Non -- Oui!

The WSJ Ed Page makes a good point: that French voters may have done the right thing for the wrong reasons. Anti-capitalists helped pus the "Non" vote over the top. As Miles would say, "So What?"

The French vote is a victory of democracy against an opaque and elite process that few people really understood. It is also a defeat for those leaders, notably French President Jacques Chirac, who have been unable to deliver on what they promised from a united Europe. The defeat shouldn't be seen as a renunciation of "Europe" writ large, so much as for a particular narrow vision of the Continent.

Remembering

Memorial Day weekend isn't about the start of summer and barbeques.
It's remembering those that have sacrificed in war for our country.

The Library of Congress has undertaken a project to get the stories of veterans and record them digitally.

Audio, video and text versions of their memories are being recorded for the future.

Experiencing War

Art Appreciation

Happy Memorial Day weekend everyone. And now, for something a little different...

Philosophically, the actions of the US government following the Great Depression were deplorable. But that judgment is somewhat mitigated by the fact that other equally deplorable government policies helped create the miserable situation in the first place. But this is not meant as a discussion of the New Deal, rather an appreciation of some of the artwork that resulted from it.

The Loveland, Colorado post office, where thousands from around the world send their mail for a unique postmark on Valentine's day, displays a mural that captivated my spirit. This inspired me to learn more about it, and it's creator, 'R. Sherman' or James Russell Sherman, I came to learn.

Some time on the internet allowed me to discover an entire website dedicated to art of this nature, as it was funded by several New Deal programs.

The Colorado page listed all of the New Deal artwork on display in Colorado post offices and linked to photos of some of them, but not the Loveland mural. Seeking to rectify this, I emailed a photo to the webmaster and she posted it thusly.

This painting moves me because of its rich color, romantic realism, and its subject: The industrious harvest of nature's bounty by enterprising and creative individuals. My newfound side profession as a hay farmer dependent upon irrigation water probably has a lot to do with the joy I find in this painting, along with my romantic attitude toward the realm of industry.

I notice that this painting is very similar to one in the Scottdale, PA post office. Perhaps AlexC will be inspired to seek out other works in the Pennysylvania post offices.

James Russell Sherman, aka Russell Sherman, studied art in Chicago before moving to the American Northwest. Other works include "At the Brook." ('Continue Reading' to see short bio from this source.)

Reprinted from: http://www.artoftheprint.com/artistpages/sherman_russell_atthebrookquietpool.htm

Russell Sherman: A fine twentieth century American lithographer, illustrator and painter, Russell Sherman studied at the Art Institute of Chicago. His first exhibited works of art date from the early 1930's and at this time he moved to the American north west. His landscapes deal mostly with this region and British Columbia. During the following years Sherman's original lithographs were shown at exhibitions in San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago and New York.

A number of this artist's lithographs were commissioned by the Associated American Artists of New York. Since its founding (in the mid 1930's), the A.A.A. was responsible for the publication of many important etchings and lithographs by such major American artists as Reginald Marsh, Grant Wood and Thomas Hart Benton. Both by its printing techniques and by the quality of paper (a sturdy white, wove), At the Brook is most probably an Associated American Artists commissioned lithograph.

At the Brook is a superb, original example of Sherman's lithographic art. Using strong contrasts of light and dark and decorative art deco elements, Sherman created a landscape of unforgettable purity and beauty. It is in every regard a most spectacular image.

Edition: As mentioned earlier, At the Brook is most probably a publication of the Associated American Artists. If so, it would have been printed in a limited edition of 250 impressions.

Image Size: 7 7/8 X 10 3/4 (Sizes in inches are approximate, height preceding width of plate-mark or image.) Matted with 100% Archival Materials

Price: $225.00 US

Condition: Printed upon sturdy wove paper and with full margins as published around 1940. Signed by the artist in pencil along the lower margin. A strongly printed impression and in flawless condition throughout. This original lithograph represents a prime example of the art of Russell Sherman.

Note: The artist biography and information pertaining to this work of art has been provided for the benefit of our viewers. Check our site periodically for new additons. There are new biographies and works of art for sale posted every month.

Janice Rogers Brown STILL Rocks!

As I read JK's post on the "Great Fillibuster Compromise of 2005" I was a little concerned about TNR's reference to "higher law than the Constitution" on the part of Bush judicial nominee Janice Rogers Brown.

Loyal readers will recall my May 18 posting, All Hail: Janice Rogers Brown, wherein I praised the jurist vociferously for her individual rights views while expressing uncertainty about her social sensibilities (i.e. should the government tell people how, when and why they may reproduce.) These two factors compelled me to learn more about the woman's judicial philosophy.

I googled the "Janice Rogers Brown" search results for "higher law" and found two articles of interest. From the conservative point-of-view, FrontPage Magazine tells us:

Brown's judicial philosophy amounts to what is sometimes called the "Madisonian" view, because it reflects the allegiance to higher law and transcendent rights embraced by the "Father of the Constitution." Not everything is open to majority rule, and courts must ensure that the majority does not run roughshod over groups that are unpopular or lack political power. As Brown put it in another dissenting opinion, "Courts must be especially vigilant, must vigorously resist encroachments that heighten the potential for arbitrary government action."

Very well. So far, so good.

Then I found this whining essay on something called "counterpunch" that characterized Rogers Brown's legal philosophy as "bizarre."

Virtually every court that has considered the matter has concluded that racist speech can create a hostile, abusive and discriminatory work environment, and that when it does so, a court can stop it. No court in recent decades has held that the First Amendment gives people the right to use speech to harass fellow workers on racial or religious grounds at work.

Just as a court can order a company to take down a "Whites Only" sign outside its employment office, even though this is "speech," so judges have consistently held that other words can constitute unlawful racial discrimination, and that when they do, the courts must step in and call a halt to such discrimination.

That is the established view under American law, supported by years of precedent. But it is not the view of Janice Rogers Brown, President Bush's nominee to the D.C. Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. Brown, a member of the California Supreme Court, is one of 12 judicial nominees previously rejected due to their extremist positions, whose nominations were recently exhumed by Bush.

How very matter-of-factly this liberal corpuscle tramples the boundary between speech and action, and denies freedom of speech as a right to those whose speech he disagrees with. A "whites only" sign is speech, but its removal is predicated on the presumption that discriminatory action will follow. The entire post-modern notion of "hate speech" as an act of agressive physical violence is preposterous.

But I digress. Here is the corpuscle's passage on higher law:

Justice Brown's bizarre view that this social contract constitutes "collectivism" is much more than a curiosity because her appointment to the important D.C. Circuit (and possibly thereafter to the U.S. Supreme Court) would give her the power to try to reverse these "socialist" triumphs.

