Snooty by proxy

JL's fingers musta got tired, but he can be snooty by proxy.

This screed is a sterling example of the common technique of assuming the conclusion. They mention their assumption and conclusion as a throw-away line, nice touch: "Why have we no high art today, like Mozart?"

Then you follow this with a survey of past music and art, a 3-page B- essay for ArtHist 3001.

Not a bit of reflection or diversity, like maybe in 100 years we will have a better perspective of the various delights of Mozart, Borodin, Prokoffief, Williams, Dylan, and Yanni? Or that maybe it's net progress to have more choice if somewhat lower peak "quality". Or music available to anyone instead of just the upper crust. Little details like this so mess with a simplistic attitude of maximum snootyness.

James Lileks starring as Chicken Little

Every now and then we get a clear snapshot of how basically clueless a certain JL is. Today's newsflash from him is illuminating.

He's pointing out to us that North Korea may be up to something.

Some folks that have been following the news for a while may suspect this is nothing new.

A quick Googling of "North Korea threatens..." shows a steady 480,000 or so hits per year. Every year from 2000 to 2008. They've been threatening to do this or that, pretty steadily all along. You see when you don't have any cards to play, all you can do is bluff. Bluffing is cheap and easy and free of any consequences. So they've been regularly putting out growly press releases. Year after year.

And given that lately they're begging for food and oil, and their one nuclear test was a fizzle, and their tiny fearless leader hasn't been seen in months, they don't seem to have a lot of economic, political, or military oomph recently. But their PR department is still fully staffed and can still rehash and re-release old press releases.

Absolutely nothing new.

But JL somehow knows more than me or you or Google or even the CIA. Hmmmm.....

And about those press releases, a little reading past the headlines reveals that the NK's are not being all that aggresively bellicose. In all three stories the NK's threw a fit, yes, but in each case it was due to something the South did first. In the nuclear inspection tiff, the South has done only about 50% of wwhat it promised, wile the North has by one reckoning done 8 of 11 items. I might send out a pointed press release too if the other guy was 30% behind on his obligations. In the second story the Northern Loonballs were complaining about leaflets being balooned over ther border. One suspects if Canada was ballooning in leaflets about the wonders f being a British Commonwealth, a few Montana ranchers might get a bit huffy. n Same with the third item.

Not that I support the worlds most humorless regime. However it might be nice if Mr. JL thought a bit more about how we could prevent these incidents instead of just wringing his hands about the latest flare-up of a political tug of war that has been going on for fifty-five years.

BTW one interesting side-note I've heard is that all those folks that signed up for the duration of the Korean War are not off the hook yet. No official peace was signed, just a truce.
Officially it's not settled, just in a lull.

Commies

Today Lileks is puzzled

In the link you'll see hm (figuratively) scratching his head. Colored folk and "Commies"?


Time to enlighten:

• The union was surprised, they asked other organizations for help in setting up this meeting, but they were rebuffed by the Chamber of Commerce, the Kiwanis, the Elks, the VFW, the Odd Fellows, the Masons, the White People's Movement, the KKK and the rest of the folks in power.
  
• Funny, but the union had no qualms about having not one, but TWO distinguished persons of color speak.
• And in 1947 we were just two years since we were allied with Oceania, oops, no, the USSR. Not everybody was so quick to forget which country did the majority of the work defeating the Fascists.
  
• Co-marketing with the Commies did not seem so bad from their point of view. Not that the average working man nor their unions had any deep illusions about the commies. Unions in the USA never seemed to be quite so dumb as to push the commie agenda. Especially in Minnesota, it was commie-light, more like Swedish socialism than boot-to-the-head Stalinism.
• JL, as a member of at least one union that has saved his job perhaps more than once, he should maybe cut the unions a little slack. The smear by awfully weak association card was played recently with rather weak results. Better give this tactic a rest.

Today's twists from James Lileks

The big three automakers are all close to bankruptcy. The polar icecaps are shrinking. And what does Lileks find to worked up about? A few people in Omaha may be gathering to praise Obama.

A quote: "REAGAN, BACK FROM THE DEAD, EATS BIN LADEN AND CRAPS TAX CUT"

Apparently JL thinks Reagan has Arab-eating and tax cutting creds. Let's see:

• Reagan sent a few Marines to Lebanon, then pulled out immediately when things got hairy.
• Reagan sent arms to the muhadjadeen, including, hmmm, Bin Laden.
• Reagan sent nerve gas technology to Iraq, last categorized as "a wacko Arab country".

• As for "tax cuts", a few of us remember paying MUCH HIGHER taxes under Reagan.
• For instance he cut lots of tax deductions, like the investment tax credit.
• "Tax cuts" for the top 10% went from 17% to 26%. A tax hike, and a big one.
  
• And he instituted the Earned Incomne Tax Credit, not only not a tax cut for the wealthy, but free money for the very poor.
  
• After the first round of tax cuts, he more than undid them starting in 1983, with $150 billion in corporate tax increases, the largest ever in history.
• Paul Krugman, Nobelite wrote: " In fact, no peacetime president has raised taxes so much on so many people."

So much for the Reagan legacy.

