Maybe the world is ThreeSources -- add a #3src hashtag to post your tweets
November 4, 2015
Permission to be despondent?
Last week, we had some good-natured persiflage about the geographical spread of leftism eastward from Boulder. Last night's election results are in, and it's over. My home state is lost, and my home state would be required for a realistic chance to spread liberty through the democratic process.
I'll give a brief explanation of these issues for our non Centennial State readers. They truly have national implications in both philosophy and tactics.
The big one was the recall of the "reform board" in Jefferson County. This screengrab captures it completely:
Caption: Union stooges rejoice at another generation of lost children.
Three board members chose to buck the Teachers' Unions and the State's Educational-Financial complex. They increased teachers' pay but instituted merit pay. They challenged the AP History curriculum and even the governing board admitted they were right and instituted changes. They built a new school without debt.
Now these folks are not polished politicians. They made a bucket of enemies in the media, academia, and investment banking community (a new school without bonds? Hey, my kids have to eat Chateaubriand too!). Facing hostile questioning, they made some unforced errors. But these three are exhibit A: proving that citizens can get involved and make a difference. Hahahahahaha! I just slay myself -- no, the Unions got them recalled, almost 2-1.
JeffCo is the "swing" county of our swing state. It has long been said that as JeffCo's suburban moms go, so goes the nation. Well, the nation is going down the tubes. No chance that Colorado will send a GOP senator or any GOP electors in 2016. No chance that the GOP will move toward more liberty positions to attract Mountain Libertarians to capture our ten votes.
Lowell George sang about "weed, whites and wine." The second and more expected loss was about "weed, TABOR, and schools." You have to almost tip your hats at the opposition for this setup.
Colorado's TAxpayer Bill Of Rights (TABOR) is the most magnificent piece of legislation since the Tenth Amendment: government revenues cannot grow faster than population and inflation. If they collect a windfall or seek to outspend, they must ask the voters for approval.
Well, they got a windfall with marijuana tax revenue: a bong-water-firehose of money right into the capitol. TABOR dictates that they have to ask the voters whether they may keep it. So they position it, not as a general rebate, but a rebate to the sellers and tax holiday for users, versus . . . . wait for it . . . more money for schools! Truly South Park worthy, we were asked whether money should go to schools or dope dealers. My side lost.
It's over. Life in a dying empire can be pretty good for a while.
It is a gut punch for liberty. No doubt. It also shouldn't be a surprise, even though it was. To me, at least. When I saw Jeffco voter turnout was 10K more R's than D's, I was optimistic. Cheerful even. But the mushy middle was lead by the nose right where the union money - and, more importantly, union teachers' and staffs' ceaseless gossip mongering since the day Cindy Williams quit/"was forced out"/left as the superintendent who "couldn't work with these 'people'" - wanted them to go. The unaffiliated suburban soccer moms, who couldn't tell you the difference between sharing and Sharia, voted for comity. "Can't we all just get along?" Sure, if we all do it the union way. Kumbaya
I always expect to lose, so I am rarely surprised. But I was surprised at the spread.
Keep in mind that the voter turnout was low - 1.1 million of 3.45 million registered voters, or about 33 percent. This was a special interest GOTV victory, not a wave of collectivist sentiment.
The education-industrial complex had the money and the vested interest to buy the result it wanted. The small but vocal liberty movement had little to spend, although the Koch's did buy some ads in defense of the board - too little too late for a group whose reputation was smeared on a daily basis ever since they were seated. And it wasn't an existential threat to freedom so much as it was to the educrat class. Let them have their fun. They won this battle. Now they have to hold it against a movement that has witnessed more success in 2 years than the crony educators have had in a century.
Colorado Peak Politics, like me, is not quite as fatalistic as some.
So, yes, tonight, the unions won, but not because of the public's repudiation of reform ideas, but because of the union's disgusting tactics in every district in which it played.
Ah! So next year, when the unions play fairly, and there is no skulduggery, everything will be fine. I was worried for a moment.
I did not really speak to tactics in my post, but much of my despondency is at seeing their success and expecting more of the same.
I enjoyed this apology from 9News (thanks to Colorado Peak Politics), but this election was all mail-in ballots. The lies were postmarked before the truth could look for its trousers.
No, next election when the unions/PP are pulled in 25 different directions, the vox populi will be better represented with higher turnout.
Permission granted, but not encouraged. It is disappointing that we lost another WALKER moment (and agreed, JK, that the board probably overreached and made too many enemies), but let us note:
- successful recalls in 2013 of Edie Hudak, John Morse and Angela Giron;
- Tea Party'ists (McConnel's vanquished foe) moving into the KY Governor's Mansion (here's hoping Bevan/Hampton become rising stars); GOP now controls 64% of governorship's.
