Reminiscing On Rock'n'Roll and Sex

I hated Queen in the '70s. I thought they were just a Led Zeppelin wannabe. The idea amuses me now, because the two bands could not be more different. Led Zeppelin is the ultimate heterosexual band. Queen is gay -- campy and gay. ("Fat Bottom Girls" is not how heterosexual men lust. Well, except maybe for Sir Mix-A-Lot.)

Led Zeppelin had no wit, godawful lyrics, and little care for formal tightness. They were the blues on steroids, and they managed to take everything too far. As Eric Clapton said, when he first saw them perform in 1969, "They overstated their point." Their live concert film, The Song Remains the Same, is tedious and unwatchable now, but at the time it was exactly what I wanted. Nobody else compared. I was, and still am, in awe of Jimmy Page's guitar prowess. He got sounds from his guitar that no one else gets to this day. He was also one of the few hard rock guitarists who could play intense jazz chords with distortion and make it sound good. (It's because he sold his soul to the Devil, dude! He lives in Aleister Crowley's house!)

Queen's homosexual sensibility completely eluded me in the '70s. But then, it was not until years later that I realized I was one of the few straight male high school thespians. All those other guys were flaming gays, and I never realized it.

Another thing I never realized was how sexual a lot of lyrics were. I'm stunned now that our parents let us listen to this music and play it in our garage band. For instance, take the Rolling Stones' "Honky Tonk Woman."

I met a gin soaked, bar-room queen in Memphis,

She tried to take me upstairs for a ride.

And,

I laid a divorcee in New York City

When I was a child it never occurred to me that Jagger was singing about sex.

Or take one of my favorite jamming songs, "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl" by Ten Years After.

Good morning little schoolgirl,

Can I come home with you?

And,

Baby, I want to ball you

I want to ball you all night long.

Not only is that blatantly about sex, but it's perverted and sinister. The singer is, I presume, a grown man trying to pick up a schoolgirl. We used to sing this song in our band in high school, and our parents never said a word about it.

Before I went into the Air Force, my mother took me aside and told me not to linger in bus station bathrooms because homosexuals hang out there. I did as she instructed, and went in and out of the bathrooms as quick as possible, without making eye contact for fear that one of these mysterious homosexuals might seduce me with his secret powers. She gets terribly embarrassed when I tell this story now, but I always do tell it at family gatherings because it's just too hilarious.

We're more open about homosexuality now. It's out of the closet. This is probably a good thing: people fear what they don't understand. On the other hand, I suspect that with the rise of religion, parents are not as uncaring about sexual lyrics as they were back then.

I don't know if America is more puritanical now or then.

UPDATE: Slight revision.

Huh?

Kathleen Parker has stumped me with her latest column. What does this mean?

Tragicomedy, in which gods and men reverse roles, may be an honored dramatic genre, but is this any way to live?

I have no idea what she is saying. Here is the complete paragraph, in case the context helps makes sense of this sentence.

Obama's appearance on Jay Leno's show Thursday night -- joking lamely that his bowling is "like Special Olympics or something" -- is symptomatic of a broader blending of the serious and the comic that makes sane people feel slightly displaced. Infotainment isn't a new topic, but the lines are becoming increasingly blurred. Tragicomedy, in which gods and men reverse roles, may be an honored dramatic genre, but is this any way to live?

Tragicomedy, was first defined by the playwright John Fletcher, whose early plays with Beaumont, such as Philaster, were popular hits that brought tragicomedies in vogue on the London stage.

(Shakespeare's last plays, called romances, follow the tragicomedy fad. This is one of the better reasons that the Earl of Oxford could not have written the plays, as he was dead when all this happened. For us to believe Oxford wrote Shakespeare's plays, we would have to accept that he wrote tragicomedies years before anyone else did, and the King's Men did not happen to produce these plays until after 1608, when Beaumont and Fletcher happened to make the genre profitable.)

Where was I? Oh, yes. Tragicomedy. Fletcher's definition:

"A tragicomedy is not so called in respect of mirth and killing, but in respect it wants [i.e., lacks] deaths, which is enough to make it no tragedy; yet brings some near it, which is enough to make it no comedy."

I don't what Parker means about men and gods reversing roles. If anyone can explain that, please do. For extra credit, explain what all this has to do with President Obama.

Rehearsal Update

I'm doing the Ghost in Hamlet and First Gentleman/Elbow/Friar Peter in Measure For Measure in the 2009 Redlands Shakespeare Festival. Hamlet is a masterpiece of drama that combines a thriller plot with philosophy and poetry. Measure For Measure is a fascinating play of religion and politics that has never been an audience favorite. Me, I would much rather do it than A Midsummer-Night's Dream again.

Last night's rehearsal of Measure For Measure was good. We paraphrased what we were saying in one scene; after that our acting improved greatly. It's funny how something obvious and fundamental like understand what you're saying makes all the difference -- and yet, actors sometimes default on this basic responsibility.

I was in a show by Beaumont and Fletcher once, long ago. B&F were Shakespeare's contemporaries, and for about 100 years they reigned as the most popular playwright in the English Language. Shakespeare regained the throne in the early 18th century and holds it to this day. The B&F body of work, over 50 plays, should be attributed to Fletcher and Friends, as Beaumont was involved in less than 15 of the plays.

Anyway, after a performance of Knight of the Burning Pestle, someone asked the leading man what he was saying in a certain speech. He confessed, "I have no idea what I'm saying."

He was just standing onstage, saying the words. If you know no one in the audience will care and if you don't have much pride of craft, then it's easy to get lazy.

