Wednesday, July 28, 2010

WILL hits it OUT OF THE PARK............and so does my friend

HERE is the transcript of one fantastic speech by the amazing George Will, the author of several books on politics and baseball. I don't always find myself agreeing with him but I sure do agree with every word he said in his speech to the Cato Institute in May. I do hope you read the whole linked article.... here are some terrific quotes (in italics) from it:
It is a principle of liberal social legislation that a program for the poor is a poor program. I believe that today, as has been the case for 100 years, and as will be the case for the foreseeable future, the American political argument is an argument between two Princetonians: James Madison of the class of 1771, and Thomas Woodrow Wilson of the class of 1879. I firmly believe that the most important decision taken anywhere in the 20th century was the decision where to locate the Princeton graduate college. Woodrow Wilson, then Princeton's president, wanted it located on the campus, others wanted it located, where it in fact is, up on the golf course away from campus. When Wilson lost that, he had one of his characteristic tantrums, went into politics, and ruined the 20th century. I'm simplifying a bit. Madison asserted that politics should take its bearings from human nature and from the natural rights with which we are endowed, and which preexist government. Woodrow Wilson, like all people steeped in the 19th century discovery that history is a proper noun - History - with a mind and a life of its own, argued that human nature is as malleable and changeable as history itself, and that it's the job of the state to regulate and guide the evolution of human nature and the changeable nature of the rights we are owed by the government that - in his view - dispenses rights. Madison said rights pre-exist government. Wilson said government exists to dispense whatever agenda of rights suits its fancy, and to annihilate, regulate, attenuate, or dilute others. Madison said the rights we are owed are those necessary for the individual pursuit of happiness. Wilson and the Progressives said the rights you deserve are those that will deliver material happiness to you, and spare you the strain and terror of striving. There are reasons to be downcast at the moment. Certain recent elections have not gone so well. Let me remind you, however, of something, again going back to 1964. In 1964 the liberal candidate got 90 percent of the electoral votes. Eight years later the liberal candidate got 3 percent of the electoral votes. This is a very changeable country.
Z:
Please, God.

Here is an email I got this morning from my friend who sent me the article above. I had asked her last night via email "what do YOU think of it?" My friend is a black American woman and she responds:


I liked and agreed with the article. I disagree with the direction that the country is headed under the Obama administration, but I am not foolish enough to think that all this madness began with him. For the past 30 or so years the country has been headed downhill, while at the same time technology has exploded. I can't tell if the two are connected -- I'm not that smart. But, what I do see is that the lack of concern for the sovereignty of our nation did not start in 2008 or 07, or 06 ... there has been a steady decline for decades. Furthermore, I believe that at the bottom of it there are those that will benefit greatly from the dismantling of America and you can rest assured, it won't be the American people. It is a sad state of affairs that the American people find themselves and, as long as "they" can keep us at each other's throats ... we won't know what hit us. It is still my firm and abiding belief that the ONLY solution for the American people is for us to stop and look at our neighbor with fresh eyes, not with the eyes that the media/Senate/Congress, etc. would like us to ... I think we will see that we are all struggling and that we all want a good life for our families. I think that the sharing of ideas will set this country ablaze with renewed energy for saving what is ours, AMERICA. Someone needs recognize that it is unfair that our children aren't allowed to learn about ALL ideologies, both conservative and liberal alike. It is so insane to me that liberals believe that their ideas are the ONLY ideas that count. This is crazy. Anyway ... I could go on and on ...but I won't bore you further.

Didn't bore ME, did it bore YOU, geeeZ readers? :-)
z

32 comments:

Ducky's here said...

Hmmm, Madison also believed in rights derived from the social contract (i.e. government)

Of course Marx through Hegel also believed in natural rights but that's not something you're going to hear from Will, who for all his talk about baseball, doesn't have a fastball.

It's a lot more complicated than you want to believe, z.

Will should do something useful like uncovering his hero Cal Ripken's use of "mothers little helper" to get through the streak.

Z said...

Do you have my blog on SPEED DIAL?

