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Last night I posted what I coulda sworn was the last Diversity Lane installment of the year. Lo and behold, Zack R. gets one final strip under the wire. Happy New Year and watch those scanning machines!
It's been a while since posting the most recent strips from Zack R. at the impenetrable Diversity Lane. Here they are!
In Britain, government-licensed pall-bearers are sometimes required to carry coffins on shopping carts rather by hand, thanks to regulations from the Department of ’Ealth and Safety.
In France, people are conditioned not to pick up garbage they accidentally drop on the ground. It would steal work away from public street sweepers, complete with government-issued brooms.
In Hawaii, public schools are forced to be closed several Fridays out of the year, which means (because Wednesdays there are half days) children sometimes get 3½-day school weeks. Why? The state doesn’t have enough money to keep schools open every Friday of the school year.
A popular teddy bear company has created a new Christmas movie in which the holiday’s existence is threatened. This is because the North Pole is on the brink of melting away due to man-made global warming climate change.
And a priest in England informs his congregants that it’s OK to steal, as long as they do it at a big bad chain store and not at a small mom-and-pop establishment.
What do these stories have in common? They are all the natural consequence of the poison of liberalism: overregulation by bureaucratic busybodies; citizens being conditioned to abdicate personal responsibility; governments wasting the money of its own taxpayers that it can’t even perform the simple task of keeping public institutions open full time; pushing faux science alarmism to impressionable children; and squishy moral relativism.
These are some of the blood-boiling stories covered by Mark Steyn, who filled in for El Rushbo on December 23.
[Edited for commercial breaks, long silences, and any other extraneous talking]
Click for the 2008 and 2007 installments.
Well, here it is, my annual Top 10 favorite Dennis Prager articles of the year. Indeed Dennis had a lot to write about this year. It was so hard narrowing 46 pieces down to just ten favorites, there are actually two “honorable mentions” at the end of this post. (Prager, in my opinion, is so intelligent, eloquent, and morally well-founded, that in all honesty, virtually all of his pieces deserve honorable mention.) Enjoy, and feel free to comment.
Feb. 17, 2009
The Madoff Bill
… In a nutshell, the stimulus plan is not a stimulus plan. It is the largest spending program in U.S. history. In the words of the Austin (Texas) American-Statesman editorial that supports the bill, “The essence of the bill is to spend money …”
Almost everything about it is dishonest.
Its name is dishonest. It is a spending bill, not a stimulus bill. Its announced aim is dishonest. It purports to stimulate the economy. But its real aim is to push America toward becoming a Western European socialist welfare state.
The way it was enacted — the speed, the lack of transparency — was dishonest. As the Wall Street Journal wrote, “Democrats rushed the bill to the floor before Members could even read it, much less have time to broadcast the details so the public could offer its verdict.”
Even the spending is dishonest. The bulk of the spending will take place over years, not now, which is the whole point of a stimulus.
For these reasons, the bill could be renamed the Madoff Bill. Not because there are any parallels between characters of its authors and the character of Bernard Madoff. There aren’t. But there are parallels between the methods. Madoff took people’s money, promised to give them benefits, while in fact squandering their money — to the tune of tens of billions of dollars. So, too, the president and the Democrats are taking Americans’ money, squandering most of it — to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars, while promising to give them a benefit, a stimulus, when in fact they are spending the money. As Harvard economist Robert Barro told the Atlantic, “It’s wasting a tremendous amount of money … I don’t think it will expand the economy. … I think it’s garbage.”
Even its defenders, now that the bill is passed, do not defend it as a stimulus bill. Typical was New York Times columnist Frank Rich, who devoted his essay to the stimulus plan but only attacked Republicans. He did not devote one of his 1,500 words to defending the bill as a stimulus package.
Even Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., described the bill with words having nothing to do with stimulus: “By investing in new jobs, in science and innovation, in energy, in education ... we are investing in the American people, which is the best guarantee of the success of our nation.”
