Ferguson Cleans House
And then there are the professors, those holders of life tenure and supposed champions of free speech, who have demanded that Ferguson be fired from his job at Harvard. One non-entity from Berkeley (it would be Berkeley) wrote a column under the title: “Fire His Ass Now.” “Convene a committee at Harvard ,” this loathsome product of our “liberal” education suggested, “to examine whether he has the moral character to teach at a university.” Then there was the reliably obtuse James Fallows writing at The Atlantic, who wrote “As a Harvard Alum, I Apologize.”
To which Ferguson replied, “As an Oxford alum, I laugh.”
I laugh, too. What’s not funny, however, is the spectacle of intolerant rage and the quick desire to shut down the speech of someone with whom you disagree. There were no arguments here, just animus. This has become the Left’s preferred modus operandi, perhaps because they have become painfully aware that they have lost the argument and have concluded that only force and prohibition will salvage their illiberal liberal utopia.
It’s disgusting, but also educational. I hope people are paying attention.
“As a Harvard Alum, I Apologize.” To which Ferguson replied, “As an Oxford alum, I laugh.”
Perfection! A razor sharp takedown by the professor. Maybe a genuine grammar expert can weigh in, I’m certainly no English major, but i think he’s even correcting Fallows grammar down to the improper use of capitals, and the technically improper use of the articles “a” vs “an”!
When I read this I laughed so hard I had to pause for a while to savor and catch my breath. Again, not an English major, but I think Fallows should read: “As an Harvard alum, I apologize.”. Talk about leaving a mark! That’s even more humiliating IMO than the evisceration of Fallows breathless ranting. Again, perfection.
Isn’t “A historical document” better than “An historical document?”
“An Harvard alum”? I don’t think so!
The rule seems to be if the “h” is sounded then you use a, if not, as in herb, you use an. So a historical. But some will disagree.
“An historical,” not “a historical.” “An historical,” which uses a soft “h,” rolls off the tongue; “a historical” makes the “h” hard, and difficult to pronounce.
“A Harvard,” not “An Harvard.” The hard “h” in “Harvard” requires “a.”
Because so many people use the words incorrectly, it is now popularly permissible to say “a historical,” but it’s still ugly, and certainly as annoying as hearing people pronounce the “t” in “often.”
I suspect that the rules still apply that ‘a’ is to be used with consonants and ‘an’ is to be used with vowels.
It also risks sounding like “ahistorical”. Which, come to think of it, pretty much describes the Relativist Left’s entire worldview.
In my dialect, a silent h in historical sounds utterly ridiculous (and pompous, at that).
Maybe this will be helpful.
The choice of article is actually based upon the phonetic (sound) quality of the first letter in a word, not on the orthographic (written) representation of the letter. If the first letter makes a vowel-type sound, you use “an”; if the first letter would make a consonant-type sound, you use “a”.
Our sensible commenters have correctly determined that while “historical” takes “an”, “Harvard” takes an “a”. But since Mr Fallows is but one of many alumni of that once-illustrious school, I see no reason why “Alum” should be capitalized.
Thank you so much, KZ. Much better put than what I was about to contribute.
I use “an historical” in every day speech, but then I was raised in Rhodesia, so what do I know.
This seems to be a good discussion:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_articles#Distinction_between_a_and_an
Note that the H in Harvard is both pronounced (not silent) and in a stressed syllable, so that makes “an” definitely wrong.
“A Herb Johnson ate an herb.”
That sounds much better than, “An Herb Johnson ate a herb.”
… not to mention, it also tastes better.
It has to do with how the word is pronounced, as some old, bad habits, engrained in the language lo’ these centuries past, have remained. “Homage” never should have the “H” spoken, but, alas, it almost always is. Let us not even contemplate “gunwhale” and “Worchestershire”, for the love of God!
I believe the French is the root, and I never have heard an English haitch from a gallic mouth. I wonder why they even bother to print them? Probably sheer orneryness! The French embrace so many useless letters. Perhaps their printers get paid by the letter!
Never mind. If we keep mispronouncing it long enough, it will eventually become official, no matter how loudly we groan.
“Let us not even contemplate “gunwhale” and “Worchestershire”, for the love of God!”
Particularly when they’re spelled ‘gunwale’ and ‘Worcestershire.”
Actually, the “H” in Harvard is voiced, therefore “a” is used, not “an.” Here’s a handy guide: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/591/01/
Reminds me of the joke at MIT.
MIT student visiting the Harvard campus:
MIT student to Harvard student: “do you know where the library is at?”
Harvard student:”we don’t end a sentence with a preposition”
MIT student:”Oh sorry. Where’s the library at, a@$hole?”
“At Harvard, they teach us to wash our hands after urinating”
“At Dartmouth, they teach us not to piss on our hands”
what about the inbred blue bloods who name the institution: “Aahvahd”
It took $530 millions of today’s dollars to create the Golden Gate Bridge.
