Keith Burgess-Jackson

Race and Racism

Here is Michelle Malkin's latest column. To be perfectly honest, I find the charges of "racism" humorous. The word "communist" used to be a generic term of condemnation. It has been replaced by "racist," which, if it has any meaning at all, means something like "bigot." A bigot, according to the Oxford American Dictionary and Language Guide (1999), is "an obstinate and intolerant believer in a religion, political theory, etc." I've heard people called racists when the topic had nothing to do with race. It concerned ethnicity, national origin, religion, language use, or immigration status. If you're a racist for opposing Islamic terrorism or illegal immigration, then the word has no meaning.

What the charge of racism shows is that progressives have lost the capacity to (1) think clearly, (2) reason, and (3) engage in rational argumentation. It's all about character assassination, impugning of motives, and personal destruction. What's most humorous of all is that those who do the name-calling are themselves racist—by their own standards. They see race everywhere! They are obsessed with it, consumed by it, delirious about it. Conservatives don't care one bit about a person's race. They care about character, beliefs, and values. This is why we celebrate Herman Cain, Allen West, Mia Love, Alan Keyes, Condoleezza Rice, Artur Davis, Clarence Thomas, Colin Powell, and many others. To progressives, these individuals have false consciousness. They're black, but they think they're white. They have come to identify with their oppressors.

I leave it to you to decide who has false consciousness: the people I mentioned or progressives themselves.

Jerry Z. Muller on Imperfection

Conservative thought has typically emphasized the imperfection of the individual, an imperfection at once biological, emotional, and cognitive. More than any other animal, man is dependent upon other members of his species, and hence upon social institutions for guidance and direction. Though this assumption may be grounded in a religious doctrine of original sin, it has often been argued upon entirely secular grounds, including the biological facts of limited human instinctual preparedness for survival. . . .

Conservatives typically contend that human moral imperfection leads men to act badly when they act upon their uncontrolled impulses, and that they require the restraints and constraints imposed by institutions as a limit upon subjective impulse. Conservatives are thus skeptical of attempts at "liberation": they maintain that liberals over-value freedom and autonomy, and that liberals fail to consider the social conditions that make autonomous individuals possible and freedom desirable.

(Jerry Z. Muller, ed., Conservatism: An Anthology of Social and Political Thought from David Hume to the Present [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997], 10 [ellipsis added; footnotes omitted])

From the Mailbag

Dr. KBJ,

There's a "fact check" firestorm resulting from Ryan's and Romney's speeches at the RNC. While I value accuracy and truthfulness in a Presidential candidate's campaign, I also value fair standards from the media. Can you recall such a firestorm from Obama's "whoppers" at the 2008 DNC? For a refresher, here's a fact check from Obama's '08 speech. The errors are about on par with Ryan's and Romney's.

Mark Bauer

King Crimson, "Cat Food" (1970)

In the Wake of Poseidon (1970).

Astronomy

Blue moon tonight! It comes around once in a blue moon.

Television

As if watching L. A. Law from the beginning (on DVD) were not enough, Katherine and I have started watching The Office, which began its television run in March 2005. I came upon the show by accident, on late-night reruns. Katherine and I have been watching it before bedtime. It was confusing, though, because the episodes were taken out of order. In one episode, Pam is married to Jim; in the next, she is engaged to Roy. I decided to buy the entire series on DVD, so we can watch it from the beginning.

Steve Carell makes this series what it is. His character (Michael Scott) is not just politically incorrect, which is funny enough; he is out of control. Most of us are capable of compartmentalizing our lives. Not Michael. He comments on the appearance of his female employees; he dates his corporate superiors and colleagues; he stereotypes gays, blacks, and overweight people; he abuses and humiliates everyone, seemingly for the pleasure it gives him, but sometimes because he doesn't realize what he's doing. It's the most dysfunctional office I've ever seen, by far. It's like watching a train wreck.

I read recently that the upcoming season (the ninth) is the last. That should give Katherine and me plenty of enjoyment for the next few years.