Brown certainly means to try. She has advised that conservative judges need not be concerned with the "activist" label and urges judges to be "audacious enough to invoke higher law," by which she means a judge-imposed vision of so-called natural law that protects property from the will of the majority.

Well bully once again. Brown adheres to an individual's natural right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and apparently manages to say so without mentioning "God" or "Creator." This Supreme Court Justice from the Golden State is my kind of girl!

Schadenfreude!

I feel a little better about the Senate Compromise now that I have read how much the "moderates" over at TNR hate it:

When the Americans and the Soviets retreated from the brink of nuclear war after the Cuban missile crisis, jubilation followed. The world had not ended! Life would go on! But, of course, that was hardly the end of the story. There was still the matter of the cold war to settle. Similarly, the Senate's retreat this week from its own nuclear confrontation, in the form of a compromise crafted by 14 so-called moderates, is grounds for some Democratic relief. Republicans were denied a total victory, and they failed to set the alarming precedent of changing Senate rules by fiat. But, just as John F. Kennedy knew the Soviets were hardly vanquished, so Harry Reid knows that the war is not won. And, while he's been publicly praising the moderates who cut this deal, we wonder whether he will not come to curse them.

This compromise was a classic case of moderate deal-making in Washington--and we don't mean that as a compliment. Congressional moderates are forever celebrated for "bucking their parties" and "standing on principle," regardless of what they actually accomplish (or what principle they stand on).

Really? We fail to see how that's true. Compromise itself, after all, is not a principle. And the chief principle at stake--that every extremist should not be elevated to the federal bench--has been trammeled. Nor has the life of the filibuster (itself not a principle either, just a procedural tool) been guaranteed. Signatories merely agreed to filibuster future nominations only in "extraordinary circumstances." Everything depends on the interpretation of this absurdly fuzzy clause--a matter upon which Republicans and Democrats will most certainly differ. Which means what the moderates have come up with is not a resolution so much as a postponement.

Moreover, when the filibuster fight comes to a head again--as it will--the Democrats' task will be made all the more difficult not only by the need to demonstrate "extraordinary circumstances," but by the implication that the three Bush nominees the deal effectively confirmed, whom the liberal establishment treated as something close to worst-case picks, did not constitute "extraordinary circumstances." That sets the bar awfully high. (Even some conservatives have fretted over Brown's onetime suggestion that she observes a higher law than the Constitution.) Furthermore, what happens should Bush choose one of these three to fill the next Supreme Court vacancy?

The answers to these questions all seem to favor the Republicans. There may be grounds for Democratic relief that Bill Frist was not able to steamroll them completely. But the terms of the moderates' deal, unfortunately, should be seen less as a triumph over the extremes than a triumph of the extremes.

Amnesty International Reports

Amnesty International came out with it's 2005 report recently.
The full report is available here.

It's broken down by global region, as well as nation. Pretty handy.

Here's a pop quiz.

Given four nations, tell me which has the longest report about human rights abuses.

A) North Korea
B) Sudan
C) Saudi Arabia
D) The United States of America

The answer?

Well, it shouldn't be hard.

D of course.

Allegations of torture at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay as well as 40 taser fatalities and using the death penalty draw more ire (as measured by report length) than things like brutally starving an entire nation; genocide (though non dare call it so); honor killings, anti-Christian imprisonment and woman's suffrage.

Pop Quiz Number 2.
Same question.
A) Zimbabwe
B) The United States of America

I'll leave it as an excersize to the reader.

The actions of a few, a very small few, soldiers (to be punished) seems to rate more words than the official policies of some nations.

Go figure.

Africa

JohnGalt posted a few days ago on the economic meltdown in Mugabe's Zimbabwe. It astonishes me that the man is still welcomed as a world leader in European Capitals.

While his may be the worst example, most of the sub-Saharan region struggles under the yoke of collectivism. When the young men who would become the post-Colonial leaders studied in the West, they went to Oxford and Cambridge, where they were inculcated in the miracles of Socialism.

Nima Sanandaji, a student of biotechnology at Chalmers University of Technology (located in Gothenburg, Sweden) and who has been accepted at Cambridge for graduate studies in biochemistry, has an article in TCS stating that what ails Africa is not capitalism but its absence.

Africa is poor because most countries in the region lack the fundamental elements of a capitalist system: property rights, free markets, free trade and the rule of law. Africans are like everybody else, and ideas that did not work in China, North Korea and the Soviet Union will not work in Africa either. The blame for the present situation in Africa does not lie with capitalists. It lies with corrupt politicians, who have implemented bad economic policies, together with leftist intellectuals who convinced African politicians to implement anti-capitalist economic policies. The west is also responsible, by enforcing trade barriers. It is ironic that anti-globalization movements are frequently opposed to abolishing tariffs and import quotas.

It is Not Miles's Birthday

I said it last year but here's a reminder: if some lowlife DJ says that today is Miles Davis's birthday, call the station and assure them that they're wrong -- tomorow: John Wayne, Peggy Lee, Miles Davis, and jk!

Serenity Trailer

At last count, I had convinced one ThreeSources reader to experience the wondrous joy of Joss Whedon's "Buffy, The Vampire Slater" and had one other on the ropes. (I'm watching Season 2 of "Angel" now; the first shows would be a good choice for a newcomer who wanted to check it out.)

Whedon's big failure was "Firefly" which ran a half a season on Fox. It's a little too complicated for broadcast TV, though I am surprised that a guy with 12 seasons of hits under his belt didn't get a longer leash.

Whedon has made a movie with the original cast. "Serenity" opens September 30 and the trailer is here. There's plenty of tie to buy the Firefly DVDs and be fully prepared for the opening weekend.

Firefly is an adult show (the teenagers on "Buffy" scare people away) with a terrific ensemble cast. The message is of freedom and independence. Our heroes have lost a war of independence to the alliance (U.N.) and have taken to the outer planets to preserve their freedom.

Kurt Vonnegut was an avowed Socialist yet wrote the greatest opposition piece to in "Harrison Bergeron." In the same manner, Whedon is liberal who hosted fund raisers for Senator Kerry's presidential bid, and an avowed atheist. Yet his scripts are beloved by both libertarian and social conservatives. They lack moral relativism. There is duty, honor, right and wrong, and actions have consequences.

September 30. I am scared that the role of villain may be shifted from the Kofi-Annanesque Alliance to the mysterious Blue Sun Corporation, but it will be fun whatever goes down.

Filibuster

I think it is too soon to say who "won" in the great filibuster compromise of 2005. Like most things out of the US Senate, the only clear winners were US Senators. Senator McCain won additional media points, as if he needed them.

