Target: Old White Men

November 29, 2012
By Selwyn Duke

While modern society prides itself on being unbiased, it's no exception to the rule that every age has its fashionable prejudices -- and unfashionable people. Among the latter today are white men, and the closer they are to "dead white male" status, to use a favored leftist descriptive, the greater the disdain in which they're held.

Thus do we see sneering at "old white men." Earlier this year, Senator Harry Reid -- one well acquainted through experience with old-white-male machinations -- complained of "angry old white men" who bankroll conservative causes. More recently, the old-white-media paper the Guardian published a piece about America's changing demographics titled, in part, "No country for angry old white men...." Ah, yes, it's not just that they're old, white, and men, that Triad of Turpitude. They're "angry," too. So just dismiss them out of hand, with their agenda born of blinding, irrational hatred. It's another example of projection, from the group (leftists) that makes intellect-clouding emotionalism an art.

If we're to define matters based on group identification, however -- and the left makes clear we will -- there is an irony here.

You could roughly say that old white men built the whole modern world.

You can precisely say this if you include in the category the budding old white men known as younger white men. Who were all the great inventors, innovators, and philosophers from ancient Greece and Rome up through medieval and modern Europe and the United States? Who forged the West? Who birthed democracy? Who improved upon it, giving us our Constitution and modern republican government? There is a reason why most of the busts and pictures of legendary figures portray old white men.

We might also note that while old white men probably weren't the first to practice slavery, they were the first to eliminate it. The same can be said of human rights: old white men had lots of company trampling them.

They were alone in crafting the modern conception of them.

And is America really advancing as old white men's cultural and political weight wanes? During what group's hegemony were our national finances, morality, culture, and economic growth healthiest? Is there a group with a better track record of running successful civilizations? As to this, if only old white men had voted during the last 50 years, we likely wouldn't be facing the fiscal cliff that hangs over us like a sword of Damocles.

Of course, much demonization of old white men is mere artifice, an effort to sell an inferior product (liberalism) by discrediting its opposition. "Hey, why buy from these white-prune Willy Loman salesmen when you can patronize skilled salespeople? We're young, we're hip, and quick with the lip!" Yet this appeal only works by playing on very real prejudices. Exposition of the anti-white variety has been done to death in the Reality Media. It was epitomized when Susan Sontag said, "The white race is the cancer of human history" and thus proved that some white people certainly are. But far more interesting and less discussed is the other bias relevant here: that against the aged.

For most of history, old was gold. There is the stereotype of the wise old man, and, historically, societies would be governed by "elders." For example, ancient Sparta had a council of elders, and only men of at least 60 years of age qualified. And, of course, insisting that children respect their elders was once common.

This now has been turned on its head. One underappreciated reason why John McCain lost the 2008 election is that he appeared old -- an old-looking candidate hasn't won the presidency since the TV era's advent -- whereas Barack Obama seemed young and hip. And while fear that the person may die in office and our eye-candy culture certainly explain this in part, an increasingly significant factor is that many view seniors as they do our Constitution: old and yellowed and not relevant to our time. Just consider how the only consistent stereotype the hit show Seinfeld played upon was that of older people -- and it was wholly unflattering. They were portrayed as doddering, out of touch, dishonest, egotistical, argumentative, and petty, too engrossed in trivial matters to ponder what's truly important (such as, apparently, figuring out how to find someone more attractive to sleep with).

Of course, as George Soros, Warren Buffet, Noam Chomsky, and many others prove, "Wisdom doesn't always come with age; sometimes age just shows up all by itself." Yet even if the two are joined at the hip, it won't matter among a people who devalue wisdom. Note that the definition of the word -- until dictionary writers lost their wisdom -- was "knowledge of what is true or good." But there is no such thing in a relativistic universe, that realm with favored mantras such as "That's your 'truth'; someone else's may be different" and "Don't impose your values on me!" There can be no objective "good" if there is no God; nothing can be truly "true" if there is no Truth. And what is left when people no longer perceive Truth's existence and thus cannot use it as a yardstick for behavior? There then is just taste, preference, and what do we call the moment's consensus tastes?

Fashions.

