So at this point it’s old news, but Republican candidate for president John McCain has chosen Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska and mother of five. It was, by most accounts, a surprising pick, and a pleasant surprise for libertarian-lite and reform conservatives. But the conservative reaction hasn’t been one of simple approval. It has been a dramatic overreaction. While out of one side of the Right’s mouth come platitudes downplaying the importance of the first woman in the White House or the first black man in the White House, out the other side is a level of excitement that can only be attributed to the absence of a Y-chromosome. Even Rush Limbaugh had do address it, declaring “We’re the ones with a babe on the ticket.”
That’s not to say there is nothing exciting or admirable about Palin. From the Times Online:
“She was born in the conservative heartland of Idaho before moving to Alaska as a baby. At school she was nicknamed Sarah Barracuda on the basketball court because she was so competitive and she led the prayers before each game.
In 2006 she beat the corrupt male establishment in Alaska to win the governorship. She opposes same-sex marriage, but one of her first acts in office was to veto a bill blocking health benefits for gay lovers of public employees. She hunts, ice-fishes and is a crack shot who knows how to fire an M16 rifle.”
She’s also about as pro-life as you can get in modern politics.
But what has everybody won over is that she’s a pretty girl with guns. Just like in the movies. We don’t know anything about her views on foreign policy and the role the United States should play around the world. We don’t know where she stands on the critical immigration issue. Plus, having never seen her in a debate format, questions linger about how she will stand up to a formidable debater in Joe Biden.
But the ugly truth under all of the rhetoric is that Palin does nothing to redeem a McCain campaign rightfully rejected by traditional conservatives. Any glimmer of hope she may have had–her support of Pat Buchanan in 1996 or her appearance on Ron Paul’s potential VP list–are obsolete because she has hitched herself on the “Straight-Talk Express.” Her views on foreign policy and immigration are irrelevant because of how profoundly wrong McCain’s are. I repeat: Palin does nothing to redeem a McCain campaign rightfully rejected by traditional conservatives.
At its root, the McCain campaign could not reconcile its Old Left problems with any VP candidate. So while the GOP celebrates itself before the inevitable buyers remorse sets in, the rest of us are left still to ponder the future of the American Right.
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3: (Catch the Edmund Burke reference around 6:49)
Part 4:
Filed under: Politics
Gene Healy describes the modern presidency in his fantastic “The Cult of the Presidency”:
“Neither Left nor Right sees the President as the Framers saw him:a constitutionally constrained chief executive with an important, but limited, job: defend the country when attacked, check Congress when it violates the Constitution, enforce the law–and little else. Today, for conservatives as well as liberals, it is the president’s job to protect us from harm, to “grow the economy,” to spread democracy and American ideals abroad, and even to heal spiritual malaise–whether it takes the form of a “sleeping sickness of the soul,” as Hillary Clinton would have it, or an “if it feels good, do it” ethic, as diagnosed by George W. Bush.
Few Americans find anything amiss in the notion that it is the president’s duty to solve all large national problems and to unite us all in the service of a higher calling. The vision of the president as national guardian and redeemer is so ubiquitous that it goes unnoticed.
…
The Imperial Presidency is the price of making the office the focus of out national hopes and dreams.”
America has plenty of political problems to worry over. Patriots lose sleep over America becoming the world’s biggest debtor nation, American adventures abroad that are a boon for funeral parlors near military bases but leave Americans confused and scared and America hated abroad, or the growing conservative love affair with a behemoth executive. These are reasons to fear for America that do not involve imaginary existential threats abroad. But don’t tell that to the power-class as they celebrate themselves at the national conventions.
The spectacle so far has been enough to send the Joe Bauers of the world to the booby hatch. American policy may not be made at national party conventions, but at the conventions, these policies–products of nothing more or nothing less than battles between political interests–are packaged and delivered to the populace with a $25 gas card to ensure we don’t miss their sincerity.
