There are a lot of things on which I'd like to write however, there are many times people write about them 1. first and 2. better than I can.....
Yes, Trump as nominee DOES endanger the GOP House majority. - The last time the Dems were in charge we got the colossal failure that is the ACA.
Trump as eight year old child. - It's humorous with children, obnoxious with adults.
The proclivity of demagogues to criminalize business decisions needs to stop. - It should be noted that once the Democrats succeed in Nationalizing the Oil and Gas industry all of this climate change nonsense will go away.
Reminder: Most Democrats don't even realize they have a problem as well.
And even those who do think the solution is "more government"
See? Not all is gloom and doom for the GOP.
Your now almost daily reminder that reigning in the regulatory state, rule of law and Bill of Rights restoration is key to any conservative reboot. Failure to address these three key issues renders pretty much anything else moot.
Thursday, March 31, 2016
Wednesday, March 30, 2016
Houston Area Leadership Vacuum: Leaving a City Behind.
****WARNING - Blog navel-gazing ahead - WARNING****
In the 11 plus years that I've been blogging on various platforms, from way, way back in the live-journal days through Isolated Desolation, Lose an Eye, It's a Sport, Harris County Almanac, Your Drink Order Please and other, forgotten, blogs, I've almost always kept my focus trained on Houston and the surrounding region.
I've never been one to do National, until recently, and the vision for this blog was never for it to be a "national blog" that discussed national, or international, events. Part of the reason for this is because I only paid passing attention to those issues, and part was because I felt there were people out there doing a better job of it than I.
Granted, there were people doing the Houston Region better than I so I'm not sure why I used that as an excuse, but a large part of me enjoyed writing about my home because I really thought this was where change could, and should, be enacted. All politics is local and all of that.
So off I went on a merry crusade against New Urbanism, the Houston Way, bad politicians and possibly the worst local news environment in any big city in America. From the middling, regional daily to television news that often devolved into comedy, Houston always lacked the ability to report on itself in a critical manner.
The results?
As I said several months ago, I lost. I lost so bad the ground of my ideas were salted and refuse dumped on it. The idea that Houston should grow forward instead of backward was rejected by the only two factions that mattered. The New Urbanists, who have convinced anyone that matters in Houston that the solution forward are the failed 19th century urban policies of the past, and City Hall, which is a devolving mess of petty politicians appointing Houston Way proponents who view taxpayer dollars as their own personal slush-funds to bestow on their friends in return for trinkets which, they hope, will secure their "legacy".
Then, the unthinkable happened. The Houston Chronicle placed one of their editors as the judging panel chairman for 'commentary' and finally was in a position to gift itself its first Pulitzer Prize. In some small way, this column (through it's extensive use of "I" and "me") is an homage to the writing style of the gifted one. Predictably, this award didn't help things.
Post-Pulitzer the news is much worse, if that's possible, and the media shut-out any and all criticism in place of advocacy reporting while all but abandoning their role as watchdog. Because of this, news of the City of Houston debt problem being away bigger than anyone first imagined was suppressed until after the election of a life-long politician who, early results are indicating, is entirely unprepared for the job.
Then today, something that's been bugging me for a long time snapped. News that Houston area drivers were moving barrels and cones to access the as-yet unopened Grand Parkway (ignoring the safety of workers and others) reaffirmed my anecdotal evidence that suggested Houston was a selfish, ugly town that's getting exactly the governance it deserves.
So after all of these years I'm changing scope. I'm going to focus my gaze upward and take one what I think is a much bigger issue than Sylvester Turner trying to get people to love their way to potholes being fixed. I'm leaving Houston to the nitwits of the unproductive class as they try and craft a Houtopia that's only going to suppress economic activity, and drive people to the suburbs faster. I'm leaving the Houston Chronicle to itself as it continues to go after Houston's biggest, and most important industry, in the hope that it can aid in recreating Houston as the Boston of the South a city where the wealthy and connected thrive to the detriment of everyone else, where the pretty people are happy and gay, while the great unwashed are asked to please hide during big-ticket events. Houston will end up bankrupt and crumbling on its own, content to read the inane ramblings of sixth-generation Texans and the great block quote machine without having to be distracted by me.
One of the reasons for this is that I'm tired of Houston, but the other reason is that I feel the bigger problem of the future of the State and National conservative movement is of greater import. Should Houston collapse there are other cities (and States) in which to live, if America goes down the options will become pretty slim.
And that's a problem.
So in parting I want to say goodbye to a city that I've written about for over a decade. Despite yourself I've watched businesses thrive inside your borders and, recently, begin to flow out of them for the safety of the suburbs. I've watched Metro spend Billions trying to copy other cities, I've laughed at your parklets and your small-town attitude. For the foreseeable future I'll still call Houston my home, but I will no longer care what you decide to do with yourself.
