Much has been made of the American singers who sang for Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. Nothing has been said of the intelligentsia that has sung his praise. There is a big difference between singing for your supper and singing songs of praise for this, and other, odious characters. Paul A. Rahe at The Chronicle of Higher Education dissects “The Intellectual as Courtier.” (Here, with thanks to my Canadian friend, Dr. Grant Havers.)
“If, in The Washington Post, one were to describe the elder Qaddafi as ‘a complex and adaptive thinker as well as an efficient, if laid-back, autocrat,’ if one were to call him ‘flexible and pragmatic,’ if one were to go on to suggest that ‘Libya under Qaddafi has embarked on a journey that could make it the first Arab state to transition peacefully and without overt Western intervention to a stable, non-autocratic government and, in time, to an indigenous mixed constitution favoring direct democracy locally and efficient government centrally,’ one would be apt—and with good reason—to be compared with Leni Riefenstahl, as Benjamin Barber was by Ken Silverstein at Harper’s Magazine.
Worse criticism would justifiably be in store for the intellectual sycophant who chose to write on the eve of the Libyan uprising, as Barber did at The Huffington Post, that Qaddafi ‘is not detested in the way that Mubarak has been detested and rules by means other than fear,’ especially if he were to add, ‘His son Seif, with a Ph.D. in political philosophy from the London School of Economics and two forthcoming books focused on liberalism in the developing world, has pioneered a gradualist approach to civil society in Libya, insisting along the way that he would accept no office that wasn’t subject to popular elections. No dynasty likely there.'”
Because of their wide reach, Peggy Noonan (and her ilk)—while no intellectual— serves as a greater court courtesan than does the academic sycophant. As I chronicled in “LETHAL WEAPONS: NEOCON GROUPIES,” Noonan has gone as far as to conflate President Bush “with a Higher Power – Peggy believes God speaks through George W. Bush. From his furrows to his genitals, her high-flown linguistic banalities have lovingly depicted her man’s every inch. (See “He’s Got Two of ‘Em.”)
UPDATE:Myron: You’re the funniest ever here on “nuance.” Why not cross-post this and other posts to the Facebook page, where the blog posts appear automatically? You’ll spice up the place in no time.
By the look and sound of the striking educators on the streets of Madison, Wisconsin (here), the kids (plenty stupid in their own right), are not missing much. Chaos theory aside, the public sector was never supposed to be able to strike; that’s a later socialistic privilege they were granted (See “Regulation of unions and organizing.”) The absence of these coercive cretins in the classroom is no loss. Still, The government education cartel should not be permitted to hold taxpayers hostage. Collective bargaining in general ought to be outlawed unless workers and employers are free to associate and dissociate from one another at will. Otherwise, it’s extortion. Here, the monopolist has, in effect, the right to shake down the taxpayer, who has no recourse; cannot opt out of the abusive relationship, or protect himself from the extortionist.
THIS IS THE LAW OF RULE, NOT THE RULE OF LAW.
(To clarify: The only true monopolies are government monopolies. A company is a monopoly only when it can forcibly prohibit competitors from entering the market, a feat only ever made possible by state edict. In the free market, competition makes monopoly impossible. A large market share is not a monopoly.)
I would have no objection to unions were they voluntary, non-coercive associations that looked out for the needs of workers without trampling the rights of other non-aggressive parties.
While we’re meting justice (in theory, at least), government employees, politicians included, should not be allowed to vote. This is because they are paid from taxes garnished by force from taxpayers, and will always vote to increase their own powers and wages. They have always so voted! The other option is that they keep the vote and accept volunteer, unpaid status.
The moochers and the looters are upon us. Moochers “will claim your product by tears” and manipulation. The rioters among them will “take [your product] from you by force.” Both versions have been loosed upon us.
During the Greek wilding, I warned (as many others) that it was a minor event compared to the events that’ll unfold should we quit funding our federal behemoth’s bacchanalia. The sound and fury of the American public sector unions is going to be like Tyrannosaurus (T-Rex) tearing through Jurassic Park.
But Barack wears many hats. And today, he responded to the “oink sector”strike in Madison, Wisconsin, as a union man, a man beholden to “Organizing for America, the successor to President’s Obama’s 2008 campaign organization. It helped fill buses of protesters who flooded the state capital of Madison and ran 15 phone banks urging people to call state legislators.”
UPDATE II (Feb. 20): Larry Kudlow on a “European-style revolt”:
The Democratic/government-union days of rage in Madison, Wis., are a disgrace. Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan calls it Cairo coming to Madison. But the protesters in Egypt were pro-democracy. The government-union protesters in Madison are anti-democracy; they are trying to prevent a vote in the legislature. In fact, Democratic legislators themselves are fleeing the state so as not to vote on Gov. Scott Walker’s budget cuts.
That’s not democracy.
The teachers’ union is going on strike in Milwaukee and elsewhere. They ought to be fired. Think Ronald Reagan PATCO in 1981. Think Calvin Coolidge police strike in 1919.
The teachers’ union on strike? Wisconsin parents should go on strike against the teachers’ union. A friend e-mailed me to say that the graduation rate in Milwaukee public schools is 46 percent. The graduation rate for African-Americans in Milwaukee public schools is 34 percent. Shouldn’t somebody be protesting that?
