My beloved Wahoos have traveled to Tinseltown to take on UCLA today, a 3:30PM game on Fox. I have no illusions this year--I think we will earn three, maybe four wins. But--we could steal this one today.
Next week, Notre Dame comes to Charlottesville, a game I will miss. But the following Saturday, I'll make my first trip down for the season.
Basketball season starts soon, I hear.
Saturday, September 5, 2015
A Little Civics, Perhaps?
In our system, the Supreme Court determines the constitutionality of laws, and there is no higher authority than it. When it gets things wrong, as it sometimes does, it does so with no less finality.
The Supreme Court adjudged the continuing denial of state sanctioned marriage to same sex couples to be unconstitutional based on equal protection provisions of the 14th Amendment. The decision was controversial, and it was poorly rendered.
An official of a county in Kentucky believes that she cannot in good conscience, provide same-sex couples with marriage licenses, as it is her responsibility under the law, to do, as long as such other laws as are in force in that jurisdiction are followed. She is neither following the law or doing her job.
The complication here is that there is a religious practice issue, one worthy of respect. The official in question refuses to grant same sex couples licenses on religious grounds. The law under which she previously in good conscience, performed her duties, has changed, and its constitutionality has been validated.
And so, this official must A) issue licenses or B) quit. There really is no middle ground here, I'm sorry.
One can cite all sorts of other instances where public officials aren't following the law (Obama immigration, DC open carry, etc), and one would be correct in pointing out that these are also unacceptable.
What is most dangerous of all to the continuing function of our democracy is the degree to which previously clear thinking individuals now believe it is acceptable to pick and choose among the laws we follow of which we approve. Worse yet, is the "they are doing it, so why shouldn't we" mentality that often accompanies this behavior.
Conservatives are special, and useful, and dare I say, correct--in no small part because we tend to embrace principles while eschewing the emotion of the moment. And while it may be initially satisfying to call for resistance and take to the barricades over a local official standing her ground against the immorality of the federal government, the truly conservative manner in which to view this situation is the long view, one in which we think CLEARLY about the long term consequences of allowing government officials to pick and choose laws to enforce. Some of those laws are likely to be among ones conservatives value. And because those with whom we disagree seem to have decided to make this practice of selective enforcement a habit, in no way requires us to do the same.
In other words--don't come bitching to me about Hillary and her servers and her email and her TS/SCI traffic on unclassified channels if you in the next breath, support the actions of a county clerk to deny legally able citizens their right to marry. Both actions are wrong. And we must not become confused about this.
The Supreme Court adjudged the continuing denial of state sanctioned marriage to same sex couples to be unconstitutional based on equal protection provisions of the 14th Amendment. The decision was controversial, and it was poorly rendered.
An official of a county in Kentucky believes that she cannot in good conscience, provide same-sex couples with marriage licenses, as it is her responsibility under the law, to do, as long as such other laws as are in force in that jurisdiction are followed. She is neither following the law or doing her job.
The complication here is that there is a religious practice issue, one worthy of respect. The official in question refuses to grant same sex couples licenses on religious grounds. The law under which she previously in good conscience, performed her duties, has changed, and its constitutionality has been validated.
And so, this official must A) issue licenses or B) quit. There really is no middle ground here, I'm sorry.
One can cite all sorts of other instances where public officials aren't following the law (Obama immigration, DC open carry, etc), and one would be correct in pointing out that these are also unacceptable.
What is most dangerous of all to the continuing function of our democracy is the degree to which previously clear thinking individuals now believe it is acceptable to pick and choose among the laws we follow of which we approve. Worse yet, is the "they are doing it, so why shouldn't we" mentality that often accompanies this behavior.
Conservatives are special, and useful, and dare I say, correct--in no small part because we tend to embrace principles while eschewing the emotion of the moment. And while it may be initially satisfying to call for resistance and take to the barricades over a local official standing her ground against the immorality of the federal government, the truly conservative manner in which to view this situation is the long view, one in which we think CLEARLY about the long term consequences of allowing government officials to pick and choose laws to enforce. Some of those laws are likely to be among ones conservatives value. And because those with whom we disagree seem to have decided to make this practice of selective enforcement a habit, in no way requires us to do the same.
In other words--don't come bitching to me about Hillary and her servers and her email and her TS/SCI traffic on unclassified channels if you in the next breath, support the actions of a county clerk to deny legally able citizens their right to marry. Both actions are wrong. And we must not become confused about this.
Friday, September 4, 2015
Ads that turn me off
Every now and then I see a commercial with characters that so annoy me that I resolve not to buy the product or service because I cannot stand to think that I might be like the dudes in the ad. This commercial from Interactive Brokers, which runs on CNBC's "Squawk Box" relentlessly, is my current, er, favorite.
Douche. Bags.
Big Fat Friday Free For All
What's got you glum, Basil? Your week off of social media create an "inmates running the asylum" quality to your blog? Did the world not seem adequately impoverished without your constant Facebook and Twitter insights? Complain here, all who seek solace!I will officially return to social media this evening, after one week's hiatus. The time off enabled a good bit of reading and leisure, as I conducted a "staycation" here at home.
Sadly for you Hammer, we're over two months past my 50th Birthday weigh in goal of 159.9 lbs, and I weighed in today at 155.8. So sorry to be thus far depriving you of your desired ballooning.