It took $535 millions of today’s dollars to pay off a billionaire bundler to close down Solyndra.
Churchill said “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”
In Obamaland “Never in America was so much confiscated from so many to give to so few.”
I don’t believe there’s any way the Golden Gate could be built today for $530 million. That figure was likely based on a straight inflation basis. Wage inflation has been much higher. Regulatory costs are much higher. Legal costs (to defend the project against challenge) would be enormously higher.
For comparison, the Wilson Bridge between Virginia and Maryland, just below the District, was recently replaced. A bridge of no distinction, it still cost a lot more than $530 million.
The replacement of the eastern span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge may provide a fair idea of the cost of building the Golden Gate Bridge today.
Construction began in 2002 and the anticipated completion date of 2007 has been pushed back to late 2013. Total cost is now estimated to be 6.3 billion dollars and after interest and financing charges the total price tag is expected to be over $12 billion.
And don’t forget the Oakland Bay Bridge of today is being built with steel from China, 100% of it…
Can’t even provide American jobs with a big project like that…
Thunder
Wage inflation has been much higher. Regulatory costs are much higher. Legal costs (to defend the project against challenge) would be enormously higher.
That’s the point. It is an indictment of our timid lawfare-happy “remade” society that an enormous bridge could be made more swiftly and more cheaply several generations ago, than a small one can be made today. And other than the wage inflation, the reasons for the increases are, at best, unmitigated and unproductive horseshit.
Know production, know prosperity. No production, no prosperity.
While Mr. Ferguson was at it he could have fact-checked Obama’s statement about the government building the Golden Gate Bridge. The bridge was financed by the Bank of America, which purchased the entire 30 million dollar voter-approved bond issue in 1932 during the depths of the Depression. It was constructed by a subsidiary of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation. The bridge was neither built nor financed by the government and was completed for 1.3 million dollars under budget.
Not only that but the War Department (the government) actively opposed construction of the bridge for years and almost killed the project before it began.
And don’t forget the crony capitalism of that day – the railroad and smaller ferry operators had to be bought off – depression era newspapers full of “threat to jobs” – even though the construction itself would bring a boom. Good thing the EPA didn’t exist – no way an environmental impact statement would have survived interminable court reviews.
All this overhead, these below the line costs, burdens on society because we’re unable to write laws that the simplest of us can understand and obey – and we think that “the government” is smarter than simply trusting a free individual and their enterprise to act in the best interest of their customers – especially in the presence of any competition – (and a culture that’s able to celebrate the failure that comes regularly even with great effort).
We’re at a sad place – where we have more intellect than the Soviets had at their largest – working against progress – in the interest of (perhaps) saving a few lives – though they never tally the lost opportunity cost in the ledger – lives that would have been saved, and saved earlier, if human passions were harnessed to progress – rather than “regulation.” Yes, faith in the market to best allocate resources is a faith – no different than the faith others have in regulators, representative government, even parents, priests and kings to allocate resources well. All have a domain where they (can) work well. But nothing at scale has ever been able to challenge price signals. Even when we have to swallow hard and accept that, yes, all the costs of externalities are in the price – because the market (the people voting with their wallet) are smarter than any subset of experts or interests.
And it’s even harder for most to admit that this vote (wallet and feet) is more important (and more fundamental to freedom) than any other.
At the height of the SoCal housing boom, the OCRegister did a study of the components of the costs of new homes in the OC, and found that fully one-third of the purchase price could be attributed to government regulation.
Although Mr. Ferguson didn’t provide a direct quote or reference, he was actually pointing out something that Obama had said about government having created the Golden Gate Bridge and that the middle class exists because of government. Hence why it was indented from the rest of the paragraph.
Here’s another one.
Two guys, one from Harvard, one from Yale, go to the men’s room and use the can. The Harvard guy washes his hands and notices that the Yale guy doesn’t.
Harvard: At Harvard, we wash our hands after urinating.
Yale: At Yale, we don’t piss on our hands.
Sir, your Golden Gate Bridge could not be built at any cost: contractors could never get past the bureaucratic red tape, environmental studies, protests, etc., that would occur. The money is a corner case issue.
America would not be the power it is today were the red tape limitations of today common 100 years ago.
There were no arguments here, just animus.
If there’s a tragedy in the century long slide to warped liberalism this is it. We cannot have a civil society when all we ever hear from the other side is that we’re stupid and hateful.
I suspect many do not want to live in a civil society. They want to live in a society which they design and set the rules for participation. Civility is not a necessity, only compliance.
If we want a Civil Society, we should abolish ALL gun laws (an armed society is a polite society, r.a. heinlein).
And re-legalize Dueling. Maybe a trial program on one of the islands in the Potomac. 2 years. Require a license. See what impact is felt on ‘Polite Society’ in the District and environs.
