| Dear Reader, (Not to be confused with Dear Leader, who is a terrible, terrible man), As the tin man said to his girlfriend, it's been a while and I'm rusty, so bear with me. I tried and failed to get a head start on this "news"letter yesterday because I'm on solo parent duty and my time is not my own. My wife has been secreted away working on a project all this week. And, last week, I took my daughter to the fabled Atlantis. I don't mean the mythical city first recounted in Plato's dialogues, nor do I mean the place Patrick Duffy lived before he moved to Dallas. I mean the Caribbean resort where you can spend $30 on a poolside burger and a couple Cokes. It wasn't a Christmas present, but a delayed 2013 birthday-present I made good on just under the wire. On our trip we violated one of the oldest tenets of small-c conservative dogma. It is so old that it's not even written down anywhere. It is part of the unwritten charter of our lives, the invisible constitution of all human civilization. We voluntarily got in a shark tank. At Atlantis, you can walk with sharks (walk, not swim. You wear a SCUBA helmet and walk around. Here's a video of others doing it). For reasons I am still trying to work out, I agreed to go into a shark tank with my ten-year-old daughter. In my book, the only acceptable way to enter a shark tank is involuntarily, after informing a James Bond villain his mad scheme will never work. My last words to one of the Bahamian divers before we climbed down into the man-eaters' lair was, "Sir, if my daughter gets eaten by sharks, I'm going to be in huge trouble with my wife. I won't be allowed to come home." Anyway, it all worked out. I'd tell you more. But I can already hear the snarky e-mail ("You hear e-mail that doesn't exist yet?" -- The Couch), from "news"letter subscribers who get angry about the personal stuff in the G-File. To which I say, complaining about self-indulgence in this ridiculous communiqué is like complaining about the almonds in an Almond Joy. Don't like it? Get a frick'n Mounds bar! Smoke 'Em if You Got 'Em My column today is on states' rights and pot legalization. I should say I've long favored the gradual decriminalization and eventual legalization of pot (but not narcotics). My reasons never stemmed from a burning desire to see ganja legalized. I simply recognized that pot is different from hard drugs and lumping them all together created real political problems and real injustices. I wanted it to be gradual for Burkean reasons. Give the culture time to adapt and to create healthy stigmas against being high all the time. Things are moving a bit too fast for my tastes, but the way it's happening is still better than many of the alternatives. The worst way to do it would be top-down, from D.C. Colorado (and Washington State) will be test cases. We'll see how it works out. I should also say I pretty much agree with David Brooks's column today. Pot smoking is something to grow out of early, or never start. Yes, I know there are exceptions, but as a general rule I'm convinced pot-smoking -- particularly routine pot-smoking -- creates potheads, by which I mean fuzzy-minded and slothful people (or people who are more fuzzy-minded and slothful than they would otherwise be). If you are one of the high-functioning exceptions, or if you are a pothead and don't realize that you are not one of the high-functioning exceptions, I'm sorry if this hurts your feelings. (Self-indulgent sidebar: I had a friend in high school who was a major pothead --actually, I had more than one. He used to get furious that people were secretly writing on his clothes. At the end of the day, he had little swirls of blue or black ballpoint pen ink in the weirdest places, but most only on his back. Eventually, I had to point out to him that he was absent-mindedly scratching his back with the tip of his pen during class.) Often when I make the -- to my mind obvious -- observation that heavy pot-smoking creates burnouts, I'm accused of exaggerating the percentages. I'm told that the exceptions are a much larger constituency and the burnouts are a much smaller one than I think. Okay, maybe so. But the fact remains that for a significant number of people, pot puts you on a bad path that becomes harder to get off of over time. I'm sure not all of the people in this Denver Post video are falling short of their potential because of weed. But would anyone dispute that some of them are? Anyway, Brooks writes: But, of course, these are the core questions: Laws profoundly mold culture, so what sort of community do we want our laws to nurture? What sort of individuals and behaviors do our governments want to encourage? I'd say that in healthy societies government wants to subtly tip the scale to favor temperate, prudent, self-governing citizenship. In those societies, government subtly encourages the highest pleasures, like enjoying the arts or being in nature, and discourages lesser pleasures, like being stoned.
