Quite correct Klavan on the Culture! It has long been a byword among the “reality based community” that “reality has a liberal bias”. That this is total rubbish is demonstrated by viewing much of popular entertainment, usually written by doctrinaire liberals, and comparing it with reality. No, pro-lifers are not the ones supporting murder in the abortion debate, communists are not romantic reformers who just want to help people, most murders are not committed by rich white men, segregationists in the South were not Republicans, the US military is not filled with bloodthirsty maniacs, Christians are not some sort of weird cult, Republicans are not all idiots, and the list could go on an on. We live in an odd time when those who produce what passes for culture have sold what little artistic intengrity they ever had for the sake of politics, and as a result more and more people are simply ignoring them, the worst fate of all for people who have any pretensions to be respected for their art.
Conservative Reality, Liberal Fantasies
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 41 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
Liberalism and conservatism, two delusions separated by a common reality.
Brzzt! Wrong Maryland Bill, but thanks for playing!
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Ah, Law & Order!
It would be interesting to compare murders of abortionists as such during the run of the show (maybe two) vs. L&O-world (at least once a season).
Otoh, Jack McCoy seems never to have prosecuted a gay domestic homicide or a “hate crime” like defacing a church.
And Jack McCoy is portrayed as a Catholic, though a non-practicing one. How like all too many so-called “Catholics” in these United States. God will raise son of Abraham from the stones themselves – Matthew 3:9.
McCoy is the liberal stereotype of the “good” Catholic, a fallen away one! Raised by a brutal Irish Catholic cop father who beat him and was a racist. ( The example given on the show is hilarious. McCoy’s dad beats him up for dating a Polish girl!) Since his father was Irish of course he was a drunk and McCoy has his own (past) problems with the bottle.
As to religion:
“McCoy was raised Catholic but does not appear to be in practice, and has not been for some time. In the episode “Angel”, it is revealed that McCoy was educated by the Jesuits. In the Season 17 episode “Good Faith”, he describes himself as “a lapsed Catholic”. On several occasions, religion has been the subject of various cases. In the episode “Thrill”, in which two teenage boys are accused of killing a man just for fun, McCoy finds his case particularly complicated when one of the suspects confesses the crime to his uncle, who happens to be a priest. When the confession tape is labeled privileged, McCoy ignores the bishop’s request to preserve the sacrament of reconciliation and instead tries to use the tape as evidence. When Detective Rey Curtis (Benjamin Bratt) tries to dissuade McCoy from doing so, reminding him that he is a Catholic, McCoy responds, “Not when I’m at work.”
By the episode “Under God”, McCoy had particularly soured on the Church. When a man is accused of killing a drug dealer who killed the man’s son, a priest confesses to the crime. Though McCoy personally believes that the priest is covering for the man, he prosecutes the priest instead. At the end of the episode, McCoy says that he lost his faith after the death of a childhood friend.”
If McCoy had been black, this level of stereotyping would involve constant references to rhythym, Gospel singing, fried chicken and watermelons. Of course such crude stereotyping is reserved for “safe” targets today like Irish Catholics and Evangelical Christians.
No, pro-lifers are not the ones supporting murder in the abortion debate, communists are not romantic reformers who just want to help people, most murders are not committed by rich white men, segregationists in the South were not Republicans, the US military is not filled with bloodthirsty maniacs, Christians are not some sort of weird cult, Republicans are not all idiots
As a liberal, I don’t subscribe to a single one of those propositions. But I am intriged by the conservative proposition that in the private market, businesses will do what is most efficient and profitable, except in the entertainment industry, where the bosses substitute a doctrinaire ideology contrary to wise business practices. Fascinating.
“where the bosses substitute a doctrinaire ideology contrary to wise business practices.”
The endless parade of “America is the demon in the war on terror” films Kurt, which have all tanked at the box office, demonstrate that ideology will usually trump the bottom line in Hollywood.
Having read Kurt’s response, I confess that I simply don’t understand the liberal mindset. Liberals are a completely alien breed. I see sex ed and condom use taught in public schools because of libs. I see homosexual sodomy glorified as a civil right because of libs. I see abortion touted as reproductive rights because of libs. I see porn touted as freedom of speech because of libs. I just don’t get it, and quite frankly don’t want to.
Really Donald? That is the best you can do? Repeating of the most tired, hackneyed phrases on the internet?
I had written a lengthy rebuttal, pointing out a few of the many conservative delusions that exist but then I decided, I would just steal the words of someone else like you did… but I think I will choose someone better to steal from… so in the words of G.K. Chesterton, “The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected.”
So, if I am wrong, I guess Chesterton is wrong as well… though I think it would be unfortunate for anyone claiming to be Catholic to dismiss him with some trite comeback.
Are Conservatives or Republicans the party of God? Nope. Are the liberals or Democrats? Nope. But of the two, only one legitimatizes abortion as reproductive rights, only one sanctifies homosexual sodomy, only one promotes porn as freedom of speech, only one demands sex ed in public schools, only one has consistently worked to marginalize anything Christian in Western Society.
I am not enamored with conservativism or the Republican Party, and they certainly aren’t the party of God. But the alternative is worse.