I’ve been told I should lighten up, but I just can’t deny what is right in front of my eyes. I hated pep-rallies in high school, but at least their stated objective–beating a rival school in a game long since forgotten–was as trivial as the display preceding it. I wish I could say the same here, but I can’t. As we continue to spend trillions on foreign wars and domestic entitlements, we celebrate a candidate that will do little to curb the former and will expand the latter, while we will continue to borrow and borrow our way back into “prosperity.” We celebrate the right of a woman to chose death for her delicate, unborn child. Platitudes are not in short supply for the brain-dead in Denver.
And we haven’t even turned our attention to the bear-taunting bully McCain yet. The GOP convention–with liberal fear-mongerer Giuliani giving the keynote and rumors of VP candidates consisting of former liberals or current liberals–is hard to be seen as anything but a public show trial where traditional conservatism and non-intervention will be declared guilty of past evils, forced to the wall, and shot dead once and for all. The elephant will wear a sign declaring “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door… AS LONG AS THEY SUPPORT OUR WAR!“
There is always hope. Our history is full of it. Not Obama-hope. No, this hope can’t fit on a t-shirt. This little Republic will survive, I am sure of that. But how long will it take for the American people to realize that they are not watching a daytime drama or a Sunday-night sporting event, but the degradation and destruction of everything this country was built to stand for? As the great Ron Paul said on Neil Cavuto’s show:
“Our economy? Ok, let’s say we stay in Iraq for the next five years. I’m not going to argue about that any more. Let’s just stay indefinitely. How are we fiscally responsible republicans going to pay for it. Did you know we borrow billions from China every day to pay for the Iraq war? My finances would be in great order if I borrowed a million dollars a day, but some day the bill is going to come due.”
But it’s not just the economy. The chickens of our foreign entanglements, our destructive trade policy, our excessive culture, are coming home to roost. Let’s hope the folks wake up soon!
Filed under: Baseball
Back in June, Ken Rosenthal from Fox Sports wrote that the chance that the MLB would implement a replay system for boundary calls “appear[ed] better than ever.” This would be the most significant change in baseball since the addition of the Designated Hitter in the American League. Now that we are in August, it seems the league is set to push the new system. Tom Verducci from Sports Illustrated reports:
The umpires and players also are in favor of a replay system, though the players have expressed a concern about instituting replay during the regular season. Should September games, for instance, be played under rules that were not in place during the first five months of the season? Or, if all parties agree that replay is good for the game, why not institute it as soon as the system is ready?
Baseball wants replay in a very limited sense: to determine fair or foul balls on potential home runs as well as whether balls actually cleared the outfield wall for home runs, including instances that involve possible fan interference. It was not immediately determined if balls near the foul line, even if not near the foul pole, would qualify as boundary calls open to review. Close plays on the bases, trapped balls by fielders, and borderline pitches will not be reviewable.
Selig had long been an opponent of any instant replay system. As recently as 2005 Selig said, “But do I believe in instant replay? No, I do not. Human error is part of our sport.”
Bud Selig is absolutely right. He has made plenty of mistakes during his tenure, but in this case he is correct.
Baseball has always been different than other modern American sports. While basketball, football, and hockey have seen major aesthetic “improvements” in their sports–from horribly ugly modern jerseys to major changes in padding and stadium layout–baseball had prided itself on adhering to its own traditions, even when modernizing the sport. New parks are built, but for the most part they look to imitate the storied parks of the past. New jerseys are developed with old ones in mind, and many teams wear “retro” jerseys multiple times during the season. Old franchises hold special events throughout the season dedicated to great heroes of the past. Parks have their own hall (or “wall”) of fames.
Mystique also plays a major part in baseball–more so than in other sports. Baseball has the Nasty Boys, the Black Sox, Willie Mays and The Catch, the Curse of the Bambino and Ruth’s Called Shot, Ten Cent Beer Night, The Shot Heard ‘Round the World, The Homer in the Gloamin’. Bill Kauffman has called real baseball not the game of the home run but the game of the sacrifice-bunt, but it is also the game of the unassisted triple-play, great home run calls (Caray: “Holy Cow!” or Kalas: “Watch this baby… Outta Here!”), perfect games, hitting for the cycle, and–that’s right–human error.
