Sarah Bear, Locked and Loaded for 2014

[caroljane]

My temptation is to say, "I sure wish she were smarter." This has nothing to do with her politics.

But a little bit of reflection reveals that most politicians are not very smart. So why should this sin be held against Sarah?

I am not sure if MSK is painting a rosy picture of her overall record or not, but which politician in the past X years has an unblemished record when it comes to the issues of importance to those who visit this site?

And yet, and yet...I can't get around the fact that she seems to be a pea-brained bullshit artist. That's what my gut tells me, I am afraid.

I had sort of hoped she would go away. She has taken her 20 minutes of fame into double-overtime, but I suppose we could do worse.

Having carefully read this thread and observed Palin over the years (always loving her hair and glasses) I have to say that my innards agree with yours. I just get this feeling, this woman has never willingly read a book in her life, and doesn't think there's anything to be learned from them.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Heh.

This is exactly the problem of being weened (oops, later edit, I mean:) weaned on media mythology in the progressive tribe: (In the conservative tribe, too.)

The facts are don't matter against a derogatory opinion when someone who contradicts the narrative appears.

That's the culture people learned up here--from childhood on up--and that's just the way people are.

It's not even their fault.

Man, am I glad I spent 30 years in Brazil. I never thought I would say this, but Brazil has a far more honest news profession than here in the USA, and, frankly, they suck on honesty down there.

WRITING ANALYSTS CLAIM PALIN WRITES ‘BETTER THAN MOST EDUCATED AMERICANS’
Billy Hallowell
June 15, 2011
TheBlaze

From the article:

AOL Weird News brought samples to two writing analysts who independently evaluated 24,000 pages of the former governor’s emails. They came back in agreement that Palin composed her messages at an eighth-grade level, an excellent score for a chief executive, they said.

“I’m a centrist Democrat, and would have loved to support my hunch that Ms. Palin is illiterate,” said 2tor Chief Executive Officer John Katzman.

“However, the emails say something else. Ms. Palin writes emails on her Blackberry at a grade level of 8.5.

“If she were a student and showing me her work, I’d say ‘It’s fine, clear writing,’” he said, admitting that emails he wrote scored lower than Palin’s on the widely used Flesch-Kincaid readability test.

There's more on the link.

Someone who puts out 24,000 emails in a relatively short time at a writing level higher than average CEO's definitely is friends with books.

Michael

[caroljane]

Michael, weaning has nothing to do with it. I never said Palin was uneducated or unable to write good English, let alone illiterate, nor did I ever think it despite the media traps she was set during the campaign. I said my visceral impression of her was of someone who did not read (not was unable to). My own son read nothing but Sports Illustrated throughout his teenage years and only graduated from high school, but I would vote for him for public office .Not only because he now reads books either.

I have the same impression of Jane Fonda btw. She had quite a leftist political presence and I thought she was on the correct side, but I also felt she knew nothing of her own knowledge, but was only reciting lines she had learned from other people. Of course she was a pretty good actress. I think Palin is a better one, because she is only portraying herself.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Carol,

Reporting on an interview Sarah gave Barbara Walters:

Sarah Palin Reveals Her Reading List
By LUCY MADISON
CBS NEWS
December 9, 2010

"I read anything and everything that I can get my hands on as I have since I was a little girl," Palin told Walters in the excerpt released today.

. . .

So what's her current reading material of choice?

"I'm reading the best book right now -- Dean Karnazes's book about being an ultra-marathoner. I read a lot of C.S. Lewis when I want some divine inspiration...I read Newsmax and The Wall Street Journal. I read all of our local papers of course in Alaska because that's where my heart is," Palin told Walters.

Palin, who recently released her second book, "America by Heart," is the only person to have made Walters' "10 Most Fascinating People" list three times.

I can do this all day, but I believe the Progressive media narrative speaks stronger to you. And I don't think any amount of facts will change it.

I don't know about Sarah's reading of literature other than C.S. Lewis. Since she was addressing the public myth about her reading in a political sense (thanks to her botched interview with Katie Couric), I think she highlighted the newspapers.

Sarah has written two books, both bestsellers. The first is a memoir where she had a collaborator, and the second seems to be mostly her writing if not all. She is now writing a third book on Christmas.

There is one thing about her reading I will grant you. I seriously doubt she reads much from the approved list of Progressive books.

And don't forget the Holy Bible. She most definitely reads that.

Michael

[caroljane]

Well, something speaks stronger to me than "anything I can get my hands on" consisting of a sports memoir and a childhood classic and a couple of magazines. A constant reader of mature years would have a more voluminous answer, given the circumstances.And to mention that you read your local paper-- that does not even count, everybody reads their local paper, except for Dennis May.

As to the Bible, I do believe she has read that and I have that in common with her. Happy Easter!

[caroljane]

As to "writing" books, surely you do not consider that a sign of superior literacy. As to them best-selling, that is about marketing and/or great good luck. Yes, even for Ayn Rand. She wrote her novels when people were reading them, an d she had an agent and a publisher with big bucks behind her.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Carol,

Don't you find it odd that "I just get this feeling, this woman has never willingly read a book in her life, and doesn't think there's anything to be learned from them" morphs into you're just talking about "sign of superior literacy" when presented with irrefutable facts? But the core Progressive storyline doesn't change?

It's like a cybernetic system where "Sarah Palin is illiterate" is the programmed destination. Facts blow the storyline off course, but the cybernetic sensors detect the detour, the motors rev up and start correcting things to appear reasonable but still get the storyline back on course.

