Not Senator Cruz's bill, but the House version of the legislation looks like it might get a vote according to Uncle J.
American relations with the Brotherhood date, by the way, to the Eisenhower administration. President Obama's apparent view is that the Bush administration screwed things up by turning against the Brotherhood. I wonder what effect the law would have if passed with enough votes to overturn the obviously-forthcoming veto?
Brazil: The Future of America?
As we watch the Brazilian impeachment proceedings -- if you missed it, the lower house voted for impeachment by a larger-than-expected margin -- it's interesting to note how similar the South American nation looks to the evolving United States model. The Washington Post has decided to name the sides "pro-government" and "pro-impeachment," although the impeachment is being voted by a part of the government. In a way, their naming convention makes sense. On the one side, there are those for whom government is something they want more of in their lives. They are, as here, mostly ethnic and racial minorities -- plus women, who are disproportionately likely to think of the government as an engine for voting themselves benefits that will ease their lives.
On the other side are people for whom the real issue is that the government is totally corrupt. For them, and they like here are mostly white, the real issue with the government is trying to get it to stop engaging in a benefits-and-patronage racket. They think that impeachment is important as part of a reform process, with the hope of crafting a new government that does less but more lawfully. Of course they are the ones, their opponents would point out, for whom the system tends to work.
I was left thinking of the interview Bernie Sanders recently gave in which the journalists asked him if he wasn't making Donald Trump's argument by pointing out that Hillary Clinton has accepted all this oil money. No, he said, he is complaining that the system is corrupt. If that makes Clinton corrupt, then almost every politician in America is corrupt.
Just as in Brazil. And just as in Brazil, for many -- Clinton's faithful legions of voters -- that fact is wholly beside the point. Corruption is just another way of transferring benefits and graft to supporters. Who cares if it's done through legal means or shady ones? What matters is that the benefits flow.
How depressing.
On the other side are people for whom the real issue is that the government is totally corrupt. For them, and they like here are mostly white, the real issue with the government is trying to get it to stop engaging in a benefits-and-patronage racket. They think that impeachment is important as part of a reform process, with the hope of crafting a new government that does less but more lawfully. Of course they are the ones, their opponents would point out, for whom the system tends to work.
I was left thinking of the interview Bernie Sanders recently gave in which the journalists asked him if he wasn't making Donald Trump's argument by pointing out that Hillary Clinton has accepted all this oil money. No, he said, he is complaining that the system is corrupt. If that makes Clinton corrupt, then almost every politician in America is corrupt.
Just as in Brazil. And just as in Brazil, for many -- Clinton's faithful legions of voters -- that fact is wholly beside the point. Corruption is just another way of transferring benefits and graft to supporters. Who cares if it's done through legal means or shady ones? What matters is that the benefits flow.
How depressing.
Cultural Appropriation!
Kenya sings country. They're no Merle Haggard, but it's not the worst set of covers I've ever heard.
The 9th
So, I can't remember quite how I came to this, except that I wanted to hear the Ode to Joy. This is the first time I've seen it represented in English among the singing. I'm sure it's been done before, but I didn't ever think to look up what the words meant.
They are right to make much of the fact that Beethoven shared this without ever having heard it. I notice how the chorus sits there, silent, for an hour. The orchestra is spent, worked through all their paces. It is a majestic symphony well before any of them stand up to sing. And then a man stands up and says above the orchestra: 'No, not these sounds -- something better, and more joyous.'
"A British Politician Said..."
The headline would have been much more informative if it had begun, "Nigel Farage said.."
Didn't a couple of those other Presidents actually fight wars against the British, though?
Didn't a couple of those other Presidents actually fight wars against the British, though?
BreachBangClear: Eating Tacos is Racist
On the scourge of cultural appropriation, with special guests the Three Amigos.
So, I kinda get where the people complaining about this are coming from. I think the real issue isn't the adoption of cultural mores or values, though, but only "appropriation" in the sense of making a mockery of them. Southern cuisine in my lifetime has been much improved by sharing with Mexican cuisine, which I don't view as 'appropriation' but as a very valid and appropriate sort of learning-from-each-other. Texas' excellence is in part a function of the way in which Anglo and Mexican cultures have rubbed up against each other, and rubbed off on each other, for a long time.
