Quote of the Day: Hey, Limited Government is Hot Again!

Via Samizdata comes this thought:

"It has been delightful to wallow in the grief of triggered leftists. Yes, their candidate lost. And no, they have neither self-awareness nor irony and that is bloody hilarious. But for classical liberals/libertarians or even smaller state Conservatives, the man who won is by no means our guy.

... I am far from depressed by Trump’s victory, though I agree with him in so few respects. Not least because our statist foes are about to relearn a proper fear of excessive state power and in particular of such undemocratic and unconstitutional devices as presidential executive orders."

Dare We Hope

... that somehow out of the filibuster we might get a new GOP that focuses on freedom, liberty, limited government, and American optimism?  that presents a shining vision of America in opposition to the miserable pettiness of the status quo and its power-grubbing mandarins? OHGODPLEASE.  Paul, Rubio, Cruz, et al are making me dare to hope a little.  It's terrifying and exhilarating all at once.  Let it start here with the pushback against the abuse of power.  As Rand Paul just said, this isn't about Republicans or Democrats, but about executive power and the US Constitution.

UPDATE: It's 11:40 PM, and we're all still up and a-filibusterin'.  How much longer can everyone keep going? Honey, grad students don't sleep as a matter of course.  We're in for the long haul (while doing schoolwork, natch).  (Meanwhile, I note that a bunch of other people are finally showing up on the Senate floor to jump on Paul's bandwagon.  Shamed into action, eh?  GOOD.  Do the right thing for the wrong reason, eh?  So long as the right thing gets done in a snakepit like DC.)

Quote of the Day: Axes to Grind

From some useful thoughts on civil discourse and trying to see where the other person is coming from:

My hypothesis is that progressives, conservatives, and libertarians view politics along three different axes. For progressives, the main axis has oppressors at one end and the oppressed at the other. For conservatives, the main axis has civilization at one end and barbarism at the other. For libertarians, the main axis has coercion at one end and free choice at the other.

Of course, these are just guidelines. I'm inclined to see coercion in its most flagrant forms as a kind of barbarism.

Film Culture Commentary: Harry Potter as Conservative Hero?

You know, I'd never thought about it in these terms, but now that I am, it kind of makes sense.  Note the story's emphasis on family, self-reliance, hard work, right and wrong, and a healthy distrust of an intrusive bureaucratic government.  Hmmmm!

Thoughts on Government and the Definition of Marriage

Here are a few thoughts.  A quick blurb:

By making government definition the prize, social conservatives legitimized efforts to change marriage's definition by government decree as well. Instead, social conservatives should have taken a lesson from fiscal conservatives and fought to keep government from defining marriage at all.

Well, DUH.  Anyway, a lot of social conservatives drive me crazy because they've almost no grasp of the long term or the truly big picture when it comes to ramifications of government meddling in private affairs, but I think you already knew that.  Look, I want government to leave me the heck alone, regardless of whether that government is on the right or the left, capisce?  Anyway, note the new blog category tag for the matrimonial matters. 

Nerd Notes: A Wellesley Conservative

A personal story from a famous college campus.

Nerd News: Conservatism on Campus and a New Class at Brown

Remember this recent post on political bias on campus?  Here's something new and hopeful at Brown University:

This semester, Brown University is offering a new course on political conservatism. The university said the course is unrelated to current events and reflects Brown’s commitment to “broad-based academic inquiry and intellectual exploration.’’ 

... The independent study course — Modern Conservatism in America: Conservative Thought in the 20th Century — was designed by five students in collaboration with Steven G. Calabresi, a visiting professor of political science with a high profile in conservative legal and political circles. Calabresi, a Northwestern University law professor, co-founded the Federalist Society, the nation’s leading forum for conservative and libertarian thinking about the law and its impact on public policy. He also served in the Reagan and first Bush administrations, advised Attorney General Edwin Meese III and wrote speeches for former Vice President Dan Quayle. 

Terrence George, a Brown sophomore who helped put the course together, said it “isn’t meant to indoctrinate anybody, but to inform people about a perspective they would not hear about.  

“The history of intellectual conservatism at Brown is a history denied,’’ he declared.

For the record, I don't want conservatives brainwashing people any more than I want liberals brainwashing people, but I don't think that's what the class is about.  Anyway, it's a welcome thing indeed to see any differing perspectives on campus at all!  Even better: clear signs that there are students out there who are thinking for themselves and resisting the one-size-fits-all campus mental orthodoxy.  Now there's a kind of academic freedom that's change we can believe in.