As the initial proponent I call dibs on Harry Reid.
Great comment! May I borrow that line?
Liberal professors gave up on truth decades ago: it’s all indoctrination now.
Ben Stein addresses another Obama failure, as well as his hypocrisy:
“Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured… but not everyone must prove they are a citizen.”
“Many of those who refuse, or are unable, to prove they are citizens will receive free insurance paid for by those who are forced to buy insurance because they are citizens.”
So… did the issue sell out completely? Bet it did. Bet it flew off the newsstands. Did they have to print more? Dunno. Doesn’t matter. One cover like that, one “controversy” like this, and suddenly, they are relevant again. No, they are not gonna fire him. They are smiling all the way to the bank.
I wonder if a successful (semi-)conservative series of articles will persuade the current proprietors of Newsweek to change their editorial leanings toward the right?
After all, if they are dying on the vine when they print Left-leaning material and taking in money hand over fist when they print Right-leaning material, they’ve got a pretty strong incentive to promote the Right-leaning material and demote the Left-leaning material….
Please note that I have no idea if Ferguson’s article (and the rebuttals) are actually increasing their circulation. I’m just saying that if Ferguson’s work increases circulation, the publishers will, I hope, see this as an incentive to have more of the same in future issues.
I think I’ll go out of my way to buy a Newsweek if I can find one tomorrow. I doubt there will be a two-hour line (it’s not like I’m buying a chicken sandwich, eh?)
Tell you the truth, I’ve been looking for it all week in the grocery store (which is full of horrible magazines on a par with Newsweek and Time, like People and National Review and other sleaze/scandal mags), and haven’t seen it.
I’m hoping it’s that I’m looking for it “too early” (i.e., it won’t hit the newsstands till next Monday or something), and not that there’s a giant conspiracy to hide it away…
I’d love to own it, or several–to cut out the cover and lovingly display it…
But, strange. Why would a flaming left wing rag, one that for years was not embarrassed with Eleanor Clift’s (is she still there?) name on the masthead, even print such an article? Ferguson may be objective but Newsweek certainly isn’t.
We still have the JournoList thing, whatever it is called to today. Why would they have allowed truth to be printed? Could it be that not even Newsweek editors read Newsweek?
There has to be a core reason why a dishonest publication printed an honest article. I simply can’t imagine what that reason might be.
Because Tina Brown, Newsweek’s editor-in-chief, is a Hillary supporter. 2016.
News weak was purchased a couple years ago for 3 dollars. It turns out to have been overvalued and is losing money hand over fist.
The new management is trying to turn a profit off their “investment”. They are dropping the dead tree side of the business and going binary. They still have to make changes. Binary( AKA digital) is the future.
The market still rules. You need viewers (hits). It’s is a BIG market. Anybody with a connection and a cheap computer can enter it.
Like PJM, they have to produce content to get hits. Get enough hits and the advertisers will track you down.
Huffy Po sold for 135 million dollars. That is a lot more then Newsweak is worth. Huffy Po got there by offering an open forum with interesting articles. Since they sold they have become another liberal echo chamber.
Huffy don’t care. She got her loot.
Newsweak wants to become the FOX of the internet. So do a lot of folks. Competition.
Haji can’t shoot.
“News weak was purchased a couple years ago for 3 dollars”
…by the reliably left-wing husband of Dem Jane Harmon, after Newsweek’s parent rejected a serious seven-figure bid from Newsmax, a right of center publication, thereby avoiding the threat of a major MSM brand name escaping leftist control.
Why did they publish such a piece? I dunno, maybe to try to recover some of its lost 1950s-60s era credibility, but the paranoid sounding pro-Hillary angle is intriguing.
Because they think this will garner them some attention and maybe they’ll gain credibility?
Maybe they actually think Obama is going to lose and they’re getting on the side of the winners?
This was a promotion. They don’t mean what they say on their cover. They will cheer to the heavens if the unthinkable happens and this man is actually reelected. They’re covering their bases, nothing more. I’m not even sure Niall Ferguson believes what he wrote. That’s how deep the cynicism runs.
Iowahawk called it a “deathbed conversion” after the Newsweek enterprise was sold for a dollar.
Maybe Ferguson has something on the magazine, the editor, et al. T’would be grand.
…because Tina Brown’s crack marketing team discovered a previously untapped demographic: half of the American people.
Ferguson punched the left squarely in the nose, and there’s bad blood all over the floor.
The left mop, pushing, drug taking, America haters had better clean it up before Michelle slips on it and breaks her hip. Incidentally, even with a possible hip replacement, Michelle is hopelessly as feckless as she is clueless. Not only does Michelle have no sense of humor, she has no sense, period, not to mention an insatiable appetite for baby killing, all trimesters being in play. Michelle. Poster Child.
A disbarred, nappy headed hoe only a mother could love.
When Obama leaves the presidency (by hook or crook) first order of business is to jettison Ms. Frownking and get hisself a trophy wife.
