David Frum should come clean

Mr. Frum has practically become a liberal, lawd ha' mussy!

He was heard on the Sunday Morning CBC (a famous nest of wets, pinkos and fellow travelers), complaining with some vehemence about the state of the U.S. Republican party. Basically he says that they have taken leave of their senses. This assumes that they ever had any sense.

Now I don't normally make comments of a political nature, but his cutting comment about the George Bush presidency was too apposite to not immortalize here.

Something along the lines that George W. Bush was the most hapless U.S. president ever. He started with Pearl Harbour, finished with the Great Depression and had Vietnam in between.

Frum's idea is that Reaganism has run to a full stop. I would say that the limiting factor in giving the rich more money is that eventually you run out of it. As Jean Chrétien once said, "I never met a millionaire who had enough money."

Frum is a rational man, he says, and it burns him that "his" party in the U.S. is now dominated by idiots. Come off it, man. They are all Americans. There is no reasoning with them. Come back to Canada, surely Mr. Harper has need of someone as clever as you?

Failing that, you could work for the party formerly known as the natural ruling party of Canada. I mean, their current leader is a born again former socialist and NDP leader of Ontario. Perhaps they could even change their name.

Everyone should be able to throw off childish mistakes and errors of judgement. I see you as a sort of Chistopher Hitchens in reverse. Come back to the light!

What's next?

I swore I wouldn't put any political stuff here but there comes a point.
What happened to rational discourse? Reasoned debate? Issues?

All we have now is the hate-filled public arena with blood'n'sawdust on the floor and circling hyenas.

...and they complain that there is a campaign of hate against one candidate. Here's another:

It's a Sarah Palin blow up sex-doll. I mean, I think she's unsuitable as a VP, but it's not my call. Lots of folly of that kind in the past...Dan Quayle, for example. However, we don't create a sex doll of Dan Quayle do we? (God I hope not).

This is the kind of ad hominen-plus-extras that women in public life have to handle. Sure I disagreed with Margaret Thatcher and hated her policies, but the idea that people would make a rapeable image of someone like this is terrible and terrifying. And before any of you tell me it's just a joke: I say "Drop dead."

Some Americans have always been good at demonizing individuals, as if that somehow takes the hard work out of foreign relations or politics. I distinctly remember my first visit to a U.S. gun shop (not what you think, I bought a pen-knife). The owner had posters in the form of rifle targets of Colonel Ghadafi the Libyan dictator on the wall. I exclaimed about this and he thought I was complimenting him on his taste. He said: "If only I could get my hands on some of that (expletive) Noriega*, I'd make a fortune!"

Then it was Saddam Hussein, now it's Osama bin Laden.

And on the domestic political side it was Nixon. Carter. And getting nastier, Obama. And Palin. I haven't made a study of this, it's just the things I see as a frequent visitor who lives a half kilometre from the U.S.

It's so easy. Black hats, white hats. Us, them. They hate us because we're good. Why do they hate us? God loves us. We're the best country in the world. I am right. You are wrong and I'll do you an injury because I hate you. God hates you.

Sorry monkeys. At best God doesn't exist. Although perhaps on current evidence I'd say the chances are that she does and she's a Trickster or possibly a cat.

* - Manuel Noriega then the leader of Panama, shortly before the U.S. invasion. I seem to think he's out of prison now.

Does a free market inevitably bring slavery?

I came across some interesting writings recently. Julian Edney, a psychology professor in California has written a number of very interesting articles, collectively called Greed. They are very well-researched, calm, rational arguments against our present North American societal conditions.

A quotation from Greed III:

The free market system, which generates great wealth, is running on a clutter of bizarre contradictions. Our nation is touted as a nation of abundance, yet it is a nation in which scarcities are common, and man-made, because scarcity creates value. It is a nation united, and the country is cleft. Everybody benefits from America’s business, but the poor are paying the price of the success at the top. It is a nation founded on the notion of happiness, and anxiety abounds. A nation in which teamwork is urged and individual competition is urged. A nation which ships out surplus food, and has hungry people. It is a nation which touts itself as cultured and humane, in which ruthlessness and winning is openly prized. In a nation which claims to be given over to democracy, half the working population spends its days in business workplaces which are dreaded little dictatorships.

Compared with our bright founding papers, this is a foul outcome.

The greatest casualty is justice. The nation now runs less on justice than on wealth.

There are a couple of other parts to the essay. Greed Part I and Part II.

In my opinion these are important and worth reading.