Thursday, September 3, 2015
The Hammer's College Football Preview
Ok, let's get this out of the way first. UVA is at the Rose Bowl in Baja-Mexico Saturday to play the UCLA Bruins. The Wahoos had a rough time last year with UCLA losing 28-20 at home and putting CW in such a funk he ballooned up to 210lbs. He's just recently gotten back on track (bless his Yankee heart) with (rumor has it) the help of gastric by-pass surgery at the Chris Christie Institute for Fat MoFos of Lower New Jersey (just off 95 next to the ITT Computer Institute of Trenton). But we could have a jellyroll relapse 'cause things don't look that good for UVA. Last year UCLA won their last 4 out of 5, Virginia lost their last 4 out of 5, but that's not the issue. UCLA has a dynamite freshman quarterback going up against a pretty good veteran Virginia secondary. So defensively UVA is in ok shape but the Wahoos better learn to score, that's all I got to say. Especially, ESPECIALLY when they play nationally ranked Boise State and Notre Dame later this month.
Here the deal, UVA can come out of September with a #5 ranking and the greatest month in the history of the program or be 1-3 and positioned to lose to damn near every team left on the schedule. We'll see.
Now...tonight we've got the Clinton Foundation of college sports, the North Carolina Tar Heels playing the South Carolina Gamecocks in Charlotte. As you may know Charlotte is a UNC town thru and thru, but if I could remember all the games the Heels have lost to the OTHER Carolina in the Queen City I wouldn't need all this B12. Anyway the Heels return nearly all their key players on the offensive side of the ball, however they weren't that good last year. On the other side of the ball the Tar Heels defense was so bad last year I'd say THEY WISH they didn't have seven returning starters. But Coach Fedora brought in Gene Chicik to get 'em back on track so I'm sure they'll improve.
The Cocks defense last year sucked shit but they return most of their starters, offensively...eh, but Spurrier doesn't lose openers too often.
By the way, about 20k empty seats are expected for the game. Apparently they're charging PRO prices for tickets and Charlotte ain't quite as Carolina blue as they thought. Maybe they should have made it a "LGBT" appreciation night and given the unsold seats away to Diesel Dykes, Lady Boys and Caitlin Jenner types. Take THAT you South Carolina redneck pieces of shit! I'm sure no one in Chapel Hill would complain. They could call it a "Squeal for the Heels" night.
In other games they're mostly tune-ups with the exception of TCU at Mini-soda. TCU doesn't play that well on the road and the Big Ten is feeling their oats so I wouldn't be too surprised if the Horny Frogs got upset. Texas/Notre Dame, Louisville/Auburn and Wisconsin/Ala-Goddamn-Bama all could be interesting, so keep an eye out. Plus on Monday OSU is in Blacksburg to maybe avenge their only loss last year.
Well that's it, so put your seats in the upright position and get focused damn you!
Wednesday, September 2, 2015
The Finlandization of the Republican Party
Fin·land·i·za·tion
ˌfinləndiˈzāSHən/
noun
historical
- the process or result of being obliged, or at least not oppose, the interests of the former Soviet Union despite not being politically allied to it.
Substitute Democrat Party for "former Soviet Union" and I think we have a pretty apt description of the Republican Party establishment.
Did you see McConnell's comments on defunding Planned Parenthood? "Gee, you know it's like really impossible to do anything around here. The Democrats are really mean and gosh I can't do anything without them and then there's the President darn-it. If he gets mad then he'll call us racist and we could like screw up the election for Jeb."
Way to show some guts Mitch!
Let's face it, we're just unlucky (to be kind) or idiots (to be accurate). We got this old fool running the Senate and our Speaker is a drunk. Plus what really sucks is he's not a MEAN drunk, which could actually come in handy. No he's a sobbing drunk. You know, one of these guys who sits in the corner crying about his long lost girlfriend from college and how in the world could he have married this evil bitch who has turned his kids against him and spends his money like it was water blah blah blah sob sob sob! Jesus, just mention to Boehner that his dad was a bartender and #1 he'll grab a bottle of Jack Black #2 start bawling like the Wehrmacht marching through the Arc de Triomphe.
I've said it a thousand times: GOD HATES A COWARD! Plus, remember what Coach Lombardi taught us, winning is a habit and losing is a habit. When you're a loser it takes ten units of effort to achieve one unit of good. When you're a winner it takes one unit of effort to achieve ten units of good. Our drunk and our tired old man haven't the strength, the character, the courage or the smarts to oppose the Democrats. Furthermore we certainly don't need another ass-wipe of a President to go along with these conciliatory clowns.
Tuesday, September 1, 2015
Lies, Damned Lies and Demographics
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| http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/08/26/demographics_and_the_2016_election_scenarios.html |
2016 will be a lot different. I don't need to tell you the black vote will likely "normalize" with turnout and percentages. Since 1964 it has only been above 60% three times, and two of those times were...do I have to say it? Plus there's an untapped treasure trove of Black conservatives our progressive/establishment dolts haven't a clue how to attract. "Blacks, in OUR party? Oh my, what would father say!?"
Here's a very possible (and conservative) scenario in my view, as you can see we don't need the illegal vote. What we need is a few more black votes, a higher turnout and our share of the millennials which is still up for grabs thanks to BHO. Anyway, have fun and stop believing the MSM media and the Republican consultant class' bullshit about how we NEED Hispanics. We don't...at the moment. Dick around on immigration and you might consider learning spanish.
Monday, August 31, 2015
What does the sole of a sensible shoe taste like?