America, please on November 6, take the trash out of the White House. It’s really starting to stink.
Rachel, I am as repulsed by the pair that inhabit the White House as much as you. But never are either of them “feckless” or “clueless” or “senseless”. The dangerous fact is that they are bright but devious, clever but cunning, ambitious but ruthless, ideological but amoral, and gregarious but treacherous. In order to lift yourself from being an aimless pothead on the beach (him) and a former nobody but a highly skilled political schmoozer (her) into the office of the presidency of the most successful and powerful nation on the planet you can’t really be feckless, clueless and senseless. Those are terms that best describe those among us are willing hosts to these two parasites and vote them into the positions that they have achieved. They surely didn’t build their attainment themselves but they sure as hell knew how to get the less bright to do it for them. For that they deserve credit sans admiration. (Note: Don Imus used the other term you threw in. Not good.)
Hmmm. Maybe we could try to follow Ferguson’s example a little more closely here, rachel.
always: consider the source
Of course Ferguson is correct – a million/billion times over!
And, to add to the conversation, please read my blog commentary -’Americans Hope To Change The Occupant At The White House…An Anti-American POTUS Runs An UnAmerican Campaign’- http://www.adinakutnicki.com – 8/20/12 – and many others on a similar theme.
Why ever debate leftists? Their core message is “you shut up”. See how far a new, non-communist version of the Free Speech Movement would get on campus.
Right on the money.
http://youtu.be/lWHgUE9AD4s
Ferguson shows in unanswerable detail that his critics adopt a three-pronged strategy of evasiveness. First, they avoid his central arguments. Second, they claim to be challenging the facts he has marshaled, when all they really do is purvey opinions masquerading as facts. Third, they nitpick and name-call.
My experience on HuffPO and other sites, is that there is another step in the process. That is where you are redefined by the liberal resident troll as a member of the most extreme and dogmatic groups, that you may or may not have anything to do with.
Disagree with gay marriage, you ARE a Christian fundamental, right wing, Tea Partier. Then they’ll segue their attack on your Christian, Tea Party, Hannity listening ignorance. And since you are such, your argument is automatically invalidated. Even if you are none of the above.
So you either defend your group, or waste time declaring your non-membership. Either way the original argument is lost, as Ferguson says.
That one trend more than any other is what really disturbs me about the left. IMO, it’s gone beyond just delegitimizing your argument by relegating you to an extremist group. Now, they’re doing it to dehumanize, too, and when you have the opposition dehumanizing their opponents, all things become justifiable, including violence eventually. These are dangerous times, perhaps more so than many may realize.
“including violence eventually” Already there. Look at what happened at the Family Research Council and the related extreme silence.
So true. Ask a lib sometime to define a Republican who is NOT on the extreme right. Then ask them to define someone they consider on the extreme left. I guarantee it will be hilarious!
Love your comment. I always tell the high and mighty moderates that I meet, “Anyone to right of left is an right wing extremist to a liberal, and that includes you.” They don’t say to much after that.
Posting and trying to have a blog converstation on HUFF PO is next to useless, Tea Party people are universally called “baggers”, which is rather ironic, given there are likely more actual baggers among the Huff PO lefty faithful. Post anything on Huff PO in support of Conservatism, Republicans or even American patriotism and my e-mail fills up with replies from rapid leftys slinging every vile name in the book, and even in the face of overwhelming disapproval the moderators are likely to take down the post anyway.
Roger, thank you for the delightful read. This intermittent Conservative with the rapier wit will remain a Conservative, I hope; after reading the sanctimonious shallowness of his Liberal colleagues, I don’t think he will have an option.
I saw the article and thought it must be a poorly written gag, that was a mistake.
It is reassuring to know we still have literate people in the ivoried towers of lower learning. This line was classic humor: (Imagine! The state actually created the bourgeoisie! Who knew?)
This illustrates the problem with nepotism and rewarding ideologues who follow the party line; eventually, you have unimaginative dimwits in control of higher learning. (A situation not unlike our federal government) Ferguson has demonstrated how easy it is to defeat these intellectual phonies in the arena of ideas. He should be an inspiration to all of us.
You may have seen the PBS show about Niall Ferguson’s six “killer applications” (competition, science, democracy, medicine, consumerism and the Protestant work ethic) that led to the rise of the West. All of them have been under attack for the last 80+ years with the purposeful intent of concentrating power at the national level.
This country was founded on competition with independent Republics… those are now gone; this nation was founded on individual property rights (called democracy by Ferguson)… those are now gone by judicial or regulatory fiat; this nation was founded on a work ethic where you got to keep the fruit of your labors… now the “fairness mob” rules and only fools work; science… yeah, we’ve got your consensus; medicine… how ’bout that nationalized healthcare, no more medical innovations for you; consumerism… “Step away from the Big Gulp”.
