Yesterday When I Was Young

Liberals may not agree with what you say, but they'll fight for your right to say it.

Oh. Sorry, that's so yesterday.

Today, the Oscar-winning producer of "Schindler's List" is prohibited from speaking at a high school graduation ceremony because he is "a right-wing conservative."

In Montana, of all places.

http://www.volokh.com/2012/06/08/oscar-winning-schindlers-list-producer-disinvited-from-giving-speech-at-high-school-because-hes-too-conservative/

Hat tip:  Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit. 

It's So Hard to Get Good Help These Days

Should companies refuse to hire married men who have stay-at-home wives? Why not ask the Social Science Research Network...

"In this article, we examine a heretofore neglected pocket of resistance to the gender revolution in the workplace: married male employees who have stay-at-home wives. We develop and empirically test the theoretical argument suggesting that such organizational members, comp ared to male employees in modern marriages, are more likely to exhibit attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors that are harmful to women in the workplace."

It's such a shame that we can't condition such men to conform their attitudes to the approving trills of feminist ideology without having to stigmatize them. Well, we drove the Neanderthals to extinction once. Perhaps we can do it again.

Shake Your Booty!

 A writer at PJMedia comes to the shocking conclusion that musical skill no longer matters in music...

http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2012/05/21/american-idol-accidentally-telling-the-truth/#comments

Longtime conductor of the Chicago Symphony, Georg Solti, was once asked why he didn’t program more modern repertoire. Solti’s response was, I thought, illuminating: all of us reach a point in our lives where the music we already know is sufficient for us and forms the basis of what we cherish, and we lose the ability to truly appreciate anything (stylistically) newer. Solti said, for him, music stopped sometime around 1950. So, yes to Bartok, Hindemith, Prokofiev, and Shostakovich; no to Stockhausen, Lutoslawski, Carter, and Xenakis.

I notice the same sort of thing in pop/rock music. For me, music stopped sometime around 1980. So, yes to Gerry Rafferty, Dire Straits, Supertramp, Robert Palmer, and ZZTop; no to Madonna, Pat Benatar, the Culture Club, rap, crap, and hip-hop.

Once upon a time, a musician did not need to be charismatic to sell a good tune, but it helped. Elvis was king, but there was also Roy Orbison and Bobby Darin, neither man being a sexual god. Barbra, for crying out loud, was no beauty queen, though Barbra might disagree. What I’m seeing nowadays is the opposite situation: the music has become a mere vehicle for the charisma (such as it is). Britney Spears is not a musician or even a particularly talented singer, and the songs? If you’ve heard one, you’ve heard ‘em all. Britney Spears shakes her butt and the music helps with the packaging. That makes her a butt shaker, not a singer.

Flattery Will Get You Nowhere

English professor Janice Fiamengo's perspective on what's wrong with students -- and education -- today, here:

http://pjmedia.com/blog/the-unteachables-a-generation-that-cannot-learn/?singlepage=true


On the streak of narcissism that results when you teach self-esteem rather than actual subject material...

"[The students'] belief that nothing requires improvement except the grade is one of the biggest obstacles that teachers face in the modern university.  And that is perhaps the real tragedy of our education system: not only that so many students enter university lacking the basic skills and knowledge to succeed in their courses — terrible in itself — but also that they often arrive essentially unteachable, lacking the personal qualities necessary to respond to criticism."

On grade inflation...

"In the past twenty years, the well-documented phenomenon of grade inflation in humanities subjects — the awarding of high “Bs” and “As” to the vast majority of students — has increased the conviction that everyone is first-rate."

(Which, of course, flies in the face of the truism that half the population is below average.)

On where the progressives jumped the track:

"Memorization itself, the foundation of traditional teaching, came to be seen as an enemy of creative thought: pejorative similes for memory work such as “rote learning” and “fact-grinding” suggest the classroom equivalent of a military drill, harsh and unaccommodating. The progressive approach, in contrast, emphasizes variety, pleasure, and student interest and self-motivation above all."

