The road to hell is paved with good intentions

Norman Lear has recently spoken of his social conservatism. Maybe he is, but his show, All in the Family was viciously anti-white racism. Every negative stereotype of lower middle-class lumpen caucasia was thrown up. Had he satirized another race in the same manner, he would have never gotten away with it. Maybe the lampooning of the proles was enjoyed in the burbs, but it's been awhile.

Anyway, there was one sketch where Archie Bunker, the series' stooge says to a black neighbor, “I tot you was one of da good ones.” Everybody got the joke, but it has more societal import than that. Not to be discounted is the undertone that for many the president was sold that way in being elected.

For a class of Americans, it is necessary to let others know, they are “one of the good ones” or at least not one of the bad ones. Ted Van Dyk is among them. He must distinguish himself from the unwashed who have no enlightened thoughts. In a Politico article dated August 6, 2015, Ted tells us “School Busing Didn't Work. And To Say So Isn't Racist.” Thanks guy, all along everyone was sure busing had been a roaring success. What took you so long?

Van Dyk wants us to know who the villains were. “In many places, like in Boston as Sokol describes, there was raw racism involved in protests against busing.” He sees the other side, “In many other places, however, there was non-racist consternation based mainly on parents’ concern for the wellbeing of their children.”

Actually, he is being a bit cute. Well, that's the kindest conclusion one can arrive at. I remember the era in Boston well. There certainly was racism, “raw” or “cooked” is how you want to see it and it was not limited to the melanin impaired. Driving a cab while trying to decide on a career, I saw it up close.

Federal Judge W. Arthur Garrity delivered his ukase that racial balance must occur from the lowest grades to the end of high school. I doubt Van Dyk or his ilk had a problem with the use of vast force. His quibble was that it would probably not work.

“Elected officials—even those strongly in favor of civil rights—began to conclude that busing was a well-meant mistake. Presidential candidate George McGovern, in 1971, proposed to his advisers, of which I was one, that he would straightforwardly take an anti-busing position. We prevailed on him not to do so because we believed that the issue then was so emotion-laden that busing proponents would misunderstand his opposition.”

So Ted kinda knew it would not work but didn't want his candidate to say it. Huge sums would be spent chasing a mirage and lives and families would be broken, but McGovern's non-existent electability would be preserved.

Ever the racially pure Van Dyk saw with his bien pensant compassion how it was not working. He had two children in the D.C. System. Recounting the failure as he saw it and noted, “Not surprisingly, parents from the neighborhood began looking for private schools for their kids or moved to Maryland or Virginia suburbs—not because of racism but because their neighborhood school no longer was working.”

Families in Boston left as well, but not surely with the same pure motives. Those without sufficient income who were stuck dealt with as best they could. Some transferred to parochial schools that, possibly to Mr. Van Dyk's surprise, had long been to some degree integrated.

For others it did not work out so well. My cousin, who's mom was widowed was helped into an upscale papist high school normally out of reach of the denizens of his downmarket neighborhood. Years later, he related to me that almost all his old public school classmates had legal or drug problems and had not finished school. Well what do raw racists deserve anyway? Without any resources, one might surmise there was some similar devastation in the minority community.

A woman I worked with about ten years after busing told me how they sent their son to a private academy to get him away from the by then broken system. He quickly became friends with all the black students. It might shock Van Dyk, but the woman said this with no sense of horror.

Mr. Van Dyk has made a window into the souls of white people and found some good and others wanting. He has made a similar inquiry of the leaders of the old civil rights movement and here is where he sees them.

“I have no doubt what brave leaders of the civil-rights revolution would be saying as they witnessed today’s so-called dialogue about race. It would go something like this:

We did not see how hard it would be to truly free black Americans. No more talk please of white racism by anyone or denunciations of past and present political leaders by folk who never risked anything in a tough period when it counted. Let us get on with the work. What good does it do if we have a black president, black attorney general, black judicial, execuctive, and legislative leaders at al levels, successful black leaders in business, labor and the arts if black communities, North and South, are plagued by high black-on-black murder and violent crime rates, narcotics dealing and use, horrific school dropout and incarceration rates, high unemployment, and broken or non-existent families? All Americans need to get on this now with tangible, practical initiatives. Enough grandstanding, self-righteous talk. Time to separate the talkers from the doers.”

He might be right, but the capacity of political leaders and revolutionaries to, like the Bourbons, learn and forget nothing is not to be despised. If the old civil-rights heroes had remained at the forefront, no one knows how they would have felt or acted. Nothing ever goes according to the original plan.