I don't think any fact at all, even if it were that she read the full 100 most important books ever written because she said she liked them (I'm making a hypothetical), could deflect your inner storyteller from that destination.

If such were a fact (and it might be), you would claim she was posing, faking it for image, and didn't understand a word she read.

I'm just ribbing you with a reflection of your own... (er... OK... I'll stop... )

Happy Easter to you, too.

You know you are well loved around here...

Michael

[studiodekadent]

MSK,

Im trying to read Carol charitably here, but I think all she is saying is that Sarah Palin comes off as uneducated and, well, not particularly well-exposed to a very wide variety of different cultures and places.

Now, I know this is anything but proof of being stupid. I know plenty of "educated" people I consider extremely stupid and/or fundamentally demented. And I don't think Sarah Palin is illiterate, but (again, reading Carol charitably) I think that by "never read a book in her life" Carol was speaking metaphorically.

And in my experience, Sarah Palin DOES come off as uneducated (or at least not thoroughly intellectual) and not exactly a 'well-traveled' person with a wide breadth of experiences.

This doesn't make her a bad person, nor does it make her stupid.

But, frankly, it does give her a cultural feel which not everyone likes.

I freely admit I am a bit of an intellectual snob (this is NOT to be confused with elitism - the distinction being that elitists think the 'superior' class has the right to make decisions on behalf of the 'inferior' class, and I do not believe that) (and again, to make it clear, my intellectual snobbery works on intelligence, not educated-ness... plenty of "educated" people are not intelligent as I understand it). Sarah Palin is anything but the kind of person I'd like to sit and have a drink and discussion with (at least at first impression... and for all I know her religionism might mean she'd try and exorcize me as something but this is just me being mean to religionists as usual).

But this doesn't mean she is stupid. Most people, even very "everyday" people, can understand complex abstract ideas if they are just clearly, concisely explained in simple language (Rand believed the same thing, and my experience absolutely confirms her beliefs). I've been able to have deep discussions on philosophical and theological topics with taxi drivers... I see absolutely no reason to assume, a priori, that Palin could not grasp complex philosophical abstractions (and to be honest it is quite probable she already does).

But, and I'm trying to be charitable to Carol here, she doesn't seem to be talking about Palin's actual intelligence. She seems to be talking about the "feel" of Palin, or what Palin's public persona gives off. And on this issue I'm inclined to agree with her.

Maybe I'm simply being too charitable to Carol, but you can hardly deny Palin gives off a folksy, populist, just-like-you-the-average-voter feel... and this kind of feel tends to necessitate avoidance of "sounding atypically smart" because it can alienate potential voters (note the "sounding" because someone can be extremely smart without speaking in technical vocabulary).

Short summary - I think that all Carol was saying was that "Palin doesn't sound like an intellectual."

[We Erred Rand]

>>>Now, since I've clarified my view above, I'd ask you to stop being offended.

You first admit that you used words imprecisely. Then you repeat the same imprecision as before (except with slightly different words). Then you conclude by saying "Hope that clarifies everything!"

>>>Third: historically you may have a point, but considering that conservative social values have always gone on about the evils of greed

Excuse me, but it has always been liberal/progressive social values that have gone on about the evils of greed.

>>> and have often been highly suspicious of technological innovation,

Excuse me, but it has always been liberal/progressive values — especially enshrined in, e.g., pro-labor-union policies, that have expressed suspicion of technological innovation. You haven't paid attention to the ongoing skirmishes regarding minimum wage legislation: it's been clear for a long time that as the minimum wage is increased, many employers replace workers with machines. This is very common, especially in retail stores, many supermarket chains, etc., which now have "automatic checkout" lines. It simply requires one or two employees to keep a watch on things, or to help a customer with scanning his items and pushing the right buttons to complete the purchase. The progressive-left hate this trend . . . blaming it all on the pure greed of the employers who won't simply swallow a loss of X-dollars per hour per marginal employee.

This is all the sophisticated left/liberal/elite-educated city-dwellers who are making these arguments, not the imaginary "rural poor" of Wichita.

>>>it seems to me that the rise of Capitalism is an unintended consequence of these values,

Precisely. That's the beauty of it, and that's the beauty of capitalism: by following one's self-interest, the unintended (but inevitable) upshot is that the rest of society benefits, too.

At this point, I suggest you read, or reread, Thomas Sowell's brilliant little book, "A Conflict of Visions," in which he contrasts liberal and conservative (uh, I mean "rural poor") by reference to terms corresponding to their ultimate beliefs about human nature: the "unconstrained vision" vs. the "constrained vision". "Unconstrained" refers to the libs' belief that human nature is infinitely malleable . . . if only he and his co-ideologues had control of certain key institutions that inform a person's values, e.g., education, family, religion, the media. Human nature is, in his view, "unconstrained." The unconstrained view of the "rural poor" is that human nature is what it is, and so long as humans remain human, will always be what it is: human nature has an identity that is not malleable, only capable of being influenced in small amounts in one direction or another.

>>>If your hypothesis is true, then any code of values with a long-term orientation will work.

In a hyper-rarified theoretical way, I suppose so. The fact is, when individuals are focused on the future as an important goal for its own sake, the tendency will be to incorporate other values that complement and support it: i.e., marriage, fidelity, family, children.

>>>Entrepreneurship may be consistent with a long-term orientation, but it is INCONSISTENT with a huge amount of conservative social values ("don't be selfish! be humble! don't think for yourself!").

