A few months back, President Obama drew a "red line" on the use of chemical weapons in the civil war in Syria:
He warned of "enormous consequences" if Syria crossed that line.
Those consequences so far: sending small arms to the rebels. If this is all there is to it, he looks pretty foolish.
We hardly need yet another intervention in some conflict raging within anther Muslim country. Senator John McCain tweeted out a worse policy: a no-fly zone. First, because some group decides to revolt against their government, that does not automatically create an obligation on our part to do anything about it. Second, we do not know the identity of many of these groups or their ultimate objective beyond ousting Bashar Hafez al-Assad.
Maybe we should simply express one of those meaningless White House announcements about our wishes for a peaceful settlement that recognizes the rights of Syrian citizens and then shut up.
Drawing lines in the sand makes us either look foolish and impotent or will provoke us to actions that we will regret. They are no good for anyone.
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
Where There's Smoke, There's Fire; Where There's Fog There's . . .
Amid the actual scandals putrefying within the Obama administration is the revelation that the National Security Agency has been collecting metadata on communications such as phone calls and internet traffic. Without additional, more shocking revelations, this may be more akin to fog dissipating with the morning rays of the sun rather than to smoke indicating a raging fire.
The British based Guardian has begun publishing a series of articles revealing probably what most Americans suspected: that our various intelligence agencies monitor phone and other communications media for indications of possible terrorist attacks. The articles have driven the news cover this last week and provoked everything from expressions of "troubling" feelings to protestations of outrage from left and right. Conservatives should remember that this all takes place under the legal auspices of the Bush Administration's Patriot Act.
Until we know more, the news should keep us watching and waiting. The two programs in question, Prism and Boundless Informant, gather and aggregate metadata on communications. Although the government says it does not gather content, the Prism program has that capability. And we remember that government already denied gathering an information on Americans:
Meanwhile, revelations about the identity of the whistle blower have generated more heat. Fox News and CNN both headlines the fallacious complex question about Edward Snowden: Hero or Traitor?
We know something is not right when both Glen Beck and Michael Moore call him a hero. Senator Diane Feinstein called his action treasonous. Maybe Snowden is neither.
Snowden's case somewhat resembles that of the NSA. The security agency allegedly collects information about telephone and internet communication; it does not collect content. Similarly, Snowden and the Guardian has only revealed the fact (already suspected) that the NSA gathers metadata. If he has any access to it, Snowden has not as yet revealed any content of the data beyond the general workings of the data gathering and aggregating programs themselves. He can claim "innocence" on the same grounds as the government.
Watch and wait.
The British based Guardian has begun publishing a series of articles revealing probably what most Americans suspected: that our various intelligence agencies monitor phone and other communications media for indications of possible terrorist attacks. The articles have driven the news cover this last week and provoked everything from expressions of "troubling" feelings to protestations of outrage from left and right. Conservatives should remember that this all takes place under the legal auspices of the Bush Administration's Patriot Act.
Until we know more, the news should keep us watching and waiting. The two programs in question, Prism and Boundless Informant, gather and aggregate metadata on communications. Although the government says it does not gather content, the Prism program has that capability. And we remember that government already denied gathering an information on Americans:
Meanwhile, revelations about the identity of the whistle blower have generated more heat. Fox News and CNN both headlines the fallacious complex question about Edward Snowden: Hero or Traitor?
We know something is not right when both Glen Beck and Michael Moore call him a hero. Senator Diane Feinstein called his action treasonous. Maybe Snowden is neither.
Snowden's case somewhat resembles that of the NSA. The security agency allegedly collects information about telephone and internet communication; it does not collect content. Similarly, Snowden and the Guardian has only revealed the fact (already suspected) that the NSA gathers metadata. If he has any access to it, Snowden has not as yet revealed any content of the data beyond the general workings of the data gathering and aggregating programs themselves. He can claim "innocence" on the same grounds as the government.
Watch and wait.
Sunday, June 9, 2013
A Sunday Review: What is Conservatism?
What is Conservatism?
Frank S. Meyer
New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1964
In the continuing search here at the Secular Square for the meaning of conservatism, a review of another of those "conservative classics" published during the formative years of the post-WWII "New Conservative" movement.
