RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/would-d-day-heroes-make-todays-snowflake-generation/

When my children were little and attempted to run through traffic or step heedlessly between parked cars into the road, I would invariably grab them and scold: “Girls, some things are worth dying for. Freedom, democracy, human rights, that sort of thing; catching a bus is definitely not one of them.”

This week’s D-Day commemorations have thrown into sharp relief the servicemen slain in battle 75 years ago in the cause of freedom. Selflessness, courage, a belief that justice must prevail were the forces that drove a generation of young men to lay down their lives so we might live ours in freedom.

Our gaze has necessarily been focussed on the past, the pomp, circumstance and pride of victory shot through with grief over fallen comrades and the senseless slaughter that continued even as the Second World War drew to its only possible conclusion.

But as the strains of The Last Post echoed away. I found myself wondering what those brave airmen, sailors and soldiers would think of us, and the 21st-century freedoms we hold so dear.

Would those who landed on Omaha Beach in a hail of German gunfire, death raining down on them salute us for being worthy of their sacrifice?

https://amgreatness.com/2019/06/05/death-and-the-democrats/

Our nation is unique.

Most every other nation was established in a capricious fashion. Whether defined by an ethnicity, a linguistic community, or the happenstance of being ruled by a royal dynastic elite, other countries were not the result of their people appealing to first principles, of building a political structure from scratch based upon the lessons of prior centuries. Ours is different.

Yes, our Republic was born out of war, as has been the case with so many others over the centuries. But our Revolutionary War wasn’t simply waged over a brute demand for self-determination. The catalyst for the fight that would result in our being an independent nation-state was the grievous transgressions of a monarch who our Founding Fathers saw as acting in direct contravention to objective and universal truths.

After our unlikely victory against what was then the most powerful empire the world had ever seen, our forefathers enshrined those truths into our founding documents. And the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution have served not only to codify those principles as the foundation of our political system for at least 11 generations, they have become a beacon for hundreds of millions of non-Americans around the world who also believe in “government of the people, by the people, and for the people.” When dissidents escape house arrest or brave shark-infested waters in search of freedom, their destination is rarely the French embassy or the shores of Africa.

When discussing rights—particularly those rights enumerated in our Constitution—we often weigh priorities. Freedom of speech purists, for example, insist that without the First Amendment, all other rights are nugatory, while Second Amendment advocates stand unwavering in their conviction that without the right of the population to protect itself from a tyrannical government, everything else is hypothetical.

Yet it should be obvious where our existence as free men and women starts. Not with the right of association, or a free press, or freedom of conscience, or the right to keep and bear arms. Everything begins with the right to life.

That is, unless you are a Democrat in 2019.

https://amgreatness.com/2019/06/03/what-david-french

The dust-up between New York Post op-ed editor Sohrab Ahmari and National Review author David French has offered an enlightening view into the chasm between Trump supporters and his detractors on the Right. For the past week, opinionists on both sides have weighed in on the broader and at times pedantic points of the dispute.

Here are some crib notes: Ahmari thoughtfully, and I think, accurately, argues that French is temperamentally and ideologically ill-equipped to effectively challenge the Left in this current scorched-earth climate of American politics and culture.

In what he defines as “David French-ism,” Ahmari essentially claims that French’s trust in traditional institutions, the good faith of the other side, and belief in neutral territory where everyone is respected not only is naïve but misguided to the extent of being destructive of the things conservatives believe are essential to a just society.

Further, French’s objections to fighting the Left’s winning rampage by deploying the same weapons they wield—power in the form of the law—is a prescription for continued defeat. French’s hollow tropes offer little in the way of a legitimate battle plan to ultimately prevail over the well-moneyed and vengeful interests who seek to irrevocably transform American society. Detailed policies or political tactics to mitigate the harmful outcomes of illegal immigration or Big Tech-imposed censorship or punitive trade deals are replaced with toothless platitudes. Ahmari mocks French’s cheesy bumper-sticker solutions:

How do we counter ideological mono-thought in universities, workplaces, and other institutions? Try promoting better work-life balance, says French. How do we promote the good of the family against the deracinating forces arrayed against it, some of them arising out of the free market (pornography) and others from the logic of maximal autonomy (no-fault divorce)? “We should reverse cultural messages that for too long have denigrated the fundamental place of marriage in public life.” Oh, OK.

