Paul M. Jones

I always said the man could give a speech to an audience of two opposed factions, and each faction would believe he was on their side:

... during the campaign what Barack Obama offered the American people was classic epideictic in the Greek sense. A rhetoric that created a sense of collective community grounded in hope and a sense of reconciliation embodied in who he was as an individual and in that message.

That's been, that concept isn't new or controversial, I'm just going to assume that you'll accept it on its face. But the point I want to make about it is that the credibility of Barack Obama, an African­American winning the primary in Iowa, giving this sort of message, meant that we were investing that message with Barack Obama. He became the evidence for his own message. And at a time in which the public was widely ready to repudiate George Bush, he became the incarnation of everyone's hopes and dreams as the "un­Bush."

As a result people read into his candidacy whatever they wanted, particularly everything they didn't like about George Bush. And every unfulfilled aspiration of liberals or progressives was also bodied in this person Barack Obama regardless of what he actually said.

In other words Barack Obama was never as eloquent as we thought he was. A person matched a moment with a rhetoric in a context in which the audience created something it heard as eloquence.

Via http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/PDFFiles/Kathleen%20Hall%20Jamieson%20-%20Obama%20Rhetoric.pdf, itself via http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2012/09/03/the-presidents-failure-and-his-challenge/.

... if they [Christians] are truly interested in restoring marriage and the family to their proper places as the twin bulwarks of civilized society, they must leap at the opportunity to remove the state, at all levels, from the process entirely. Marriage is a sacred trinity of a man and a woman before God, there is neither room nor reason for a fourth party to enter into the relationship, still less one that corrupts and destroys the tripartite relationship.

Note that the author is talking about Christian sacraments, not civil law. Via Alpha Game: Divorcing the State.

Another InfoWars link. I mean, really, can we disband and outlaw this creeping Stasi now?

The footage shows TSA agents walking around a departure lounge asking to test passengers’ drinks for explosive residue with a swab they hold over the liquid.

“Now remember that this is inside the terminal, well beyond the security check and purchased inside the terminal…just people waiting to get on the plane,” writes the You Tube user who uploaded the video.

“My wife and son came back from a coffee shop just around the corner, then we were approached. I asked them what they were doing. One of the TSA ladies said that they were checking for explosive chemicals (as we are drinking them). I said “really – inside the terminal? You have got to be kidding me.” I asked them if they wanted to swab us all. She responded with something like, ‘yes sometimes we need to do that’. I then asked if she wanted a urine sample…nonetheless, the TSA is way out of control,” he adds, joking that the TSA’s next move could be to visit people’s homes before they even leave for the airport (they’re already in the parking lot demanding to search people who aren’t even flying!)

via » Video Shows TSA’s Bizarre New Security Policy Alex Jones' Infowars: There's a war on for your mind!.

I am not normally one to link to InfoWars. However, this story does appeal to my priors, to wit: the TSA is expanding its reach to public venues, not merely transportation areas. Can we disband them yet?

The Transportation Security Administration will be conducting grope downs and bag searches at three different locations in Charlotte this week at the Democratic National Convention, illustrating the fact that the TSA has expanded well beyond its remit of transportation and into public venues.

The DNC will be held at three separate sites this week, all of which will have security checkpoints staffed by TSA officers.

55 TSA screeners “Will help the Secret Service with screening at Time Warner Cable Arena, the Convention Center and Bank of America stadium,” reports WSOCTV.com.

via » TSA To Conduct Grope Downs at DNC Alex Jones' Infowars: There's a war on for your mind!.

The amount of waste and duplication in education is huge. Why should tens of thousands of explain calculus every year? Why not just record the lectures and use all live teaching labor for Q&A sessions?

When universities and colleges start doing massive layoffs think of it as the freeing up of a dwindling supply of high IQ labor.

via ParaPundit: Venture Capitalists And Universities Rush To Online Education.

File this under "flattering, and appeals to my prior beliefs":

Researchers from the London School of Economics have found that people with high I.Q.s are more likely to be night owls, whereas folks with lower I.Q.s are more likely to wake up early and function their best during the day. Other studies have found a link between “eveningness” and getting good grades in school.