Baseball is a game of charm and consistency. Generations bring their sons and grandsons (or daughters and granddaughters) to the ballpark and I imagine the sweet smell of hot dogs and beer and peanuts hasn’t changed much over the years. But the true beauty of baseball is that, despite the moaning and groaning from fans about curses and bad umpiring, the sport is better with its flaws left intact. Despite corporate sponsorships and 24 hour ESPN coverage, going to a ballgame, from single-A to the “big show”, gives a fan the distinct feeling that even with all the balls and whistles, a community is coming together to watch some grown men play a boys game. We yell for (and in Philly, at) our players, we live and die with them, and we yell along with the managers “The ball was foul, Ump!” It’s painful. But it’s also joyous.
Fundamentally, baseball in the little league is not terribly different than baseball in Yankee Stadium. Nine men playing the field, an opposing hitter at the plate, and four neutral men governing. Isn’t their something poetically simple about that? No review screens or stoppages. Just men playing a classic American game, governing themselves, at least for nine innings. What’s so harmful about that?
There are plenty of examples in modern society where human endeavors are replaced by cold, technological efficiency, but must we let this attitude infiltrate America’s classic pastime? It seems it is already too late.
Filed under: Foreign Policy
Whether it’s Hussein, Milosevic, Ahmadinejad, or, now Putin/Medvedev, to the internationalist neocon it is always 1939, the time for choosing is always now, the danger always immediate and mortal.
A timeline is important. A section of Georgia wants to be independent, and had Russia’s backing (ex: Taiwan or a host of other groups around the world that we support “freedom” for). Georgia looked to militarily dominate them and bring them back into the fold. So the Russians militarily entered Georgia to repel Georgian forces. Neither Russia nor Georgia is totally in the right (or wrong) for this.
Frankly, this type of aggression has been provoked by the United States and our NATO allies. NATO, founded to apply pressure on the Soviet Union, shouldn’t even exist anymore. But when the Soviet Union broke away and tried to become a part of the west, America refused to allow it. Instead, nearly every eastern-bloc former Soviet state has been entered into NATO, basically surrounding Russia with proxy military outposts. If a rival world power was spreading a military alliance originally formed in order to isolate and destroy the US and was strategically placing outposts around our homeland, Americans would be upset, too.
It is no coincidence that Georgia was next on the US’s list of countries to join NATO. America has been pushing for such a presence in NATO recently. Was Russia right to invade? No. But the idea that Russia is some mad totalitarian evildoer and not a nation making thought-out decisions based on their own regional interests is stupid and ridiculous. We’ve been provoking Russia for years, and now when it comes back to hurt one of our surrogates, we wax poetic on freedom and totalitarianism and the invasions of the past.
I am not an isolationist (whatever that is supposed to mean). Or, to qualify, I am about as isolationist as John Quincy Adams was, when he said:
Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will [America's] heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.
It has been suggested that there is a morally superior side, that of the Georgians, and that are probably correct. But it matters little. There were transgressions on both sides. America has no interest in going to war over Georgia (or any other country, for that matter). Just because the Georgian cause may be lofty and righteous does not mean we are obligated to run to their aid.
I oppose rigid ideology in any manner. This modern American appetite that has us sending men all over the world for an abstract ideal such as “freedom” or “democracy”… I just do not understand it. It is built out of utopian desires. The modern Left (internationalists) has developed this appetite, as has the modern Right (neoconservatives). If something bad happens, somewhere around the world, America should be there. We should send other men to fight and die for Georgia (since intellectual chickenhawks are too busy getting their M.B.A. – J.D.s) and they can will feel their hearts stir when they hear the national anthem from their box seats at a Nationals game.