On the other hand, I'm not actually all that offended by the genuine 'appropriation.' I find it a little pathetic, at most. Sometimes, the attempts can really be deeply amusing.
These Swedes don't really understand any of the symbols they're leveraging, but you can tell that they're really excited about them. If you are Native American, you might be offended by the appropriation of the hoop dance. But maybe not: maybe you, like me, would find it too laughable to be genuinely offensive.
To be fair, the defenders of the idea that this sort of thing is deeply wrong would say that I am freer to find it funny because there's no power relationship between me and Sweden. Native Americans, or Mexicans, have more to fear from having their symbols appropriated by powerful white cultures. That's the argument, although it's a little attenuated: the Swedes aren't any more dangerous to the Navajo than they are to me, not really. You have to elide them into a group called "whites" for the argument to make any sort of sense. But if we're all one culture, we 'whites,' how could it be that they so clearly don't understand the white American cultural markers they're trying to leverage either? That argument doesn't really make sense.
UPDATE: Related: Apparently the standard for what constitutes a "physical attack" has changed since I was younger.
So, I kinda get where the people complaining about this are coming from. I think the real issue isn't the adoption of cultural mores or values, though, but only "appropriation" in the sense of making a mockery of them. Southern cuisine in my lifetime has been much improved by sharing with Mexican cuisine, which I don't view as 'appropriation' but as a very valid and appropriate sort of learning-from-each-other. Texas' excellence is in part a function of the way in which Anglo and Mexican cultures have rubbed up against each other, and rubbed off on each other, for a long time.
On the other hand, I'm not actually all that offended by the genuine 'appropriation.' I find it a little pathetic, at most. Sometimes, the attempts can really be deeply amusing.
These Swedes don't really understand any of the symbols they're leveraging, but you can tell that they're really excited about them. If you are Native American, you might be offended by the appropriation of the hoop dance. But maybe not: maybe you, like me, would find it too laughable to be genuinely offensive.
To be fair, the defenders of the idea that this sort of thing is deeply wrong would say that I am freer to find it funny because there's no power relationship between me and Sweden. Native Americans, or Mexicans, have more to fear from having their symbols appropriated by powerful white cultures. That's the argument, although it's a little attenuated: the Swedes aren't any more dangerous to the Navajo than they are to me, not really. You have to elide them into a group called "whites" for the argument to make any sort of sense. But if we're all one culture, we 'whites,' how could it be that they so clearly don't understand the white American cultural markers they're trying to leverage either? That argument doesn't really make sense.
UPDATE: Related: Apparently the standard for what constitutes a "physical attack" has changed since I was younger.
"Is ‘Higher Education for All’ Based on a Lie?"
Well, yes.
Nietzsche worried that universities would become glorified trade schools focused on skills training that served only the state. He also claimed that Germany’s higher-education system was also coddling young people in to a false belief about their uniqueness. German Gymnasien teachers encouraged their students to express themselves in their essays and university professors shied away from embracing models of excellence.In case you thought Nietzsche was wrong about everything.
Education... is about discipline, about subordination to models of excellence that exceed the self. In his bombastic and over-the-top rhetoric, the philosopher describes a pedagogical system that was increasingly anxious about acknowledging this and instead peddled the lie that all students were equally capable.
What is the Purpose of America?
There was a reason this country came to be, with the particular political order it had. States were an important part of that vision. The author seems to object to their continued importance because they complicate central planning of the economy. Is having a centrally planned economy an important part of the American vision? It seems to me that the resistance to a centrally planned economy in America was an important protector of the liberty, the protection of which I take to be the real purpose of the government. That the states frustrate central planning is evidence of their continued importance, it seems to me.
Violating Taboos
The Washington Post discusses a study in which teenage boys who play games that include killing women become less sympathetic towards women who are portrayed to them as real-life victims of violence.
Ask the question another way: how much violence in video games do you suppose is targeted against men? My guess is that the answer is "far and away most of it," which the #2 position being held not by women but by monsters -- aliens and zombies and whatnot.
