We had a nice quiet Christmas which is my very favorite kind of Christmas! We went to the 10:00 p.m. Mass on Christmas Eve and it was lovely.
Christmas morning we opened presents up about 10:00 a.m. Becky got her own ipod and a really thick gymnastics mat. Hannah gave her a nail/manicure set which she loves. Sean got a mini-ipad which he really loved. Plus he got a dart board which made him very happy. He dreams of a basement that is perfect with the game arcade Rick and he built, plus the pool table and now darts. I told him he needed to have a mounted TV so he could play ESPN with the sound off all the time to complete the picture. Josh seems to like his 60 year anniversary collection of Mad Magazine the best. He also seemed to appreciate the leather book bag we gave him. Will said the funniest thing. As a gag Rick gave each kids a Magic 8 Ball. Will also had asked for a Bible study of the New Testament by Scott Hahn. He held that up plus the Magic 8 Ball and quipped, "Now I'll have all the answers!" Hannah wasn't here, boo hoo, but in California with Peter's family. She gave everyone wonderful presents though.
My haul:
Rick gave me Patrick Allitt's The Rise and Fall of the British Empire, lovely gloves and hat, a 2014 scenic calendar of Virginia, Charlotte Mason's Original Homeschooling series, and a beautiful, huge salad bowl to replace the one that broke earlier this year. Becky gave me an amaryllis bulb to grow indoors in the winter; Sean gave me a glass soap dispenser with a little love note inscribed on it by him in gold paint, Josh gave me a new umbrella, Will gave me a cd of Julian Bream music and Hannah gave me cabinet organizers (for pots and pans), a speaker for my laptop and cabinet lock to keep the trash/recycling from opening (they never stay shut and then the cat gets into them). I didn't realize a present got overlooked until later in the afternoon Becky came running into the kitchen saying 'Mom, you forgot one!" It was from Peter. He gave me some white chocolate truffles and a lovely candle that has the scent of mulled cider. Very nice.
All the gifts were very thoughtful and I was touched by each one.
I think all the kids were happy even though we didn't give them nearly the amount of stuff we usually do. It was almost as if the pressure was off and we could relax and enjoy and not feel overwhelmed. Everyone spent the day hanging out, playing with new things, napping, reading and watching movies. Sean gave Will a collection of Marx Brothers movies so we watched Cocoanuts and Animal Crackers. We also watched some of Christmas in Connecticut and It's a Wonderful Life. I went and got Eileen so she could eat dinner with us. We had ham, mashed potatoes, roasted veggies, pineapple slices and rolls and some pinot grigio. For dessert people just ate cookies and candy.
Now to clean up the living room which is still strewn with gifts, wrapping paper and other detritus of Christmas morning.
Merry Christmas!
Thursday, December 26, 2013
Wednesday, December 25, 2013
Gratitude
Well, it is 8:00 a.m. on Christmas morning. Since we went to 10:00 p.m. Christmas Mass last night and didn't get to bed until about 1:30 a.m. everybody is sleeping in. I told them I was rousing everybody at 9:30 if they weren't up yet. We are having a modest Christmas as my husband calls it. He's just gone so overboard over the years (he loves playing Santa) but as the kids got older, it just got silly to be so extravagant, so this Christmas we made it intentionally 'modest.'
Anyway, I saw this post over at Take Up and Read and I thought it would be nice to post about 10 things I am grateful for this Christmas. I think my watchwords for 2014 are going to be gratitude and consideration. I think I need to live these two qualities more conscientiously and more openly, both for my own soul's sake and to model it for my children. So let me begin this by listing 10 things I am grateful for:
1. My husband. What would my life be like without him? Every day, I am so blessed by being married to him. This year we celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary. I love him more than I did at the beginning. I am so lucky that I got to have his children. He loves and accepts me; he understands me, often better than I do myself. He is encouraging and generous. He forgives me my many, many foibles. He makes me laugh. Letting him talk me into marrying him was the best decision of my life. I am truly, truly grateful.
2. My children. Even though parenting is sometimes exhausting and filled with anxiety, even though you can go through some really rough spots with kids (we are there with two out of five right now), it is still one of the deepest joys and the most enriching experience one can live, I think. I am so happy I was blessed with five. They each have their own spark of personality, their own perspective, their own talents and they never cease to amaze me. I am glad God entrusted these five souls to our care. May God help us to raise and guide them in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake.
3. My parents. I am so grateful for my parents. They had a tough life in many ways, but they were steadfast in their love and I always had that foundation in my life. Even through my dad's alcoholism, we knew he loved us. They were both intelligent, moral and discerning people. They had mighty struggles at times, but they modeled true love for each other and for their children. Life is complicated but in the end it is that love that shines through it all. I miss them every day.
4. Homeschooling. I don't know if I will be homeschooling much longer. It may be that Sean will stick with his high school all four years or it may turn out that coming home to school is better for him. Becky may wind up going to high school. In many ways I think it would be good for her. But homeschooling these last 18 years has been joyful, sorrowing, overwhelming, triumphant and every thing in between. I am glad we chose to raise our kids this way, even though I do not think it is perfect! But then nothing is perfect. Homeschooling has kept the love of learning alive in my heart and mind and influenced so many other decisions in a way they might not have been otherwise.
5. Beauty. As I get a little older, my eyes have started to fail so that I need glasses, which I never had when I was younger. My hearing is not as sharp as it once was. This little bit of diminishment of these two sense, which I assume will only get more extreme as I age, has made me really appreciate the beauty they allow me to perceive. It seems to me I glory in beautiful scenery, a lovely fall tree, ice frozen on branches, a dramatic stormy sky, more than I ever did. My love for music and for voices is also increased. Thank you God for these blessings.
6. I am grateful for the fact that I don't have to worry about shelter or food or any of the basic needs of survival. All my life I have been blessed with comfort and a solid expectation that my material needs would all be met in a more than an adequate way. Thank you, Lord.
7. I am grateful for all the little pleasures I enjoy every day: coffee in the morning, my laptop and internet spots where I can connect with people and learn about the world, my warm car (especially the seat warmer - best invention ever!), everything bagels toasted with cream cheese, my kindle which allows me access to so many books, the TCM channel where I can indulge my love of old movies, EWTN where I can indulge my love of Catholicism, all the little pleasures I enjoy every day because I live a life of plenty.
8. Books. Reading has become a real hobby of late. I am so grateful to all the authors, throughout history up to the present day, who have expanded and shaped and taught so many ideas through their writings.
9. Life. I know everything can be taken away in a sudden moment. I know my days are numbered and I can be called home at any time. So I am very grateful that I have been allowed to live this long. I hope I get another 30 years at least, but who knows. Thank you God for giving me this much time. Every moment has been precious. Even the moments of discontent, grief and boredom. I am grateful even for those.
10. God. I am so happy I came back to God. I was terribly unhappy as an unbeliever but I felt trapped in it. I simply did not believe. But somehow, in some miraculous way, faith crept in and doubt seeped away and at some point I fell in love again. I am not worthy, I am a sinner, I am weak and shallow. I can give God only my paltry, inconsistent desires to be one with Him, I do not have anything more than that to give. Sweet Jesus, be my center, let my life revolve around you. Let me do Your will forever and ever.
Merry Christmas!
Anyway, I saw this post over at Take Up and Read and I thought it would be nice to post about 10 things I am grateful for this Christmas. I think my watchwords for 2014 are going to be gratitude and consideration. I think I need to live these two qualities more conscientiously and more openly, both for my own soul's sake and to model it for my children. So let me begin this by listing 10 things I am grateful for:
1. My husband. What would my life be like without him? Every day, I am so blessed by being married to him. This year we celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary. I love him more than I did at the beginning. I am so lucky that I got to have his children. He loves and accepts me; he understands me, often better than I do myself. He is encouraging and generous. He forgives me my many, many foibles. He makes me laugh. Letting him talk me into marrying him was the best decision of my life. I am truly, truly grateful.
