I have no idea if this guy
Michael Shellenberger would make a good governor. I bought his book "San Fransicko" a while ago, but haven't yet read it. Still, the bar for sanity in California is low, and he does at least appear to have retained some capacity for rational thought, which makes him a unicorn in that state's politics. Per his interview with Bari Weiss:
It boggled his mind that the other candidates running for governor were 100-percent certain about what they couldn’t know, and weirdly unsure about how to fix things that could be fixed.
“Politics should be a means to an end of a good society,” Shellenberger said. “They’re making it the end.” He was referring to the homeless activists who were his nemesis, but he could have been talking about the environmentalists or the pro-lifers in the desert. “Their real goal is control and moralizing and power. Mine is freedom, care, civilization.”
Not that I agree that the goal of pro-lifers is control and moralizing and power, but the goal of some people in politics on any issue certainly can become that, and it behooves us to watch out for the trend.
[H]e knew there was a chasm between what progressive activists said they wanted and what they actually wanted. They claimed to want to end homelessness, just as the environmentalists had claimed to want to combat climate change. But that wasn’t true. Really, they wanted the fight, the feeling of moral superiority and, of course, the cash for their NGOs.
That sentiment alone makes him a valuable heretic.
"Really, they wanted the fight, the feeling of moral superiority and, of course, the cash for their NGOs." Patrick Fermor, who traveled widely in Europe in 1933, relayed a story from a Rhineland town, where he made friends with several factory workers at a bar. One of them, “an amusing, clownish character,” invited Paddy to stay over at in spare bed at his place. It turned out that there was Nazi regalia everywhere, and an SA uniform hanging neatly ironed. When Paddy it said that it must be rather claustrophobic with all that stuff on the walls, he laughed and sat down on his bed and said: “Mensch! You should have seen it last year! You would have laughed! Then it was all red flags, stars, hammers and sickles, pictures or Lenin and Stalin and Workers of the World, Unite!”
ReplyDeleteHe went on to say of he and his friends “We used to beat hell out of the Nazis, and they beat the hell out of us…Then suddenly, when Hitler came into power, I understood it was all nonsense and lies. I realized Adolf was the man for me!” His old friends had all changed sides as well; the only problem he saw was that there were hardly and socialists or communists left to beat up.
I think there are a fair number of today's political activists are similar, although many of them (not all) strongly prefer verbal to physical fighting.
"Valuable Heretic" would be a good name for a blog.
ReplyDeleteThe question isn't whether he'll make a good governor, the question is whether he'll make a better one. If he is able to express clear ideas on substantive topics that affect everyday existence to normal people, and that are being ignored in favor of identity politics and other confections, that I would say he'll strike a winning chord with Le Miserables citizens of the state.
ReplyDeleteHe expresses himself well and seems to have a good grasp of California's death-spiral issues. So this is going to be fun to watch.
As a Californian, we deserve far worse, but perhaps having had just that for so long, perhaps we've done our time in purgatory and we will elect him. I think he has the ability to bridge the gap and find a now nearly non-existent middle. I hope so.
ReplyDelete...find a now nearly non-existent middle.
ReplyDeleteWhose middle? California, from one perspective, has gone so far Left that any middle would remain destructive.
The same could be said--is often and loudly said--from another perspective about Conservative States.
Eric Hines
He seems to me as what we used to think of as a moderate Democrat- certainly a classical liberal who has seen the leftist shift of the Democrats. He also seems to be a man willing to alienate his former allies, and call out their wrongs. I think he'd be a decent candidate anywhere, but here, he's a Godsend, as his environmental and Democrat credentials make him electable despite his sane positions and pointed critiques of the current Democrat powers that be here.
ReplyDeleteIt's a rare talent, to be electable in California yet sane.
ReplyDelete