Hillary's emails may or may not amount to evidence of a crime, but they certainly make for some fun reading. For example, suppose you were thinking that you were not good at ingratiating yourself with people in power. You know, you always wanted to lick the boots of greatness, but you never really got the chance. Well, now you can follow the example of great Clinton friend Lanny Davis (but be sure not to lean over your keyboard or anything else that might be damaged by vomit when you read the tweet below):
Lanny Davis asked Hillary to talk to a reporter writing a profile, and this is how the email started. pic.twitter.com/qHSyJZ4Opk
— Gabriel Debenedetti (@gdebenedetti) September 1, 2015If we had good reporters, somebody would ask Lanny whether the soles of Hillary's sensible shoes would taste better with a little salt, or maybe even a strip of bacon?
Reparations? Not in This Life!
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| Mere de Hammer with brother Cliff 1949 |
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| Cliff 1950 on grandparent's front steps |
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| Grandparents 1955 |
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| Mom and Cliff on grandparent's swing1954 |
"When Clyde Ross was still a child, Mississippi authorities claimed his father owed $3,000 in back taxes. The elder Ross could not read. He did not have a lawyer. He did not know anyone at the local courthouse. He could not expect the police to be impartial. Effectively, the Ross family had no way to contest the claim and no protection under the law. The authorities seized the land. They seized the buggy. They took the cows, hogs, and mules. And so for the upkeep of separate but equal, the entire Ross family was reduced to sharecropping."
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Here's another family of the same generation that was "reduced to sharecropping". I doubt very much their standard of living was any higher than Clyde Ross and his family. But some would have the descendants of Tobe and Prudence (my grandparents) pay REPARATIONS to the descendants of Clyde Ross. Why? Because Clyde was poor? Because he couldn't pay his taxes which the author implies were not owed? The fact is I don't owe Clyde Ross or his family a damned thing, and if I'm forced to pay I will exercise my God given right to defend my rights. If YOU choose to throw your money away out of some misplaced guilt then that's up to you. Keep me out of it!
"Conservatism" is NOT Serving Conservatives!
So what's the end game here? A couple of months ago Jeb, (the quintessential establishment, monied, out-of-touch, disingenuous, elitist prick) was thrilled about Donald Trump. The thinking was he'll bloody the small fry while Jeb flies above the fray. WRONGO! Jeb might be the first out... and why? Because the people who control this party ain't the party. They might control most of the money but they don't control us.
There are already signs that a few of these candidates are starting to get it, IMMIGRATION is the key. They're still very tentative, this is the age of Obama after all, and they don't want a trumped up charge of racism to kill their candidacy. But it's encouraging that a couple have stuck their toe in the water. If their numbers go up look for every last one of them to try to "out wall" the other. Our goal is to SHUT DOWN THE BORDER COMPLETELY, impose a moratorium on ALL immigration for 10 years so as to "digest" the legal immigrants that have flooded the country for 20+ years as well as institute a visa system that TRACKS tourists and students etc. that are responsible for 40% of illegal immigration. Also to do away with "anchor babies" which any honest, thoughtful and reasonably intelligent person knows is not a Constitutional right.
So, don't be fooled by "conservatives". John Boehner and Mitch McConnell are "conservatives". They are of course false-flag progressives and the immigration issue is just smoking them out. So let's keep it up and we may just win this party back...and an election too!
A post about Elizabeth Warren, but not politics
In the morning mail we find this story, in which Elizabeth Warren, granted the great boon of seeing Pope Francis address the United States Congress, offers her granddaughter Warren's one and only "guest ticket." Granddaughter declines, because school.
Huh? A once-in-a-lifetime chance to see a pope -- even a Commie pope -- address the United States Congress, and freaking school is the conflict? This is elevating a given day of school, which for almost everybody, including no doubt Warren's granddaughter, is trackless hours of nonsense punctuated by occasional real learning, to a status it does not deserve.
It is tempting to pin this on Warren somehow, since I am sorely tempted by any opportunity to pin anything on her, but the ugly truth is that a huge proportion of aspiring and educated parents of the striving class would make the same foolish decision (recognizing, because the milk of intellectual honesty flows through my veins, that I actually have no basis for knowing why school was a conflict in this case -- perhaps it was on the day of a stage production for which the granddaughter was to be center stage, so to speak, or some shit like that), regardless of the consequences for actual learning, curiosity, or, most importantly, the urgent and permanent need to acquire stories with which to entertain kith and kin over the decades.
That is all.
Sunday, August 30, 2015
Ten Reasons Why Reparations for Blacks is a Bad Idea for Blacks - and Racist TooBy: David Horowitz FrontPageMagazine.com | Wednesday, January 03, 2001
One
There Is No Single Group Clearly Responsible For The Crime Of Slavery
Black Africans and Arabs were responsible for enslaving the ancestors of African-Americans. There were 3,000 black slave-owners in the ante-bellum United States. Are reparations to be paid by their descendants too?
Two
There Is No One Group That Benefited Exclusively From Its Fruits
The claim for reparations is premised on the false assumption that only whites have benefited from slavery. If slave labor created wealth for Americans, then obviously it has created wealth for black Americans as well, including the descendants of slaves. The GNP of black America is so large that it makes the African-American community the 10th most prosperous "nation" in the world. American blacks on average enjoy per capita incomes in the range of twenty to fifty times that of blacks living in any of the African nations from which they were kidnapped.
Three
Only A Tiny Minority Of White Americans Ever Owned Slaves, And Others Gave Their Lives To Free Them
Only a tiny minority of Americans ever owned slaves. This is true even for those who lived in the ante-bellum South where only one white in five was a slaveholder. Why should their descendants owe a debt? What about the descendants of the 350,000 Union soldiers who died to free the slaves? They gave their lives. What possible moral principle would ask them to pay (through their descendants) again?
