“You can’t get rid of poverty by giving people money.” – P. J. O’Rourke
Presidential candidate Rick Santorum drew fire from the usual suspects the other day for his remarks on the utility of inequality. A typical reaction was that of columnist Charles M. Blow in the New York Times who accused Senator Santorum of “praising income inequality.” (Blow is best noted for sneering at Mitt Romney's "magic underwear".) Santorum was actually praising the value of individual and group inequity - as a necessary motive force for hard work, competition, and success. Unlike the shallow reaction of the NY Times, Santorum’s argument is underwritten by history, science, and common sense.
William Playfair (1759-1823), groundbreaking political economist, when discussing the rise and fall of individuals and nations concluded:
“The superior energy of poverty and necessity which leads men, under this pressure, to act incessantly in whatever way they have it in their power to act, and that seems likely to bring them on a level with those that are richer, is then the ground-work of the rise and fall of nations, as well as of individuals…. the triumph of poverty over wealth on the great scale as on the small, though very irregular in its pace, has continued without interruption from the earliest records to the present moment.”
Playfair’s contemporary, Adam Smith (1723-1790), underwrote the “poverty and necessity” argument in the Wealth of Nations. Smith concluded that individual economic effort, devoid of any larger social purpose; nonetheless, contributed to a greater common good. Smith’s “invisible hand” is the equivalent of Playfair’s “triumph of poverty.” The successful also have cultural utility; they serve as role models for the next generation. For such men, progress is a function of initiative and competition.
A few years later, philosopher Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) and naturalist Charles Darwin (1809-1882) picked up the thread. For Hegel, progress in the world of ideas was a process of old ideas (thesis) competing with new ideas (anti-thesis) resulting, hopefully, in a better idea (synthesis), one which retained the best elements of the competitors. This common sense historical formula, for Hegel, explained the evolution of intellectual and social institutions. In short, utility is discovered by trail and error. Ideas are necessary, but only a dialectical test, or competition, of ideas is sufficient.
Darwin applied a similar notion of competition to the natural world. He argued that improvement of microbes and monkeys alike was a result of conflict between and among the weak and strong, a kind of natural selection which insured the survival of the fittest.
Of course, suggestions that Darwin’s hypothesis might be applied in the human realm, today, is usually dismissed out of hand for reasons you might never see on the editorial pages of the NY Times. Applications of social Darwinism are politically correct only in so far as they do not touch the third rail of human physical and social development.
In any case, struggle or “natural” competition that might make men and women more competitive, hence improve, is inhibited by the “visible hand” of modern government. Indeed, when enlightened social scientists, like Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY), suggest that inept entitlement programs create and sustain generational dependencies; such arguments are often dismissed as racism.
Closer to our times, the best scholars, such as Jacques Barzun, complain about the corrosive effects of artificial leveling; that is, social promotions and affirmative actions, unrelated to merit or competition. Dr. Barzun may be too polite. The academic poverty of American teachers and students has gone from bad to abysmal since Barzun first wrote about the pitfalls of lowering school standards.
The most obvious artifact of merit in the American public school system is athletics - where competition and achievement are the only measures of effectiveness. Unfortunately, sports thrive in a school culture where athletic standards are higher than academic standards for a diploma or a degree. Low expectations are the cruelest forms of poverty.
Inequality and its symptoms, such as poverty, are value neutral. Like weather, climate, and heritage; these things are part of the human condition. And these are conditions that, in a meritocracy, can be overcome. Competition between unequals is the leitmotif of natural, social, and political history.
The NY Times and like minded social theorists ignore the key sources of social motivation; and then fail to reform those government programs, such as intemperate welfare and impotent public education, which actually make social and economic poverty possible.
The issues of inequality and justice are bound to dominate the coming electoral food fight where the table is set for another orgy of class warfare. Yet on Election Day, democratic equality will prevail nonetheless. Warren Buffett’s vote will not be worth any more than that of his over taxed secretary. And if four more years of economic and social leveling are still on the table next spring; who is to say that poverty, like a good appetite, will not be the best sauce?
-------------------------------------------
This essay appeared in the 16 February edition of American Thinker. See original for hyperlinks.
Monday, February 27, 2012
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Newt Bites Cocker Spaniel
“I hope we never live to see the day when a thing is as bad as some of our newspapers make it.” – Will Rogers
Correspondent John King was lit up like a floozy by Newt Gingrich at the Republican presidential debate in South Carolina on 19 January. If audience reaction is a measure, King came across like a prissy cocker spaniel baiting a pit bull. Clearly JK “clueless” had to put a rug cleaning bill and several pairs of knickers on his South Carolina per diem claim after the encounter with the former Speaker. You may recall that King works for Cable News Network (CNN); the 24 hour news advocacy channel begun by one of Jane Fonda’s boy toys.
King opened the debate with a banal, offensive, and irrelevant inquiry about Gingrich’s second marriage. The opening question wasn’t a hanging curve ball; it was more like a 30 MPH “fastball.” Predictably, Newt hit it out of the park to a standing ovation. By morning, Gingrich was ahead of Mitt Romney in the Carolina polls by six points. Clearly, the bitter ex-wife smear backfired. According to observers like Sarah Palin, John King’s smarmy imitation of Nina Totenberg was a coast-to-coast bust.
Gingrich, like Clarence Thomas, knows that the best strategy with Media bullies is to fight back; bloody their noses if necessary. Rush Limbaugh would take it a step further; he suggests that someone needs to audit the personal lives of Media types – if entertainment is the name of the game in presidential campaigns.
Who at CNN thought that Newt wouldn’t be ready for an opportunity to expose CNN as another partisan network? If the Turner network had any shame, King would be another unemployment statistic today. He even tried to defend CNN by blaming the second wife story on ABC. Gingrich responded by suggesting that defending hearsay by pointing at another source requires a special variety of journalistic cowardice. Amen, brother!
CNN and most of the other networks have never gotten over Newt Gingrich’s efforts to convict Bill Clinton; a serial cheat, convicted perjurer, impeached president, and defrocked shyster. Clinton escaped conviction because too many US Senators have the ethical compasses of alley cats.
And the most scurrilous charge against Newt Gingrich is hypocrisy. Somehow, Newt’s behavior in two failed marriages is supposed to be the moral equivalent of Bill Clinton’s behavior. Here’s how they are different.
Gingrich wasn’t president. Gingrich didn’t have a long history of using state and federal office to exploit female staff young enough to be his daughters. Unlike Clinton, the former Speaker was never accused of being a chicken hawk. Gingrich doesn’t claim that fellatio isn’t sex.. Gingrich didn’t lie to the nation or a grand jury. Newt hasn’t been disbarred. And none of the former Speaker’s wives, unlike Hilary, have played the bimbo by faking a marriage in the name of “political viability.” In short, as Mark Twain might have said, the difference between Clinton and Gingrich is “like the difference between lightening and lightening bugs”.
Newt Gingrich’s marriages have little or nothing to do with his abilities, or lack of them, to serve in high office. He was Speaker of the House for Charlie’s sake. And surely there is enough temperament and policy junk in Newt’s trunk to argue about. Nonetheless, given the priorities of the American press corps, we shouldn’t dismiss the entertainment potential of an Obama/Gingrich title fight. It couldn’t possibly get any better than that. Maybe these trying times call for the services of a junk yard dog. And in any dog fight, the smart money goes with the pit bull.
--------------------------------------------------
This post appeared in the 19 January edition of American Thinker.
Correspondent John King was lit up like a floozy by Newt Gingrich at the Republican presidential debate in South Carolina on 19 January. If audience reaction is a measure, King came across like a prissy cocker spaniel baiting a pit bull. Clearly JK “clueless” had to put a rug cleaning bill and several pairs of knickers on his South Carolina per diem claim after the encounter with the former Speaker. You may recall that King works for Cable News Network (CNN); the 24 hour news advocacy channel begun by one of Jane Fonda’s boy toys.