If you work against that taboo by encouraging young men to think of women as legitimate targets for violence, you can expect that some of the protection that women enjoy from violence is going to wane. Presumably these social scientists want you to know that video games like GTA are very bad because they allow young men to treat objects represented as women as legitimate targets for violence.
The dark irony is that these same people are, of course, the ones pushing for women in the infantry.
They're the ones who want co-ed boot camp, where young Marines and Soldiers will train in conducting physical violence not against virtual images of women but actual young women.
They're the ones who want to break sex down into "gender," and then tell you it's not real but just some sort of social construct. We should treat men and women exactly the same, unless it's a man who wants to be treated like a woman, in which case we should make special efforts to make sure he feels we receive him as feminine.
But yeah, tell me again how horrible the video games are. Tell me how sexist it is that they expose virtual women to violence, just like they do virtual men.
I'd be only too happy to endorse a taboo that protects virtual women from being depicted as objects for violence. I'd just like to see the same courtesy extended to actual women.
In the "Grand Theft Auto" series, one of the world’s top-selling video game franchises, players can have sex with women and then kill them....What researchers seem to be ignoring in this study is that there is a very strong Western taboo against violence targeting women. We have special laws to protect women against violence even though almost all violent crime is against men. We treat the relatively rare instances in which women are victims as especially bad, from a moral and legal perspective.
[A] team of social scientists asked a group of Italian high school students to play one of three kinds of games: one that rewarded violence against women ("Grand Theft Auto"), one that promoted violence without degrading women (a portion of the "Half Life" series) or one that featured good, clean fun (a pinball or puzzle sequence).
After participants played their game for about 25 minutes, they answered questions about how they felt about on-screen characters. Did they identify with the mobster in "Grand Theft Auto?" Did they connect with the alien-battling scientist in "Half Life?"
The researchers then showed each student a photo of a bruised girl who, they said, had been beaten by a boy. They asked: On a scale of one to seven, how much sympathy do you have for her?
The male students who had just played "Grand Theft Auto" — and also related to the protagonist — felt least bad for her, the study found, with an empathy mean score of 3. Those who had played the other games, however, exhibited more compassion. And female students who played the same rounds of Grand Theft Auto had a mean empathy score of 5.3.
Ask the question another way: how much violence in video games do you suppose is targeted against men? My guess is that the answer is "far and away most of it," which the #2 position being held not by women but by monsters -- aliens and zombies and whatnot.
If you work against that taboo by encouraging young men to think of women as legitimate targets for violence, you can expect that some of the protection that women enjoy from violence is going to wane. Presumably these social scientists want you to know that video games like GTA are very bad because they allow young men to treat objects represented as women as legitimate targets for violence.
The dark irony is that these same people are, of course, the ones pushing for women in the infantry.
They're the ones who want co-ed boot camp, where young Marines and Soldiers will train in conducting physical violence not against virtual images of women but actual young women.
They're the ones who want to break sex down into "gender," and then tell you it's not real but just some sort of social construct. We should treat men and women exactly the same, unless it's a man who wants to be treated like a woman, in which case we should make special efforts to make sure he feels we receive him as feminine.
But yeah, tell me again how horrible the video games are. Tell me how sexist it is that they expose virtual women to violence, just like they do virtual men.
I'd be only too happy to endorse a taboo that protects virtual women from being depicted as objects for violence. I'd just like to see the same courtesy extended to actual women.
"Some Observers Have Not Ruled Out"
Interesting phrasing.
Insurers say they are losing money on their ObamaCare plans at a rapid rate, and some have begun to talk about dropping out of the marketplaces altogether...."Some observers" apparently means almost all of us, and "have not ruled out the possibility of" means "completely expect."
While analysts expect the market to stabilize once premiums rise and more young, healthy people sign up, some observers have not ruled out the possibility of a collapse of the market, known in insurance parlance as a “death spiral.”
Tar-And-Feathers Day
If you're inclined to view April 15th as a fit occasion to reconsider the Sons of Liberty's approach to excise men, Gadsden & Culpepper have your shirt on sale.
Would You Pay Extra For American-Made?