And this is where the elderly cannot compete. People who believe in Truth understand it's timeless; that those who have lived longer will generally have apprehended more of it; and that it doesn't matter if older people aren't "with the times," only whether the times are with the Truth. But the young will always be more with the fashions. And owing to that dislocation from Truth, they will often embrace fashions even when they're fallacies. They won't know they're fallacies, either, as moderns' only perceived standard for judging such things is the fashions themselves. And they won't care what elders have to say about tried and true "wisdom." It would be much like telling them that they should dispense with pizza in favor of their grandparents' 1940s biscuits and gravy. It's all a matter of preference, so why should they subordinate their tastes to those of the past?

This gets at the insidiousness of modern liberalism. The French revolutionaries sought to erase the past by starting history anew with their revolution's first year, 1789; the Khmer Rouge sought to do so with their "Year Zero." But revolutionary change is too obvious; it doesn't gently boil the frog as does modern liberalism's evolutionary change. Progressives don't make any major pronouncements, dear citizen, about the first year of the rest of your life. They simply disconnect each generation from the last -- from the past -- with the message that, hey, ya' gotta be with it, which means being nothing like grandpa. And the "it" is change, not tradition; current tastes, not Truth; fashions and not fact. Just convince the young to ignore the old or dead -- especially if they're white and male -- the people who formulated Western civilization's recipe, and that Occidental delicacy is history. Then you will have started history anew not with an iron fist, but sleight of hand that keeps the frog simmering soundly.

Roman philosopher and statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero once said, "To be ignorant of the past is to be forever a child. For what is the time of a man, except it be interwoven with that memory of ancient things of a superior age?" Demonizing white men old or dead keeps the young and alive disconnected from them and hence from the past. This gives us a civilization of children, just the kind of people a pied piper can lead.

Contact Selwyn Duke, follow him on Twitter or log on to SelwynDuke.com

American Thinker

Dangerous Trends

November 26, 2012

 The forefathers and many others warned of the dangers of too much democracy. It was such a source of consternation to them that they devoted much of their time either warning against it or describing its many failings. Given the amount of effort expended on the subject it is amazing the general public have little clue they even opposed it let alone why. Even a group of college professors taking questions on PBS could not answer the simple question, “Why did the founding fathers mistrust democracy?” Of course whether they actually were befuddled to find an answer or unwilling to wade in that pond is any ones guess. The truth is the founders recoil at democratic governance is as easy to understand as liberal professors embrace of it.

The fact is democratic governments have several flaws not the least of which is the inherent tendency to suppress the minority. One only needs to look to the suffering of Christians in predominant Muslim countries to see this is true. Of course minorities can be manufactured by the art of division. Even the most superficial skimming of world history can find unending examples groups used as scapegoats for the greater society.

What would Hitler of been without the Jews to blame or communists without the wealthy to inspire envy driven rage? The fact is anybody at anytime can find themselves the target of a political demagogue seeking power at the expense of others.

There is little protection against this most insidious of democratic failings. Despite the words of Hamilton in the Federalist Papers, the fact that legislators can make no rule that does not also apply to them is no hedge against this type of tyranny. Neither is a constitution if it is ignored or rendered useless by those who see it as their right to remold it to fit the times.

It is no wonder that the politics of division is the bread and butter of those for whom democracy is a religion. Divide and demonize, also known as the art of demagoguery, can be a destructive force within a society without equal. The part of society most susceptible to being on the losing end of this type of communal debauchery is the wealthy. For this reason democratic societies almost always end up sacrificing themselves on the altar of envy by confiscating and redistributing the property of the upper classes. (what the founders would of called leveling) Of course the wealthy are not the only ones for whom democracy is a threat. Christians, who often stand in the way the democratic demagogue’s plans, rural folks that want to be left alone, entrepreneurs who wish to make their own way, hunters, gun owners and scores of others can find themselves the odd men out.

Such is the tendency of democracies to self-destruct into a factious mass of humanity. Unfortunately such seems to be the direction of Western Civilization. Only two items stand in the way of anarchy and the inevitable dictatorship that follows; the Rule of Law and a formidable constitution. It should come as no surprise that both of these bulwarks of freedom are now under attack. The Rule of Law is under assault by those that seek social justice above blind impartiality. The Constitution, that most principled of documents, is being undermined by courts and legislatures that justify molding it more to their liking by calling it a living document.  All of this makes the present direction of American politics all the more alarming.