Now Playing

From Today's New York Times

To the Editor:

Re “Rousing G.O.P., Ryan Faults ‘Missing’ Leadership” (front page, Aug. 30):

I’m the eternal optimist and am repeatedly taken aback that people campaigning for office think they have to be nasty and say ugly things about the other candidate to win an election.

Representative Paul D. Ryan accepted the vice-presidential nomination with a rousing speech. He delivered it well, but it was a speech that did not offer solutions. Mr. Ryan pointed the finger at President Obama but didn’t offer one concrete plan for how he and Mitt Romney would change things.

It’s politics as usual this week at the Republican Convention. Politician after politician has taken the podium in Tampa to glory in his or her own personal stories and then to blast the president with outright lies about his four years in office.

What are the Republicans really going to do if elected? Who knows? They don’t seem to know either.

JENNIFER DORN
New York, Aug. 30, 2012

To the Editor:

Re “The Vacuum Behind the Slogans” (editorial, Aug. 30):

In Representative Paul D. Ryan’s brilliant speech, he not only laid out every failure of the Obama administration clearly and boldly, but he also did not duck any issue in elaborating what has to be done to begin solving the enormous problems that face Americans. How you could proclaim that Mr. Ryan “ducked the tough issues” is beyond reason.

Let me cite a few examples. Perhaps most important was that he brought up the first glaring fiasco of the Obama administration—the president’s failure to concentrate on job creation as soon as he took office. Instead, he coerced the nation to deal with an expansive health care plan that no one wanted. The rules, regulations, demands, penalties, increased taxes and bureaucracies imposed were not only mind-boggling, but also contrary to the spirit of free choice.

Next, Mr. Ryan discussed the $800 billion stimulus plan by President Obama to supposedly help create jobs but which created few jobs, as attested by the continuing high unemployment rate. So where did the money go? A good deal of it went to finance many of his cronies’ companies that had no chance of success and went bankrupt soon after, like Solyndra and other boondoggles.

Of course there is much, much more, but it would take an encyclopedia to enumerate them all.

WILLIAM FIRSHEIN
Middletown, Conn., Aug. 30, 2012

To the Editor:

Re “Romney Seen Pulled 2 Ways Over Economy” (front page, Aug. 28):

Many voters are anticipating the 2012 election with deep ambivalence. A significant number who supported Barack Obama in 2008 are disillusioned with his performance as president. Voting for him in 2012 is not an attractive option for them.

Similarly, many voters who might otherwise have voted Republican are not comfortable voting for the Romney-Ryan ticket; the party has veered too far to the right for them.

A way out of the dilemma for these voters is to split the ticket, choosing one party for the presidential vote and the other for Congressional seats.

As your article indicated, Mitt Romney’s business and political experience pull him two ways on the economy. Resolving these opposing pulls as governor of Massachusetts with a Democratic legislature led to interesting outcomes, including statewide health insurance and the closing of budget deficits through spending cuts and increased revenues.

Mr. Romney did well as a collaborative, problem-solving Republican governor with a Democratic legislature. He might very well achieve the same level of performance as president with a Democratic Congress.

ARNOLD TANNENBAUM
Ann Arbor, Mich., Aug. 29, 2012

Baseball

Katherine and I attended a baseball game at U.S. Cellular Field (a.k.a. New Comiskey Park) on 5 August 2012. I got a bad vibe from the fans, who struck me as sullen and surly. It was as though they had a chip on their shoulders. The image in this post, which Katherine found on Facebook, is spot on. Is the surliness a function of being in the same city as the lovable, losing Cubs?

Dilbert

Here.

Bush-Hatin' Paul

Here.

The Kinks, "(Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman" (1979)

Low Budget (1979).

From Today's New York Times

To the Editor:

Two recent opinion articles cite my research to support their claims that fathers aren’t necessary for a thriving household (“In Defense of Single Motherhood,” by Katie Roiphe, Aug. 12, and “Men, Who Needs Them?,” by Greg Hampikian, Aug. 25). That does not fairly describe my work.

