had become very important.
I hope there are some good academic studies of this going on, comments to online news sites and blogs. Of course academia is so warped the the left these days there will be a lot of bs, but some good analysis of the communications, sociology, anthropology, group processes, and demographics would seem to be very promising. Even thirty years ago studies of semi-anonymous “delphi communications” predicted much of the dynamic we tend to see. Running any public forum is very tough, but I think the immediate point here is that places like the WaPo comments here show that – they aren’t even *trying* to manage the contributed content, even to minimal legal or ethical standards. OK, maybe legal, but not ethical – nor aesthetic.
Oho, I just read down to wretchards further comments, that perhaps the concentration of power in the government, leads it to be such a prize that competition for it warps communications? Strikes me as an excellent academic thesis, worthy of debate – and pretty much certainly wrong.
There is a much simpler dynamic, that those not being heard, tend to shout. Modernity seems to be contributing to a new tribalism, from secessionist Quebec (what ever happened to that?) or the breakup of the Soviet Union, to self-selecting participants in online blogs. We then take these new groups seriously, and have less reason to compromise, and the echo chamber and group processes tend to increase differentiation.
Hey I’m just pulling this stuff out of my, er, memory, while the edit box ticks down past three minutes.
So, yes, I believe WaPo and others running public fora, need to spend much more time encouraging, strongly, more reasoned and polite debate. We need leadership, we need management – we need all the help we can get!
17/Walt. Wow. It’s even better read aloud. There’s a certain Seuss-ness to it that delights the ear as the mind twists to follow the logic.
14/Urban B. The right to choose. If one of the women Whiskey describes can “choose” to abort, why can’t I choose a doctor who gives me antibiotics instead of a doctor who says all I “need” is pain killers? Because I have private insurance, I was able to get a second opinion earlier this year and now will live longer. Each year I live, I change the [death panel's] actuarial tables for my form of cancer. If the Plan passes, in theory it won’t commence until 2013. If I’m still around then, I’ll have made it past the ten-year mark. It looks likely, now that I’m taking antibiotics half of each year instead of zoning out on vicodin as the world fades. The right to choose LIFE.
There is a much simpler dynamic, that those not being heard, tend to shout.
Respectfully disagree, Josh. That might have been true in 1965. But what accounts for everything after the sound of Archie Bunker’s “terlet” flushing on national prime-time TV?
Forty years of having our ears assaulted with every manner of coarseness — sexual, scatalogical, political, racial, expletive — really, how can anyone claim that this has not been heard?
I’ll give you an alternate psychological motive for shouting. The immature personality, once having gotten a non-punitive reaction to shouting, shouts even more loudly, and in cruder language, the next time around.
When I worked in the Pentagon I came to the realization that increasing animosity in the political and social debate was directly due to the Federal Government’s increasing power and intrusiveness. The upward trajectory of the government is in turn driven by natural bureaucratic tendencies allied with the Left’s desire for more control in the name of “freedom.”
The Federal Government alone produces 50,000 new regulations a year. And most of these are not associated with making sure you don’t operate your fusion-powered antigravity warp drive in a school zone before 1700 hours but instead focus on current situations. It has reached a point where the average individual can no longer afford to ignore what goes on in Washington DC – but at the same time has no real hope of really finding out what really is going on. It has also reached a point where multiple organizations like ACORN build their entire concept of operations around influencing what goes on in DC.
When the price at the restaurant will be based on dividing up the bill equally among all diners, then the only reasonable individual approach is defensive eating. People demanding more special favors inevitably result in more people asking for them.
“Although I am irredeemably an uncouth armpit-scratching, nose-picking, gum-chewing reactionary…”
You forgot “racist”. You’re not part of the in crowd unless the entities you quote above also call you a racist.
P.S. Can someone definitively tell me if it’s “to the manor born” or “to the manner born” … and why?
“So in your not so humble opinion. Just whom are the “true Masters”? Please elucidate us. I would really like to know.”
Carpetbagger’s
NahnCee -
Try this ….
Wretchard: Well, you did not notice? We just took our opinions about Teddy over to another thread, so there. We just humored you and wryly noted it in passing. Some no doubt thought it some fine remnant of Filipino culture which survived Harvard
Speaking of Harvard, you seem to have a bad case of moral relativism this morning: We said the truth about Ted; they lie about Kristol.
It is not really a “competition for resources” at root just here; it is an apposition of sanity, morality, spirituality, real knowledge and the sober and productive application of intellect and labor on one hand, and insanity, immoritity, incredulity, cant and the self serving rhetorical dodges and cant of parasitical socialist scheming on the other. They are completely wrong about everything. Most everyone else is more or less right about most things.
No, there are no pegs of moral equivalencies here on which to hang any moral relativism off of. The Lefts reactions to both Kristol’s life and his death briskly exposes this sure truth.
First, and what is interesting in and of itself, is the power they ascribe to people like Kristol, who after all was just an intellectual and writer focused on political matters and attendant social effects, and whose audience was a small if select one. One could scarcely even call him a “media pundit”, let alone a politician, and his range and each reach, though perhaps not his depth, was limited, much more limited than say someone like Buckley, who one imagines was, to a degree, an inspiration, lodestar and standard for Kristol. But Kristol (and son) hardly “tore the country apart”. He had no such power to do so. Why such hyperbole?
Secondly, why the level of rage? Certainly one did not see this sort of vitriol out of the Left when Buckley went. Some of this may be due to Buckley’s charm, manners social graces, respectfulness and in general he savvy handling of media and people–he was difficult not to like–but these cannot account for the difference.
The Left considered Buckley to be ruling class, and expect such out of him. They held, wrongly, that he spoke for that class and would convert few of the faithful. One gathers that they actually admired him and would emulate in all but core beliefs had they the chance. They rather respected his truth telling despite themselves. Kristol, on the other hand, was an apostate Democrat “liberal” who left the faith at precisely the moment when the term cease to mean anything other than a dodge and code word for harboring various forms of Marxism. Famously, Kristol accepted the label, intended as insult, of “neocon” as valid and, using the Left assaults against him, went on to clearly articulate just what was the problem with the modern Democrat Party. Kristol was a Brooklyn Jew, hardly from the purple, who came up through the NYC public school system much like had a great other Democrat New Dealer pols and intellectuals. Someone might actually listen to him and thus be tempted out of the new amd true faith.