Lakers Update

The Lakers are the best team in the NBA. This is not merely a homer opinion. They just went 6-0 on a six-game road trip in which they lost their star center, Andrew Bynum, in the second game. They finished the trip beating the two best teams in the East, Boston and Cleveland. In Cleveland they ended the Cavaliers' 23-game winning streak at home.

Four years ago the Lakers were Kobe Bryant and the other guys. Beating them was easy: stop Kobe and make "the other guys" beat you. This strategy no longer works. In the Cleveland game on Sunday Kobe had the flu, requiring an IV during halftime; Lamar Odom, Pau Gasol and the rest stepped up their game. Their defense kept the great LeBron James on the perimeter most of the game.

A lot of times when teams attempt to "rebuild," they fail. "Rebuilding" is often just a euphemism for lousy. Look at the Clippers; they have been rebuilding for decades. Look at the Dodgers in the 1990's. The Mavericks were perennial basement dwellers until Mark Cuban bought them.

It has been amazing watching the Lakers rebuild after the departure of Shaquille O'Neal and do everything right. Or if they got something wrong at first, such as acquiring Smush Parker, they corrected their mistake fast enough. They drafted Andrew Bynum out of high school and got Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to mentor him. It has been a joy watching him develop, and maybe he will join the great Lakers tradition of centers that stretches back to George Mikan. They resigned point guard Derek Fisher, who brings leadership and experience to a young team. They traded Brian Cook and Mo Evans for Trevor Ariza, who has been brilliant; I've never seen a player steal the ball as well as Ariza. They traded Kwame Brown and others for Pau Gasol, a 7-foot power forward who scores and passes and fits perfectly in the triangle offense. (If you just look at the players involved, the trade does not make sense. The Lakers gave Memphis salary cap relief, which is what they wanted most.) You have to give General Manager Mitch Kupchak credit.

In the last week the Lakers traded away Vladimir Radmanovic to the Charlotte Bobcasts for Adam Morrison and Shannon Brown. I don't know if those two players will help LA, but like most fans, I'm not mourning the loss of Vlade. The "Space Cadet," as Phil Jackson called him, was a serious problem. He broke his contract last year and went snowboarding and hurt his shoulder, which is a stupid mistake. Then he lied about it, which is inexcusable. The Lakers fined him $500,000, but they should have voided his contract and waved good-bye. Dr. Buss was being kind by just fining the Space Cadet.

Kevin Ding writes,

In his final Lakers practice on Friday, Radmanovic didn’t wear basketball shoes. He wore Vans – the low-top, slip-on kind of sneakers favored by skateboarders and, yes, snowboarders.

Seriously.

Or not seriously … because what undermined Radmanovic, 28, in every attempt to make his mark as a Laker was a lack of seriousness about his profession.

Worst of all, the Serb could not defend Paul Pierce in the finals last year. If nothing else, you can think of the trade as an "adjustment," as the Lakers look to the playoffs in '09.

Now the 41-9 Lakers have many scoring options, a hustling defense and one of the best benches in the league. And they have Kobe Bryant, one of the greatest players of all time, a guy who can make something happen all by himself in crunch time.

Plus they have Phil Jackson's Jedi mind tricks, which seem to freak out the opponents. When Jackson said over the weekend that LeBron James "gets away with murder," he was playing tricks that he learned from Obi-Wan Kenobi. Sure enough, the Lakers held James to 16 points; he did not get away with murder.

Oops, I Did It Again

It's been so long since I posted on this blog that I almost forgot my username and password.

The other blog is going well. I hope you visit there. My sister does not like it as much as this one. But then, she's a liberal who can barely tolerate what I write, so I'm sure reading six other Objectivists is asking too much from her.

I swore I would stop acting. I really need to focus on writing. I saw an audition notice for Much Ado About Nothing, and told myself not to audition for Dogberry even though I've wanted to do the part for 35 years. Then the director called me and asked me to play Dogberry. I said no. Then I said yes.

I feel like Michael Corleone in The Godfather II. They keep dragging me back in!

Miss World

Well, I guess I wouldn't kick her out of bed for eating crackers.

It Ain't Lookin' Good

Woke up to the sound of a civil war,
Wondered what the screamin' was for.
Looked out the window to get a peek
Bobby Joe asked, "How's the weather, Zeke?"

It ain't lookin' good.
It ain't lookin' good.
Daddy's done been drinkin',
Mama's got a gun.
It won't be much fun.

My Daddy is a family man, you bet.
About as good a man as you can get.
Got too much love for just one family.
Got another wife in Franklin, Tennessee.

It ain't lookin' good.
It ain't lookin' good.
Daddy's done been drinkin',
Mama's got a gun.
It won't be much fun.

We're a tight-knit family, I guess,
Tighter than Aunt Eloise's dress.
If you want some proof, I know you do,
My Dad's my father and my uncle, too.

It ain't lookin' good...

My daddy took to gardening this spring,
But he don't grow no ordinary thing.
His agriculture makes me scratch my head,
He grows some funny weeds out in the shed.

It ain't lookin' good.
It ain't lookin' good.
Daddy's smokin' something,
Mama's got a gun.
It won't be much fun.

(Copyright William Greeley 2008)

Something's Coming

I'm sorry that posting has been light, but I'm about to start posting on a new blog with Bill Brown and others. In fact, I've already written a post for it, "The Purpose Of It All," about the tsunami of spending and regulation Obama has in store for us. As soon as the new blog gets going, we'll let you know and you'll be able to read it there.

I will leave this blog intact for more personal posts and offbeat stuff. If I ever sell a play or get my songwriting project off the ground, I will use this blog to promote those efforts. Who knows, I might sneak in some self-promotion on the other blog as well.

