Why the Left hates families. By Melanie Phillips. Daily Mail, May 3, 2013.
A Lefitie who saw the light. By Melanie Phillips. Daily Mail, May 5, 2013.
My immigrant family were proud to assimilate. By Melanie Phillips. Daily Mail, May 7, 2013.
An elegy for England. By Melanie Phillips. MelaniePhillips.com, April 17, 2013.
Phillips, elegy:
What
was so moving, in the end, was that Baroness Thatcher was buried as a simple
Christian. Borne on a gun-carriage to St Paul’s cathedral as a great warrior
statesman, Margaret Hilda went as a humble human soul to meet her ultimate
fate, as must we all. But what a faith she had, blazing out in those
magnificent, soaring hymns and readings that she had apparently so carefully
chosen.
The
funeral ceremonial was pitch-perfect, solemn but beautiful and uplifting, and
choreographed and staged with flawless precision. This after all is what
Britain still does so well. So much so that some foolish folk have allowed
themselves to get carried away and claim that this shows Britain essentially
still remains the same great country it always was.
What a
short attention span such individuals must have. Sure, the protests that had
been threatened for the funeral, by people whose gross disrespect for the dead
suggests an equivalent and alarming contempt for the living, were kept at bay
or drowned out by the many who made a point of standing up for elementary
decency along the route.
But
Britain is now a country where behaviour that was once unthinkable is now
routine. Where the mob is unleashed every minute on social media to make vile
remarks, to bully and intimidate. Where reasoned argument has been
substantially replaced by vilification and insult. Where so many have been
moronically parroting the conformist whine of the day, that Mrs T had been a
divisive figure -- as if any true leader does not create argument and
controversy.
Where
young people are so devoid of compassion or respect for another human being, so
convulsed by hatred as a result of their narcissistic incredulity that there
can be any viewpoint other than their own, that they actually gloated and
danced in the streets over the death of a frail 87 year-old who had lost her
mind. And then they and those who shared their point of view of Lady Thatcher
actually accused her of making Britain selfish and uncaring!
It is indeed
becoming a selfish, brutalised, uncaring society. But this is the result of
fundamental social and cultural changes – like the fragmentation of the family,
the refusal to transmit a common culture through education, the balkanisation
of Britain through multiculturalism, the victim culture which gives a free pass
to certain privileged groups for their bad behaviour.
All
these changes flowed from the tremendous onslaught by the left upon the
Judeo-Christian values of the west, and the replacement of the bonds of duty
which keep a society together by a rampant hyper-individualism and group rights
which break it apart on the rocks of selfishness.
Margaret
Thatcher’s flaw was to view everything through the narrow prism of economics,
and thus fail altogether to appreciate the need to shore up those bonds of
tradition, custom and informal obligation which could not be fitted into the
model of the free-market. She left the battleground of the culture war all but
undefended. Those politicians who came
after her took a culture that was already beginning to smash against the rocks
of individualism and delivered, in many different ways and under different
political banners, the coup de grace.
What
has also been gradually eroded in this tragic process are virtues associated
specifically with England – not with Britain, but with England or Englishness,
the dominant culture within Britain: those knightly qualities of gentleness and
tolerance, lion-hearted decency, stoicism and emotional self-restraint, innate fairness
and a passion for order.
Does
Dan Hodges, who apparently finds this argument so ludicrous, really think we
shall ever have another leader prepared to defend the Britain that embodied
those values? Our leaders have spent years not defending but wilfully
destroying the bedrock characteristics of British national identity, based on
that dominant English culture, in order to replace it with something entirely
different.
Yes, we
still do these great events incomparably well. Yes, there are still the decent
British who turn out in great number to demonstrate their attachment to what
Britain once represented. But they are
being replaced by younger generations who in their uneducated ignorance don’t
even know what has been lost, let alone care, and who can no longer even think
for themselves to go against the deadening consensus.
That’s
why I felt it wasn’t just Lady Thatcher being buried in London today.
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
College Grads: It’s a Different Economy. By Charles Hugh Smith.
College Grads: It’s a Different Economy. By Charles Hugh Smith. Zero Hedge, May 4, 2013. Also find it here.
College Grads: Heads Up! By Walter Russell Mead. Via Meadia, May 7, 2013.
A Different Economy for College Grads. By Helen Smith. PJ Media, May 5, 2013.
College Grads: Heads Up! By Walter Russell Mead. Via Meadia, May 7, 2013.
A Different Economy for College Grads. By Helen Smith. PJ Media, May 5, 2013.
“Jews a Race” Genetic Theory Comes Under Fierce Attack by DNA Expert. By Rita Rubin.
“Jews a Race” Genetic Theory Comes Under Fierce Attack by DNA Expert. By Rita Rubin. The Jewish Daily Forward, May 7, 2013.
Jews Are a “Race,” Genes Reveal. By Jon Entine. The Jewish Daily Forward, May 4, 2012. Review of Legacy: A Genetic History of the Jewish People. By Harry Ostrer. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. 288 pp.