It's not me Houston, It really is you.
In the 11 plus years that I've been blogging on various platforms, from way, way back in the live-journal days through Isolated Desolation, Lose an Eye, It's a Sport, Harris County Almanac, Your Drink Order Please and other, forgotten, blogs, I've almost always kept my focus trained on Houston and the surrounding region.
I've never been one to do National, until recently, and the vision for this blog was never for it to be a "national blog" that discussed national, or international, events. Part of the reason for this is because I only paid passing attention to those issues, and part was because I felt there were people out there doing a better job of it than I.
Granted, there were people doing the Houston Region better than I so I'm not sure why I used that as an excuse, but a large part of me enjoyed writing about my home because I really thought this was where change could, and should, be enacted. All politics is local and all of that.
So off I went on a merry crusade against New Urbanism, the Houston Way, bad politicians and possibly the worst local news environment in any big city in America. From the middling, regional daily to television news that often devolved into comedy, Houston always lacked the ability to report on itself in a critical manner.
The results?
As I said several months ago, I lost. I lost so bad the ground of my ideas were salted and refuse dumped on it. The idea that Houston should grow forward instead of backward was rejected by the only two factions that mattered. The New Urbanists, who have convinced anyone that matters in Houston that the solution forward are the failed 19th century urban policies of the past, and City Hall, which is a devolving mess of petty politicians appointing Houston Way proponents who view taxpayer dollars as their own personal slush-funds to bestow on their friends in return for trinkets which, they hope, will secure their "legacy".
Then, the unthinkable happened. The Houston Chronicle placed one of their editors as the judging panel chairman for 'commentary' and finally was in a position to gift itself its first Pulitzer Prize. In some small way, this column (through it's extensive use of "I" and "me") is an homage to the writing style of the gifted one. Predictably, this award didn't help things.
Post-Pulitzer the news is much worse, if that's possible, and the media shut-out any and all criticism in place of advocacy reporting while all but abandoning their role as watchdog. Because of this, news of the City of Houston debt problem being away bigger than anyone first imagined was suppressed until after the election of a life-long politician who, early results are indicating, is entirely unprepared for the job.
Then today, something that's been bugging me for a long time snapped. News that Houston area drivers were moving barrels and cones to access the as-yet unopened Grand Parkway (ignoring the safety of workers and others) reaffirmed my anecdotal evidence that suggested Houston was a selfish, ugly town that's getting exactly the governance it deserves.
So after all of these years I'm changing scope. I'm going to focus my gaze upward and take one what I think is a much bigger issue than Sylvester Turner trying to get people to love their way to potholes being fixed. I'm leaving Houston to the nitwits of the unproductive class as they try and craft a Houtopia that's only going to suppress economic activity, and drive people to the suburbs faster. I'm leaving the Houston Chronicle to itself as it continues to go after Houston's biggest, and most important industry, in the hope that it can aid in recreating Houston as the Boston of the South a city where the wealthy and connected thrive to the detriment of everyone else, where the pretty people are happy and gay, while the great unwashed are asked to please hide during big-ticket events. Houston will end up bankrupt and crumbling on its own, content to read the inane ramblings of sixth-generation Texans and the great block quote machine without having to be distracted by me.
One of the reasons for this is that I'm tired of Houston, but the other reason is that I feel the bigger problem of the future of the State and National conservative movement is of greater import. Should Houston collapse there are other cities (and States) in which to live, if America goes down the options will become pretty slim.
And that's a problem.
So in parting I want to say goodbye to a city that I've written about for over a decade. Despite yourself I've watched businesses thrive inside your borders and, recently, begin to flow out of them for the safety of the suburbs. I've watched Metro spend Billions trying to copy other cities, I've laughed at your parklets and your small-town attitude. For the foreseeable future I'll still call Houston my home, but I will no longer care what you decide to do with yourself.
It's not me Houston, It really is you.
PostGOP: Trump as Democratic stalking horse.
Remember the pledge? Touted, at the time by what passes for leadership in the Republican Party? Yeah, that's pretty much been thrown out the window.
Trump drops pledge to back Republican Presidential nominee other than himself. Steve Holland, Reuters
And with that, the Trump destruction of the GOP is all but complete. No matter who wins the nomination in Cleveland, there will not be a unified party in November and there will be a significant amount of voters staying home, or voting 3rd party or voting for Hillary.
It doesn't matter now who wins, the GOP is going to lose because this was Trump's plan all along. While I'm sure he thought that there was an outside chance he might become the nominee he was in this more for fun and ego. In a nutshell, he just wanted to see how far he could carry the charade and how many knuckle-dragging voters he could bring with him.