In the last American election the politics of division and demonization were in full swing. Young were pitted against old, rich against poor, black against white, and women against men in a philosophical cage fight. It seems in a country that polls say is tired of divisive politics; it is the demagogue that can find the most ways to divide America that wins. It is all a fine example of D/democratic politics of the kind the country was warned about more than two hundred years ago.

If the West and most importantly Americans wish to see where the current path ends they need not to look far. Much of the world is caught up in democratically driven death spirals. In the Islamic countries, where no history of liberty exists, people have been thrust by events and the west to demand their democratic rights.

The end result is Egypt looks to be getting ready to join Iran in a brotherhood of despotic Islamic rule; Tunisia is likely soon to follow with Iraq and others not far behind. The terrorist’s dream of a great pan-Islamic dictatorship seems to be unfolding before the world, all with democratic credentials.

Closer to the U.S. doorstep, Venezuela too is showing how tyranny and democracy can be soul mates. The fact is liberty without order is anarchy, freedom without restraint is tyranny and democracy unrestrained is the playground of demagogues and despots. Only a country whose liberty is based in principles of mutual respect and individual rights can survive.  Let that be sacrificed to public opinion or the so called public good and freedom is lost. Even now the bells are tolling for liberty in the Land of the Free.

It is a dangerous trend that shows no sign of slowing and why should it? As the right to religious freedom is sacrificed for the bauble of free birth control the majority of Americans see no reason to cry foul. When the Justice Department says Habeas Corpus is no longer a right but an option to be exercised at its discretion the populous doesn’t even bat an eye. Even ones medical records, once seen as sacrosanct, are now property of the government. The list goes on but the pattern is clear, for most Americans the slide towards democratic tyranny is of less concern than tomorrow’s weather.

The Conservative Mind

The Great Rediscovery of American Values

By Jeffrey Lord on 8.2.12

Cruz in Texas, Walker in Wisconsin, Romney on Palestine and Poland.

 August, 2012.

The Great Rediscovery is in the headlines:

"Senate Candidate in Texas is Known as an Intellectual Force " -- The New York Times

"Romney: Media trying to 'divert' from real issues with focus on foreign gaffes."

"Romney praises Poland as model of economic liberty"

To borrow from Bob Dylan: "The times, they are 'a changin'"

There is no accident in all the headlines cited above, you know.

America is in the midst of the next chapter in what Ronald Reagan called "the great rediscovery" of American values.

And the Other Side knows it. Which is why the aroma of desperation that emanates ever more distinctly from Team Obama and its media allies.

Let's take the eagle eye view here, shall we? From about, oh, September 14th of 1901 until today, August 2nd of 2012.

On September 14, 1901, William McKinley's popular Vice President Theodore Roosevelt became president with McKinley's sudden death at the hands of, ironically, a leftist man of anarchy named Leon Czolgosz.

With that accident of history, the first of America's "progressive" presidents moved into the White House. A century-plus of "progressivism" was launched, its political tide ebbing on occasion (the Harding-Coolidge years) but increasingly flowing with all the force of the Atlantic in the grip of an endless series of hurricanes.

From TR to Woodrow Wilson to Herbert Hoover (yes, myths aside, Hoover was a "progressive Republican") and on to FDR's New Deal and LBJ's Great Society, the color of America's political waters ran from blue to bluer to bluest. Whether elected or appointed Republicans (the moderately blue Eisenhower, Nixon, and Ford), there was, seemingly, no way to stop the whirlwind.

The first effort to seriously put a halt to all of this was, of course, Barry Goldwater's 1964 nomination. Goldwater's loss became the ultimate victory -- the first serious step forward for the conservative resistance.
 It was here to stay. By 1980, the Reagan Revolution had begun.

The mistake made by some was to think the Reagan Revolution was somehow over. It wasn't. As Ronald Reagan was the first to say, Reagan himself was not a "Great Communicator" because of his personal skills. He won the affectionate nickname because, as he said, he "communicated great things."

Those "great things" are at their core utterly American. Said Reagan in his Farewell Address:

They called it the "Reagan Revolution." Well, I'll accept that, but for me it always seemed more like the great rediscovery, a rediscovery of our values and our common sense.

The great rediscovery of our values -- American values -- and common sense. American common sense.
It is precisely this "great rediscovery" that finally is beginning to give conservatives the edge over progressives. Why?

Because the progressive movement is at base a foreign -- which is to say "non-American" -- idea that had zero to do with America's founding principles based on English liberty.