A Case for Genetic Jewishness. By Ivan Oransky. Tablet, May 15, 2012. Review of Harry Ostrer, Legacy.
Is There a Jewish Gene? By Richard C. Lewontin. New York Review of Books, December 6, 2012. Review of Harry Ostrer, Legacy. Review of The Genealogical Science: The Search for Jewish Origins and the Politics of Epistemology. By Nadia Abu El-Haj. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012.
The Chosen Genes. By Josh Fischman. The Chronicle of Higher Education, April 15, 2012.
Who Are the Jews? Genetic Studies Spark Identity Debate. By Michael Balter. Science, Vol. 328, June 11, 2010. Also here.
Common Genetic Threads Link Thousands of Years of Jewish Ancestry. NJBR, April 28, 2013.
It’s almost impossible to be calm or objective when it comes to Israel and the Jews. Israel and the Jews push too many hot buttons for too many people—positive and negative, religious, historical, cultural, psychological, and political.
Jews Are a “Race,” Genes Reveal. By Jon Entine. The Jewish Daily Forward, May 4, 2012. Review of Legacy: A Genetic History of the Jewish People. By Harry Ostrer. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. 288 pp.
A Case for Genetic Jewishness. By Ivan Oransky. Tablet, May 15, 2012. Review of Harry Ostrer, Legacy.
Is There a Jewish Gene? By Richard C. Lewontin. New York Review of Books, December 6, 2012. Review of Harry Ostrer, Legacy. Review of The Genealogical Science: The Search for Jewish Origins and the Politics of Epistemology. By Nadia Abu El-Haj. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012.
The Chosen Genes. By Josh Fischman. The Chronicle of Higher Education, April 15, 2012.
Who Are the Jews? Genetic Studies Spark Identity Debate. By Michael Balter. Science, Vol. 328, June 11, 2010. Also here.
Common Genetic Threads Link Thousands of Years of Jewish Ancestry. NJBR, April 28, 2013.
It’s almost impossible to be calm or objective when it comes to Israel and the Jews. Israel and the Jews push too many hot buttons for too many people—positive and negative, religious, historical, cultural, psychological, and political.
How the Palestinians Trap Themselves and Drag the West Along. By Barry Rubin.
How the Palestinians Trap Themselves and Drag the West Along. By Barry Rubin. PJ Media, May 5, 2013. Also find it here.
British officials predicted war – and Arab defeat – in Palestine in 1948. By Richard Norton-Taylor. The Guardian, April 25, 2013.
British Archives Dispose of the Palestinian Narrative. By Michael Curtis. American Thinker, April 28, 2013.
British officials predicted war – and Arab defeat – in Palestine in 1948. By Richard Norton-Taylor. The Guardian, April 25, 2013.
British Archives Dispose of the Palestinian Narrative. By Michael Curtis. American Thinker, April 28, 2013.
Telework Doesn’t Have to Be Lonely. By Walter Russell Mead.
Telework Doesn’t Have to Be Lonely. By Walter Russell Mead. Via Meadia, May 7, 2013.
Working Alone, Together. By Alex Williams. New York Times, May 3, 2013.
The Good, the Bad, and the Unknown About Telecommuting: Meta-Analysis of Psychological Mediators and IndividualConsequences. By Ravi S. Gajendran and David A. Harrison. Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 92, No. 6 (November 2007). Also find it here.
Working Alone, Together. By Alex Williams. New York Times, May 3, 2013.
The Good, the Bad, and the Unknown About Telecommuting: Meta-Analysis of Psychological Mediators and IndividualConsequences. By Ravi S. Gajendran and David A. Harrison. Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 92, No. 6 (November 2007). Also find it here.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Ireland’s Public Sector. By Eoghan Harris.
The good, the bad, and the ugly of our public sector. By Eoghan Harris. Irish Independent, April 7, 2013.
Harris:
Beyond bad there is ugly. Last Thursday, the Teachers’ Union of Ireland became the first academic union in Europe to call for an academic boycott of Israel. The motion, passed unanimously, referred to Israel as an “apartheid state.”
The aim of calling Israel an “apartheid” state is to smear it with the same brush as South Africa. But as someone who strongly supported the Irish Anti-Apartheid Association I can categorically state there is not the slightest comparison between South Africa and Israel. Passing this motion simply peddled propaganda.
That’s because the motion conflated two separate groups. First, Israeli Arabs who form one-fifth of the population of Israel and have full civil rights. Second, Palestinians who live in Gaza under Hamas and who get a hard time for many reasons, including sending rockets into Israel.
South African non- whites under apartheid were separated by law. They could not vote, form parties or serve in government. The notion that a non-white woman could give birth in the same hospital as a white south African woman would be literally beyond the imagination of anyone in apartheid South Africa.
By contrast, Israeli Arabs, who make up 20 per cent of Israel’s population, are full citizens. They can vote, form parties, hold government posts, become civil servants and lawyers. The judge who sentenced a former Israeli prime minister for sexual transgressions was an Arab. Some apartheid.