He was never forgiven for this perceived betrayal, as where not the other so called “neocons” who also mostly hailed for Jewish, New Dealer precincts. The Democrats could not bear the truth told to them by those who knew them so well and who had walkd with them for a time. They knew the Left’s game inside and out, and this was ost nettlesome.
In this the neocons are in a way a personalization of the Left’s hatred for Israel. Israel, after all, was originally conceived of as a collectivist utopia, at least by the International Left. Soon though a brisk brush with hard reality put an end to all such experiments, and They never forgave Israel for this “betrayal” either. There is some truth to the notion that hurling the epithet “neocon” is really just way of saying “Dirty Jew” in what passes for “polite society” these days.
But it goes even beyond this. The fact is that what and who is being described as “neocon”, and by implican, Kristol himself, are the beliefs and the people who were the mainstay of political life in this country through to the late sixies. The Democrat party was mostly composed of such folks. They were slightly left of center so far as government size, basic welfare and other goernment programs went, but not radically so, and slightly right of center when it came to most other issues, but by no means were they Marxists or international Socialists. They were loyal Americans, believed in her traditions and her future and were good, solid Cold Warriors. Most allowed that large government was necessitated by WW2 and the Cold War. A great many were “Reagan Democrats”. Kristol did not “create” them, he merely identified them, articulated their plight and enumerated their grievances. It is not he, but they, who “tore the country apart”.
After the “New Left” pushed these poeple out of the Democrat Party, the Left has played a rhetorical game here with the term “neocon” and all the propaganda and slanders surrounding it. They attempted to make it appear that the “neocons” hatched a new and dangerous political “philosophy” in our po;tcal life and history. But this, of course, is standing reality on its head. It was the New Left that was the interloper and usurper. So are they still.
Thus they ascribe to Kristol powers and effects that he does cannot claim, evade the whole point of his public life and then heap invective, slander and insults upon him in death.
It is a neat trick. It is also vile. They need to be called out on it.
^Thus they ascribe to Kristol powers and effects that he cannot claim
Unlike Lorenzo (#1) I see it as our team vs. their team. It’s another manifestation of what sports fans feel toward their team. “We” need more hitting. “We” need a better defensive line. Fans identify with the team to the extent that they feel they’re actually a part of it in some way. And the despise the rival. Nothing good the rival ever does can be acknowledged as being good. Even if the opposing pitcher throws a perfect game, well, he still sucks. It’s the same phenomenon in politics. ‘Our’ team is best. The rival sucks. Even when the president does something right (Afghanistan) he still sucks. Too bad we couldn’t step back a bit before this gets to the point of pitchforks and torches but I’m thinking we’re heading for a Constitutional showdown if the Dims shove Obamacare down the nation’s throats.
-14 Urban B
Yes and Yes. In the patronage society we’ve developed, the authority to hand goodies out to friends and supporters is the legal tender. Liberty, or self-government is the direct opposite. The more Liberty, the less desire for concentrated authority. So if I want Liberty, I am taking the very livelihood away from those whose business it is to control me. And also from those who are already dependent on that authority, for one reason or another, for their living. I am converting their currency into something they don’t recognize, counterfeiting it. If I and my friends want more Liberty then I need to achieve it by further impoverishing authority. My conscience doesn’t bother me about this. I didn’t have the opportunity to go to DC on 9-12, but there were plenty of other greedy bastards just like myself enriching themselves locally, so I took the opportunity to have an extremely profitable day.
#8 Willie G.
There is a reason that I describe the other side as TWANLOC [Those Who Are No Longer Our Countrymen]. Those bonds have been sundered, and we have not yet worked out the result of that sundering. The Left feels free to resort to the language that they do, and the violence that breaks out occasionally [and probably it will become more frequent] because they do not feel bound by the same laws, standards, Constitution, or concept of moral sense that we do. They feel themselves to be literally above such petty things. And Wretchard’s sarcastic self-description is actually a mild version of how they feel about anyone whose views differ from theirs. They are a few very short steps from the Laogai as a response.
#15 Kingston 53,
The alignment is accurately portrayed. I am skeptical that there are that many Democrats who wish, or will wish, to re-examine who they have supported. Inertia will carry most past the point of no return, for a serious examination of the consequences of one’s own beliefs is both rare and difficult. It is all but impossible if you have no grounding in anything beyond watered down Marxism. You simply do not have the tools to work with.
If the organic waste should meet the rotating airfoil, there will be a very small window for decision as to which side one is on. After that, for good or ill; there will be sheep, and there will be goats. And there will be Werewolves and Sheepdogs fighting to protect their side and take down the other. Woe betide the Sheep meeting a Werewolf unprotected, or a Goat meeting a Sheepdog similarly.
#16 always right
Much depends on the next few months. I am hearing that the TWANLOC are planning to double down; at very least passing Obamacare, Cap & Tax, and perhaps Amnesty/Citizenship for illegal aliens, and submitting our law and Constitution to some rather novel interpretations reminiscent of the Soviet Constitution of 1936 and Article 58 of the RSFSR penal code on pure party [Party?]line votes.
The rage if any part of this comes to pass will be such that there will be a reaction and a counter reaction. The only natural stop point for the need to grow whiskers is going to the the existence or non-existence of free, honest, and open elections in 2010. If it is apparent that they will not happen or will be so manipulated to give victory to TWANLOC; the stock in razor companies is going to plummet.
And whatever happens; post-1865 Reconstruction is going to look like a Habitat for Humanity project in comparison to what will happen to the loser.
#13 LOTM.
We are dealing with both externals. The time for civility in dealing with them, from a number of angles and in a wide variety of venues, is limited.
And our allies in the world are few and their power is limited. And they are under attack by that which is pleased to call itself our government.
Optimism is not my default position. But I have hope that those things that must be done, will be done.
Subotai Bahadur
Bogie – groovy. Thanks. That’s helpful.
bogie wheel @ 47, the logic is that it’s a spiral – one is not heard so one shouts, shouting is even more aggressively ignored, etc.
The lesson presumably to be learned is to encourage openess so that dialog at reasonable levels is accepted, encouraging people to stay at reasonable levels. This is meant to apply to logic, the use of volume in my explanation is a metaphor.
