When Energy Secretary Steven Chu scolded Americans for acting “just like your teenage kids” who didn’t know how to take care of the planet he was merely engaging in another “teaching moment”. The WSJ blogs wrote:
The administration aims to teach them—literally. The Environmental Protection Agency is focusing on real children. Partnering with the Parent Teacher Organization, the agency earlier this month launched a cross-country tour of 6,000 schools to teach students about climate change and energy efficiency.
It has become fashionable for governments to treat people — even adults — like children: children who consume too much, obey too little and remain too fond their imaginary friends. And their betters take it upon themselves to guard their speech, take away their dangerous toys and curtail their choices because they are prone to make unwise ones. And most of all they see to it that we should expect no better our lives but a little welfare gruel and some end of life counseling. Once upon a time mankind saw it as their birthright to wander the fields, swim in the streams and see what was over the next hill. Today we live penned up in dark houses warded by sour matrons and bloodless didacts who are forever seeking to administer their “teaching moments”.
Two observations on human freedom, the first by Ronald Reagan and the second by CS Lewis, recall an earlier tradition. Both argued that mankind was compelled to liberty by nature. They saw it as humanity’s right to look up at the moon and dream of the stars. Reagan said:
If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth. And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except to sovereign people, is still the newest and most unique idea in all the long history of man’s relation to man. This is the issue of this election. Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.
It’s a quaint notion. Lewis put it another way.
The very idea of freedom presupposes some objective moral law which overarches rulers and ruled alike. Subjectivism about values is eternally incompatible with democracy. We and our rulers are of one kind only so long as we are subject to one law. But if there is no Law of Nature, the ethos of any society is the creation of its rulers, educators and conditioners; and every creator stands above and outside his own creation
And the differences between a society which organizes itself around stern lessons administered by bureaucrats preaching to schoolchildren and a society of free men who hire bureaucrats to take out the garbage is profound. To the latter man is master; to the former he is a taxpayer. They diverge in their basic understanding of what people are. Perhaps one of the reasons why shameful and degrading entertainment is deemed so harmless today — as gladiatorial combat was once acceptable entertainment — is that it serves to reinforce the public image of itself as a society of buffoons, who with application and attention to lessons, might eventually aspire to be like their official betters.
That is a truly post-Christian point of view. How strange it is to think that only a hundred years ago, people thought themselves guarded by personal angels in their frolic in the fields of the Lord. CS Lewis observed that:
embedded by Embedded VideoWe are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.
The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past … are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited…
There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendours.
YouTube Direkt
Your post is, at the same time, incredibly uplifting and depressing. Beautifully written. When I finished reading it my reaction was to sit back and just think. In that short space, with very appropriate quotes, you show what is possible versus what is happening now.
Our potential as individuals in a free society is limitless. Yet, we have allowed ourselves to become children ruled by self-righteous overlords.
“If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth. And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except to sovereign people, is still the newest and most unique idea in all the long history of man’s relation to man. This is the issue of this election.
Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.”
—
The left has absolutely no appreciation for these truths.
And POTUS laments that the founders works amount to nothing more than “negative rights.”
The totalitarian unwilling to recognize the priceless gift of freedom granted all mankind by God.
Thanks for another great piece, W. Good to see you continuing at your best.
As a committed rationalist, I feel we have to move past the people th[inking] themselves guarded by personal angels in their frolic in the fields of the Lord.
Getting rid of this is correct. But replacing it with Humiliation TV is incorrect also.
But what to replace it by? Being an optimist, I think that we will arrive at a place where we can have hope for the future.
That place will not be ONE THING. It won’t be beauty, it won’t be truth, it won’t be universal peace, it won’t be the UN or the EU or human rights.
But one element it must have is freedom. If this is gone, the child will make mud bricks forever.
The greatest challenge we have is to bring up our children to be able to want and deal with freedom.
ADE
Nice….that beer you went for must have been a good one.
Unfortunately for the waster element of American civilisation, the real laws of nature don’t care whether you want to be free or not. Poison the water, the earth, the air and your own bodies enough; waste enough resources; and sooner or later you will pay, and too late you will realise what the cost of your “freedom” is.
The American ideal worked, when there was always more land over the next hill to exploit and ruin in the pursuit of profit. Now; there isn’t any land over the next hill, for someone else has logged and stripmined it before you.
“”Only when the last tree is cut: only when the last river is polluted; only when the last fish is caught; only then will you realize that money cannot be eaten.”
Or breathed.
There is a class of adults who should be treated like children. Those who act like them.
another relevent CS Lewis quote :
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. “
ADE @3
“As a committed rationalist, I feel we have to move past the people th[inking] themselves guarded by personal angels in their frolic in the fields of the Lord.
Getting rid of this is correct…”
Well, that’s fine for you, but kindly leave my angels alone, thank you. Freedom of thought is the most important of all, and it includes the right to be “incorrect” by someone else’s measure. Nothing personal, but it would be a cold, sterile and artless world if all our dreams and longings were rationalized away. Beethoven didn’t compose that music with his intellect.
What the totalitarians have succeeded in doing is poisoning the fruit of the wisdom of crowds. Democracy rests upon the theory that since the spark is within us we can recognize it in others. As individuals we may be venial, corrupt and in the Calvinist sense damned, but as a community we can recognize the truth and will choose to be ruled by “the better angels of our nature.” Ideally we would elect the Elect.
Through the art of demagoguery and due to some mechanical tricks coming from a practical experience based on lay knowledge of the science of neurology those who would be Masters have learned to impede the ability of the Commons to discriminate in their judgement. The masses repeat the memes that Reagan was an idiot and Obama is a genius with no consideration of the actual evidence.
On the “East versus west” thread I noted that over time the model of man as a slave will fail. What a waste though in all the glory that will be lost and the blighted hopes that will be ruined while freedom sleeps.
- J.R.R. Tolkein
Fletcher C
I don’t think that too many of the revealed (?) religions have much to say on your dilemma.
But you may nevertheless be right.
Living with freedom means the ability to consider deep greens’ perspective, and should one resolve that they are quite mad, devise a peaceful way to optimise their transition to the promised land.
Not all the past is wrong. At the very least, the concept of Original Sin (aka human fraility) has been one of the most productive concepts ever devised (witness America).
But you’re right – there is a limit to concrete. The mistake you’re making is to think that nobody else knows this.
ADE
marymcl @ 7
Freedom of thought is the most important of all, and it includes the right to be “incorrect” by someone else’s measure.
Including my right to be be “incorrect” by your measure.
But you know this. I’m sure we’d get along famously.
ADE
Barack Obama, College Administrator
To Professor Obama, the U.S.A. is a campus, we are the students, and he is our university president.
VICTOR DAVIS HANSON
Professor Chu, Obama’s energy secretary, summed up the sense of academic disdain that permeates this administration with his recent sniffing about the childish polloi:
“The American people . . . just like your teenage kids, aren’t acting in a way that they should act.”
Earlier, remember, Dr. Chu had scoffed from his perch that California farms were environmentally unsound and would soon disappear altogether,
“We’re looking at a scenario where there’s no more agriculture in California.”
Perhaps one of the reasons why shameful and degrading entertainment is deemed so harmless today — as gladiatorial combat was once acceptable entertainment — is that it serves to reinforce the public image of itself as a society of buffoons, who with application and attention to lessons, might eventually aspire to be like their official betters.
Very well said…
There is in life a certain satisfaction of doing it yourself, someone could describe the majesty of the great pyramids to you but it would never replace the experience of seeing them up close. Life is experiential. God gave us the capacity for knowledge and faith and in the end gave us choice. To take that choice away is to diminish what it is to be human.
My life is a culmination of choices. It is the wellhead of my triumphs and as well as my tragedies, my aspirations and my indifference. It is too a reason for the disparity of outcome of my life compared to others. Liberty is all you should ever want or all you should ever need because through it comes all other expressions in life including love of life.
Conversely government is the epitome of compulsion unless it freely governs by the consent of the people. So it is our institutions that are the most fragile and the founding fathers provided us with a framework to preserve liberty founded in faith of god and faith of man whose values are selfsame.
Non-existent (Chu hopes) Untermenschen
ADE -I don’t think you’re “incorrect”, I think you’re dead wrong!
Seriously, though, you did speak of “getting rid of” the ideas you consider irrational. How does that happen? As long as you’re talking about ethical persuasion, no problem. Give it your best shot. I may be splitting hairs with you, (sorry, too many militant atheists out there these days) and no doubt you weren’t advocating thought police or anything of that kind. But rationality isn’t an infallible absolute, either, at least insofar as human beings and their behaviors are concerned. It has its own conceits and limitations. A lot depends on experience and personal perspective.
I also think that feeling, which is often confused with emotion but is in fact something quite different, is every bit as rational a means of assessment as thinking. In fact I believe that feeling, (again, to be clear, something different from emotion) is what largely informs “the fruit of the wisdom of crowds” that LOTM referred to @8 (nice phrase, BTW)
Humanity is not ready for true freedom, for it also denotes true responsibility for one’s own actions. As I like to say to my students – take responsibility for yourself, stop blaming other people! But how many people are capable of doing this?
The Milgram and Asch experiments are ample evidence of this – as a species, humanity is not ready yet for this assumption of personal responsibility.
LOTM is right when he stated that the masses are easily manipulated – and there will always be manipulators around to distort the wisdom of crowds, and for crowds to blame people other than themselves. When have you ever heard an electorate admit publicly – we messed up? No, it’s always, “We were fooled!”
So much for taking responsibility.
