DANIEL GREENFIELD: THE WEEKLY ROUNDUP PART TWO
http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/
There’s a more extensive roundup of articles at Ruthfully Yours
But good news. Obama is sending Penny Pritzker, that nice lady whose hotel hosted Ahmadinejad, to talk to Jews. Talk about not getting it. Maybe he should send her to raise money from Ahmadinejad. Since his advisers may be wizards, maybe they can magic up some gold for him.
MANDATORY TIMES
Good news. Remember that thing Republican grass roots protesters were so angry about. Well the leading Republican presidential candidates support it. Romney, Gingrich, now Mitch Daniels. It’s Mandate Party Time.
Of course they don’t support a bad one like ObamaCare. No theirs is a nice and fluffy mandate. A gentle loving mandate that everyone can get behind. Daniels and Gingrich disavow any current support for a mandate. Romney is hardly even bothering to do that.
It’s a measure of how little influence the grass roots are having on the field so far.
IS OUR CHILDREN LEARNING
At Commentary, Jonathan Tobin notes conflicts over the Ramapo School Board elections. These types of conflicts are not racial, they’re what happens when the majority is forced to subsidize a service that they don’t want or need on behalf of a minority. Especially when it’s a really expensive service like the public school system.
Liberal organizations like the ADL and the Forward have been chomping at the bit to get at East Ramapo because the majority that don’t use the public school system want a say in reforming it and controlling its budgets. To liberals, exercising fiscal sanity over something as sacred as the public school system is tantamount to blasphemy and maypole dancing.
But there has been a prolonged conflict going on in the Five Towns as well, with obnoxious behavior by the LTA, the local teacher’s union.
The rise of religious suburbs means that you will have local governments impatient with the already huge property taxes being used to subsidize unions and minority schools. This is a critical situation in New Jersey, where Christie’s popularity was boosted mostly by his willingness to take on the out of control cost of minority schools as reflected in property taxes. But the minority schools are mostly an excuse for the school bureaucracy and the teacher’s unions to keep robbing taxpayers.
Property taxes have made parts of New York State unlivable and they’re a major issue in New Jersey, which has the highest property taxes in the country.
The New Yorkers who moved into the suburbs and across the river wanted to get away from high taxes and crime. But many of them have been coming back. Now sizable numbers of city residents under 30 are going even further away. The black population of the city has been falling too. The whole situation is clearly untenable.
What’s interesting is that all the shouting over the reforms in East Ramapo and the Five Towns predated Christie and Walker. It was a local action by taxpayers who wanted to bring an out of control school system into line. They sold school buildings that weren’t being used, cut useless programs and negotiated hard on new contracts. They were the leading edge of a counterrevolution. They happened to be Orthodox Jews. But mostly they happened to be taxpayers being forced to subsidize a horribly expensive and broken system that they didn’t use themselves.
That has implications that go beyond these narrow cases and to the growing conflict in America over whether the majority should continue subsidizing a deadbeat minority in a variety of areas.
Donald Boudreaux, via Ace of Spades,
Suppose that groceries were supplied in the same way as K-12 education. Residents of each county would pay taxes on their properties. Nearly half of those tax revenues would then be spent by government officials to build and operate supermarkets. Each family would be assigned to a particular supermarket according to its home address. And each family would get its weekly allotment of groceries – “for free” – from its neighborhood public supermarket.
No family would be permitted to get groceries from a public supermarket outside of its district. …
… quality of public supermarkets would play a major role in families’ choices about where to live. Real-estate agents and chambers of commerce in prosperous neighborhoods would brag about the high quality of public supermarkets to which families in their cities and towns are assigned.
… thoughtful souls would call for “supermarket choice” fueled by vouchers or tax credits. Those calls would be vigorously opposed by public-supermarket administrators and workers.
As for the handful of radicals who call for total separation of supermarket and state — well, they would be criticized by almost everyone as antisocial devils indifferent to the starvation that would haunt the land if the provision of groceries were governed exclusively by private market forces.