No one should be surprised. Americans voted for a man who said time and time again that he wanted to “transform” America. He and his party are trying to do precisely that.
Feb. 24, 2009
From California to the Boy Scouts: Left Destroys More than It Builds
… “The Golden State — which a decade ago was the booming technology capital of the world — has been done in by two decades of chronic overspending, overregulating and a hyperprogressive tax code …”
One might argue that’s this is a politically biased assessment. So here are some facts, not assessments:
Take the Boy Scouts. For generations, the Boy Scouts, founded and preserved by Americans of all political as well as ethnic backgrounds, has helped millions of American boys become good, productive men. The left throughout America — its politicians, its media, its stars, its academics — have ganged up to deprive the Boy Scouts of oxygen. Everywhere possible, the Boy Scouts are vilified and deprived of places to meet.
But while the left works to destroy the Boy Scouts — unless the Boy Scouts adopt the left’s views on openly gay scouts and scout leaders — the left has created nothing comparable to the Boy Scouts. The left tries to destroy one of the greatest institutions ever made for boys, but it has built nothing for boys. There is no ACLU version of the Boy Scouts; there is only the ACLU versus the Boy Scouts.
The same holds true for the greatest character-building institution in American life: Judeo-Christian religions. Once again, the left knows how to destroy. Everywhere possible the left works to inhibit religious institutions and values — from substituting “Happy Holidays” for “Merry Christmas” to removing the tiny cross from the Los Angeles County Seal to arguing that religious people must not bring their values into the political arena.
And, then there is education. Until the left took over American public education in the second half of the 20th century, it was generally excellent — look at the high level of eighth-grade exams from early in the 20th century and you will weep. The more money the left has gotten for education — America now spends more per student than any country in the world — the worse the academic results. And the left has removed G-d and dress codes from schools — with socially disastrous results. …
Read also this sort of sequel Prager wrote on December 1.
March 17, 2009
Brilliance is overrated
… Th[e] preoccupation with brains and intellectual attainment extends into adulthood. Most Americans upon hearing that someone has attended Harvard University assumes that this person is not only smarter than most other people but is actually a more impressive person. That is why, for example, people assume that a Nobel laureate in physics has something particularly intelligent to say about social policy. In fact, there is no reason at all to assume that a Nobel physicist has more insight into health care issues or capital punishment than a high school physics teacher, let alone more insight than a moral theologian. But people, especially the highly educated, do think so. That’s why one frequently sees ads advocating some political position signed by Nobel laureates.
Intellectuals, e.g., those with graduate degrees, have among the worst, if not the worst, records on the great moral issues of the past century. Intellectuals such as the widely adulated French intellectual Jean Paul Sartre were far more likely than hardhats to admire butchers of humanity like Stalin and Mao. But this has had no impact on most people’s adulation of the intellect and intellectuals.
So, too, the current economic decline was brought about in large measure by people in the financial sector widely regarded as “brilliant.” Of course, it turns out that many of them were either dummies, amoral, incompetent, or all three.
The adulation of the intellect is one reason President George W. Bush was so reviled by the intellectual class. He didn’t speak like an intellectual (even though he graduated from Yale) and for that reason was widely dismissed as a dummy (though he is, in fact, very bright). On the other hand, Barack Obama speaks like the college professor he was and thereby seduces the adulators of the intellect the moment he opens his mouth. Yet, it is he, not George W. Bush, who nearly always travels with teleprompters to deliver even the briefest remarks. And compared to George W. Bush on many important issues, his talks are superficial — as reading, as opposed to hearing, them easily reveals. …
May 26, 2009
President Has ‘More Effective’ Method to Get Intel from Terrorists — What Is It?
In his latest address — on Guantanamo detainees — President Obama said something of extraordinary importance that seems to have been missed by the media:
“I know some have argued that brutal methods like water-boarding were necessary to keep us safe. I could not disagree more…I reject the assertion that these are the most effective means of interrogation.”
