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The Kids: Professors Worry About Right-Wing Students
by Christopher Chantrill
WHAT DO THE professors think about the lurch to the right in the past decades, and what do they think about their increasingly right-wing students who have responded to a
"concerted effort" by "Goebbelsian" masters of rhetoric that have turned the country to the right over the past generation or so.
Actually, some of the professors recognize that they have to change their ways, according to Reason’s Nick Gillespie reporting from the Modern Language unfold
| 12/31/05 2:49 am ETEveryone Worries About Deficits
by Christopher Chantrill
THE FEDERAL deficit is terrible. The trade deficit is worse. How long can it go on? That is what we have been worrying about at least since 1970. And The Washington Times rehearses the experts’ worries about them.
We know where the federal deficit comes from. Politicians spending taxpayers’ money in response to the demands of taxpayers. And, of course, beyond the formal budget deficit and its accumulated national debt there is the unfunded debt, the promises made, unfold
| 12/29/05 12:58 am ETThe Dear Old MSM in Their Liberal Bubble
by Christopher Chantrill
CONSERVATIVES love to twit the mainstream media for their bias and their insularity. And now that we really have a voice in the national debate we can afford to be more generous to our adversaries, and humorously represent them as jolly old dinosaurs “asking each other what’s happened to all the tasty fronds,” as Jonah Goldberg does.
He can’t help chuckling as three old dinosaurs, Tim Russert, Ted Koppel, and Tom Brokaw agree with each other about unfold
| 12/28/05 12:59 am ETMuslims Don't Read Western Media
by Christopher Chantrill
SHOULD WE FORGET the Bush strategy of using cold hard steel to push back the Islamist terrorists or can we win the war on terror by winning hearts and minds?
According to Daniel Pipes, winning hearts and minds isn’t going to do the job. Muslims the world over prefer to read only Muslim media and thus are impervious to western outreach through the media.
Many indications suggest that Muslims favor tuning in to or reading media prepared by their unfold
| 12/27/05 12:40 am ETNow We Can Fight Back
by Christopher Chantrill
IT USED TO be there was little we could do if The New York Times put a lump of coal into the nation’s Xmas stocking. And it was hard to fight against Democrats when they undermined the cold war during and after Vietnam.
But now we have the conservative blogosphere and we have commentators like Michael Barone who writes an article—drawing on the conservative counterblasts to the NYT NSA screed of Dec 16—to point out that the courts have always unfold
| 12/26/05 12:54 am ETA Christmas Story from the Land of the Elves
by Christopher Chantrill
AT CHRISTMASTIME it is right and proper that we step back from the hurly burly of everyday life and think a little. For instance, we could think a little about the land of the elves, writes Robert Cole.
Once upon a time in the far off Land of Cold Commerce there lived some elves. Lots and lots of elves. You can see where this is going. “Some of the elves unfold
Some of the elves wore overalls. Some wore white collars and some wore blue collars.
| 12/23/05 1:08 pm ETWill "Kos" Lead Democrats Off a Cliff?
by Christopher Chantrill
WHO IS MARKOS Moulitsas and what does he want? That is what Democrats must be asking themselves as “Kos” has propelled his Daily Kos into the stratosphere as the No. 1 liberal blog in the nation, and that is what writer Benjamin Wallace-Wells wonders as he interviews Moulitsas in Berkeley, California for Washington Monthly.
Wallace-Wells finds that Moulitsas is a tactician. He doesn’t really seem to know what unfold
| 12/23/05 3:44 am ETIs the Worm Turning in NY Subways?
by Christopher Chantrill
STUDIES SHOW that state and local government workers earn about 40 percent more than workers in the private sector. That is what Steve Malanga reports in City Journal.
So why do unions like the transit workers union in the New York metropolitan area get away with striking when their semi-skilled bus and train operators get paid around $50,000 a year with full health benefits and pensions at 55?
Maybe they aren’t going to get away with it for much longer. unfold
| 12/22/05 2:51 am ETUnsustainable Medicare
by Christopher Chantrill
AS COMMENTATOR Bruce Bartlett writes, the federal budget is dangerously out of whack. Never mind the gross federal debt of $9.9 trillion. The real number is the unfunded liabilities on Social Security and Medicare. On President Bush’s watch
Social Security’s indebtedness has risen to $5.7 trillion, Medicare Part A is now up to $8.8 trillion and Part B has grown to $12.4 trillion. In addition, there is now another Medicare program -- Part D for unfold
| 12/21/05 3:22 am ETThe Joys of National Health Care
by Christopher Chantrill
OUR NEIGHBOR to the north has a government monopoly system of health care. In Canada you are not allowed to spend your own money on health care.
