Archive for October 2007
Ron Paul Roundup
Lots of interesting things, at least I think so. Patrick Raffini did an analysis of his fund raising by state, and it looks nothing like a red/blue map. Via Sullivan. CNBC learns not to mess with Ron Paul. Backlash to CNBC taking down their internet debate poll because it was showing Ron Paul winning with 75% of the vote, in spite of being afforded the least time to respond to questions as any other candidate. If you've seen Paul deal with people, how do you think he'd have dealt with people like this, enthusiastic for another candidate. Paul's luxury is that he has nothing to hide, and can thus conduct himself with absolute dignity every time. Interesting speculation as to why Paul may not be polling as high as the "top tier" in the major scientific polls. There was the story about Paul raising more from the military than any other candidate last quarter. He doubled the amount this quarter, which was trice as much as the two runners up, McCain and Thompson. Ron Paul demonstrates his integrity in how to manage budgets, not only by returning part of his congressional budget every year (and never taking "junkets") but by...
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Fighting for Freedom?
I'm going to do this in two parts, the second being an update to this post. The first part is short, simply to alert you to an interesting set of posts and the roundup and analysis conducted by one Billy Beck right here. The rest of what I'll have to post will likely make little, or at least less sense without the background. Read those links at the top of Billy's post, in order, then his analysis. Think you understand why we didn't continue on and take out Stalin at the end of WWII? Do you think our eventual involvement in WWII was principally a fight for freedom? How sure are you? This has vast geopolitical, cultural, and even human implications and I hope to touch on a few of them later. Update: I've got other stuff to throw up, so when I get to this, it'll be in a new entry.
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Rand is not Right
And thank god for that. It's a great article that delves into the what and why of how Rand -- like many of us -- came to curse most republicans and conservatives, declaring them avowed enemies. Mr. Buckley and his National Review were trying to build a politically viable postwar right, including a border fence around respectable conservatism. Rand's ferocious and uncompromising opposition, not only to any government action beyond protecting individual rights, but also to religion and tradition for its own sake, put her outside that fence. She was too absolutist, too outrageous, too faithless. After that Chambers review, Rand saw mainstream conservatism as her avowed enemy. And they were. And they still are. Yet many conservatives still loved her, even if as a sometimes guilty pleasure... Big deal. She was anti-commie and minimalist government; and communism and big government are the biggest threats to the conservative ideal of eventually ushering in an authoritarian, inquisitorial, tortuous "Christian Nation, under God." It is not one wit more important or mysterious than the practical admonition to make the enemy or your enemy your friend. It's not like they have the intellectual will or honesty to acknowledge that the strength of her...
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Nope; There’s Nuthin’ to See, Here.
Just move along.
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Very Bad Day at the Office
Now suppose you are an opinion editor for a paper; let's say of a leftist bent. In the old days, you could write just about whatever, and so long as you vaguely refer to lots of "complexities" and so on, all adding up to some necessity to take from some and redistribute to others, you're gold. No need to get into why, just now. Suffice it to say that the reason the media has traditionally been leftist is that it's the path of least resistance. Stealing is easier than producing and profiting above costs of production; and being a cheered cheerleader for legitimized thieves, easier still. It's the perfect job for the lazy and/or incapable. Be a leftie opinion editor and you can write your screed, you can count on the support of your colleagues, and you might even be lucky enough to gain prestige by being cited by various inhabitants of the various ivory towers. But not today. Not if you're Matt Maxon, opinion editor of The Rebell Yell of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). The problem with enabling comments for articles is that it's difficult to predict or control what you get. You certainly don't predict...
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Federalism
You'll likely have virtually nothing in common politically with this guy -- I sure don't -- but I say it's a damn shame when a socialist from the Netherlands (Jeiel Schalkwijk) understands American federalism more clearly than virtually any conservative I know, assuming many conservative have the slightest clue as to its general attributes, which I doubt. Freedom is a uniting influence in broad terms, which motivates some natural division and separation in narrower term; and in the federalist way in which America was formed, that translates to people of similar values being free to relocate to areas more representative of their values and to establish their own local governance, subject to the few limits imposed by the constitution. This also sets up competitive dynamics between the 50 states, and perhaps even small jurisdictions within. It's not perfect, but it's sure a lot more reasonable than cramming the values of some down the throats of 300 million people nationwide in an impossible one-size-fits-all insanity.
