Vox Popoli

Teddy suffers the occasional spell of MEGO:

Too often VD’s premise — which I mostly agree with — gets obfuscated by vocabulary which seems meant to impress the reader rather than being clear

A failure to write seventh-grade English should never be confused with a desire to impress the reader. I can write in simple sentences. I can avoid using complex sentence constructions. I also find it extremely boring to write like this. Even worse, I can’t think straight when I have to focus on keeping it this simple. I feel like I’m writing bullet points. Is this what it feels like to be Jerry Jenkins? The colors are suddenly so much brighter now!

Perhaps some of you operate on the mistaken assumption that my columns are conceived as miniature works of art, contemplated over cappucino, then typed in during a burst of furious inspiration after which I lovingly massage the text into the arrangement which I believe will impress the greatest number of people with the magical way in which I have strung words together.

It just isn’t like that, unfortunately. I do think about the subject ahead of time; certainly there is more mental effort than there is for the average blog post, but as Space Bunny can testify, I frequently have absolutely no idea what I’m going to write about on Sunday afternoon, only a few hours before the rough beast begins its slouch towards the Commentary page. The average piece takes about 20-30 minutes, with a little more time required if I have to look something up. It’s more than stream-of-consciousness, but not much more. No spell check, no grammar check and very often I don’t even look at it after I hit the magical 750 words.

Generally speaking, I’m pretty happy if I haven’t done my usual trick of leaving out a word in the middle of a sentence. It’s hard to explain, but basically I write because I write. It’s just something I do, regardless of whether anyone is going to read it or not. I have all kinds of random little bits of this, that and the other thing lying around on various computers, just because I felt like starting to write something. One thing I like about the column is that it forces me to get in the habit of finishing things, which has always been a real problem for me. Most of my friends still can’t believe I managed to finish writing one book, let alone four.

Speaking of which, I really do need to get that chapter on Paul Krugman wrapped up….

Glick7 fails to follow through:

I think I understand Vox’s core message just fine, thank you. My message is that he was not syndicated because the broad audience perceived a message of contempt and anti-Americanism from an elitist – whether Vox intended this or not.

The only problem is that your message is hopelessly wrong. Do you really believe that the column was repeatedly and uniformly rejected by one of the most left-liberal, anti-American elitist groups in the country – op/ed page editors in major metropolitan centers – because it was too elitist and anti-American? I don’t know if the Canadian public schools are as bad as their American counterparts, but it’s pretty clear that they don’t teach logic.

Here’s a basic lesson. Before you share your thoughts with the public, say them out loud and see if the basic assumption on which your argument depends makes any sense at all. I further note that the theme of inefficient communication is asserted by every unpopular philosophy in the country, however, rhetoric aside, there is absolutely no reason to believe that a majority of humans anywhere have a strong tendency to favor liberty over the promises of security. Only 400,000 people voted Libertarian this November; if there’s truly a wave of libertarian sentiment in this country it would appear that the tide is on the way out.

I don’t expect to change the nation. Nor am I anti-American, I am instead a mourner at its graveside. Still, I have been very successful in convincing many individuals of the truth of my central libertarian theme, thus enabling them to take whatever steps they deem appropriate in pursuing liberty. That theme is this: Don’t believe the words of those who promise you safety in exchange for power over you. A wolf in shepherd’s clothes is still a wolf, and eventually it will devour the sheep foolish enough to turn to it for protection.

Unsurprisingly, there is more money to be made in softly soothing words. Just ask Maggie Gallagher and Armstrong Williams. Trust the shepherds and all will be well… trust the shepherds, they love and protect you… trust the shepherds, no, silly boy, those aren’t sharp teeth, it’s just a trick of the light. They are smiling tenderly over you as they keep watch in the deep of the night.

George Will lays the smack down:

“Is this the fruit of feminism? A woman at the peak of the academic pyramid becomes theatrically flurried by an unwelcome idea and, like a Victorian maiden exposed to male coarseness, suffers the vapors and collapses on the drawing room carpet in a heap of crinolines until revived by smelling salts and the offending brute’s contrition?”

You’ve all read it already, I’m sure, but it’s just too funny not to mention. Mr. Baseball’s throwing chin music and the melody is sweet.

From the New York Times:

Democrats have paid a historic price for their role in the great moral revolutions that during the past half-century have transformed relations between whites and blacks, men and women, gays and straights. And liberal Democrats, in particular, have been inviting political oblivion – not by advocating the wrong causes, but by letting their political instincts atrophy and relying on the legal system.