But Jacques Chaoulli, a French Canadian physician decided to challenge that, according to Anthony Dick. He argued in court that it was illegal to refuse medical care by putting people on waiting lists and at the same time to prevent people from seeking their own remedy by paying for needed medical procedures out of their unfold
| 12/20/05 2:49 am ETPresident Bush Rallies the Nation. Why Did He Wait?
by Christopher Chantrill
THERE ARE MANY who must wonder. Why did President Bush wait until now to rally the American people to the war in Iraq?
In his speech to the nation on December 18, 2005, President Bush, as he has done before, laid out his policy. And as he has done before, he acknowledged that there are valid grounds for disagreements with his policy. He admitted that the war in Iraq
has caused sorrow for our whole nation -- and it has led some to ask if we are unfold
| 12/19/05 3:36 am ETBush in Bubble Racks Up Another "W"
by Christopher Chantrill
THERE HE SITS, the incurious President Bush, isolated from Congress and living in a fantasy bubble. And on December 15 he stumbled into another touchdown in the War on Terror, as Iraqis in their millions went to the polls to elect a national parliament.
But he doesn’t have a plan! But there weren’t any WMDs! But he won’t admit his mistakes! But it’s all about oil!
I know. It just doesn’t make sense, does it. We must get the international community involved, as unfold
| 12/16/05 3:12 am ETWho Needs Literacy
by Christopher Chantrill
ABOUT 14 PERCENT of adults in the United States cannnot perform a simple reading task like “searching a short, simple text to find out what a patient is alloved to drink before a medical test.”
About 22 percent of adults cannot perform a simple computational task like “adding the amounts on a bank deposit slip.”
Adult literacy is slightly improved from the last adult literacy survey conducted in 1992.
That is what the U.S. Department of Education just released in its A unfold
| 12/15/05 9:40 am ETHugh Hewitt Pops MSMer's Bubble
by Christopher Chantrill
BE SURE TO check this interview of LA Times columnist Michael Hiltzik by Hugh Hewitt. The full text is available on Radio Blogger. It is priceless.
Hewitt interviewed Hiltzik on his radio show because he had made some uncomplimentary remarks about Hewitt as director of the Nixon Library. The result was hilarious, as Hewitt revealed Hiltzik to be a committed left-wing activist, unfold
| 12/15/05 5:28 am ETYour Bubble is Bigger Than My Bubble
by Christopher Chantrill
PRESIDENT BUSH lives in a bubble. That is the breathless conclusion of Newsweek reporters Evan Thomas and Richard Wolffe. He doesn’t answer the calls of congressmen and his humor, rather than being inclusive and team building, like Ronald Reagan’s, is often intended to belittle a subordinate,
intended, however so subtly, to put the listener on the defensive. It is a towel-snap that invites a retort. How many people dare to snap back at a president?
Of unfold
| 12/14/05 4:05 am ETAfter the Iraq Election, Then What?
by Christopher Chantrill
WHEN YOU BRING a nation back from the dark night of terror, you have to do it step by step. On December 15, the Iraqi people will elect the leaders who will lead the nation for the next several years. But, as Amir Taheri writes, the big problem comes later. It comes when the new government sets the economic framework for the new nation.
The trouble is that the Iraqi people cannot imagine anything other than a distributionist Soviet-style state.
It unfold
| 12/13/05 2:32 am ETIf Fathers Had "Choice"
by Christopher Chantrill
IF WOMEN DESERVE “choice,” then why shouldn’t men enjoy comparable rights to order termination or continuance of the fetus in the womb of their sex partner. That’s what Meghan Daum argues.
Most people now accept that women, especially teenagers, often make decisions regarding abortion based on educational and career goals and whether the father of the unborn child is someone they want to hang around with for the next few decades. The "choice" in this equation unfold
| 12/12/05 8:52 am ETPresident to Take Credit for Good Economy
by Christopher Chantrill
NOW YOU’RE talking. The White House is sending out the word that the president is going to focus now on the war and taxes, after being distracted for months by hurricanes and Supreme Court flaps. According to Donald Lambro the president is finally getting out and
promoting one of his highest domestic achievements and the fiscal policies that have produced four years of uninterrupted economic growth.
Here we are, after all, the industrial country unfold
| 12/12/05 1:41 am ETWhat Would Hayek Do?
by Christopher Chantrill
IN BRITLAND they are worrying about the consequence of cranking up the government share of the economy from 38 percent in 1997 when Tony Blair became prime minister to an expected 44 percent this year or next. Well, we all know the answer to that. Nothing good.