By all evidence, he got about 35-40% of the Republican Party, and around 5% of Democrats. To be fair however, 100% of Democrats are A-OK selecting either a candidate under federal investigation or a man with absolutely zero understanding of economics as their standard-bearer so, at least, the sane part of the right has them beat.
Unfortunately, I don't think there are enough sane people in America to do much about what appears to be more and more likely to happen. In a choice between an idiot, someone absent a moral code and an ignoramus the opportunist begins to have an awful lot of appeal. How again did the former greatest, most free country in the world end up a regulatory state with higher incarceration rates than all except the most brutal dictatorships? How did the country that generated more wealth creation than any other in history become a rigid, stratified land with less chance for economic mobility than the old Indian caste system? And how did the country that gave us Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Ronald Reagan end up with a quadrant of candidates such as this?
It's very easy to cast our gaze at the "establishment" which many in the Tea Party are wont to do, but the reality is that we've led ourselves down this road, we've driven the car off this cliff. We are exactly where we deserve to be.
The 2016 Presidential election is no fluke or accident, it's not the fault of the 'man' or the 'other party' or even the Illuminati or some nefarious overseer who's set this up for their own personal amusement.
The Bronzed Ego, Her Highness and the Angry White man are constructs of voter apathy, the continued insulting of "nerd" culture and a society that would rather vote for American Idol than in elections. (Although, to be fair, given their level of attention perhaps it would be better if the proletariat stay focused on reality TV and not on politics?)
There have been a lot of articles written about how less people should vote on one side and how that is the worst suggestion in the world from the other. The "right" to vote is held sacrosanct in America with good reason. (Although, it should be noted, that many people [i.e. felons, non-citizens] do NOT have the right to vote nor should they.)
What's ignored in the entire discussion is that yes, every citizen of the United State's provided they are competent and not disqualified, has the 'right' to vote in America but that carries with it the 'responsibility' of voting responsibly and in an informed manner. It's also not mentioned that Democracy is not a right that was given by our creator, but one that was created by man and is, as a result, very imperfect.
As we slink toward the party conventions on a trail of FBI Investigations and non-crime, crime reports of campaign managers grabbing female reporters remember this:
As in all elections, we are getting the government we deserve.
Trump drops pledge to back Republican Presidential nominee other than himself. Steve Holland, Reuters
And with that, the Trump destruction of the GOP is all but complete. No matter who wins the nomination in Cleveland, there will not be a unified party in November and there will be a significant amount of voters staying home, or voting 3rd party or voting for Hillary.
It doesn't matter now who wins, the GOP is going to lose because this was Trump's plan all along. While I'm sure he thought that there was an outside chance he might become the nominee he was in this more for fun and ego. In a nutshell, he just wanted to see how far he could carry the charade and how many knuckle-dragging voters he could bring with him.
By all evidence, he got about 35-40% of the Republican Party, and around 5% of Democrats. To be fair however, 100% of Democrats are A-OK selecting either a candidate under federal investigation or a man with absolutely zero understanding of economics as their standard-bearer so, at least, the sane part of the right has them beat.
Unfortunately, I don't think there are enough sane people in America to do much about what appears to be more and more likely to happen. In a choice between an idiot, someone absent a moral code and an ignoramus the opportunist begins to have an awful lot of appeal. How again did the former greatest, most free country in the world end up a regulatory state with higher incarceration rates than all except the most brutal dictatorships? How did the country that generated more wealth creation than any other in history become a rigid, stratified land with less chance for economic mobility than the old Indian caste system? And how did the country that gave us Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Ronald Reagan end up with a quadrant of candidates such as this?
It's very easy to cast our gaze at the "establishment" which many in the Tea Party are wont to do, but the reality is that we've led ourselves down this road, we've driven the car off this cliff. We are exactly where we deserve to be.
The 2016 Presidential election is no fluke or accident, it's not the fault of the 'man' or the 'other party' or even the Illuminati or some nefarious overseer who's set this up for their own personal amusement.
The Bronzed Ego, Her Highness and the Angry White man are constructs of voter apathy, the continued insulting of "nerd" culture and a society that would rather vote for American Idol than in elections. (Although, to be fair, given their level of attention perhaps it would be better if the proletariat stay focused on reality TV and not on politics?)
There have been a lot of articles written about how less people should vote on one side and how that is the worst suggestion in the world from the other. The "right" to vote is held sacrosanct in America with good reason. (Although, it should be noted, that many people [i.e. felons, non-citizens] do NOT have the right to vote nor should they.)
What's ignored in the entire discussion is that yes, every citizen of the United State's provided they are competent and not disqualified, has the 'right' to vote in America but that carries with it the 'responsibility' of voting responsibly and in an informed manner. It's also not mentioned that Democracy is not a right that was given by our creator, but one that was created by man and is, as a result, very imperfect.
