Dear Reader (and the suits who monitor these newsletters for the slightest hint of insubordination or pecuniary advantage),
Remember that scene in Animal House when the Deltas are going through the slideshow of prospective pledges? It’s a soporific crowd, half in drunken stupor, half bored to tears. And then the picture of Flounder appears on the screen and Bluto screams in horror and shock.
That was pretty close to my reaction Wednesday when I heard this from Obama in his Cleveland speech yesterday:
I believe government should be lean, it should be efficient, and it should leave people free to make the choices they think are best for themselves and their families, so long as those choices don’t hurt others.
And that’s when I had my Bluto moment.
If Barack Obama believes that, then why hasn’t he fired his entire administration for undermining him at every turn? Why hasn’t he finally had it out with his homunculus/Teleprompter, which has made him say so many things that don’t sound like this at all?
Isn’t this a bit like the Pharaoh saying, “I love the Hebrews. I believe they should be full citizens of Egypt, and should be well compensated for their labors,” while looking out the window as the pyramids go up in the distance? Or maybe it’s like King Louis (played by Mel Brooks, natch) explaining how he loves the people even as he uses them for clay pigeons. Whatever, pick your own analogy. Does anybody really think Obama believes this?
Okay, actually he might believe this – but in a very lawyerly way. The key phrase, I suppose, is “so long as those choices don’t hurt others.” For classical liberals, this is what you might call a strictly constructed concept.
Under the do-no-harm principle, you don’t have the right to poison someone else’s well. You’re not free to invoke prima nocta – or some other fictional right – to get jiggy with another man’s wife against her will. You can’t junk-punch a guy in his man-business every time he orders a vegetarian sandwich from Subway, no matter how much he deserves it.
But according to the liberalism that is liberal in name only, the formulation means something very different. Hurting others means hindering progress. It means costing the state revenue. It means defying the precautionary principle. Hurting others is a zero-sum thing. You can’t make a lot of money if someone you never met who has never done an honest day’s work in his life is only making a little. That’s how Obama defines “neighborliness,” after all.
The Joys of Fatherhood
One of the best things about being the father of the sixth-cutest second-grader on the planet (that’s a back-of-the-envelope calculation, margin of error ± 6) is that you can act gay without being gay. No I don’t mean “gay” in the sexual proclivity sense. I mean gay in the way even gay teenagers mean “gay” these days. Not gay-gay, just sorta gay. This is hard to explain. Let me give you an example.
I have a convertible. I drive my daughter around in it a lot, and she absolutely loves show tunes, and most of all Annie. So, when we drive around town, I’ll often blast “You’re Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile” or “Tomorrow.” No matter how self-confident a straight guy is when he’s single, and no matter how much he may love festive show tunes, he’d never do that without the cover of a wedding ring and a small female child. That’s just the way life is.
The same goes for all sorts of things. I love amusement and water parks, but despite my Greco-Roman physique (“Snarf! I just spit lint through my nose!” –The Couch), I wouldn’t be caught dead walking around a water park in a swimsuit without the corporeal excuse of my daughter. And don’t even get me started on tea parties.
Why is the Sky Blue, Daddy? One of the things I try to teach my daughter is that the smartest thing she can do is ask a good question. It’ll be years before she has a lot of sophisticated knowledge, but you can start really early teaching kids how to ask good questions, which is just another way of saying you can start really early teaching kids how to think.
I’m neither a romantic nor an ideologue about this sort of thing. What do I mean? Well, remember that part of It Takes a Village – sure you do, we all read it, right? – where Hillary says that she never met a stupid child? She went on to say that some of the “best theologians” she ever met were five-year-olds. That’s what I mean. Children are not deep repositories of wisdom and insight, they are shallow repositories that need to be filled up with such stuff. You’ll never hear me say that there’s no such thing as a stupid question, particularly for adults. But even if there were no stupid questions, there are certainly questions that only stupid people would ask. “Maybe we should try to calm the bear down by giving it a bath with our tongues?”
There are also some questions only ignorant people would ask. That’s less of an indictment, because we’re all ignorant about everything to one degree or another. Was it Kant or Fawn Leibowitz in her yearbook quote who wrote, “The more you know, the more you realize you don’t know”?
More Questions!
Since we’re on the subject of questions, I thought I’d ask a few. Let’s start with the conversation starters you can try around your own veal pen cubicles.
As recent episode of “This American Life” presented the question: Which superpower would you rather have? Invisibility or flight? Interestingly, almost no one surveyed wanted to use their powers for fighting crime. More interestingly, the general consensus was that invisibility was a basically dishonorable power. And yet even more interesting still, women disproportionately wanted to be invisible rather than fly. Which would you rather?
Who are the ugliest truly famous celebrities of the last, say, 30 years? I believe you’ll find most of them are in sports. But I don’t want to prejudice your answers.
Everyone’s talking about how letting the Bush tax cuts expire is bad because of the effect it would have on small business. Is there a good reason why nobody talks about treating small-business income differently in the tax code?
Other than raising revenue, is there any reason to tax corporations at all? To listen to many liberals talk about corporate taxation, you’d think corporations were like some rapist tied up in your basement who deserves to be kicked just because he needs kicking. But let’s say we could prove that taxing corporations above, say, 5 percent (or above zero percent) hinders national prosperity and, in turn, government revenues. I don’t think that would obviously be the result, but I don’t think it would be impossible to prove either. Is there another reason to tax corporations I am missing?
Whittaker Chambers famously declared that when he switched sides from Communism to democracy, he was moving from the winning side to the losing side. Fortunately, he was wrong. But I think this is potentially a fascinating insight into the differences between the progressive and the conservative minds. With the exception of environmentalism, is there an area of life where liberals generally believe they are on the losing side of history? I can think of many areas where conservatives defend positions they know, or at least deeply suspect, are ultimately losing propositions. Gay marriage comes to mind. Religious orthodoxy, for some, might be another. Is this because there’s something un-Whiggish about conservatism that doesn’t simply assume that History must move in a single, positive direction?
Why the Hell are there so many bank branches being built when everything we’re told about the economy says that such bricks-and-mortar installations are increasingly unnecessary?
Why do family-oriented television channels run commercials for products that are inappropriate for small children? I think I know the answer to that, but why is there no backlash against the practice?
Why are you still reading this Goldberg File when I’m so clearly mailing it in and using you people to help me think through future columns?
Various and Sundry
First, thanks for all the suggestions for how to live kitchenless.
Second, Quote of the Day: “I sit on a man’s back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means – except by getting off his back.” Leo Tolstoy, What Then Must We Do?, Chapter 16
I was on TASP – that’s “The All-Star Panel” for you novices – on Special Report last night; here’s video
I am coming to Racine, Wisconsin this Saturday! I am a very last minute fill-in keynoter at the Racine Tea Party event. Come on down and pretend to laugh at my jokes!
The latest Ricochet podcast is up. It includes not only the pundit stylings of yours truly, but the Solomonic insights of Pat Sajak.
Here’s the video of the APSA panel I participated in last week.
Behold: The Caffeinated Destructor!
Some of you may not dig it, but I’ve really enjoyed “Between Two Ferns.”