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.
Never mind the currently-fashionable bit of wokery in the link explaining this reference, bolting on a vague accusation of racism (or raaaaacism) onto anything that a person of pallor says, does, or references – the metaphor of something nasty sticking harder and more firmly no matter how one tries to fight it off and disengage is curiously valid in the case of Joe Biden and the National Establishment Press.
The realization that Mr. Biden is a couple of sandwiches short of a full picnic comes as a horrible shocker … to practically no sane, non-partisan observer of the political scene for the past … I don’t know, decade? Two decades or more? But everyone else is shocked, horrified, discomfited! Until two weeks ago, he was almost universally painted by the National Establishment Press as the Sage of Scranton, honored and revered solon of the Senate, the experienced and steadying VP in the Obama Administration, a kindly and revered family man, beloved by all! (Or at least, somewhat better than that awful, bad, Orange Man!) Unthinkable, asking a blunt and unscreened question of the Incredible Talking Mop, Karine Jean-Pierre, at a White House press conference about Mr. Biden’s disintegrating mental facilities! The very notion – so rude, unprofessional, so very, very Deplorable!
If you read English naval history, you are sure to run into a reference to The Commissioners for Executing the Office of Lord High Admiral. Your first reaction is likely to be something like WTF? Why couldn’t the Lord High Admiral execute the duties of his own office? Lazy, much?
The way it worked, as I understand it, was like this:
Some of the time, there was no Lord High Admiral. Hence, it was the duty of the Commissioners to do what a Lord High Admiral would/should have done if such an individual had existed.
At other times, there was indeed a Lord High Admiral, but his role was purely ceremonial, and the Commissioners were the ones who actually performed the duties of the office.
And at still other times, there was indeed a Lord High Admiral who did the admiral-type work. I’m not sure whether in these cases, the Commissioners were still there to serve as assistants, or whether the Commission was temporarily suspended during the tenure of such admirals.
It strikes me that there is a certain parallel with the current situation in the US vis-a-vis Joe Biden. One key difference being that the English people knew who the Commissioners of the Admiralty were. Yet while it has long been clear that Biden is getting a significant degree of direction and ‘help’ in executing the duties of his office, we in America today don’t have a good understanding of who these helpers/directors might be. This question has become increasingly pressing over he last couple of weeks.
I don’t think there’s anything like a formal “cabal” for telling Joe Biden what to do. Much more likely, we have a loosely-coupled set of influencers, with power even greater–much greater–than typical of a president’s inner circle. Who are these people? Barack Obama, certainly, and many members of the Obama administration: there is some truth to the statement that the Biden administration has really been the third Obama administration. Doctor Jill Biden, playing the role of Edith Wilson. Ron Klain. Susan Rice. We can only guess who else, because the influencers are not a formal organization from whom transparency can be demanded. It is clear also that Biden is greatly influenced by prominent media figures and academics–clearly, he believes that it is very important to stand in well with the Ivy League:
Lemme tell you something Mr. Biden says, with a clenched jaw. There’s a river of power that flows through this country. Some people, most people, don’t even know the river is there. But it’s there. Some people know about the river, but they can’t get in, they only stand at the edge. And some people, a few, get to swim in the river. All the time. They get to swim their whole lives, in the river of power. And that river flows from the Ivy League.
Like many social climbers, Biden also cares a lot about what “Europeans” think.
Another major difference between our present situation and that of the administration of the Royal Navy: Although the damage that the Commissioners of the Admiralty could do though mistaken decisions was quite substantial: “ships sunk, sailors lost, colonial possessions lost, possibly in the worst case an invasion of England itself,” there was no danger that a bad decision on their part would destroy the entire world. That is not the case with the potential damage that could be done by bad advice from our present “Commissioners.”
Last October marked the 60st anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis. It is now pretty clear that, despite the previous claims of some of the involved individuals, JFK stood almost alone against the advice of his advisors, including his brother Bobby, who insisted on air strikes and/or an invasion of Cuba. (See The Cuban Missile Crisis in American Memory, by Sheldon Stern, which makes extensive use of the now-declassified secret White House recordings.) It is also pretty clear that the advisor-recommended reactions would have led to a very bad outcome, quite possibly including general nuclear war.
What are the odds that Biden would stand strongly against the almost-unanimous view of his advisors in a similar situation? I’d say it is pretty low.