UPDATE: The new blog is ready for you. It's called The New Clarion.

Around the World Wide Web 82

1. The Mayor of Batman, Turkey is suing Warner Brothers for using their town's name. The case is being followed closely by the mayors of Conan the Barbarian, Finland, Plastic Man, Uzbekistan and Captain America, Nigeria.

2. Cafe Press has a line of Impeach Obama gear. He's not even president yet. Needless to say, he has not done anything to deserve impeachment. This is just partisan politics hatred combined with the urge to be the first kid on the block to wear a hip new t-shirt. This is the kind of thing I would expect from the left. Disappointing.

3. This will cheer you up.

4. Recently in my day job I listened to an Urban station that celebrated Obama's election as President by playing clips of guests explaining why they supported Obama. Most answers broke down to two reasons:

a. It will be historic to elect an African-American president.

b. Obama makes us feel hopeful.

One person got specific and said that Obama would give everyone health care. (How does he do that? Is he magical?)

John Ziegler has interviewed Obama supporters in How Obama Got Elected. It is astonishing how ignorant people who depend on the MSM for news are.

5. Victor Davis Hanson has interesting thoughts on the death of the media and on recession.

6. Funny. They go down like bowling pins at this wedding.

How Socialism Comes to America

Robert Tracinski writes of Obama's planned $50 billion bailout of the "Big Three" Detroit auto manufacturers:

It is actually a plan for de facto nationalization which will turn the Big Three into permanent wards of the state whose purpose is not to make a profit but to serve the "social goals" set by government.

Obama is backing a plan to pump $50 billion into the big American automakers, while also establishing "a czar or board to oversee the companies"—call it Gosplan—which will supervise "a restructuring of the auto industry." That's exactly what Detroit needs to recover: the benefit of government central planning.

In essence, this is a plan for nationalization of the American auto industry under a new government-appointed board of directors who will supposedly tell the Big Three how to make a profit again.

Blinkered pragmatists will sputter, "But the government is not seizing the property, so it's not socialism!" No, that would be socialism on the communist plan. This is socialism on the fascist plan, in which the property remains nominally in private ownership, but the government dictates what the owner will do with his property. In America the dictation is called "regulation." In this case the dictator will be an "auto czar."

As Tracinski goes on to demonstrate, this is being done to protect a powerful pressure group, the unions. If the Big Three went bankrupt and were bought up by other auto makers, the power of the United Auto Workers would suffer.

American fascism makes corporations bureaucratic managers of the welfare state. Instead of just paying workers, corporations also provide health care and retirement pensions. These functions, along with a sea of regulations, give corporations two missions: make a profit and serve as a mini-welfare state. By passing welfare state functions to the corporations, the government expands the welfare state, but evades any censure for the expansion or any blame for the corporations' failures.

The Democrats are driving this intervention in auto manufacturing, but is there any doubt they were emboldened by the Republicans' bailout of Wall Street? (The Republican led bailout started at $700 million, then was revised to $1 trillion. Now the cost is estimated at $1.8 trillion. The plan has been around less than two months.)

Michael Barone writes,

The Detroit Three are taking advantage of the passage of the $700 billion financial bailout to argue that they, too, need government money to go on.

The conservative David Brooks thinks the bailout is a bad idea, but gets the cause wrong:

It is all a reminder that the biggest threat to a healthy economy is not the socialists of campaign lore. It’s C.E.O.’s. It’s politically powerful crony capitalists who use their influence to create a stagnant corporate welfare state.

But if America had a laissez-faire capitalist economy, then C.E.O.'s would have no influence and no recourse but to pursue a profit in the free market. By Brooks' thinking, if we just had virtuous people in the private sector, then statists such as Obama would never dream of increasing state intervention in the economy.

America's descent into fascism proceeds by the script written by Ludwig von Mises. Government intervention (regulations and government backed union power) have created a crisis in automobile manufacturing. This crisis does not inspire the government to withdraw its intervention, but to increase it with a $50 billion subsidy and the creation of an auto czar who will dictate even further to the industry. In the end we will have the same result as communism, but with private ownership serving to hide the extent of state control.

We are at a turning point in America. The state is about to make an enormous power grab. In addition to the de facto nationalizing of Wall Street and the auto industry, House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller (D-CA) and Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA), Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee’s Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support are plotting to nationalize 401k pension funds. This plan would give the government trillions of dollars in pension funds to spend now; the money would be replaced by government IOU's like the nonexistent social security trust fund. With Obama in the White House and increased Democrat majorities in the Senate and House, can this looting be stopped?

Is There a There There?

It is early yet. The election was one week ago. Obama will be President-Elect until January 20, 2009.

After one week it looks like the defining theme of Obama's presidency will be his famous self-definition, "blank screen." I think it was Tallulah Bankhead who said, "Deep down I'm really quite shallow." I'm beginning to think this a good description of Obama. At his core he has no core. He is a man whose essence is the desire to show other people what they want to see.

What would you expect from a Democrat blank screen? The Democrat status quo. Ron Radosh writes,

The appointment of Rahm Emanuel is more evidence for what I suggested the other day, that Barack Obama will seek to govern from the political center. As Ben Smith and John Harris suggest on Politico.com today, one must not confuse Emanuel’s tough game playing with ideology. As they and others have argued, Emanuel’s reputation is that of a centrist, who has often sought to reign in the left-wing of his party, “who does not share the reflexively liberal views of many of his House colleagues.” That judgment was seconded by Rep. Jim McCrery (R-LA) who said that Emanuel “is closer to the center, from a policy standpoint, than many of the Democratic Party.” It was also shared by Lindsey Graham, who said that while a “tough partisan, he understands the need to work together.” Graham called him “honest, direct, and candid” and a man who will “work to find common ground.”