Four
America Today Is A Multi-Ethnic Nation and Most Americans Have No Connection (Direct Or Indirect) To Slavery
The two great waves of American immigration occurred after 1880 and then after 1960. What rationale would require Vietnamese boat people, Russian refuseniks, Iranian refugees, and Armenian victims of the Turkish persecution, Jews, Mexicans Greeks, or Polish, Hungarian, Cambodian and Korean victims of Communism, to pay reparations to American blacks?
Five
The Historical Precedents Used To Justify The Reparations Claim Do Not Apply, And The Claim Itself Is Based On Race Not Injury
The historical precedents generally invoked to justify the reparations claim are payments to Jewish survivors of the Holocaust, Japanese-Americans and African- American victims of racial experiments in Tuskegee, or racial outrages in Rosewood and Oklahoma City. But in each case, the recipients of reparations were the direct victims of the injustice or their immediate families. This would be the only case of reparations to people who were not immediately affected and whose sole qualification to receive reparations would be racial. As has already been pointed out, during the slavery era, many blacks were free men or slave-owners themselves, yet the reparations claimants make no distinction between the roles blacks actually played in the injustice itself. Randall Robinson's book on reparations, The Debt, which is the manifesto of the reparations movement is pointedly sub-titled "What America Owes To Blacks." If this is not racism, what is?
Six
The Reparations Argument Is Based On The Unfounded Claim That All African-American Descendants of Slaves Suffer From The Economic Consequences Of Slavery And Discrimination
No evidence-based attempt has been made to prove that living individuals have been adversely affected by a slave system that was ended over 150 years ago. But there is plenty of evidence the hardships that occurred were hardships that individuals could and did overcome. The black middle-class in America is a prosperous community that is now larger in absolute terms than the black underclass. Does its existence not suggest that economic adversity is the result of failures of individual character rather than the lingering after-effects of racial discrimination and a slave system that ceased to exist well over a century ago? West Indian blacks in America are also descended from slaves but their average incomes are equivalent to the average incomes of whites ( and nearly 25% higher than the average incomes of American born blacks). How is it that slavery adversely affected one large group of descendants but not the other? How can government be expected to decide an issue that is so subjective - and yet so critical - to the case?
Seven
The Reparations Claim Is One More Attempt To Turn African-Americans Into Victims. It Sends A Damaging Message To The African-American Community.
The renewed sense of grievance -- which is what the claim for reparations will inevitably create -- is neither a constructive nor a helpful message for black leaders to be sending to their communities and to others. To focus the social passions of African-Americans on what some Americans may have done to their ancestors fifty or a hundred and fifty years ago is to burden them with a crippling sense of victim-hood. How are the millions of refugees from tyranny and genocide who are now living in America going to receive these claims, moreover, except as demands for special treatment, an extravagant new handout that is only necessary because some blacks can't seem to locate the ladder of opportunity within reach of others -- many less privileged than themselves?
Eight
Reparations To African Americans Have Already Been Paid
Since the passage of the Civil Rights Acts and the advent of the Great Society in 1965, trillions of dollars in transfer payments have been made to African-Americans in the form of welfare benefits and racial preferences (in contracts, job placements and educational admissions) - all under the rationale of redressing historic racial grievances. It is said that reparations are necessary to achieve a healing between African-Americans and other Americans. If trillion dollar restitutions and a wholesale rewriting of American law (in order to accommodate racial preferences) for African-Americans is not enough to achieve a "healing," what will?
Nine
What About The Debt Blacks Owe To America?
Slavery existed for thousands of years before the Atlantic slave trade was born, and in all societies. But in the thousand years of its existence, there never was an anti-slavery movement until white Christians - Englishmen and Americans -- created one. If not for the anti-slavery attitudes and military power of white Englishmen and Americans, the slave trade would not have been brought to an end. If not for the sacrifices of white soldiers and a white American president who gave his life to sign the Emancipation Proclamation, blacks in America would still be slaves. If not for the dedication of Americans of all ethnicities and colors to a society based on the principle that all men are created equal, blacks in America would not enjoy the highest standard of living of blacks anywhere in the world, and indeed one of the highest standards of living of any people in the world. They would not enjoy the greatest freedoms and the most thoroughly protected individual rights anywhere. Where is the gratitude of black America and its leaders for those gifts?
Ten
The Reparations Claim Is A Separatist Idea That Sets African-Americans Against The Nation That Gave Them Freedom
Blacks were here before the Mayflower. Who is more American than the descendants of African slaves? For the African-American community to isolate itself even further from America is to embark on a course whose implications are troubling. Yet the African-American community has had a long-running flirtation with separatists, nationalists and the political left, who want African-Americans to be no part of America's social contract. African Americans should reject this temptation.
For all America's faults, African-Americans have an enormous stake in their country and its heritage. It is this heritage that is really under attack by the reparations movement. The reparations claim is one more assault on America, conducted by racial separatists and the political left. It is an attack not only on white Americans, but on all Americans -- especially African-Americans.
America's African-American citizens are the richest and most privileged black people alive -- a bounty that is a direct result of the heritage that is under assault. The American idea needs the support of its African-American citizens. But African-Americans also need the support of the American idea. For it is this idea that led to the principles and institutions that have set African-Americans - and all of us -- free.
One
There Is No Single Group Clearly Responsible For The Crime Of Slavery
Black Africans and Arabs were responsible for enslaving the ancestors of African-Americans. There were 3,000 black slave-owners in the ante-bellum United States. Are reparations to be paid by their descendants too?
