“Melissa” over at FSP takes Urbanite Magazine to task about their September cover story about mass transit in Baltimore.
Melissa makes four points. Points 2 and 4 I don’t have a problem with because they point out ostensibly factual errors in the article and were in fact quite informative. However, points 1 and 3 are, no pun intended, odd.
Point 1. “You quote Donald Fry pretty extensively. But you don't mention that, as president of the Greater Baltimore Committee (GBC), he has an axe to grind. Namely, that raising corporate taxes to help increase funding for the Transportation Trust Fund (TTF) -- the very one he laments is suffering from underfunding -- is terrible, awful, no-good, and very bad (see GBC's press release). I'm thinking journalist ethics generally require full disclosure.”
Quoting a member of the business community who opposes tax increases constitutes a violation of journalistic ethics? Sorry Melissa, but the article has extensive quotes from mass transit citizen advocates as well.
Point 3. “Obtaining "choice" riders. Yes, this is priority. But please don't act as though it is an impossibility. Getting riders out of their cars could involve increasing gas or excise taxes to more heavily subsidize transit over highway.”
“Choice riders” is a deceptive term for us troglodytes who have not seen the light and forsaken our cars for the government funded glory that is mass transit. The prescription of increased gas and excise taxes is nothing more than government coercion to limit our choice to poorly run government run mass transit, much like government schools.
I’m not against public transportation in fact I have used it in the past, where it has worked for me and declined to use it where it has not. I used to commute from Baltimore to jobs in DC and Old Town Alexandria. I drove my car from my home in Baltimore near Hopkins to Penn Station and took the MARC train to Union Station and then METRO to my DC or Old Town destinations. At one point, I tried taking the MTA bus from the stop near my home to Penn Station. The bus was hardly on time, for the scheduled stops, and during some periods of the year that line did not run a full slate of buses. Going back home from Penn Station after work there wasn’t even a reliable bus that would arrive within 30 minutes of the time my MARC train arrived back in Baltimore, if that train even arrived on time at all. It was more time and cost efficient for me to drive to Penn Station, getting there early enough to find the free parking spots surrounding the station. Now that I work in Baltimore, it still doesn’t make sense to use mass transit because I can get to and from work faster driving my car than taking the bus. The Baltimore transit system is not reliable for all of us, and the progressive prescription, milking the taxpayers to throw more money at the system, like their discredited solution for schools, won’t make it more reliable.
Why should those of us who drive—the best choice for us—have to incur higher fuel costs and taxes to increase funding to an unreliable system we do not use?
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Bumper Stickers vs. Real Arguments
I have argued here that the left substitutes snarky bumper sticker platitudes for serious argument. The progressives at Free State Politics provide an example of this nearly everyday. Take a moment to watch this shining example, if you can bear it. The zeitgeist of modern left is not about advancing a political ideology, more than it is bout defeating their opponents and achieving power. The Democrats may be on a temporary upswing, but as Jonah Goldberg writes, “intellectual liberalism has a great deal to work out”.
New York Times Magazine reporter Matt Bai’s new book The Argument: Billionaires, Bloggers, and the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics offers a well-reasoned, persuasive argument that even though folks like George Soros, MoveOn.org, and Markos Moulitsas Zúniga now control the Democrat Party, the left as a whole lacks any real intellectual framework, nor does it advance any real intellectual argument at all. As Times reviewer Nick Gillespie writes, “Bai describes a movement long on anger and short on thought.” Progressives love to shout, “Bush lied!” “No blood for oil!” or “Halliburton” then sit back as if they have won an argument, when at best, all they have done is start one. The key point in Bai’s analysis is, “There’s not much reason to think that the Democratic Party has suddenly overcome its confusion about the passing of the industrial economy and the cold war, events that left the party, over the last few decades, groping for some new philosophical framework.”
Bai gives a keen insight into the mentality of the left that shows us why, in the long term, the new owners of the Democrat Party will not be successful in electoral politics. From Gillespie’s review:
So now progressive left is now organized and it owns the Democrat Party. But what have they done with it? What new ideas or intellectual arguments have they advanced? None! This is because they are not about advancing an ideology they are more concerned with winning. Moulitsas, openly admits it “…I'm not ideological at all I'm just all about winning.” The netroots love to claim how they started a new revolution in politics. However, the only thing revolutionary they have done is use new technology as a means to spread a message. However, the vehicle through which a message is sent, means nothing if the message itself is bunk. Progressives fall for the false assumption that conservative political victories are the product of slick, deceptive PR campaigns, strict party discipline and the “right wing noise machine.” However, conservatives won victories on the substance of their ideas and arguments. The conservative movement was chiefly an intellectual movement founded to oppose expanding Soviet communism abroad and creeping statism at home. The “right wing noise machine” that draws so much ire from progressives did not exist until after the foremost conservative victory, the election of Ronald Reagan.