What to do? Hope that the individuals who make up crowds would eventually become immune to psychological ploys and also be willing to admit their mistakes when they do happen.
But I’m not holding my breath.
When you write like this, Wretchard, I want to take down my “wee dusty claymoor” and do battle with those voices of, “No, you can’t” that abound across our fair land now. At my advanced age, they still stir within me that essential Programmer who wants to tweak their nose and kick them in their pompous butts just because I can.
Welcome back from the slough of despond. Lock that gate and throw away the key (how’s that for a mangled metaphor). As for the rest of the scurvy lot that hangs around here, keep up fighting the good fight. You surely have got to be irritating a whole bunch of Leftists on a daily basis, and that is a good thing. I have heard the phrase Jesus wept to describe a tragedy, so if he reads the Belmont Club and the comments, surely He smiles.
Wobbly Guy:
Can you give us a local report on the Singapore Ghost Fleet?
…World’s largest Navy.
—
Revealed: The ghost fleet of the recession anchored just east of Singapore
My hat tip goes to the whole Obama people. Where do they dig up all these goofballs, hiding in the academia?
Save us a lot of time rounding them up and give each one a microphone to freely express themselves.
W. Beautifully done.
Im glad you brought up Dr. Lewis. One of his more telling ideas is that of “men without chests” which I take to be the quintessential bureaucrat. An appetite and an intellect unmediated by anything. Its a fearsome thing to think that we could be governed but such beasts, but observe the actions of any one of the creatures that are charged by the gov’t with the welfare of children. Fully familiar with the regulations that protect them, armed with the politically acceptable language of compassion and capable of the coldest cruelty. I believe they are the models of the “sour matrons and bloodless didacts” to which you refer.
Was it not a short while ago right here in the Belmont Club that I was berated by someone for saying that in 1776 the people of the Colonies were far less encumbered by the King’s bureaucracy than they are today by our elected government? And did not my berater go on to say that, in effect, the burden of backbreaking toil for the average man America in 1776 constituted a tyranny far worse than that which we endure today?
It is odd indeed that people can equate the physical reality of the universe – that one must earn one’s bread by the sweat of one’s brow – with the necessity of the IRS Form 1040 and it’s endless appendages and the 50,000 new regulations a year issued by the Federal Government. That someone can see this as a “choice” – fill out the forms and shaddup if you want to eat – is absolutely astonishing.
But there is an attitude in Wash DC that they issue the prosperity as if it were a daily ration, that the people shopping at Wal Mart is nothing more than another version of the people in a soup line, that the USA is made up of a bunch of homeless people who all have to be rescued by the Mighty Feds.
In Tom Wolfe’s book The Right Stuff he mentions the attitude behind the Soviet space program. It was to reach out to discover and enslave those other places in the universe that might be living in the aberrant condition of Freedom. That attitude is not limited to Cold War Moscow.
If we are talking about the relationship between humanity and nature, ‘revealed religion’ has an explicit formulation – Genesis 9:
1 And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.
2 And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered.
3 Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.
4 But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.
5 And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man’s brother will I require the life of man.
6 Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.
7 And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein.
8 And God spake unto Noah, and to his sons with him, saying,
9 And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you;
10 And with every living creature that is with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth with you; from all that go out of the ark, to every beast of the earth.
11 And I will establish my covenant with you, neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.
12 And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations:
13 I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.
…..
We need not fear a flood. We are on the right track. Such covanents do not happen lightly and this one relates to all humanity. It predates our current religious divisions.
Our task is to master our physical reality. We push the boundaries as far as we can.
Does the rainbow still inspire each of us when we see it? It as if it were personal to each of us. How many of us have pulled off the car to the side of the road and just watched? Or maybe called someone to say “can you see it? Look…see?”
Wretchard you are on a roll and I struggle to keep up.
Meanwhile the ‘fishes of the sea’ have not responded well to my hook and worm recently. They have their own agenda.
Shalom,
Spindok
In man’s life, the absence of an essential component usually leads to the adoption of a substitute. The substitute is usually embraced with vehemence and extremism, for we have to convince ourselves that what we took as second choice is the best there ever was. Thus blind faith is to a considerable extent a substitute for the lost faith in ourselves; insatiable desire a substitute for hope; accumulation a substitute for growth; fervent hustling a substitute for purposeful action; and pride a substitute for an unattainable self-respect.
Eric Hoffer
“Beethoven didn’t compose that music with his intellect.”
Nor even with his hearing at that point.
Whatever, now the “Ode to Joy” is the anthem of the EU. There’s an inspiring thought. There’s a hip-hop version, too. The anthem is an instrumental, however, since the words are, well, you decide:
“Be embraced, millions!
This kiss for the whole world!
Brothers, above the starry canopy
Must a loving Father dwell.
Do you bow down, millions?
Do you sense the Creator, world?
Seek Him beyond the starry canopy!
Beyond the stars must He dwell.”
W’s excellent post provides our principles.
Back to the mundane and the specifics: Secretary Chu’s speech was delivered at a “smart grid” conference. Do you understand what the “smart grid” will mean to you?
On the up-side, it could provide real-time price data for your electricity and bill you according to that real-time price. Fine but remember only about 25% of the current price of electricity at the retail level is variable after fixed transmission, distribution, administrative, and capacity costs. Would you put off drying your clothes until after dinner to save a quarter? The predictions of peak shaving is overstated, in my opinion. It will save money (and dog bites) by allowing remote meter reading and meter shutoff/turnon.
On the down-side, the smart grid will reach into your home and record the consumption by time and applicance. These could be public records. Worst, it will be able to turn off your applicances like your dishwasher and hot water heater and adjust your room heating and cooling. The California Energy Commission’s aborted 2008 plan to mandate remote control thermostats for homes and businesses was an example of a smart grid application.
The stimulus plan allocated about $30 billion for smart grid implementation. This is driven by the same environmentalists and bureaucrats that truly think you are too stupid to use the energy that you buy wisely. The usual rent seekers like GE are active too.
There are other costs not paid for with printed Federal dollars. For example, the Pacific Gas and Electric Company will charge its customers $1.7 billion just for “smart meters” component to be installed at their homes.
Chu was chosen because he is a nanny stater for energy. There is more and worst coming unless we arise in opposition.
I think the very sad thing here is this:
1) It’s good to not waste energy, even though some conservatives seem to find this outrageous.
2) The less oil we consume, the less we fund Russia, Iran, and other such places.
3) by simply placing a small federal tax on gasoline and electricity we could strongly motivate the market to produce more efficiencies than any government mandates or brainwashing campaigns.
Doing this would reduce our strategic vulnerability to oil somewhat while simultaneously driving down the price that oil exporting countries can get per barrel. Both of these are good for us.
But instead of such simple measures we’re getting a goofy brainwashing scheme about carbon footprints. I wonder how much energy they will waste in their efforts to teach us to use less energy. When all they have to do is lightly tax it and most people could make the slightest of adjustments in their lifestyle to reduce their consumption to cover the tax without any real change in standard of living. I know I make a lot of unnecessary trips and leave too many lights on. At the current cheap prices for the stuff, I have no real incentive to think more carefully about my energy use.
James,
Like Cheney famously said, conservation is a private virtue. I don’t need no stinking government to tell me to save money.
We currently have a roughly 4% tax on wholesale nuclear energy ($1 per megawatt-hour). This goes to the “Nuclear Waste Trust Fund” which is really the US Treasury. Why the government continues to collect this tax when Obama has stopped all work on Yucca Mountain continues to show the hypocrisy of the Administration.
Whitehall @25
“The usual rent seekers like GE are active too. Chu was chosen because he is a nanny stater for energy.”
Well said, man. Consider that “grids” are like spider webs, designed to trap the consumer/citizen/voter in inescapable campuses, and then go read Victor Davis Hanson’s latest at NRO (found at Doug’s link @11), and ponder the political implications already evident in our “Campuser-in-Chief’s” regulatory agendas.
Another indication of your comment’s rectitude is that proponents of these grids (of which “Single Payer Healthcare” is just another, more subtle species) never advocate for self-reliance when advertising their latest gridded schemes. A friend of mine works in the St. Paul, MN environmental consulting industry and he never misses an opportunity to push “Green” concepts and climate catastrophism – be it “warming,” “cooling,” or just “change.” And when I opine that Americans already have a cultural affinity for self-reliance, and for insulating themselves from “single-point” failures that result usually from others’ errors, and that this innately American virtue makes our citizens naturally receptive to the liberating benefits of PV arrays, more efficient cars and “off-grid” technologies like passive solar heating, he was flabbergasted.
I told him, “Green” innovators do not need to pitch dishonest climactic catastrophism to generate sales: Americans, especially rural ones, are already primed to buy Siemens’ solar panels, GE’s tankless water-heaters and so on. But, because the “Green” movement is REALLY about collectivization, not liberation; about creating new confining campuses, not empowering free citizens, the Greens’ rhetorical framework itself is trapped in the grid semantics preferred by a Chu, a Gore and the “global tax” UN-ocrats.
It’s a pity, really, and un-American, too. These guys are missing a big marketing front (empowered, actualized Americans are more wealthy than most and can best afford these technologies), and it reveals, again, that “Green” is just another attempt by a lot of very small people to tie down Gulliver!
Here is a pretty good prayer poem
It’s really a shame to read how many conservatives have given up any interest at all in national security and economic competitiveness, and allowed the left to completely own and dominate all talk about energy, one of the most important elements of our national economy.