- Even the WaPo is saying Just like the midterms one year ago, it was another awful night for Democrats {hmm, rejecting legalized pot in Ohio noted as a victory for conservatives... I'm holding back on endorsing that one...}
- one can hope the Union's heavy hand in JeffCo and DougCo at least force new boards to acknowledge some of the reforms as useful, and a new, big baleful eye will now be on them for _results_.
- trust in media is at all-time low (Gallup, late Sept. before the CNBC catastrophe)
- pre-election polls once again as wrong as wrong can be (and of course biased towards Dems), thereby throwing Dems into panic.
On that last point, check my assumption: I believe your FB foils will be even more shrill (as if that's possible) in the vein: "the GOP needs change, or will cease to exist as a party." Mine have (and I shun politics on FB) gone from seeing this sort of thing twice per annum, to twice a month!
Some good perspective there, nb. Yes, I was suggesting a larger turnout would have made it closer. But that's not enough. We have to do a better job of retail democracy.
If you followed my CPP link above you could have read this:
If this was a call to action for conservatives, it's a call to organize. To run disciplined and ruthless campaigns. To undercut the union at every turn and to expose unions as the liars they are. To bring boots on the ground and run a 24/7, 365-day-per-year campaign.
Easier said than done, but I see positive developments in party operations toward this end.
November 3, 2015
Eleventh Commandment Anybody?
I was a big supporter of then-Rep. John Kasich (Ex-HOSS - OH) in 2000. He dropped out and threw his support to Gov. Bush and I went along. But I do need to give the guy props. He was a Spirit of '94 guy and desrves approbation for his contributions chairing the House Budget Committee.
So, thanks. But no thanks. The good folks at Occupy Democrats are enjoying this: www.facebook.com/OccupyDemocrats/videos/986156074810780
Quote of the Day
Because error is evergreen, the economics of Santa Claus still wins votes.
As we go to press, one candidate in the Democratic presidential race calls himself a socialist while another smiles and calls herself progressive.
Happy 60th birthday,
National Review
So every other week in print, and daily online, National Review will try to sort it all out — and to have a good laugh, and to honor beauty and poetry when we find them. Why not be in good spirits, when we enjoy the support of our readers, the freedom in America to do what we do, and the grace of God for both?
November 2, 2015
Quote of the Day
Lifting WSJ's "Notable & Quotable." Forgive me, Rupert!
I make a distinction between intellectuals and people of intellectual achievement. . .
An intellectual feeds on indignation and really can't get by without it. The perfect example is Noam Chomsky. When Chomsky was merely the most exciting and most looked-to and, in many ways, the most profound linguist in this country if not the world, he was never spoken of as an American intellectual. Here was a man of intellectual achievement. He was not considered an intellectual until he denounced the war in Vietnam, which he knew nothing about. Then he became one of America's leading intellectuals. He remains one until this day, which finally has led to my definition of an intellectual: An intellectual is a person who is knowledgeable in one field but speaks out only in others. -- Tom Wolfe.
William "Socialism is needed to combat Climate Change" Gates
could not be reached for comment...
Is Michael Mann not then an "intellectual?"
I believe my definition of an intellectual is more accurate: "An intellectual is a person who is an expert at finding excuses for telling other people what to do."
I've always liked Wolfe's commentaries.... I'll have to read _Bonfire someday (unless someone with many titles on his reader can suggest a better title).
I do like his take: I've looked at this same problem from Boorstin's point of view, typically, but that's back when those of intellectual achievement stuck to their guns and still employed a bit of humility. I guess in the age of celebrity and 24/7 media barrage, even the intellectual has felt the need to "up" his game/image/status!
"The hero was distinguished by his achievement; the celebrity by his image or trademark. The hero created himself; the celebrity is created by the media. The hero was a big man; the celebrity is a big name." -- Daniel J. Boorstin
Wolfe's statement supports the argument from authority fallacy, suggesting that one should not speak out in fields other than those where his expertise is relevant.
Bonfire is great as is "I Am Charlotte Simmons." Before I abandoned Conservatism, t'was included on my list of the (exactly) five conservative novels of all time.
I'm going to defend the quote by highlighting the term "only." The intellectuals chided use their authority by expecting t to transfer into every field.
November 1, 2015
Review Corner
We do not know for sure why the gap opened up, but there are many good guesses. This was the British Enlightenment, summarized by the historian Roy Porter as a time when people stopped asking "How can I be saved?" -- a question that over the past century had brought little but mayhem, including a civil war -- and asked instead "How can I be happy?"
Angus Deaton won the Nobel Prize for economics this year. I figured the least I could do was to buy his book:
The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality. I had heard his EconTalk
podcast with Russ Roberts but was still not certain what to expect.