“The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected.”
In what century and country did Chesty exist?
Burt Prelutsky quoted at “Some Have Hats”: “Whether it’s insisting that global warming is going to raise ocean levels by 20 feet; that heterosexual AIDS is a major health concern; that law-abiding Americans can’t be trusted with guns; that every nation and every culture is superior to our own; that illegal aliens and Islamic jihadists are entitled to all the rights and privileges of U.S. citizens; that providing 31 million additional people with health insurance will save us billions of dollars; that Supreme Court justices should essentially be social workers who get to wear their robes to work; that drilling for oil and digging for coal are evil endeavors; that windmills and sunbeams can supply all the energy a modern industrial nation needs; that Christian symbols should be eliminated from the national landscape; and that the redistribution of personal wealth is a moral imperative; liberals display an arrogant disdain for traditional American virtues, not to mention logic and common sense.”
. But I am intriged by the conservative proposition that in the private market, businesses will do what is most efficient and profitable, except in the entertainment industry, where the bosses substitute a doctrinaire ideology contrary to wise business practices. Fascinating.
I would imagine that the contention is more that many in the entertainment industry and heavily ideological, and that they often end up producing grey biased entertainment as a result without particularly meaning to. (Obviously, with some “issue” films, they do mean to.)
That is the sort of thing which happens when people have radically different ideas about reality.
Really Donald? That is the best you can do? Repeating of the most tired, hackneyed phrases on the internet?
This coming from someone whose entire comment was just a tired refrain we’ve heard countless times from the “holier than thou” brigade of supposed non-partisans. Really, what was the in depth, staggering commentary that Donald was supposed to reply to?
So, if I am wrong, I guess Chesterton is wrong as well…
I didn’t realize that GK Chesterton was an infallible source of Christian witness whose every utterance every Catholic had to fully agree with. And here I thought he was just a brilliant polemicist who was prone to human error just like everybody else. I also note that Chesterton was writing early 20th century politics, and therefore his quip might not be fully apt to today’s situation.
“Really Donald? That is the best you can do? Repeating of the most tired, hackneyed phrases on the internet?”
Your comment wasn’t worth any more effort than that Maryland Bill.
“The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected.”
G.K. Chesterton wasted a good many years on Distributist nonsense and that quotation is part and parcel of his attempt along with his brother Cecil and Hilaire Belloc to forge a “third way” in economics and politics. Like most of Chesterton’s obiter dicta in regard to most subjects it is much more amusing than true. This of course leaves aside the fact that the terms Progressive and Conservative have different meanings in an English and American political context.
I would imagine that the contention is more that many in the entertainment industry and heavily ideological, and that they often end up producing grey biased entertainment as a result without particularly meaning to. (Obviously, with some “issue” films, they do mean to.)
That is the sort of thing which happens when people have radically different ideas about reality.
But I thought private market forces should correct this? Why is the entertainment industry a singular exception to the natural and beneficial forces of the private market?
BTW, as a liberal, I also don’t subscribe to any of the additional assertions put forward as hallmarks of liberalism, save the fact I and most liberals do oppose laws to imprison homosexuals.
Why doesn’t Detroit make better cars, when it’s obvious from the fact people buy so many Hondas and Toyotas that people want something other than a lot of what the big three provide?
Free markets aren’t perfectly efficient unless you work at U Chicago, and what they do is select winners and losers, not make sure that all market actors do what people want. (plus, there’s obviously a large segment of the population which is fine with Hollywood stereotypes because they agree with them)
And then, there are times when Hollywood does turn out things which more conservative audiences love — and sometimes Hollywood itself seems a little surprised by this. I recall Siskal and Ebert (who I used to watch religiously — and much enjoyed despite their bias) doing an entire extra show on why they hated The movie Independence Day and couldn’t understand why anyone else liked it.
Free markets aren’t perfectly efficient …[they do] not make sure that all market actors do what people want.
Thank you. That’s all I’m looking for.
Well, maybe that and maybe an explanation of the conservative moral objection to pornography, abortion, etc. but the suggestion that “its just business” when people profit from such — I’m referring to the “pass” given a Republican Governor who owned facilities doing abortions and the likely GOP presidential candidate who was on the board of directors of a leading distributor of pornography.
Why is the entertainment industry a singular exception to the natural and beneficial forces of the private market?
Two hypotheses:
1. The social thought incorporated into a work of entertainment is generally incidental to why it appeals to the modal viewer.
2. The studio executives are reliant on their (creative) labor force. The sort of social and political polarities in contemporary society often devolve into a battle between word and image merchants and every other sector, with the wage-earning majority lining up on one side according to a different set of subcultural affiliations. Antecedent to an understanding of social life and antecedent to an occupational choice are factors which render one highly corellated to another (re-inforced by socialization). In short, there are almost no Republicans in the screen-writing trade. (In other trades, pervasive groupthink removes competitive disadvantages to dysfunctional practices. If everyone defines a dissident as an incompetant, no service provider suffers from ejecting him.
—
Antecedent to your question is a notion that central planning or mercantile regulations or granting para-statal privileges to rent-seeking associations corrects defects in the operations of market, rather than manufacturing new (and worse) defects.