https://issuesinsights.com/2019/06/03/why-are-americas-socialists-and-democrats-and-journalists-always-so-angry/

“The Left’s anger and seething resentment of the achievements of Western civilization is puzzling, especially when it’s directed toward America, and American institutions and traditions. To borrow the words of President Reagan in his first Inaugural address, no other nation has “achieved so much.” We have “prospered as no other people on Earth.” “Freedom and the dignity of the individual,” said the 40th president, “have been more available and assured here than in any other place on Earth.”

Bernie Sanders is mad. He fulminates about the abundance of consumer choices, such as “23 underarm spray deodorants” and “18 different pairs of sneakers.” He rails against credit card companies because he thinks their interest rates are too high. He thunders over the prices Americans pay for prescription drugs.

The Democratic senator from Vermont, who is truly a socialist, having campaigned for a Marxist group in the 1980s, is perpetually upset with the way private banks conduct their business, and forever enraged at corporations for making profits. When he speaks, he comes off as that bitter man who shakes his fist at those darned neighborhood kids. There’s a reason Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and others have called Sanders the “crazy uncle in the attic.” He’s mad because everyone won’t do as he says.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is another angry democratic socialist. She rages when her sophomoric Green New Deal is questioned. She was incensed when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced he was going to let the Senate vote on her legislation. She’s annoyed that cauliflower is grown in urban gardens, apparently because it’s a “colonial” vegetable. Columnist Peggy Noonan said Ocasio-Cortez was “sullen, teenage and at a loss” during President Trump’s State of the Union address. Her very manner is that of someone who is mad at the world and is always just seconds away from lashing out.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren carries anger around with her like a purse — it’s always there within easy reach. She’s “mad as hell at the influence of money in Washington, D.C.,” and is equally venomous toward Wall Street. Other things that make her furious: Congress’ reluctance to “refinance student loan interest rates” (whatever they are); “billions of dollars” in private sector profits; billionaires in general; the minimum wage.

https://www.city-journal.org/decline-of-family-loneliness-epidemic

Americans are suffering from a bad case of loneliness. The number of people in the United States living alone has gone through the studio-apartment roof. A study released by the insurance company Cigna last spring made headlines with its announcement: “Only around half of Americans say they have meaningful, daily face-to-face social interactions.” Loneliness, public-health experts tell us, is killing as many people as obesity and smoking. It’s not much comfort that Americans are not, well, alone in this. Germans are lonely, the bon vivant French are lonely, and even the Scandinavians—the happiest people in the world, according to the UN’s World Happiness Report—are lonely, too. British prime minister Theresa May recently appointed a “Minister of Loneliness.”

The hard evidence for a loneliness epidemic admittedly has some issues. How is loneliness different from depression? How much do living alone and loneliness overlap? Do social scientists know how to compare today’s misery with that in, say, the mid-twentieth century, a period that produced prominent books like The Lonely Crowd? Certainly, some voguish explanations for the crisis should raise skepticism: among the recent suspects are favorite villains like social media, technology, discrimination, genetic bad luck, and neoliberalism.

Still, the loneliness thesis taps into a widespread intuition of something true and real and grave. Foundering social trust, collapsing heartland communities, an opioid epidemic, and rising numbers of “deaths of despair” suggest a profound, collective discontent. It’s worth mapping out one major cause that is simultaneously so obvious and so uncomfortable that loneliness observers tend to mention it only in passing. I’m talking, of course, about family breakdown. At this point, the consequences of family volatility are an evergreen topic when it comes to children; this remains the subject of countless papers and conferences. Now, we should take account of how deeply the changes in family life of the past 50-odd years are intertwined with the flagging well-being of so many adults and communities.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/05/david-french-ism-without-david-french/

French has been unfairly caricatured — but the caricature is worth defending.

Near as I can tell, the David French controversy revolves around allegations that the man is too much of an accommodating pragmatist on social issues. The charge is amusing to me, given that one of my defining experiences here at NR occurred when French denounced a column I wrote last year about the need for conservatives to pragmatically accommodate transgender Americans.

