Darwin and the Blogs
There is simply no questioning the fact that the blogesphere is having a tremendous impact on politics. Hugh Hewitt broached this topic by stating that the Left's blogs are in the process of destroying the Democratic Party, while the Right’s have aided substantially in electing a Republican majority. For my part, the question is not just which side, if any, is reaching hegemony, so much as why? Here, I offer a a straight to the point assessment: The Right's blogs are rapidly moving beyond mere ascendancy to downright hegemony because the right has better ideas. It’s that simple.
We can analyze this 1001 ways, but Evolutionary theory is particularly apt. ET holds that certain phenotypes will thrive under certain conditions while others will perish. Allow me to suggest that natural selection by cognitive means is occurring before our eyes. It is occurring in the wake of the Net’s withering scrutiny of the Left’s ideas. At long last the curtains are flung open and the man in the street sees the left for what it is.
The net, or what I choose to call the distributed intelligence network DI, is an environment particularly hostile to the left's clichés, bromides, slogans, rumors, and especially its demagoguery. This is the genetic material of liberalism. In the age of DI, a struggling cognitive meme can expect to be set upon by the cascading logic from a million sources. Any conspicuous meme is subject to incessant empirical verification from a phalanx of PhDs representing the most arcane of subject matters. This screen is merciless and selection takes its course. The DI environment results in the selection of memes tempered by challenges and strengthened through chromosomal verity. Only cognitive memes phenotypically acclimated to such an environment can hope to survive.
Conservative ideas not only survive they thrive. For example: the assumption that because market capitalism is rooted in fundamental human nature, it is the most robust, flexible and efficient means for the distribution of goods and services is a proposition no longer in dispute. No more efficacious method for the promotion of society's health and living standards has ever been devised. Looking at the global success of market capitalism, the empirically grounded conservative will argue that what humanity lacks is not an even distribution of dollars, but a sufficient distribution of market capitalism. That is, the mechanism to wield against the scarcities of food, water, clothes and shelter have not reached those places where they can acheve their positive effects. In other words teach a man to fish……. This is how conservative ideas grow and mature.
Liberal ideas, on the other hand, are more genetically related to poetry than fact. To wit: Marx was a poet and not an economist. Observe that Das Kapital is shown to be almost totally fiction, and his Manifesto but a mere psychologization of economics. Thus despite many attempts at developing a communist economy that worked in the real world, these attempts have been an utter disaster for humanity. Communism's distributions were forced upon human nature by means of extreme totalitarianism. Nonetheless, this dreamy poetry of "good intentions" remains an object of curiosity in literature departments at our most prestigious universities. Popularizers either don't care that their policies are based on a horribly failed economic approach or they are immune to the facts.
Similarly, radical agnosticism, the bequest of Locke, Hume and Kant et. al., has impregnated modernity with both multiculturalism and its ugly cousin political correctness. In the nick of time, current events distilled via the DI have depleted the genetic population of these nearly ascendant meme variants.
Heretofore multiculturalism and political correctness replicated by means of a mutation in their “major premise” structure thereby suppressing the expression of logic during ratiocinative acts. When logic is removed from the production cycle the resulting meme is rendered immune to facts. This condition produces smarmy rationales where the coherence of a position is not relevant so long as the outcome is “correct”. When enough of these “correct positions” come together they form the nucleus of the "open mind". The "open minder" is delightfully unencumbered with “polluted” notions of logic, nor is the host troubled by facts. The “open minder” proceeds to conclusions in studied avoidance of high and low, good or bad, right or wrong. Openness forbids standards like human nature. As such open minders almost uniformly vote liberal Democrat.
But take heart, political correctness and multiculturalism are akin to poetry and have no empirical referents from where to form a viable base. The DI is an insalubrious environment for them. They cannot survive prolonged exposure to facts and logic. For it is “human nature”, the very thing liberals tell us does not exist, that impels us to defend ourselves against those who would kill America and the west. Against the parasitic Islamo-facist virus, liberal blogs offer paralyzing self-analysis and guilt. This position is reminiscent of the desire not to offend. Such positions may be a sound catechism for good table manners or social events, but are laughable when adopted whole cloth as a national security policy. And their hiliraty is their death knell. Conservatives believe violent religions/ideologies can be identified and pre-emptive measures taken. This is common sense. And the net through the Right’s blogs are showing this more and more every day.
Hegemony never felt so good.
Elements of a Disclosure Crime
Read the following to understand the merits of the charges being leveled at the inimitable K. Rove.
