Random thoughts
I’ve had a series of random ideas following me around for the past few days, and will just throw them out in a single post. Considering them food for thought (or bones to chew or bury).
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My husband finally got around to watching HBO’s Reagan documentary. I missed the beginning, but got to see the second half, during which Reagan was repeatedly damned with faint praise and praised with faint damns. Americans come off collectively as pretty stupid for thinking Reagan was such a good president.
One of the things that was interesting was the way in which the people interviewed kept saying that the Reagan myth doesn’t represent the “real” Reagan, meaning that conservatives are lying when they preserve and build upon his best ideas. I found this amusing coming from people who worship both FDR, who shared Reagan’s charisma, but almost completely destroyed the US economy; and JFK, a charming, unscrupulous womanizer and fairly inept president during his short tenure, who brought the US closer to a nuclear war than it’s ever been before or since. People who live in glass hagiographies shouldn’t throw rhetorical stones.
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One of the frequently reiterated points in the Reagan documentary, and one that I kept hearing during the Wisconsin stand-off, is that conservative free-market policies aid only “the rich.” This is a very 19th century formulation, which considers the rich to be a completely static group — as was true in old class-based societies. What Progressives and their ilk miss is the a free-market, class-free society is incredibly fluid. As Daniel Webster said, “there’s always room at the top.” During the good times, lots of Americans get rich and, yes, the richer get even richer. But there’s huge money movement.
The fluidity also means that there are many new poor, but what all the Progressives miss is that the nature of poverty changes in a thriving economy. A dynamic, truly competitive marketplace makes for cheaper products. Just compare the price of flash drives eight years ago, when they sold for hundreds of dollars, and today, when businesses give them away for free to customers, the way they once gave away pens. Or look at the iPhone. The one I bought several years ago for $300 now retails for $39.
What this means is that the American poor, even though they’re below the government-drawn poverty line, still have access to America’s resources, in a way unheard of in the old class-based world that still provides the Progressive’s mental landscape. The poor have electronics, food (even if only McDonald’s), clothing (courtesy of Wal-Mart or one of my favorites, Goodwill), health care (albeit at the drab free clinic), etc. Their poverty cannot be compared to the poverty of old — and yet that’s precisely what the Progressives do. This ties in tightly with my regular complaint that Progressives are always fighting the battles, not of the last century (the 20th), but of the one that came before. (Think abortion or think unions.)
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A few days ago, I posted about Patterico’s insane email and tweet conversation with an NPR ombudsman who refused to listen to an original source (the O’Keefe/Schiller videos), because she had a secondary transcript. I’ve been mentally worrying over that scenario a lot. One would think that, in a media-rich age such as ours, people would always go to the original source, but that’s not the case. When it came to the NPR ombudsman (and Paul Krugman), the decision to ignore original sources is due to a combination of laziness and lack of curiosity. However, I think for a lot of us, it’s a processing problem. There is way too much information out there, and it’s simply easier to have a trusted source winnow it down, give you the highlights and tell you what it means. Certainly this is why so many people are wedded to the MSM — it’s the CliffNotes version of news. The problem arises when people refuse to consider the original source even after they’ve had proven to them the fact that the secondary source is corrupt.
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On a totally different subject, I also caught a bit of Modern Marvels today. Have you ever seen that show? It’s on the History Channel, and it’s probably one of the best things TV has to offer. Episode after episode, Modern Marvels explores the wonders of, well, things: paint, trucks, cement, rice, airplanes, fountains, rubber, steel, etc. The episode I watched today was about industrial grease. The most fascinating segment took place aboard the super carrier USS Nimitz. It focused on the wires and hydraulic systems that are used to launch and catch the jets that take off and land from those teeny strips in the middle of vast oceans. It was riveting. The men and women who make that happen, both the pilots and all the other technical people, are much to be admired.
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I attended a social function last night. Really, really nice people (as always). I ended up in conversation with two men, both of whom made statements that could be construed as conservative (one about Libya, one about the economy), and both of whom blanched at the words leaving their mouths. Both also instantly recovered by insulting George Bush. I giggled to myself. Then, consistent with my belief that praise is more effective than confrontation, I ignored the Bush insults and, instead, lauded and expanded upon their conservative observations.
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Obama is discovering that one of the perils of “leading” the parade from behind is the mountains of horse poop you end up carrying along on your shoes. He’s in deep horse poop with his handling of Middle Eastern affairs. One really doesn’t expect the leader of what was, until two years ago, the most powerful nation on earth, to hide on the golf course when the world is reeling from one crisis to the next.
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Speaking of Obama, do you think this horrible pun was intentional or unintentional?
President Obama sent his condolences to the people of Japan over the devastating 8.9 magnitude earthquake, and declared that the United States stands ready to offer aid because of the “unshakeable” bond between the two nations.
I never thought of him as a very punny guy, unlike our dear Sadie, so I’m thinking those were the crude words of a insensitive boob.
