WHAT HAPPENED TO GOOD MANNERS?

For much of my adult life, initially as a college instructor and then mostly as a senior administrator of an organization almost everyone called me Mr. Sarant. Now that am that much older and unaffiliated, I keep getting addressed by strangers as “George.” I find this annoying coming from someone young enough to be my son or daughter, particularly in situations when I am a customer and due a certain amount of consideration. Sometimes I get irritated enough to ask if we are having intimate relations given that we are apparently on a first name basis. But most are clueless nowadays that they are being offensive. Unfortunately this seems to be universal now, and not just in the United States but in other countries with languages that have a polite form of address, which has largely fallen into disuse.

This may be nitpicking, but to me it is symptomatic of the wholesale coarsening of society. There is endless vulgarity on television, and total loss of standards of any kind, when virtually anyone can be rehabilitated via publicity no matter what they have done. There is no shame, and if there is no shame there is no honor. If there is no honor the bounds of deference and trust are reduced, straining social bonds.

Between television and social networks on the web there is hardly any separation any longer between personal and public, and younger people seem to find nothing unusual about this, though sooner or later they are likely to come across a situation that will make them rue the day they sacrificed their privacy. Things have changed radically. When I was growing up you didn’t curse in front of girls, though by the time I was in graduate school they found this quaintly amusing. Now anything goes. There are no standards, no expectations of restraint, and as a result dignity is increasingly rare.

Social restraints are more than custom. They have a functional utility. They mitigate the impulse to behave selfishly and without consideration of others, and thus make a cooperative society possible. We see this in increasingly anarchic driving habits, and other forms of everyone-for-himself behavior. Manners, politeness, and proper behavior are not just pointless conventions, but essential to social cohesion. Convention and tradition are what instill good habits and personal restraint. This is important because if we do not have personal restraint, the result is a necessary increase in external restraint and control, thereby increasing the sphere of the state and limiting aspects of life that properly belong to ourselves.

I’m not suggesting a return to Victorian values, although we could do worse. But even 1950s values would do, reflecting a time when almost everything was better than any period since. Good manners are what make a good society.

WHO CARES ABOUT NATIONAL SECURITY?

Apparently not this administration, which is charting a disastrous course for this country. I wanted to throw up when I heard that September 11 has morphed into a day of national “service,” instead of remembrance of a terrorist outrage, which at this rate will certainly occur again. It is bad enough that nearly a decade after the event there is still nothing built on the site in lower Manhattan. Now community service is being substituted for commemorating those murdered on that day. Instead of being told that we must be ever vigilant against terror threats, it is being muted and redirected to “community service.”

Then we have the radical Attorney General Eric Holder launching an investigation of antiterrorism, i.e. the interrogation of terrorists, through the "justice" department, blatantly undermining our national security. Furthermore the White House will now control questioning of terror suspects. It is a virtual certainty that we are going to be attacked again because of the lame approach and lack of resolve of this administration, and they will be directly responsible for theconsequences.

LEAVE US ALONE!!!

Any modern technology we use today can be used against us, should the government care to abuse it. This occurred to me as I was driving a loaner car from my dealer while my car was being serviced. The loaner had a GPS, which, on the one hand conveniently gave my exact position, but on the other could easily be used by someone else to track me. So it is with satellites and the Internet. The tools we use privately can become sinister devices in the hands of the state. We are always only one step away from tyranny. The price of liberty is truly eternal vigilance. For as much as we might like to ignore the messiness of politics, we cannot lest someone steal the show.

The federal government today is attempting to amass vast powers over all aspects of our lives, right down to health, life and death. Behind this are the Social Democrats, seeking to socialize and control vast realms of decision-making that properly belong to the individual. Standing somewhat against this are the Free Democrats. These two wings are now analogous to German political parties of the same name. Standing in stalwart opposition are the minority Republicans.

Where is the public on all of this? There are more “independents” than Republicans or Democrats, and they hold the balance of power. However the independents lean right on most issues. What they really express is a libertarian streak that says “Leave us alone!” Republicans can win again if they tap into this sentiment and make it the focus of the party’s position.

Leave us alone! Let the message go out to the statists that we will not be cowed, we will not be oppressed. Shout it loud across the land, “Leave us alone!” Let them know we do not want the government managing our lives- “Leave us alone!” Let our voices be heard in an unwavering chorus- “Leave us alone!”

MAKING THINGS - WHAT IS REAL?

You may be surprised to learn that the United States is still the largest manufacturer in the world, with about 20% of total output. While this may eventually be exceeded by the Chinese, as we close industries, that is still off. Interestingly this also roughly corresponds to the alleged carbon footprint of the US. When you here stuff like we are responsible for 25% of the worlds carbon emissions with only 5% of the world’s population, the answer really is that we are also correspondingly responsible for the same amount of the world’s output.