So amazing to see the comments of a bunch of people on this page who seemingly wish to continue to leave the US economy vulnerable and to block all advances towards any technology that would give the United States a competitive and strategic edge.
Please, folks, lay off the crack-pipe of Heritage Foundation and AEI propaganda. They aren’t conservatives and they aren’t pro-America. They’re just a bunch of PR hacks supported by oil companies that have only one goal: making as much money by making this country as vulnerable and dependent on foreign oil as is possible.
James,
We were talking about smart grids were we not? And aren’t smart grids about the delivery of ELECTRICAL energy?
In the US in 2008, only 1% of our electricity is generated from petroleum. Nuclear has been able to replace the 18% of our electricity from petroleum in 1973 to the pittance used today. And that’s with a doubling of electricity consumed.
I’ll agree that national security and energy supply are important and intertwined issues. Nuclear power has done its part to improve our security position. We need more nukes NOW to prevent the use of imported liquefied natural gas (LNG) in electric generation. Here in California, our next source would be Russian LNG.
PajamaMedia has an article up today about using nuclear to make gasoline, an idea I’ve long advocated.
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/nuclear-energy-the-only-solution/
BTW, my employer has a stake in the reactor design that could make this happen.
A kind and gentle reminder that I am the one to make choices regarding my life and soul.
Hey James, take that crack pipe and shove it up your ass. Thanks.
james, please start here. If you need more background on the conservative position on energy, help yourself to a search engine –you might have to put down the crack pipe of leftist demonology about why the USA is in such a geopolitical bind, but i’m sure you can take your own advice and do so.
James – The GOP has an energy policy of using all available sources as they become economically viable without major subsidy (ie no more subsidized than anything else we use). The Democrat party has hard stops against coal use and nuclear use in principle and in practice against most other locally available energy sources. Sen. Kennedy’s long fight against the Cape Wind project is just an example of Democrat disingenuousness regarding energy.
Technology is neutral. It can be harnessed to liberate or to enslave. The Internet of Orwell’s telescreen or the Internet of DARPA are similarly advanced technological beasts but have greatly different impacts on human dignity and liberty.
Similarly, smart meters, alternate energy, etc. can be twisted in both good and bad ways. It is not wrong to resist the bad ways. That’s the job of the opposition.
The link in #34 is to the previous administration’s launch of an effort to begin solving the energy problem.
As you know, it went nowhere in congress (victim of OIF/Cheney/Halliburton slogans) –but do take a look at the actual recommendations it proferred –way back in early 2001.
The whole thing pretty much died at the hands of BDS. Sick, yes, very sick, and inconvenient, too –but true.
Can you, james, entertain for a moment the possibility that conservative think tanks might be saying the same things as American oil companies because both are trying to tell us the truth about what we ought to have been doing all these last ten or so years?
James, I can’t afford higher energy prices. If i can’t afford them, I can’t work, then I go on the dole. So……
After he died, C.S. Lewis made an appearance to a professor somebody or other, who didn’t really know him all that well. The professor, seemingly sound of mind, was sitting in his room, looked around, and there was C.S., broad as daylight, smiling at him. After some kind of communication C.S. simply vanished from the startled professors sight, so he swears.
While I can’t find a reference to this episode, can’t even recall the professor’s name, I distinctly recall reading the professor’s narrative of this rather unusual event.
Generally speaking, when the dead return for a visit, it is usually to comfort the anxious, soothe those in sadness, bring some life giving confidence to those in need, etc., but this guy was just sitting there, not thinking of Lewis at all, perhaps smoking his pipe.
The question before us is whether or not a soul-sick culture of the sort that embraced Obama with a kind eschatological yearning will ever find its way back, or is it fated to be, in Milton’s words, a “credulous and hapless herd, begott’n to servility.” Are there sacred texts for some new Josiah to find (or compose) or are we left with Milton’s question in “Paradise Regained”:
What wise and valient man would seek to free
These thus degenerate, by themselves enslav’d
Or could of inward slaves make outward free?
Lifeofthemind said:
“What the totalitarians have succeeded in doing is poisoning the fruit of the wisdom of crowds. Democracy rests upon the theory that since the spark is within us we can recognize it in others. As individuals we may be venial, corrupt and in the Calvinist sense damned, but as a community we can recognize the truth and will choose to be ruled by “the better angels of our nature.” Ideally we would elect the Elect.”
There are a some interesting points here. First, something taught to me by Prof. Antony E. Raubitschek (google him) was that there are two basic types of democracy, i.e.
1) Aristocratic democracy
2) Representative democracy
Aristocratic democracy is where the people get together and chose from amongst themselves the wisest, most experienced, best educated and bravest to serve as their leaders. Those leaders would represent the “aristocracy” of their community. Our democracy as originally envisioned by America’s Founding Fathers was to some extent an aristocratic democracy.
Representative democracy is based upon bell curves. The political system is composed of people who best represent the common man, i.e. middle of the bell curve. Imagine a U.S. House of Representatives where the members are 50/50 men and women, have an IQ of about a 100, spent three years in a university but did not complete a degree, make about $50,000/year, live in a two bedroom home, go to church about once a month and hold a significant debt against their credit card (they’re paying only the minimum monthly). Rigorous effort would be made to insure that racial proportions and demographic groups like homosexuals, etc. were precisely matched by the political leadership.
My suspicion is that representative democracies would tend to be more popular in the short term but also tend to self destruct within a generation. America started out more as an aristocratic democracy but there has been a gradual drift towards representative democracy. This gradual drift is one of the reasons why the political process is slowly failing.
Lifeofthemind also brought up the point about the “wisdom of crowds”. There is certainly some wisdom in crowds. The Internet works (to some extent) due to the wisdom of crowds. IMHO, the best computer operating system available is Linux and to a large extent Linux was a consequence of the wisdom of crowds under Linus Torvalds wise guidance using Bell Lab’s Unix as a starting point. The problem with the “wisdom of crowds” is that crowds can be manipulated through well known propaganda methods, e.g. constant repetition of a single slogan by the MSM. Also some social problems are very complex and nonlinear with long lag times. I’ve heard it said that running a large organization like the United States is not unlike piloting a supertanker through a narrow harbor. Because the supertanker has so much inertia, the pilot must anticipate when the ship needs to make a turn or slow down and provide lots a lag time. Our economy maybe in a terminal mess because of bad decisions that were made in the early 1980s. Transitioning from fossil fuels to nuclear/renewables could have been made with minimum impact upon the global economy if that process had been started in the early 1960s. America’s initial response to 9/11 for the most part involved some deep thinking by intelligent and experienced people with a good understanding of real-politics. Unfortunately, you’re not going to get that sort of leadership from a bunch of John Q. Sixpacks.
It’s funny, the lefts’ supposed desire to shrink our carbon footprint would, if talken to its logical conclusion, require more people to become self sufficient.
For example, I have a very small carbon footprint (Mr. Chu would be proud). I have worked very hard to get “off-grid”. I require less Mr. Chu’s and his government in my life now than ever before.
Unintended consequences…
Zim,
Be careful about unintended consequences. They might put you in a room with a moose.
From another Lewis quote in Wretchard’s resource:
“I believe in Christianity as I believe the sun has risen, not only because I see it but because, by it, I see everything else.”
And by seeing so, “understanding”, while rarely complete, is fed by a constant, measurable paradigm from which to grow.
A rather trite reminder to me on how I should react to my fellow man (while constantly stumbling) is the picture of how we sometimes point in indicating the source of our angst. We form with our dominant hand, the replica of a gun: index finger directed to our adversary, thumb pointing up as the hammer to be cocked, three remaining fingers wrapped around the pistols grip.
I can’t remember how it came to pass (whether by my own brilliance or that of someone much smarter than myself), but ultimately I came to understanding how that accusative posture could assist my walk and help to keep planks out of my own eye:
One finger points at your target, the thumb points to God, and the three remaining fingers point back to oneself. I find the recognition of three of those fingers finding myself as a point of dependable “thoughtfulness,” eventually leads me (times three) more to self-analysis and clear (re)consideration that my initial motive to point was really all that righteous.
Sometimes it is that analysis that confirms my first reaction, but more importantly, that analysis can lead me to an “I’m sorry.”
By seeing “everything else” from this wisdom that is ever characterized by Christ’s teaching, I’ve found that nothing but good can come from that truthful and rigorous reanalysis.
It does not mean that decisions are easier to make, but I have found that decisions are made after a more truthful, humble, and honest appraisal.
Now, if I could only do that analysis, first!
There’s the true heavy lifting.
And after watching Qaddafi ramble for 90+ minutes at the UN this afternoon, the heavy lifting hasn’t even begun.
Mr. Fernandez, You once again leave me staggered, I have read both texts that you quote from but would never have put them together the way you did. Thanks.
I, for one, would rather have the bureaucrats taking out my garbage (as opposed to poking around in it!). When we lose sight of the fact that these “leaders” are given the job at our behest and as at-will employees we will all be in real danger.
@39. Sertorius: In my darker moments I am of Milton’s mind, that these debased creatures are scarcely worthy of saving. In my better moods I think of them as beaten dogs, constantly grovelling and cringing but capable (with sufficient love and kindness) of being much better, braver beings.
It would be better to at least give them the chance to be free and wise than to abandon them to a life as “credulous and hapless herd, begott’n to servility”, mayhaps not better for them for they may choose to return to slavery but better for us to have made the effort to free them.
ht instapundit, a lift to the spirit, from David Harsanyi @ The Denver Post:
http://www.denverpost.com/harsanyi/ci_13396984
(snip)
Chu recently referred to the Earth as “the great ship Titanic.”