A similar dynamic is the infamous “seething” of the Islamic Arab street. We tend to see seething as so extreme, we ignore it. Don’t we teach this to five year olds? Take a time out, calm down, and we’ll work it out.
Is this not the Alinksy way as well? Encourage polarization so that the opposition is so far away, it is no longer heard. Seek only a win, never compromise, instead work always to make compromise less likely.
I still can’t really believe in wretchard’s thesis here. I see the opposite in other ways as well, some of the most vicious historical wars are religious wars over apparently trivial points. When there’s a big prize, of power or anything else, rational competitors will tend to split it peacefully to maximize gains, at least among coalition members if not with all players.
There are a good many in the South who still grieve over the loss of the Civil War, and they seemingly cannot let go of it. But we don’t see them getting all hot and bothered about it. But we do see it in all its foul forms from those on the left (wretchard’s quotes from the Post are perfect examples). So what do we do?
Interesting question. From the Northern point of view, antebellum Southern society had gone wrong, and it was due to slavery. With slaves doing most of the work, work itself became a mark of shame rather than pride, and that led to a dysfunctional “pride and shame” culture that Northerners found galling. From the Southern point of view, Northerners weren’t industrious and competitive, they were grubby, ill-mannered and ungentlemanly. Basically what each side liked about its own culture the other side despised. All the other facets of the Civil War were manifestations of this cultural split. Southerners saw Northerners as grasping, greedy and boorish. Northerners saw Southerners as thin-skinned hypocrites with outsized egos and a general disinclination to work. Neither side felt much kinship with the other. The concept of TWANLOC would’ve been perfectly understood by folks back then (though they may have quibbled over the definition of “countryman” with the whole State-vs-Federal allegiance issue. Perhaps “C” would’ve had to stand for “Continental inhabitants”, TWANLOCI..) and from that split flowed all the other distrust. The solution, after the North won, was to forever remove the root of the cultural difference – slavery, and dismantle the infrastructure it had build – the plantations.
Without slaves to do the work and without the income of the plantations, all those Southern Gentlemen and their descendants had to get their own hands dirty. That made those Northerners look less grasping and greedy, and it thickened the Southerners own skin. It made the two societies able to work together again. The Old South could never rise again because the cultural foundation had been demolished. What could, and generally did, happen, was that those aspects of Southern culture that were not dependant on slavery could be incorporated into a new – and better – culture that valued both work and personal honor. We’re all, North and South alike, better for it today. Southerners gruble about the War of Northern Aggression, but it’s a just window dressing. Underneath, we’re all Americans again.
Or at least we were for a while. Because now there’s a new split, Left-Right instead of North-South. But this new split is still a cultural one and the root of the division is akin to slavery. It’s the ability to confiscate the work of others by the force of law. The taxman instead of the auctioneer. And that is the source of the rot in the Left just as it was in the rot of the Old South.
Looking at the current split, (and I’m sure I’ll piss off some Southerners with this analogy, but I’ll just have to chance that) if we cast the Left as the antebellum South, with a dysfunctional culture built on rent-seeking and a population quick to take offense and slow to admit their own foibles, well, I think the solution would follow the same model. First, we win the war. Second, we forever remove that which allows the Left to wring their daily bread from the sweat of another’s brow (that would be the tax code –modern slavery) and dismantle the plantations (QUANGOS, entitlements, transfer payments, government jobs, etc.) built with that ill-gotten gain.
But first, we win the war. There is a significant difference between the modern Left and Ol’ Jeff Davis and his cohorts. The South never intended to enslave the North and if the South has won the Civil War, Ohioans would not have been sold down the river as slaves to the plantations around Atlanta. We will be if the Left wins the current (cold, for the moment) Civil War brewing.
My own thoughts were that the comments are all from inside the beltway of DC. What’s more all the commentators were in some way involved with the decisions leading up to the Iraq war. My recollection was that there were some pretty profound wonkish battles in the days leading up to the Iraq war.Irving was just not that well known beyond the beltway.
I go for Mongoose’s take that part of the visceral hatred for Irving was intratribal and from the left. But there were also plenty of inside the beltway attacks on the neocons from the non jewish right.
As to the iraq war…it would be helpful if Wretchard could put in a polling tool. I can only speculate that likely ~+-50% of Belmonters were not in favor of the Iraq war at the outset but concluded that once engaged we had to fight to win.
As to the symmetries of today’s policies with Nixon’s peace with honor…I do search on “waziristan” “drone” pretty regularly. It looks to very much to me that AQ leadership is being taken down in detail. imho this is very unlike north viet nam where the leadership was never touched–
According to the American Thinker it looks like Holder may be backing down on investigating CIA interrogators.
When the left ascribes mystical, malignant powers to Irving Kristol, they aren’t doing anything that hasn’t been done by every totalitarian movement in history. What is the most awful, despicable, low-down thing a person can do? Apostasy, of course. From Stalin to Wahabbist Muslims, the worst penalties are reserved for apostates. No better way has yet been devised for keeping members in line, to keep them behind a bankrupt movement. This behavior is the most obvious evidence that the militant left has taken control of the democrat party. They don’t want to see any more ‘Reagan Democrats’, ‘Jews for Firearm Ownership’, Clarence Thomas, or anything like that. Since public beheading and summary executions by other means aren’t available to them, (yet) they are limited to the dreaded ‘verbal abuse’. I think most of the bile spewed by the left recently is not necessarily directed toward their direct opponents. It’s meant for democrat consumption. The shakier their in-party support base looks, especially given the extreme ambition of their present agenda, the worse it gets. From internet trolls to the Speaker of the House, the ‘language’ suggests: “You dont deserve the treatment I’m dishing out here, why not go along with the program? It’s so much easier!” If the malignancy from the left is for intra-party use, anyway, they can exempt themselves, morally, from their own complaints about the ‘deterioration of the public discourse’. My complaints are directed straight at them, whereas Theirs are aimed at the unreliable among themselves.
I was introduced to Irving Kristol, Nathan Glazer, Commentary, The Public Interest, etc., while an undergrad at the University of Wisconsin – Madison in the late seventies. It was a life-changing event in terms of my political and social thinking. I was fortunate to have had a professor who belived that it was his responsibilty to provide students with a wide range of views on subjects that were at the heart of our national discourse.
BWN: I met him out at Stanford in the mid 1970′s.
