The Left Was Never About Optimism

Richard Fernandez has taken to the Wall Street Journal to suggest that the secular humanists are having an existential crisis. Used to be that the left "tended to define progress in terms of material goods," but now the "optimism is gone" and the left is saying that we have to renounce material goods and "think about death."

In other words, things are going to hell in a handbasket, unless we act now.

Actually, I think that the left has always been about the end times, and how we must surrender to the Prophets of Left or suffer and die at the end of the world.

That was what Marx was all about in the second half of the 19th century. Here we had the most remarkable material enrichment in human history -- at least that we know of -- and Marx was saying that it was all a mirage. In fact, unless we acted now, and surrendered to the dictatorship of the proletariat, the bourgeoisie and the capitalists were going to enslave and immiserate us all.

What really is different about the current notion, The Green New Deal?

"Every one of the world's major polluting countries," writes Jonathan Franzen in the New Yorker, must "institute draconian conservation measures, shut down most of its energy and transportation infrastructure, and completely retool its economy..."

Used to be that we educated sophisticates would laugh at millennarian religious cults prophesying the end of the world. Har, har, we would laugh, and sneer at the uneducated fundamentalist Christian cults prophesying the end of the world, unless we repent.

Really, educated sophisticates, are you really so unsophisticated not to see the exact parallel between the millennial cults of yesteryear and the current millennial cult of climate change, that it is going to be too late to save the world, unless we act now, or at least within 12 years?

Let us repair to my Maxim, that "the only warrant for government power is existential peril."

The more you think about it the more sensible the idea becomes. Obviously, from time to time, a human community is confronted by an existential peril. Most probably it is the tribe next door that has an appetite for our food stores and our nubile women. But it could be a devastating flood, or a devastating famine. In the face of such a disaster, human communities tend to come together, forget their petty animosities, and work in astonishing unity and community to face the peril.

But look at the situation from the point of view of a religious or a political leader. Almost certainly, you must have a feeling that the community desperately needs to follow your leadership, otherwise the community will wither and die. But if you merely tell people that, hey, looks like we could have a minor problem here, they are going to pat you on the head and say: hey, Bob, maybe next year we should take a look at this. So, in order to get the community to accept your leadership and follow you, you are going to have to amp up the urgency of the problem and the consequent need to follow your inspired leadership.

So if you are a religious leader you are going to be tempted to tell your followers that unless they repent and follow God they are going to rot in Hell. If you are a political leader you are going to say that unless everyone rallies to your banner the community is going to be obliterated -- by enemies (the white supremacists), or by flood (the rising oceans), or by death (runaway global warming). Of course you are.

But what about the rest of us? How do we tell the fake prophets from the true prophets?

I have an idea, that comes to us from all the major religions. If the prophet is a man on a white horse that promises to lead us to glory (and his power), then he is probably a fake prophet. If the prophet is a Sacrificial Hero that dies so that others may live, then it may well be that he is a true prophet.

But you never know, and that is why it seems that with the current arrangement of humans into hundreds, even thousands of communities, the foolish errors of the leaders of one community are unlikely to lead to the death of everyone. So if the community down the road makes a mistake and ruins itself in a fake panic, life goes on for us.

So, back in the day, when Lenin and then Stalin was leading 200 million Russians up a box canyon, the rest of us, happily, did not follow. And when Mao led 500 million Chinese people into the horrific folly of the Great Leap Forward, which was to transform China's rural economy magically into an industrial economy, and then into an evil Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, it was only the hapless Chinese people that were killed and starved. The rest of us went on as usual.

Just as well, because we had just finished killing each other in a couple of World Wars. And what were those wars, about, exactly?

Imagine if our rulers and betters organized the human race into a single global political community under some Great Ruler, and started doing a Lenin or a Mao on us.

Yeah. It wouldn't be easy to escape the criminal, murderous folly.

Thing is: when there is a real crisis, humans are pretty good at rushing to the sound of the guns and helping out. Think Cajun Navy.

So it may be that the best thing to do about existential perils is: Nothing. Because I will bet my nickel that almost always the political or religious cure will turn out to be worse than the disease.

And here is the real ugly truth. If my community is obliterated by murderous thugs, the rest of the world will likely survive. If my community is wiped out in a flood, the folks on higher ground will likely survive. And if my community perishes in a famine, it is likely that elsewhere in the world the food supply will be abundant.