But the can was simply kicked down the road. It is good to get some judges a vote, but the Democrats can and will filibuster future nominations.

I will throw in my lot with my buddy, Larry Kudlow

Thank heavens the filibuster on judicial nominations has been taken care of, at least for now. Don’t get me wrong. It’s a key issue. All judicial nominees should be voted on in my view. And there are important business issues such as tort settlements and private property rights on the judicial agenda.

But the filibuster obsession has been sucking the oxygen out of other key issues that will impact the stock market and the economy, such as asbestos reform and medical malpractice lawsuits. Such as a budget-busting $295 billion highway bill. Such as a potential trade and currency war with China backed by Sen. Smoot Schumer and Sen. Hawley Graham. Does anyone remember the 1930s?

Atlas Evicted

To this day I refuse to use the name "Zimbabwe" to refer to the nation formerly known as Rhodesia. This is because Zimbabwe is the name given by its current dictator, Robert Mugabe.

In Ayn Rand's seminal novel 'Atlas Shrugged' the men (and women) of ability voluntarily withdrew themselves from the unjust collectivized society in which they lived. The result was the collapse of that society. But this is just fiction.

Now in Zimbabwe, err... Rhodesia, we have a real-life example of what happens when the producers are removed from society. The difference is that the moron Mugabe removed them himself!

Courtesy of Cox&Forkum, here is the story of Mugabe's admission of failure.

Auf Wiedersehen

Herr Scroeder is in a little trouble in German Politics.

Larry Kudlow points out an interetsing trend:

It's also interesting to note that Bush, Howard, and Blair -- all pro-war heads of state -- won re-election. With this defeat, Schroeder's hopes are dimming. Chirac is in trouble too. Maybe the war isn't as unpopular internationally as the press would have us believe. Could it be that, even in the heart of Old Europe, pro-war capitalism trumps anti-war socialism?

Big "R" Prosperity

I think it was Jay Nordlinger who opined that, while President Bush seems to get a lot of things wrong -- steel tariffs, Senator Kennedy's Education Bill, fat farm and highway bills -- the President gets the big things right: Iraq, freedom, tax cuts.

His signature tax cuts were brutally derided by the Democrats in the last election. But the stats are up, and the Laffer Curve trumps Rubinomics. WSJ Ed Page:

So we thought our readers might like to know that so far this year federal tax revenues are booming. Overall, in the first seven months of Fiscal Year 2005 through April 30, they climbed by $146 billion to a total of $1.216 trillion. That's an increase of 13.6% over a year earlier, some four or five times the inflation rate, and the kind of raise that most American families can only dream about. Income tax receipts are driving this windfall, with individual revenues up $66 billion, or 16%, to $547 billion. Corporate income taxes are rolling in even faster, tsunami-like in fact, rising 48% to $134 billion.
[...]
There are several lessons here, starting with the fact that somebody is earning all that extra income that the feds are getting their share of. The economy has been doing better than media coverage admits, with growth lifting employment and incomes and thus the federal fisc. This revenue boom also is taking place in the wake of the 2003 reduction in dividend, capital gains and marginal income tax rates that Robert Rubin and other worthies predicted would be fiscally disastrous. Apologies accepted.

The "deficit" problem, in short, is not on the revenue side of the ledger. Tax revenues as a share of the economy fell sharply from their Clintonian (post World War II) heights after September 11. But they are now climbing back toward their modern historical average in the neighborhood of 17% to 18% of GDP. This will happen even at the lower Bush tax rates -- or shall we say, because of them -- since as incomes rise more Americans are pushed into higher tax brackets.

It's amazing, amid these results, that some Republicans are reluctant to make the 2003 tax cuts permanent. They should be advertising that their tax policies have helped the economy and will continue to do so if they are extended. The best solution for federal red ink is continued prosperity combined with spending restraint and entitlement reform, not a tax increase.

Big "R" Collectivism

JK just wrote about the principles behind the modern "D" and "R" parties, and how the Republicans have co-opted all of the popular ideas of the old Democrat party for their own. (No, he didn't actually say that but this is the gist of the matter.) Now I'll show you why it's true.

I realize that the President was making his remarks to the graduates of a Christian college, and he did say that "...ultimately, service is up to you. It is your choice to make." But this short commencement speech contains the nutshell version of what is wrong with the philosophy of President Bush and the faith-based Republican party.

On an occasion where the leader of the free world is giving advice to those about to "...take your rightful place in a country that offers you the greatest freedom and opportunity on Earth" he advises them to, "...use what you’ve learned to make your own contributions to the story of American freedom." What contributions does he have in mind? Invent the next cotton gin? Find a cure for cancer? No. Instead he advises them, "...we must never turn away from any citizen who feels isolated from the opportunities of America."

The President claimed, based in part upon the writings of de Tocqueville, that:

Our Founders rejected both a radical individualism that makes no room for others, and the dreary collectivism that crushes the individual. They gave us instead a society where individual freedom is anchored in communities. And in this hopeful new century, we have a great goal: to renew this spirit of community and thereby renew the character and compassion of our nation.

This simple phrase lumps individual accomplishment with the horrific failures of communist and socialist societies, and is an affront to the sacrifices of those who fought and died for the ideals this country truly represents - chief among them, liberty. Individual freedom is anchored not in "communities" but in capitalism, property rights and objective law. To say it is based in "communities" is little different than the collectivist mantra that our duty is to "the state" or "our comrades."

Again, there is nothing wrong with voluntary charity and assistance to others, provided that the individual doing the giving has made a judgement that doing so is of personal value to himself. And the President isn't seeking to make such "service to others" mandatory, at least not yet. But the message is clear: Service to others is more important than service to yourself and your own family.

For all of this president's virtues, this philosophical weakness is deeply troubling. It's what has me leery of his judicial appointments, although Janice Rogers Brown gives me great hope.

UPDATE (23 May, 3:08 pm): Emphasis in sixth paragraph added in response to JK's comment.

Political Poker

Culture note: Am I the last guy who doesn't get the poker craze? I watched a little on TV last night, and I'm not sure I understand the fascination.

Dan Henninger of the WSJ Ed Page does, and he pens a nice riff on the Democrats' hand after the past few elections:

If the nation's most popular sport now is poker, then the Democrats have become the party of the constant inside straight. They hold a politically competitive hand, but not a winning hand. They've got public-sector labor unions and a re-energized left that is young, willing and wealthy. But as luck would have it, we've entered the post-public era.