I don't know where you got the idea that "Don't be selfish, be humble! Don't think for yourself" are examples of conservative social values. Would you mind providing evidence? Sounds to me as if you have the Amish in mind as "typical examples" of middle America, rather than, e.g., a typical Protestant family in Fargo.

This is all fantasy on your part.

>>>Again, one incidental feature of conservative social values having positive effects hardly justifies the entire code of morality.

LOL!

>>>Fourth: Since when is "family" and "homeschooling" synonymous with conservative social values?

Since the reality is that it is overwhelmingly conservatives — many of them religious conservatives — who home-school their children. Liberal/progressives believe in public education.

Swinging, polyamory, promiscuity, same-sex marriage, early-childhood sex education, etc., obviously work against strengthening family bonds. The whole idea is to pull children away from families and into the loving arms of the State. One way of doing that (though not the only way) is to sexualize them very early on, so that the association with "sex" is only to "self pleasure" and to nothing else. Then they can rely on the State for birth control; they can rely on the State for sex-change operations; they can rely on the State for abortions; they can rely on the State for lifelong HIV treatments (all of which being parts of ObamaCare today).

>>>One can easily have a family formed on not-conservative value systems and one can easily homeschool children whilst teaching them absolutely up-to-date evolutionary biology and giving them a completely secular education.

One can, but one wouldn't. Why waste time laboriously teaching children at hoe what they would already get in public school with no effort on your part except to pay a few property taxes to the school system?

>>>Fifth: Yes, Capital Accumulation is important, but as I stated, any code of values which focuses on the long term would have the same effect (encouraging saving).

Odd, then, that we never see it. The value of "have a good time, all the time, TODAY" would lead, and has led, to policies that simply divide existing wealth instead of producing more of it.

>>>Sixth: Steve Jobs never fully gave up his counterculture roots. He still believed in alternative medicine (this is probably why he died so young).

I love how you jump to unwarranted conclusions. Lots of MDs today practice "alternative medicine" as part of integrative, or complementary, medicine. You don't have to be "counter-culture" for that.

>>>Seventh: Atheistic, Rationalistic and Libertine.... well, the Atheistic Rationalistic cultures of the Soviet Union were HARDLY libertine.

And the libertine culture of Haight-Ashbury was too drugged out even to be Marxian. The point is that no culture that is atheistic, OR rationalistic, OR libertine has produced much of anything or lasted that long.

>>>And seriously, citing NORTH KOREA as rationalistic, atheistic and libertine? North Korea is the most religious nation in the world - their religion just deifies specific political figures.

I never claimed NKorea was libertine. The "and" in my sentence was meant simply to include cultures that had one or more of these characteristics, not necessarily all three simultaneously.

>>>Eighth: Yes, Japan and China are totally permitted to use FDI etc etc. Im not contesting that. I am simply saying that WITHOUT the foreign world to either poach ideas from or get investment from, China and Japan would never have developed.

And I'm simply saying that is typical of any economy rebounding from tyrannical statism, IF they don't want to wait many decades to deepening their own capital. That should be obvious, so I fail to understand why you even bring up Japan and China. If African nations were smart, they would adopt the same sort of "poaching" so they could join the rest of us in the 21st century. These "micro-finance" policies might be nice in a touchy-feely sort of way, but they'll never help them raise wages by raising their productivity.

>>>Ninth: If, as you say, Middle America is willing to embrace laissez-faire or at least more free markets, why are they so protective of farm subsidies?

Huh? Farm subsidies — like any subsidy — might be incompatible with strict laissez faire, but they aren't incompatible with "more free markets." We don't have socialism just because we have farm subsidies or tariffs on sugar. Those policies hamper the normally smooth functioning of capitalism but they don't undercut the entire system. Additionally, you lump everyone together in a convenient pigeon hole (saves time and mental effort). It's not "middle America" that embraces farm subsidies, but, specifically, FARMERS and their influential lobbies. Thanks to capitalism, farms are so productive per acre today, we don't actually need too many of them to feed the entire country (and much of the world). In the late 18th century, over 90% of the workforce had farm-related jobs; today it's less than 2%! That's hardly a big swath of "middle America." Rather, it's a small influential special-interest group. The rest of the country — including the "rural poor" of "middle America" — hate it.

>>>Why are so many of them foreign policy hawks?

I guess because they don't like it when the homeland is attacked. Lots of liberals, for example, secretly side with jihadists, since both are anti-capitalist.

>>>Why do they fear less restricted immigration?

They don't. They don't fear "less restricted" immigration; they dislike ILLEGAL immigration. You see no difference? I do. So do most people. Furthermore, they learned from Milton Friedman that you cannot have a policy of open immigration if you're a welfare state. Do you include Milton Friedman among the "rural poor"?

>>>And of course, free markets in drugs and porn scare them. The barrier between social and economic issues is in many ways a completely artificial separation.

Regulated markets in drugs and sex are incompatible with laissez faire, but not incompatible with "more free markets" as you phrased it above. And while it's obviously inconsistent with a full commitment to individual liberty, I also don't think we're missing much in terms of "future-orientedness" and innovation by regulating them. My own problem with regulating them is not that we'd gain some sort of great social value by leaving them freely accessible; it's that the opportunity cost of policing these things is much too high, and people's hard-earned capital would be better redirected elsewhere.

[studiodekadent]

You first admit that you used words imprecisely. Then you repeat the same imprecision as before (except with slightly different words). Then you conclude by saying "Hope that clarifies everything!"