Furthermore, the left appears bent on creating their own version the right’s organizational and media apparatus without concentrating on the intellectual underpinning of the message they disseminate. For example, see Issac Smith’s political paramour Matt Stoller’s praise for one of left’s archenemies, conservative organizer Grover Norquist. “To the extent that I have a political hero, it’s probably Grover Norquist, not Ralph Nader.” Conservative talk radio, Rush Limbaugh, in particular is successful because of the substance of what he says, not just because he has a microphone. If that is all that is required, then Al Franken and Air America would be juggernauts. They aren’t, because when it comes to advancing ideas they peddle the same tired and progressive tropes.
New York Times Magazine reporter Matt Bai’s new book The Argument: Billionaires, Bloggers, and the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics offers a well-reasoned, persuasive argument that even though folks like George Soros, MoveOn.org, and Markos Moulitsas Zúniga now control the Democrat Party, the left as a whole lacks any real intellectual framework, nor does it advance any real intellectual argument at all. As Times reviewer Nick Gillespie writes, “Bai describes a movement long on anger and short on thought.” Progressives love to shout, “Bush lied!” “No blood for oil!” or “Halliburton” then sit back as if they have won an argument, when at best, all they have done is start one. The key point in Bai’s analysis is, “There’s not much reason to think that the Democratic Party has suddenly overcome its confusion about the passing of the industrial economy and the cold war, events that left the party, over the last few decades, groping for some new philosophical framework.”
Bai gives a keen insight into the mentality of the left that shows us why, in the long term, the new owners of the Democrat Party will not be successful in electoral politics. From Gillespie’s review:
“The Argument” provides plenty of reasons to think that the Democrats, owing to an off-putting mix of elitism toward the little people and glibness toward actual policy ideas, are unlikely to go over the top anytime soon. Or, almost the same thing, to make the most of any majority they hold. The book describes Soros, after Bush’s victory in 2004, coming to the realization that(in Bai’s words) “it was the American people, and not their figurehead, who were misguided. ... Decadence ... had led to a society that seemed incapable of conjuring up any outrage at deceptive policies that made the rich richer and the world less safe.” Rob Reiner, the Hollywood heavyweight who has contributed significantly to progressive causes and who pushed a hugely expensive universal preschool ballot initiative in California that lost by a resounding 3-to-2 ratio, interrupts a discussion by announcing: “I’ve got to take a leak. Talk amongst yourselves.” Bai never stints on such telling and unattractive details, whether describing a poorly attended and heavily scripted MoveOn.org house party or a celebrity-soaked soiree in which the host, the billionaire Lynda Resnick, declared from the top of her Sunset Boulevard mansion’s spiral staircase, “We are so tired of being disenfranchised!”
Another example of progressive intellectual “heft” from the “The Argument”:
Moulitsas, the Prince Hal of the left-liberal blogosphere, comes off as an intellectual lightweight, boasting to Bai that his next book will be called “The Libertarian Democrat” but admitting that he has never read Friedrich Hayek, the Nobel Prize-winning economist and social theorist, who is arguably most responsible for the contemporary libertarian movement. Moulitsas’ co-author (of “Crashing the Gate: Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People-Powered Politics”), Jerome Armstrong, talks a grand game about revolutionary change, but signed on as a paid consultant to former Gov. Mark Warner of Virginia, an archetypal centrist Democrat whose vapid presidential campaign ended almost as quickly as it began. When MoveOn — the Web-based “colossus” whose e-mail appeals, Bai says, have always centered on the same message: “Republicans were evil, arrogant and corrupt” — devised its member-generated agenda, it came up with a low-calorie three-point plan: “health care for all”; “energy independence through clean, renewable sources”; and “democracy restored.”
So now progressive left is now organized and it owns the Democrat Party. But what have they done with it? What new ideas or intellectual arguments have they advanced? None! This is because they are not about advancing an ideology they are more concerned with winning. Moulitsas, openly admits it “…I'm not ideological at all I'm just all about winning.” The netroots love to claim how they started a new revolution in politics. However, the only thing revolutionary they have done is use new technology as a means to spread a message. However, the vehicle through which a message is sent, means nothing if the message itself is bunk. Progressives fall for the false assumption that conservative political victories are the product of slick, deceptive PR campaigns, strict party discipline and the “right wing noise machine.” However, conservatives won victories on the substance of their ideas and arguments. The conservative movement was chiefly an intellectual movement founded to oppose expanding Soviet communism abroad and creeping statism at home. The “right wing noise machine” that draws so much ire from progressives did not exist until after the foremost conservative victory, the election of Ronald Reagan.