Nobody ever said that there aren’t liberal Republicans otherwise known as RINOs. They are worse than Democrats because they are hypocrites and traitors to conservativism. For example, Guiliani is Republican and pro-abortion (as well as an adulterer). I wouldn’t vote for him. If it came to a choice between him and a liberal, and there were no 3rd party choices, then I simply wouldn’t vote. I am disgusted with this whole stinking mess where principles are sacrificed for political expediency. And I am equally disgusted at the liberal mantra of social justice and the common good while they murder the unborn. But then again, that’s politics.
Jesus did tell Pontius Pilate that His Kingdom is NOT of this world.
Art,
On the prose style, I gotta say: Total win. 😉
Kurt,
Well, maybe that and maybe an explanation of the conservative moral objection to pornography, abortion, etc. but the suggestion that “its just business” when people profit from such — I’m referring to the “pass” given a Republican Governor who owned facilities doing abortions and the likely GOP presidential candidate who was on the board of directors of a leading distributor of pornography.
Well, clearly social conservatives (the divide between social conservatives and business conservatives and libertarians is particularly wide on this issue) don’t think that pornography and abortion are “just a business”, in that they seek to ban them via force of law.
I think you’d find that social conservatives would be highly negative towards any candidate who profited directly from abortion or pornography — though the issue is that liberal sometimes play dumb “gotcha” games on this kind of topic. If a conservative candidate is sitting on the board of Vivid Entertainment or Playboy, I think you’d find conservatives would drop him like the proverbial hot potato. However, if he’s on the board of Time Warner (a cable company and internet provider which, yes, does provide porn on some of it’s channels) a lot of people would see that as something other than making money off porn — even if they would strongly support forcing Time Warner to stop providing porn.
Similarly, people are naturally going to look at sitting on the board of an abortion clinic (something which exists to provide abortion) differently from sitting on the board of a hospital which does occasionally perform abortions (as most non-Catholic hospitals do.)
Law and Order actually has had characters from across the political spectrum, and while occasionally you will have an episode driven by a political hobbyhorse, it’s one of the few shows on TV where likable characters espouse conservative and/or religious views. For example, while Jack McCoy (Sam Waterson’s character) is a liberal lapsed Catholic, Abbie Carmichael (Angie Harmon) was a pro-life conservative, as was McCoy’s boss (Fred Thompson), and his current replacement as lead ADA. Rey Curtis (Benjamin Bratt) was a devout Catholic, as his current replacement.
In fact, I’d say that the split between liberal and conservative characters on the show is roughly 50/50, and the conservative ones are not portrayed as being less moral, caring, competent, etc., than the liberal ones. Given that the show is set in New York City, that may mean conservatives are overrepresented.
Angie Harmon didn’t stay long. A subsequent Christian ADA was murdered after less than a year. Fred Thompson didn’t stay too long due to Presidential ambitions and his very long term predecessor was a fairly standard Old Guard Liberal with curmudgeonly flourishes that I rather liked. The stories themselves do have a usually very pronounced liberal slant, except on the death penalty. I do however enjoy the outrage over one episode on abortion “Dignity” by the rabidly pro-abort RH Reality Check:
http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2009/10/28/the-law-and-order-abortion-disaster-and-the-wasteland-tv
I am intriged by the conservative proposition that in the private market, businesses will do what is most efficient and profitable, except in the entertainment industry, where the bosses substitute a doctrinaire ideology contrary to wise business practices.
This is an astute point. This, combined with the fact that when people have attempted to make explicitly conservative films or television shows they have tended to be flops, makes me think that the current liberal tilt to media probably is what is most efficient and profitable.
Why is that? Well, for one thing, writers, actors, etc., tend to be liberal. This means that the most talented writers are probably going to write with a liberal slant and the most powerful performances are going to be by actors who espouse liberal beliefs. So even if movie producers were going strictly on quality, we would expect a liberal slant overall.
On the consumer side, my guess is that when it comes down to it, conservatives simply care less about having contrary political views espoused by films and tv shows they watch than do liberals. I know a lot of conservatives, for example, who really loved the show the West Wing, despite its liberal politics, because the acting, writing, etc. were really good. Would liberals have similarly flocked to the show if the heroes were all conservatives? Somehow I doubt it.
There are some conservatives who are really adverse to watching a movie or tv show with a liberal message, but this type of person is less likely to watch movies or tv to begin with (or at least is less likely to watch certain types of movies or tv), so it’s easier for them to be ignored.
I also think you shouldn’t underestimate the effect of globalization here. Things like Superman renouncing his U.S. citizenship are less about the anti-Americanism of comic book writers than they are the need to appeal to a non-American readership, and the same is true for movies and (to a lesser extent) tv as well. The typical non-American movie viewer is probably to the left of the typical American one, which is going to skew consumer preferences when it comes to politics.
Finally, I think it’s possible that certain political views are just easier to portray on screen than others. It’s easy to show the hardships involved in cutting spending on government programs, for example, while showing the supply side effects of cutting taxes (assuming there are any) is more difficult.
Darwin,
That’s a fair answer. I appreciate it.
