The Mechanical Mind
A neighbor I know can take apart almost anything and improve on it when he puts it back together — hydraulic pumps, generators, locks, anything. In today’s world “they” make and fix things. We simply buy them, expect them to work perfectly, and then toss them when they are outdated or not up to snuff. The result is a new helplessness and dependency, and more, not less, respect for the mechanical mind. A contractor I often hired can look at my sagging porch and sees instantly what a perfect one would be, and exactly what would be needed to create it and how long and at what cost. The more we are regimented consumers, the more we admire those who can figure out how things we use work. Fixers are the sorts of folks that save us. They invent oil fracking and things like CDs. I used to love to go into in a local machine shop and see an old welder custom fabricate a sprayer part, as if he were Michelangelo. All those machines they insert in our arteries and noses are ingeniously crafted.
All of us would have liked to have been more candid, to have had a sense of ironic perspective, to have greater power in our bodies, to have far better recall, and to see how things work and how to fix them or improve them, the traits the speeding modern world ignores. But these are the ancient virtues that we have nearly forgotten in our obsessions with GPA, SATs, PhDs, and brand names like Harvard, Stanford, or Yale. How absurd we have become, as if a monster of a man who can pick up an ax like a toothpick is not more impressive than the BA in anthropology, or a student who can identify Balboa, the Versailles Treaty, and Kursk is not more impressive than one who expounds on the construction of gender in post-industrial Michigan or ethnic stereotyping in television advertising.
Delighted to see you are resurrecting virtues. I’d be interested in seeing your evaluation of the system of virtues that D. M. McCloskey advocates for today in “The Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics in an Age of Commerce,” U of Chicago Press, 2006. She argues for love, faith, hope, courage, temperance, prudence and justice.
oh, thanks. I was looking for a list like that.
1 Cor. 13.
VDH,brilliant as ever, is afraid that “one never values strength enough until it is missed” and he is leary we will lose the values/strengths we had that made us a great nation in lieu of “ethnic stereotyping in TV advertising.”
He’s right to be afraid.
Starting about now we are all going to find out what a lack of candor means when that lack is the government’s. It means socialized medicine, Obamacare.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2011/12/02/the-bomb-buried-in-obamacare-explodes-today-halleluja/
Thank you for bringing the ancient virtues into contemporary terms. I rather think that those virtues still were common until the 1960′s rolled around. The baby was thrown out with the bath water as both babies and bathing fell into disrepute. The mindset was a general, “If one thing from the past was bad, throw it all out and start new.” Sigh.
I was looking forward to a listing of modern sins from your title. Were you intending for us to infer these from your commentary?
The opposite of candor is lying, and in our other-directed society, we are, as Herman Melville suggested, soaked in lies. For the “tactful” contrast with Hayek, see http://clarespark.com/2010/10/09/david-riesman-v-friedrich-hayek/.
The opposite of candor is not simply lying: at a cocktail party one doesn’t call out someone for being 300 pounds and one can say they look good out of a sense of keeping things civil.
If that same 300 pounder spends their own and others time and money striving to be a championship swimmer, it is probably time for candor and the “honesty over comfort.”
This is why political correctness and even Marxist Critical Pedagogy is in effect a form of monstrous politeness since they point fingers of blame in every direction but the object of failure. This politeness has turned into a monster, acquired political and racial contexts and spiraled into madness.
America, which needs hard, common sense solutions has in effect become a giant cocktail party and with the zeitgeist of an excuse factory. Traditionally more people know the truth than admit it but it has warped into people actually believing what they are afraid to admit publicly.
“The antidote to group-speak is candor, a virtue never more missed.” To think political correctness was prescribed as a virtue in my lifetime by those who distort work-ethic today. Newt is right, some of our youth (and elite) don’t know how to work.
I’ve worked over two decades in silicon valley. Originally from back east, I am candid by nature – not rude, abrupt, destructive or obnoxious, but straightforward, modest and honest. I’ve found in my career that those who respected my candor were of like mind, and were also the people who were best able to do things and do them well. On the other hand, the bureaucrats, know-nothings, charlatans, tricksters and most especially the power-hungry often declared themselves intense enemies, and their kind now utterly dominates the Valley, which is now clearly in terminal decline.
Published in 1899, here is part of the description of the protagonist in a novel: ” The alert, acute glance which went roving about the hall, measuring the audience to which he was to speak, had the look of sufficiency to the next need, whatever it might be, which, perhaps, more than anything else, commends men to other men beyond the Mississippi.”
Sufficient to the next need. Whatever it might be. Who would not want to be that man?
You’re right, Professor. Today we don’t even seem to think in those sorts of terms anymore. Great post.
There are some places where those virtues are still present, and valued. I live in a rural area, largely populated by God-fearing farmers, ranchers, and other producers. The virtues Professor Hanson speaks of are not only respected and valued here, but they are actively encouraged and taught to the young. I appreciate the good Professor highlighting the erosion of these virtues in our society, but take heart. They are still firmly rooted and need only be nurtured to grow and to spread.
Woodsman
That one of the many reasons why I married a country girl.
So perhaps the warning, here, is not to judge the depth of the pond purely by its surface.
Trouble is, Woodsman, rural America is becoming more and more empty; there are hundreds of counties in the US with a smaller population today than in 1900. I grew up in rural Georgia in the waning days of the Jim Crow South, b. 1949. That courthouse square that had five “dry goods” stores, three hardware store, three five and dimes, a couple of grocery stores, a couple of barber shops and two hotels is empty and deserted today. All the storefronts are either empty or have some government office in them if the owner has the right connections. Hell, the courthouse isn’t even on the courthouse square anymore.
I and my peers had the best education you could get in The South; the rigorous old-fashioned Southern “Academy” curriculum and federal money starting in the late ’50s when we started to get history books that didn’t say, “someday railroads will crisscross the Country.” In our peak earning years from the late- ’80s to the early- ’00s there were at most three or four members of my HS graduating class of 128 still living in the County, not just the town, the County. There are beginning to be a few more now because we’re beginning to retire, and in retirement going back to a piece of dirt that has been in the family since the 1700s and has never had a mortgage on it is attractive. I’ve started to think about it myself because of the dramatically lower cost of living, but I’ve been in Alaska so long that I fear I’m still a bit too Georgia for Alaska, at least in winter, but I know I’m too Alaska for rural Georgia. In any event, I would never have considered returning to rural Georgia as long as I needed to make a living. I think as soon as they started to pave those farm to market roads in the forties and fifties, the young people of the rural areas hit those roads and most of them never looked back.
Which rural community do you hail from (if you don’t mind my asking)? Just curious because I currently reside in Lowndes county (with plans to ultimately return to home state of FL).
Lowndes, that’s Valdosta, isn’t it? My grandmother could still recite the names of all 159 counties in Georgia when she was in her ’80s. I still find myself rattling off stuff about the hills of Habersham and valleys of Hall, the marshes of Glynn and all that Sidney Lanier stuff. Georgia has a rich intellectual history; too bad nobody in Georgia gets taught anything about it anymore. The Yankees have told us that Southern and intellectual history are an oxymoron for so long that even we Southerners believe it. Could Jeff Foxworthy say the crap he says about any other culture or ethnicity?
Anyway, born and raised in Emanuel County. Family came there in the headright claims in 1794 and the Creek Cession lottery in 1805, before it became Emanuel County in 1812. Still pay taxes on a little of the old family dirt and I’m the only male member of my lineal family who has ever made a mortgage payment on the house he lived in.
So it is the Yankees fault that southerners don’t know or care about their intellectual history? Isn’t the truth that while the South has always created intellectuals and artists, they have tended to remain a smaller sub-culture than in the Northeast. Why is that? Pressure from hunting, fishing, the military, and Nascar: the old virtues. ;-)
Half of what I think I know about the South I learned from Faulkner.
It is interesting that you tout the virtues of your schooling down there, because in general, when kids came up to our schools from the South, they were generally behind.
@Dwight – Yankees wrote the textbooks and the publishing houses are on 5th Avenue, not Peachtree Street. Even today, there’s an “approved” canon of literature about The South that is steeped in Frederick Law Olmstead’s assessment from the 1850s. If it doesn’t have rickets, incest, xenophobia, racism, and violence in it, and it helps to have lynching a Black man and raping a Black woman, it won’t be published, at least not by the big NY houses.
Until “integration” destroyed education, the Southern school system looked to produce professionals and leaders and everyone else fell out where they might based on their ability and ambition. The “college prep” curriculum was very demanding, the general and vocational much less so. They frankly didn’t care if someone dropped out; it just added to the cheap labor pool. Until education became Nationalized dumbed-down indoctrination in the ’70s, The South resisted “new” education trends and thus had a much narrower and traditional curriculum. I still had to have two years of Latin and a “foreign” language as well as Trig and Calculus to get a college prep diploma. What a Southerner knew, s/he knew very well but might well not know the latest and greatest “new” way of doing things and, thus, when s/he went North to places well ahead of The South in destroying education, s/he might well be “behind” from a Yankee perspective. I saw that as late as the early ’80s when my daughter spent the 7th and 8th grades in Georgia having done K-6 in Anchorage and then returning to Alaska for HS in groovy Juneau. She was a far better reader, writer and speaker than her peers and had a better mastery of math facts and manipulation but was “behind” her peers in the groovy “conceptual” math where they began working in all sorts of algebra, geometry, and even higher math concepts in middle school and even before. She was also much less “adept” at being a “team member” in which the brighter and more hardworking students were expected to carry the load for the stupid and lazy and the whole team got the same grade.
The liberal promise in the 50s and early ’60s was that doing away with the Jim Crow schools would quickly bring Blacks to the same educational achievement level as Whites, and the disparities were solely a matter of access to educational resources. While much of the deterioration in public education since the early ’60s is attributable to communist control of the universities and their malevolent influence on pedagogy, much is attributable to the perverse effects of discrimination litigation. It quickly became apparent that the vast majority of Blacks were performing far below grade level and it would take tremendous resources to bring them to grade level. The response to lawsuits and political correctness has been to bring the grade level down and dramatically inflate grading. My sister just retired as a public school teacher in rural Georgia and I really don’t know how she stood the last several years. The Whites have abandoned the public schools in droves and academic and disciplinary standards have evaporated. The liberal goal has been achieved though in a perverse way; Blacks and Whites in the public schools now achieve at the same level, albeit a very low level.
Hi, Art. Good to see you still sharing your perspective on the web.
Good to see a familiar name from Red State! I drop by there now and again and hardly see a name I recognize other than Erick’s pets. It used to take at least 20 or so reccos to get to the recommended list and many more to the top; now it takes five or ten. I had a bazillion diaries there with forty or fifty reccos and a couple of hundred comments, and that doesn’t include more “flamboyant” ones that got hundreds before they were shut down. I can at least have the satisfaction of knowing that I was right and Erick and his puppy Leon went beyond wrong to outright stupid.
Again, good to see you and thanks for the kind words.
thank you for your essay.
Professor? You wrote, “Do you remember December 2008 when the Left openly worried that something might happen that would prevent our deliverance from the messianic president-elect?”
I was praying for something to deliver me from Obama, certainly, in the form of a sudden rush of sense to the man’s head (along the lines of, “Hey, I have no idea what I’m doing! I’ll resign pre-emptively!”; the left, though, was worried that something would prevent our deliverance *by* the messianic president-elect.
Again, I simply cannot help it – I proofread.
Hey! What happened to my close parenthesis? Shame on me!
You didn’t proofread. Happens to most of us.
Oh the irony.
Yep. Nice and chewy!
I remember those on the left (the execrable David Letterman, in particular) saying, in December, 2008, that Obama shouldn’t have to wait until January 20, 2009, but should be sworn in as soon as possible (“By all means, let’s get this revolution started – let the pillaging commence forthwith!”)
Political Correctness is the opposite of candor but that disain for candor only goes in certain directions and those directions in turn are based on PC’s twin cousin, Paulo Freire’s Marxist Critical Pedagogy, wherein the disenfranchised by race and gender are a protected group, protected from candor, blame and any notions of failure; they are not capable of failure or racism because they are the eternal pawn.
Thus you have Mr. Hanson’s quote: “Read a Reuters or AP story about a flash mob, copper wire theft, rape or murder and one infers Martians did it;”
And so, in a 180 degree turn from that, you have the Tea Party portrayed as racists and white racists and male bigots also presumably responsible for gender inequality, gay bashing and Islamophobia not to mention any failures of black education by a generation enamoured of anti-education, anti-work rap videos. In the PC world, those who don’t do a thing but occupy the wrong philosophical space are eternally guilty even with no evidence and those who occupy the correct philosophical space are eternally innocent, even when the evidence of racism, crime and lack of competence are enough for a “case closed” in a sane or rational world.
Mr. Hanson strikes right to the heart of it in this quote: “The willingness to place honesty over comfort, or a sense of allegiance to truth of the ages rather than the lies of the present.” We started down this road with the no grade report cards and deluded old ladies who scalded themselves with coffee and had learned they are never at fault.
“Honesty over comfort” – Well done Mr. Hanson.
You are correct to point to the pernicious Freire as a source of much of this nonsense. I read his Pedagogy of the Oppressed some 35 years ago and was appalled – not only that it was nonsense, but that it was remarkably bad misunderstanding of Hegel and Marx as well. Vile fellow, vile stuff.
The obvious problem I forgot to mention is the extent to which Critical Pedagogy has infiltrated our schools from grade school up and you can see it reflected on programs like “The View” or OWS statements every single day. It is pernicious and so pervasive that in a sense it doesn’t matter who’s President, GOP or Dem. How this happened I honestly don’t know but it’s obviously and conspicuously there and all across America.
The poor “profiled” and eternally innocent illegal aliens are just one perfect example. The non-racist Congressional Black Caucus is a race-based group no white people would be allowed to form in the exact same manner. In effect, the Tea Party, not organized around race, occupies the same intellectual racist space as the CBC should but does not, which IS organized around race: it’s really a form of madness not to say blindness and utter stupidity.
“In effect, the Tea Party, not organized around race, occupies the same intellectual racist space as the CBC should but does not, which IS organized around race: it’s really a form of madness not to say blindness and utter stupidity.”
Brilliant statement. Spot on.
To paraphrase Shakespeare paraphrasing Cassius: “First, we kill all the teachers . . .”
And then YOU will have all the kids on your hands. Good luck with that.
Well done yourself, Mary Gerund.
Thanks for the reference Mary. Besides the good doctor’s list one could add honor, duty, patriotism, sacrifice… the high virtues that keep a civilization, not just alive, but growing and refining; confident and proud. I guess you are right when you point out that “political correctness” is the chief weapon that is used to attack and destroy these public virtues. The arguments as to why patriotism is really just fascism in disguise, or that duty is just a form of manipulation… are provided by the Marxist ideologues. But the method of enforcement is political correctness. If everyone who is not a white male gets a free pass, the implication is that everything a white male represents (as if loyalty or honor are exclusively white male attributes!!) is suspect. Thus the center cannot hold, the ties that unite us dissolve and we enter into a pure post-modern era of shifting shapes and shadows. Chaos ensues, followed by the rise of the kleptocrats, bureaucrats and autocrats. The results: a new age of crypto-totalitarian power presiding over a profound hollowing of the human spirit. A truly Orwellian future. And I truly believe that this is the demented vision that animates many among Obama’s twisted coterie.
But in conflict one often finds that one’s weaknesses are the flip-side of one’s strengths. Over adherence to “comfort above honesty” marks the ideologue. And he or she is vulnerable to reason. Not so much because ideologues are persuadable (they are not because their entire identity is an elaborate and meticulously constructed self-deception; reveal the lie and you destroy the identity, leaving only the flailing hind-brain). But rather because they are easy to expose. They have no fixed reference points themselves and so you can tie them up in knots rather easily. They then shift to invective and ad hominem and are thus revealed. Looked at from a certain point of view, human progress has always been a battle between those who pursue truth, and those who weave lies. The good news is that in the long term truth is always stronger. That does not mean it is always victorious though. It just means that it is a very powerful weapon if wielded correctly. Most balanced humans respond to truth because they instinctively understand that it is better to confront the future with eyes open, rather than with blinders on. Chaos and conflict are not humanity’s real enemies, but rather lies and deception.
