Some Chicago Boyz know each other from student days at the University of Chicago. Others are Chicago boys in spirit. The blog name is also intended as a good-humored gesture of admiration for distinguished Chicago School economists and fellow travelers.
The apparent collusion between politicos, advocacy journalists and supposed objective journalists on the infamous JournoList forum raises an interesting legal question.
Could some of the journalists participating in the list have committed legal fraud against their readers?
Don’t be a goat, be a hero. Read ChicagoBoyz daily.
From Israel Through European Eyes by Yoram Hazony:
In these words, the tie between the Holocaust and what Ben-Gurion calls the “sin” of Jewish powerlessness is powerfully in evidence. The meaning of Auschwitz is that the Jews failed in their efforts find a way to defend their children. They depended on others, decent men in power in America or Britain, who, when the time came, did virtually nothing to save European Jewry. Today, most Jews continue to believe that the only thing that has really changed since those millions of our people perished—the only thing that stands as a bulwark against the repetition of this chapter in the world’s history—is Israel.[11]
It is a little-discussed fact that the Jews are not the only ones for whom Auschwitz has become an important political symbol. Many Europeans, too, see Auschwitz as being at the heart of the lesson of World War II. But the conclusions they draw are precisely the opposite of those drawn by Jews. Following Kant, they see Auschwitz as the ultimate expression of that barbarism, that brutal debasement of humanity, which is national particularism. On this view, the death camps provide the ultimate proof of the evil that results from permitting nations to decide for themselves how to dispose of the military power in their possession. The obvious conclusion is that it was wrong to give the German nation this power of life and death. If such evil is to be prevented from happening again and again, the answer must be in the dismantling of Germany and the other national states of Europe, and the yoking together of all the European peoples under a single international government. Eliminate the national state once and for all—Ecrasez l’infame!—and you have sealed off that dark road to Auschwitz.
Notice that according to this view, it is not Israel that is the answer to Auschwitz, but the European Union: A united Europe will make it impossible for Germany, or any other European nation, to rise up and persecute others once again. In this sense, it is European Union that stands as the guarantor of the future peace of the Jews, and indeed, of all humanity.
Much has already been said about this excellent article.
Rather than pile on the (deserved) praise, I want to ask the following question(s).
How does one defeat this “class?” What strategies will succeed? What resources are necessary? I think these are important questions because the article succeeds in raising our consciousness to the problem, but doesn’t offer a game plan as to how to proceed. It is up to us (Country Class) to develop one. After developing it, we need to start executing, regardless of whether others come along with us.
Let me start with a few observations.
Hot Air links to this speech against the feds’ moratorium on drilling by Gov. Bobby Jindal and picks out the following key phrase: “let us go back to work!”
Is there a better way to summarize the spaghetti-diagram of legislated rules and regulations that bind, hold-down, dampen, repress and retard the engines of economic growth? Why hire that extra person when you don’t know who will staff the latest alphabet soup regulatory agency and what the regulations will be? Because you know, it’s all so empirical and science-y, man, watch and learn:
1. Legislate new regulatory board.
2. Staff new regulatory board.
3. New regulatory board writes new regulations.
4. ?
5. 10% GDP growth! Yeah for us!
By the way, America’s biggest cheer-leader had the following to say in his press conference with UK PM Cameron:
And, in fact, in the first G20 visit that I made, in April to England, I was very clear to the rest of the world that what they cannot rely on is an economic model in which the United States borrows — consumers in the United States borrow, we take out home equity loans, we run up credit cards to purchase goods from all around the world. We cannot alone be the economic engine for the rest of the world’s growth. So that rebalancing ended up being a central part of our long-term strategy working with the G20
Mr. President, I know you mean well but you are ONE MASSIVE DOWNER.