2. My children. Even though parenting is sometimes exhausting and filled with anxiety, even though you can go through some really rough spots with kids (we are there with two out of five right now), it is still one of the deepest joys and the most enriching experience one can live, I think. I am so happy I was blessed with five. They each have their own spark of personality, their own perspective, their own talents and they never cease to amaze me. I am glad God entrusted these five souls to our care. May God help us to raise and guide them in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake.
3. My parents. I am so grateful for my parents. They had a tough life in many ways, but they were steadfast in their love and I always had that foundation in my life. Even through my dad's alcoholism, we knew he loved us. They were both intelligent, moral and discerning people. They had mighty struggles at times, but they modeled true love for each other and for their children. Life is complicated but in the end it is that love that shines through it all. I miss them every day.
4. Homeschooling. I don't know if I will be homeschooling much longer. It may be that Sean will stick with his high school all four years or it may turn out that coming home to school is better for him. Becky may wind up going to high school. In many ways I think it would be good for her. But homeschooling these last 18 years has been joyful, sorrowing, overwhelming, triumphant and every thing in between. I am glad we chose to raise our kids this way, even though I do not think it is perfect! But then nothing is perfect. Homeschooling has kept the love of learning alive in my heart and mind and influenced so many other decisions in a way they might not have been otherwise.
5. Beauty. As I get a little older, my eyes have started to fail so that I need glasses, which I never had when I was younger. My hearing is not as sharp as it once was. This little bit of diminishment of these two sense, which I assume will only get more extreme as I age, has made me really appreciate the beauty they allow me to perceive. It seems to me I glory in beautiful scenery, a lovely fall tree, ice frozen on branches, a dramatic stormy sky, more than I ever did. My love for music and for voices is also increased. Thank you God for these blessings.
6. I am grateful for the fact that I don't have to worry about shelter or food or any of the basic needs of survival. All my life I have been blessed with comfort and a solid expectation that my material needs would all be met in a more than an adequate way. Thank you, Lord.
7. I am grateful for all the little pleasures I enjoy every day: coffee in the morning, my laptop and internet spots where I can connect with people and learn about the world, my warm car (especially the seat warmer - best invention ever!), everything bagels toasted with cream cheese, my kindle which allows me access to so many books, the TCM channel where I can indulge my love of old movies, EWTN where I can indulge my love of Catholicism, all the little pleasures I enjoy every day because I live a life of plenty.
8. Books. Reading has become a real hobby of late. I am so grateful to all the authors, throughout history up to the present day, who have expanded and shaped and taught so many ideas through their writings.
9. Life. I know everything can be taken away in a sudden moment. I know my days are numbered and I can be called home at any time. So I am very grateful that I have been allowed to live this long. I hope I get another 30 years at least, but who knows. Thank you God for giving me this much time. Every moment has been precious. Even the moments of discontent, grief and boredom. I am grateful even for those.
10. God. I am so happy I came back to God. I was terribly unhappy as an unbeliever but I felt trapped in it. I simply did not believe. But somehow, in some miraculous way, faith crept in and doubt seeped away and at some point I fell in love again. I am not worthy, I am a sinner, I am weak and shallow. I can give God only my paltry, inconsistent desires to be one with Him, I do not have anything more than that to give. Sweet Jesus, be my center, let my life revolve around you. Let me do Your will forever and ever.
Merry Christmas!
Monday, December 23, 2013
Teaching Company Jag
I have been on a self-education jag, sponsored by the Teaching Company. You see, last year at Christmas I gave my three oldest children Teaching Company lectures. I did it the new fangled way by buying them electronically so they could stream them on line whenever they wanted. However, not one of them has watched/listened to these lectures. So I decided to. In addition to this, I noticed that the Teaching Co. had come out with a Latin 101 course so I gave myself an early Christmas present by buying this back around Thanksgiving time.
I've been watching/listening to three of them, but by far I concentrated on The Art of Teaching taught by Professor Patrick Allitt. We use his American Identity when learning American history in our homeschool high school. I also have his book on Catholic Converts and on teaching, I am the Teacher, You are the Student. I want to buy his book called The Conservatives. Anyway, this was a wonderful tutorial on the best practices of teaching. It is largely focused on teaching at a college level, but much of it can be extrapolated to other teaching situations as well, in other levels of schooling, business training and even homeschooling. I thoroughly enjoyed this lecture series and heartily recommend it. I hope Hannah watches it at some point. I do think it will help her feel more grounded in what education is supposed to be.
The second one I've been watching is Latin 101. I am so enjoying this course. I have only gotten to the 9th lecture out of 36 of them. I plan to go through the whole course once, watching attentively and then this summer when I have more time, to go through again, working through all the exercises the professor provides. I have been trying to learn Latin for a long time. For about 7 or 8 years, it was a exercise in frustration. I never got further than a few lessons done at a Middle School pace, but then I started taking Latin classes alongside my teens. I wound up studying for about 4 years, still at a middle school and then high school pace. I got pretty far. I did take the National Latin Exam Level 2, however, I could feel myself slipping in ability to retain it all, first because of my old brain, but also because so much was going on in the other areas of life that I just couldn't keep up. So I stopped again. Now I am actually mentoring an 8th grade Latin class (I don't teach it though, I am just guide for the students). And we are about to embark on the very scary project of putting together a Certamen team. Yikes! So this Latin 101 course is really perfect for me. It is a great review for what I have learned and it introduces me to what I haven't learned yet.
The third course is a basic Economics course taught by Professor Timothy Taylor. This one is probably going to be the hardest for me. I have a mental block about Economics, ever since college when I took a semester introductory course with a terrible, terrible teacher (looking back I wonder if there wasn't something mentally wrong with the guy; they fired him after one semester and he had obvious anger issues - he was scary). Anyway, I barely squeaked a C in that course and since then I have always thought of myself as a real dummy when it came to Economics. This course seems like a friendly introduction. I've only listened to the first two lectures and I got distracted during the second one and so I want to relisten to it before I move on.
I bought the Art of Teaching for Hannah since she'd decided to pursue a Masters in Secondary Education and I got the Economics course for Joshua, since he has expressed interest in that topic. The course I bought for Will is The Catholic Church: a History. I guess I'll be viewing that one later. Hopefully, by watching these courses myself, my kids will be inspired to view them at some point. But needless to say, I did not use this gift idea again this Christmas!
I've been watching/listening to three of them, but by far I concentrated on The Art of Teaching taught by Professor Patrick Allitt. We use his American Identity when learning American history in our homeschool high school. I also have his book on Catholic Converts and on teaching, I am the Teacher, You are the Student. I want to buy his book called The Conservatives. Anyway, this was a wonderful tutorial on the best practices of teaching. It is largely focused on teaching at a college level, but much of it can be extrapolated to other teaching situations as well, in other levels of schooling, business training and even homeschooling. I thoroughly enjoyed this lecture series and heartily recommend it. I hope Hannah watches it at some point. I do think it will help her feel more grounded in what education is supposed to be.
The second one I've been watching is Latin 101. I am so enjoying this course. I have only gotten to the 9th lecture out of 36 of them. I plan to go through the whole course once, watching attentively and then this summer when I have more time, to go through again, working through all the exercises the professor provides. I have been trying to learn Latin for a long time. For about 7 or 8 years, it was a exercise in frustration. I never got further than a few lessons done at a Middle School pace, but then I started taking Latin classes alongside my teens. I wound up studying for about 4 years, still at a middle school and then high school pace. I got pretty far. I did take the National Latin Exam Level 2, however, I could feel myself slipping in ability to retain it all, first because of my old brain, but also because so much was going on in the other areas of life that I just couldn't keep up. So I stopped again. Now I am actually mentoring an 8th grade Latin class (I don't teach it though, I am just guide for the students). And we are about to embark on the very scary project of putting together a Certamen team. Yikes! So this Latin 101 course is really perfect for me. It is a great review for what I have learned and it introduces me to what I haven't learned yet.