Personally, I would not sit on the board of a hospital that did elective abortions (unless maybe my service would result in a change of policy). But on the other hand, I support the new health care law. Some of my friends would do the reverse in both situations. They are still my friends and people who I disagree with but do not disrespect.
Angie Harmon didn’t stay long. A subsequent Christian ADA was murdered after less than a year. Fred Thompson didn’t stay too long due to Presidential ambitions
Harmon was on the show for four years, Thompson for five. In any event, I didn’t list all the conservative characters on the show, just a representative sampling (you note, for example, that Annie Parisse’s character was also a conservative Catholic).
Blackader said, “There are some conservatives who are really adverse to watching a movie or tv show with a liberal message, but this type of person is less likely to watch movies or tv to begin with (or at least is less likely to watch certain types of movies or tv), so it’s easier for them to be ignored.”
Nice to know I am being ignored. TV is full of liberal drivel, sexual immorality and all manner of other nonsense. I can’t be bothered to fill my head with such godlessness. And no, godlessness does NOT constitute good acting or good stories. It’s godless, after all.
It’s also interesting to note that liberal “Catholics” feel the same way about EWTN. No surprise there.
Donald,
I have to admit, you make it very difficult to maintain even a semblance of Christian charity. Your responses are like those that so many conservatives claim to hate when they come from liberals, dripping with a sense of smug superiority. However, since you seem to think that conservatism is based on clear thinking and only liberals are subject to living in a fantasy world, I can point out several fantasies that conservatives have embraced.
1. Any conservative who believes that we can cut government debt without raising taxes (especially by cutting taxes on the rich), is just deluding themselves about what the American public really wants. Yes, they want to cut the debt, but they don’t want to loose any of their Social Security or Medicare; and if those can’t be cut (as well as defense), then trying to balance the budget at our current tax rates is like trying to keep the titanic sinking with a bucket.
2. The notion that free-markets are the solution to the end of all economic ills. With all due respect to Adam Smith, many men don’t act with enlightened self interest. While some will act with enlightened self interest, others will cravenly do anything to maximize their short term self interest and ignore the long term consequences, both to themselves and others. Surely the existence of guys like Bernie Madoff prove that.
3. An belief by many in the conservative movement that the ends justify the means.
4. Your own apparent belief that because the segregationists in the south were not Republicans that they were not conservatives (I guess they must have become conservative when they switched to the Republican party in the 1970s and 1980s? — Though in fairness to them, many of them had left segregationist ideas behind them after the 1960s)
5. The belief by conservatives (shared by liberals) that whenever they win an election, it means they have a mandate from the people to run the government along purely ideological lines when in fact most Americans want things run by consensus.
I could go on. But I will finish by stating, that no, I don’t think Chesterton is somehow infallible, nor do I believe that that the politics of early 20th century England are the same as 21st century America. What I do believe, however, is that all forms of liberalism and conservatism do not properly take into account man’s fallen nature and to make allowances for it. Chesterton recognized that, most modern liberals and conservatives (even those of the Catholic variety) don’t.
Your own apparent belief that because the segregationists in the south were not Republicans that they were not conservatives (I guess they must have become conservative when they switched to the Republican party in the 1970s and 1980s? —
I think Southern members of Congress largely accepted the New Deal. We can check the tabulations on the key legislation.
Clare Boothe Luce rejected segregation. What political label most precisely describes her? How about Pres. Eisenhower? Everett Dirksen?
Other than Strom Thurmond and Mills Godwin, I think it would be difficult to find many quondam segregationists among working public officials who later made careers in the Republican Party, (and both Godwin and Thurmond gave up on segregation after about 1970). Every Southern Senator (bar two – Thurmond and John Tower) who cast a vote against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 concluded his political career as a Democrat.
You could rummage around the records of state legislators and local councillors later elected to higher office. Trent Lott might also be an example, but he was not a public figure prior to 1972.
“I have to admit, you make it very difficult to maintain even a semblance of Christian charity.”
I haven’t noticed you making any heroic effort along those lines Maryland Bill.
“Any conservative who believes that we can cut government debt without raising taxes (especially by cutting taxes on the rich), is just deluding themselves about what the American public really wants.”
Anyone who thinks that we can get out of debt by raising taxes is obviously ignorant of just how much revenue can be raised from increasing taxes, the negative impact of the tax increases on the economy, the fact that government since circa 1965 has not used increased revenue for reducing debt but rather as a spur to increasing spending, and the fact that the problem is not too little revenue to government but rather too much government spending.
“The notion that free-markets are the solution to the end of all economic ills.”
Only the solution to the problem of having a prosperous economy as opposed to an economy that is stagnant or worse.
“An belief by many in the conservative movement that the ends justify the means.”
Rubbish as indicated by the fact that you give no examples.
“Your own apparent belief that because the segregationists in the south were not Republicans that they were not conservatives”
Actually most of them were New Deal liberals on economic matters. For examples check out George Wallace, Orville Faubus and Lester Maddox.
“The belief by conservatives (shared by liberals) that whenever they win an election, it means they have a mandate from the people to run the government along purely ideological lines when in fact most Americans want things run by consensus.”