Max Boot sees Encouraging Signs From Obama:

I worked for the other guy in the presidential race, but I have been cheered so far by the early indications of how the Obama administration is shaping up. Scuttlebutt has it that the front-runners for Treasury secretary are economist Larry Summers and New York Fed President Timothy Geithner. Either one would be a good, centrist choice. So, too, would be Jim Steinberg, a deputy national security adviser for Bill Clinton, who is now a rumored choice for national security adviser in the Obama administration.

It goes almost without saying that nothing would signal Obama’s moderate credentials more than retaining Bob Gates at Defense. So it is encouraging to read in the Wall Street Journal that the president-elect is “leaning toward” such a move, and that Gates “would likely accept the offer if it is made.” As the Journal notes: “the defense secretary strongly opposes a firm timetable for withdrawing American forces from Iraq, and his appointment could mean that Mr. Obama was effectively shelving his campaign promise to remove most troops from Iraq by mid-2010.”

Going with the status quo is better than the wildest fears of the right, that Obama would try to create a socialist dictatorship from day one. However, in a time when Republicans socialize Wall Street with some trillion dollars and Democrats want to nationalize 401k plans, the status quo is bad enough. There is no widespread movement to cut spending and dismantle government intervention in the economy.

But what choice does Obama have, if he wants experienced hands in his administration, than to choose from, well, those who have experience? Radical leftists are a double risk in that they have no experience. In today's climate, when politicians are terrified of taking blame for anything that goes wrong, it's hard to see how the Democrat establishment would let Obama fill his administration with unknown faces.

Another sign of Obama's deep down shallowness -- an amateurishness that merits watching in the coming years -- is his uncertainty and flip-flopping, the same stuff we saw during the campaign.

First, he was for involuntary servitude for college students, then he decided that it should be voluntary and pay $40 per hour! Then he deleted his website and we have no idea what he wants.

Then, he was for the Polish missile-shield when he was talking to Poland's president, but backtracked when he was talking to the U.S. press. (Now, Poland is kowtowing to Obama, saying it was all a misunderstanding.) This is an echo of Obama's NAFTA gaffe with Canada, which was also blamed on a misunderstanding with one of Obama's advisers.

This morning he was for closing Guantanamo Bay, and having the detainees face criminal charges in U.S. criminal courts, courts using the Uniform Code of Military Justice, or new, specially created national security courts. This evening, he has backtracked yet again.

"There is absolutely no truth to reports that a decision has been made about how and where to try the detainees, and there is no process in place to make that decision until his national security and legal teams are assembled," said Denis McDonough, a senior foreign policy adviser for the transition team, in a statement.

So where did those original reports come from? According to the AP, Obama's legal advisers.

One hand doesn't know what the other is doing so we end up with many conflicting statements. Mr. President-elect has to keep "clarifying" the positions his subordinates keep releasing on his behalf. It's almost like he has no leadership experience whatsoever.

If this goes on, then Obama will quickly disappoint his more intelligent supporters.

Competence isn't just a technique you learn from reading management books. It rests on having firm convictions. A man who can be blown one way or another by any gust of wind will be incompetent. All the evidence we have so far, from the campaign and one week as President-Elect, points to a man without principles, a man who can change 180 degrees on an issue if the need of the moment requires it.

I find all this immensely encouraging. If my analysis is correct, then Obama will be the second Democrat president in a row who was a social metaphysician -- a man who primary orientation to reality was not the facts but what others think of the facts.

A man without a core is easy to push around. Look at what the Republicans did to Clinton, a Democrat who was so intimidated by the right that he declared the era of big government to be over. The best thing that could happen to America right now is a neutered Obama worrying about uniforms for school children.

But it is still early and Obama could have big surprises in store for us. Clinton had to suffer the national health care debacle before his presidency diminished. Plus, Obama will not be hampered by Clinton's sexual appetite and risky behavior.

Gertrude Stein said of Oakland, "There is no there there." Will Obama be an Oakland president?

UPDATE: From Gabriel Melor:

Obama appears to be abandoning his promised commitment to end government torture.

Melor concludes:

The Administration-elect is only a week old and already it's foundering because of a lack of leadership.

Cartoon Politics

John Derbyshire writes,

What routinely happens with a pointed NRO column is that you get a flutter of emails from appreciative conservative readers, some perhaps taking you to task on some particular point or other, or scolding you for grammatical faults (NRO readers are terrific grammarians). Then there's a pause. Then your piece get out into the Lefty blogosphere somehow, and you get a second wave of emails from ourtraged Lefties.

This is, as I said, routine. It's happened often enough, I have the measure of it, and know what to expect. Last week's Lefty emails were, though, quite unusually vituperative. I noticed the same in the weekend Letters columns of the New York Post. The Post editorialized for McCain, and carries some good conservative Op-Ed writers (including some of ours), but treated Obama with kid gloves, as McCain did. Yet they got some really vituperative letters from scandalized Obamarrhoids, furiously indignant that anyone should criticize The One.

It occurs to me that the left treats Obama the exact opposite of how it treated Bush. Bush was reviled as evil. For eight long years the left hated Bush intensely. Leftists mocked, screamed, chanted, fund-raised against, demonstrated and wrote furiously, clogging the internet with some criticisms that had something to do with reality and a lot of lies, smears and fantasies.

Just as the left demonized Bush, it beatifies Obama. It writes hagiographies. It ignores any potentially embarrassing investigations. It obsesses about how happy America is at the election of Obama. (In Topeka, Kansas, there is a movement afoot to make a national holiday after Obama. Never mind that Obama has achieved nothing but to be elected president; these people think Obama deserves a national holiday simply because of the way he makes them feel.)

