Unca Darrell

AUGUST 20 / A good read on conservatism

WISH I HAD the time to read Patrick Allitt, The Conservatives: Ideas and Personalities Throughout American History. Next best thing is probably this review by Peter Berkowitz. Some snips (with Unca D's comments):

AUGUST 19 / Magical realism in the White House

WHAT THE new president has not quite grasped is that the American people understand both irony and cognitive dissonance. Instead, Obama has mistaken his personal popularity for a national predeliction toward emergency-driven central planning. He doesn't get that Americans prefer the slower process of building political consensus based on reality, and at least a semblance of rational deliberation rather than one sky-is-falling legislative session after another.

AUGUST 7 / Because I value your time and mine . . .

. . . I maintain a short blogroll of national and international commentators. It has just gotten shorter. 

JULY 22 / "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Caudillismo"

FOR GOOD perspective on the ousting of Honduran President Zelaya (and an example of journalism at its finest), read "The Cult of the Caudillo," Wall Street Journal, July 11, 2009, by David Luhnow, Jose de Cordoba, and Nicholas Casey.

To understand what is happening in Honduras today, it helps to know a bit more about Latin America's long love affair with caudillos, how those larger-than-life but power-hungry men damaged their countries, and why so many people are terrified they are making a comeback.

JULY 19 / Good introduction to John Calvin

[JULY 10 marked] the 500th anniversary of the birth of John Calvin, the French theologian who helped carry the Protestant Reformation into the heart of Europe . . . . Though Calvin was never the theocratic thug of popular imagination, neither was he a champion of individual freedom. 

JULY 17 / But hey, they've got national health care

[UNDER VLADIMIR] Putin's leadership, Russia has become more nationalistic, corrupt, and corporatist. Its economy, although much bigger than a decade ago, is even more dependent on oil and gas, an industry now controlled by a small group of klepocratic courtiers and former spies. The decision by IKEA . . . once bullish about Russia, to suspend investment because of graft is an indictment of the dire commercial climate . . . . Its non-energy exports are smaller than Sweden's.

JULY 8 / This post is boring. Read it anyway.

IF YOU don't have an answer to the issues posed below, you have nothing useful to add to the central public policy debate of our time.

JULY 7 / Unsustainable

[I]N THE LONG RUN today's fiscal laxity is unsustainable. Governments' thirst for funds will eventually crowd out private investment and reduce economic growth. More alarming, the scale of the coming indebtedness might ultimately induce governments to default or to cut the real cost of their debt through high inflation.

JULY 6 / The end of the free market?

IAN BREMMER, "State Capitalism Comes of Age," Foreign Affairs, May/June 2009:

Until very recently, New York City was the world's financial capital. It no longer is even the financial capital of the United States. That distinction now falls to Washington, where members of Congress and the executive branch make decisions with long-term market impact on a scale not seen since the 1930s. A similar shift is taking blace throughout the world . . . .

JULY 3 / Krauthammer on Obama's compulsion to find fault with his own country

LEFTIST JOURNOS (but I repeat myself) typically ignore July 4 or use it as a day to find fault with America. What better day than July 3, then, to do a preemptive takedown by recalling this fine Krauthammer column about our apologizer-in-chief: "Obama Hovers From On High," Washington Post, June 12, 2009.