When taken together the “six killer apps” unequivocally demonstrate that the Free Market works and Centralized Control doesn’t. The sin of the Free Market is that it shows how miserable Socialism is in comparison. The Republican Party is for “Those Who Wish to Be Rich”, the Democratic Party is for “Those Who Wish to be Poor”. Make your choice, and choose wisely.
and the greatest of these is competition.
To mangle me some Thomas Sowell, which would you rather have making every decision for everybody? A few thousand talentless people with high iq’s and egos to match, or 300 million people with low to high iq’s and talents all over the map doing their damdest to improve the lives of themselves and their families by discovering and making things that other people want to buy.
I went to The Dailey Beast to read Professor Ferguson’s rebuttal and was impressed. I found the liberal diarrhea even more informative. They proved every point the Professor made about the liberal blogosphere. These people really are blind in the religion of left wing hate.
As a Harvard alum, I rejoice with laughter!
It’s a useful reminder.
“This has become the Left’s preferred modus operandi, perhaps because they have become painfully aware that they have lost the argument and have concluded that only force and prohibition will salvage their illiberal liberal utopia.”
Funny, the trajectory of all ideologies which start with the premise that a small sect of humans (preferably the ones who are part of the sect) can determine what is best for the rest of humanity ultimately end up using force, prohibition and violence to demand obeisance to their utopian visions.
You have been warned.
“State lies are always followed by state violence.” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (paraphrased)
Expect the rabid response from the Left to take a more solid form: violent repression of dissent.
Let them try it. They will not like the result.
“As an Harvard alum, I apologize”
My last grammar class was over 60 years ago but that was an easy rule. “an” before vowels ( you remember those, the things Alex sells) “a” before consonants (the other 20 letters of the alphabet).
Things could have changed, although the purpose of vowels, consonants, nouns, verbs and dictionaries to to slow down language drift.
I’m southern. I brought a friend from school while I was home over Christmas. He was from Queens in New York.
I took him to a Bar-B-que joint that I knew would serve him ( this was ’60 or ’61. We still had segregation. My Uncle owned it and I was a large and violent youth, so I knew it would be OK). Anyway the girl behind the counter was maybe 16, black and a knockout. Uncle Buddy was progressive but not stupid. So she asked Charles if he wanted a tray. In the south that is pronounced ‘try’. Charlie had fallen in love(or maybe it’s cousin, lust) as soon as he set eyes on her. Charlie said; “You mean right here?”
One needs to be careful about language.
Celer, Silens, Mortalis.
The exception is the soft, or unaspirated “h”. So you have “an honest man” or ” an hour’s drive”. Havard has a hard “h”, so he is indeed “a Havard alum” Alumnus anyone?
Wrestling with apostrophes can be difficult, unless you learn their limitations and weaknesses.
“Convene a committee at Harvard ,” this loathsome product of our “liberal” education suggested, “to examine whether he has the moral character to teach at a university.” – The irony is PRICELESS!
Also LOL funny is the remainder of the riposte:
“My own counter-suggestion would be to convene a committee at Berkeley to examine whether or not Professor DeLong is spending too much of his time blogging when he really should be conducting serious research or teaching his students. For example, why hasn’t Professor DeLong published that economic history of the 20th century he’s been promising for the past six years? It can’t be writer’s block, that’s for sure.”
Why can’t our side use this type of eviscerating humor when responding to the left’s bile?
It is a lot easier to blog when puffing on a joint or having a beer, than it is to complete a book you have promised. I know nothing about this alleged Brad DeLong, just speculating.
Oh, we do. He’s called Mark Steyn.
Da! Called the Politburo and convene a trial with the usual witnesses. Hold that train to the lead mines of Siberia, we have yet another card-carrying dissident to ship.
Those academes who are all in a twist over Ferguson are publishing “hysterical” documents, not historical ones.
The only antidote to the liberal animus is mandatory enemas.
Priceless!
When you strike a nerve the response is often spectacular. That the editors of Newsweek decided to highlight Ferguson with a front page spread is nothing short of astonishing. Perhaps, eying their atrophying readership and revenue, the decision was stricty business. Who knows? Maybe this will evolve into a stake into the heart of the terminally intolerant Left. You know, we’ve had to tolerate many, many disgusting rants from the liberal left, particularly the entertainment industry celebs; Cher, Whoopie, Maher, and a host of other wannabe pseudo-intellects. Much of their stuff is obscene, degrading and anti-American. A collage of their drippings should be broadcast widely.
As the alum of a large mid-western public university, I say to Barack Obama: “Hit the road, Jack, and don’t ya come back no more, no more, no more.”
As an alum of a small parish parochial school, I’m trying to fit Mr. Kimball’s “data points” into the remainder of the song.
“We are fast becoming a two-tier nation, a small band of makers and an increasingly large band of takers.”