I was always suspicious of education fads that dismissed any learning done by "rote memorization."  On the contrary, I have always instinctively thought that memorization is to learning as calisthenics and drill are to playing football, or basic training is to warfare, or scales and arpeggios are to performing music.  In football, nobody skips the practice field or the training camp and goes straight to the scrimmage.  In warfare, nobody starts his military career by charging up San Juan Hill.  In music, you don't perform in Carnegie Hall without having first played a few thousand scales.

One lesson that you learn when studying music is that there are no A's for effort.  I never had a music instructor who felt it necessary to boost my self-esteem, though I could have sworn there were several who had quite the opposite goal.  You pay these folks to criticize your playing, and criticism is what you get.

You can't teach someone who thinks he knows everything already.  That makes humility a valuable commodity.

It's All About Him

Did you know that, at the official White House web site, the historical blurbs on every President since Coolidge (except Ford) now include little congratulatory notes on the Obama administration? It's almost like President Hoover was already thinking of the future zygote that would become the change we were waiting for, when he invented the vacuum cleaner.

Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit.  And Jim Treacher, as usual, is without mercy.  http://dailycaller.com/2012/05/15/obamas-glory-was-inevitable-says-obama/

Rhetoric, Obama-Style

The President came out today in favor of gay marriage, as best as anyone can tell.  Well, at least he is no longer a bigot.

Obama: "I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together, when I think about those soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married."

That's all in one sentence, too. But the key part... "I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm...." Now, that's a full-throated defense of gay marriage right there.

It's right up there with other great declarations in history.

Patrick Henry: "But as for me personally, I think it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that you can either allow me an appropriate degree of liberty, or at some point consider terminating my functioning as an organism."

Thomas Jefferson: "We feel the time has come when it is important to us to go ahead and affirm that we hold certain truths to be personally relevant, that all men, and women too, are created equal, that they are endowed by such a creator as would be congruent with our personal belief system, with certain unalienable rights, that among these are human life (where it is wanted), liberty -- of course, in the sense that we should all be liberated from want -- and the pursuit of happiness so long as it doesn't conflict with the more important goals of the government, and involves no bitter clinging."

FDR: "I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors when I think about members of my own staff who have been living in fear, that at a certain point I've just concluded for me personally that we have little in the way to fear, actually, except for the generic fear in and of itself that can paralyze a positive response to the threats that I, personally, perceive as facing the country."

With inspirational leaders like this, no wonder America is such a great country.

Blowing Smoke, Mittens Style

Conservatives have been rallying behind one NotRomney after another, even behind some candidates who aren't particularly conservative themselves, in order to stand in Mitt Romney's way. Interesting and, I think, insightful article by David Steinberg at PJMedia on why this is, and why Mitt has not already wrapped up the Republican nomination.

http://pjmedia.com/blog/going-rove-mr-establishment-squelches-talk-of-establishment-brokered-convention/

Steinberg writes:

"The viable candidates are not fiscally conservative enough for our preference, but all importantly, the candidates are not fiscally conservative enough to halt decline [my boldface]. Recent elections held the promise of a GOP win being a satisfactory result, 2012 does not, considering a fall-of-Rome national debt and the structure of unfunded, impossible-to-fund “safety net” liabilities."

When President Obama took office, the national debt hovered at about $9 trillion; today it soared to about $15 trillion, with no endgame in sight, but with huge new entitlements on the horizon. Our national net worth is estimated at roughly $50 to $60 trillion -- that's everything in these United States, every house, every store, every car, every pair of shoes. The United States of America faces an existential crisis at this point in its history. We are well on our way toward spending ourselves into oblivion.