Furthermore, the left appears bent on creating their own version the right’s organizational and media apparatus without concentrating on the intellectual underpinning of the message they disseminate. For example, see Issac Smith’s political paramour Matt Stoller’s praise for one of left’s archenemies, conservative organizer Grover Norquist. “To the extent that I have a political hero, it’s probably Grover Norquist, not Ralph Nader.” Conservative talk radio, Rush Limbaugh, in particular is successful because of the substance of what he says, not just because he has a microphone. If that is all that is required, then Al Franken and Air America would be juggernauts. They aren’t, because when it comes to advancing ideas they peddle the same tired and progressive tropes.
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Adrian Fenty's Pickle
DC Mayor Adrian Fenty is under criticism for sending his two children to private school, while simultaneously staking his political future on taking control of and fixing the mess that is the DC public school system. Some parents are petitioning that he enroll his children in public school. Some of you may remember Paris Glendenning endured similar criticism when he enrolled his son at my alma mater DeMatha, instead of sending him to public school. Fenty’s goal of reforming the DC school system will be an uphill battle. He will have to take on the entrenched bureaucracy and the teachers unions who will fight him tooth and nail. Already, new school chancellor Michelle Rhee wants to fire ineffective bureaucrats, without reassigning them to a lower ranking position at the same salary, as union contracts stipulate. The unions are fighting back Metropolitan AFL- CIO chief Joslyn Williams said, “This is a question of political will and political power.” Should Fenty and Rhee prevail and institute some sort of meaningful reform, they will both feel repercussions from the educrat unions come the next election.
Fenty’s pickle is in fact a good argument for school choice and vouchers. Paul Jacob over at Townhall.com tackles the question of whether or not Fenty is a hypocrite for keeping his kids in private school. Jacob’s answer is that, he may be a hypocrite, but more importantly, Fenty’s choice indicates that he is a good father for choosing to put his children in private school to give them the best education they can receive.
DC is already one year into a federally funded voucher program. However, a hostile Democrat majority in Congress is crowing like harpies about a DOE report showing no significant difference in math and reading scores between the voucher students and public school students, even though the data covers only the first seven months during student transitions to private schools. Look for the Democrats, led by DC’s own Eleanor Holmes Norton to kill the program when it comes up for renewal.
Fenty knows that the school system he runs is terrible, despite the fact that DC spends over $13,000 per student. Fortunately, he has the means to exercise choice to send his children to private school. Others in DC, as in other large cities (i.e. Baltimore) do not have this choice, because government owns a monopoly on schools. They have no choice but to send their children to failing government schools. I propose this. Instead of parents petitioning their elected leaders to send their children to public school, let us flip that equation around and petition our elected leaders to provide all parents the means to choose to send their children to best school possible. Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman accurately noted that government is good at writing checks, but bad at providing services. We should take his advice.
Fenty’s pickle is in fact a good argument for school choice and vouchers. Paul Jacob over at Townhall.com tackles the question of whether or not Fenty is a hypocrite for keeping his kids in private school. Jacob’s answer is that, he may be a hypocrite, but more importantly, Fenty’s choice indicates that he is a good father for choosing to put his children in private school to give them the best education they can receive.
DC is already one year into a federally funded voucher program. However, a hostile Democrat majority in Congress is crowing like harpies about a DOE report showing no significant difference in math and reading scores between the voucher students and public school students, even though the data covers only the first seven months during student transitions to private schools. Look for the Democrats, led by DC’s own Eleanor Holmes Norton to kill the program when it comes up for renewal.
Fenty knows that the school system he runs is terrible, despite the fact that DC spends over $13,000 per student. Fortunately, he has the means to exercise choice to send his children to private school. Others in DC, as in other large cities (i.e. Baltimore) do not have this choice, because government owns a monopoly on schools. They have no choice but to send their children to failing government schools. I propose this. Instead of parents petitioning their elected leaders to send their children to public school, let us flip that equation around and petition our elected leaders to provide all parents the means to choose to send their children to best school possible. Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman accurately noted that government is good at writing checks, but bad at providing services. We should take his advice.
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
City Council President Race
The Baltimore Sun has shown a rare inkling of independent thought. Deviating from its knee jerk support of all things O’Malley, the Sun has endorsed Michael Sarbanes for City Council President. O’Malley endorsed Sarbanes’ opponent Stephanie Rawlings-Blake back in July. Rawlings-Blake is also running on a ticket with Shelia “The Shoe” Dixon. The race is a tight one, a near tie.