Unlike the ideologues, the power-hungry understand this. They will lie more selectively (and thus, are more dangerous). They will use certain truths to conceal others, and move their agenda forward. And so they are opposed using more traditional methods. This also becomes easier when they are stripped of their ideological deceptions and foot soldiers. Either way we have our work cut out for us. Keep your resolve, and keep organizing and preparing for Nov. 2012 and beyond.
Brilliantly said. I wish more of us understood the “and beyond” part.
Well said.
I would agree with Woodsman – by and large, I have found rural Americans to be some of the most decent, honest, hardworking folks on earth.
I would add to your praise of physical strength as a virtue that of emotional and intellectual strength. Emotional weakness seems to be what is admired these days, what with all the victim literature out there, not to mention newspaper articles, movies and TV shows that are supposed to elicit tears and sympathy for whatever beleaguered person is being profiled.
And intellectual strength – the ability to ask questions and deal with the truth of whatever you learn.
I have long thought that strength (in any form) is a much neglected virtue. Thanks for letting me know I wasn’t alone in that thought.
Great point! I would call it having a backbone. :) Since there is a photo of John Wayne, I enjoyed a scene in a movie in which he befriends a widow with a son who is living on a farm. When he found out the boy couldn’t swim, he was appalled. Obviously the boy needed a male role model. What did John Wayne do? Did he coddle, cajole and try to convince the boy to try to swim? Of course not. He picked up the boy and threw him into the water! Great scene, but sadly, today the boy would be put on medication for his fears. Another great movie is with Bette Davis, “Dark Victory.” Awesome tale of strength in the face of dire medical diagnosis. Today, it’s all about telling everyone everything, whether it be in person, online, or on TV.
What a flippant post. Gee typical white person, maybe because in real life, people drown? Oh? have you never heard of drowning before? It can happen if you don’t know how to swim.
What a flippant post. Gee typical white person, maybe because in real life, people drown? Oh? You have never heard of drowning before? It happens sometimes when you can’t swim.
What if that kid had an unreasoning phobia of clowns or puppies? Would you just reason “you shouldn’t” and throw them into a room full of clowns or puppies?
Actually I probably would throw them into a room full of clowns. “Sink or swim kid, therrrrrrrrrrrrrrre ya go.”
Whoa Mary! You have completely lost me here. What are you even saying? I wouldn’t be throwing kids anywhere period… Lol.
Lol sorry Mary. I thought you were replying to me.
To Duh, Mary Gerund and Its Me Again: you missed the point that I was trying to make, and that Typical White Person agreed with: the culture that we live in glorifies victims, to the point that everyone wants to be a victim of something to get, I don’t know, attention, sympathy, praise or whatever. There’s even a genre of literature known as “VicLit” – victim literature. I think Jodi Picoult is best known for it, but I have managed to avoid reading anything of hers. I am certainly fine with having compassion for people in difficulties, but we have gone so far that way that it seems like no one wants to be strong, just weak so they can get attention, money, on tv, whatever.
Mr. Snowy, you pick up a kid who doesn’t want to an doesn’t know how to swim and throw him in the drink and he IS a victim. My step father did this exact thing to me in regards to a river when I was 6 and I hated him for it. I couldn’t swim. I am not a dog with natural instincts to paddle. Okay, maybe I was a little bit of a coward, this is human nature and I didn’t sign up for the Navy Seals or some hazing frat by virtue of being born and finding myself in close proximity to a river.
I agree. I am a firm believer in helping kids overcome their fears, or avoid the fears in the first place, but just throwing a kid in the water would only work for a kid who essentially knows how to swim, but just can’t bring himself to do it. Based on my experience with my sons, if you teach kids the right way and they are not askeered FROM THE BEGINNING about most of the things that they have to do, then things work out. You do it WITH them; face them with achievable challenges, and they will take up other ones on their own. Of course, youthful courage and over-confidence can also get them into jams and injuries; we have a missing half of a little finger with one and a skull fracture with the other…but we heal, if we survive.
Dr. Hanson,
You seem to disappoint me when it comes to the things that most matter. At least to me.
Like, for instance, (does this get a smile or a frown from you) rejecting mine and other beggings that you run for President. Over the last three years, that was in my top ten of over all disappointments. Even ahead of breaking my 46 inch Adams driver in a fit of silly anger over a flubbed shot.
As highly as I think of you, though, I’d so love to hear you write about your thoughts as to President Obama. Specifically, whether you think he was lying on January 20th, 2009 when he took the oath of office.
With candor, I’d love to hear your thoughts as to whether you think Obama is consciously out to destroy capitalism, our ability to defend ourselves, our monetary system and in the end, our country.
Is Obama like a football coach who’s calling plays so the other team wins? Is he trying to undermine the foundations on which this country was built?
Net, is Obama intentionally trying to loot our treasury, weaken us economically, militarily and in every other way? Do you believe in your heart that Obama is a Marxist/Communist? Willing to lying, cheat and steal to get his way?
Do you think, Dr. Hanson, that Obama is the most corrupt President in the history of our country? Do you believe he amounts to nothing more than a mole in the White House?
I’m sure you get my drift. In all candor, do you O’Dumbo is out to destroy us?
Such a response might mean something if the questioner or questioned actually considered the specific way in which past Presidents have responded to economic crises. Imagine if Obama, like Nixon, announced tomorrow that we were going to devalue the dollar by 20%. Be sure to list all the other Presidents who have devalued the dollar, instituted tariffs, passed Alien and Sedition laws, suspended Habeus Corpus etc. etc. Your “trick” is to find five or ten “bad” things Obama has done and declare those to be the worst in the history of the Republic.
Indeed, it might be time to elect a Republican to put some clamp on expanded spending, but this stuff about Obama as a plotter against the Republic, which gets said here so often, pretty much disqualifies the speaker as any kind of realistic analyst. Bombthrower? Quite possibly.
Some lefty told me yesterday that she had hoped GWB would die in office, so that his policies would stop. Many of you are just about at a same level of emotion with Obama, which I immediately pointed out to her. Both groups are idiots with no sense of perspective or decency.
And both groups would use “honesty” as a defense, but honesty is not an antidote to idiocy.
Would it be fair to say the POTUS is plotting the course of his greatness?
ie: The Nobel Pissing Prize for , well… for just being. Honesty or idiocy?
Your probably right, the idea of a world leader plotting is just ridiculous.
On this single factor I tend to agree with Dwight [sigh]. Teh Won is probably not “planning” most of the evil things many net commenters attribute to his fertile brain. His staff and advisers make plans, yes, but lately his reactions to events and perceived insults have lead me to believe he has no “grand plan”. At this stage of his term he simply reacts to stimuli. He trusts his glibness, and his reputation for smartness, to get him out of problems. The ironic fact that most of his actions have fallen flat and thus reflect poorly on the over-rated “glib” and “smart” will never make it past an editors desk until maybe 2015.
So what do you think Obama’s plan is?
He has increased the national debt by 1/3. Increased federal spending by 40%. Added a massive new unfunded entitlement program that will cost trillions. Spent 890 billion on a stimulus and later laughed that there aren’t any shovel-ready jobs. There are 5 million fewer jobs in the country than when he came into office. He invented the comical “saved or created” jobs statistic. Spent billions on green energy programs his own bureaucrats were warning were boondoggles. He bows to the Saudi goat herder but thumbs his nose at England and insults Israel. He praises the violent OWS movement and ridicules the Tea Party. He ignores whatever laws he doesn’t like. He added a dozen czars that Congress cannot oversee or even interview. He appointed an administrator for the largest and most sensitive government program as a recess appointment to sidestep congressional approval.
What exactly do you think his plan is?
Has even one thing that he has done helped the country? Is anyone besides his favored constituencies of Unions, crony capitalists and welfare recipients better off today than they were when he was inaugurated? What jobs has he “saved” besides union jobs? Is the dollar stronger? Are we stronger militarily? Are our allies more loyal? Are we safer? Has he prevented our enemies from getting stronger? Has he brought the country together?
What is his plan?
Because it looks to a lot of us that making America weaker IS his plan. If it isn’t, then he is the biggest failure in history, because that is exactly what has happened.
I don’t plan to spend a lot of time defending Obama. Obamacare is his baby, that’s for sure, but a Republican President would have probably also done most of the stimulus stuff. Who cares if Obama bowed to some Prince? It was a throwaway ceremonial moment, about as important as Bush I puking in Japan. Obama has been a disappointment to his followers because he is more of a Guantanamo centrist than they thought, kills a lot of bad guys with drones and certainly has NOT come close to fulfilling his campaign promises nor has he turned the economy around nearly fast enough. Those may all be reasons he will be defeated, but the hyperbole you folks use gives me a rash. Sorry.
What hyperbole?
Other than not double checking the unemployed number, everything else is accurate. If unemployment hasn’t really increased 5 million, it certainly has if new workers who can’t find jobs are counted. I could have added dozens more failures. Others on PJM have done so with verifiable data.
If we are so hyperbolic, why don’t you disprove it by reminding us of the many good things Obama has done as president. Seriously, if we can list dozens and dozens of failures and we are being hyperbolic, it must be possible to list a least a few accomplishments.
I’ll start: he gave the order to assasinate Osama Bin Laden.
Can you name three other good things that aren’t other assasinations or a continuation of a pre-existing existing policy? Buying the girls a puppy and expanding the federal bureaucracy don’t count. Don’t claim his temporary small tax rebates either, because they didn’t help the economy and contibuted to America’s first downgrade. And don’t claim that he prevented things from being worse either, even though that’s what he does claim. In 2012 he will probably claim to have prevented a new Black Plague or an asteroid from hitting the planet as well.
You got the rash from your girlfriend; I think I got it too.
“And don’t claim that he prevented things from being worse either, even though that’s what he does claim.”
Because you know for a fact that things could NOT have gotten much worse, that the Paulson warnings were just smoke and mirrors? We will never know. We have some who claim that because just one big firm, Lehman Bros., was permitted to fail that the whole crisis occurred. Others claim that all the players should have been permitted to fail. In terms of expertise, the question is far beyond my pay grade. In terms of politics, one just takes one’s predictable position, as you have done. To do another stimulus was going to increase the deficit; no question. To reduce the deficit one should cut spending and raise taxes. Neither side will agree to do BOTH. I would like a President who could convince us/congress to do both. To the extent that Obama can’t, then he is a failure. I’m prepared to give Romney a shot because he can build from the middle, probably better than Gingrich or Obama. Gingrich actually is flexible enough, but is he stable enough? If he can maintain discipline during the campaign, he may be showing that he has matured. It was his own party, that essentially kicked him out. I could live with any of the three, but Gingrich is the riskiest. But desperate times… ;-)
So the bottom line is we need clear-headed analysis of what the three would do and what we have are partisan glasses which reveal only the colors of the portrait from one side or the other. I try to have glasses with one lens of each, which can make one disoriented, but you can also see things which others can’t.
OK, I’m going to go hunting, because my head is spinning a little.
Help Us Understand: What makes you think that it was Obama who gave the order to take out OBL, rather than Panetta? Did you see the picture of the dazed guy in the golf jacket in the situation room?
No sir. The President of the United States bowing to anybody, for any reason is not acceptable. Congress should of had him up on charges of violating his oath of office for that.
Sorry Help us: “I’ll start: he[Obama] gave the order to assasinate Osama Bin Laden.”
Bush gave the order to take OBL dead or alive. Obama simply did not rescind that order, he allowed that order to be carried out.
Dwight: “OK, I’m going to go hunting, because my head is spinning a little.”
Careful, Dwight, unless your are using “hunting” loosely, as in ‘hunting for a new jacket’ it is not smart to hunt when your head is spinning, and all of us idiots know how smart you are.
Barack Obama believes himself a good man. Yet, with no depth or breadth, he is victim to the ideology he has been steeped in his entire life, a captive of his conviction that he is on the side of what is right and just. The benevolent hand of Barack Obama has wrought more havoc, upon the freedom of our nation, than any enemy ever could, for while evil can wreak untold damage, it takes the truly righteous to destroy a nation.
Edmund Burke said “all that is necessary for evil to triumph, is that good men to do nothing.” Yet it is also true, the greatest evil has, just as often as not, been perpetrated by good men seeking to do something.
Thank you for this post! Finally someone with deceny!
Rachel; (and VDH maybe too)
Check out this post by Gerard on 11/20/11
http://americandigest.org/mt-archives/enemies_foreign_domestic/presence_of_malice.php
I forgot to mention: my new favourite t-shirt is “Honesty Over Comfort.” Wear that to an OWS protest and let ‘em chew on it. They wouldn’t have a clue and might say without a trace of irony “Right on.” Idiots.
We used to call it “tough love”: people don’t like that now. Lord knows a solution might actually come about without regard to the damage to a fragile ego of the wrong political color and gender.
I had 10 bumper stickers made with the peace sign and the phrase “Utopia is going to suck”. My next one will have the phrase “Don’t confuse nihilism with insight”.
I always enjoy your well thought and expressed opinion. However,these are not virtues. The characteristics you list come from the 7 virtues. The 7 virtues are Faith, Hope, Charity, Prudence, Justice,Fortitude and Temperance.
The Theological virtues : because they relate immediately to God. Faith : Trust in God and God’s plan for salvation for us, God tells us to believe in Him. Hope : God tells us to hope in Him. Charity : The gift of giving yourself. God tells us to love God and neighbor.
Cardinal Virtues : They are called Cardinal virtues because they are as it were, the hinges on which all other moral virtues turn
Prudence : Remain obedient to the precepts and counsels of God, whose purpose is to direct every action by man to its proper end. Justice : Obey the Law of Supernatural Morality, teaches not to do to others what you would not do to yourself. Fortitude : Heroically obeying God with His promise in your hearts “I will be with you in times of trial”. To act and not fear. God is with those who obey. Temperance : Obedience to the holy prohibitions of God and the limits set for your salvation in order to use temporal things without danger. Obedience is the hidden virtue.
Virtues are what you must possess for a good moral life. Your morals are your compass, good morals direct you to your spirit, bad morals direct you to your beast.
Ah ha, that makes me recall my all-time favorite movie line, from “Lawrence of Arabia:” The character portrayed by Anthony Quinn said, about Lawrence, “He is not perfect!”
Yes, the professor is not perfect, yet he’s on target with his essay today, IMHO.
Your points are well taken too.
Professor Hanson,
I beg to differ.
“All of us would have liked to have been more candid . . .”
My candidness has been an ongoing source of trouble in my adult life and was especially problematic as a college student. I have advised by son that caginess is usually a more effective strategy (e.g. Barack Obama).
“. . . to have had a sense of ironic perspective . . .”
My ironic perspective is lost on almost everyone I know. My sister simply finds it infuriating.
“. . . to have greater power in our bodies . . .”
I can still hear my Mother tell me I was wasting my life working in a blue collar field that developed my already considerable physique into a mass of muscle.
“. . . to have far better recall . . .”
On two separate occasions, the clarity of my recall got me fired by bosses who preferred their own revisionist recollections. Many of life’s little details really are best forgotten.
“. . . and to see how things work and how to fix them or improve them . . .”
My wife long ago gave up driving the old cars I love to maintain because her coworkers teased her about driving the oldest car in the company lot.
Yours truly,
ThOR
So –
Have you stopped being candid? Nope.
Have you lost your sense of irony? Uh huh.
Have you let your physique waste away so that you are now a weakling? I bet you haven’t.
Have you destroyed your brain so that you have no memory? Clearly not.
If your virtues are such handicaps, why are you keeping them?
;-)
Well, yes. I, too, have suffered retribution for my candor. Part of that is my own fault. I tend to be combative. I will rise to the occasion. However, even when not doing so, I have suffered.
The Bible speaks of a time when evil will be seen as good and good as evil. VDH is speaking of a time when that was not true. He is also speaking of a people who once valued virtue, and many of us still do. The Moral Majority is not the majority anymore.
So now, we of virtue, must be careful of our virtues. We must engage tentatively, feel out the other person, give the secret handshake, so that me might know one another, before we can speak with candor. Time was when the evil folks had to do that. Now they do not. Now they are the majority. They speak evil things blithely. They are shocked, outraged, that someone might hold values antithetical to their own and would openly state such.
