File this under: "Things I Wish I had Written" - VDH Nails Us All

[The One Man Gang]

Of course, if I could write as well and as cogently as he does, Victor Davis Hanson would be admin-ing some f*cking $0.25 political chat board, arguing with dumbasses and quoting me.

Dronism

California is a rich state — as the world found out the last century. It has the best farmland in the world, much of it watered by gravity-fed irrigation from the Sierra. Its timber acreage is vast. There is a lot of natural gas and oil still in the southern interior and off the coast. Silicon Valley, tourism, Hollywood, defense, and Napa Valley all contribute to natural wealth.

The problem is that we have created a strange drone mindset that manifests itself in two ways. Among elites there is almost a “Don’t touch or disturb that!” mantra. The law of the hothouse orchid reigns. Once our grubby ancestors created our infrastructure, we wish sometimes to ridicule and — use — it, less often to leave anything better behind for anyone else.

Fish, not people

We want all the dividends of industrial society, but an 18th century wilderness at the same time. So the in-the-know people demand cheap, plentiful, and tasty food, but worry more about a three-inch fish than the farmers and farm workers who keep us alive one more day — and so divert fresh water out into the bay to keep the delta smelt alive. (Oh, I know the Gorist logic: the smelt is a canary in the mine; when he can’t get enough oxygen, then we won’t be able to drink soon.” Sorry, I suggest that communities whose treated sewage goes into the bay begin using some sort of organic toilets rather than the old flush models.)

<snip>

I suppose the attitude of the directionless youth is something like the following, though never articulated: “Some nerd will dream up a new video game; the Chinese will build it for me cheaply; and I will play it at my leisure given my birthright both as an exalted American and the enormous debt ‘they’ (fill in the blanks) owe me.” At some point the world snaps back, “Nope, the Indian and Chinese young person knows more, works harder, produces more — and gets more than you, despite your American brand.”

I now expect to be better treated on the 1-800 line from someone in India than an American — and am discovering that the former really tries to speak the King’s English he learned while the other doesn’t much care for the language he was born with.

This recession has really brought out the dichotomies: We spend billions of scarce cash on imported food, fuel, and manufactured goods, but have acres of idle farmlands, vast untapped deposits of natural gas and oil, and millions of feet of unused factory space. Bread and circuses seem to be the answer for the angst of the underclass.

It's not just the People's Republic of Kahliforneeya, Doc, this permeates our whole society.

God help us all.

[NCVol]

Socialism hasn't done this to us, it's industrial policies that subsidize moving a factory from California, with a living wage, and with a population that expects to breath air that won't cause lung disease and drink water that isn't tainted, to China, where such niceties don't fu**ing matter, and the communists kill nearly a million of their 1,400 million per year with industrial poisons, tainted air and water, with lead poisoned kids.

It's not just that China has hundreds of millions of workers who get less than $1 per hour, it's that they can subject those 1400 million people to air so dirty the NORMAL visibility is half mile or so, the water filthy and polluted, and the crops regularly so tainted that those who eat them DIE.  It's a cheap way to do business, which is why all our multi-nationals use China as a platform. 

One thing is true, they wouldn't give a shiate about a fish, because they don't give a shiate about the people who drink that water either.  It's one of the advantages of being a communist dictatorship. 

But people like VDH won't point THAT out, because he's a dishonest hack.  I wonder, is VDH suggesting we become more like China to succeed in this globalized world? 

I'm amazed every day at how effectively the real culprits, the groups who took a middle class literally never seen in the history of the world and destroyed it, are able to deflect blame to the VICTIMS. 

[The One Man Gang]

Keep spinning son, my scientific observations are coming along nicely.

[NCVol]

Yeah, I figured as much.  Next thing Knowledge will get on here accusing me of repeating talking points. 

It's not like I expect to have an actual debate, but you'd think at some point you "conservatives" would make at least a half arsed effort to defend your opinions.  Isn't there some evidence you can point to that handing the country's industrial policy to Walmart and the rest of the Fortune 50 has worked out just beautifully for the once thriving middle class.

Surely someone has some deceptive "average family income" figures you can cite, forgetting that whenever Bill Gates walks into a room the "average" wages increase to a few million PER person.....

[ben stein fan]

Socialism hasn't done this to us, it's industrial policies that subsidize moving a factory from California, with a living wage, and with a population that expects to breath air that won't cause lung disease and drink water that isn't tainted, to China, where such niceties don't fu**ing matter, and the communists kill nearly a million of their 1,400 million per year with industrial poisons, tainted air and water, with lead poisoned kids.

I'm amazed every day at how effectively the real culprits, the groups who took a middle class literally never seen in the history of the world and destroyed it, are able to deflect blame to the VICTIMS. 

Yes Socialism has done this to us, labor unions and progressive policies have dominated California politics for years.  Those same policies drive American corporations oversees. The victims is the middle class because of these failing policies.  If government was the solution then why is Greece crumbling.  They have instituted the policies you love.  Great Britain is on the verge of collapse because of the type of policies you advocate here on a regular basis.  New Jersey is on the verge of bankruptcy and all they have done is increase taxes each year and spend on every signal entitlement program.  Japan is still unable to come out of its lost decade.  Another example of a country instituting socialist economic programs and wondering why they are going broke.

I am reading the biography of Louis Brandeis the great progressive jurist.  He biographer claims that he hated "bigness" but his solution to every problem with capitalism was government intervention.  He never saw a government program he didn't like.  Problem is to solve all the problems of capitalism he created a bigger problem of big government.  Every Wilsonian idea had its root with Louis Brandeis. 

[Dementia_Madness]

Very good points my friends, it amuses me that some are so willing to deny the factual outcome of inevitable bloodletting social mentality. Americans lost the "drive" long ago, there is one aspect our enemies (both economical and military) are correct about, no longer are we the sleeping giant...we are the perpetual snooze button hitting, sleep in, nap taking, watch teevee, and play games, pander to the worst among us, expect something for nothing, it's someone else's fault giant.

[Shimmy]

Exactly DM.

But that is not because of socialism slowly creeping its way into our society over the years, it's because of Walmart 

[Flummoxed Lummox]

Of course, if I could write as well and as cogently as he does, Victor Davis Hanson would be admin-ing some f*cking $0.25 political chat board, arguing with dumbasses and quoting me.

D-FENS,

The next time you argue (debate) with someone other than NC Vol, who doesn't share your draconian, xenophobic, jingoist, neocon world view, it will be the first.

Oh, you don't write nearly as cogent and articulate as you like to think of yourself. A "legend in his own mind" seems apropos.

But since it doesn't take Freud to see you have some psychological need for recognition and validation, I'll be nice and quote you. Here's what you wrote in 2003:

The Taliban rule of Afghanistan has been ended. The bloodthirsty dictator Saddam Hussein has been forcibly ejected from Iraq. The organizer of the attacks, Osama bin Laden, may well be dead but more likely is in hiding - no doubt plotting more evil. He is, however, a marked man and he knows it. He dares not move in the light of day or even call those subordinates he must talk to in order to command operations. When the shooting began in earnest, an interesting thing happened. Those who talked of bravely standing up against the Great Satan fled the first time they confronted by armed forces that actually knew what they were doing.

http://www.strategypage.com/5by5/articles/20030916.asp

Hmm. The Taliban rule in Afghanistan has ended??? Then why are we there ... SEVEN YEARS later? Why are we in Iraq SEVEN YEARS later if the "terrorists" are afraid to fight?

Here's another perspicacious insight you had.

The Global War on Terror is a vast exercise in pest control.

---

When engaged in war against small, lethal, and highly mobile bands operating over vast distances pre-emption is a strategy that works.  

http://www.strategypage.com/militaryforums/481-11.aspx

The global war on terror is "pest control"??? Our preemptive strategy works???

We've spent close to $1 TRILLION dollars in "pest control." Those are some expensive termites.

The fact that you view militant Islam as nothing but an annoyance that can be easily dealt with belies just how delusional the neocon mindset is. You would think after SEVEN YEARS you cretins might learn that we are dealing with something far more complex than "pests." But I guess not.

Finally, there is this wonderful piece of fiction you wrote. You equate Donald Rumsfeld to an effective leader. Donald Rumsfeld, the same Secretary of Defens who was forced to resign in disgrace for his disasterous handling of the war in Iraq. You really can't make this stuff up.

Rumsfeld asked EXACTLY the right questions of his most trusted subordinates. In his seminal work vom Krieg, Karl von Clausewitz challenges military commanders to ask the same sort of questions. It is the leader who questions nothing, and never countenances that some preconceptions might be misconceptions, for instance an LBJ, or a Jefferson Davis, that leads his nation to military disaster.

?What have we learned?? ?Are there better ways of doing what needs to be done?? ?Did we prepare adequately for foreseen and unforeseen difficulties?? ?What could we have done on the front end to reduce our problems on the back end?? ?Do we have the right people assigned to the right jobs??