King opened the debate with a banal, offensive, and irrelevant inquiry about Gingrich’s second marriage. The opening question wasn’t a hanging curve ball; it was more like a 30 MPH “fastball.” Predictably, Newt hit it out of the park to a standing ovation. By morning, Gingrich was ahead of Mitt Romney in the Carolina polls by six points. Clearly, the bitter ex-wife smear backfired. According to observers like Sarah Palin, John King’s smarmy imitation of Nina Totenberg was a coast-to-coast bust.
Gingrich, like Clarence Thomas, knows that the best strategy with Media bullies is to fight back; bloody their noses if necessary. Rush Limbaugh would take it a step further; he suggests that someone needs to audit the personal lives of Media types – if entertainment is the name of the game in presidential campaigns.
Who at CNN thought that Newt wouldn’t be ready for an opportunity to expose CNN as another partisan network? If the Turner network had any shame, King would be another unemployment statistic today. He even tried to defend CNN by blaming the second wife story on ABC. Gingrich responded by suggesting that defending hearsay by pointing at another source requires a special variety of journalistic cowardice. Amen, brother!
CNN and most of the other networks have never gotten over Newt Gingrich’s efforts to convict Bill Clinton; a serial cheat, convicted perjurer, impeached president, and defrocked shyster. Clinton escaped conviction because too many US Senators have the ethical compasses of alley cats.
And the most scurrilous charge against Newt Gingrich is hypocrisy. Somehow, Newt’s behavior in two failed marriages is supposed to be the moral equivalent of Bill Clinton’s behavior. Here’s how they are different.
Gingrich wasn’t president. Gingrich didn’t have a long history of using state and federal office to exploit female staff young enough to be his daughters. Unlike Clinton, the former Speaker was never accused of being a chicken hawk. Gingrich doesn’t claim that fellatio isn’t sex.. Gingrich didn’t lie to the nation or a grand jury. Newt hasn’t been disbarred. And none of the former Speaker’s wives, unlike Hilary, have played the bimbo by faking a marriage in the name of “political viability.” In short, as Mark Twain might have said, the difference between Clinton and Gingrich is “like the difference between lightening and lightening bugs”.
Newt Gingrich’s marriages have little or nothing to do with his abilities, or lack of them, to serve in high office. He was Speaker of the House for Charlie’s sake. And surely there is enough temperament and policy junk in Newt’s trunk to argue about. Nonetheless, given the priorities of the American press corps, we shouldn’t dismiss the entertainment potential of an Obama/Gingrich title fight. It couldn’t possibly get any better than that. Maybe these trying times call for the services of a junk yard dog. And in any dog fight, the smart money goes with the pit bull.
--------------------------------------------------
This post appeared in the 19 January edition of American Thinker.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
"Americans Elect" and Political Dirty Tricks
“They say, 'Don't look a gift horse in the mouth,' but when it's a Trojan horse, you do.” - Eric Johanson
Americans Elect (AE), the new political party that claims to be a non-partisan non-party, is now on the California ballot. What a shocker! The left coast is the first big state to endorse a staking horse! After reading a piece in American Thinker, a Beverly Hills Courier reporter called AE HQ to inquire about the “dirty tricks” potential of third party candidacies. Predictably, their spokesperson, lleana Wachtel, denied any trickery and claimed that the new party was formed to give America a “real choice.” Spokesmen for AE continue to insist that the sources of AE’s funding can not be revealed because donors might be intimidated. Non-profit status protects such organizations from too much scrutiny.
Choice indeed! The chances of AE electing anyone are nil; but, their potential to skew close races is enormous. After the two Bill Clinton victories (1992 and 1996), wife Hilary should have sent Ross Perot a case of cognac. In one race, Perot’s revolutionaries siphoned off 20% of the national vote. No coherent analyst could argue that Perot supporters would have voted for Clinton had there been no Perot.
Indeed, Perot's candidacy may have been more personal than political. More than a few analysts have run up the spoiler alert. Perot couldn't abide George H.W. Bush and made no secret of that animus.
Then as now, the vast majority of the disaffected. Libertarians included, fall on the right side of politics – just as a near totality of AE principals and their media supporters today come from the Left.
Donald Trump tells anyone who will listen that he is being courted by the AE crowd as a potential third party presidential candidate. Ego aside, it’s hard to believe that Trump doesn’t see through the smoke and mirrors of this well-timed electoral scam. But then again, engorged egos love to play the spoiler.
Beyond folks like Trump, the Republican dilemma is further compounded by the usual RINO inertia. The Savannah Morning News calls Americans Elect an “air sandwhich.” Such cynicism may represent a dangerous slice of conventional wisdom. Conservatives seem unwitting or unwilling to expose the liberal puppeteers behind Americans Elect. Most of today’s political discontent (i.e. Tea Partiers, independents, and Libertarians) is boiling on the right hand side of the political spectrum. The hard Left is content with Barack Obama, thank you; or at least not unhappy enough to throw him under the bus.
A large restive mushy American center is in play in 2012; a center which Obama has probably lost already before another presidential vote is cast.. With Americans Elect, the Left is poised to exploit or neutralize a center of discontent with a “third way” charade. Sadly, with conservatives, inertia is often the loudest voice in the room. If the polite Right refuses to light up the AE Trojan horse, then maybe the malcontents will stay at home - or vote for the Pinocchios, just as Democratic Party strategists seem to expect. Sometimes we get what we want and sometimes we get just what we deserve; another four years of Barak Obama.
------------------------------------------
This article originally appeared in American Thinker
Americans Elect (AE), the new political party that claims to be a non-partisan non-party, is now on the California ballot. What a shocker! The left coast is the first big state to endorse a staking horse! After reading a piece in American Thinker, a Beverly Hills Courier reporter called AE HQ to inquire about the “dirty tricks” potential of third party candidacies. Predictably, their spokesperson, lleana Wachtel, denied any trickery and claimed that the new party was formed to give America a “real choice.” Spokesmen for AE continue to insist that the sources of AE’s funding can not be revealed because donors might be intimidated. Non-profit status protects such organizations from too much scrutiny.
Choice indeed! The chances of AE electing anyone are nil; but, their potential to skew close races is enormous. After the two Bill Clinton victories (1992 and 1996), wife Hilary should have sent Ross Perot a case of cognac. In one race, Perot’s revolutionaries siphoned off 20% of the national vote. No coherent analyst could argue that Perot supporters would have voted for Clinton had there been no Perot.
Indeed, Perot's candidacy may have been more personal than political. More than a few analysts have run up the spoiler alert. Perot couldn't abide George H.W. Bush and made no secret of that animus.
Then as now, the vast majority of the disaffected. Libertarians included, fall on the right side of politics – just as a near totality of AE principals and their media supporters today come from the Left.
Donald Trump tells anyone who will listen that he is being courted by the AE crowd as a potential third party presidential candidate. Ego aside, it’s hard to believe that Trump doesn’t see through the smoke and mirrors of this well-timed electoral scam. But then again, engorged egos love to play the spoiler.
Beyond folks like Trump, the Republican dilemma is further compounded by the usual RINO inertia. The Savannah Morning News calls Americans Elect an “air sandwhich.” Such cynicism may represent a dangerous slice of conventional wisdom. Conservatives seem unwitting or unwilling to expose the liberal puppeteers behind Americans Elect. Most of today’s political discontent (i.e. Tea Partiers, independents, and Libertarians) is boiling on the right hand side of the political spectrum. The hard Left is content with Barack Obama, thank you; or at least not unhappy enough to throw him under the bus.
A large restive mushy American center is in play in 2012; a center which Obama has probably lost already before another presidential vote is cast.. With Americans Elect, the Left is poised to exploit or neutralize a center of discontent with a “third way” charade. Sadly, with conservatives, inertia is often the loudest voice in the room. If the polite Right refuses to light up the AE Trojan horse, then maybe the malcontents will stay at home - or vote for the Pinocchios, just as Democratic Party strategists seem to expect. Sometimes we get what we want and sometimes we get just what we deserve; another four years of Barak Obama.