Nerd News: Political Bias On Campus -- One Nerd's Account

A follow-up to this previous post.  Here's one view from the trenches by a "closet conservative."  Brother (sister?), I feel your pain.  I've been there -- AM there!  Actually, I have a few libertarian/conservative/center-right friends at other campuses, and I don't feel SO alone.  But we're all "in the closet" and have talked about it with rather rueful humor.  And the whole business about "coming out" as a non-liberal is so true it hurts!  

Nerd News: Campus Conservatives and a Counter-Culture

Yes, we are the conservative/libertarian campus underground!  Here are a few thoughts from Inside Higher Ed.  You know what's really amusing?  When two closet non-liberals figure out that the other person is a like-minded  thought criminal.  This has happened to me a few times, and the combination of surprise and shyness and pleasure and relief is as hard to describe as it is delightful. "You...?" "You too...?"  "Wow!"

This One's For the Girls: Women in Politics and the Feminist Angle (Plus a Rant!)

Read this! (OK, now I wrote that blog title, I have that Martina McBride song stuck in my head.)

Also: How dare you, Ms. Hirshman. How dare you impose asinine, arbitrary "litmus tests" on any woman to see if she "qualifies" for your august approval?

This is the sort of behavior that is properly labeled "femisogyny." Yep, attacking and beating down women in the name of "feminism." Even better are arguments that some successful women (the biggest lightning rod is of course Sarah Palin) are bad for women in general, especially if the ladies in question have ideas different from the self-proclaimed feminist banner-carriers' pet policies. Pfffffft. I have no patience for this sort of "commentary." It's the burbling of the self-involved and intolerant, of idiots and scoundrels. Oh, and idiots and scoundrels who happen to be women are still -- guess what -- idiots and scoundrels. Hirshman, by the way, is a retired professor. Of philosophy. I am -- somehow -- not surprised.

Guess what, self-proclaimed guarantors of the "purity" of feminism. There's no such thing. Not if your definition of feminism means letting women make free and independent choices about everything concerning their lives. Sometimes, they'll choose things you won't like -- like choosing to oppose ObamaCare or choosing to join the tea party movement. That does not make them any less women than you are, and if you can't see the difference, then I'm nothing left to say to you. The point to feminism should NOT be the idea that women should all think the same (and vote the same, heh) just because they all happen to have ovaries and uteri.

Look, the contemporary leftist feminists' hand-wringing moaning, obsessive "analysis," and general angst about the increasing public visibility and success of conservative and libertarian women is itself indicative of their own intellectual bankruptcy. Their angst is, I dare say, existential angst. And somewhere kicking around is that awful, terrifying thought that there are ladies out there who can be successful without ever having anything to do with them or needing their sanction or aid.

Quote of the Day: the Peril and Power of the "Morally Superior" Directive

Quote:

Of the two great societal goals—freedom and "the good"—freedom requires a conservatism, a discipline of principles over the good, limited government, and so on. No way to grandiosity here. But today's liberalism is focused on "the good" more than on freedom. And ideas of "the good" are often a license to transgress democratic principles in order to reach social justice or to achieve more equality or to lessen suffering. The great political advantage of modern liberalism is its offer of license on the one hand and moral innocence—if not superiority—on the other. Liberalism lets you force people to buy health insurance and feel morally superior as you do it. Power and innocence at the same time.

Read the whole editorial. That's right, oppressing us for our own good. Or something.

Let me also remind you of this great and relevant observation by C.S. Lewis:

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive ... those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

TRUE DAT. The tyrannical nanny-bully.

How to Create an Whole New Generation of Young Fiscal Conservatives and Libertarians

Can you think of a better way to do it than THIS?

Quote of the Day: Capitalist Coffee on the 9/12 Rally in DC

The humorous title of his blog post is my pick for quote of the day:

"History's largest gathering of fiscal conservatives bitterly clings to wallets, founding principles."

That about sums it up! (I wish I had been there. And, oh yes, I am clinging most bitterly indeed.)

RELATED POST: Citizens rally against crazy government spending.

What Fresh Hell Is This? Bypassing ("Temporarily"!) Senate Ratification for Treaties

Can this report possibly be for REAL? Blurb:

With the clock running out on a new US-Russian arms treaty before the previous Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START, expires on December 5, a senior White House official said Sunday said that the difficulty of the task might mean temporarily bypassing the Senate’s constitutional role in ratifying treaties by enforcing certain aspects of a new deal on an executive levels and a “provisional basis” until the Senate ratifies the treaty.

Dude, where's my Constitution? Senate ratification is specifically written into the Constitution as part of its system of checks-and-balances, and it's there to balance/counteract the executive branch.

(The requirement is 2/3 of the Senate. Would Obama really have such a hard time getting the 60 Dems in the Senate to ratify his treaty? Call me crazy, but I'm beginning to think this administration is much too much in love with the idea not only of an ever-expanding federal government, but also with the idea of an ever-expanding executive branch at the head of that ballooning government. People yelled and screamed about an overly powerful executive when Bush was in office; where's the howling now?)