UPDATE III (Feb, 22): PEW AND THE PUBLIC. Pew Research cautions that “it is not clear whether the public nationally will support Wisconsin Republicans’ efforts to prevent government workers from unionizing. In the Pew Research survey, which was conducted before the Wisconsin protests drew national headlines, people were asked for their reaction when they hear of a disagreement between a labor union and a state or local government: 44% say that when they hear of such a dispute they side with the unions while 38% say they side with the governments.”
Here are Reagan’s memorable remarks on the air traffic controllers’ strike. Note this president’s clear reference to the burden the oink sector imposes on its fellow citizen; notice his allusion to the government’s monopolist position. Reagan was capable of clearly articulating the principles of freedom, and, in this case, he also acted on these principles.
The man with the revere-Midas touch has submitted his $3.7 trillion budget, which he, age-appropriately, justified before a suburban Baltimore middle school, this morning. Barack Obama’s definition of fiscal conservatism is guarding the status quo. Obama’s budget is the same budget as last year’s. The tax proposals are the same. Entitlements (Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and Defense) remain untouched, an exemption that included the new healthcare monstrosity. Discretionary spending Obama has vowed to freeze for five years at a very high rate, but, as Doug Holtz-Eakin, former Director of the Congressional Budget Office, reminded the Obama adoring Norah O’Donell, the president has a (short and savage) history of ferociously fighting the enforcement of the very freezes he proposes.
Holtz-Eakin: This budget is “a political documented oriented to getting him reelected. The American worker needs jobs. There is no greater threat to the economy than the accumulation of deb this budget promises. This budget is good political positioning,” which guarantees the continued issuance of debt at a rate of $50,000 a minute (the median income of the average American), or $12,000 per family.
With a flick of his forked tongue, Obama once beguiled media groupies such as MSNBC’s Norah O’Donnell. No longer. She seems persuaded by the warnings of former CBOafto big spender President George W. Bush.
The bash-Israel business is booming again. I give you the former CIA operative Michael Scheuer:
My long-held position in opposition to foreign aid, in general, and to Israel, in particular, is no different to Scheuer’s. The same goes for my position in opposition to war with Iran.
I’m aligned ideologically with this man’s non-interventionism. Having said that, Scheuer hates Israel. As I said in “Frankly, My Dear Egyptians, I Don’t Give a Damn,” he believes “poor, little America has been ‘Jewed’ into its foreign-policy follies.”
Scheuer’s hatred for “Israel” and AIPAC (The American-Israel Public Affairs Committee) has led him to erroneously conflate the existential realities that confront regular Israelis with the mission of AIPAC (whatever that may be). That’s unforgivable. Most Israelis (and most American Jews) have never heard of AIPAC and the neocons. They just want to live out their lives without being pelted with Qassam rockets from Gaza (where many of them once grew export-quality flowers and vegetables. Gaza now hothouses Jihadis, oops, freedom fighters).
Damn: the stupid Jews are always building things. Why can’t they throw stones like the Egyptians on the studio screen flickering behind Mr. Scheuer. (His host ought to have juxtaposed images of Tel Aviv and Cairo for better effect.) Scheuer, naturally, has never bemoaned the Muslim lobby and the billions we throw at countries who return us the favor with bombs.
“Lobby,” writes a Times Literary Supplement reader in a letter-to-the-editor, “is attached, these days, in a derogatory way, almost exclusively to Jews and their characteristic, so some like to think, habit of seeking/buying/cajoling favors—such as not being murdered—by dubious tricks.” (TLS January 14, 2011)
UPDATE: My own writing is passionately patriotic, but never partisan. I’m pro-Israel, if highly critical of that country. I opposed Israel’s latest attempt to level Lebanon with the same logic and loyalty to principle with which I fought the American war against the Iraqis (starting on Sept 19, 2002). In certain rightist circles, however, a robotic anti-Israel stance is de rigueur.
Thus, over the years—and in the course of writing distinctly patriotic columns such as my latest—I have been both subtly and openly assailed for being a fifth columnist; a person with dual loyalties, a “binational.” I’ve realized that the people who levy such scurrilous accusations against me of all people will never see my work or my words and the flak I’ve taken for unpopular position, which where in the interest of my countrymen, but not its pols and pundits. All they see is a Jew and the attendant stereotypes that attach. For example, in the fact that I’ve lived on three continents, such individuals see a confirmation of the stereotype of a shiftless Jew.
F-ck ’em.
The fulminating Scheuer later went up against Rabbi Shmuley Boteach. During this particular Fox Business segment, Scheuer referred to Shmuley with contempt as “that fellow.” It’s fair to say that the rabbi, with whom I vehemently disagreed, came out on top. Why? Because the rabbi treated his interlocutor with respect. As George Will once wrote, “manners are the practice of a virtue. The virtue is called civility, a word related—as a foundation is related to a house—to the word civilization.”
In anti-Semitic circles, Freud has very sinister connotations. Certainly not much store should be put on his theories about human nature. However, I’ve read Freud’s original works, and see him as an immensely creative and imaginative writer. When Freud was once quizzed about his incessant cigar smoking, he humorously chose to sidestep what was, according to the very theory he invented, a manifestation of his own oral fixation. He replied: “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”
And sometimes, anti-Semitism is just anti-Semitism.
