Archives for June 2004

First, the ignorance. In my post on Fahrenheit 9/11, I remarked that the essential difference I see between the left and the right is in an ability (or desire) to grasp the complexity of economic reality, i.e., the way things work. Notice that I did not make any distinction whatsoever between the principles held by the right and the left. That’s because there is none. Observe; here’s a perfectly laid out exchange between a righty and a lefty that clearly illustrates the abject ignorance of business and economics by the one from the left.

The other day a young girl came to the door to solicit my support for her presidential candidate. I asked her why I should vote for this man. She was very nice and earnest, but if you got her off the talking points she was utterly unprepared to argue anything, because she didn’t know what she was talking about. She had bullet points, and she believed that any reasonable person would see the importance of these issues and naturally fall in line. But she could not support any of her assertions. Her final selling point: Kerry would roll back the tax cuts.

Then came the Parable of the Stairs, of course. My tiresome, shopworn, oft-told tale, a piece of unsupportable meaningless anecdotal drivel about how I turned my tax cut into a nice staircase that replaced a crumbling eyesore, hired a few people and injected money far and wide – from the guys who demolished the old stairs, the guys who built the new one, the family firm that sold the stone, the other firm that rented the Bobcats, the entrepreneur who fabricated the railings in his garage, and the guy who did the landscaping. Also the company that sold him the plants. And the light fixtures. It’s called economic activity. What’s more, home improvements added to the value of this pile, which mean that my assessment would increase, bumping up my property taxes. To say nothing of the general beautification of the neighborhood. Next year, if my taxes didn’t shoot up, I had another project planned. Raise my taxes, and it won’t happen – I won’t hire anyone, and they won’t hire anyone, rent anything, buy anything. You see?

“Well, it’s a philosophical difference,” she sniffed. She had pegged me as a form of life last seen clilcking the leash off a dog at Abu Ghraib. “I think the money should have gone straight to those people instead of trickling down.” Those last two words were said with an edge.

“But then I wouldn’t have hired them,” I said. “I wouldn’t have new steps. And they wouldn’t have done anything to get the money.”

“Well, what did you do?” she snapped.

“What do you mean?”

“Why should the government have given you the money in the first place?”

“They didn’t give it to me. They just took less of my money.”

That was the last straw. Now she was angry. And the truth came out:

“Well, why is it your money? I think it should be their money.”

Then she left.

And walked down the stairs. I let her go without charging a toll. It’s the philanthropist in me.

(From lileks.com, down near the bottom)

Perfect, right? Well, not according to John T. Kennedy, who deftly exposes the fraud of the right.

Kim du Toit puts Al Gore in a quite proper perspective.

I believe this would be the first time I’ve linked to one of Kim’s articles, not that I haven’t been reading him fairly regularly for a while now. I’ll probably be doing more of it from now on. He writes an entertaining blog, with a lot of it being about guns (cool). The guy has guns all over the place, which means, your kids would be at least as safe in Kim’s custody as in the custody of your local police station. He’s a conservative, but nobody’s fool, either.

Here’s a bit about Kim, from his blog:

Kim du Toit was born and raised in Johannesburg, South Africa. Kim emigrated to the United States in 1986.

A graduate of St. John’s College, he next began a Philosophy degree, but soon abandoned the idea–attending university didn’t help him towards his goal of becoming educated.

Kim is the living embodiment of contradictions:

a White African-American with a girl’s first name and a French last name;

values the sanctity of marriage, but is married to his third wife;

attended a religious boarding school, but is an atheist;

trained chorister, but played bass guitar in a rock band;

conservative gun nut and hunter, but also an animal-lover whose pets are spoiled rotten;

and finally, a most politically-incorrect story teller who also experienced a brief stint in a South African jail for protesting against apartheid.

Kim, proudly, became a U.S. citizen in 1989. Having fled the liberals in Chicago, Illinois, Kim now lives in north Texas. He still hates Mayor Daley.

I was in the theater on the opening night of Fahrenheit 9/11; only it wasn’t to see that film. And just as I thought I might be safe, after braving the gauntlet of lefties queued up to find out what 9/11 “was really all about,” I walked past a Borders Books just in time to take note of a display showcasing The Liar’s new book, as well as another display with his book and that of his pathetic hanger-on wife side-by-side.

I suppose that as politics goes, it’s the left’s time to take their shot. They’ve failed miserably in every attempt to develop a propaganda machine, apart from the main-stream media, that serves more of an audience for entertainment purposes (e.g., "right-wing talk-radio"). So, perhaps this new film genre that I will term "Leftumentary" (propaganda by any other name) can survive beyond this November’s reconciliation of Bush’s "stolen election" of 2000.

But here’s one rub, of many: I’d no more be caught dead in a true-believer spectacle such as “Rush to Excellence,” “Hannitize America,” or “Savage Uncensored” than I would be sitting through the torture of viewing a pathetic screed of cynical propaganda by the likes of Michael Moore.