And this is what should scare everyone in this country. If the takers start to outnumber the makers, then you will eventually end up like Greece, with massive unemployment, no economic growth, enormous taxes, a military that’s a laughing stock, and civil unrest. I don’t understand why Americans just can’t see this coming. There is no such thing as “free” money or “free” benefits. The money has to come from somewhere, and that “somewhere” is YOU! Greece and the other failed European social welfare states just got there a lot faster than we did. THAT is why this election is so important. Because if Obama is re-elected (God forbid), we will become Greece by 2016, especially when the massive bills for Obamacare start piling up.
Did anyone else notice today that Obama is begging the Europeans to postpone a decision to kick out Greece from the Eurozone till _after_ the US election?
Even if he succeeds and they play along with him (I suppose on the principle that they know him, vs. having to get to know Romney, or something), can’t our guys Romney and Ryan–and anyone else who’s Republican and can grab a megaphone–talk about the example of Greece long and hard? There could be a reference to California (more in sorrow than anything else, of course, since that’s pretty close to home) as well.
It amazes me, that people don’t get that these are the stakes, this is how important it is. The gay marriages and ridiculous comments about rape are actually beside the point.
Dr Rustici’s video is long but he explains things in very understandable language.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQ4PGr0WBBc
The left seems to want alum in the drinking water of a certain Oxford Alumnus.
“For out of those mephitic swamps of ‘progressive’ animus has risen a great cloud of anguished repudiation. It’s a violent, unpleasant, and ultimately unconvincing display, but it is certainly full of angry pathos.”
One correction: What has been written in response to Ferguson is bathos, not pathos.
Morton – you’re picking a nit about the indefinite article that doesn’t necessarily hold up.
In most manuals of style for American English, “an” is used before an unspoken h, as in herb. If the h is sounded, those manuals tell you to use an “a.”
For example, “it’s an honor to wait an hour for a Harvard alum.” (And that was hard to write with a straight face.)
But, yeah, the capitalization of “alum” and “apologize” is unnecessary.
As the H in Harvard is aspirated, “a” Harvard alum is correct. If the H were not aspirated, “an” ‘Arvard alum would be correct.
I won’t be one bit surprised if Newsweek sells more copies of this issue than any issue they have published in a long time. It might actually reveal the path to profitable publishing.
Ferguson’s detractors on this issue are TWANLOC. That pretty much covers it without further discussion.
I was pleasantly surprised to see that headline about Obama and it is time for him to go by about three and half years or so. There is a tidal wave going on in this great nation that the liberal democrats and republican elites are going to see come November. I am from Texas and the elites tried to get Dewhurst elected over Cruz a tea party candidate. Dewhurst had more money and ran nasty campaign ads accusing Cruz of killing a boy. Cruz won by a substantial margin. The voters are not easily duped anymore. I don’t think Obamas Sandra Fluke, George Clooney, Michael Jordan are going to win over any voters with what they say. The electorate are smarter than in 2008 and are ready to vote this unmitigated disaster out of office.
I have to argue with Ferguson’s premise that it has been just Europe that has stunted the recovery.
If it were not for the fact that the Federal Reserve in conjunction with the US Treasury has been devaluing the dollar through it’s stealth printing of dollars via intermediaries who have been by T-bills from the Treasury and then selling them to the Fed, we’d all be in the same mess as Europe.
The mess we don’t see is that between 0% interest and the devaluing of the dollar, spending power of the US public is shrinking.
Oh man, what a takedown. If the left had any brains, they would quietly slink away, hoping that Ferguson forgets about them. His rebuttal is, well, unrebuttable.
Hell hath no fury like a leftist confronted by a former leftist. What they absolutely cannot stand is this article was in Newsweek, which they had thought was a house propaganda organ, as safe for them as MSNBC.
No more defensiveness- attack with quotes from this very accurate Newsweek piece, and attack on the abysmal foreign policy of enabling our enemies and deserting our allies.
“the left-wing commentariat tie itself in moralistic knots in its hapless attempt to answer facts with name-calling.”
Should be arguments or opinions; not facts.
I agree with you that the author is right and the left is just name calling… but the left got to the stupid name calling state over a period of years by confusing their arguments and opinions… with facts.
Might I mention a few that libs seem to overlook in their haste for easy living at our expense?
Fact one: no warlike tension between opposing enemies has EVER been solved by diplomats, much less “talking”. Diplomats are for friends to manipulate each other. Enemies need armies.
Fact two: When one makes the workers pay the leisure class to lie about (as today’s academics and community activists are wont to do), the workers eventually kill the leeches. (See The French Revolution, Antebellum American South, Russian Revolution, Maroons in Jamaica, etc.). Just because you don’t call it “slavery”, when one steals the wages of another’s labor to give to your buddies, it IS slavery, differing in only degree. A little bit of slavery, indeed! No liberal can define how much is appropriate. They don’t dare!