The public-sector ascendancy ran from the New Deal to 1981, when Ronald Reagan fired the striking flight controllers to popular applause. The workaday world for most people now is defined by markets without borders. This unstoppable reality is the Republican margin of victory, and it leaves the Democrats leaderless in a strange land. Bill Clinton is now a sainted Democratic figure, but no one seems to quite recall what he stood for. The party knows that any future victory lies with the wagon train of voters moving to the outer suburbs, but so far it has no competitive message for these folks other than, call home.

There are large rifts in the GOP these days, and a smart opposition party could exploit them. But I think that the Ds are so tightly-coupled to their constituency groups, that they are unable to make a serious play for any disaffected Rs.

I tell people that "Republicans promise more liberty and frequently fail; Democrats promise less and frequently succeed." They cannot become the party of liberty and keep the progressives and the public sector members, they cannot be the social conservatives, cannot become the party that is tough on immigration.

They can play the separation of church and state angle, but it is hard to see them parlaying that into a plurality. That would be like drawing an inside straight.

Santorum Kerfuffle

Senator Santorum said the following on the floor of the Senate...

"Some are suggesting we're trying to change the law, we're trying to break the rules," said Sen. Rick Santorum (R., Pa). "Remarkable. Remarkable hubris. I mean, imagine - the rule has been in place for 214 years that this is the way we confirm judges. Broken by the other side two years ago. And the audacity of some members to stand up and say, 'How dare you break this rule?' It's the equivalent of Adolf Hitler in 1942 saying: 'I'm in Paris. How dare you invade me? How dare you bomb my city? It's mine.' "

That being said, the point he so clumsily was trying to make would have been the same if the Senator had said, "It's the equivalent of Saddam Hussein in 1991 saying: 'I'm in Kuwait City, How dare you invade me? How dare you bomb my city?"

Or, "It's the equivalent of Tojo in 1941 saying: 'I'm in Seoul, How dare you invade me? How dare you bomb my city?"

You can replace any leader with a year and an invaded city.

I probably would NOT have chosen Hitler and the Nazis, but that's the thrust of it. No. I'm not excusing it.

Now the Senator is already regretting it.

Predictably though the left wing of the blogosphere is a little upset.

DailyKos did some linking.

Atrios:

Once upon a time an organziation called Move On (or probably Move On Pac, forget which) ran a little ad creation contest. The initial submissions, of which there were many, weren't really screened by the organization, and a couple of them admittedly crossed the line by making Bush/Nazi comparisons. Those ads were yanked immediately by the organization, but are nonetheless used to this day by the liberal media to smear Move On as an irresponsible "extremist" organization.

Now we have the junior Senator from Pennsylvania comparing the entire Senate Dem caucus to Adolf Hitler. Will the "Move On" standard of the liberal media still apply?

Comparing Senate rules to this is like shitting on the WWII memorial. This isn't the equivilent of Hitler saying anything. The cheap use of history shows the Senator from Tyson's Corner needs to read his history closer. In between trying to murder people by pimping for Accuweather and dragging his dead fetus around for a bit of family show and tell, he wants to denigrate history and sacrifice as well. We all know Santorum wants to sit in the big house, but he's just another blowdried freak who thinks Jesus speaks to him personally and he's the lord's servant.

How easily he compared his collegues to oh, Nazis. You mean John Kerry and Tom Harkin are gonna show up to his house with some of their war buddies and toss hin into a van? He's gonna do slave labor for Micahel Moore? Clean Barbra Streisand's house? Exactly how are his Democratic collegues like the Nazis? Are they meeting at Greenbrier for the final solution of the Republican Party? Are camps being built in the Sonoran desert for Republicans and will they have their property stolen?

Santorum, like so many Republicans, forget that being a public official has responsibilities which go beyond party. One of them is to not unfairly malign the loyal opposition. That is a responsibility of goverrnment, of his office. And he seems not to get it.

Josh Marshall:

Did Rick Santorum really just say that?

Late Update: It seems he really did. Amazing.

Carpetbaggerreport:

The man is clearly not well. It’s time for him to go.

It was bad enough when Bill Frist suggested yesterday that Dems want to “assassinate” Bush nominees, but Santorum’s Hitler analogy suggests Republicans have really lost all sense of perspective and decency.

Youngphillypolitics:

Now, our good friend Rick Santorum, he who compared being gay to practicing beastiality, has compared Senate Democrats to... Adolf Hitler. Imagine, just imagine, the reaction if Harry Reid or Dick Durbin did this. We need to push this far and wide, and demand that the Media pays attention.
As Chuck Pennacchio says:

As an historian of Holocaust-era Germany, I find Rick Santorum’s comment to be offensive, divisive, and destructive. Rick Santorum should immediately issue a public apology, and then retreat with conscience to consider the lasting damage he has done to the United States Senate and to the memory of 12 million Holocaust victims.

His number is 202-224-6324. Call him tomorrow, and let him know how inappropriate his remarks were.

Casual followers of the filibuster debate will remember that this was not the first time that Nazism and Hitler were invoked.
Senator Byrd of West Virginia in March said the following...

Many times in our history we have taken up arms to protect a minority against the tyrannical majority in other lands. We, unlike Nazi Germany or Mussolini’s Italy, have never stopped being a nation of laws, not of men.

But witness how men with motives and a majority can manipulate law to cruel and unjust ends. Historian Alan Bullock writes that Hitler’s dictatorship rested on the constitutional foundation of a single law, the Enabling Law. Hitler needed a two-thirds vote to pass that law, and he cajoled his opposition in the Reichstag to support it. Bullock writes that “Hitler was prepared to promise anything to get his bill through, with the appearances of legality preserved intact.” And he succeeded.

Hitler’s originality lay in his realization that effective revolutions, in modern conditions, are carried out with, and not against, the power of the State: the correct order of events was first to secure access to that power and then begin his revolution. Hitler never abandoned the cloak of legality; he recognized the enormous psychological value of having the law on his side. Instead, he turned the law inside out and made illegality legal.

And that is what the nuclear option seeks to do to Rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate.

Given that Santorum had asked for a retraction of Byrd statement, it's even dumber for him to use a similar analogy. What was he thinking?

Out of curiousity, I went to google, and tried to find equivalent denunciations of or indignation at Senator Byrd's speech.

I searched for Byrd hitler and using the site: operator in google. The actual searches are linked, as well as links to early march posts (where available). I also searched those pages for any mention of Byrd.

Here's what I found:

Kos: byrd hitler had a lot of links... so I searched part of Byrd's speech. Nothing.
I could not find an archive link.

Atrios: Nothing of value on Google.
Even in his archives.

Steve Gilliard: Same.
His archives end in 2004.

Josh Marshall: Nothing.
Josh's archives.