Yes, what is the meaning of life? That I should survive? That my family should survive? That my community should survive? That my country should survive? That humans should survive? That life on Earth should survive?

It's a good question, and I am not sure that anyone has come up with a final answer yet.

Impeachment: What is a High Crime and Misdemeanor?

One thing about the three impeachments of the last 50 years. They were all about niggling little things. The Constitution says, in Article II, Section 4.

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

What about Nixon? What did they threaten to impeach him for? For covering up the Watergate break-in, a foolish effort by overenthusiastic minions to figure out what the Democrats were up to? For that you name and shame and defenestrate a president? Sounds to me that Nixon was just doing politics-as-usual.

What about Clinton? He lied about Monica Lewinsky, sex in the Oval Orifice, as Rush Limbaugh likes to say. Well, of course. As the Democrats said at the time, everyone lies about sex. Especially politicians. That is what makes the "Well I Never" response to the Access Hollywood tape so amusing. Really? Women were allowing themselves to be felt up by Trump? Of course they were. That is what hypergamy is all about: women using their bodies to climb the greasy pole.

Now we have Trump. He is accused of colluding with the Russians to win the 2016 election. Wait, he didn't, although he certainly was using the power of office to blunt the investigation against him. No kidding! But now he's asking the Ukrainians to take a look at all the 2016 shenanigans, including Crowdstrike, the chaps that took a look at the DNC's computers and said the Russians did it. No kidding! He's trying to find out what kind of shenanigans -- collusion to you aficionados -- was going on in 2016 to cause trouble for the Trump campaign. How dare he!

Do any of these things amount to "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors?" I don't think so. They all sound, to me, like politicians committing politics.

Now you may say that politics-in-itself is nothing less than the comission of Treason, Bribery (and how) and all kinds of other High Crimes and Misdemeanors that damage and divide a country. And I would agree with you. It is monstrous how politics and government eat away at the body politics like meat-eating maggots. But the fact is that We the People put up with it. We regard everything the Other Party does as virtual treason. We demand that the politicians bribe us with our own money. And as for high Crimes and Misdemeanors? Well, what would that be? Probably not hiding the criminal antics of some low-level campaign aides. Probably not doing cigar things with Monica Lewinsky. Probably not requesting a bit of help from the Ukrainians.

What about the other famous impeachment, that of President Andrew Johnson? La Wik:

The primary charge against Johnson was violation of the Tenure of Office Act, passed by Congress in March 1867, over his veto. Specifically, he had removed from office Edwin M. Stanton, the Secretary of War—whom the Act was largely designed to protect—and attempted to replace him with Brevet Major General Lorenzo Thomas.

Well, who's a naughty boy then? Congress was trying to prevent Johnson from firing a Cabinet officer. Wouldn't that be a violation of the Separation of Powers, meddling with a president's right to staff his own administration? Sounds like a put-up job.

So the point is that Impeachment in these United States has always been used as a purely political weapon, a manifestation of severe partisan discord and the attempt to stick it to the other guys. It is a reflection of high partisan feeling. So that's all right.

My guess is that a president that did something really wrong would never get impeached. After all, if there is one thing that politicians are pretty good at it is knowing how far they can go. And the whole point of partisan politics is to whitewash what Our Guys do and blacken what the Other Guys do. Our Guy is the best president since sliced bread. The Other Guy is the worst president since slavery was invented.

So here is my analysis.

Reading the background to Andrew Johnson it seems that he was a Democrat opposed to secession and opposed to the punishment of the South demanded by the Radical Republicans. So he was not vengeful enough for the radicals.

In the Nixon impeachment the Democrats were beside themselves that a sleazy guy like him could be elected president -- the guy that accused Jerry Voorhis and Helen Gahagan Douglas of being pinkos: the Nerve! And then he got reelected! How could that happen in 1970s America? So he had to go.

In the Clinton impeachment the Republicans were just saying: sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander as they got a Republican Congress for the first time in 40 years. You impeach Nixon; we impeach Clinton. Get used to it.

In the Trump impeachment the Democrats are saying that it is inconceivable that Americans could vote in a guy like Trump. There must be something sleazy going on. Nobody like Trump could be elected in a proper election, not after America had elected its First Black President.

See what I mean? Impeachment is always and everywhere a put-up job, reflecting the particular and poisonous rage of the partisans at the time.

The question is: could we ever impeach and remove a president that really had committed "high Crimes and Misdemeanors?" Frankly, I doubt it.