The third course is a basic Economics course taught by Professor Timothy Taylor. This one is probably going to be the hardest for me. I have a mental block about Economics, ever since college when I took a semester introductory course with a terrible, terrible teacher (looking back I wonder if there wasn't something mentally wrong with the guy; they fired him after one semester and he had obvious anger issues - he was scary). Anyway, I barely squeaked a C in that course and since then I have always thought of myself as a real dummy when it came to Economics. This course seems like a friendly introduction. I've only listened to the first two lectures and I got distracted during the second one and so I want to relisten to it before I move on.
I bought the Art of Teaching for Hannah since she'd decided to pursue a Masters in Secondary Education and I got the Economics course for Joshua, since he has expressed interest in that topic. The course I bought for Will is The Catholic Church: a History. I guess I'll be viewing that one later. Hopefully, by watching these courses myself, my kids will be inspired to view them at some point. But needless to say, I did not use this gift idea again this Christmas!
Sunday, December 22, 2013
Liberal Fascism - Book 58
This is actually the third part of a running commentary I've been doing on this book. And really I only put down about half of what I was thinking, due to time restrictions. For me this was a very thought-provoking impulse pick from the library. I just picked it up because I spotted the name of the author, Jonah Goldberg, and it sounded familiar. Liberal Fascism is a look at what liberalism is, in its manifestation in America. Goldberg, who is a conservative, got tired of always being called a fascist Nazi. It especially irked him because those calling him that name don't even understand the history of how fascism is the step-child of socialism. So he sets out to prove the contrary to what is typically thought. Conservatism is about preserving freedoms and limiting government. Liberalism is about expanding the state and creating more and more regulations that control our every move. And the latter definition is much more in line with the legacy of fascism than conservatism.
I am mad at myself for reading this book right before Christmas. I got a little obsessed about it and it distracted and disturbed me enough to cast a pall over my Christmas mood. But I am glad I read it. It really made me think and argue a lot in my head (and with other family members). I think in the end Goldberg makes a pretty good argument though I also thought he went overboard at times or treads on shaky ground. Finally, his afterward really saves the book because he is nothing if not very honest. I think if you are emotional about your liberalism, you won't take kindly to this book, but if you are more objective, you'll probably find it eye-opening, even if you disagree with the author's interpretation of history and developments.
My thoughts are incomplete and way too long to for anyone to really want to read, LOL. But here's a link to the first piece, Thoughts on Liberals and Conservatives and the second post, More Thoughts and below is my final installment which I never really finished. I have more I could say, but I don't have the energy or time. I didn't even really check for typos. But I am just emotionally done with this topic right now!
Continuing thoughts on the last third of the book:
Well the eugenics chapter was really interesting and I found myself agreeing with a lot of what Goldberg said. I discovered I'd been misusing the words eugenics and social Darwinism as interchangeable but they are not, according to Goldberg. Eugenics is when the state has policies that try to control or diminish an unwelcome population that is seen as a drag on society. These were state commissions on the feebleminded and such, the ones pushing institutionalization and sterilization, made me think of that horrible home in the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks- where her sister was starved to death from negligence. These places were part and parcel of the original progressive movement. These progressives labeled conservatives 'social Darwinists' because they (conservatives) didn't want to interfere in people's lives via government policies, so they got branded Darwinists, meaning they supposedly embraced the idea that survival of the fittest should just be left to take its course among the poor and disabled.
Goldberg brings up the idea in the best seller, Freakonomics, that abortion reduces crime levels. Rick read that book and was really disgusted by the author, but I know many people hailed it as this insightful new look at economics. Goldberg quotes some pretty damning writings from high up liberals who openly embraced abortion as a way of weeding out undesirables. And then he talks about how when William Bennet, a pro-lifer, said the same thing was true; he got maligned as a racist. People said that he was advocating infanticide. Goldberg poses the question: if theoretical use of abortion to lower crime (remember Bennet is prolife so he's only pointing this out on a theoretical level and he thinks this approach is immoral) is mass infanticide according to his liberal critics, why is abortion on an individual level not infanticide? Doesn't make any sense. But then pro-abortions have never made any sense; a real failure of science and critical thinking occurs whenever it comes up. Isn't there a book called Religion Poisons Everything? I have often thought abortion poisons everything.
When Goldberg started talking about big business and fascism, I got a little confused. He's coming from a totally different perspective than I have been taught, so I am going to have to learn more about this subject. It is interesting to read a completely different interpretation of history, but I don't know if I am buying what he's selling (to use a business metaphor!) yet. I get very confused though when he starts talking about the Third Way of fascism. I don't quite know what he means. At times he seems to be talking about something specific to fascism and other times it seems to be anything that is a compromise between the two competing ideologies of collectivism vs. individual rights. I am excited to start reading Samuel Gompers Seventy Years of Life and Labor, because he is right at the heart of this interaction between big business and reform. I wonder is his account will jive with Goldberg's.
I've been thinking more about how conservatism is a reaction that tries to protect individual liberty and traditional values. Goldberg quotes Chesterton a few times in the book and this made me think of distributism, which was the economic system that Chesterton and Belloc tried to put forth, based a lot on medieval guilds and agrarian economies. This alternative to free market vs. socialism is popular among certain Catholic intellectuals. Rick read a book about it written by one of the main people who are trying to revive this idea and he said that is was just too pie in the sky. It really gives the state a lot of power and just assumes the state will always follow the guiding principles of distributism. One of the principles of distributism is advocating for small businesses and putting up restrictions on big businesses, but Rick said that seemed really arbitrary and not tenable. For instance, Steve Jobs Apple is a post card company for the distributism as long as it wasn't far from its origins in his parents garage, but when it became successful, it became a big business that distributists wouldn't like. But putting the kibosh on the big business would necessarily affect (effect?) the desire to even start a business at all.
So while I don't know about distributism as an official policy, I do think it occurs, much like conservatism, as a natural reaction. The whole movement towards organic is a prime example of a grass roots distributist idea, or buying local, or having a small business Saturday after Black Friday, or the revival of farmer's markets, or people trying to buy Free Trade products; the whole back to the land movement is all very distributivistic.
Further along in the book Goldberg makes the point that big government and big business naturally go together. Now I always thought that the same liberals who want to government to solve all social problems were also though who are against big business, on the other hand I always wondered why so many rich business people are very pro-Deomocrat. Goldberg says that whenever you regulate business, you necessarily favor big businesses over small, because the big business have the capital to swallow the new costs whereas the smaller ones usually do not. So big businesses actually advocate for regulation because first they get to look good by seemingly embraces positive social programs and secondly, because it pushes their competitors out of the way. That's why we see this revolving door of say Monsanto and the FDA and that sort of thing. So big business really does become an arm of the government and they use government as a tool to advance their own interests.
I have often felt this creeping power of big business. For instance the big fight right now is against GMOs, something Monsanto is pushing. It really is a battle to keep food from being completely dominated by just a few corporations. That's scary! Or the idea that the government is raiding dairies that are trying to sell directly to the consumer. Or even that you can't buy clothing, virtually any clothing, that is guaranteed fair trade. All companies are making stuff in countries where there is much child/slave/unsafe working conditions. It's terrible. If I go into a Starbucks I know I am contributing to some causes I believe in but I am also contributing to a corporation that pushes abortion and gay marriage, things I don't believe in. So as a consumer I feel trapped. This another reason why even if distributism isn't a viable fully blown economic reality, aspects of it contribute to a more wholesome conversation on the subject of justice and economics. This is another reason why I have a great fondness for advocacy groups. We needs all types of people engaged in a great conversation. Lots of different perspectives make for a broader understanding of the issues.