However, all is not well with those who burn the midnight oil. People who are disposed to staying up late are less reliable and more likely to suffer from depression and various addictions when compared to early risers.

Thank goodness I don't have the "addictions" part. /me pours another drink

Via Smart People Stay Up Late And Sleep Late!.

PolitiFact zinged Paul Ryan (“mostly false”) for saying that Obama “puts a board of 15 unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats in charge of Medicare who are required to cut Medicare in ways that will lead to denied care for current seniors.” Those bureaucrats aren’t “unaccountable,” says PolitiFact, because they can be removed for “malfeasance in office” -- which obviously isn’t what Ryan was getting at. “Their recommendations can be rejected by Congress,” it continues. Sure. But their recommendations can also become law without any congressional action: a process that can reasonably be described as lacking the accountability some people find worthwhile in lawmaking. PolitiFact complains as well about “bureaucrats”: “They become members of the bureaucracy by definition once they join the board. But they won’t all start that way.”

via PolitiFiction - The Editors - National Review Online.

Why do you say that America’s political system is degenerating into crony capitalism?

There is not a well-understood distinction between being pro-business and being pro-market. Businessmen like free markets until they get into a market; once they are in it they want to block entry to others. Pro-marketeers want free markets at all times. The more conservative pro-marketeers are fearful of criticising business, because they assume they will be seen as criticising the free market. But we need to stand up and criticise business when business is not helping the cause of free markets.

In what way?

Take lobbying. Lobbying may once have been reactive but now it’s proactive--businessmen use it to shape policy and ask for tax advantages. This is corruptive of democracy.

Examples, please.

Companies with a lot of money abroad sponsored a bill in 2004/5 that allowed them to repatriate their profits at a low tax rate. Thus $1 produced $220 of tax savings. The Bush-approved drug and Medicare act was a huge bonanza for the drug industry. Their market value increased by several billion dollars when this was announced. I could continue.

I am, of course, pro-markets. (Emphasis in original.) Via Quick study: Luigi Zingales on crony capitalism: When business and government are bedfellows | The Economist.

Regarding oil production in Venezuela, where the state owns the facilities:

While no system of economic organisation will be immune to getting the incentives and deterrents wrong (see Macondo), socialist systems are particularly bad at it, as is reflected in a long, ignoble list of terrible events. Operations in socialist economies are especially compromised by competing priorities made explicit to Operations staff by politicized management. In capitalist economies, organisations thrive by producing benefits for a diverse group of stakeholders. If an Operations person sees a corroded flange and intervenes to shut down production and make the situation safe, they can expect to be recognised and rewarded by private organisations in a capitalist system. In contrast, in socialist economies, there is a single stakeholder – the state – and the incentives are mal-adjusted by highly politicized filters. If the same worker, with the same expertise, is in the same situation with a corroded flange in a socialist economy, they will need to very carefully think whether they will be rewarded for intervening or punished for sabotaging production for the people.

All emphasis mine. (I think this is the first time I've quoted from an article *comment*.) Via Socialism Kills, Venezuela Edition | Via Meadia.

A man was killed and at least 16 others were shot across the city Saturday evening and this morning, continuing a streak of violence that has left dozens wounded in recent days.

In the fatal shooting, a 28-year-old man was found shot multiple times, including in the chest, inside an SUV parked near the corner of 91st Street and South East End Avenue in the Calumet Heights neighborhood on the South Side at about 3 a.m., police said.

The man was identified as Rashad Pratt, 28, of the 9000 block of South Ridgeland Ave., according to the Cook County medical examiner's office. He was declared dead on the scene after paramedics were unable to revive him, authorities said.

Additional details weren't available as district officers and Area South detectives remained on the scene this morning.

At least five people have been shot in the city since 4 a.m., police said:

Tell me again how gun control helps protect the law-abiding citizen? Via 1 dead, 16 wounded in shootings across the city - chicagotribune.com.