Reminds me a little of my Republic of Fruitania
The Ministry of Street Fairs realizes that people are shopping for their produce at supermarkets instead. It then demands that supermarkets be also classified as street fairs, and put under the jurisdiction and tax authority of the Ministry. A Bill is introduced, “The Supermarkets are now Street Fairs” bill, to put supermarkets under the Ministry’s authority, and tax them at twice the rate of street fairs. Supporters of the bill denounce the evil “Supermarket Lobby” for profiteering at the expense of the poor street fair sellers, who wish the Ministry would just go away, and starving children who need fresh fruit. The bill passes. The Ministry is congratulated for its commitment to fighting for the right of everyone to buy fruit at vastly inflated prices.
Very few people shop for produce anymore because it has become far too expensive. Falling sales insure that merchants have to raise their prices even more to compensate for decreased sales volume. Many supermarkets and sellers go out of business, creating more unemployment and even fewer people who can afford fruit. Fruit growers and importers in turn go out of business or turn to other products. Fresh fruit becomes a luxury that only the very rich can afford.
The Ministry of Street Fairs responds by creating a “Fruit Dole” which entitles every child to one apple and pear a week. This dole comes once again at the expense of the fruit sellers, which raises the general price of fruit once again. Charismatic young politicians speak out demanding “Fruit for the People” and denouncing those who prevent the people from having access to fruit, which turns out to be the fruit sellers. A radical “Fruit People’s Party” is created with a call to equal fruit for everyone.
THE NEW COLONIALISM
Gen.Chen Bingde, China’s top military officer, has some of his own ideas about fighting Somali pirates who are menacing shipping lanes off the Horn of Africa.
His suggestion: Go after their paymasters on land.
Asked about China’s antipiracy force in the Gulf of Aden, Gen. Chen said, “ I personally believe that we should not only fight with pirates on the sea, but also on the ground – because those operating pirates on the sea are simply low-ranking ones, and the true masterminds are on the ground.”
China already has virtual colonies in parts of Africa, that are beginning to look a lot like the European outposts of old. Combine that with Chinese occupation forces and you have all the ingredients of a new colonialism. Except this time without Europeans being involved.
Of course the three monkey left isn’t capable of seeing colonialism when it’s practiced by Arab states or any non-white country. It’ll take a while until they actually notice it. And they’ll have to accept it. After all who are we to criticize their culture.
Not that I object to the PRC doing the job that Americans just won’t do. And doing it in a way that actually gets results, with heads placed on poles in every port. It’s bound to happen sooner or later. Indeed if the demographic Jihad takes Europe and Russia, and America turns into Brazil, then it will come down to China and the Muslim world. China has no religious conflict with Islam, but it’s determined to be a great power, and Muslims don’t like infidels with ambition.
NOT LE RAPE RAPE
There is all the usual outrage from Anglo outlets about the laissez-faire attitude toward the charges against Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Some are attributing it to political or racial factors, but it’s just the way things are and have been for a rather long time.
I’m reminded of the French commander during the Boxer Rebellion who answered objections to the rape spree of Chinese women by saying that he could not restrain the ‘gallantry’ of his men. His modern day counterparts think that you can’t restrain the gallantry of IMF and Socialist politicians either.
The French aren’t entirely wrong about a justice system in which famous people are dragged through the mud before the trial even begins. A process that heavily favors the prosecution. By now most people have already decided that Strauss-Kahn is guilty, based only on the photos of him being led disheveled and in handcuffs with the implication that he tried to flee the country.
Of course the French criminal justice system is worse in its own way. So is the Italian, as Amanda Knox could tell you. Most First World countries have their mutually infuriating aspects. And few people are going to cheer seeing one of their countrymen propelled through a process they find bizarre.
Beyond the procedural there is a clash of mores. Americans and French both hold stereotypes of the other. The French as permissive and wanton, the Americans as uptight puritans. These attitudes are less a matter of conduct and more a matter of perception, but the differences are there in practice too.
America and France may be allies, but there are also basic cultural differences. Despite their revolutions, the French have retained much more of the privileges of elitism. The idea that powerful men should enjoy a superior status is embedded in a way that it is not in the United States. The nature of the nobility has not changed, but not entirely gone away.
Sexual attitudes differ dramatically for cultural reasons. There are many Americans of French ancestry, but American culture was shaped by dissident Anglo religious movements. Those movements were often concerned with the simplicity of inward righteousness and the family. America is slower to reform, but its reforms are more than skin deep. Accordingly minorities had lower legal status in the United States for longer, but when their status improved, it more improved more broadly. Female equality in the United States hasn’t led to as many female leaders as in Europe, but it has also extended to more women by changing attitudes, rather than just formalities.