Nerd Notes: Conservatism and the University Curriculum

Read this interesting article and this equally interesting follow-up.

My addition: the last thing we need to play identity politics here. I.e., NO to some strange "affirmative action for conservatives (or libertarians, since I am more libertarian as time goes on)" to find some Token Conservative to fill a diversity quota.

Fiscal Conservatism in Europe?

Oh, please let this be true in the sense that somebody somewhere -- anybody anywhere -- realizes that ever-increasing, reckless government spending is not the answer. I'm so tired of shouting into the whirlwind here.

Nerd Journal: Taxation Vexation Rant

I am currently doing my taxes. The horror, the horror!

At least P.J. O'Rourke is here to poke fun at this annual paroxysm of government-endorsed financial vampirism:

As April 15 rolls around let us take a moment to recall why we Americans pay taxes: Because some of our country's good-for-nothing bums are too chicken to rob us at gunpoint. That would be members of Congress and the executive branch.

I mean, REALLY. Grad student fellowships get taxed, taxed, taxed. Any sort of measly, paltry income that nerds get in jobs or whatever gets taxed, taxed, taxed. And if you think grad students or lowly young academics don't count as "working poor," then it's because you've never been one. I counted the numbers, and we're paying a QUARTER of our income in state and federal taxes -- and by "we" I mean all the nobodies like me who are just scraping along.

But at least we're supporting ourselves without help from anybody! This is a mark of pride, as it should be. It means we have to watch our pennies carefully and behave responsibly and frugally -- and you'd think this is GOOD thing, right? Too bad the utterly reckless government can't seem to grasp this concept, much less encourage it among the citizenry! But noooooooo, enter bailout-a-palooza, mortgage plans, and more moral hazard and toxic policy than you can wrap your mind around.

So here I am juggling rent and bills and whatever -- some of my colleagues now have babies and little ones -- and trying to save pennies (while also shouldering a mound of school debt), and I'm watching an endless passion for debt, deficit, and spending from the hopelessly clueless government. I just don't know what to do or think. Well, every Tax Day I'm feeling peppery, but this time around, I'm more irate than ever. Not just at having to pay mountains of taxes to a government that I think is wasteful and foolish (if not corrupt), but at the knowledge that WAY TOO MANY high-profile Obamanauts have had problems not paying their own frickin' taxes. And one such egregiously disgraceful tax cheat is heading up the US Treasury, for goodness sake! (If the guy can't even manage his own finances, how's he supposed to manage such a far more complex sytem like the US economy?)

Maybe that's why the leftists don't mind hiking up taxes all the time, why they in fact LOVE doing that. They're not paying any taxes! Hey, do you know what happens if I don't pay MY taxes? No, I don't get invited to head the Treasury. I get the consolation prize of audits and fines and jail and all that fruit basket of happiness.

Oh, I'm not saying that I don't think we should pay no taxes at all. We need to fund infrastructure and the military, for instance. I will happily pay my taxes to support the armed services. But I absolutely am beginning to feel that the hard-working taxpayer is increasingly being regarded by tax-obsessed politicians not as the bedrock of the country and a citizen who should be respected, but as an all-you-can-eat buffet to feed an ever-increasing government. I'm foolish enough to think that the government should work for me, not the other way around. OK, even if -- let's be realistic here -- that won't happen, I'll settle for government leaving me alone as much as possible. But that doesn't look too likely either. Don't even get me started on statist policies.

While I'm looking at the insane ballooning of government, I can't help thinking of Maggie Thatcher's famous quote that the problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people's money. Crush the productive sector of society in order to feed the unproductive, and sooner or later the productive will give up -- or emigrate. (Then I guess we're finally achieve the Holy Grail of leftism, so-called FAIRNESS, when we're all equally poor and miserable. I'm an evil capitalist, and I prefer that "fairness" be turned into a world where everybody gets rich.)

Then there's this, with which I will end this rant and go back to my online tax filing:

Still one thing more, fellow-citizens—a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities. ~Thomas Jefferson, 1801 inaugural address

In Defense of Small Government

Via Tigerhawk comes this very readable blog post. Do read it all. (The last paragraph is a firecracker.) Tigerhawk actually calls this post the best practical defense of small government that he's read in a long time. High praise indeed. Let's look at complex systems, unintended consequences, the limits of knowledge, and the hubris of thinking some centralized group can control everything.

Nerd Journal: Confessions of a Libertarian Lunatic

Apparently, according to some academic types, I am mentally disturbed. Really?

Jindal on Fiscal Policy and Stimulus Bill

Jindalmania!  Well, I already had a touch of it to begin with.