Chu will deploy bureaucrats to more than 6,000 public schools to, um, teach children about “climate change” and efficiency. They probably won’t mention that the Energy Department was found to have wasted millions on inefficient use of energy by an independent auditor this year. (Listen, even our parents aren’t perfect.)
And yes, Chu the adult likes to say that coal — which, as we speak, is likely powering your computer, your office, your house and allows your kids to sit in their schoolhouse without freezing their little toes off in early fall — is his “worst nightmare.”
Coal. Not an energy that is running its course nor one that the market will replace. This energy source accounts for more than half of electricity production in the entire nation.
Chu, a physicist and Nobel Prize winner — and, unlike me, a deadly serious person — believes that “all the world’s roofs should be painted white as part of efforts to slow global warming.” Guess what? Not one white roof in my community. What’s the holdup? Do we have to pass a law?
We do. Because you are hopeless, petulant, immoral and clueless. Your nightmare starts with banning a plastic bag at the grocery store and ends with a job-killing cap-and-trade scheme. It starts with a public service announcement from a third-tier celebrity and ends with you scouring the Earth to find a lightbulb that lights something.
(end snip)
Apropos of freedom and Beethoven’s Choral Symphony, it is telling that when Leonard Bernstein conducted a performance of the symphony in Berlin in 1989 to celebrate the collapse of the Berlin Wall, he changed Schiller’s Freude to Freiheit, thus making the poem an “Ode to Freedom.”
like children: children who consume too much, obey too little and remain too fond their imaginary friends.
Good one, W.
Ekshually, though, if my imaginary friend always communicated shalls and shall nots that were consistent with the various emissions, eminations and penumbras of the potentates inhabiting the regions around the Beltway, I don’t think they would have a problem with my imaginary friend.
But my imaginary friend commits the unpardonable gaffe of telling me that He and He alone is to be worshiped, and His laws are to be obeyed before and, against if need be, all earthly laws.
Yahweh may be a jealous God, but nobody beats the State when it comes to punishing idolators.
James: We (but mostly I) already pay plenty of “small” taxes, the abundance of non-productive citizenry stands as testament. No thank you.
It starts with a public service announcement from a third-tier celebrity
PSA or Robocall.
For two nights in a row, at dinner time (naturally), I have gotten robocalls from Power Up America. Last night’s call was from Joan Jett.
Wow. (imagine Ben Stein’s voice saying that and you will get a fair indication of my level of enthusiasm)
Since I was expecting a call from a friend, I interrupted what I was doing at that second — carefully taking a pan of chicken out of the oven — only to find Fifth-Tier Has-Been Celebrity, in poorly recorded audio quality, shilling for a destructive cause on behalf of an even more destructive organization, on the other end of the line.
But since they are cranking out the robocalls, it must mean someone is getting ready to push something where it most definitely does not belong.
In my personal readings, I find an echo of Milton’s perspective in one of Heinlein’s recurring political themes. In a number of his books, it is proposed that every population periodically needs a major emigration in order to free the productive, self-reliant types from the inevitabe drag of the non-productive classes. The emigration of the productive and ambitious leads to the establishment of a new society where freedom and responsibility reign supreme.
But in every case, even Heinlein’s fiction expects each ‘new’ society to fall prey to an fatal accumulation of the nonproductive as soon as the ideals of the founding generation of emigres fade from practice. Heinlein loosely targets a period of ~6-7 generations. In reading his books, I noted that Heinlein openly rejected the concept of reforming a nonproductive society. His theme expressly postulated that the productive would always be a captive minority once the rot set in.
I have found that conclusion to be more than a bit depressing, and hoped that modern society would be capable of a better response. However, as we now discuss the very same societal degeneration in a nonfiction context, I find that I may have to agree with Heinlein.
It’s good to not waste energy, even though some conservatives seem to find this outrageous.
And which conservatives would those be? Unless names and specific quotations are provided, this is at best a straw man argument.
The less oil we consume, the less we fund Russia, Iran, and other such places.
OR, here’s a crazy thought, how about we drill domestically. That would create jobs here in America, not kill them (one highly likely result of significantly curbing oil consumption).
by simply placing a small federal tax on gasoline and electricity we could strongly motivate the market to produce more efficiencies than any government mandates or brainwashing campaigns.
I will assume you are already aware that there is already a federal tax of approx. 18 cents on every gallon of gas sold here in the U.S. Not to mention whatever your individual state tax is (here in PA it’s about 32 cents).
Right now gas is about $2.57/gallon here in my section of PA.
So … do you consider the current 19-20% tax on gas “small”? If yes, why are you making a suggestion to implement something that’s already being implemented? And would you consider a 20% profit margin “small” as well? Or would a 20% profit be “too much”?
And what, exactly, do you mean by “the market” “producing” “more efficiencies” as a result of taxation?
Taxes tend to do one or both of the following: They inhibit production, and/or they inhibit consumption. Taxes don’t produce efficiencies in the market. Only the market (defined as businesses and consumers making free decisions as to what is economically or materially in their own singular best interest) produces efficiencies in the market. Taxes are a drag on the market because they detract from the producer’s ability to produce and the consumer’s ability to consume.
*******************
Really, I don’t think anyone could read BC for any decent length of time and come away with the mental image of “conservatives = environment trashing energy hogs” unless one’s mind were already so clouded by outside propaganda as to preclude absorbing what is written here. Both in terms of commenters’ points on energy policy and in terms of details that commenters have shared about their personal lives, I would have to say that my take on BCers is: (1) a not insubstantial number of commenters here are rural dwellers who have an intimate connection to the land (grow & pack their own fruits & veggies, some keep livestock for meat & dairy, etc.), and (2) most express what I would characterize as a pragmatic approach to energy policy, which is to pursue development of all resources at hand, with an eye toward doing as much as possible domestically so that we stop transferring massive amounts of American wealth to America’s enemies. I do not see indifference to the environment. Nor do I see irrational ideology trumping issues like national security and the economy (esp. jobs and individual wealth of the American middle class). However, I do see plenty of irrational ideology exhibited by the left with regard to energy policy. And precious little understanding of things like how the free market actually works.
BTW, we are charged about a 4% tax on nuclear electricity (on wholesale average) to cover eventual nuclear spent fuel disposal.
Perhaps that now that Obama has put Yucca Mountain on indefinite hold, they could suspend that tax.
Let me ask everyone to ponder this question:
If it is so darned important that we use less oil, why don’t they ration it?
In WWII the standard ration of gasoline was 3 gallons a week. Say we double that, to 6 gallons a week, twice as much gas per car as we won WWII with – I can handle that. In a typical week I use about 3 gallons. I could use a bit less if I had the incentive.
Why don’t we ration lubricating oil, essentially require everyone to use the new synthetic oils that can be used for upwards of 10,000 miles? I already use it in my vehicles.
Why not, when it would meet their stated saintly objectives?
Because they want our money! They want the economic activity and the taxes that come from that use of oil. They are already complaining that the higher mileage newer vehicles buy less fuel and so they need to raise the road taxes to keep up.
That is why they want Cap and Trade instead of rationing. They want the money. The environment and National Security have nothing to do with it.
But in every case, even Heinlein’s fiction expects each ‘new’ society to fall prey to an fatal accumulation of the nonproductive as soon as the ideals of the founding generation of emigres fade from practice. Heinlein loosely targets a period of ~6-7 generations. In reading his books, I noted that Heinlein openly rejected the concept of reforming a nonproductive society. His theme expressly postulated that the productive would always be a captive minority once the rot set in.
I have found that conclusion to be more than a bit depressing,
It is indeed depressing if Reagan was right about liberty in the U.S. being “the last stand on Earth.”
That means we either have to reclaim it and re-establish it, for at least the next 6-7 generations per Heinlein, which will spell one hellacious fight (politically at the very least, hopefully not the other kind), or else it’s gone.
Patriots’ backs are to the sea. (or to the cliffs, depending on which depressing imagery one prefers) I don’t know where else we can go. And it hacks me off to no end that **I** should have to be the one contemplating going anywhere in the first place.
That is why they want Cap and Trade instead of rationing.
More accurately, they want rationing (the inevitable kind that will occur when people’s utility bills go up 2x-4x) via Cap and Trade.
That way they can finger the eeeeevil utility companies and eeeeevil energy companies as the villains.
But they can achieve both their aims indirectly — money gorge for Uncle Sam, Americans back to hoeing potatoes like 12th-century serfs. At which point we are sure to see an exhorbitant potato tax.
Doug – the ghost fleet is certainly around. Off the East Coast Park beach, they form an almost unbroken line of metal on the horizon. While usually there’re some ships about, the sheer number of vessels anchored these days makes going to the beach a rather depressing experience, at least for me.
Mencius Moldbug over at Unqualified Reservations was railing (kinda) at the The Seasteading Institute. Given the economic conditions, you’d think there was no better time to snap up a few ships and try to see if the seasteading concept works in practice…
Correction RWE……
They want CONTROL. Almost every program rolling out of Congress in the last 2-3 years has had far more to do with controlling the populace than solving the problem at hand. That is true for climate change, the financial crisis, healthcare, and a host of other drummed up problems.
I often talk with folks who examine a piece of legislation and find that is doesn’t solve whatever problem is being addressed. They tell me it doesn’t make sense or seems wrong. That is when I ask them to re-examine the same legislation with the end goal of increasing government power rather than addressing the specific issue. With few exceptions, most folks then have an epiphany (and the associated nausea) as they realize it all makes sense once you understand the primary motive, which always the same – increase government control over the basic elements of society. The specific issue at hand is simply a ‘means to an end’.
