Author: VD

Everything you need to know about the establishment’s view of Ronald Reagan can be found on Page 624 of “Dutch,” Edmund Morris’ weird postmodern biography. The place is Berlin, the time June 12, 1987:

” ‘Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall,’ declaims Dutch, trying hard to look infuriated, but succeeding only in an expression of mild petulance. … One braces for a flash of prompt lights to either side of him: Applause.

“What a rhetorical opportunity missed. He could have read Robert Frost’s poem on the subject, ‘Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,’ to simple and shattering effect. Or even Edna St. Vincent Millay’s lines, which he surely holds in memory.

Only now for the first time I see

This wall is actually a wall, a thing

Come up between us, shutting me away

From you … I do not know you any more.”

“Tear down this wall!” is now a classic piece of rhetoric, booming Shakespearean thunder in its pure expression of righteous outrage. It is one of the very few quotes of the modern era that may survive the test of time. It inspired one of the great moments of human liberty. But what is all that compared with the opportunity to quote a poet named Edna?

The Dark Window not only comes up with a better name for the MP3 non-radio show – Voxic Shock – but after four days of grueling debate on an issue almost completely disconnected from the current political discourse, announces a verdict in the first annual Vox Challenge.

Tune in next year, when Vox will weigh in strongly on the controversial Roman occupation of Long-haired Gaul.

Ralph Wiley writes on ESPN: [Jim] Gray asked [Shaquille] O’Neal to characterize the Laker season; and O’Neal did, with the last word he used being “enigmatic.” Good word. O’Neal seemed to try to humorize his use of it by smiling and saying Jim might not feel the use of such a word was appropriate — if, in fact, he knew what it meant. O’Neal was sort of diffusing his own use of the word, as if Jim would take it as inappropriate, not as a word — it was exactly the proper word — but inappropriate for Shaq to use.

The word seemed to throw Jim Gray, who said to Shaq, “Spell that.”

I was stunned. Almost as stunned as when O’Neal almost defiantly spelled it perfectly. He’s lucky Shaq responded. Responded? He’s lucky Shaq didn’t drill him. Luckily for Iceberg Jim, Shaq’s not that type. Spell that? What is that supposed to prove?

So, it’s racist for Rush Limbaugh to correctly point out that the media cheers inordinately for an overrated black quarterback, but Jim Gray can get away with publicly making the assumption that Shaq doesn’t know what enigmatic means and can’t spell it either. Interesting. Apparently assuming that all black athletes are stupid is not racist, but making note of what the liberal white media writes and says is.

I’m not a fan of Shaq the basketball player. He commits an offensive foul almost every time he touches the ball and then, he plays for the Lakers. But he’s a good guy, and unlike most people, he actively works to expand his mind. Why would anyone be surprised by his use of a word like enigmatic – which is an excellent word to explain the Lakers’ season – from someone who once said that he wished to be called the Big Aristotle?

Next time, Shaq should drop some Metaphysics on Iceberg Jim. “There must be from the first a cause which will move things and bring them together.” Aristotle knew, all those years ago, that the Zenmaster was to blame.

From Chase Me Ladies, I’m in the Cavalry: “My favourite liberal is Hildebrando Pascoal, a Brazilian poltician from the forest state of Acre. He was barred from Congress for “failings in parliamentary decorum” for murdering people with a saw. He was also involved in illegal land deals, cocaine trafficking, dissolving a boy in acid, murdering a doctor, and murdering the local bishop…. If this is their idea of a liberal, you can imagine what their young conservatives are like.”

From the Corner: No commentator I heard noticed that the Baroness Thatcher curtsied to the coffin – a gesture which protocol reserves at state funerals to the corpses of royalty.

You have to love the Iron Lady. She’s everything Hilary Clinton wants to be, and will never ever even come close to approximating.

Leo writes: 1) What is wrong with women working? Vox, you seem to be taking it as God-given fact that women working outside of the home is a Bad Thing. I disagree completely – it adds to GNP, it gives employers more people to choose from. As well as the fact that women, as individuals, have the right to decide what they want to do. You’ve included this as a bad thing, a negative consequence, but you’ve not said *why*.