To be sure, Democrats were right to challenge segregation and racism, support the revolution in women’s roles in society, to protect rights to abortion and to back the civil rights of gays. But a party can make only so many enemies before it loses the ability to do anything for the people who depend on it. For decades, many liberals thought they could ignore the elementary demand of politics – winning elections – because they could go to court to achieve these goals on constitutional grounds. The great thing about legal victories like Roe v. Wade is that you don’t have to compromise with your opponents, or even win over majority opinion. But that is also the trouble. An unreconciled losing side and unconvinced public may eventually change the judges.

Setting aside the loaded assertion that the Democrats were right in the various causes listed, I think this is a valid condemnation of the Democratic strategy of rule by lawyer. Of course, it’s highly debatable that the Republican leadership is willing to overturn the status quo, even though the Republican masses would very much like to see them do so.

…my little wide-eyed, white-tailed doe! Glick7 feels the need for a fainting couch:

So Vox equates the US Army with “terrorists” who target civilians, children and women as a matter of policy.

Well Vox… GOODBYE….

Your bookmark is about to be erased… and it’s no wonder your bid for syndication failed.

One may have problems with the direction of one’s own government – but your comments are typical of those giving aid and comfort to an enemy in time of war.

… And I’m not even an American.

Adios Vox…. for good.

I always enjoy hearing from the literacy-impaired. First, the Iraqi occupation coalition is manifestly not bringing freedom or democracy to Iraq. Not a single element of either is even being contemplated, meanwhile, we don’t have a democracy here in the United States, we have an extremely limited version of it. LIMITED, capisce? And limited by government force not dependent upon the will of the people, you’ll note that when the will of the people is exercised in a referendum, state and federal judges lose no time in overruling and overturning it.

Second, it has been made very clear to all parties that the Kurds will not be permitted self-determination, the Sunnis will not be permitted self-determination and I strongly suspect that the Shiites will not be permitted any more self-determination than the Algerian and Turkish people are permitted when they vote for political leaders who are not supported by the military establishment. Voting is not a panacea, after all, there were votes in Kenya, the Soviet Union, the Palestinian Authority and the previous Iraqi regime as well. Were they all paragons of freedom and democracy too?

The present situation in Iraq is, admittedly, a very different situation than the tyrannical Ba’athist kleptocracy that previously ruled Iraq, and it is now certainly less lethal to the people of Iraq in and of itself, but it should never, ever be mistaken for genuine freedom of the sort that the Founding Fathers attempted to enshrine in the United States Constitution.

I have zero patience for the sort of individual who leaps at the opportunity to be offended, on his own behalf or that of others. If you wish to turn off your brain and amuse yourself by reading the regurgitated pap of government-funded PR specialists, then by all means, go forth and stultify. But, as always, I will continue to write as I see fit, even if that means my audience dwindling down to Space Bunny, the Original Cyberpunk and the occasional dislocated Hugh Hewitt fan.

Maggie Gallagher confesses to a little past prostitution:

By my records, I was paid $21,500 from HHS in 2002.

Is it acceptable for someone who writes a newspaper column to do research and writing for the government?

Of course, the reason Howard Kurtz of the Post is interested is the now-notorious case of conservative columnist Armstrong Williams, who signed a very different sort of government contract: to promote Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act on his television show. Armstrong defended himself in two ways, first by saying, “I’m a pundit, not a journalist.” And second by saying that he supported the Bush act anyway, so why shouldn’t he take money?

It cost him his newspaper column. Very properly, I might add. I have no interest in taking either of these lines of defense. So what’s my answer to Howard?

My first instinct is to say, no, Howard, I had no special obligation to disclose this information. I’m a marriage expert. I get paid to write, edit, research and educate on marriage. If a scholar or expert gets paid to do some work for the government, should he or she disclose that if he writes a paper, essay or op-ed on the same or similar subject? If this is the ethical standard, it is an entirely new standard. I was not paid to promote marriage. I was paid to produce particular research and writing products (articles, brochures, presentations), which I produced. My lifelong experience in marriage research, public education and advocacy is the reason HHS hired me.

But the real truth is that it never occurred to me. On reflection, I think Howard is right. I should have disclosed a government contract when I later wrote about the Bush marriage initiative. I would have, if I had remembered it. My apologies to my readers.

Gallagher’s offense against propriety is not as bad as Armstrong’s, but you know, the left-wing media hos are smart enough to take their payments from the foundations. You’d think that the right wing variety, who supposedly oppose government involvement in the economy on a philosophical basis, would be wise enough to oppose it on a personal and practical level as well.

