Nov
29
Science And Democracy
Filed Under General Politics | 2 Comments
Shockwaver linked to this article at American Thinker about the CRU scandal. He wanted in particular, to draw our attention to the final paragraph. I thought it interesting enough as a debate topic to elevate it to a post of it’s own in the hope it creates an interesting discussion.
the paragraph reads:
The collaboration between science and democracy is one of the great achievements of human history. It is now threatened by the behavior of people at the very heart of that collaboration. If it is destroyed, something of unparalleled value will have vanished, something that will be nearly impossible to replace. If the Western world wishes to continue its magnificent upward journey, we will have to save science from itself. An errant and corrupt climatology is the place to start.
I thought a general discussion on the relationship between science and democracy might be interesting, particularly in light of the elevation granted to science by progressives and the more sceptical nature of conservatives. Have they both set themselves on the extremes of scientific debate? Do progressives see science as an unchallengeable good, and do conservatives treat it with far too much scepticism?
Nov
12
Line Of The Day
Filed Under American Politics | Leave a Comment
The Daily Kos seem out of touch with the American people:
Congress will confront no shortage of must-pass legislation once health care reform is enacted, including immigration reform and climate change legislation. These numbers clearly indicate that a major new jobs bill must be added to the mix.
You think?!?
The trouble is, a major jobs bill hasn’t been at the top of a Democratic wishlist like healthcare reform has. But let’s not let 10% and rising unemployment get in the way of the progressive agenda. The priorities must be got right. Netroots first, public second.
It should be a clean bill, one that focuses on creating jobs and nothing but jobs, to rebuild our infrastructure.
Unlike the very very dirty stimulus which was a mere waste of $787 billion. And why has rebuilding infrastructure become a priority for the left? Why not let the private sector create the jobs by releasing it from onerous regulatory and taxation burdens? Ah! Silly question. We are talking about the left here who see a government dollar as being inherently more valuable than a private economy dollar. This is the problem with Keynsian stimulus. A dollar is a dollar regardless of who spends it. A government dollar spent on the economy, is a private dollar taken out of the economy. A strange budgetry principal if you ask me.
Nov
9
Someone Give This Man A Job
Filed Under General Politics | 16 Comments
An op-ed stint at The Times or some-such.
Martin Meenagh scores a hole-in-one on his take down of what drives modern progressivism; the reliance on the abilities of social scientists to recognise and fix problems in society without any regard for who we are or how we got to be who we are.
In the words of Russell Kirk:
(conservatives) “sense that modern people are dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, able to see further than their ancestors only because of the great stature of those who have preceded us in time.”
That is the failing of progressivism. It’s vision is limited because it ignores the value that our heritage provides. Family, faith, nation, community and experience, along with earlier intellects, are the giants upon which we stand. But by cutting those away, all we see is limited short-term change which is perceived to be for the better but usually has adverse consequences in the future. Multi-culturalism leads to increased racial resentment, America’s social security is going bankrupt, easier divorce laws have led to too many one-parent families and welfare leads to increasing dependency.
All these reforms were well intentioned but have resulted in (hopefully) unintended consequences. Progressivism and conservatism are symbiotic, without the moderating effect of each other, both are doomed to failure.
It is true. We can only look ahead when we are standing on the shoulders of our giants.
Go read Martin’s piece. When he’s being conservative-minded, the man’s a genius.
Oct
20
See Here.
Among the media, academia and within planning circles, there’s a generally standing answer to the question of what cities are the best, the most progressive and best role models for small and mid-sized cities. The standard list includes Portland, Seattle, Austin, Minneapolis, and Denver. In particular, Portland is held up as a paradigm, with its urban growth boundary, extensive transit system, excellent cycling culture, and a pro-density policy. These cities are frequently contrasted with those of the Rust Belt and South, which are found wanting, often even by locals, as “cool” urban places.
But look closely at these exemplars and a curious fact emerges. If you take away the dominant Tier One cities like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles you will find that the “progressive” cities aren’t red or blue, but another color entirely: white.
In fact, not one of these “progressive” cities even reaches the national average for African American percentage population in its core county. Perhaps not progressiveness but whiteness is the defining characteristic of the group.