There are many who like to use terms like “rust belt” and “post-industrial economy,” as we move more and more to a “service” economy based upon knowledge. This is presumed to be a good thing, offshoring manufacturing and presumably doing the brain work and selling these “services.” I find a number of problems with this notion. First of all the services are malleable and intangible. Second they are often pirated abroad- and easy steal once you know how to copy something or find out the formula. Third they do not exist in a vacuum. They are dependent on some kind of underlying productive economy. Someone else must be making all the basic necessities of life cheaply enough for other people to provide services.

To welcome de-industrialization is insane. It reduces opportunities for the less educated and working class. Getting alternative or more skills is not always an option. I am fascinated by TV programs like How It’s Made, How Things Work, Modern Marvels, etc. that show the insides of factories in the US (or Canada) producing a bewildering amount of products with state-of-the art production machinery. For any of this to disappear would be tragic. The notion that labor costs are at the root of the problem is nonsense (outside of some labor-intensive industries that are more logically offshored) because with modern automation it takes only a relative handful of people to run an entire factory.

The truth is that manufacturing job losses are as much attributable to more efficient automation as imports, as evidenced by the fact that the same jobs are declining elsewhere in industrial countries. But that should make it simpler to set up shop in the US (apart from government red-tape) since labor costs are not the primary consideration, especially in capital-intensive industries.

We have every reason to continue to encourage domestic manufactures. Apart from the question of jobs it is a question of national survival and ultimately security. We must know how to make things. Loss of such knowledge is disastrous. We have no way of knowing whether current trends will continue, but suppose there is a really serious decline of order. Basic skills are going to be more valuable than ephemeral intellect. Basic material things will matter; real things- real estate, real products. Services are little more than air. The bottom line is that they are not real at a material level, which is the basic building block of everything else. The truth is the services, i.e. the government, lawyers, educators, bankers, clerical workers, etc. are all dependent on the underlying “real” economy. A strong manufacturing base continues to be vital to our national existence, and we should encourage its growth rather than decline.

OBAMA STANDS UP FOR A BROTHER

When Pres. Obama described the arrest of his friend Henry Louis Gates by the Cambridge police as “stupid,” without knowing all the facts he did not anticipate the impact the story would have. It is a relatively slow news cycle and days later the story is still top news. He managed to overshadow his health care pitch with these ill-chosen words, and continued to make matters worse with partial retractions, and then inviting both parties to the White House for a beer, which is sure to keep the story alive until that meeting. Even the official liberal media ran with the story, which indicates that he is not the “post-racial” President he claimed he would be.

Henry Louis Gates, head of Harvard’s black studies (or “African and African-American” as they call it) department behaved obnoxiously with the police investigating an attempted burglary at his house, calling them names and charging there was some racial motivation for their actions. He once did a PBS show on Africa, where you heard more about racism than Africa, the kind of mindset that sees “racists” under every rock. He’s a little man with a big mouth, telling the police they have no idea who they are dealing with.

Instead of responding with no comment, Obama indicated the incident shows that there is still “racism” that “we” need to deal with, despite his own election. This reaction is unsurprising from a man whose wife majored in “black studies,” sat through Reverend Wright’s sermons for twenty years, and spent a lot of time not transcending race but developing a “black consciousness” evident even in his own writings. Despite this background he was able to win election as a congenial, inoffensive candidate, in good measure because McCain stupidly would not let these issues be raised in the campaign lest he be called “racist.” But the real racists are those who are racially obsessed, see nonexistent “racism” in daily life, and use this as an excuse to invoke the power of the state to “correct” it. So we have the promotion of “affirmative action” (i.e. anti-white) programs even in pending health care legislation, to assure not equality of access or opportunity, but equality of results. The more this stuff comes around, the more evident it will become that a black community organizer was never suitable for the presidency. .

THE "STIMULUS" PROJECT

In connection with the entry below, we should ask where the great public projects are of today. Congress rushed through a $787 billion “stimulus” package that has stimulated nothing, as unemployment continues to rise. That’s not surprising given that most of the spending will occur in future years. But spending on what? It largely throws more money at areas where we are already spending, simply jacking it up and expanding government and the deficit to no good end.

At least during the depression we built dams, bridges, and roads. What will we have to show from this huge stimulus expenditure? What tangible legacy will it have? This shows nothing more than a failure of imagination and common sense in literally throwing money away. While it is increasingly likely that we will see some turnover of this mischievous congress in 2010, it is an open question as to how much of the damage they are doing can be undone.