As we slink toward the party conventions on a trail of FBI Investigations and non-crime, crime reports of campaign managers grabbing female reporters remember this:
As in all elections, we are getting the government we deserve.
Houston Area Leadership Vacuum: Houston First? No, it's just the Houston Way.
Imagine working at a job where you not only get to operate with tons of money that you've done nothing to earn, but you have the ability to spend some of that money on events which you can then use to justify your requests for additional money.
Such is the current reality of Houston First, the quasi-governmental, taxpayer funded, organization whose job is ostensibly to 'promote Houston' but which is really just creating a slush-fund to be spent on friends and cronies.
Houston's approach to conventions raises eyebrows. L.M. Sixel, HoustonChronicle.com
Nice work if you can get it.
You really should go read the entire article if you can. It's a shame that this is hidden behind the Chronicle's increasingly expensive pay wall because it really is something that should receive wide distribution.
In addition to this, further down in the story is the sad tale of Space City Comic Convention, and how Houston First is allegedly refusing to promote them, and is even suing them because of the name "Space City" while having a stake in a competing convention, Comicpalooza.
For anyone who pays much attention to how the City of Houston operates however this is just more par for the course. It's the Houston Way after all. Control the levers of financing and power and ensure that everything gets funneled to the "right" people. By right we mean your political patrons and cronies.
It's a less sophisticated, less elegant, method of legal public corruption than Chicago, which has elevated machine politics into an art-form. Of course, Houston is a less-sophisticated, less elegant city than Chicago on the whole. Ironically, the bigger Houston gets, the more small-town the politicians we are electing to office (and the people they are appointing to the bureaucracy) become.
Then again, given the selfish, ugly behavior of many of the citizens are we really all that surprised that we have elected selfish, ugly people to govern? Or that they would select selfish, ugly people to positions of power?
Don't worry, I'm sure the Houston Chronicle Editorial Board is furiously working on a scathing call for "change" at the organization as I write.
Can't wait.
Such is the current reality of Houston First, the quasi-governmental, taxpayer funded, organization whose job is ostensibly to 'promote Houston' but which is really just creating a slush-fund to be spent on friends and cronies.
Houston's approach to conventions raises eyebrows. L.M. Sixel, HoustonChronicle.com
Houston First Corp., the quasi-public group that oversees the millions of dollars collected in hotel/motel taxes, also invests in some of the locally produced events, said Waterman, who is also executive vice president of Houston First. He wouldn't say how much either the bureau or Houston First has invested.
Nice work if you can get it.
You really should go read the entire article if you can. It's a shame that this is hidden behind the Chronicle's increasingly expensive pay wall because it really is something that should receive wide distribution.
In addition to this, further down in the story is the sad tale of Space City Comic Convention, and how Houston First is allegedly refusing to promote them, and is even suing them because of the name "Space City" while having a stake in a competing convention, Comicpalooza.
For anyone who pays much attention to how the City of Houston operates however this is just more par for the course. It's the Houston Way after all. Control the levers of financing and power and ensure that everything gets funneled to the "right" people. By right we mean your political patrons and cronies.
It's a less sophisticated, less elegant, method of legal public corruption than Chicago, which has elevated machine politics into an art-form. Of course, Houston is a less-sophisticated, less elegant city than Chicago on the whole. Ironically, the bigger Houston gets, the more small-town the politicians we are electing to office (and the people they are appointing to the bureaucracy) become.
Then again, given the selfish, ugly behavior of many of the citizens are we really all that surprised that we have elected selfish, ugly people to govern? Or that they would select selfish, ugly people to positions of power?
Don't worry, I'm sure the Houston Chronicle Editorial Board is furiously working on a scathing call for "change" at the organization as I write.
Can't wait.
Tuesday, March 29, 2016
Houston Area Leadership Vacuum: New Urbanism is not about density.
At its heart, it is about redeveloping poor, minority areas and pushing gentrification for well-to-do, primarily Caucasian members of the "cool" set.
Ashby High Rise casts long shadow over Houston land use. Erin Mulvaney, HoustonChronicle.com ($$$)
But New Urbanism has never been about density, it has always been about trying to force people who choose otherwise to adopt a lifestyle deemed "suitable" by a group of people who work little and accomplish less. Who spend their days attending workshops, talking about a walk they once had and demanding that city resources be spent on their priorities. If the 'other' people would just move into areas that they feel blighted?
That's a bonus.
Of course, there's nothing wrong with this. People can, and should be allowed to, voice their opinions on how and where others live to their heart's content. Just as we have the right to point a finger at them, laugh and mock them for both their lack of self-awareness and utter ignorance when it comes to economics. David Crossely and his band of think-tank acolytes are free to call for so-called "complete streets" with European roundabouts, speed humps and a region-wide 20 MPH speed limit as loudly as they want. Despite their protests to the contrary no one, of serious demeanor, is trying to blunt their ability to do so.
