An Enlightened Character

Easy, in your post of May 10 ("Debt Up to Our ...), you state: "For the Administration, however, American economic dynamism is precisely what is wrong with America and the world.  America's economic power feeds the American Beast of Capitalism (bad), Colonialism and Exploitation (worse), and a War-Mongering Militant Culture (evil), which is edging the world ever closer to Nuclear Annihilation." In an interview with Michael Totten, Paul Berman makes much the same point vis a vis the mind-set of the Western apologists of Islamism: "We look at ourselves in the Western countries and we say that, if we are rich, relatively speaking, as a society, it is because we have plundered our wealth from other people. Our wealth is a sign of our guilt. If we are powerful, compared with the rest of the world, it is because we treat people in other parts of the world in oppressive and morally objectionable ways. Our privileged position in the world is actually a sign of how racist we are and how imperialistic and exploitative we are. All the wonderful successes of our society are actually the signs of how morally inferior we are, and we have much to regret and feel guilty about." The real basis for screwy thinking like this is the historical degeneration of the Western Enlightenment into bilious abstractions no more concrete than the older religious metaphysics.  Rich societies are rich because they enjoy the freedom to form mini voluntary associations with others in mutually beneficial exchanges.  This concrete rational conclusion about what capitalism is totally escapes our current intellectual elite because they are locked into quasi-Jungian/Freudian/Marxist abstractions that care not for the intentions and motivations of real, concrete people, but point rather to a deep, unconscious reality of which real people are just pawns. Continue......

Gay? Don't Ask

Reporters keep asking the White House to comment on the fact that, according to CBS News and some other sources, its Supreme Court nominee, Elena Kagan, is gay.  Since this is the gay-friendliest Administration in history, you would think such questions were uber softball.  Speech writers could just dust off some of their old texts, substitute "sagacious Sapphic" for "wise Latina," and the Obami could drone on endlessly about shattered glass ceilings, a voice for the mute, and a new emphasis on fashion in an institution mired in bleak, black-robed pullovers.  They could then finish with their usual flourish about the latest history-in-the-making moment of an Administration that is nothing if not the greatest history maker in the history of history.  Instead, the White House bristles at such questions, blasting CBS News for "posting lies," and stating emphatically that the " ... reference to Ms. Kagan as gay is inaccurate." Not that there is anything wrong with being gay, of course. The Administration is just angry because ..... ehrmm, uh .... Well.  I'll have to read through all this stuff again and get back to you on that.

Debt Up to Our ... [Pick Your Fav Anatomy Part]

John Steele Gordon clarifies the Ticking Debt Bomb set to go off in our midst. He states in part:

Moody’s projects that the cost of federal-debt service could reach 22.8 percent of government revenues as soon as 2013.

That would not only threaten our credit rating and drive up still further the cost of borrowing, but also increasingly constrain the ability of the government to pursue American interests. In the 1920s Britain was paying over 40 percent of revenues to service its debt from World War I, gravely limiting its ability to function as a Great Power. In the 1780s France was spending over 80 percent of revenues to pay interest on its debt, no small reason why the 1780s didn’t end well for the French monarchy.

However, he then concludes in puzzlement:

The people seem increasingly aware of this looming threat. Just ask Senator Bob Bennett of Utah, denied nomination to a fourth term yesterday largely because he voted for the TARP bill in 2008. But do the political class and the Washington media?

I would answer: of course they do. The Obami made it very plain during the campaign that they sought a Reaganesque Presidency, in which America would be "fundamentally changed." Conservatives seem to think this meant the Obami wanted an American renewal like Reagan's, with rapid growth and low unemployment, but engineered with Liberal policies and economic restructuring.

For the Administration, however, American economic dynamism is precisely what is wrong with America and the world.

Continue......