In both cases the left makes a cartoon of reality -- or perhaps a Soviet propaganda poster would be a better fit. Leftists cannot think of politics in a sophisticated, adult analysis; they look with the eyes of a child or a savage. Bush is Chimpy McHalliburton, and Obama is the One.

I'm not making a pragmatist case for complexity-worship here. I'm not saying there are no absolutes, only shades of gray. I'm saying the left simplifies reality in accordance to its ideology and looks no further. The left evades reasoning about either Bush or Obama.

This cartoon version of politics is what happens when a faction loses confidence in reason and believes that force only is useful. Leftists demonize or beatify depending on the emotion they feel. No further examination is necessary. What's the point? Bush evil, Obama holy; the truth is obvious. Who needs evidence, analysis or a decent respect for the opinions of mankind?

The criticisms of Obama from the non-left will continue, much to the dismay of the President-Elect's supporters. The left does not want to answer disagreement, but wants to stifle it. With help from the MSM, Democrats will demonize the Obama deniers. How far will the left go to shut up the opposition? A better question: how far will the American people let the left go in shutting up the opposition?

A Nation of Followers

My brother is a tattoo artist. He reports he is getting college girls who want the Obama O tattooed on them. (Is this better than a tramp stamp?)

Have you ever heard of people getting a tattoo of a politician's symbol? Did any Republican girls get W tattoos in 2000? Obama is an entirely new phenomenon. He brings a cult of personality into American politics.

Peggy Noonan notes,

...[The GOP] lost the vote of two-thirds of those aged 18 to 29. They lost a generation!

Two thirds of young voters voted for Obama. Most of these people, I suspect, did not question Obama when he said in his typically gaseous victory speech,

The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even one term, but America - I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you - we as a people will get there.

It did not occur to them to ask, "Where? What the hell are you talking about, Obama? Exactly what is your goal?" Instead, they cheered. Wherever you want to take us, our leader, we will follow.

Some Obama supporters, like Peggy Joseph, who thinks voting for Obama means she won't have to pay for her own gas or mortgage, are the product of the welfare state. These people have been taught all their life to look to the state for handouts.

Others are the fruit of progressive education. These are socialized people. They are collectivists terrified to think for themselves. They want to be told by the group what is cool, what is hip, what bears the stamp of approval of the group. Obama is so cool! Let's get his tattoo!

Those who do not go along with the group will be denounced as unpatriotic, racist and selfish. The popular phrase, "They just don't get it" will be used. It's a convenient phrase for those who follow the vibe of the group, as it obviates any rational argument. You either feel it or you don't, you get it or you don't.

These people are ready for a dictatorship. They are a collective waiting to be told what to do.

You can't have a dictatorship without a significant portion of the population that is willing to follow orders blindly. Benjamin Franklin's words haunt us. When asked what they were creating in the Constitutional Convention, he said, "A republic -- if you can keep it."

We cannot keep it with a nation of people who are unquestioning, passive sheep.

UPDATE: Revision.

Around the World Wide Web 81

1. Obama made an ungracious joke about Nancy Reagan today in his press conference, for which he has since apologized. He has an odd juvenile streak, as when he scratches his face with his middle finger. I don't want to psychologize, but I have to wonder if these moments of inappropriate humor are expressions of a frightened little man, way in over his head, who does not want to be taken completely seriously.

2. How nice that Maya Angelou does not have to apologize for America any more. Unfortunately, the rest of us still must apologize for bad American poetry.

3. Imagine if the MSM had supported the Bush presidency. Imagine them not opposing everything Bush did, not searching for scandals in everything from Enron to Halliburton to torture to the Patriot Act. How different would the last eight years have been? We're about to see in the Obama presidency. Chris Matthews said his job is to help make the Obama presidency work -- not to judge it fairly or to examine it with an eye to keeping it honest, but to help make it work. I have never in my life heard a member of the media say something like this.

The danger here: an administration that knows the MSM will look the other way will have less fear of being caught in corruption.

4. Nancy Pelosi, in her first press conference after the election, warned of diminishing options.

Nancy Pelosi gave her first post-election press conference Wednesday, offering a sober analysis of the Democratic agenda in the near term.

“Many of our options have been diminished because of the downturn in the economy over the last couple months,” Pelosi said.

Pelosi said the economy is “the top item” on the agenda moving forward and said she plans to continue to push for a second economic stimulus package. She also mentioned a children’s health care bill and stem cell research legislation as key priorities in the short-term.

The speaker acknowledged the enormous expectations facing Obama after Democrats increased their majorities in both chambers, but warned that Democrats will face some tough decisions in the coming months.

“We have to choose our priorities very carefully according to what is achievable,” she said.

She also said Obama should govern from the middle. Why the caution? Democrats are in control of the Presidency, Senate and House; why don't they go all out?

The Speaker of the House counsels caution because things could go wrong and politicians are terrified of getting the blame for anything. They remember Clinton's first two years, which led to Newt Gingrich and the Republicans winning the House in 1994 with the Contract for America. (The Republicans collapsed like a cheap lawn chair during the budget battle of 1995, and have been a me-too big government party since, but that's a different story.)

Imagine if laissez-faire capitalists were in the Democrats' position. Would they fear going all out? Would they fear being blamed for failure? No, they would not, because they would know their policies are both moral and practical. They would know that dismantling the welfare state would generate tremendous wealth and increase every American's standard of living. They would know that repealing laws and regulations that violate individual rights is the moral thing to do. Just as a man cannot have too much health, a nation cannot have too much liberty.