Fact three: pollution surrounds us. Whales pollute. Birds pollute. Even the monkeys in the trees pollute!
Species die off. Dinosaurs died. Dodos died. I really wouldn’t care to see a Tyrannosaur in my backyard. Stuff dies. Only the Amish and liberals think every single thing in the world had to stop changing at some arbitrary date, which only THEY know to be THE date.
The world has been colder and warmer. Only liberals would have us destroy ourselves to maintain some undefinable and un-measurable perfect temperature.
It is undeniable that libs HAVE NO real arguments, therefore they throw poop. That is what Roger is getting at.
Facts have no purchase upon the liberal mind. They don’t even acknowledge that facts exist, unless it’s THEIR facts, which must never, ever be questioned. We should know better.
If you don’t, you’re just stupid.
Or liberal.
“Facts have no purchase upon the liberal mind.”
Perfect
Newsweek finds out (too late) what Rush Limbaugh knew all along – those who absolutely hate everything you say will breathlessly await your next delicious abominable statement. It is like adversary porn for them. And THAT is why Rush (who underwhelms me) is so successful. Now if the progressives would just ignore Sarah Palin for a bit, she’d go away….. sigh. No chance of that. (the ignoring part…)
“As an Oxford alum, I laugh.” Hahahahahahahahaha. Ahhhh. To hoist someone upon their own 2000lb petard(aka: mine) and watch it detonate…..priceless.
Alas! Behold the inglory of the Left, shorn of all nuance, style, or wit!
Behold, the full bore nastiness of the scum who inhabit the LEFT!
(Roger, dear,
As an aside, I must admit that I started reading this because the title was, well, titillating, and didn’t particularly look to ascertain the author. By paragraph three, I was thinking, “Wow! Who is this Author? Who could be this wise and yet write so well?”
I shoulda known, shouldn’t I?)
Back to scummy liberals: Yes. Their discourse has not progressed one iota since, “Nanny, nanny. Poo-poo.” How enlightening! How insightful! How erudite!One can clearly see their innate superiority in every repition (which echo ad infinitum, unto the End of Time, itself! Do they ever have an original thought?).
Alas, when one’s hand is caught, not just stealing the cookies, but stealing the cookie jar itself and enslaving the maid who makes the cookies and not even letting her eat at all, so that your friends may grow fat upon her bones, the moment Daddy comes home might be problematic, in the extreme. They never have the slightest clue that the lady who makes the cookies deserves way more of them than do they.
I wonder if anyone will have the wit to describe what is about to happen as the “Great Comeuppance”? I’m sure you can even do better.
I think it’s hilarious that all of these “important professors” are sounding like drunken Philadelphia Eagles fans. Legacy College Education is the Best Buy of this second decade in the of the third millenium. They thought they’d be around forever, and then they got skunked by The Zon and The Phoenix. Soon, getting an accredited BA/BS will be low cost virtual reality, and parents will rejoice.
Legacy college, legacy media, heck, legacy government…this is the Hippies’ Last Stand. They’re not gonna go down without a fight. But honestly…we’ve got Paul Ryan and they’ve got……………………….?
The entire Obama administration is all style and no substance. The re-election campaign is about self-absorbed trivial tripe. This daily White House sit-com is nothing more than a political “Seinfeld” series about liberal losers, not that there is anything wrong with that.
Against individualism, the Obama conception is for the State; and it is for the individual only in so far as he coincides with the State. Obama conceives of the State as an absolute, in comparison with which all individuals or groups are relative, only to be conceived in their relation to the State. The Obama conception of the State is all-embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value.
All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.
It flows better in the original Italian.
Couldn’t have said it better myself…
Chin up ol’ boy.
That was kinda like this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_t44siFyb4
OK – I’ll bite: With apologies to Ray Charles….
(MItt): Hit the road, B’rak
And dontcha come back no moe no moe no moe no moe
Hit the road, B’rak
And dontcha come back no moe….
(BO): Mitty o mitty dontcha treat me so mean
You’re the meanest ol’ govner I ever seen
(MR): Don’t care whatcha think ‘cus its understood
Your plan don’t work and it never could…
(BO): Whatchyou saaay?!
Refrain….
(BO): All I’m askin is for the rich to dig a little deeper to scratch my itch
Pretty sure I know where to send that dough
Those unions and thugs aint cheap you know…..
Refrain…
Simply magnificent! Bravo!
O believes wealth is created by stealing it from Third World countries. This magnitude of ignorance will sink us all if he isn’t out early next year. Fortunately, it seems that a majority of likely voters now believes this will happen if he’s reelected. Only those with double digit IQs will vote for this misfire again.
Send O home to Kenya.
Nothing uglier than an entrenched ruling class being turned out
- or more satisfying to watch
I can’t complain…
obama has pretty much eliminated the lib talking points over the reagan deficits. dissapointed that ferguson did not try to compare contrast the two presidencies, especially with libs being such ‘experts’ on reagan.
they could ignore the fact that reagan got the following results from his tax cuts…
gdp, growth, chained 2005 dollars…
83, 4.5%.
