Framed

As we all know Mayor Bloomberg is busy fulfilling his role as patriarchal-authoritarian-billionaire-twit of the year. Scott Lemieux responds that the proposal that

  this kind of thing can bring out my inner libertarian.

Here is the thing. Libertarians aren't the only ones to oppose patriarchal, authoritarian bullshit, in the Frankfortian sense. Socialists, Communists, and Democratic Socialist oppose this kind of nonsense. By ceding the ground to libertarians Lemieux is valorizing the insane notion that the left generally wants to rob the world of its freedom to do what it will. That simply isn't true.

I find it difficult to believe that anyone seriously dedicated to the reversal of thirty odd years of neoliberals assault on humanity think that Bloomberg's unilateral imposition of a childishly silly policy that will have little to no effect on obesity or consumption is a good idea.

Most of thought and think the no butter diktat was equally silly. Libertarians are twits and insisting that resiting patriarchal, authoritarian bullshit is their bailiwick is to accept their hopelessly blinkered view of the world in which the struggle for effective democratic solutions to the intractable problems of humanity in a  social situation is a form of nanny statesim, which it isn't.
 

Post Racial

So maybe she might have been white and the hospital and cops would have done the same; however, the fact of the matter is she was black and she was hauled off to die in cell. Not, of course, that Trayvon Martin  was killed because he was black but rather because he was armed with skittles and ice tea.

We could, if the louts would let us, discuss the meaning of and how to fix these disasters because things are only going to get better if we take seriously the underlying problems.

Honesty Not The Best Policy Updated

One of the depressing aspects of the current level of intellectual debate is the mendacity of the conservatives. In the course of a remarkably incoherent, uncharitable, and badly-argued review of Corey Robin's book on conservativism, Mark Lilla, whose real purpose is not to review Robin but rather to insist that not all conservatives are crazy -- to which one points at the current crop of Republicans and their various crazy positions, argues that

[w]hat makes conservatives conservative are the implications they have drawn from Burke’s view of society. Conservatives have always seen society as a kind of inheritance we receive and are responsible for; we have obligations toward those who came before and to those who will come after, and these obligations take priority over our rights. Conservatives have also been inclined to assume, along with Burke, that this inheritance is best passed on implicitly through slow changes in custom and tradition, not through explicit political action. Conservatives loyal to Burke are not hostile to change, only to doctrines and principles that do violence to preexisting opinions and institutions, and open the door to despotism. This was the deepest basis of Burke’s critique of the French Revolution; it was not simply a defense of privilege.

As I've mentioned before, Burke view of society was essentially and fundamentally undemocratic. His argued for society's gradual improvement under the leadership of existing elites and institutions and feared common people's participation in political decision making unmediated by elite tutelage. This is a recipe for elite domination of political decision making and rests on the conviction that, as Lila suggests Robin's incorrectly argues, “some are fit, and thus ought, to rule others.” That "reasonable" Conservatives want to deny that their project rests on this horrid little principle doesn't change that fact.

If Lilla wants to get rid of the dark and dangerous forces he sees the first step is to admit the role and power of the Conservative desire to deny to most of us the right to decide our own fates. Of course, to do that means admitting the unpleasant reality of the Conservative and Neoliberal project.


UPDATE:
The more I think about it the more I become convinced that Lilla had no interest in reviewing Robin's book but rather wanted to offer some kind of an anti-Tea Party conservative political ideology with a pinch f false equivalency thrown in.

UPDATE:
For a good thrashing of Lilla's review see Alex Gourevitch

Conversations I'd Have Liked to Overhear

It seems that Groucho Marx and T.S. Eliot wrote one another and  once had dinner.  In a letter to Gummo (Milton) Marx Groucho wrote:

  that the week before the dinner, “I read ‘Murder in the Cathedral’ twice; ‘The Waste Land’ three times, and just in case of a conversational bottleneck, I brushed up on ‘King Lear’.” They begin with cocktails. A lull in the conversation prompts Groucho to “toss” in a quotation from ‘The Waste Land’.” Eliot “smiled faintly.” Feeling perhaps slighted by this uber-goy, Groucho writes that he “took a whack at ‘King Lear’," arguing that the king was “an incredibly foolish old man”. But Eliot, whether annoyed or nonplussed, perhaps passive-aggressively ignores Groucho’s invitation to ponder “Lear”, preferring instead to discuss “Animal Crackers” and “A Night at the Opera”. “Now,” recounts Groucho triumphantly, “it was my turn to smile faintly.” Suddenly they are like two characters in a play co-written by Samuel Beckett and Neil Simon.

It's the faint smiling that intrigues. See also.

Kindling Irony

One of the really nifty things about Kindle is the endless number, or so it seems, of free books. Some of them, like Joseph Crosby Lincoln's Cap'n Eri, I've never heard of and, to be honest, it's not clear that I am better off for having altered that state of affairs.  Today's downloads included free Smith's Wealth of Nations and Theory of Moral Sentiments while Marx's Capital cost 89 pennies. 

More Nonexistant Conversations, Even Though Words Are Exchanged

Just the other day, I mentioned that progressive analysts of all things military felt as if the neo-Liberal, Conservative, and Warmongerosphers weren't paying any attention to the progressive critique of, you know, war.  Well it seems that a LTC Flynn, who was partially responsibly for destroying the village in order to save it, sort of responded here; however, as the progressive response to the response makes clear the LTC leaves undiscussed the real, or more central, objection to the destruction of a village for its own protection argument.