The Carpet Bagger Report: More of the same. Nothing.
Archives? More of the same.

Youngphillypolitics: nothing.
Appropriate archive? Nothing again.

Obviously, if I can be pointed to the right post, I will link it with retraction.

For all of the sturm und drang (and I think rightly so) over Rick Santorum's dickstepping, there is very little comment about the former Klansman's comments just over three months ago.

And in a similar context.

Maybe he's just the old crazy drunk uncle they'd prefer to lock in the basement.

Or maybe it's just hypocrisy.

Addendum: The more I think about it, the more I think that if there were no Hitler mention, this would have been a pretty unremarkable statement.

Saddam - Zarqawi Connection

Despite claims to the contrary, WMDs weren't the only reason that Iraq was invaded in 2003.
One of the reasons was because Saddam Hussein's regime supported terrorists.
Guys like Zarqawi.

Speaking in an interview with Saudi daily al-Hayat, [Jordanian King] Abdullah said Zarqawi, a Jordanian, is well entrenched in Iraq and that "he and terrorists like him thrive in such places where security and stability are non-existent."

Abdullah said Jordan was the first target for Zarqawi before he found safe haven in Iraq.

"Since Zarqawi entered Iraq before the fall of the former regime we have been trying to have him deported back to Jordan for trial, but our efforts were in vain," Abdullah added.

(tip to CQ)

Gold Plated Bus Stop

File this under Are You F*cking Kidding Me?

Tom Wilson is faced with a problem many city administrators would envy: How to spend $1.5 million on a bus stop.

Wilson, Anchorage's director of public transportation, has all that money for a new and improved bus stop outside the Anchorage Museum of History and Art thanks to Republican Sen. Ted Stevens - fondly referred to by Alaskans as "Uncle Ted" for his prodigious ability to secure federal dollars for his home state.

Wilson is prepared to think big.

The bus stop there now is a simple steel-and-glass, three-sided enclosure. Wilson wants better lighting and seating. He also likes the idea of heated sidewalks that would remain free of snow and ice. And he thinks electronic signs would be nice.

It's senseless spending like this that is really making a lot of people disillusioned with the Republican party.

What ever happened to fiscal restraint?

Sure, it's great if you're an Alaskan, but for the rest of us, I say, "what the f*ck?"

The party of smaller government starts with cutting taxes. But it shouldn't end there. Cutting spending is the next step.

We're not seeing it. The Democrats certainly aren't going to provide it. The Libertarians are far too academic and weird to get it done.

Where's the party of financial restraint?

"We have a senator that gave us that money and I certainly won't want to appear ungrateful," he said. At the same time, he does not want the public to think the city is wasting the money. So "if it only takes us $500,000 to do it, that's what we will spend."

Thanks to Alaska-born ATG, who writes "The current bus stop works fine, I drive by it every day!"

Pepsi Boycott?

I don't call for boycotts lightly. There is usually a better way -- BUT, I don't think I'll be buying Pepsi products (I don't consume much).

Have you seen the story of PepsiCo president Indra Nooyi at the Columbia Business School MBA recognition ceremony? She likened the five continents to the five fingers and cautioned the students that the U.S. appeared to "give the finger" to the world. (I wonder that she wasn't making hateful remarks about the great nation of Mexico...)

A soldier writes to PowerBlog with a different interpretation:

I found Ms. Nooyi's graduation comments offensive, not to mention off-base, because the central theme of her speech was that America is, in essence, "flipping off the world."

I am in Iraq, and served previously in Afghanistan. Many Americans have given their lives to liberate those nations from tyranny. In that light, I offer a few examples of "fingers" in those places that might present Ms. Nooyi a more substantive representation of American presence abroad than a trivial story of a rude traveler.

For example, she could ride on a combat patrol here and use her fingers to return the waves that I see on every mission from some of the over eight million Iraqis whose fingers were stained with purple ink following voting in the first democratic elections after decades of tyranny. She might notice her fingers moistened by sweat as she unconsciously gripped her armrest, noticing a tinge of fear from attack by a roadside bomb--the same fear felt by myself and every other American on Iraq’s roads.

In Afghanistan, many children and parents stick their thumbs straight up when Americans pass, demonstrating gratefulness for no longer living under the Taliban. I drove by Kabul University a while back and saw two young girls using their fingers to carry the books that represent the freedom to pursue education now enjoyed by Afghan women.

Now, a question that begs an answer: Does Ms. Nooyi consider that freedom an example of America "giving the world the finger," or "giving the world a hand?"

In the meantime, I will stop consuming Pepsico products and encourage others to do the same. Please remember, it is this country, and the brave men and women who defend it, that provided the free enterprise system that allowed your company to become a global corporate power. I would hope that Pepsi senior executives would show more respect for this great country. Perhaps the troops who enjoy your products would hope so as well.

UPDATE: Heh.

Only Ten Percent?

The WSJ Ed Page is on my favorite soapbox again today: The FDA vs. Cancer Patients. The piece ends with "Who would have thought that, five years into a Republican Administration, the FDA would be staffed by people who regard industry as an adversary, not a partner, in the anti-cancer fight."

It seems that the gains made by Dr. McClellan that I supported are being undone by anti-business bureaucrats.

The next thing to watch for is the fate of AstraZeneca's lung-cancer drug Iressa, which Dr. Pazdur is signaling he may actually pull from the market as one of those "low efficacy" drugs. True, Iressa helps only about 10% of patients. But those who respond to it respond massively. "I've had patients who have gone from being on oxygen to skiing at altitude," says one doctor of the drug. Genetic tests are being developed to better predict who will respond to Iressa. Yet Dr. Pazdur seems to regard the FDA's Iressa approval in 2003 as an instance of the drug industry getting away with one. Incredible.

Maybe I am too close to this. I know there's a war on and I know we have justices to confirm. But how long can we allow our government to kill innocent citizens and chase capital out of the pharmaceutical sector?

All Hail: Janice Rogers Brown

JK brought us Glenn Reynolds attitude on the Senate confimation battle over Federal judges today: "If I thought that Bush were likely to nominate actual small-government strict constructionists to the Supreme Court, perhaps I'd care more, but I've seen no sign that he's likely to do that."

I'll admit to a certain apathy as this week's showdown approached. "Who are these judicial nominees" I wondered. "Do the liberals oppose them because they want to overturn Roe or because they want to roll back the welfare state?" In one instance I would be supportive, but in the other I'd probably side with the fillibusterers. In the four years since the disputed nominees were first presented I don't recall seeing or hearing much about their views. There was much about who liked them and who didn't, but little by the way of describing why.