But there is always the next election.

Suppose Nancy and Co Have to Do Impeachment?

Suppose the Democrats dropped the impeachment thingy. What would happen?

Obviously, one of two things. Or maybe both, arising from the sense of betrayal in the Democratic base. 

How could you, dear leaders, after all this time, just throw up your hands about the eevil Trump? For nearly three years, Democrats have assured their base that tomorrow -- well, next week at the latest -- we will have the "bombshell" that proves that... Yes what exactly? So, if the Democrats folded their tents and went home, the base would be saying: "well, if there's nothing to see here, why did you recruit us and train us, and send us into battle?"

It's the same problem that a nation state faces in the middle of a war. Can the nation's leaders tell their people that, well, OK, we thought this war was a good idea at the time, but now it looks like it's a mistake, so we are going to stop the war and send the soldiers home. You can see that very few political leaders would ever dare to do that. Except Donald Trump who just decided to pack up the Syria thing and go home.

First, the Democratic base might lose heart. That would be bad for Democrats, because half the game of winning elections is turning out your supporters. For that the supporters either have to be enthused about their leadership, or angry at the opposition, or both. Without enthusiasm, without anger, bye bye winning the election.

Second, the Democrat base might get angry -- at the Democratic leadership. What would the base do? Well, I imagine they would up their support for e.g., the Democratic Socialists of America. This would not be good for Speaker Nancy Pelosi's successful strategy of recruiting moderate candidates to run in Trump-supporting districts. It's a delicate business, running nice moderate candidates in moderate districts and making sure that voters don't associate their moderate candidate with the fire-breathers of the "Squad" and the climate change extremists and the racist Revs. and the LGBT advocates. So the Democratic base might start primarying moderate Democrats with lefty extremists. OK, they already are. But obviously, if they feel betrayed by the Democrat leadership they will do more of it.

Either way, I'd say the Democrats are batting on a bit of a sticky wicket. What they should have doné, back on November 8, 2016, is concede the election to Donald Trump. That's the way things are supposed to work in a democracy, especially in a normal change election. It is very rare for a party to win three presidential elections in a row: get used to it! Then, after a season in which the seasoned elders of the party analyze the election you put the pot on the stove again and slowly bring up the heat in time to get the base really worked up for the next election.

Actually, I think that the Democrats are batting on a bit of a sticky wicket all around. That's because the whole welfare state is reaching its sell-by date. Look, I get that all elections are about offering free stuff, loot and plunder. But the problem is that once you have done the easy stuff, like free education and pensions and health care for the aged and poor and you have already sucked up 40 percent of GDP, what do you do for an encore? What the left has been doing for an encore is riling up the educated with religious frenzies like climate change and riling up small but motivated minorities like blacks, feminists, and gays with the fear that the white supremacists are out to get them. Notice that this is a bit different from riling up the vast majority of voters back in the day when the working class was a majority of voters.

I'd say that the majority of voters today are ordinary wage-earning middle class people that are not moved by the religious frenzies of the educated elite and not particularly moved by identity politics. Obviously, these are the people that Donald Trump has targeted in his campaign and his presidency: to encourage everyone to think of themselves as proud Americans. This strategy beckons to minorities to venture forth out of their ethnic enclaves into the broad American mainstream. And it cocks a snook at the educated elite that thinks of themselves as above the crude culture of nationalism, darling.

Putting this in terms of my reductive Three Peoples theory, I would say that People of the Creative Self need something more that a responsible life to give meaning to their lives, so they tend towards moral movements that insist there is something to life beyond the mere material. People of the Responsible Self are people for whom ordinary wiving and thriving is enough of a challenge, thank you very much. And People of the Subordinate Self are people barely making it in their lives, looking for any rock to hang onto.

In my view, it is fine for People of the Creative Self to yearn for a deeper meaning in life, but not on my dime, pal. And it is fine for People of the Responsible Self to focus on the basics of obeying the law, going to work, and following the rules, but I would gently suggest to them to raise their eyes occasionally to the horizon. And it is understandable for the People of the Subordinate Self to grab any sort of free stuff that is going, but maybe there is something more stable and less desperate than grabbing out at whatever is going.

Yeah, what a concept: raise you gaze a little!

But meanwhile the Democrats have laid their bed with the scratchy, flea-infested rug of impeachment, and they have nothing else to keep them warm at night.