Regarding the influence of Obama, @wretchardthecat wrote at X:
Like the dead hand of an ancient curse, Obama‘s vision, based on a now vanished world, will wreak a path of ruin until it finally collapses on the shambles of all it sought to transform…The once unipolar world is fractured — and is still fracturing — along two lines: the line of Great Powers, Russia, the West and China; and the line of civilizations, Islam and the West. Biden, now over 80, cannot hope to retrieve things in an Obama fourth term…
In less than two years, Biden and his “Commissioners” have done tremendous damage to the United States and the world. It is hard to imagine that any future Democratic administration would not also be heavily subject to the influence of Obama and the other “commissioners” I mentioned above, leaving aside only Doctor Jill Biden. The best hope of minimizing this damage lies in the potential for a Republican House and Republican Senate. True, many of the candidates are not what we would wish. But the best is the enemy of the good, and the issue of the moment is not establishing ideal policies but rather avoiding multiple catastrophes.
7/9/2024: The events of the last two weeks make clear just how powerful the continuing influence of major media continues to be. These people knew, or could have easily learned, the true situation with Biden, but they chose not to report it. So most people, including those who think of themselves are “well-informed,” continued to be unaware of it.
Economic policy determines whether economies, and hence citizen real income grows nationally and how that income is distributed. The invisible hand of a market economy guides investment to its most profitable, hence most productive uses. Not so for the heavy hand of the state. The Soviet Union saved and invested five to six times as much as the US, but productivity lagged and the economy eventually collapsed. Taxpayers have some control over “public” investment performance at, e.g., the small private level (condo, coop) but voter influence declines as the distance and size of the governing body increases. Making national investment policy even more difficult is the fact that even highly productive public investment may not pay off until well into the future. While rational economic policy would devolve decision-making and funding to the lowest possible level, the federal government’s lack of a hard budget constraint allows it to fund without accountability. The Constitution’s enumerated powers has proven an insufficient constraint on this perverse political incentive.
During President Trump’s term, pre-pandemic, real wages rose steadily at about 2% reflecting the steady real economic growth, but fell under Biden by over 2% due to inflation. Black unemployment and poverty fell under Trump, and continued to fall under Biden. While Trump proposed deep budget cuts, the Congress passed essentially the Democrats’ budget under both Ryan and Pelosi. Trump passed what in the ’60s under Kennedy was called a Keynesian tax cut, now called a “voodoo economics” supply-side tax cut for the rich to spur business investment, that worked essentially as planned.
Trump takes undue credit for the good performance during his term, for which the main stream media (MSM) accuse him of lying. Biden does the same, for which the MSM cheers. Independent voters favor Trump over Biden by 45% to 34% on the management of the economy. Numerous Democratic commentators have speculated that voter mistrust of Biden reflects FOX fake news popping up on TV sets uninvited to brainwash unsuspecting viewers.
I ran across a poem, said to have been written by the French aviator/writer Antoine de St-Exupery.
I don’t think St-Ex wrote this poem: I’m pretty familiar with his works and haven’t seen this poem in any of them, and it also doesn’t seem stylistically quite right. I do, however, recognize the book and the passage that were surely the inspiration for the poem, That would be his unfinished novel of ideas Citadelle, published in English under the unfortunate title Wisdom of the Sands. (The reason the novel is unfinished is that St-Ex disappeared in 1944 while flying recon missions in a P-38 with the American forces)
Citadelle represents the musings of a fictional desert prince: on society, on government, on humanity. Here are some excerpts from the relevant passage:
“Nevertheless,” I mused, “these men live not by things but by the meaning of things, and thus it is needful that they should transmit the passwords to each other, generation by generation. That is why I see them, no sooner a child is born, making haste to inure him in the usage of their language; for truly it is the key to their treasure. So as to be able to transport him into this harvest of golden wonders they have reaped, they spare no toil in opening up within him the ways of portage. For hard to put into words, weighty yet subtle, are the harvests it behooves us to transmit from one generation to another.”
“..But if the new generation lives in houses about which it knows nothing save their utility, what will it find to do in such a desert of a world? For even as your children must first be taught the art of music, if they are to take pleasure in playing a stringed instrument; even so, if you would have them, when they come to man’s estate, capable of the emotions worthiest of man, you must teach hem to discern, behind the diversity of things, the true lineaments of your house, your domain, your empire.
Else that new generation will but pitch camp therein, like a horde of savages in a town they have captured. And what joy would such barbarians get of your treasures? Lacking the key of your language, they would know not how to turn them to account….(the barbarian) throws down your walls and scatters your possessions to the winds. This he does to revenge himself on the instrument which he knows not how to play, and presently he sets the village on fire–which at least rewards him with a little light! But soon he loses interest, and yawns. For you must know what you are burning, if you are to find beauty in its light. Thus with the candle you burn before your god. But to the barbarian the flames of your house will say nothing, for they are not a sacrificial fire.”