In addition to Allahpundit's points, I wonder how the poll would have looked if it had been framed toward the majority of people in this country for whom even $50 is an outlandish price for a pair of pants. It's hard for me to imagine much of America outside of the coastal cities ever drops that kind of cash on jeans. Would I pay $85 for a pair of pants made in America? No. Would I pay $50 for a pair of pants made in America? No. I typically buy my jeans at the thrift store, where I pay ten bucks or less for them. I'm planning to wear them out quick with hard work and play, so I don't think of them as an investment into which I'm prepared to sink much money.
Apparently 30% of respondents to the poll said they'd pay the eighty-five bucks to wear American-made jeans, though.
Apparently 30% of respondents to the poll said they'd pay the eighty-five bucks to wear American-made jeans, though.
Take Care of the Roots of Liberty
An extended argument about the roots of our Constitutional law that is just the kind I appreciate: one that attempts a deep understanding of the pre-American British history out of which the Constitution grew.
Solidarity, Baby.
Workers of the world, unite!
Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders paid an impromptu visit to a Verizon workers’ picket line in Brooklyn on Wednesday after being endorsed by New York City transit workers as he tried to wrest a bit of union support from rival Hillary Clinton.Popcorn.
The Brooklyn-born Sanders addressed an enthusiastic crowd of striking workers from Verizon Communications Inc as “brothers and sisters” and thanked them for their courage in standing up to what he characterized as corporate greed.
It was a scene tailor-made for the U.S. senator from Vermont, who has focused on income inequality in his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. Sanders is trying to catch up with Clinton, the front-runner, in Tuesday’s primary in New York, a state both candidates have called home.
Workers cheered as Sanders criticized the mammoth communications company for wanting to take away health benefits, outsource jobs and avoid federal income taxes, calling it “just another major American corporation trying to destroy the lives of working Americans.”
"Sexual Racism"
So, as you may know from being exposed to left-leaning American culture, your sexuality is the single most important way in which you express your life and identity. Nothing is more important about you than the way in which you choose to love -- they mean physically love -- others. In no way can you be criticized for choosing to love many people ("No slut-shaming!") or few people ("Respect asexuals!"), members of the same sex or of the opposite sex or both (though you may be criticized for still speaking as if there were "two" sexes).
However, an important distinction has been discovered: you can be criticized for being racist in your sexuality.
If this follows the pattern of other innovations in civil rights, we will next hear that we are to be criticized for being selective based on our preference for same- or opposite-sexed partners. To be a really moral person, you need to sleep with everyone equally.
What could possibly go wrong in such an enlightened system?
However, an important distinction has been discovered: you can be criticized for being racist in your sexuality.
Christian Rudder, co-founder of OKCupid, looked at data on online dating — who people messaged, who they matched with, who they responded to, and so on — and found a few patterns. "There is kind of a systemic racial bias pretty much in every dating site I've ever looked at," he said. "We found that 82 percent of non-black men have some bias against black women. … And Asian men get the fewest messages and the worst ratings of any group of guys."So now if you want to be virtuous, you really need to be sexually active with people of various different "races." Tell your spouse it's in the service of morality.
If this follows the pattern of other innovations in civil rights, we will next hear that we are to be criticized for being selective based on our preference for same- or opposite-sexed partners. To be a really moral person, you need to sleep with everyone equally.
What could possibly go wrong in such an enlightened system?
Clinton & the Kremlin
The "Panama Papers" reveal a possible Russian intelligence connection to some of Clinton's top bundlers. It's smoke rather than fire, of course: the bank only sometimes handles funding for Russian intelligence operations, and even if they have bribed or suborned Clinton's bundlers that doesn't mean she herself is suborned.
Nevertheless, it raises important questions given Clinton's handling of things like foreign weapons sales to governments that donated heavily to the Clinton foundation, or transmission of national security secrets in the clear on an unsecured private email server. If I were an investigative journalist, I'd be very inclined to dig right here.
Nevertheless, it raises important questions given Clinton's handling of things like foreign weapons sales to governments that donated heavily to the Clinton foundation, or transmission of national security secrets in the clear on an unsecured private email server. If I were an investigative journalist, I'd be very inclined to dig right here.
RIP "Dewey" Clarridge
I don't know how many of you know the name, but he was a man. I had the honor to know him, and will miss him. We were quite different in age, but he was a friend of mine.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)