Time For the RNC and Old Big Labor to Have a Sit Down

Big Labor for generations reflexively supported the Democratic Party with financial support and people power.  In the 20th Century, this symbiosis worked well.  It gave their party almost lockdown control of the House of Representatives and almost the same stranglehold on the Senate.

Democrats owned Congress for much of the time between the Great Depression and the 1990s because they supported labor.  They portrayed Big Business as opposing the interests of the working man.  Working men and their supporters lined up to vote for the commoner's party.  Republicans, they reasoned, didn't get the worker.

Workers did not leave the Democratic Party, but the Democrats at the national level left them.  Obama's allegiance to billionaire Big Green businessmen continues to stall a Keystone pipeline that will directly benefit the pipefitters' union among many others.  Before that came the war on coal.  Blue collar voters who once temporarily ditched the Democrats for Reagan, but did not change affiliation, now see the GOP as a permanent home.  Stephen Moore, economic analyst from Heritage Foundation notes that Republicans stand to gain in many currently blue or purple states just as they have in West Virginia.

Moore also says that only two groups oppose Keystone, Democrats who make over $100,000 per year and Democrats with postgraduate degrees.

Certain unions benefit from the new regime.  Service workers and auto workers have reaped huge state based rewards.  Mining and other manufacturing sectors have seen government policy try to drive them from the economic map.

It is high time that the GOP leadership and union bosses like Cecil Roberts have a quiet chat about mutual interests.  They don't have to like each other, but Obama and Green Democrats are the common foe.

Senator Manchin Helps to Sink Obama Department of Justice Appointee

Joe Manchin and six other Senate Democrats voted this week to reject Obama's appointment to head the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division.  They, along with every Republican, slammed to door on Debo Adegbile's bid for the office.

Adegbile supported the release of convicted police officer murderer Mumia Abu-Jamal.  As the National Review notes, Abu-Jamal was found guilty of murdering a Philadelphia police officer.  Adegbile, apart from his activism, has worked for the NAACP and currently serves as counsel for Senate Democrats on the Judiciary Committee.

Bob Casey (D) Pa explained his vote, saying that support for Abu-Jamal was important.  He described the pain still felt by the officer's family and the city of Philadelphia.

The Civil Rights Division is supposed to "uphold the civil and constitutional rights of all Americans."  Whoever oversees the division has some latitude to interpret and decide who to go after and why.  The character of that man or woman is vital to ensuring that civil rights cases do not devolve into witch hunts.

In a larger sense, this illustrates an important split in the Democratic Party.  Traditional liberals and moderates rejected a left wing appointee of a left wing president.  Only two of these Democrats face voters this year.  Manchin's electorate would not decide his fate based on this vote alone.

This also sets up a subtext to the 2016 presidential election.  Will a moderate run on the Democratic side?  The appearance of one not connected to the Obama Administration could make for a lively race and produce headaches for Republicans.

Pornography as a Symptom of the Decline of Masculinity?

National Review today published a powerful indictment of the fate of masculinity.  It lay buried at the end of a lengthy description of a pornography convention coupled with analysis of what this means for culture.  In its own right, the piece bore deep into social questions often left untouched and introduced readers to an entire subculture.  But should Kevin Williamson use this as another yet another obituary on the fate of the American Man?

"The future is female."  Williamson laments.  He sees marriage evaporating.  Many others see the academic driven opportunities as more appropriate for females than males.Williamson's words seem to echo another thinker's fear about what modern times might do to the modern man.

"A life of slothful ease, a life of that peace which springs merely from lack of either desire or of power to strive after great things" has afflicted American men, according to one writer. He worries that parents have taught their boys "that ease, that peace, is to be the first consideration."  America, should it continue along this path will "rot by inches in ignoble ease within our borders."

Hopefully the writing gave it away.  This was not a modern assessment of the masculine.  Almost 115 years ago, Teddy Roosevelt warned the nation.  It, and especially its men, threatened to soften.  And this only two generations removed from the great national test of the Civil War.

Roosevelt feared that the ease brought by modern wonders of his time might soften men, dulling their ambition and work ethic.

Obviously it did not.  Great decades lay ahead.  The free society that encouraged Roosevelt's narrow social circle to pursue ease and comfort spurred others to make their own fortunes.  Surrounded by dandies, Roosevelt at the time did not see the big picture.  A nation full of men and women willing to fight for fortune and success.