My heart stirs for the Old Republic, not some NATO empire. Every foreign conflict has some sense to it. There are distinct interests involved. And sometimes our interests are not involved. What is more noble, to partake in an act of war and send men to Georgia to possibly die and possibly further provoke Russian aggression, or to allow foreign nations to determine their own fates, while we trade and peacefully mediate and negotiate? I’d suggest the latter.
There is an unspoken middle ground. Well, almost unspoken. Dan Flynn sums up the debate:
The same jingoes who smile at the thought of General William Sherman’s scorched earth campaign through Georgia beat war drums at Vladimir Putin’s ruthless campaign through Georgia. The same doves who loudly condemned George W. Bush for invading a sovereign nation tell everyone to shut up when we condemn Vladimir Putin for invading a sovereign nation. The same Putin who violently suppressed separatists in the Russian province of Chechnya now violently aids separatists in the Georgian province of South Ossetia. The same Americans who declared Kosovo a republic independent from Serbia decry Russians who declare South Ossetia a rebublic independent from Georgia. “The first casualty when war comes is truth,” noted Senator Hiram Johnson in 1918. Hypocrisy, on the other hand, emerges unscathed.
We’ve spent years poking the Russian Bear. And now he is awake. Come home, America! The bear won’t follow.
The Conservative Exodus Project was forwarded to me from the folks at Conservative Heritage Times and I found it worth sharing. I have signed the petition and the Project does a fine job explaining some reasons why conservatives need to stand up and say no to the uber-liberal Obama and the neocon bully McCain. From the site:
We, the undersigned, pledge not to elect another globalist for president.
Regarding illegal and legal immigration, both Barack Obama and John McCain support the Third World invasion of the United States, and thus are guilty of treason.
Both Barack Obama and John McCain advocate ruinous free trade agreements, which undermine our economy. (Conservatives historically have opposed ideological free trade, but many in the GOP have been “neoconned” on this issue.)
Both Barack Obama and John McCain are interventionists, the former supporting war in Darfur, the latter in Iraq and Iran. The transformation of the Middle East (or anywhere else) to liberal democracy is Wilsonian internationalism, not conservatism.
Because the two main-party candidates are unacceptable, we pledge not to vote or to vote third party this November.
Ocean City, NJ is a relatively small Jersey shore town somewhere between Atlantic City and Cape May. It does not have the same name recognition as the Maryland town of the same name, but has plenty of its own to offer. Despite seeing serious increases in tourists and an appearance on USA Today’s top 10 family resorts list, it remains untarnished by corporate America.
Its boardwalk is its major draw, and is lined with junk-foods of all types. They are local establishments with long histories in the area. No Pizza-Huts, Domino’s, or Papa John’s; instead there is Mack and Manco’s–a New Jersey classic that not only routinely makes “Best of the Shore” lists, but best of the Northeast as well. It only has four locations total (three in Ocean City), and has a uniform recipe at each, guaranteeing that every pie, no matter the location, has tasted the same for years.
There are ice cream stands, but the Dairy Queens and Dippin’ Dots lines are always modest, while lines at Kohr Brothers frozen custard are always blocks long. Still a small franchise, they have resisted calls to grow their business out of fear of the inevitable decline in quality that comes with expansion. Mom and Pop fudge stores like Laura’s Fudge outsell the big fudge shops as well.
In terms of entertainment, family-fun remains untarnished. Two carnival-themed parks bookend the boardwalk with ferris wheels and skeeball games, and they are packed with families every night–especially on weekends–despite the terminal decline in the value of the family. Custom t-shirt shops, record stores, antique sports and movie collectible stores line the beach. No Gap or JCrew or American Eagle or Abercrombie and Fitch or FYE to be found in the whole of Ocean City. And yet prices are lower. One wonders what we sacrifice by giving into behemoth retailers at the expense of history and culture…
Finally miniature golf courses are a highlight of Ocean City, and a perfect example of how visitors to have been able to discern quality despite exterior modernity. Big companies rolled into town years ago to profit off of these attractions, but the big money courses have still been unable to beat the small Mom and Pop courses. “Congo Rapids” has spent thousands building a giant gorilla that shoots water, a crashed helicopter with singing monkeys on board, and vast caverns to house the course holes, yet despite this, more modest courses such as “Tee Time” and “Goofy Golf” still maintain loyal crowds and sell tickets at half the price of “Congo.”