The topic is my favorite: mankind's making the great escape from poverty and privation, in this case compared to the 1963 film in which Steve McQueen and company escape from Stalag Luft III. The first thing that separates Deaton from the Deirdre McCloskey David Deutsch school is his pointing out that all the prisoners [SPOILER ALERT] are eventually recaptured. Deaton is no pessimist, but the choice is telling. Our gains are not "locked in." Threats exist, yet:
I find the optimistic argument the more compelling: ever since people rebelled against authority in the Enlightenment, and set about using the force of reason to make their lives better, they have found a way to do so, and there is little doubt that they will continue to win victories against the forces of death. That said, it is too optimistic to think that life expectancy in the future will grow at the same rate as it did in the past; falling rates of infant and child mortality make life expectancy grow rapidly, and that source of growth is largely gone, at least in the rich countries.
Less optimist/pessimist, this is an amazingly non-ideological work. Deaton wants to measure things accurately , and follow the data where it goes.The book is a measurement masterpiece, looking at proxies for wealth and wellbeing across time and culture. Unlike last week's selection, Deaton is clear about the limitations and benefits of proxies: life-span, size, NGP are valid measurements, but never the entire story.
Unless we understand how the numbers are put together, and what they mean, we run the risk of seeing problems where there are none, of missing urgent and addressable needs, of being outraged by fantasies while overlooking real horrors, and of recommending policies that are fundamentally misconceived.
He accepts inequality qua inequality as bad, yet makes many ThreeSoruces-friendly arguments about general well being, Pareto efficiency and inequality's natural existence as wealth is created. He is brutally honest about the failures of international aid, channeling and quoting William Easterly, yet tallies the successes in fights against AIDS, promotion of sanitation, and advances in prenatal care. Again, he does not -- ever -- state an ideology, but one thinks him pretty utilitarian, modestly looking for efficacy and benefits.
For every four years of calendar time, the world's highest life expectancy increased by a year. Oeppen and Vaupel see no reason why this long-established rate of progress should not continue. Their diagram also marks the many previous estimates of the maximum possible life expectancy, each of which was swept away by actual events; many previous sages have forecast that the gains to life span will slow or stop, and they have all been wrong.
Deaton is less worried about those forced to drive a Camry instead of a Lexus, but rather the great disparity between poor and developed countries. Accepting that so much progress has been made raising people from sub $1.25/day wages, how can we bring up the last billion?
This division of the credit for increases in well-being between income and knowledge will occupy us throughout the book. I shall argue that it is knowledge that is the key, and that income-- although important both in and of itself and as a component of wellbeing, and often as a facilitator of other aspects of wellbeing-- is not the ultimate cause of wellbeing.
If I'm doing a poor job pigeonholing this book, it's because it is tough. You could hand this to any of your Facebook friends and it would come back with some sections highlighted. Your basic economics geek will like it best, he's ready to look at the small but incontrovertible effects of smoking, the statistical difference is saving children over adults.
Saving the lives of children has a bigger effect on life expectancy than saving the lives of the elderly. A newborn who might have died but does not has the chance to live many more years, which is not the case when a 70-year-old is pulled through a life-threatening crisis. This is also one of the reasons why the rate of increase in life expectancy has slowed down in recent years; mortality among children is now so low that progress can only really take place among older adults, among whom reductions in mortality rates have smaller effects on life expectancy.
A very interesting book, and a bit of a check on everyone's ideology. Huzzah for the Nobel committee (Economics still enjoys the best picks). I'll pile five stars on the accolades.
Pareto efficiency! I love having the proper technical term up my sleeve - "zero-sum" game/scenario isn't so evocative that it can't be replaced.
That's what we're here for!
October 30, 2015
union money ... in Lafayette?!?
I read an article about the Lafayette city elections from an Erie resident Kerry Bensman, who claimed to have served on city councils for over a decade. It noted how last year, the city council voted down the unionization of our fire department, 6-1. Now the big four (including the mayor) or so the letter claims are receiving union money for their reelection.
I'm a bit stung by union money (typ. out of state, one assumes) flooding local elections, especially keen as the JeffCo school board recall vote is clearly an attempt (Complete Colorado has been covering that quite well) at a power grab away from local families by national unions.
I've dug around a bit and not found any supporting information; anybody here hear anything... Bueller?
Heh; it took a while, but I found all the union-endorsed school boarders (first time I think I've ever done that!). Crikey, but nearly all the Lafayette CC members are Dems... I though I'd moved far enough east!
Well. I'm not certain Brother JG is "far enough East" or how long such a concept will hold.