Income security is very important. But fathers in most cases are critical contributors to family income. And income security is only half the story.

Emotional security—which children develop from living in stable families where they can form lasting relationships with adults who stick around for the long run—is also important. Stable homes with one parent are rare. More often in single-mother households, children meet, attach and then say goodbye to men who are only temporarily connected to the family.

Two parents committed to each other and to raising a child together are more likely to provide the economic and emotional security children need. That large numbers of fathers cannot provide economic and emotional security constitutes a serious social problem.

SARA McLANAHAN
Princeton, N.J., Aug. 28, 2012

The writer is a professor of sociology and public affairs and director of the Center for Research on Child Well-Being at Princeton University.

Note from KBJ: This woman, for telling an unpleasant truth, will be vilified. Academia is filled with progressive thugs.

Gasoline

This afternoon, at a Shell station in Arlington, Texas, I paid $3.699 per gallon for regular unleaded gasoline. What're y'all payin' in your neck o' the woods?

Test

As he accepts the Republican nomination Mitt Romney will get his last unchallenged opportunity to introduce himself to the country. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/31/us/politics/mitt-romneys-speech-to-highlight-his-own-story-and-frustration-with-obama.html

Sent from my iPhone

Note from KBJ: I figured out a way to post items (images and links to web pages) via my iPhone.

Moonrise over Ballpark

Dilbert

Here.

Peter Frampton, "All I Want to Be (Is by Your Side)" (1976)

Frampton Comes Alive! (1976).

Thomas S. Szasz on the Right to Health

The State can protect and promote the interests of its sick, or potentially sick, citizens in one of two ways only: either by coercing physicians, and other medical and paramedical personnel, to serve patients—as State-owned slaves in the last analysis, or by creating economic, moral, and political circumstances favorable to a plentiful supply of competent physicians and effective drugs.

The former solution corresponds to and reflects efforts to solve human problems by recourse to the all-powerful State. The rights promised by such a State—exemplified by the right to treatment—are not opportunities for uncoerced choices by individuals, but rather are powers vested in the State for the subjection of the interests of one group to those of another.

The latter solution corresponds to and reflects efforts to solve human problems by recourse to individual initiative and voluntary association without interference by the State. The rights exacted from such a State—exemplified by the right to life, liberty, and health—are limitations on its own powers and sphere of action and provide the conditions necessary for, but of course do not insure [sic] the proper exercise of, free and responsible individual choices.

In these two solutions we recognize the fundamental polarities of the great ideological conflict of our age, perhaps of all ages and of the human condition itself; namely, individualism and capitalism on the one side, collectivism and communism on the other.

There is no other choice.

(Thomas S. Szasz, "The Right to Health," The Freeman 19 [June 1969]: 352-62, at 362)

From Today's New York Times

To the Editor:

Putting aside the question of to what extent “The Real Romney” is oxymoronic, David Brooks (column, Aug. 28) must be aware that the best satire, like the best lie, is that which is most true.

Mr. Romney’s “real-life record,” on the other hand, is on less solid ground. “Successful business leader?” That depends whether you worked for Bain Capital or for one of those companies Bain dismantled and sold for parts.

“Superb family man?” I have no evidence to the contrary, except that story about the dog, which doesn’t strike me as the best possible “parenting.”

“Effective governor?” Not according to the current Mr. Romney, who would have accused Governor Romney of socialism.

“Devoted community leader?” That wouldn’t be anything like a community organizer, would it?

And finally, “prudent decision-maker.” Every decision that Mr. Romney has made on the campaign trail so far has been to gain short-term advantage at the cost of everything else, most prominently his own integrity.

DAVID BERMAN
New York, Aug. 28, 2012

Note from KBJ: This man is determined to find only bad things in Mitt Romney. How much do you want to bet that he finds only good things in Barack Obama? That, my friends, is the mark of an ideologue.