To see herself featured as one of the “People Who Inspire” Kerry Crowel Jr., a young paleolibertarian friend on Facebook.
I’ve noticed that Facebookers often refer to themselves in the third person. I thought I’d try it just this once. (Glenn Beck of the not-so-Beautiful Mind does it too. Oh dear…)
Befriend me on Facebook.
Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/IlanaMercer
Classical Liberalism, Conservatism, Federal Reserve Bank, Inflation, libertarianism, Political Economy, Republicans, Ron Paul
Well of course the Republicans will back Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) for the post of GOP conference chair, “the fourth-highest House leadership position,” in the new Congress, over “Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), a ‘Tea Party heroine.'”
If the Daily Beast, run by airhead Tina Brown—“the author of a gossipy, somewhat obese book about the anorexic dolt, Diana Spencer”—and the life-style libertarians at Reason Magazine (which calls the former outfit an “indefatigable friend”), both favor an establishment Republican over Michelle Bachmann—take it to the bank that Bachmann is the better bet.
Jacob Sallum, a master at sweating the smaller, safer stuff, has concluded that Bachmann, one of the few people in Congress who understands and protests monetary policy, is a philosophical spender because of the “agricultural subsidies her family farm has [allegedly] received.”
Sallum’s case is not worth a straw. I am sure one can find occasions when Ron Paul has fallen short on such minor (albeit important) matters. But when it comes to the big issues—monetary policy (around which the girls at Reason cannot wrap their heads)—he more than makes up for it. Ditto Michelle Bachmann, who joined Ron Paul to do battle against Ben Bernanke.
Of course, the “High Priests Of Pomposity” at Reason panned Ron Paul too.
Reason is famous for its “35 Heroes of Freedom,” which established their criteria for “cool and cosmopolitan”: William Burroughs, a drug addled, Beat-Generation wife killer, whose “work is mostly gibberish and his literary influence baleful,” was included, as well as Larry Flynt, Madonna, Martina Navratilova and Dennis Rodman.
Madonna Reason has exalted for, as they put it, leading “MTV’s glorious parade of freaks, gender-benders, and weirdos who helped broaden the palette of acceptable cultural identities and destroy whatever vestiges of repressive mainstream sensibilities still remained.” This sounds like the unscrambled, strange dialect spoken by a professor of Women’s and Gender Studies.”
I mean “Womyn’s Studies.”
If you lost the post’s thread, here’s the gist: Bachmann understands monetary policy and grasps its importance. Republican leaders, who don’t, are choosing to back their boy over Bachmann for the position of GOP conference chair. Beltway libertarians are backing the boy and his masters.
Britain, China, Classical Liberalism, Conservatism, Old Right, Political Philosophy, Pop-Culture, The Zeitgeist
“The French Revolution did not generate only a new politics … Along with the new politics there came a new concept of personhood, a self-caressing egotism … a moral and aesthetic theory based upon sentiment” (p. 122). And relativism too (p. 146). In my experience, this malady affects conservatives and liberals alike in the US. Hierarchy, so essential to ordered liberty, is no longer. Lost is the distinction between men and women of character, and those without it; between adults and youth (the latter are usually elevated and worshiped by ever-errant adults); between experience and a lack of it; between quality in intellectual and cultural products, and its absence. Faction has replaced the fellow-feelings that ought to accompany a shared purpose. Talk to me about what you’ve dubbed the Zeitgeist’s ‘moronizing dialectic.’
This was one of the questions I posed to Prof. Dennis O’Keeffe in the second part of our WND.COM interview, “The ‘Moronizing’ Of Modern Culture.” (Last week’s Part I was entitled “Thomas Paine: 18th–century Che Guevara.”)
Still on the topic of the remarkable “Edmund Burke,” my conversation with Dennis O’Keeffe continues this week on WND.COM. O’Keeffe is Professor of Sociology at the University of Buckingham, and Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Economic Affairs, “the UK’s original free-market think-tank, founded in 1955.”
The column is “The ‘Moronizing’ Of Modern Culture.”
UPDATE (Oct. 29): Writes Ron S.:
To: imercer@wnd.com
Subject: Please, no more tantalizing via..
…Edmund Burke by Dennis O’Keeffe when it costs $130 at Amazon. Best, Ron S.”
This is why I have resisted a request from an academic press to view my completed manuscript, Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons For The West From Post-Apartheid South Africa. With 800 end-notes, and a considerable level of abstraction and originality that do not compromise its readability—my book more than meets the requirements. However, as Ron has discovered, an academic press prints a few hundred copies and sells them to libraries at prohibitive costs.
I am lucky: the academic friends I approve send me their books; I get them free. I say “approve” because I never bother with boring second-handers, writing unoriginal stuff; with topics I do not care for. Nor do I bore myself with the works of people I have no time for. I have a passion for Burke. I have no time for “clever” smarmy comments about the man—comments which may or may not be correct. Burke is too important and too neglected in American public life to mess with.
Dennis’s little gem of a book conveys just this sentiment.
Classical Liberalism, Conservatism, Founding Fathers, History, Ilana Mercer, libertarianism, Liberty, Political Philosophy
My Friday column for October 22 will probably be titled “Thomas Paine: 18th Century Che Guevara.” The column following it, to be published on Friday October the 29th, is “The ‘Moronizing’ Of Modern Culture.”
You’ll have to read the first to appreciate the second, as they are part of a conversation with Dennis O’Keeffe, Professor of Sociology at the University of Buckingham, and Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Economic Affairs, “the UK’s original free-market think-tank, founded in 1955.”
Under discussion is the subject of Professor O’Keeffe’s latest book, “Edmund Burke.”
One of the questions I asked Dennis was “Why is it that one rarely hears Edmund Burke mentioned in American public discourse, yet my countrymen know and love Thomas Paine, who sympathized with the Jacobins and spat venom at Burke (‘the greatest Irishman who ever lived’) for his devastating critique of the blood-drenched, illiberal, irreligious ‘Revolution in France’?”
Indeed, although neglected, Edmund Burke’s thinking is central to American—and any other—ordered liberty.
Be sure to read the two columns, which you can follow from Barely a Blog to WND.COM.
I am away at the 3rd annual meeting of the HL Mencken Club. Please join me if you are in the vicinity. The details are HERE.