Good,solid head on his shoulders. At that time he stll thought that the democrats were still worth saving. He did not come of as wonkish, obsessive or self-important at all. He was very much the intellectual of the sort one aspired to be back then: serious but not pompous, broadly educated but not of an academic mindset, well spoken and lucid and rigorous in presentation and debate. I wonder if we have much of this sort anymore working as the level he was.
I guess there are a few. I think that the passing of the pratical intellectuals of the Reagan Revolution has hurt us. Their shoes seem not to have not been filled.
Maybe it does ont matter now. We do not seem to be the same sort of society as we were back then. Rational debate, facst. logic and good will were all assumed as givens then.
F @ 20
Thanks for the kind words. I don’t feel ostracized from the community of poets because I do not consider myself a poet. I’m just a rhymer, an old five and dimer, doing something I enjoy doing, even though there are times I’m not so sure anyone is reading it.
Sylvia @ 26
I describe myself as an old five and dimer, but if there is a Seuss-ness to my stuff then I suppose that makes me an old green ham and egger.
Walt Erickson
“My own thoughts were that the comments are all from inside the beltway of DC.”
I was thinking more specificall Obama’s Cabinet members.
“The vitriol makes one wonder on what common ground the left and right can still meet.”
I think we’ve reached a point where that is no longer possible, and that is a frightening thought. Obama’s real problem is that this country is now essentially ungovernable, and until one side or the other is completely defeated it will continue to be so. And I hate to even envision what kind of circumstances that would entail.
Take Nancy Pelosi’s plea for a faux civility as a case in point as to why nothing will ratchet this down – she has been one of the lead rhetorical bomb throwers for years now – she’s the one who claimed that now dissent is “un-american”, after all. No one can take any claim for “civility” from here seriously; she’s just angling for a way to get her opponents to shut up so she can be free to go ahead and launch more attacks. She’s not seeking “common ground”, she’s seeking universal disarmament. And that ain’t gonna happen as long as there is no trust.
Trust, like virginity, is very hard to regain once it’s been lost.
Sometimes I wish someone would stop me; I just HAD to look up Laogai from Subotai’s post No. 36
Laogai, Laojiao, and Jiuye, refer to a 3-tiered system of forced labor, re-education and reform applied to problematic citizens subjects in PRC. Here are the opening two sentences from the article on “Laogai” offered by Washington College of Law, at the site “www.wcl.american.edu/hrbrief/07/2laogai.cfm”
“Laogai, which translates from Mandarin to mean “reform through labor,” is the Chinese system of labor prison factories, detention centers, and re-education camps. Mao Zedong created the system in the early 1950s, modeling it after the Soviet Gulag, as a way to punish and reform criminals in a manner useful to the state, producing thought reform and economic gain.”
I’m depressed now.
And I’m the one that keeps reminding people about how the People’s Republic of China has for decades been harvesting and selling the organs of condemned prisoners, and more recently, skinning them and processing the skins to extract collagens to sell to eager European cosmetics manufacturers.
Please don’t believe we’re too civilized for this to happen in the USA.
It’s worth skimming through the article. It gives you a sense of what we’re up against in dealing with the Chinese mainland government. Beyond that, it gives insight into the workings of the statist brain, which is the heavily distorted and convoluted organ such as fills the void tween the ears of Mr. Kagan.
“Totalitarian government was grand in Soviet Union.”
for the Nomenklatura…
“My guess is that the effect of concentrating wealth and power in government hands has created a prize which is distorting civil relations, like some singularity which is warping the space around it and pulling everything into its maw.”
The size of government — the proportion of GDP government controls — is the central issue. Changing the rules will not solve the problem as long as much of our money passes through Washington.
If you want to get rid of the flies around a pile of manure, you get rid of the manure. You don’t try to train the flies.
I think Mongoose has it right. This is a conflict between those who are grounded in reality and those who are not. TWANGIR (those who are not grounded in reality) have lost their purchase because of their religion: secular-humanism/materialism/relativism/ multiclturalism/nihilism. They have no mission other than to destroy that which works by virtue of its grounding in the broader reality.
TWANGIR are necessarily vulnerable to loss of perspective and, as a result, paranoia. Their world is upside down and inside out, so that they think their own rage is a good thing, and when they aren’t aware of its nature, which is most of the time, have to expell it from their psyches by projecting it onto others.
The rage of TWANGIR is palpable and so disturbing as to make you want to take a shower when exposed to it. I cannot read the comment threads from controversial articles in the local newspaper because of how horrible the conversations become. The culture they have created is one predicated on destruction. Sex has become animalistic in nature, and the value of human life diminished to be lower than the animals. Yesterday, I saw the cover of the new newsweek: “The case for killing Granny.” The depravity is stunning.
The whole thing is distilled by the way the grounds of DC were left after the two big recent gatherings.
So, this is a religious war, between TWANGIR and those who still believe in Americanism and the associated American exceptionalism.
TWANGIR will not go quiety. Their fantasy solution is crumbling and will leave them in a very primitive state that threatens all of us — whether they act on their power or lose it. This is about 1/5th of the population, and their death throttle will have to involve externalized rage and destruction.
Mongoose – need to clarify my comments. I should have said I was introduced to the writtings of Irving Kristol, not him personally. Certianly agree with your other comments.
#39 JMH– It’s interesting that novelist Jane Smiley saw fit to recast our present culture wars as “North vs. South” in a column a couple of years back…”progressives” were of course the heirs to the Army of the Potomac while the evil neocons were simply revanchist Confederate nightriders inexplicably come back to life to delay the March of Progress. We’re likely to become inured to outrage in this Age of Obama, but that’s a blasphemy that’s stuck with me: as if the Cirque du Soleil that’s the modern Democrat party would had any moral or religious resemblance to those Killer Angels! (Although the idea of there being some crack Theosophist Brigade actually wouldn’t make a half-bad premise for a novel.)
I’d much rather Howard Zinn’s paranoid style of American History than have progressives airbrush themselves into Mathew Brady’s photographs.
The problem with the centralising resources in the government argument is that would imply the higher the government spending level of GDP, the more bitter the politics and political debate. I am not sure that is what we see across Western democracies.