Men Want Victory, Women Want Beauty

Ever since I realized that women are not particularly interested in creativity, which rather blows up my notion of the People of the Creative Self, I have been casting around for something, anything, to make sense of the world again.

Anyway, I was lunching with a friend and she opined about the importance, to her, of beauty. As we parted I made a comment about trying to understand why women like beauty, for we agreed that beauty doesn't seem that important to men.

So here we are, with women as Learners, Carers, Teachers, and men as Creators, Fighters, Destroyers.

But what do women want? Beauty.

OK, fair is fair. What do men want? I think, based on my recent visit to the Acropolis in Athens, Greece, where everything is Nike, Nike, Nike (that is, Νίκη, or Nikky in classical Greek) when it isn't Athena, Athena, Athena (that is Αθηνα in Greek). And when you combine the two you get the temple of Athena Nike on the Acropolis just down from the Parthenon, but perching on the edge of the rock, right by the Propylaea. Yes, Men want Victory.

This is an interesting contrast, because it shows how the two sexes want completion in their different ways. Woman wants eternity frozen in the perfection of beauty, in herself and in her surroundings. Man wants eternity frozen in the moment when he has conquered the foe, or completed a project or work of art. Winning, as Donald Trump says.

Now, I experience woman's day-to-day life as one of busy-ness, the moment-to-moment business of looking after a home, caring for children, interacting with other women, and cleaning, cleaning, cleaning. (Of course, when women go into the workforce they do the same, only different). And, there is the eternal project of self-beautification and adornment. You can see that the ideal of this life would be for all the busy-ness and bother to coalesce into a perfect flow, an intersection of all the busy-ness into a perfect arrangement of everything: Beauty (that is Καλλος, Kallos, in classical Greek).

So how does this intersect with my reductive Three Peoples theory, and its notion of the People of the Creative Self? Good question.

I would say that women who are People of the Creative Self are women that strive to achieve Beauty, the ideal of momentary alignment and perfection, by creative means, or by creating a household of perfect beauty and children of perfect promise or even by "career". So, when you encounter a woman who seems to be a creative, you should understand what motivates her, what she is doing with her learning, caring, and teaching: getting to Beauty by creative means.

I would say that men who are People of the Creative Self are men that strive to achieve Victory, the ideal of momentary completion and dominance, by creative means. This could be military victory, sporting victory, corporate victory, artistic victory, you name it. But nike, nike, nike, all the way. So when you encounter a man who seems to be a creative, you should understand what motivates him, what he is doing with his creating, fighting, and destructing: getting to Victory by creative means.

But what about women that are People of the Responsible Self? I would say they strive for Beauty by conventional means, following the rules and roles that they have learned from their mother and their schooling.

But what about women that are People of the Subordinate Self? I suppose they would strive for Beauty as defined by their lord.

So there. I'd say we have just solved all the problems of the world. Until tomorrow.

Leading Under Combat Conditions

Scott Johnson blogs at Powerline and he's been one of the guys pulling apart the Rep. Omar (D-MN) shenanigans. Which the Minneapolis home town paper, the Star Tribune, has not. Hey Strib guys, what's yer problem?

But Scott got a call from President Trump's people to attend last night's presidential rally in Minneapolis, and got to meet the president.

My wife told the president she doesn’t understand how he can do what he is doing while under nonstop assault. “I don’t either,” he said. It was both self-deprecating and funny.

Of course, it is this quality of the president to "keep his head," as memorialized by Rudyard Kipling in "If--" that makes him a leader.

If you can keep your head when all about you 
    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, 
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
    But make allowance for their doubting too; 
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

It is, of course, in particular, a male quality, this question of courage under fire. The opposite is a squib about millennials and Generation Z, about half of whom have quit a job over "mental health" issues.

But really, the only thing men are good for is to have courage under fire. And even the best of us have their limit. It is said, for instance that a man cannot endure more than 100 days in combat. He goes through three stages: thinking "it won't happen to me," then thinking "it's bound to happen to me," and finally "why hasn't it happened to me?" After 100 days, the combat soldier goes mad -- battle fatigue, shell shock, mental health issues, PTSD.

This is related to honor among men, which is the reputation for standing in line with your brothers in battle.

There is a vignette in the first of Solzhenitzin's First World War novels of a Russian general utterly confused and paralyzed by the hurricane of battle reports coming in. But the essence of generalship is to keep your head in the chaos and thunder of battle.

