Tag: Brave New World

Prophecy

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Given President Obama’s recent Middle-East Apology Tour speeches, I am reminded of a Quote of the Day from last October, and the prediction of another damned fine intellectual, Thomas Sowell:

“There is such a thing as a point of no return,” he says. If Obama wins the White House and Democrats expand their majorities in the House and Senate, they will intervene in the economy and redistribute wealth. Yet their economic policies “will pale by comparison to what they will do in permitting countries to acquire nuclear weapons and turn them over to terrorists. Once that happens, we’re at the point of no return. The next generation will live under that threat as far out as the eye can see.”

“The unconstrained vision is really an elitist vision,” Sowell explains. “This man [Obama] really does believe that he can change the world. And people like that are infinitely more dangerous than mere crooked politicians.”

Ran across that perusing the archives for something else, and thought it bore repeating.

Quote of the Day

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Obama will come to his senses with his ‘Bush did it’, reset button, moral equivalency, soaring hope and change, with these apologies to Europeans, his Arab world Sermons on the Mount to Al Arabiya, in Turkey, in Cairo, etc., his touchy-feely videos to Iran, his “we are all victims of racism” sops to Ortega, Chavez, and Morales. It is only a matter of when, under what conditions, how high the price we must pay, and whether we lose the farm before he gains wisdom about the tragic universe in which we live.

A sojourn at an elite university, you see, can sometimes become a very dangerous thing indeed.

Victor Davis Hanson, Works and Days, The Reckoning

A very good piece on why so many people connected to reality are considered “anti-intellectual,” written by a damned fine intellectual. RTWT.

I Don’t Know Anything About Finance

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I Don’t Know Anything About Finance . . .

But I’m pretty sure this guy’s right:

I’m an attorney and CPA and I’ve spent my career in the world of investment banking, hedge funds, and private equity, etc. Tell your mother I’m almost certain a depression is on the way and many of my colleagues believe the same thing because the math has finally caught up with us. However, I believe this depression will be worse than the 30’s because, among other factors, Americans are no longer self-sufficient and we’re burdened with debt we can never repay. I don’t want to believe any of this, but I can’t ignore what I know and see. I really hope I’m wrong. I hope those in charge figure out a way to kick the can down the road one more time, but I don’t expect that because they would have to defy their Keynesian impulses. I fear it’s too late.

flyfisher on June 3, 2009 at 10:36 PM

A comment left at a Hot Air post yesterday on a proposed tax on employee health insurance benefits. It was prompted by this comment, a few minutes earlier:

I was on the phone with my mother today (a Baby Boomer, born 1955), and we were discussing the fact – not possibility, but fact – that our economy will sink into a depression if Cap-and-Trade or “Healthcare Reform” is passed before the end of the year like Obama wants. My mom said, “I just can’t believe that there’s actually going to be a depression in my lifetime. We did this once already and didn’t learn anything from it?”

I was born in 1984, so I’ve known nothing but prosperity in my lifetime. Even so, I just can’t believe that SO many Americans who remember the 70s learned NOTHING from the experience. I cannot believe that hardly a generation passes before socialism rears its ugly head again. I want the horrors I’ve read about to STAY in the history books – I don’t want to live them. For the first time, though I’m frightened. I can prepare to some extent for inflation or the loss of a job, but I really don’t know what I’ll do if the government takes over healthcare. I may be relatively healthy, but I know a lot of people (many elderly) who are not and if the government starts rationing as we KNOW they will, I hope that the wrath of the American people is finally awoken in defense of our countrymen.

Is this what it’s going to take, America? How much will be destroyed before you’ve had enough?

Animator Girl on June 3, 2009 at 10:06 PM

Good question.

What Your Kids are Actually Learning in School

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What Your Kids are Actually Learning in School

Quote of the Day:

If you want to understand how that leftist tactic has penetrated deeply into the culture, let me tell you a personal story. Recently, I was involved in an animated discussion with my daughter about her schoolwork. Things got a little heated, and in typical teenage fashion she became flustered when I pointed out some facts about her study habits that she did not like.

“Yeah?” she yelled, “Well you’re a….racist!”

