What happened to C-Pol?

For over a decade, this blog was called "C-POL: Constitutionalist, Conservative Politics". Over time, my deep-thought ponderings have been moving away from the rough-and-tumble of everyday political wrangling and toward the larger philosophical, ideological, and cultural currents of our age.  

I've changed the title of the blog to highlight my conviction that the "fundamental transformation" (to adapt President Obama's phrase) of the United States that's currently underway is, in the long run, bad not only for this country but for the world in general.

Scoff if you must; I'm okay with that.  I aim to make my case as time goes on.  I'm okay with being on the "wrong side of history" if I'm actually right.

Are the denizens of the 'progressive' left champions of democracy?

Although the progressives fancy themselves to champion democracy, they are accomplishing some of the greatest strides in their cultural revolution through the least democratic means -- through presidential executive action and through the decisions of a few federal judges.  In other words, through oligarchy, not through democracy.

The people's representatives are in Congress.  The left pretty much has no use for the people's representatives.  Under progressive rule, the laws come from everywhere BUT the place mandated by our Constitution.

Just like pretty much every left-wing uprising that has ever occurred, the revolutionaries claim to be acting on behalf of the masses, but the masses don't always have the right opinions, do they?

(Note: I realize that under our Constitution, the U.S. is a republic, not a democracy.  Just going with the progressive lingo here.)

The anticapitalist left's ironic dependence on the fruits of capitalism (cont'd)

Illustrated marvelously in this Banksy canvas wall print available at... drum roll, please... Walmart:

The anticapitalist left's ironic dependence on the fruits of capitalism

Image via Pleated Jeans

Intellectual diversity is a threat to progressive hegemony, and it shall not be tolerated

Carl Trueman writes in First Things about the fact that modern universities seem designed to prevent vigorous-yet-civil debate about contentious issues.  As the progressive tribe solidifies its hold on western culture, the name of the game is conformity to the progressive ideal.  Not only will dissent not be tolerated; it will be punished in any way possible.

Universities [...] are not supposed to be confessional institutions inculcating a particular creed, nor should they be built on politicized extensions of child-rearing philosophies founded on self-esteem. They should be places where debate is part of the way of life, and where one has to live shoulder to shoulder with those with whom one differs. Yet they have become the very places where this inability to disagree is now apparently cultivated as a positive virtue. The truly educated person is now no longer the person who understands an opposing viewpoint even as he rejects it. For even to understand an alternative viewpoint is to collude in the oppression which such an opinion embodies.

I suspect that the future health of democracy depends upon university administrators worrying less about the dangers posed by whatever is the micro-aggression du jour and more about providing safe places for those who actually want to hold opinions and have debates. Safe places, that is, that are marked by the very risks and danger involved in intellectual engagement.

Trueman's hope (expressed in the second paragraph of the excerpt) is no more than a pipe dream, at least for now.

The first "Native Americans" popped out of the soil here, apparently

This bit of left-wing agitprop amuses me to no end.

Image found at The Meta Picture

The Left is a fragile coalition of incompatible factions

If these factions didn't have a common enemy to unite them, they'd be at each others' throats.  Now that the cultural revolution is winding down, we're going to start seeing more infighting as each faction tries to get its agenda to the top of the priority list in the People's Republic of America.

Pearls Before Swine poked fun at a few of the Left's factions in yesterday's comic.  Stephan Pastis seems to be pretty thick-skinned, so I suspect that he'll be able to weather the hate that comes his way because of this.

Click the image to view full-sized version

Is this what people think of socialism these days?

A classic cold-war era joke used two cows to illustrate the various political systems that dominated the 20th century world.  There were different renditions of the joke, but they tended to follow this pattern:

• SOCIALISM: You have two cows. State takes one and gives it to someone else.
• COMMUNISM: You have two cows. State takes both of them and gives you milk.
• FASCISM: You have two cows. State takes both of them and sells you milk.
• NAZISM: You have two cows. State takes both of them and shoots you.
• CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.

...and so on.  The original point of the joke was to highlight the differences between ideologies in theory and ideologies in practice.

Socialism in theory means those who have been blessed with prosperity freely share their bounty with the less fortunate.  Socialism in practice involves the state using force to redistribute this bounty.

Communism in theory takes socialism to the next level -- where the masses freely choose to collectivize their labor as well as their possessions for the good of all.  Communism in practice involves the state collectivizing labor and possessions for the good of the state, allowing the masses just enough to subsist on.

Today, I was intrigued to notice that modern renditions of the joke leave communism the way it was in older renditions, but the socialism part of the joke has shifted to the in-theory definition, with the clear intent of promoting it as the superior system. 

The entire chart can be found at The Meta Picture

"You have two cows. You give one to your neighbor." 

Socialism is just people being nice to each other.  Who could be against that?

If socialism worked like that in practice, I would be more than happy to concede the point. 

But here's the reality: Socialists have never been happy with the inefficiencies of voluntary wealth redistribution, and have always ended up resorting to state force to advance their goals.

I believe that the utopian goals of socialism can never be realized except at the point of a gun.  Feel free to contend otherwise in the comments.