Now, either you believe what I just wrote, or you don't. If you don't, let them clear off a seat for you in the Democratic Party. There was a time not very long ago when, arguably, we could afford wishy-washy RINOs eager to get good press and anxious to negotiate conservative positions away. The Bible has a phrase to describe such flexibly-principled allies -- "I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm -— neither hot nor cold —- I am about to spit you out of my mouth." (Revelation 3:15-16) The country simply cannot afford any more Republican dithering and blundering on this issue.  We don't need two liberal parties; one is more than enough.

But Mitt says he plans to get all this under control. Ann Coulter, going to bat for him, scolds conservatives for their doubts. She tries gamely to build a case that Romney is "most conservative candidate we've run for president since Reagan". And what's her exhibit A? Can you believe... RomneyCare?!

"Romney pushed the conservative alternative to national health care that, had it been adopted in the 49 other states, would have killed ObamaCare in the crib by solving the health insurance problem at the state level."

So what's Ann saying here?  That the way to fight federal socialism is to institute widespread state-level socialism?  That the federal government's lust for money and power would have been sated, or thwarted, once and for all had the states decided to pursue that lust first?  How likely does that sound?

Does Ann think that lots of little tyrannies are better than one big tyranny?  Or that little tyrannies prevent big ones from muscling in?  I'd hate to have to count on either notion.

Romney argues that RomneyCare was a conservative solution because it was done at the state level.  Well, there may be less question of its constitutionality at the state level, depending on which state we're talking about.  Does that make it good policy?  Does that make it conservative policy?  I must be old -- I remember when conservatism was about economic freedom.  Forcing someone to participate in a state-run medical insurance scheme doesn't sound much like economic freedom.  More specifically, it doesn't sound much like Reagan.  It sounds like conservatism only to someone who doesn't understand conservatism.

I have grown to expect Republican presidential candidates to blither like idiots, but it is monumentally unsatisfying to watch Ann Coulter play dumb.

Ezra Klein is a liberal who writes for the Washington Post.  But liberal or not, he gets what it is that makes Romney unpalatable to conservatives:

"...left-leaning constituencies... in Massachusetts [were] asked about the pitch Romney made when he was running for governor. According to individuals who were in those meetings, Romney didn’t just say that he supported choice and environmental protection. He said that supporting him was a strategic decision for those groups.

“'You need someone like me in Washington,' [Romney] reportedly told the advocates. The GOP had swung too far right, and he would be 'a good voice in the party' for left-leaning groups. His support for their agenda would mean more than the support of another Democrat. His would be 'widely written about.'"

So Romney told the leftists in Massachusetts they could count on him, and today he tells the conservatives in America they can count on him.  Surely he is not the first politician to play both sides.  I don't necessarily expect to vote for a candidate who has never told a lie.  But it would be nice to know which side was being lied to

Now, it so happens that I know how Mitt could sew the nomination all up.  Tomorrow, if he wanted.  He can do this, but it means giving up on his ludicrous defense of RomneyCare.

All he has to do is schedule a press conference and say something very much like this:

"Look guys, I made a huge mistake with RomneyCare.  It's a mistake we cannot afford at the federal level, and not one I ever intend to repeat, or allow to be repeated on my watch. And if I accomplish nothing else in my tenure as president but the repeal of this awful ObamaCare law and taking this important step toward balancing the budget, I will count my term as successful."

Short. Sweet. Simple. It would show he's not living on another planet. It would show he understands how unpopular ObamaCare is and how he can harness that dislike for the GOP's advantage. It would show he understands the grapes of conservative wrath.

That statement, right there, would win him the Republican nomination. And probably the general election.

So why doesn't he say it?

Because he doesn't believe it? Or believe in it? Then he is not the man we need in the White House.

Because he's too proud to admit a mistake? Well, tough.  Sometimes pain is necessary. Making that statement would show at the very least that he feels conservatives' pain and wants their votes and is prepared to deliver something in return for them.

But all this juking and jiving about socialism being conservative as long as it's at the state level is smoke, and he's blowing it right up the great conservative keister.