The arguments come when the government buys into this job-killing nonsense (as did the Brown, White, Parker and (it seems) Turner administrations) and start directing scarce city finances to making the dream a reality. This is how Houston gets saddled with Billions of dollars in spending on active and proposed rail lines that aren't decreasing mobility, it's how parklets, and the ridiculous photo-ops they create, suddenly get viewed as urban policy victories, and it's how bike lanes to nowhere get built, and then ignored because the city doesn't really belong in the business of playing nanny for people's living choices.
What the cities need to do is figure out what reality is, and then make transportation plans that reflect that reality.
In Houston, that would mean realizing that the amenities in many Houston suburbs are knocking the so-called "urbanism" that Houston is priding itself on into a cocked hat. It would mean that trying to force (other) people to move downtown to fulfill some Manhattan-lite wet dream that New Urbanists have is not popular on a mass scale. It would mean more bus service to outlying areas, more park-n-ride and less insistence that one of Houston's busiest traffic, and economic, corridors lose car lines in favor of a bus...to nowhere.
It would also mean that, at some level, people in high places are beginning to envision a Houston with driverless cars, where taxi services are no longer needed and traffic collisions are less prevalent than in the past. It would mean buttressing the existing road infrastructure to to handle this eventuality.
Unfortunately, this type of thing takes leadership. And as has been clearly demonstrated on this blog for several years now, Houston has a leadership vacuum that is sucking up all of the good ideas and the city's potential. This could be reversed by members of the productive class pushing back against the unproductive nitwits trying to make decisions for them but, as the productive class does, they are too busy working during the day and being otherwise occupied during the evenings and weekends.
In other words, little is going to change until leadership fills the void. I wouldn't hold your breath.
Ashby High Rise casts long shadow over Houston land use. Erin Mulvaney, HoustonChronicle.com ($$$)
There are, of course, no issues that are being intensely litigated in poor areas as there are in the wealthy enclaves mentioned above. Nor has there been the traditional amount of support in City Hall for say, preserving Houston's Wards. (With the notable exception of the 3rd Ward, which acts as a personal finance tool and incumbent protection system for State Rep. Garnet Coleman.)These arguments have emerged in several similar lawsuits filed against projects since and city laws have been passed to address some of the complaints brought by the residents who live near the Ashby site.Festa said that with the various land use restrictions in Houston, in the form of minimum-lot sizes, historic districts and residential buffer ordinances, the region has "de-facto zoning." This has led to many questions and sets up battles over where to build and about density versus preserving what is already there.He said there are equity issues on both sides."Wealthy neighbors pass the hat and hire top-notch attorneys. What happens to the ones that don't have those resources?" Festa said. "Nowhere is this stuff more intense than land-use battles."There have been battles over what should be built in River Oaks, the Museum District and the Heights.
But New Urbanism has never been about density, it has always been about trying to force people who choose otherwise to adopt a lifestyle deemed "suitable" by a group of people who work little and accomplish less. Who spend their days attending workshops, talking about a walk they once had and demanding that city resources be spent on their priorities. If the 'other' people would just move into areas that they feel blighted?
That's a bonus.
Of course, there's nothing wrong with this. People can, and should be allowed to, voice their opinions on how and where others live to their heart's content. Just as we have the right to point a finger at them, laugh and mock them for both their lack of self-awareness and utter ignorance when it comes to economics. David Crossely and his band of think-tank acolytes are free to call for so-called "complete streets" with European roundabouts, speed humps and a region-wide 20 MPH speed limit as loudly as they want. Despite their protests to the contrary no one, of serious demeanor, is trying to blunt their ability to do so.
The arguments come when the government buys into this job-killing nonsense (as did the Brown, White, Parker and (it seems) Turner administrations) and start directing scarce city finances to making the dream a reality. This is how Houston gets saddled with Billions of dollars in spending on active and proposed rail lines that aren't decreasing mobility, it's how parklets, and the ridiculous photo-ops they create, suddenly get viewed as urban policy victories, and it's how bike lanes to nowhere get built, and then ignored because the city doesn't really belong in the business of playing nanny for people's living choices.
What the cities need to do is figure out what reality is, and then make transportation plans that reflect that reality.
In Houston, that would mean realizing that the amenities in many Houston suburbs are knocking the so-called "urbanism" that Houston is priding itself on into a cocked hat. It would mean that trying to force (other) people to move downtown to fulfill some Manhattan-lite wet dream that New Urbanists have is not popular on a mass scale. It would mean more bus service to outlying areas, more park-n-ride and less insistence that one of Houston's busiest traffic, and economic, corridors lose car lines in favor of a bus...to nowhere.
It would also mean that, at some level, people in high places are beginning to envision a Houston with driverless cars, where taxi services are no longer needed and traffic collisions are less prevalent than in the past. It would mean buttressing the existing road infrastructure to to handle this eventuality.
Unfortunately, this type of thing takes leadership. And as has been clearly demonstrated on this blog for several years now, Houston has a leadership vacuum that is sucking up all of the good ideas and the city's potential. This could be reversed by members of the productive class pushing back against the unproductive nitwits trying to make decisions for them but, as the productive class does, they are too busy working during the day and being otherwise occupied during the evenings and weekends.
In other words, little is going to change until leadership fills the void. I wouldn't hold your breath.
Monday, March 28, 2016
PostGOP: The Problem with Trump
As has been noted several times, here and many other places that have been linked to here, the GOP currently has an ignoramus with bad hair, a bad fake tan and no discernible moral code currently positioned as the "front-runner" in it's primary for President. And while it's starting to look more and more like Trump will not reach 1237, just, the damage to the GOP has already been done.
Bad Choices, Amy Davidson, The New Yorker
In his quieter moments Cruz' would undoubtedly like to have that comment back. Say what you want about the man, he's hardly an authoritarian thug whose just waiting for a chance to place the Constitution in a paper shredder like Ms. Davidson is alleging here.
The problem is Trump.
Because Trump comes out with his typical answers which make one realize that they don't have either the correct decoder ring, or a level of ignorance needed to decipher them. "Belgium is no longer Belgium" is not only shallow, it's rote, silly, and a juvenile way of looking at a very real, very complex problem. As Kevin D. Williamson wrote in the link at the top, Trump honestly believes that there are simple solutions to complex problems that only he has the guts to implement.
Trump has also brought into the light a rather seedy underbelly of the GOP. Namely, Nationalist Whites who feel that the country is passing them by. They have been all but abandoned by the Democrats, have found a home with the GOP, and have found a leader in the Bronzed Ego. That they are the ugly counterpoint to the ugly result of decades of racial identity politics played by the Democratic Party (and, to be fair, responded to by Republicans) is never mentioned. Nor is it mentioned that groups such as this exist in pretty much every racial category.
This is not an attempt at moral relevance, but a reminder that both parties have fostered an awful lot of hate since they both bungled and mangled the civil rights debate. Instead of creating freedom and equality, both parties came together and crafted a framework for hate and recrimination that continues today. The legislation and good intent of the '60s created Donald Trump, Angry White Blue Collar Voters, Black Lives Matter, LaRaZa and pretty much every other modern racial problem you can think of.
Trump understands this, and he's using it to his advantage in the same way that Her Highness understands it, and is using it, on the Democratic side. The difference is, of course, that the media doesn't care about the angst and hate when it comes from the left, it's only an issue from the right.
For the Democrats, this will not be a problem until they run out of other people's stuff to promise to the groups they are keeping on the string. For the GOP however, it's cracked the party and appears to be threatening to drive what's left of it off a cliff. In many ways, the GOP is now paying for it's utter lack of anything close to a minority message stemming back to the passage of the Civil Rights Act.
The problem with Trump is that he has revealed the GOP to, in part, still be the party of the Angry Caucasian Man. It's something they tried to move past with candidates such as Rubio and (to a lesser extent) Cruz, but seem to be unable to shake. Of course, the Wall Street arm of the GOP wanted Jeb(?) Bush and look where that got them?
The problem with Trump is that him being popular among a plurality of GOP voters is painting every conservative with the same nasty brush. Yes, a lot of this painting is being done by intellectually dishonest people, but that doesn't matter to the unquestioning majority of the electorate who are reading their work.
The problem with Trump is that the GOP is associated with him at all.
Bad Choices, Amy Davidson, The New Yorker
And yet on this issue Cruz seems in line with today’s Republican Party, beginning with Donald Trump, its front-runner in the Presidential race. With broadcast and social media still filled with images of the bombing victims at the airport and in a subway station in Brussels, Trump and Cruz each launched a push for votes in the next round of primaries and, it seemed, for the low ground in the fight against terrorism.Already the GOP is being lumped in, wrongly, dishonestly, with Trump's ideology, and Ted Cruz' political opportunist instincts are not helping matters. Now, granted, it doesn't take much to send members of the media straight to the fainting couch where the GOP is concerned. But, while there were issues with the wording of Cruz' police in neighborhoods idea (patrol and secure) the overreaching idea that keeping Muslim communities engaged is a strong one.
In his quieter moments Cruz' would undoubtedly like to have that comment back. Say what you want about the man, he's hardly an authoritarian thug whose just waiting for a chance to place the Constitution in a paper shredder like Ms. Davidson is alleging here.
The problem is Trump.
Because Trump comes out with his typical answers which make one realize that they don't have either the correct decoder ring, or a level of ignorance needed to decipher them. "Belgium is no longer Belgium" is not only shallow, it's rote, silly, and a juvenile way of looking at a very real, very complex problem. As Kevin D. Williamson wrote in the link at the top, Trump honestly believes that there are simple solutions to complex problems that only he has the guts to implement.
Trump has also brought into the light a rather seedy underbelly of the GOP. Namely, Nationalist Whites who feel that the country is passing them by. They have been all but abandoned by the Democrats, have found a home with the GOP, and have found a leader in the Bronzed Ego. That they are the ugly counterpoint to the ugly result of decades of racial identity politics played by the Democratic Party (and, to be fair, responded to by Republicans) is never mentioned. Nor is it mentioned that groups such as this exist in pretty much every racial category.
This is not an attempt at moral relevance, but a reminder that both parties have fostered an awful lot of hate since they both bungled and mangled the civil rights debate. Instead of creating freedom and equality, both parties came together and crafted a framework for hate and recrimination that continues today. The legislation and good intent of the '60s created Donald Trump, Angry White Blue Collar Voters, Black Lives Matter, LaRaZa and pretty much every other modern racial problem you can think of.
Trump understands this, and he's using it to his advantage in the same way that Her Highness understands it, and is using it, on the Democratic side. The difference is, of course, that the media doesn't care about the angst and hate when it comes from the left, it's only an issue from the right.
For the Democrats, this will not be a problem until they run out of other people's stuff to promise to the groups they are keeping on the string. For the GOP however, it's cracked the party and appears to be threatening to drive what's left of it off a cliff. In many ways, the GOP is now paying for it's utter lack of anything close to a minority message stemming back to the passage of the Civil Rights Act.
The problem with Trump is that he has revealed the GOP to, in part, still be the party of the Angry Caucasian Man. It's something they tried to move past with candidates such as Rubio and (to a lesser extent) Cruz, but seem to be unable to shake. Of course, the Wall Street arm of the GOP wanted Jeb(?) Bush and look where that got them?
The problem with Trump is that him being popular among a plurality of GOP voters is painting every conservative with the same nasty brush. Yes, a lot of this painting is being done by intellectually dishonest people, but that doesn't matter to the unquestioning majority of the electorate who are reading their work.
The problem with Trump is that the GOP is associated with him at all.
Thursday, March 24, 2016
Tales of a sub-par media outlet: Experts who aren't.
Today Houston's Middling Regional Daily has decided to send one of its Junior reporters to cover the hairy issue of balancing academic freedom with concerns over campus sexual harassment. Predictably, the results are, shall we say, interesting.
As College try to reduce campus sexual assault, academic freedoms suffer report states. Benjamin Wermund, HoustonChronicle.com ($$$)
Since the court ruling that placed "hostile environments" under the auspices of Title XI (an area the Title was never intended to address) a cottage industry, primarily staffed by the aggro-wing of the feminist movement, have used it as a cudgel to beat anyone, and anything over the head that might contain a 'trigger-warning'. The problem with this is that history, and much of life, is a trigger-warning if you're a coddled child with no discernible social skills.
What this has created is a cottage-industry where low-functioning idiots are running around our colleges and universities clamping down on free-speech, the right to free-association and pretty much any and everything that might, at some point, be considered fun.
Don't get me wrong. Rape, and sexual assault, are not fun. In fact, they're horrible acts that should be stamped out which would make the world a better place. On that I (hope) that all of us can agree. But that there are subjects that people consider uncomfortable, and that they feel the need to remove them from the public discourse is a problem.
A huge problem.
An even bigger problem is that the media seems hell-bent on making this a reality by selectively reporting on this and choosing to classify partisans who are for the restriction of liberty as "experts".
Part of the reason for this is that there are a sizable group of media, including a large portion of the editors and staff that work at Houston's middling regional daily, who feel (incorrectly) that the free speech protections in the 1st Amendment apply ONLY to the professional media. To understand why, let's take a look at the Amendment itself:
It's the inclusion of "of the press" that makes many feel this way. It's the same way that many feel the structure of the 2nd Amendment applies only to "a well-regulated militia". It's revisionist thinking from the modern-day equivalent to buggy-whip makers.
The fact is the 1st Amendment is absolute, it doesn't even contain the carve-out for "Fire! in a crowded theater." If you want to know more why go talk to a good 1st Amendment attorney.
Today however ideas such as freedom and autonomy have gone the way of the Dodo. We're rapidly falling down the rabbit hole of security over freedom. It's gotten so bad that (supposed) 'strict Constitutionalist' (and GOP anti-Trump Presidential hope) Ted Cruz has called for the police to 'patrol and secure' Muslim neighborhoods.
If the body politic cannot count of Conservatives to preserve our rights then who do we turn to?
Certainly not the Democrats, and not academia. In fact, the so-called liberal party, and it's followers, who once declared that "dissent is patriotism" are seeking to stamp it out at every turn. One of the problems lie in the misconception that Democrats are liberal. They're not. Today's Democratic party is progressive. They are Statists who believe not only in rule by the enlightened few, but total suppression of the individual and the family unit. There is no longer a classically liberal party in America, just as there is no more classical Conservative party in which to turn.
In addition to being a problem for personal freedom and liberty, this is a very real problem for education as well. If we start deciding that certain areas of thought are "off limits" because they might send today's wilting flowers to the fainting couch, then we will grow a crop of adults who are incapable of operating in polite society. The natural end-game of all of this is the decline of America as a great nation, which is something we are already witnessing today.
Alas, the task of fixing this falls to the tenured professor in Universities, people who can say what they will with very little risk of repercussion. We should also look to a free media, interested in reporting the full truth, to shine a light on the erosion of our freedoms.
In other words, we're doomed.
As College try to reduce campus sexual assault, academic freedoms suffer report states. Benjamin Wermund, HoustonChronicle.com ($$$)
Clearly by "experts" the Houston Chronicle has decided that the Vice President at UT-Austin, Texas' flagship university, who is the administrator of the Title IX plan there, and who's professional credibility is being called into question by the reports, is a viable 'national expert' to address the issue.National experts on college sexual assault, however, say such instances are rare. Title IX, they say, is a powerful tool to combat a long-standing problem, and university administrators mostly use it appropriately.At the University of Texas at Austin, for instance, officials carefully weigh complaints to determine whether something was legitimately part of a class discussion or could have been targeted at a student, said LaToya Hill, a UT-Austin vice president who serves as the school's Title IX coordinator.
Since the court ruling that placed "hostile environments" under the auspices of Title XI (an area the Title was never intended to address) a cottage industry, primarily staffed by the aggro-wing of the feminist movement, have used it as a cudgel to beat anyone, and anything over the head that might contain a 'trigger-warning'. The problem with this is that history, and much of life, is a trigger-warning if you're a coddled child with no discernible social skills.
What this has created is a cottage-industry where low-functioning idiots are running around our colleges and universities clamping down on free-speech, the right to free-association and pretty much any and everything that might, at some point, be considered fun.
Don't get me wrong. Rape, and sexual assault, are not fun. In fact, they're horrible acts that should be stamped out which would make the world a better place. On that I (hope) that all of us can agree. But that there are subjects that people consider uncomfortable, and that they feel the need to remove them from the public discourse is a problem.
A huge problem.
An even bigger problem is that the media seems hell-bent on making this a reality by selectively reporting on this and choosing to classify partisans who are for the restriction of liberty as "experts".
Part of the reason for this is that there are a sizable group of media, including a large portion of the editors and staff that work at Houston's middling regional daily, who feel (incorrectly) that the free speech protections in the 1st Amendment apply ONLY to the professional media. To understand why, let's take a look at the Amendment itself:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
It's the inclusion of "of the press" that makes many feel this way. It's the same way that many feel the structure of the 2nd Amendment applies only to "a well-regulated militia". It's revisionist thinking from the modern-day equivalent to buggy-whip makers.
The fact is the 1st Amendment is absolute, it doesn't even contain the carve-out for "Fire! in a crowded theater." If you want to know more why go talk to a good 1st Amendment attorney.
Today however ideas such as freedom and autonomy have gone the way of the Dodo. We're rapidly falling down the rabbit hole of security over freedom. It's gotten so bad that (supposed) 'strict Constitutionalist' (and GOP anti-Trump Presidential hope) Ted Cruz has called for the police to 'patrol and secure' Muslim neighborhoods.
If the body politic cannot count of Conservatives to preserve our rights then who do we turn to?
Certainly not the Democrats, and not academia. In fact, the so-called liberal party, and it's followers, who once declared that "dissent is patriotism" are seeking to stamp it out at every turn. One of the problems lie in the misconception that Democrats are liberal. They're not. Today's Democratic party is progressive. They are Statists who believe not only in rule by the enlightened few, but total suppression of the individual and the family unit. There is no longer a classically liberal party in America, just as there is no more classical Conservative party in which to turn.
In addition to being a problem for personal freedom and liberty, this is a very real problem for education as well. If we start deciding that certain areas of thought are "off limits" because they might send today's wilting flowers to the fainting couch, then we will grow a crop of adults who are incapable of operating in polite society. The natural end-game of all of this is the decline of America as a great nation, which is something we are already witnessing today.
Alas, the task of fixing this falls to the tenured professor in Universities, people who can say what they will with very little risk of repercussion. We should also look to a free media, interested in reporting the full truth, to shine a light on the erosion of our freedoms.
In other words, we're doomed.
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