There’s one reason and one reason only that I am able to grudgingly tolerate the right while I have no tolerance whatsoever for the left. Quite simply, the “man on the street” from the left has virtually zero understanding of the practical and economic realities of how the world works. And here’s rub number two: until they gain some degree of such understanding, political persuasion on any level is virtually pointless. The man on the street from the right has a far better understanding of the complexity of what goes behind putting bread & butter on the table for seven billion people, starting with some wheat seed, water, grass and livestock. Their problem is that they see “freedom” as a practical tool in this endeavor and not a fundamental principal. Not only that, but they see freedom as an aspect only of economics, and not of all human action; thus, their insipid moralizing with regard to matters of personal choice and preference.

In view of the foregoing, there’s little benefit that could come from referencing Christopher Hitchens’ quite comprehensive review of this film. See, the problem is that we’re dealing with the segment of the population for whom Moore specifically targeted this film—lefties who distrust and/or hate George W. Bush and have a very superficial knowledge of the totality of not only the facts surrounding the events in question, but the regional history going back many decades. …Oh, and the doofuses—who barely merit mention—who believe this whole affair has anything to do with oil.

So, those inclined should consider giving Hitchens’ review a read. And if you think that Hitchens carries water for the right, think again. And this too, from the film review:

Some right-wing hack groups, I gather, are planning to bring pressure on their local movie theaters to drop the film. How dumb or thuggish do you have to be in order to counter one form of stupidity and cowardice with another? By all means go and see this terrible film, and take your friends, and if the fools in the audience strike up one cry, in favor of surrender or defeat, feel free to join in the conversation.

However, I think we can agree that the film is so flat-out phony that "fact-checking" is beside the point.

A prerequisite to having ones’ intelligence insulted is to have knowledge and understanding of the subject matter. This would be why so many lefties just think the film is “great” and “thought provoking.” Ha, ha, ha; they know not what they don’t know. So, as a final illustration of what an intelligence-insulting (to those with the requisite intellect, that is) hack job this film is, consider Hitchens’ comments with respect to the film’s ending:

Perhaps vaguely aware that his movie so completely lacks gravitas, Moore concludes with a sonorous reading of some words from George Orwell. The words are taken from 1984 and consist of a third-person analysis of a hypothetical, endless, and contrived war between three superpowers. The clear intention, as clumsily excerpted like this (…) is to suggest that there is no moral distinction between the United States, the Taliban, and the Baath Party and that the war against jihad is about nothing. If Moore had studied a bit more, or at all, he could have read Orwell really saying, and in his own voice, the following:

The majority of pacifists either belong to obscure religious sects or are simply humanitarians who object to taking life and prefer not to follow their thoughts beyond that point. But there is a minority of intellectual pacifists, whose real though unacknowledged motive appears to be hatred of western democracy and admiration for totalitarianism. Pacifist propaganda usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as the other, but if one looks closely at the writing of the younger intellectual pacifists, one finds that they do not by any means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United States …

And that’s just from Orwell’s Notes on Nationalism in May 1945. A short word of advice: In general, it’s highly unwise to quote Orwell if you are already way out of your depth on the question of moral equivalence. It’s also incautious to remind people of Orwell if you are engaged in a sophomoric celluloid rewriting of recent history.

(Link to Hitchens’ film review via Beck)

Since first jumping into the whole internet thing in 1992, I’ve encountered thousands of different people on various political/philosophical mediums of exchange, like Usenet. I’ve lightly corresponded with perhaps a few dozen of those at one time or another. Then there’s the small handful whose historical depth of knowledge and uncompromising commitment to freedom as a general principle–rather than a pragmatic convenience–make one like me sit up and take notice.

That was in about 1994, so it’s been ten years I’ve been reading Billy Beck’s stuff off & on, and dropping him an email every now and then. To give you an idea of this man’s depth, check out his reading list. I can assure you that these books aren’t mere shelf candy.

So, then, it would be no surprise that I’d take the opportunity to actually meet face-to-face. Billy was in San Francisco supervising the implementation of his set and lights design for a musical performance taking place in the downtown San Francisco Marriott. Here he is at work.

I was glad to be able to get up to The City in record time from San Jose–time enough to sit and talk classic rock music in general and guitarists in particular (Billy possesses encyclopedic knowledge in this area). Then he had to get down to the grand ballroom, so I was able to hang there a bit and witness how these productions go together, behind the scenes.

It’s the stuff you’d normally never notice. As Billy says, it’s supposed to be transparent. If the audience takes note of your work, then you’ve probably screwed up somewhere.

It was good to finally meet you, man.

Can you guess?

[He] condemned conscription, saying … that it “rests on the assumption that your kids belong to the state…. That assumption isn’t a new one. The Nazis thought it was a great idea.”

Do you know? I think he should have rather said: ‘The Soviets think it’s a great idea;’ but why quibble over that? I guess what bothers me the most is that I just never, ever, hear proclamations of principles that go anywhere near this level anywhere in the vast sea of politics. I’m resigned to the fact that it’s not going to make much of a difference anyway, but it would at least be nice to know that someone out there has at least given them some thought–that, such ideas have occurred to them.

Even as regards the “War on Terror;” I can’t recall the last time I heard a public official address this whole matter in terms of fundamental, bread-&-butter human principles. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, then that, in itself, illustrates my dilemma.

Oh, who said it? Here.