Somewhat taken aback at this insertion of this word into our conversation, I must have momentarily appeared deeply shocked, because she abruptly started laughing and the tension was broken. Which, of course, made me laugh too at the ridiculousness of her words.

Still laughing, she said that she had learned at school that the best way to end a discussion you did not like was to accuse the other person of being a ‘racist’, ‘sexist’ or ‘homophobe.’ “Calling someone one of those names is a sure way to end the discussion,” she explained with a smile. “Kids at school use it all the time.”

Dr. Sanity, Like His Grandmother, Perhaps?

Oh, and check the cartoon at the link. Classic!

Quote of the Day

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Quote of the Day

That’s where we’re at. Laws apply to us in the middle. Those at the top are too big, powerful or important to have to live by them, and those at the ‘bottom’ don’t either. And darned if I’m not getting more than a little dissatisfied by the deal. – Mostly Cajun – Not for You or Me

A lot of us are. Read the whole backstory.

Quote of the Day

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Quote of the Day

When a society loses its memory, it descends inevitably into dementia. Allowing the cultural relativists to annex the education system ultimately destroys the grown-up world, too. – Mark Steyn, The loss of societal memory

(Tip of the chapeau to Van der Leun)

Just a note – this QotD has been postponed twice due to far better ones coming up in the interim.

UPDATE: Firehand has an associated post. Read it.

Violent & Predatory vs. Violent but Protective

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Rachel Lucas has a post with 259 comments (at the time of this posting) on the topic of British compelled helplessness, the loss of their aggressive edge, and their inability to distinguish violent-and-predatory from violent-but-protective. Many of the comments are, of course, infuriating.

Example:

I’m one of those idiots who think we’d all be a lot safer without so many knives around. And it seems the police in the UK (not a bunch of woolly liberals on the whole) agree with me, as they’ve fairly regularly held knife amnesties with the intention of making the streets safer.
At the end of the day, it’s a legitimate philosophical difference – am I safer with there being far fewer guns around to shoot me with, or is the proliferation of guns a price worth paying as long as one of those guns is in my hand and I’m trained to use it? I prefer the former option, and I suspect I always will.

I understand a little better each day Samuel Adams:

If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animating contest of freedom, — go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen!

UPDATE: And here’s the clincher, from the source of the initial quote:

I think this is another crucial aspect of the cultural difference between the US and countries like Britain with strict gun controls. You see, I believe in liberty as well – and the cornerstone of that is the freedom to live and the freedom from fear. Freedom that can only be safeguarded by a gun in my hand and the sharpness of my physical reflexes is a very poor quality, one-dimensional freedom. The widespread possession of deadly weapons by others is therefore a severe infringement of my personal liberty. And, yes, I am being utterly serious.

“Freedom from fear.” And where have we heard that before?

Another commenter answered that plea as well if not better than I could:

OvertheCliff Says:

Scotgo: I think this is another crucial aspect of the cultural difference between the US and countries like Britain with strict gun controls. You see, I believe in liberty as well – and the cornerstone of that is the freedom to live and the freedom from fear.

This might be the whole reason this thread is as long as it is. Thank you, Scotgo, for pointing out that liberty, to you, means “freedom from fear.”

Now if I can ask you to please take a moment and think that through.

Freedom that can only be safeguarded by a gun in my hand and the sharpness of my physical reflexes is a very poor quality, one-dimensional freedom.

As opposed to “freedom” that can only be safeguarded by the state, you mean?

Again … please think this through. You seem like a very intelligent person. I’m confident that you can work your way through this. Furthermore, I’m confident that when you do, your eyes will open like Paul on the proverbial road to Damascus.

The widespread possession of deadly weapons by others is therefore a severe infringement of my personal liberty. And, yes, I am being utterly serious.

I feel very sure this cognitive dissonance you’re experiencing is the result of you not applying your considerable intellect to this issue.

Scotgo, we’re not smarter than you. But we’re more free. In fact, we’re more free than you have ever imagined being, considering what you just said.

Not only more free that he’s ever imagined, more free than he can ever possibly understand.

And I note that the UK isn’t particularly “free of fear” even in its (*cough*) “disarmed” state.