And no, it's not more complicated...you just have to believe in America like my friend in her email does and hope that we can vote out those who don't. Thanks for your input..kind of loathsome, but revealing.

cwhiatt said...

I like George Will alot and yes, that speech was very good. However, he still owes a big apology for this:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/15/AR2009041502861.html

Ducky's here said...

"lack of concern for the sovereignty of our nation"

Sovereignty over the world by divine right? The rest of the world objects.

If what we are trying to maintain, and I believe it is, s a fetishistic worship of property rights derived from Locke with no limits then we will be undone. And it is unwinding quickly despite St. Ronnie Raygun's attempt to save it. Oabma's mistake is to side with it, he's no reformer.

Faith said...

Sovereignty over the world by divine right? The rest of the world objects.

What kind of stupidity is that? No, over our own business, our right to run things WITHOUT REGARD to the rest of the world. How anyone could get anything else out of the phrase is beyond me.

Z said...

Faith, it's amazing, isn't it?
Suddenly, SOVEREIGNTY means by divine right? maybe THIS is why the leftwingers can't get anything right? :-)

Ducky's here said...

No, Faith, I'm afraid that won't do. You would need a world where there are n national conflicts of interest or you would have to have a belief system that resolves in our favor.
The mechanism a great deal of the right uses to justify our privilege is a divine right. And if anyone objects we just use a little muscle.

It's pretty short sighted and with issues like global warming it forces you into a real shell of denial.
Even internally your insistence on divine right of consumption violates your own economic philosophy. Usually a doctrinaire capitalist, like Froggy for example, will insist that both parties in a transaction be aware of the true costs of the transaction. Then when we suggest cap and trade as a start to factoring in the intangible costs of the oil/carbon based energy economy you go ballistic.
The reaction to something like the Gulf spill is denial, "We'll just clean it up." Just?

No, there are too many consequences to our behavior that are simply being ignored. And joining Will in a kneejerk, noncritical embrace of Locke's property rights fetish won't work.

I'm still waiting for refutation that Hegel and Marx had much of their work based on natural rights.

Faith said...

No, Faith, I'm afraid that won't do.

I do not understand the leftist mindset at all. I want off this planet.

National sovereignty always exists in a world full of conflicts of interest. WHO needs to have a belief system that "resolves in our favor" and what does that have to do with our sovereign right as a nation to make our own decisions for our own national interest?

It certainly doesn't preclude our taking into account any global issues that need to be considered, why should it? Apparently you just want us to agree with YOUR assessment of these things -- that is, the LEFTIST assessment, but that's certainly not a prerequisite for having a reasonable national outlook on global problems.

But of course you are of the hate- America crowd who blame America for everything and anyone who disagrees with you about our role in the world just gets chewed up in your own self-centered definitions of the way things ought to be.

The only possible good I can see coming out of where the leftist machine is taking us is that leftists are going to have to suffer the consequences of their destruction of America -- and the world for that matter -- too.

If Marx based his work on natural rights it was a very different idea of natural rights than Locke's. Locke's came out of Puritan England, I have no idea where Marx's came from but I'm sure it wasn't Puritanism.

Ducky's here said...

I wish we could look at each other with fresh eyes and take stock of what we need to do to help each other but you started this post off with Will and his denial of the social contract.

It's similar to Glenn Beck who was instructing people to leave their church if it preached social justice. So much for the Sermon On the Mount or do you,z, as a Glenn Beck fan have a way around Beck's rant?

You know it and I know it. It comes down to the Sermon.

Z said...

Ducky, your hubris is breathtaking.

NOBODY thinks America doesn't have problems but we all believe she CAN 'just clean it up' ...and she always has.

Faith, I just heard some speeches from the NAACP. If that isn't HATE, I don't know what is. A real media'd be cleaning the floor with Waters and Jordan..another breathtaking moment to show Americans that not all people are on HER SIDE.

Faith said...

I hope I can find those speeches online.