From birth there is no apartheid in Israel. Jewish and Arab babies are born in the same delivery room, looked after by the same doctors and nurses. Jewish and Arab mothers recover side by side in adjoining beds. Some apartheid.
To call Israel an apartheid state is an attack on truth. As wrong as teaching that 2+2 makes 5. It confirms my belief that there are a lot of good teachers out there, but you won’t find them at conferences.
Harris:
Beyond bad there is ugly. Last Thursday, the Teachers’ Union of Ireland became the first academic union in Europe to call for an academic boycott of Israel. The motion, passed unanimously, referred to Israel as an “apartheid state.”
The aim of calling Israel an “apartheid” state is to smear it with the same brush as South Africa. But as someone who strongly supported the Irish Anti-Apartheid Association I can categorically state there is not the slightest comparison between South Africa and Israel. Passing this motion simply peddled propaganda.
That’s because the motion conflated two separate groups. First, Israeli Arabs who form one-fifth of the population of Israel and have full civil rights. Second, Palestinians who live in Gaza under Hamas and who get a hard time for many reasons, including sending rockets into Israel.
South African non- whites under apartheid were separated by law. They could not vote, form parties or serve in government. The notion that a non-white woman could give birth in the same hospital as a white south African woman would be literally beyond the imagination of anyone in apartheid South Africa.
By contrast, Israeli Arabs, who make up 20 per cent of Israel’s population, are full citizens. They can vote, form parties, hold government posts, become civil servants and lawyers. The judge who sentenced a former Israeli prime minister for sexual transgressions was an Arab. Some apartheid.
From birth there is no apartheid in Israel. Jewish and Arab babies are born in the same delivery room, looked after by the same doctors and nurses. Jewish and Arab mothers recover side by side in adjoining beds. Some apartheid.
To call Israel an apartheid state is an attack on truth. As wrong as teaching that 2+2 makes 5. It confirms my belief that there are a lot of good teachers out there, but you won’t find them at conferences.
The Struggle for Syria. By Majid Rafizadeh.
The struggle for Syria. By Majid Rafizadeh. Los Angeles Times, May 7, 2013.
Rafizadeh:
My cousin, Ramez, was dead before the echoes of the gunshot that killed him stopped ringing. His 4-year-old daughter, Zeynab, watched him fall on a narrow street in Damascus, but she never heard the shot because she is deaf. She held onto his lifeless hand until a second bullet tore into her chest. She survived.
I tell this story to make it clear that my family and I have experienced the civil war firsthand. Ramez was just one of several family members who lost their lives in the battle against Bashar Assad’s police state. My mother, sister and brother, alongside millions of other war-torn Syrian refugees, were forced to flee to Lebanon and then on to Baghdad.
But despite the seriousness and severity of the situation, I don’t believe that the United States should intervene militarily in Syria. Any direct or indirect intervention by the U.S. would exacerbate Syria's internal conflict and increase the number of people being displaced and killed.
. . . .
Another argument for intervention holds that it could pave the way for a democratic system of governance in Syria, which would then be strategically and politically allied with the United States. But those who make this case should more carefully consider the sociopolitical fabric of Syrian society, as well as the process by which democratization happens in the Middle East.
It is unlikely that intervention would lead quickly to the creation of a democratic government. If regime change came about because of U.S. intervention, Russia, China, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and other Arab gulf states would feel a need to exert their influence more strongly as well, in order to protect their own geopolitical interests. The country could well become the battleground for an international proxy war in a way the world hasn’t seen since Vietnam. In addition, fundamentalists and Al Qaeda-backed groups would view U.S. intervention as a call to arms and would capitalize on the instability and insecurity to advance their fight against the West.
The sources of strife in Syrian society emerge from not just religious differences but also ethnic ones, and there’s no way of imposing an outside cure for those divisions. Religious sects within Syria include not only Alawites and Sunnis; there are Christian, Druze and Shiite populations as well. Tensions between different ethnicities, such as between Arab and non-Arab, would add fuel to the battle. There are Syrian Kurds who are Sunni, but there are also Syrian Alawite Kurds. The complexities make it extremely difficult for the United States to have a positive role in the conflict.
Rafizadeh:
My cousin, Ramez, was dead before the echoes of the gunshot that killed him stopped ringing. His 4-year-old daughter, Zeynab, watched him fall on a narrow street in Damascus, but she never heard the shot because she is deaf. She held onto his lifeless hand until a second bullet tore into her chest. She survived.
I tell this story to make it clear that my family and I have experienced the civil war firsthand. Ramez was just one of several family members who lost their lives in the battle against Bashar Assad’s police state. My mother, sister and brother, alongside millions of other war-torn Syrian refugees, were forced to flee to Lebanon and then on to Baghdad.
But despite the seriousness and severity of the situation, I don’t believe that the United States should intervene militarily in Syria. Any direct or indirect intervention by the U.S. would exacerbate Syria's internal conflict and increase the number of people being displaced and killed.
. . . .