The Democrats must proceed with moderation because they are dispensing poison. If they give America too much poison, it will die; they must temper their poison so that the state can ride the private sector as a parasite.

5. Don't be fooled by Obama's changing the wording of his national service plan from "require" to "setting a goal." Can you imagine how much intimidation an individualist student who refused to participate in the program would get from the thugs of the left? Service to the collective will be as voluntary as our tax system supposedly is.

6. There is a lot of talk that Republicans need another Great Communicator like Reagan.

Two related points: First, the Great Communicator was a smear created by leftists who thought Reagan fooled the American people into accepting what was bad for them -- you know, all that nonsense about the free market. The left painted Reagan as all style and no substance.

Second, GHW Bush, Dole, George W. Bush and McCain have all been lousy communicators because they had nothing to communicate. Pragmatism is not a banner to rally around. "I'm not as bad as a Democrat" does not give voters a positive value for which to vote.

Reagan was the last Republican presidential candidate who had something to say. He was indeed terribly flawed, but compared to his successors he had principles.

And remember, when Reagan developed an interest in politics he studied Austrian economics and was familiar with the Foundation for Economic Education. Although he was smeared as an "amiable dunce," he was actually the intellectual superior to most politicians these days. His effectiveness was tragically undercut by pragmatism and religious values, but he knew that government was not the solution, it was the problem.

Here It Comes

Obama has called for a "draft" to force young people to do compulsory service:

The Obama Administration will call on Americans to serve in order to meet the nation’s challenges. President-Elect Obama will expand national service programs like AmeriCorps and Peace Corps and will create a new Classroom Corps to help teachers in underserved schools, as well as a new Health Corps, Clean Energy Corps, and Veterans Corps. Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by developing a plan to require 50 hours of community service in middle school and high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year. Obama will encourage retiring Americans to serve by improving programs available for individuals over age 55, while at the same time promoting youth programs such as Youth Build and Head Start.

Wow. Obama gets elected and the first big idea he floats is forced labor. I don't know what is more stunning, Obama's plans or the fact that America just shrugs and yawns like a nation of sleepwalkers. The state forcing people to work? No big deal. What's on TV tonight?

Well, Michelle Obama did say, "Barack Obama will require you to work." We can't say we were not warned.

Obama's Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, has called for compulsory service in a book he co-wrote:

It's time for a real Patriot Act that brings out the patriot in all of us. We propose universal civilian service for every young American. Under this plan, All Americans between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five will be asked to serve their country by going through three months of basic training, civil defense preparation and community service. ...

Here's how it would work. Young people will know that between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five, the nation will enlist them for three months of civilian service. They'll be asked to report for three months of basic civil defense training in their state or community, where they will learn what to do in the event of biochemical, nuclear or conventional attack; how to assist others in an evacuation; how to respond when a levee breaks or we're hit by a natural disaster. These young people will be available to address their communities' most pressing needs.

J.D. Tuccille goes on to note,

Emanuel and co-author Bruce Reed insist "this is not a draft," but go on to write of young men and women, "the nation will enlist them for three months of civilian service." They also warn, "[s]ome Republicans will squeal about individual freedom," ruling out any likelihood that they would let people opt out of universal citizen service.

Emanuel does not seem worried that Democrats will squeal.

I'm not so sure many Republicans these days will squeal at Obama and Emanuel's dream of enforced servitude. I told my Christian friend, who is certainly no liberal, that Obama wants compulsory service for young people. He thought it was a great idea, that all young people should have to do time serving our country and learning good values in the process. The conservative loon Michael Savage thinks it's a great idea. William F. Buckley thought it was a great idea.

So now, finally, we know what change means. Change means bringing slavery to America.

The Bright Side

Barack Obama had to lie in order to win the presidency.

Obama had to lie that he would cut taxes. He had to act tough toward our enemies. He had to turn his back on radical anti-Americans he has allied with over the last 20 years.

Despite the urging of the netroots, Democrats still cannot campaign proudly and honestly as who they are. They cannot say, "I am a liberal. I want to expand government control over your lives. I want to raise your taxes and deny you the right to bear arms. And I intend to appease our enemies abroad."

So maybe America has not moved to the left. Maybe Obama won for superficial reasons in a country full of voters who don't give politics much deep thought. Given a choice of statists, they went with the charismatic young one.

The Republicans have a great thing thing going for them for the next two years: the Democrats control the Presidency, Senate and House.

Remember, the Jimmy Carter presidency led to the second best president of the 20th century, Ronald Reagan.

Meet the New Boss

A year ago I predicted that a Republican would win in a landslide on November 4, 2008 because Hillary Clinton would be the Democrat nominee and America would never elect someone that far left as president. Today Barack Obama, who is even farther to the left than Hillary, won a solid victory as president.

I might have been right 20 years ago, but America has changed. It looks as if America has moved to the left.

People make much of Obama being the first black president, and indeed that is a good sign that America is not a racist nation. The ideal that all men are born equal lives in our country. Aside from this, I can find little to celebrate in an Obama victory. He is pro-choice, and the religious right has suffered a temporary setback; these are good things.

The bad far outweighs the good. Obama has promised some trillion dollars in new spending. He will probably appease our foreign enemies. As Biden said, he will be tested by enemies who smell weakness. He wants all Americans to sacrifice for the good of the collective. Reviving the Fairness Doctrine is a threat. Three Supreme Court Justices will retire in the next four years, and they will be replaced by the worst judges imaginable.

And the maddening thing is that we know very little about who Obama really is, so we don't know how bad the next four years will be. Is he your typical Democrat? Or is he a radical leftist with a hidden agenda? There were a lot of troubling little things during the campaign, such as Michelle Obama's ominous statement, "Barack Obama will require you to work." These folks don't seem to understand that in a free country the president does not force people to work.