The main thing that seems to have come out of this Shirley Sherrod mess is that some of us will never again have any doubts about who the real racists are in this country. It may have rendered me immune to their slinging that epithet at whites from now on.

===

I've recently become a Glenn Beck fan too, Ducky, since I found I can get a bunch of his stuff online. He's a Mormon but he does talk like a true Christian. Although I have reservations about how far a Mormon can go in that direction, having had the discussion with Mormons before, I have to appreciate what he says. The Sermon on the Mount applies to individuals, and to believers.

Social Justice Christianity, like Liberation Theology, is not Christianity, it's totally bogus and Beck is right to tell believers to leave churches that preach it. Of course it would take hours to talk through the theology of this with you and it would be futile anyway, so this is all I will say on the subject.

Z said...

Glenn Beck "Am I advising people to leave their church? Yes! If they're going to Jeremiah Wright's church, yes!"
Yes, I'm with Beck.
His contact says:
"Like most Americans, Glenn strongly supports and believes in 'social justice' when it is defined as 'good Christian charity,'" he said. "Glenn strongly opposes when Rev. Wright and other leaders use 'social justice' as a euphemism for their real intention -- redistribution of wealth."

Yes, the SOCIAL JUSTICE isn't quite as neat a little concept as you suggest by hauling in the Sermon on the Mount, Ducky :-) No, not at all....one only has to listen to BEck to understand that...but you won't..so..keep spewing.

Check out THE TRUTH PROJECT with Del Taggett, he speaks beautifully on it.

http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevindeyoung/2010/07/20/seven-passages-on-social-justice-7/

That's from a Messianic Jew Rabbi......it kind of covers the differences but not enough to make Beck's point. you see, social justice has come to mean something completely different these days...and only liberal churches are using it in their mission statements, etc....and while people are to help the poor and needy, what they have must come from the heart, not from being stolen. Social Justice churches, when that TERM is used, are generally tipoffs to a liberal theology that's not Biblical and is definitely an adjunct of Socialism, as Beck ascertains.

Ducky's here said...

Thanks for your honesty, Faith. Q.E.D.

Z said...

Thanks, Faith, I could have saved myself the time, you did a good job! And yes, it IS futile..thanks for the comment ..I only became a fan of Beck's after watching for a while...I'd almost fallen for the lines we hear in the media.
His chalk board is the only thing that can save America, in my opinion..those connections he makes are STAGGERING and, as he says "any real journalist would cover this and win a Pulitzer Prize"
The connections he makes between WH Obama types and SEIU, Van Jones, Geithner, ..it's astonishing and ABSOLUTELY IRREFUTABLE. I WISH TO HELL somebody would come argue with him, he's asked for that for MONTHS. But, nothing.
of course, if you're on Van Jones and SEIU and Cass Sunstein's sides, and like their influence at the Wh, you're so lost anyway, that you'll never see the truth.

Anonymous said...

" I think that the sharing of ideas will set this country ablaze with renewed energy for saving what is ours, AMERICA. Someone needs recognize that it is unfair that our children aren't allowed to learn about ALL ideologies, both conservative and liberal alike. It is so insane to me that liberals believe that their ideas are the ONLY ideas that count."

I have to say that I completely agree with your friend, Z. What's happening in your country in the realm of ideas today is setting the country ablaze with a renewed energy. Things will change and hopefully it will be change that goes across borders as more and more people recognize the complete bankruptcy of the lib/left/socialist axis of ideological failure.

Thanks in big part to Glenn Beck and the TEA Party ... recognition that without property rights no other rights exist except the power of the state and the ruling cliques of history. Easy to understand why property rights would be held up to scorn by the leftist moron-ocracy.

Waylon

Z said...

Waylon, I'm so glad you commented on my friend's words...she's fabulous; I wish you could meet her.
Yup, Glenn Beck gets it right, but left's so maligned him like they do everything else that scares them that he's not being heard by most Americans...only the rumors about him, the slams, the stupid lies. Well, we can only hope, right!?

Z said...

By the way, that's not to say he's not being heard by MILLIONS and appreciated....I mean the Americans who can't take the truth.