You find homosexuality disgusting?!? Homophobe! You think Islam is dangerous? Islamophobe! You oppose abortion?!? Heretic! Blasphemy! You are INTOLERANT! You must not be INTOLERANT!
The irony of this is lost on them.
And what is your take on witches? Times were better back when the virtuous could actually hang the evil ones, eh? http://www.massmoments.org/moment.cfm?mid=347
Yes, the word intolerance does come to mind for your righteous indignation.
Strawman much? Deflect, distract. I mean, you have to know that the burning of witches violates God’s Commandment, “Thou shalt not Murder.” You have to know that the Devil can also quote Scripture. You have to know that evil people will penetrate good institutions. Just look at our government, this wonderful Republic corrupted by evil people.
Dwight, you are just being contrary. Such a post is just an effort to distract from the subject of virtues and values. The odd thing is, I do not believe you do not share some of those values, yet you just cannot help yourself, here. You just have to come in and try to disrupt the conversation. You add nothing of value when you do so. You are just being rude, all the while thinking you are being clever. It is adolescent. Please stop it.
If you have something positive to add, if you have some insight to share in the discussion, then by all means, share, but do not just come here just to be a stinker. That kind of person is someone who delights in telling himself how stupid these others are and how much smarter he himself is. He does it to stroke his own ego. He delights in his wicked behavior and cackles to himself.
We are lauding certain virtues, and decrying other values. It is a worthy discussion. If you disagree, if you think some of these other values have virtue, then argue for them. Join the discussion. Do not disrupt it. If you cannot do this, then please do not come here.
Understand, Marc, Dwight is a lefty and the one thing lefties simply cannot tolerate is traditional American virtue. That’s why they’ve spent the last fifty years trying to denigrate and where possible destroy any sense of virtue in our culture. So long as virtue survives, leftist nihilism cannot rule, therefore it must be destroyed.
Traditional virtues, eh? Well here are a couple from a book of letters our historical society just published:
August 26, 1835 “I get along very well in my lonely state. I have got almost through. There is but short space of time between me and the eternal world and why should I look back like Lot’s wife. It is two years the 10 day of this month since my wife left me and told me that I must be up and doing for she must leave me. O how little I expected then to be here now writing a letter to you, but so it is.” “…I most close this bad wrote letter.”
April 23, 1836 “I am 75 and an half almost. I have almost done with this world I shall soon get through — Yet I keep at work and I enjoy myself much the better for it. What a blessing it is to mankind that they are obliged to work for a living. I never thought much on that subject till within a few years.”
(Both letters from Nathan Drake to his son in Ohio.)
Marc, I am so with your post until I read: “You find homosexuality disgusting? Homophobe!”
As someone who has known a number of homosexuals and have one as a relative, I have learned to separate the concept of being gay from the individual. Do you think gays should live with the stigma that “homosexuality is disgusting”? I don’t. As much as I appreciate the true virtues (and yes, I do know what they are) there comes a point that the philosophy of “live & let live” has value. The gay community is chock-full of people who give very much to society, as the saying more or less goes. I look forward to the day that people can expunge prejudicial approaches towards those in the gay community & look at these individuals objectively. JMO.
“Do you think gays should live with the stigma that “homosexuality is disgusting”?”
Ever hear the militant gays go on about “breeders”?
No, Rob. I have not. Enlighten me please.
Okay, hasty searching & what I see is a strawman argument. Rotten apples spoil any basket. Nonetheless I stand by my assertion that objectivity should supercede gratuitous acts of focusing on clown-infested side shows. Plenty of idiots out there among all of us, including…..*gasp*…heterosexuals. These are all points for another discussion…….
Oh yeah?! Well your just a hypo-facist-commielovin-lefty! So there! Should I vomit more feces out of my mouth so I can join their club?
I don’t think gay folks should see themselves as disgusting, but I also don’t think it’s right that gay folks should insist I view their life style, chosen or not, as occupying the same space as cute puppies and flowers in a field.
If gays can’t help being gay, then I myself cannot find attraction in an excessively hairy back nor will I.
You are not differing: as I see it, the point of the remarks on candor were in how it is used in public not private arenas to perceive social ills and act on solutions. We are attributing what I believe are the wrongs causes and therefore offering the wrong solutions in America and those “causes” are anything but nuanced as they mostly consist of believing that the old guard, white European males, are endemic racists, bigots, Islamo and homophobes, women haters and on and on.
Lack of success is therefore laid at the feet of people who in fact have nothing to do with someone else’s lack of success. Lack of candor in order to spare the feelings of Muslims, black folks, people in the Third World or women is the real culprit not white, male racism. We are in effect splinting the good leg and leaving the real one broken and then trying to walk on it and grimacing a smile that all is well.
All is not well and we are throwing solutions around based on the cheap psychology that individual success is generations in coming and overcoming and ignoring the plain facts in history of “carpe diem.” Don’t bother to ask “The View” to name one famous female architect in the last 60 years as you will be tarred, feathered and then lynched. It is not the answer that is the insult but the question itself and therein lies the elements of fascism and madness.
When you can’t even ask the question much less propose the similarly hated solution, you are a long ways from well. Continued failure is the result and the phrase “you can’t keep a good man down” or “pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps” are hated within the liberal Left, the excuse factory of all excuse factories that ever existed.
This is the sentence which caused me to say….Yes!…
….”Without memory we are nothing. That is what scares me about the present electronic age: everything is the next nanosecond; the last one had become absolutely nothing.”
Tweeting, etc….all ephemeral B.S……yet is so addictive. How empty.
P.S. Latin verbs were bad enough for me….I can’t imagine dealing with 300 Greek verb forms in that strange looking script.
With the internet, I write thousands more words per week than I used to and soon forget most of them, because it is usually on to the next thing. Sometimes I will come back to something I wrote a few years or a few months ago and am amazed I ever wrote that. But I suppose we have been doing the same thing in our conversations for most of our lives. The written word is becoming much more like the spoken word.
I blame Obama. ;-)
Dwight!…….
RE: your “I blame Obama. ;-)…”
Oh!, Oh, that horror!…..that horror!
“Out..out dammned spot”
Delete “Obama”……exorcise “Obama”.
There is an interesting thought. I do not revisit my conversations, nor revisit my writings and find myself ever wondering why I said or wrote such a thing. my view may have changed a little bit, become more refined, but I am never confused as to why I might have said or written such a thing. But then, I am careful in the things I say or write, and I also know myself. I know my views, and I am consistent in them.
I also do not carelessly write/say things because some whim takes me. Some strange emotion does not overtake me unawares and cause me to do things that puzzle me later. I make it a point to be aware of every emotion I am feeling all the time, so that I do not act in spurious fashion. Well, sometimes I do, but at least I know later why I did, what drove me to do something.
Either I control my emotions, or they control me. I do not always win the fight, but if I do not fight the fight, I will always be controlled by my emotions. Being in that fight constantly makes me aware of myself, my needs, my motivations. It also gives me some good insight as to the motivations of others. Most people do not do this, and thus, they are subject to seemingly random behavior, behavior which puzzles them later.
Of course, all of this comes with maturity, a result of age and reflection. I suppose that the reason there are so many liberals today, is that there is so little time for reflection in our high-speed world. Too few take the time to get to know themselves and make their thoughts, values, and words integral. Thus come the inconsistencies and illogic… and the puzzlement… which they shrug off as a natural thing, giving it no more thought.
My motorcycle mechanic has a machine shop in his garage. I watched him turn out an oil-line valve out of a small piece of brass while we shot the breeze. He offered to let me come by and use his equipment whenever I want to work on my bike, and I’m so glad I still know a bit about how each tool works that I visit him more often.
Great column, Dr. Hanson.
My father could build or fix just about anything. I was practically raised out in the shop watching, helping, learning. And he always had a John Wayne movie on in the background. I learned a lot from both of them. One reason my wife says that she married me was because I “can do things” by which she meant I can build or fix just about anything. Just like my dad.
When I’m not fixing or building, I’m a Director for a Fortune 1 (guess who) company. One of the managers I mentor is an older, 50ish, black woman and one reason she likes me as a mentor is my candor, or as she says I “tell it like it is”. I can’t stand PC BS and have found that most people welcome refreshing honesty.
I have two daughters, 12 and 6, and am very demanding of them and don’t blow smoke up their butts. If they haven’t done a task well I tell them so. I don’t tolerate excuses for poor performance when I know they could have done better. I tell my 12 yr old that a B or C are only acceptable if she tried her hardest to get an A, otherwise it’s inexcusable. Don’t accept mediocrity. Leave that to the OWS.
As I tell my 12 yr old all the time, life itself is a competition and if she wants to win (scholarships, the great job, etc) she needs to work hard for it every day. Life isn’t easy and it isn’t fair.
You’ll be very lucky not to spend some time with the nice lesbian social workers from the child welfare agency for imposing such harsh demands and expectations on those poor children.
Yes, and imagine the stigma his daughters will experience (probably already have experienced) when they outshine their classmates because their father taught them that hard work earns commensurate rewards. How dare they be exceptional!
I told my sons not to take a test over for a better grade unless the teacher said they had to. (Obey your teachers.) I told my sons they had not earned the ‘A’ on their assignment or test unless they had a 96. If they had an 86 they had actually done ‘C’ work. And there is nothing wrong with an 86 if they had done their best, but it was not an ‘A’ result. I told them anything less than a 76 they had failed. I wanted to prepare them for the real world where there are few do-overs and where getting 8 out of 10 right does not make one successful.
It should be that the average students do ‘C’ work and exceptional students do ‘A’ work. Not the other way around.
The current political class, taken as a whole, is far more mundane & far less capable of self-deprecating humor and irony than its predecessors.
A thin-skinned, tedious & defensive bunch, lacking both breadth and depth.
Which is why the rare incisive wit of a Charles Krauthammer, a perfectly timed remark delivered neatly and cleanly, can feel like a drink of cool water in the desert.
Dr. Hansen,
Your nostalgic musings of your father and grandfather take me back to a time when I, too, spent time with my father and grandpa. To a child they were larger than life; to a man they are what I strive to be. Before feminization of men in our culture we had many giants. Today, they are ridiculed by superbowl commercials, sitcoms, college professors, ex wives etc. The giant has been slayed. Children are feral and thier future will be hard.
We were much better in those days.
Please forgive my misspelling your name.
I’ve been surrounded for so long by moral and physical cowards, congenital liars, and people with with no sense of irony, I think if I were to ever move to a place where that wasn’t the case I might die of cultural whiplash.
I had the distinct privilege of moving to just such a place a year ago. I have since had to move away.
It was refreshing and “cultural whiplash” doesn’t fit my experience. After only a year away it was ‘cultural whiplash’ to move back and watch the dissimulation in so many conversations.
I was in Africa a few years ago. The openness and range of the conversations amazed me so much that I remarked how it is usually said that politics and religion should not be discussed. I was told that two years prior to my visit they would not have had these conversations, particularly not in public, because they could not know who was listening “on the other side of the wall.”
My amazement grew. In two years of freedom they were more open to opinions than I have experienced in many years here. That seems to be the norm. What we are experiencing in America is not normal – it is forced and coerced. Again, it was ‘cultural whiplash’ to return to America and see what we have lost.
Dweeb or is it Dwight?
It’s hard for me to tell you apart. That’s because your insipid, politically correct, and vapid observations are a tip off that you can’t thoughtfully or honestly consider a point of view that’s different from your own. You sound like you live in a world where you’re afraid of anything but middle of the road thoughts.
Would it be inaccurate to say that Saturday Night Live consciously tries to elect Democrats? Would you be surprised to know that Chevy Chase publicly admitted that to be the show’s intent? Probably not. Your myopic little man’s mind can’t cope with observations deeper than a pin prick.
Dr. Hanson seriously wrote about candor. And I was honestly asking him if he believed that Obama possessed the scienter with respect to intending to loot our treasury, run up an obscene national debt, pay off cronies and weaken this nation’s defense. Basically, I want to know if Dr. Hanson truly believes that O’Dumbo is a corrupt liar bent on destroying the fabric of this nation.
For some reason, though, you don’t want that question answered.
Your hypothetical arguments are at best superficial ones. At worst, pompous little attempts at ridicule. There apparently is no place in your brain for honest debate. Or difference of opinion.
In all candor, if Obama truly is a mole in the White House, you, my friend, are the ass in the out house.
You are spot on that he “doesn’t want your questions answered”. That said, they are fairly “leading” questions and might have been a trifle more evenhandedly scripted if this had been a fair world. It isn’t, of course, and I’m curious, too, as to how the professor would answer. Doubt that he directly will.
Rachel, As I recall, you went crying and peeping off to your mommy, saying that you weren’t going to post here any more, because someone had been mean to you, boo hoo, but you’re baaaaaaack!
Your idea of a deep and serious question is melodrama, whether you are accusing Obama of collusion against the country, or pouting and leaving. You seem to believe that if it is an emotion that you FEEL, then it must be true. I try to point out that historical context should temper your melodramatic maunderings; your large and serious questions. Better ask Mark, he will agree with you…. once you give him the secret handshake.
Dwight and Peep: If you two want to have it out, take it someplace else.
Let me rephrase the question.
Do you think that Obama believes that the United States will and should continue to be the world’s leader? Or does he believe that America has entered a long-term period of decline–and his job is to just manage that decline gracefully?
Because nothing he’s done and nothing he’s said suggests that he wants to put America back on top. Even if you believe that Keynesian stimulus is the way to do it, his “jobs plan” which is 40% smaller than the previous stimulus isn’t anywhere near the size necessary to do that.
Pick It Fence But, why the massive posting on Dr. Hanson’s turf? Weren’t you roundly dissing him awhile ago? You know, he’s saying the same thing over and over, nothing new, and so “now you’re here and there, with every girl in town”…. He’s not worth my time. And the use of the routine descriptive Red Pencil Necked D-White cry of “…deep and serious…” Hmmm… Wasn’t there a movie about that in the ‘70s?
“I try to point out that historical context should temper…” “…deep and serious…” Really now.
38. Dwight
“I am fascinated by Alaska, but not quite so much by her any more. It’s like she works at sounding like a hick. I like to hunt, explore, and do most the outdoorsy stuff, but she just gets more grating by the month, and her voice gets more shrill….”
“I try to point out that historical context should temper…”
“I try”, “I try,” “I try”. That might enough and what is done in a High School prison, building the all so important faux self esteem and all. But outside the cocoon?
Failure. Need more D-White? Your past is bulging with what you pretend to correct.
Hunting with a spinning head? You and that other 70’s Linda have something in common? Or is that some mysterious Tweed Faculty Lounger move. Have you gone Manson? I’ll spin my head, and magically, “I’m inside your head”.
It does seem that if you Ping Pong Tongue enough you might come up with something. You know quantum probability and all. Like, “once you give him the secret handshake.” So Freudian. Again. Something. Or could it be –
You like Mitt, and his underwear too? Therefore, let’s see, what tune about Mr. President did the Mormon Tab Choir make famous…???
Please allow me to introduce myself
I’m a man of wealth and taste
“…deep and serious…”
In all candor i leave all the broken items to the government,and my spelling to the spell checker.I don*t know how my coffee maker works,but it had better!I go to see my lady friend ,come to find out her live in guy friend hit her daughter and pushed her down.Nobody presses charges but its in the system and hes going to court.I naturally get up super early and could get things done,could use some extra cash but would rather look around the internet all morning than go downstairs and fix up an apartment.
We have to be careful in using phrases like the feminization of men. Perhaps a more accurate term would be the feministization of men–and women. I would never be able to match the John Wayne style of physical strength, but I like to think I picked up a bit of #9 Snowy Leopard’s emotional and intellectual strength from my aunts, great aunts, and my mother, all country women. Not a one needed Gloria Steinem to empower her. They were capable of working with men and even protecting them when necessary, although not in a breast-beating way that made the men feel weak. I think what I most resent about today’s feminist clichees is that women were victims. That may be true today, but it wasn’t at one time. Two years ago, I went to a family reunion, a tradition that goes back at least 60 years. Although we are somewhat spread out now, I remember some of my cousins sharing memories of the teacher they had in their one-room school house. Everyone knew about her. She was a force, not a victim. Although there were more or less tradtional roles in those days, no one held you back if you chose to step out of them. Maybe that’s why the Christmas gift I requested from my dad when I got my first apartment was a tool kit.