The one big thing Van Dyk and all the other well meaning wonks might want to learn is no big dirigiste social project ever works. Then again, what wonk could ever learn that. Their souls only yearn in that direction. No harm ever comes to them.  Policy people are, as a class, Daisy Buchanans, smashing things up and not having to pay the price.

Whether it's busing or invading Iraq, the grand plan is usually a loser. Going back to ancient Greece, that Syracusan invasion looked like a winner to the Athenian assembly. True, that didn't work well for Alcibiades, but Van Dyk did not lose his career and gets published by Politico and all the Iraq shills have not done badly according to Peter Beinart.

Come to think of it, why would anyone learn a lesson?

Return of the voice of humility's short dictionary

Several years ago we started the dictionary project to define some words or terms.  This is an update. There have been additions and deletions.  We believe what we have defined more reflect the true meanings.

Assisted Suicide: The ultimate reform of the Social Security System. If senior citizens utilize assisted suicide en masse, the system's solvency can be greatly enhanced. 

British Royal Family: Founder of the family, William, started out as Capo di Tutti Capi of Norman Mafia. Descendants and others built the organization into a successful franchise over centuries, despite family infighting. Today, family has no real role as they have been kicked upstairs to mainly ceremonial positions. Currently undergoing branding crisis as members are not terribly appealing as celebrity material. Family should consider new ways of appealing to public. Should study the life of Mr. Frank McCourt who turned a stupid and unappealing childhood into an industry.

Change: 1. Old, To transform or convert. 2. New, Politically, whatever you want it to mean. 

Civil Rights: In truth, there can only be three: Life, Liberty and Property. Anything else is the attempt of one group to secure privileges at the expense of another group or society itself. Of the three above, Property is the most important. If the individual's property is secure, there is little reason for anyone to take his life or liberty. 

Communism: Natural religious progression wherein lower caste man is made into his own god and enslaved in his own name. Lasted far longer than could possibly have been expected. Still claims believers in the professorate. 

Conversation: 1. Informal interchange of thoughts, information etc., by spoken word; oral communication between persons; talk; colloquy. 2. Something always being proposed but never really happening. e.g. Conversation on race or gender, etc. 3. Politically, a desire for a monologue, not a dialogue.

Coverup: Process of investigating government wrongdoing.

Democratic Party: American cargo cult masquerading as a political association. 

Demagogue: Person who appeals to the emotions to gain power or fame. See also: Politician. 

Department of Education: American cabinet secretariat responsible for extracting money from the public while convincing them that the decline in public education is being arrested. Judging from the department's growth amidst continuing school failure, policy is an unmitigated success. 

Election: Auction in advance of stolen goods. (With thanks to H.L. Mencken)

Equality: In nature, an impossibility among the human species, which despite evidence is almost universally desired. 

Extreme Right Wing: Anyone or group with a worldview not to the left of the late Pol Pot's.

Feminism: Formerly a movement to secure women rights to opportunities not generally open to them. Today, the movement exists to secure power for women who attend highly selective institutions. Practical effect has been disastrous for less highly placed women who now have access to the same stupid and boring occupations men have had to do for eons. Current philosophy is heavy on misandry. The religious aspect of the cult has one sacrament. 

Iron Law of government: Everything eventually reduces to its absurd. If this is an actual law of physics that exists in nature is not known. In politics and government, it cannot be denied. Whereas in business a company can go bankrupt (unless it is publicly favored), in the realm of government, if (actually, when is more appropriate) a program attains absolute failure, it becomes a candidate for increased funding (e.g. DARE,). 

Microaggression: Trivialities that give an aggrieved population without lives something to whine about.

Nazi: Common smoke screen name for National Socialist German Workers Party, the German variant of socialism. The success of this party in bringing ruin to most of Europe, its own population, as well as racial enemies cannot be gainsaid. Its accomplishment was so complete that the whole enterprise collapsed after only thirteen years of operation, whereas the Soviet version started decades earlier and met its demise several decades later. Impresario of German Socialism was Adolph Hitler, a man with the soul of a ward boss who nevertheless was able to foist his program on a nation with near universal literacy and a very high degree of advanced education. Despite the socialist nature of the ideology, other socialists have had amazing success in making sure National Socialism is not identified as the philosophical soul brother it is. 

Political Correctness: A fear of knowledge. Under the regime of political correctness as practiced in the United States and some other nations, any evidence disproving accepted doctrine must be denied, if not suppressed. 

Politician: In the American democracy, generally a person who lies in seeking election to public office because there is ample evidence of little profit in speaking the truth (e.g. would Woodrow Wilson have been reelected if his slogan had been "He's hasn't got us into war yet, but, he intends to"?). See also demagogue. 