I am vacationing in Ocean City with my family over the next few days, enjoying Mack and Manco’s and hopefully hitting up Tee Time soon. I hope to keep up with the NA as often as possible during this time. We were also all anticipating a visit from my grandmother, but a return to the hospital due to Lymphoma has left that visit in doubt. Your thoughts and prayers are appreciated.
Filed under: Culture
From the best little book you’ll ever read on culture:
If we succeed even partially in answering the question [of how to improve and heal our culture]. we must then put ourselves on guard against the delusion of trying to bring about these conditions for the sake of the improvement of our culture. For if any definite conclusions emerge from this study, one of them is surely this, that culture is the one thing that we cannot deliberately aim at. It is the product of a variety of more or less harmonious activities, each pursued for its own sake: the artist must concentrate upon his canvas, the poet upon his typewriter, the civil servant upon the just settlement of particular problems as they present themselves upon his desk, each according to the situation in which he finds himself. Even if these conditions with which I am concerned, seem to the reader to represent desirable social aims, he must not leap to the conclusion that these aims can be fulfilled solely by deliberate organisation. A class division of society planned by an absolute authority would be artificial and intolerable; a decentralisation under central direction would be a contradiction; an ecclesiastical unity cannot be imposed in the hope that it will bring about unity of faith, and a religious diversity cultivated for its own sake would be absurd. The point at which we can arrive, is the recognition that these conditions of culture are “natural” to human beings; that although we can do little to encourage them, we can combat the intellectual errors and the emotional prejudices which stand in their way. For the rest, we should look for the improvement of society, as we seek our own individual improvement, in relatively minute particulars. We cannot say: “I shall make myself into a different person”; we can only say: “I will give up this bad habit, and endeavour to contract this good one.” So of society we can only say: “We shall try to improve it in this respect or the other, where excess or defect is evident; we must try at the same time to embrace so much in our view, that we may avoid, in putting one thing right, putting something else wrong.” Even this is to express an aspiration greater than we can achieve: for it is as much, or more, because of what we do piecemeal without understanding of foreseeing the consequences, that the culture of one age differs from that of its predecessor.
…
We may hold different political views: our common responsibility is to preserve our common culture uncontaminated by political influences. It is not a question of sentiment: it does not matter so much whether we like each other, or praise each other’s writings. What matters is that we should recognise our relationship and mutual dependence on each other. What matters is our inability, without each other, to produce those excellent works which mark a superior civilisation. We cannot, at present, hold much communication with each other. We cannot visit each other as private individuals; if we travel at all, it can only be though government agencies and with official duties. But we can at least try to save something of those goods of which we are common trustees: the legacy of Greece, Rome, and Israel, and the legacy of Europe throughout the last 2,000 years. In a world which has seen such material devastation as ours, these spiritual possessions are also in imminent peril.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Note: This originally appeared on @TAC on June 30th, 2008.
Over the past weekend I had the pleasure of seeing Disney-Pixar’s new animated movie “WALL-E.” Set in the apocalyptic-lite 28th century, WALL-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class) is a small robot left behind on an abandoned planet Earth, which you discover through a set of video clips has been evacuated due to heavy pollution, brought on by mass consumerism and exploitative big business. His chance encounter with EVE (Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator) is the catalyst for a surprisingly poignant love story that becomes the center of the movie’s plot. Without delving too much into my own personal opinions on the film–this post is not meant to be a review–I thought it was visually stunning, powerful, and deeply touching, and by my estimation the first Disney movie that is more meaningful and enjoyable for adults than for children.