The ideal “man” for an Oprah nation of women is basically a woman with male sex organs. Political Correctness itself is feminine. Resolve, confidence, cockiness, surety, etc. are dead Latin to the politically correct, feminists and Oprah-Nation.
It is not Dr. Hanson’s job to tell you whether Obama is corrupt, incompetent, or whatever. Dr. Hanson is a Professor. His job is to teach you how to think, not do your thinking for you. Unfortunately, there are few Professors left like that today, which has a lot to do with the mess we are in.
“Balboa, the Versailles Treaty, and Kursk”
Heh. Not only do I “recall” them, but I can expound upon them in detail.
Yet that did not help me one whit when I was desperately jobhunting. When I finally did get a job (which I am doing really great at), it was through a personal contact, which always bothers me.
Indeed; Why learn to think for yourself, when the MSM
is eager to do the job for you ?
Furtherandmore, on the related topic of what happens next,
the scariest meme I have seen in a while, in re both the US
and Europe, is a plan to retreat to the heartlands, and
let the coasts, the ‘peripherals’ self-destruct.
Oooooh! That’s my favorite meme. I think a lot on how it might be accomplished. The evil that is wasting away this culture is a cancer. It is so far advanced that only radical surgery, amputation, could possibly save the life of the patient. Or like advanced gangrene. The limb must be taken off. What’s left of the patient has at least a chance of going on to rebuild a better life.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Don’t really know what the difference is between candor and honesty is, but you can be sure that if a candidate has it today, he or she will be crushed. No, no, the LAST THING the political insiders in Washington, the party leaders, the union leaders, and the big party doners who get sweet kickbacks from elected officials want to hear is candor or honesty. I think Sarah Palin had it, and we can all see what the media and the party elites did to her. I felt sorry for her because she seems like a decent, honest, person who genuinely cares about the people she represents. And she had to be crushed because of it.
I don’t know, folks. I sincerely doubt a Lincoln or even a Reagan, for that matter, could even get elected today given what they’re up against. Will we find another such leader? We must, and soon. Our survival as a nation depends on it.
Honesty is returning an iPhone you found in a cab: candor is admitting you were stupid to leave it in the cab.
To Evan Jones, do not let it bother you, at all, that you found a job through a personal contact. In a world of seven billion people “who you know” is a completely legitimate component of the “knowledge economy”.
Dr. Hanson,
You wrote: “One never values strength enough until it is missed….” I was immediately reminded of Code Pink protesting the Marine recruitment center in Berkeley(?) who ran to those very Marines for protection when accosted by a passing motorist. Irony, indeed!
I enjoyed your piece. Liberal pop-media culture is about the present. It does not learn from the past. It cannot plan for the future. I think many Americans share your desire for the ethics and moral code of the past to be a greater part of our society.
Doug Santo
Pasadena, CA
This reader thanks you for writing something so delightfully readable.
~ M
Fearing the electronic age because you fear for the loss of memory is the definition of ironic. Anyone with more than an hour’s time on the web knows one dread and awful fact: once put up on the internet, it’s there FOREVER. It has proven the damnation and downfall of countless arrogant souls, from petulant retail workers to heads of state.
RH Jr: It seems likely that the coming generation will lose the ability to remember anything because there will be no need to do so, since technology will do it for them. Why remember when you can look it up? If some future government, even more dedicated to complete control than this one, takes over the Internet, it is not unthinkable that it would “cleanse” our digital collective memory of all thoughts which it disliked. That’s not science fiction anymore.
Yep, I think RH missed the important point – human memory is critical, because it imposes itself on the thought process. When someone mentions an idea, the human brain searches it’s memory for similiar ideas from the past and tries to extrapolate the consequences from how those previous ideas panned out. You can’t do that if you have to do a google search first. You probably don’t even know to do a google search in the first place.
If someone proposes a new rent control ordinance, and you don’t know anything about the previous disasterous failures of rent control, how would you even know to look up what happened in San Francisco or New York? Instead, you might just think it sounded like a great idea, making housing affordable for poor people. But if your own memory contained the knowledge of what it has done in the past, you would know it would instead destroy affordable housing.
We only google what we think of to google, and we only think of googling what our memories suggest to us might be important.
All you have to do is think about your telephone. I used to carry around dozens of phone numbers in my head and almost had “muscle memory” of the really important ones like home, work, and wife’s work. These days, struggle to remember even the home number because I’m so accustomed to just saying “Home” or clicking on “Home” that I don’t have to know it.
And I was one of those people raised in the bad old days of having to stand in front of Sunday School classes and recite Bible verses and stand in front of school classes and recite all sorts of long poems and speeches and such, you know the stuff they consider child abuse now, so I have superb memory and memorization skills. In my days as an advocate, perhaps my greatest asset was my ability to credibly if not always totally accurately rattle off the rule or the contract term or the transcript line from memory while my advesary was shuffling papers trying to find it. That kind of memorization training hardly exists anymore and even if you have it, just clicking Google is a great destroyer of memory.
I also performed in Sunday School, probably on demonstration day in front of the full congregation, the 23rd Psalm for sure and probably 1 Corinthians 14, both from the KJV, of course. “Invictus” for school. Could also rattle off all of “Casey at the Bat,” but would stumble through both in my advanced years. I think that I could relearn them all quickly. I would have students memorize Shakespeare; 15 lines made up for one bad quiz grade and with my quizzes, they had plenty of ones they want to make up.
Of course, some kids can memorize a lot easier than other, so to have too much high stakes memorization with no alternatives wouldn’t/shouldn’t fly. Some kids could read the lines carefully three times and have it half memorized; some would still be lurching and groping after five times. Kids who were good memorizers loved it and would like to have had half their grade consist of it. Many current teachers may not be imaginative enough to include memorization and public speaking as part of the curriculum, but both, especially the latter are of tremendous value, even id it makes many grovel.
But Googling has changed so much of what our knowledge is. We actually can find out exponentially more, than we used to and necessarily remeber a much smaller percentage. It is a brave new (yet again) world unfolding as we chat here so amiably.
Er, I Corinthians 13.
“Many current teachers may not be imaginative enough to include memorization and public speaking as part of the curriculum, but both, especially the latter are of tremendous value, even id it makes many grovel.”
It isn’t a matter of imagination, it’s a matter of dogma. Not only are kids NEVER asked to memorize anything, they’re NEVER asked to answer a question aloud or speak or read aloud because the fact that some might be better at it than others might damage the self-esteem of those who do it less well. The net result is that the bulk of young people are wholly inarticulate in standard formal or business English. Take away their profanity laced adolescent patois and all they can do is grunt and point. Formal spoken English is a dying language.
When I returned to the Executive Branch in late ’99, I was for the first time working with the majority of my coworkers not being middle to upper-middle class ‘Boomers with either college degrees or strong HS and a lot of vocational/professional training. The Democrats had run off most of the experienced “old hands,” as they so typically do anytime they take over a government, and replaced them with inexperienced kids and hacks. My collection of 20 and 30-somethings couldn’t speak or write and none of them could think on their feet; in fact they were being told not to think on their feet and forced to script witness examination and cross examinations and even write out closing arguments in advance. If I ever acquire the magical ability to accurately predict how my adversary will conduct a case, how each witness will answer every question on direct and cross, and how to rebut my adversary’s argument and evidence before I even hear it, I will absolutely rule the World! Grievance synopses that should have been terse, legalistic summaries of the issue, the authorities, an evaluation, and a recommendation looked and read like friendly letters between Sixth Grade girls. I sent most of them back with so much red ink on them that they looked like I’d slit my wrists over them. I got to do the carpet dance with my boss because one of the young women was offended when I sent back her grievance analysis with “English is our first language here” written across it. In any event, none of the children lasted a year under my tyrannical and unfair rule and I changed the minimum qualification for my journey level position to allow law school grads with no experience to qualify; at least they could read, research, and write English sentences. Some of them could even write English paragraphs and speak aloud. In the seven years that I was the hiring manager the staff became predominantly female law school grads, some admitted to the bar and some not. I knew I was mostly just giving them a launching pad by getting advocacy experience and their name on appearance line long before they would get that working for a law firm or even the AG’s Office, though I did lose several to the AG’s office or private practice. The women were often devious and catty, but they would work. Young men would walk in, look around, tell you how much better they were than you or anybody else there and demand a corner office, a pretty clerk, reserved parking, and want to know when you were planning to retire; lots of self-esteem and damned little reason to have it.
Hey, I’m responsible only for the ones I taught, or more indirectly from my school, a damned good public high school in the Northeast. A former student, an Indian woman, who now lives in Anchorage and is a lawyer, would (and for all I know, did) give you a run for your money I’m sure, when it comes to written English.
I had to fight against many of the tendencies in modern education, which you describe, but experience and imagination is still important. Preparing your kids to compete just makes sense, but some have more sense than others. One can ramble on about the younger generation(s) for ever, and I believe every generation has done so. A cagey, and battle-scarred old veteran of the government, education, and/or business wars can teach them a lot, until he has taken a few too many punches, and even then he can still teach them, but may have less and less energy and desire to do so.
Some wood cut, split, hauled, and stacked; a few internet messages fired off; almost time to head out into the woods. Tomorrow I may be in a classroom with some middle school students, working with Town maps.
I have a few quotes I collected from a late 19th century book promoting the inclusion of manual arts training is education.
First, in regards to strength and the mechanical mind, the strength must be able to be applied to useful work. Nothing is sadder than the body builder who cannot do much more than lift the weight. So these are related in the form of useful power, the body as a tool.
In regards to candor, irony and memory, these too come from manual interaction with the world. The hands reveal their truth quite bluntly. The Mr. Memory is amusing but only if those facts can be put to good use do we give respect.
In the past, the mind was anchored by morality, even religion. But the modern mind is at sea without the temper of expression in the physical, without link to the past through societal morality or memory and able to deceive itself as technology frees it more and more from day to day struggle.
Excellent contribution to the discussion.
VDH, symptomatic of the condition is our election of the Fabian Fabulist, the Cunctator of small c communism, creeping ever closer to the welfare state.
Who Wants To Be A Swampdog Doctrinaire is the new game in town. We have doctrinaire socialists, welfare state Marxists and anarchists, pretending to be populists and centrists.
On the Republican side of the fence, two battling contestants remain, rolling the next boulder up the Sisyphean Hill they call the Republican primary.
Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. Playing in the finals of our reality game show, the former relying on expediency and the latter on velocity and distance.
Mitt is giving us “today’s truth”, based upon whatever will get him elected.
Newt is firing off ideas in rapid fire succession, hoping that at that velocity he can distance himself from some of his past ideas, scattergunning down friends, foes, and innocent bystanders in the process.
The joker in the deck is the crazy granduncle of libertarian isolationism, SpongeRon Cranky Pants. Who wants to abolish the Fed and Israel, but doesn’t want to give us that truth too plainly. At least the latter. If he runs as a third party, he will ensure that the Fabian Fabulists get the next four years to give America the full Sandusky…lead from behind and finish the job.
Truth is a trifling thing these days, my dear cyberfriend. The propaganda machine, the indoctrinators,…it’s all about staying “on message”…in the seized mediums.
Washington is a fever swamp. And Who Wants To Be A Swampdog Doctrinaire is our game. The Fabian Fabulists vs. the Marxist Manipulators and the Sisyphean Stutterers …not a Paul Ryan, Mitch Daniels in sight.
Egypt, Italy, Greece are falling. Will someone visit our ruins one day?
cfb, I’d like to see you speculate on why the really sharp knives (Daniels, Ryan, Rubio) don’t want to run this time around. Surely they see the situation being as desperate as you, I & some others do. Are we simply overreacting? Do they think they have no chance against Obama? Or are they simply waiting for “their turn”?
Being the sharpest knife in the drawer is often, usually, a liability in gaining elected office. People, especially white men, who speak in complete sentences and especially in organized paragraphs just scare Hell out of a lot of people, especially women, who believe you might discipline or criticize their children. It is a whole lot better to look and act like a TV weatherman, or the typical dumbass male in commercials.
In addition to the liability of being a smart white guy running against the cool Black dude, you have the problems of setting up an organization, which takes time, national connections, and lots of money. I don’t much credit the “wait your turn” theory, but you do have to wait until you’ve had enough time in the public eye to set up a functional organization.
I can relate to the points you lay out in that second paragraph. AFA the first though, where you say “People, especially white men, who speak in complete sentences and especially in organized paragraphs just scare Hell out of a lot of people, especially women, who believe you might discipline or criticize their children”, nothing could be further from the truth in my case. Sharp, articulate people do nothing but impress me. We’d be soooo much better off as a country if there was nothing but such types sitting in the seats of gov’t.
Look at the biggest Democrat contituency: divorced and never married women. You have to be a castrati or metrosexual on their side of the ditch to get that vote. Or maybe being one of those idiot men on all the TV commercials would work.
bobbcat, I think there are different reasons why for each. I’m not sure that it is one reason that blankets them all.
John Avlon at The Beast (via HotAir) tried his hand at it…I don’t think he got it right either.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/12/02/gop-would-have-had-better-shot-in-2012-with-center-right-pols-like-christie.html
He included Christie, where your question to me included Rubio. I included neither of them at the top of the ticket. I love the fact that Christie is pugnacious, he will stand toe to toe and take the fools to the woodshed. But, that’s a spice, not an entree. A little of it goes a long way, especially in a national election. And…in a global economic meltdown, I would prefer a guy who is a bit of a numbers wonk. Which is why I put Ryan and Daniels at the top of my ticket.
Trust me, this is NOT a bash on Christie…or ANY solid non-leftist.
Avlon touts Jeb Bush and Giuliani as well. He hits the nail on the head with the former’s last name brand damage…and Rudy…well, not a chance.
My wish for a Ryan/Rubio ticket is not based on them being center-right. It is based on my assessment that they would blow away Obama/Biden. They would win the debates…Rubio crushing Biden.
They can articulate the message. They are strong on free market principles. They are solid on immigration, they are worldly, wise beyond their years, …and even have the “look”…superficial as that may be…ugly doesn’t win over photogenic all other things being equal.
Charles Krauthammer said the following:
My own view is that Republicans would have been better served by the candidacies of Mitch Daniels, Paul Ryan, or Chris Christie.
YOUR question to me is…why did these guys (or folks like them) turn away from the opportunity.
Daniels didn’t want his wife to suffer the gauntlet. I think he would have run otherwise. Christie, I believe, was rightly worried that hie style would wear thin over time…and he is JUST as pugnacious against those to the right of him…which would have come out eventually…after the honeymoon swoon.
Ryan…has staying power. He would get stronger over time. Matched with Rubio as a number two…they would have garnered every conceivable “swing” vote available. In fact, I would predict a landslide.
Ryan didn’t bite. He didn’t feel HE was ready for the job. The problem is…the job is ready for him. The country…our allies…the world…needs either Ryan or Daniels to take the helm…for the free market to survive, in my opinion. Or we risk losing to those who mean to destroy it.
And yes…I believe the situation is that dire. This is not hyperbole.
Why do the best and the brightest not gravitate toward politics? Because, I believe, bobbcat…politics is not involved in the creation of something, it is involved with the interference of everything. Good government is like good referees in a football or basketball game…or umpires in a baseball game. When they are at their best, you don’t notice them doing their job.
When they begin to interfere with the grace and majesty on the field of play…when THEY become more important, when THEY are the most visible and “outcome changing” element in the contest…the game suffers horribly.
For the best and the brightest…they want to be involved with the grace, majesty and satisfaction that comes with creating…not interfering. They want to be a player…not an officious intermeddler.
Being the President these days, is being a banner carrier for Party Purity. We are at such distance from the Fabian fabulist at the helm today…there is no middle ground to be found. And HE…as a Fabian…wants gradual, more invisible but just as insidious Marxism planted inside every nook and cranny, it will take decades to root it out.