------------------------------------------
This article originally appeared in American Thinker
Friday, June 17, 2011
Making Wiener's Possible
“Women marry men hoping they will change: Men marry women hoping they will not. Each is inevitably disappointed.” - Einstein
The sorriest aspect of philandering politicians is often their wives, the spouses who stand by their man and play the victim in the service of political viability. The modern standard for political survival was set by former NY Senator, now Secretary of State Hillary Rodham, a player who may soon be in the on-deck circle for the Presidency. Still, Mrs. Clinton is just one of many. The modern indulgent political spouse has a long history going back to icons like Jackie Kennedy.
The list now includes Dina McGreevy, Silda Spitzer, Maria Shriver, and now Huma Abedin, Rep. Anthony Weiner’s (D-NY) bride of less than a year. Apparently, Mr. Wiener didn’t let an engagement, a honeymoon, his wife’s pregnancy, or congressional duties interfere with “sexting” photos of his giblets to adoring “friends” on Twitter over the last few years. Wiener, 47 years of age, was widely expected to be the next mayor of New York City.
Indeed, opinion surveys reveal that Big Apple voters believe that Weiner should have continued to represent Brooklyn and Queens in Congress. Such sentiments are not surprising in a city where Woody Allen is a celebrity and Kitty Genovese is a chalk outline on a city street. A Good Samaritan in Queens is often someone who minds his business. Weiner calls his behavior “a bump in the road.” He may be correct in a metropolis where the political class would build a mosque to memorialize the victims of Islamic fanaticism.
The Huma Abedin/Tony Weiner tale has a special irony. Huma is Mrs. Clinton’s deputy chief of staff. The famously priapic Bill Clinton officiated at the recent Weiner nuptials on Long Island. More recently, while Anthony was getting roasted by the media, Mrs. Abedin Weiner was conveniently off on a trip to the Arab Emirates with Mrs. Clinton.
This is not to blame victims. Political wives are frequently represented as smart and capable in their own right. How could they not know? New Jersey Governor McGreevy was cheating with men, a low blow even by Jersey Shore standards. President Clinton was frolicking with an intern a floor below his wife and daughter in the White house. Governor Schwarzenegger had his maid and wife pregnant at the same time! Not wanting to know the truth is not the same as not knowing. And isn’t feigned ignorance a not too subtle kind of enabling?
What used to be called a triangle is now more like a carousel. There are no victims in these liaisons, just enablers and manipulators. Escorts and hookers have more integrity than indulgent wives. Silda Spitzer, Harvard Law ‘84, gave an interview where she blamed herself for Eliot’s indiscretions. According to Mrs. Spitzer, “inadequate sex” on her part led her husband to sacrifice his career and her reputation.
The Press is often a co-conspirator when randy politicians feel the need to share their extra-marital seed. John Kennedy and his protégé, Bill Clinton were serial swingers who thrived with indulgent or partisan media. Ben Bradley of the Washington Post, with bimbo eruptions of his own, covered for Jack Kennedy; and Bill Clinton weathered impeachment with the help of a servile wife and newspapers like the Post. Hillary claimed that her husband was the victim of a “vast right-wing conspiracy” and that canard was spread far and wide by a sympathetic Press. In fact, Clinton never needed any real enemies. Like Tony Weiner, his real bete noire was always lurking in his skivvies.
It would be a mistake to conclude that political wives or matrons of convenience are facilitating narcissism. The hitch isn’t self-love so much as insecurity and self-loathing. Poltroons like Weiner, love their image and still hate themselves. Indeed, one of Weiner’s Twitter conversations contained a telling remark, an offensive stereotype about the sexual reticence of Jewish women. Weiner is married to a Muslim.
Back in the Bill Clinton era, White House advisor Betsey Wright coined the term “bimbo eruptions” to describe a long list of presidential gal pals. How feminism is advanced by defending a serial predator and his co-dependent wife is still a mystery. Ms. Wright’s notable contribution to the exploitive sex debate was to cast all “other” women as floozies. Wright got it wrong; the true bimbos are the female enablers – those wives, daughters, sisters, mothers, and female groupies who defend creepy behavior and thus make politicians like Clinton and Weiner likely.
If just one high profile political woman kicked someone like Weiner, Spitzer, or Clinton to the curb, a whole new standard of behavior might be set in Washington. Women are a voting majority, yet spineless girls often defend the indefensible and continue to make porcine politics possible.
Hillary Clinton is the pin-up for an American idiom that might charitably be described as bimbo feminism, a novel kind of electoral survival morality. The print media can hardly write a story about infidelity in any political marriage without mentioning Hillary’s trail by Bill.
Under the Rodham ethic; you stand by your man, play the victim, and maintain your political possibilities. Low self-esteem and poor taste in men might not be the most obvious political assets; but, they seem to work for the Press and enough voters. The victimized Mrs. Clinton clung famously to her husband’s coattails and now stands poised to become the Democratic Party standard bearer for the Oval Office. Who knows, her protégé, Mrs. Huma Abidin Weiner, another victim au gauche, may parlay her marital drama into a Cabinet post also - in a second Clinton administration.
While in denial, Congressman Weiner claimed that his actions on-line did not break the law, violate congressional rules, or hinder his ability to honor his oath to defend the Constitution. It’s hard to believe a man who doesn’t defend a pregnant bride worries much about defending the abstractions in the Constitution.
Anthony Weiner has not left the public square without performing a public service. He now becomes the poster boy for virtual onanism, a living model of the pitfalls of pornography, self promotion, and the infinite possibilities for exhibitionism and professional suicide in cyberspace. Weiner doesn’t just look at himself in the mirror; he is also a reflection of the pitfalls of democracy and the gullibility of voters. Like his Long Island constituents, apparently; Anthony was well below average and proud of it.
Marriage and democracy offer blessings and curses. Sometimes we get the champions we need, yet more often we choose or elect the mountebanks we deserve.
-------------------------------------------------
G. Murphy Donovan was born in the Bronx and schooled in greater New York. He writes also at Agnotology in Journalism. This essay appeared in the 17 June 11 edition of American Thinker.
The sorriest aspect of philandering politicians is often their wives, the spouses who stand by their man and play the victim in the service of political viability. The modern standard for political survival was set by former NY Senator, now Secretary of State Hillary Rodham, a player who may soon be in the on-deck circle for the Presidency. Still, Mrs. Clinton is just one of many. The modern indulgent political spouse has a long history going back to icons like Jackie Kennedy.
The list now includes Dina McGreevy, Silda Spitzer, Maria Shriver, and now Huma Abedin, Rep. Anthony Weiner’s (D-NY) bride of less than a year. Apparently, Mr. Wiener didn’t let an engagement, a honeymoon, his wife’s pregnancy, or congressional duties interfere with “sexting” photos of his giblets to adoring “friends” on Twitter over the last few years. Wiener, 47 years of age, was widely expected to be the next mayor of New York City.
Indeed, opinion surveys reveal that Big Apple voters believe that Weiner should have continued to represent Brooklyn and Queens in Congress. Such sentiments are not surprising in a city where Woody Allen is a celebrity and Kitty Genovese is a chalk outline on a city street. A Good Samaritan in Queens is often someone who minds his business. Weiner calls his behavior “a bump in the road.” He may be correct in a metropolis where the political class would build a mosque to memorialize the victims of Islamic fanaticism.
The Huma Abedin/Tony Weiner tale has a special irony. Huma is Mrs. Clinton’s deputy chief of staff. The famously priapic Bill Clinton officiated at the recent Weiner nuptials on Long Island. More recently, while Anthony was getting roasted by the media, Mrs. Abedin Weiner was conveniently off on a trip to the Arab Emirates with Mrs. Clinton.
This is not to blame victims. Political wives are frequently represented as smart and capable in their own right. How could they not know? New Jersey Governor McGreevy was cheating with men, a low blow even by Jersey Shore standards. President Clinton was frolicking with an intern a floor below his wife and daughter in the White house. Governor Schwarzenegger had his maid and wife pregnant at the same time! Not wanting to know the truth is not the same as not knowing. And isn’t feigned ignorance a not too subtle kind of enabling?
What used to be called a triangle is now more like a carousel. There are no victims in these liaisons, just enablers and manipulators. Escorts and hookers have more integrity than indulgent wives. Silda Spitzer, Harvard Law ‘84, gave an interview where she blamed herself for Eliot’s indiscretions. According to Mrs. Spitzer, “inadequate sex” on her part led her husband to sacrifice his career and her reputation.