Another argument for intervention holds that it could pave the way for a democratic system of governance in Syria, which would then be strategically and politically allied with the United States. But those who make this case should more carefully consider the sociopolitical fabric of Syrian society, as well as the process by which democratization happens in the Middle East.
It is unlikely that intervention would lead quickly to the creation of a democratic government. If regime change came about because of U.S. intervention, Russia, China, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and other Arab gulf states would feel a need to exert their influence more strongly as well, in order to protect their own geopolitical interests. The country could well become the battleground for an international proxy war in a way the world hasn’t seen since Vietnam. In addition, fundamentalists and Al Qaeda-backed groups would view U.S. intervention as a call to arms and would capitalize on the instability and insecurity to advance their fight against the West.
The sources of strife in Syrian society emerge from not just religious differences but also ethnic ones, and there’s no way of imposing an outside cure for those divisions. Religious sects within Syria include not only Alawites and Sunnis; there are Christian, Druze and Shiite populations as well. Tensions between different ethnicities, such as between Arab and non-Arab, would add fuel to the battle. There are Syrian Kurds who are Sunni, but there are also Syrian Alawite Kurds. The complexities make it extremely difficult for the United States to have a positive role in the conflict.
The Benghazi Scandal Is Not Over. By Peter Wehner.
 |
|
An armed
man waves his rifle as buildings and cars are engulfed in flames after being
set on fire inside the U.S. consulate compound in Benghazi late on Sept. 11,
2012. US ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, and three of his colleagues were
killed in an attack on the consulate in the eastern Libyan city by Islamists
outraged over an amateur American-made Internet video mocking Islam. Stevens
died less than six months after being appointed to his post. STR/AFP/Getty
Images. |
The 2012 Election Is Over; the Benghazi Scandal Is Not. By Peter Wehner. Commentary, May 6, 2013.
The Return of Clintonian Politics. By Seth Mandel. Commentary, May 6, 2013.
Benghazi Bullchips. By Jed Babbin. The American Spectator, May 6, 2013.
The Benghazi Talking Points. By Stephen F. Hayes. The Weekly Standard, May 13, 2013. Also find it here.
Lt. Col. Ralph Peters On Benghazi: “How Much Evidence Does It Take?” Video. Real Clear Politics, May 7, 2013.
Face the Nation transcripts May 5, 2013: Benghazi and gay athletes. Face the Nation. CBS News, May 5, 2013.
Clinton sought end-run around counterterrorism bureau on night of Benghazi attack, witness will say. By James Rosen and Chad Pergram. FoxNews,com, May 6, 2013.
U.S. Military in Tripoli Ordered Not to Go to Benghazi. By Stephen F. Hayes. The Weekly Standard, May 6, 2013.
Diplomat: U.S. Special Forces told “you can't go” to Benghazi during attacks. By Sharyl Attkisson. CBS News, May 6, 2013.
The NRA and the Intensity Gap. By Jonathan S. Tobin.
The NRA and the Intensity Gap. By Jonathan S. Tobin. Commentary, May 6, 2013.
The (Plastic) Key to Understanding Iranian Martyrdom. By Kevin Sullivan.
The (Plastic) Key to Understanding Iranian Martyrdom. By Kevin Sullivan. Real Clear World, May 3, 2013.
The martyr state myth. By Matthew Duss. Foreign Policy, August 24, 2011.
Pious Populist: Understanding the rise of Iran’s president. By Abbas Milani. Boston Review, November/December 2007.
The martyr state myth. By Matthew Duss. Foreign Policy, August 24, 2011.
Pious Populist: Understanding the rise of Iran’s president. By Abbas Milani. Boston Review, November/December 2007.
Who Will Be Master in Europe? By Theodore Dalrymple.
Who Will Be Master in Europe? By Theodore Dalrymple. Real Clear World, May 1, 2013.
American Exceptionalism, Colonial Cannibals, and Starving Goats. By Glenn Harlan Reynolds.
Colonial cannibals and African Goats. By Glenn Harlan Reynolds. New York Post, May 5, 2013.
Private Property Saved Jamestown, And With It, America. By David Boaz. Cato Institute, May 14, 2007.
Private Property Saved Jamestown, And With It, America. By David Boaz. Cato Institute, May 14, 2007.
The Mexican War, America’s “Forgotten War,” South of the Border. By Mo Rocca.
 |
|
General
Winfield Scott’s Entrance into Mexico City, September 1847, by Carl Nebel. Wikimedia Commons. |
America’s “Forgotten War,” south of the border. By Mo Rocca. Sunday Morning. CBS News, May 5, 2013.
The War Between the United States and Mexico Illustrated. Plates. Wikimedia Commons.
Mo Rocca’s Dead Serious, Low-Info CBS News Report: Greedy America Stole Half of Mexico in an Unjust War. By Rush Limbaugh. RushLimbaugh.com, May 6, 2013.
Monday, May 6, 2013
Game of Thrones: Chaos Is a Ladder.
 |
| Master of Chaos. Lord Petyr Baelish aka Littlefinger (Aidan Gillen). |
Chaos isn’t a pit. Chaos is a ladder. Many who try to climb it fail and never get to try again. The fall breaks them. And some are given a chance to climb, buy they refuse. They cling to the realm or the gods or love. Illusions. Only the ladder is real. The climb is all there is.
