I have been reading Jonah Goldberg's articles since the mid 1990s, when I discovered him at National Review Online, along with his couch, which seemed to star in some of his pieces as a character in its own right. Goldberg has matured into a father, husband, and a thoughtful conservative voice. So the article appearing at Townhall.com today entitled Conservative Establishment Divided Against Itself somewhat surprised me. Goldberg has become a part of the "Republican Establishment." Goldberg claims that he has not moved from the principles he so eloquently spoke about a decade and a half ago, but rather it is we, the conservative base, who has moved further to the right.
Long pause, staring out the window of the office overlooking the PolyKahr estates....
He is correct. I cannot speak for everyone else, but I can relate my own journey to come to this point in my life. I suspect others have followed similar pathways that have led them to a place close to mine. Conservatism, in the mind of Goldberg, is not an ideology. There are no unifying principles to Goldbergs conservatism except that the conservative is the one standing athwart history yelling "stop." The conservative says "think about the unintended consequences," or "think how this could be used by your worst enemy." Unfortunately, the Left usually thinks it has thought of the unintended consequences. Also, unfortunately, the conservatives have been too polite to use what the Left has given us against them.
You can see the problem with this state of affairs already. The Left constantly frames the issues we are all talking about. Slowly they marshal their forces until it appears they have the majority opinion. The conservative press makes arguments against the proposal, but since these are often based on tradition, religion, and the nature of man, all things the Left rejects, the arguments are dismissed out of hand. Out of desperation, the conservative offers up a "compromise" which is less destructive, but in fact the Left has just won yet again. We conservatives find ourselves in the ridiculous position of trying to defend programs that before we were against. It is disconcerting to see so called "conservative" politicians trying to figure out how to save Social Security and Medicare, for example. Today the Left starts out as if what is has always been, and keeps pushing the nation ever leftward. For example, taking the gun control scheme currently in place, they run around asking why we in the gun rights community can't compromise on "reasonable, common sense" gun control. But if the truth be actually told, most of the 20,000 laws currently on the books are illegal and unconstitutional, and should be stricken.
Then I thought of the word, "conservative." A "conservative" conserves. But what is it he is trying to conserve? In Europe, conservatives try to conserve the monarchy. For the most part they have failed miserably. In America, conservatives have been trying to maintain the gains made in the Revolution and subsequent writing of the Constitution. Being a Constitutionalist solves many of the problems we have had with the Leftward movement of our national politics over time. The Constitution offers a set of fixed principles, that none the less can be changed if enough of us can be convinced to change it. If it were adhered to by everybody, most of our nation's problems would be manageable.
Not to be thwarted by anything so minor as a dusty 200 year old document written by men who couldn't possibly survive in today's fast paced hustle and bustle world, the Left has turned the Constitution into a "living, breathing" document that can be bent, folded, stapled and mutilated as needed to sanction the latest most up to date fad. PETA is suing to grant some killer whales human rights. How avant guarde! How very Left, the idea that rights are granted by men. How stupid. Yet unless we assert some fixed principle why this is a stupid idea, it too will become the law of the land.
So, I come, at last, to where I am. The Constitution meant what it said when it said it, and it means the same things today that it meant when it was written. The original intent of the Constitution can be researched and understood, and this is the method that should be used. By these standards, a huge number of subsidies, entitlements, transfer payments, and laws should be stricken from the books. Does that sound radical to you Mr. Goldberg? Maybe it is, but I can look myself in the mirror each day knowing that I can argue from principle, rather that just saying to the Left "slow down." We need to have rock solid and unchanging principles if we are ever to turn back the current slide into fascism and a police state.
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
I, the Journalist
The First Amendment to the Constitution states:
The freedom of the press spoken about above is the freedom to publish, be it "news," opinions, stories, advertisements, open letters to the editor, or anything else that someone else might wish to read. The content was prepared by authors, called variously reporters, correspondents, copy writers, or more generally journalists. A journal is any daily account of events, whether those accounts be financial, a record of what you did with your time, a record of your travels on a day by day basis, or just your opinions about how events affect you. In my career with the Navy, I used a product from Franklin Covey to record my daily plan, as well as how that plan turned out. I did not publish it however. But, an interesting time can be had by exploring The National Diary Archive. A diary is another name for a journal.
Now, "blog" is short for "web log." A log is yet another name for a journal. Sailors kept logs of their travels with positions, weather, cargo, personnel, and anything else that might interest the owner of the vessel at a later time. So, if a blog is a journal, and publishing on the web is a form of publishing, then I am a journalist. I have thought of myself as a journalist ever since I started writing this blog.