To become our President, you have to plasticize yourself, elasticize your principles and bastardize your ethics. No good man likes that. The stronger your principles, the more firm your ethics…the less you are able to pull this off…and the propaganda machine paints you as rigid and unwilling to “compromise”…”meet in the middle”…”cross the aisle”.
This is nonsense, of course.
So, the sharpest knives are cut from the firmest steel. And, they don’t compromise on their ethics or have principles of convenience, or politics of expediency. They like to create…not interfere with creation. Simply from a personality profile…what you and I would look for in a candidate, are precisely the attributes that would keep them from ever considering the vocation.
There was a time when out of necessity, the best and the brightest…in order to form a more perfect union…stepped away from their natural calling and gave themselves to their country…not seeking their glory…but hers.
I call on Paul Ryan and Marco Rubio today to do that very thing.
But we’re not asking them to interfere; we want them to lead. Why is it necessary for them to interfere?
“There was a time when out of necessity, the best and the brightest…in order to form a more perfect union…stepped away from their natural calling and gave themselves to their country…not seeking their glory…but hers.”
That time is now as much as it has ever been. Such an act though requires a large modicum of unselfishness, something that is indeed a rarity these days, even among the sharpest people out there.
bobbcat, all federal legislation is interference…by definition.
It is only a matter of degree. The Marxists and the Fabianist in the White House want maximum interference.
The Tea Party wants minimum interference.
Politicians in post-modern America are there to structure the amount, size, grade, weight and length of that interference. Government creates nothing but obstacles.
The make things poorly. The Marxist/Fabian want to use it as as hedge trimmer…but government is a road grader. It destroys whatever is in its path unless it is strictly confined within narrow guideposts.
The reason that Mitch Daniels and Paul Ryan “fit”…is because they are “numbers wonks”. They “get” the details…and relish in them.
For THIS election, that is perfect. The country needs that. Heck, the world needs that.
And…from all appearances…they are good, decent, ethical, smart, articulate, informed guys. I don’t want to go through the “eruptions” like we just did with Cain…and we are sure to do with Newt.
You asked me to speculate…or hypothesize on why we don’t get the best and the brightest. I just think that the attributes necessary to WIN the election…don’t bring out that type. The soundbite, elastic, plastic vs the quiet, determined, sound…is not in the cards.
I happen to agree that we need someone who can make the numbers work and minimize the melodrama.
Let’s see how socialized medicine works:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2011/12/02/the-bomb-buried-in-obamacare-explodes-today-halleluja/
It’s not complicated at all.
They don’t want to be smeared for a year, and then if they win, four or eight more years.
A key part of the marxists’ strategy to sieze the country has been to make it so painful for honorable people to run for high office that most simply won’t.
That we have any good people at all is more surprising than that some good ones don’t want to live with the abuse.
And the smear strategy is so pervasive that now it is universally accepted by conservative pundits who employ it routinely against the candidates who don’t agree 100% with whatever the pundits view of the day happens to be. All, of course, in the name of finding the best nominee; which at one time was accomplished by a balanced discussion of attributes and weaknesses, rather than shouting from the rooftop that this one is unstable, crazy, immoral, or apparantly the worst of them all…a flip flopping rino.
If you’re a Republican holding elected or appointed office and the academy, the media, the unions, the Democrat front groups, and the elites ARE NOT calling you names and trying to smear you, you’re not doing your job. Unfortunately, the greatest sin in Republican politics is creating controversy. It doesn’t matter who started it, whether you’re right or wrong, whether the conflict and controversy is necessary, the sin is mortal and Republicans flee from and shun anyone who brings about controversy.
The typical Republican officeholder became known and “political” through the Chamber, the Rotary, the JayCees, their trade association and such where being that back-slapping hail fellow well met is essential to becoming known and placed in leadership positions. When you get into politics, if that Democrat or that avuncular-seeming union rep puts his arm around your shoulder, he’s looking for the soft spot. When they ask you to reach out, it is because your hand is too far away to bite. If they ask you to be bipartisan, what they mean is that you are to accept their position and abandon yours. Yet, the Rotary Republicans act like they can be dealt with in good faith and call them, “my friend.” The days of bipartisanship ended when the gerrymandering forced by the VRA made for safe Democrat seats in all urban areas, all Black majority districts, and most Hispanic majority districts, and all of Ecotopia (from Juneau to San Diego west of the coastal mountains). Democrats elected from those areas can be as radically left as they want and be elected for life. Not only do they have no need to seek compromise with moderates or conservative, even in their own Party, there constituents would excoriated them for such compromise. Republicans generally have to run from far more diverse districts with heterogenous interests. This is true in both state and National politics. Somehow we on the Right must change either our officeholder recruiting methods or impose some much better orientation and training so that our officeholders don’t have to be led to their office and have their job explained to them by a Democrat and understand that the people with the D behind their names are not their friends. You can work perfectly well with someone you despise in a formalized system designed to assume and manage conflict such as a representative body. Executive positions are more difficult and no Republican government can be really successful unless they fire EVERY holdover Democrat appointee and if they can’t put a loyal, competent Republican in place, just leave the position vacant and let the ‘crats run it.
With some exceptions, I have found those ancient virtues mostly among people I have served with or who have served. That demographic includes people who would characterize themselves as liberals and conservatives alike, but they tend to share those virtues in common. I know that those folks are not perfect in any way, they all have their flaws, some fatal, but there still seems to be a moral grounding that people who have not served do not seem to possess. It has come to the point in my life where I can hardly stand to be around anyone else.
Great thoughts, all:
Jeremiah 6:16
New American Standard Bible (NASB)
16 Thus says the LORD,
“Stand by the ways and see and ask for the (A)ancient paths,
Where the good way is, and walk in it;
And (B)you will find rest for your souls.
But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’
See: http://www.inthatdayteachings.com for mature Christian poetry regarding similar topics, but how it applies to wayward churchianity. We appear to be facing both clerical and political … mystic tyranny!
Great article. It’s of a piece with Mike Rowe’s TED speech on the value of work, which our society has largely forgotten.
Fantastic article. Bravo!
Holy crap! 75 years old and lifts over 400 lbs? Hell, Victor, you’re granddad’s famous in MY book!
Yeesh!!!
Thankyou Mr Hanson. No other commentary is needed.
Excellent. I would add only “Gratitude.”
Dwight reminds me of a guy who’s the bloody image of say a Carmen Basilio after a prizefight, and as a Howard Cosell type lumbers up into the ring, can only talk about the low blow his opponent administered at the end of the 8th round.
Carmen, I mean Dwight, don’t you feel pain? Are you psychotic?
In your verbal sparring match, Rachel and “Help Us Understand” chewed you up and spit you out. They lit you up like it was the 4th of July and sent your protestations crashing to earth.
Having what amounts to a front row seat, though, I kind of liked it.
For one, it’s somewhat entertaining reading the writings of someone who seem to have no grasp of the facts; I’m talking the past 3 Obama years. A 15 trillion deficit. $875 billion Squandered on shovel ready jobs that weren’t shovel ready. What kind of crap has Obama been shoveling?
Then Dwight picks up the shovel.
How can someone with such a loose grasp on history set himself as the arbiter of what is and is not worthy of discussion? Only people like Obama have the misplaced ego to make that call for us.
A little history for the guy who thinks we’ll swallow his story.
From Holder’s statement that all white Americans are racial cowards to letting the Panthers go scot free, to lying about “Fast and Furious” Holder (with sidekick Obama in cahoots) seems never to be interested in doing the right thing; telling the truth as an honest attorney general might feel incumbent to do.
Scratch Holder and you get another bum from filthy Chicago politics for which back in the Daley vote cheating to turn national elections comes as naturally as breathing does for people of integrity and candor. And who appointed Holder of the highest law enforcement office in the land? The chief crook and accumulator of frequent liar miles himself.
Scratch already thin skinned Obama and maybe Rachel is right. Maybe he’s the equivalent of a head football coach managing a game so the other team wins. I don’t know if that’s true. But asking Dr. Hanson what he thinks is out of bounds to only a narrow, politically correct mind.
Right from the start on that cold January 20th, 2009 inauguration day has Obama intended to screw up the country? I think it’s a valid question. Maybe it’s not a question of the weight as to whether Bobby Thompson was tipped off on the 1951 pitch turned into the shot heard round’ the world. But Rachel’s surely were questions appropriate vis-a-vie Hanson’s discussion of candor.
The fact that people on radio and TV, people like Mark Levin, are asking those very same questions, at least to me, suggests that Dwight sloughing it off as the musing of a miscreant mind rings as true as O.J. Simpson in a witness chair.
The one lacking a critical thinking ability I don’t think is Ms. Peepers. The one lacking that ability sounds like the one screaming, “Don’t talk about those things you idiots. Those questions aren’t worth raising. Dwight, I suspect in any debate forum the only thing people told you to raise is the white flag.
On the other hand, perhaps I’m too quick to reject people who are so quick to say something isn’t worth discussion. In all candor, thought, I don’t think so.
Dwight, Roger Simon never asked you to be a columnist on Pajamas Media, I suspect, because your words lay flat like spilled ink on the page. Your desire to examine an unlikely, perhaps unpopular view suggests nothing good about you as a writer or thinker or mental explorer; if there’s a pathology hiding in that DwightBrain, I wouldn’t be that surprised. Scientists looking for cures go down blind alleys every day waiting for the day they strike medical gold.
To cast Rachel in a bad light, Dwight used the Democratic talking point that she’s a flip flopper; she got mad one day and said her feelings were hurt and wouldn’t comment here anymore. Wow, that’s damning.
Dwight, I doubt you ever took debate 101. Cause’ you come off sounding like a prissy school girl who got an F on a piece of homework and responds by calling the teacher stupid.
At the same time, I think you should read more of these comments. CF Bleachers is as elucidating as they come. You might learn something.
Now though Dwight, it’s time to head for the trainer’s room to lick your wounds.
“Carmen, I mean Dwight, don’t you feel pain? Are you psychotic?
In your verbal sparring match, Rachel and “Help Us Understand” chewed you up and spit you out. They lit you up like it was the 4th of July and sent your protestations crashing to earth. ”
I will admit that I always would take a punch to deliver one and people like you on the sidelines trying to tell the bleeding opponent how well they were doing, were, er “creative” but usually reluctant to step inside the ropes themselves.
Carmen Basilio, eh? I think he deserves a little more credit than you gave him as he whacked around our guy Tony De Marco, had some wars with Ray Robinson, and eventually couldn’t deal with the larger and younger Gene Fulmer. But I love the references to that era. My guys were Kid Gavilan, Willie Pastrano, Sonny Liston, and eventually Marvin Hagler. It is sweet of you to come in and defend “no mas” Rachel and tell her/him, whatever, that she is a winner. Maybe you can convince her/him to come out for the next round. Now where were we?
I will point out first that no one has yet to put our current economic crisis in the context of past ones where we actually devalued our currency. So raise all the questions you want about Obama being the “worst ever,” but try to ground them in history, not the fact that Holder is a loser of an Attorney General. If appointing a bad AG makes one the worst ever, then you’d better think about our last twenty AG’s.
But to the original topic. I certainly share VDH’s admiration for people who can do things, although have certainly found that because someone can do something well, does not mean that they know much about a particular political issue. One can think one knows everything because one is a college prof or one can reload ammunition, lift and walk with 400lbs, track a bleeding deer in the woods with a flashlight, or machine to fine tolerances. The skills are not necessarily transferable, but I admire each of them.
But one thing that everyone should know is that American Government has always been about two forces in conflict with each other in various incarnations: Federalists and Anti-federalists, Jefferson and Adams, Jackson and JQ Adams and so on and on and on: the two forces are needed mostly to provide checks on the other side, human nature being what it is and capable of endless screwing up. What I want is balance.
One throws the left jab, the straight right, and then the left hook, but the goal is also balance to cut off the combination if necessary, or be in position if the heavier two miss. Give Rachel something out of the bottle that Aaron Pryor used or buy her/him a Floyd Patterson disguise. Mr Lucky is at ringside, so it is either time to “Look sharp, and to fell sharp too…” or “Let’s get ready to rumble…”
You were sweet to bring in the onion farmer, really. You have made my day.
Man, I haven’t thought about Marvin Hagler in years. . . . . thanks for jolting the ol’ brain. . . .
In the interests of Humanity, D-White should be excused from licking one of his wounds. He’s been sitting on the fence for some time now and could be quite raw.
In defense of D-White, he does/has pay/paid taxes.
How unDwightian Dwight is today. You caught it, Lucky. He is suddenly in favor of taking sides (see his comments about the ring and hunting, both of which demand taking sides with extreme prejudice). Previously he has always claimed the real estate of the golden mean, the Golden Locks, and the judge on the bench deciding with perfect objectivity the cases brought before him by lesser mortals. Dwight mentions that sometimes he rereads something he wrote in the past and has trouble believing he wrote it.
Two characters John Wayne has played in movies said: “Looking back is a bad habit.” One of the films was “The Searchers” as I recall.
I believe that my hunting has certainly been made clear in the past (an eight-point buck with one arrow, last year) probably the boxing too, but you know how quickly people forget.
As to my writing, the fact that I sometimes have trouble believing that I wrote it usually has to do with the trenchant lucidity with which I had been able to make my point, rather than the meandering which Marc Malone imagined. It takes my breath away, sort of like a Top Gun theme song…Berlin…maybe; I will defer to Mr Lucky on that one.. ;-)
You snuck up on an animal and killed it from a distance. It had neither a bow or the brains to use it. Why don’t hunters hunt each other? That’d be sporting and bragging rights would have at least some modicum of credibility.
Are you sure that you are not a liberal? ;-)
I know that you don’t really care, but I can’t sneak up on anything, I have to be in the right location (often in a stand 15 feet above the ground) for them to come to me, and not see me as I draw the bow. I have had a number of face to face ground-level encounters where I was essentially helpless, because we were staring at each other, but I knew that as soon as I moved to pull the bow, they would explode out of there…and they did with a truely awesome burst of animal fast-twitch muscle, or just spooked because seeing or smelling a human that close was very uncomfortable for them. Ninety nine times out of a hundred, hunting is a humbling experience.
Most of the current generation who aren’t vegetarians think that meat comes from neatly wrapped plastic packages in supermarkets. We wouldn’t want all the Ancient Virtues to disappear, now would we?
Most people might think anacondas get prey by waving their heads and hypnotizing an animal but in fact they do pretty much what you do.
I prefer a supermarket. What’s the difference between playing Daniel Boone and building with Lincoln Logs?
If Boone had been able, he probably would’ve cut to the heart of the matter and attacked his local supermarket distribution warehouse; unless it was built by his own friends. Then he probably would’ve knocked on the front door in favour of laying in weeds for 7 hours and hoping a deer walked by.
You have this option: exercise it instead of flaunting your conspicuous and unflinching bravery. It makes me feel small and like I live in a cave connected to a machine which pumps nutrients into my giant brain sac.
It is not a matter of bravery, it is acquired knowledge, usually learned from many mistakes, discipline, and patience, the latter being, not exactly the coin of the realm around here. An interest in nature also helps. You don’t exactly become one with it, but a lot closer than many get.
To be grammatically consistent, why don’t you go with Merrying Gerund?
Er, Marrying.
You might be completely shocked by this, Dwight, but I haven’t taken great pains to read every word you have ever written and, therefore, I missed the parts of you autobio the full tome of which you are sharing with us now.
D-White, don’t lick that!
Because I was not in charge of who was doing the merrying after the marrying.
I am a product of nature and not sarcasm or priceless irony. I could create a clever pseudonym like “Vidi Vici Veni” but people might no take me seriously and think I’m a braggart as pillow talk is easy to make up.
Bill-Mary-Marry or somebody wrote “I am a product of nature and not sarcasm or priceless irony.” The latter being whom, Mr Lucky?
In your last two posts both you both have crossed over into a world of figures (see Hamlet) beyond my limited powers to decipher. Come again?
The issue with Peeps was whether Obama is incompetent or a mole planted by the devil. It’s straw man to insist the argument is only about incompetence when Obama’s murder of America was bruited about as purposeful.
