Roger’s Rules

November 26th, 2008 7:22 am

The prospect before us

Silly philosopher’s joke: A pessimist is someone who thinks a 12 ounce glass with 6 ounces of beer in it is half empty. An optimist is someone who thinks it is half full. And a realist (here’s the philosophical bit) thinks that the glass is twice as large as it needs to be.

When it comes to many applications of this mot, I’m with the realist. Take the size of government, for example. (I feel another joke fluttering in the background: “Take my wife–please.”) It’s easy to be gloomy about . . . well, about a lot of things these days. But there is also a lot to be said for looking at our current problems–economic, political, even spiritual, if I may use that word–as a spur to action rather than as an occasion for despondency. That, overall, is my recommendation.

Still, if you are going to be stirred to action, it is well to be a realist about the evils you are acting against. And to be a realist, you have to take an accurate measure of the problems. I cannot think of a better brief articulation of what we’re up against than Mark Steyn’s disillusioned column in the current (Dec 1) National Review (requires registration). In essence, it’s a reflection on Adam Smith’s famous remark that “there’s a deal of ruin in a nation.” (”Especially this nation,” I remember John O’Sullivan once remarking.)

True, says Mark, but there’s a limit to the amount of ruin you can absorb without ruination. “The contrast today,” he writes,

is not between America and Europe, but between the slightly-more-than-half of America at ease with the prospect of a Europeanized future and the considerably-less-than half of America for whom our differences with Europe—the First Amendment, the Second Amendment, non-confiscatory taxation, a society that prizes individual opportunity over state protection–were a big part of the American success story.

If you’re a relaxed conservative, this is 1976. Let Obama & Co. have their head and screw up, and we’ll be back in two or four years. But in two or four years there’ll be even more ACORN registrations, even more foreign campaign contributions, large numbers of amnestied illegals with de facto if not quite de jure voting rights, a new Unfairness Doctrine that consolidates Democratic dominance of the dinosaur media and banishes much of the rest.

Etc. Wise words. Invigorating, admonitory words. Words that Pericles, for example, would have approved of when contemplating his famous Funeral Oration early on in the Peloponnesian War. One of the great things about the Athenians, Pericles observed, was that they were cultured but also manly: they loved beauty but “with moderation” and they pursued the life of the mind “without effeminacy.” Pericles was talking to a state that was then confronting a great deal of ruin–so much, alas, that it led in the end to ruination.

One of my favorite remarks in Mark’s piece (and no, this is not a non sequitur) is his description of Sarah Palin as “the last non-fop in the GOP.” Maybe there are one or two others. If so, I don’t know who they are. Anyway, it’s ironical that such a womanly woman should have been the most manly candidate in the race. Food for thought.

Mark concludes by describing himself as NR’s resident “Gloomy Gus.” Gloomy? Sober, I’d say. Any country that provides a platform for people like Mark Steyn and Sarah Palin is far from finished.

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10 Comments

1. heather:

Join “Team Sarah” and support the buzz at RedState (they have a special section for Sarah Palin, even if you’re NOT an American citizen.

Also, if you’re in Georgia, know that she is going to be there next week, supporting some Republican in an election that marks the difference between Reid’s world, and Sanity.

Nov 26, 2008 - 11:02 am 2. John Bonaccorsi:

The prospect before us? Please, Mr. Kimball. Where else would it be? (In the future yet to come?)

Nov 26, 2008 - 7:09 pm 3. Jason Sieckmann:

I’m not really sure someone that divides state-run oil taxes with Alaskans is what you really are considering as a ‘good’ candidate.

It makes me nervous that you’ll pop Ayn Rand’s idea for the first half of a column and then spring back into your support of the GOP in the next half.

I’d say that people like you are confusing the crap out young people that are just learning about Objectivism and Libertarianism; as you pitch your support behind people like Sarah Palin; who no logical person from either group would back.

When did you say you were either group? No where. If you are going to steal their ideas, then, please be open that you are a thief.

Nov 26, 2008 - 11:45 pm 4. gaetano catelli:

ref: “… Sarah Palin as ‘the last non-fop in the GOP.’ Maybe there are one or two others. If so, I don’t know who they are. Anyway, it’s ironical that such a womanly woman should have been the most manly candidate in the race.”

no more so, imo, than the candidate i supported, Hillary Clinton, who is now Secretatry-designate of State.