What do these people think they are, PBS?

Maralyn Lois Polak leaps to a conclusion:

And don’t tell me the lack of socialization with others doesn’t take its toll on these kids’ psychological development. Several years ago, a seemingly pleasant family of homeschoolers rented the house next door to me. The mother and grandmother came up north from Texas with two teenagers; the father stayed behind at his Very Important Job. The older daughter, a lovely, talented cellist, was enrolled in a prestigious music school here. The younger son, a friendless prima donna with a penchant for playing the electric piano at full blast day and night, was still at home. Suddenly, after the son tried to strangle his mother and ran away one Easter, the family packed up and left. I’m not making this up.

So what are we supposed to learn from this? The only conclusion one can draw, assuming one is stupid enough to denigrate some 1.8 million kids based on one (ONE!) anecdote, is that all homeschooled students are insane stranglers. Maralyn didn’t need to tell us that she was public-schooled, like a good writer, she showed us.

Meanwhile, there’s a statistic from the UK that actually does say something about the public schooling there:

BRITAIN is in the grip of an “appalling” teenage yob crimewave, Home Secretary Charles Clarke admitted yesterday. One in four boys between 14 and 17 is a serious or regular offender, a shock government report revealed.

But, of course, the arrest of 500,000 public-schooled individuals in a country where home-schooling is almost unheard of can’t possibly tell us as much about socialization as something that happened once to someone’s neighbors.

The Fraters Libertas dismiss the Knowing Laugh:

One of many such examples in Mama Mia was this clunker of an exchange between a middle-aged woman and a horny, younger man after he has come on to her:

Woman: Why I’m old enough to be your mother!

Man: Then call me Oedipus!

Oh wait, I get it, Oedipus because he like wanted to have sex with his mother! Yes! I went to college! I’m smart! I listen to NPR! I GET IT!

See, I actually think this sort of thing is funny in its own right, but ONLY IF NO ONE GETS IT. Or at least, hardly anyone. It’s only unfunny when it’s ironic, because you have to be quasi-illiterate not to know that Oedipus was bad in a manner that even Samuel L. Jackson found inimitable.

For example, in the book I’m currently writing, I make use of an Ecoism that requires one to be familiar with both Italian and the idiosyncratic sayings of a particular Italian politician in order to comprehend that I am equating a certain left-liberal individual with a specific body part. This is funny, not because it is true, (although it is), but because it is unexpected in the context of the discussion and because of the dichotomy between the serious nature of the criticism and the crassness of its content.

At least I think it is. I guess I would say that the dividing line is between that which is trying to include (not funny) and that which is designed to seriously exclude. We are all elitists; where’s the fun if one can’t look down one’s nose at the Great Illiterate from time to time, especially those who think they aren’t.

William Bennett on NRO:

I agree with David Gelernter who has written that a terrorist is a tyrant out of power.

That’s an excellent formulation and a cogent dismissal that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. The difference between a man who fights in order to be left alone and live in freedom and a man who fights in order to gain ascendancy over others and exert power over their lives is polar.

Terror is a tactic, nothing more. In Iraq, neither the “terrorists” nor the occupation Coalition are freedom fighters, as neither side is attempting to bring freedom to Iraq, just different forms of bondage. One is much more desirable than the other, but the Kurds and Shiites already know that they will not be permitted self-determination, which is why the Shiites are boycotting the elections.

It will be interesting to see if all the triumphal pro-democracy noise disappears after the Iraqi elections, given that some of the favored candidates are already making noises about telling the President to remove US forces from Iraq immediately. Perhaps they’ll say one thing in public and another in private, but from the point of view of those of us outside, it will be very difficult for the US government to simultaneously claim that it is upholding freedom and democracy while rejecting the demands of a quasi-democratically elected government.

UPDATE – yes, make that SUNNIS

Dennis Prager writes on WND:

In the year 2005, nearly four centuries after Galileo was forced to recant observable scientific facts about our solar system, the president of Harvard University was forced to do a similar thing. He was compelled to apologize for advancing an idea about men and women supported by scientific research and likely to be true.

You know it’s getting completely out of hand when a female English professor is condemning the head-in-the-sand anti-scientism on the part of American academia in the New York Times. The ironic thing is that this dogmatic professoriat considers itself to be following the tradition of Galileo, when in reality they are imitating the most anti-intellectual aspects of the pre-Enlightenment Catholic Church.