I don’t bear David any ill will over that. Conservatives can read our dueling articles and reach their own conclusions over whose case is more convincing. But I trust the episode does illustrate the degree to which the real-world David French is quite distinct from Sohrab Ahmari’s depiction in First Things: a man uncritically enthusiastic to accept the “pagan and libertine” so long as “traditional Christians [are] granted spaces in which to practice and preach what they sincerely believe” in return.

As Argentina’s longtime dictator Juan Perón entered his later years, many of his onetime followers sought to sever the increasingly unpopular president from the ideology he was associated with. “Perónism without Perón!” was their curious cry for revolution. Without implying any unflattering analogies, this idea occurred to me while reading Ahmari’s piece. “David French–ism” of the sort Ahmari angrily decries struck me as a perfectly defensible philosophy — even if David French himself may not be its best embodiment.

Many of the things Ahmari asserts French “sees” or “views” or “embodies” about the American political order are not French’s opinions, but the Constitution’s. It is that document, not French, that acknowledges the free exercise of religion as a fundamental American right, while also acknowledging the existence of many other liberties against which it must be balanced.

https://amgreatness.com/2019/06/01/sohrab-ahmari-and-our-existential-struggle/

Perhaps the most amusing intramural intellectual squall on the Right these past few days has centered on “Against David French-ism,” Sohrab Ahmari’s recent polemical reflection on liberalism in First Things.

I did not think that Sohrab had all that much to say directly about the man who provided him with the title of his essay, but then I am not, so to speak, a French man. I have never met Pastor French, rarely read him, and generally feel about him the way C. K. Dexter Haven in The Philadelphia Story felt about George Kitteridge, man of the people: “to hardly know him is to know him well.”

The outpouring of indignation, fury, and contempt that greeted Sohrab’s column reminded me that opinions about the Pastor vary widely. I group him with Pete Wehner and some other NeverTrump evangelists as a modern incarnation of the Pharos of Alexandria lighthouse, virtue signaling around the clock to the amazement of the world. I know there is disagreement on that score.

As I read it, Sohrab’s essay involved David French only incidentally. There were, I thought, two key passages. The first came near the beginning. “The movement we [conservatives] are up against,” Sohrab writes, “prizes autonomy above all, too; indeed, its ultimate aim is to secure for the individual will the widest possible berth to define what is true and good and beautiful, against the authority of tradition.”

I’ll come to what I think the other key passage is in a moment. First, note what a bold statement Sohrab has made here. Autonomy: aren’t we all for that? Isn’t it the prime Enlightenment virtue? Sapere aude, Kant said: “dare to know!” Priests, superstition, convention, tradition: didn’t the Enlightenment discard all of that for the sake of autonomy? For the sake, that is, of giving the law (nomos) to oneself (autos)?

http://swtotd.blogspot.com/

Cultural wars are largely bloodless, but that does not render them ineffective. While not perfect, liberal western societies have done more for mankind than any other system yet devised. They have in common a neo-classical heritage, representative government, natural rights, free market economies, rule of law, an understanding of civics and an appreciation for history. These characteristics (which we in the West take for granted but should not) have lifted millions of people out of poverty and brought freedom to even more. Now, politicians and commentators from both sides see these traits under attack. It is the cause that is disputed, and which has been responsible for the social and political divisiveness here and in Europe.

Those on the right see the threat to liberalism stemming from the growing power and influence of unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats, an absence of a universal moral sense and diminishing virtues, universities intolerant of conservative thought, a myopic media, a facile entertainment industry and a tolerance for the intolerant. Those on the left find blame “far-right populists,” “racists” and “white supremacists.” In an article two weeks ago, in the Wall Street Journal, Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute and Stanford professor, supported their view: Citing the fact that we have seen “…twelve years of erosion…,” he dated the start of the decline to 2006. However, he laid blame on a “…new wave of populist authoritarians from Hungary to the Philippines,” but ignored the fact that Viktor Orbán was elected prime minister of Hungary in 2010 and that Rodrigo Duterte became president of the Philippines in 2016. While slavering blame indiscriminately on conservatives, he wrote, “…America’s decay is increasingly advanced. President Donald Trump has insulted U.S. allies, befriended Vladimir Putin, excused a grim list of other dictators, embraced nativist politics and movements…” I believe Professor Diamond is wrong.