The Press is often a co-conspirator when randy politicians feel the need to share their extra-marital seed. John Kennedy and his protégé, Bill Clinton were serial swingers who thrived with indulgent or partisan media. Ben Bradley of the Washington Post, with bimbo eruptions of his own, covered for Jack Kennedy; and Bill Clinton weathered impeachment with the help of a servile wife and newspapers like the Post. Hillary claimed that her husband was the victim of a “vast right-wing conspiracy” and that canard was spread far and wide by a sympathetic Press. In fact, Clinton never needed any real enemies. Like Tony Weiner, his real bete noire was always lurking in his skivvies.
It would be a mistake to conclude that political wives or matrons of convenience are facilitating narcissism. The hitch isn’t self-love so much as insecurity and self-loathing. Poltroons like Weiner, love their image and still hate themselves. Indeed, one of Weiner’s Twitter conversations contained a telling remark, an offensive stereotype about the sexual reticence of Jewish women. Weiner is married to a Muslim.
Back in the Bill Clinton era, White House advisor Betsey Wright coined the term “bimbo eruptions” to describe a long list of presidential gal pals. How feminism is advanced by defending a serial predator and his co-dependent wife is still a mystery. Ms. Wright’s notable contribution to the exploitive sex debate was to cast all “other” women as floozies. Wright got it wrong; the true bimbos are the female enablers – those wives, daughters, sisters, mothers, and female groupies who defend creepy behavior and thus make politicians like Clinton and Weiner likely.
If just one high profile political woman kicked someone like Weiner, Spitzer, or Clinton to the curb, a whole new standard of behavior might be set in Washington. Women are a voting majority, yet spineless girls often defend the indefensible and continue to make porcine politics possible.
Hillary Clinton is the pin-up for an American idiom that might charitably be described as bimbo feminism, a novel kind of electoral survival morality. The print media can hardly write a story about infidelity in any political marriage without mentioning Hillary’s trail by Bill.
Under the Rodham ethic; you stand by your man, play the victim, and maintain your political possibilities. Low self-esteem and poor taste in men might not be the most obvious political assets; but, they seem to work for the Press and enough voters. The victimized Mrs. Clinton clung famously to her husband’s coattails and now stands poised to become the Democratic Party standard bearer for the Oval Office. Who knows, her protégé, Mrs. Huma Abidin Weiner, another victim au gauche, may parlay her marital drama into a Cabinet post also - in a second Clinton administration.
While in denial, Congressman Weiner claimed that his actions on-line did not break the law, violate congressional rules, or hinder his ability to honor his oath to defend the Constitution. It’s hard to believe a man who doesn’t defend a pregnant bride worries much about defending the abstractions in the Constitution.
Anthony Weiner has not left the public square without performing a public service. He now becomes the poster boy for virtual onanism, a living model of the pitfalls of pornography, self promotion, and the infinite possibilities for exhibitionism and professional suicide in cyberspace. Weiner doesn’t just look at himself in the mirror; he is also a reflection of the pitfalls of democracy and the gullibility of voters. Like his Long Island constituents, apparently; Anthony was well below average and proud of it.
Marriage and democracy offer blessings and curses. Sometimes we get the champions we need, yet more often we choose or elect the mountebanks we deserve.
-------------------------------------------------
G. Murphy Donovan was born in the Bronx and schooled in greater New York. He writes also at Agnotology in Journalism. This essay appeared in the 17 June 11 edition of American Thinker.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Stick a Fork in it Newt!
The Best way to sound like you know what you’re talking about is to know what you’re talking about.” - anonymous
Newt Gingrich has done it again. He throws his hat into the ring, and before it hits the ground, he has his foot in his mouth - again. Hard to believe that a politician can have too much ego, but surely Gingrich is suffering from an embarrassment of glitches. What was he thinking over the weekend when he attacked Representative Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin), one of a few politicians, other than Senator Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma), who has the courage to argue for common sense and fiscal sanity? Indeed, Ryan and Coburn are two of the most sensible and civil politicians in America. Neither is running for President.
Between Newt and “The Donald,” the Republicans have the beginnings of a circular firing squad. Are there no Democrats to excoriate?
Gingrich announced his presidential bid and then in the same week squandered his Sunday morning pulpit launch by attacking potential friends and allies, using rhetoric more appropriate to the loopy left.
On Sunday, he called Ryan's economic proposals an example of "right-wing social engineering," and suggested they were an attempt to impose "radical change" on Americans.
Ryan is a radical, a social engineer? Hasn’t this been the rap against progressives? Now, if Gingrich is neither right nor left, neither “radical” nor “right-wing,” then he has positioned himself in the moderate middle, the median strip – like road kill. No surprise then that the first prominent Democrat to endorse Newt’s lunacy was Howard Dean, left-wing spokesman extraordinaire.
Rhetorical fusillade may be the only fair way to characterize reactions to the Gingrich remarks. One caller likened the former Speaker of the House to a kind of political Michael Jackson, best remembered for setting his hair on fire. Another wag pleaded for a “mulligan,” arguing that Gingrich hadn’t been on the stump for a while and should be allowed a stroke or two.
Mulligan? A mulligan is what you get when you hit the ball in the water or out of bounds. Gingrich wrapped his wedge around his partner’s neck. When you try to decapitate a member of your foursome; the penalty is game over, off the course, and out of the club. Put a fork in it Newt, you’re done.
There’s good news and bad news in the wake Newt’s gaffe on Meet the Press. For conservatives who may have been harboring any illusions, Gingrich has revealed himself to be a crass opportunist, one willing to throw colleagues under the bus. Yet the bad news is likely to be more pervasive. Liberals have been gifted a film clip that will make a devastating campaign ad. No amount of backtracking or insincere apologies will unring that bell. Barack Obama ought to send Gingrich a thank-you note and a box of golf balls.
---------------------------------------------
A version of this entry appeared in the 18/19 May 11 edition of American Thinker’s blog. The author also writes at G. Murphy Donovan.
Newt Gingrich has done it again. He throws his hat into the ring, and before it hits the ground, he has his foot in his mouth - again. Hard to believe that a politician can have too much ego, but surely Gingrich is suffering from an embarrassment of glitches. What was he thinking over the weekend when he attacked Representative Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin), one of a few politicians, other than Senator Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma), who has the courage to argue for common sense and fiscal sanity? Indeed, Ryan and Coburn are two of the most sensible and civil politicians in America. Neither is running for President.
Between Newt and “The Donald,” the Republicans have the beginnings of a circular firing squad. Are there no Democrats to excoriate?
Gingrich announced his presidential bid and then in the same week squandered his Sunday morning pulpit launch by attacking potential friends and allies, using rhetoric more appropriate to the loopy left.
On Sunday, he called Ryan's economic proposals an example of "right-wing social engineering," and suggested they were an attempt to impose "radical change" on Americans.
Ryan is a radical, a social engineer? Hasn’t this been the rap against progressives? Now, if Gingrich is neither right nor left, neither “radical” nor “right-wing,” then he has positioned himself in the moderate middle, the median strip – like road kill. No surprise then that the first prominent Democrat to endorse Newt’s lunacy was Howard Dean, left-wing spokesman extraordinaire.
Rhetorical fusillade may be the only fair way to characterize reactions to the Gingrich remarks. One caller likened the former Speaker of the House to a kind of political Michael Jackson, best remembered for setting his hair on fire. Another wag pleaded for a “mulligan,” arguing that Gingrich hadn’t been on the stump for a while and should be allowed a stroke or two.
Mulligan? A mulligan is what you get when you hit the ball in the water or out of bounds. Gingrich wrapped his wedge around his partner’s neck. When you try to decapitate a member of your foursome; the penalty is game over, off the course, and out of the club. Put a fork in it Newt, you’re done.