84, 7.2%.
85, 4.1%.
86, 3.5%.
87, 3.2%.
but history will be it’s own judge. judging by obama supporters, obama’s history will be written with crayons.
….. judging by obama supporters, obama’s history will be written with crayons….
Absolutely priceless!! That made my day.
With what he has shown by his abysmal record since assuming power and his extremely suspect LIE strewn Document HIDDEN past only MORONS and RACISTS could possibly vote for the USURPER.
Unfortunately, we harbor a great many of both.
I am descended from a long line of Anglo-phobes. But Niall Ferguson is now officially my favorite Brit.
Newsweek? What is this thing of which you speak?
Far be it for me to gainsay the esteemed Professor Ferguson, but I would take issue with the phrase that [rage and the desire to suppress speech] “has become” [the Left's preferred modus operandi].
It’s been that way since Lenin.
Running a negative article on Obama sounds like Newsweek is setting aside its’s romance with Obama to boost sagging sales. Few people other than died in the wool liberals or people who are still buying the publication out of habit are reading Newsweek. Perhaps they think running a negative article on Obama might attract some conservative readers. I don’t know if it did attract some conservative readers to buy this issue, but even if it did, a one week spike in sales does not save a publication from oblivion.
His article is really part of a vast movement by Obama’s core shills. N.F. has some serious whack, and he knows the others with it, most of whom you have never heard. I noted in the article that points out the number and type of persons to whom his has spoken. Clearly he is writing for a very wide consensus.
Obama has gone too far, and his fellow-travelers know that if he wins again, the system will change more than they would like. Put another way, he will kill their part of the body politic.
Note that parts of MSM have been asking some tough questions of his housecarls. Best thing is that it will make his base very shrill marginalizing them completely: nobody like low rent, no body likes whiners.
I am embarrassed, but not sorry, to report that I joined the great chorus of Ferguson attackers, over 15,000 the last time I looked, in reaction to the Daily Beast’s reprint of his article. Ferguson after declaring in his first paragraph, Obama’s 2008 election to be a “cause of great rejoicing”, refers to the expected one’s “soaring oratory, an example of which is apparently shown in the the passage below:
In his inaugural address, Obama promised “not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth.” He promised to “build the roads and bridges, the electric grids, and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together.” He promised to “restore science to its rightful place and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost.” And he promised to “transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age.” Unfortunately the president’s scorecard on every single one of those bold pledges is pitiful.
I remarked that anyone who took these “promises” as anything other than the ravings of a fool, is an even greater fool, especially if he is a professor of history at Harvard, a fellow of Jesus College, and a senior fellow at the Hoover institution. He lacks the standing to complain about their lack of fulfillment.
It is plain that the publication of this article as a cover story in Newsweek is due entirely to the overweening desire of the Anglo-American journalistic flibbertigibbet, Tina Brown, to create “buzz”. She has certainly succeeded. We should also ask why the world’s greatest historian writes for this rag. I believe that he does so entirely due to his need of ready money.
I must also disagree with Roger Kimball as to the effectiveness of Ferguson’s rebuttal. I found it tedious and obvious.
Yes, Ferguson is just what what we need, another Brit telling us how bad we are. I am sick of foreigners bashing America. Perhaps Mr. Ferguson should pay a little more attention to his homeland and it’s death spiral. Oxford Grad indeed! Phew.
that’s right, you’ll vote for obummer if you want to – no matter what some limey says. that’l show him.
As a Stanford alum, I am wetting myself with laughter!!!
The reaction to Niall Ferguson’s article from the left illustrates why all the countries that stick to extreme socialist-style statism are poor and OPPRESSIVE, like N.Korea, Myanmar, Zimbabwe, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia and several broken states in Africa. They have achieved through force what Ferguson’s critics can only attempt verbally in a free society, to shut down honest debate based on facts and logic in their quest for power.
This is one of the most delusional things I’ve ever read. Firstly, Brad DeLong is not a “non-entity”. More importantly, Ferguson clearly and blatantly distorted a simple factual matter in a major publication. He’s an intellectual joke who is playing for team Republican. This isn’t some difference of opinion; it’s a simple matter of Ferguson deliberately trying to mislead readers into a belief that he knows is false.
It is fascinating to see the left behave this way. People with valid points to make, make them. They do not throw tantrums and call someone to be fired for expressing ideas they disagree with but cannot substantively refute.
I look forward to the day when they lose the positions of influence and prestige they currently hold, not because they are fired, but simply because the people who currently hold them in esteem cease to do so. Nothing is quite so damning to someone who claims to speak the truth as obvious proof of intellectual dishonesty.
Scrstch a liberal:find a Stalinist!