This is “white-flight” progressive style. For the progressive, black and hispanic America is something to be patronised, not lived with. Progressive measures like welfare and multi-culturalism captures ethnic America in colour-coded pockets.
Progressive America likes to preach from their tower about racial and ethnic diversity. But they make damn sure that that tower is an ivory one.
Oct
14
Might We Be Witnessing The End Of Progressivism?
Filed Under American Politics, Foreign Policy | 20 Comments
I have an admittedly unscientifically tested theory that overreach by political parties often lead to the death, at least temporarily, of the values those parties represent. So for example, Thatcher’s neo-liberal conservatism hasn’t graced our shores since the Poll Tax, the demise of Gordon Brown will most probably lead to the demise of statism and nation building foreign wars will be much harder to sell to the American public following the unpopularity of Bush’s policies. I’ve always felt that the radical progressivism demonstrated by the Pelosi-Obama pact would take progressivism in that same direction, but two stories really spelled that out for me.
The first was in Russia. Following Obama’s decision to axe the missile shield in Eastern Europe and some subsequent positive noises from Medveyedev about sanctions on Iran, some liberal commentators argued that the two were related, that Obama’s soft policy approach won over Russia to his cause. Following Hillary’s visit to Moscow, that seems to be premature.
As is being reported, Russia has shown itself to be much more reluctant to contemplate sanctions than initially advertised:
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stressed Tuesday that Washington and Moscow are working together to ensure Iran’s nuclear program is strictly for peaceful purposes, but Russia has stopped short of committing to Iranian sanctions.
Speaking to reporters after a closed-door meeting, Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov indicated there has been no agreement between the countries on any sort of sanctions plan, even though Russia is not opposed to sanctions in principle.
…
Lavrov said that sometimes sanctions theoretically need to be imposed when all diplomatic efforts are exhausted — but not in the case of Iran.
“Threats, sanctions and threats of pressure in the current situation, we are convinced, would be counterproductive,” he said.
I still maintain that giving up the missile shield without getting anything in return from Russia shows weak foreign policy, a case of lying back and thinking of transnationalism whilst being shafted by Russia. But it is the progressive way, the belief that a countries own interests should be subordinated for what they believe is the greater good; a transnational governance and a naive belief in an ephemeral world peace. Think of it as the Miss World approach to foreign policy. And I don’t believe that the American public at large are ready to have their interests subordinated to world courts and the United Nations, America is a country with a well defined self-confidence and Presidents who ignore that do so at their peril, think Jimmy Carter, and that is what Obama’s grovelling approach to foreign affairs will undermine.
The second article is related to healthcare. Yesterday the Max Baucus plan passed out of the finance committee, another step on the road to a transformative health care reform. There are still many hoops to jump through to get it passed and there was much discussion about whether it will. Megan McCardle thinks it will, but that it will be a disaster:
I think it is more likely is that this thing passes, and fails spectacularly. There are too many moving parts, and if any of them breaks, the whole thing rapidly starts to spin out of control and eat a gigantic hole in the deficit. If it does break, I think that Democrats keep control of Congress just long enough to explain why they keep having to enact whopping new tax increases every few years. Republicans don’t need to improve their message. They just have to wait for Democrats to recover their reputation as tax and spend politicians who woefully under-predict the cost of everything they propose.
To radically transform health care in the United States, the democrats are having to thread too many needles. They have to keep the liberals happy, they need to accommodate moderate Democrats, they need to try to ensure the bill gets some bi-partisan cover from Republicans and they need to keep their special interest groups on side. An example of this is the trade union opposition to the Max Baucus plan. So what was a well intentioned but badly thought out plan in the first place will be fiddled about with and compromised on to try to placate all the relevant parties. And on top of that, there are seven different proposals that all need to be reconciled. I’d suggest that there’s a very good chance that the eventual bill will become a Frankenstein’s monster; a mish-mash of different parts bolted together on the fly that the creators will quickly lose control of. As an example of this, one only needs to look at the Max Baucus plan. To square the circle of keeping the bill from further increasing the deficit, Max Baucus had to write in a couple of provisions that have no chance of being enacted in reality. Firstly, the bill requires a 15% cut in Medicare compensation for Doctors, and secondly, it requires cuts to both Medicare and Medicaid. Does anyone really believe that politicians will be brave enough to make those cuts? I don’t, and this means that the Baucus plan goes from being one that marginally improves the deficit situation to one one that makes it much worse.