Goldberg really takes apart Hillary Clinton's It Takes a Village book. A lot of it is scary too, because she seems so convinced that the state should raise our children. I enjoyed his brief section on movies and how we are all fascists now in terms of what ideas get represented on the movie screen. The Nazi glorification of pagan masculinity complete with homoerotic elements that results in a gay right movement is really interesting too (though so twisted) but he never explains why the Nazis put homosexuals in concentration camps which made whatever Goldberg asserts weak and incomplete. He also talks about how Nazis embraced the back to nature and organic movements. Hitler was a vegetarian and Nazis supported animal rights, which is so bizarre given the Holocaust. I really do think Goldberg goes overboard in assuming that every single thing the Nazis embraced somehow demonstrates fascism. I think they can, for instance environmentalists who are really into draconian population control, but you can also be an environmentalist who loves both people and the earth. Goldberg sees just a divide between the individual and the 'common good.' But individuals do live in community so they do effect things over all. You can't put an artifcial divide between one person and the other people he lives with. Recognizing this reality doesn't make one a fascist. Just because Himmler wanted to the SS to eat only organic food, doesn't mean eating organic food makes you a member of the SS! To be fair Goldberg isn't really stating that, he's just pointing out the interesting fact that fascism embraced the same things as liberals do and that they are rooted essentially in the idea of returning to nature, that is, pre-Christian ideas, that are somehow more authentic.
In the Afterward, Goldberg writes: In this book I have argued that modern liberalism is the offspring of twentieth-century progressiveism, which in turn shares roots with European fascism. He maintains that progressivism was a softer form of fascism. He says that he has been called a Nazi fascist all his life just because he is conservative. He's tired of it, especially when those hurling the insults are so ignorant of their own history. He acknowledges that Wholes Foods is not the same thing as a Nazi brownshirt but again, he cautions that the real threat is that "the promise of American life will be frittered away for a bag of magic beans called security." Goldberg wrote this book just as the Obama administration was taking charge. So much of what he is pointing out becomes even more obvious in things like the NSA scandal, the way Obamacare got pushed through, the HHS mandate, the aggressive campaign to silence more traditional and orthodox religions through gay marriage law suits and campaigns. The fact that George Bush also made inroads into privacy rights, ethically indefensible things like unjust invasions and torture, shows that the two parties really are more alike in many ways than may first be observe.
Goldberg does a pretty good job at justifying his reasoning and approach throughout the book. I can't say that I agree with him on everything. But the books certainly provoked a lot of thought and provided me with a fresh and more informed perspective on many political issues of the day. Goldberg who spends most of the book frustratingly criticizing anything that smacks of addressing any political problem via government as related to fascism and never mentioning what an alternative approach might be, finally defines what conservatism is: It is opposition to all forms of political religion. It is a rejection of the idea that politics is redemptive. It is the conviction that a properly ordered republic has a government of limited ambition . . . . In America. . . a conservative is one who protects and defends what are considered liberal institutions in Europe but are largely conservative ones in America: private property, free markets, individual liberty, freedom of conscience, and the rights of communities to determine for themselves how they will live within these guidelines."
I am mad at myself for reading this book right before Christmas. I got a little obsessed about it and it distracted and disturbed me enough to cast a pall over my Christmas mood. But I am glad I read it. It really made me think and argue a lot in my head (and with other family members). I think in the end Goldberg makes a pretty good argument though I also thought he went overboard at times or treads on shaky ground. Finally, his afterward really saves the book because he is nothing if not very honest. I think if you are emotional about your liberalism, you won't take kindly to this book, but if you are more objective, you'll probably find it eye-opening, even if you disagree with the author's interpretation of history and developments.
My thoughts are incomplete and way too long to for anyone to really want to read, LOL. But here's a link to the first piece, Thoughts on Liberals and Conservatives and the second post, More Thoughts and below is my final installment which I never really finished. I have more I could say, but I don't have the energy or time. I didn't even really check for typos. But I am just emotionally done with this topic right now!
Continuing thoughts on the last third of the book:
Well the eugenics chapter was really interesting and I found myself agreeing with a lot of what Goldberg said. I discovered I'd been misusing the words eugenics and social Darwinism as interchangeable but they are not, according to Goldberg. Eugenics is when the state has policies that try to control or diminish an unwelcome population that is seen as a drag on society. These were state commissions on the feebleminded and such, the ones pushing institutionalization and sterilization, made me think of that horrible home in the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks- where her sister was starved to death from negligence. These places were part and parcel of the original progressive movement. These progressives labeled conservatives 'social Darwinists' because they (conservatives) didn't want to interfere in people's lives via government policies, so they got branded Darwinists, meaning they supposedly embraced the idea that survival of the fittest should just be left to take its course among the poor and disabled.
Goldberg brings up the idea in the best seller, Freakonomics, that abortion reduces crime levels. Rick read that book and was really disgusted by the author, but I know many people hailed it as this insightful new look at economics. Goldberg quotes some pretty damning writings from high up liberals who openly embraced abortion as a way of weeding out undesirables. And then he talks about how when William Bennet, a pro-lifer, said the same thing was true; he got maligned as a racist. People said that he was advocating infanticide. Goldberg poses the question: if theoretical use of abortion to lower crime (remember Bennet is prolife so he's only pointing this out on a theoretical level and he thinks this approach is immoral) is mass infanticide according to his liberal critics, why is abortion on an individual level not infanticide? Doesn't make any sense. But then pro-abortions have never made any sense; a real failure of science and critical thinking occurs whenever it comes up. Isn't there a book called Religion Poisons Everything? I have often thought abortion poisons everything.
When Goldberg started talking about big business and fascism, I got a little confused. He's coming from a totally different perspective than I have been taught, so I am going to have to learn more about this subject. It is interesting to read a completely different interpretation of history, but I don't know if I am buying what he's selling (to use a business metaphor!) yet. I get very confused though when he starts talking about the Third Way of fascism. I don't quite know what he means. At times he seems to be talking about something specific to fascism and other times it seems to be anything that is a compromise between the two competing ideologies of collectivism vs. individual rights. I am excited to start reading Samuel Gompers Seventy Years of Life and Labor, because he is right at the heart of this interaction between big business and reform. I wonder is his account will jive with Goldberg's.
I've been thinking more about how conservatism is a reaction that tries to protect individual liberty and traditional values. Goldberg quotes Chesterton a few times in the book and this made me think of distributism, which was the economic system that Chesterton and Belloc tried to put forth, based a lot on medieval guilds and agrarian economies. This alternative to free market vs. socialism is popular among certain Catholic intellectuals. Rick read a book about it written by one of the main people who are trying to revive this idea and he said that is was just too pie in the sky. It really gives the state a lot of power and just assumes the state will always follow the guiding principles of distributism. One of the principles of distributism is advocating for small businesses and putting up restrictions on big businesses, but Rick said that seemed really arbitrary and not tenable. For instance, Steve Jobs Apple is a post card company for the distributism as long as it wasn't far from its origins in his parents garage, but when it became successful, it became a big business that distributists wouldn't like. But putting the kibosh on the big business would necessarily affect (effect?) the desire to even start a business at all.
So while I don't know about distributism as an official policy, I do think it occurs, much like conservatism, as a natural reaction. The whole movement towards organic is a prime example of a grass roots distributist idea, or buying local, or having a small business Saturday after Black Friday, or the revival of farmer's markets, or people trying to buy Free Trade products; the whole back to the land movement is all very distributivistic.