—Lord Petyr Baelish to Lord Varys in Game of Thrones, Season 3 Episode 6, “The Climb.”
Game of Thrones Ditches the Book. By Ross Douthat, Spencer Kornhaber, and Christopher Orr. The Atlantic, May 6, 2013.
Discussion of Game of Thrones Season 3 Episode 6: “The Climb.” Panel with Ben Mankiewicz, John Iadarola, and Cenk Uygur. Video. What the Flick, May 6, 2013. YouTube.
Game of Thrones Recap: Chaos Is a Ladder. By Nina Shen Rastogi. Vulture, May 6, 2013.
Five Essay Prompts for Game of Thrones 3x6: “The Climb.” By Drew Grant and Noam Cohen. New York Observer, May 6, 2013.
“Game of Thrones” Q&A: Aidan Gillen on the Life of Littlefinger. By Sean T. Collins. Rolling Stone, May 8, 2013.
More on Game of Thrones here, here, here, here, and here.
Game of Thrones 3x06: Petyr Baelish and Varys, Chaos Is a Ladder. Video. GameOfThrones2013, May 5, 2013. YouTube. Also find it here and here. Find it joined with Jon Snow and Ygritte atop the Wall here.
Game of Thrones 3x06, The Climb: Jon Snow and Ygritte Scenes. Video. AlanHDTVShows, May 6, 2013. YouTube. Also find it in four parts here, here, here, and here.
No Kinky Porn, Please – We’re English. By Robin Lindley and Julie Peakman.
No Kinky Porn, Please – We’re English. Julie Peakman interviewed by Robin Lindley. History News Network, May 6, 2013.
Memoirs of Fanny Hill. By John Cleland. Paris: Isidore Liseux, 1888. Originally published 1749.
Illustrations to Fanny Hill. By Édouard-Henri Avril. Wikipedia.
Memoirs of Fanny Hill. By John Cleland. Paris: Isidore Liseux, 1888. Originally published 1749.
Illustrations to Fanny Hill. By Édouard-Henri Avril. Wikipedia.
Saying Farewell to Stonewall Jackson. By Wallace A. Hettle.
It’s Not You, Stonewall, It’s Me. By Wallace A. Hettle. History News Network, May 6, 2013.
 |
| Stonewall Jackson. By D.W. King (1864). |
Getting Beyond the “Clash of Civilizations.”
Getting Beyond the “Clash of Civilizations.” By David Cannadine. History News Network, May 6, 2013.
What It Would Take to Bring Democracy to Syria. By Thomas L. Friedman.
This Ain’t Yogurt. By Thomas L. Friedman. New York Times, May 4, 2013.
Syria Is Not Iraq. By Bill Keller. New York Times, May 5, 2013.
Syria Is Not Iraq. By Bill Keller. New York Times, May 5, 2013.
The Last Refuge From Scandal? Professorships. By Ariel Kaminer.
The Last Refuge From Scandal? Professorships. By Ariel Kaminer. New York Times, May 4, 2013.
Sunday, May 5, 2013
The Big Five: America’s Make or Break Challenges. By Walter Russell Mead.
The Big Five: America’s Make or Break Challenges. By Walter Russell Mead. Via Meadia, May 5, 2013.
Mead:
So far, 2013 has been a bush league year in American politics. Gay marriage, gun control and amnesty for illegal immigrants are hot button emotional issues and they have a lot of practical importance for a lot of people, but the republic will not stand or fall based on lesbian prenups, gun background checks or green cards for those immigrants formerly known as illegal. Similarly with the sequester; if the country is headed toward fiscal bankruptcy the cuts are too small to save us and if the cuts are unnecessary they are neither large enough to precipitate a depression or so savage and stringent as to take us back to the social conditions of the 19th century.
So the headlines this year have not, exactly, been much ado about nothing, but it’s a lot of ado about nothing much. That wouldn’t matter if we didn’t have serious issues to deal with. In quiet times we could let media cover politics the way the Weather Channel covers storms, inflating Winter Storms Chutney and Magpie into major world historical events. But we don’t live in bush league times. The United States has urgent business before it today and until and unless we get the big things fixed, we’re going to stagger from one ill-tempered squabble to another even as our underlying problems become more severe.
In Africa people talk about the Big Five, originally the most dangerous animals to hunt, these days the most awesome to see. The elephant, the Cape buffalo, the leopard, the rhinoceros and the lion are the Big Five in the game parks; America’s Big Five are the big make or break domestic issues we face. (I’ll take a look at the big international challenges in another series of posts.) We don’t need 100 percent success, but if we don’t get a handle on these five issues, conditions in America are going to deteriorate painfully no matter how many gay couples marry or immigrants get green cards. If on the other hand we do make progress on these issues, we will gradually find ourselves with more resources and better options as we struggle with the less critical but still very important choices our country must make.
So what are the Big Five?
