SOME POLITICAL HISTORY

There is a long and wide-ranging essay here which looks at the major influences in modern American conservatism. I am certainly inclined to agree with this: "From the 1950s to the present, libertarianism has been an important and influential - arguably the most influential - stream of thought on the Right, informing both Republican policy making and conservative ideology more generally". He faults libertarianism, however, for not coming to terms with the fact that lots of people seem to WANT big government and says that it is only the neoconservatives who are realistic about that fact. He presents the neoconservatives as being the practical, pragmatic dealers in political reality. He does definitely have a point but I would argue that no libertarian is unaware of how difficult it is to implement any part of a libertarian agenda and that ALL conservatives compromise with the possible. The difference is that the libertarians have the clearest vision of the direction in which they want to head -- and the best evidence that their ideas work for the general betterment.

There is another good review out of In Denial by Haynes & Klehr: Glenn Garvin opens his rather amusing comments on the ineptitude and dishonesty of America's many pro-Communist historians and other academics as follows: "In 1983 the Indiana University historian Robert F. Byrnes collected essays from 35 experts on the Soviet Union -- the cream of American academia -- in a book titled After Brezhnev. Their conclusion: Any U.S. thought of winning the Cold War was a pipe dream. "The Soviet Union is going to remain a stable state, with a very stable, conservative, immobile government," Byrnes said in an interview, summing up the book. "We don't see any collapse or weakening of the Soviet system." Barely six years later, the Soviet empire began falling apart."

To be Australian is to believe in the `fair go', even if it is not always clear what this means in practice.... examples suggest that the `fair go' in 19th century Australia was largely associated with a set of ethical principles which today we would recognise as `meritocratic'. The belief was not that everybody should end up with the same shares (egalitarianism), but was rather that everybody should get the opportunity to compete and thereby to improve themselves.... In August 2003, AC Nielsen carried out a survey of public opinion ... there was very strong (85%) public support for a meritocratic definition of fairness"

"One of the great goals of education is to initiate the young into the conversation of their ancestors -- to enable them to understand the language of that conversation, in all its subtlety, and maybe even, in their maturity, to add to it some wisdom of their own. The modern American educational system no longer teaches us the political language of our ancestors. In fact our schooling helps widen the gulf of time between our ancestors and ourselves, because much of what we are taught in the name of civics, political science or American history is really modern liberal propaganda.

Sowell: "Nowhere have whole peoples seen their situation reversed more visibly or more painfully than the peoples of the Islamic world... Why do they hate us? Maybe it is because the alternative to hating us is to hate themselves".

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ELSEWHERE

Government by judges: "As an American in remission, I have a romantic fondness for the notion of constitutional government, which of course doesn't exist and never will again in the United States if it ever did. Face it: The constitution is deader than a doorknob. I mean a doorknob with melanoma and clogged arteries.... Courts run the country these days. The will of the people is irrelevant. When did you last hear of anything of lasting import being done by Congress? I can't either. But almost every week you read about some federal judge, or that ratpack of pompous drones on the Supreme Court, who have... defunded the Boy Scouts, or invented a constitutional right to abortion, or imposed integration, or outlawed the public expression of Christianity, or made it impossible to stop immigration. They tell you who you can hire, who you can sell your house to, what your children will be taught. They serve to impose what could never be legislatively enacted. The judges are out of control. They're at it again. Marriage doesn't mean what it has always meant. It means what some over-promoted nonentity wants it to mean. And the country will obey. Roll over. Bark. Fetch".

A million ... er, 2,000 march against guns: "About 2,000 people celebrated Mother's Day yesterday by attending a Million Mom March rally at the Capitol to demonstrate support for extending the nation's ban on assault weapons." Interested Participant uses the occasion to comment on the way the media usually accept Leftist overestimates of numbers.

About time! White House to impose sanctions on Syria: "President Bush will order economic sanctions against Syria this week for supporting terrorism and not doing enough to prevent militant fighters from entering neighboring Iraq, congressional and administration sources said Monday. The sanctions, which the White House will impose as early as Tuesday, are being ordered because the administration believes Syria has aggravated tensions in the Middle East by supporting militant groups."

There is another excellent letter from a U.S. soldier in Iraq here which tells the news from Iraq in a way that you will never hear from the mass media. And there is a very recent letter from Iraq here too.

Arlene Peck reproduces an email she received from a Palestinian girl who was publicly raped by her FATHER as punishment for criticizing the Hamas terrorists.

Metal Yarmulke is blogging again. He is a bit upset by "lookism" in the blogosphere. He has a point. Being fat is death to the acceptability of women in our culture but in China and the Middle East it is admired, from what I know.

Bill Keezer has a stab at explaining chaos theory to us all. I always DID suspect that butterflies could not cause hurricanes!

For more postings, see GREENIE WATCH and POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH. Mirror sites here and here

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The Left have always wanted more spent on welfare and made "Fascism" a swear-word. President Bush deposed a brutal Fascist dictator and sponsored a big expansion of welfare. But instead of being admired by the Left, he is hated with a passion. What does that tell you about the Left? It tells you that they have no principles at all: That everything they have ever claimed to stand for is fake.

All politicians seek power but conservatives bring with them some concern for the welfare of their country. Leftists bring only their hate-filled Stalinist hearts and their pretend compassion. Voters, unfortunately, often believe the compassion is genuine

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