Further along in the book Goldberg makes the point that big government and big business naturally go together. Now I always thought that the same liberals who want to government to solve all social problems were also though who are against big business, on the other hand I always wondered why so many rich business people are very pro-Deomocrat. Goldberg says that whenever you regulate business, you necessarily favor big businesses over small, because the big business have the capital to swallow the new costs whereas the smaller ones usually do not. So big businesses actually advocate for regulation because first they get to look good by seemingly embraces positive social programs and secondly, because it pushes their competitors out of the way. That's why we see this revolving door of say Monsanto and the FDA and that sort of thing. So big business really does become an arm of the government and they use government as a tool to advance their own interests.
I have often felt this creeping power of big business. For instance the big fight right now is against GMOs, something Monsanto is pushing. It really is a battle to keep food from being completely dominated by just a few corporations. That's scary! Or the idea that the government is raiding dairies that are trying to sell directly to the consumer. Or even that you can't buy clothing, virtually any clothing, that is guaranteed fair trade. All companies are making stuff in countries where there is much child/slave/unsafe working conditions. It's terrible. If I go into a Starbucks I know I am contributing to some causes I believe in but I am also contributing to a corporation that pushes abortion and gay marriage, things I don't believe in. So as a consumer I feel trapped. This another reason why even if distributism isn't a viable fully blown economic reality, aspects of it contribute to a more wholesome conversation on the subject of justice and economics. This is another reason why I have a great fondness for advocacy groups. We needs all types of people engaged in a great conversation. Lots of different perspectives make for a broader understanding of the issues.
Goldberg really takes apart Hillary Clinton's It Takes a Village book. A lot of it is scary too, because she seems so convinced that the state should raise our children. I enjoyed his brief section on movies and how we are all fascists now in terms of what ideas get represented on the movie screen. The Nazi glorification of pagan masculinity complete with homoerotic elements that results in a gay right movement is really interesting too (though so twisted) but he never explains why the Nazis put homosexuals in concentration camps which made whatever Goldberg asserts weak and incomplete. He also talks about how Nazis embraced the back to nature and organic movements. Hitler was a vegetarian and Nazis supported animal rights, which is so bizarre given the Holocaust. I really do think Goldberg goes overboard in assuming that every single thing the Nazis embraced somehow demonstrates fascism. I think they can, for instance environmentalists who are really into draconian population control, but you can also be an environmentalist who loves both people and the earth. Goldberg sees just a divide between the individual and the 'common good.' But individuals do live in community so they do effect things over all. You can't put an artifcial divide between one person and the other people he lives with. Recognizing this reality doesn't make one a fascist. Just because Himmler wanted to the SS to eat only organic food, doesn't mean eating organic food makes you a member of the SS! To be fair Goldberg isn't really stating that, he's just pointing out the interesting fact that fascism embraced the same things as liberals do and that they are rooted essentially in the idea of returning to nature, that is, pre-Christian ideas, that are somehow more authentic.
In the Afterward, Goldberg writes: In this book I have argued that modern liberalism is the offspring of twentieth-century progressiveism, which in turn shares roots with European fascism. He maintains that progressivism was a softer form of fascism. He says that he has been called a Nazi fascist all his life just because he is conservative. He's tired of it, especially when those hurling the insults are so ignorant of their own history. He acknowledges that Wholes Foods is not the same thing as a Nazi brownshirt but again, he cautions that the real threat is that "the promise of American life will be frittered away for a bag of magic beans called security." Goldberg wrote this book just as the Obama administration was taking charge. So much of what he is pointing out becomes even more obvious in things like the NSA scandal, the way Obamacare got pushed through, the HHS mandate, the aggressive campaign to silence more traditional and orthodox religions through gay marriage law suits and campaigns. The fact that George Bush also made inroads into privacy rights, ethically indefensible things like unjust invasions and torture, shows that the two parties really are more alike in many ways than may first be observe.
Goldberg does a pretty good job at justifying his reasoning and approach throughout the book. I can't say that I agree with him on everything. But the books certainly provoked a lot of thought and provided me with a fresh and more informed perspective on many political issues of the day. Goldberg who spends most of the book frustratingly criticizing anything that smacks of addressing any political problem via government as related to fascism and never mentioning what an alternative approach might be, finally defines what conservatism is: It is opposition to all forms of political religion. It is a rejection of the idea that politics is redemptive. It is the conviction that a properly ordered republic has a government of limited ambition . . . . In America. . . a conservative is one who protects and defends what are considered liberal institutions in Europe but are largely conservative ones in America: private property, free markets, individual liberty, freedom of conscience, and the rights of communities to determine for themselves how they will live within these guidelines."
Saturday, December 21, 2013
Schedule for Week after Christmas
The week between Christmas and New Years needs some structure if I am to go into 2014 prepared. So I've come up with schedule:
6:00 a.m. - 9:00 a.m.
I plan to rise early and work on Aquinas Learning stuff as well as other things like Certamen, AHG stuff, etc. Nobody else will be up and I tend to focus best in the early a.m. If I don't get started until 6:30 or 7:00, no biggie.
9:00 I am going to rouse everyone and remind them it probably is not a good idea to sleep too much longer. Breakfast will be come and get it. I plan to get some exercise at this time - either walking outside or doing a workout video or just doing some exercises and elliptical. I could listen to my Economics course while doing this. After this I would pray a bit and then take a shower and get ready for the day.
I want to focus for 30 minutes to 1 hour a day on housework
I want to focus on preparing good dinners
I want to spend relaxed fun time with the kids
Becky and I need to read together every day and at some point near the end of the week, homework needs to be done.
I hope to have a short nap every afternoon! Yippee!
6:00 a.m. - 9:00 a.m.
I plan to rise early and work on Aquinas Learning stuff as well as other things like Certamen, AHG stuff, etc. Nobody else will be up and I tend to focus best in the early a.m. If I don't get started until 6:30 or 7:00, no biggie.
9:00 I am going to rouse everyone and remind them it probably is not a good idea to sleep too much longer. Breakfast will be come and get it. I plan to get some exercise at this time - either walking outside or doing a workout video or just doing some exercises and elliptical. I could listen to my Economics course while doing this. After this I would pray a bit and then take a shower and get ready for the day.
I want to focus for 30 minutes to 1 hour a day on housework
I want to focus on preparing good dinners
I want to spend relaxed fun time with the kids
Becky and I need to read together every day and at some point near the end of the week, homework needs to be done.
I hope to have a short nap every afternoon! Yippee!
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
More thoughts
This is a continuation of thoughts provoked by Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism, which has got my brain churning and wanting to define my own approach to thing political. I have gotten really bogged down in the book though because Goldberg is beginning to increasingly annoy me. I really enjoyed the beginning because it was an historical analysis of fascism and how it related to the socialist/progressive movements back before the first World War. But as Goldberg moves up towards the present, I think he is finding his premise a little more slippery than is workable. I think he skews or ignores lots of stuff that doesn't quite work for him. For instance he really focuses on campus takeovers and the Weatherman when talking about the 1960s. I really think that stuff was extreme and not representative of what most liberals were focused on. But he paints everybody with the same brush while making lots of distinctions when it comes to conservatism. I think he does a pretty poor job with JFK. He paints him as anti-communist but somehow also continuing in the fascist methodology of liberals in this country. One thing he said about JFK is that he was always creating crises so that he could build up the importance of the federal government. I agree that terming things as a 'war' such as the War on Poverty' or the "War on Drugs" or the "War on Terrorism" does create this open-ended policy that allows the government to feed off of abstract fears and goals. The War on Terrorism is the thing that allows Obama to justify (and before him Bush) violating our right to privacy in terms of spying and gathering personal data on the populace. So I do think that is a fascist danger, replete with fascist paranoid thinking. However, JFK did not create the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Soviets really were trying to build missiles in Cuba. And he didn't create the space race. The Soviets really did send up Sputnik.