Boys and girls, these questions are asked EVERY SINGLE DAY by successful businesses around the country. Only rarely are such questions ever asked in the stuffy halls of government. Perhaps their very novelty made these questions newsworthy. It?s also no wonder, in that event, that nobody in the Washington press corps had a clue as to what was really going on.

Effective LEADERS constantly re-evaluate their actions, make necessary adjustments, and drive on. Maybe, that?s the real burr under the Beltway saddle. Nowhere in the document does the Secretary question the justification or the morality of Operation Iraqi Freedom or the War on Terror. Instead, he prods his staff to evaluate and re-evaluate comparing what seems to be happening to what is actually happening. In another part of the memo, he takes on the very real bugbear of the restructuring of our military into a force capable of generating overwhelming combat power but also one that can adapt and change to meet changing threats and operate in a number of disparate theaters at a reasonable cost.

Such clear-headed and rational thinking is a threat to most of Official Washington, in particular the entrenched bureaucracies, special interest groups and the unholy alliance between these and the legislative and executive branches. Much as a reasonably free and democratic Iraq presents a very different paradigm that threatens the kleptocracies, murdering thugs and ossified nobility that rule most of the Muslim world, a reasonably coherent and efficient Department of Defense would prove to all inside (and worse, to those OUTSIDE) the Beltway that It Doesn?t Have To Be This Way.

http://www.strategypage.com/militaryforums/481-1.aspx

Don't give up your day job D-FENS. The chances of you making it as a political writer are about as good as Sarah Palin's chances of getting accepted into Harvard Law School.

[The One Man Gang]

I always enjoy it when lefties try to argue with Dr. Hanson and inevitably end up proving his point beyond all doubt.

[Dementia_Madness]

 

[NCVol]

Yes Socialism has done this to us, labor unions and progressive policies have dominated California politics for years.  Those same policies drive American corporations oversees. The victims is the middle class because of these failing policies.  If government was the solution then why is Greece crumbling.  They have instituted the policies you love.  Great Britain is on the verge of collapse because of the type of policies you advocate here on a regular basis.  New Jersey is on the verge of bankruptcy and all they have done is increase taxes each year and spend on every signal entitlement program.  Japan is still unable to come out of its lost decade.  Another example of a country instituting socialist economic programs and wondering why they are going broke.

I love the brilliant economic analysis here.  Boiled down to its core, you're arguing that businesses are fleeing the U.S. to a COMMUNIST dictatorship because of the failures of socialism.  That's some really tortured reasoning.

Some of the many reasons companies are going to China, for example, include:
1) There are hundreds of millions who will work for $1-2 per hour, and that's in the legitimate factories.  In many cases, girls from 17-24 move away from their family for a few years, live in dorms, with no life other than work, and send the money home to destitute family members.  
2) The currency is manipulated to make Chinese produced goods cheaper
3) Energy is heavily subsidized.  If you count the death and illness due to unscrubbed coal plants, the subsidies compared to the U.S. are simply enormous.
4) The Chinese government heavily subsidizes exporting industries, including foreign owned industries.  
5) The Chinese government PROHIBITS fair competition in its market and explicitly favors domestic producers over foreign producers.  
6) The Chinese government offers huge tax breaks (essentially zero tax) to exporting industries.  
7) Pollution controls are essentially non-existent.  Poisoning some percentage of the population is a cost of doing business.  You can't see a half mile on many days, with otherwise clear skies.  Lung disease kills nearly 800,000 a year.  

The bottom line is the reason firms move is China has an industrial policy that exploits hundreds of millions of its population in the hope someday of a self sustaining, industrial economy.  Our industrial policy is to help China succeed in that goal, by encouraging domestic producers to move to China.  We could have the same economy, with no middle class, which seems to be the goal of the conservative economic agenda.  We could also have a similar economy if work rules and polluted, fouled air and water were just the cost of doing business.

What you can't do is expect to enjoy a clean environment, where workers get a living wage and aren't in danger of starving, or being unable to provide housing, or literally dying from a polluted and unsafe work environment and compete with a country like China.  


BTW, OMG, just because you can't come up with any actual rebuttal doesn't mean you get to claim VICTORY! in any argument you refuse to engage in.  "I refuse to play along, therefore I win!!!"  I think that sums up your approach...  

[Flummoxed Lummox]

I always enjoy it when lefties try to argue with Dr. Hanson and inevitably end up proving his point beyond all doubt.

I always enjoy it when you outrageous assertions are ripped to shreds and you run like the poltroon you are.

You're the board's Pee Wee Herman.