Dear Reader (including the reader alternates who spend their time coordinating their outfits in solidarity with John Edwards),
This morning when the jobs numbers came out and were greeted with all of the enthusiasm of a five-year-old discovering his surprise Christmas pony had choked to death on a Lego Luke Skywalker, I tweeted "When you're marching down the wrong road, making 'Forward' your slogan is less than entirely helpful."
Later, by which I mean about five minutes ago, I remembered that this was an idea better expressed by C. S. Lewis, who said:
We all want progress, but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.
Broccoli: What Price Freedom
Which brings me to Michael Bloomberg, who seems to be very far down the wrong road.
One of the things Edmund Burke loved about the early Americans was their really interesting underwear. But that's a subject for a different "news"letter. Another thing he dug about those hipcats across the pond was the way they worried about the infringement of their liberties before The Man actually got up in their grill.
In other countries [than the American colonies], the people . . . judge of an ill principle in government only by an actual grievance, [but in America] they anticipate the evil, and judge of the pressure of the grievance by the badness of the principle. They augur misgovernment at a distance and snuff the approach of tyranny in every tainted breeze.
In other words, in the immortal words of Will Smith in the original Men In Black, the Founding generation of this country worked from the principle: If the government "Don't start nuthin, won't be nuthin."
I bring this up because for much of the last few years, to speak of potential death panels coming down the pike was to prove you were a paranoid idiot. More recently, to wonder aloud whether the government could, under the theories supporting Obamacare, force the American people to eat broccoli or join weight watchers, was to reveal your mulishness.
By the way, the funny thing about the broccoli question is that most liberals never answer it when asked. They say it's not a relevant question right now.
And that's sort of the point, right?
The tendency in the American character to anticipate encroachments of liberty before they happen that Burke admired so much has been so ground down, to even offer such concerns is now seen as a kind of ideological derangement.
Meanwhile, the Bloombergian belief that the war on smoking demonstrated that there's no outer boundary, no limiting principle, to progressive do-goodery is riding tall in the saddle. "It worked for cigarettes, it can work for anything I don't like" is the only meaningful metric for his ilk.
Already the shock troops of the nanny state are hoping to parlay Bloomberg's anti-soda ban into an all-out prohibition on junk food.
"We're not taking away anybody's right to do things," Bloomberg explained, "we're simply forcing you to understand that you have to make the conscious decision to go from one cup to another cup" [emphasis mine -- which just happens to be the title of my proposed sequel to the under-appreciated sci-fi movie Enemy Mine].
Is it really such a long trip from here to the insistence that the government can "force you to understand" that you should eat your broccoli?
Federalism: Vindicated!
One line of criticism I often hear is "You know, hiding your dirty socks under the couch is not the same thing as 'cleaning up.'" But that's my business.
Another line of criticism I hear is that I have no "right" to complain since I don't live in New York, New Yorkers elected Bloomberg and, besides, aren't you like a big federalism guy? Shouldn't New Yorkers be allowed to do their own thing?
Well, yes and no.
Of course, New Yorkers should be allowed to do their own thing. And so should I. And one of my things just happens to be complaining about Michael Bloomberg. My right to complain about Bloomberg's asininity is undiminished by New York City's right to embrace it.
Moreover, one of the wonderful merits of federalism is that it allows us to "test-market" dumb ideas in one locale rather than go national with it right away. There's nothing inherent to federalism that says the rest of the country can't hold up one state or jurisdiction to ridicule. It's like trying out a play in Poughkeepsie before you open on Broadway.
(I would invoke the old "laboratories of democracy" thing, but that's a more complicated cliché than you might think.)
More important, that whole Burkean point about catching tyrannies before they ripen still applies. The beautiful thing about federalism is that it allows society both to see and to contain the damage of seemingly good ideas until the obviousness of their badness ripens. Bad ideas are allowed to become tangible in one place and everyone else is allowed to judge how they work out. This is the basic reason why policy innovation should work from the ground up, not the top down (See Jim Manzi's new book, Uncontrolled, for more). It lets us see how far down the wrong road Bloomberg has led New Yorkers, allowing the rest of us to say, "let's not go that way." As Burke said, example is the school of mankind, and he will learn at no other.
It's by no means a perfect system [insert conversation about Romneycare here], but it's better than the alternative. It's like when the Borg or Romulans board the Enterprise; if you can seal off the decks they're on until you can mount a counter-force, you might just have a chance.
The Totalitarian Temptation
One last point about Bloomberg. Does anyone think that if he achieved his dream and actually became president, he would respect the limits of federal power? Oh I don't mean he'd set up camps or anything. But is there any doubt that he would take his war on trans-fats, salt, and soda pop national if given half a chance? This is another nice feature of federalism, it allows everyone to see what a politician does with power when given it. Now, there are surely politicians who wield power vigorously at the local level but would not do so at the national level. But I don't think that person is Bloomberg. He would surely force Americans to understand they should eat their broccoli for their own good, if given half a chance. And that's good to know, too.
Ah, Youth
My interview with the Daily Caller about the "Youth" has generated a lot of blowback from young people and the aging babyboomers who fetishize them.
Here, for instance, is what Andrew Sullivan thinks is a sharp analysis from a twenty-something (the bowdlerizing asterisks are mine -- a great name for a band: "The Bowdlerizing Asterisks"):
As a 23 year old, let me be the first to say that that Jonah Goldberg video, and to a lesser extent Matt Labash's mini-rant, really pissed me off. I get it, we're young, you guys were young once, you like to think you're cleverer now (better than facing the possibility that you haven't actually progressed in life), hence we're stupid. How very clever of you.
But try for a second to look at in from the perspective of us youth. To us, the Goldbergs of this world are from a generation that has royally f***ed everything up. The debt, theeconomy, global warming -- when was the last time a generation could say that they were leaving the world worse off than they themselves inherited it? If you were born between 1950-1970, you are the product of the 'greatest generation' that defeated fascism, created peace in Europe, and started the biggest economy boom in the history of the world. And what did you do with it? Pissed it away. And whilst you look forward to your gold-plated retirement benefits -- Social Security, private pensions, Medicare -- which you're sure as hell not gonna give up, my friends and I will struggle to find jobs at a time when employment for 16-24 year olds is the lowest since records began (48%).
And, despite this monumental f*** up, you have the balls to chide US just because we can use a technology that you can't, or (gasp) we entertain the idea of voting for policies which haven't been responsible for the aforementioned f*** up?
Screw you.
Anyway tune in to the TOC blog for a longer response, but I find this high-larious -- and high-lariously stupid -- on so many levels if it was a secret villain headquarters it would be that underground HQ from those Resident Evil movies (it had a lot of levels, in case you missed the reference).
Various & Sundry
Reason magazine's Nick Gillespie interviews me.
By the power of Grayskull! TV's 25 greatest catchphrases
I smell a "We're here! We're queer! We don't want any more bears!" chant coming. Bear crashes graduation.
Ted Kaczynski updates his Harvard alumni book listing.
Just in time: How, to use, a, comma,,
The best quotes from The Tyranny of Clichés, as culled by Rightwing News.
Have a good weekend.
Megyn Kelly -> Pete Hegseth responds to 2017 rape accusation. 🔥 vol. 3, issue 13 | December 6, 2024 Quick Hits All the news you need in...
No comments: