Category Archives: Social Commentary

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

The Neo-Puritans

1 Comment

…of both parties:

For the half hearted worldling like myself, who can never quite summon up all the moral fiber necessary for a grimly earnest New England crusade, all forms of Puritanism are suspect. But unlike the “Christianists under the bed” crowd over at the Daily Dish, I’m less worried about the puritanism of the right than the puritanism of the left these days. First, because American society is so firmly set against old fashioned right-wing prudishness, Romney’s “conservative” puritanism is probably a lesser threat to the freedoms of the people than the secular puritanism of the enlightened left. Public acceptance of homosexuality is likely to increase, for example, no matter who takes office next January; even after eight grim years of two Romney terms, you are still going to be able to see bare breasted women on “Boardwalk Empire” and “Game of Thrones.” Romney and the right are fighting the tide on many of these issues, so any efforts on their part to force more moral conformity on the population are unlikely to go all that far.

The other reason I worry less about the right’s tendency toward moralist dictatorship is federalism: the left likes its regulation at the national level and thinks the Federal government should set the tone for the whole country. The right on the other hand makes more room for the states. If we must be governed by meddling nanny state puritans, I would rather live in a country that had fifty petty moralistic dictatorships rather than one big one; I’d at least have a chance of finding a place where my favorite foods and amusements wouldn’t be banned by law. Surely there will be one state somewhere in this republic that will let me put some extra salt on my freedom fries.

Professor Mead doesn’t expand on the theme of this as being one of the folkways described in Fischer’s Albion’s Seed, but ever since reading that book it has always been clear that the “progressives” are the current incarnation of the Puritan tradition that came over from East Anglia in the seventeenth century. It was very clear that Hillary fell into that camp (whereas Bill was a redneck). But I had never thought before of the Mormons as being an offshoot of it. It makes sense. They’re not descended from Quakers, or the Cavaliers, and certainly not the Scots-Irish. So there are some similarities between Obama and Romney, but for the reasons that he mentions in the quote above, I’m much less concerned about Romney in that regard.

This discussion reminds me of my post from years ago about why we should worry much more about Leftist urges to control us than that of the social-issues right. Will Wilkinson disputed it at the time (though the specific example he used of Ashcroft’s fear of a marble tit turned out to be a Democrat urban myth). I wonder what he thinks now, given the economic disaster confronting us from the Democrat depradations of the last six years?

Business, Social Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

Plasma Jet Electric Thrusters

21 Comments

An interesting Kickstarter project.

Via (former co-blogger) Andrew Case, who writes:

It will be interesting to see if crowd funding of space projects is viable. I know that there’s a guy who successfully funded a project to study a lunar space elevator, but as far as I know this is the first that is focused on something practical that has a real chance of flying in the short term.

I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on the subject.

I think it’s very viable, and a useful model for the future. It will be even better when we can start crowd funding actual businesses via the JOBS Act, and not just technology development.

[Late evening update]

Yeah, I know, I know. I was gone all day, and Trent provided it in comments, but here’s the link.

[Update a few minutes later]

Ignore my response to Paul Breed in comments. Doug Messier is now reporting that the engine exploded. If so, that puts a different complexion on things, but it still proves out their engine-out capability for the first stage, including shrapnel shield. The question is, as Paul notes, what are the differences between first and second-stage Merlins, if any, that can give us confidence in the second-stage reliability? Also, what would have happened to the Dragon had it happened on second stage? Just a loss of thrust, or an explosion of the entire stage (that is, would the explosion have taken out the tanks above as well, or does it have a similar shrapnel shield)?

In terms of commercial crew, the former wouldn’t necessarily require an abort system, and the latter probably wouldn’t be helped by one, unless there was sufficient warning to activate it. So it will be interesting to know from telemetry how soon they knew the engine was going south.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Social Commentary

The President’s Character

1 Comment

…exposed:

Barack Obama is a narcissist and a sociopath, with the skills of persuasion that children abandoned by their parents learn as a survival mechanism. In the adoring light of the liberal media, Obama reflected power and self-confidence — so long as he was in control, and stood in front of the teleprompter. The real Barack Obama is the one who cowered in the Oval Office protected by his Praetorian guard, who declined to hold cabinet meetings or meet with Republican leaders: McBama surrounded by the weird sisters, Valerie Jarrett, Susan Rice and Michelle. Obama’s greatest strength always has been his greatest weakness, potentially a catastrophic one: he manipulates so effectively because he has a compulsion to be in control. When he knows that he is not in control, Obama is paralyzed. Absent last night were the easy rhetorical flourishes and rock star pose of 2008.

As I wrote earlier, that’s the Obama I’ve always seen, but I think that the contrast with Romney opened up a lot of eyes anew.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

Quoting Obama

16 Comments

…is racist:

It’s funny how quickly liberals and the media (PTR) can do a heel-turn:

OUT: “You selectively edited that!”
IN: “You put back in all the parts we selectively edited out!”

You know, I followed the ’08 presidential race pretty damn closely, and this is the first I’m hearing about that speech. I’m willing to bet that all the people insisting it isn’t news hadn’t heard of it either, or hadn’t seen the whole thing. But they’ve decided you don’t need to know about it. Romney’s dog 30 years ago is important, but Obama’s racebaiting speech 5 years ago isn’t.

These people are despicable.

Oh, and it wasn’t an isolated incident. This is the real Obama, not the one that so many were fooled by four years ago.

[Update a couple minutes later]

I like this comment at Treacher’s post: “The way the media protects Obama reminds me of the way the boy Damian was protected in the Omen movies.”

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

Barack Obama

7 Comments

Segregationist:

Now I’m not trying to say that Obama is a segregationist like Orville Faubus or even a cheap race hustler like Sharpton. He is something different and obviously more complex and subtle, but in the final analysis he relies on the same reactionary racial estrangement as the other two.

Indeed, our president is the reverse of what he appears to be, pretending to bring the races together when he profits by driving them apart. In that sense, he is similar to Yasser Arafat, talking one way to the West and another to his Palestinian brothers.

Yes, we all know that almost all politicians engage in such targeted speechmaking, but the lengths to which they go while doing it, the extremity of the differences in what they are saying between audiences, take the measure of the man or woman.

In Barack Obama’s case, it’s pretty extreme. In the Hampton University speech, Obama sounds like a character out of Ralph Ellison’s classic Invisible Man, pandering and preaching divisive nonsense about Hurricane Katrina, which he surely knew wasn’t true.

Or did he? Actually, he seemed to be making a “separate but equal” argument regarding the treatment of Katrina victims and those of other disasters, itself reminiscent of the days of segregation. But I don’t think he was really doing that either, at least not consciously. Again like one of Ellison’s characters, he was convincing himself of his general righteousness while revving up the crowd telling them lies they clearly wanted to hear.

As usual, all this racism talk from the Left is just projection.

[Update a few minutes later]

More racism from the Left:

Yes, that’s how the Associated Press had described the Pennsylvania law: a “tough new law.” So hard to show ID, you know — especially if you’re black, as Democrats have said for years, though no one seems to take offense, which is mind-boggling.

I’d love to ask a white liberal politician someday: “Why do you think you’re more capable of showing ID than a black person?” I mean, does even the Klan say that white people are more capable of showing ID than blacks?

Ass George Bush said, it’s the soft bigotry of low expectations.