Category Archives: Pseudo-intellectualism

Barack’s Brilliant One-Two Punch

Affirmative Action, Barack Obama, Conspiracy, Pseudo-intellectualism, Republicans, Uncategorized

Our president may be stupid as far as political economy goes (a stupid “you can’t fix”), but when it comes to politics, he is as wily as a fox (see “Obama Cunning, Not Clever”). It is also true that Republicans pushing the Birther conspiracy are, to put is kindly, no match for this very mediocre man.

The bellicose and bombastic Donald Trump was dealt a well-deserved blow, when, to amplified attention (due to Trump publicity), Obama released a “Certificate of Live Birth.”

The president, who discussed the release at the White House without taking questions, said he had been “puzzled” by the enduring shelf life of the issue and acknowledged the announcement may not put the so-called birther controversy to rest. But he told the public and the media that it’s time to “get serious.”

As was mentioned in “Alien In More Than One Way,” I never understood the fetish with Obama’s alleged elusive birth certificate. “The President is an alien on so many levels, I fail to see why the formality of his birth is more central than the insanity and un-American nature of his thinking (which can be said of many other of his fellow pols, although BO is, admittedly, an extreme case).”

“Besides, isn’t BO American by virtue of his mother being an American? Mother Obama was a natural-born American, so baby BO is as well. The whole thing is a little loopy.”

This side show has sundered a chance to expose the lack of curiosity among Obama’s media acolytes about the president’s heavily guarded school and scholarly records. Obama’s Columbia University records, his Columbia thesis, his Harvard Law School records, his Harvard Law Review articles, his scholarly articles from the University of Chicago: none has been released, and none of the media that matters have evinced the slightest curiosity about these papers.

Thanks to the Birthers, lost is the opportunity to expose affirmative action, as it ripples through American society, affecting everything from the housing foreclosure crisis—“The Minority Meltdown”—to the highest office in the land.

The Craven Krugman

Debt, Economy, Political Economy, Pseudo-intellectualism

A reader has forwarded a recent editorial by Paul Krugman, “Mugged by the Moralizers.” Attached was the following incredulous note:

“[This editorial] is the perfect inversion of morality and logic, in the name of justifying taking money from people to give it to other people.
It is so calm and composed a statement of the credo of cave dweller-takers by force that I felt obliged to pass it along as a perfect exhibition piece. I’ve never seen anything so useful like this. Maybe he decided to let all the stops out in the days before the election.”

Leave aside the moral void, you can drive a 4X4 through Krugman’s logical lacunae:

For example: The idea that there is a spending “hole created by the debt overhang” that has to be filled, or else: this is merely a theoretical/political construct. That’s all. It is not necessarily true; it doesn’t necessarily comport with reality.

And: “If one group of people — those with excessive debts — is forced to cut spending to pay down its debts, one of two things must happen: either someone else must spend more, or world income will fall.”

That follows only if the fallacy upon which the Krugman fatuity is premised is true. And it isn’t. His assertions most certainly don’t exhaust the possibilities. Less spending could also mean more saving. More saving would translate into investment and, eventually, production—these are the wellspring of prosperity.

The Twit Is Atwitter

Elections, Feminism, Gender, Human Accomplishment, Intellectualism, Pseudo-intellectualism, Republicans, Technology, The Zeitgeist

Meghan McCain opened up her mouth to say nothing. There is nothing new about that. But media are aflutter—a sad fact that simply enforces what you already know about the state of American public life.

“Well, I speak as a 26-year-old woman and my problem is that, no matter what, Christine O’Donnell is making a mockery of running for public office,” McCain told anchor Christiane Amanpour. “She has no real history, no real success in any kind of business.”
McCain, daughter of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said that the message, “that sends to my generation is: one day you can just wake and run for Senate, no matter how [much of] a lack of experience you have. And it scares for me for a lot of reasons.”

Note Meghan’s constant allusions to her tender age. In another universe youth would be a reason to shut up. In the country in which kids are imbued with mythical qualities (Rousseau’s Noble Savage applied to small savages), the words of the greatest ditz to date to emerge from that big tent that Republicans keep touting carry as much heft as said heifer carries on her person.

Meghan is like a dripping tap. If you’ve read the first few lines of any of her blog posts, you’ve read all two diarrheic pages of it. Buzzwords peppered with clichés, and prefaced with “I feel like,” convey Meghan’s mushy, thinking-averse, pop-politics: “I feel like we need to be reaching out to moderates and young people. I feel like we need to be reaching out to minorities.”

The creature gets away with calling herself a writer because America has facilitated her delusions of grandeur. Meghan has “written” for Newsweek, no less, and now adds to the political bestiality on The Daily Beast. Both publications accept Ms. McCain’s version of a premise and a conclusion. For example: “I, like, disagree with that completely, and think that’s, like, completely crazy.”

As hopeless, Republicans have failed to make the only valid case against Meghan, and that is that she is really really stupid. But how can they, when making the case for the GOP are members of the same, hubristic Millennial generation? If smart adults were in charge, they would refuse to address anything Meghan disgorges from her puffy, painted face.