As this President chooses his words carefully, these claims need to be understood.
Note that Mr. Obama did not say what nearly all opponents of water-boarding say — that water-boarding is not an effective method of extracting reliable, life-saving, information. He took no issue with former Vice-President Dick Cheney’s claims that water-boarding or “enhanced interrogation” saved American and other lives. Indeed, he clearly leaves open the possibility, even the likelihood, that this claim is accurate. Rather, what he says is that “methods like water-boarding were not necessary to keep us safe” — not necessary, not ineffective. And why does he believe this? Because they are not “the most effective means of interrogation.”
In other words, the President’s view seems to be that water-boarding the three terrorists did elicit vital, life-saving, information. However, he contends that we could have obtained all that information using means of interrogation that were both non-brutal and more effective.
I pray the President is right. I would love America to be able to say “America never uses brutal methods of interrogation, let alone tortures” while simultaneously obtaining information it needs from captured terrorists to save thousands of innocent people from death and maiming.
But if in fact, these methods exist, they have never been revealed. President Obama needs to share this discovery with the American people, or, if they must be state secrets, with a select few individuals from Congress and the intelligence community.
It is as if the President, or anyone else, announced that brutal methods of combating cancer like chemotherapy and radiation were “not the most effective means” of combating cancer — and then refused to say what non-brutal means were more effective.
This is the paramount issue in the water-boarding debate. As Democratic Senator Charles Schumer said five years ago, it is essentially a no-brainer that we must “do what you have to do” if we apprehend a terrorist who has the information that can prevent an imminent terrorist attack.
Most opponents of water-boarding terrorists rely on the belief that such a method is as unnecessary as it is illegal. Therefore, if it is shown that water-boarding did in fact provide information that saved many innocent lives, opponents have to argue one of two positions: that there was a better, non-brutal, method available; or that it is morally preferable to have innocent Americans and others killed, brain damaged, blinded, and paralyzed rather than water-board a single terrorist. …
June 16, 2009
Dear Iranians: Don’t Count on America (or Any Country Led by Left)
”The administration has remained as quiet as possible during the Iranian election season and in the days of street protests since Friday’s vote.” — Washington Post , Monday June 15, 2009 …
For those who look to “world opinion,” “the opinion of mankind,” or to the United Nations for moral guidance or for coming to the aid of victims of oppression, the past few days and presumably the next few days in Iran, provide yet another example of their uselessness.
A million or more Iranians are demonstrating against last Friday’s obviously stolen election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the world — except for the lowlifes who rule places like Venezuela and Syria and who immediately sent their effusive congratulations to Ahmadinejad — is quiet. The world is “closely following the situation,” just as it followed the situations of the Jews during the Holocaust, the Ukrainians, the Chinese under Mao, the Rwandans, the Cambodians, Tibetans, and so many others.
I have long believed that the citizens of most free countries do not deserve the gift of freedom that they have. Few have any interest in promoting freedom, only in having it for themselves. Insofar as other countries are concerned what matters to most free countries, as to dictatorships, is power.
That is what America and Europe are watching — where the power in Iran will go. Whoever wins will get free America and free Europe’s respect.
Now it may be argued that if the American president speaks out in support of those demonstrating for free elections in Iran, it will be counterproductive.
How exactly? What will the unelected President Ahmadinejad and the unelected Supreme Ruler, Grand Ayatollah, the pre-medieval Ali Khamenei do? Get angry at America? Threaten to annihilate another country? Start building nuclear arms? Stone women who commit sexual sins? Hey, wait, haven’t they done all that already?
As bad as most of the world’s countries are, those led by left-wing governments are even worse when it comes to defending democracy.
A primary reason America is “waiting” and “watching” and “monitoring” while Iranians are beaten in the streets of Tehran is that the country is led by the left.