Democrat -- hell! They are all certifiable card carrying red Communists! My final election before moving out of your fair town, I decided it was my civic duty to meet each candidate (al politics being local, as Tip O'Neill would say).
With my reputation for overstatement, I do not know how to establish a good baseline, but there was not one running in 2008 who did not want to shut down Public Road to make a "Pearl Street East," bring in diversity consultants -- I thought it was a clever "candid camera" jape and that my blog brothers would appear from behind a screen and we'd all share a great laugh.
No. But they're filling Erie now -- our days are numbered.
It's not that bad in Erie. I know one of the current trustees.
And I've a county commissioner living between me and the Boulder county border. I feel I'm a safe distance behind County Lines.
I thought I was safe in Lafayette in 2000. I did GOTV, and there were a bucket-full of "red" precincts in "East County." They're a different shade of red in 2015...
Hey, I should do a proper post, but di'j'y'all see this?
Colorado rurality an urban legend
Eight in 10 Colorado jobs are located in a band of just nine counties stretching from El Paso to Larimer
It's not as though rural America can't develop economically without the government "aid" of our city mouse brethren.
One can make a strong case that we'd develop even more if we had less of that "help."
Jihad is so much fun it kills me!
German rapper "Deso (Devil's Son) Dogg" Cuspert turns to Islam, joins ISIL, dies in U.S. airstrike against men who "want your [German] blood" in Raqqa, Syria.
The evolution of "Deso Dogg," the hip-hop star with a chip on his shoulder, into "Abu Talha Al-Almani," a militant with blood on his hands and an airstrike's terrorist target is less unlikely than it sounds. Like so many of Islamic State's western recruits, Cuspert was simultaneously disaffected and indignant, the survivor of a troubled upbringing and a tumultuous adulthood who saw something in jihad -- faith, fulfillment, the promise of redemption -- he lacked at home.
Perhaps it had something to do with some structural inconsistency in his upbringing.
October 29, 2015
Quote of the Day
The night went better for the professional politicians than for the "outsiders." Carly Fiorina did her now-familiar riff that she’d be the best opponent for Hillary Clinton, but her lack of specificity is becoming notable--and a liability. Donald Trump seemed more subdued but also far too general. We love Larry Kudlow as much as anyone, but Mr. Trump will need better arguments for his tax cut than that appeal to CNBC authority. Mr. Trump keeps giving the impression that he's not doing much homework, though we were glad to see he is walking back his previous hostility to legal immigration. -- WSJ Ed Page
They are professionals, after all. They didn't get where they are now without an ability to adapt.
The ultimate effect of the front-running "outsider" candidates may well be to improve the performance and outcome for one or more of the pros. But adaptation has its limits. It can't turn a leopard into a lion, or a cronyist tool into a statesman.
Well said, JG. I do like Trump's willingness to be brutally "frank" with the MSM, and little else about him. Here's hoping this hutpah keeps catching on (candidates were UnTrumply focused, polished and professional with their pushback, from what I could see). I give high marks for Cruz and Fiorina for playing their few cards shrewdly, and keeping their good side turned toward the limelight (Cruz apparently is quite abrasive in person, and we've noted many of his high-profile actions as suspiciously self-serving).
A question for all that came up last night with a friend: are Kudlow's financial predictions any good? I can't recall many that were, and have lots of proof of bad ones...
And now for a bit of fun
First, a QOTD from an unlikely source, who said of HRC
But Libya was the country where she was the midwife to chaos
I would add a small qualification that "Libya" is not necessary. An old WSJ article I can't find anymore referred to them as the "Clinton whirlwind" which sucks up oxygen and money and spits out broken people... published perhaps right after Chris Stevens' untimely death.
This article from Fox very well highlights and summarizes the WHY? question about Libya (she, BHO and some congressfolks broke the law with U.S. arms in violation of the embargo to arm rebels whom she hoped would run the new government). Ah-hah, THAT's what the consulate, ambassador's mission & CIA annex were doing in Benghazi... That is the truth Gowdy needs to pursue, even if it embarrasses some GOPers.
Now for the fun. HILLARITY is fun!! We know, because she says so.
Perhaps it would be helpful for me to provide an example of a fun thing I do. I take part in levity. I enjoy jokes, which are fun. When the occasion presents itself, I have been known to make jokes of my own, thereby creating fun for those around me.
The gist of this post is not pure levity, since the topic so dire, but I had to laugh out loud at Dowd's still sharp snark-sense (poor grammar actually helps!) cutting with an Occam swipe... Midwife to Chaos.... if only she hated HRC more than she hates Republicans... Hat tip to Judge Napolitano's very strong Fox News column.
Finally, at long last, I learn the explanation for Hillary Clinton's role in the public sphere. She's an entertainer!
