Actors & patriotism

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America is a weird place. In America it’s one generation from liberals like Henry Fonda joining up to serve the country in war–like everyone else, at one in heart & mind with their conservative friends, like Jimmy Stewart–to liberals like Jane Fonda running off to Vietnam to help out some of the most atrocious murderers available at the time with the hot blonde part of PR. The old man did not chastise his daughter publicly, so you can see how great the change was & I’m sure you all have thoughts on what’s happened–I’d like to talk about it, but it does not entirely seem proper right now. Maybe this weekend?

At any rate, I would not presume to speak to you about 9/11. I take it seriously, but it is … Continue reading →

Roman holiday

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Hello, folks–here’s the rather more recent stuff I’ve been writing on movies for Ricochet. I do not feel I have a very good reason for picking this movie, however: It is neither too funny nor too romantic. It has about it the air of a fairy tale, but this time the princess wants to be Cinderella for a day… A princess who has never seen people wishes to escape from her vaguely feudal, vaguely futuristic duties. I suppose this could be an education for all the Disney characters turned into rather shocking young people by the celebrity industry. You can tell, I mean to be rather contrarian. I don’t want to spoil anyone’s fun, just to bring out what people tend to overlook.

Now for … Continue reading →

When Things Don’t Make Sense

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When things don’t make sense, we make them make sense by supplying additional information which is either true or false, but which fills the gap.  I think a longer-term trend than simple disgust with the GOP, and to some extent with the DNC as the Clinton machine blows a rod, is the decay of an American Republic as seen in your Civics textbook.

We’ve always been plagued by the Art Bell / Alex Jones kooker crowd and their Libertarian Party locust. Call these people the early adopters, ready to fly away from reason (even while laying exclusive claim to “Reason”, a sign of derangement) at too little provocation. Then there are those who will never depart the pattern, but will drive right into a wall because there is … Continue reading →

Getting Old

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Okay, in one sense, I’m not really getting old.  And in another, I feel I’ve always been old.  or always felt old, or something like that.  And perhaps old isn’t really the right word for it.  Somehow, a seemingly incongruous combination of being arch, crotchety, and phlegmatic all at once sums it up, but doesn’t really do it justice.  Oh and tired.  More than a little tired.  I recall toward the end of college complaining that I felt “tired, in a cosmic way — an unspeakable empty-fuel-tank kind of tiredness, whether I’m having a blast and active or sitting around with a slight buzz, it’s always there”.  Well, that was all a bit dramatic, which I’ll chalk up to youth, but I didn’t feel young.  It’s the darnedest … Continue reading →

Entitlements: Plan C

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Reprinted from August of 2011, when the Ryan Plan was news.  Has much changed?

You boomers are in trouble.  Your parents lived through the depression or were directly impacted by it, and they came up with a whole circus of social safety nets.  This system was never built to last even if it had not been abused, but it has been ransacked.  They used it as intended, and you have abused it, hollowing out the programs while expanding them, so that all that remains is a system of empty shells.  Now you want to retire on it, and there’s nothing left.  So you’ve borrowed the money from overseas, and told them that my generations will pay for it.

Well maybe we will, and maybe we won’t.

It’s not … Continue reading →

Moralism & Greece

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This started as an answer to Mr. Devereaux, but then I got to ranting at cruising speed, & there was then no turning back: You know Admiral Farragut–damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead! He pointed out reasonably that Germans should not be blaming Greeks or Greece, but themselves. I would add, Germany, the EU, & the banks have not acted reasonably or charitably, either. So off I go into the minefield, but not before summing up what might be a confusing essay: Germany, German persons of influence with public opinion, & the various banks, mostly non-German, had cause to know better than they did or do; & they were under no compulsion to do the things that they have done to get into this situation; & they are … Continue reading →

The Impending Darkness

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Hard not to be gloomy these days. Just when you think there’s a chance, a glimmer, it’s gone. Like everything else.
sadkurtz

It turns out that not only is the universe going to die a slow cooling death, but we’re not even in an interesting time. On the other hand, the 1980s under the very real Cold War threat and a resurgent Reagan’s America was the most optimistic time I have ever had in my life. The particles were symmetrical, and the Omega point was widely presumed to be a smidge better than one. The internet of cat pictures was just … Continue reading →

Moralism as a conservative problem

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If you’re right, you should win–you deserve to win–if you’re not winning, there’s probably some treachery or conspiratorial stuff being done by whoever’s winning or at least on their behalf. Then a few steps further, it’s civil war, right after the end of the republic. & whoever disagrees is a sucker, being played by evil people whose powers might just be unlimited.

Lotsa anger among conservatives, not enough for the right to cohere, but too much for the various factions to tolerate each other. What is there to do? I don’t know. How can we live with it? I have some ideas about this.

… Continue reading →

America needs a demagogue

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Here’s another piece I wrote for Ricochet: This has long been the case, but it is not easy for Americans to find one, because of the political process that is so strangely influenced or even dominated by national parties the which are not creatures of the constitution, but of the politicians. It used to be, victorious generals could arouse the spiritedness in the people. That, I believe, reflected the passions connected with inequality; it is gone now. The parties, themselves expressions of American spiritedness, have survived war & are now spirited about peace.

These parties select people that end up talking like politicians, not because they are in power, but because they do a job rather well. The party now winning & the party now losing share disconcerting … Continue reading →