They’ll break your heart in San Francisco, &c.

A state, a city, Burma, AOC, QAnon, dogs, Andy Reid, and more

O f our 50 states, a lot of them have problems. (There are no utopias here, or elsewhere. “Utopia” means “no place.”) We conservatives like to focus on California and New York — not Mississippi and Alabama. Or Kentucky and Tennessee. Or South Dakota and Idaho. Why is that? Is it because these other states are problem-free? Models of governmental and societal health?

Ah, no. Anyway, we can get into this question another time. Let’s concentrate on California.

One reason that some of us do this — concentrate on California — is that we love it so. California is pretty much the greatest place on earth. Which is why its degradation is offensive and intolerable.

Yesterday, Bret Stephens wrote a marvelous column on California. “A Letter to My Liberal Friends,” it was headed. (Bret is the kind of conservative who has liberal friends. This is scandalous to some, obviously.) The subheading: “If you want to know what worries conservatives, look at California.” Yup.

I was talking with a friend (conservative) about San Francisco, in particular. Is this the most beautiful city in the world? With apologies to Paris and a few others, maybe.

I remember my first visit, in the early ’90s, I believe. A friend of mine was in graduate school there. I went to see him and his wife.

I arrived in a debunking frame of mind. With almost a chip on my shoulder. I was sick of the hype about San Francisco and the Bay Area. All the rhapsodies. Then there was the arrogance, embodied in “Don’t call it ‘Frisco.’” It made me want to call the city “Frisco” every ten seconds.

An hour after my arrival, however, all of that melted away. It was a Garden of Eden. The Presidio. The Marin Headlands. Golf at Lincoln Park. Muir Woods. All of it.

Reagan loved to quote the old line, which goes something like this: “If the Pilgrims had arrived on California’s coast, and not on the East Coast, the country would never have developed. Because no one would have left.”

San Francisco today is in sorry shape. Vagrancy and mendicancy are everywhere. The human filth is — uncivilized. “Decline is a choice,” you know. These are governmental and societal choices, made by San Franciscans.

Maybe they will get sick of these choices and make other ones. This happened to New Yorkers, in the 1990s. Can it happen to Seattleites, too?

San Francisco has been in the news lately. The city’s school board is renaming schools that have borne the names of George Washington, Theodore Roosevelt, John Muir, Paul Revere, Dianne Feinstein, Abraham Lincoln, and others. Because these people had, or have, disqualifying imperfections.

This is plumb crazy. But that’s San Francisco.

Actually, I don’t mind one crazy-left city, you know? I don’t believe in legalized gambling, at all. And I think state lotteries are positively shameful. (I would say “sinful,” but I don’t want anyone to wet his pants.) Nonetheless, I would want America to have a Las Vegas and an Atlantic City, as part of the pageant.

One American city that can’t abide Abraham Lincoln’s name on a school? Okay, for diversity’s sake — but no more.

Did you see this article, by a San Francisco schoolteacher? It amazed a lot of the country. “Sen. Sanders is no white supremacist insurrectionist,” she wrote. There is a “but” coming, and what could it be? “But he manifests privilege, white privilege, male privilege and class privilege, in ways that my students could see and feel.”

Ay, caramba (as Junípero Serra might have said).

I hope that, one day, San Francisco will again be a golden city with a Golden Gate Bridge in a golden state.

• I have written a fair amount about Burma over the years, and a lot about Aung San Suu Kyi. Since 2016, we have called her “the civilian leader” of Burma, or “the de facto leader.” Why those careful terms? Because she has always shared power with the military, which has been assumed to wield ultimate control.

How much freedom of action has Aung San Suu Kyi had? That has always been a significant question.

On November 8, Aung San Suu Kyi’s party — the National League for Democracy — won a huge majority in parliament. Eighty-two percent of the seats. The military-backed party alleged voter fraud — and the military has now seized power in a coup. Aung San Suu Kyi and dozens of others are under arrest.

In Washington, President Biden said, “The international community should come together in one voice to press the Burmese military to immediately relinquish the power they have seized, release the activists and officials they have detained, lift all telecommunications restrictions, and refrain from violence against civilians.”

He continued, “The United States removed sanctions on Burma over the past decade based on progress toward democracy. The reversal of that progress will necessitate an immediate review of our sanction laws and authorities, followed by appropriate action.”

Sounds right.