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Ron Paul Update
Remember I pointed out a few days ago about one of his videos going viral? Karen DeCoster has an update from Charles Burris. This inspiring video posted at YouTube.com has been viewed over two hundred twenty nine thousand, five hundred times [now over 263,000 - Ed]. It is one of thirty six thousand, nine hundred videos on Ron Paul on that site. Four million, five hundred thirty four thousand, nine hundred eighty seven persons have viewed these videos. There are over one thousand independent Ron Paul MeetUp groups, over fifty three thousand people, organized in seven hundred ninety three cities, in twenty two countries, who are dedicated supporters of Dr. Paul, and actively working for his election as President of the United States of America. Mitt Romney has two MeetUp groups with a total of thirty four members. And it now stands at over 13,000 diggs which is nearly 6,000 more diggs than the next most dugg video in the last year, that of the UCLA taser incident, and more than double the diggs of Chris "Leave Britney Alone" Crocker (that's nonetheless at 11.5 mil views on YouTube). So here it is, again.
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La Villa Strangiato
Alright; that's it for the day, unless it's not. Great day of catch up and tweaking up bits here and there for the new name, look, and theme -- modifying same in the various connections from Bloglines to Feedburner to Technorati and more. Here's a favorite, by a favorite. The opening has Alex Lifeson showcasing a mashed finger, on tour, in Europe. Oh: he plays guitar. Then there's Getty Lee telling you about cancellations because of it. But the show went on, here, and you can see the mashed finger if you look close. Honestly, I can do without the section from about 4-5 minutes, or so. It's just a bit discordant, off-tempo, or psychedelic (whatever you want to call it). But in the whole, it's great and the opening few minutes of guitar work is worth it. Calling Billy: what are we seeing, here?
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More Gore
...and of such complexity that they would likely never get their due in history. Billy Beck, commenting on something I read earlier today at Warren's other blog. What he's referring to, in my view, is the inherent conflict between truth and honesty. Complexity means: many facts. And many facts provides ample opportunity to tell a number of truths, all limited in context. But nobody is going to know the limitations of the context of the particular narrative they're exposed to unless they explicitly seek out additional knowledge on their own, think, and exercise their own honest judgment. Honesty is a very high calling, and I daresay largely unpracticed by the majority of humanity.
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A Political Insight
I lucked out on the trip up here to the cabin yesterday (other than drive time), but I'll get to that in a second. First, a diversion. Every now and then (more now than then) I get tired of news and talk and put the radio on music. Usually it's classic rock, but then there's a "mix" station I'll check out from time to time and catch a new tune I end up liking. Gotta admit: I heard really liked this one the other day by Timberlake: What Goes Around.../...Comes Around Interlude. It's track 6 here at Rhapsody, which, I just found, allows the download of a Firefox plugin and you can play 25 full tracks per month for free. Unlimited is $12.95 per month, and that's what's I'm about. iPods and MP3 players are great, but ultimately I'd like to play whateverthehell, wheneverthehell, whereeverthehell. Anyway, I switched over to NPR and happened to catch on all but the first 3 minutes of a substantial NewsHour interview with Ron Paul, conducted by Judy Woodruff (Part 1; Part 2). It's typical Paul: he just doesn't shy away from questions that would have any other politician backpedaling like crazy. But he said...
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“Chemo for the GOP”
It's at least an interesting thought. To be sure, the Republican party suffers from an aggressive form of cancer -- brain cancer? -- but is Evita the right prescription? Can she kill the cancer without also killing the last vestige of anything good about the Republicans, or worse? Man, I don't know. I've said for years that Hillary will never be President; but right about now I'm feeling like I do when I think a price level in the markets can't possibly be touched -- right before it is. There's a lot still to happen, so making predictions is just for the fun of it. Perhaps even more interesting is a possible defection by the religious right if Giuliani gets the Republican nod. That wouldn't be for the purpose of winning, but to split the vote in order to block Rudy. I'll tell ya: as much as I loath the Hillary creep show, I loath Giuliani just as much, possibly more. See, I was paying attention when he was a federal prosecutor and I know what he's all about. That's an 18 page, well documented and researched PDF entitled IT’S THE ECONOMY, STUPID: RUDY GIULIANI, THE WALL STREET PROSECUTIONS, AND...
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Eleven Inconvenient Truths
Doubly so, seeing as how Gore managed to score his "Peace Prize" yesterday. Yea, well the Norwegians have become a parody of themselves for awhile, now. Food for thought: Gore didn't call the film "Inconvenient Honesty." Can you imagine it being named that? More food for thought: Why isn't the expression "the honest truth" considered redundant (and rightly so)?