As previous reviews of other books note, the post-WWII conservative movement began as an intellectual movement that lacked unity. One of the first--and enduring--works sought the roots of conservatism in Europe. Russell Kirk's The Conservative Mind traced conservatism from Edmund Burke through a line, or should I say, multiple lines of American successors. Early liberal critics argued that this was not conservatism at all. Other American conservatives such as Clinton Rossiter agreed.
William F. Buckley's National Review shortly afterword became the flagship periodical of the "New Conservatism." He provided a vehicle for traditionalists such as Kirk. He also offered considerable space to conservatives of a more "libertarian" view. One of Buckley's libertarian editors, Frank S. Meyer, strongly criticized the traditionalists and Russell Kirk in particular. (See here a review of his most detailed critique: In Defense of Freedom.
Meyer provided a more formal venue for traditionalist and libertarians to hash out their differences when he edited a collection of essays he entitled, What is Conservatism? (That's the question that I want answered!) Contributors include among others Frank Meyer, Russell Kirk, M. Stanton Evans, Garry Wills, Willmoore Kendall, and William F. Buckley.
Reviewing a book of essays by multiple authors may prove difficult, but here it goes. If any coherent theme runs through these essays, it is the tension between the traditionalist and libertarian wings. The different writers express this tension in a variety of motifs: traditionalism vs. liberty, prescription vs. abstract reasoning, authority vs. autonomy, revelation vs. reason. And each author offers his solution to how the two wings can achieve theoretical or philosophical coherence. Most point back to James Madison and the Constitutional structure set up at Philadelphia in 1787 as common source for the two major streams of conservative thought.
A look at a handful of the essays will provide a sense of the tension.
Meyer's introductory piece, "Freedom, Tradition, and Conservatism" sets the theme for the essays that follow. The conflict within conservatism, according to Meyer, lay between
"those who abstract from the corpus of Western belief its stress upon freedom and upon the innate importance of the individual person (which we might call the libertarian position) and those who, drawing upon the same source, stress value and order (what we might call the traditionalist position.")
Because both the libertarians and the traditionalists draw upon the same Western tradition, according to Meyer, the conflict between the two wings as one of emphasis. In Meyer's words, "when each side emphasizes so strongly the aspect of the great tradition of the West which it sees as decisive that distortion sets in."
Moreover, the tendency to see the libertarian and traditionalist views as antitheses appears more frequently during what Meyer calls "this revolutionary era in which the tradition has suffered extensive subversion." This leads to his point of departure. This revolutionary era calls for restoration, not conservation.
This observation opens the door to reaffirming his criticism of the traditionalists. In earlier works Meyer criticized traditional conservatives for their lack of concern for freedom and their willingness to sacrifice freedom in the name of virtue. According to Meyer, "Natural conservatism is a legitimate human characteristic, and in settled times it is conducive to the good. It represents the universal human tendency to hold by the accustomed, to maintain existing modes of life." Contemporary circumstances, however, have revealed the need for a new conservatism. "What is required of us is a conscious conservatism, a clearly principle restatement in new circumstances of philosophical and political truth." This means libertarianism.
He ends his essay by appealing to the achievement of the founders, who he claims embodied the contrasting differences in the claims of the individual and that of order. Out of the dialectic between those two, the founders "created a political theory and a political structure based upon the understanding that, while truth and virtue are metaphysical and moral ends, the freedom to seek them is the political conditions to those ends."
An essay by another National Review editor, M.Stanton Evans, shadows Meyer. In an essay entitled "A Conservative Case for Freedom," Evans asserts that freedom and virtue rise and fall together. "In the conservative view," he writes, "right choice is the terminal value; freedom, an instrumental, and therefore subsidiary value." He tries, however, to position his view as more centrist or moderate. He calls the traditionalists such as Kirk authoritarians, the libertarians liberals, and his own middle of the road position, conservative. He, too, traces the roots of his expression of conservatism to Madison. The problem of the tension between liberty and order is precisely the political problem that was faced, and in Evans' view, solved by Madison and the founders.
Russell Kirk offered up the traditionalist retort in "Prescription, Authority , and Ordered Freedom."