Our friends at National Review devoted the considerable part of an issue back in December of 2009 to "The Four Horsemen of Progressivism: The Men Who Created Our World."

In four articles by NR's Jonah Goldberg, the University of Dallas's associate professor of politics Tiffany Jones Miller, Bradley C.S. Watson (of, respectively, St. Vincent College, the Claremont Institute and the Ashbrook Center), and the Manhattan Institute's Fred Siegel -- the political creation of progressivism was put under the microscope.

Using four men the group collectively considered as what we might call progressivism's "founding fathers" -- exploring how America got here from there. "There" being late 19th and early 20th century America.

Their careful analysis can provide for a considerable understanding of today's political headlines from the Ted Cruz victory in Texas to the Romney remarks on Palestine and Poland. Not to mention the polls showing Romney on the verge of upending Obama's progressive presidency.

First, the "Four Horsemen of Progressivism."

• · Richard Ely -- A professor at both the John Hopkins University and the University of Wisconsin from the 1890s forward.
• · John Dewey -- A graduate of John Hopkins who taught at both the University of Chicago and Columbia University.
• · Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. -- Holmes was, famously, a Theodore Roosevelt appointee as Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
• · Herbert Croly -- A progressive activist who founded the New Republic magazine.

Ely, wrote Goldberg, laid the foundation on which is built today's "house of contemporary liberalism." Ely "wrote dozens of books, on monopoly, taxation, land use and urban reform, and several standard texts on general economics."

But politically speaking in today's climate, a fact of progressive history that would doubtless pack political punch if better understood, Ely was a "leader of the new generation of German-trained or-inspired Ph.D.s" -- who began his teaching career at John Hopkins. That would be the John Hopkins that was, in Goldberg's words, "conceived as a German-style institution in 1881."

Which is to say, Ely was what we might call today a Europhile. A political trait vastly popular still today among American progressives (does the name Barack Obama ring a bell?) who are correctly accused of wanting to turn the U.S. into a European-style socialist state. Without doubt Ely's most famous student when teaching at Johns Hopkins was a young Woodrow Wilson, while he counted among his ardent fans others such as Teddy Roosevelt and Wisconsin's Governor Robert La Follette Sr.

John Dewey spent a half-century in American academia after leaving what Jones calls "the seedbed of progressive academia" that was Johns Hopkins. Dewey's entire career was devoted to progressive principles that were obtained from a school of thought that was, says Jones, "an academic phenomenon far removed from American politics." Jones cites the progressive Charles Merriam as approvingly citing the "intoxicating effect of the undiluted Hegelian philosophy upon the American mind" or, back to Jones, progressivism "articulated a critique of America that was as deep as it was wide. It began with a conscious rejection of the American founding and the promotion of a new understanding of freedom, history, and the state in their stead."

Meanwhile, over on the Supreme Court, Mr. Justice Holmes was deeply taken with all of this. Says Watson: "Holmes set forth the essence of progressivism as a legal theory…". And did it using his power as a Justice.

Which meant a member of the Court was using his constitutional perch to lead "the charge to eradicate judicial reasoning that was based on principles of natural law or natural rights" that were central to the founding of America.

Last but not least in all this was Herbert Croly. Writer Siegel calls Croly and his fellow progressives "America's Bismarcks." "To achieve a better future," said Croly, Americans had to be "emancipate[d] from their past." Which is to say the American founding principles as put forth in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution should be jettisoned in favor of a Bismarckian-style nation "placed under skilled professional leadership" with other "special lines of work… subordinated to its particular place in a comprehensive scheme of national economy."

The latter, of course, is precisely the thinking behind both Obamacare and the Obama stimulus.

The shorthand here, politically speaking?

Progressivism now stands in the historical dock as a foreign faith -- a decidedly non-American (or, if you like, un-American) belief system. After 111 years of progressivism, with America now awash in the inevitable results of massive debt and obsessive government interference in every crack and crevice of American life -- with Obamacare looming -- the country is in open rebellion. A rebellion that is specifically about the "great rediscovery" of American values -- precisely as Ronald Reagan suggested.

The political impact of this is easy to see -- and the Obamaites see it all too clearly. Hence the ferocity and or impulsive stupidity of their attacks on Romney for Bain or his dog or his wife's horse and so on.