Did you miss the bit about falling real wages? An extreme example might help you understand. The USA doubles the size of the work force by importing Chinese workers. Is this good for the economy? Or will it accomplish very little, except cutting wages in half? If it’s so good, I’m sure we can find 100 million volunteers to move into the country.

Now, women should have the right to decide what they want to do, but as matters stand, the increase in inflation, the fall in real wages and the rise in taxes means that two incomes are required where once one sufficed. It’s still a choice, to be sure. Do you want a lower standard of living, or do you want to farm your children out to day care and government schools while you go work. I’d go with the former, but it’s hard to blame those who choose the latter. Unfortunately, the latter tends to increase stress on the family, leading to divorce, etc. The greatest irony, is that women are mostly working to pay for the Social Security benefits of the 65+ men who used to work, but thanks to the entitlement designed to help widows and orphans, are now collecting a check and playing golf.

2) I consider no-fault divorce laws to be a good thing. People get married by mistake; people get married young and then mature into different, incompatible people. Why should these couples be required by law to stay together- I know the fundamentalists’ reason for saying this, but how can you argue the viewpoint as a libertarian?

As Larry pointed out, why should a marriage contract be any less binding than a fitness club membership? The right to make private contracts, sans third party involvement, is sacrosanct to libertarians. The government should not concern itself with recognizing marriage or divorce in any way. It did not do so for thousands of years and there is no need or benefit for it to do so now. Quite the contrary, as is being demonstrated in Denmark, Holland and Massachusetts.

That was fun, but we’re approaching tenderizing expired equine time. And while I appreciate both Discordia and Bartholomew taking the time to compose reasoned critiques – I didn’t bother posting the various emails and blog posts that didn’t address my points specifically – in the end, I have to say that this riposte to my assault on suffrage was probably the most salient.

A picture, as they say, is worth a thousand words.

This was rather amusing, especially since in one aside, Eris mentioned that I was explaining how casual correlations are useless for the benefit of my “slower readers”. Now, read some of his objections to my response and see if Eris shouldn’t perhaps consider in which group he belongs.

He writes: [on selection bias] I see a similar problem with Vox’s argument. Even if I assume that people in the 1920’s predicted that illegitimacy, divorce, and homosexuality went up, I don’t know if they predicted other things that didn’t happen. And did they predict falling wages? If so, Vox didn’t mention it.

They did not predict falling wages, but then, I haven’t read a single anti-suffragist document focused on the economic aspects, as opposed to the social, so that’s hardly surprising. Indeed, I don’t know that I’ve ever read anything specifically linking the entry of women into the work force with falling real wages even after the fact; I’m under no illusion that I’m the first to make such a link, but let’s face it, real wages and century-old political debates are common subjects for popular reading these days. As for other predictions, those happend to be the ones that I recall. I’m sure there were others, but not so many that their success rate is not astounding eighty plus years on.

Let me see if I’m following Vox’s logic: Women are more likely to vote Democratic than Republican. Per Vox, Democrats support the various issues that cause those social ills. Ergo, we should curtail women’s voting rights because they vote Democratic. Going a step further, we should also deny the vote to any group that is predominately Democratic – and if you read Vox’s posts, you’ll know that he does not rule out disenfranchising other groups. The conclusion that I draw from all this is that Vox thinks voting should be restricted to a specific elite consisting of people who agree with him. And he calls himself a libertarian.

No, Vox thinks that voting should be restricted to an elite capable of thinking beyond their immediate personal interest and willing to avoid the temptation to vote themselves largesse taken by force from others. There is plenty of room for disagreement within those bounds. If voting is not restricted to this relatively broad elite, demagogues will purchase the favor of the short-sighted mob using the powerful mechanisms of government and a very much smaller oligarchical elite will impose its rule. Choose your poison.