“..This, too, is why I bid you bring up your children to be like you. It is not the function of some petty officer to hand down to him their inheritance,; for this is something not comprised in his manual of Regulations..You shall build your children in your image, lest in late days they come to drag their lives out joyously in a land which will seem to them but an empty camping place, and whose treasures they will allow to rot away uncared-for, because they have not been given its keys.”
It strikes me that most of the institutions of America today–and also, I think, throughout much of the West–are acting, unconsciously or with intention, to inhibit the kind of password-transmission about which St-Ex wrote in the above passage.
I’m also reminded of something CS Lewis wrote, which I quote very loosely: “If you want to destroy an an infantry unit, you cut it off from its adjacent units. If you want to destroy a generation, you cut it off from its adjoining generations.”
Playing fast and loose with the definition of “ode,” this was an annual Independence Day tradition on the long-neglected blog. The original was posted July 4, 2002. Most years a change or addition was made. This is the most recent incarnation.
Scenes from “John Adams” showing the meeting of the Second Continental Congress, at which the vote for independence from Great Britain is conducted, and the public reading of the Declaration of Independence. [Original video with both scenes is now a dead link, new videos have been found.]
The Declaration formally proclaimed our independence – the Battle of Yorktown won it.
Through these fields of destruction Baptisms of fire I’ve watched all your suffering As the battle raged higher And though they did hurt me so bad In the fear and alarm You did not desert me My brothers in arms
Dire Straits, “Brothers in Arms”
“Then I will live in Montana, and I will marry a round American woman and raise rabbits and she will cook them for me. And I will have a pickup truck, or possibly even a recreational vehicle, and drive from state to state. Do they let you do that?”
Vasili Borodin (played by Sam Neill), The Hunt for Red October
“‘We hold these truths to be self-evident… That all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights… That among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness… That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men …’. And this paper that from the French Revolution on the whole West has copied, from which each of us has drawn inspiration, still constitutes the backbone of America. Her vital lymph. Know why? Because it transforms the subjects into citizens. Because it turns the plebes into people. Because it invites, no, it orders the plebes turned into citizens to rebel against tyranny and to govern themselves. To express their individualities, to search for their own happiness. (Something that for the poor, for the plebes, means to get rich). The exact contrary, in short, of what the communists used to do with their practice of forbidding people to govern themselves, to express themselves, to get rich. With their practice of installing His Majesty the State on the throne.”
Oriana Fallaci, The Rage and the Pride
“With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.”
Martin Luther King
“There is an inverse relationship between reliance on the state and self-reliance.”
“The State exists simply to promote and to protect the ordinary happiness of human beings in this life. A husband and wife chatting over a fire, a couple of friends having a game of darts in a pub, a man reading a book in his own room or digging in his own garden – that is what the State is there for. And unless they are helping to increase and prolong and protect such moments, all the laws, parliaments, armies, courts, police, economics, etc., are simply a waste of time.”
C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
“Funny that the same people to whom diversity is a holy word so often bemoan diversity of opinion as divisive. But in a democracy, politics are naturally divisive: you vote for this candidate and someone else votes for that one; you vote yes (or no) on a proposition and other citizens disagree. What’s not divisive? Saddam and his 99.96% of the vote. That’s how it went during the previous Iraqi election — an illustration of the Latin roots of the word fascism, which actually means a bunch of sticks all tied together in one big unhappy unified bunch, and not (despite what many assume) any variation from p.c. received-wisdom regarding gay rights, affirmative action, bilingual education, etc. This election was different because it was divisive, which means it was better.”
“It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened. But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something. Even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn’t. Because they were holding on to something…That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for.”
Sam Gamgee (played by Sean Astin), Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers
“[W]e recognize that we are living in the middle of the most overwhelmingly successful experiment in human history. Not perfect. Just the best place in the world to live in, that’s all.”
“I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered! My life is my own.”
Number Six (played by Patrick McGoohan, “The Prisoner” TV series)
“Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the President or any other public official save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country.”
Theodore Roosevelt
This Tea Party protest sign illustrates Roosevelt’s musings on patriotism – and the powers of the citizen as exercised via the ballot box:
“So this Jefferson dude was like, ‘Look, the reason we left this England place is ’cause it was so bogus. So if we don’t get some primo rules ourselves – pronto – then we’re just gonna be bogus, too.”
Jeff Spiccoli (played by Sean Penn), Fast Times at Ridgemont High
“Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom, socialism restricts it. Democracy attaches all possible value to each man; socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.”
Alexis deTocqueville, Democracy in America Vol. 2
“We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way”
Through these fields of destruction 