There’s good news and bad news in the wake Newt’s gaffe on Meet the Press. For conservatives who may have been harboring any illusions, Gingrich has revealed himself to be a crass opportunist, one willing to throw colleagues under the bus. Yet the bad news is likely to be more pervasive. Liberals have been gifted a film clip that will make a devastating campaign ad. No amount of backtracking or insincere apologies will unring that bell. Barack Obama ought to send Gingrich a thank-you note and a box of golf balls.
---------------------------------------------
A version of this entry appeared in the 18/19 May 11 edition of American Thinker’s blog. The author also writes at G. Murphy Donovan.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
The Scent of Revolution
“A lie will travel half way round the world before truth gets its pants on.” – Mark Twain
Revolutions and institutions begin with good intentions. Too often, the institution then becomes the enemy of the idea. The communications revolution is such an example. Early enthusiasts, like Marshall McLuhan, thought that improved connectivity would create a kind of “global village” where a better informed, or better educated, world would evolve. McLuhan’s optimism was an academic variant of Hegelian or Marxist determinism which often mistakes the passage of time with progress. Indeed, scientific expectation often confuses technical innovation with moral, cultural, or political advance.
The internet revolution of the past two decades is thought by many to be a validation of McLuhan’s optimism. Internet social sites (e.g. You Tube, Facebook, and Twitter) are feted as the enablers of social, political, and cultural change; unvarnished truth in 140 characters or less. The so-called “jasmine revolution” underway in the Arab world is celebrated, in a similar vein, to be a direct and salutary consequence of global social networks. Unfortunately, early reports and hasty judgments are seldom true.
The World Wide Web is a tool. Yet, akin to a pistol in the wrong hands, it can also be a dangerous weapon. A better metaphor would be to describe the Internet as Chekhov’s gun; if a rifle appears in the first act, someone will be shot before the curtain falls.
Banality might be the primary ethic of the virtual world. If we can believe the numbers, personal computers are used mainly for pornography, mindless socializing, shopping, and surfing – the latter a catch-all for many activities, such as games and videos. Personal videos posted on sites like You Tube provide a global forum for stunts, bad taste, voyeurs, and associated nitwits where the host primes the pump by keeping score. Site visits or “hits” and “followers” are the principal measures of merit, or achievement, on the Internet.
Social networks use a kind of ego arithmetic; recording and posting member’s site visits, friends, “followers,” “pokes,” and associated vanity statistics. Not all of the activity is frivolous, however. Bullying, personal attacks, privacy violations, and hacking have become more malicious over time. Informal or secretive players like Anonymous and Wikileaks feature deadly serious political agendas and few scruples about truth, the law, or civility. Personal malice and political mayhem are the predictable consequences when rhetorical assault mediums fall into the wrong hands.
The virtual world exhibits Orwellian pathologies beyond language; encouraged, if not sponsored, by Internet hosts. Anonymity is the most pernicious. Traditionally, authors in the print world used pseudonyms to mask race, sex, or class. However, what used to be a harmless literary convention has now become a malicious digital rule. All manner of mischief and agendas hide behind “screen” names. Privacy is the usual defense for the anonymous; but, nameless users exhibit precious little concern for the truth about, or the privacy of, their targets and victims.
With all, ignorance is the biggest fly in the Internet ointment. And the difficulty is not simply error in fact or analysis. The problem is the conscious propagation of falsehoods in the name of science or politics. Robert Proctor of Stanford University elevated this spread of ignorance to a scientific study, “Agnotology.” Proctor documented how faux science was used by the tobacco industry to defend cigarette smoking. Other investigations have exposed similar frauds associated with climate change (nee “global warming”).
The internet does not create information; it merely carries it. Sadly, the internet has few content standards and ignores most moral hazards. Indeed, ignorance may be more likely than truth in the virtual world. The growing dependence of state “news” outlets, such as al Jezeera and a host of Western cicadas, on unsourced social networks is not an advance for objectivity, enlightenment, or truth.
The ongoing “Arab Spring,” “awakening,” or “jasmine revolution” is a telling case study. The rolling mayhem in the Middle East has become viral, in part, because social and news networks have represented political mayhem as consequence-free. Upheaval in the Arab world is obviously not peaceful and outcomes are not likely to be democratic. Nonetheless, news readers and politicians underwrite illusions by insisting that riots and insurrection are “peaceful” protests or “pro-democracy” movements.
Social technology and social revolutions may be related, but they are not necessarily symbiotic. The Internet is an echo chamber where repetition is too often confused with truth. Euphemisms like “jasmine revolution” or “awakening” are a kind of rhetorical wishful thinking; serial insurrection or civil war in the Muslim world is not likely to be good news for oppressed apostates or naïve infidels.
Whilst Americans and Europeans bleed for fantasy democracy in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and now Libya; the bankers of ideological jihad in Riyadh and Doha are ruthlessly suppressing any threats to totalitarian rule at home. If regime change were helpful anywhere in the Arab League, Saudi Arabia or the Emirate regimes would be the first logical targets.
Surely, the relationship between Sunni theocrats and Arab royals is a marriage of convenience. Sectarian imperialists need funding and tribal tyrants need to purchase immunity from regime threatening fellaheen.
Nevertheless, the rolling revolt in the Arab world is not a struggle between democracy and tyranny. There are no democratic states in the Arab League or the Gulf Cooperation Council and few if any political movements which merit the adjective “moderate”. Yusef al Qaradawi, the Sunni voice of al Jezeera and al Ikwan al-Muslimeen ( the Muslim Brotherhood) says it best when he claims the “the train of revolution” has now reached Damascus. Qaradawi’s target is Sunni secularism - and his politics have little to do with democracy and everything to do with irredentist religious identity.
Middle East and North Africa civil wars are struggles between seculars and theocrats, not tyrants and democrats. Europe and America seem to have (as they did with Iran, Algeria, Turkey, Lebanon, and Gaza) cast their lot with the Islamists; again, allowing naive hope to mask the threat of religious reactionaries.
Several decades back, Tennessee Williams wrote of the “sickly sweet smell of mendacity.” Indeed, lies are the cheap spices we use to mask the stench of truth. The books are being cooked, without doubt, when fragrant adjectives like “jasmine” are used to sweeten the sour breath of revolutions.
Those who thrive on chaos seldom lend a hand to restore civility. The flaw in all radicalism - technical, political, or religious - is that zealots and activists obscure the end game and care little about unintended consequences.
____________________________________
G. Murphy Donovan, a former USAF intelligence officer, writes frequently about national security matters. This essay originally appeared in the 13 April 11 edition of Family Security matters.
Revolutions and institutions begin with good intentions. Too often, the institution then becomes the enemy of the idea. The communications revolution is such an example. Early enthusiasts, like Marshall McLuhan, thought that improved connectivity would create a kind of “global village” where a better informed, or better educated, world would evolve. McLuhan’s optimism was an academic variant of Hegelian or Marxist determinism which often mistakes the passage of time with progress. Indeed, scientific expectation often confuses technical innovation with moral, cultural, or political advance.
The internet revolution of the past two decades is thought by many to be a validation of McLuhan’s optimism. Internet social sites (e.g. You Tube, Facebook, and Twitter) are feted as the enablers of social, political, and cultural change; unvarnished truth in 140 characters or less. The so-called “jasmine revolution” underway in the Arab world is celebrated, in a similar vein, to be a direct and salutary consequence of global social networks. Unfortunately, early reports and hasty judgments are seldom true.
The World Wide Web is a tool. Yet, akin to a pistol in the wrong hands, it can also be a dangerous weapon. A better metaphor would be to describe the Internet as Chekhov’s gun; if a rifle appears in the first act, someone will be shot before the curtain falls.
Banality might be the primary ethic of the virtual world. If we can believe the numbers, personal computers are used mainly for pornography, mindless socializing, shopping, and surfing – the latter a catch-all for many activities, such as games and videos. Personal videos posted on sites like You Tube provide a global forum for stunts, bad taste, voyeurs, and associated nitwits where the host primes the pump by keeping score. Site visits or “hits” and “followers” are the principal measures of merit, or achievement, on the Internet.