We saw that problem in the US Civil War when the vacillating Gen. McClelland was replaced by Gen. Grant. President Lincoln said of Grant in response to critics: "I can't spare this man, he fights!"

Herman Wouk's novel The Caine Mutiny is precisely about leaders failing to "keep their head" as ship captains when the bullets are flying, or the ship is on its beam ends in the middle of a typhoon.

It is a quality that I do not claim to have. That is one reason that I have not attempted to beome a leader of men.

It is the big question relating to women CEOs and presidents. When I was a glider pilot, I read about the problem with training women pilots. If ever a woman pilot gets frightened, she's done with flying. A man will go out next day and do it again.

This is not shameful; it is obvious. Women are genetically programmed to keep out of danger and keep the children alive. Men are programmed to get out on the front line and protect the women and children from harm.

So why, you ask, was Margaret Thatcher such a fearless politician and leader? I can only say that she was an outlier, fearless and determined enough to plug away for ten years trying to get elected to Parliament, and then dealing with what we now call the "toxic male" culture in the House of Commons when she became a minister. I think that she taught herself to become a man.

But, scientists say, when women reach 30 percent of any community, they transform it into a woman-friendly culture. That is what all the stuff about "microaggressions" and "safe spaces" in college is about. It is about women administrators creating and enforcing a woman-friendly culture to replace the male confrontation culture. I suspect that this will cause problems down the road.

Trouble is that when the going gets tough, the tough get going. If they don't then, as Bugs Bunny says, it's "curtains."

Among all the problems that leftism has created for the world over the last century -- the millions of dead, the slave regimes, the cultural brutalities of left-wing hegemony -- the problem of women in the public square is just one.

Because there will always be a need for leaders with the inexahustible courage of President Trump. And yet, not always. Because if every president were a Trump, lord knows what sort of trouble they would get us into.

But then, the GOP voters would not have nominated Donald Trump unless we felt that we needed a leader to go mano-a-mano with the left after the leftward shift encouraged by President Obama. Back in the day we nominated "happy warrior" Reagan, and kinder, gentler Bushes, and the worthy Romney to be our leaders. By 2016 we had decided that it wasn't working. We needed a Grant, not a McClelland. So we nominated our Grant and he fought for us, and he won.

So now President Trump is touring the land speaking to his supporters at venues like the 20,000 seat Target Center in Minneapolis. He is obviously working to raise enthusiasm for his leadership as King Henry V once did with his "Once more unto the breach" speech imagined by Shakespeare.

We will see if this is the leadership that the American people want next November.

Suppose Lefty Activists are Just Faking It, Like Actors

The whole thing about the left is the notion that they are brave revolutionaries, taking it to The Man. Only, of course, in the present age, lefty activists are not revolutionaries, but just the stooges of the ruling class taking to the streets under the beneficent eye of their seniors.

Activism is a form of acting. As in plays and movies. I feel much better after writing that.

This came to me through a happy coincidence this morning. First I was reading an oped by Victor Davis Hanson noting how, in the old days, Americans could build a transcontinental railroad in six years. Now, the State of California can't even do a high-speed railroad from San Francisco to Los Angeles.

Yes, yes, I know. Why would anyone with half a brain build a high-speed passenger railroad from SF to LA when you can take a plane from any one of four or five airports in the Bay Area to any one of four or five airports in Southern California? I dare say that a 737 cruising at Mach 0.8 at 30,000 feet uses less energy than a train doing 150 mph at sea level.

We look back at a heroic age like the ancent Mycenaean Greeks -- I was at Mycenae a couple weeks ago -- and

We of the 21st century are beginning to look back at our own lost epic times and wonder about these now-nameless giants who left behind monuments that we cannot replicate, but instead merely use or even mock.

 Wouldn't you know, I went off to the gym and found myself reading Section 356, "How things will become ever more "artistic" in Europe" in The Gay Science by Nietzsche, and he is talking about the same thing.

In the old days, men used to identify themselves with their role in life, their "so-called occupation," and "men believed with rigid confidence, even with piety, in their predestination for precisely this occupation... this way of earning a living." They refused to admit the "element of accident, role, and caprice."

But then, Nietzsche says, there are opposite ages with a certain "cocky faith."

The individual becomes convinced that he can do just about everything and can manage almost any role... and all nature ceases and becomes art. 

This, he says, is what the Greeks achieved, starting with the Periclean age, and thus, step by step, "They really became actors."