In any event, VDH has written at length on all these issues and one has only to read them rather than ask for a reiteration.
A pretty concise list of the basic virtues expertly described by Dr. Hanson. I would like to see VDH write on two others. These would be “Humility” and “Mercy.” The ancients understood the need for humility (both public and private) and the ptifalls that could swallow a prideful man. One of the most depressing aspects of modern culture is the inescapability from an almost cartoonish arrogance and narcissism particulary in sports and pop music. I realize that a lot of it is a debased form of showmanship but that does not prevent it from being awful.
“Mercy” is the virtue probably in shortest supply. We have many “compassionate” people in public (and private) life but very few who are genuninely merciful. Mercy is connected to humility because truly merciful acts are performed without thought of physical or spiritual reward. Mercy means more than giving things away. Most politicians who conceive of giant government giveaways undoubtedly seem themselves as “generous and compassionate.” However could anyone call them “merciful?”
One of the most frustrating things for me in this modern age is how difficult many new things are to repair. You have to disassemble nearly the entire unit to replace one part, and often you can’t dissasemble it without partially destroying it anway. Fasteners are in inaccessible locations, or else they self-destruct when you try to remove them (cheap screws and bolts that strip, plastic fasteners that break, stuff that’s glued together).
I knew I’d become a mechanical dinosaur when I bought a new ’99 Chrysler 300M and opened the hood. First, I couldn’t see the ground even though the engine was “only” a V-6. Second, the only thing I remotely recognized was the distinctive Mopar alternator. Even though I’d always performed all the routine maintenance on every car I’d ever owned, I never touched it in the ten years I owned it.
By contrast, the two GM V-8s in my boat were like old lovers; I could find my way around them with my eyes closed, though it would have helped to have had 5 foot arms. But even with them, the distributor, they did still have one, was electronic and you couldn’t fix it, just replace the “module” for $450 instead of the points and condensor for $20. Up to about the middle ’90s I did all my own computer service and modification, albeit I had a close, personal relationship with the Tech Line with some of them. But the last several, I haven’t thought of cracking a case and if something isn’t working or I can’t get it set up right, I just call the Geek Squad. Some of it is being older and more affluent, but some of it is that the damned things are just too complicated unless you stay on top of every development, and I just have things I’d rather do.
Recently, my M-B ML’s battery went dead overnight. And not only can you not see the ground in that engine compartment, there is nothing you’d recognize, though the M-B V-8 would look right at home in a ME-109. For the sake of my manhood, I dug out my battery charger and tried to charge it myself while saying bad things to my wife about her leaving a door open or something. When it wouldn’t start after my attempt to charge it, I called the M-B 800 number, M-B came and got it, and came and picked me up when it was fixed, and all I had to do was make a somewhat outsized dent in my checking account.
And just for the record: I drove that car for ten years in Juneau, Alaska where it mostly lived outside; I’ve never figured out how to have a woman in my bed and my car in the garage. The ONLY repair it ever required was replacing the driver’s side power window mechanism, but that is a fact of life in a climate where half the year your windows are frozen. It was a great car and a fitting swan song for Chrysler as a private, American company. That said, I’ll never buy another Chrysler or GM since the Obama/UAW coup.
OK, the woman part is just sinking in. I’ve never had a garage, but after 21, almost always the woman. What are you saying?
Is it possible they don’t want a man who talks more than they do? ;-)
JMH,
There are reasons for this:
1. Bad design. We generally don’t manufacture in the USA anymore. Hence, the feedback loop between design and manufacturing has been stretched and mangled, and basic quality and reliability suffer.
2. Planned obsolesence.
It is a sad thing, but true.
I work in retail. Nearly everything is made in China from the cheapest possible parts and materials, using the cheapest possible manufacturing techinques, and minimal quality control. And I’m talking about the most reputable brand-name products available! It is PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE to fix many newly-manufactured items these days. They are DESIGNED not to be fixable. Those things that CAN be fixed, cost more to fix than to be replaced. Here again, they’re DESIGNED that way.
Yeah, it stinks, and I don’t have the answer to any of that, unless you want to go and join the Amish.
This is the best blog.
Prof. Hanson, you bring back memories.
I was going to leave it at that – “you bring back memories” – because I couldn’t figure out what to say about them, but I’ll just do one. It’s of little importance, but perhaps it’s more interesting than the more important ones. There’s a way of speaking which, in recent years, I’ve come to call “nineteenth-century.” My grandfather, who was already 22 in 1900, had it. Not many years ago, I read the authorized biography of Wyatt Earp, and I was a bit shocked by the interview at the end of the book, because Earp spoke in somewhat the same way, even though my grandfather was a seaman in New England, and Earp was a “cowboy” (for lack of a better term) in the far west.
I don’t think I can describe that way of speaking. I can say that partly it’s in the humor.
Now, nothing to do with humor, but here’s a story. One night, there was a prowler in my grandfather’s yard. He went out to confront the prowler. Asked later why he had not taken his shotgun with him, he said, “I was afraid somebody might get hurt.”
SF, if you haven’t seen the remake of True Grit, do so –if for nothing else, for the 19th century language (genius of the Coen bros to include an element that once it’s noted, is flabbergasting that it’s ‘new’).
Buddy, thanks. No, I haven’t seen True Grit. I’ll try to.
an element that once it’s noted, is flabbergasting that it’s ‘new’
I wasn’t quite flabbergasted at finding the similarity of speech between Earp and my grandfather, but it’s clear we’re talking about the same sort of thing.
If you think people in the Old West went around talking like a cross between Will Rogers and the Governor General of the East India Company, then a free estate awaits you on Mars. You just have to get there.
Or maybe as Bill O”Reilly said tonight, “a Martian from Venus.”
Frog, you mentioned Wyatt Earp and “cowboy” (for lack of a better term). Been reading a book about the Earps and the gunfight in Tombstone, AZ. The author pointed out that in Arizona, in 1881, around Tombstone, the term “cowboy” was derogatory to the max. They had a rep as cattle rustlers, thieves and all around trouble makers. They were tolerated around town so far as they had money to spend, and that was it. Not trying to take you to task, just submitting a factoid.
Dr. Hanson. Thanks for philosophizing! It doesn’t happen much anymore.
–well, since her list of questions got ridiculed, i’d like to throw in fer Miz Peepers. If her phrasing seemed sharp, it is likely that she was automatically aligning to the theme of the post: candor. Speaking in the affirmative voice as per the resolution, IOW. In pressing Dr. Hanson’s resolve in favor of candor, she did so with the arch intensity that clearly signals literary device at work in service of Dr. Hanson’s thematic goal, that re our Stalinist troupe in DC playing My Fair Lady with America downcast in the Audrey Hepburn role, the old axiom is surely true that it is better to debate a question without settling it than to settle a question without debating it.
Is Integrity still a virtue?
It’s still a virtue, but only for those who are in this world, but not of the world.
In the political sphere, the mainstream media has corrupted the definition of “integrity” into “keeping up appearances”, a/k/a the new term “optics”. “Caesar’s wife” need not be above reproach, merely appear to be above reproach. And to do that, one must get on the good side of the pretend-conservative pundits as well as of the lefty media. Too bad neither actually have a good side.
Is it just us or do references in the middle of point making to make the writing a lot more interesting? I think so.
About the Rabbit. I still can see Ali punish Floyd for all those rounds. Suggests to me that Ali was a lot meaner than most give him credit for.
Don Dunphy, my buddy’s father in the Manhasset, LI days, thought Ali hit Liston with the phantom punch. I do too. But I wasn’t there. Don was. Funny in Bananas.
So was Howard.
You mentioned hunting. Went to my first gun auction last week in Mattoon. Know where that is? They were selling a Deadwood Stage shotgun and a Wells Fargo one as authentic. But nobody bought it. And they each went for about a grand. Does anybody have an authentic one in the U.S.?
About politics.
I really think it’s possible that Obama’s gonna ask Hillary to be VP. Could Mitt or Newt beat that ticket? It wouldn’t be easy.
Scienter. I think when it comes to Obama wanting to wreck this nation, he’s filled with it. Am I right or wrong?
Worked out today at a local hospital’s weight room; a little running and some lifting. The odd thing. I was the only one there. Doesn’t the post Frazier/Ali generation work out anymore? I mean, if they’re on a team, they do. But doesn’t anybody just do it for the hell of it? Of course, pick up baseball died in about 1962. Once upon a time, it was my life.
About Rachel. Google her and you know her better than her father.
Rachel takes a position, and then tries to fight her way through. Then feels bad that she hurt somebody’s feelings. She can’t take a punch, though. She’s just a girl.
Have a good Sunday. Over and out.
Patterson kept calling him ‘Clay’ in the pre-fight PR. Ali paid him back with what you referred to. I don’t think Floyd meant anything by it –’Clay’ was ingrained since the ’60 Olympics gold medal and no one at fight time was used to the new name.
Around here, a lot of people still work out, and they actually pay money to join a fitness center where they can work out…and schmooze. I settle for sawing, hauling, and splitting the many cords of wood we burn, windsurfing, gardening, hand mowing, dealing with a lot of leaves abd snow, hiking with the dog and hunting (bow, shotgun, and primitive) in season. I could use more consistent cardio, but the knees won’t jog any more. I actually do a lot of the old school stuff which VDH espouses, I just don’t share the reflexive anti-Obama stuff. The guy has been a disappointment, but he has become an unbelievable target for the right. They were suspicious of GWB’s veteran/silver spoon father, but they hate Obama’s father and his surrogates; we are talking two completely different cultures here, and everything Obama has been associated with makes their slide into hatred for him, oh so easy. The lefties say it is racism, but that is the small part of the piece. He is a left with lefty roots going back to the father who left him..What is not to hate for an O’Reilly type culture warrior? I bet Obama just PRETENDS to like Christmas. Pass it on.
Anyway, there are no acorns this year, so the deer have changed their patterns; so far I am a day late and a dollar short. I blame Obama and liberals in general. God knows, they have a lot off odd ideas, but righties have a whole gun closet full of odd ones as well. Mine are all good ones! ;-)
So re discontent w/ Obama, it’s all that deep-rooted psychodramatic Jim Crow-wasn’t-buried-deep-enough, and has nothing to do with the administration’s policies and performance?
Funny coincidence, that you should present precisely the symptom –tertiary detail suitably adjusted –by which you’ve diagnosed the malady afflicting the right.
Disdaining a man who spent 20 years in a church that is a black version of the KKK philosophically can hardly be considered an unconsidered, knee-jerk reflexive response.
What about Goebbels? Should we give him a second look?
Of course Ali was mean; quick, but not that bright and mean. Meanness helps in the manly art. I never cared for the guy all that much until his fight with Foreman, during which I rooted for him unabashedly and remember driving home after seeing the fight at Boston Garden pay-per-view, opening the window of my van and yelling “Ali-Ali” every so often. Age and debilitating infirmity have mellowed him out…what’s left of him, which now is more than what is left of Smokin’ Joe, for whom I rooted in every one of his Ali fights.
Boxing in general, has gone the way of Norman Mailer. The new rage is the lower-paying full-combat stuff, which my children and step children pay attention to, but not me.
Here’s my candidate:
for·ti·tude
[fawr-ti-tood, -tyood]
noun
mental and emotional strength in facing difficulty, adversity, danger, or temptation courageously: Never once did her fortitude waver during that long illness.
Like others of Serbian extraction I have a stoic turn of mind by nature, perhaps to a fault; thus, don’t have a whole lot of patience with crybabies.
When I was growing up, everybody who was a crybaby got the $#!+ beaten out of them until they learned to control their emotions – a valuable lesson indeed. Self-control is the foundation of everything that is worthwhile in life.
But then, the trend toward emotional incontinence kicked in, beginning in the late 1960s and rapidly growing out of control until now. Emotional incontinence makes one as unwelcome a neighbor as does physical incontinence – and we see both in the phenomenon of the Occupoopers.
It’s time for a major cleanup, starting from the inside.
Buddy, today, I just couldn’t get Dwight to give an inch. When he started hypothesizing, he lost the peanut gallery. At least, he lost me.
But I was trying to give peace…I mean candor a chance.
Still, it wasn’t a satisfying exchange. Like kissing your brother on the first date.
I’m left with that old axiom. It’s surely true that it’s better to debate a question without settling it than the other way around.
best regards,
Rachel
Thanks, Rachel –i LIKED your questions. I can see Matt Lauer and Diane Sawyer asking them too, someday, if only in brief breathless on-air gushes between air raids, artillery bombardments, rocket salvoes, and sporadic gunfire from the municipal workers unions’ Spetsnaz sleeper cells.
Overheated? Not all that long ago, in the summer of 1863 (what’s that a half-dozen generations ago?) you would’ve heard, if you were in some parts of Washington DC, the guns of a very large hostile army coming your way –and only stopped by a supreme effort combined with the whim of battlefield fortune.
From thread #33 CFB replied, “You asked me to speculate…or hypothesize on why we don’t get the best and the brightest. I just think that the attributes necessary to WIN the election…don’t bring out that type. The soundbite, elastic, plastic vs the quiet, determined, sound…is not in the cards.”
Sounds like a plausible theory to me. Do you think these types would be more inclined to move on to the executive branch faster if there were term limits for Congress? I will never understand why, when term limits were imposed on the presidency, Congress was not included in that as well.
I think the FF would be scandalized if they were resurrected to see how members of Congress make long careers out of public service.
I blame John Quincy Adams, who went back to the House after being President and then losing to Jackson.
We need to get our stories straight here. Did the FFers understand human nature or did they not? Even the much quoted John Adams line about Americans having to be a moral people to make the Constitution work, was said, I believe, at a time when he was afraid the his countrymen were NOT being moral and upstanding. Unlike what you might read here, it did not start with Obama… or FDR…or Wilson.
I love the irony of the fact that O’Reilly and Beck have books out on Lincoln and Washington, two of the Presidents who did the most (even if partially or largely because of the circumstance of the events surrounding them) to expand the power of the guvment. The genie does not go back into the bottle.
… so who should they write about? Sacco and Vanzetti?
“The genie does not go back into the bottle.”
So is that a good genie or a bad genie? Or the I Dream of Jeannie from Alaska?
D-White, one must wonder if you are reading from a mental teleprompter. It’s as if you are beholden to past in a way that allows little flexibility from a path that has and is failing. What about cause and effect? Seemingly, the Ping Pong Tongue dredges up piecemeal ideas that are used to focus on tactical points, rather than a strategic overview.
The notion that the size, scope political and cultural outlook of the U.S. during Washington’s and Lincoln’s times bear resemblance to what is today is… Well, Red Pencil Neck Thought. Today, in many ways, they (and the country at large from those times) would viewed (and are) by the Modern Liberals as hopeless, immoral reactionaries.
Times have changed, you know that, and that is Dr. Hanson’s point. He simply takes timelines that he is familiar with, and works with that, and he makes a cohesive argument. I challenge you to present a rebuttal.
No, you’re already reacting to it, you message belies a loss in confidence in The Great Washed, and I’m seeing it with many of my Modern Liberal friends. Believe me, in my line of work, that is the 99%. Their presentations are becoming so stale, so mundane, so knee jerk, so thoughtless that the reactions are becoming more and more muted or angry, take your pick, when challenged on their basic premises. Then they don’t want to talk about it.
Two subjects that never fail to elicit the lamest responses are Guantanamo and drone attacks. Kick in the OWS salt and pepper about banks and their bailout by the government, and you have a recipe for wishful Modern Liberal thinking along the lines of Wish Upon a Star. However, many, in private conversations (they dare not go public, at least not yet) are expressing a willingness to listen and question their own long cherished thinking. Are you there D-White?
You want to know why? Money. The Music Business is changing, and none want to be left out in the cold, with major lifestyle changes. The economy is way down, downloading, touring is down, etc. They are capitalist at heart, and have maintained dual worlds that no longer are viable going into the future. Many know it. Being just cool is wearing a bit thin. This goes for OWS. Money. Their personal debts are the issue.