Megalomania, thy name is Obama

Dear Leader acknowledges the adoration of the heavens in a recent visit to Jamaica.

Source: White House Twitter Feed

There can be little doubt that Mr. Obama wants to maintain the personality cult that has grown up around him since his 2008 campaign. To what end? When do the statues of him start going up in the public squares?

DC-area abortion business aims to make snuffing your baby a "spa-like" experience

Abortion advocacy seems to be moving into a new phase.  As far as I've observed, the pro-abortion crowd has long since given up trying to answer the fundamental pro-life assertion that the procedure ends a human life.

By sidestepping the life issue, advocates are free to focus on conditioning our culture with the notion that abortion is a nothing more than a routine medical procedure, and that it is morally neutral -- even morally good.

Thus, while I was horrified, I was not surprised to see the approach one new Washington, DC-area abortion business is taking to the provision of pharmaceutical abortions.  WaPo, March 30:

With its natural wood floors and plush upholstery, Carafem aims to feel more like a spa than a medical clinic. But the slick ads set to go up in Metro stations across the Washington region leave nothing to doubt: “Abortion. Yeah, we do that.”

The Maryland clinic, opening this week in Montgomery County’s tony Friendship Heights area, specializes in the abortion pill. The advertising reflects its unabashed approach — and a new push to de-stigmatize the nation’s most controversial medical procedure by talking about it openly and unapologetically.

[...] “It was important for us to try to present an upgraded, almost spa-like feel,” said Melissa S. Grant, vice president of health services for the clinic.

If the project is successful, Purdy says, he hopes to expand his model to other states.

“It’s fresh, it’s modern, it’s clean, it’s caring,” he said. “That’s the brand we’re trying to create.”

Carafem is planning to offer its modern, clean, caring baby-snuffing services for the bargain price of $400.  It would be unfair for such a spa-like experience to be reserved only for the rich, though, so I'm sure Obamacare subsidies will be available in due time.

U.S. border security, illustrated

Authoritarian government is the most natural form of government

Human nature being what it is, government always tends toward authoritarianism (or worse), regardless of the nobility or ignobility of a government's founders.  If the citizens were always in perfect harmony with the rulers, authoritarianism wouldn't be necessary.  In the real world, though, government must eventually take measures to create harmony by force.

Many on the right, Christian conservatives included, are justifiably alarmed at the brazen power grabs of the left.  They often think: "If only we can get our folks into power, all will be rainbows and unicorns again."

But is that realistic? George W. Bush, while deeply flawed, had his conservative moments during his presidency, and it was at those times that he faced the full onslaught of a culture that has never been more out of harmony with conservative and constitutional principles.

Remember my earlier statement: in the absence of natural harmony, governments can create harmony only by force.  This is why authoritarian government isn't just the plaything of the left.

The late Francis Schaeffer, a Christian apologist and deep-thinker, saw peril in Christians' tendency to remain silent when government authoritarianism was directed at others.  Writing in 1983, he warned:

Will we resist authoritarian government in all its forms regardless of the label it carries and regardless of its origin?  The danger in regard to the rise of authoritarian government is that Christians will be still as long as their own religious activities, evangelism, and life-styles are not disturbed.

[...] Here is a sentence to memorize:  To make no decision in regard to the growth of authoritarian government is already a decision for it.

—How Should We Then Live? (1976). Italics in the original.

More than thirty years later, Christians are now well aware of what it's like to be the target of the government's authoritarian impulses.  Schaeffer might argue that our silence in the past made our current difficulties more likely.

Why it's unlikely that a genuine conservative will win the 2016 GOP nomination

Ted Cruz has already declared, and it's pretty much a foregone conclusion that Marco Rubio and Rand Paul, among others, will toss their hats into the ring within the next few weeks.  Some on the right might see this as evidence of the enduring vitality of the conservative movement in the face of an aggressive cultural jihad against its values.  I see the Republican establishment clinching the nomination, yet again -- and not necessarily because of any particular shortcomings the conservative challengers might possess.

Thesis: Every conservative that declares for the 2016 nomination, regardless of his/her ideological bona fides, decreases the probability that a conservative will actually win the nomination.

Every four years, we get the same thing in the GOP primary season: Several conservatives, one or two moderates acceptable to the establishment, and occasionally, some unabashedly liberal candidate who spends his campaign attacking the views of the 99% of the party who are to his right.

The conservative candidates all have passionate fan bases of varying sizes. These candidates spend the bulk of their time trying to win the other conservative factions over, all but ignoring the establishment candidate(s) at first: "If only the other conservative candidates would drop out of the race, their voters would unite behind me, and we could win this!  How can they be so selfish?"

Conservatives select a 2016 standard-bearer.
(Note: the establishment candidates are the relaxed ones in the foreground)

Each primary comes and goes.  One conservative candidate does well here, and another there.  The diffusion of the conservative vote into angry factions begins leading to plurality wins for at least one of the moderate candidates.  As the delegate momentum builds for one moderate, other moderates drop out of the race, and the establishment's fundraising machine kicks into high gear for the anointed one.