[W]e modern men are even now pretty far along on the same road; and when a human being begins to discover how he is playing a role and how he can become an actor, he becomes an actor.

But when you reduce life to play-acting you end up enacting life on a stage -- as if it were real life. This is the way to understand our lefty activists, from AntiFa to Extinction Rebellion. AntiFa is acting out the idea of a street mob. But it is all just a show. Extinction Rebellion is going through the motions of a revolution to force the powers-that-be to get serious about climate change. But really, it is all theater.

And this is the way to understand the whole theater of the left's activism, in particular what Victor Davis Hanson is complaining about, that we can't get anything done in America because the activists block everything with their rebellion theater.

That's what Macbeth proposed as his political plans turn to dust:

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more:

If you are merely an actor, your actions mean nothing; they are merely a shadow of real life. And I suppose that is the fate of all that inherit the past, as the later monarchs in a dynasty, as politicians in a functioning democracy. You are play-acting, enacting political theater to keep the plebs from seeing the man behind the curtain.

Our lefty activists that play the game of revolution do not really want revolution. They just want to play-act at it, pretending that they are fearless revolutionaries risking everything for peace and justice. Not really. They are just play-acting at revolution, under the kindly eye of the ruling class, and jolly good fun it is.

But this fake revolution doesn't really play to the ordinary middle class that doesn't experience itself as acting a role, but just obeying the law, going to work, following the rules in order to support a family and raise some children. The deplorables don't really get the game the activists are playing.

And neither do the activists. They have been taught by their teachers that they are changing the world with their activism. But they have been lied to. Whatever you get taught in a government school or a government university it is not how to overthrow the existing order.

Government schools and government universities are not in the business of overthrowing the government. Surely that ought to be obvious.

But as for me, I feel liberated after reading Hanson and Fritzi this morning. And writing about it.

But am I an actor, merely playing a role like the lefty activists? Good question.

Policy Failures? So That's the Liberal Word for Total Screwup

Well, well. It looks like the liberals are getting worried. The New York Times has put out a piece on "The Middle Class Crunch," and Eric Levitz -- he's a New York magazine chappie -- has chimed in with a piece that says that

I’ve come to think that the decline of America’s middle class can be attributed to three distinct (though related) policy failures. Namely, the failures to sustain American labor’s bargaining power; to contain rent-seeking in the housing, health-care, and higher education sectors; and to update (and expand) the social welfare state for the 21st-century economy.

Notice the basic assumption with the notion of "policy failure." That means that we educated elitists need to rejigger our administrative state a bit. More resources needed for policy analysis, for a start, old chap. Maybe a bit more activism!

But let's go through his argument.

Labor's Bargaining Power The problem, apparently, is Reagan's PATCO strike-breaking and "monetary policy that continued to prioritize low inflation over full employment".  Hmm. I'd say that the biggie is the 1965 Immigration Act that increased immigration and therefore labor competition in the US. Plus, of course, the competition from industrializing countries from Japan to China. Oh, and don't forget the competition from "undocumented workers." Plus, of course, more women in the workforce.

Costs of Huusing, Health Care, Education Housing? "Restrictive zoning" is the problem that has allowed existing property owners to "extract a rising share of middle-class workers’ earnings." Well, yes. And who is responsible for that? Liberal activists who are the chaps behind the restrictive zoning and environmental game, not to mention oppressive regulation by administrative deep staters. Health care? Our premiums, says Levitz, are buying insurance company bureaucracies, Big Pharma profits, and "American doctors’ extraordinary salaries." Well, yes. And who is resonsible for that? The insurance scam is an unintended consequence of Ted Kennedy's push for "health maintenance organizations" and 3rd party payment systems back in the 1970s. Then there is political system's regulatory failure with medical education and licensing: of course it led to high prices. And Big Pharma profits? Well, I dare say that if the FDA weren't so scared of another Thalidomide scare that we could all happily become human guinea-pigs for all kinds of experimental drugs -- just like the AIDS activists managed to do for experimental AIDS drugs back in the day. Funny, isn't it, how liberal activists manage to make the system work when their needs are involved.

The problem is not "the costs of our government’s refusal to confront the health-care lobby." The problem is that every "policy failure" is a natural result of the way that liberals want to supervise and regulate everything. If we swept away all the regulations and cartelization and licensing and 3rd party payments, you'd be amazed what would happen.