In the annual Hayek Lecture given at the Institute of Economic Affairs,
Andrew Neil thinks about the bigger picture. With China and India poised to become economic giants in the unfold
| 12/09/05 4:44 am ETTeen Sex Leads to Depression in Girls
by Christopher Chantrill
WE ALL KNOW, because liberals have taught us, that sexual restraint is harmful, leading to dangerous mental health disorders such as “repression” and “neurosis.” That is what Freud taught us a century ago. If you repress your natural, non-violent instincts in conformity with oppressive social or religious tradition, your healthy instincts will erupt into mental illness.
What the world needs is open, creative people with a healthy sex life. That’s what the experts have been teaching us and our children for the past half century.
When unfold
| 12/09/05 3:27 am ETTalk Up The Economy
by Christopher Chantrill
IN THE LAST fiscal year federal revenues came in $100 billion above the estimates of the Congressional Budget Office. That means that the federal deficit came in $100 billion lower than estimates. Think what that means.
It means, according to Newt Gingrich and David Merritt, that the econometric models the CBO uses to “score” the federal government’s activities are broken, and a new CBO director is needed to provide the American people with better tools to measure the unfold
| 12/08/05 10:27 am ETNew Party Leader Addresses Brit "Broken Society"
by Christopher Chantrill
TEN YEARS AGO British Prime Minister Tony Blair turned the Labour Party away from its economic socialism. But the real problem in its left-wing recipe was left to fester, the destruction of civil society by the all-powerful social-services state. Conservatives in Britain and the United States know what that looks like, and we know what to do about it. Writer Theodore Dalrymple has witnessed to it in numerous articles and in Life at the Bottom: the utter degradation of underclass life under the tutelage of the welfare state. Numerous unfold
Sphere: Related Content | | perm | comment | | 12/07/05 3:20 am ETThe Mind of the Left
by Christopher Chantrill
WHAT IS IT like to belong to the left? How does the left think? Conservatives ponder this from time to time, as we think about our political adversaries, and as we formulate our ideas.
One of the best ways to look into the mind of the left is to ask a former member. You could ask, for example, Tammy Bruce, the lesbian writer and talk-show host who used to be the head of a National Organization for Women affiliate.
In an interview with John Hawkins to promote her new unfold
| 12/06/05 2:45 am ETDoes Iraq Have an Army?
by Christopher Chantrill
IN THE ATLANTIC James Fallows reports that Iraq has no army. He writes:
An orderly exit from Iraq depends on the development of a viable Iraqi security force, but the Iraqis aren’t even close. The Bush administration doesn’t take the problem seriously—and it never has[.]
In National Review Online W. Thomas Smith Jr. reports that the Iraq armed forces are developing into unfold
| 12/05/05 3:37 am ETVive l'Empereur!
by Christopher Chantrill
DECEMBER 2, 2005 is the bicentennial of the Battle of Austerlitz, Napoleon’s greatest victory. They are having a grand reenactment of the battle on December 3 about six miles from Brno in the Czech Republic, but the part of
Napoleon will be played by an American from Colonial Williamsburg. Mark Schneider is 36, the same age as the emperor at Austerlitz on Dec. 2, 1805, and is probably a better horseman than his historical counterpart.
He also looks unfold
| 12/02/05 1:30 pm ETGloom and Doom on the Economy
by Christopher Chantrill
WHAT IS GOING on with the economy? On the one hand, GDP is growing at 3.5 to 4.0 percent a year. On the other hand, Americans are saving nothing and racking up huge debts by borrowing against their home equity. On the one hand we have a huge balance of payments deficit; on the other hand the dollar is up about 10 percent against the Euro in the past year. American consumers are buying confidently, yet 43 percent of Americans think we are in a recession, according to
| 12/02/05 3:39 am ETPhonics Wins in Britain
by Christopher Chantrill
IN CASE YOU were worrying, here’s some good news. The Brits just decided to give up on progressive reading programs and mandate the teaching of “synthetic phonics” in the nation’s schools from age 5.
And think. It’s only 30 years since British Prime Minister Callaghan
highlighted the “unease felt by parents and others about the new informal methods of teaching” in his 1976 speech calling for a “great debate” on education.
So that’s all right unfold
| 12/01/05 3:35 pm ETAdvice to the Ankle-biters
by Christopher Chantrill
MANY ON THE right have criticised the president for not doing enough to maintain support for the war in Iraq. Maybe they are right.