I had a recent conversation a “Mr. Big”, and others were present (read “culturally influential” Modern Liberals), and the consensus is that future “Big” musicians will have to make do with doctor/dentist money, with the occasional accidental Lady Gaga. When it is pointed out that that falls into that dastardly $250K + range, they positively turn… red.
It’s dawning on even some of the hard core that they do not want kill the Golden Goose, and that there is a real danger of that. Denial is not so popular anymore.
Atlas calls D-White. Check out Rand’s work.
Well, it seems to me that as our country has grown in size & complexity, so has gov’t. Has this been necessary? I cannot help but wonder though if the outcome would be just a bit different had it not been for the changes brought about by FDR & LBJ, two pols who oversaw the landmark entitlement programs that are now the proverbial sacred cows most politicians are afraid to mess with.
And then there are Administrations, like the present Obama one, who frequently violate the Constitution that they have sworn to protect and defend:
http://dailycaller.com/2011/12/04/president-obamas-top-10-constitutional-violations/
bobbcat and dwight
I think the “career” politician…even the career government employee TENDS to attract a “type”. I’m not comfortable throwing a blanket over every single person in government and applying one definition.
However, in general, there are folks who seek security vs. risk in employment. Party politics rather than term limits…and by party…I mean patronage, cronyism, gangbanger-like protectionism…is the ultimate in “security”.
Academia, mass media, ..and government…as well as unions, in modern America have an ultra-security, hyper-protectionist element to them. If you adhere to the “iron-fisted, political fiats”, you can do almost anything or almost nothing…and still maintain your job, your paycheck, your station.
The way to get promoted, is to become more of a party puritan apparatchik.
Not to be better at your putative “position”, but to become more visible as a flame thrower at your opposite…your “mirror” party puritan.
If you wander from the fever farm too far…you get savaged. Joe Lieberman got savaged, because he did broke with “message”. On the Republican side…the venom with which “RINO” gets spit out at ANY break with Party Puritanism is quite powerful.
While Adams going back to the House is unseemly by today’s standards, I don’t think it has an impact in the digital age. Clinton and Carter have not bowed out gracefully…they are the digital age equivalents of “hangers on”.
More important than term limits or bowing out, I believe, to the deterrence of the best and the brightest, is simply that politics is a dirty game, it is about power and corruption…and it is about a food fight between two parties, neither of which is worthy of the heavyweight championship belt they vie for.
The Stupid Party vs the Seizure Party is a Hobson’s Choice for the people they mean to rule. And no, StrangeRon Cranky Pants is not the answer.
Government is no place for the individual. For a risk taker or entrepreneur. It’s for suit and tie gangbangers. You fight over turf, you seize power, you live by the gang code and you keep your position for life. You produce nothing, you collect “protection” money on your route. You launder it, and pass it out to your buddies on the street.
You plant your “homies” into every nook and cranny, who feed you inside information to keep you from being “found out”.
You can’t get demoted or fired. Academia, unions, ACORN, mass newsmedia. All set up the same way. All of them collapsing, failing, flailing, crumbling.
When you remove free and fair competition, records don’t get broken…laws and rules do. The fittest bow out when the fix is in. All the C and D students flock to game. Al Gore, John Kerry, John McCain, George Bush.
The real “achievers”…got in the real game, with real competition….because they could.
You might as well tell us we are being governed by the proverbial mob. Can it possibly be any other way? Why do we bother to vote?
Well, it is “mob” rule in a way, bobbcat. In a two party system…the way to garner “energy” (into fools like “nut above”), is to create “mob reaction”.
Trying to sway the masses is nearly impossible through calm, thorough, reasoned, fact-filled, detailed, or “wonkish” debates.
The “nut above” flaming arseholes want quick fixes, sound bites, microwaved “solutions” and black and white …no shades of grey.
For independent thinkers, the choices are always too “extreme”. You are always choosing the lesser of two imbeciles. Currently, the gravest danger to this land of ours…in fact, the world…is the rampant, runaway, radical leftism that has seized whole industries at home and whole countries abroad.
The wild pendulum of the two party system brokers sloganeering because it can do nothing more. It snares the despicable cretin like “nut above” because he’s exactly what they want. A mindless parrot, an unthinking clod, a tool.
He doesn’t want to hear the truth and can’t understand it when it’s presented to him.
The two party system wants “fans”…not intelligent participants. Fan, short for fanatical…can be moved to mob action…much more quickly on the left side of the spectrum. The right side does not move toward mob action, unless seriously provoked.
And…we…bobbcat, have to pick a “side”. We are offered nothing else.
To save this nation, (and the world), the side has to be anti-leftist. That does not mean that the two party system has given us a great choice. It hasn’t.
Many, many, many people in the upcoming election will be voting for anti-leftism, not the candidate of the Stupid Party. They will vote, in fact, in spite of…and not because of…the candidate himself.
And others will not be attracted to that weak candidate or turned off by him, will buy the propaganda and will be fooled into believing that the Seizure Party is not a threat to stability and the free market survival.
That’s the ugly reality of current American politics.
Alas, the nut aboves of the world cannot imagine the concept of facing the issue of critical mass. They think we can all just percolate along like nothing at all is really wrong. I am not a huge student of history so I wonder just how many people saw the civil war coming; I’d be willing to bet not too many. Denial is such a powerful thing. I really don’t know how much longer things can go on as is. I fancy the idea of breaking up the US into smaller pieces over which the chore of governing would be much easier; yes, I do think the US is becoming utterly ungovernable.
Meantime, I shall go forth & cast my vote….sometimes for a candidate, other times against one. What else am I to do? “Keep the powder dry.” Please.
Or people just disagree with you and you are overreacting. Calm down you delusional twit.
Yes, there is a type involved here, one which is at least as common (and therefore tends to produce more votes) as the entrepreneurial risk-takers. They value security over risk, and I acknowledge your list of abuses for this group.
On the other hand, the risk-takers have their own lengthy list of potential abuses, essentially anything which will maximize their profits, the extremes being dumping hazardous by-products where ever they can, screwing their employees in everyday work or especially bankruptcies or plant-closings, advertising “falsely” etc. So we have now accumulated some of the vices of the two groups; now what?
Dare we say that it is the vices of the risk-takers who lead some people to put up with the vices of the security conscious?
–the theory makes word-sense, but the reality is in the condition of the ecology in controlled totalist systems versus open free-market systems. Or, if you wish, the Third World versus the First World. You won’t eat your words, but you should.
Absolutely, Dwight.
In fact, the “brand” value of classic liberals of the 40′s, 50′s and earliest 60′s depended in large part on being the counterweight against those very abuses.
The wild pendulum swing since then has produced the continued fallacy that allows for the destructive abuses from the left against those free market abusers.
It is the excess and abuse against those very things that is the facade or front for the Fabian/Marxist, runaway radical leftism that is destroying this country and the world.
In balancing the agonies, the free market abuses are much more likely to produce isolated and contained negative outcomes. Moreover, I believe that virtually everyone with a semblance of a conscience would stand against them.
On the other hand, the abuses…near treason…of the left…has gone off the rails. It is a much greater and graver danger currently. And…it hides and disguises itself as something else, something it is not.
It intentionally lies and distorts its very existence. For the two party system to even have a chance…the populace must have an information stream that is not “in the bag” for one side or the other.
The leftists have seized the mass media, academia, entertainment, unions, and the whole of the Democratic Party. That chokes off the ability to weigh and measure the truth against their propaganda. It’s all propaganda…all the time.
For my purposes…I don’t care if we had an open debate about Socialism or even small c Communism. But hiding it from the populace and disguising it..while in conspiracy with the mass media to do that…crosses the line for me.
The populace can obtain all the information they could ever want about the actual abuses by the free market…and then some..including distortions and smear jobs.
But, I know you think Obama has gotten an overreaction from the right…however, he was completely unvetted by the mass media. The obvious unfairness in the treatment of the two parties, the iron-fisted clamp on the information stream is deleterious to ALL of us…because in this two party system, that conspiracy works against everyone’s interests…no matter which direction it travels.
And, no…Fox News and talk radio and the internet do NOT “even the score” or make it “ok”. In a two party system (the only thing keeping us from a dictatorship or banana republic), the refs can’t be rigged, bribed, bought off and despicably unethical. In EITHER direction.
Free market abuses and statism abuses also have a disparate impact. The former …uncorrected…do damage to a segment of the population. The latter, destroys us as a nation. Neither is acceptable. Both are corrupt. But right now, rampant, runaway leftism is the one that needs to be eliminated in order to save us.
So, it’s “screwing their employees” when an employer is forced into bankruptcy or has to close a plant because the regulatory and tax environment makes it too expensive to continue doing business there? Would it be your position that a company should be forced to stay open even if losing money so that the employees who are usually a major component of the uncompetitive cost structure can continue to be employed? Should a government be forced to continue a program that has little or no public support so that the employees in that program can continue to be employed? There is no door C, the employer either must be allowed to end an unprofitable business or government must be empowered to force it to stay open so that it can pay the employees. Of course, at some point the employer runs out of money, so should the government subsidize it so that the employees can stay employed? Should a government raise taxes on people who do not want and do not benefit from a program so that its employees can continue to be employed?
My point was not necessarily that they should not close plants or declare bankruptcy, but rather that they will take care of themselves first and foremost, as would be expected, and since there is no future benefit needed from that particular chunk of labor….well, you know what I am saying.
And as for regulations, there are necessary ones and dumb ones, I’m sure, inextricably grafted at the hip. You get abuse OF regulations and abuses without regulations, and since all government and political moves are made by lurching, you would like to lurch where? The “problem” is that the smarter and or meaner folks figure out how to use/abuse the regulations or the lack thereof faster than the others can “control” them.
So it goes.
I tend my own gardens, except for some help (now remunerated) from the grandchildren. Alaska sounds great, but the winter days are too damned short.
D-White, grandchildren aside, have you ever run a private business?
“The “problem” is that the smarter and or meaner folks figure out how to use/abuse the regulations or the lack thereof faster than the others can “control” them.”
More to the point, the “smarter and or meaner,” often the same, figure out how to get government to regulate their competition. Much regulation and licensure is simply a barrier to entry or a check on competition. The regulatory bureaucrats have a great incentive to over-regulate and over-enforce first because making their agency look busier and more important gets them a bigger budget and thus often higher wages and certainly more power, and second, many regulators at the enforcement level are corrupt and whether an how a regulation is enforced depends entirely on whether you’re willing to pay to play. Regulators can also be used to pursue a political agenda. The Gibson guitar shakedown made a bit of news lately but it is neither isolated nor uncommon. Since organized labor owns state labor departments even in the non-union states, OSHA and its state analogs pay a LOT more attention to non-union than to union contractors. The same is true of health agencies inspecting restaurants or alcohol control agencies. In any government, R or D, but especially Ds, if a complaint is made against an individual or company, somebody goes and checks the contributor list and who or whether the contributions were made may not determine whether the complaint is acted on but it certainly influences how it is acted on. Likewise government licensure is often merely a tax or a barrier to entry. I value my Merchant Marine Master’s License; it allows me to charge newly-weds and nearly-deads to go see whales, eagles, seals, and such, but I’ll be the first to admit that most of the stuff I was tested on is utterly useless and there are lots of better ship-handlers than me who aren’t as good at paying for classes and taking tests. Requiring graduation from law school as a prerequiste to taking the Bar Exam is nothing more than a barrier to entry, and not even a very good one since easy student loans have allowed all sorts of riff-raff to go to law school. There are lots of paralegals and investigators out there who are better lawyers than their boss. Not too long ago, they’d have been allowed to sit for the bar exam and if they passed, they were admitted to practice. Today, they’d have to take seven years and hundreds of thousands of dollars out of their life to get a law degree before they could take the test.
And, yes, wenter days are awfully short in Alaska. That’s why this time Wednesday morning, I’ll be winging my way to put my toes in the water and my butt in the sand in Cabo San Lucas for awhile. Feliz Navidad!
I hear you, Art; human nature is human nature. If the Federal Government is the big dumb guy with a rich father, who happens to own the field, who shows up for your pick-up football game, and picks you up with one hand and says, “I’m playing; like it or not,” do you try to pick him for your side, or let the other side have him?
And to Mr L. The closest I have come to running a private business is my local historical society, but we pay no salaries and get our utilities paid for by the Town, rent-free. (They own the building.) We have to generate enough money to pay our internet, phone, interior remodeling, archival preservation, purchase and publishing of documents we want etc. I am pretty good at it, but will acknowledge that it is pretty tame stuff compared for a guy who has a payroll to meet.
In another life, I had a staff of 20-30 teachers, whom I had to administer evaluate etc. Just for kicks, have you ever been “responsible” for the welfare, and to some degree the parental satisfaction of 40-100 high school students in your own classroom, and 1300 overall, who were taught by “your” teachers? Did you ever decide who was going into honors, who wasn’t, and face the consequences? It’s not private business, but if you don’t think that there is a lot of pressure, then you don’t know today’s students and their parents, and you can throw in their teachers too.
Please allow me to introduce myself…
Indeed D-White. Having a net below the tight rope makes a difference.
Ok. Bandleader in successful regional bands (NE too!). And other sideman gigs. Ever appear before 20K – 50k people with say, $$$$ on the line? As a vocation? Think about all the supporting individuals who rely on your performance. No big deal. Just do the gig. And have insurance. Bar gigs can be tougher. No support and 3-4hrs of playing. Multiple consecutive nights. Can you read people? You better learn quickly. Recording? Pressure is the game. Have always done this, no break since age 13, whether full time or part time. That life will expire, but not at this point
Test Engineering manager for 10 years for an international firm. $500k to $1M budget. Want to the seedy side of private business? Fail a product line at the end of fiscal period. The whole company is watching! Try that gig.
Owner, auto shop, 5 years, in California. Took over during a family emergency that did not end well. Ever hear of the BAR? Watch human nature up close and personal. It’s Friday, and my tranny is blown, but I want my car, now. I know I brought it in this morning, but I’m going to Tahoe today. Bought the business, and sold it later for a nice profit. Always wrenched. My Old Man was a master.
Wife (her mostly) and I run a private business now. Self employed musician/engineer/producer/performer in the music biz. There’s work if you’re “in”.
All this, and more. Nothing special. You work and reap the rewards or the losses. If you’re diligent at your trade you will have some success. And then here comes your friendly failed government. And yet another Mr. President Private Enterprise No Clue.
It’s not about going one on one with you in the above sense. Your soul just needs saving.
Please allow me to introduce myself…
Somewhat, kinda, sorta in defense of Dwight, I’ve done both; private business and government/corporate. The production level government employee is exposed to almost no employment risk so long as they more or less do as they’re told, behave within non-criminal norms, and continue to be able to fog a mirror. That is also true of corporate production level employees but they, unlike government, are susceptible to the ill winds of a bad economy. The government manager is not as susceptible to the slings and arrows of outrageous economics and politics as the private business person, but s/he is as if not more susceptible to whim and luck as the corporate manager. Government is at best a 90/10 proposition; 90 percent of the work is done by 10 percent of the people, often far less than ten percent. Those people, the upper levels of the “civil service” and the lower levels of political appointees are the only ones who are at risk; they WILL get fired or shoved into an office with no windows and a seat that flushes if they alienate some important constituency of the new administration. If there is a scandal or a screw-up, they’ll take the fall. Dwight was a School Principal. I can’t recall many principals getting fired because of scandal or poor performance, though ocassionally one gets fired for failing to deal with a teacher that abuses or has sex with students. Superintendents on the other hand ALWAYS take the fall when there is a public outcry against a school district. In the state and federal governments, politically appointed division directors, regional directors, and equivalent jobs are always on the auction block in every election and are the ones who’ll be fired if anything bad happens or any important constituency complains. Likewise, the top level non-political or civil service employees are like the eunuchs in a Turkish whorehouse; they’re the ones that keep the place running but everybody dislikes and distrusts them, so they often go on the auction block in elections and take the fall if the political appointee to whom they report has enough swack to cover his/her butt. Being a manager or direct report to a political appointee is nothing like the sweet ride that people outside government think it is. Unfortunately, people who establish themselves as survivors at that level can be really tough, really rotten SOBs.