In legalizing weed, citizens of Colorado are, indeed, enhancing individual freedom. But they are also nurturing a moral ecology in which it is a bit harder to be the sort of person most of us want to be. A friend pointed out an irony in all of this. Right now, inequality is supposed to be the great bane of our nation. According to liberals like Barack Obama and Bill de Blasio, inequality is a function of systemic problems in the U.S. The have-nots have naught because of the deficiencies of our economic and political system. The victims deserve none of the blame. While that's obviously true for some people, it's also obviously untrue for others. For instance, heroin junkies rarely leave the bottom quintile. That's not because John Locke and Adam Smith duped the Founding Fathers. More important, culture matters more than pure economic arrangements. For instance, as Charles Murray has demonstrated for decades, family structure has an enormous role in economic disparities. Today the data is pretty much in that family structure is a better predictor of economic mobility than inequality. That goes for this tragic symbol of income inequality, too. It seems obvious to me that in a country where pot is cheap and ubiquitous, kids raised in messed-up families will be more likely to smoke pot -- and more of it. Doing so may give temporary respite from the anxieties of a dysfunctional family, but it won't better prepare them for a successful life. "A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure," Orwell writes, "and then fail all the more completely because he drinks." Similarly, a teen may take to weed because he feels himself a loser and then become all the more of a loser because he smokes weed. The irony is that liberals who think inequality is so terrible are cheering a reform that will in all likelihood exacerbate inequality. At least the libertarians celebrating the news from Colorado are consistent. They don't care about income inequality. They argue legalization will increase liberty and happiness. They are right on the liberty part. The jury is out on the happiness part. Bill de Bane Speaking of Bill de Blasio and the bane of liberalism, I particularly liked this bit from the new mayor of New York City. "We take Gotham from the corrupt! The rich! The oppressors of generations who have kept you down with myths of opportunity, and we give it back to you . . . the people." Oh sorry, that's Bane from The Dark Knight Rises. But a lot of the ideas are the same. No, de Blasio doesn't want the have-nots to storm Park Avenue apartments and just start taking stuff -- he's got to save something for his second-term agenda (which I think will involve the Democrats unleashing the urban equivalent of "Good ol' number 6"). De Blasio's goal is to create One City (a great name for a sci-fi dystopia by the way) where the rich give even more to the poor, not only because they have to by law, but because they want to. And if they don't want to? Well, then they are selfish and eeeeevil. Consider this passage from his dreadfully written inaugural address: Think about it. A five-year tax on the wealthiest among us -- with every dollar dedicated to pre-K and after-school. Asking those at the top to help our kids get on the right path and stay there. That's our mission. And on that, we will not wait. We will do it now.
Of course, I know that our progressive vision isn't universally shared. Some on the far right continue to preach the virtue of trickle-down economics. They believe that the way to move forward is to give more to the most fortunate, and that somehow the benefits will work their way down to everyone else. They sell their approach as the path of "rugged individualism."
First of all, I don't think there's a significant Republican political figure in America, never mind in New York City, who regularly touts "rugged individualism." It's the kind of lame and lazy strawman only a New York left-winger could get away with, because 95 percent of the press covering him subscribe to the same idiotic clichés.
Over and over again, de Blasio invokes and appeals to the cult of unity to justify his policies. In One City we're all in it together and therefore what is yours is ours and what is ours is yours. It's lifeboat logic applied to the democratic polis. In a lifeboat, if you have ten candy bars and someone else has none, you must share. Property rights go out the window. The problem with lifeboat logic -- which is just another version of the moral equivalent of war -- is that it only applies in lifeboat situations. It doesn't apply when you can jump out of the lifeboat and swim to shore. It certainly doesn't fly when the boat is tied to the dock. That's why the moral equivalent of war argument is evil when misapplied. By invoking an existential crisis when there is none, you are saying that the rule of law and individual rights must be suspended for the greater good. If I yank you out of your car and drive off to defuse a nuclear bomb, I am a badass hero who did what was necessary. If I yank you out of your car and drive off because you can afford to get another one, I'm a thief with a penchant for romantic rationalizations of my crimes.
Ask Not, Again Now, there's a problem for liberals. While they are always invoking the cult of unity, lifeboat logic, the moral equivalents of war, and the need not to let crises go to waste, they don't want to scare people. So they couch it all in the softer language of community. They frame the issue as one where all good people want to do these things voluntarily. Indeed, their agenda would be "universally shared" were it not for the tiny handful of greedy fat cats dressed like Mr. Monopoly invoking "rugged individualism." And even those people aren't being forced to do anything, they're being "asked."