First comes the question of jobs: what to do about jobs and incomes as the old industrial economy continues to shed middle class jobs? The manufacturing economy is as dead as Prince Albert, at least from the standpoint of providing middle class incomes and long-term job security for a third of the American workforce. If America can’t create new, post-manufacturing jobs to replace the old ones, nothing we do will turn out very well.
Second, there’s the service crunch. The country’s demand for services like education and health care is growing rapidly, but our ability to produce the quantity and quality of services demanded can’t match the need. The systems we have to produce and deliver these services are increasingly dysfunctional. As a result, we are seeing ruinous inflation in costs like college and university tuition and the health care system generally. These problems must be addressed; health care costs are on course to bankrupt the country and education costs have already saddled the younger generation with crippling debt. These problems won’t go away on their own; as time goes on the country is going to need more health care, more education, rather than less, and we also want the quality of both to improve. Governance, by the way, is one of these crises; a more complex and densely populated country needs effective and responsive governance at a reasonable price. In too many ways, all levels of government in the United States are too expensive, too cumbersome and too clumsy.
It’s both ironic and unsettling that just as the United States is leading the world towards a new kind of service based economy, our largest and most important service based industries are so inefficient and poorly organized. We can’t be a successful service economy until our biggest service sectors start working well.
Third, there’s the demographic transition. Our system of pensions and social insurance was built on the assumption that the high birth rates of the mid twentieth century would continue forever, and that each generation would be so much larger than its predecessor that the country could make a decent provision for old people without skimping on the needs of the young. While the United States fortunately is better placed than many other developed and developing countries (partly because our birthrate remains higher than in many countries and partly because a steady influx of younger immigrants increases the number of working adults), public and private pension systems and entitlement programs face a variety of challenges, and the competition between retirees and the rest of the population for resources is getting sharper.
The last two areas where the country faces make or break challenges are different. They are cultural, social and spiritual. They cannot be solved by wonkish ideas or government policy changes. But they are real, and unless we address them wisely the country is unlikely to thrive.
The first of these non-wonky problems is what one could call a coherence crisis. In past generations, a less diverse and more hierarchical America was organized around a set of ideas and cultural values and assumptions more or less brought over from Great Britain in the colonial era. This was not a monolithic culture; scholars like David Hackett Fischer have shown how cultural and political diversity were present in American life from the earliest years of the colonial period. And non-English speaking immigrants (like the Germans who settled much of Pennsylvania and the Dutch in New York) brought more points of view. Africans, free and enslaved, a majority in some states and a large minority in others, were also part of the mix.
But with all the diversity, the country was dominated by a set of values and ideas that came to us from the British Isles: Protestant and individualistic Christianity, an attachment to limited representational government, an affinity for capitalism and a set of ideas and cultural practices around which society cohered.
For all kinds of reasons that old coherence has been lost and cannot be set up again. Racial, cultural and ethnic differences among Americans have changed who we are as a people. Social and economic changes have challenged old ideas and institutions. Economic inequality challenges the idea of a vast American middle class that shaped national consciousness during the Fordist era.
There is no going back to the old days. The genie is out of the bottle, and Humpty Dumpty has fallen off the wall. But even if the old consensus is gone, the country still needs something to rally around. What are the values around which Americans will cohere in the 21st century and will they be both flexible enough to serve the needs of a diverse and diversifying people and robust enough to create a deep and abiding sense of common citizenship and linked destiny among us?
The problem is becoming more acute not less as American society grows and becomes more complex. A larger population and a more complex and interdependent technological base require more collective restraint on individual freedom in small things and large. Shared values and visions make that restraint seem natural and reasonable, but we are heading toward a situation in which there will be more laws and regulations to live under . . . and less agreement about what those laws should look like, at what level they should be adopted, and how stringently they should be enforced.
Finally and inescapably, there is the question of virtue. The liberal order of representative democracy depends more on the virtue of its citizens than other forms of government do. If most citizens are tax cheats, most politicians are swindlers, many parents are neglectful and most children are ingrates, democracy cannot last, much less prosper. If everyone is thinking about what they can get from the government and no one is thinking about what they give, and if nobody can be trusted when the lights are out, freedom will shrivel up and die. Our founding fathers were haunted by the example of the fall of the Roman Republic; we need to remember that Rome’s fate could be ours.
There are many forces working against republican virtue in America today. Consumer capitalism, as Daniel Bell and others have taught us, breeds attitudes of narcissism and self indulgence. The crisis affecting mainline Protestant and euro-Catholic congregations and institutions has weakened one of the chief props of the kind of self restraint and self governance that democracies need to survive and it’s not clear what if anything can take their place.
These are the Big Five; if we get them largely right, the 21st century in the United States is likely to see another golden age of freedom and prosperity. If we largely fail, things will go badly wrong, and this century could see the end of America as a beacon of hope for humanity. Via Meadia tries to orient our coverage of the news around these big five issues; watch this space over the next couple of weeks for some essays on the most important challenges we face.
Mead:
So far, 2013 has been a bush league year in American politics. Gay marriage, gun control and amnesty for illegal immigrants are hot button emotional issues and they have a lot of practical importance for a lot of people, but the republic will not stand or fall based on lesbian prenups, gun background checks or green cards for those immigrants formerly known as illegal. Similarly with the sequester; if the country is headed toward fiscal bankruptcy the cuts are too small to save us and if the cuts are unnecessary they are neither large enough to precipitate a depression or so savage and stringent as to take us back to the social conditions of the 19th century.
So the headlines this year have not, exactly, been much ado about nothing, but it’s a lot of ado about nothing much. That wouldn’t matter if we didn’t have serious issues to deal with. In quiet times we could let media cover politics the way the Weather Channel covers storms, inflating Winter Storms Chutney and Magpie into major world historical events. But we don’t live in bush league times. The United States has urgent business before it today and until and unless we get the big things fixed, we’re going to stagger from one ill-tempered squabble to another even as our underlying problems become more severe.
In Africa people talk about the Big Five, originally the most dangerous animals to hunt, these days the most awesome to see. The elephant, the Cape buffalo, the leopard, the rhinoceros and the lion are the Big Five in the game parks; America’s Big Five are the big make or break domestic issues we face. (I’ll take a look at the big international challenges in another series of posts.) We don’t need 100 percent success, but if we don’t get a handle on these five issues, conditions in America are going to deteriorate painfully no matter how many gay couples marry or immigrants get green cards. If on the other hand we do make progress on these issues, we will gradually find ourselves with more resources and better options as we struggle with the less critical but still very important choices our country must make.
So what are the Big Five?
First comes the question of jobs: what to do about jobs and incomes as the old industrial economy continues to shed middle class jobs? The manufacturing economy is as dead as Prince Albert, at least from the standpoint of providing middle class incomes and long-term job security for a third of the American workforce. If America can’t create new, post-manufacturing jobs to replace the old ones, nothing we do will turn out very well.
Second, there’s the service crunch. The country’s demand for services like education and health care is growing rapidly, but our ability to produce the quantity and quality of services demanded can’t match the need. The systems we have to produce and deliver these services are increasingly dysfunctional. As a result, we are seeing ruinous inflation in costs like college and university tuition and the health care system generally. These problems must be addressed; health care costs are on course to bankrupt the country and education costs have already saddled the younger generation with crippling debt. These problems won’t go away on their own; as time goes on the country is going to need more health care, more education, rather than less, and we also want the quality of both to improve. Governance, by the way, is one of these crises; a more complex and densely populated country needs effective and responsive governance at a reasonable price. In too many ways, all levels of government in the United States are too expensive, too cumbersome and too clumsy.
It’s both ironic and unsettling that just as the United States is leading the world towards a new kind of service based economy, our largest and most important service based industries are so inefficient and poorly organized. We can’t be a successful service economy until our biggest service sectors start working well.
Third, there’s the demographic transition. Our system of pensions and social insurance was built on the assumption that the high birth rates of the mid twentieth century would continue forever, and that each generation would be so much larger than its predecessor that the country could make a decent provision for old people without skimping on the needs of the young. While the United States fortunately is better placed than many other developed and developing countries (partly because our birthrate remains higher than in many countries and partly because a steady influx of younger immigrants increases the number of working adults), public and private pension systems and entitlement programs face a variety of challenges, and the competition between retirees and the rest of the population for resources is getting sharper.
The last two areas where the country faces make or break challenges are different. They are cultural, social and spiritual. They cannot be solved by wonkish ideas or government policy changes. But they are real, and unless we address them wisely the country is unlikely to thrive.
The first of these non-wonky problems is what one could call a coherence crisis. In past generations, a less diverse and more hierarchical America was organized around a set of ideas and cultural values and assumptions more or less brought over from Great Britain in the colonial era. This was not a monolithic culture; scholars like David Hackett Fischer have shown how cultural and political diversity were present in American life from the earliest years of the colonial period. And non-English speaking immigrants (like the Germans who settled much of Pennsylvania and the Dutch in New York) brought more points of view. Africans, free and enslaved, a majority in some states and a large minority in others, were also part of the mix.
But with all the diversity, the country was dominated by a set of values and ideas that came to us from the British Isles: Protestant and individualistic Christianity, an attachment to limited representational government, an affinity for capitalism and a set of ideas and cultural practices around which society cohered.
For all kinds of reasons that old coherence has been lost and cannot be set up again. Racial, cultural and ethnic differences among Americans have changed who we are as a people. Social and economic changes have challenged old ideas and institutions. Economic inequality challenges the idea of a vast American middle class that shaped national consciousness during the Fordist era.
There is no going back to the old days. The genie is out of the bottle, and Humpty Dumpty has fallen off the wall. But even if the old consensus is gone, the country still needs something to rally around. What are the values around which Americans will cohere in the 21st century and will they be both flexible enough to serve the needs of a diverse and diversifying people and robust enough to create a deep and abiding sense of common citizenship and linked destiny among us?