Oh the fallacy of the yellow line in the middle of the road as the path to good government. Most Americans want successful government and problems solved. If a politician can do that, Reagan for example, they will follow him. If a politician can’t, Obama is thus far on that path, they won’t. The idea that consensus has ever produced much of use in American history is simply false. The Constitution was hotly contested, as was the development of internal improvements by the Federal government, the abolition of slavery, the buildup of defense prior to World War II, Reagan’s policy of increasing defense spending that helped end the Cold War, etc. American history is replete with intense political fights where one side wins and enacts its program. Sometimes the program succeeds and sometimes it fails, but consensus has rarely played a decisive role in resolving hotly contested issues in American history.
“There are some conservatives who are really adverse to watching a movie or tv show with a liberal message, but this type of person is less likely to watch movies or tv to begin with (or at least is less likely to watch certain types of movies or tv), so it’s easier for them to be ignored.”
Considering that conservatives are 40% of the population BA that is a large part of the market to ignore. I suspect that the vast majority of conservatives do not enjoy having a liberal political message slammed down their throats while they are watching a film. The tanking of every anti-war film in regard to the War on Terror might indicate that your analysis is perhaps shaky. In stark contrast we have the success of 300, which Frank Miller used as a metaphor for the War on Terror.
http://politicalmavens.com/index.php/2007/04/29/frank-miller-of-300-and-sin-city-fame-knows-the-war-on-terror-is-real/
Then we have the huge success of The Passion of the Christ, and the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, and the lesser, although still impressive, success of the Narnia films. There is a huge and obvious hunger for quality conservative themed films, a hunger mostly unmet by Hollywood for largely ideological reasons.
Well, 20 percent of we the people admit to being liberal.
That means 80 percent of us merit calumny, detraction and personal destruction.
Sen. Rand Paul is slipping off the evil end in confronting unions (100 approved by CST!!).
Here is what Sen. Paul wants to confront.
“A result of back-room deals between union bosses and their tax-and-spend Congressional puppets, compulsory unionism provisions in federal law currently empower union officials to:
>>>Force nearly 11 million Americans to pay tribute to a union boss to get or keep a job …
>>>Brazenly loot union treasuries to fund the election of their hand-picked political puppet candidates like Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid …
>>>Terrorize workers and communities with violent strikes — where they get away with beatings, arson — even murder.”
Well said, T Shaw. Well said!
I agree with Alice – well said, T. Shaw.
I just don’t understand liberal fantasies at all. It’s as though they are from a different planet.
BA,
On the consumer side, my guess is that when it comes down to it, conservatives simply care less about having contrary political views espoused by films and tv shows they watch than do liberals.
That’s an interesting point.
Other things to consider are:
– The bias in fiction TV is often around the sorts of situations or characters that show up, they’re not obvious propaganda, so there’s a certain portion of the population which probably isn’t political enough to notice the bias regardless of their opinions. If I had to guess, it’s probably only about 10% on the right and 10% on the left who notice, while 80% of the population may really not notice that most fiction TV has much political content at all.
– The segment of the population which watches the most TV (young people and single people) is also the most liberal according to all political polls. So it probably makes sense that entertainments slants towards their interests. Frankly, even if there was some amazing conservatively leaning drama out there, I wouldn’t have the time to watch it. Whereas a lot of people in their teens and early 20s can keep up with multiple series and go see a movie every week.
Kurt,
I would probably agree with you about the hospital board scenario, but I can see how people end up taking different stands on these kind of issues. For instance, I could imagine that a good Catholic sitting on the board of a major insurer like Kaiser or Humana would do a lot more good by bringing a conscience to doing that work than by refusing because those kind of insurers do provide a (fairly small, compared to dedicated abortion facilities) number of abortions each year.
Also, to be honest, a lot of people who may not have it occur to them right off that the hospital which does so much good work is also involved in that kind of work.
There are not nearly as many conservative ideas that fall into the realm of fantasy as there are liberal ideas, but there are a few that I would place into that category:
the notion that ALL fiscal problems, no matter how dire, can always be solved purely by budget cuts or eliminating “waste, fraud and abuse”
the notion that all illegal immigrants, regardless of circumstances, are by definition “criminals” (illegal immigration is a civil violation, NOT a federal or state crime for which one can be placed on trial or go to jail);
the notion that society can be cleanly divided into longsuffering, hardworking taxpayers on one side and greedy, bloodsucking “tax eaters” on the other and never the twain shall meet. I agree it’s not a good thing for people to be overly dependent on government, but to pretend that it’s possible to have absolute zero “dependence” on government is fantasy in my opinion. Everyone pays SOME kind of taxes, either directly or indirectly, and everyone receives some kind of benefit from government even if not directly in the form of a check;
and finally, the notion that any work outside the for-profit private sector is inherently unproductive, useless and a mere drain on the economy.
Each of these ideas has some merit, but conservatives who believe these approaches are 100 percent effective at all times, or applicable in all circumstances no matter what, veer away from reality in my opinion.
Perhaps Elaine Krewer has not had interface with either North Carolina DMV or the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission to see at first hand how citizens of what was once a Christian Constitutional Republic are now treated as subjects of a liberal atheist socialist demokracy.