“Girl will be boys and boys will be girls
It’s a mixed up muddled up shook up world … ” (”Lola”, The Kinks)

Nov 27, 2008 - 5:45 am 5. ehunter:

ITS DEMOGRAPHICS PEOPLE…DEMOGRAPHICS.
More Immigrants=More Democrats. Got it?
Import one million immigrants from the Third
World every year..for 40 years and guess
what? You get a THIRD WORLD country.
Quite the lies about “assimilation”. Assimilation to what? Well Pelosi, Reid and Obama will offer them a very clear route to
“assimilation”.

Nov 27, 2008 - 7:14 am 6. Fred Beloit:

“…a spur to action rather than as an occasion for despondency.”

Here is one suggested action. Make it harder for people to skip out of mortgages by redoing bankruptcy laws. To see so many people able to walk away from these contracts scot-free (or as Mr.Bonaccorsi might have it, scot-) was quite a shock to me.

Nov 28, 2008 - 6:05 am 7. Edward:

For every Palin there are 150 GOP “moderates” (READ: non-conservatives).

America’s shot. It’s over and Euro-socialism is just a matter of time. Our culture is too stupid and lazy for liberty and the saturation of welfare and class warfare in middle America has sealed the deal. People feel too entitled and too envious of the successful few. This is the land of the lawsuit and the courts were lost long ago. It’s over and only a matter of time before we’re looking at wicked taxation and gas prices on par w/ Europe (due to taxation). Trans fat will be made illegal as are light bulbs and (very nearly) cigarettes and you can bet govt will enforce federalized daycare for kids.

You can get arrested right now if you homeschool your kids without following govt guidelines.

Nov 29, 2008 - 2:11 pm 8. ricpic:

There will always be a shortage of realists for the simple reason that realism does not give sustenance to the hungering human heart. Since most of humanity is full to overflowing with feelings and angered by reality, well….

Dec 1, 2008 - 7:43 am 9. Steven Earl Salmony:

Are we suffering from the illness, amnesia, that is resulting in our forgetfulness with regard to the value of the Earth and its environs? Or have we been mesmerized by a Tower of Babel? Or both?

Perhaps we are forever forgetting about Earth and its environment because too many people, especially the economic powerbrokers, their bought-and-paid-for politicians and their minions in the mainstream media, are worshipping a “totem”. At least to me, there appear to be many too many people for whom the economy, in and of itself, is the primary object of their idolatry. This behavior is observable, obvious and flagrant. In many instances, these worshippers make what they evidently believe are rational arguments that suggest manmade financial and economic systems are somehow essential to, and an integral part of, God’s Creation; that indicate the growth of the global economy will occur from now on, even after the Creation is ravaged and its frangible climate destabilized by unbridled overproduction, unchecked overconsumption and unregulated overpopulation activities of the human species. Aside from the “Economic Colossus” nothing matters to them.

Today, it appears that the financial system of the economic powerbrokers is collapsing like a “house of cards” and the real economy of the family of humanity is threatened. Experts in political economy are saying internally inconsistent and contradictory things. Communications about financials and the economy are generally confused and in disarray. Confidence and trust in the operating systems of finance and the global economy have been undermined by the invention of dodgy financial instruments and unsustainable business models as well as by the promulgation of con games and Ponzi schemes. Transparency, accountability and honesty in business activities have been largely vanquished. A great economic system is being undone by con artists, gamblers and cheats. In such circumstances, does the manmade colossus we call the global political economy remind you in some ways of a modern Tower of Babel?

Sincerely,

Steve

Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001
http://sustainabilityscience.org/content.html?contentid=1176

Dec 3, 2008 - 10:24 am 10. Perry Stroyka:

I just heard on the radio that the Chinese word for crisis has two characters; one for danger and one for opportunity.

But hey, this is Democracy, so the ambitious but equally unskilled and inexperienced amongst us will lead us to ruin based on all the false premises you can insure (with) against default. They’re stacked up there in the corner.

Dec 3, 2008 - 11:13 pm