Compare the Canadian reaction, now that it has a conservative government:
On the very next day after the Iranian elections, according to CNN, “Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon told reporters in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Saturday, that Canada was ‘deeply concerned’ about allegations of voting irregularities. ‘We’re troubled by reports of intimidation of opposition candidates’ offices by security forces.’”
Even usually appeasing Germany, now led by a more conservative government, had a sharper response than America. …
August 11, 2009
I Thought ‘Dissent Is Patriotic’
… The worst part of the liberal mantra, “Dissent is Patriotic” … is not that is meaningless. It is that it is apparently meant solely to defend liberal and left dissent. Dissent against the right is inherently patriotic.
Dissent against the left is another matter. To Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and to the New York Times Paul Krugman and every other left-wing commentator I have read on the issue, those who dissent against the Obama/Democratic Party health care plan are not only not patriotic; they are Nazis, mobs, white racists (according to Krugman’s non-sequitur thesis) and are always organized. They are activists sent by health insurance companies, the Republican Party, or by some other nefarious right-wing organization.
To the left, it is almost inconceivable that normal “hardworking” Americans, even Democrats, might find the idea of an immense increase in government intrusion into our lives frightening.
I wonder how Paul Krugman and Nancy Pelosi would explain my physician, Dr. Michael Richman. He is a thoracic-cardio surgeon in Santa Monica, Calif. who is liberal, who voted for Barack Obama, and who has disdain for most health insurance companies. Yet, he came on my radio show last week to announce that he deeply regrets having voted for Obama in light of the damage the president’s plan would do to American medicine.
Now, if Dr. Richman attends a Democratic congressman’s town hall meeting to protest the congressman’s support for the government taking over about 16 percent of the gross domestic product, will he, too, be dismissed as a neo-Nazi or health insurance company stooge?
The answer is, probably yes. In fact, that is exactly what happened — and captured on local Atlanta TV — in Georgia’s 13th Congressional District this past weekend. A local physician, Dr. Brian Hill, a urologist, went to a town hall meeting organized by Democratic Congressman David Scott. When Dr. Hill asked in a calm voice why the Congressman would support a government health plan in light of the failing government health plan in Massachusetts, Rep. Scott began yelling at him about people from outside the district coming to “hijack this event” and that those at his town hall meeting raising the health care issue should have had “the decency” to call the congressman’s office to set up a meeting to discuss the issue and not take over the town hall meeting.
As reported by WXIA-TV News, the local NBC affiliate, however, Dr. Hill does live and vote in the congressman’s district, had called the congressman’s office numerous times and got no response, and is not a Republican.
But such people as Dr. Richman in California and Dr. Hill in Georgia don’t exist in the Democratic Party’s or in Paul Krugman’s mind. Like most of the left since Marx, the American left today has created an image of the world to which reality is subservient. Left-wing theories define reality, not vice versa. And in that closed world, left-wing dissent is patriotic, while dissent against the left is fascistic at worst, or paid for by the greedy at best. …
Sept. 15, 2009
The Left Is Right — Taxes Are a Moral Issue
… The very notion of an income tax is morally debatable. On what moral grounds can the state force a citizen essentially at gunpoint to give away his legally and morally earned money? Why isn’t taxation a form of legalized stealing? The obvious answer is that common sense dictates that citizens have the moral right, even the moral obligation, to vote to give money to, at the very least, enable a government to fund a police force, sustain a national defense, and help those incapable of helping themselves or of being helped by others.
But at some point beyond that, taxation becomes nothing more than legalized stealing. Obviously, people will differ over where exactly that point is, but no rational person disputes that such a point exists. No one could argue that a 100 percent tax — even if it paid for every need every member of the society had — was moral and not simply a form of theft.
So moral problem No.1 with taxation is the morality of forcing other people — under threat of violence — to give their money away.
A second moral problem is having some people give at a greater percentage rate than others. The biblical notion of tithing, for example, is entirely universal — everyone gave a tenth what he had. No one was forced to give half while others gave a tenth.