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Atlas Shrugged Off Truth; Embraces Honesty
I didn't get around to blogging the 50-year anniversary of the publication of this great work, and I'd intended to kick off this morning with something else -- but I'll get to that. I was checking my friend Greg Swann's blog and found I had missed this WSJ article by David Kelley. Businessmen are favorite villains in popular media, routinely featured as polluters, crooks and murderers in network TV dramas and first-run movies, not to mention novels. Oil company CEOs are hauled before congressional committees whenever fuel prices rise, to be harangued and publicly shamed for the sin of high profits. Genuine cases of wrongdoing like Enron set off witch hunts that drag in prominent achievers like Frank Quattrone and Martha Stewart. Acknowledged and existent truths like fraud, pollution, and corruption, combined with the truth of profit-driven motivation, make for a tantalizing scapegoat in capitalism and "unbridled free markets." This, in order to spin and weave a seeming internally consistent but narrow context where the biggest producers are deemed responsible for our biggest problems (some real, some conjured). The human potential for irrational and non proportional fear knows almost no bounds; culminating, finally, in a perfect-storm, positive-feedback frenzy to undercut...
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Whew!
Just arrived and fired everything up. It's about 2:45 with no traffic. This trip to the cabin took 4:15, and I think 3:30 is the most it has ever taken before. The rainfall, I guess. Well, I haven't eaten in over 10 hours, so it's off to Snowshoe Brewery. More later.
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The New Title, Look & Theme
You can see for yourself, and feel free to let me know what you think. I'll explain more later about where I'm going with this. But for now, chew on this: truth vs. honesty. It's a big idea, in my view, and it gets no attention anywhere that I can tell (other than by implication). Moreover, I believe that we often resort to and emphasize truth in order that we may ultimately evade reality or rationalize bad things. Our entire politics and culture revolves around the truth, and it does so in order to mask the underlying dishonesty. A thought: a truth is a static fact of reality wholly dependent upon a specific, defined, limited context; whereas, honesty is a dynamic process which demands all reasonable efforts to identify and gather all relevant facts, integrating them into the widest possible -- indeed, expanding, if possible -- context of reality, along with continuing efforts to integrate additional facts and widen the context even further. Headed to the cabin for the weekend. Back with you later. Oh, wait... It's closing bell. Ha; I said I'd be lucky to finish the week at 0%, in light of Monday's loss. Looks like I finish...
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My Last Post
Yep. This will be my very last post for all eternity at Uncommon Sense. ...That's because I'm changing the name of the blog, as well as the format and look. I'm also changing not so much the focus (politics & culture), but my approach to it, and I intend for it to be more of a true blogging experience, with less longish commentary. I intend to employ what I consider to be a unique device or theme, which I'll explain and demonstrate more about later. Check back. I've already registered the new domain and DNS records across the globe are updating as I write. The design will be an easy one to roll out, this time. The existing domain name will continue to work indefinitely, so all the links out there will continue to chug right along. For what it's worth, I always did consider the name "Uncommon Sense" slightly pretentious, particularly if I'm trying to attract readers, which indeed I am.
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Going Viral
This video, with 130,000 views, and over 10,000 diggs. I enjoy reading some of the comments on these sites and what I find most interesting, compelling, is the unity around principles and ideas, unlike I have ever seen.
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Cheap Smears to Uphold Illusions and Nighmares
It's amusing and telling how republicans and "libertarians" are willing to outright lie and smear Ron Paul like they do with that "isolationist" charge. Ron sets the record straight. He's right, and those who persist are simply liars. A non-interventionist foreign policy is not an isolationist foreign policy. It is quite the opposite. Under a Paul administration, the United States would trade freely with any nation that seeks to engage with us. American citizens would be encouraged to visit other countries and interact with other peoples rather than be told by their own government that certain countries are off limits to them. American citizens would be allowed to spend their hard-earned money wherever they wish across the globe, not told that certain countries are under embargo and thus off limits. An American trade policy would encourage private American businesses to seek partners overseas and engage them in trade. The hostility toward American citizens overseas in the wake of our current foreign policy has actually made it difficult if not dangerous for Americans to travel abroad. Is this not an isolationist consequence from a policy of aggressive foreign interventionism? It is not we non-interventionists who are isolationsists. The real isolationists are...
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Telling
Ron Paul is the "least favorite" among 45 "right-of-center" bloggers. There's little doubt this is driven by the warmongering (there, I said it) Republicans. This of course is another data point in my growing suspicion that the right, and all of the right, is just as evil as the left, and all of the left. They're just different. The moral distinctions cover different subject matter, that's all. I'm confident that for every gross evil from the left, I could come up with one from the right. I increasingly view it foolish to place the right at some moral advantage to the left in any meaningful respect.
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Reason TV
This should be fun.
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