So domestically, on top of expanding deficits, a GM buyout that has become a hole into which more money needs to be poured and a stimulus that has failed to stimulate is a health care bill confused by it’s need to cater to all the competing interests. As Megan McCardle notes, this may well end up as a disastrous bill. And if that is the case, as a premier liberal and progressive shibboleth, it will tarnish progressivism in the mind of an increasingly sceptical public, one that has been naturally suspicious of tax and spend liberalism since the end of the sixties.
The incumbent radical progressives have staked their reputation on a massive increase on the size of the state and a foreign policy that raises the interests of internationalism above those of America. Those two policy directions have proved to be unpopular in the past and I don’t see any evidence for that changing. Just as the Brits tired of Thatcherite Conservatism and Brownite statism, I can see the American public tiring of radical progressivism. It might not be for eight years, but the liberal can expect a lengthy period in the wilderness following Obama.
The question is, will it be too late or America by then?
Sep
14
An Instructive Commentary
Filed Under American Politics, Liberalism | 18 Comments
Robert Kuttner of the American Prospect has an article at The Huffington Post which I find to be an interesting insight into the Progressive mindset. He writes on the subject of a tax on financial speculation to lessen the potential for negative impacts such as we witnessed last year. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to suggest such a thing. The financial markets did get carried away on a glut of unregulated and incautious speculation. The results, banks going to the wall, were self-inflicted and ordinary people suffered hugely as a result.
But it’s also important to understand that we rely on such speculation, and as we suffer now, we have benefited hugely in the past from the same levels of speculation. And no doubt, our future prosperity will also be dependent on the financial industry. We no longer store our loot under the mattress. We are invested in pensions, mortgages and shareholdings. Our borrowing and our savings depend on rates set within the corridors of financial power.
And to that end, any attempts at regulation, or demands for greater accountability need to be tempered with this in mind. We need to be looking for functional measures that balance protecting ourselves from the excesses whilst using a light a touch as possible when it comes to restraint.
I was expecting this sort of commentary from Kuttner, having read the first couple of paragraphs. I was wrong:
First, a very small tax in all kinds of financial transactions, say one tenth of one percent, would not be felt by legitimate long-term investors. But in the case of traders who get in and out of exotic derivatives minute by minute, making huge numbers of quickie trades, it would add up to a lot of money and would cut into both their profits and their entire socially destructive business strategy.
Second, such a tax could pull in hundreds of billions of dollars a year, at a time when large deficits are giving the political right (and center) an excuse to cut social spending, and no form of taxation is popular. But this tax would be the least unpopular. It would not just fall primarily on the very, very wealthy. It would fall on the least socially defensible part of Wall Street, the people who make their billions from speculative short term trades.
What is overdue is a little bit of populist retribution against the people who brought down the system — and will bring it down again if the hegemony of the traders is not constrained.
So the progressive is not interested in a financial system that works. It is social justice, political retribution, sustaining large increases in public spending, and finally punishing the rich, that motivates them. I don’t think that much more proof is needed that the socialists of the seventies and eighties have morphed into the progressives of today.
Society is an organic whole. It is dependent on it’s constituent parts functioning well and in harmony. But for people like Kuttner, a functioning society is not what is desired. They want a society that they can control and manipulate to provide for “social justice”.
But that’s the thing about progressivism. It can never be truly about social justice. By definition, progressivism is about manipulating society, it is mechanistic rather than organic, and where is the justice in having self-appointed social engineers pulling the strings on the society they deem suitable?
Aug
30
The Leopard Has Changed Its Spots
Filed Under American Politics | 11 Comments
By Original Tony
While looking at the video of Beck, courtesy of The Daily Kos, I became intrigued by the person or persons behind “The Kos” and so headed for Wikipedia.