Populist: Highest form of demagogue. 

Reform: Word has no real meaning yet is impossible to oppose. The question, "Are you against x reform?" can never be answered negatively without destroying politically one who so answers no matter the actual value of the reform proposed. The word's greatest value is that it is as an accurate marker for poseurs.

Republican Party: American political association with no other permanent purpose than to secure executive positions, legislative posts and patronage emoluments. 

Reverend: 1. Title marking certain persons who after serious study and piety are ordained as suitable to lead and instruct the faithful. 2. Honorific applied to certain class of charlatans (examples: Rev. Paisley, Rev. Sharpton, Rev. Jackson) 

Revolution: A method by which one elite manipulates the masses to transfer power from another elite due to real or perceived oppression. The success or failure of the revolutionary party, once the ancien regime is overthrown, depends on how well they manage their transition from belief in ideology to practical management of the entity they have stolen. 

Self-esteem: The psychological notion used to justify rampant egotism (with help from Theodore Dalrymple)

Social Justice Warrior (SJW): Voluntary thought police. In Orwell's 1984, the Thought Police were an official part of the security service. It is a tribute to the current system that the apparatus enforcing mental conformity is unpaid, but relentless.

Social Security: The perfection of a system discovered by a Signor Ponzi wherein early "investors" are paid off by the subscriptions of later participants. System requires ever more contributors to stave off inevitable collapse. Due to the default of Ponzi's path breaking enterprise, he eventually suffered incarceration. Managers of our Social Security system expect no such problems as they have tools to deal with eventualities such as invisible default (i.e. one can start collecting at age 105) or monetization.
 
Soviet Union: Several countries that were controlled by an apparatus known as the Communist Party. For approximately seven decades said apparatus was able to rob the people in their own name. Went out of business when there was no more to rob. 

Teachable Moment: Opportunity for captive indoctrination.

Tolerance: 1. Old, permitting free expression of views one does not share. 2. New, suppression of thought, or speech found uncomfortable by favored groups.

Transgender operations: Current form of approved ritual mutilation. 

University - public: A public university is mainly a large scale day care provider. Most do some practical scientific research. 

University - private: Private universities are generally smaller scale day care providers. Very selective establishments exist mainly to mark the children of a certain class or wealth as members of an elite. 

War on Drugs: Growth industry whose constituency is well served by the government regulations that propel it. 

War on Terrorism: Campaign utilizing all the lessons of the drug war while also inventing its own.

Woke: Ideological sleepwalkers.

A reason to vote for Trump!

Our default position at the voice of humility is that most politicians have too much that we disagree with to warrant a vote.  We have mentioned in a previous post that the Trumpster is may be a phony, though preferable to most of his antagonists.

Up until the last few days, there was no compelling reason to cast a ballot in his favor.  Well, that has changed.  I have heard all kinds of bien pensants threaten to leave the country if Mr. Hair wins.  One especially vehement lass said, "I will literally leave the country if Trump is elected."  This person cannot speak a sentence without the word "literally" being inserted.  This happens even when it is obvious she should be using the word "figuratively" instead, but I digress.  The nation would be a better place if they depart.

Not paying attention as much as I might, the Trump border plan threatens Mexico with stopping remittances if they don't pay for the fence.  As he is going to expel the people who are remitting, I am not sure how that will work.

Nevertheless, if he wins and the disgruntled want to depart, it may cause a border problem to our north.

Save America and shrink America! Viva Puerto Rico Libre, Vivia Detroit Libre!

So Puerto Rico can't pay the bonds.  Not an economist, my guess that means effectively they are broke if not legally bankrupt.  There is no need for wailing and gnashing of teeth.  This is a golden opportunity that unfortunately will not be taken.

PR wants help which is translated to bailout by guess who.  Hint, it is an avuncular relation named after the great judge of Ancient Israel.

The voice of humilty suggests we pay the debts of that commonwealth, but with a price.  They take independence and never ask for another cent.

We all know, they are asking to be put back on their feet so their corrupt political class can borrow anew.  This on top of all the federal largesse they already receive.  Enough is enough, we have our own supply of regional kleptocrats to deal with on the mainland.

Which is why the solution is to make them not our own.  Detroit went through the process of restructuring and is all better.  We know in our hearts that unless there is always someone responsible from outside motor city with access to the brake, nothing will change in the end.  Therefore, the voice of humility lends full support to the DIM or Detroit Independence Movement.  This is not secession as settled at the end of the late unpleasantness, but expulsion

Any other basket cases should get the same treatment.

I know, I know, but we can dream.