Over the past month or so since moving to Charlotte, I have had to visit DMV about seven times to finally get my NC license and my vehicle registered. I won’t bore you with the details, but suffice it to say that every time I went, the administrative specialist at the desk would stop at the first thing he found wrong, tell me to get that fixed, and dismiss me. He wouldn’t tell me everything I had to do. Indeed, when I got that one thing fixed and revisited the office, the administrative specialist would find something else wrong and send me away to bring another rock. Finally I succeeded in getting all my t’s crossed and i’s dotted – that was earlier this morning. I was so overjoyed that I went to shake the administrative specialist’s hand. He looked at me and at my hand, and then cast his eyes down to his desk. But some people want us to think that government workers aren’t like that. Personal experience says otherwise. Indeed, anytime a person gets a government position, that feeling of superiority and “governance” comes into play, and soveriegn citizens who actually work for a living and produce real wealth are the ones to suffer.
I have seen the exact same thing in my professional life as a nuclear engineer. I have been involved in submitting paperwork to the US NRC (the federal regulator for commercial nuclear power plants) and more often than not the regulator is more concerned with document headers and footers, and outline formatting than with technical substance. The delays that are caused by moving outline numbering on a document a quarter inch just to satisfy an NRC Request for Additional Information amounts to billions of dollars in cost overruns that every one of you end up paying in electric billing. And I am told that it’s worse with the EPA which regulates emission controls on coal fired power plants. But this is the kind of obstructionism that Elaine apparently wants.
Dr. Pournelle describes this as the Iron Law of Bureaucracy: “…in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself. Examples in education would be teachers who work and sacrifice to teach children, vs. union representatives who work to protect any teacher including the most incompetent. The Iron Law states that in all cases, the second type of person will always gain control of the organization, and will always write the rules under which the organization functions.”
Liberalism has had its day. It will implode itself under the weight of its own bureaucracy with the support and adulation of liberal Demokrats.
BTW, unless you’re a nuclear engineer with 30+ years of training and experience, don’t use Japan as an example of why we should de-nuke ourselves. You don’t know the details and I don’t have space in here to educate you to the level you would need to understand the details. Suffice it to say that upgrades that we did to US GE BWR-3 and 4s with Mark I Containments would have mitigated if not prevented the sad events at Fukushima Daiichi, but the Japanese did NOT implement those upgrades, so when an Act of Nature occurred, the inevitable happened. I won’t bother to mention the collusion between the Japanese government regulator and the industry that was complicit in all this, but that’s what happens when the State is involved.
Kurt,
I would probably agree with you about the hospital board scenario, but I can see how people end up taking different stands on these kind of issues.
Me too. That’s why I spoke personally and not as an universal obligation.
BTW, on the issue of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, the simple truth is that it would have been widely understood at the time where one stood on these proposals if one said the “conservative position” and the “liberal position.” William F. Buckley and Senator Goldwater were on one side and Hubert Humphrey and Walter Reuther were on the other side.
The conservative movement today has moved away from those positions and most living conservatives today are too young to ever have been part of the conservative movement when they embraced these views.
Of course, at the same time liberals led the fight for the civil rights, we also largely believed the phone company should be nationalized and everyone have a black, desktop phone. Today’s liberals accept that history has shown that we were right on civil rights and wrong on the phone company.
Lastly, I should give a hat tip to my neo-conservative friends who have no conservative baggage on civil rights issues: Jeanne Kilpatrick, Richard John Neuhaus, Irving Kristol, Ben Wattenberg, Norman Podhoretz, and Michael Novak. My shared past with them has always made their current views seem friendlier, even when we disagree.
William F. Buckley and Senator Goldwater were on one side and Hubert Humphrey and Walter Reuther were on the other side.
Everett Dirksen and Clare Boothe Luce were on one side and Albert Gore, Sr. and Orville Faubus were on the other.
The conservative movement today has moved away from those positions and most living conservatives today are too young to ever have been part of the conservative movement when they embraced these views.
That is just an anachronism, Kurt. Differences in the assessment of segregation were regional and subcultural. (Re the assessment of the propriety of federal legislation regulating petty commercial transactions, landlord-tenant transactions, &c – the differences were driven by social philosophy).
Of course, at the same time liberals led the fight for the civil rights, we also largely believed the phone company should be nationalized and everyone have a black, desktop phone. Today’s liberals accept that history has shown that we were right on civil rights and wrong on the phone company.
I do not recall anyone of consequence arguing AT & T should be nationalized. Robert Kuttner thought it should remain a regulated monopoly but one debarred from manufacturing and trading in hardware, but that was ca. 1982, when the dissolution of the Bell System was all but a done deal.
There is a difference between a critique of segregation and being ‘right on civil rights’.
Clare Boothe Luce…
When she wasn’t snorting cocaine! :0
The only piece of civil rights legislation ever opposed by Goldwater was the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Goldwater, due to his pro-abort position which he did his best to hide while he was in public life, long ago ceased to be a hero of mine, but simple justice warrants a correct statement of the record.