Anonymous said...

"Of course Marx through Hegel also believed in natural right ..."

Ducky, as the blog expert on Marx it's incumbent on YOU to educate we of the unwashed masses — i.e. to show how Marx through Hegel believed in "natural rights". Don't most thinking people recognize natural rights?

You always blather on about some esoteric point of irrelevance far from the point of the moment pretending that some memorized point of irrationality is to be revered as knowlwedge.

Question: Without property rights what other rights are left ... other than blind obedience to force?

Waylon

Anonymous said...

Z, one thing about Glenn Beck is that he doesn't just TELL he SHOWS. He offers logical connections to what he says — no wonder he's reviled by the lib/left morons on CNN and MSNBC.

He's definitely starting an ideological fire that won't be put out, IMO. The leftist loony tunes are running scared ... because they are finally being exposed to the light of day.

Waylon

Bloviating Zeppelin said...

Why is it, then, that EVERY major housing project in Chicago was TAKEN DOWN?

It is for this simple reason:

When you GIVE people something that they have not EARNED, they have NO INVESTMENT in its continued sustenance.

You want to be truly more KIND to those who pass for "poor" -- ?

Then TAKE AWAY literally EVERYTHING the government now presents to them.

LESS is the New MORE.

BZ

Anonymous said...

1. I agree with you, Z. Excellent on both counts.

2. A social contract is not a socialist contract. Anyone who doesn't know the difference is an imbecile or educated in an American public school --but I repeat myself.

3. Soverignity does not equate to rule by devine right. Only a nitwit would make that argument.

4. Marxist ideology is an utter failure on several fronts over a long period of time. It is time to bury that bastard, and anyone who continues to spout his trash.

5. Ducky is a Catholic, so of course he believes in Social Justice and collective salvation. He is also incapable of thinking for himself.

6. You cannot establish strawman arguments, defeat them, and then claim Q.E.D. Nice try though, Stalinist.

Z said...

Waylon, very true about Beck; facts, figures, connections, past relationships, and THE most astonishing COINCIDENCES I HAVE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE!

Mustang...thanks so much.
And your list is excellent...of course. QED always makes me laugh because it's so lame...

Ducky's here said...

Hegel and Marx are esoteric, Waylon?

Maybe at Glenn beck U.

Time to open your horizon a bit.

Hegel is esoteric?

Z said...

Ducky, you can READ! Waylon said you always blather on about some esoteric point that misses the point....and, frankly?..he's right.

Now, you go slamming Beck without paying any attention to the truth about him or his shows then come back and discuss him, okay? Not before that...it's just plain SILLY, can't you see that?

"Question: Without property rights what other rights are left ... other than blind obedience to force?"

(((Thought Criminal))) said...

There can be no test by which we can discover what is 'socially unjust' because there is no subject by which such an injustice can be committed, and there are no rules of individual conduct the observance of which in the market order would secure to the individuals and groups the position which as such (as distinguished from the procedure by which it is determined) would appear just to us. [Social justice] does not belong to the category of error but to that of nonsense, like the term `a moral stone' - Friedrich Hayek

(((Thought Criminal))) said...

dance Ducky

(((Thought Criminal))) said...

Ducky's road

Always On Watch said...

Sadly, most Americans today do believe that the government dispenses rights. In my view, the public education system has promoted that fallacy extremely well. Furthermore, most Americans don't understand the basic principles of rights as defined in our Constitution, particularly in the Bill of Rights.

Z said...

Beamish, they seem very close to me.
Could you explain Hayek v keynes in 10 words or less, please?

AOW, that's all our kids are taught these days "DON"T WORK HARD, THE GOV"T WILL GIVE IT TO YOU"

(((Thought Criminal))) said...

Could you explain Hayek v keynes in 10 words or less, please?

Keynes would silence Hayek to get more words to spend.

Z said...

I think I get ya...check out my sidebar.
You prefer Hayek.

(((Thought Criminal))) said...

Definitely.

LOL at the new addition to the sidebar.