I call myself a libertarian I support the concept of my rights ending where yours begin. This is antithetically opposed to democracy, which can be rightly equated to two wolves and one sheep deciding what to have for lunch. I’d much rather be free to live my life free of government control of my behavior, speech and property than be permitted to vote while being forced to endure countless violations of individual liberty. In case this is hard to follow, I will spell it out. Voting is not freedom. Voting is an act, freedom is the ability to act as one wills. Voting was mandatory in the Soviet Union, was the Soviet Union therefore free?

Note how he stops talking about homosexuality and illegitimacy at this point. I think the points about welfare are supposed to be about illegitimacy, but since out-of-wedlock births are not the only circumstances under which one would have cause to go on welfare, that point is a bit – dare I say it? – disingenuous.

It is disingenuous to posit a strong link between welfare and illegitimacy? That’s an interesting point of view that would amuse many a social scientist. As I stated explicitly in my response to him, I was not writing a complete causal chain but merely demonstrating that it was more than mere post hoc propter hoc. The homosexuality aspect opens the door to a lengthy debate of its own, which was why I left it for the nonce, but those who understand that I subscribe to a Paglian view of homosexuality, (on the secular side), will grasp the essence of the link with divorce and illegitimacy.

I must be misreading this. He seems to be arguing that the mere fact that women are allowed to vote is contributing to divorce, but more than that, to these eyes, he’s saying that women shouldn’t be able to work either.

First, the combination of my train of logic with the Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiment suffices to make the suffrage-divorce link beyond a reasonable doubt. I am not saying that women shouldn’t be able to work, only that barring the burden of government spending partially created by women’s suffrage, more women would be able to choose to stay home with their children should they so desire. I am quite confident that most would.

At this point, I’m starting to question Vox’s libertarian cred. In my opinion, women should be allowed to vote and work, even if it does increase divorce, because people in a free society should be free to make mistakes. Vox, on the other hand, seems to be saying that the government should curtail freedoms to prevent people from making bad decisions. Now honestly, which of us sounds like the starry-eyed libertarian and which sounds like the big government, para-socialistic left-liberal?

This is only because Eris is still operating under the misconception that the universal vote is conducive to human freedom. He equates voting with freedom, which I have already demonstrated is obviously fallacious. A connection between universal suffrage and freedom has never been proved anywhere, indeed, everyone from the Founding Fathers to the Algerian Army to the present administrators of the Iraqi Occupation believes precisely the opposite. Vox is saying that the voting franchise should be curtailed in order to prevent people from exerting control over other people, which in the long run will also be to their benefit, but more importantly will benefit those who only want to live their lives as they see fit, in freedom.

Which of us sounds as if he knows whereof he speaks? That question, dear reader, I leave to you.

From the Declaration of Sentiments: “He has so framed the laws of divorce, as to what shall be the proper causes of divorce, in case of separation, to whom the guardianship of the children shall be given; as to be wholly regardless of the happiness of the women – the law, in all cases, going upon a false supposition of the supremacy of man, and giving all power into his hands.”

So, one of the first things women wanted to do upon getting the vote they were demanding was change the divorce laws. This was declared publicly by the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848. It took 72 years, but women got the vote in 1920. Only 49 years later, the first no-fault divorce law was signed by Ronald Reagan in California. Women now initiate 75-80 percent of all American divorces and I don’t think anyone would argue the fact that the divorce courts are significantly biased towards women.

Probably a complete coincidence. Thanks for the tip, Bufelda, I’d forgotten about that.

From Debka: After the provisional government was installed in Baghdad, a senior Arab statesman confided elatedly to DEBKA-Net-Weekly : ”Bush has returned to the old political fundamentalism of the Middle East. It is good for us and it is good for him. ”It is a Middle East every Arab leader knows, a Middle East in which we also function best. I am certain that Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah and Syrian president Bashar Assad will support the new president, Ghazi al-Yawar, and trust him not to neglect their interests in Iraq.”

Democracy

Sounds good, you see,

To strike that common note.

And yet, you know,

I told you so –

They’d never let them vote!