I am not a Know-Nothing. That is certain. How could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes, be in favor of degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we begin by declaring that “all men are created equal.” We now practically read it “all men are created equal, except negroes.” When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read “all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and catholics.” When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty-to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy.
Category Archives: Thought for the Day
Thought for the Day: 19 November 2015
You see this goblet? For me this glass is already broken. I enjoy it; I drink out of it. It holds my water admirably, sometimes even reflecting the sun in beautiful patterns. If I should tap it, it has a lovely ring to it. But when I put this glass on the shelf and the wind knocks it over or my elbow brushes it off the table and it falls to the ground and shatters, I say, ‘Of course.’ When I understand that the glass is already broken, every moment with it is precious.
Thought for the Day: 2 November 2015
We are surrounded by objects which are, it is true, efficient but they are absolutely pointless. A work of art, on the other hand, has meaning in various ways or it calls up in me a feeling or an emotion whereby my life acquires sense. That is not the case with a technological product. We have the obligation to rediscover certain fundamental truths which have disappeared because of technology. We can also call these truths values, important, actual values, which ensure that people experience their lives as having meaning.
Thought for the Day: 21 October 2015
Amateurs look for inspiration; the rest of us just get up and go to work.
Thought for the Evening: 8 October 2015
The Democrats should nominate a sane Republican for Speaker of the House. I bet there are enough pragmatic Republicans and Democrats to get a sane Republican elected so that Congress can get a few non-controversial things – at least things that shouldn’t be controversial – done, e.g., passing spending bills, passing a transportation bill, raising the debt ceiling. Given how things are playing out within the GOP caucus I think that looks the most constructive path forward. Would enough Republicans go for it? Who knows, but I hope the Democrats are at least making inquiries.
The political consequences? I figure if that’s how things went down then the Democrats gain a few seats in Congress next year – although not a majority – and almost certainly win the presidency. The Republicans lose some seats but probably maintain a majority in the House and possibly the Senate. So what’s in it for them in compromising? They get to demonstrate that at least some of their caucus is willing and able to govern. It helps them rebuild their “brand” as a sane center-right party and it gives them a better shot at the presidency in 2020.
Oh, and you want to keep the number ideologues in Congress to a minimum? Have open primaries. The top two votegetters move on to the general. Sure, some of my preferred candidates wouldn’t make the cut but I think it would be worth the sacrifice if it would cull the goons from the herd.
Thought for the Day: 8 October 2015
Half a century ago, such ideas as full employment, a strong labor movement, national health insurance, investments in early childhood, free higher education, ending poverty in the richest nation on earth, progressive taxation, large-scale public infrastructure outlay, effective consumer regulation, and full enforcement of civil rights were utterly mainstream. Guess what? They still are.
Thought for the Day: 28 September 2015
By any reasonable standard, John Boehner is a bedrock conservative—opposed to big government, pro-life, and in favor of big tax cuts. Boehner would have been placed at the right end of his party a couple of decades ago. But as a realist operating in the real world of divided government and separation of powers, he became a target within his own ranks. Now he is almost at the left end of a party that has gone from center-right to right-center to a place that is more radical than it is conservative—what Tom Mann and I called “an insurgent outlier.” On the verge of losing complete control, Boehner bailed. Boehner, with a month to go, may try to avert a shutdown and make the job of his likely successor, Young Gun Kevin McCarthy, easier. That won’t last long. In the new tribal world of radical politics, the first constitutional office has lost its luster.
Re the rightward shift of the Republican party, see the chart in this post. And Krugman weighs in on Boehner and the GOP here. Of course, to point this out and note that the Democratic party has not become the left-wing analogue of the Republicans is considered “shrill”. On that theme, I send you to driftglass. The biggest problem our country faces today is that one of our two major political parties is now essentially Stalinist. Until that problem is corrected it will be near impossible to develop solutions to problems which require a large-scale coordinated response.
Thought for the Day: 24 September 2015
Thought for the Day: 23 September 2015
I know for Governor Jindal it is easy to try to frighten people—we throw out a word, ‘socialism,’ oh my goodness we’re all supposed to be shaking in our boots. But I think that if you look at some of the real success stories in many of these countries, there’s a lot that we can learn,” said [Sen.] Sanders, referencing the accomplishments of European social democracies. “Countries like Finland and Denmark and Sweden are much more homogeneous than we are, they are much smaller than we are, but there are lessons that we can learn. Why are we the only major nation on earth that doesn’t guarantee health care to all people? Forget Scandinavia, I live a hundred miles away from Canada; all of their people have health care and they do it much more cost-effectively than we do. Why are we the only major country on earth that doesn’t guarantee paid family and medical leave, so when a working-class woman has a baby she’s not forced to be separated from her baby and forced to go back to work a week or two weeks later?”
(source)
Thought for the Day: 17 September 2015
Best-selling author Rick Perlstein will talk American politics in Hall Center lecture
A question for Rick Perlstein, should we make our way out to Lawrence, KS tonight:
Sixty years ago Democratic Party grandee Dean Acheson said: Republicans are an essential part of America. They are the party that understands economic growth, and represent those for whom America is working, and for whom economic growth is sufficient.
Today, however, when I look at the Republican Party, that is not the party I see.
I see a party that caters to plutocrats–but increasingly to heirs and successful rent-seekers, not to real entrepreneurs. I see a party that caters to a bunch of white identity-politics practicing Fox News-watchers whom it scares by saying bad guys are coming to get them–for Pat Buchanan, Jews; for Ron Paul, Blacks; for Donald Trump and Kris Kobach, Mexicans; for Sam Brownback, Californians; and for the mayor of Irving Texas, Muslim immigrant anchor-baby teenage-engineers.
You have written three big books of the history of this transformation. But you are only halfway through. Can you give us now the one-paragraph synopsis of what the bottom line will be when you will have finished writing all eight volumes of your history?