Legal equality in America is a moral value first and a legal value second. In France it’s a Republican value first and a moral value second.
THE GINGRICH GAMES
It’s possible to disagree with Gingrich, to even say that he was absolutely wrong to suggest that the Ryan Plan is right wing social engineering, without sinking to articles about his Tiffany bill or constant announcements that he’s finished and done. Or attempts to cultivate a campaign of constant ridicule. Many of the same people tried to do the same thing to Christine O’Donnell. And how did that work out exactly for everyone?
Gingrich isn’t done. Not over this anyway. To anyone who isn’t passionately fired up over the Ryan Plan to Lose the 2012 Election, this is a tempest in a teapot. Whoever the Republican presidential nominee will be, the odds of them endorsing a plan to end Medicare during the actual campaign are low.
Was Gingrich irresponsible? He could have phrased it better. But Ryan and his supporters were much more irresponsible for bringing forward a controversial plan that plays very badly, particularly in blue states, before a national election. The worst thing that can come out of Gingrich’s remark is a few election ads. The worst consequences of Ryan’s plan could be a completely blown election. And what happens to entitlement reform then?
Winning means being in touch with reality. Repealing ObamaCare is popular. Removing Medicare, less so. Most people who aren’t Reason readers are not going to be all that fired up about privatization. And the best time to make the case to them is not before a national election, but when you actually have the votes to pass your plan. Even Obama didn’t come out for the mandate during the election. Are we going to be dumber than him?
And articles and posts denouncing seniors for stealing from the young are not helping things any. Who exactly are they supposed to convince, and of what? You don’t get people on board with reform by scapegoating them. How well did that work out for Obama and Wall Street?
Let’s look at how Cameron is handling it in the UK.
In a keynote speech, the Prime Minister will detail the “real problems” within the health system, citing cancer survival rates that lag behind the rest of Europe.
Striking a personal note, Mr Cameron says he loves the NHS and what it has done for his family, which was why it needs to be improved.
However, he will refer to a “vast mailbag” from patients calling for change which he has received throughout his time as an MP as well as prime minister.
In the speech at a hospital in London, Mr Cameron will say: “It is because I love the NHS so much that I want to change it, because the fact is the NHS needs to change…
“It needs to change to avoid a crisis tomorrow.”
Sometimes the simple things are best.
DROP OUTS
Huckabee is out. Trump is out (and yes he was serious about running this time). And the populist spot is in flux. Cain took it from Trump. But the odds look very good that Palin will take it from Cain.
Is that a good thing? I don’t know. I like Palin’s politics. I called for her to be the VP nominee before McCain picked her. But she needs to shake up her public persona if she’s going to win over swing voters. And even many Republicans. Palin’s image plays very well to a part of the party, but she has a major image problem nationwide and the polls reflect that.
Palin is a canny politician. Most don’t give her credit for that. She built up a whole organization and a national presence in preparation for this. She has favors to cash in and this time she won’t be isolated, the way she was during the 2008 election. She picked up a lot more national campaign experience in 2010. She’s learned to use New Media to her advantage.
All that stuff is there and most people don’t give her nearly enough credit for it. This woman is miles away from the stereotype the left has circulated of her. She’s done more to prepare for this than anyone else running, including Romney. And she has a sense of mission. She believes that she’s meant for this.
That’s a lot of good stuff right there. But unless she can also shake up her image, it will probably be for nothing. She’s sold a lot of the party on herself as a caring mother and a committed activist. But she hasn’t sold portions of the party or the country on herself as a leader. And I think that’s a basic mistake. Unless she can convincingly make the case, without the hockey mom stuff, that she has serious proposals and she knows what she’s talking about– then this has been a lot of work for nothing.
Sarah Palin is smart and she’s good at what she does. Her career proves it. But most people believe what they see. It’s not enough that Palin was a successful governor and that she’s built a political empire and a substantial media presence in very little time. She needs to communicate her intelligence and skills through her personality. Palin’s homey persona has served her well up till now, but if she’s going to run for a national office, she needs to show she can transcend it.
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