Two
There Is No One Group That Benefited Exclusively From Its Fruits
The claim for reparations is premised on the false assumption that only whites have benefited from slavery. If slave labor created wealth for Americans, then obviously it has created wealth for black Americans as well, including the descendants of slaves. The GNP of black America is so large that it makes the African-American community the 10th most prosperous "nation" in the world. American blacks on average enjoy per capita incomes in the range of twenty to fifty times that of blacks living in any of the African nations from which they were kidnapped.
Three
Only A Tiny Minority Of White Americans Ever Owned Slaves, And Others Gave Their Lives To Free Them
Only a tiny minority of Americans ever owned slaves. This is true even for those who lived in the ante-bellum South where only one white in five was a slaveholder. Why should their descendants owe a debt? What about the descendants of the 350,000 Union soldiers who died to free the slaves? They gave their lives. What possible moral principle would ask them to pay (through their descendants) again?
Four
America Today Is A Multi-Ethnic Nation and Most Americans Have No Connection (Direct Or Indirect) To Slavery
The two great waves of American immigration occurred after 1880 and then after 1960. What rationale would require Vietnamese boat people, Russian refuseniks, Iranian refugees, and Armenian victims of the Turkish persecution, Jews, Mexicans Greeks, or Polish, Hungarian, Cambodian and Korean victims of Communism, to pay reparations to American blacks?
Five
The Historical Precedents Used To Justify The Reparations Claim Do Not Apply, And The Claim Itself Is Based On Race Not Injury
The historical precedents generally invoked to justify the reparations claim are payments to Jewish survivors of the Holocaust, Japanese-Americans and African- American victims of racial experiments in Tuskegee, or racial outrages in Rosewood and Oklahoma City. But in each case, the recipients of reparations were the direct victims of the injustice or their immediate families. This would be the only case of reparations to people who were not immediately affected and whose sole qualification to receive reparations would be racial. As has already been pointed out, during the slavery era, many blacks were free men or slave-owners themselves, yet the reparations claimants make no distinction between the roles blacks actually played in the injustice itself. Randall Robinson's book on reparations, The Debt, which is the manifesto of the reparations movement is pointedly sub-titled "What America Owes To Blacks." If this is not racism, what is?
Six
The Reparations Argument Is Based On The Unfounded Claim That All African-American Descendants of Slaves Suffer From The Economic Consequences Of Slavery And Discrimination
No evidence-based attempt has been made to prove that living individuals have been adversely affected by a slave system that was ended over 150 years ago. But there is plenty of evidence the hardships that occurred were hardships that individuals could and did overcome. The black middle-class in America is a prosperous community that is now larger in absolute terms than the black underclass. Does its existence not suggest that economic adversity is the result of failures of individual character rather than the lingering after-effects of racial discrimination and a slave system that ceased to exist well over a century ago? West Indian blacks in America are also descended from slaves but their average incomes are equivalent to the average incomes of whites ( and nearly 25% higher than the average incomes of American born blacks). How is it that slavery adversely affected one large group of descendants but not the other? How can government be expected to decide an issue that is so subjective - and yet so critical - to the case?
Seven
The Reparations Claim Is One More Attempt To Turn African-Americans Into Victims. It Sends A Damaging Message To The African-American Community.
The renewed sense of grievance -- which is what the claim for reparations will inevitably create -- is neither a constructive nor a helpful message for black leaders to be sending to their communities and to others. To focus the social passions of African-Americans on what some Americans may have done to their ancestors fifty or a hundred and fifty years ago is to burden them with a crippling sense of victim-hood. How are the millions of refugees from tyranny and genocide who are now living in America going to receive these claims, moreover, except as demands for special treatment, an extravagant new handout that is only necessary because some blacks can't seem to locate the ladder of opportunity within reach of others -- many less privileged than themselves?
Eight
Reparations To African Americans Have Already Been Paid
Since the passage of the Civil Rights Acts and the advent of the Great Society in 1965, trillions of dollars in transfer payments have been made to African-Americans in the form of welfare benefits and racial preferences (in contracts, job placements and educational admissions) - all under the rationale of redressing historic racial grievances. It is said that reparations are necessary to achieve a healing between African-Americans and other Americans. If trillion dollar restitutions and a wholesale rewriting of American law (in order to accommodate racial preferences) for African-Americans is not enough to achieve a "healing," what will?
Nine
What About The Debt Blacks Owe To America?
Slavery existed for thousands of years before the Atlantic slave trade was born, and in all societies. But in the thousand years of its existence, there never was an anti-slavery movement until white Christians - Englishmen and Americans -- created one. If not for the anti-slavery attitudes and military power of white Englishmen and Americans, the slave trade would not have been brought to an end. If not for the sacrifices of white soldiers and a white American president who gave his life to sign the Emancipation Proclamation, blacks in America would still be slaves. If not for the dedication of Americans of all ethnicities and colors to a society based on the principle that all men are created equal, blacks in America would not enjoy the highest standard of living of blacks anywhere in the world, and indeed one of the highest standards of living of any people in the world. They would not enjoy the greatest freedoms and the most thoroughly protected individual rights anywhere. Where is the gratitude of black America and its leaders for those gifts?
Ten
The Reparations Claim Is A Separatist Idea That Sets African-Americans Against The Nation That Gave Them Freedom
Blacks were here before the Mayflower. Who is more American than the descendants of African slaves? For the African-American community to isolate itself even further from America is to embark on a course whose implications are troubling. Yet the African-American community has had a long-running flirtation with separatists, nationalists and the political left, who want African-Americans to be no part of America's social contract. African Americans should reject this temptation.