Right on cue, it's Rush Limbaugh to the rescue. On his show today he read aloud from the transcript of a speech to the Federalist Society in Chicago. To wit:

The great innovation of this millennium was equality before the law. The greatest fiasco — the attempt to guarantee equal outcomes for all people. Tom Bethell notes that the security of property — a security our Constitution sought to ensure — had to be devalued in order for collectivism to come of age. The founders viewed private property as "the guardian of every other right."9 But, "by 1890 we find Alfred Marshall, the teacher of John Maynard Keynes making the astounding claim that the need for private property reaches no deeper than the qualities of human nature."10 A hundred years later came Milton Friedman's laconic reply: " 'I would say that goes pretty deep.'"11 In between, came the reign of socialism. "Starting with the formation of the Fabian Society and ending with the fall of the Berlin Wall, its ambitious project was the reformation of human nature. Intellectuals visualized a planned life without private property, mediated by the New Man."12 He never arrived. As John McGinnis persuasively argues: "There is simply a mismatch between collectivism on any large and enduring scale and our evolved nature. As Edward O. Wilson, the world's foremost expert on ants, remarked about Marxism, 'Wonderful theory. Wrong species.'"13

Ayn Rand similarly attributes the collectivist impulse to what she calls the "tribal view of man."14 She notes, "[t]he American philosophy of the Rights of Man was never fully grasped by European intellectuals. Europe's predominant idea of emancipation consisted of changing the concept of man as a slave to the absolute state embodied by the king, to the concept of man as the slave of
the absolute state as embodied by 'the people' — i.e., switching from slavery to a tribal chieftain into slavery to the tribe."15

Democracy and capitalism seem to have triumphed. But, appearances can be deceiving. Instead of celebrating capitalism's virtues, we offer it grudging acceptance, contemptuous tolerance but only for its capacity to feed the insatiable maw of socialism. We do not conclude that socialism suffers
from a fundamental and profound flaw. We conclude instead that its ends are worthy of any sacrifice — including our freedom. Revel notes that Marxism has been "shamed and ridiculed everywhere except American universities" but only after totalitarian systems "reached the limits of their wickedness."

For a reason I could only speculate, Rush skipped the middle paragraph that cited Rand. The important thing is, Brown didn't.

The rest of this speech is insightful, intelligent and witty. She even references Procol Harum! I can't wait to read it in its entirety. More importantly, upon brief review Janice Rogers Brown appears to be a perfect choice for the federal bench and, ultimately, the Supreme Court.

Ouch!

I've been pretty kind to the President of late -- it's time for "equal time."

Seriously, I was very impressed with the Russian trip (as was Natan Sharansky -- did you catch him on Kudlow & Co.?) but it is hard to argue with Perfesser Reynolds

[...]but this seems to me to be a purely political fight, and one I'm not terribly interested in. If I thought that Bush were likely to nominate actual small-government strict constructionists to the Supreme Court, perhaps I'd care more, but I've seen no sign that he's likely to do that.

But Is It Really?

One for Best of the Web....
As seen on philly.com

Contradictions

I owe a heavy debt to Jonah Goldberg of NRO. He has made me laugh for many years, he got me to break down and read Burke, he has published serious,. substantive pieces on Title IX and ANWR, his "The Simpsons" references are always spot-on -- and he helped push me over the line into watching "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer."

One of his best NRO columns was a taxonomy of conservatives. I disagreed with some fine points, but he described neocons, paleocons, crunchycons, et cetera cons... pretty accurately, with his trademark wit.

When I saw his "What Is a Conservative" column last week, though, I thought "Brother Jonah, you may have gone to the well with this one too many times." But I retract that. A) It's a reprint of an earlier essay, and B) His thesis has really stuck with me and haunted me. Conservatives, Goldberg points out, have "Comfort with contradiction."

But move away from philosophy and down to earth. Liberals and leftists are constantly denouncing “false choices” of one kind or another. In our debate, Jonathan Chait kept hinting, hoping, and haranguing that — one day — we could have a socialized healthcare system without any tradeoffs of any kind. Environmentalists loathe the introduction of free-market principles into the policy-making debate because, as Steven Landsburg puts it, economics is the science of competing preferences. Pursuing some good things might cost us other good things. But environmentalists reject the very idea. They believe that all good things can go together and that anything suggesting otherwise is a false choice.

Listen to Democratic politicians when they wax righteous about social policy. Invariably it goes something like this: “I simply reject the notion that in a good society X should have to come at the expense of Y.” X can be security and Y can be civil liberties. Or X can be food safety and Y can be the cost to the pocketbook of poor people. Whatever X and Y are, the underlying premise is that in a healthy society we do not have tradeoffs between good things. In healthy societies all good things join hands and walk up the hillside singing I’d like to buy the world a coke.

Well done, Jonah.

$1100 per Square Foot

If I may try to tie together a few recent ThreeSources posts, the common theme of late seems to be Donald Trump. Don't look at me -- I am as surprised as you!

I had passed along the WSJ Ed Page's suggestion that Mr. Trump should complete Ground Zero renovations. Today, Johngalt links to an awesome Mark Steyn column on U.N. Perfidy and incompetence. I must tie in John Hinderacker (of PowerLine fame)'s expose of the next scandal -- a $1.2 Billion renovation of the U.N. Headquarters at Turtle Bay.

That's over $1100/ft2 and Donald Trump says the only explanation why this renovation will cost three times the new construction of his "Trump Tower" is either incompetence or fraud (a Hobson's choice at the ol' UN -- take the first one you find!)

It appears there are serious questions about the U.N.'s renovation project. Depending on which assumptions one accepts about cost and square footage, anywhere from $500 million to $1 billion in expense is unaccounted for. Given the U.N.'s history, is there any reason to doubt that the costs projected by that organization include substantial sums representing, as Trump put it, incompetence or fraud? Given what we know about the oil-for-food program, is there any reason to trust the U.N.'s business or accounting practices?

American taxpayers have a legitimate interest in knowing the answers to these questions. The renovation is to be financed by a low-interest, 30-year, $1.2 billion loan from the U.S. government. (Kofi Annan's original request for an interest-free loan was turned down.) And, of course, the loan will then be repaid largely by American taxpayers, who foot a little over 20 percent of the U.N.'s bills.

I think I've found some budget we can cut, Mr. President!

Bolton's International Form "RU1-2" Not in Order

In America, "money talks and bullshit walks." Seems it's exactly reverse from that at the UN: "Bullshit talks and the money walks" anywhere except where it's intended to go. Mark Steyn writes:

"Which brings me to the John Bolton nomination process, which is taking so long you'd think the U.S. Senate was run by Indonesian customs inspectors. Writing of near-Ambassador Bolton's difficulty getting his paperwork stamped by the Foreign Relations Committee, National Review's Cliff May observed that "the real debate is between those who think the U.N. needs reform -- and those who think the U.S. needs reform.''