Speaking of “screwing the employees” where do you place the National Labor Relations Board’s actions against Boeing with regard to its plans to assemble the 787 in South Carolina, a right-to-work state?
I think this is true, and nothing is really going to change it, not term limits, not campaign finance reform, I think it’s inherent in the concept of “government.” The only solution is to a) severely limit the power of government like the Founders inteneded, and b) chop that power up into as many and as small a pieces as possible, scattering them about so that rival “gangs” are too busy fighting with each other to prey on the rest of the country. Again, like the Founders intended.
I continue to be astonished at the sheer stupidity of leftists who see hideous danger in corporate power and see none whatsoever from governments.
“The only solution is to a) severely limit the power of government like the Founders inteneded, and b) chop that power up into as many and as small a pieces as possible, scattering them about so that rival “gangs” are too busy fighting with each other to prey on the rest of the country. Again, like the Founders intended.”
Sounds a bit like another way of saying what I stated to CFB above. Why chop up the US? As a means of curbing the overreaching power of the federal gov’t, as it seems to have little regard for states’ rights. Whatever works, I say. Of course, this approach will never see the light of day. I’ll settle for keeping an eye out for pols who take states’ rights really seriously & are willing to do what is necessary to honor them (entailing oodles of repeals). Further, how about some with the cajones to tackle the major entitlement programs. Either that will happen or it won’t; I shudder to think of the consequences if it is to be the latter.
I’ve done all three, four really: corporate management, private entrepreneurial business, and union/government The only one I really hated and didn’t do very well at was corporate management, where at least in the company I was with, everything you say about government was true; who you knew and blew was all that mattered. I’ve done not so well in private business and I’ve done very well. I was doing well in a fashionable, tourist oriented area with business that catered to that trade, and then the Arabs decided to have an oil embargo, Atlanta elected its first Black mayor who immediately abolished the Police downtown foot patrol, and I got quickly tired of carrying a pistol all the time, fending off shoplifters, and losing money because the economy was tanking and everybody with money was afraid to go to a crime-ridden downtown, so, I bailed for Alaska.
I worked a little at what I could get, retail mostly. I can make really good money, for retail, at commission sales but it is a miserable life because of the hours and wives generally really don’t like never knowing how much money you’re going to have on payday. I worked on the TransAlaska Pipeline for awhile, making more money than God. But for purposes of this discussion is was worse than the worst of government and corporate; graft, corruption, slovenlyness, waste on the grandest scale, and inefficiency writ large.
Worked union back in town doing maintenance work for a public employer then worked for the union a lot and learned all the bad things about being a “union man.” Armed with the courage of my connections, though, I went back to private business and taking advantage of Oil Boom Anchorage and then Juneau made a LOT of money. I’ve always had a very good sense of when to bail and I saw the oil price crash coming and sold out.
Went to work for the federal government for awhile. Travelled all over Alaska looking for $58 million the BIA had mislaid. I had a job to do and I did it on time and budget and tried not to look at what went on around me. Most of what you think you know about the federal government is wrong; it is far worse than you think it is, and has only gotten worse since the Clinton Administration.
Went to work for the State of Alaska. I had the advantage of being very, very good at what I did in a field where it is hard to find people who are good at all. Worked my way up to the top of the merit system career ladder and frankly kissed nobody’s ring or any other part to do it. Quit when the unions bought a Democrat Administration and went to work for the Republican Legislature as a consultant on collective bargaining issues. I knew how to dance with who brung me but I didn’t do anything more than dance. The Democrats got tired of being tortured by the Legislature and tired of their union friends so they sued for peace and I went back to work for the Executive Branch supervising all the merit system labor relations staff. Took the appointed position heading labor relations when Frank Murkowski was elected and finished my career as director. I chose not to ride the Murkowski administration down; I already had my 120 days in to get a year’s service credit for retirement, the only way to get another 120 days was to go back to the merit system if Knowles won or become BFFs with Sarah Palin and neither was an attractive proposition, so I retired July 1, 2006.
In the private sector I made more in some, not many but some, weeks than I ever made in a year in government. That said, when I was in private business I could have anything I could buy on the one easy payment plan. Granted much of the time I was in the private sector credit was very tight, but still one gets tired of being turned down for credit by some bank branch manager when you know you’re making more than he does. One gets tired of trying to factor your contracts for operating credit and of begging vendors for 2% – 10 days, net 30 days rather than Net 10 days. When I was with government, especially as I became more visible and especially after I reached the appointee level, businesses came to me wanting to do business and bankers were just dying to be my friend and “help” me with that addition or that new car or boat. Low level government work is just like low level corporate work except you have to kiss more butt in the corporate world ususally. In both the view is always the same unless you’re the lead dog. Below the poltical appointee level most government employees just do their job. A lot don’t do much, but then they aren’t asked to do much. Supervision is usually poor and political level management is usually just awful. Democrats are much more corrupt and it is much easier to get demoted or fired for political reasons or just on a whim under them, and they can and do get away with it. Republicans are generally worse managers because most of them have to be shown to their office by some Democrat and then they have to be told where the light switches and rest rooms are and have to be told what the agency they’ve just been appointed to head does. When I was director I knew most of my peers around the Country though I had little in common with most of them because they were either powerless technicians working for Democrats or just Democrat hacks who worked with the unions as co-conspirators against the taxpayers. Generally, in a Republican government if you’re good and work at making sure your political management trusts you, you can just do your job and do well. In Democrat Administrations, you have to kiss the ring and sometimes you’re expected to do much more, and your choice is simple; do it or quit. I chose to quit. I made a pretty good career out of never oweing anybody anything and having a good list of people who owed me.
There really are four distinct castes of government employees and a bunch of sub-castes that we don’t need to get into for this discussion.
The bottome of the heap, and they are almost “untouchables” to the higher castes are the line level employees and supervisors. They just do their job and some not that because they weren’t hired because they could do a job but because they fit the right block on the AA form or in Democrat governments, somebody had a job coming. (Far fewer Republicans “need” government jobs, so Republican Payoff jobs are almost exclusively in the appointee ranks.” These people do the work that government does. Mostly they don’t do a lot because they aren’t asked to do a lot. Supervisors quickly learn that if you have an administration that really wants productivity, usually Republican, the employee associations in non-union states or the unions make a list of “bad” supervisors, and as soon as the Democrats take over, it will be the supervisor on trial, not the misbehaving or nonperforming employee. It is very hazardous to your career health to be a hard-driving boss.
The next caste is the supervisors and managers a level or two below political appointees and who are direct reports to political appointees or whose immediate supervisor is a direct report to a political appointee. These are the people who know the rules and who know how to break them and get away with it, the power behind the thrones. They are unknown but very powerful people but in many ways are like the eunuchs in a Turkish whorehouse; they’re despised, distrusted, and very vulnerable to the political class above them. If you are to survive at this level the people above you must either trust you or fear you, and a little of both is probably best, though I lean towards fear you. I spent most of my government career at this level.
The next level is the political appointee and there are really two levels, those who are pure appointees and those who must stand confirmation. The appointee level implements the policy of an administration and theoretically serves at the pleasure of the Governor or President. Sometimes, though, people at this level have enough personal power that no matter the Governor or President’s “pleasure” it is more pleasant to have them inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in. Most of those at this level have at least some subject matter expertise in their assigned area and many, while politically appointed, are apolitical subject matter experts.
The higher sub-caste among appointees are those that must be confirmed. Generally, the only requirement is “friend of the Governor” or “friend of the President” and the best way to become a friend is to raise a lot of money. But, since they have to be confirmed they are higher caste and are the ones who at the direction of the Governor or President, set the policy for their agency. Some actually know something, most only know somebody and couldn’t pour pee out of a boot with instructions on the heel – this is especially true with Republican cabinet members. When either party is in charge, these people are usually at the mercy of the people a level or two below them who know the work of the agency far, far better than they do, though this is less true with Democrats. Sorry, folks, but a smart, devious ‘crat can lead most any Republican appointee right down the primrose path, see, e.g., Valarie Plame.
And then there’s the royalty, the elected official; they look down their wannabe patrician noses at everybody. But, frankly, most of them are dumb as stumps about how to get that brilliant platform and program that got them elected actually enacted by the legislative body and executed by the Executive Branch. While this group never has to take a wallet to a bar or restaurant and can get all the best women to roll over and play tricks, they’re at the mercy of the staffers and, especially, Executive Branch ‘crats who get to where they are by dazzling them with brilliances or more likely baffling them with bullshit. What makes a senior and powerful legislator a leader is living long enough to either own the staffers and ‘crats or be able to call BS on them.
Staffers to elected officials are their own sub-caste and their power is basically measured by their boss’s power, but they don’t really have much power over appointees except to the degree that they can influence their boss. If a legislative staffer can get his/her boss to cut your budget because you did something, then they have power, but if you can go ream them a new one before their boss for doing it, you have power, so it’s a balancing act. I once had a fairly substantial appropriation up and a Minority staffer in thrall to a union tried to jack me up on it in a Finance Committee; the Chairman called me and asked me what I wanted all that money for. I said, “beer for my horses and whiskey for my men.” I got my money. It’s a dirty business, but somebody has to do it.
It was a pleasure to read about these virtues I have taken for granted all my life. I have most of them and they have both an upside and a down side.
Candor: It was about 1988 and I was in a meeting with my boss and 3 or 4 customer personnel when he made the offer that was technically impossible to keep. I jumped in and said “Ah, we can’t do that!” and proceeded to explain why. The customer agreed with me and my boss was not happy.
Irony: Thank you, I have always recognized myself as sarcastic. It is ironic that most of my sarcasm was probably irony.
Physical Strength: Well, I’m not that strong, but I’ve been proud to lift heavy objects and work to a sweat many times. Sometimes I don’t understand the difference between work and play. It’s all play to me.
Memory: I can remember well working in the YMCA wood shop 60 years ago and a friend who went with me that I have not seen in all that time.
Mechanical Mind: Yes, that is me, like my father and my grandfathers. I learned early on that you don’t hire others to do what you can do. It is better to buy a tool and have it for later than to pay someone and then watch them work. It is called building wealth.
Thank you VDH, and father, for your wisdom.
I found a couple more letters from or about old Nathan Drake which exude some traditional values:
June 5, 1834 Nathan to son Asa: It is a healthy time here, but some are always going of the stage, amongst which is John Baker and Isaac Parker’s wife very lately and it will soon be my turn. I am left alone and my place is lonely, but I have but a little way to go, I shall soon get through. I have been highly favoured the winter past as to my health. I believe that I have done as much work as I was able to do when I was out with you and that is nine years ago.
I put on a pare of flannel drawers in the beginning of winter and wore them all winter. After I had wore them three or four weeks, I thought that I had got the itch, but it went off after a few weeks and I have been better to walk about than I have been for a year. I thought that I could walk 20 or 25 miles a day till I could get to Ohio, but I never shall take such a journey again.
“…When you write to me again, which I hope will be soon, I wish you to write about your children176, whether they remember anything about me, whether they remember how I used to play with them and throw them overboard.”
April 29, 1846 From Jeremy to Asa’ Dear Brother, It becomes my painful duty to inform you of the death of our honored and endeared father.
On the 31st of January when ascending the cellar stairs, he lost his balance and fell off the side of the stairs, breaking the upper part of the thigh bone near where it enters the socket. The physician residing in Stoughton, Dr. Tucker, after consulting with an eminent surgeon, decided not to attempt to set the bone with an expectation of its healing as there was danger that the pain attending the operation and the confinement of the limb necessary to keep the bone in its proper place would endanger his life. Accordingly it was left to take its natural course and in less than two months he was, by the help of crutches, out in the door yard – and twice, I believe, he went as far as brother Nathan’s. It had got so strong that he could bear the weight of his body on that leg, though it was attended with pain.
On the 17th just, he took a sudden and severe cold and he was laid on his back with the lung fever. He was favored with his reason nearly all the time during his sickness and his mind was active as long as he could speak. He lingered till about half past four on the morning of the 26 just, when he expired without scarcely a struggle.
He was fully aware of his situation during his sickness, expressed a wish who should attend his funeral, where his body should be laid, etc. He was quite talkative during his whole sickness, spoke freely of his approaching dissolution and, although not favored with great joy at the approach of death, he was calm and expressed a desire to depart and be with Jesus, if it might be the will of God. The evening before he died, he more than once expressed a hope that it might be the will of God that he should go that night. I think we have reason to hope it is well with him now, but it principally concerns us to be prepared to follow him to the world of spirits, which we must very shortly do.”
Seeing The Mechanical Mind described as a virtue please my engineer’s heart. As I read the essay, I can see an example of a sixth ancient virtue, one that VDH is an exemplar of, Clarity.
As Michael Palin’s character in The Argument Sketch says, an argument is a connected series of statements to establish a definite proposition. So much of what we read and hear these days is simply muddled. Reading a well constructed essay that has a point and makes it coherently is a rare joy these days.
Victor, a very well-done list of virtues. Your insight on the value of memory is especially important, re: “Without memory we are nothing. That is what scares me about the present electronic age: everything is the next nanosecond; the last one had become absolutely nothing.” The late Paul Weyrich and coauthor William Lind in their book, “The Next Conservatism,” discussed the grave threat the electronic revolution poses to western civilization, saying that television and computer screens have replaced books and the written word as the dominant forms of communication in our culture. A people disconnected from their past, who no longer read or remember history, become empty vessels which can be filled with whatever our would-be rulers desire. They go on to note that a people who do not know their own history, and who are addicted to electronic amusements, will be easily propagandized and manipulated.
Woodsman, re: “There are some places where those virtues are still present, and valued. I live in a rural area, largely populated by God-fearing farmers, ranchers, and other producers. The virtues Professor Hanson speaks of are not only respected and valued here, but they are actively encouraged and taught to the young.” My wife comes from just such a small, rural community. The people there are among the finest I have ever met anywhere. Clauzewitz, re: “That one of the many reasons why I married a country girl.” I as well, married a “country girl,” and have never regretted it. Best single thing I have ever done.
Concerning the mechanical virtues, my father in law fits the template you describe – his formal education ended with high school, but he is one of the most-intelligent men I have ever known, and a natural engineer. He can fix just about anything mechanical, and has a near-photographic memory concerning machinery, devices, vehicles, farm equipment, etc. Nothing makes him happier than to tinker with or fix something. The real kicker is that his town is full of people like him. Rural folk tend to be self-reliant; they have to be.
Vindico Libertas, re: “I knew I’d become a mechanical dinosaur when I bought a new ’99 Chrysler 300M and opened the hood. First, I couldn’t see the ground even though the engine was “only” a V-6. Second, the only thing I remotely recognized was the distinctive Mopar alternator.” I turned wrenches once myself, but quit when the number of ECMs and computers passed 10-12 per car. My old 1969 Firebird had a 350 V-8 and room to share under the hood. You could tune it up using hand tools, a dwell meter and timing light. These new cars, forget it… the manufacturers don’t want garage mechanics to be able to work on them. Service depts. are a huge part of the dealer’s bottom line, and they know it. We think of the new autos as cars, but they are actually computers with wheels. Honestly, one almost needs a BSEE to troubleshoot auto electronics these days, at least the tougher problems.
“I watch good Westerns just to hear the accents that bring with them memories of the way Americans used to speak.”
Beautiful. I had to read that twice, almost amazed, because it rang so true…this simple sentence conveys such an important message.
In line with the times, you’ve just become a favorite quote on my FaceBook page.
–a good western, set in the 1870s, say, and made in the 1940s, say, sure enough offers a complete double serving of that –well i hate to call it ‘nostalgia’, a word a bit too sad to suit that scene.
Yes. Though we might disagree about the politics of the time (since I am one of those socially accepting types who champions a few issues some others here might be bothered by) it is the lack of timidness when exchanging ideas that I find appealing. I fully appreciate a polite society, but not to the extent that I have to constantly reflect over every word, to make certain someone will not be offended, before I speak it.
Nor do I want someone else to have to dance around what it is he really means to say.
There’s a difference between employing a maturity, considering the audience, and…not being honest.
There were simpletons in the old days, too. We just don’t think about them anymore.
I think a visualized display can be enhanced then only a easy text, if things are defined in pictures one can without difficulty be familiar with these.