I did not repeat the same imprecision. You are refusing to deal with my argument. I have already stated that I do not regard middle America and "the rural poor" as synonymous. The fact you keep, repeatedly throughout your entire reply, refusing to unbundle the two when I already have displays the fact that you're being fundamentally dishonest.

Excuse me, but it has always been liberal/progressive social values that have gone on about the evils of greed.

You are treating the political categories of the contemporary United States as eternal and unfixed. Not to mention you're reinforcing a stale, irrational false dichotomy.

When I use "liberal" I mean classically liberal. Throughout this entire discussion I've reiterated this.

Is the Catholic Church progressive-left? Protestant Christianity has always condemned greed as well - just because Calvin thought that tireless labor was a sign of Grace doesn't mean he endorsed greed.

And Progressivism has a long history of social conservatism (Prohibition, for one) as well as religionism. Please discard your presentist bias.

Excuse me, but it has always been liberal/progressive values especially enshrined in, e.g., pro-labor-union policies, that have expressed suspicion of technological innovation. You haven't paid attention to the ongoing skirmishes regarding minimum wage legislation: it's been clear for a long time that as the minimum wage is increased, many employers replace workers with machines. This is very common, especially in retail stores, many supermarket chains, etc., which now have "automatic checkout" lines. It simply requires one or two employees to keep a watch on things, or to help a customer with scanning his items and pushing the right buttons to complete the purchase. The progressive-left hate this trend . . . blaming it all on the pure greed of the employers who won't simply swallow a loss of X-dollars per hour per marginal employee.

I never said that there weren't plenty of anti-technological sentiments on the left. There clearly are! What I said was that fundamentally, the values of social conservatism are anti-tech and anti-science.

Social conservatives often express horror and revulsion at biotech (Leon Kass is a great example). So do leftists too (esp. when talking about genetically modified crops) but that isn't relevant - as I have repeatedly emphasized, romanticism exists on both sides of the left-right divide. The real debate is not between the left and the right, but rather Enlightenment values versus Pre-Enlightenment/Counter-Enlightenment values.

Precisely. That's the beauty of it, and that's the beauty of capitalism: by following one's self-interest, the unintended (but inevitable) upshot is that the rest of society benefits, too.

The point I am making is that the capital formation necessary to commence industrialization was an unintentended consequence of an incidental component of values promoted by historical Christianity (not just historical Christianity either, you can find them in plenty of the Hellenic philosophers). This scarcely justifies the entire code of values.

At this point, I suggest you read, or reread, Thomas Sowell's brilliant little book, "A Conflict of Visions," in which he contrasts liberal and conservative by reference to terms corresponding to their ultimate beliefs about human nature: the "unconstrained vision" vs. the "constrained vision". "Unconstrained" refers to the libs' belief that human nature is infinitely malleable . . . if only he and his co-ideologues had control of certain key institutions that inform a person's values, e.g., education, family, religion, the media. Human nature is, in his view, "unconstrained." The unconstrained view of the "rural poor" is that human nature is what it is, and so long as humans remain human, will always be what it is: human nature has an identity that is not malleable, only capable of being influenced in small amounts in one direction or another.

The Sowell thesis is highly oversimplified, and yes I am familiar with it.

Sowell's argument is that the left believe in absolute social constructivism, and that the right believe in a specific human nature. I believe in a specific human nature too, but what you are leaving out is that conservative social values have a specific picture of what human nature actually is. Sowell conflates accepting the right's conception of human nature with accepting the existence of human nature.

Sowell also ignores that historically, the left often were essentialist (i.e. believing in a definite human nature) - the early progressive movement (the one of the 20's and 30's) clearly accepted biological essentialism to justify their racialist policies.

In a hyper-rarified theoretical way, I suppose so. The fact is, when individuals are focused on the future as an important goal for its own sake, the tendency will be to incorporate other values that complement and support it: i.e., marriage, fidelity, family, children.

You are smuggling a huge number of package-deals into things like "marriage," "fidelity," "family" and "children." None of these, by themselves, necessitate social conservatism.

Someone can be polyamorous and homosexual and still have a marriage (perhaps a marriage between three or four people), practice fidelity to that marriage, have a family (composed of blood relatives as well as marriage partners and their relatives), and raise children or help out with the raising of children within their extended family.

You are implicitly assuming that the only kind of family structure consistent with "concern for the long term" is lifelong monogamous heterosexual marriage (and relationships with others that are lifelong monogamous heterosexual spouses), perhaps marriages sanctified by a Christian church, with biological children being raised.

This, quite frankly, is absolutely untrue. Plenty of unconventional family structures are consistent with concern for the long term. I know people with very alternative family structures, or even no family at all, and they are invariably concerned with the long term.

I don't know where you got the idea that "Don't be selfish, be humble! Don't think for yourself" are examples of conservative social values. Would you mind providing evidence? Sounds to me as if you have the Amish in mind as "typical examples" of middle America, rather than, e.g., a typical Protestant family in Fargo.

Read the works of Luther or Calvin. They had no room for pride, self-interest or independent thought. Calvin's entire theology denies individual moral responsibility for anything at all, and both himself and Luther had hideously twisted versions of Original Sin.

A Protestant family in Fargo that practices pride, self-interest and independent thought is practicing these values in spite of their religion, not because of it. Which isn't really a surprise, the vast majority of religious people are hypocrites to varying degrees, but if a value system's survival and flourishing is due to hypocrisy then this really is a fantastic condemnation of that value system.