But maybe it is better for the president to wait until his opposition attacks before responding with a counterattack.
Suppose he had spent the whole of the last year making speeches on the progress in the war. Why then his opponents would be accusing him of hyping progess, and the Bush Lied folks would be parsing everything he said and would be writing about how on September 17th there really weren’t 95 unfold
| 12/01/05 3:26 am ETWhy GM Failed
by Christopher Chantrill
THE GREAT ACHIEVEMENT of General Motors, writes Robert Samuelson, was to figure out a way to build not just one car for everyman, as Henry Ford had done with the Model T, but to build a whole range of cars for every price and taste. General Motors did this, under the leadership of Alfred P. Sloan,
by decentralizing operations (production, distribution) for various products among separate divisions while centralizing policy matters (personnel, unfold
| 12/01/05 2:52 am ET
Civil Society
“Civil Society”—a complex welter of intermediate institutions, including businesses, voluntary associations, educational institutions, clubs, unions, media, charities, and churches—builds, in turn, on the family, the primary instrument by which people are socialized into their culture and given the skills that allow them to live in broader society and through which the values and knowledge of that society are transmitted across the generations.
Francis Fukuyama, Trust
What Liberals Think About Conservatives
[W]hen I asked a liberal longtime editor I know with a mainstream [publishing] house for a candid, shorthand version of the assumptions she and her colleagues make about conservatives, she didn't hesitate. “Racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-choice fascists,” she offered, smiling but meaning it.
Harry Stein, I Can't Believe I'm Sitting Next to a Republican
Liberal Coercion
[T]he Liberal, and still more the subspecies Radical... more than any other in these latter days seems under the impression that so long as he has a good end in view he is warranted in exercising over men all the coercion he is able[.]
Herbert Spencer, The Man Versus the State
Moral Imperatives of Modern Culture
These emerge out of long-standing moral notions of freedom, benevolence, and the affirmation of ordinary life... I have been sketching a schematic map... [of] the moral sources [of these notions]... the original theistic grounding for these standards... a naturalism of disengaged reason, which in our day takes scientistic forms, and a third family of views which finds its sources in Romantic expressivism, or in one of the modernist successor visions.
Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self
US Life in 1842
Families helped each other putting up homes and barns. Together, they built churches, schools, and common civic buildings. They collaborated to build roads and bridges. They took pride in being free persons, independent, and self-reliant; but the texture of their lives was cooperative and fraternal.
Michael Novak, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism
Society and State
For [the left] there is only the state and the individual, nothing in between. No family to rely on, no friend to depend on, no community to call on. No neighbourhood to grow in, no faith to share in, no charities to work in. No-one but the Minister, nowhere but Whitehall, no such thing as society - just them, and their laws, and their rules, and their arrogance.
David Cameron, Conference Speech 2008
Faith and Politics
As far as the Catholic Church is concerned, the principal focus of her interventions in the public arena is the protection and promotion of the dignity of the person, and she is thereby consciously drawing particular attention to principles which are not negotiable...
[1.] protection of life in all its stages, from the first moment of conception until natural death; [2.] recognition and promotion of the natural structure of the family... [3.] the protection of the right of parents to educate their children.
Pope Benedict XVI, Speech to European Peoples Party, 2006
Never Trust Experts
No lesson seems to be so deeply inculcated by the experience of life as that you should never trust experts. If you believe doctors, nothing is wholesome: if you believe the theologians, nothing is innocent: if you believe the soldiers, nothing is safe. They all require their strong wine diluted by a very large admixture of insipid common sense.
Lord Salisbury, “Letter to Lord Lytton”
Conservatism's Holy Grail
What distinguishes true Conservatism from the rest, and from the Blair project, is the belief in more personal freedom and more market freedom, along with less state intervention... The true Third Way is the Holy Grail of Tory politics today - compassion and community without compulsion.
Minette Marrin, The Daily Telegraph
Class War
In England there were always two sharply opposed middle classes, the academic middle class and the commercial middle class. In the nineteenth century, the academic middle class won the battle for power and status... Then came the triumph of Margaret Thatcher... The academics lost their power and prestige and... have been gloomy ever since.
Freeman Dyson, “The Scientist as Rebel”
Government Expenditure
The Union publishes an exact return of the amount of its taxes; I can get copies of the budgets of the four and twenty component states; but who can tell me what the citizens spend in the administration of county and township?
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
Conservatism
Conservatism is the philosophy of society. Its ethic is fraternity and its characteristic is authority — the non-coercive social persuasion which operates in a family or a community. It says ‘we should...’.
Danny Kruger, On Fraternity
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