A third moral problem is allowing those who pay no tax (such as the federal income tax) to vote on how much others will be forced to pay. It is quite difficult to morally defend the fact that about half of Americans pay no federal income tax, yet they determine how much the other half will be forced to pay.
A fourth moral problem is that the higher the taxes, the more decent people become cheaters. One of the leading religious ethicists of our time, Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, author of two volumes of Jewish ethical law, told me years ago when he lived in Israel during the height of its socialism with its correspondingly high taxes that he witnessed the finest citizens, religious and secular alike, having to cheat on taxes or be rendered impoverished. I have never forgotten that.
I know no one in America today — and I know extraordinarily honest and generous people, liberal and conservative — who does not in some way “cheat” on taxes — as, for example, reporting expenses as business expenses that are not really so. I place the word cheat within quotation marks because not all cheating is illegal. Some people figure out how to avoid paying what the law demands through completely legal, but ethically questionable, means.
At a certain level of taxation, virtually every honest person is reduced to cheating either legally or illegally.
A fifth moral problem is that the higher the tax rate, the lower the charity rate. This is universally true. The more people give to the state, the less they give to their neighbor — and even to members of their family — in need.
And sixth and only finally because of the limitations in size of a single column, the higher the taxes, the less people are inclined to work hard. Why should they? At a given point, people just conclude that work is for suckers. …
Oct. 13, 2009
Why President Obama Was Awarded the Nobel Prize
… Here is the entire announcement of the Nobel Peace Prize committee:
1. “The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 is to be awarded to President Barack Obama for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”
Meaning: No more Lone Ranger America.
2. “The Committee has attached special importance to Obama’s vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.”
Meaning: The Nobel Committee wants no country to possess nuclear weapons. That an American president shares this dream and is working to achieve it excites the Nobel Committee — and the world’s left generally — beyond words.
Many people around the world — not just Americans — would characterize a world in which America and all other decent countries had no nuclear weapons not as a dream, but as a nightmare. But for the naive left-wing (a redundant phrase: If one is not naive about evil, one is not on the left) members of the Nobel Committee, the prospect of encouraging an American president to dismantle his country’s nuclear arsenal was too tempting to allow to pass — even at the price of appearing foolish.
3. “Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play.”
Meaning: To the international left, as embodied by the five members of the Nobel Prize Committee, the United Nations is the beacon of hope for mankind.
To many Americans and others, however, the United Nations is regarded as a moral wasteland that rewards some of world’s cruelest regimes with seats on its Human Rights Committee, does nothing to prevent genocides (some would way say the U.N. actually abets them), honoring tyrants, and mired in corruption.
4. “Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts.”
Meaning: As the pacifist bumper sticker puts it: “War is not the answer.”
Oslo’s approach echoes what the British government under Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain believed vis a vis Adolf Hitler. But had Hitler been confronted instead of “dialogued” with, perhaps tens of millions of innocent men and women’s lives would have been spared and the Holocaust averted. Europeans tend to believe that evil regimes will act responsibly because of dialogue, not threats of force. …
9. “His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world’s population.”
Meaning: With Barack Obama, we in Europe finally have an opportunity to end American exceptionalism.
The Oslo committee’s view is, tragically, true. Thanks to Barack Obama, America is for the first time is aligning its values with those of “the majority of the world’s population.” If you think the world’s population has had better values than America, that it has made societies that are more open, free, and tolerant than American society, and that it has fought for others’ liberty more than America has, you should be delighted.
Nov. 3, 2009
A Society that Venerates Lawyers More than Doctors
… If the 1,990-page House Health Care Bill becomes law, the average American will receive worse health care, American physicians will decline in status and income, American medical innovation will dramatically slow down and pharmaceutical discoveries will decline in number and quality. And, of course, the economy of the United States will deteriorate, perhaps permanently.
However, we are also certain that there is one American group that will thrive — trial lawyers. The very existence of a 1,990-page law guarantees years of, if not more or less permanent, lawsuits. And the law actually specifies that states that do not limit attorneys’ fees in cases of medical malpractice shall be financially rewarded.