Social networks use a kind of ego arithmetic; recording and posting member’s site visits, friends, “followers,” “pokes,” and associated vanity statistics. Not all of the activity is frivolous, however. Bullying, personal attacks, privacy violations, and hacking have become more malicious over time. Informal or secretive players like Anonymous and Wikileaks feature deadly serious political agendas and few scruples about truth, the law, or civility. Personal malice and political mayhem are the predictable consequences when rhetorical assault mediums fall into the wrong hands.
The virtual world exhibits Orwellian pathologies beyond language; encouraged, if not sponsored, by Internet hosts. Anonymity is the most pernicious. Traditionally, authors in the print world used pseudonyms to mask race, sex, or class. However, what used to be a harmless literary convention has now become a malicious digital rule. All manner of mischief and agendas hide behind “screen” names. Privacy is the usual defense for the anonymous; but, nameless users exhibit precious little concern for the truth about, or the privacy of, their targets and victims.
With all, ignorance is the biggest fly in the Internet ointment. And the difficulty is not simply error in fact or analysis. The problem is the conscious propagation of falsehoods in the name of science or politics. Robert Proctor of Stanford University elevated this spread of ignorance to a scientific study, “Agnotology.” Proctor documented how faux science was used by the tobacco industry to defend cigarette smoking. Other investigations have exposed similar frauds associated with climate change (nee “global warming”).
The internet does not create information; it merely carries it. Sadly, the internet has few content standards and ignores most moral hazards. Indeed, ignorance may be more likely than truth in the virtual world. The growing dependence of state “news” outlets, such as al Jezeera and a host of Western cicadas, on unsourced social networks is not an advance for objectivity, enlightenment, or truth.
The ongoing “Arab Spring,” “awakening,” or “jasmine revolution” is a telling case study. The rolling mayhem in the Middle East has become viral, in part, because social and news networks have represented political mayhem as consequence-free. Upheaval in the Arab world is obviously not peaceful and outcomes are not likely to be democratic. Nonetheless, news readers and politicians underwrite illusions by insisting that riots and insurrection are “peaceful” protests or “pro-democracy” movements.
Social technology and social revolutions may be related, but they are not necessarily symbiotic. The Internet is an echo chamber where repetition is too often confused with truth. Euphemisms like “jasmine revolution” or “awakening” are a kind of rhetorical wishful thinking; serial insurrection or civil war in the Muslim world is not likely to be good news for oppressed apostates or naïve infidels.
Whilst Americans and Europeans bleed for fantasy democracy in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and now Libya; the bankers of ideological jihad in Riyadh and Doha are ruthlessly suppressing any threats to totalitarian rule at home. If regime change were helpful anywhere in the Arab League, Saudi Arabia or the Emirate regimes would be the first logical targets.
Surely, the relationship between Sunni theocrats and Arab royals is a marriage of convenience. Sectarian imperialists need funding and tribal tyrants need to purchase immunity from regime threatening fellaheen.
Nevertheless, the rolling revolt in the Arab world is not a struggle between democracy and tyranny. There are no democratic states in the Arab League or the Gulf Cooperation Council and few if any political movements which merit the adjective “moderate”. Yusef al Qaradawi, the Sunni voice of al Jezeera and al Ikwan al-Muslimeen ( the Muslim Brotherhood) says it best when he claims the “the train of revolution” has now reached Damascus. Qaradawi’s target is Sunni secularism - and his politics have little to do with democracy and everything to do with irredentist religious identity.
Middle East and North Africa civil wars are struggles between seculars and theocrats, not tyrants and democrats. Europe and America seem to have (as they did with Iran, Algeria, Turkey, Lebanon, and Gaza) cast their lot with the Islamists; again, allowing naive hope to mask the threat of religious reactionaries.
Several decades back, Tennessee Williams wrote of the “sickly sweet smell of mendacity.” Indeed, lies are the cheap spices we use to mask the stench of truth. The books are being cooked, without doubt, when fragrant adjectives like “jasmine” are used to sweeten the sour breath of revolutions.
Those who thrive on chaos seldom lend a hand to restore civility. The flaw in all radicalism - technical, political, or religious - is that zealots and activists obscure the end game and care little about unintended consequences.
____________________________________
G. Murphy Donovan, a former USAF intelligence officer, writes frequently about national security matters. This essay originally appeared in the 13 April 11 edition of Family Security matters.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
The Violence of Culture
“A perfect world doesn’t need guns. We don’t live in a perfect world.”
– Sheriff Ben Johnson
Firearms play a large role in American history. Guns of every sort are used to settle issues great and small. Literature and film does not exaggerate so much as reflect the role of guns in American history and culture – although Hollywood body counts are more than a little fantastic.
The value at work here, enshrined in the constitution, is that Americans did not give police, soldiers and criminals an exclusive franchise on deadly force. Call it defensive lethality. Gun ownership is closely related to a historical suspicion of intrusive or incompetent government. They also represent a kind of portable fair play. From the beginning, a gun was thought to be the great equalizer – the tool that levels the playing field. Indeed, that ubiquitous Colt six-shooter of the American West was called “the Peacemaker”.
When citizens speak of “Second Amendment remedies,” such warnings were common, although rare today, up to and after the Civil War. Thomas Jefferson famously wrote of the periodic need to “water the tree of liberty” with the blood of patriots. His philosophical heirs exercised that license with a suicidal Civil War. Guns in the hands of recidivist Democrat Party vigilantes played a large role in enforcing Jim Crow laws for a hundred years after emancipation. Yet, even in the wake of armed insurrection, the nascent Republican Party did not seek to disarm cranky American individualists.
The primary objection to guns is political. Gun owners and their opponents have radically different world views. Gun owners do not trust their personal security to the city or state for pragmatic and philosophical reasons.
At the curb level, no municipal or state agency can guarantee the security of individuals or specific property. Crime statistics, especially in urban areas, support this belief. Police provide general community security, but specific lapses are too many and too troubling. Book keeping, like Compstat, monitors the ebb and flow of municipal mayhem, but such statistics, like public school audits, are too sensitive to careerism and political winds. Indeed, judicial process is calibrated also to accommodate the wants of criminals and political interests, not needs of victims or taxpayers. In short, gun advocates do not trust the state with personal safety. Overwhelming statistical evidence supports citizen skepticism.
Gun opponents, on the other hand, have little evidence to underwrite their faith in the state’s ability to provide personal security. Indeed, the nation’s capital, with arguably the highest per capita number of law officers of every stripe, has one of the highest crime rates in the country. Clearly, rates of violent street crime against individuals and property, especially in urban areas, can be influenced, but not controlled by police.
The philosophical differences between gun owners and their opponents are self evident; the former believe that individual rights and responsibilities are paramount; the later believes that individual prerogatives are subordinate to the state. This political divide has a long history and the gun control debate is just another chapter in that argument.
The controversy following the recent Tucson shootings illustrates the chasm. Gun control advocates, like Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, quickly tried to assign guilt to Republican and conservative rhetoric. Second Amendment advocates like Governor Sarah Palin took to the airways to dispute charges of collective guilt, insisting instead on personal accountability .
Beliefs about guns are more myth than science. Gun control dogma has little to do with evidence or reason. There is no correlation between gun ownership and homicide rates. The United States, where 40% of citizens own firearms, had a homicide rate (year 2006) of 5.70 deaths per 100,000 of population, only 3.72 were gun related. If the worst kill rates for cities (such as Baltimore 42.0, St. Louis 38.0, and Washington, DC 35.4) were extracted, the US homicide rate, given the high rate of legal owners, is comparable to any country in the world with draconian control laws.
If any political party is guilty by association, the Democrat Party has much to answer for. Indeed, in February, Boston congressman Michael Capuano (D) urged union members to "get bloody when necessary." Capuano holds Jack Kennedy's old seat. Most violent crime in the US occurs in large cities, like Boston, where constituents and their political mentors are Democrats. Chicago, the president’s home town, is twice as deadly as New York and three times as violent as Los Angeles.
Mr. Capuano's gory admonition is fairly typical of left logic. When government at any level fails to deliver on promises it can not possible keep, progressives light torches and reach for the pitchfork.