Idiots have come into their own in a big way, courtesy of depraved consumers, and complicit TV producers and publishers, of pixel and paper alike. The duller you are and the louder you crow in contemporary America, the better you do. Meghan McCain is not working with much—and is eminently qualified to dim debate in the Age of the Idiot.

As for “Christine O’Donnell, the Republican candidate for Senate in Delaware,” I don’t know a lot about her, except that in the snippets I’ve caught from her debates, she has acquitted herself quite well.

Meghan’s cretinism and cringe factor far outweigh those of poor Christine’s, who seems sweet enough.

UPDATE IV: A National Reviewnik Thinks He’s "Contrarian"

Debt, Inflation, Journalism, Media, Neoconservatism, Paleoconservatism, Pseudo-intellectualism, Republicans

He’s trillions of dollars and a decade too late, but Kevin D. Williamson of National Review can assure himself he’s “contrarian” for advocating an about face in the Federal Reserve Bank’s fiddling.

Williamson may be reading Austrian economics. By that I mean the reality based thinking of Ludwig von Mises (taught at the Mises Institute); preached by Ron Paul (whom the neoconery mocked during the Bush years), practiced by financier Peter Schiff, written about by Tom Woods in Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse; as well as by Vox Day, and in this writer’s columns and blogs over the past decade.

Being of the establishment, however, Williamson can just put his hands over his ears and tell himself over and over again “I’m contrarian,” and this will be so.

“So here’s a contrarian take,” Williamson assures himself: “The Fed should stop trying to drive down interest rates. It should instead work to raise them. Why? Our economy needs savings and investment. …”

As I said, trillions of dollars and a decades too later … (“PUNDITS, HEAL THYSELVES!”)

Your host, writing in “Those Invisible Jobs,” did not anoint herself a “contrarian” for advocating that Fed supremo Ben Bernanke raise interest rates.” Not then, and not in 2000 (“The Central Bank’s Game is the Same, Whoever’s the Name”), and on all those occasions in-between.

Why? Because in the Austrian community, represented by some very prominent people, this is common wisdom.

Bloody annoying…

UPDATE I: I’ll be honest: it’s hard to know from Mr. Williamson’s wishy-washy articles exactly where he stands on matters of political philosophy (or if he is a neoconservative or not). However, this post’s point was pretty clear. It expressed annoyance that someone can call himself contrarian for proposing less quantitative easing. Granted, it’s a prickly post, but Mr. Williamson can understand, surely, why writers like myself get a tad testy? We’ve been marginalized for being right on foreign policy and fiscal matters our entire careers, such as they are. Then, when the rest catch up with us, a decade down the line, they pretend that truth began with them.

If I’ve learned anything about the American Mind it is this: Truth doesn’t exist until someone in the establishment pronounces it, usually a decade or so after it has been in circulation. I guess, better late than never, but why not acknowledge those who went before?

I saw Mr. Williamson go up against one or the other left-liberals on TV, and I remember thinking: much better than Rich. Still, I do not believe there is a sufficient amount of information to conclude that “better than Rich” is a meaningful statement.

Mr. Williamson is young (and presentable). He has plenty of time to correct any mistaken impressions I might have formed, not least of which is his sharing that horrible habit common among the Republican establishment of never admitting to being Johnny-come-latelies on Iraq, Bush, economy, QE, etc.

UPDATE II: Mr. Glisson, first, why don’t you provide hyperlinks and particular quotes in substantiation of your position that Mr. Williamson is never a neoconservative? Second, why misconstrue the point of this writer’s post, encapsulated again in the last two sentences of “UPDATE I”? Moreover, from a parenthetic statement about the neoconservatives’ attitude toward Ron Paul, Mr. Williamson concluded that I had called him a neoconservative. You do the same, for some reason.

Again, Mr. Williamson is better than Rich; way better. I am still unsure as to what kind of badge of honor this really is; or if Mr. Williamson is or is not a neoconservative. Isn’t that a condition of employment at National Review? John Derbyshire is NRO’s only paleoconservative (sort of). I’d love to see John thrust into the spotlight, but they keep him in the basement, so to speak.

UPDATE III (Oct. 17): We thank Kevin D. Williamson for responding to the intrigue he has generated on Barely A Blog. He remains a man of mystery, and that is not half bad. In the age of too much information (and letting it all hang loose), mystery is a good thing. We agree that Mr. Williamson ain’t Rich. Has Rich employed a non-neoconservative in the hope of generating some oscillation in the static National Review? Or because the readership has little patience with that old guard? Who knows? We also understand that a man has to make a living. To do so, he must often walk an ideological tightrope.

Nevertheless, those who went before—and remain permanently frozen out of mainstream—deserve mention. It gets terribly cold out here. Mr. Glisson seems to think I’m some kind of intellectual missionary, spreading the good word, pleased to turn the other cheek just so long as the new guard can adopt the gospel, even if they falsely pretend to be pioneers.

Rubbish. Nonsense on stilts. I’m all about justice. Intellectual justice included.

UPDATE IV (3/5/2016):

“NRO Writer’s ‘UnFollow’ Leads To Musing About The Manners-Morals Connection.”