Free Republic

Thank you.

Thanks. Book chapter is excellent.

100% correct.

No problem on excerpting here.

Absolutely correct.

Scott Johnson and John Hinderaker have an excellent piece in The Weekly Standard on this: http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/rather-shameful_1039561.html?nopager=1

They allowed me a guest post on PowerLine in which I discuss similar and related points. http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2015/10/harry-macdougald-truth-and-other-lies-2.php

"There's no Pravda in Truth."

James B. Stewart’s outstanding book about this incredible man is available here: http://www.amazon.com/Heart-Soldier-James-B-Stewart/dp/0743244591/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1378894223&sr=8-1&keywords=rescorla+james+b.+stewart

The author has a full length treatment of this subject here, The Myth of American Meritocracy, http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-myth-of-american-meritocracy/.

It is actually somewhat impressive that the NYT published Ron Unz on this topic because his article in The American Conservative is devastating to much that the NYT holds dear. But the NYT version is not even half the story. The American Conservative piece is a Mac-Daddy presentation on historical trends by racial and ethnic group at the elite colleges measured against the composition of the elite applicant pool.

The author concludes that there is without question a quota to limit Asian-Americans, just as there was to limit Jewish admission in the 1920’s and 30’s, when Jews were overrepresented in the elite applicant pool, just as Asian-Americans are today. Interestingly, Jews are no longer over-reprepresented in the applicant pool, but are admitted at high rates. As a result, they are over-represented now at the elite schools, about 400% of parity at some schools. Since this is a zero sum game, and they are doing affirmative action, something has to give. Asians and non-Jewish whites get the short end of the stick, to an astonishing degree. Whites get it even worse than Asian Americans, as shown by this figure: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/eliteenrollment-large.jpg

We are supposed to believe that Sidney Blumenthal, who wasn’t even in government at the time, is giving Hilary copiously detailed briefings on sensitive near real-time intelligence reporting of what the various actors and factions in Libya are doing and saying in private meetings, in a manner that supports a narrative that we already know is false?

Hilary and Sid are two dogs that are not barking.

The play was a fade to the receiver going into the end zone. Conley was to go in the flat and hopefully pull the corner up to open up the fade. The ball was batted at the line and went to Conley. You are a receiver all your life and the ball comes to you you catch it. That’s what he did. Can’t fault him, though in post game interviews he blamed himself. If the ball is not batted, it’s either a touchdown, and they win, or incomplete, and they get another shot.

The reason they didn’t spike it was to prevent an Alabama substitution.

On the inculcation of virtue and the good v. not so good, I had in mind the struggle between secular and clerical education and inculcation of virtue in the young. The clerical v. secular struggle is more formalized in French history than our own, see, e.g. Auguste Comte’s Catechism of Positive Religion, http://books.google.com/books/about/The_catechism_of_positive_religion.html?id=FaMNAAAAYAAJ. Nevertheless, it has echoes in our own history from the earliest days into John Dewey, the birth of the public school movement, the Blaine Amendment, the mini-Blaine Amendments in the states, and the contemporary fight over school vouchers, charter schools, home schooling, etc. I used the phrase “not good” w/r/t the secularists because even though I think they are wrong and that a lot bad, bad things have ensued from their efforts, I credit their good intentions. Perhaps that is too generous, but that is what I had in mind.

Best,

Thanks for the ping, and thank you and joanie-f for a very elevated discussion, which has been quite a rarity on FR for a long, long time. It provokes nostalgia for the days when such was more common.

I’m not sure I accept Whittle’s argument, assuming I understand it correctly. The parallel structures he proposes already exist, and have existed from the beginning. They are the churches, private schools, and voluntary personal and civic associations that fill the interstices of community life. Toqueville wrote about them. They embody the virtuous citizenry working to make their communities better places. So I don’t see that as anything new, not in the slightest.

I’m not quite sure how the Rather episode fits into the argument either. I see it as symbolic of how communications technology is disrupting the old information oligarchy. That oligarchy arose because of the nature, cost and distribution of communications technology. It is being disrupted by radical changes in the nature, cost and distribution of communications technology. A grandiose but nevertheless suitable analogy is to the role of the printing press in the Reformation.

Yet despite that, the MSM and the destructive cultural avatars of Hollywood and the professoriat remain the dominant voices. They are diminished but not yet dead. An no rag tag collection of bloggers can overcome them.

But their trendlines are all negative. The New York Times Company and the Washington Post Company, and many other MSM old media companies are headed for oblivion, brought on by a technological revolution they cannot outrun. No one has figured out how they can remain profitable. It would be good if those trends could be hastened to their ultimate conclusion. Perhaps a corporate raider will buy them and sell their assets for salvage value.