I think that is in fact what we see. The reason it’s not obvious in some Western countries is that the debate about big government has stopped in ways that it has not yet in the US. Take the BNP in Britain, which as some have observed, is really the Labour Party’s socialist platform grafted onto a nativist, anti-immigration platform. The BNP is considered “beyond the pale” in ways that no party which has earned a large bloc of votes in the US can be. The same phenomenon exists in France and Austria. Le Pen and Haider are regarded as ‘illegitimate’ — it’s ironically the same word that was used to children born out of wedlock. In each place the Left, where it is influential, simply defines certain people out of the game. Hirsi Ali and Wilders are on the lam. “Hate speech” laws are rampant — this on the old continent.
In the UK, the Conservative Party is I think, aligned enough with Labour to create an appearance of civil discourse. Even so, people on the Left regard Cameron and especially his lineal ancestor Thatcher, as demons from hell. In Oz, I had the opportunity to watch Kim Beazley speak at a Glebe meeting-hall and listened to some in the audience sound exactly like 9/11 truthers. Even Beazley was embarassed. Beazley himself sounded sober, at least his speech was polite, but you could have made a fruitcake from the nuts who were in that meeting-hall, though I suppose the nuts would have regarded me as the defective one and themselves the paragons of sanity. Well I suppose it’s a point of view.
What is missing from the narrative is circumstances. What is interesting about most origins of conflict about resources are how they are tipped off by opportunity. Some, like WW1 are mere excuses, the tension and desire for assets are already primed, it just takes an insult, an assassination, to set it off.
Others, like Hitler’s moves before WWII were genuine, almost random, opportunities leading inexorably down a slippery slope. It would be interesting to know how many conflicts were initiated without apparent opportunity, just a man or a group who deliberately and forthrightly decide and initiate conflict without provocation, and how many start with the tension stored but need an event of some sort, whether connected or not, to set them off.
Recognising, of course, that power, is perhaps the most seducing asset of them all.
maineman
Agree that this is a religious war.
One of my long-running contentions at the BC is that there exists in society a ‘priestly class’ who somehow know what is right for me, somehow know the mind of God, and want to ‘save’ me.
Their actual objective is power over me – for my own good, you understand. Back in the days when people believed in God, the chosen weapon was the pulpit/church/helfire.
But when belief in God dies, where’s a good priest going to get a new weapon? From Goverment, of course. But it’s the same guilt trip – global warming, too many of me and not enough of them, love for ‘the other’ as a control tool.
What’re ten commandments when you can produce 50,000 regulations a year? Why give alms to the poor when you can use other people’s money?
What makes the Left rabid is our refusal to see their saintliness.
ADE
The problem with the centralising resources in the government argument is that would imply the higher the government spending level of GDP, the more bitter the politics and political debate. I am not sure that is what we see across Western democracies.
Political dynamics are rarely one-dimensional. The hyenas and lions may fight one another over the prey animals until it finally dawns upon them that if they work together they can expend their energy solely on getting the prey rather than in fighting one another. Pity the prey when this happens. The sheepdogs have colluded with the wolves for a share of the ill-gotten mutton.
Unfortunately, this seems to be the trend of modern political evolution. In the eco-sphere of modern politics, the sociopath is the fittest, and the fittest shall survive.
In America, we don’t have hyenas and lions–we have carnivorous elephants and jackasses–but the effect is the same. Pity the prey.
I’m afraid the oxford economists got it wrong. They didn’t go deep enough.
Why does every ‘nation’ in the Middle East want Israel destroyed? Resources? It is well known that Israel has some of the most resource-poor land in the region. Why did they drive the jews out of their countries, even though they are some of the most productive citizens in any country they choose to reside in?
The issue is not of resources or grievances, but the fundamental question of ‘the alien.’ How do we interact with those who are different than us? What are the limits of understandable conduct?
The economists got lost trying to figure out if, when confronted with ‘the alien’ (in our own land or nearby)- do we KILL HIM and then TAKE HIS STUFF, or do we TAKE HIS STUFF and then KILL HIM.
It is of course interesting that the political faction which considers itself the most internationalist, multicultural, and liberal is often so guilty of ‘killing’ by defamation, libel, and slander- at least in spirit, if not in law.
Free radical: You are on to something here. I wonder if the issue on of the error of economic determinism in particular or the notion of determinism all together.
Ultimately it is a spiritual, moral and even metaphysical.
It is a crisis of the evil in the soul and the dangers of narcissism and solipsism which come from denying this: positivism, subjective, relativism and, of course, determinism, and in our age, one can lard on top of that the error of scientism.
There is a cosmos beyond us, and i mean Cosmos, not Universe. There are objective truths. We live in a world not of our making.
There is such a thing as the human soul.
Human attempts to use determinism to understand the human in the world, and to thereby channel it, are mostly projections of interest and intent and thus doomed to failure.
As a case and point to my last post, Albright lets the cat out of the bag:
http://english.pravda.ru/business/finance/109362-0/
That is is not splashed across the media is ample evidence of their corruption, co;;usion and ill will.
This is so monstrous. We are led by people who detest the very essence of existence.
What hideous people. They climb upon the accomplisments of past generations in order to undo them. They would rather have the applause of Russian shills than the satisfaction of helping their their own nation advance. They truly ate us, our nation and its history. Tey take great joy in proclaiming that Americans no longer want to be te best. These people are in carge? As suc a ting ever appened in te story of a great nation ever before?
The question is, can tis be undone, ir are we truly retreating into tis mediocrity?
Competition for resources harly. Id is a spiritual esease and the reaction against in by those not infected.
WRT Walt’s “poetry”
IMNSHO, there is no poetry that does not have recognizable meter. If it doesn’t have recognizable meter it is not poetry, only wankery. This is the result of the post-modern movement in poetry, which deconstructed poetry itself, taking out that which mattered and leaving chaff.
Walt should be proud to be completely severed from the community of so-called poets. They are not poets. He is one. And a darn good one who could and should publish his stuff.
Conservatives could well advance on leftists by simply ceasing to use the words “idiot” “stupid” “moron,” etc when talking about leftists.
I was taken back by the spectacle of Bill Maher going on and on last week about conservative morons and idiots, while Beck, Breitbart and the ACORN video team walked off with Van Jones and ACORN scalps. It is pretty much a given among the left that conservatives are stupid. The left thinks that no matter how educated a conservative, a KKK gun nut is just writhing beneath the surface.