"On the legal charge of intentional disclosure of Plame’s undercover identity, there is nothing in the Cooper email to suggest the sort of knowledge by Rove necessary to convict under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 (50 U.S.C. 421 et seq.). It punishes one who “intentionally discloses any information identifying such covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent's intelligence relationship to the United States . . .” It's not even clear (beyond a reasonable doubt, no less) that Rove knew Plame's name, knew that the information that he disclosed identified her, or knew that the US was taking affirmative steps to conceal her relationship to the intelligence community (if it was indeed doing so).
cited from Jim Lindgren
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2005_07_10-2005_07_16.shtml
As you can see, what is taking place is nothing other than another in a long line of over reaching by Democrats. Bereft of any plays in there 40 year old play book they've resorted to pure name calling. Rest assured this behavior will have its consequences. The majority of America has witnessed what the Dems are about: Weak accomidationists toward our enemies in a time of war; class warfare in response to all social policy reform; hostile to fundamental institutions rooted in human nature [marriage], anti-religion especially Christianity. Last but not least, ignorant about the results of low tax rates on revenue. All in all not a very good posture for the collection of looming 2006 election issues. Consider the scenario the Dems face, Terrorists on the run, and huge tax revenue produced due to the President's aggressive tax policies and all in a time of war.
Supreme Court: Authority v. Power
The major issue to be addressed by pundits and candidates alike, is their rationale for the theoretical justification and constitutional ground for judicial displacement of legislative majorities. This sole issue underlies all others. In fact nothing else really matters. It implicates the timeless tension between power and authority in the polity. Thus, to ask for a theoretical justification and constitutional ground for judicial displacement of legislative majorities, is to query the nature of "authority" within American political theory in the first place and constitutional theory in the second. The nature of authority is manifest in the quip about the churlish bull bursting into the proverbial china-shop and therewith demonstrating tremendous power, but no authority.
In similar fashion I am convinced that the Supreme Court has been exercising power in the absence of authority, and consequently spreading a lot of bull. Ensuing posts will begin to unravel the nature of authority within American political theory and then show how constitutional jurisprudence is but a subset of derivate sequitors following from the theoretical concept of sovereignty.
In the spirit of Icarus...lets see how high we can fly!
What does a Journalism Degree Confer?
The lack of credible press reporting or even investigation into Iraq's links with Al-Qaeda is perhaps the clearest example of their disregard for facts not conforming to their politically predetermined script. Ultimately this spells the distinction between childish frat house liberalism -is there serious liberalism?- and conservatism. Conservatives, like yours truly, dedicate themselves to pursuit of truth through a careful assessment of facts. In many cases, like in the field of cognitive neuroscience, we find that the facts support our intuitive dispositions. Political Liberals, on the other hand, have intuitions, but like children engaged in Jack and the beanstalk fantasies, they refuse to countenance disaffirming facts. This represents the formula underlying the left's past political success. The net no longer allows canards to be foisted as news.
Below is a snippet from Stephen Hayes and Thomas Joscelyn's Weekly Standard piece thoroughly investigated from mere open sources. It shows that the CIA's "No-links" assessment between Saddam and al-Qaeda was based on a horribly uncorroborated controlling assumption that no ties existed prior to 9-11. Thus, when instances of ties did appear, they were considered anomalous. Now, after our conquest of Iraq, a mountain of evidence, some disclosed in the original Weekly Standard article shows a close collaborative relation between Saddam and Al-Qaeda. Moreover, the evidence shows that this is how the Iraqi intelligence Service viewed their relation with Al-Qaeda. Yet, none of this new evidence is "fit to print" in the Jurassic dailies.
"The difference between most intelligence community analysts and Bush administration policymakers can be found in how they interpret the gaps. The analysts seemed to assume, despite the history of poor collection, that the many Iraq-al Qaeda contacts reported in intelligence products and open sources were anomalous. To them, the gaps in reporting simply reflected a lack of activity. Policymakers (and a small number of analysts) took a different view. The gaps in reporting on Iraq and al Qaeda were just that: gaps in reporting. To this group, the many reports of contacts, training, and offers of safe haven were indicative of a relationship that ran much deeper.
After September 11, the mere existence of a long relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda had to be considered an urgent threat."
When is the last time the press avoided the opportunity to lambaste a government agency? Would they just "miss" an erroneous FDA report linking McDonald's to a slim and healthy lifestyle? Just think of the uproar.
Bullish News
The latest economic news from government reports shows that low tax rates produces increased revenues. There can be no argument against this cause and effect. We must also keep in mind that this performance is done in a war, high oil, and corporate malfeasance setting. Ordinarily such circumstances would spell doom for an economy. But the underlying fundamentals of our economy are quite strong; strong enough to shake any of the enervating effects of such insalubrious environs.
With regard to our long term prospects, I believe that our overall market approach to most issues will ultimately keep us at the head of the pack. For example, our lagging school system will cave-in to pressure from other quarters who demand analytically trained output. Education can no longer be the only institution that is concerned only with the producers [i.e. teachers, administration] as opposed to the consumers [market economy].
We will ultimately be able to sustain our leading edge in most technology and be the beacon for the rest of the world. To this end, our foreign policy must remain commensurate with the market mechanisms that frame our prosperity. In other words, a strong military, integrity in the markets, free trade open to competition etc...
The seamless policy web that defines international relations ultimately is where all ruminations on theses issues come to rest. And this is where Spelunker will burrow and make his intellectual home [U of C].