I’m not in the habit of supporting Democrats, especially the scion of a Democratic pol who is partly responsible for the system of patronage that is Baltimore politics. However, Sarbanes is much better alternative than Rawlings-Blake. Rawlings-Blake is part of the inept dysfunctional O’Malley/Dixon machine and she hasn’t shown that she will do anything to make things better.
Rawlings-Blake can also be downright patronizing. A few months ago on the WBAL’s The Rob Douglas Show (no longer on air), Rawlings-Blake said school choice was “a backup plan… a philosophical discussion not necessarily something you have to think about because you do not have quality schools.” In the same interview, she trumpeted new BCPSS CEO Andres Alonso who had nothing but praise for Cuba’s educational system.
How can a philosophical discussion be something you do not have to think about?
(Yes, I just ended a sentence with a preposition so deal with it.)
Furthermore, as a parent I am offended that Rawlings-Blake thinks that she and the educrats on North Ave. know what is better for a child’s education then parents do! It is awfully patronizing of her to suggest so. However, it is edifying to know that a candidate for elected office considers citizens exercising free will to make their own choices as a “backup plan”. I guess that the interim Council President does not know that we do not have quality schools in Baltimore. Okay maybe a handful at most, but they are the exception that proves the rule. Her answer is to replace one bureaucrat with another and tell us not to think about it because she knows what is best for us.
I’m not in the habit of supporting Democrats, especially the scion of a Democratic pol who is partly responsible for the system of patronage that is Baltimore politics. However, Sarbanes is much better alternative than Rawlings-Blake. Rawlings-Blake is part of the inept dysfunctional O’Malley/Dixon machine and she hasn’t shown that she will do anything to make things better.
Rawlings-Blake can also be downright patronizing. A few months ago on the WBAL’s The Rob Douglas Show (no longer on air), Rawlings-Blake said school choice was “a backup plan… a philosophical discussion not necessarily something you have to think about because you do not have quality schools.” In the same interview, she trumpeted new BCPSS CEO Andres Alonso who had nothing but praise for Cuba’s educational system.
How can a philosophical discussion be something you do not have to think about?
(Yes, I just ended a sentence with a preposition so deal with it.)
Furthermore, as a parent I am offended that Rawlings-Blake thinks that she and the educrats on North Ave. know what is better for a child’s education then parents do! It is awfully patronizing of her to suggest so. However, it is edifying to know that a candidate for elected office considers citizens exercising free will to make their own choices as a “backup plan”. I guess that the interim Council President does not know that we do not have quality schools in Baltimore. Okay maybe a handful at most, but they are the exception that proves the rule. Her answer is to replace one bureaucrat with another and tell us not to think about it because she knows what is best for us.
Delmarva Dealings
Dear Readers, (que light wind howling and sage brush rolling through)
I would like to point you over to GA Harrison's blog Delmarva Dealings. Harrison frequently links to Red Maryland, and has had some nice words for my work there and here at The Main Adversary. I am very appreciative of that. So take stroll over to Delmarva Dealings to get a good sense of what is happening in and around Deleware, Maryland, and Virginia.
I would like to point you over to GA Harrison's blog Delmarva Dealings. Harrison frequently links to Red Maryland, and has had some nice words for my work there and here at The Main Adversary. I am very appreciative of that. So take stroll over to Delmarva Dealings to get a good sense of what is happening in and around Deleware, Maryland, and Virginia.
Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss
Blogging is extremely fun when media items that fall into your wheelhouse appear. Just such a piece appeared in Monday’s Baltimore Sun.
Steve Chapman, a columnist for the Chicago Tribune wrote an excellent piece about Vladimir Putin’s revising the blood soaked legacy of Josef Stalin. Putin, a former KGB man, publicly lamented the fall of the Soviet Union, as “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century,” is now pushing an effort to “rehabilitate” both the image of Stalin and the Soviet Union among Russians in order to build pride in their history. One officially sanctioned textbook labels Stalin as “the most successful Soviet leader ever.” Chapman does a fine job explaining the intellectual acrobatics needed to delude your self into believing that. Sadly, many of Stalin’s American contemporaries at the time believed it, and some American professional historians still believe it.
In addition to reminding us of the Ukrainian Terror Famine, and the Great Terror, Chapman also reminds us Stalin was not always our ally during World War II. In fact, Stalin allied with Hitler against the democracies, and he planned to remain so before Hitler turned on him in 1941.