Anyway, I also got bogged down in the book because it is kind of a heavy subject matter (though not written in a heavy way) and I want to feel more Christmasy, so I have to be in a particular mood before I pick it up. I am though really interested in the next chapter which talks about the progressive roots of eugenics. Eugenics and racism really reached a horrible peak during WWII and the Holocaust and it (modern racism) all stems from social Darwinism which was the baby of the progressive movement. Thus Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, was a big eugenist who admired Hitler before it was uncool to admire him. Eugenics has as its goal the same type of utopian society that liberals think the government should bring about: no more poverty, illness, crime. One way to do this is to weed out those who cause problems. Liberals have now seemingly distanced themselves from this thinking, mostly because they did an about face and supported civil rights. I am interested to know how that happened exactly. Now conservatives are seen as being racists. Certainly some of them are, though a lot just seems to be angry at anything that liberals embrace, so it seems reactionary, on the most part and not foundational to conservative beliefs. However, it is nasty and repulsive. The other thing that makes conservatives so stupidly blind in terms of dealing with race is the preachiness of the left about it and the fact that the left loves identity politics, which is, many times, cloaked racism. In fact, identity politics is what fascism was all about.
But liberals do still support eugenics in a roundabout way. Because they are prochoice, they support the idea that children can be killed because of birth defects or poverty. They get around sounding cold-hearted about it by talking about quality of life rather than quantity. This is why they support euthanasia, for instance. Of course, this is largely one or more human beings deciding on whether other human beings get to live by determining whether they are worth it. This is fascism.
I have been thinking further about my idea that conservatives never have solutions to destabilizing problems, but simply react to those others who try to solve the problems via governmental interference and control. First of all, my husband pointed out that of course that is right because conservatives want a smaller government, so it is harder for them to come up with neat sounding solutions, since it must be done through other organizing means. Government is really the most convenient way to deal with things because it has the resources and authority at hand to implement and enforce ideas. But, I was further thinking about this and it occurred to me that conservative solutions sort of naturally happen after the fact. For example, in England in the 70's the liberal government there made the taxes so high on the rich they by and large fled the country. This is why the Beatles sang about the Taxman and why they moved to America. Well, if your money starts leaving your country, that's trouble, so England responded by alleviating some of the taxes. Or another example is the collapse of the Soviet Union. It simply couldn't maintain its economy with that much central control over everything. It collapsed and chaos ensued. But what has risen in many ways in its place? Mafia type control over markets; kind of a free market from hell which exploded as a result. Or probably the best example is China who saw the writing on the wall after the Soviets went down, and decided to free up their economy, which resulted in a wave of entrepreneurs, new companies, and a growing economy, etc. The Russians and the Chinese are not pure examples because the state still retains a lot of the Marxist thinking and basically treats problems with very fascist responses.
The other thing I have been thinking about is why, even though I don't trust anyone in power, whether they are Republicans or Democrats, I still am not a Libertarian. In large part it is because I disagree with the popular Libertarian idea that law and morality shouldn't go together. For example, I don't think pot should be legalized, which a growing movement now. I just don't think it is helpful to our society to have more people going through life stoned. I don't think it creates virtuous citizens and I am old fashioned enough to think that virtuous citizens are what make a country strong. I don't agree with legalizing prostitution or pornography, etc. I think things that are morally bad for individuals are morally bad for a country in that it winds up destabilizing society, which leads to trouble and possibly ruin. I think the legalization of abortion has led to many problems being introduced into our society. On the other hand, I don't like it when the government gets too micro-managing and paternalistic in dealing with its own citizens. So again I strive for a balance amidst all this.
The thing that bothers me about the current trend towards growing a bigger government is just how evangelical it is. I think liberals think the world would be better if everyone was a liberal just like them. This is why there is this movement to turn Virginia 'blue' as in Democratic. I think there might be organizations like this in many states. Hannah mentioned there was one in Texas. So to liberals it is like a religion that you evangelize. It seems so naive to me to think that government can solve all our problems. Don't they live in the real world? Don't they know how slow, obnoxious and dehumanizing bureaucracies can be? How unjust? That is the liberal blind spot. They simply can't think things through. They also are terribly glib when it comes to figuring out where the money is coming from. People who would never get themselves into debt blithely don't worry about the nation's debt or simply give lip service to it as a potentially devastating problem. Of course, many neo-conservatives think this same way, which is why I really don't get them at all. And liberals seems weirdly nostalgic about their earlier socialist days. One thing that really shocked me during Obama's first campaign was how the most popular bumperstickers featured a picture of Obama. This was unusual in that I had never noticed any political bumperstickers with an actual picture of a candidate on it. This activated my anti-power antenna which immediately thought 'cult of personality.' But what furthered this fear and shock was the fact that the style of the picture was retro-Soviet. Yes! Here's an example. I just found that so weirdly telling.
It seems to me the parties really are coalescing into entities that are surprisingly similar even as their rhetoric towards each other drips in hate and disdain. It's all emotion and not logic or critical thinking. Rick keeps saying that we are moving towards a realignment of the parties.
The thing is I really do think that we need a synergy of private, local, state and federal initiatives to get things done. And we just always have to be on guard against abuses of power. I simply can not get ideological about things. I see a little bit of truth in every approach and I want somehow to pluck out that truth and apply it to the problems of running a country without getting sucked into buying the whole ideological package. One thing that grates on me as I read this Goldberg book is that he really thinks ideology is it, but it must be his brand of ideology. And then he puts forth reasons for why his ideology is the right one. Many things he says are true and I agree, but I don't agree with everything at all. He really scorns people for being 'pragmatists' like FDR, but he paints pragmatists as amoral, only focused on the solution and not the right or wrong of the solution. But maybe I am a moral pragmatist? I think of what St. Philip Neri said: Do whatever you like, as long as you keep from sin. Use whatever solution works, as long as it is constitutional and moral. The slippery slope comes when trying to discern what is constitutional and now since morality is so relative, what exactly is moral.
To me the founding fathers came up with a brilliant solution to the sins of government and that's why our country as been relatively stable for so long and that's why we as citizens have been able to enjoy the freedoms we have for so long, so I default to their understanding of human nature and how the polis should work. I think they were still steeped in a classical understanding of human nature that allowed for a universal morality to undergird our political approach to problems. They had blindspots too that perhaps they simply couldn't deal with at that place and time, namely, slavery. Now, that universal morality is crumbling, it is leading to a lot of problems. The liberal solution which seemed so good at the beginning, at least in terms of dealing with social issues like child labor, factory conditions, civil rights, etc has broken with that morality as it has expanded its power, so that it now works against the good of the country in many ways, even as it is trying to solve problems (like health care).
Anyway, I also got bogged down in the book because it is kind of a heavy subject matter (though not written in a heavy way) and I want to feel more Christmasy, so I have to be in a particular mood before I pick it up. I am though really interested in the next chapter which talks about the progressive roots of eugenics. Eugenics and racism really reached a horrible peak during WWII and the Holocaust and it (modern racism) all stems from social Darwinism which was the baby of the progressive movement. Thus Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, was a big eugenist who admired Hitler before it was uncool to admire him. Eugenics has as its goal the same type of utopian society that liberals think the government should bring about: no more poverty, illness, crime. One way to do this is to weed out those who cause problems. Liberals have now seemingly distanced themselves from this thinking, mostly because they did an about face and supported civil rights. I am interested to know how that happened exactly. Now conservatives are seen as being racists. Certainly some of them are, though a lot just seems to be angry at anything that liberals embrace, so it seems reactionary, on the most part and not foundational to conservative beliefs. However, it is nasty and repulsive. The other thing that makes conservatives so stupidly blind in terms of dealing with race is the preachiness of the left about it and the fact that the left loves identity politics, which is, many times, cloaked racism. In fact, identity politics is what fascism was all about.
