Month: September 2008

Quote of the Day

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Wretchard of Belmont Club in a comment on one of his own blog posts:

One sign that Obama isn’t a real organizer, as he claims, is his ignorance of the “radicalization moment”. This the psychological moment every organizer against a totalitarianism aims for. It’s the exact second the mask comes off and the truncheon comes down.
 
Back in the anti-Marcos days it was the instant when a leader who thought he’d be respected for his grey hairs was kicked in the groin; when people who were minding their own business were stopped at checkpoints and shaved, by grinning thugs, until they had the “New Society” haircut. For the Filipino upper class the radicalization moment came when Ninoy Aquino was shot dead on an airport apron. Then the scales fell from their eyes and they saw Ferdinand Marcos for the first time.
 
The unbridled campaign of disinformation and bullying is creating tens of thousands of radicalization moments and Obama will pay for this. But he won’t pay for it until someone — probably not McCain — comes along and creates its dual: the Empowerment Moment. The Empowerment Moment is the instant when you realize you can strike back at your tormentors. People have glimpsed it before. When Buckhead took down Dan Rather, for example. But it doesn’t happen by accident. An Empowerment Moment is the result of thousands of radicalization moments parsed through discussion and reflection. That’s what the Anbar Awakening was. But where is the Petraeus of politics?

Shannon’s Prodigality

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I am thankful to Shannon for continuing his prodigal prodding (those words don’t work together very well, do they?) that leads us to define our own agreements with him – and sometimes disagreements.  Mine keep outgrowing the comments section, so here’s another long-winded response.  It has moved from elitism to the last discussions between Shannon & Sean.  If you want more of that, hit the key below.  If you don’t, don’t.  Reminder:  this is someone who makes her living in the nebulous (Shannon) or uncertain (Sean) realm of the liberal arts.

 

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A Dangerous Trend

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I am afraid that this is true:

 One interesting aspect of the recent government bailouts has been the complete irrelevance of Congress. The operation and decision-making seems to be run almost entirely by the Secretary of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve. Congress appears to lack the ability, the will, and the decisiveness to play any role except spectator, as a handful of senior executive branch officials have nationalized major portions of Wall Street.

I think this is a dangerous trend. Much as we disdain it as a squabblers’ club, Congress is the representative body of the federal government. The weakening of Congress means the weakening of democracy itself.  

The last forty years have seen an increasing irrelevance for Congress for several reasons. The emergence of the U.S. as a superpower in a cold war made the executive much more important than it had been in earlier and more peaceful times. The increasing scope of government to include almost every possible activity meant more and more legislation, and in turn that Congressmen could devote less time and study to each particular issue. 

Congress itself shares a lot of the blame, however. Since the sixties the Congress has repeatedly shoved the tough issues off onto the courts and the executive. Congress increasingly passes high-minded but vague legislation that leaves the actual decision making to the other branches. For example, the Americans with Disabilities Act’s notorious “reasonable accommodation standard” which left it to the courts to decide on a case-by-case basis how much a business had to spend to accommodate disabled customers and employees. 

Congress is making itself irrelevant by progressively pushing the real responsibility for the government’s decisions onto the less representative branches. That means that you and I have less and less say in what goes on. 

Explaining Elitism to Leftists

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I’ve been thinking about this subject for sometime now. When recent events prompted me to write I spun out over a thousand words on the subject. (I’m rushed, please forgive any typos.) That’s a bit long for a blog post so I’ve split it into a short version here and then the long version in the “Read the Rest…”.

Short version: Leftists believe that elitism arises from wealth and only from wealth. Non-leftists believe that elitism arises from the belief in an intellectually and morally superior of a minority. Elitists demonstrate their elitism by their lack of respect for the decision-making ability of others. 

They confuse compassion for their “lessors” with respect for the decision-making ability of those same people. Leftists view themselves as superhuman with the same relationship between themselves and the rest of the population as the relationship between adults and children. Since they have no respect for the decision-making ability or ordinary people, they seek to elect fellow extraordinary people, i.e., supermen, to political office.

Leftists hate Palin and non-leftists like her for the same reason: She represents a wide swath of Americans. She’s not a superman. Leftists can’t believe anyone would seriously elect an ordinary moron to the highest office in the land, instead of a superman. The same goes for McCain. Despite his wealth, people believe he would make the same decisions as an ordinary American.

The election comes down to whether people think of themselves as electing a superior person, someone who will make different and better decisions than ordinary Americans, or whether they think of electing someone who would make the same decisions that an ordinary American would make. 

[Update:(2008.9.18.13:51): Sometimes, it falls right into your lap. Read this before reading the long version]

Long version…

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