What got me thinking about it today was an article at The American Thinker entitled Who is the 'Free Press' in the First Amendment? by Dan Smyth. In the article, Smyth makes the point that it is not journalists, per se, but rather the technology of the printing press that is protected. Smith makes liberal use of an article published by Eugene Volokh (blog: The Volokh Conspiracy) to back up his claim. The "press" therefore was not intended to denote an industry, a class of mandarins with special esoteric knowledge, or the "Fourth Estate," but rather to give anyone who has the means of publishing his content the ability to do so without prior restraint.
All of this seems straight forward enough. But, you would be wrong. Apparently, in a case involving liable, one Judge Marco Hernandez has declared that since one Chrystal Cox, the blogger involved, did not attend Journalism school, and since she doesn't have a boss, in the form of an editor looking over her shoulders, nor is she an "authorized journalist" from an established media company, she is not a journalist. Never underestimate the ignorance that comes out of the mouth of highly educated Judges. Of course, if Judge Hernandez had pondered on the history of journalism just a little bit, he would have discovered that most of the great journalists learned their craft through something called "on the job training," not going to elite Journalism Schools. Our early journalists were often a hard bitten, sometimes hard drinking lot with up close and personal experience with the human condition. Couple that with a healthy sense of irony and a particularly interesting turn of phrase and you have your instant journalist. Indeed, having lived a life worth writing about used to be seen as a plus in a journalist's resume.
I can not speak to the issue in the Chrystal Cox case of whether she committed liable or not, nor can I speak to the Oregon Shield Law, but I can say that I, and others like me, are indeed journalists. I don't make a dime from doing this, and my circulation is relatively small, but I am a journalist none the less.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or of the right of the people to peacefully assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.The emphasis in the above is mine.
The freedom of the press spoken about above is the freedom to publish, be it "news," opinions, stories, advertisements, open letters to the editor, or anything else that someone else might wish to read. The content was prepared by authors, called variously reporters, correspondents, copy writers, or more generally journalists. A journal is any daily account of events, whether those accounts be financial, a record of what you did with your time, a record of your travels on a day by day basis, or just your opinions about how events affect you. In my career with the Navy, I used a product from Franklin Covey to record my daily plan, as well as how that plan turned out. I did not publish it however. But, an interesting time can be had by exploring The National Diary Archive. A diary is another name for a journal.
Now, "blog" is short for "web log." A log is yet another name for a journal. Sailors kept logs of their travels with positions, weather, cargo, personnel, and anything else that might interest the owner of the vessel at a later time. So, if a blog is a journal, and publishing on the web is a form of publishing, then I am a journalist. I have thought of myself as a journalist ever since I started writing this blog.
What got me thinking about it today was an article at The American Thinker entitled Who is the 'Free Press' in the First Amendment? by Dan Smyth. In the article, Smyth makes the point that it is not journalists, per se, but rather the technology of the printing press that is protected. Smith makes liberal use of an article published by Eugene Volokh (blog: The Volokh Conspiracy) to back up his claim. The "press" therefore was not intended to denote an industry, a class of mandarins with special esoteric knowledge, or the "Fourth Estate," but rather to give anyone who has the means of publishing his content the ability to do so without prior restraint.
All of this seems straight forward enough. But, you would be wrong. Apparently, in a case involving liable, one Judge Marco Hernandez has declared that since one Chrystal Cox, the blogger involved, did not attend Journalism school, and since she doesn't have a boss, in the form of an editor looking over her shoulders, nor is she an "authorized journalist" from an established media company, she is not a journalist. Never underestimate the ignorance that comes out of the mouth of highly educated Judges. Of course, if Judge Hernandez had pondered on the history of journalism just a little bit, he would have discovered that most of the great journalists learned their craft through something called "on the job training," not going to elite Journalism Schools. Our early journalists were often a hard bitten, sometimes hard drinking lot with up close and personal experience with the human condition. Couple that with a healthy sense of irony and a particularly interesting turn of phrase and you have your instant journalist. Indeed, having lived a life worth writing about used to be seen as a plus in a journalist's resume.
I can not speak to the issue in the Chrystal Cox case of whether she committed liable or not, nor can I speak to the Oregon Shield Law, but I can say that I, and others like me, are indeed journalists. I don't make a dime from doing this, and my circulation is relatively small, but I am a journalist none the less.
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
A Missed Christmas Gift
Christmas was quite busy for me. The grand kids were anxious to open their presents, so I didn't spend much time on the reading list. As a result, I missed a great gift of my own, this powerful Rumination from Francis Porretto of Eternity Road.
I have had similar discussions with various people. Indeed, the question "How could a loving god allow children to suffer so?" is a familiar refrain. My answer is usually briefer than Mr. Porretto's, and suffers by comparison. Go and read the whole thing, as it is worth it to anyone who contemplates the Great Questions of the Universe. But a quote may get your juices flowing:
And may God bless and keep you, Francis Porretto.