All societies most be wary of attacks, no matter from which direction they come. But, overlooked in Mr. Diamond’s diatribe is that Eastern Europe, after almost six decades of subjection, first to Nazi and then to Soviet rule, is now, understandably, defending its sovereignty. As well, he disregarded the fact President Obama cozied up to Cuba’s Castro’s and to Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, that he bowed to the Saudi king, and paid hundreds of millions of dollars to Iran for a flawed nuclear deal. The pallets of dollars airlifted to Tehran went to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), to help fund Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists. Mr. Obama failed to prod China into following trade rules, and never confronted Vladimir Putin on his interference in the Middle East. Also omitted was the role played by the Clintons in expediting the sale of Uranium One to Russia. Mr. Trump has imposed the toughest sanctions on Russia of any recent President; he has confronted China for their theft of technology and for their aggression in the South China Sea. He has told allies in Europe – countries which provide generous welfare payments to their citizens – that they should pay two percent of their GDP for their own defense. And that is an insult?

The healthcare industry operates in darkness.

You wouldn’t buy a car without knowing the price first. So why should you undergo a medical procedure and be forced to blindly accept whatever number appears on the bill?

It’s illogical.

Help us pave the way for healthcare transparency by taking a moment to respond to each of the questions below.

Poll 1: Which of these facts about the current healthcare industry MOST upsets you?

Poll 2: How do you feel about the fact that you, as the consumer, don’t get to see the price of a medical service before going to the doctor or hospital?

Poll 3: If prices were posted on your healthcare provider’s website, how likely would you be to price-compare with other providers?

Poll 4: Which of these healthcare initiatives is most important to you?
It’s up to us, the American people, to hold the healthcare industry accountable.

As we wrap up our four-day polling blitz, will you help us reach even more voters by forwarding this email to your friends and family?

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2019/04/in-determined

These are excerpts from a long and brilliant commentary on “modern times”….rsk

“Free trade brings significantly reduced industrial diversity within nations. It brings a loss of skills. It brings entrenched regional unemployment and despair. It brings long and vulnerable supply lines which threaten national security…….Let me be clear, the issue is not one of trade versus protection. It is about the extent to which the interests of all of the citizens of a nation are brought into account by their political representatives when they are eliminating trade barriers. The wholeness, integrity and security of the nation-state should not be bartered away for a mess of pottage…..”

“Refugees are welcome here” is a popular sign held aloft by virtue-signalling do-gooders. Europe takes in many refugees, as do the United States and Australia. (Incidentally, on this criterion, Japan and China are not the least bit virtuous.) Refugees are costly to settle. Many have language difficulties; many are low-skilled, bring culturally-clashing values, and remain a drain on taxpayers and public services. Yet political points are often scored on the “virtue” of bringing in more refugees. Tellingly, refugees are usually settled outside of the enclaves of their enthusiastic supporters.”

“Whatever you think of climate change, the measures to counter it, promoted by its international cheer leaders, are calculated to damage the industrial base and living standards of advanced Western nations. …. Western nations are enjoined to take from their denuded treasury coffers to enrich their poorer cousins. In part, apparently, to expiate their guilt for having in the past put so much life-giving gas (pardon, polluting gas) into the atmosphere.”

“We need to take stock. Politicians and governments have lost sight of whose interests they represent. President Trump is clearly one of the few exceptions. Whether he is renegotiating trade deals, or trying to secure US borders and reform immigration laws, or rolling back onerous environmental regulations, his goal, as he says, is to put America and Americans first. Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orban is another in the Trump mould. There aren’t many in the West who have not forgotten that their job is govern in the interests of their citizens; all of them, and no one else.”

“We, the people, are not what we used to be. For example, conservative politicians are afraid to call out the cant that surrounds the global warming agenda for fear of electoral retribution. ….And can you ever imagine the utopian (in reality dystopian) drivel in Ms Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal ever seeing the light of day, never mind being supported by prominent Democrats, in a past time when everybody outside of the fringes had common sense? Of course not.”