Sunday open thread

Sorry – just realized I hadn’t started one of these in a few days. I’m taking it easy today, needing a day’s break from politics. Will be back in the a.m.

In the meantime, the big buzz in the blogosphere is, of course, Obama’s win in SC yesterday – there’s also news of Ted Kennedy getting ready to announce his support for Obama, which should send Bubba into yet another fit of rage. Read about all of that, and more, here.

8 Responses to "Sunday open thread"

sodaboy says:

January 27, 2008 at 5:59 pm

An interesting article by Olasky (Human Events) on why he believes libertarianism and Social conservatives are consistent.

Mike Huckabee has not been able to pick up much support beyond his evangelical base, but there’s a way for him to do so. He needs to show that Christian conservative views and small government views logically go together.

link

All in all he makes sense but his logic does not address one major roadblock – how utterly blind libertarians are to reality.
Great White Rat says:

January 27, 2008 at 6:12 pm

Europe’s Philosophy of Failure

I found this article in the latest dead-tree version of Foreign Policy magazine, which I happened upon yesterday in a lounge in the Seattle airport.

Millions of children are being raised on prejudice and disinformation. Educated in schools that teach a skewed ideology, they are exposed to a dogma that runs counter to core beliefs shared by many other Western countries. They study from textbooks filled with a doctrine of dissent, which they learn as they prepare to attend many of the better universities in the world.

And no, we’re not talking about the madrassas here.

If you need any more evidence that the next administration must make a strong commitment to preserving our free market economy, consider this: in some of the world’s largest economies, textbooks are training young people to become socialists.

The writer, Stefan Theil, focuses on economic education, or more accurately the lack of economic education, in France and Germany. In both countries, students are learning that economic growth and capitalism are bad In France, for example:

“Economic growth imposes a hectic form of life, producing overwork, stress, nervous depression, cardiovascular disease and, according to some, even the development of cancer,” asserts the three-volume Histoire du XXe siÃ¨cle, a set of texts memorized by countless French high school students â€¦

Capitalism itself is described at various points in the text as “brutal,” “savage,” “neoliberal,” and “American.” This agitprop was published in 2005, not in 1972. â€¦

The overall message is that economic activity has countless undesirable effects from which citizens must be protected.

It’s no better in Germany:

German students will be well-versed in many subjects upon graduation; one topic they will know particularly well is their rights as welfare recipientsâ€¦

One 10th-grade social studies text titled FAKT has a chapter on “What to do against unemployment.”â€¦ When FAKT presents the reasons for unemployment, it blames computers and robotsâ€¦.

Students learn that private companies destroy jobs while government policy creates them. Employers exploit while the state protects. Free markets offer chaos while government regulation brings order.

Theil sees political consequences of this economic illiteracy:

the changes wrought by globalization will awaken deeply held resentment against capitalism and, in many countries from Europe to Latin America, provide a fertile ground for populists and demagogues, a trend that is already manifesting itself in the sudden rise of many leftist movements today.

Populists and demagogues…in other words, an outbreak of John Edwards clones let loose from the asylums and running around unsupervised.

It’s not a shock that only those who have no clue about economics subscribe to socialism, The surprise is that Foreign Policy is a publication of the left-of-center Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and which has, among others, Kofi Annan and Jamie Gorelick on its board of directors.
CZ says:

January 27, 2008 at 7:19 pm

Another rage from Slick will happen for sure and I cannot wait! It just gets better every day.

Without chasing bimbos as a release for his pent-up sexual tension how else would we expect the Ex-Horn-Dog-In-Chief to react? You know he is being watched closer than ever by Hill’s security squad. He needs to blow-off (so to speak) a little steam.

I feel his pain!
stackja says:

January 27, 2008 at 8:02 pm

Meanwhile another cultural soldier fades away: PP McGuinness, ‘dissenter’, dies.
Tom TB says:

January 28, 2008 at 8:40 am

Yesterdays’s NYTimes has an op-ed piece by Caroline Kennedy titled “A President Like My Father” where she announces she is passing the torch of “Camelot” to Obama. Bill and Hill must be seething; not only is she JFK’s daughter, and redoing the “New Frontier” thing with a new generation, she’s a woman not supporting a sister!
Lorica says:

January 28, 2008 at 10:16 am

All in all he makes sense but his logic does not address one major roadblock – how utterly blind libertarians are to reality.

Sodaboy, I deal with that almost daily. A couple of real good friends of mine are both Ron Paul supporters, and they prattle on about Paul as if he is Lazarus come forth out of the grave. So I like to bring up his stance on the war. They come back with “we shouldn’t have gone into Iraq”!!! Which is neither here nor there in the discussion. We are there, we are very close to winning it, and this fool still wants to pull out. Oiy!!! – Lorica
Sister Toldjah says:

January 30, 2008 at 9:44 pm

Moved from another thread. –ST

At timblair we can read:

I’m out of hospital – now at home under the stern and watchful care of Nadia and my retired-nurse mother, shown here with her seemingly developmentally-delayed son (on seeing this shot, mum said: “Is he supposed to look like that?”)

Photo links on timblair page. timblair looks all right.

Comment by stackja @ 1/30/2008 – 9:31 pm
Lorica says:

January 31, 2008 at 1:32 pm

Clinton Remained Silent As Wal-Mart Fought Unions
In six years as a member of the Wal-Mart board of directors, between 1986 and 1992, Hillary Clinton remained silent as the world’s largest retailer waged a major campaign against labor unions seeking to represent store workers.

How can this be?? Hitlery has been fighting this kind of stuff for “30 years” now. Yet another case where Hitlery continues to show us that she is just like her husband, a political opportunist. I so hope that these lowlifes get their smoked by Obama. – Lorica

LINK

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