Touche!

Any more excerpts than this wouldn't do the piece justice. The whole thing is noteworthy. Enjoy.

Sorry We're with the Taliban

Newsweek lied People died.

NEW YORK - In an apology to readers this week, Newsweek acknowledged errors in a story alleging U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo Bay desecrated the Quran. The accusations, which the magazine vowed to re-examine, spawned protests in Afghanistan that left 15 dead and scores injured.
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Responding to harsh criticism from Muslim leaders worldwide, the Pentagon promised to investigate the charges and pinned the deadly clashes on Newsweek for what it described as "irresponsible" reporting.
"We regret that we got any part of our story wrong, and extend our sympathies to victims of the violence and to the U.S. soldiers caught in its midst," Editor Mark Whitaker wrote in the apology.

Chairman Dean

Governor Dean becoming the DNC Chairman was the best thing that could have happened for the Republicans in the past few years.
He provides plenty of material.

Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Party, said yesterday that the US House majority leader, Tom DeLay, ''ought to go back to Houston where he can serve his jail sentence," referring to allegations of unethical conduct against the Republican leader.

Dean's remark, in a speech to Massachusetts Democrats at their party convention, drew an immediate rebuke from US Representative Barney Frank, the Newton Democrat and one of DeLay's harshest critics. ''That's just wrong," Frank said in an interview on the convention floor. ''I think Howard Dean was out of line talking about DeLay. The man has not been indicted. I don't like him, I disagree with some of what he does, but I don't think you, in a political speech, talk about a man as a criminal or his jail sentence."

If only Chairman Dean would listen to a sound voice from within his own party.

This morning I am making a heartfelt plea to you, Mr. President. When you came to Washington, you said you wanted to change the climate in D.C., which can be fraught with partisan bickering and politics.

Below the Border-Above the Law

I have to ask, why would any Mexican national ever want to become a U.S. citizen? They have more rights as illegal aliens than we do as citizens!

Driving without insurance or a license in America? No problem, just show your Mexican driver's license (ink need not be dry) or your Matricula Consular card. It worked for one Raul Garcia-Gomez, and kept him out of jail and unmolested by federal immigration agents while he lived and worked freely in Denver, Colorado.

Why is Garcia-Gomez of particular note? Because he murdered a police detective last Sunday and has since fled the state and, almost certainly, left the country bound for safe-haven in Mexico. Having done so, and since Mexican nationals have more rights than US citizens, he will likely get away with murder. Not because he has the wealth and celebrity of OJ Simpson. Not because he has connections through his employment at a restaurant co-owned by Denver's mayor. But because the Mexican government will not extradite capital criminal suspects to the US for fear they may be put to death if found guilty. Even worse, Colorado congressman Tom Tancredo informed Denver radio listeners this week that Mexico even refuses if the possible sentence is life in prision. It seems that is "cruel and unusual punishment" in their eyes as well.

That settles it. A national neighbor that is so intransigent on cooperative criminal justice will just have its citizens declared personna non-grata in our country, right? Wrong. Major cities across America, including Denver, actually ENCOURAGE the immigration of those citizens, despite Federal laws that forbid it. Worse than that, the President of the United States knows that hundreds of thousands of people illegally cross the border from Mexico into the US every year, despite federal border agents whose principal duty is to prevent it. He also knows that this illegal entry could be virtually eliminated with a stroke of his pen, yet he calls private American citizens who volunteer their own time and resources to stem the tide "vigilantes." This is disgraceful.

Mister President, I am your most ardent supporter, but if you don't reverse your position on this aspect of securing the homeland then you are ignoring the most basic aspect of individual liberty - the right to be secure in your person and your property and to seek justice against those who violate that right.

As I drove north along Interstate 25 this morning, on my way to work in Loveland, I saw a procession of police cars headed south that was over a mile long. With sirens silent and overheads blinking, officers from Weld and Larimer counties, cities of Fredrick, Dacono, Fort Collins and Cheyenne, and certainly dozens more I didn't identify made the solemn journey to Denver for the funeral of a slain officer. As I was witnessing this tearful sight I heard Peter Boyles report on KHOW that a Fox News reporter had learned that Garcia-Gomez's mother had purchased a bus ticket from L.A. to Mexico on Monday. Garcia-Gomez's car was found in L.A. this week. Justice for dective Young's family? No cuente en él.

UPDATE: JK asks "what draconian order do you want pen-stroked that would comport with your idea of a free state?" My answer, in a nutshell, is "direct your officials in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to create and institute plans to ensure that foreign nationals who attempt to cross our borders without permission will be (a) detected, (b) apprehended and (c) either removed from this country or detained for appropriate punishment under the law." This language comes from a petition to the President. Go here to add your voice to the call.

Go Bolton!

William Kristol compares "The Borking of Bolton" to the Borking of, er, Bork.

In this respect, the fight over Bolton is like the fight over Bork. One hoped-for effect of Bork's defeat was to deter possible candidates for the Court from even considering certain judicial interpretations--just as the assault, in different circumstances, on Lawrence Summers at Harvard is intended to rule out of bounds the raising of certain questions in the academy. Bork's defeat had real consequences: 18 years of intellectual mediocrity and constitutional incoherence from the Supreme Court. Only now do we have the prospect of once again advancing a constitutionalist reformation for the courts.

Similarly, if the Bolton nomination is lost, there will be real consequences, as presidential appointees start shying away from tough decisions, confrontations with the permanent foreign policy bureaucracy, and "controversial" ideas so as not to be "Boltoned." Republicans lost the Bork fight--partly through failures of nerve and intelligence--and the country has paid a price in constitutional jurisprudence. Now, however, there is a Republican Congress and a determined president--and also, perhaps, a greater willingness to undertake such fights among conservatives. A good thing, too, for we could pay almost as great a price in foreign policy if the Borking of Bolton is allowed to succeed.

Comparative Advantage

I love TechCentralStation.com. You get an adult daily dose of economics, market news, and junk-science-debunking from a libertarian perspective.

The last couple of days have included a few good health care pieces. One discusses European drug manufacturers' choice to focus on generics. This will help them with the bottom line in price-controlled, socialist markets. But this will not provide capital for R&D, so we should not look to the EU nations for any more medical innovation.

Another discusses "Activist Medicine." Unlike Activist judges, activist medicine is not necessarily a pejorative, just a reference to using all resources to diagnose and treat every illness. My wife's life was saved six weeks ago by activist medicine but I still see Kling's point: Can we afford to throw everything at every case?