Since the reality is that it is overwhelmingly conservatives many of them religious conservatives who home-school their children. Liberal/progressives believe in public education.

Again, presentist bias. The relationship is incidental rather than doctrinal. If public schools taught abstainance-only sex education and Intelligent Design theory, the roles would be reversed.

Swinging, polyamory, promiscuity, same-sex marriage, early-childhood sex education, etc., obviously work against strengthening family bonds.

"Obviously?" Really?

I don't see why swinging would weaken a family bond. Polyamory is about the FORMATION of a family bond, albiet a nontraditional one. Same-sex marriage is the same; how does it weaken family bonds to form a legally-sanctioned family bond with a member of the same sex? As for early-childhood sex-ed, it depends on what you mean by "early" but I don't see how teaching teens to use birth control, or to masturbate, weakens family bonds.

The whole idea is to pull children away from families and into the loving arms of the State. One way of doing that (though not the only way) is to sexualize them very early on, so that the association with "sex" is only to "self pleasure" and to nothing else.

Yes, how terrible it is that people see sexuality as a source of joy, happiness, fulfillment and satisfaction. What is wrong with self pleasure? How does self pleasure work against thinking long-term?

Then they can rely on the State for birth control; they can rely on the State for sex-change operations; they can rely on the State for abortions; they can rely on the State for lifelong HIV treatments (all of which being parts of ObamaCare today).

No necessary connection. "Sex Is For Fun" has no logical connection to "the State's role is to subsidize Sex For Fun and to take responsibility for the negative consequences of irresponsible sexual behavior (such as unwanted pregnancies or STDs."

And that said, sex-change operations are a totally different matter to sexual behavior. Transsexual persons are people who's neuroanatomy is opposingly-sexed to the anatomy of the rest of their body (they've done autopsies on transsexuals which back this up). And yes, developmental atypicalities like this can occur and do occur. There's a whole spectrum of it... people like Intersexuals, who are born with ambiguous genitalia or certain biological aspects of both males and females (for instance: Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, which results in a chromosomally-male fetus (i.e. XY Karotype) not getting masculinized in the womb by Androgens, and the result being an anatomically-female (but sterile) woman, typically slender-hipped, and these women grow up universally with a feminine gender identity). This is a completely different issue to that of sexual behavior.

Why waste time laboriously teaching children at hoe what they would already get in public school with no effort on your part except to pay a few property taxes to the school system?

This betrays your narrow focus. You seem to think there are only two competing value systems out there. In fact, there are several.

Odd, then, that we never see it. The value of "have a good time, all the time, TODAY" would lead, and has led, to policies that simply divide existing wealth instead of producing more of it.

Perhaps we need an empirical study on this: "do individuals with socially conservative values save and invest larger amounts of money than individuals with socially liberal values?" would be a fantastic research question. And then you'd have to control for various effects like income - wealthier persons save and invest more than less wealthy persons irrespective of their value system.

But without some hard data, you're just making assumptions. I know plenty of people with socially liberal values and they don't seem to be averse to saving and investing at all.

I love how you jump to unwarranted conclusions. Lots of MDs today practice "alternative medicine" as part of integrative, or complementary, medicine. You don't have to be "counter-culture" for that.

Nor do you have to give up being counter-culture to start a business. Indeed, counter-cultures can be fantastic business opportunities. Business and commerce are not inherently socially conservative. I doubt that a shop selling bondage gear would be hailed as an example of honest enterprise by religious conservatives.

And the libertine culture of Haight-Ashbury was too drugged out even to be Marxian. The point is that no culture that is atheistic, OR rationalistic, OR libertine has produced much of anything or lasted that long.

Perhaps because for the vast majority of human history the dominant belief systems are religionist, mystical and altruist. Modernity is a relatively recent concept.

And I'm simply saying that is typical of any economy rebounding from tyrannical statism, IF they don't want to wait many decades to deepening their own capital.

And since tyrannical statism is by definition socially-illiberal, this reinforces my case.

I fail to understand why you even bring up Japan and China.

Because they are societies with almost no cultural individualism - my argument is that cultural individualism is necessary for economic evolution (i.e. innovation/entrepreneurship), and that Japan and China's economic growth would not have happened without the West's relative cultural individualism and consequent economic dynamism.

Huh? Farm subsidies like any subsidy might be incompatible with strict laissez faire, but they aren't incompatible with "more free markets." We don't have socialism just because we have farm subsidies or tariffs on sugar. Those policies hamper the normally smooth functioning of capitalism but they don't undercut the entire system.

So, contracting the freedom of taxpayers (via poaching money from them to fund farm subsidies) is NOT going to sabotage "more free markets," but expanding freedom of association and freedom of contract to embrace same-sex civil marriage somehow WILL sabotage "more free markets" by diminishing capital accumulation? Really?

It's not "middle America" that embraces farm subsidies, but, specifically, FARMERS and their influential lobbies.

Need I mention that these farmers and their lobby groups also frequently invoke Romanticism to justify their subsidies? I once read an interview with a former head of the USDA (I think) saying that farm subsidies are about "funding a value system" (i.e. the value system of rural people).

Rather, it's a small influential special-interest group. The rest of the country including the "rural poor" of "middle America" hate it.

Okay, and I can point to several people on the left that hate Obama's drone strikes. I can point to a wide number of historical leftists that opposed gun control. Yes, "left" and "right" are not monolithic (although you treat the "left" as such). The point I am making is that supporters of conservative social values hardly embrace laissez-faire.