Williamson describes the general stereotype of the youngest generation of adult men.  And stereotypes rarely pop into existence without some small basis of reality.  But narrow views and the worries of older men about the generation that is to replace them may limit the picture.

The youngest adult generation has grown up in a country with broken schools and no guarantees.  College does not guarantee a spot in IBM management school.  It guarantees only debt for most. And even that in exchange for a curriculum high on social engineering and declining relevance or even intellectual stimulation.

 Nothing that has happened in this century has inspired any faith that government can handle any problem.  The youth have less faith in government than almost any group born and raised in the last hundred years.

Less reliance on the government and Big Business must translate into more reliance on self.  Even as government seeks to supplant parents and institutions of faith with itself, it reveals its base incompetence.  If you're going to do something right, you have to do it yourself.

On top of that is the core of this generation, not college kids living in their mom's basements, but tens of thousands of men who have served their country on the other side of the world.  They bring work ethic, toughness, and perspective beyond anything learned in a classroom.

Fundamentally, things do not change.  Men worth marrying will be married, as will many who are not.  Ambition to do better in life will remain, so long as individuals may rationally hope that their efforts can lead to it.  The older generation always worries about the younger.

In actuality, the 21st century should be a revival for masculinekind.  So many in the last few decades dropped axes, trowels, and hammers to pursue corporate dreams that there is a perpetual shortage of people who have these skills.  The idea that physical labor is beneath people has opened crucial opportunities. Not many women can build a stone or a brick wall.  Men will always have a natural advantage in the realm of physical labor.  The skilled craftsman who can handle physical labor has never been in more demand.  In some parts of the country, one with experience and a good reputation can name his price.

Why go to college when you can make money and build a business right away?  Parents must realize that college is not what it was, nor does it guarantee what it once did.  Encourage entrepreneurship when you can.

And encourage pursuit of the noble and profitable.

The Bizarroworld of College Campus Life and Vaclav Havel

Last year, New York City Police commissioner Ray Kelly cancelled a scheduled talk at Brown University. Students opposed to the city's "stop and frisk" procedures successfully disrupted the event through protest.  According to The Daily Beast this was one of several events halted by the actions of small, but well organized student groups.  Brown University claims to prize " the intellectual exchange that is sparked by a diversity of views and experiences" but caves into left wing rage.

The article goes on to explain how liberals who "accept basic norms of fair play" have been shoved aside by hate filled leftists who see the world as totalitarian and aim to impose those values on campuses.  Its author explained how, as a staunch left wing student, he wanted to see a Marxist reviewer savage Dinesh D'Souza's accounts of campus tyranny.  Instead he was shocked by the reviewer's agreement with the conservative thinker.  American liberals and conservatives disagree on much, but they do generally agree with the principles expressed in the Bill of Rights.

Angry campus leftists, however, loathe experiencing speech that is not their own.  But instead of avoiding it, they work as hard as possible to prevent it.

This happens also at the student level.  National Review this morning posted a piece on "microaggression."  Dr. Derald Sue, Columbia University psychologist, explains that it is speech or actions perpetuated by a majority against a minority individual in everyday life.  This includes slights, discomfort, and anything else that may make the recipient feel "socially marginalized."  Last November, according to the article, a group of students filed a complaint against a professor.  He committed "microaggression" by correcting a capitalization error.

Fordham University has actively moved on this issue, training faculty on how to avoid microaggression and encouraging students to describe instances of abuse.

When asked, Sue said that microaggression lay in the eye of the recipient.  If a person feels slighted, they are, in other words.

Colleges and universities were established for two purposes, to expand the mind and train for useful occupations.  Campus speech policies, giving into hateful protesters and cancelling speeches, giving credibility to silliness like microaggression will close the student mind, not expand it.

Vaclav Havel in the late 1970s penned "The Power of the Powerless."  The Czech dissenter and playwright looked to describe to a westerner the reality of life behind the Iron Curtain.  He said that this was not the classical dictatorship of an individual or a small clique.  Eastern Europe suffered from the dictatorship of bureaucracy.  Although few were slaughtered in the same way as in Stalin's time, innumerable small punishments could be wielded.  Each could drastically affect employment, social position, education, or something else important to the person.  No one would risk offending the system, which he described as "post-totalitarian."

Havel said that in such a situation "the social phenomenon of self-preservation is subordinated to something higher, to a kind of blind automatism which drives the system."  Those caught in it are not regarded as individually worthy, simply a collective reason for the institution to exist.