What we are seeing here, therefore, is something unprecedented in our history: Many trial lawyers will earn as much as most physicians, and fewer and fewer physicians will earn as much as successful trial lawyers.
Nothing better illustrates the reorientation — indeed, the transformation — of values that will take place if the Democrats’ health care legislation is passed. Thanks to trial lawyer/Democratic influence, for decades, we have been moving in the direction of litigation-based society. But with a Democratic health care bill, the movement will accelerate exponentially.
Much of our money, our innovation, our creativity and our ingenuity will gravitate from medicine to law. …
No rational person argues that society doesn’t need law or lawyers, or that all lawyers, even trial lawyers, do no good. That is certainly not what is being argued here.
But it does say something about a society when those who sue physicians and hospitals make as much or more money than those who heal disease. It says something about a society when it glorifies and rewards those who litigate while it demonizes and punishes those who produce the drugs and devices that keep its citizens alive and well.
This is part of the upside-down world the left is bequeathing to us and our children in the name of health care “reform.”
Dec. 22, 2009
Dems Ensure America Will No Longer Be the Last Best Hope of Earth
As the passage of the bill that will start the process of nationalizing health care in America becomes almost inevitable, so, too, the process of undoing America’s standing as The Last Best Hope of Earth will have begun.
That description of America was not, as more than a few Americans on the left believe, made by some right-wing chauvinist. It was made by President Abraham Lincoln in an address to Congress on Dec. 1, 1862. …
With the largest expansion of the American government and state since the New Deal, the Democratic party — alone — is ending a key factor in America’s uniqueness and greatness: individualism, which is made possible only when there is limited government.
The formula here is not rocket science: The more the government/state does, the less the individual does.
America’s uniqueness and greatness has come from a number of sources, two of which are its moral and social value system, which is a unique combination of Enlightenment and Judeo-Christian values, and its emphasis on individual liberty and responsibility.
Just as the left has waged war on America’s Judeo-Christian roots, it has waged war on individual liberty and responsibility.
Hillel, the most important rabbi of the Talmud (which, alongside the Hebrew Bible, is Judaism’s most important book), summarized the human being’s obligations in these famous words: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?”
What does this mean in the present context? It means that before anything else, the human being must first take care of himself. When people who are capable of taking care of themselves start relying on the state to do so, they can easily become morally inferior beings. When people who could take care of their family start relying on the state to do so, they can easily become morally inferior. And when people who could help take care of fellow citizens start relying on the state to do so, the morally coarsening process continues.
There has always been something profoundly ennobling about American individualism and self-reliance. Nothing in life is as rewarding as leading a responsible life in which one has not to depend on others for sustenance. Little, if anything, in life is as rewarding as successfully taking care of oneself, one’s family and one’s community. That is why America has always had more voluntary associations than any other country.
But as the state and government have gotten bigger, voluntary associations have been dying. Why help others if the state will do it? Indeed, as in Scandinavia, the attitude gradually becomes: why even help myself when the state will do it?
Barack Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are right about one thing — they are indeed making history. But their legacy will not be what they think. They will be known as the people who led to the end of America as the last best hope of earth.
Lincoln weeps.
The two Honorable Mentions:
June 23, 2009
Senator Embarrassment, D-Calif.
Last week, a brief moment in time captured much that has gone wrong with post-’60s liberalism and feminism.
Brig. Gen. Michael Walsh of the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers was testifying at a hearing before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. At one point during his responses to questions posed by the Committee Chair, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., the senator interrupted the general to admonish him about using the word “ma’am” when addressing her:
“You know, do me a favor,” Boxer said in an annoyed tone of voice. “Could you say ‘senator’ instead of ‘ma’am?’ It’s just a thing; I worked so hard to get that title, so I’d appreciate it. Yes, thank you.”
“Yes, senator,” the humiliated general responded.