I have had similar discussions with various people. Indeed, the question "How could a loving god allow children to suffer so?" is a familiar refrain. My answer is usually briefer than Mr. Porretto's, and suffers by comparison. Go and read the whole thing, as it is worth it to anyone who contemplates the Great Questions of the Universe. But a quote may get your juices flowing:
The heart of the thing is the nature of free will under the veil of Time. We are temporal creatures. Alone among the living species, we experience the passage of time, in which we sequence the events of our lives and concoct theories about why this happened instead of that. Because our wills are free, we are capable of taking many paths forward from any point in time and circumstance. The scope of our decision making is limited only by our nature.He goes on to point out that if you think about God, as opposed to relating to him, you are not thinking big enough. The fact of God's omniscience and our free will can only be understood by acknowledging that God stand outside of time and space. Thus God must know how we will use the great gift he has given us, and yet it is up to us to choose. We alone can not alleviate all the evil in the world, but wouldn't it be great if more of us worked harder at it? Choose wisely,
Our nature is defined by the laws of the universe that gave rise to us. God decreed those laws and made them self-enforcing. But they don't constrain our wills. We are free to choose what ends we will pursue: pleasure or pain; profit or loss; stasis or dynamism; good or evil. Freedom of the will is God's original gift to Mankind: the one that distinguishes us from all the lower orders...and perhaps from some of the higher ones, as well.
And may God bless and keep you, Francis Porretto.
More Evidence Against the Global Warming Scare
Speaking of indoctrinating children in the cult of Goofball Wormening, The Daily Bayonet has Everything you ever needed to know about man-made global warming in one sentence and a graph.
This was the question I asked all those years ago, and never got an answer:
Mustn't ask these questions. It is not PC.
This was the question I asked all those years ago, and never got an answer:
If the earth was warmer during prehistoric periods, and no one was about driving SUVs, what caused the warming then?The obvious answer was the Sun. But if the Sun caused the earth to warm then, couldn't the Sun be causing the earth to warm now? Shouldn't the possibility be at least contemplated?
Mustn't ask these questions. It is not PC.
Back to the Future
Education of our children, and in my case, grand children, is a topic that is often devoid of any common sense. Proposals to improve things are usually offered that involve more money spent on "technology" and the latest fads. As pointed out by today's featured article, the way we learn has not changed in the entire history of man, and we already know how to do it. Yesterday's American Thinker an article that reminded me of the movie title "Back To the Future." The title of the piece A World Without Schoolteachers is an interesting read, and I recommend it to you, gentle reader.
The thesis of the article is that the new Kindle and Nook book reading devices will have a revolutionary effect on the way children are educated. By bringing so much material into the hands of even the lower middle class student, it is entirely possible that we will return to the old way of teaching children, with better results than we are achieving now. Children will finally be home schooled, with access to tutors and the whole of the Library of Congress:
Now, imagine a child who can already read, and can already use a dictionary:
I have been reluctant to get a Kindle or a Nook, in part because we have a pretty extensive library right here at home. But there are a lot of books I just can not afford, and space here at the PolyKahr estate is quite limited. Perhaps I need to look into getting one of these things and trying it out. The thought that my grand daughter is being indoctrinated that man made global warming is a fact bothers me. Now, whether she eventually comes to the conclusion that man is causing global warming doesn't bother me. Rather, it is that she is being given only one side of the argument, and doesn't have a chance to hear the other side. That is the difference between indoctrination and education. One teach you to believe certain things, the other teaches you to think. Believe me, this world needs more thinkers.
The thesis of the article is that the new Kindle and Nook book reading devices will have a revolutionary effect on the way children are educated. By bringing so much material into the hands of even the lower middle class student, it is entirely possible that we will return to the old way of teaching children, with better results than we are achieving now. Children will finally be home schooled, with access to tutors and the whole of the Library of Congress:
Tutoring has always been the preferred model. That is after all how the very rich educated their children. Second-best, and not-so-second-best at that, were the small schools where the second tier of society, the well-off not-so-rich, pooled their resources in some public location and shared tutors. (Which is why the British, as in Eton and Harrow, still call exclusive private schools "public" schools.) And of course, the elite universities did their best to maintain the tutoring model of education. Did their best, that is, to steer clear of classroom instruction...