I guess because they don't like it when the homeland is attacked.

The belief in defending one's homeland is hardly consistent with an Hawkish foreign policy.

They don't. They don't fear "less restricted" immigration; they dislike ILLEGAL immigration. You see no difference? I do. So do most people. Furthermore, they learned from Milton Friedman that you cannot have a policy of open immigration if you're a welfare state.

Okay, so why has it taken so long for Republicans to start even looking at reducing immigration restrictions? It took an electoral defeat of a candidate who said he'd make illegals "self-deport." You can't honestly say that hostility to illegal immigation is entirely due to the "illegal" part, especially considering the nativism and outright racism that some on the right have displayed at times (yes, I'm aware it exists on the left too, that isn't the point though).

My own problem with regulating them is not that we'd gain some sort of great social value by leaving them freely accessible; it's that the opportunity cost of policing these things is much too high, and people's hard-earned capital would be better redirected elsewhere.

This is irrelevant. The point I am making was that outlawing sex, porn and drug markets is by-definition anti-free-market, and routinely favored by many on the right, for moral reasons. In other words, their values lead to anti-free-market conclusions.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Im trying to read Carol charitably here, but I think all she is saying is that Sarah Palin comes off as uneducated and, well, not particularly well-exposed to a very wide variety of different cultures and places.

Andrew,

You were the one who mentioned archetype. You can't have it both ways. Archetypes work in general or they don't. I believe they do, but I don't believe they only work with one side of a political debate and not the other.

If the archetype serves to justify a person's criticism of Sarah, it also serves the person to justify his or her own bias against her. Except this last is not flattering to the bias-holder, whereas the first is.

And like I mentioned above, the bias is observable as a cybernetic system.

It's something to think about.

Anyway, here is a bone for all you Sarah haters:

Avlon: Sarah PAC "Somewhere Between A Business And A Racket"

RealClear Politics Video

(Sorry, there is no embed code.)

The gist of the video (with a leftie Newsweek and CNN dude) is that Sarah is no longer relevant, but she is relevant. That she is not effective, but she is effective. That she is a hypocrite because she uses consultants as she blasts the Republican party for selling out to them. The real gotcha is that her PAC doesn't give a lot of money directly to the candidates she gets elected, but to consultants instead.

(How does she get them elected? As Rand would say, blank-out. But at least not a total blank-out. There is a false insinuation that consultants are the cause of people getting elected. However, why do the consultants of one person work and not those of another? Now there is a real blank-out.)

The subtext is that Sarah is scaring the Holy Crap out of the left, right and middle who adhere to crony capitalist statism. They would never admit that, though. Instead, they keep harping on and on about whatever looks like a good attack at the moment, and they keep getting their predictions about her all wrong.

Time after time after time.

They sure talk a lot about someone illiterate who is no longer taken seriously by anybody except fringe Bible-thumpers...

Michael

[caroljane]

Carol,

Don't you find it odd that "I just get this feeling, this woman has never willingly read a book in her life, and doesn't think there's anything to be learned from them" morphs into you're just talking about "sign of superior literacy" when presented with irrefutable facts? But the core Progressive storyline doesn't change?

It's like a cybernetic system where "Sarah Palin is illiterate" is the programmed destination. Facts blow the storyline off course, but the cybernetic sensors detect the detour, the motors rev up and start correcting things to appear reasonable but still get the storyline back on course.

I don't think any fact at all, even if it were that she read the full 100 most important books ever written because she said she liked them (I'm making a hypothetical), could deflect your inner storyteller from that destination.

If such were a fact (and it might be), you would claim she was posing, faking it for image, and didn't understand a word she read.

I'm just ribbing you with a reflection of your own... (er... OK... I'll stop... )

Happy Easter to you, too.

You know you are well loved around here...

Michael

I know how you're ribbing me, and you know you are always welcome to rib away. But I maintain that the facts you presented, which I accept and believe, to me are not sufficient to persuade away my own perceptions (or my inner story, as you will); just as they are sufficient to justify your own. Again I never thought Palin was in any way literacy impaired, I just thought she was not a reader by choice and I still don't think so, that's all.

Sdk's charity is well directed and gladly received.

You and your minds are dear to me.

[We Erred Rand]

>>>>I did not repeat the same imprecision.

You mean you made a new imprecision?

>>>You are refusing to deal with my argument.

I merely disagree with your arguments — such as they are. Most of what you've posted, however, appears to be straw-man arguments.

>>>When I use "liberal" I mean classically liberal. Throughout this entire discussion I've reiterated this.

I've specified "classically liberal", too. However, the term at issue is not "liberal" but "conservative." You claimed that conservative values have gone on about the evils of greed; I corrected you, because you distorted the historical record.

>>>just because Calvin thought that tireless labor was a sign of Grace doesn't mean he endorsed greed.

Ayn Rand didn't endorse greed, either. Specifically "the grasping" kind of greed. She also didn't approve of it throughout Atlas Shrugged when presenting businessmen who acquired their fortunes through the extortionary method of rent-seeking rather than production.

The profit-making "greed" was approved by Calvin, as it was by Protestantism in general. Read "The Protestant Work Ethic and The Spirit of Capitalism" by Max Weber. See, especially, the quotes Weber has culled by Benjamin Franklin extolling the morality of profit-making.

