Unca Darrell

JULY 4, 2020 / Kimball on how to destroy civilization

THE VIOLENCE . . . exploding across the country now has almost nothing to do with the killing of George Floyd, a black man, by Derek Chauvin, a white policeman. That was merely the catalyst for a process that has deep roots in American culture.

The moral is: ideas matter. For decades now, our colleges and universities (and increasingly our [grade] schools) have been preaching . . .

APRIL 28 / Unca D's go-to guy on the U.S. federal debt . . .

. . . is retired University of Omaha mathematics professor Jack Heidel. Give his website a look: "It Does not Add Up." Good thinker. Good writer.

MARCH 20, 2020 / Think last year was bad?

You ain't seen nothin' yet.

DESPITE PRESIDENT Donald Trump's best efforts, economic freedom in the [United States] declined slightly over the past year, even as it increased across the world, according to the Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom . . . .

Unca D's rewrite: Because of President Donald's overspending and protectionist trade policies, economic freedom declined . . . .

"This year's Index highlights a consistent trend . . . around the globe -- countries [that] embrace the ideals of capitalism and free markets . . .

MARCH 19, 2020 / Senator Sanders has won ideological control . . .

. . . of the Democratic Party. Who tilled the soil in which his ideology took root? 

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL explains. This essay was written before the Democratic establishment closed ranks around former Vice President Biden, but the thesis still holds (emphasis added).

[Senator] Sanders wouldn't be this close to the White House if not for the complicity of Democrats and the liberals [read progressives] who dominate the academy ad media. Rather than fighting the ideas that animate him and millennial voters, they have . . .

 

MARCH 18, 2020 / Establishment Democrats control . . .

. . . the arms, legs, and torso of the party; Bernard Sanders and his crowd control the head and heart.

THEY'LL NEVER admit it, but Biden and Sanders actually agree on far more than they disagree. Both champion universal health care, raising the minimum wage, raising taxes on the wealthy, wiping out student debt, making college affordable, if not free, and leading the fight against climate change. . . . With only slight variations on a theme, every single Democratic candidate in 2020, left or center, ran on the Sanders platform. . . . Whatever they choose, revolution or evolution, they're both paths to the same progressive goals. And those goals were first set by Sanders in 2016. That's why I argue that Sanders has already won the Democratic primary. (Bill Press, from The Hill, March 10, 2020, quoted in Notable and Quotable, The Wall Street Journal, March 13, 2020).

But where did candidate Sanders's ideology come from? From the academy and media. So explains The Wall Street Journal in an essay quoted in tomorrow's Unca Darrell. 

OCTOBER 11, 2019 / Unca D accuses California of Venezuelization. The WSJ . . .

. . . sees that comparison, raises it, and takes the pot: Editorial, "California's Dark Ages," The Wall Street Journal, October 11, 2019 (emphasis added).

CALIFORNIANS ARE LEARNING to live like the Amish after investor-owned utility PG&E this week shut off power to two million or so residents to prevent wildfires amid heavy, dry winds. Blame the state’s largest blackout on a perfect storm of bad policies.

OCTOBER 4, 2019 / The left's war against America is not merely . . .

. . . political; it's civilizational.

UNCA D RARELY posts these days. More to come soonish, I hope, on the reason. Meanwhile, there is no better use of your reading time than this essay: Joel Kotkin, "Elites Against Western Civilization," City Journal, October 3, 2019, set out in full below.

April 12, 2019 / What is "dangerous potentially" is . . .

. . . not what Christine Amanpour thinks it is.

IT'S HER CONTEMPT for free speech, revealed in this question to James Comey. She and he were talking about Trump supporters who chanted of Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton, "Lock her up!"

Do you, in retrospect, wish that people like yourself, the head of the FBI, the people in charge of law and order, had shut down that language, that it was dangerous potentially, that it could have created violence, that it kind of is hate speech?"

The premise of her question kind of is the essence of progressive antagonism toward free speech. It shows that political correctness is not just about civility; it's about using law and order to shut down that language, it's about extending perverse campus speech codes to the public square.  

How would unlovely political speech be shut down? Would it be enough for FBI agents to arrest Trumpsters and give them a stern talking to?

Probably not.

Ms. Amanpour should be asked how to set up and run the necessary reeducation camps. We can be sure of one thing: They would be operated by people like her and, she hopes, James Comey -- the right people,  people like yourself.

Remember this about CNN's prima donna, Christine Amanpour, and her dreadful network: They detest you and are, as Ms. Clinton once said, irredeemible. It is you, not Ms. Clinton, who should be locked up.

April 11, 2019 / Historical amnesia: How did this happen?

Because historical memory is an enemy of the progressive project. Better to forget the past, then enlist those who have forgotten . . .

February 26, 2019 / Henninger's thumbnail history of . . .

. . . the transformation of Democrats into socialists.

The Democratic left re-emerged in the 1960s and ’70s, pushing the party outside political and cultural norms with street protests, antiwar marches and . . .