There are many examples of the failed philosophy of neo (new) conservatism, such as the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute , the Project for New American Century, and last but not least, financial ‘innovation’ in the economy. You can argue until you are blue in the face about philosophy and theory, but some evidence is empirical. It just can’t be argued. The outcome, or the results, of particular programs and policies in action speak for themselves, similar to how if you mix water, milk, eggs, and Bisquick just right you get pancakes.
The WPRI was a group that had advocated for school choice vouchers in Milwaukee. After the program was instituted and studied, they issued this report which said, among other things:
“The report you are reading did not yield the results we had hoped to find,” George Lightbourn, a senior fellow at the institute, wrote in the paper’s first sentence.
On the same topic of vouchers but not from the same report, I spent a day in Jefferson City speaking with a local Republican State Representative at the time named Jim Lembke. It was a very cordial conversation on education policy in the Missouri. However, the conversation ended quite abruptly after I said to him:
My grandfather was a conservative. (I like to call him an Eisenhower conservative.) And as I understand it, in his day, they believed that public tax dollars should not be used for private purposes. In relation to vouchers, what ever happened to that conservative ideal?
Then there is The Project for a New American Century, a conservative think tank formed during the Clinton Administration and whose membership included the likes of Steve Forbes, Bill Kristol, William J. Bennett, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, John Bolton, Robert Kagan, Richard L. Armitage, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Jeb Bush, “Scooter” Libby, Dan Quayle, and more. They penned a letter that said some of the following (keep in mind, this was before 9/11 and a few years before W. was ever elected POTUS):
“That strategy should aim, above all, at the removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime from power.”
“Our ability to ensure that Saddam Hussein is not producing weapons of mass destruction”
“Such uncertainty will, by itself, have a seriously destabilizing effect on the entire Middle East.”
“a significant portion of the world’s supply of oil will all be put at hazard…”
“…removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power. That now needs to become the aim of American foreign policy.”
“…If you act now to end the threat of weapons of mass destruction against the U.S. or its allies, you will be acting in the most fundamental national security interests of the country. If we accept a course of weakness and drift, we put our interests and our future at risk.
Of course, we know how all of that worked out. $150 a barrel for oil, $10 billion a month in Iraq Afghanistan, oh, and no Weapons of Mass Destruction. Notice how almost all of the people mentioned in the letter to President Clinton seen here ended up in the Bush Administration.
The phrase that freaks me out the most from the Project for a New American Century is an excerpt from the following paper:
Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor. Domestic politics and industrial policy will shape the pace and content of transformation as much as the requirements of current missions.
And last but not least, the financial market. So far, we have talked about two of the items that the conservatives are traditionally given credit for as their strength. Taxes, Defense, and now Finance. It is clear that their strength in these areas is nothing more than a myth, and a very damaging myth at that. Here is the latest from Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke:
“One would be forgiven for concluding that the assumed benefits of financial innovation are not all they were cracked up to be,” the Fed chairman said today in a speech at the central bank’s community affairs conference in Washington. “The damage from this turn in the credit cycle — in terms of lost wealth, lost homes, and blemished credit histories — is likely to be long-lasting.”
DaddyHogwash.com has been paying extra attention to the ignorance of the Tea Parties because, well, it is a bunch of hogwash. It is amazing how uninformed these people are. A more appropriate name would be the Boston Hate Parties.
It is exactly this type of mentality that we are risking our young men and women’s lives for on the other side of the world. Hopefully this movement is just indicative of the last breathe of an evil murderer in a horror movie, rising for one final scare before he flames out for good. Of course, the best case scenario would be “puppies and bunnies” but it would be naive of me to think that violent and grotesque ignorance does not exist in this world. The latter of which is why good men and women periodically are called to lay their lives on the line for the sake of morality, and the shared purpose of all people in the struggles of life. In this case, let’s just hope that law enforcement is adequate and up to the task before it escalates beyond a manageable level.