He begins with the following axioms:
"Civilized man lives by authority; with some reference to authority, indeed, no form of civilized life is possible. Also, man lives by prescription--that is, by ancient customer and usage, and the rights which usage and customer have established. Without just authority and respected prescription, the pillars of any tolerable civil social order, true freedom is not possible."
The authority Kirk has in mind includes family, church, and government.
Kirk charges that the essence of liberalism is its subversion of authority by ignoring tradition and relying on abstract reasoning. And throughout the nineteenth century, liberalism degenerated into socialism. As readers might suspect, Kirk aims his charges at developments in European liberalism.
Kirk claims that "by revelation, by the insights of men of genius, mankind has acquired, slowly and painfully, over thousands of years, a knowledge of human nature and of the civil social order which no one individual possibly can supplant by private rationality." From this knowledge, Kirk derives two general principles of good government.
First, good government allows "the more energetic" among the citizens to fulfill their potential without becoming tyrants over the majority. Second, good government must be in accord with "the traditions and prescriptive ways of its people." This later principle leads to his skepticism about erecting free governments among people outside the Western tradition--something that the Bush administration should have considered before it began its adventures of national building in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Finally, an essay that seems out of place in many ways: F. A. Hayek's "Why I Am Not a Conservative."
Yet he, too, finds him way back to Philadelphia in 1787.
He rightly begins noting that conservatism, in its proper sense, originated in Europe in response to the French Revolution. In this he agrees with Kirk. He notes, too, that until the rise of socialism, the opposing political tradition to conservatism in Europe was liberalism.
No such dichotomy existed in the United States. According the Hayek, liberalism is the "common tradition" in the United States. He identifies himself as a liberal. He offers a caveat, though, by explaining that his liberalism differs from what goes by liberalism in contemporary America. Hayek calls them "progressives." He prefers the label, "Old Whig."
So why is Hayek not a conservative? He offers several reasons.
Conservatism does not offer any alternative to the contemporary liberal regime. All it seems capable of accomplishing is slowing down liberalism's relentless pull. Conservatives should not ask "how fast" change should come, but instead "in what direction." In fact, conservatives seem to dread change altogether rather than simply fear its pace.
Conservatism lacks the kind of principles that enable him to work with others in creating on order in which people can pursue their own ends.
Conservatism claims that every society has an elite who should properly exert a greater influence in public affairs. Although this claim creates its own controversy, conservatism seem to reserve for itself the prerogative to decide just who are these elites.
Conservatism likewise expresses suspicion about democracy. Hayek calls this a self-deception. The problem in Hayek's eyes is government power. According to Hayek, the power exercised by the modern American government would be even more dangerous in the hands of an elite.
Conservatism shows inconsistency in its devotion to free enterprise. While conservatives generally oppose regulatory legislation, they historically have supported tariffs for industry and price supports for agriculture.
Conservatism appears suspicious of new knowledge, especially if it conflicts with conservatism's ideological stance or suggests undesirable consequences.
Finally, conservatism frequently resorts to "supernatural" knowledge when reason fails him.
Throughout his overview of conservatism, Hayek contrasts it not with socialism or progressivism, but with Hayek's own liberalism. So how does Hayek define his own liberalism?
On the same ground on which the the other essayists in this collection rested their conservatism:
"It is the doctrine on which the American system of government is based. In its pure form, it is represented in the United States, not by the radicalism of Jefferson, nor by the conservatism of Hamilton, or even of John Adams, but by the ideas of James Madison, the "father of the Constitution."
So what of it?
This conflict between traditionalism vs. individualism, however it is construed, in a way reflects a tension in historic terms between two different versions of republicanism.
Classical Republicanism originated in classical antiquity though the writings of Aristotle, Cicero, and Polybius. Along with such ideas as government for the common good, rule by law rather than men, and freedom from arbitrary authority, Classical Republicanism embraced the public philosophy that the state should inculcate virtue in its citizens, especially the elites who were expected to participate in public affairs. The virtues to inculcate, of course, were those of the elites of classical Greece and Rome. This concept of virtue changed over time. With the triumph of Christianity in Europe, those classical virtues experienced subtle changes. More important was the emergence of a bourgeoisie and a different set of virtues that included hard work, thrift, and saving. And along with these new virtues came a new articulation of individual rights. This new emphasis on rights, combined with the new economic ideas of Adam Smith, eventually became known as liberalism.