The oxygen was sucked out of the room by Sen. Boxer’s remarks.
It is hard to know where to begin in describing how reduced the U.S. Senate was at that moment. It is not due to differing politics that many in California are embarrassed to have Boxer as their senator; few Californians who differ from Sen. Dianne Feinstein are embarrassed by her.
To think that a body once called “the world’s most deliberative” was reduced to this juvenile level is to mourn for America. The immaturity of a U.S. senator needing to ask to always be responded to as “senator” rather than “ma’am” in an ongoing dialogue with someone — of equal stature, it should be noted — should be self-evident to anyone.
However, in case it is not, two arguments should make this clear.
First, people in the military are taught to call their superiors “ma’am” and “sir.” Thus, for example, a sergeant responding to a general will say, “Yes, sir,” to a male general and, “Yes, ma’am,” to a female general. Though not in the military, I always feel honored when a caller to my radio show says calls me sir. And I always have renewed respect for the military for inculcating that respectful form of address into its members.
To object to being called sir or ma’am by anyone, especially a member of the military and especially a high ranking member of the military is to betray an ignorance of the military and a tone deafness to civility that is appalling in anyone, especially a member of the United States Senate .
Second, and both more revealing and more instructive, is to understand how inconceivable it would be for a male senator to make such comments. Neither a Democrat nor Republican could imagine a male senator interrupting the testimony of a brigadier general to admonish him publicly, “You know, do me a favor. Could you say ‘senator’ instead of ‘sir?’ It’s just a thing. I worked so hard to get that title, so I’d appreciate it.”
If a male senator had said that, he would rightly be regarded as insecure, narcissistic, arrogant, and juvenile. Which is precisely why no male senator would ever say such a thing: He would know that he would be the laughingstock of the U.S. Senate. …
April 21, 2009
The more given, the less earned
The reason we have too few solutions to the problems that confront people — in their personal lives as well as in the political realm — is almost entirely due to a lack of common sense, psychological impediments to clear thinking, a perverse value system, to a lack of self-control, or all four. It is almost never due to a lack of brainpower. On the contrary, the smartest and the best educated frequently make things worse.
One of the reasons for the ascendance of the English-speaking world has been that the English language is almost alone among major languages in having the word “earn.”
Those of us whose native language is English assume that the phrase “to earn a living” is universal. It isn’t. It is almost unique to English. Few languages have the ability to say this.
In the Romance languages, for example — a list that includes such major languages as Spanish, French, and Italian — the word used when saying someone “earns” money, is “ganar” in Spanish, “gagner” in French. The word literally means “to win.” In Hebrew the word “marveach” means “profits.” In German, the word “verdient” means “deserves.”
Obviously, it is very different to “win” or to “deserve” or to “profit” than to “earn.”
Since the 1960s-’70s, a concerted effort has been made to weed the word, and therefore the cultural value, of “earning” from American life. Increasingly little is earned. Instead of earning, we are increasingly owed, or we have more rights, or we are simply given.
Many American kids no longer earn awards or trophies for athletic success. They are given trophies and awards for showing up. These trophies are not earned, just granted — essentially for breathing. …
We also expect forgiveness to be given without being earned. Many people believe in what I call automatic forgiveness — the obligation to forgive anyone any crime, committed against anyone, no matter how many victims and no matter how removed from my life. Thus the pastor of a church attended by then-President Bill Clinton told the president and all others at a Sunday service that all Christians were obligated to forgive Timothy McVeigh, the terrorist murderer of 168 people. Did McVeigh earn this forgiveness? Of course not. So where did the notion of unearned forgiveness come from, especially unearned forgiveness from people who were not the victims of the evil being forgiven? It is one thing for me to forgive those who have hurt me; it is quite another for others to forgive those who have hurt me. G-d Himself demands that we earn forgiveness. The term for that is repentance. No repentance, no forgiveness.