But liberals do still support eugenics in a roundabout way. Because they are prochoice, they support the idea that children can be killed because of birth defects or poverty. They get around sounding cold-hearted about it by talking about quality of life rather than quantity. This is why they support euthanasia, for instance. Of course, this is largely one or more human beings deciding on whether other human beings get to live by determining whether they are worth it. This is fascism.
I have been thinking further about my idea that conservatives never have solutions to destabilizing problems, but simply react to those others who try to solve the problems via governmental interference and control. First of all, my husband pointed out that of course that is right because conservatives want a smaller government, so it is harder for them to come up with neat sounding solutions, since it must be done through other organizing means. Government is really the most convenient way to deal with things because it has the resources and authority at hand to implement and enforce ideas. But, I was further thinking about this and it occurred to me that conservative solutions sort of naturally happen after the fact. For example, in England in the 70's the liberal government there made the taxes so high on the rich they by and large fled the country. This is why the Beatles sang about the Taxman and why they moved to America. Well, if your money starts leaving your country, that's trouble, so England responded by alleviating some of the taxes. Or another example is the collapse of the Soviet Union. It simply couldn't maintain its economy with that much central control over everything. It collapsed and chaos ensued. But what has risen in many ways in its place? Mafia type control over markets; kind of a free market from hell which exploded as a result. Or probably the best example is China who saw the writing on the wall after the Soviets went down, and decided to free up their economy, which resulted in a wave of entrepreneurs, new companies, and a growing economy, etc. The Russians and the Chinese are not pure examples because the state still retains a lot of the Marxist thinking and basically treats problems with very fascist responses.
The other thing I have been thinking about is why, even though I don't trust anyone in power, whether they are Republicans or Democrats, I still am not a Libertarian. In large part it is because I disagree with the popular Libertarian idea that law and morality shouldn't go together. For example, I don't think pot should be legalized, which a growing movement now. I just don't think it is helpful to our society to have more people going through life stoned. I don't think it creates virtuous citizens and I am old fashioned enough to think that virtuous citizens are what make a country strong. I don't agree with legalizing prostitution or pornography, etc. I think things that are morally bad for individuals are morally bad for a country in that it winds up destabilizing society, which leads to trouble and possibly ruin. I think the legalization of abortion has led to many problems being introduced into our society. On the other hand, I don't like it when the government gets too micro-managing and paternalistic in dealing with its own citizens. So again I strive for a balance amidst all this.
The thing that bothers me about the current trend towards growing a bigger government is just how evangelical it is. I think liberals think the world would be better if everyone was a liberal just like them. This is why there is this movement to turn Virginia 'blue' as in Democratic. I think there might be organizations like this in many states. Hannah mentioned there was one in Texas. So to liberals it is like a religion that you evangelize. It seems so naive to me to think that government can solve all our problems. Don't they live in the real world? Don't they know how slow, obnoxious and dehumanizing bureaucracies can be? How unjust? That is the liberal blind spot. They simply can't think things through. They also are terribly glib when it comes to figuring out where the money is coming from. People who would never get themselves into debt blithely don't worry about the nation's debt or simply give lip service to it as a potentially devastating problem. Of course, many neo-conservatives think this same way, which is why I really don't get them at all. And liberals seems weirdly nostalgic about their earlier socialist days. One thing that really shocked me during Obama's first campaign was how the most popular bumperstickers featured a picture of Obama. This was unusual in that I had never noticed any political bumperstickers with an actual picture of a candidate on it. This activated my anti-power antenna which immediately thought 'cult of personality.' But what furthered this fear and shock was the fact that the style of the picture was retro-Soviet. Yes! Here's an example. I just found that so weirdly telling.
It seems to me the parties really are coalescing into entities that are surprisingly similar even as their rhetoric towards each other drips in hate and disdain. It's all emotion and not logic or critical thinking. Rick keeps saying that we are moving towards a realignment of the parties.
The thing is I really do think that we need a synergy of private, local, state and federal initiatives to get things done. And we just always have to be on guard against abuses of power. I simply can not get ideological about things. I see a little bit of truth in every approach and I want somehow to pluck out that truth and apply it to the problems of running a country without getting sucked into buying the whole ideological package. One thing that grates on me as I read this Goldberg book is that he really thinks ideology is it, but it must be his brand of ideology. And then he puts forth reasons for why his ideology is the right one. Many things he says are true and I agree, but I don't agree with everything at all. He really scorns people for being 'pragmatists' like FDR, but he paints pragmatists as amoral, only focused on the solution and not the right or wrong of the solution. But maybe I am a moral pragmatist? I think of what St. Philip Neri said: Do whatever you like, as long as you keep from sin. Use whatever solution works, as long as it is constitutional and moral. The slippery slope comes when trying to discern what is constitutional and now since morality is so relative, what exactly is moral.
To me the founding fathers came up with a brilliant solution to the sins of government and that's why our country as been relatively stable for so long and that's why we as citizens have been able to enjoy the freedoms we have for so long, so I default to their understanding of human nature and how the polis should work. I think they were still steeped in a classical understanding of human nature that allowed for a universal morality to undergird our political approach to problems. They had blindspots too that perhaps they simply couldn't deal with at that place and time, namely, slavery. Now, that universal morality is crumbling, it is leading to a lot of problems. The liberal solution which seemed so good at the beginning, at least in terms of dealing with social issues like child labor, factory conditions, civil rights, etc has broken with that morality as it has expanded its power, so that it now works against the good of the country in many ways, even as it is trying to solve problems (like health care).
Sunday, December 15, 2013
Thoughts about Liberals and Conservatives
I really don't like politics at all. I get upset about it and I hate the nastiness involved. It brings out the worst in people. But I did study Political Science in school and of course I live in the world and politics is all around me, especially the area I am, metropolitan DC. So every once in a while I read something political.
I have been reading Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg. It's a big, fat book and its premise is that though liberals like to hurl the insult 'fascist' at conservatives, the ideas behind fascism are historically closer to the liberals view than the conservatives. For instance calling Tea Party people fascists is laughable. These are people who want a much more limited central government - that's the opposite of fascist. Liberals, on the other hand, want an expanded central government that has much more control over people's lives - that aligns much more with how fascism likes to do things.
A quick summary of the history of fascism: Mussolini invented it. He was a hard core socialist (back when that was synonymous with communism)for many years leading up to WWI. At that time socialism was considered an international movement, where all workers would unite and class was seen as the force that was stronger than any other category, such as nationality, language, ethnicity, etc. Mussolini broke from that because he thought Italians should fight for Italy and that socialism could be more efficiently achieved through a strong national identity. When he broke ranks, the communists/socialists turned on him but all his domestic policies reflected his socialistic approach, so there was a strong central government which was very involved in things like welfare, workers' rights, minimum wage, etc. This was intertwined with a strong sense of national pride and the glorification of the military. The Nazis or National Socialists of Germany were in the same vein, however, they also incorporated anti-semitism into their nationalism and because of the horrors of the Holocaust, this is really what we think of when we think fascism - concentration camps and gas chambers. But Mussolini was not an anti-semitic. In fact, there were lots of Jews in his government right up until the time that his power was diminishing and Nazis invaded and occupied Italy. Italy was one of the safest places to be in Europe for Jews, relatively speaking; unlike say much more liberal France. Spain's fascism is really complicated and took on a bit of a different flavor.