A few simple words here. Freidrick Hyak- “The road to serfdom” Read it, believe it. The title is self-explanatory. All socialism is about some group who think they are my better using the coercive power of government to turn me into a slave to their idea of what a society should be.
My ancestors fled Scotland because of this and this is the last place on earth. We the people grant them the right to govern and we can un-grant them that right and should at two year intervals. They should remember that they serve at our pleasure. Our government is too large and too intrusive now!
TMLutas:
James – The GOP has an energy policy of using all available sources as they become economically viable without major subsidy (ie no more subsidized than anything else we use).
Absolutely wrong. The consumption of oil in this economy is subsidized by the federal government in the billions of dollars each year. Without our government subsidizing the oil industry, other forms of energy would be more economical, benefit from economies of scale, and become ever cheaper.
Simple fact: the less oil the US uses, the lower the price of oil. The lower the price of oil, the less $ bleeds out of our economy and into the coffers some people who are our enemies.
Filling up your gas tank is shoving $ into the pockets of the mullahs, the pockets of Putin, the pockets of Chavez.
I think many of you guys should have bumperstickers on your cars that say, “I Support Hugo Chavez and Putin, and I vote!”
ws1835 #50 – “In reading his books, I noted that Heinlein openly rejected the concept of reforming a nonproductive society. His theme expressly postulated that the productive would always be a captive minority once the rot set in.”
I have that same feeling a lot. We seem to have become two countries inhabiting the same real estate. The only solution I see, other than the moon as a refuge, is a “divorce”. There was an email that went around a while back about how we could divide up the country. It was really amusing to read. (OK, another option is maybe going John Galt, but I don’t think we have a valley in Colorado with a protective barrier around anywhere.)
“OR, here’s a crazy thought, how about we drill domestically. That would create jobs here in America, not kill them (one highly likely result of significantly curbing oil consumption).”
We could drill domestically. We already do. But the amount of oil is finite. And it’s likely to keep going up in value. Outside of its use in energy, it’s also an essential base for virtually every synthetic chemical.
As important of a strategic resource as oil is, it’s probably better that we hold onto it for an uncertain future and work ourselves right now towards developing changes in our society (more efficient transportation system) that will allow us to get a higher level of productivity out of that oil at a later date.
Obviously it’s worthwhile to do things in a balanced way to seek economic optimization. But I take a dim view of the idea that we need to just keep doing business as usual. Energy diversification combined with more efficient processes will ultimately lead to a more robust economy.
Roads are ridiculously expensive ways to move freight around a country this big, they are expensive to maintain, and the more our economy is dependent on trucks/oil the more constrained our economy would be in the event of an international crisis. A 15% reduction in automobile traffic would save more lives in one year than we’ve lost in the entire Iraq war.
This country is $10 trillion dollars in debt, our industrial base has been eroding, and our manufacturing base has been screwed. A big reason is that our transportation system is expensive to maintain and we are subsidizing the use of highly inefficient technology. We aren’t going to improve economically unless we bring about some improvements in our energy and transportation efficiency.
Decades of government funding of the oil industry has left us in a place that clearly calls for the development of a better transportation/energy sector.
Wretchard, your most powerful and moving thoughts are always of this nature. They are transcendent and I am uplifted and mourn the dying dreams of free people. Dreams poisoned by ideologes, just words to control, to bury alive all the dreams of men.(As an aside, a Canadian blogger, Kathy Shaidle, has a t-shirt for sale on her site with the words: You are not smart enough to tell me how to live. I like that.)
If I may be so bold, if you ever decide to write a book, a non-fiction book, this is it’s soul, this sadly glorious ode to joy, ode to man and his longings to be free.
Ws1835 #57:
They want control, perhaps, but most of all they want us still pulling their wagon, pickin’ that cotton, turning that donkey wheel.
I was in the Pentagon maybe 6 months when I realized the KEY was money. Shut off the money and you shut off the control, because most bureaucrats won’t work for free (some will, believe it or not).
As Docbill infers, they want serfs, paying serfs.
Sorry, James, but your assertion is incorrect and has neither physical nor economic justification:
“Without our government subsidizing the oil industry, other forms of energy would be more economical, benefit from economies of scale, and become ever cheaper.”
Petroleum has been the most efficient and productive of energy sources although the finding and extraction costs are going up quickly. Oil is much more useful than coal, for example due to its energy content, energy density, and ease of handling and storage. A reliable estimate of the Energy Return on Energy Invested (EROEI) for the Saudis’ Ghawar supergiant oil field is 200:1. Even my beloved nuclear power can only claim 40 to 100:1.
Oil is also taxed at many places along its supply chain – extraction taxes to gasoline taxes at the pump.
It is not government policy that makes wind and solar losers but physics.
Whitehall,
I appreciate your reference to EROEI. Obviously, oil has its (increasingly moving to had) benefits in that area. There are others, as well. It works fantastic for airplanes, for example.
But a substantial portion of our freight in this country is moving around by trucks on very slow and very expensive to maintain roads. Oil has been subsidized by a decades long effort to build our cities around the automobile. Part of the reason the US consumes so much oil is we’ve worked very, very hard in this country to build our cities around it. And it’s thus a very vulnerable and fragile structure.
Part of moving to solar/wind would necessarily involve moving to some kind of rail system from transcontinental freight which would be simultaneously faster than our current system while running on electricity.
EROEI investment is an interesting and worthwhile metric, but how much weight you can move a given distance in a given time is a function of the equipment your are using as much as the source of the energy.
More importantly, the more traffic we move over to being handled by other energy sources, the less oil will cost us. We will benefit from keeping the price of oil down on the global market. Not down so far that demand surges in the rest of the world, but down nonetheless. Since we are the biggest source of demand, we have the most ability to reduce the cost of oil by reduction of our demand for it.
W: “And the differences between a society which organizes itself around stern lessons administered by bureaucrats preaching to schoolchildren and a society of free men who hire bureaucrats to take out the garbage is profound.” Yes!
Glad to see you have shaken off your dispirit – may it continue. In this short one, you have created a cry and a song of the soul.
Thank you.
@ wobblyGuy: Doug – the ghost fleet is certainly around. Off the East Coast Park beach, they form an almost unbroken line of metal on the horizon. While usually there’re some ships about, the sheer number of vessels anchored these days makes going to the beach a rather depressing experience, at least for me.
Wobbly,Doug: I’m in Singapore at present attending an Investment Banking Conference at Singapore Management Univ. I saw the Ghost Fleet when I flew in a few days ago. The investment bankers have not addressed this. The picture they paint is rosy. Go figure.
3. ADE:
“The greatest challenge we have is to bring up our children to be able to want and deal with freedom.”
Challenge? Don’t you mean missed opportunity, ADE?
My sense is that “we” as parents have been asleep to the lofty glass that you raise here…and those that weren’t asleep are those that desired this outcome and/or planned over the decades for its attainment.
The ones who are raising their children today didn’t have the education that we (over 55) had, and as a result, it will only be their children’s (love of and) respect for their parents and their willingness to think out of the educational box that they have been immersed in during their entire educational years, that will have much effect on how they live today. Those folks who do follow their parents’ path will be rare indeed and those who do so may be swamped by the tsunami of the less thoughtful at the voting booth.
As a military officer and one who spoke often of American history and exceptionalism all my kids’ lives, my middle girl (now 33) came home from college a decade ago a flaming feminist, leftist, white male hating ideologue who now only patronizes “Daddy” and his Neanderthal ideas. She and I were as close as we could possibly be during her childhood, but today I feel more like the old Indian that everyone is waiting to saunter off into the wilderness and not return. As long as, that is, the will is updated.
I hate to re-reference the need for paying attention to history, but clearly, my generation – the baby boomers, have failed their forebears like no other generation has in the past. The results being laid out before us today, is clear evidence of our lack of attentiveness and consummate dereliction of duty to our grown children.
How does this turn around? It sure as heck won’t be the result of the secular community, from which these trends have been emerged. What we need is nothing short of a miracle, deep grace, and a huge amount of mercy. Maybe even a few martyrs guided by a good PR consultant. Wouldn’t want to waste something as precious as a life.
When I see pictures from the Hubble
I oft times think I’m seeing double
Though clearly what I see’s our universe
Yet when I hear Obama say
Just blame it on the USA
I know we’re now in a cartooniverse
The stars that once were so aligned
And galaxies that God designed
Now seem to be awry and much displaced
The constellations come undone
With every word the mighty One
Delivers for the country he’s disgraced
He tells the UN that our past
Was wrong and he’ll see that at last
The US stops its harsh and brutal ways
And joins the peaceful countries that
Rule not by laws but by fiat
And that the world will then see better days
He’s sold Israeli people out
It’s Arab wants he cares about
He’s cut missile defense and Air Force planes
He wants the US cut to size
He wants us just like other guys
He says we’re just the same as Paks or Danes
He’s taken o’er the banks and cars
And set us up for rule by czars
And wants to bury health care for us now
Yes Hubble shows a different world
Where space is stretched and time is curled
And we’re in constellation Holy Cow
It’s really not such a pain
When you’ve gambled all, and lost
To live dry in a city drain
Those above have paid all the cost
You take over, Walt…
Living Low ‘n Dry In Vegas
Vegas used to be kind of neat in the 50′s. Fancy cars, well dressed women. A few real cowpokes hanging around. No strip. Free food, drinks. Golden Nugget downtown was the place. I remember when the city shook from an underground blast…
The city does
Now seem to be awry and much displaced
The constellations come undone
Richard Fernandez wrote “It has become fashionable for governments to treat people — even adults — like children: children who consume too much, obey too little and remain too fond their imaginary friends.”