With the birth of the United States, the founders of this new regime drew upon the idea of both the older classical republicanism and the new liberal republicanism. The United States has experienced this tension ever since--the slow receding of the public philosophy of classical republicanism and the relentlessly advancing of liberal republicanism. Occasionally we hear talk about the common good and of virtue or morality from liberals and conservatives. For the most part, however, these seem to be sentimental reflections about a past that can never be recovered.
Frank S. Meyer
New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1964
In the continuing search here at the Secular Square for the meaning of conservatism, a review of another of those "conservative classics" published during the formative years of the post-WWII "New Conservative" movement.
As previous reviews of other books note, the post-WWII conservative movement began as an intellectual movement that lacked unity. One of the first--and enduring--works sought the roots of conservatism in Europe. Russell Kirk's The Conservative Mind traced conservatism from Edmund Burke through a line, or should I say, multiple lines of American successors. Early liberal critics argued that this was not conservatism at all. Other American conservatives such as Clinton Rossiter agreed.
William F. Buckley's National Review shortly afterword became the flagship periodical of the "New Conservatism." He provided a vehicle for traditionalists such as Kirk. He also offered considerable space to conservatives of a more "libertarian" view. One of Buckley's libertarian editors, Frank S. Meyer, strongly criticized the traditionalists and Russell Kirk in particular. (See here a review of his most detailed critique: In Defense of Freedom.
Meyer provided a more formal venue for traditionalist and libertarians to hash out their differences when he edited a collection of essays he entitled, What is Conservatism? (That's the question that I want answered!) Contributors include among others Frank Meyer, Russell Kirk, M. Stanton Evans, Garry Wills, Willmoore Kendall, and William F. Buckley.
Reviewing a book of essays by multiple authors may prove difficult, but here it goes. If any coherent theme runs through these essays, it is the tension between the traditionalist and libertarian wings. The different writers express this tension in a variety of motifs: traditionalism vs. liberty, prescription vs. abstract reasoning, authority vs. autonomy, revelation vs. reason. And each author offers his solution to how the two wings can achieve theoretical or philosophical coherence. Most point back to James Madison and the Constitutional structure set up at Philadelphia in 1787 as common source for the two major streams of conservative thought.
A look at a handful of the essays will provide a sense of the tension.
Meyer's introductory piece, "Freedom, Tradition, and Conservatism" sets the theme for the essays that follow. The conflict within conservatism, according to Meyer, lay between
"those who abstract from the corpus of Western belief its stress upon freedom and upon the innate importance of the individual person (which we might call the libertarian position) and those who, drawing upon the same source, stress value and order (what we might call the traditionalist position.")
Because both the libertarians and the traditionalists draw upon the same Western tradition, according to Meyer, the conflict between the two wings as one of emphasis. In Meyer's words, "when each side emphasizes so strongly the aspect of the great tradition of the West which it sees as decisive that distortion sets in."
Moreover, the tendency to see the libertarian and traditionalist views as antitheses appears more frequently during what Meyer calls "this revolutionary era in which the tradition has suffered extensive subversion." This leads to his point of departure. This revolutionary era calls for restoration, not conservation.
This observation opens the door to reaffirming his criticism of the traditionalists. In earlier works Meyer criticized traditional conservatives for their lack of concern for freedom and their willingness to sacrifice freedom in the name of virtue. According to Meyer, "Natural conservatism is a legitimate human characteristic, and in settled times it is conducive to the good. It represents the universal human tendency to hold by the accustomed, to maintain existing modes of life." Contemporary circumstances, however, have revealed the need for a new conservatism. "What is required of us is a conscious conservatism, a clearly principle restatement in new circumstances of philosophical and political truth." This means libertarianism.