Gun control advocates try to mask the statist argument with utopian terms like “common good.” Were this a sufficient argument, individual prerogatives such as automobiles, knives, axes, machetes, alcohol, matches, and mood altering drugs might be banned also.
There were 12,632 firearm homicides in 2007. In the same year, 37,435 auto related deaths were reported. Approximately 40% of auto fatalities are alcohol related. Every auto injury or death caused by a drunk is criminal violence by definition. Few states track, non-alcohol, drug related auto fatalities. Worldwide, nearly 40 million serious injuries and deaths are attributed to automobiles. This figure is projected to reach 50 million by 2020.
In the most recent genocide in Rwanda, nearly a million killed, the agent of death was an edged weapon or a club. Indeed, since WWII the deadliest weapon of choice worldwide is the machete. In medieval Europe, long before guns were common, the homicide rate in cities was thought to be 60.0. Then as now, no country seeks to decommission edged tools and weapons as a solution to violent crime.
Finland and Switzerland have some of the highest gun ownership rates in the world, yet their gun homicide rates are low (3.24 and 1.32 respectively). South Africa, in contrast, has had a homicide rate as high as 75.30 deaths per 100,000 - and few guns. There are no concrete figures available on gun ownership, but non-gun homicides in South Africa account for twice as many deaths.
The Swiss example merits consideration in any gun debate. All eligible Swiss males are required to serve in the military and undergo annual small arms qualification. After service, Swiss men are allowed to retain their semi-automatic side and long arms at home. The Swiss government encourages shooting competitions and subsidizes ammunition. Almost all Swiss households possess small arms of one sort or another. Shooting is a national sport.
Swiss homicide rates are lower than Great Britain where most guns are banned. The second largest city, Geneva, reported no armed robberies in 1993. The Swiss experience contradicts the conventional anti-gun wisdom so dramatically that the United Nations often omits Switzerland in “studies” of small arms. Clearly, culture not hardware, drives the Swiss experience.
Any honest assessment of American culture recognizes the role of guns in history and contemporary civility – or lack of it. Gun advocates, for the most part see guns as personal insurance. Gun opponents, are tainted with hypocrisy; opposing legal gun ownership for innocents on the one hand while ignoring illegal gun violence among their guilty constituents.
Modern gun rhetoric on the right is just that; actual revolutionary and criminal street violence has been the near exclusive franchise of big cities and the American left. The professional left is the last institution in America that should scold others for having “blood” on their hands.
A great civil war and all the rural violence of reconstruction was a Democrat Party legacy. Indeed, Jim Crow law and the associated 100 year reign of terror against black Americans was sponsored or ignored by Democrat politicians.
The failure of American “progressives” appears to be one of introspection; an unwillingness to look inward and accept adult responsibility. They also fail to acknowledge the legitimate fears and concerns of law abiding citizens who wish to take prudent precautions for the safety of their families. Liberals compound their error by insulting the intelligence of voters; attempting to blame violence on conservative rhetoric while ignoring the history and culture of criminal mayhem among their constituents.
H. Rap Brown (aka Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin), former Justice (sic) Minister for the Black Panthers, once said: “Violence is as American as cherry pie.” He was right. Unfortunately he failed to mention that he was speaking for himself, his politics, and his culture. In March 2000, Brown shot two police officers with an assault rifle. As one of the officers lay wounded, Brown executed him with three shots from a handgun. Both officers were Black. Mr. Brown is now serving a life sentence for murder.
Modern American and European political violence invariably emanates from the professional left. National Socialists and Communists were not conservatives. The 1968 political convention mayhem in Chicago was a liberal phenomenon on both sides of the barricades. Recent austerity riots in France and Greece follow 20th Century patterns. Organized street violence and arson is tactic peculiar to left-leaning activists and unions. Three low-level bank employees were incinerated at their workplace by radicals during the 2010 Athens entitlements riots.
Epilogue
Just as guns and violence are not synonymous; legality and morality are not equivalent either. From a moral perspective, 16,000 US homicides a year could be compared to over a million legal abortions per year on average. Indeed, since 1973, there have been over 52 million abortions (300 abortions for every 1,000 live births). In New York City today, 40% of pregnancies are aborted. Homicide and infanticide are morally equivalent to the extent that they are acts of free will – or choices. For too many, abortion is just a more callous variety of birth control.
The hypocrisy associated with rare shooting incidents and other forms of pervasive urban violence is best illustrated by two recent cases; Jared Loughner of Tuscon and Dr. Kermit Gosnell of Philadelphia. The Loughner tragedy was a “one of ” incident where nineteen people were shot, six fatally. Good Samaritans intervened immediately to halt the mayhem.
Gosnell is an abortionist who according to the Philadelphia Inquirer was “a butcher of women and babies” for 30 years in spite of numerous complaints to city and state authorities. According to the Inquirer, Gosnell “routinely killed viable infants (with a scissors)…hundreds of them.” After failing three annual health inspections: “The state Health Department decided after 1993 to stop inspecting abortion clinics for ‘political reasons’.” Gosnell continued to kill until January, 2011 when he was arrested. No good Samaritans intervened on behalf of women and children in the ‘city of brotherly love.”
Compared to abortion, gun homicide occupies the moral high ground; abortion is actually a false, if not arbitrary “choice.” Two of the three principals in abortion, the father and the child, have no say in the matter. On the question of guilt, homicide also has an advantage. In most shootings, the victims are other criminals, usually recidivists. All infanticide fatalities, like Gosnell’s victims, are innocents. Criminal violence often makes the present uncomfortable; abortion always makes the future impossible.
Urban apologists, like Paul Krugman in the New York Times and Larry McMurtry in the Washington Post, are whistling in the dark when they look to rhetoric in the wide open spaces of Arizona and Alaska for explanations. They need look no further than their urban back yards for the roots of violence. Epidemic rates of mayhem, legal or otherwise, are peculiar to large cities and liberal constituencies. Unfortunately, speculations about violence seldom confront these troubling sources. And if numbers matter, big city crime and abortion, not guns, are the principal symptoms of any climate of hate or any cultures of violence in America today.
--------------------------------------------
The author is a veteran of three violent combat tours; 17 years in the Bronx and two years in Vietnam. He also writes at G. Murphy Donovan. This essay originally appeared in the March, 2011 edition the New English Review.
– Sheriff Ben Johnson
Firearms play a large role in American history. Guns of every sort are used to settle issues great and small. Literature and film does not exaggerate so much as reflect the role of guns in American history and culture – although Hollywood body counts are more than a little fantastic.
The value at work here, enshrined in the constitution, is that Americans did not give police, soldiers and criminals an exclusive franchise on deadly force. Call it defensive lethality. Gun ownership is closely related to a historical suspicion of intrusive or incompetent government. They also represent a kind of portable fair play. From the beginning, a gun was thought to be the great equalizer – the tool that levels the playing field. Indeed, that ubiquitous Colt six-shooter of the American West was called “the Peacemaker”.
When citizens speak of “Second Amendment remedies,” such warnings were common, although rare today, up to and after the Civil War. Thomas Jefferson famously wrote of the periodic need to “water the tree of liberty” with the blood of patriots. His philosophical heirs exercised that license with a suicidal Civil War. Guns in the hands of recidivist Democrat Party vigilantes played a large role in enforcing Jim Crow laws for a hundred years after emancipation. Yet, even in the wake of armed insurrection, the nascent Republican Party did not seek to disarm cranky American individualists.
The primary objection to guns is political. Gun owners and their opponents have radically different world views. Gun owners do not trust their personal security to the city or state for pragmatic and philosophical reasons.
At the curb level, no municipal or state agency can guarantee the security of individuals or specific property. Crime statistics, especially in urban areas, support this belief. Police provide general community security, but specific lapses are too many and too troubling. Book keeping, like Compstat, monitors the ebb and flow of municipal mayhem, but such statistics, like public school audits, are too sensitive to careerism and political winds. Indeed, judicial process is calibrated also to accommodate the wants of criminals and political interests, not needs of victims or taxpayers. In short, gun advocates do not trust the state with personal safety. Overwhelming statistical evidence supports citizen skepticism.