Alexis De Tocqueville wrote this about 200 years ago.
An immense tutelary power…
“I therefore believe that the kind of oppression that threatens democratic peoples is unlike any the world has seen before. Our contemporaries will find no image of it in their memories. I search in vain for an expression that exactly reproduces my idea of it and captures it fully. The old words “despotism” and “tyranny” will not do. The thing is new, hence I must try to define it, since I cannot give it a name.
I am trying to imagine what new features despotism might have in today’s world: I see an innumerable host of men, all alike and equal, endlessly hastening after petty and vulgar pleasures with which they fill their souls. Each of them, withdrawn into himself, is virtually a stranger to the fate of all the others. For him, his children and personal friends comprise the entire human race. As for the remainder of his fellow citizens, he lives alongside them but does not see them. He touches them but does not feel them. He exists only in himself and for himself, and if he still has a family, he no longer has a country.
Over these men stands an immense tutelary power, which assumes sole responsibility for securing their pleasure and watching over their fate. It is absolute, meticulous, regular, provident, and mild. It would resemble paternal authority if only its purpose were the same, namely, to prepare men for manhood. But on the contrary, it seeks only to keep them in childhood irrevocably. It likes citizens to rejoice, provided they think only of rejoicing. It works willingly for their happiness. It provides for their security, foresees and takes care of their needs, facilitates their pleasures, manages their most important affairs, directs their industry, regulates their successions, and divides their inheritances. Why not relieve them entirely of the trouble of thinking and the difficulty of living?
Every day it thus makes man’s use of his free will rarer and more futile. It circumscribes the action of the will more narrowly, and little by little robs each citizen of the use of his own faculties. (p. 818)
(Similar, different, translation) p. 691-2 Tocqueville, Alexis de. Democracy in America, Harper Perennial, (Harper & Roe), 1988, Library of congress # 88-45111, ISBN 0-06-091522-6 (Soft cover)
James @ 61, the government has not “funded the oil industry”, whether or not oil got a few more tax breaks than any business.
A valid issue is whether the US government should have burdened the oil industry (eg, oil and gas prices) the way European governments have always done. One can debate that, I guess.
Another issue is whether GWB should have gone into overdrive about alternative energy and energy independence circa 2002-2005, and I believe the answer there is yes, he should have. OTOH, the democrats wouldn’t give him the time of day.
59. James:
Let’s see…if the less oil we use, the cheaper it gets, I’m starting to understand the raison d’être of the environmental lobby.
If we didn’t use any, it’d be FREE!
For them, the best of all possible worlds.
If I may be so bold, I can distill Wretchard’s clever post and the raft of follow-on comments down to a terse discourse on the evils of forced campusing. The word, “campus” derives from the greek stonemason’s word for the arena wherein he renders, by explosive blasts, rasp and saw, raw stone units into larger “divine” sculptures. This root Greek word is “Kampos.”
Carry this idea into the modern era, and extend it to include any human artisans’ work bench, and then imagine those campuses wherein it is humans that are being secured, formed, truncated, shaved and honed – be they college campuses, insane asylums, madrassas or punitive taxation schemes, and you will sense this term’s saliency to the discussion at hand.
Picture two extreme examples of campus: one, where the human “soap stone” to be worked is a cognitive, willful being and the campuses available to him are all voluntary; and another opposite example, where the human medium is thoughtless, lacks will and is unable to resist the spectrum of campuses pressed on him. The first example represents an American ideal: this willful model of the citizen is cognizant of the myriad campuses seeking his induction and is empowered to choose voluntarily which of them he will seek matriculation from. The second example poses an individual whose cognition resembles that of a child, and a nexus of involuntary campuses where, despite the child’s nascent innate urges to flee regimentation, harsh directives and even terrible pain, he is not allowed to leave.
Philosophical nonsense? Maybe, but Secretary of Energy Chu’s admonition purposefully cast our nation’s citizens as half-formed adolescents in need of his ministrations – or campusing. This is of a piece with the traditional Marxist ideology that seeks to craft, by whip, prison, school and gun, all men into the “New Man.” Put this way, is it any wonder that the cognizant, willful citizen embodied by a Whitehall, a Luddy, or, perhaps even me, would resist this scolding as the imposition it is?
To explain the passionate timbre of Chu’s detractors’ commentary (and it is James that I direct this to) I propose that we consider the American adult citizen as he is organized and defined by our nation’s constitution and its founding documents. In the context of America’s exceptional arrangement, Man is born free of congenital binding campuses except for the kiln of our Creator wherein the citizen was originally formed. All others he is free to join, or not. This was a deliberate and ingenius (in my opinion) escape from the historical, European Hobbesian arrangements, which posited that layers and layers of Leviathan-ic campuses constrain, direct and imprison every man from birth. According to the Continentals’ oppressive pre-modern format, these intersecting arenas are comprised by matrices of such archaic confinements as caste, birth-right, “status,” race and tribe. And escape from these is futile, attempting it liable only to result in frustration or exhaustion, and the republican constructs that seek to enlist the willful citizen in the design and maintenance of these campuses, like committee and national voting franchises, only delay the citizens’ inevitable kneeling to them.
(Here, it merits saying, I find Heinlein’s depressing thesis matches Hobbes’ full square. Whether it is by accident or intent, Heinlein’s attractive notion of the prim, participating citizen, relies too much on the exegeses of the stressed populace’s militant collectivization under crisis, such as foreign invasion, and on the partly formed, adolescent citizen cast as the formed, willful enlister for my taste.)
It is in the grand void between these two stark opposites that today’s politicians ply their trades. Inescapable punitive campuses such as progressive income taxes (designed to “punish” folks for making too much money), and those designed to “nudge” the citizen to correct his private, willful behaviors, like cigarette taxes, forced political education and fines levied for not buying “Green,” should not, by virtue of being cloaked in progressive “caring” camouflage, escape being categorized correctly as the oppressive constructs they are. And, when these constructs are foisted on the citizen by extra-national forums that circumvent the citizens’ deliberative franchises, such as local elections and regional ballot initiatives, then every citizen should balk at the imposition. Even you, James!
To end, if a James X, or an Al Gore, or a Steveaz wants to buy a solar panel, or an organic beet, or Toyota hybrid or an evacuated tube heating panel with his own money, then there is nothing stopping him. In fact, everyday these products become more accessible to every citizen.
But, if the goal is to force us to be New Green Men by dint of having our wrists slapped, or worse, if we won’t, then I say, Back Off!, and Fen @ 31 speaks for me!
Kapisch!?
Cheers,
-Steve
Oops! Typo alert…
RE Heinlein: I shoulda wrote, “[He] relies too much on [...] the partly formed, adolescent citizen cast as the formed, willful enlisteds for my taste.”
Kids at fifteen or sixteen ain’t smart enough yet to decide whether to enlist in collective campuses, IMO.
Josh, I run into this argument from liberals all the time: The lack of a certainl level of taxation is a subsidy. It is quite irrational, and it is so common an error that it amount to more of a shibboleth than anything approaching a reasoned position. One cannot not move them off of this no matter how hard one tries. I have sat down with them and read from dictionaries and sown real examples fo subsides. They will not move off of it. It is all tied up in the notion that “oil companies” are “evil”. It appears to be one of the central tenants of the faith and one that the rest of us somehow did not absorb.
James here echos just about every misguided Leftist notion about energy. The notion that “increasing the cost” of something artistically will lead to viable alternatives is the worst sort of magical thinking. The notion that it is government’s “duty” to intercede in markets against the citizen’s interest for the “the Common Good” is pure collectivism and borders on treason. The notion that the tax policy should be for any other reason than to fund government expenses, however, is truly criminal and immoral. Taxes should not be a weapon in some politicized social engineering project. One might as well levy a tax on certain news outlets because one does not like the viewing habits of the citizens.
In fact, it is none of the governments business how people choose to use energy markets or energy technology. In fact, there is no such thing as “peak oil”. In fact, the government can no more read the future of energy resources and technology than could governments do so during the age of sail.
Almost all our energy problems are created by left wing policies. Take those down, allow markets to work, allow American to exploit their own resources and every thing will be fine.
The last thing which we need is a “national energy policy”. What we need to do is get the business out of government hands altogether.
James, this borders on economic illiteracy:
More importantly, the more traffic we move over to being handled by other energy sources, the less oil will cost us. We will benefit from keeping the price of oil down on the global market. Not down so far that demand surges in the rest of the world, but down nonetheless. Since we are the biggest source of demand, we have the most ability to reduce the cost of oil by reduction of our demand for it
Demand in the USA will not control demand in the rest of the world. It will not “keep oil prices down”. it would only increase supplies. The amount of supplies, however, is not what is keeping prices up, various forms of political interventions in markets, and political crises in general, are what is keeping prices up. Moreover, if the cost of the “alternatives” are greater than current energy sources, and here i mean all direct and indirect cost in aggregate, then it is not really true that “oil will cost us less”. More to the point, The “alternatives” would have to take a quite substantial portion of our national usage to have much of an effect at all on even national markets. So it is not true that a marginal alternate source or action, like say putting all federal transport on so “alternative energy source” would have the effect that you imagine it would.