He ends his essay by appealing to the achievement of the founders, who he claims embodied the contrasting differences in the claims of the individual and that of order. Out of the dialectic between those two, the founders "created a political theory and a political structure based upon the understanding that, while truth and virtue are metaphysical and moral ends, the freedom to seek them is the political conditions to those ends."
An essay by another National Review editor, M.Stanton Evans, shadows Meyer. In an essay entitled "A Conservative Case for Freedom," Evans asserts that freedom and virtue rise and fall together. "In the conservative view," he writes, "right choice is the terminal value; freedom, an instrumental, and therefore subsidiary value." He tries, however, to position his view as more centrist or moderate. He calls the traditionalists such as Kirk authoritarians, the libertarians liberals, and his own middle of the road position, conservative. He, too, traces the roots of his expression of conservatism to Madison. The problem of the tension between liberty and order is precisely the political problem that was faced, and in Evans' view, solved by Madison and the founders.
Russell Kirk offered up the traditionalist retort in "Prescription, Authority , and Ordered Freedom."
He begins with the following axioms:
"Civilized man lives by authority; with some reference to authority, indeed, no form of civilized life is possible. Also, man lives by prescription--that is, by ancient customer and usage, and the rights which usage and customer have established. Without just authority and respected prescription, the pillars of any tolerable civil social order, true freedom is not possible."
The authority Kirk has in mind includes family, church, and government.
Kirk charges that the essence of liberalism is its subversion of authority by ignoring tradition and relying on abstract reasoning. And throughout the nineteenth century, liberalism degenerated into socialism. As readers might suspect, Kirk aims his charges at developments in European liberalism.
Kirk claims that "by revelation, by the insights of men of genius, mankind has acquired, slowly and painfully, over thousands of years, a knowledge of human nature and of the civil social order which no one individual possibly can supplant by private rationality." From this knowledge, Kirk derives two general principles of good government.
First, good government allows "the more energetic" among the citizens to fulfill their potential without becoming tyrants over the majority. Second, good government must be in accord with "the traditions and prescriptive ways of its people." This later principle leads to his skepticism about erecting free governments among people outside the Western tradition--something that the Bush administration should have considered before it began its adventures of national building in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Finally, an essay that seems out of place in many ways: F. A. Hayek's "Why I Am Not a Conservative."
Yet he, too, finds him way back to Philadelphia in 1787.
He rightly begins noting that conservatism, in its proper sense, originated in Europe in response to the French Revolution. In this he agrees with Kirk. He notes, too, that until the rise of socialism, the opposing political tradition to conservatism in Europe was liberalism.
No such dichotomy existed in the United States. According the Hayek, liberalism is the "common tradition" in the United States. He identifies himself as a liberal. He offers a caveat, though, by explaining that his liberalism differs from what goes by liberalism in contemporary America. Hayek calls them "progressives." He prefers the label, "Old Whig."
So why is Hayek not a conservative? He offers several reasons.
Conservatism does not offer any alternative to the contemporary liberal regime. All it seems capable of accomplishing is slowing down liberalism's relentless pull. Conservatives should not ask "how fast" change should come, but instead "in what direction." In fact, conservatives seem to dread change altogether rather than simply fear its pace.
Conservatism lacks the kind of principles that enable him to work with others in creating on order in which people can pursue their own ends.
Conservatism claims that every society has an elite who should properly exert a greater influence in public affairs. Although this claim creates its own controversy, conservatism seem to reserve for itself the prerogative to decide just who are these elites.
Conservatism likewise expresses suspicion about democracy. Hayek calls this a self-deception. The problem in Hayek's eyes is government power. According to Hayek, the power exercised by the modern American government would be even more dangerous in the hands of an elite.
Conservatism shows inconsistency in its devotion to free enterprise. While conservatives generally oppose regulatory legislation, they historically have supported tariffs for industry and price supports for agriculture.
Conservatism appears suspicious of new knowledge, especially if it conflicts with conservatism's ideological stance or suggests undesirable consequences.
Finally, conservatism frequently resorts to "supernatural" knowledge when reason fails him.
Throughout his overview of conservatism, Hayek contrasts it not with socialism or progressivism, but with Hayek's own liberalism. So how does Hayek define his own liberalism?
