Values Vulgarizers

Foreign Policy, Individual Rights, Neoconservatism, Objectivism, The West

One of our regular contributors here on Barely a Blog makes an uncharacteristically incoherent comment on his own blog:

“…on the subject of the war against civilization …Mercer gets it (she just wants us to fight it Marquis of Queensbury rules with our foot in a bucket.)”

Can he be serious? Apparently. Wait for this: Accolades for offering a strident defense of the West go to the prototypical open-borders Objectivist, whose positions are generally indistinguishable from those of the neoconservatives.

Philosophical incoherence at its best.

But it’s predictable. In my commentary over the years—cultural and political—I’ve mounted a systematic defense of Western values as I see them. This includes—gasp!—defending the distinctly Western character of the US (and the West), something the neocons and the Objectivists who ape them daren’t do.

The neocons and their Objectivist friends, on the other hand, have cheered the unprovoked bloodletting in Iraq and have deceptively framed as individual rights the “values” the US is planting in that country’s blood-soaked soil.

Because of their incremental convergence over the decades with the liberal left, this axis has, to all intents and purposes, embraced “equality” as a value for which they’re prepared to drag the country kicking and screaming to war.

Iraq is a colossal bit of social engineering. To the fact that the US is not defending individual rights in Iraq—not by any stretch of the imagination—add the matter of jurisdiction. A constitutional American government has no right to use the property of Americans to free people around the world. The Iraqi people, moreover, did not sanction the American government’s faith-based democratic initiative. These are the fictions for which neocons and their Objectivist tagalongs are willing to kill and have others killed.
Nation building and assorted mindless meddling have also found a place within this “philosophy.”

So what is my apparently constricting prescription? First, bring the armed forces home, so they can protect this country, not Kosovo, Korea, and Kurdistan. Next, scale back mass immigration, legal and illegal. Defending negative liberties at home is more effective and less violative than waging aimless, unwinnable, rights-sundering wars.

As anyone who’s followed my writing over the years knows, I most certainly support fighting and winning just wars. (The position I deride in this post equates unjust war with a defense of the civilization—a position too dumb and evil for words.) My stance is congruent with individual and national sovereignty, constitutional principles, and just war ethics.

Again, the prototypical warring Objectivist our misguided friend praises is indistinguishable from a neoconservative. He is tough on crime, in general (a good thing), big on war crimes (a bad thing), and even bigger on the idea of inviting the Third Word to our shores. All of which the left supports. There’s a reason the media has grown fond of the neocon/Objectivist/Catoite hybrid.

In the age of unreason, violence-for-values verbiage defeats my own coherent defense of the West. Atavism trumps reason, because it appeals to primitive emotions.
This is the vulgarization of values.

Updated: Are Objectivists Cultural Philistines?

Democracy, Music, Objectivism, Technology, The West, The Zeitgeist

When it comes to culture, too many Objectivists display quite a bit of philistinism. For example, from their publications one is led to believe that the Superman/Spider-man genre of film is somehow the pinnacle of Western cinematic accomplishment, philosophically and stylistically. Or at least, this is the impression they give, perhaps unintentionally.

In her appreciation of music, Ayn Rand was undeniably very limited. She took mainly to Rachmaninoff. So what? Her imperfections are not the point. Ayn Rand was enough of an innovator to have her eccentricities. The point, rather, is the cult-like conduct of her acolytes—to religiously assimilate the peculiarities and tics of another is to relinquish one’s judgment, and learning curve, to say nothing of one’s individuality. Monkeys mimic.

Nevertheless, Objectivists fetishize Rachmaninoff, and try and make the case that classical music’s worth hinges on one representative of Russian Romanticism, rather than on very many giants from other places and periods.

Objectivist publications often feature large, glossy photos of tall American buildings. This rather hackneyed, crude imagery is meant to capture man’s heroic mastery of his environment. I’m an enthusiastic champion of man as master of the universe. But these displays are just too outsized, clunky and out-of-date.

Patriotism is all well and good, moreover, but realism, at least to this writer, is paramount. If Objectivists—and Americans in general—tuned into the world, they’d recognize that our once-great cities are looking rather shabby and old. I am told that America is no longer the place for the latest in architecture (that goes for free-market capitalism too. Here are more amazing buildings).

Sean, who’s at the pinnacle of the electrical engineering profession, always chuckles at the shiny technology shots in said publications—these are supposed to stand for innovation. The projects depicted are often statist rather than private. But even odder—and off—are the “heroic” images of the microchip assembly line. Don’t Objectivists understand that the assembly line is where the product designed by industry innovators is put together by factory workers?

An emphasis on the values of equality and representative mass society is increasingly central to the more militant among Objectivists and certainly to the neocons—values that are also America’s main export. Perhaps celebrating those low on the creativity ladder comports with this philosophical tenet.