In regard to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 80% of House Republicans supported it as opposed to 63% of Democrats, and in the Senate 82% of Republicans supported it as opposed to 69% of Democrats. Civil Rights legislation passed in the Sixties because Democrats changed their mind as a party on Civil Rights for blacks. Republican party platforms since the Civil War had supported Civil Rights for blacks year after year with Republican bills being bottled up by the Senate due to Democrat filibusters.
A typical Republican platform. This one was from 1924, when the Ku Klux Klan was a rising power in the land:
“The Negro
We urge the congress to enact at the earliest possible date a federal anti-lynching law so that the full influence of the federal government may be wielded to exterminate this hideous crime. We believe that much of the misunderstanding which now exists can be eliminated by humane and sympathetic study of its causes. The president has recommended the creation of a commission for the investigation of social and economic conditions and the promotion of mutual understanding and confidence.”
Here is a plank from the Republican Party Platform of 1944:
“Racial and Religious Intolerance
We unreservedly condemn the injection into American life of appeals to racial or religious prejudice.
We pledge an immediate Congressional inquiry to ascertain the extent to which mistreatment, segregation and discrimination against Negroes who are in our armed forces are impairing morale and efficiency, and the adoption of corrective legislation.
We pledge the establishment by Federal legislation of a permanent Fair Employment Practice Commission.”
Kurt,
Regarding CBL, I think you mean LSD.
http://www.psychoactive.org.uk/LSD/intro.htm
During the 1950s LSD was legal and considered potentially therapeutic by many in the medical field, some of whom enjoyed the drug recreationally with the jet set crowd. While rather silly and potentially dangerous, it is doubtful that this use related to her support for civil rights.
I do think that their is some truth to the assertion that self-identified conservatives were not as enthusiastic about civil rights as self-identified liberals, on the whole. That said, context and vocabulary matters. For instance, during that era (and in some respects similar to today) there was a conflation between populism and conservativism insomuch as many self-identified conservatives actually were not very conservative in any objective sense. That said, the fact that the highly intelligent and principled WFB Jr. opposed civil rights legislation is revealing. Conservatives on the whole are suspicious of change, especially change they perceive as forced rather than organic. As a conservative I see this as a healthy presumption, but a rebuttable one. IMO we failed to rebut that impulse satisfactorily in connection with the civil rights movement that emerged after WWII. That said, I am very much speaking in generalities, and stereotyping either conservatives or Republicans of that era on civil rights is perilous. As Don points out, on the whole the Republicans were more conservative than the Democrats ever since the early 1930s (at least), and yet were also more progressive on civil rights. History is complicated.
What were we talking abo . . .
In today’s news: Union thugs and MoveOn.org goons crash tea party rally in New York screaming at patriots.
Precedent Obama ignores TX requests for fire aid, flies in to collect campaign cash.
Fist Lady Michelle Antoinette will fete rapper who rants about killing police officers and immolating President Bush.
Gangstas rule!
Might the Madison Ave-Hollywood Blvd-Wall St axis of evil be intentionally pumping out liberal fantasy in order to manage the thinking of the masses? Could we be falling for the false left-right paradigm as part of psychological warfare being waged by the forces of evil in ‘pop culture’?
I see the word ‘conservative’ bandied about, yet I am not so sure we all have the same definition. When Chesterton used the word, he meant something quite different than what we call ‘conservative’ in America today. Keep in mind that the Founding Fathers, who by all accounts would be considered ‘conservative’ today, were in fact liberals in the 1780s.
I also notice ‘conservative’ and Republican being used interchangeably. This is a major error. The Republican Party today is far more broad. You have the establishment RINOs who are more or less Democrats, the libertarians like both Pauls, so-called social conservatives, strict constructionist Constitutionalists, neo-cons who are warmongering Progressives, and a smattering of other minor groups. What unites most of these people? The simple fact that the Democrats are anti-American, materialist, relativist morons.
So the fact is that Republicans do suck because they are politicians and since The Prince, politics is a very ugly game. However, the Democrats not only suck – they are evil to boot. Most thinking persons side with the Republicans simply because the Democrats represent the rapid destruction of the Republic and the Republicans are slow enough to give us time to prevent the inevitable demise.
Nevertheless, I am still curious what most commentators mean when they say ‘conservative’ – of course, that is another question for another post.
Paul, where did I ever say I was in favor of any type of “obstructionism”? You ran into some government employees that did not serve you well and gave you the runaround. I have too, many times, and just about every day. I have also run into many private sector employees who do the same. I think the “iron law” also applies in the private sector, as does the “Peter Principle” of people rising to the level of their incompetence.
Full disclosure here: I am a state employee myself, and was a private sector employee for 20 years previously. I try very hard NEVER to treat anyone dismissively or arrogantly, and if someone asks a question I try to get them the answer right away. If I don’t know the answer, I try to point them in the right direction to find the answer. If someone calls to ask a question, often they will say “Sorry to bother you” or “Hope I’m not taking up too much of your time,” to which I say “No problem — I’m here to be ‘bothered’!” I will probably never be an agency head, that is true, but that isn’t my bag anyway.
The “conservative fantasy” that I was referring to was not the GENERAL idea that government should be smaller. It is the notion that NO job outside of the for-profit private sector or the military (or possibly law enforcement) is a “real” or “productive” job and that EVERY government or non-profit position is unnecessary and could be, or ought to be, eliminated.