Gun opponents, on the other hand, have little evidence to underwrite their faith in the state’s ability to provide personal security. Indeed, the nation’s capital, with arguably the highest per capita number of law officers of every stripe, has one of the highest crime rates in the country. Clearly, rates of violent street crime against individuals and property, especially in urban areas, can be influenced, but not controlled by police.
The philosophical differences between gun owners and their opponents are self evident; the former believe that individual rights and responsibilities are paramount; the later believes that individual prerogatives are subordinate to the state. This political divide has a long history and the gun control debate is just another chapter in that argument.
The controversy following the recent Tucson shootings illustrates the chasm. Gun control advocates, like Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, quickly tried to assign guilt to Republican and conservative rhetoric. Second Amendment advocates like Governor Sarah Palin took to the airways to dispute charges of collective guilt, insisting instead on personal accountability .
Beliefs about guns are more myth than science. Gun control dogma has little to do with evidence or reason. There is no correlation between gun ownership and homicide rates. The United States, where 40% of citizens own firearms, had a homicide rate (year 2006) of 5.70 deaths per 100,000 of population, only 3.72 were gun related. If the worst kill rates for cities (such as Baltimore 42.0, St. Louis 38.0, and Washington, DC 35.4) were extracted, the US homicide rate, given the high rate of legal owners, is comparable to any country in the world with draconian control laws.
If any political party is guilty by association, the Democrat Party has much to answer for. Indeed, in February, Boston congressman Michael Capuano (D) urged union members to "get bloody when necessary." Capuano holds Jack Kennedy's old seat. Most violent crime in the US occurs in large cities, like Boston, where constituents and their political mentors are Democrats. Chicago, the president’s home town, is twice as deadly as New York and three times as violent as Los Angeles.
Mr. Capuano's gory admonition is fairly typical of left logic. When government at any level fails to deliver on promises it can not possible keep, progressives light torches and reach for the pitchfork.
Gun control advocates try to mask the statist argument with utopian terms like “common good.” Were this a sufficient argument, individual prerogatives such as automobiles, knives, axes, machetes, alcohol, matches, and mood altering drugs might be banned also.
There were 12,632 firearm homicides in 2007. In the same year, 37,435 auto related deaths were reported. Approximately 40% of auto fatalities are alcohol related. Every auto injury or death caused by a drunk is criminal violence by definition. Few states track, non-alcohol, drug related auto fatalities. Worldwide, nearly 40 million serious injuries and deaths are attributed to automobiles. This figure is projected to reach 50 million by 2020.
In the most recent genocide in Rwanda, nearly a million killed, the agent of death was an edged weapon or a club. Indeed, since WWII the deadliest weapon of choice worldwide is the machete. In medieval Europe, long before guns were common, the homicide rate in cities was thought to be 60.0. Then as now, no country seeks to decommission edged tools and weapons as a solution to violent crime.
Finland and Switzerland have some of the highest gun ownership rates in the world, yet their gun homicide rates are low (3.24 and 1.32 respectively). South Africa, in contrast, has had a homicide rate as high as 75.30 deaths per 100,000 - and few guns. There are no concrete figures available on gun ownership, but non-gun homicides in South Africa account for twice as many deaths.
The Swiss example merits consideration in any gun debate. All eligible Swiss males are required to serve in the military and undergo annual small arms qualification. After service, Swiss men are allowed to retain their semi-automatic side and long arms at home. The Swiss government encourages shooting competitions and subsidizes ammunition. Almost all Swiss households possess small arms of one sort or another. Shooting is a national sport.
Swiss homicide rates are lower than Great Britain where most guns are banned. The second largest city, Geneva, reported no armed robberies in 1993. The Swiss experience contradicts the conventional anti-gun wisdom so dramatically that the United Nations often omits Switzerland in “studies” of small arms. Clearly, culture not hardware, drives the Swiss experience.
Any honest assessment of American culture recognizes the role of guns in history and contemporary civility – or lack of it. Gun advocates, for the most part see guns as personal insurance. Gun opponents, are tainted with hypocrisy; opposing legal gun ownership for innocents on the one hand while ignoring illegal gun violence among their guilty constituents.
Modern gun rhetoric on the right is just that; actual revolutionary and criminal street violence has been the near exclusive franchise of big cities and the American left. The professional left is the last institution in America that should scold others for having “blood” on their hands.
A great civil war and all the rural violence of reconstruction was a Democrat Party legacy. Indeed, Jim Crow law and the associated 100 year reign of terror against black Americans was sponsored or ignored by Democrat politicians.
The failure of American “progressives” appears to be one of introspection; an unwillingness to look inward and accept adult responsibility. They also fail to acknowledge the legitimate fears and concerns of law abiding citizens who wish to take prudent precautions for the safety of their families. Liberals compound their error by insulting the intelligence of voters; attempting to blame violence on conservative rhetoric while ignoring the history and culture of criminal mayhem among their constituents.
H. Rap Brown (aka Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin), former Justice (sic) Minister for the Black Panthers, once said: “Violence is as American as cherry pie.” He was right. Unfortunately he failed to mention that he was speaking for himself, his politics, and his culture. In March 2000, Brown shot two police officers with an assault rifle. As one of the officers lay wounded, Brown executed him with three shots from a handgun. Both officers were Black. Mr. Brown is now serving a life sentence for murder.
Modern American and European political violence invariably emanates from the professional left. National Socialists and Communists were not conservatives. The 1968 political convention mayhem in Chicago was a liberal phenomenon on both sides of the barricades. Recent austerity riots in France and Greece follow 20th Century patterns. Organized street violence and arson is tactic peculiar to left-leaning activists and unions. Three low-level bank employees were incinerated at their workplace by radicals during the 2010 Athens entitlements riots.
Epilogue
Just as guns and violence are not synonymous; legality and morality are not equivalent either. From a moral perspective, 16,000 US homicides a year could be compared to over a million legal abortions per year on average. Indeed, since 1973, there have been over 52 million abortions (300 abortions for every 1,000 live births). In New York City today, 40% of pregnancies are aborted. Homicide and infanticide are morally equivalent to the extent that they are acts of free will – or choices. For too many, abortion is just a more callous variety of birth control.
The hypocrisy associated with rare shooting incidents and other forms of pervasive urban violence is best illustrated by two recent cases; Jared Loughner of Tuscon and Dr. Kermit Gosnell of Philadelphia. The Loughner tragedy was a “one of ” incident where nineteen people were shot, six fatally. Good Samaritans intervened immediately to halt the mayhem.
Gosnell is an abortionist who according to the Philadelphia Inquirer was “a butcher of women and babies” for 30 years in spite of numerous complaints to city and state authorities. According to the Inquirer, Gosnell “routinely killed viable infants (with a scissors)…hundreds of them.” After failing three annual health inspections: “The state Health Department decided after 1993 to stop inspecting abortion clinics for ‘political reasons’.” Gosnell continued to kill until January, 2011 when he was arrested. No good Samaritans intervened on behalf of women and children in the ‘city of brotherly love.”
Compared to abortion, gun homicide occupies the moral high ground; abortion is actually a false, if not arbitrary “choice.” Two of the three principals in abortion, the father and the child, have no say in the matter. On the question of guilt, homicide also has an advantage. In most shootings, the victims are other criminals, usually recidivists. All infanticide fatalities, like Gosnell’s victims, are innocents. Criminal violence often makes the present uncomfortable; abortion always makes the future impossible.
Urban apologists, like Paul Krugman in the New York Times and Larry McMurtry in the Washington Post, are whistling in the dark when they look to rhetoric in the wide open spaces of Arizona and Alaska for explanations. They need look no further than their urban back yards for the roots of violence. Epidemic rates of mayhem, legal or otherwise, are peculiar to large cities and liberal constituencies. Unfortunately, speculations about violence seldom confront these troubling sources. And if numbers matter, big city crime and abortion, not guns, are the principal symptoms of any climate of hate or any cultures of violence in America today.
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The author is a veteran of three violent combat tours; 17 years in the Bronx and two years in Vietnam. He also writes at G. Murphy Donovan. This essay originally appeared in the March, 2011 edition the New English Review.
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