But there are three much larger points:
1) These “alternative sources”, so far as replacing fossil fuels go, are mostly just pipe dream at the moment. They are chimeras. You notion of “taxing them into existence” clearly underlines how little reality they actually have at the moment. The only one that is truly viable is nuclear energy. However, there is not a direct correlation between nuclear energy and petroleum consumption for extremely little of our electricity is generated by petroleum products. Yes it is true that we could have more electric cars should we have more nuclear plants, this does not mean that we would have less petroleum usage in any meaningful sense. It would just mean that we have more electric cars.
2) In all of this radical departure from market forces there is an underlying assumption that the current price of oil will constantly rise. But this is merely an assumption. Suppose that new fields were discovered in the USA, or better technology for extraction or processing were found and applied to new fields. In this case then all of the monies spent on “alternate energy” would, from an economic point of view be wasted.
3) There is no such thing as energy independence so long as there are relatively free international markets. There are, of course, natural advantage to local producers, but oil is fungible resource. So is uranium.
4) It is really just a bit of empty rhetoric to say that we are “the biggest source of demand”. This is only if you want to go by certain metric. For example, if all of Europe were to be considered one country then the figure changes radically. This is just another canard of the Anti-American left. In fact energy usage outside of the USA is greater than within it.
So you may or may not have made a moral case here, but you certainly have not made an economic one.
Best to get government out of it, and let te citizens work it ut for themselves.
Mongoose, I think our energy problems are complex, have many causes, no single person or group to blame them on. The more interesting question is who does something good to solve them. And I guess there’s room for government policies to facilitate good decisions – staying the hell out of the way is a policy, isn’t it?
Government intervention in the form of grants for fusion research IS good policy, because the public sector can take insane level of risks the private sector can’t.
So let’s not denigrate all proactive government activity with the same broad brush.
In fact, I would strongly support government activity for production of new technology. Big science became big science for a reason – it’s just too expensive.
Heh, for that matter some clever people may have figured out a way to just manufacture petroleum. Check out http://www.technologyreview.com/Biztech/19128/ for a 2-year old article on the process. Once they’ve figured out how to make it economically enough, we won’t have an energy crisis.
TWG, good to see you here. Haven’t seen you over at Samizdata for a bit.
In addition to Socialist videos from TIDES and Chu’s anti-America rants
Ayers/Obama have another recruit in their bolivian revolution against the schools
kevin Jennings.
They are not trying to be subtle – frontal attack with this wack job jennings.
How the hell did ayers/SDS groups capture school administrators – do they have the photos from the school conferences?
more info on jennings
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=32472
Mongoose @ 77:
[Cue rim shot] Bang On! In fact, all of the permanent and transient issues in the USA are the fault of and caused by exactly 535 people.
I am sure you all know the argument. There are deficits because the Congress, who makes the laws that govern the budgetary process, want there to be deficits. Etc, etc.
And at 78, you are right on the mark. Getting the guys like James to understand is difficult. I think we would have to attend college level science classes with him, make sure he went, paid attention and then discussed systems thinking to his self. Sorry, but I am not going to do that. His fault for not paying attention.
The Danes are the best example of how the mixture of energy sources can work. They use it all and have come up against a FULL HARD STOP at 27% of alternative. After they tried more the grid ‘collapsed’, as it were. And, it is expensive, all that alternative.
Josh @ 79:
It is, true. But you KNOW that they cannot. It against the politicians nature to keep their filthy hands to themselves. But, Josh, it really is not all that complicated, it just takes some work and research to gain a fair grasp of the issues. But as you inadvertently point out, that is beyond most. A little work and understanding.
The Government/Business Complex:
PG&E parting ways with U.S. Chamber a hot topic
PG&E just couldn’t take it anymore.
Citing “irreconcilable differences,” PG&E Corp. says it’s leaving the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on account of the latter’s “extreme position on climate change.” That is, the chamber’s increasingly extreme – some might say bizarre – opposition to legislation working its way through Congress.
—
Look at all the rest of these guys FAVORING “global warming legislation!”
That was more than enough for PG&E, a leading member of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, a pro-legislation business consortium which counts Duke Energy, Shell, BP America, Dow Chemical, Ford, GM and Chrysler among its members.
“Nothing is more important to us than supporting federal legislation to get the country to where it needs to be (in combatting global warming),”
said Brian Herzog, the utility’s director of corporate relations in Washington.
The Left truly believes that oil is evil. (Mongoose #77). The powers-that-be would replace oil with anything, just for the sake of replacement. That is why they drive cars that run on toxic batteries which require a global goat rodeo to create & deliver. Green cars operate at a carbon loss when compared –in the light of day– to a typical car. But who cares about facts and figures when you get 50 miles to the gallon? Oil is evil, that’s what they know.
When they get the climate under control, doug, maybe they’ll take on “time”. That would be SO cool, as it would lead to cheap time travel and then if we can’t stay competitive in the future we can at least stay competitive in the past.
Or maybe they will occupy their days with quanundrums such as, “Why does any single nation both import and export oil?”
First we oughta Federalize Time.
Federal Standard Time.
No more of those confusing time zonie-things.
They want control, perhaps, but most of all they want us still pulling their wagon, pickin’ that cotton, turning that donkey wheel.
I was in the Pentagon maybe 6 months when I realized the KEY was money. Shut off the money and you shut off the control, because most bureaucrats won’t work for free (some will, believe it or not).
As Docbill infers, they want serfs, paying serfs.
Blogging Tips and Tricks
Once we’re all Federally Unionized & Stupified Hunter-Gatherers crammed down in the southern sunbelt for the ambient heat, wearing Khudzu vines, living on taters n insects, and dropping dead at the traditional 30 or so, what do we do next?
What then, oh Master Planners of Crackademia?
Lessee, Nuremberg Rallies by 2012, guilottines by 2015, a few plagues here and there, heck with the right leadership hurrying us along we ought to be able to make it through the Bronze Age and on back to the Paleolithic by 2100. Maybe that can be the Year we really get the hang of flint-knapping again
Reading this thread made me want to dust off my old copy of Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom. Skimming through it, I found a passage where he’s discussing the paternalistic collectivist government’s inevitably harmful and corrosive effects on a nation’s morality. We all know that continuing on our current path will impoverish us materially and it will thoroughly impoverish us spiritually as well. What Hayek wrote in 1944 is even more immediately relevant for us now that government rulers feel ordained to force everyone to be “good.”
“What our generation is in danger of forgetting is not only that morals are of necessity a phenomenon of individual conduct but also that they can exist only in the sphere in which the individual is free to decide for himself… Outside the sphere of individual responsibility there is neither goodness nor badness, neither opportunity for moral merit nor the chance of proving one’s conviction by sacrificing one’s desires to what one thinks right. Only where we ourselves are responsible for our own interests and are free to sacrifice them has our decision moral value. We are neither entitled to be unselfish at someone else’s expense nor is there any merit in being unselfish if we have no choice.” [Emphasis mine.]
There’s just so much good stuff in that book, page after page of jewels and gems and reasoned truth. And not only this book and Hayek but hundreds, nay, thousands or even thousands upon thousands of examples of precious truth handed to us, going all the way back to the ancient world and proceeding right up through the present time. Many have been discussed here, Toqueville, Burke, Aristotle, Aquinas, Doestevsky, even the forgotten MacCauley whose present-day obscurity Subotai deplored several threads back (I loved the reference!) – and countless others, including the biggie, the Bible. Great works of philosophy, history, economics, literature – all this wisdom, ready to hand, has it done us any good? Well look where we are. They might as well never have existed for all the heed we’ve paid to them. Bring on the shackles. It’s as if we’ve decided deliberately, perversely and defiantly, in a fit of utter insanity, to dump all our knowledge of truth on the scrap heap. It’s like we heard them all saying, “Go this way”, and we set out on purpose to do the exact opposite.
Wobbly Guy (#80), aren’t you confusing research into basic science with “production of new technology”?
Doug (#88): Well, that’s the China way, so perhaps we can look forward to a Tom Friedman column pushing a single time zone?
They might as well never have existed for all the heed we’ve paid to them. Bring on the shackles. It’s as if we’ve decided deliberately, perversely and defiantly, in a fit of utter insanity, to dump all our knowledge of truth on the scrap heap.
Karen – That was the “dropping out” part of Timothy Leary’s injunction. Because 18- and 19- and 20-year olds are sooooooo able to discern what the real wisdom of their culture is, you know, and to toss all the unworthy bits on the ashheap of history.
Oh yeah. And I’ve heard that LSD really sharpens your judgment.
Really.
Yah.
Uh-huh.
Word.
I forgot “groovy” and “righteous.”
Christ said “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s”. The substitute of a regulation for a morality based on Natural (God’s) law leads to unintended consequences.
Rules of the marketplace are natural law at work constrained by natural law. The interference of some set of legislators and or bureaucrats in the marketplace leads to market distortions (far too many examples). WRT oil and “alternative energy sources”, while I happen to think that the highest and best use of petroleum is as a feedstock, I recognize that the economics dictate its use as a fuel.
Now James contends that there are more efficient ways to move freight than the 50,000 lots on a truck. Rail is certainly more fuel efficient. But the lot size of say 250,000 pounds means that there have to be several more layers of material handling to get the toaster to the buyer. Railroads are not particularly reliable movers of freight, Stuff gets lost/delayed, etc. Railroads hate break bulk cargo. Railroads spent an awful long time being protected by the Gov’t and so did trucks. And they still are, to an extent. I personally think the Govt should take over the railroads and operate and maintain the trackways, auctioning time and space packages to carriers. It would encourage better use. (The constitutional basis for this is the authority to build and operate post roads.)