>>>And Progressivism has a long history of social conservatism (Prohibition, for one) as well as religionism. Please discard your presentist bias.

Please discard your unintelligibility. What a careful thinker and writer would have said is, "And Progressivism has a long history of desiring the State to administer and enforce social and behavioral reform in the individual, as opposed to social conservatives' preferred method of achieving individual reform, which was generally to keep the state out of it altogether, and, rather, to strengthen ties that were natural to the individual — i.e., family, church, etc. — in order to foster a voluntary change in the individual BY the individual."

If Progressives' method was to ban alcohol, and Conservatives' method was to seek "counsel" of family, minister, etc., that they both had the similar of goal of decreasing the number of drunks on the streets scarcely means they two ideological camps overlapped in their long histories.

>>>>What I said was that fundamentally, the values of social conservatism are anti-tech and anti-science.

What you *asserted arbitrarily with no supporting examples or evidence." was that the values of social conservativism are anti-tech and anti-science. Um, prove it. Provide some concrete examples.

>>>Social conservatives often express horror and revulsion at biotech (Leon Kass is a great example)

No he isn't. Good grief, you have no sense of proportion. Kass (and many social conservatives) object specifically to 1) cloning of human beings, and 2) the killing of human embryos in order to farm "pluripotent" stem cells from them. You apparently take those two things and make the blanket claim that he expresses revulsion at "biotech" in general, which is utter nonsense.

>>>The point I am making is that the capital formation necessary to commence industrialization was an unintentended consequence of an incidental component of values promoted by historical Christianity

The "incidental" component being industriousness, future-orientedness, and that institutions that support it: family, children, etc. Read Max Weber's work on the Protestant Work Ethic. He didn't think it these things were incidental. I agree with him. Apparently, so did Ludwig von Mises, a secular Jew. And I agree with him, too.

The only intelligibility I can see to your use of the term "incidental" is "yes, I agree it happened to have worked historically, but I personally don't like these aspects of Christianity . . . . because it interferes with fun stuff I like to do, such as have lots of promiscuous sex with lots of people of both genders because, hey, sex is enjoyable!" Aside from that, I see no meaning in your use of incidental.

>>Sowell's argument is that the left believe in absolute social constructivism, and that the right believe in a specific human nature

.

No it isn't. I can tell that you're not even superficially acquainted with Sowell's book. Like Ayn Rand's trashing of Rawls's book on ethics without having read it, you give a thumbnail sketch of Sowell's book either based on some other review you've read or on word of mouth. Sowell admits very early on that he's arbitrarily dividing an ideological continuum and that there are admixtures of both elements within the systems of many intellectuals both from the left and from the right. Secondly, he's not taking sides on this issue; he's merely illuminating what pure positions are so that one can more accurately judge a historical figure, or a contemporary system.

>>>I believe in a specific human nature too, but what you are leaving out is that conservative social values have a specific picture of what human nature actually is. Sowell conflates accepting the right's conception of human nature with accepting the existence of human nature.

He does no such thing, and I have the book in front of me. The only consideration is that IF we grant the existence of a human nature (irrespective of what we think it is), then we deny that it is also infinitely malleable in the crucible of invented social institutions (e.g., education). Sowell himself makes no claim about mankind being inherently good, or evil, or fallen, or not fallen, or smart, or stupid. The only claim is that whatever, the nature is, the constrained vision claims that the most manmade institutions like education can do is "sharpen" that nature a little bit in one direction; it cannot actually alter it. And Sowell, of course, does point out that views on human nature held by precisely those enlightenment thinkers you admire: Adam Smith, the Founding Fathers of the US, etc.

>>>Someone can be polyamorous and homosexual and still have a marriage (perhaps a marriage between three or four people), practice fidelity to that marriage, have a family (composed of blood relatives as well as marriage partners and their relatives), and raise children or help out with the raising of children within their extended family.

Yes, so the polyamorous and homosexuals tell us, but there's little evidence for it, and it remains an arbitrary assertion. So far as raising children is concerned, there is evidence that anything outside of traditional heterosexual couple marriages is psychologically harmful to children (including, of course, single parent families). Naturally, the left doesn't want to hear this, and neither do gays.

Additionally, one could also marry one's mother, father, sister, brother, or household pet. The question is: do most people want to live in a society with social units consisting of mothers and sons (or mothers and daughters) married to one another; or a polyamorous father with his own daughter and his own niece; not to mention a unit comprising a boy and his dog; or would most normal heterosexual married couples find it simply disgusting (as Ayn Rand averred about homosexuality), and just plain unacceptable?

Moreover, one can forge a society that is tolerant of deviant behavior (up to a point, of course) without declaring such deviancy to be "just another choice, as good as any other choice" and then try to mainstream it by teaching courses on it to children.

[Selene]

>>>>I did not repeat the same imprecision.

You mean you made a new imprecision?

>>>>You are refusing to deal with my argument.

Out of curiosity, what do you do for a living?

Are you cognizant that a new reader of your post(s) have no clue as to what statement that you are referring to when you attempt to use the software that is available?

Your affable chap

A...

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

So far as raising children is concerned, there is evidence that anything outside of traditional heterosexual couple marriages is psychologically harmful to children (including, of course, single parent families). Naturally, the left doesn't want to hear this, and neither do gays.

Weird Rand,

OK.

I'm not left and I heard it. But I heard a clunk instead of a ding.

I'm interested in seeing this evidence as I mull over the fact that I don't know of any serial killers or bloody dictators or destructive cult leaders or suicide bombers who had homosexual parents (to mention one non-heterosexual alternative).