For all America's faults, African-Americans have an enormous stake in their country and its heritage. It is this heritage that is really under attack by the reparations movement. The reparations claim is one more assault on America, conducted by racial separatists and the political left. It is an attack not only on white Americans, but on all Americans -- especially African-Americans.
America's African-American citizens are the richest and most privileged black people alive -- a bounty that is a direct result of the heritage that is under assault. The American idea needs the support of its African-American citizens. But African-Americans also need the support of the American idea. For it is this idea that led to the principles and institutions that have set African-Americans - and all of us -- free.
"The Case for Reparations"
In the category of confronting one's own predispositions, for me a life-long endeavor, consider reading Ta-Hahisi Coates' essay "The Case for Reparations" if you have not already done in the year since it was published. With a few qualifications -- I think Coates unnecessarily weakened its otherwise considerable power with a pointless digression on climate change toward the end -- I found it persuasive.
Among the many things that might be said, and have been said, about Coates' essay, there are several worth mentioning.
Coates distinguishes between establishing the fact of the debt for which reparations would be owed and the means by which reparations might be paid, and offers no detailed or even useful solution to that end. One might say that the means of the reparations and the case for reparations are intertwined with no hope of separation. If reparations were cheap and easy, surely we would have done at this point. It is the probability that they would be vast, after a true accounting of the value stolen from American slaves and their descendants, that makes this such a difficult discussion. Of course, if the unspoken fear of the scope of reparations keeps us from a full reckoning of the underlying injustice, then we stand at the brink of admitting its enormous scale. But only at the brink.
Coates' solution is to support HR 40, a bill that John Conyers introduces every year. According to Coates, HR 40 would establish a commission to study the feasibility of paying reparations, including their size and the device for making payment. It is easy to dismiss Coates for signing up for what seems like a dodgy way around the feasibility question. It is also easy to charge that a reparations commission would become just another means for stirring up Democratic constituencies. I disagree. I think Conyers bill has not gone anywhere, even in Democratic Congresses, because it would fracture the Democratic coalition, of which more later.
The greatest value in Coates essay, and the reason intellectually honest Americans of good will ought to read it, is that it teaches that African-American poverty and social pathology have extremely deep and aged roots, were exacerbated by government policies from the left and right for 100 years after emancipation, and that expectations for their rapid amelioration are woefully misguided. A further exploration of this history and its consequences for African-American social and economic parity would be, I think, the greatest value in a reparations commission, at least if it demanded rigorous standards in the history it produced.
If Coates' essay has a glaring flaw, it is that he argues for African-American exceptionalism -- that oppression of African-Americans was and is unique in scope, duration, and consequences -- without exploring the consequences for other groups that make claims against the privileged. If African-Americans have a unique claim to a remedy that we have mostly ignored, then what ought our response be to claims from blacks not descended from American slaves, Latinos, LGBTs, women, and other constituencies important to Democrats? One suspects that even Democratic Congressional leaders have bottled up Conyers' bill precisely because there is no politically useful answer to that question. If we were to decide that African-American descendants of slaves (and perhaps Native Americans) deserved reparations and nobody else did, the required distinction between the proposed recipients and other groups would blow away the justification for a huge number of big government programs and other legal preferences for ethnic constituencies. And, worse for the academics, it would establish a "hierarchy of oppression," which is anathema to the ideologues in the field.
For my part, I have long regarded reparations as the only sound basis for demographic preferences in hiring, contracting, or university admissions because, well, all the other rationales make no sense at all. That view is extremely unpopular, though, because it requires liberals to admit there is no real basis for preferences for constituencies other than African-American descendants of slaves and Native Americans, and it requires conservatives to acknowledge that African-American poverty and social pathology depend heavily from slavery and Jim Crow, those ugly stains on the American virtue that conservatives hold so dear.
Regardless, it cannot hurt you to read "The Case for Reparations." Or can it?
Who's On First, Who's Out First?
1. Trump: Who woulda figured? But I still don't see him going anywhere. As I've said repeatedly, he's riding ONE issue and his support is no more than a clarion call to the establishment; GET IMMIGRATION FIXED! Some are still too friggin' dumb to see this simple fact and, well, money can't by me love and if you think crossing a border for money is love then your ass is grass.
2. Bush: See previous. But I am enjoying the slow burn of the country club Republicans! I hope it hurts!
3. Carson: I like Ben Carson. The man has good ideas, his politics are right on and he's brilliant. But smarts ain't enough. Although he's a quick learner, politics at this level requires a skill set few possess. I doubt he'll be able to keep up but if he can then I'm onboard all the way.
4. Rubio: Marco is the best politician in the bunch. He comes across as being genuine without pandering. I can see him winning but I still don't trust the guy on immigration. If he nails that down it's off to the races.
5. Walker: After what he did in Wisconsin Walker was a lot of folk's early choice, including mine. But he's kind of bland on the stump. Dullsville might play in Racine (Cheeseheads in general are very subdued, unless they're playing the Vikings) but he's got to show some fire along with the ice.
6. Cruz: I think Ted Cruz is deceptively brilliant. He's been careful not to criticize Trump and is even cozying up to him a bit. His views on immigration are nearly identical but a lot less bombastic. I think he's positioning himself to pick up the pieces when Trump does finally implode.
7. Huckabee: The religious fundamentalist's candidate. He's gonna pull 10% just about everywhere apart from Greenwich Village, Chapel Hill, Provincetown and the Maryland Eastern shore, but that's it, he's maxed out. He's an also, also ran.