(Newser) – Right-wing extremist groups may be taking advantage of volatile economic times and the election of the first black president to drum up membership in the US, the Homeland Security Department says. The nine-page report, sent to police agencies nationwide, says extremism isn’t limited to racist hate groups but “may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single-issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration,” the Washington Times reports.
The rising unemployment rate, spate of foreclosures, and debate over issues such as immigration reform and gun control may be creating a “fertile” ground for recruitment, the reports says. The election of President Obama may also play a role, though “most statements by right-wing extremists have been rhetorical, expressing concerns about the election of the first African American president, but stopping short of calls for violent action.” Sources: Washington Times, CNN
As much as I thought I knew about the Columbine shootings, I never realized the extent of their planning and preposterously cracked intentions. If these faces do not define evil, I don’t know what does. What is interesting about it is that I don’t see any horns, strange exotic skin coloring, funny hats, or religious memorabilia on these two crazies. I wonder what is up with that?
What’s now beyond dispute — largely from the killers’ journals, which have been released over the past few years, is this: Harris and Klebold killed 13 and wounded 24, but they had hoped to kill thousands.
The pair planned the attacks for more than a year, building 100 bombs and persuading friends to buy them guns. Just after 11 a.m. on April 20, they lugged a pair of duffel bags containing propane-tank bombs into Columbine’s crowded cafeteria and another into the kitchen, then stepped outside and waited.
Had the bombs exploded, they’d have killed virtually everyone eating lunch and brought the school’s second-story library down atop the cafeteria, police say. Armed with a pistol, a rifle and two sawed-off shotguns, the pair planned to pick off survivors fleeing the carnage.
As a last terrorist act, a pair of gasoline bombs planted in Harris’ Honda and Klebold’s BMW had been rigged apparently to kill police, rescue teams, journalists and parents who rushed to the school — long after the pair expected they would be dead.
The pair had parked the cars about 100 yards apart in the student lot. The bombs didn’t go off.
I know many of the Tea Party people now, and the vast majority of them are completely harmless. They just feel that they are paying too much in taxes. Although their comparisons to the Boston Tea Party are ridiculously unrelated to anything they are whining about today, they are harmless. On the other-hand, some of these people are incredibly coo-coo. The reason why a federal agency Department of Homeland Security recently warned law enforcement of radicals on the right is because of wackos and jackos like Timothy McVeigh and his buddies who are drawn to these types of events. If they feel at all threatened, and more importantly, empowered by this nonsense, they may just see it as their destiny to let their craziness loose.
Timothy McVeigh set the bomb which killed 168 people at the federal building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma on 19 April 1995. The bomb, made of fertilizer and oil packed into the rear of a rented van, destroyed the front half of the building and killed 149 adults and 19 children. McVeigh, who had served in the U.S. Army from 1988-91, was an extreme conservative who later told investigators he was angry over the federal government’s clashes with white separatist Randy Weaver at Ruby Ridge, Idaho in 1992 and with David Koresh and the Branch Davidians at Waco, Texas in 1993. McVeigh was convicted of the crime in 1997 and sentenced to death; he later insisted all appeals on his behalf be dropped and asked to be executed. McVeigh’s co-conspirator, Terry Nichols, was convicted but sentenced to life in prison. McVeigh was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on May 16, 2001 in a federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana. In early May of 2001 the FBI revealed it had withheld from McVeigh’s lawyers documents relevant to the case, and the execution was delayed one month. McVeigh was then killed by lethal injection on June 11, 2001.
McVeigh is no relation to Timothy R. McVeigh, the U.S. Navy officer who was discharged in 1997 (though later reinstated) after he was accused of being openly gay.
I haven’t paid much attention to these Tea Parties; however, I was so embarrassed for these people, I had to post this. There once was a time when we actually wanted intelligent people running this country…I wonder what the Constitution Party guy has to say about African Americans being counted as 3/5’s of a person…
I will probably have to get me a pair of these; you know, since what I really do for a living is work on computers. But, it is nice to know that if I ever slid in to the law enforcement industry, I would already have the required casual attire.