In fact, even the simplest tutoring approach often works magic. Years ago, a twelve-year-old foster child arrived in our home essentially unable to read after six or seven years of classroom "special" education. To the point where he didn't even know how to use a dictionary. Our oldest son, a prolific writer, happened to be visiting us at the time, saw the problem, and came up with a fix. He handed the boy the newspaper he read each morning, told him to sit on his bed, read it aloud, and circle every word he couldn't pronounce or didn't know the meaning of. Then, later, the two of them went over the circled words together. The first day, every fourth or fifth word was circled, but it wasn't very long before the number of circles began to decrease, and something clicked in the boy's mind. "Hey," he seemed to say to himself, "this is not such a mystery. I can get this reading and writing thing working on my own." And he went on to other material. Then, when he was ready to begin high school, the state and local school district sent a team to evaluate him in order to design a classroom program that met his "special needs." Only there wasn't any, because they were shocked to discover that he tested at or above -- and in a couple of subjects, far above -- his grade level.
Now, imagine a child who can already read, and can already use a dictionary:
And that's all it takes. Hand out the reading assignment, be available, or have someone else available to examine the essay they write and perhaps send them back to the same material book for another go or two on the same subject. Because tutoring doesn't teach a discrete body of knowledge as much as it does a skill we don't hear much about anymore: scholarship. Not simply memorizing some facts about a subject, but examining it from one perspective and then another until you develop a detailed, three-dimensional view of the subject. It's your month to learn about the Revolutionary War? Read a biography of Washington one day, then in the next Paine or Jefferson, Madison and Adams. Intersperse these books with a personal account of a common soldier, a slave, a parson of the time. Sample some fiction which portrays the period -- Drums Along the Mohawk, for example. Some of the short and breezy economic looks about the period like The Timber Economy of New England. Maybe read the newspapers of the time.
I have been reluctant to get a Kindle or a Nook, in part because we have a pretty extensive library right here at home. But there are a lot of books I just can not afford, and space here at the PolyKahr estate is quite limited. Perhaps I need to look into getting one of these things and trying it out. The thought that my grand daughter is being indoctrinated that man made global warming is a fact bothers me. Now, whether she eventually comes to the conclusion that man is causing global warming doesn't bother me. Rather, it is that she is being given only one side of the argument, and doesn't have a chance to hear the other side. That is the difference between indoctrination and education. One teach you to believe certain things, the other teaches you to think. Believe me, this world needs more thinkers.
Monday, December 26, 2011
What Courage Looks Like
Please go check out a new blog called Liberated Now. Pamela Geller of the blog Atlas Shrugs pointed me to this site. It is a very powerful read, though to date there are only 3 postings. It is the story of a person born Muslim who discovers that Islam is a hoax, and that the Koran preaches hatred and murder.
We in America talk frequently of a culture war on Christianity. Every year at this time, Nativity scenes seemingly become the targets of atheists and ACLU lawyers who want to take them down to prevent one of these thin skinned atheists from being offended. Christmas trees become holiday trees, and many store clerks wish you "Happy Holidays" instead of saying "Merry Christmas." But all of that is small potatoes, not worth getting excited about. The trees are a hangover from pagan holidays celebrating the winter solstice, and while I think Nativity scenes should be allowed to be displayed, so far the courts have only prevented them on public property. To be sure, we need to push back often, and hard, but none of us are going to lose our lives, or even be put in prison over these things.
On the other hand, our converted Muslim friend faces death if anyone around him finds out. This is serious, and yet he has done it anyway. If you want to know what courage looks like, go to the site and read.
We in America talk frequently of a culture war on Christianity. Every year at this time, Nativity scenes seemingly become the targets of atheists and ACLU lawyers who want to take them down to prevent one of these thin skinned atheists from being offended. Christmas trees become holiday trees, and many store clerks wish you "Happy Holidays" instead of saying "Merry Christmas." But all of that is small potatoes, not worth getting excited about. The trees are a hangover from pagan holidays celebrating the winter solstice, and while I think Nativity scenes should be allowed to be displayed, so far the courts have only prevented them on public property. To be sure, we need to push back often, and hard, but none of us are going to lose our lives, or even be put in prison over these things.
On the other hand, our converted Muslim friend faces death if anyone around him finds out. This is serious, and yet he has done it anyway. If you want to know what courage looks like, go to the site and read.
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Merry Christmas!
"For unto you is born this day, in the City of David, a Savior, which is Christ the Lord" Luke 2:11.
As the Savior, Jesus frees us from the evil that man had brought into the world. Being now free, he expects us to use our freedom to free others. Let us ponder on this, and see if we can not make everday a Christmas in the coming year.
May God bless and keep each of you,
PolyKahr
As the Savior, Jesus frees us from the evil that man had brought into the world. Being now free, he expects us to use our freedom to free others. Let us ponder on this, and see if we can not make everday a Christmas in the coming year.
May God bless and keep each of you,
PolyKahr
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