I agree with mistermix about John Huntsman but….Steve M. points out that Glenn Beck loves the guy. Interesting.
Archives for January 2011
The Things That Upset Them
The poo-flinging monkeys are apparently all enraged because Obama noted both the Christian dead and wounded and the Muslim wounded in suicide attacks in Egypt:
Here is the offending statement:
I strongly condemn the separate and outrageous terrorist bombing attacks in Egypt and Nigeria. The attack on a church in Alexandria, Egypt caused 21 reported deaths and dozens of injured from both the Christian and Muslim communities. The perpetrators of this attack were clearly targeting Christian worshipers, and have no respect for human life and dignity. They must be brought to justice for this barbaric and heinous act. We are continuing to gather information regarding this terrible event, and are prepared to offer any necessary assistance to the Government of Egypt in responding to it.
Apparently what has the shitheads upset is that all 21 dead were Christian, so therefore the wounded Muslims don’t count.
I seriously wish I was kidding. Jesus would be proud, no doubt.
Boardwalk Empire
I assumed that war wounds and the Boardwalk were the product of special effects, but I wouldn’t have guessed that throwing a body out of a boat would need as much work.
NFL Open Thread
This time I’m serious. And it is actually Sunday. Also, too.
Go STILLERS!
(btw- I have an 11′ Steelers flag in my front yard for today’s game)
The rise of overclass theories
I just read a very interesting article about Straussians (it’s a fairly old article, but new to me). I recommend the whole thing; I learned a lot from it, I think I now understand why neoconservatives have become interested in neuroscience (it’s a way of attacking Enlightenment ideas of the blank slate), for example. It ends with a provocative question:
How has a thinker as radical as Strauss–a thinker so blatantly hostile to democracy and modernity, so deeply suspicious of political liberty and equality, so profoundly skeptical of moral and religious belief–managed to become the intellectual idol of contemporary American conservatism, with its clamorous moralism, its pious parochialism, its shameless populism, and its instinctual suspicion of doubt? Only when we have devised a satisfactory answer to that troubling question will we be capable of rendering a responsible judgment of Leo Strauss’s ideas and their enigmatic legacy to the times in which we live.
A similar question is how has Ayn Rand become an idol to many (less intellectual) conservatives?
The answer is the same: both Strauss and Rand put forward the ideas of deserving elites — for Strauss, it’s philosophers, for Rand, it’s Galtian geniuses. Maybe people have always wanted to believe that they were part of some special awesome elite — and that everyone else is a lazy rube — but I don’t remember this idea getting so much intellectual and pseudo-intellectual play 20 years ago. Maybe I just wasn’t paying attention.
For profit colleges
I find the whole debate over for-profit colleges fascinating. They are clearly a scam (EDIT: they aren’t all scams but Kaplan and Phoenix are), but the Washington Post shills for them, because they’re a bit source of revenue for the paper’s parent company, and conservatives like them because they’re “free market” and they may finally break the librul hold on higher education. Bobo recently made the hero in one of his parables a University of Phoenix graduate and young Conor thinks it’s all just so complicated, with no “‘good guys”, so we shouldn’t be too quick to condemn for-profit colleges’ practices.
This profile of the founder of University of Phoenix, John Sperling, is a fascinating case study of the rise of a Galtian overlord. He started out as an lefty educational reformer type and it seems that U of Phoenix filled a valuable role — as a flexible way for people to get college education while working — before it devolved into a huge way to bilk unsuspecting students and rip off the government. Now Sperling raves against Obama, bansksta-style.
Trolling the Villagers
Judging from this Huntsman might run in ’12 piece, Tina Brown’s New Year’s resolution must have been to amp up the speculative, contrarian Villager bait at Newsweek. It’s hard to improve on James Fallows’ reasons why being the sitting Chinese ambassador is a less-than-ideal platform for launching a run for President, but I’ll add that Huntsman’s decision to get out of the country is looking smarter every day.
Not only does he avoid the Tea Party fail parade that would have him taking positions on bullshit like reading the constitution before every baseball game or cub scout meeting, but he’s also going to avoid the mudfight in a minefield that the ’12 race will become due to Sarah Palin’s involvement. Every Republican running in 2012 is probably going to get a little dirty from Palin’s non-stop resentment show, and there’s always the possibility of a career-damaging gaffe while responding to one of the smears that she’ll issue from behind the walls of her Villager-resistant social media fortress.
This is not to mention the simple fact that Huntsman cannot win the 2012 primary, if he’s serious about this:
Shortly after Obama was swept into office in a tidal wave of Democratic victories, the popular governor began articulating a new national vision for the GOP, one designed to appeal to all time zones. Warning that the party was losing young voters, he argued that Republicans would need to tack to the middle on three hot-button issues if they were to maintain national relevance: immigration, gay rights, and the environment.
A hell of a lot of Tea Partiers are going to have to die off before that message achieves any kind of acceptance in today’s Republican Party.