In the above passage, de Blasio says he's "asking those at the top to help our kids get on the right path and stay there. That's our mission. And on that, we will not wait. We will do it now." The thing is, every time you see "ask" or "asking" in a discussion of tax policy, your should read "force" or "forcing." Read de Blasio's statement again. He's asking, but not waiting for an answer -- because it's not voluntary. Back in 2012, I wrote about this in the G-File: Joe Biden said yesterday that he and Barack Obama "are going to ask, yes we're going to ask, the wealthy to pay more." This is a personal peeve of mine. Oh, I don't mean the policy thing about raising taxes, though I am the author of "Raising Taxes Ain't My Bag, Baby." I mean the word "ask." Look, I often get exhausted with the anarcho-libertarian argument about how all government action boils down to force. But that doesn't mean it's not, you know, true. Ask means "to request" but liberals use it to mean "force" or "compel with violence." I am okay with the fact that the government has a monopoly on violence (das Monopol legitimen physischen Zwanges, as Max Weber put it in his original formulation). What offends me is when people deny it. Liberals are so desperate to turn government into a national company picnic you can never leave, they refuse to admit that every time they ban, compel, subsidize, and tax they are using violence to do so. If they understood this more, they might be a bit more humble in their ambitions. Here's a relevant excerpt from The Tyranny of Clichés on the subject, which, you know, you could still buy. Every time you do an angel gets its wings a Klingon teen gets his bat'leth. In other words, to say violence can't solve anything is to say that the law cannot solve anything. Without the ultimate threat of force, law becomes simply a wish expressed with legalistic formality. I am for laws against child rape. To be for laws against child rape means also being in favor of police with guns stopping, apprehending, or securing for punishment men who rape children. To be for the former but against the latter is to be against child rape in principle but for it in practice. While the libertarian is offended by the reality of law, the liberal is in denial about it. It is a common device of liberal rhetoric to replace "tell" with "ask." It's "only right that we ask everyone to pay their fair share," President Obama says about his burning desire to raise taxes on the wealthy (somewhat unfulfilled as of this writing). The New York Times followed suit in a front page headline "Obama Tax Plan Would Ask More of Millionaires." But Obama's plan is not to "ask" more of millionaires, it is to tell millionaires to pay more. After all, taxes are not voluntary. Now it's true that we use the word "ask" in funny ways. Football coaches "ask" more of their players, which is a polite way of saying that they demand more. But the state is different. If you defy you football coach, you're off the team or don't get to start in the big game. If you defy the government, eventually men with guns will come to your home and force you to either pay up or go to jail. If you resist, it's likely they will hit you or shoot you.
Still, since I believe that some amount of taxation is necessary I believe that a necessary amount of law enforcement is necessary as well. Hence I believe that violence solves the problem of people not paying their taxes. I could run through all the steps again, but suffice it to say you can't solve the problem of tax cheats and delinquents without guns or Billy clubs.
Various & Sundry In case you missed it, here's my piece on cigars and cigar shops from the last issue of NR. If you're ever at Signature Cigars in D.C., tell 'em Jonah sent you. You'll get nothing out of it, but it will redound to my favor. Get your C-SPAN on! My conversation with Yuval Levin about his book will be on C-SPAN 2 this weekend. Saturday at 10 p.m., Sunday at 9 p.m., and Monday at midnight and 3 a.m. I really wanted to get weird with it. One idea was to constantly say "Let's take a call. C-SPAN caller you say what?" and then throw a hissy fit on discovering that it wasn't a call-in show. But I decided such antics would be entirely unfair to Yuval. So instead I tried to play it as straight as possible. It's his book, and I let him describe it. There are a few occasional forays into deep nerdom, and I think the subject is very interesting, but if you're looking for the jocularity of the G-File -- and who isn't? -- well, you should probably switch over to C-SPAN8 -- the Ocho! -- where you can find a panel discussion on feminist post-colonial milk studies. Yes, I'm making up C-SPAN 8. But not the topic. To which I say, Yay, academia! You're awesome. Meanwhile, the new issue of Commentary is out, in which I review Yuval's book. I'm told that it will come out from behind the firewall this weekend. I need your help. I agreed to write a funny chapter for a collection of witty conservative authors ("I can see why you're in trouble already" -- The Couch). My essay is supposed to be on "integrity." I have my own ideas, but I'm wondering if I'm missing some great other avenues. If you have any suggestions, thoughts, reactions, etc. please send them my way. Some links on a temporal theme: Isaac Asimov tried to guess what the future would look like. In the Marvel Universe, it's 1975 again (I owned this calendar!). How far the New York Times has fallen. 100 years ago, they were powerfully anti-cat. Read the Telegraph from a century ago as well. Anyone else block out your memories of the Yo-Yo Master? Seven tips from the 1950s on how to keep a man. And now some non-temporal-themed links: Finally! A pneumatic Internet! Some day soon, you can get a martini shaker with this "news"letter. Find your true North through dog poop! But don't ask this one to swim. How long have you waited for this data: Action-movie-star body counts! Japanese women aren't whores and other advertising corrections! Fourteen most underrated stories of 2013. The Year in Dogs! About time! Sharks join Twitter. It'll be good to catch up.
I think one of the sharks was tweeting about this: Human foot found on beach.
Japanese game show has contestants remove a bra for the win. Sounds like winning to me. |
Megyn Kelly -> Pete Hegseth responds to 2017 rape accusation. 🔥 vol. 3, issue 13 | December 6, 2024 Quick Hits All the news you need in...
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