Many conservative ideas are good and I agree with them. But some of them veer off into the realm of utopianism or fantasy when they are treated as absolute, 100 percent foolproof panaceas or assumed to be workable in all circumstances.
Thanks for the response, Elaine. I find much to agree with in it. But overall, my experience has been that any time govt gets as big and as powerful as ours is, it’s high time to start neutering it by stemming the flow of cash, borrowed or taxed.
I am going to give two examples of govt screwups with perhaps the best govt agency I have ever worked with and that’s the US NRC. If the NRC is this screwed up, then how screwed up are the rest? Another thing to remember: none of the govt flunkies that run these agencies are voted on. They are political appointees beholden to no one but the appointer.
Now a certain Dr. Gary Kao was a physician for the Veterans Admin in Philly. He was in charge of using radioactive sources for patent treatment. His story may be read here:
http://pbadupws.nrc.gov/docs/ML1034/ML103410390.pdf
From 2002 to 2008 this physician employed by the govt was responsible for the mis-administration of radioactive sources in 91 of 97 VA medical events involving radiation during that time period. NO ONE did anything until the VA decided to do a Health Physics inspection at the end of the time period. And the NRC itself failed to do anything after the second, third, fourth, etc. event. This went on for SIX years and I even found a report (can’t locate right now) where that doctor dropped a radioactive source on a patent’s behind. Finally after six years and 91 mistakes, the NRC decides to bar him from using radioactive sources. BTW, where’s the American Medical Association in all this? And why is that guy STILL a physician?
Here is another example of our great govt at work. In 2002 during a refueling outage at the Davis Besse nuclear power plant owned and operated by First Energy, a through-wall hole the size of a football was found in the six inch low allow carbon steel reactor vessel wall. The only thing holding back the fires of creation from exploding into containment was a quarter inch of the inconel inner liner for the reactor pressure vessel. You can read about that here:
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/nuregs/brochures/br0353/br0353r1.pdf
You might say that it’s great the NRC caught them and shame on free enterprise greed that shortened refueling outages by bypassing needful inspections of the RPV penetrations for the Control Rod Drive Mechanisms. But what you do NOT know is that this nuclear power pliant repeatedly petitioned the NRC during the late 90s to forego the RPV head inspections and the NRC granted the exemption request – I guess management at the plant got the headers and footers on the document submittal right.
Holy crap! Think about this: if that quarter inch of inconel had let loose, multiple control rods would have been ejected from the reactor under a pressure of 2235 psig. That’s over one ton per square inch for those out there who don’t know science and engineering. A positive reactivity addition accident would have occurred, the reactor might well have gone prompt critical, and the core would have been destroyed well before the Reactor Protection and Engineering Safeguards Systems could have responded. But by golly, the document headers and footers were right!
Yes, when I think about these kinds of things, I get excited. And I get angry. And this is the BEST govt agency. Doctors overdosing patients for years before it does anything. And some plants getting deferments in inspections who shouldn’t while other plants get needlessly hammered on ungrounded fears and sensationalist hype from dope smoking anti-nuclear hippie dropouts from the 60s.
The best govt is a limited govt whose sole job is the common defense, and public safety. BTW, if you think the NRC is bad, then what about the Dept of Minerals and Resources that allowed BP its exemptions on Deep Water Horizons?
When we as a society reject God as our King, then we get govt as our God and people die.
One last thing: in case you ask, I teach on both of the events I described about – Dr. Kao and Davis Besse – in my new job. I use these as operating experience for my students. These are what NOT to do. And my students – one and all – are flabbergasted that events like these happened, but they do because people put their faith in govt instead of in God. And sadly, I can’t teach the integrity and honesty that’s required to prevent events like these from happening in the first place. And that’s what it all boils down to. You can’t instill integrity and honesty by govt regulation. Period.
Mike writes:
Kurt,
Regarding CBL, I think you mean LSD.
Yes, thank you.
I do think that their is some truth to the assertion that self-identified conservatives were not as enthusiastic about civil rights as self-identified liberals, …. That said, the fact that the highly intelligent and principled WFB Jr. opposed civil rights legislation is revealing. Conservatives on the whole are suspicious of change, especially change they perceive as forced rather than organic. As a conservative I see this as a healthy presumption, but a rebuttable one. IMO we failed to rebut that impulse satisfactorily in connection with the civil rights movement that emerged after WWII. …History is complicated.
I see the point of that explanation of the politics of the time. Thank you.
Again, the importance of civil rights issues to liberals like myself is largely why I feel a good rapport with my neo-con friends like Irving Kristol, Jeanne Kilpatrick and Fr. Richard John Neuhaus. Their liberalism early in their life, particularly on civil rights issues, makes their late in life conservativism more interesting.
Some make the same observation about our Holy Father, clearly no conservative for the first half of his life from his youthful opposition to Right-Wing totalitarianism to his mid-life role at the Council.
What will Catholics eat on Fridays?
From Drudge: Commercial fishermen say Federal regulations destroying the industry; causing suicide attempts.
PS: Rand Paul is the most interesting man in the Senate. That tells more about the senate than about Mr. Paul.