The film has been received warmly by an overwhelming majority of critics, but some on the right are upset about some of the movie’s themes. Greg Pollowitz at the NRO blog “Planet Gore” writes:
I saw WALL-E with my five year old on Saturday night. It was like a 90-minute lecture on the dangers of over consumption, big corporations, and the destruction of the environment. All this from mega-company Disney, who wants us to buy WALL-E kitsch for our kids that are manufactured in China at environment-destroying factories and packed in plastic that will take hundreds of year to biodegrade in our landfills.
Much to Disney’s chagrin, I will do my part to avoid future environmental armageddon by boycotting any and all WALL-E merchandise and I hope others join my crusade.
These sentiments have been echoed by Shannen Coffin on The Corner, claiming the movie is a “Godforsaken dreck” and was upset about being “bombarded with leftist propaganda about the evils of mankind.” Indeed, a point that Coffin makes that is echoed by outraged film critic Kyle Smith is that, when the audience is introduced to the fat, dumb, technologically-enslaved humans, Pixar is insulting their target audience:
Wall-E…supposes that the human race of the future will become a flabby mass of peabrained idiots who are literally too fat to walk. Instead they zip around in flying wheelchairs surfing the Web, chatting on phone lines and stuffing their faces with food meant to be sucked down like milkshakes while unquestioningly taking orders from the master corporation that controls all aspects of their existence. I’m trying to think of a major Disney cartoon feature that was anywhere near as dark or cynical as this. I’m coming up blank. I’m also not sure I’ve ever seen a major corporation spend so much money to issue an insult to its customers.
The real tragedy of these callous conservative critics (say that three times fast) is that they are missing the real lessons of the movie, ones I found immediately attractive to a traditional conservative. In the film, it becomes clear that mass consumerism is not just the product of big business, but of big business wedded with big government. In fact, the two are indistinguishable in WALL-E’s future. The government unilaterally provided it’s citizens with everything they needed, and this lack of variety led to Earth’s downfall.
Another lesson missed is portrayed perfectly in Coffin’s claim that WALL-E points out the “evils of mankind.” The only evils of mankind portrayed are those that come about from losing touch with our own humanity. Staples of small-town conservative life such as the small farm, the “nuclear family,” and old-fashioned and wholesome entertainment like “Hello, Dolly” are looked upon by the suddenly awakened humans as beautiful and desirable. By steering conservative families away from WALL-E, these commentators are doing their readers a great disservice.
Filed under: War
Most emotional and difficult to watch at 19:15 during Part 2:
BILL MOYERS: You say, and this is another one of my highlighted sentences, that “Anyone with a conscience sending soldiers back to Iraq or Afghanistan for multiple combat tours, while the rest of the country chills out, can hardly be seen as an acceptable arrangement. It is unfair. Unjust. And morally corrosive.” And, yet, that’s what we’re doing.
ANDREW BACEVICH: Absolutely. And I think – I don’t want to talk about my son here.
BILL MOYERS: Your son?
ANDREW BACEVICH: Yeah.
BILL MOYERS: You dedicate the book to your son.
ANDREW BACEVICH: Yeah. Well, my son was killed in Iraq. And I don’t want to talk about that, because it’s very personal. But it has long stuck in my craw, this posturing of supporting the troops. I don’t want to insult people.
There are many people who say they support the troops, and they really mean it. But when it comes, really, down to understanding what does it mean to support the troops? It needs to mean more than putting a sticker on the back of your car.
I don’t think we actually support the troops. We the people. What we the people do is we contract out the business of national security to approximately 0.5 percent of the population. About a million and a half people that are on active duty.
And then we really turn away. We don’t want to look when they go back for two or three or four or five combat tours. That’s not supporting the troops. That’s an abdication of civic responsibility. And I do think it – there’s something fundamentally immoral about that.
Again, as I tried to say, I think the global war on terror, as a framework of thinking about policy, is deeply defective. But if one believes in the global war on terror, then why isn’t the country actually supporting it? In a meaningful substantive sense?
Where is the country?