From the mouth of a liberal idiot comes these words sung back from someone who is not a child,
“The dogs on mainstreet howl cause they understand, if I could take one moment into my hands, Mister I ain’t no boy, No, I am a man, and I, believe in the promised land.”
>Springsteen< Promised land
SteveAZ writes: “Secretary of Energy Chu’s admonition purposefully cast our nation’s citizens as half-formed adolescents in need of his ministrations – or campusing.”
(Just an aside, I don’t agree with the etymology of ‘campus,’ which as far as I know just means ‘field,’ and in particular an enclosed military area.)
‘Progressive’ educational theory is ‘constructivist,’ i.e., a child/learner discovers meaning from non-directive teaching and learning situations. Of course in reality the child/learner is supposed to come to good liberal conclusions. Chu seems to be saying that all learners who failed to develop the appropriate liberal conclusions need to develop them now. Stands to reason for a progressive educator. Just ask Bill Ayers.
#84 – Doug,
Pacific Gas and Electric is now the private vassal of the Democrats in Sacramento.
During the 2001 electric crisis in California, PG&E had the nerve to fight back against the bad policy and execution from the state government. The state let them twist in the wind and PG&E went bankrupt. Now the state had the company by the short and curlies. The rates that PG&E charged were all set by the state so without rate relief, they ran out of cash.
The executives were replaced by men and women who now knew who was in charge and would not deviate from the liberals’ message. They have become an unhindered political arm of the California Democratic Party. They certainly spend a lot of ratepayer money on political correct advertisements. Their opposition to the Chamber’s anti-cap and trade position is the result of pleasing their masters.
The looters have control.
To show how this is nothing new. Israel asked for a king. God warned them through Samuel.
” v11 Samuel said, ‘The king will rule over you. And this is what he will do. He will take your sons and make them into his soldiers. They will serve with his horses and *chariots. They will run in front of his *chariots. v12 The king will make some of your sons lead thousands of soldiers. Other sons will lead groups of 50 soldiers. The king will make some of your sons plough his ground. Then they will have to harvest his crops. Other sons will have to make *weapons for war and equipment for the *chariots. v13 The king will take your daughters. They will make perfume. They will also cook and bake for him. v14 The king will take your best fields. He will take the best land where you grow grapes and olives. He will give all these to his officers. v15 Then he will take a tenth part of all your grain and grapes. He will give this to his officers and servants. v16 He will take your male and female servants. He will take your best cows and *donkeys. He will use them for his own work. v17 He will take a tenth part of the total number of your sheep. And he will make you into his slaves too. v18 When all this happens you will cry out to the *Lord. But the *Lord will not answer you then’.
v19 But the people would not listen to Samuel. They said, ‘No. We want a king to rule us. v20 We want to be like all the other nations with a king to rule us. He will lead us when we go to war. He will fight our battles’.
v21 Samuel listened to all that the people said. Then he went and told the *Lord. v22 The *Lord said, ‘You must listen to them. You must give them a king’.”
Sounds like nothing new today. We look for someone to save us. If only it was only 10%
Noticed San Jose voted to ban plastic and paper bags. Thought of the difference between government as public servants, and as those who rule. We seem to be getting more rulers, who are more expensive to maintain.
I much prefer King Log to King Stork.
We’re not even getting a good warrior king out of the deal, just floppy ears.
bob/100; aHA! i KNEW you were an earist!
KYvonne/91; melancholy as suits its topic, but beautifully written –thanks –
good essay on Dollar up on drudge –comments interesting too:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/6211858/HSBC-bids-farewell-to-dollar-supremacy.html
Kirk @92 – Well, I consider basic research and application of that research aka technology, to be one big chunk. Gone are the days when either the public or private sector does only science or technology with the other sector taking up the slack.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s still a tremendous part for the private sector to play in maturing technology, making it more efficient and accessible, but the initial scientific breakthroughs, and the first applications, probably has to be state-initiated.
Nowhere is this more clear than in fusion research, and prior to that, spaceflight. The production of the huge rockets that sent man to the moon wasn’t basic research, it was technology. Produced by private firms, but paid for by the state.
Mongoose @78 – Well, the point can be made that the US uses up more energy per capita than almost anywhere else.
I admit to some trepidation on the human race running out of CHEAP petroleum, as not many alternatives are currently economically viable, offering such advantages and returns on energy expended.
Let’s hope the bio-engineers dealing with algae/bacteria/cellulosic ethanol or the physicists trying to make fusion work get a breakthrough over the next 20 years, or else energy is going to be a huge issue with India and China’s rapid modernization.
Now, it’s probably also true that concentrating human populations from scattered towns into megapolis will have the net effect of reducing overall energy usage. However, I remember reading somewhere that the current pattern of habitation in the US was due to the construction of such well maintained highways as James mentioned – paid for by the state. This led to people taking advantage of the space in the interior of the continent more than ever before, relying heavily on the automobile.
So in many ways, it was state policy that led to the current problem (if it can even be considered a problem). Would another state policy be the solution? I have my doubts.
Here’s a possible solution. The government cuts taxes, AND stops maintaining the roads/highways(transportation never was a public good anyway). If oil prices become unbearable enough, people will seek alternatives on their own, be it driving less, getting a more efficient vehicle, or moving closer to their workplace and food supplies. And in the process reducing reliance on oil.
See, problem solved!
Because 18- and 19- and 20-year olds are sooooooo able to discern what the real wisdom of their culture is, you know, and to toss all the unworthy bits on the ashheap of history.
Right. They don’t even know what it is they’re despising. What a pity. The bleak prospect ahead, so unnecessary – are we really doomed to endure it? Can anyone imagine all the deconstruction, Critical Theory crap one day being categorized as timeless classics?
luddy barsen – thank YOU. Laughed my head off at your #90. It’s good to laugh, even if tinged with some bitterness.
The biggest problem for the Blank Slaters (Yes Leftists, most of you are Blank Slaters so don’t lie in my face!) is that no amount of education will remove the preprogrammed instincts of the human animal.
“They diverge in their basic understanding of what people are.”
Our Founding Fathers spoke to this; they said that individuals (not groups or classes), being made in the image of God, are thereby endowed with infinite value with corresponding God-given rights, and equality before law – not government-given rights to equal outcome. Individuals with infinite value have no earthly master; with reasonable minds and good hearts we may govern ourelves. To hell with those Philosopher Kings who would destroy our sacred rights; formulating plans to be our betters.
“The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite.” Thomas Jefferson
“All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God.” Thomas Jefferson
“I have no fear but that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master. Could the contrary of this be proved I should conclude either that there is no God, or that He is a malevolent Being.” Thomas Jefferson
“Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.” Thomas Jefferson
“Among the natural rights of the Colonists are these: First, a right to life; Secondly, to liberty; Thirdly, to property; together with the right to support and defend them in the best manner they can.” Samuel Adams
“If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.” Samuel Adams
“That from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” Abraham Lincoln
Robert, it goes beyond that. Education is not some sort of higher phenomena that someow “replaces” what is in the human. It is borne out of the human. The knowledge was created or gleaned by the human (or, for those of us who are not secular humanists, it is passed from god through to the human). Nor is it a “veneer”. Education is merely a refined and accelerated program of awakening and refining those aspects, and the passing along of the knowledge acquired through the ages. Or at least one hopes that it comprises these things. One can teach mathematics successfully because the human in front of one has all the innate capacity to understand, and this capacity is spiritual and psychological as well as intellectual. Linguists do not create language, they describe it.
It is not a case of Education somehow taming or replacing “bestial instincts” or redeeming what is low in the human. To hold otherwise is to hold education in a all most magical regard. Education can assist in the civilization of the human, but this does not happen by education alone. Indeed, one as to inculcated with a certain level of civilized behavior in order to be educable at all.
The Left would understand this if they had acquired an actual education along the way. Or civilization.
Marxism can be distilled down to a simple idea: “Custodial Society”
The Marxist custodians of course consider themselves better and more equal than the ordinary individual; only they have unalienable rights – derived from Darwinian natural selection. They are arbitrarily above the law, because they are the law.
Wobbly guy, but in terms of the argument that is a meaningless point. The “theory” was that we are the biggest driver of demand and that if we decreased our demand the process would fall. But this is not so. The world at large uses more energy than we do and has by far the greater demand in aggregate. Thus, irrespective of our demand, the prices would be little affected if in fact prices were driven mostly by demand. This was the point of my mentioning the EU. (This figure also applies to all energy usage, not petroleum in particualre, and is calculated over a large span of our history Much of that energy we consume, and have consumed over time, are or were our own resources.
It is wholly specieous to make this point in a historical context for, in contrast to much of the world, America arrived much earlier to modern industrial economies. As other econmoies catch up, they too will have similar demands.
And is it really true? Does Luxembourg or San Monaco consume less per capita than we do? If we were to divide China into two–a rural and an industrial nation–would that obtain? This is merely a specious rhetorical devise employed by the left to create hysteria and contempt. It is merely playing with categories, contexts and metrics. In any event, the fact that other economies and polities do not reach our levels are an indictment of them, not if us. Free men are entitled to all the energy they desire, provided that it is honestly and reasonably acquired.
It’s not so much that the left is unenculturated, it’s that the unenculturated are the left.
“American culture” being the free-enterprise, live & let live, don’t tread on me, state of mind.
Not the new england exclusionary wasp ideal used by the critics to stigmatize the former with all sorts of race-tinged allegations.
***
mongoose/109; there’s also the matter of production vs energy use. As hot as PRC is now, it’s a $2T economy vs our $14T.