The left’s sense of rightness and destiny and pure disdain for the right is the left’s weakness. The right tends to beat up on itself; the left however, never questions itself. That is why they mouth cliches about the morons on the right as the majority democrats are forced to slam on the screeching railroad brakes of ACORN. The left doesn’t know how to argue – they only know how to defame when pressed to the wall – so all resistance to Obama is due to racism and southern bigotry.
Defamtion has strong roots in leftist politics: the early bolsheviks mercilessly, verbally tore at each other in committe meetings. Read about the early days of the Cuban revolution and how Fidel would humiliate his brother Raul in public gatherings. Hardened Marxists would hang their heads in shame and embarassment for Raul under these verbal blasts.
As Wretchard wrote elsewhere (I paraphrase) the left, whatever its motions, somehow always seems to the spelling out of: P-O-W-E-R.
They take great joy in proclaiming that Americans no longer want to be the best.
It invigorates them. These people are in charge? As such a thing ever happened in the history of a great nation ever before?
The question is, can this be undone, or are we truly retreating into this mediocrity?
Competition for resources? hardy. It is a spiritual disease and the reaction against in by those not infected.
Sorry, typing from a mobile device.
Das: you must be new to this. Some of us have been dealing with the left for over 40 years. You cannot argue with them. It is impossible. They are idiots, morally and otherwise. They are capable of only sophistry and agitprop.
There is no recourse but to remove them from power. They have no good will and are incapable of knowing the truth. It is not a discussion.
They in fact always win “the debate” because it is not a debate. It is a propaganda machine against all that is decent, good and true. The Soviets did not fall because they lost “the debate”. They fell because they could not any more afford the terror apparatus.
You are quite wrong about the Right’s response over time. We have been quite reasonable, and not engaged in character assassination at all. In fact, we’ve been too reasonable. it is time for the right, and everyone else, to start calling the left what they are.
They have survived this long because we have not done so.
They are traitors and crooks, and it is time that they are called out. To retreat from this is not “civility”, it is moral cowardice.
John Donne got it wrong that “every man’s death diminishes me”. What diminishes me is reading the Washington Post comments on Kristol’s death. To think that many of these commentators are likely Senate staffers and policy wonks makes me fear for the darkness that’s coming. They laugh at Palin’s death camp fears. Hell, these folks will be the ones putting the xklon b in the showers and fighting each other to steal grandpa’s gold teeth like a horde of scurrilous rats.
Mongoose , the truth sets you free it doesn’t turn you into a mirror image of your opposites. It wasn’t conservatives calling Van Jones a moron that removed him from power; it wasn’t conservatives calling ACORNS idiots that got congress to vote them down.
So, how do you plan to remove them from power? By calling them idiots? I suppose it feels good to do so but I don’t see that it removes them from power.
Yes, you can argue with them. They are human beings not demons.
The vitriol makes one wonder on what common ground the left and right can still meet. – Wretchard
Democracy without meaningful dialogue between the opposing political entities is probably not possible. Therefore, the rhetoric of elected, leftist U.S. officials which attempts to delegitimize the very speech of those to the right of their position should be a red flag to all Americans. When the political left declares that civil discourse on conservative principles and citizen opposition to the leftist policies is now “hate speech” and a threat to the republic, they prompt a few questions. For one, if “talk, talk” is out of bounds, do they prefer “war, war”? In what alternate form would they prefer to see their polical opposition?
I’ve cautioned folks about vitriol and conspiracy theories in post BLOG posts, indicating that “obvious” conclusions is usually more accurate than grand conspiracy theories. That said, I’ve often wondered at which precise point sides are taken that make armed rebellion and/or revolution inevitable, and/or justifiable. I’ve concluded that as long as we in America have a vote (which is unused by the majority of citizens), and the Bill of Rights is generally respected, no man has just grounds for taking up arms against our government.
That’s an objective line across which the left has been skirmishing across for a while. The left has deliberately divided Americans against each other. They are attempting to deny certain groups of Americans a seat at the table. The left has reinterpreted the Constitution to suit their agenda, changing rights to privileges (1st & 2nd amendments, religious speech in public, private property rights, etc.). The problem with the political left is that they are too arogant to recognize any objective line, and too insular to know where the line might be.
“Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals” is a good example of that arrogance. It seems that they expect no response from their opposition.
* “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.” What if we don’t? What if, after observing the wanton abandonment of most culture mores (e.g. civility) and rules by the left, the right decides to respond in kind?
* “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. There is no defense.” No? How about 7.62x51mm?
* “If you push a negative hard enough, it will push through and become a positive.” What if we push back? What if we expose their inconsistency and amoral regard for the law?
* “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions.” What if people “hurt back”? What if that single individual, that single, now isolated target of no general sympathy, just doesn’t give a damn, and decides to unilaterally and effectively strike back? How many Senators or activists can a single “nut” with a rifle take out if he feels that’s his only meaningful option for political expression?
I’ve pretty much concluded that the political left is very good at shepherding contented people at peace into the “solutions” that the left prefers. How does the left do at unrestrained warfare? How well will they fare against organized, committed, peaceful grass roots opposition? Alinsky’s rules are for rich liberal kids who have no f’king idea how the real world works.
My daughter made an insightful observation the other day, to wit: “Socialism must always follow capitalism. That is because socialism’s primary strategy is redistribution of wealth developed through capitalism to those who have not created that wealth. Socialism without capitalist wealth to distribute will fail, as it has never created sufficient wealth to support that economic system.”
The trash-talk follows.
Awww … Wretchard, we love how you can turn a phrase.
When Ted Kennedy passed away recently, I disabled comments to prevent anyone from heaping abuse on the recently dead. Although I am irredeemably an uncouth armpit-scratching, nose-picking, gum-chewing reactionary, I had the residual instinct to remember some basic manners.
Why shouldn’t one heap abuse on the recently dead? A fellow known here abouts as Uncle Gus had never drawn a sober breath in his life, and at his funeral everyone said so, which seemed appropriate and truthful to me.
It’s untruthful abuse that should be avoided.
Stupidity is an intellectual condition and is a product of either a neurological or heuristic deficit.
Idiocy is a moral condition.
TCobb said:”Unfortunately, this seems to be the trend of modern political evolution. In the eco-sphere of modern politics, the sociopath is the fittest, and the fittest shall survive.”