On the same ground on which the the other essayists in this collection rested their conservatism:
"It is the doctrine on which the American system of government is based. In its pure form, it is represented in the United States, not by the radicalism of Jefferson, nor by the conservatism of Hamilton, or even of John Adams, but by the ideas of James Madison, the "father of the Constitution."
So what of it?
This conflict between traditionalism vs. individualism, however it is construed, in a way reflects a tension in historic terms between two different versions of republicanism.
Classical Republicanism originated in classical antiquity though the writings of Aristotle, Cicero, and Polybius. Along with such ideas as government for the common good, rule by law rather than men, and freedom from arbitrary authority, Classical Republicanism embraced the public philosophy that the state should inculcate virtue in its citizens, especially the elites who were expected to participate in public affairs. The virtues to inculcate, of course, were those of the elites of classical Greece and Rome. This concept of virtue changed over time. With the triumph of Christianity in Europe, those classical virtues experienced subtle changes. More important was the emergence of a bourgeoisie and a different set of virtues that included hard work, thrift, and saving. And along with these new virtues came a new articulation of individual rights. This new emphasis on rights, combined with the new economic ideas of Adam Smith, eventually became known as liberalism.
With the birth of the United States, the founders of this new regime drew upon the idea of both the older classical republicanism and the new liberal republicanism. The United States has experienced this tension ever since--the slow receding of the public philosophy of classical republicanism and the relentlessly advancing of liberal republicanism. Occasionally we hear talk about the common good and of virtue or morality from liberals and conservatives. For the most part, however, these seem to be sentimental reflections about a past that can never be recovered.
Saturday, June 8, 2013
Obama Record Spinning Out of Control
Each day some new scandal becomes "breaking news," even on the mainstream cable networks. Breaking news is now a broken record, with Obama at the mercy of the turntable.
Although none of these issues will threaten the survival of the administration, they will certainly keep the administration occupied with other things than their efforts at fundamentally transforming America:
Unanswered questions about Benghazi.
IRS targeting of tea party movement.
IRS squandering of millions of dollars of taxpayer revenue on conferences and travel accommodations.
The Justice Department threatening to prosecute reporters in order to secure search warrants for phone calls of reporters.
NSA gathering data on phone calls and internet use by Americans (a distraction more than a scandal.)
Some of the stories have been broken by a British paper the Guardian. I wish we had a press in this country who would serve as a more vigilant guardian of our freedom from government abuse of power.
The Obama administration is certainly the most transparently corrupt administration since that of Richard Nixon.
Although none of these issues will threaten the survival of the administration, they will certainly keep the administration occupied with other things than their efforts at fundamentally transforming America:
Unanswered questions about Benghazi.
IRS targeting of tea party movement.
IRS squandering of millions of dollars of taxpayer revenue on conferences and travel accommodations.
The Justice Department threatening to prosecute reporters in order to secure search warrants for phone calls of reporters.
NSA gathering data on phone calls and internet use by Americans (a distraction more than a scandal.)
Some of the stories have been broken by a British paper the Guardian. I wish we had a press in this country who would serve as a more vigilant guardian of our freedom from government abuse of power.
The Obama administration is certainly the most transparently corrupt administration since that of Richard Nixon.
Thursday, June 6, 2013
Another Thing Obama Did Right
Occasionally when President Obama does something right, it is noted here at Right Detour, like here, here, and here.
Well, it happened again. But this time by Michelle Obama.
At a recent fundraiser, Michelle Obama gave a speech about the importance of children. Strangely, the topic of her speech was children, but was delivered at the private homo of a lesbian couple. During the speech, a heckler interrupted her. Obama walked over near the heckler and basically threatened to leave unless she shut up.
Later the media learned the identity of the heckler--a gay rights activist named Ellen Sturtz. Sturtz apparently had no interest in speeches about children. Instead, she wanted to press the First Lady about her husband's lack of action on discrimination and LGBT people.
Sturtz said she was "taken aback" by Michelle Obama's reaction.
That means, Sturtz's inflated sense of self-importance was deflated.
Well, it happened again. But this time by Michelle Obama.