The problem is becoming more acute not less as American society grows and becomes more complex. A larger population and a more complex and interdependent technological base require more collective restraint on individual freedom in small things and large. Shared values and visions make that restraint seem natural and reasonable, but we are heading toward a situation in which there will be more laws and regulations to live under . . . and less agreement about what those laws should look like, at what level they should be adopted, and how stringently they should be enforced.
Finally and inescapably, there is the question of virtue. The liberal order of representative democracy depends more on the virtue of its citizens than other forms of government do. If most citizens are tax cheats, most politicians are swindlers, many parents are neglectful and most children are ingrates, democracy cannot last, much less prosper. If everyone is thinking about what they can get from the government and no one is thinking about what they give, and if nobody can be trusted when the lights are out, freedom will shrivel up and die. Our founding fathers were haunted by the example of the fall of the Roman Republic; we need to remember that Rome’s fate could be ours.
There are many forces working against republican virtue in America today. Consumer capitalism, as Daniel Bell and others have taught us, breeds attitudes of narcissism and self indulgence. The crisis affecting mainline Protestant and euro-Catholic congregations and institutions has weakened one of the chief props of the kind of self restraint and self governance that democracies need to survive and it’s not clear what if anything can take their place.
These are the Big Five; if we get them largely right, the 21st century in the United States is likely to see another golden age of freedom and prosperity. If we largely fail, things will go badly wrong, and this century could see the end of America as a beacon of hope for humanity. Via Meadia tries to orient our coverage of the news around these big five issues; watch this space over the next couple of weeks for some essays on the most important challenges we face.
Syria: Obama’s Own “Problem From Hell.” By Walter Russell Mead.
Syria: Obama’s Own “Problem From Hell.” By Walter Russell Mead. Via Meadia, May 5, 2013.
Is Assad winning in Syria? By Jonathan Spyer. Jerusalem Post, May 3, 2013.
Dying in Space: An American Dream. By Megan Garber.
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| The envisioned Mars One colony in 2025. |
Dying in Space: An American Dream. By Megan Garber. The Atlantic, April 29, 2013.
Prospect of one-way Mars trip captures the imagination. By David Shukman. BBC News, April 30, 2013.
Is Mars One’s one-way mission to the Red Planet just science fantasy? By Stephanie Dube Wilson. FoxNews.com, April 3, 2013.
Mars One: Reality Bites. By Conrad Steenkamp. Mail and Guardian, May 1, 2013.
Buzz Aldrin: Mission to Mars. BuzzAldrin.com. YouTube.
Buzz Aldrin’s Case For A “Mission To Mars.” Interview with Neal Conan. NPR, May 9, 2013.
Get to Mars within 20 years. By Buzz Aldrin. CNN, May 7, 2013.
Could he be the first man on Mars? Buzz Aldrin reveals scheme to colonise the red planet by 2035. By Victoria Woollaston. Daily Mail, May 9, 2013.
Neil Armstrong: one giant leap into the dark. By Michael Hanlon. The Telegraph, August 27, 2012. Also find it here.
Mars One website.
Mars 2023: Inhabitants Wanted. Video. MarsOneProject, April 22, 2013. YouTube.
Mars One Introduction Film. Video MarsOneProject, June 6, 2012. YouTube.
Niall Ferguson Briefly Humbled By Dead Gay Economist. By Walter Russell Mead.
Niall Ferguson Briefly Humbled By Dead Gay Economist. By Walter Russell Mead. Via Meadia, May 5, 2013.
Harvard Professor Trashes Keynes For Homosexuality. By Tom Kostigen. Financial Advisor, May 3, 2013.
Niall Ferguson’s “unqualified apology” over gay comments. By Claire Duffin. The Telegraph, May 4, 2013.
An Unqualified Apology. By Niall Ferguson. NiallFerguson.com, May 4, 2013.
Keynes Was Gay — Not That There’s Anything Wrong with That. By Jonah Goldberg. National Review Online, May 4, 2013.
Ferguson’s Blooper on Keynes. By James Pethokoukis. National Review Online, May 6, 2013.
Harvard Professor Trashes Keynes For Homosexuality. By Tom Kostigen. Financial Advisor, May 3, 2013.
Niall Ferguson’s “unqualified apology” over gay comments. By Claire Duffin. The Telegraph, May 4, 2013.
An Unqualified Apology. By Niall Ferguson. NiallFerguson.com, May 4, 2013.
Keynes Was Gay — Not That There’s Anything Wrong with That. By Jonah Goldberg. National Review Online, May 4, 2013.
Ferguson’s Blooper on Keynes. By James Pethokoukis. National Review Online, May 6, 2013.
Morsi’s Egypt and the Lessons of History. By Seth Mandel.
Morsi’s Egypt and the Lessons of History. By Seth Mandel. Commentary, May 3, 2013.
The “Moderate” Muslim Brotherhood and the Jews. By Michael Rubin. Commentary, May 3, 2013.
The “Moderate” Muslim Brotherhood and the Jews. By Michael Rubin. Commentary, May 3, 2013.
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