By this standard, all of mankind's wars have been waged by people who were generally "psychologically healthy" as children. If that is psychological health, who needs it?

So let's see this evidence...

btw - I'm not a fan of children being raised by gay couples as the main practice of a society because gays do not and cannot produce the children. Mankind needs the heterosexual family as its main organizing structure. A civilization that does not constantly reproduce dies off. That means robust reproductive social habits. The only viable reproductive alternative would be rule by technocrats and that sounds like a hell of an idea if you're in a shuddering mood.

But I do not oppose gay couples raising children, either. Especially on grounds like "psychological health," Not when I see the psychological mess heterosexual environments can produce as a comparison.

To a child, love is where you find it, But to an adult, a loving family environment--which is a great standard for child rearing--is not dictated from the outside by meddling busybodies. It's more on the individual responsibility level. If you want it, you have to choose it and choose to work at it, whether gay or heterosexual. Otherwise, it's a crapshoot against house odds. So the standard is wrong and I would need some compelling unbiased evidence to even consider this.

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

Sarah of the Frozen North. My favorite Republican babe.

She is not only my favorite Republican Babe, she is the darling of the old white guys the constitute the very core of the Republican party. Now look at these old white guys. They are all poster boys for Erectile Dysfunction Monthly. Anyway Sara comes to be displayed to the Elder Republicans. She lifts up her skirt displaying a lovely white thigh (ummm.. oh...ahhh) and around same is strapped a holster from which she slow draws a 44 magnum. I tell you, some of those Old Republicans got wood for the first time in 20 years. No wonder she was so popular for a time....

[PDS]

Sarah of the Frozen North. My favorite Republican babe.

She is not only my favorite Republican Babe, she is the darling of the old white guys the constitute the very core of the Republican party. Now look at these old white guys. They are all poster boys for Erectile Dysfunction Monthly. Anyway Sara comes to be displayed to the Elder Republicans. She lifts up her skirt displaying a lovely white thigh (ummm.. oh...ahhh) and around same is strapped a holster from which she slow draws a 44 magnum. I tell you, some of those Old Republicans got wood for the first time in 20 years. No wonder she was so popular for a time....

Goodness gracious, Bob, you put a lot of "thought" into that metaphor.

You might want to go for a jog or something.

[Selene]

Seems like that missile in the silo is ready for launch!

And there is no such thing as a free launch!

[BaalChatzaf]

Sarah of the Frozen North. My favorite Republican babe.

She is not only my favorite Republican Babe, she is the darling of the old white guys the constitute the very core of the Republican party. Now look at these old white guys. They are all poster boys for Erectile Dysfunction Monthly. Anyway Sara comes to be displayed to the Elder Republicans. She lifts up her skirt displaying a lovely white thigh (ummm.. oh...ahhh) and around same is strapped a holster from which she slow draws a 44 magnum. I tell you, some of those Old Republicans got wood for the first time in 20 years. No wonder she was so popular for a time....

Goodness gracious, Bob, you put a lot of "thought" into that metaphor.

You might want to go for a jog or something.

Already had my bike ride and I took a cold shower.

I must say, Sarah of the Frozen north is potential whacking material.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[caroljane]

Seems like that missile in the silo is ready for launch!

And there is no such thing as a free launch!

lol. A current rerun on the reality-show channel here is poor Bristol Palin's stupefyingly dull short-lived series, in which Bristol mainly talks about Sarah and her awesomeness. Tonight's episode: "Bristol attends her book launch and her mother makes a surprise appearance."

Wonder what the fee was?

No, I don't think Bristol is very widely read either.

[Selene]

You are a very bad "girl!"

[Roger Bissell]

BaalChatzaf, on 02 Apr 2013 - 16:38, said:

PDS, on 02 Apr 2013 - 14:04, said:

BaalChatzaf, on 02 Apr 2013 - 14:02, said:

BaalChatzaf, on 27 Mar 2013 - 19:34, said:

Sarah of the Frozen North. My favorite Republican babe.

She is not only my favorite Republican Babe, she is the darling of the old white guys the constitute the very core of the Republican party. Now look at these old white guys. They are all poster boys for Erectile Dysfunction Monthly. Anyway Sara comes to be displayed to the Elder Republicans. She lifts up her skirt displaying a lovely white thigh (ummm.. oh...ahhh) and around same is strapped a holster from which she slow draws a 44 magnum. I tell you, some of those Old Republicans got wood for the first time in 20 years. No wonder she was so popular for a time....

Goodness gracious, Bob, you put a lot of "thought" into that metaphor.

You might want to go for a jog or something.

Already had my bike ride and I took a cold shower.

I must say, Sarah of the Frozen north is potential whacking material.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Only potential? :-)

REB

[syrakusos]

Rap Battles in History ...

Sarah Palin versus Lady Gaga

(e pluribus unum: just one of many)

[syrakusos]

Someone who puts out 24,000 emails in a relatively short time at a writing level higher than average CEO's definitely is friends with books.

Michael

The apostrophe is an error. Does Mikey need a book?

[caroljane]

Someone who puts out 24,000 emails in a relatively short time at a writing level higher than average CEO's definitely is friends with books.

Michael

The apostrophe is an error. Does Mikey need a book?

No, it isn't an error. The word "the" or "an" is missing before "average" though. Still it is clear that "CEO's" modifies " writing level" which being understood does not need to be repeated.