Of course, I did see Benoît Mandelbrot say recently that making predictions is hard, especially predictions about the future. Regardless, this is impressive…
“Let the players play!” is the old adage, and it is a good one. As a matter of fact, I like it. I like it a lot. Especially in baseball. A good game is designed like a well-written novel. The suspense and anticipation of every pitch, nod, wink, and stolen base can keep a true sport fan on the edge of their seat until the climactic final out. And while there is no one way to write a novel, or play a baseball game, there is a general set of rules and regulations that everyone agrees to play by. These rules did not appear in a magical rule book by some invisible hand overnight. The rules of the game evolved over a period of a hundred years, and even longer if you delve in to the history of any sport that involves a ball and a stick. If it was not for these rules that everyone agrees on before the first pitch is thrown, and the umpires to enforce them, the game that we have come to know and love would not exist –- the same applies to my country, the United States of America….
There are few things more sweet than the swing of Ken Griffey Jr.’s bat. In 2008, he started the season seven home runs short of 600, and his last home run, number 599, had been on May 31. The drama and anticipation of that 600th blast was on every baseball fan’s mind until finally, on June 10, 2008, this pure athlete took the Marlin’s Mark Hendrickson over the wall for his place in the history books.
One has to wonder what Griffey’s numbers would look like if he had not spent all of that time on the bench with nagging injuries - but even still, 600 hundred home runs is something that only 6 of over 16,000 former Major League Baseball players had ever managed before. That moment in time was a feat of personal greatness by any athletic standard.
However, Griffey’s greatness did not mystically appear out of nowhere. It was not his inborn natural talents that made him a household name in America with millions of dollars in his bank account and a place in the record books. Instead, he was a man with a passion for the game that thrived in a system that was devised for him and others to succeed within. To better illustrate this point, read what Sir Isaac Newton wrote of the French philosopher Descartes, “If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.” Griffey was a giant standing on the shoulders of the giants before him, including a man named Ken Griffey Sr.
Yet, the system that Griffey has thrived in is not perfect, and it has never been perfect. Individual players and sometimes even whole teams have attempted to swipe the legs right from under the giants of Alexander Cartright and his “Knickerbocker Rules,” Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Stan “The Man” Musial, Jackie Robinson, Hank Aaron, and more. The 1919 White Sox, Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, Hal Chase, and the 1877 Louisville Greys, just to name a few, are black eyes on the history of baseball, and in many cases, almost brought down the game all together.
Philosopher Dan Dennett has some interesting thoughts on what makes things cute, sexy, sweet, and funny. The book on “What is Funny?” is something to look forward too. I have never really thought about it this way before, but it is quite simple, “Things are sweet because we like it, not, ‘We like it because it is sweet.’” Make sense? Just watch…
This is the kind of solution that probably makes too much sense for it to work out in the near future. Even though most of us know that change is really the only constant throughout human history, change scares people. (Hence – Conservatism.) Of course, many things are worth preserving, like, well – marriage.
If this type of legislation were to pass, it would not hurt the institution of marriage. Marriage would still be alive and strong within the framework of the religious or otherwise secular traditions of which it originates. The vast majority of Americans would still remain married, and their children would most likely wed as well. All that would change is that in the eyes of the government (you know, that institution that Conservatives say should stay out of our business [even though we are the government]) is that for legal purposes, two consenting adults can acquire civil union status for both legal and private equality purposes.
(Newser) – Confirmations, bar mitzvahs—religious institutions mark a number of rites of passage, but marriage is the only one the government has mucked with. As the heated debate over gay marriage continues, two professors ask: Why not take the government out of the equation? Officially, any couple could have a civil union, and "marriage" would be left up to one’s place of worship, Time reports in a look at the idea.
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