Finally, the increasingly powerful culture of entitlement and rights further undermines the value of earning anything. The more the state gives to its citizens, the less they have to earn. That is the basic concept of the welfare state — you receive almost everything you need without having to earn any of it. About half of Americans now pay no federal income tax — but they receive all government benefits just as if they had paid for, i.e., earned, them. …
From BBC’s “The Now Show” (transcript from The English Blog):
The delegates came and the delegates sat
And they talked and they talked till their bums all went flat
Then a delegate said of the country he knew
“We must do something quick but just what should we do
So they sat again thinking and there they stayed seated
Sitting and thinking “the planet’s been heated”
“I think” said a delegate there from Peru
“That we all must agree on some things we could do
Like reducing emissions at least CO2”
So they nodded and noted then vetoed and voted
And one of them stood up and suddenly quoted
“It’s the science you see, that’s the thing that must guide us
When the leaders all get here they’re certain to chide us”
So they sat again thinking about what to think
Then decided to ponder what colour of ink
To use on the paper when they’d all agreed
To be selfless not greedy McGreedy McGreed
“But how do we choose just what colour to use”
Said a delegate there who’d been having a snooze
“We need clear binding targets definitive action
We must all agree clearly without more distraction”
So they sat again thinking of targets for ink
But the ink in their thinking had started to stink
And they started to think that the ink was a kink
In the thinking about real things they should think
“If ze climate needs mending then zis is our chance”
Said the nuclear delegate sent there by France
“We need to agree on one thing to agree on
Something we all want a fixed guarantee on”
“Yes” said another who thought this made sense
Some value for carbon in dollars or pence
But the mention of money and thoughts of expense
Had stifled the progress and things became tense
The fella from China with a smile on his face
Said “Who put the carbon there in the first place?”
“Wasn’t us” said the U.S then Europe did too
Then a silence descended and no words were spoken
Till a delegate stood up, voice nervous and broken
“Is there nothing upon which we all can decide
Because on Wednesday my chicken laid eggs that were fried”
“We all like a sing song” said the bloke from Down Under
But then the great hall was all shouting and thunder
Policemen had entered and were wearing protesters
Who they’d beaten and flattened like bloodied sou’westers
The police had decided to downplay this crime
With prevention detention and beatings in rhyme
The Greenies who’d shouted and asked for a decision
Were now being battered with lethal precision
All sick of inaction and fed up of waiting
All tired of the endless debated placating
They’d risen up grating berating and hating
So the police had commenced the related abating
Ban Ki-moon put his head in another man’s lap
And was last heard muttering something like “crap”
But the chap next to him said “It’s more like it’s poo”
So the great hall debated not what they should do
But how to decide between crap cack and poo
“It is poo” “It is cack” “It is crap” “We agree”
Which was written and labelled as Document Three
“I think if we all find one thing we agree on
Then maybe Brazil might be left with a tree on”
So they sat again thinking of trees and Brazil
And of glaciers which had retreated uphill
And they thought of the poor folks whose homes were in flood
But less of the protesters covered in blood
They pondered the species so nearly extinct
It’s as if they all thought that these things might be linked
“We need a solution we need action please”
Said a lady who’d come from the sinking Maldives
The others all nodded and said it was fact
That the time must be now not to talk but to act
Then Obama arrived and said most rhetorical
“Action is action and not metaphorical”
“Wow” they all thought “he must mean arregorical [sic]”
“I love it when Barack goes all oratorical”
“But he problem I have is that Congress won’t pass it
“Bugger” said Ban Ki then “sorry” then “arse it”
Then Brown said “I’ve got it now how does this strike you?
It’s simpler when voters already dislike you”
He suggested the EU should lead from the front
So The Mail and The Telegraph called him something very unpleasant indeed
So the delegates stared at the text with red marks on
Ignoring the gales of laughter from Clarkson
No-one was satisfied nobody won
Except the morons convinced it was really the sun
And they blew it and wasted the greatest of chances
Instead they all frolicked in diplomat dances
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