If you would like to consult a Freedom House statement — a good one — go here.

Madison Cawthorn is a new congressman from North Carolina, and a star of the Right. In response to Biden’s statement, Cawthorn tweeted, “America’s forever wars see no end in sight. Looks like Western Imperialism is back on the menu.”

“Western Imperialism.” That’s how the Left talked back in Ann Arbor, where I grew up. That’s how they talk in San Francisco. When did the Right start to talk this way? Some always have, of course. But the Buchananite voice has become more and more the Voice of the Right.

As I see it, these people might as well wear berets, Che T-shirts, and dashikis, just as they did back in Ann Arbortown.

• Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) is the bête noire of the American Right, or one of them — along with Mitt Romney, Dr. Fauci, George Soros, and a few others. There is a lot to dislike, from the point of view of a conservative like me. But did you see her statement, about her experience at the Capitol on January 6? I defy even the most hardened AOC-hater not to gulp a little. Not to at least think a bit.

For a news story on the matter, go here.

• Pause for a language note? What did you think of my split infinitive up there? (“Not to at least think a bit.”) What I think is this: English is not Latin, in which you couldn’t split an infinitive even if you wanted to. English is a language you can play with.

Can you end a sentence with a preposition in Latin? No. Are we speaking and writing Latin? No, English.

Bottom line: Don’t fall for, or be guilted by, the superstitions and solecisms of Latin schoolmasters.

• Jonah Goldberg has written a column about QAnon and the Republican Party. I have many things to say on the subject, but I’ll tell you my overriding thought, after reading the article: At present, we don’t have the luxury of arguing over tax rates, defense policy, or immigration. The big issue — the one issue — is simple truth. Like on the level of 2 + 2 = 4, or “Topeka is the capital of Kansas.”

Did Joe Biden win the election, fair and square, or not? Did Trump loyalists storm the Capitol on January 6, or did Antifa?

Everything else can wait, and must wait, as I see it.

• A lot of people have joked about the Jewish space laser, up in the sky, controlled by the Rothschilds. (Not Gal Gadot?) I have done some joking myself, as I just did. (Ah, Gal . . .) But Yair Rosenberg makes a very important point. It is encapsulated — as important points often should be! — in the title and subtitle of his article: “Why Conspiracy Theorists Like Marjorie Taylor Greene Always Land on the Jews: Once you’ve decided that an invisible hand is behind the world’s problems, it’s only a matter of time before you decide it belongs to an invisible Jew.”

• If you’re a dog-lover, and a lover of the American presidency, this article is for you, as it was for me. Let me relate two things: I loved the photo of W. and his dog Miss Beazley. And I loved this:

. . . one day Liberty made a mess on the rug in the Oval Office. As a Navy steward rushed to clean it up, Ford stopped him and said, “I’ll do that. No man should have to clean up after another man’s dog.”

That is so Ford. So bedrock. So American.

• Daniel Hannan is an Englishman — a very English Englishman — but he is also an American, at some mental and spiritual level. Some of us — his friends and fans — were hoping that he would come to America, and have an American career.

He is a writer and politician, as you know.

Well, he has now been installed in the House of Lords. See him below, smiling in the middle:

So I guess he won’t be coming here. Score one for the Motherland. She has retained one of the very best. And hats off to you, Lord Hannan.

By the way: When he writes for the Telegraph and other British publications, his byline is “Daniel Hannan.” When he writes for the Washington Examiner, his byline is “Dan Hannan.”

He really is of the two cultures, you know (related cultures, to be sure — a relation on which he is an expert).

• I very much admired a column by Sally Jenkins on Andy Reid, the coach of the Kansas City Chiefs. It is about Reid and his coaching, yes. But it is also about coaching in general. Sally understands the subject, deeply, and she is able to communicate what she knows — what she has gleaned over the years — to readers.

Andy Reid is responsible for one of my favorite comments ever. Do you remember? I think it belongs in the Hall of Fame, or Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations.

In 2019, his Chiefs beat the Detroit Lions (my team, as it happens) in rough fashion. Afterward, in the locker room, he told his team, “Hey, not all of Mozart’s paintings were perfect. . . . The end result, though: That sucker’s gonna sell for a million dollars!”

• Big ol’ snow here in New York City. Care for a couple of shots of Central Park? Thank you for joining me, my friends, and I’ll see you soon.

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