The most basic revolt against the numbing of this system is what Havel calls "living within the truth."  One ignores orthodoxy and ideology, "rejects the ritual and breaks the rules of the game." The consequences of living within the truth? "The bill is not long in coming. He will be relieved of his post . . . his pay will be reduced . . .his superiors will harass him . . . his fellow workers will wonder about him."

Within most colleges, those who break the rules of the game could go before the social justice Star Chamber.  Guilt or innocence decided by a stacked committee, very little right of true due process or appeal.

Willingness to let people live within the truth means that someone's sensibilities may be offended.  Better they learn in college that the real world doesn't and shouldn't care about offending you.  Better that real and perceived slights be ignored, confronted, or forgiven depending on the situation.  Better than individuals, especially on campus, experience an atmosphere of free speech and inquiry, rather than help perpetuate an intellectual environment with the placidity and quiet of a graveyard.

A Solution For Detroit

Barack Obama, the President of the United States, waxed rhapsodic about a single criminal case last Friday.  The media swirled about his words like gnats on a summer day.

This week, one of America's storied metropolises filed for bankruptcy.  Not a peep.

Since 1960, the city has imploded.  This report which, no joke, 47 percent of Detroit residents would not be able to read,details many of the problems facing the city.

These include an hour response rate for police, 40 percent of traffic lights now non-functional, 80,000 houses abandoned, many housing drug gangs as squatters.  Over a million people fled Detroit for saner pastures as city government devolved.

Detroit has no choice but to declare bankruptcy, which would free it from significantly onerous pension requirements.  Look out California and Illinois state workers, your turn is coming unless you can hit on a formula for sustainable government. Several other cities have already taken this path.

A county judge tried to halt the bankruptcy proceedings by, among other things, claiming that bankruptcy dishonored the president and violated the state constitution.  A federal court, however, has ultimate jurisdiction.  All the city's creditors will likely take an enormous hit, not just those expecting lavish pensions after making lavish salaries. 

What can save Detroit?  A National Review writer suggested using Hong Kong as a model.  Create a free enterprise zone of limited taxes and regulations.  Incidentally, that was the original purpose of the modern city, as conceived in Central Europe in the Middle Ages.  Nobles controlled most of the lands while kings only directly ruled the roads.  At crossroads, kings established tax free areas where merchants could do business, while the king would derive revenue from tolls and fines.  Of course, such an arrangement would be up to the state, not the federal government, of course.

Normally the drop of land values to nearly zero would attract entrepreneurs.  Detroit's horrific school system, however, has not provided a workforce with even the rudiments of ability.  Widespread drug addiction and the inability to enforce basic rule of law also make serious businessmen hesitant to pull the trigger. Last year, the police union warned out of towners to avoid Detroit.

But there is, possibly, a solution if government can stay out of the way.

Colonization.  In a sense.

With the price of an acre somewhere below a six pack of Schlitz, a manufacturing firm could buy property for next to nothing.  Now the state or city would have to help to remove the squatters without facilitating bizarre legal challenges.

Next, government officials have to stop the green energy foolishness and draconian EPA regulations on power plants.  One of America's few remaining advantages in attracting manufacturing is cheap power.  So get out of the way of drilling and production. 

Manufacturing facilities, for a while anyway, in Detroit would have to look like their Third World counterparts.  Buildings surrounded by walls topped with razor wire, perhaps even containing dormitories where workers could live in safety.  Armed private security would have to patrol the site. Possibly such measures might make such a place too costly. 

The locals will not like it, but much of the workforce would have to come from outside.  Successful firms do not employ drug addicts or illiterate people. 

It goes without saying that Michigan would have to continue its move towards worker rights, despite union protests.

In other words, colonize Detroit with entrepreneurs and hard workers from other parts of the country.  Productivity and profit would attract satellite businesses.  Revenue from a fair tax system wisely used would help to rebuild city services.  This would be colonization in the Roman sense of the term.  Plant communities within a previously settled area to start a long term transformation. Over time, the city grows prosperous, safer, and offers a good quality of life.

It would have to happen without court battles involving environmentalists, community organizers, unions, and every other fool who thinks Detroit is currently just fine.  Business would have to be able to get quick permission to build, as opposed to conducting exhaustive studies. 

Unfortunately, nothing is easy for business in America.  Which is why Detroit and many other places like it are happening in our generation.