8. Fiorina: I LOVE THIS WOMAN! If the Tickbite primary were today I'd vote Fiorina President and Earl "The Squirrel" Odell for mayor (the man is to squirrels what Mini-soda dentists are to lions!). I like her style, I like her demeanor, I like her policies and I like her guts. Politics is funny. As a woman she could turn the tables on Democrats and get through a lot of things a man perhaps couldn't. Choosing her would put identity politics in our corner for a change.
9. Paul: Trump nailed him, too WEIRD!
10. The rest: Kasich (Bush clone) Christie (sell by date expired) Perry (retread...with holes) Jindal (too nerdy) Gilmore (who?) Graham (fat girl in a bikini, can't bear to look at him) Pataki (a New Yorker, really?) Santorum (a Yankee version of Huckabee).
Now, nobody here gets your putter to flutter? There are others you know. Let's have a look.
•Andy Martin; a lawyer from Connecticut. He has a long history of litigation (as a defendant) and some view him as an anti-semite. Too bad, he coulda been in the hunt.
•Kerry Bowers; ECU educated and Nevada resident, Bowers is a 30 year career military guy and from what I read a quality conservative through and through. But come on dude, you might want to start off with something a little more attainable than President. Just the fact you're running calls your judgment into question.
•K. Ross Newland; in a nutshell a religious zealot.
•Jack Fellure; this guy is hilarious. He's been running for President since 1988. Part of his platform is to bring back prohibition and criminalize homosexuality. He'd do well in Tehran I'm thinking.
•Jefferson Sherman; gee, the name is so schizophrenic, anyway he's a garden variety, small government conservative.
•John Dummett Jr.; a self-described small government conservative who feels "disenfranchised" by both the Republicans and Democrats. I can relate John.
•Shawna Sterling; hates GMOs and vows to ban them from school cafeterias. Pennsylvania Avenue here we go!
•George Bailey; black preacher with heart disease. He needs to talk to Dr. Carson I'm thinking.
•Mark Everton; hates the federal reserve and advocates a one term limit for Presidents. Sounds right to me.
•Estaban Oliverez; a Geraldo Rivera Republican. He needs a show on MSNBC, he'd be right at home.
• Michael Bickelmeyer; I LOVE THIS GUY! He, and I quote "takes a dim view of terrorists and drug traffickers...and wants to fry them from orbit". Holy Shit Batman, this dude is happening! Damn! Where can I send money!
•Bartholomew James Lower; solar power nut.
•Eric Cavanagh; favors a 100% "porn tax" and would "wipe away" all criminal records after three months! Hmmm, wonder what this guy's life experiences have been? No idea but I sure don't want him moving in next door I don't mind telling you.
Jesus, anyway what with the dogs and the kid and Sgt. Major yelling in my ear (Blogging again!? That's it, I'm getting a new car) I forgot what I was posting about.
By the end of September the first out will be all of #10 starting with Gilmore and Graham with Perry not far behind. The rest might hang on a bit longer but you won't even know they're there. By Christmas we'll have maybe five or six solid candidates, and guess what? Jeb might not be one of them.
Well that's it. I report and you can piss off.
Saturday, August 29, 2015
Joseph Nocera thinks his readers are idiots
This is an old school TigerHawk post, insofar as I bash The New York Times just because. I know, I know, it is small of me to do, but not all blogging grows from greatness.
In this morning's column, Joe Nocera denounces a particular analyst's humping of Tesla (TSLA) stock, and darkly suggests it is akin to Henry Blodget's bull call on Amazon in 1998. Fair use excerpt:
Do you remember when Henry Blodget first became famous?But here's the thing. Amazon is up 10 times since Blodget made the call that Nocera ridicules, or 988% vs. around 200% for the Nasdaq and the Dow, notwithstanding the popping of the Internet bubble in early 2000. I know this in part because I shorted Amazon in 1998 for basically the same reasons that Nocera attacks Tesla now. It was a very useful learning experience for me.No, it wasn’t when the then-New York attorney general, Eliot Spitzer, unearthed those notorious emails Blodget wrote as Merrill Lynch’s Internet analyst, the ones in which he privately disparaged companies he was publicly touting. That came later.
It was 1998, the height of the Internet bubble. Blodget was then an analyst with CIBC Oppenheimer, and the “it” stock of the moment was Amazon, which had as many detractors as it had boosters.
One day that December, with the stock at about $240 a share — and with no change in Amazon’s fundamentals — Blodget, an Amazon bull, raised his price target to $400. That day it popped more than $45; within three weeks it hit Blodget’s target. Some months later, I wrote an article about his coverage of Internet companies. It was titled “The Cheerleader.”
During the current six-year bull-market — a market that has also seen its share of excess — a new “it” stock has emerged: Tesla Motors. Led by the charismatic Elon Musk, Tesla is a company that makes beautiful, and thus far very expensive, all-electric cars, vehicles that are so fantastically well made that Consumer Reports just gave the Model S P85D sedan its highest rating ever.
Tesla is also, however, a company that eats through cash, loses money on every sedan it sells, routinely overpromises what it will deliver to Wall Street and is regularly in need of new funding.
That’s not to mention other factors impinging on Tesla: the falling price of oil, for instance, which diminishes demand for electric cars, or the fact that a number of traditional luxury auto brands are poised to get into the electric vehicle game. It’s not hard to make a case that, at around $250 a share, Tesla is as insanely overvalued as any Internet stock in the late 1990s.