Similarly, the world of higher education is riding an unsustainable bubble and will eventually collapse. There are a number of forces at work here, but once again, technology is disrupting an ossified information oligarchy. Go to iTune U and check out the instruction available at nominal cost. iTunes U may do to higher education what it has done to record labels. Anything that can hasten the collapse of the higher education bubble is devoutly to be wished.

These trends weaken the enemy, but they do not strengthen our allies, or teach virtue to the young or strengthen the ties that bind. These same technological trends undermine virtue through the distribution of pop culture barbarism.

The technology itself is neutral. Weakening the enemy is certainly part of the strategy, but they’ll never be finished off. The inculcation of virtue is a continuous struggle between the forces of good and not so good that will never end. Entropy is only staved off by work.

One of my favorite scenes in all of cinema.

Ravi -

What does this methodology predict for out of sample data? Using this method to predict 2008 with averages through 2004 and registration from 2008, it underestimates Obama’s 2008 vote by 7% and overestimates McCain’s by 22%.

There is a lot of variance in the Cuyahoga registration numbers and in the percent of independents captured by the respective parties. The standard deviation in registration numbers for Dems is 26% of the mean, for R’s it’s 19% of the mean, and I’s its 24% of the mean. For the % of Independents captured, the standard deviation for dems is 9% of the mean and for R’s its 14% of the mean.

I’m not a statistician, but I don’t think this model has any meaningful predictions to make since the numbers it’s based on are themselves highly variable due to factors not used by the model, like’s what’s happening in the world and whether the candidate is good or terrible. Extrapolating such a weak model from one county over the entire state makes even less sense.

Any competent statisticians or modelers out there care to comment?

It’s a fair point that they are repeat offenders insofar as public disruption is concerned.

Nevertheless, there are a couple of problems with your analogy.

1. PR, by their court statements, have important political, theological and cultural points to make. Teenage hoodlums do not.

2. Putin and his gangster government are the ones terrorizing the neighborhood.

Well, your impression was correct - I’d not seen them. Following your links, I watched the one in the church and another one that appeared to be in a court room. Worth the trip to fill out the picture, so thanks.

The Wiki entry on them doesn’t quite correspond to Cunning Fish’s narrative, as the group wasn’t formed as such until August 2011, though it emerged from the group CF referred to. And, obviously, they can’t be punished in this case for what they did on some other occasion.

The translation of the lyrics to their “song” at the cathedral didn’t contain profanity beyond the word “crap,” but that in itself is not very signfiicant.

Giving due regard to the videos, I grant the point that the disruptions they caused are sufficient to warrant their physical removal from the premises and their arrest on very minor charges. If all I knew was the videos, and nothing of the court statements, I would have very little sympathy for them. But their court statements are eloquent and compelling for the reasons that are obvious if you read them. The protests themselves, not so much. They are also on a slippery slope of self-justification, insofar as what they think is appropriate to do.

May I suggest we agree that (1) their deeper message as set out in their court statements has merit; (2) their time, manner and place of expression were legitimately curtailed at the time; and (3) they were excessively punished thereafter?

If you’ve not done so already, I encourage you to actually read their statements to the court. They quote Dostoevsky, Solzhenitsin, Bukovsky and scripture, among others, and refer to the trials of Socrates and Brodsky. You may chose to reject their claim because they have a punk aesthetic that you do not find congenial, or because you are offended they sang a song not found in the Russian Orthodox hymnal, “Mother of God, Drive Putin Out,” but it is crystal clear that they explicitly place themselves in the Russian intellectual and Christian dissident traditions. To my eyes they have a fully articulated and indeed quite eloquent rationale for doing so.

You have proudly and defiantly refused to consider the court statements, and reveled in your ignorance of the cultural, intellectual, religious and political context and meaning of their acts and statements. To the aid and comfort of corrupt fascist gangsters.

If you think that’s winning the argument, then I heartily congratulate you on your victory.

“I don’t care what their court statements are. Their actions were vile and deserving of punishment. “

Well, at least we have established that your strutting, preening know-nothing ignorance is beyond remedy.

Perhaps if you read their court statements you would understand that the Orthodox Church is now the handmaiden of the Putin regime and that their protest, which you demean as a mere trespass without any political content, was actually directed at the corrupt relationship between the Church and Putin’s gangster government.

These women are not airheads. They are Russian dissident intellectuals with a direct lineage to Soviet Refuseniks. They are citing Dostoevksy and scripture in their Court statements to put their protests into the historical, theological and political context that gives them meaning. Your arguments are as valid as those of the prosecutors of all the refuseniks. They have general statures against offenses against public order that use to lock up anyone they don’t like. And you’re cheering them on.

I cannot believe the endorsements of locking them up I am reading on this page on a website that is supposedly populated by people who hold political liberty and free expression dear to their hearts. It is just stunning.