Updated: Mitt’s Sincere Sermon

America, Christianity, Elections 2008, Judaism & Jews, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Liberty, Objectivism, Religion, The West, The Zeitgeist

I don’t think a commentator can credibly understand or expatiate upon America, in particular—and the West, in general—without reference to the Judeo-Christian tradition. Heck, one can’t appreciate the greatest composer of all times—Bach—without acknowledging the contribution of his muse—Christianity—to the glory of his music. Ditto for many other great artists.
This is why there’s a sterility and a lack of believability to the religious-hating aspects of Objectivism. As to Christopher Hitchens, he’s an ex-Trotskyite. Why would he understand America?
I say all this even though I am irreligious (although very Jewish in my thinking). America is undeniably and deeply religious.
Having no dog in the fight over Mitt’s Mormonism, I have to say, moreover, that listening to his speech about his faith was moving. Admittedly, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints may have some odd ideas. Not so the Mormons I know; they are very fine people. And quite magnificent is the Mormon Tabernacle Choir; it’s in fact the finest in the world.
As you can see, it’s impossible to untangle religion in the West and the glorious cultural contribution it has inspired in the faithful.
Particularly loathsome in their mocking commentary about Mitt’s sincere sermon were Keith Olbermann and his Washington-Post henchman—they compared Mitt to their idol, J. F. Kennedy, and found him lacking, to put it mildly. The two did, however, drive home how loathsome the liberal left can be.

Update: Jerri (listen to her great interviews) will enjoy this excerpt from the Hebrew Bible in the First Book Of Samuel. It’s one of the oldest, greatest, most forceful injunctions against the wickedness of centralized power. (Let me tell you, it’s so much better in the original Hebrew). How can one grasp the ancient quest for liberty without proper reverence to this tradition and its revelational component? Note that the king, warns G-d, will take a tenth of the people’s wealth. If only! Send us such a king who will enslave us to the tune of a tenth only!
1 Samuel 8

Israel Asks for a King
1 When Samuel grew old, he appointed his sons as judges for Israel. 2 The name of his firstborn was Joel and the name of his second was Abijah, and they served at Beersheba. 3 But his sons did not walk in his ways. They turned aside after dishonest gain and accepted bribes and perverted justice.
4 So all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah. 5 They said to him, “You are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways; now appoint a king to lead [a] us, such as all the other nations have.”
6 But when they said, “Give us a king to lead us,” this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the LORD. 7 And the LORD told him: “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. 8 As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you. 9 Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will do.”
10 Samuel told all the words of the LORD to the people who were asking him for a king. 11 He said, “This is what the king who will reign over you will do: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. 12 Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. 13 He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. 14 He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. 15 He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. 16 Your menservants and maidservants and the best of your cattle [b] and donkeys he will take for his own use. 17 He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. 18 When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, and the LORD will not answer you in that day.”

‘If Not for Huckabee, Carol Sue Would Be Alive Today’

Crime, Criminal Injustice, Elections 2008, IMMIGRATION, Republicans

Brian Ross and Anna Schecter Report:
“A Missouri mother says she will do ‘whatever it takes’ to stop former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee from becoming president, because he freed the man who went on to rape and murder her daughter, Carol Sue Shields (pictured).
‘I can’t imagine anybody wanting somebody like that running the country,’ Lois Davidson of Adrian, Mo., told the Blotter on ABCNews.com.
Wayne Dumond was initially sentenced to life plus 25 years for raping a 17-year-old Arkansas high school cheerleader. In 1999, a parole board voted to free Dumond, after then-Gov. Mike Huckabee announced his desire to see him released.
Do you have a tip for Brian Ross and the Investigative Team?
A former parole board member tells ABC News that Huckabee exerted strong pressure on the board to release Dumond.
During the campaign, Huckabee has insisted he played only a minor role in Dumond’s release and had concerns that Dumond had been wrongly convicted.
Huckabee recently told CNN, ‘None of us could’ve predicted what Dumond could’ve done when he got out.’”
[Snip]
For more on the horrors of Huckabee from the excellent investigator Brian Ross, see: “Despite Victims’ Pleas, Huckabee Pushed Rapist’s Freedom” & “Huckabee Aide: Gov Pushed for Rapist’s Freedom”
Or as I put it, in “Huck’s for Huck; Paul’s For America“:
“Like Michael Dukakis, Huckabee waded into the moral miasma of penal abolition. Dukakis, the Democratic presidential nominee in 1988, fought to secure a prison furlough for convicted murderer Willie Horton. Horton went on to assault a Massachusetts man and rape his fiancée during his recreational weekend off. Wayne Dumond, the recipient of Huckabee’s helping hand, raped and murdered a Missouri woman. When asked about his difficult-to-defend role ‘in an apparently illegal and unrecorded closed-door meeting with the parole board lobbying on behalf of a rapist,’ Huckabee has offered a thesaurus of excuses.”
While you’re at it, read how George Stephanopoulos sweats Huckabee over his immigration inconsistencies. Now that’s a no-nonsense interview.

Update (Dec. 6): Powerful anti-Huck stuff from Joseph Farah:

“[Huckabee] is another one of these so-called ‘compassionate conservatives’ who believes government can be a force for good in the world, not merely a restraint on evil…. If so, he’s not only practicing bad politics – he’s practicing bad theology…
When Jesus tells us to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, He is not suggesting we transfer that personal responsibility to government. He is not suggesting we transfer that responsibility to our neighbors. He is not suggesting, as the old saying goes, we rob Peter to pay Paul…
This is a personal, individual responsibility of the believer. It doesn’t count if you get someone else to do the job for you.”