Too late, the conservatives stop clawing at each other long enough to realize that the establishment candidate is pulling away.  By then, it usually doesn't matter if all but one conservative drops out; all the moderate must do from this point forward is to calmly and cheerfully quote the remaining candidate's erstwhile conservative opponents against him or her.  The conservative, who up to this point has focused exclusively on fellow conservatives, can do little but splutter in response.

Jeff Koterba, February 8

Once again, the opportunity has been lost, and the moderate walks away with the nomination.

I've been an active voter for over 30 years, and I've witnessed this phenomenon far too many times for it to be attributed to my imagination.  Alas, more than a year and a half prior to the 2016 election, this cycle appears to be no different.

There is much that I like about each of the likely conservative candidates, but I doubt that any of them will get the nod.  The Texas primary is held late in the season, typically meaning that we will have only the establishment candidate and the last major conservative candidate to choose from.  As usual, I'll probably cast a protest vote against the establishment.  For all the good it'll do.

----

April 10 UPDATE: Rasmussen shows that I'm not alone in my pessimism.

Mandatory voting is, quite possibly, one of the worst ideas ever

This week, I was quite surprised to learn from my Facebook newsfeed that quite a few on the left are excited about the notion of mandatory voting for American citizens (at least, I assume they're wanting this just for the citizens).  My gut reaction is that this is, quite possibly, one of the worst ideas ever presented as a solution to the phenomenon of low voter participation.

Before explaining why I believe this, I should note that this erupted into the news this week because our Dear Leader just endorsed the notion.  Yahoo! News, March 18:

Obama floated the idea of mandatory voting in the U.S. while speaking to a civic group in Cleveland on Wednesday. Asked about the corrosive influence of money in U.S. elections, Obama digressed into the related topic of voting rights and said the U.S. should be making it easier — not harder— for people to vote.

Just ask Australia, where citizens have no choice but to vote, the president said.

"If everybody voted, then it would completely change the political map in this country," Obama said, calling it potentially transformative.

Yes, it would be grand if citizens took seriously their civic responsibility to participate in our democratic institutions.  So, why don't they?  The president's speech encapsulates the reasons that I usually see proffered by the Left:

Not only that, Obama said, but universal voting would "counteract money more than anything."

Disproportionately, Americans who skip the polls on Election Day are younger, lower-income and more likely to be immigrants or minorities, Obama said. "There's a reason why some folks try to keep them away from the polls," he said in a veiled reference to efforts in a number of Republican-led states to make it harder for people to vote.

Yikes!  So...anywhere from a half to two-thirds of voting-age citizens are informed, motivated folks who are systematically kept away from the polls by Republican voter-suppression efforts.

Seriously?

Forcing these 50%+ of voting-age citizens to the polls won't turn them into informed, motivated voters.  Any person who takes a half-serious look at human nature should be able to conclude two things: (1) These uninformed, unmotivated folks will look for the easiest way to avoid the failure-to-vote penalty (most likely a fine); and (2) The informed, motivated folks (both left and right) will be ready to help the uninformed, unmotivated folks discharge their duties in the most expedient way possible.

"Just tell me who to vote for, okay?"

This will come down to a contest of which ideological tribe can get the most apathetic sheep to the polls.  The Left's giddiness about the mandatory voting proposal is evidence enough that progressives believe that they would win that contest.

Facebook has its uses for those who want to be sure of what they believe

Many people decry the prevalence of political/ideological arguments on Facebook, but I've come to appreciate this phenomenon to a certain extent.  In the past, ideologues tended to keep to their own online neighborhoods, and as a result most people spent their days in the company of folks who agreed with them on the Issues That Matter.

Suddenly, Facebook.  Just about everybody has relatives or friends who hail from some faraway part of the ideological spectrum, and many of those folks are pumped up enough about their worldview to post articles and memes about whatever motivates them.  Facebook is facilitating what seems to be an unprecedented mixing of ideological tribes.  As most with FB accounts know well, that mixing is often not a beautiful sight to behold.

For the most part, I've made my peace regarding this phenomenon in my own newsfeed.  Those articles used to annoy me, and I would often launch into heated debates that never ended up moving the ball in either direction.

Gazing across the divide

Now, though, I see a personal growth opportunity in things that used to make my blood boil.  I have a goal of truly understanding the progressive worldview -- not just its most common positions on current issues (those are usually easy to guess), but understanding the foundational assumptions about reality that set the progressive tribe apart from other worldview tribes.

So, I continue to poke and prod my interlocutors, but not necessarily for the purpose of winning the argument.  How can one have a constructive argument when the two parties don't even agree on the definitions of terms that are important to the argument?  No, my poking and prodding is intended to help me understand what makes them tick.  And I truly do want to understand.  Apparently, this is not normal or common, because progressives, even ones I'm related to, tend to react with suspicion when I tell them this.

To me, it's worth the effort.  Not only am I better able to understand why someone believes something so outrageous (to me), I am also given many opportunities to test what I believe on the topic of the moment, and to decide which hills are worth fighting for.

Once I decide I need to jump into a debate, I'm better able to caution myself about my chances for success, given my understanding that my opponent's opinions usually flow rationally from a sea of assumptions that will never never come up in the current debate.