Ted Cruz won the Republican nomination for Senator in Texas because Texas Republicans have had it with a GOP Establishment that was acceding to what they understand instinctively are the decidedly foreign values of the progressive movement. Values that have no relationship to the founding principles of America.

The Obama media is trying to make Mitt Romney into a gaffe-prone idiot because they understand in spades that his message on the culture of free markets in Israel is in fact a threat to the socialist culture that has combined with a messianic violence in not only Palestine but throughout the Arab world. Mr. Romney has wisely and bluntly spoken the truth about Palestine's real culture and it has nothing to do with being Palestinian. (He also correctly called Jerusalem the capital of Israel -- a decidedly unpopular truth with progressives.)

And American progressives certainly have no tolerance for former Polish President Lech Walesa -- a onetime union leader who was famously a Reagan ally -- giving Polish kudos to Romney. Kudos? Walesa, who invited Romney to Poland, essentially endorsed the Republican. Running as far away from the American progressive values that for decades acquiesced in his country's submission to the Soviet Union.
Said Lech to Mitt:

I wish you to be successful because the success is needed to the United States, of course, but to Europe as well and to the rest of the world, too. So, Gov. Romney, get your success, be successful.

Catch that?

Again: "I wish you to be successful because the success is needed to the United States, of course, but to Europe as well and to the rest of the world…."
 Which is to say, Lech Walesa believes American values…..the values Ronald Reagan hailed when he spoke of his time in office as a "great rediscovery" of American values….are necessary for the success of Europe and the rest of the world.

What's happening in America -- whether in 2012 in Texas with Ted Cruz, Wisconsin with Scott Walker, Israel and Poland with Mitt Romney, or 2010 in the GOP landslide -- is an open rebellion against 111 years of progressive politics. A furious revolt against the deliberate injection of decidedly non-American values into the body politic.

Americans are insisting on the "great rediscovery" of American values that were central to the success of the Reagan presidency. Not to mention the values that were at the core of America's founding itself.

They are voting for everybody from Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio (Latinos both, it should be added) to Mitt Romney and on and on because they understand instinctively that the great foreign experiment with their lives that was and is the progressive movement has failed.

From the staggering debt to the massive size of the federal behemoth that sits astride the Potomac to the vast governmental intrusions into their personal lives -- they have had enough.

Halting and overturning all of this is a long term proposition.

But as the results of the latest election in Texas show quite clearly -- the times they are a'changin'.

The great rediscovery of American values and common sense that Ronald Reagan spoke about continues.

Can you say Senator Ted Cruz?

American Spectator

What They Fought For

by Ben Shapiro 4 Jul 2012.

 

On July 3, 1776, John Adams wrote to his wife, Abigail:

The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more.

We’ve certainly taken Adams up on the shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations. But July 4 is also a great time to remember the Creator who bestowed his bountiful blessings on this country – and who bestowed each individual with the capacity for free choice and the right to exercise it.

Each Independence Day, I try to think of what it was like for the Founding Fathers when they signed the Declaration of Independence. They knew they were putting their necks in the noose by signing the document; in the case of Continental Congress Delaware delegate Cesar Rodney, who was suffering from facial cancer, almost literally – the only decent care for facial cancer at the time was in England. It was truly either liberty or death for these patriots.

Today, many Americans, including President Obama and the mainstream media, protest against the very freedoms for which the Founding Fathers stood. The right to earn one’s own way in the world. The right to keep one’s own money, to build a life for oneself free of government regulation and interference. The right to practice religion free of government compulsion. The right to sell and buy products free of mandates … or taxes … or whatever Obama feels like calling his tyrannical legislation this week.

America’s founding ideals were great ideals, worth preserving. Independence Day celebrates our independence, not just from Britain, but from a form of government that dominates the individual. “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” are not just words. They are the values for which America stands. And they do not mean government guaranteeing housing, health care, and food stamps. What makes human beings special, as the Founders recognized, was our individual capacity to create – and only preserving and fostering that capacity justified a government. America has always understood that, and sought to foster it.

Now, Americans must fight to preserve their rights. Not every American celebrates Independence Day for the right reasons. It’s not about the hot dogs or the ballgames or the fireworks. It’s about those men who stood together in the face of the greatest military power on the face of the earth, and said, “Our individual rights are worth fighting for.”

Big Government