I think this is more broadly true than may be considered. With the material advances in the West in the late 20th century, it has allowed more aberrant behavior to flourish, and even climb to levels of prominence. “Sociopath” is a broadly Freudian term bandied about in modern usage, but it does have a real clinical meaning, and the presence of real sociopaths in positions of authority and responsibility in both business and government is a real menace to the logical functioning of any society.
My personal example is the head of our company who is of a European nationality. He has a lot of clinical symptoms of “sociopathic” behavior. He cleverly hides this behavior when associating with superiors or peers within our larger parent corporation, but readily displays this behavior when associating with those below him on the organizational chart. He is clever, as are many sociopaths, at functioning on the edge of sanity, but is symptomatic of this spread of mental illness among the “transnational elites”.
As someone referenced the American Civil War earlier, that immense tragedy in American history was exacerbated in part by the so-called “fire eaters” of the South and “Absolute Abolitionists” of the North. The Civil War tragically solved the problem by killing many of those that were sociopathic, along with a much greater number of men (North and South) that didn’t deserve that end, but were goaded into a war that could and should have been avoided.
The 20th century is replete with the megalomaniac sociopath that has led whole nations into insane bloodbaths and tragedies. We all know their names.
Thomas Friedman’s comment on “Meet the Press” a few weeks ago about the Internet being a “sewer” was true enough when you consider that the Internet gives a platform to anyone, especially the crazy sociopath. However, the consequences of some kind of censorship, or the masquerade of “net neutrality”, will be even worse, as it will drive the insanity inward, to ever more destructive ends.
We live in crazy times. Keep your wits about you and do not succumb to the almost infectious insanity that is bred in some places that are easily found on the Internet.
Profile of the Sociopath
1. Glibness and Superficial Charm
2. Manipulative and Conning
They never recognize the rights of others and see their self-serving behaviors as permissible. They appear to be charming, yet are covertly hostile and domineering, seeing their victim as merely an instrument to be used. They may dominate and humiliate their victims.
3. Grandiose Sense of Self
Feels entitled to certain things as “their right.”
4. Pathological Lying
Has no problem lying coolly and easily and it is almost impossible for them to be truthful on a consistent basis. Can create, and get caught up in, a complex belief about their own powers and abilities. Extremely convincing and even able to pass lie detector tests.
5. Lack of Remorse, Shame or Guilt
A deep seated rage, which is split off and repressed, is at their core. Does not see others around them as people, but only as targets and opportunities. Instead of friends, they have victims and accomplices who end up as victims. The end always justifies the means and they let nothing stand in their way.
6. Shallow Emotions
When they show what seems to be warmth, joy, love and compassion it is more feigned than experienced and serves an ulterior motive. Outraged by insignificant matters, yet remaining unmoved and cold by what would upset a normal person. Since they are not genuine, neither are their promises.
7. Incapacity for Love
8. Need for Stimulation
Living on the edge. Verbal outbursts and physical punishments are normal. Promiscuity and gambling are common.
9. Callousness/Lack of Empathy
Unable to empathize with the pain of their victims, having only contempt for others’ feelings of distress and readily taking advantage of them.
10. Poor Behavioral Controls/Impulsive Nature
Rage and abuse, alternating with small expressions of love and approval produce an addictive cycle for abuser and abused, as well as creating hopelessness in the victim. Believe they are all-powerful, all-knowing, entitled to every wish, no sense of personal boundaries, no concern for their impact on others.
11. Early Behavior Problems/Juvenile Delinquency
Usually has a history of behavioral and academic difficulties, yet “gets by” by conning others. Problems in making and keeping friends; aberrant behaviors such as cruelty to people or animals, stealing, etc.
12. Irresponsibility/Unreliability
Not concerned about wrecking others’ lives and dreams. Oblivious or indifferent to the devastation they cause. Does not accept blame themselves, but blames others, even for acts they obviously committed.
13. Promiscuous Sexual Behavior/Infidelity
Promiscuity, child sexual abuse, rape and sexual acting out of all sorts.
14. Lack of Realistic Life Plan/Parasitic Lifestyle
Tends to move around a lot or makes all encompassing promises for the future, poor work ethic but exploits others effectively.
15. Criminal or Entrepreneurial Versatility
Changes their image as needed to avoid prosecution. Changes life story readily.
*************************************
No all “sociopaths” have all of the above “symptoms” or clinical behavior, but many of the above are typical of the sociopath.
Again, I contend that the ease and wealth of the late 20th century has allowed the rise of this sort of person into positions of prominence in both business and government, all over the West (not just in America).
Given the ridiculous amount of attention accorded to some politicians, it seems almost impossible for them not to become sociopaths, if they didn’t start out that way already.
Das: I find your response morally and intellectually incomprehensible. It is literally unparsable. The best I can make of it is that you have not understand what i have said and are merely using my comment as a platform from which to launch into a outburst of moral relativism. I find this odious. So far as I am concerned, this a wholly inappropriate and is uncalled for. Let me assure you that I require no moral instruction from you.
It is not worth untangling your meaning. I was more than clear. You are being willfully obtuse.
If you care to, try actually reading what i have said.
If you really must indulge in this sort of thing, please do not use me as a touchstone to do so. You may think that you have stumbled on to a “profound truth’ here but is it actually a rather shopworn and tedious commonplace which you have “discovered”.
It is SOP for the Liberal “mind”.
I’m almost embarassed to offer this gross over-simplification of the degraded state of our National “Conversation”. But in some important ways it simply boils down to this:
The Left can dish it out but they can’t take it.
They’re really not used to seeing their own tactics and attitudes thrown back in their faces. They’re not used to being on the receiving end of popular protests.
Also, they’re used to controlling or steering the general discussion through their domination of the media. They really don’t know how to deal with organs like talk radio, Foxnews, and the blogosphere.
For the moment, they seem reduced to squeaking hypocritically about “civility”. Let’s hope it stays that way.
Nahncee @ 29: It’s from Hamlet, Act I, scene IV:
HORATIO: Is it a custom?
HAMLET: Ay, marry, is’t:
But to my mind, though I am native here
And to the manner born, it is a custom
More honour’d in the breach than the observance.