The Daily Kos was started by a man called Markos Moulitsas, hence the shortened title of the blog as ‘Kos’
I wanted to get inside Markos’s head so to speak and read up some more on him.
Wiki calls him a “American progressive” and fortunately had a link to what a progressive is, in their opinion.
I have cut and pasted one section from the link
“Progressives such as William U’Ren and Robert La Follette argued that the average person should have more control over their government {emphasis by Original Tony}. The Oregon System of “Initiative, Referendum, and Recall” was exported to many states, including Idaho, Washington, and Wisconsin. [5] Many progressives, such as George M. Forbes—president of Rochester’s Board of Education—hoped to make government in the U.S. more responsive to the direct voice of the American people when he said: {emphasis by Original Tony}
“[W]e are now intensely occupied in forging the tools of democracy, the direct primary, the initiative, the referendum, the recall, the short ballot, commission government. But in our enthusiasm we do not seem to be aware that these tools will be worthless unless they are used by those who are aflame with the sense of brotherhood…The idea [of the social centers movement is] to establish in each community an institution having a direct and vital relation to the welfare of the neighborhood, ward, or district, and also to the city as a whole”
and even more glaringly:
Philip J. Ethington seconds this high view of direct democracy saying
- “initiatives, referendums, and recalls, along with direct primaries and the direct election of US Senators, were the core achievements of ‘direct democracy’ by the Progressive generation during the first two decades of the twentieth century.”[7]
Progressives also fought for the secret ballot and women’s suffrage.
While the ultimate significance of the progressive movement on today’s politics is still up for debate, Alonzo L. Hamby asks:
“What were the central themes that emerged from the cacophony [of progressivism]? Democracy or elitism? Social justice or social control? Small entrepreneurship or concentrated capitalism? And what was the impact of American foreign policy? Were the progressives isolationists or interventionists? Imperialists or advocates of national self-determination? And whatever they were, what was their motivation? Moralistic uptopianism? Muddled relativistic pragmatism? Hegemonic capitalism? Not surprisingly many battered scholars began to shout ‘no mas!’ In 1970, Peter Filene tried declared that the term ‘progressivism’ had become meaningless”.
So here we have a “progressive American” running a blog that rips its founding principles to shreds! And on top of that, his very ideals, as Peter Filene states, are totally meaningless.
It seems progressives and liberals have abandoned their founding ideology and have sailed straight to the extreme left, into communism or Marxism and dare may I ask is Mr Moulitsas even aware of his hypocrisy and ignorance, like most of the left today?
May
18
Obama On The Irony Of Faith
Filed Under Conservatism, Liberalism | 5 Comments
As you will see from my comments in the Obama commencement speech video post, I was underwhelmed by his speech. There was too much sanctimony, too much focus on the inequities in life. However, the passage that I quote below really struck me.
Remember too that the ultimate irony of faith is that it necessarily admits doubt. It’s the belief in things not seen. It’s beyond our capacity as human beings to know with certainty what God has planned for us or what he asks of us. Those of us who believe must trust that his wisdom is greater than our own.
I think the doubt that Obama is referring to is our greatest opportunity. For those of faith, the uncertainty relates to our relationship with God and “what he asks of us”. But for those of us without faith, a similar uncertainty can be relevant to the way we live our lives. Faith is about working ones way through the maze of uncertainty of God’s will in the hope of living a moral meaningful life. Now I maybe on shaky theological ground here, but to me the journey is more important than the destination. For non-believers, the uncertainty arises from ones relationship with the world around us. What is our role? What is our relationship with others? Where will we end up? Again there is a maze to be negotiated, and again it is the journey that will define us. Will we meet challenges with integrity and from a moralistically consistent position or will we take the Machiavellian route and cheat our way through the maze?
Obama talks about the irony of faith. What I think he has done is unintentionally alluded to the irony of progressivism. The liberal progressive denies the very essence of progress, that it is an action and not a result. Society can not be improved through top down imposition. It can only be improved through a consensual awakening and that awakening can only happen once we have journeyed through the maze.