JOSEPH SOBRAN ON CONSERVATISM:

"More and more I find myself thinking that a conservative is someone who regards this world with a basic affection, and wants to appreciate it as it is before he goes on to the always necessary work of making some rearrangements. Richard Weaver says we have no right to reform the world unless we cherish some aspects of it; and that is the attitude of many of the best conservative thinkers. Burke says that a constitution ought to be the subject of enjoyment rather than altercation. (I wish the American Civil Liberties Union would take his words to heart.)

I find a certain music in conservative writing that I never find in that of liberals. Michael Oakeshott speaks of "affection," "attachment," "familiarity," "happiness"; and my point is not the iname one that these are very nice things, but that Oakeshott thinks of them as considerations pertinent to political thinking. He knows what normal life is, what normal activities are, and his first thought is that politics should not disturb them....

"He who is unaware of his ignorance," writes Richard Whately, "will only be misled by his knowledge." And that is the trouble with the liberal, the socialist, the Communist, and a dozen other species of political cranks who have achieved respectability in our time: they disregard so much of what is constant and latent in life. They fail to notice; they fail to appreciate.

For some reason, we have allowed the malcontent to assume moral prestige. We praise as "ideals" what are nothing more than fantasies--a world of perpetual peace, brotherhood, justice, or any other will-o'-the-wisp that has lured men toward the Gulag. The malcontent can be spotted in his little habits of speech: He calls language and nationality "barriers" when the conservative, more appreciatively, recognizes them as cohesives that make social life possible. He damns as "apathy" an ordinary indifference to politics that may really be a healthy contentment. He praises as "compassion" what the conservative earthily sees as a program of collectivization. He may even assert as "rights" what tradition has regarded as wrongs".

More (much more) here. It might be noted that it is a common finding from survey research that conservatives are happier. See e.g. here. One might perhaps ask how conservatives could be both wary and happier but I think that to ask that question is almost to answer it. Wary people are more likely to avoid the heartbreaks and disappointments that overconfident people experience. And who is more overconfident than a Leftist with his insouciant prescriptions about how the whole world should be re-organized? Because they tend to be better at dealing with the world realistically, conservatives are happier with the same world that deeply dissatisfies the Leftist -- who blames the world for his own failures at comprehending and dealing with it.

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ELSEWHERE

Claims of low social mobility debunked: "Major newspapers are in the throes of Mobility Mania: who "makes it" in America, and why; who doesn't, and why not. The Wall Street Journal began a series last week titled "Challenges to the American Dream." The New York Times followed suit with a multiparter on "Class in America," which aims to disparage the notion that the U.S. is a land of opportunity by claiming that "new research on mobility, the movement of families up and down the economic ladder, shows there is far less of it than economists once thought and less than most people believe." Yet the scholarship commonly cited in support of such assertions--new research by Gary Solon of the University of Michigan, David I. Levine of Berkeley, and Bhashkar Mazumder of the Chicago Fed, among others--says no such thing. A paper last fall by Mr. Solon observed that several of the newest estimates, including two from Messrs. Levine and Mazumder, suggest that it has become substantially easier to move from one economic class to another"

America will stay on top: "developments in the U.S. and world economies are such that America's preeminence is assured for decades to come. Start with Europe. The continent's leading economies are bedeviled by double-digit unemployment that is a result of rigid labor markets and excessive regulation. Their leaders' solution? More rigidity, more regulation, and an attack on what Franz M_ntefering, head of Germany's Social Democratic party, calls the "growing power of capital" in the hands of foreign investors, or "locusts." As if to show that there is no regulation too ludicrous for adoption, Spain's stock market regulators now require all company directors to disclose related-party transactions with anyone with whom they have "affectionate relationships," interpreted to mean lovers. Spain's gossip columnists are set to become avid readers of corporate annual reports. Then there is Great Britain. Not to be outdone by Spanish regulators, the town council of Blackpool last week granted a 48-hour week to the 228 donkeys that carry children for rides along the town's beaches."

Fat cats targeted: "A number of governors around the nation are taking aim at the benefits paid to public employees -- which, in many cases, are far richer than those offered to workers in private industry. Warning that his state is heading for a pension crisis, Rhode Island Governor Donald L. Carcieri wants to boost the age at which teachers and state workers can draw pensions and trim the cost-of-living adjustment retirees get annually. ... In Alaska, Illinois and California, governors are coming to the same conclusion. ... Like the current debate on Social Security, the fight over pensions revolves around a basic question: How much does society want to spend to support retirees? But some governors insist there is a fairness issue involved, too. At a time when fewer employees in the private sector have traditional pensions and retiree health insurance, most workers in the public sector have both."

Irish bloggers "Freedom Institute" have some coverage and commentary about the visit of British far-Leftist George Galloway to the U.S. Senate. See here and here

There are two big articles here and here pointing out that the German Left is once again heavily antisemitic. "The more things change.... "

John Stossel has an hilarious article here about bottled water. I guess you know what he is going to tell you. Some people in Australia call it "Wanker's Water" -- but the supermarkets are full of it. Amazing.

There is a report here which says that kids with "black" names are expected by their teachers to be dumber while kids with Asian names are expected to be brighter. Which just shows that teachers recognize reality too, Leftist and politically correct although they generally are.

Carnival of the Vanities is up again with a big range of good reading

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald

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That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftist movers and shakers is perfectly shown by the 2004 Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftist ideologues are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions and can con "the masses" into giving them power.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist"

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