At a recent fundraiser, Michelle Obama gave a speech about the importance of children. Strangely, the topic of her speech was children, but was delivered at the private homo of a lesbian couple. During the speech, a heckler interrupted her. Obama walked over near the heckler and basically threatened to leave unless she shut up.
Later the media learned the identity of the heckler--a gay rights activist named Ellen Sturtz. Sturtz apparently had no interest in speeches about children. Instead, she wanted to press the First Lady about her husband's lack of action on discrimination and LGBT people.
Sturtz said she was "taken aback" by Michelle Obama's reaction.
That means, Sturtz's inflated sense of self-importance was deflated.
Tuesday, June 4, 2013
Coronation Day!
Today, sixty years ago, Queen Elizabeth II received her crown as queen of England during coronation ceremony at Westminster Abbey.
Most news outlets made brief mention of it.
People magazine, too, noted the occasion if only to remind readers that the ceremony brought Kate and William back to the site of their wedding. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge remain favorites of People and other celebrity magazines. The royal couple appear repeatedly on the covers of these magazines at grocery store checkout stands. A look online shows that People has a special link for the royals in its "news" category.
The attitude of celebrity magazines has peculiar ironies. It seems strange that in republic based upon equality so many magazines and broadcast media exhibit such fascination for hereditary monarchy. This stands in stark contrast with the founders of our country.
In contrast to the journalistic genuflection before royalty by magazines like People, the Founders entertained different feelings:
Thomas Jefferson:
"I was much an enemy to monarchies before I came to Europe. I am ten thousand times more so, since I have seen what they are."
Thomas Paine:
"We have heard the Rights of Man called a leveling system; but the only system to which the word leveling is truly applicable, is the hereditary monarchical system. It is a system of mental leveling. It indiscriminately admits every species of character to the same authority. Vice and virtue, ignorance and wisdom, in short, every quality, good or bad, is put on the same level. Kings succeed each other, not as rationals, but as animals. It signifies not what their mental or moral characters are."
"One of the strongest natural proofs of the folly of hereditary right in kings, is, that nature disapproves it, otherwise, she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule by giving mankind and ass for a lion."
James Wilson:
"In a monarchy there are strength and vigour. but there is a danger, that they will not be employed for the happiness and prosperity of the state."
A second irony is that company that the royals must keep in the celebrity publishing world. Their chief competitors for landing on the cover of People are thosecommon celebrity whores--the Kardasians.
Most news outlets made brief mention of it.
People magazine, too, noted the occasion if only to remind readers that the ceremony brought Kate and William back to the site of their wedding. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge remain favorites of People and other celebrity magazines. The royal couple appear repeatedly on the covers of these magazines at grocery store checkout stands. A look online shows that People has a special link for the royals in its "news" category.
The attitude of celebrity magazines has peculiar ironies. It seems strange that in republic based upon equality so many magazines and broadcast media exhibit such fascination for hereditary monarchy. This stands in stark contrast with the founders of our country.
In contrast to the journalistic genuflection before royalty by magazines like People, the Founders entertained different feelings:
Thomas Jefferson:
"I was much an enemy to monarchies before I came to Europe. I am ten thousand times more so, since I have seen what they are."
Thomas Paine:
"We have heard the Rights of Man called a leveling system; but the only system to which the word leveling is truly applicable, is the hereditary monarchical system. It is a system of mental leveling. It indiscriminately admits every species of character to the same authority. Vice and virtue, ignorance and wisdom, in short, every quality, good or bad, is put on the same level. Kings succeed each other, not as rationals, but as animals. It signifies not what their mental or moral characters are."
"One of the strongest natural proofs of the folly of hereditary right in kings, is, that nature disapproves it, otherwise, she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule by giving mankind and ass for a lion."
James Wilson:
"In a monarchy there are strength and vigour. but there is a danger, that they will not be employed for the happiness and prosperity of the state."
A second irony is that company that the royals must keep in the celebrity publishing world. Their chief competitors for landing on the cover of People are those
Monday, May 27, 2013
Remembering on Memorial Day
Courtesy of the Gateway Pundit, a photo of 18,000 soldier assembled "in formation" to honor Lady Liberty at Fort Dodge near Des Moines, Iowa in 1918.
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