But then, with large Democrat majorities in the Senate and the House, just being a typical Democrat might be bad enough to seriously expand state power and destroy liberty in America.

Well, congratulations to Barack Obama. And to Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. It's their show now. Let us see what Democrat power brings to America.

UPDATE: In my channel surfing last night I heard Jeffrey Toobin on CNN say something about how wonderful it is to see "gender diversity" in the crowd at Obama's rally. Gender diversity. In other words, there were men and women there. As if only men go to Republican rallies, I guess.

New Leftist jargon leads one to sheer blithering idiocy.

My Vote Is Cast

I left the presidential vote blank. I voted for my Republican Congressman, Jerry Lewis. (Hey, lady!) He's a worthless old pragmatist and a champion of pork, but we need Republicans in the Senate and Congress to oppose the coming push for socialism from the Democrats.

I voted yes on Propositions 9 and 11. One was about notifying victims if criminals get bail and the other was about having a commission do redistricting instead of the politicians in Sacramento. Perhaps Proposition 11 will stop outrageous gerrymandering. On all the other propositions I was Dr. No.

There was no line at my polling place, as usual.

I remember on election day in 1992 when Bush was photographed in the afternoon, way before polls closed, carrying a fishing pole as he got in a car. That was the year the bizarre Ross Perot got 19%, which allowed Clinton to win. Bush knew it was over and was already thinking of fishing. It was the last symbolic act of his half-assed presidency. I'll be watching TV this afternoon for any shots of McCain carrying a fishing pole.

I would not expect Obama ever to carry a fishing pole, especially if it looks like he will lose. At that point he will be working hard with his advisers on how they can use legal maneuvers to undermine the election. Leftists are serious about power; they're not about to give up and go fishing.

Random Thoughts the Day Before

If Obama is elected tomorrow, then for the first time in history America will have a president who loves America less than the President of France loves America. I do not write this in jest; I'm serious. Here is the highlight from President Sarkozy's speech to Congress:

America did not tell the millions of men and women who came from every country in the world and who—with their hands, their intelligence and their heart—built the greatest nation in the world: "Come, and everything will be given to you." She said: "Come, and the only limits to what you'll be able to achieve will be your own courage and your own talent." America embodies this extraordinary ability to grant each and every person a second chance.

Here, both the humblest and most illustrious citizens alike know that nothing is owed to them and that everything has to be earned. That's what constitutes the moral value of America. America did not teach men the idea of freedom; she taught them how to practice it.

On Friday Obama said electing him would "fundamentally transform" America. I believe the transformation he has in mind will be the death of the individualism that Sarkozy believes is the "moral value of America." Obama wants to destroy the remnants of individualism and turn American into France.

#

I watched CSNY/Deja Vu over the weekend. This is a documentary of their tour in 2006 to protest the war in Iraq. Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young used to be smug, insufferable, moronic hippies. Now they are smug, insufferable, moronic, fat old hippies. Anyone who goes to any rock star for politics deserves what he gets, and this goes double for hippie rock stars. I knew the politics in this movies would be bad, but I was hoping for some good music. There is none. The songs are cut short to make way for more idiocy.

Not once in the entire film does anyone make a case against the war. Rational argumentation is ignored. Instead we get emotion. We are shown a group of veterans that needs to get together and hug and cry. (My liberal sister, watching with me, said they need to "man up.") We are shown a mother who lost her son in Iraq. She says the war is "just wrong" and then she cries a lot. This is not a film meant to persuade its opponents; it is emotion for those who agree to wallow in. A complete waste of time.

#

We hear a lot of talk about how blacks will riot if Obama loses. Do I detect wishful thinking among the liberals who make these predictions? Is this another form of intimidation? Hey, white people -- vote for Obama or else!

#

Do you remember one of the first things Clinton did as president? It was to throw out his promise to cut taxes. That promise was always a lie. Clinton never had any intention of cutting any tax, but he felt he had to lie about it to win the election.

Is there any doubt Obama's promise of cutting taxes is another lie meant to win an election? Already the Democrats are signaling it's a lie by throwing out different numbers of how much a taxpayer will have to make before he gets taxed-- $250,000, $200,000, $120,000. The top figure is pure fiction meant to win the election. The other figures are meant to confuse and to ease people into the reality that their taxes will be raised when Obama is election.

Sometime around mid-November, I would guess, one of Obama's economists will announce that the deficit is even greater than anyone had suspected -- damn that Bush and those careless Republicans! -- and the tax threshold will just have to be lowered. Everyone will be called to sacrifice.

If Obama is serious about spending and redistributing wealth -- and what else are Democrats serious about? -- then he will have to raise taxes, I believe, on the upper middle and middle middle class.

One option is to start at, say, $60,000 a year, gradually increasing the percentage of the tax increase as you go up from there. Then inflate the hell out of the currency so that your average clerk in a grocery store makes $60,000 a year. Thus you achieve your goal of making everyone in America work a little bit more for the state. The destruction of wealth will be ghastly, but if they cared about the destruction of wealth, they would not be Democrats.

#

All of the items in this post have been attacks on the left -- and yet, I kind of hope Obama wins tomorrow. Why? Clarity.

Obama has attacked the virtue of selfishness. It is clear that he opposes the philosophy of Ayn Rand. As his big government policies fail, many Americans will put two and two together, if they still teach putting two and two together in public schools.

Plus, an Obama presidency will provide limitless content for this blog.