But the one that gets excerpted is A Passage to Indian Health Care which describes the advantages of traveling to India for inexpensive, high quality health care.

Medical tourism to India started fairly recently when NRIs (non-resident Indians -- those living and working in the West) began to go "home" to India seeking not just their roots, but root canals. They returned with killer smiles and tales of the staggering savings in costs -- even factoring in airfares -- and excellence of treatment. NRIs, aware from their families of India's state-of-the-art technology and the level of surgical skill, also head off "home" for more critical treatment, like kidney transplants, hip replacements and open heart surgery. Indeed, India's 20 million diaspora returning to the US and Britain after successful treatment are India's best ambassadors.

Britons plagued by their socialist and inefficient National Health Service waiting lists (people diagnosed with cancer or degenerative heart disease can wait for an operation for a year or even more) and Americans who didn't keep up their health insurance after retiring -- or never had any -- are now choosing their hospitals and surgeons on the internet and booking their flights to India. And to make it even easier, there are medical tourism companies in India who will take care of all these details for them.

Now, some enterprising hospitals offer greet-and-treat services with an all-inclusive health-tourist package, including the desired medical procedure, hotel, air travel, bookings and admissions to popular tourist attractions. And India has the overwhelming advantage being Anglophone.

Condi '08 Part LXVI

Our diversity is our strength here at ThreeSources, but one thing we tend to agree on is support for our Second Amendment rights.

I humbly submit this as yet another reason to support our Secretary of State in oh-Eight.

"Gay gun nut" Alphecca agrees:

Rice said the Founding Fathers understood "there might be circumstances that people like my father experienced in Birmingham, Ala., when, in fact, the police weren't going to protect you."

"I also don't think we get to pick and choose from the Constitution," she said in the interview, which was taped for airing Wednesday night. "The Second Amendment is as important as the First Amendment."

That does it! Since all the TV talking-heads are already speculating about 2008, and as a mostly one-issue voter, I'm throwing my support behind Dr. Condoleezza Rice for President. That is, unless Glenn finally does pick up the gauntlet!

Seriously though, there are no appealing candidates standing out right now for the coming (well, in two years anyway) primaries. Rice has always struck me as far more moderate than many on her side of the aisle. While I am "pro-life" I am not rabidly so and can live with her being not rabidly "pro-choice". I suspect she could care less about banning "gay marriage" or other issues of the far-right and she's clearly comfortable with the notion of defending our nation from the mutants who threaten it.

There's no-one on the Democratic side that I could bring myself to vote for. Hillary? Not in this lifetime. Rudy? Hopelessly anti-2A.

Hat-tip: Instapundit

Academentia

Wow. When you've got 15 minutes for some serious contemplation I submit Roger Kimball's ascerbic dissertation on the self-destructive virus that has infected American academia. It's got it all, from gender studies to Ward Churchill, concluding with advice to reform (or abolish) academic tenure and to cut off the capitalist life-blood from these dysfunctional institutions.

I offer a few morsels:

With a few notable exceptions, our most prestigious liberal arts colleges and universities have installed the entire radical menu at the center of their humanities curriculum at both the undergraduate and the graduate levels. Every special interest--women's studies, black studies, gay studies, and the like --and every modish interpretative gambit--deconstruction, post-structuralism, new historicism, and other postmodernist varieties of what the literary critic Frederick Crews aptly dubbed "Left Eclecticism"--has found a welcome roost in the academy, while the traditional curriculum [mathematics, history, literature, science] and modes of intellectual inquiry [logic and the scientific method] are excoriated as sexist, racist, or just plain reactionary. (Examples mine.)

(...)

Ms.--or is it Mr.?--Currah is quite right to conjure up Herbert Marcuse. The German-born radical, who died in 1979, was indeed an important '60s guru. But he was more than that. In his "protests against the repressive order of procreative sexuality" and insistence that genuine liberation requires a return to a state of "primary narcissism," Marcuse sounds a very contemporary note. Such a "change in the value and scope of libidinal relations," he wrote in "Eros and Civilization," "would lead to a disintegration of the institutions in which the private interpersonal relations have been organized, particularly the monogamic and patriarchal family."

Said disintigration of the private interpersonal organization called the monogamic and patriarchal family is precisely the goal of the present-day "gay marriage" movement, and is precisely why that movement must be firmly opposed. "Civil unions" are just fine, but the "gay marriage" "right" they insist upon has no purpose but to destroy traditional marriage as an institution.

John Silber, the former president of Boston University, summed up the fate of academic freedom in his essay "Poisoning the Wells of Academe." Originally, Mr. Silber observed, academic freedom "entailed an immunity for what is said and done by dedicated, thoughtful, conscientious scholars in pursuit of truth or the truest account":

Now it came to entail, rather, an immunity for whatever is said and done, responsibly or carelessly, within or without the walls of academia, by persons unconcerned for the truth; who, reckless, incompetent, frivolous or even malevolent, promulgate ideas for which they can claim no expertise, or even commit deeds for which they can claim no sanction of law.

This is what Mr. Silber referred to as "the absolute concept of academic freedom," according to which "the academic can say whatever he pleases about whatever he pleases, whenever and wherever he pleases, and be fully immune from unpleasant consequences." The case of Ward Churchill--and this is a bit of good news to emerge from this sorry scenario--suggests that that may be about to change.

(...)

One corollary of society's natural obedience to the unenforceable is the tendency to assume that those institutions in which we have invested great trust are inherently trustworthy. "Academic institutions are expensive, socially respected bodies whose imprimatur is a powerful door-opener and tool of accreditation, ergo they must be doing a good job." Some such sentiment is the prevailing one, so when someone like Ward Churchill comes along to remove the scab, the shock is great--and unwelcome. One of the chief tasks for critics of what has happened to academic life in this country is to show the extent to which Ward Churchill, the Kirkland Project, the transgender follies at Smith College and elsewhere, and similar deformations are not exceptions but the predictable result of institutions that have gradually abandoned their commitment to education for the sake of radical posturing. The prime difficulty facing the aspirant diagnostician is not the elusiveness of symptoms--they are florid and ubiquitous--but the patience required to set forth chapter and verse repeatedly and in language that effectively conveys the depredations on view.

Amen, NED, amen.

Georgia On His Mind

Sorry to be so in the pocket of a politician, but this President continues to impress with his brave stands for freedom, and what Sharansky called "moral clarity."

Gateway Pundit sez

George and Laura Bush were treated like rock stars in the fledgling democracy of Georgia today. And, George gave one of his amazing speeches to the people of this former Soviet State.