THE MOON AND THE PACE OF CHANGE

It is hard to believe that forty years have passed since we first landed on the moon. It was probably the most memorable public moment ever for those of us around at the time. What is harder to believe is that nearly 40 years have gone by without any follow-up to this awesome accomplishment. That has to be considered one of the greatest failures of our time. In those days it would be hard to believe that four decades later we have not gone back to the moon or made all that much progress in manned space flight. The next mission at it’s earliest will be in 2020 based upon current plans, or eleven years from now. Considering that it took less than eight years from Kennedy’s announcement to the Apollo landing you have to wonder how we have become so timid, if not inept at achieving great projects.

We are often told we are living in “fast” times; that is that change is far more rapid than in the past. This is an illusion. Look at the world back forty years from 1969. 1929 would put you back in the Lindbergh era. Certainly the world of 1969 was far more different from the world of 1929 than the world in 2009 is from 1969 at least in technological terms, leaving aside computer processing. But change was otherwise far more radical between 1929 and 1969.

Hopefully something will happen to spur space development further. We need goals that lift the imagination and spirit.

ATTACKING THE CIA

Some congressional Democrats have nothing better to do than harass the CIA. If targeted assassinations of Al Qaeda leaders was planned, so what? This is what we should be doing rather than cancelling the program, as the current director has done. Much of this is attributable to an attempt to protect Nancy Pelosi from getting caught up in her own lies. Only self-hating liberals would attack our national security. Given the complete lawlessness and immorality of the terrorists we should be using any means necessary to destroy them. The Israeli defense force was recently accused of using captives as “human shields.” Good for them! We should be doing the same thing. Consider that most of our casualties are the result of roadside bombs. Apart from the fact that we should have come up with a technical solution to this by now, I see nothing wrong in letting terrorist captives go first. It should also be noted that our casualties are disproportionately from the “red” counties of the country. Liberals have paid no cost in the war protecting them.
For a good take on this see: Liberals vs. the CIA.

A COLD SUMMER

This is the coldest summer in memory in New York, and much of the rest of the country. Here on Long Island in the middle of the afternoon on a summer day the temperature hovers in the 60s. While this does not by itself disprove global warming, it does warrant some skepticism towards the declarations of Al “Goofy” Gore. Who predicted this cool summer? How reliable are predictions? Can any prediction really hold more than a year or two?

There is no question that climate change is an ongoing process, which has been occuring for billions of years, as well as in small increments within larger cycles, i.e. the last ice age ended only 10,000 years ago. Such things wax and wane with or without us. Let us see how things play out before panicking, This year may be an exception, or a harbinger of something different.

MANAGING THE UNMANAGEABLE

Every time we exhale we produce carbon dioxide. CO2 is a byproduct of a myriad of natural processes, and essential to life on earth such as plants. It is also a byproduct of various agricultural and industrial processes that make our lives livable such as electricity, heating and cooling, and transportation. It is a naturally occurring gas, ubiquitous on this planet. Nevertheless the government has determined that it is a “pollutant” that can be regulated by the EPA. This effectively gives government bureaucracy virtual control of all aspects of life, since there is hardly a process that does not involve CO2. Based upon the dubious premise that it is harmful, the government is poised to issue thousands upon thousands of regulations over our entire way of life. The costs that will born will set our economy into reverse, significantly lower our standard of living, while making life considerably more unpleasant. Rather than looking towards natural processes, such as planting trees for a truly “greener” world, all of this is to be managed and controlled.

The greater tragedy is that none of this will work as intended or predicted. It never does, because it is based upon the false assumption, which Hayek called the “fatal conceit,” that those in charge know enough to control things. But no one can possibly possess all of the information necessary to effectively do so. This fantasy has caused more misery in the world than any other man-made factor over the last century. Life on earth involves a vast chain of events that are unpredictable, uncontrollable, and unforeseeable. Prediction about anything more than a year or so ahead becomes hazy; over five or more years it is useless. No one has the knowledge to manage things on so broad a scale, but as the government usurps decision-making on the minutiae of life its consequences will only be destructive, being riddled with errors, incorrect information, and false assumptions.

The government can no more manage the environment than it can manage the economy. Never mind health care and the condition of every individual’s life. These are processes that unfold in countless billions of discreet actions that are best left to self-determination. But the conceit of those in power is that they can remake the world and effectively manage everything. This involves not only control of institutions, but of people, for the more power that is assumed by the state, the less power is left to individuals to control their own lives. This can only lead to repression, as no one can stand in the way of the government’s attempt to reach its goals, and the liberty of everyone is thereby diminished, and for no good reason given that the government cannot manage what it claims it can. For in the end, the truth about those in power is, as Socrates said of those presuming to rule in his own time, is that they do not know what they claim to know.