There is an old Soviet-era Russian joke that says, “the future is known it’s the past that is always changing.” In the case of Stalin’s victims, this is quite literally true. See it, or more accurately don’t see it here.
Putin’s steering of Russia away from democracy and freedom, the assassinations of Alexander Litvinenko, journalist Anna Politkovskaya, and the attempted assassination of Putin critic Paul Joyal right here in Maryland is truly disturbing. Although, given the history of Putin’s former employer it is not shocking. Like his idol Stalin once said, “Death solves all problems - no man, no problem.”
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose
Steve Chapman, a columnist for the Chicago Tribune wrote an excellent piece about Vladimir Putin’s revising the blood soaked legacy of Josef Stalin. Putin, a former KGB man, publicly lamented the fall of the Soviet Union, as “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century,” is now pushing an effort to “rehabilitate” both the image of Stalin and the Soviet Union among Russians in order to build pride in their history. One officially sanctioned textbook labels Stalin as “the most successful Soviet leader ever.” Chapman does a fine job explaining the intellectual acrobatics needed to delude your self into believing that. Sadly, many of Stalin’s American contemporaries at the time believed it, and some American professional historians still believe it.
In addition to reminding us of the Ukrainian Terror Famine, and the Great Terror, Chapman also reminds us Stalin was not always our ally during World War II. In fact, Stalin allied with Hitler against the democracies, and he planned to remain so before Hitler turned on him in 1941.
There is an old Soviet-era Russian joke that says, “the future is known it’s the past that is always changing.” In the case of Stalin’s victims, this is quite literally true. See it, or more accurately don’t see it here.
Putin’s steering of Russia away from democracy and freedom, the assassinations of Alexander Litvinenko, journalist Anna Politkovskaya, and the attempted assassination of Putin critic Paul Joyal right here in Maryland is truly disturbing. Although, given the history of Putin’s former employer it is not shocking. Like his idol Stalin once said, “Death solves all problems - no man, no problem.”
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose
Monday, September 3, 2007
Submerging History
Given the quote on the header of this blog, I would be remiss if I did not mention this.
Anyone who knows the slightest bit of history knows that Carroll County is home to Whitaker Chambers’ farm, where the culminating events of the trial of the century played out. It was at the Chambers farm that HUAC investigators found the “Pumpkin Papers”, which sealed Alger Hiss’ conviction on charges of perjury and proved that he did indeed spy for the Soviets. Chambers speaks quite fondly of the farm on many occasions in his autobiography Witness, one of the great literary achievements in American literature. You can read the forward to the book titled “Letter to My Children.”
History it seems has a sense of irony. The Carroll County government has part of the 400 acre farm in its sights. The county wants to build a 350 acre reservoir to accommodate its growth. It has plans to take parts of the farm through eminent domain. The reservoir will not submerge the famous pumpkin patch or the Chambers farm house. Whitaker’s son John is fighting the county tooth and nail. President of the county commissioners Julia Gouge says “we need the water.” I await a similar howl of outrage from Andrew Kujan as he made at her previous public statement.
John J. Miller has an excellent piece on the story in the August 27, issue of National Review. No link the article as this particular piece is subscription only. But then again you should all have a subscription to National Review. I will leave you with this quote
Anyone who knows the slightest bit of history knows that Carroll County is home to Whitaker Chambers’ farm, where the culminating events of the trial of the century played out. It was at the Chambers farm that HUAC investigators found the “Pumpkin Papers”, which sealed Alger Hiss’ conviction on charges of perjury and proved that he did indeed spy for the Soviets. Chambers speaks quite fondly of the farm on many occasions in his autobiography Witness, one of the great literary achievements in American literature. You can read the forward to the book titled “Letter to My Children.”
History it seems has a sense of irony. The Carroll County government has part of the 400 acre farm in its sights. The county wants to build a 350 acre reservoir to accommodate its growth. It has plans to take parts of the farm through eminent domain. The reservoir will not submerge the famous pumpkin patch or the Chambers farm house. Whitaker’s son John is fighting the county tooth and nail. President of the county commissioners Julia Gouge says “we need the water.” I await a similar howl of outrage from Andrew Kujan as he made at her previous public statement.
John J. Miller has an excellent piece on the story in the August 27, issue of National Review. No link the article as this particular piece is subscription only. But then again you should all have a subscription to National Review. I will leave you with this quote
“In Witness Chambers writes ‘Land belongs to the man who has worked it until he knows it so well that he can cross it in the blackest night.’ John Chambers also has come to know the land well. What a shame it would be if, on some dark night, he found himself not walking through its fields but splashing through them.”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