And as for education. Liberals run that ship from stem to stern. If there is anything wrong with it -- anything at all -- it is because of liberals and their mania to reduce everything to a government program supervised by them. The problem is that once you reduce education to a government program you turn it into a loot-and-plunder operation rather than a social-cooperation operation.

Social Welfare Institutions Outdated The New Deal bargain, apparently, was that corporations would provide the equivalent of government social benefits, and a "family wage" would let mothers stay home. But corporations have gutted their benefits and replaced them with 401(k) contributions.

Corporations first. Sorry pal, my info is that corporate defined benefit pensions were and are unaffordable, because they put an impossible risk upon corporations planning for 30 years into the future.

And then there is women in the workforce. Liberal Levitz has to do quite a dance on that. On the one hand,

through political mobilization, women have secured greater autonomy and freedom in their economic lives, and have therefore drastically increased their participation in the workforce. But as the Times’ report suggests, this jump in women’s working hours wasn’t driven solely by female empowerment; the necessity of compensating for male wage stagnation or decline was also ostensibly a factor[.]

There's a cart and horse problem here. Was increased female labor force participation the cause of male wage stagnation or did women go into the workforce because of male wage stagnation? Good question. I think the policy analysts should go to work on that.

But certainly one of the problems is the high cost of housing. It has gone up for a number of reasons, one of which being that girls like big houses. Another reason is that government subsidies for home mortages and encouragement of low down payments and 30-year repaymenet schedules means that more people can compete for the available houses. Oh, and liberal activists making it hard to develop new housing. Supply and demand darling. So, because every woman wants as big a house as Suzie down the street, women have to go out to work to pay for the big, overpriced houses that liberal activism has given us.

Of course, the problem is bigger than Levitz is willing to admit. And it starts with the fact that goverment programs are not, and never will be "social welfare." They are loot and plunder paid to voters in exchange for their votes, according to my maxim that

Government is an armed minority, occupying territory, and taxing the inhabitants to reward their supporters.

If you want real "social welfare" it should be social, person to person, rather than politician to supporter. And the government with its loot-and-plunder mentality should be nowhere near it.

My Plan In my world income security would be provided by everyone contributing to their own wealth fund -- if you liberals want, contributions could be mandatory -- from which they could take monies when out of work, when starting a business, when sending the kids to college, and especiallt when retiring at age 60 -- as they do in Chile -- to give the young'uns a chance in the labor force.

In my world health care would be provided for the plebs by the healthcare equivalent of Walmart and its low prices always. Walmart?!? I can't believe he said that! Well, honey, you got a better idea? One of my favorite stories is from a cousin that had a kid in the 1930s. The baby was born using the lodge doctor at the local Masonic lodge (in an age when everyone belonged to the Masons or the Elks or something). Boy, said my cousin, what a deal! The lodge doctors were usually young guys just out of medical school. And they were cheap! Hey policy analysts! You payin' attention? Lodge doctors: you could look it up.

In my world education would be provided by the neighborhood women doing home-school together. Hey, 150 yeaars ago the average woiker was barely literate, but today everyone needs to be literate enough to use a smartphone (Yes, what do "studies say" about that?). For boys, they need to be literate enough to play video games; for girls they need to be literate enough to text and Instagram with all the other Mean Girls. I doubt if they can write essays and personal letters, but they sure know they need to be able to use smartphones.

Well, that's enough of that, for now. Back to regularly scheduled programming.

The trouble with the good old US and A, which is the best country in the world, is that our liberal educated class "literally knows nothing." And how could they, if they are educated in government schools and colleges and read The New York Times and watch CNN and MSNBC? They have built up a gigantic administrative state that takes about 35% GDP in taxes and who knows more in regulatory costs, and are shocked, shocked, that everything seems to be collapsing in ruins. How could this happen with all the best people advocating to bend the arc of history towards justice?

Hey, I got news for you, Mr. Writer Eric Levitz. Little bit of settled science, from the Maxims of Christopher Chantrill:

Socialism cannot work because it cannot compute prices (Mises). The administrative state cannot work because the Man in Washington does not have the bandwidth to run the economy (Hayek). Regulation does not work because "regulatory capture" (Stigler). Government programs cannot work because you can never reform them (Chantrill).

Do you understand, Eric, that the "policy failures" that you are complaining about are completely comprehended and understood by these four items of Settled Science?

If not, then you are certainly one of the corps of people identified by Ben Rhodes as people who "literally know nothing."