Anyway, I will analyze the book more, later, in my book review when I finally finish it; right now I am only halfway through. But it is generating a lot of questions for me which I want to put down somewhere, so it might as well be here! While I appreciate Goldberg's different take on what it means to be a liberal and I agree with some of it, I am by no means convinced of his viewpoint and I think his argument gets pretty weak at times. He goes overboard trying to fit everything into his particular view of things. For instance, just because fascists like the idea of minimum wage does not make it evil! He really gets carried away at times almost to an absurd degree.
But here are some thoughts I've been thinking! Goldberg's ideas are mushed around in my head with my own thoughts and observations.
1. Classical or traditional conservatives tend to like limited central government because they believe the adage that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Classical or traditional conservatives like the free market and they don't like foreign entanglements.
2. I don't understand what neo-conservatives believe. They seem to be into a big government too and into being involved in lots of foreign entanglements, so I don't understand how they are conservatives except that some of them seem to give lip service to socially conservative ideas. Maybe that's it.
3. Classical or traditional conservatives believe in the principle of subsidiarity and believe that the federal government should stick to its job as delineated in the Constitution. They also think that people should take care of each other, the poor, the sick, etc through private means and not governmental ones.
4. My biggest problem with conservatives is that they never seem to come up with ideas that try to solve potentially destabilizing problems. Instead they seem to be always criticizing attempts to address these issues. This is a general statement of course but overall that seems to be the way they proceed. Since Woodrow Wilson's time liberals have been trying to solve problems by using governmental solutions. And some of these governmental solutions have truly helped. The conservatives decry this but in the end they have no satisfactory alternative. And since the liberal model has been established for so long, we can't look to very many (or any?) examples of how things being done the conservative way worked out for the best. They can only say, well things would have worked out anyway. I've heard this response about issues from slavery to lots of types of regulations which actually improved things like child labor, working conditions, food production, etc.
5. My other problem with conservatives is that while they really don't like the government being too powerful, they don't seem to see the issue with corporations getting too powerful and how they can have such great influence on the government and in fact become de facto governments themselves in that they can really control many aspects of society. I do agree that keeping the market as free as is conscionable is a good thing because it stimulates growth and allows for more freedom and more opportunities but on the other hand, the free market is not a moral force and in fact it works off of the immoral impetus of greed and exploitation more often than not.
6. I think my own point of view is that I do deeply distrust all power because I believe we are all sinners and fall short of the glory of God. Anyone or thing (such as a political party or corporation) who has too much power will probably abuse it in some way or another. Therefore I think there should be checks and balances on everything to counter this reality. And I think we are in a constant tension in trying to balance countervailing interests and goals.
7. I think in my heart I am a true independent. I don't like whoever is holding power because I see them as potentially fascist, whether they be Democrats or Republicans. When the liberals are in ascendency, I am a conservative; when the conservatives are in power, my liberal roots start showing.
8. I do think that Obama really has fascist tendencies. I think a lot of what he has done is simply an extension of Bush, Jr.'s neo-conservative policies combined with the fascist impulse of liberals who want to be secularists social engineers. So basically my view is we are going to hell in a hand basket. So cheerful, I know! LOL. But what can be done?
I have been reading Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg. It's a big, fat book and its premise is that though liberals like to hurl the insult 'fascist' at conservatives, the ideas behind fascism are historically closer to the liberals view than the conservatives. For instance calling Tea Party people fascists is laughable. These are people who want a much more limited central government - that's the opposite of fascist. Liberals, on the other hand, want an expanded central government that has much more control over people's lives - that aligns much more with how fascism likes to do things.
A quick summary of the history of fascism: Mussolini invented it. He was a hard core socialist (back when that was synonymous with communism)for many years leading up to WWI. At that time socialism was considered an international movement, where all workers would unite and class was seen as the force that was stronger than any other category, such as nationality, language, ethnicity, etc. Mussolini broke from that because he thought Italians should fight for Italy and that socialism could be more efficiently achieved through a strong national identity. When he broke ranks, the communists/socialists turned on him but all his domestic policies reflected his socialistic approach, so there was a strong central government which was very involved in things like welfare, workers' rights, minimum wage, etc. This was intertwined with a strong sense of national pride and the glorification of the military. The Nazis or National Socialists of Germany were in the same vein, however, they also incorporated anti-semitism into their nationalism and because of the horrors of the Holocaust, this is really what we think of when we think fascism - concentration camps and gas chambers. But Mussolini was not an anti-semitic. In fact, there were lots of Jews in his government right up until the time that his power was diminishing and Nazis invaded and occupied Italy. Italy was one of the safest places to be in Europe for Jews, relatively speaking; unlike say much more liberal France. Spain's fascism is really complicated and took on a bit of a different flavor.
Anyway, I will analyze the book more, later, in my book review when I finally finish it; right now I am only halfway through. But it is generating a lot of questions for me which I want to put down somewhere, so it might as well be here! While I appreciate Goldberg's different take on what it means to be a liberal and I agree with some of it, I am by no means convinced of his viewpoint and I think his argument gets pretty weak at times. He goes overboard trying to fit everything into his particular view of things. For instance, just because fascists like the idea of minimum wage does not make it evil! He really gets carried away at times almost to an absurd degree.
But here are some thoughts I've been thinking! Goldberg's ideas are mushed around in my head with my own thoughts and observations.
1. Classical or traditional conservatives tend to like limited central government because they believe the adage that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Classical or traditional conservatives like the free market and they don't like foreign entanglements.
2. I don't understand what neo-conservatives believe. They seem to be into a big government too and into being involved in lots of foreign entanglements, so I don't understand how they are conservatives except that some of them seem to give lip service to socially conservative ideas. Maybe that's it.
3. Classical or traditional conservatives believe in the principle of subsidiarity and believe that the federal government should stick to its job as delineated in the Constitution. They also think that people should take care of each other, the poor, the sick, etc through private means and not governmental ones.
4. My biggest problem with conservatives is that they never seem to come up with ideas that try to solve potentially destabilizing problems. Instead they seem to be always criticizing attempts to address these issues. This is a general statement of course but overall that seems to be the way they proceed. Since Woodrow Wilson's time liberals have been trying to solve problems by using governmental solutions. And some of these governmental solutions have truly helped. The conservatives decry this but in the end they have no satisfactory alternative. And since the liberal model has been established for so long, we can't look to very many (or any?) examples of how things being done the conservative way worked out for the best. They can only say, well things would have worked out anyway. I've heard this response about issues from slavery to lots of types of regulations which actually improved things like child labor, working conditions, food production, etc.
5. My other problem with conservatives is that while they really don't like the government being too powerful, they don't seem to see the issue with corporations getting too powerful and how they can have such great influence on the government and in fact become de facto governments themselves in that they can really control many aspects of society. I do agree that keeping the market as free as is conscionable is a good thing because it stimulates growth and allows for more freedom and more opportunities but on the other hand, the free market is not a moral force and in fact it works off of the immoral impetus of greed and exploitation more often than not.
6. I think my own point of view is that I do deeply distrust all power because I believe we are all sinners and fall short of the glory of God. Anyone or thing (such as a political party or corporation) who has too much power will probably abuse it in some way or another. Therefore I think there should be checks and balances on everything to counter this reality. And I think we are in a constant tension in trying to balance countervailing interests and goals.
7. I think in my heart I am a true independent. I don't like whoever is holding power because I see them as potentially fascist, whether they be Democrats or Republicans. When the liberals are in ascendency, I am a conservative; when the conservatives are in power, my liberal roots start showing.
8. I do think that Obama really has fascist tendencies. I think a lot of what he has done is simply an extension of Bush, Jr.'s neo-conservative policies combined with the fascist impulse of liberals who want to be secularists social engineers. So basically my view is we are going to hell in a hand basket. So cheerful, I know! LOL. But what can be done?
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