THE PEOPLE'S ROMANCE (TPR)

There is an interesting article by Daniel Klein here (PDF) that gives Leftism a somewhat more creditable motivation than I am usually inclined to give it. Klein argues that because of our evolutionary past, people long to be part of one big group or "community". They in fact like to feel that everyone around them is on their side in some sense. It is a sort of genetic memory of the hunter-gatherer tribe supporting one-another against the elements. So people in whom that need is strong try to convert the whole of their country into one big brotherly tribe. To me as an instinctive individualist, it all seems rather pathetic and I have myself never knowingly felt that way. Being on good terms with just a few like-minded individuals is plenty for me. Nonetheless it is easy to see how such feelings must have evolved and I suppose the wonder is that such feelings are not strong among us all. So the idea is that Leftists are really trying to satisfy their primitive yearning for unity at the expense of all those who want no part of any such social straitjacket. It certainly helps explain the straitjacket societies developed under Hitler's national socialism and Stalin's "socialism in one country". An excerpt from the article:

Many people, particularly ones who in the American context would tend to vote Democrat or Green, are inclined to support economic restrictions such union privileges, occupational licensing, the minimum wage, housing market-controls, the postal monopoly, and import restrictions. Yet knowledgeable economists agree that these restrictions are bad for humankind.

Perhaps their support arises because TPR requires, as Bukharin and Preobrazhensky put it, that activities be statified. [not stratified] What seems primary is not often how well the program or policy achieves stated goals of improving education, mobility, opportunity, and so on but instead the collective endeavor itself.

Why do people who claim to be concerned for the poor so often support or go along with policies that are obviously and predictably bad for society and especially the poor? Why do they support government schooling, antidevelopment land-use policies, rail transit projects, and policies to discourage the use of the private automobile? TPR provides an explanation: these policies bind people together (like a bundle of sticks).

Many populists, right and left, oppose free trade, alleging that it will hurt low-skilled workers. Even if that claim were true, however, why do they leave out of their consideration low-skilled Chinese or Brazilians? Answer: TPR is about we Americans. "The People" excludes "the other people." TPR helps explain why "distributive justice" reaches only to the border. If you scratch an egalitarian you'll often find TPR.

I suspect that a large part of the impetus behind the welfare state is the yearning for a collective enterprise: "We" taking care of "Ourselves." In this theater, some have to be cast as the needy, helpless, disadvantaged, inferior, and so on. I suspect that one reason coercive egalitarians feel that "the disadvantaged" deserve government support is that the scheme demeans and exploits them, so that the assistance is a sort of compensation.

Why are people uneasy about globalization? The communitarian Alasdair MacIntyre rightly says: "Patriotism cannot be what it was because we lack in the fullest sense a patria. . . . In any society where government does not express or represent the moral community of the citizens . . . the nature of political obligation becomes systematically unclear (1984, 254). Globalization blurs the "we," dissolves political obligation, and deflates TPR.

Why are government officials and enthusiasts often hostile to leading corporations like Microsoft, McDonald's, Wal-Mart, and Martha Stewart? Why are they often hostile to other bases for independent private cultural power such as private builders, private schools, and talk radio? Part of the answer may be that they are jealous in guarding their role as medium and focal point in TPR. Why are they hostile to placeless "suburban sprawl," private communities, private shopping malls, the private automobile (especially big ones), gun ownership and toting, and home schooling? Because these practices are means of withdrawing from TPR and creating an autonomous circle of authority, power, and experience.

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ELSEWHERE

It is the 4th of July in Australia as I post this so apologies if this note seems a bit premature. But, as always, Ronald Reagan said it best. There is nothing I can say that would improve on his tribute.

There is a wonderful story here about Ann-Margret and her support for U.S. troops in Vietnam -- quite the opposite of the despicable Jane Fonda. A must-read.

And see if you can read about Lt. Brian Chontosh USMC without a tear in your eye. America still produces real warriors.

Something nasty is happening to the Google listing of Steve Milloy's "Junk Science" site. See here. It looks at first like an ordinary Googlebomb but Steve's site does not come up among the top listings at all. The googlebombers must have linked heaps of sites as well as their main spoof site. Oddly enough, when I Google directly from Australia, Steve's site comes up first -- as it should. The above link uses an anonymizer so Google cannot tell where the query is coming from. That makes it look a bit as if Google themselves are involved in the prank. Anybody reading this who has a site should immediately link to Steve to help him out. Just reproducing this post would do the trick.

Amazing article here. A prominent American "liberal" journalist (Daniel Lazare of "The Nation") was asked: "Do you feel some sympathy for the so-called insurgents in Fallujah?" His reply: "Oh, absolutely yes, total sympathy, total solidarity." Next question to him: "So you're sticking with this comparison of the United States to Nazi Germany?". His reply: "I believe it. I believe it entirely". So how can anyone deny that the American Left is not only anti-American but also pro-Jihadi?

The disgusting Durbin not off the hook: "More than two weeks after citing Nazis and other brutal regimes in criticizing U.S. tactics at the Guantanamo Bay detention center, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) remains under fire from critics who claim the lawmaker's subsequent apology was insufficient. Move America Forward, a group affiliated with the conservative political public relations firm Russo Marsh & Rogers, is planning a national ad campaign that scolds Durbin for his June 14 statements and what the organization refers to as his "non-apology.".... Durbin's Senate floor remarks addressed the details of an FBI agent's e-mail describing heavy-handed interrogation tactics at Guantanamo. Among other things, the e-mail described detainees being chained to the floor in severe temperatures and denied food or water for excessive periods. "If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime--Pol Pot or others--that had no concern for human beings," Durbin said.

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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