And guess what? Just like the Internet stocks of yore, Tesla has its own Wall Street cheerleader: Adam Jonas, Morgan Stanley’s auto analyst.
The point, of course, is not to vindicate Henry Blodget or rescue Adam Jones, who is more than capable of defending himself. Indeed, Nocera seems to have justified Jones better than Jones ever could. The next Amazon, you say? Bring. It. On.
But how do you write that column, and how does your editor publish that column, without a whisper of a hint of an acknowledgement that, well, people who acted on their belief in Blodget in 1998 (and had the discipline to maintain their conviction for a few years) are far happier today -- or at least wealthier -- than people who believed Nocera? We don't even get a single "to be sure"?
You need to read the NYT so you know what is going on inside the lefty echo chamber, but it is very hard to believe anything on its editorial pages at face value. Otherwise, for example, you would think that Joe Nocera can distinguish a good securities analyst from a bad one.
Addendum (10:47 am ET, Aug 31): In a very down morning for the stock market, TSLA is up. There are no doubt many explanations, but some of it probably has to do with Nocera comparing it to AMZN in 1998. At least that's my theory for purposes of this post.
Friday, August 28, 2015
On Anchor Babies
Jeb Bush got into a little trouble with the prone to fainting crowd this week in his embrace of the term "anchor babies". I find nothing objectionable in it, and I am glad that he has not repudiated himself on its use.
This morning, I came across this headline on Twitter: "Hate Label "Anchor Babies" enters 2016 Playground" , and I nearly fell out of my chair.
There you have it friends. "Anchor Babies" = "Nigger". Why? Well, because someone or some group finds it offensive, and they deem it "hate" speech. Now I know that the story doesn't equate the two, and even mention the hateful word I used above (note: I do not use "N-word". I am an adult.) But as soon as you begin to throw around the term "hate speech" you move quickly and invariably to the most hateful term of all, a term that DOES in fact have a great deal of meaningful negativity behind it--rather than the straightforward meaning of "anchor baby" which in absolutely no way, shape, or form denotes particular ethnicity.
Drip....drip....drip....
This morning, I came across this headline on Twitter: "Hate Label "Anchor Babies" enters 2016 Playground" , and I nearly fell out of my chair.
There you have it friends. "Anchor Babies" = "Nigger". Why? Well, because someone or some group finds it offensive, and they deem it "hate" speech. Now I know that the story doesn't equate the two, and even mention the hateful word I used above (note: I do not use "N-word". I am an adult.) But as soon as you begin to throw around the term "hate speech" you move quickly and invariably to the most hateful term of all, a term that DOES in fact have a great deal of meaningful negativity behind it--rather than the straightforward meaning of "anchor baby" which in absolutely no way, shape, or form denotes particular ethnicity.
Drip....drip....drip....
Marco Rubio News
Marco Rubio was on Hugh Hewitt's radio show last night. Below, please find a link to a 15 minute or so interview with him, an interview that contains some great stuff on the state of the Navy and his plans for it.
http://www.hughhewitt.com/wp-content/uploads/08-28-MarcoRubio.mp3
Also--there's no reason to fret about the GOP front-runner---Howard Dean had better numbers in 2004 at this point....
Get out those checkbooks and give until it hurts!
http://www.hughhewitt.com/wp-content/uploads/08-28-MarcoRubio.mp3
Get out those checkbooks and give until it hurts!
BIG FAT Free For All (or if you're a Lib, fee for all) Friday!
Peace be with you.
Thursday, August 27, 2015
Social Issues to the Rescue
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| YES! |
Do you guys remember Nixon's "Southern Strategy"? Probably not, I doubt you even remember Nixon. Anyway what Nixon did from the '68 election (which he won by a whisker over arguably the worst candidate who ever lived Hubert Humphrey) to the '72 election, which he won in a landslide, was peel away the Southern, white, Protestant vote and the Northern Catholic social conservative vote. He went from about 48% to 61% in four years. Not too shabby. Anyway Nixon did it by appealing to the "silent majority" of patriotic, God fearing, hard working Americans who weren't smoking dope and listening to Jimi Hendrix (and even a few who were, present company accepted). Hell he even got a lot of union endorsements. As you might imagine that shift scared the Holy living shit out of the Democrats and played a major role in their "shoot the moon" strategy to get Nixon at all costs, and they pulled it off.
So, tell me again how a socially conservative Republican Party will hurt themselves? Will it hurt with Southern whites? No, I think not. Will it hurt with Catholics? No, I don't think so. Will it help attract all those "naturally conservative Hispanics" Republicans are always yapping about? I'm thinking HELL YES!
Here's the thing. When Nixon put together this new coalition he lost the Republican left. The Rockefella, Jacob Javits, Henry Cabot Lodge, Lowell Weicker wing of the party was LIVID! They didn't have a lot of numbers but they had the money, and now they had no place to spend it. Well they've made a comeback (of course) and guys like GHWB, Bob Dole and yes Mitt Romney are THEIR kinda guys. In terms of direction and policy they aren't all that concerned about losing, they just want to control the money pot every few years. But what they absolutely DON'T want and will not tolerate is another Reagan.
So, now you know. Our brilliant Republican leaders have lost the Reagan Democrats, the Northern Catholics, and they're about to lose Southern whites. Go along with Jeb or one of these other Northeastern, Midwestern Republicans and you'll be no better off than with Hillary. The litmus test this cycle is immigration (the ultimate social issue). If they won't give us that then they don't want us and the Republican Party is yesterdays news.
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