Political Philosophy

Important Reading

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The American Spectator has a long article, written by Anthony Codevilla, on America’s Ruling Class. It is a very long article, so you may want to print it out to read it…then kindly come back here and discuss.

I think the article somewhat overstates its case, but points to some trends which are very disturbing and are moving, in the wrong direction, very fast. This is important enough to deserve careful reading and extensive discussion.

Update: Grim has a useful summary of the article.

Update 2: A couple of relevant links:

RWCG on Modern Leftism as a Fine-Tuned Wealth Display Strategy

My post explaining why paying higher taxes can be very profitable

Also: The Booming Washington, DC Economy…related to my “profitable higher taxes” link above.

Fernandez: Nicely Put

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and, unfortunately, broadly applicable:

The most serious allegation in the whole affair is that the certain officials countenanced a crime because they wanted to. The most concentrated expression of tyranny is malice in the service of caprice.

Belmont Club

Quote of the Day

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Even so, it is well to remember that resistence is not futile, it is required.

-Commenter Veryretired, in a discussion of Ginny’s post about Emerson.

The post and comment are worth reading in full.

A Culture War in Miniature

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A debate about a 4th-grade basketball game illustrates, on a very small scale, some of the primary cultural and political divides facing America today:

A few days before the game, Jay’s father called me. He and the other parents of his son’s team were “very, very concerned.” Even alarmed. Apparently, as the championship game neared, the boys were doing a lot trash-talking at each other. Surely we could all agree that the real reason for the competition was to teach the boys cooperation and sportsmanship. Playing the game would mean one of the teams would lose, which would lead the winning team to “bragging rights in the schoolyard.” And that would not be healthy. It would undermine the real lessons to be learned about self-esteem and mutual respect.

He dwelled on these points for a while, finally landing heavily on the notion that this was a wonderful opportunity for us, as parents, to “frame the situation as a teaching moment.” Eventually, he got to the money point: He and the other parents of Jay’s team wanted to cancel the championship game. After all, we could all agree that both teams were already winners, right?

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The Destruction Continues

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I’ve never been a fan of the company called BP. For one thing, I thought their slogan, “Beyond Petroleum,” was political pandering of a very low sort, and also disrespectful to their own employees, the vast majority of whom were and are engaged in petroleum-related activities.

But regardless of my feelings about this corporation, I am increasingly appalled at the lynch-mob spirit behind the attacks on it by the Obama admninistration…in particular, the strident demands, while the crisis is not yet resolved, for increasingly vast sums of money in compensation for the damages caused. (See this, for example)

In the United States, we have an established mechanism for establishing damages in situations like this. It is called the court system, and it involves things like laws, precedents, contracts among the companies involved (and BP was not the only company involved here), and this little thing called evidence. For all of this, Obama seems to want to substitute something like a civil version of the constitutionally-prohibited bills of attainder, though in this case driven exclusively by the executive (him) rather than involving legislative process.

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