Well every couple of generations it seems that some new group will rediscover “bad manners,” demonetization of opponents, and relativism as a political tools. They never look into the the reasons for manners, Robert’s rules of order, the House and Senate rules of order and conduct and etc. Uncouth behavior can have unpleasant consequences as Robespierre discovered when they put him face up into the guillotine.
Richard, I would love to see you address at some point the suggestion that the difference between the two major parties in Washington is 95% pretense. I speak here of the leadership of the parties, not the rank and file true believers, and how despite all the sound and fury between them little substantive change happens at the “brass tacks” level –wealth and power, not the symbolic cultural issues– no matter which party has the helm.
E.Nigma writes:
With the material advances in the West in the late 20th century, it has allowed more aberrant behavior to flourish, and even climb to levels of prominence. “Sociopath” is a broadly Freudian term bandied about in modern usage, but it does have a real clinical meaning, and the presence of real sociopaths in positions of authority and responsibility in both business and government is a real menace to the logical functioning of any society.
I think the real problem has been, not material advances, but the proliferation of modern ideologies, which for the most part have provided theoretical justifications for ending traditional societies, usually though some combination of theft, extortion, assault, and murder, acts which traditional societies attempted for the most part to suppress.
Communism, Socialism, Fascism, Nazism, Radical Islam, they are all movements that allow the baser impulses which we all are capable of to be expressed, not as a thing to be ashamed of, but as a virtue to be praised, because its done for the “right” reasons. Its a sociopath’s dream.
Is it any wonder that the bottom feeders flock to these banners?
29. NahnCee
But do you mean “to the manor/manner born” or “to the manor/manner borne”?
Sorry, I’m definitely in an armpir-scratchin’ mood tonight.
Mongoose, keep it up and it will eventually be an honor to be trashed by you.
Sadly, it shouldn’t be that way, as you’re clearly on the side of those who want to preserve Western Civilization. The problem is, you appear to not consider anyone on your side, if that person but disagree with you regarding any detail whether great or small (or at least that’s the way you’ve been writing recently.) That way lies an Army of One, literally.
“Th’ Sinnit has no rhules. ‘Tis governed by courtesy, like th’ Longshoremen’s Union.”
- Mr. Dooley (Peter Finley Dunne)
Rurik,
That is like asking a veteran if he is “battle scarred” or “bottle scared” or vice a versa.
There was a Britcom called “To the Manor Born.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyeCMl4zDbY
#77 Kirk Parker:
I was thinking the same thing…
Kirk Parker: Whatever. Spare me. Really. Mind your own business, I was not even talking to you. Don’t flatter yourself so. You are incapable of “trashing me”.
If you have something meaningful to say germane to the discussion then say it, but let me remind you that I have little regard for you personal opinions of me. I find your patronizing nonsense a waste of time and a sign of a weak mind and character.
You just do not like being held to any rigor or standards, or being called out on your bromides and received opinions. You also did not like our last run in where your “position” was thoroughly dismantled and not just by me. Thus this passive aggressive nonsense of attempting to patronize me. It is you that cannot brook disagreement and so try to make it my problem. How dishonest of you. It is your problem–not mine. Stop trying to pass off your problems as some sort of fault of mine. Take some responsibility for yourself.
Speaking of manners and courtesy, so glad we left the vitriol on the last thread. There is a PJM thread by Ed Driscoll on the ill mannered hypocrite Jimmy Carter. My comments on Mr Carter his spousal unit and the Bush and Clinton families are probably familiar to members of this Club and are available at Mr Driscoll’s and on my blog.
While I have 0 in common with the liberals I try to respect their views even if I don’t see their reasoning but their hatred is so viral its unbelievable. I couldn’t find one good thing to say about ted kennedy or any of the kennedys for that matter but i found the will to just keep my mouth shut. It looks like they would do the same but they insist on showing their true moral character every change they get.
I am not familiar with Mr Kristol but my prayers are with his family, May his soul rest in peace.
Since it is the very nature of government to grow I hope Collier and Hoeffler are wrong. The Founding Fathers attempted to create a system that would prevent the concentration of power but alas the interstate commerce act, judicial review, direct election of senators, and the income tax none of which were in the constitution have all worked to thwart the Founders intent. Once 51 percent of the population realizes they can legally expropriate the wealth of the other 49 percent then the system begins to break apart.
This gratuitous and irrelevant abuse, that this thread was presumably designed to encourage us to rise above, has now spread across all active threads. I just found that some infrequent commentator, complete with mangled syntax, went onto “The Lost World” thread to call my parents liars. Wretchard maybe some people need a time out or a clean up?
78. LOTM:
In this corner, I admit to “battle scared” but not battle scarred – by good fortune.
I have seen “To the Manor Born.” and thought it was very enjoyable, on occasion approaching near profundity. One of the best of the Britcoms, after “Yes Minister” and “Reginald Perrin”.
T. Cobb
There have always been the dangerous, murderous sociopath in history, before the modern intellectual rationalizers
Vlad the Impaler
Ghenghis Khan, and a whole host really savage men, of course depending on your point of view…..
But, in my humble opinion, the garden variety sociopath, the guy with the obnoxious attitude, crappy yard or wife-beating problem is now legion, expressing their anti-social behavior everywhere. Especially evident is “Internet Rage”, where people see to thrive on vile and obnoxious comments or arguments with total strangers on internet blogs. Mr Fernandez example of the comments following Kagan’s obituary to Irving Kristol is just the latest example.
The wealth that makes computing power easy and available, that makes high-speed internet access available to millions, empowers the crazy as well as the gifted and noble. The modern intellectual constructs that you articulate are just the thin veneer for allegedly educated and “modern” people to become raging sociopaths behind the anonymity of the internet.
Jeff Goldblum’s character in “The Big Chill” uttered a profound truth when he said that people can go a long time without sex, but can’t go a day without rationalizations. The more unbalanced and miserable people are, the more psychotic and unbalanced the rationalizations they create, just to get through the day. The Internet gives the unstable (potential sociopath) a whole boatload of problems that they cannot affect (increasing paranoia), and a whole menagerie of enablers that are safely anonymous.
Rurik
Thanks for reminding me about Reginald Perrin.
Here’s
one of Reggie that is appropriate to this thread – the Right talking to the Left. Starts after 6 seconds, runs for about 2 mins.
The last few posts on this thread need a little lightening.
ADE