Gather Darkness

Recently I discussed the financial crisis with a Christian who has never read a book of economics. He began by denouncing the greedy CEO's on Wall Street. I argued that greed had nothing to do with the problem, but it was entirely the fault of government intervention in the economy. After all, how does it help a greedy CEO to bankrupt his company? He won't get another job if he does. How is it greedy to commit career suicide?

The Christian took my points several times. He is an honest man who wants to know the truth, and he accepted my arguments. Then a few minutes would pass and he would be back talking about greed. I was struck by how he would return to the point of greed even though he understood it was not really the issue. His morality and the premises he had automatized in his subconscious would not let him believe greed was not at fault.

I take this conversation as evidence that the entire political battle in America is really a battle of ethics. You can win economic arguments all day, but as long people think that morality is self-sacrifice, we will never make significant progress in rolling back the state. The 20th century is one long cautionary tale with a clear moral: socialism does not work. And yet both Republicans and Democrats are leaping over themselves to expand government control of the economy. Spending just keeps skyrocketing and liberals crow that the age of the free market is over. No more of that trickle down stuff for America! We're gonna take as much money from the rich as we want and shower in wealth!

Democrats know full well that the battle is moral. They never bother to make complicated economic arguments. In part this is from ignorance: somehow I don't think geniuses such as Henry Waxman or Robert Byrd have spent 10 minutes trying to understand Ludwig von Mises. But their ignorance is not the fruit of sloth. They don't care about economics because they know it's a waste of time. All they need do is mention obscene profits or greed, and conventional morality makes the rest of their case.

#

Those who pooh-pooh the fear that Republicans are becoming the party of religion are not paying attention. On my local right-wing talk radio station, part of Salem broadcasting, all the political ads are meant to appeal to the religious right. There are no ads for McCain (it's California), but there are ads about propositions. The two issues getting advertising are abortion and gay marriage (they're against both). Three of the stars on the Salem network are Hugh Hewitt, Michael Medved and Dennis Prager -- all religious conservatives. (Hewitt and Medved, at least, are very much economic pragmatists who denounce "extremism" because they think moderates only can be elected these days. Limbaugh is better in this respect.)

Former baseball pitcher Frank Pastore, who sometimes fills in for Hewitt, has titled his latest column, The Christian Case Against Barack Obama. He does not give any reasons in the column, just advertises some videos in which he supposedly lays out his case. My point is that you see more stuff like this than you used to.

20 years ago we knew that Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson were part of the Republican Party, but it felt like they were confined to a ghetto within the party. They were the voice of the Bible Belt. I was amused or sometimes disgusted by them, but I never took them too seriously. Now the religion is more widespread. Prager and Medved, intellectual Jews, would not be mistaken by anyone for Southern Bible thumpers.

John McCain had to pick the very religious Sarah Palin in order to win the base of the Republican Party.

President Bush is the religious right's greatest success so far. His pathbreaking presidency has integrated religion with the welfare state. He calls it "faith based initiatives." Dr. Peikoff says George W. Bush is to the religious state as FDR was to the welfare state.

The question of how dangerous the religious right is compared to the socialist/nihilist left, in both the near and long term, is legitimate; however, it cannot be argued any more that the religious right is increasing its hold on the Republican Party. Perhaps it controls the party.

#

In the comments on the last post on this blog I dismissed the idea of trying to predict the future. That was before I read this quote Donald J. Boudreaux uses from the socialist Norman Thomas in the early 20th century:

"The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism, but under the name of liberalism, they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program until one day America will be a socialist nation without ever knowing how it happened."

There is a man with a crystal ball.

We seem to be at the beginning of a new period in American history, a dark time of increasing state control. In such a moment people speculate a lot about the future. What will happen? Galileo Blogs thinks we will relive the '70s. (If so, can we do it without the bell bottom pants and leisure suits?) Arthur Laffer says the age of prosperity is over.

Those are educated guesses. We might live through something entirely unlike anything America has yet seen.

One event can change the world. World War I destroyed the benevolent and secure -- leftists would say smug and bourgeois -- culture of the 19th century. Things could never be quite the same after that cataclysm. As I have written several times on this blog, both Ayn Rand and Ludwig von Mises noted that no one who did not live before WWI can quite understand how positive and benevolent the west was then. The idea that fuels all of Joseph Roth's fiction is a longing for that era, a culture that would never live again. As another writer put it, you can't go home again.

The greatest world-changing event in history is Alaric and the Huns' sacking of Rome in 410 a.d. Until then the city of Rome had been accepted as a metaphysical fact of reality, like gravity or the sun rising in the east or the stars coming out at night. The sack of Rome shocked people throughout the Empire and destroyed their confidence. Augustine wrote City of God in response: all of man's creation on earth is impermanent; only the realm of God is permanent and real. The Roman Empire was over -- it was just a matter of time.

Could such an event happen in America? Yes, if there were a force in the world comparable to the barbarians in the 5th century. If, say, a religion wanted to destroy America and erect a worldwide theocracy -- a religion whose adherents believed God wanted them to kill infidels and who were willing to commit suicide in order to enjoy 72 virgins in paradise -- yes, there might be some danger if such a religion were at war with America. Fortunately, as we have been told, Islam is a religion of peace.

Besides, if such a totalitarian ideology were at war with us, we would quickly destroy all states that sponsored these warriors. We would wipe them out and demoralize their cause for all time. We would not make a half-hearted effort, swatting them down some, then appeasing this enemy and letting him survive to attack us another day. To take such a tremendous risk with America's security would be foolish and suicidal. Our leaders in Washington, D.C. are good and wise; why, they would sooner do something futile and senseless like socialize Wall Street than appease an enemy that wants to destroy us.

One suitcase nuke could change the world.