And next, JL is a bit behind the curve. Many other Repubs have already done a 180 degree turn-- Bachmann praising Obama, et al. Now JL comes in a bit late, backpedalling:

"... this reminds the right that no one was ever this happy about Bush, even when the love was at its zenith. No one put him with George, Abe and Frank before he took office. Really, he was just The Next Guy, a caretaker in a post-history world. "

So let's get this right. Somehow it was patriotic to Country to not say anything for eight friggin' years while this dimbulb screwed up everything he touched? Many folks would consider it unpatriotic and cowardly to run cover for this guy at the expense of our country. So NOW that it's safe you speak your mind. How can anyone every trust a single word you say in the future when you've revealed you've been dissembling for eight years?

Next, this gem:

There are rumors of new Executive Decrees,

Nope, not quite. Not an expansion of executive power. Just the revocation of many of Bush's executive decrees which increased the govt's dominion over us. Like blocking stem cell research. Like tapping American's conversations. Like following Teddy Roosevelt's plan to protect Utah parklands. You know, a republican plan of yore.

Will executive unilateralism remain a bad thing, a threat to our rights, or suddenly gain favor with old critics?

Again JL, this is an undoing of past executive unilateralisms, not more. Better think up a new bogeyman, this one's knackered.

Republicans and maps, not so much

Today we have yet another example why you should not buy snow tires at the drugstore, or DVD players at 7-11, or depend on Liberal Art majors to interpret maps.

Mr. Lileks today coughs up this . supposedly an authoritative map of small "JESUSLAND", his term, has shrunken. The gist is something along the lines of "ha ha, the supposed loud liberal bemoaning about the religious right is all poppycock, see this map."

As a cynic might suspect, not only is the premise unsupportable, the map shows the exact opposite trend of what JL says.

If you go back to the original NYT source, it mentions that this map depicts the relative changes in voting, not any absolute numbers.

So JL's conclusion that the jesus-belt is small is completely unsupported by this map. Quite the contrary, the reddish areas are places where the Republican voting increased. It says nothing about the absolute value of republican voting. Places in the map that are colorless are areas where there was no net change-- they still might be 90% republican or 90% democratic, the map does not say.

The only conclusion you can draw from the map is that even with a decrepit candidate of no particular religion and a clueless vp, a certain streak of the country went MORE for them than ever before. Not a healthy sign. These were the weakest candidates in human memory, and some places went even more for them than ever before. Not an encouraging sigh, IOHO.

To recap, JL set up a strawman, then tried to smack it down with "facts". Only problem, I don't recall that strawman making any showing in the media, and the facts were, let's say to be generous, erroneously absorbed and regurgitated as their exact opposite.

Now we can't say whether this was accidental or intentional. Maybe the only thing we can learn here is to not believe everything we see, especially if the captions have been trimmed off.

Black is White, yet again

Why are they saying bad things about bizness

You may recall "Baghdad Bob", a luckless PR sod for the old Iraqi regime. He was videoed saying that there were no Americans within 200 km of Baghdad, while US tanks could be seen driving by right behind him. Gotta nominate him for some high honor like "most ignorant of the facts". But he'd lose to JL. In the above link JL hits it out of the park. He has the immaculate cluelesness and poor timing-- the same month that the economy went blooey, thanks in great part to dark shadowy nefarious business folks, JL is moaning about how unfair it is to paint business folks as, well, dark shadowy nefarious types.

JL did not get the memo regarding how the whole point of bizness is to grab, pull, coerce, suck, and dredge as much money out of everyone. Oh, it's okay, as it's their fiduciary duty to the shareholders. That absolves them of every economic sin, including sending four credit cards a week to every biological entity in the country with a heatbeat. Not to mention the bankers taking their up-front closing costs while burdening the common folk with unsustainable mortgages. Why, those are not Robber Barons, they're just creative financiers. How unfair to portray them without halos and wings.

I tell ya, you just can't make up stuff like this. Good thing it just pours out of JL like clockwork.

Insinuendo did not die with Archie Bunker

Sigh, Lileks on Obama


Mister JL, when the economy is tanking, and glaciers are melting, thinks it's a PAGE 1 STORY that Obama's half-aunt on his father's side may have overstayed her welcome. Which of course is ample opening of the kimono to allow him to insinuate that Obama, contrary to video, will somehow break the law. Never mind that as a lawyer, legislator, and oh, prez-elect, he's sworn to uphold the law and what's left of the Constitution. No opening is too small, no flash on Fox News too specious, to pass by as an opening to spew totally unsupported insinuendoes about what nefariousness may be going on in someone else's head. It is too miniscule in fairness to mention things that have actually been done by the current occupant. Not speculation, but things like hard definite signing statements that contravene the will of Congress and the people. Nope, it's perfectly okay to wonder, speculate, and surmise what unlawful thoughts Obama might have and at the same time varnish, laminate, and gloss over the definite peturbations of the current but not for much longer occupant.

That's fairness, and balance, JL style.

Lileks on Taxes

Lileks on Taxes


This one is a chrome-plated doozy of disengenuousness. The drift seems to be that taxes are bad. Never mind that JL:

• Went to public schools in the 1960's, when schools were very much aided by Federal taxes, due to Sputnik. Public schools staffed by many teachers who went to college on the GI BILL, another govt handout.
  
• Lived in North Dakota, a state that receives far more from the Feds in taxes than it supplies. I have never heard JL complain that his home state got an unfair proportion of tax money. JL, can you find the check stubs where NoDaks sent back federal dollars, on principle?
• Went to the U of M, where the state and feds coughed up about twice as much as he paid in tuition to educate his dark soul in the liberal arts.
• Learned the journalism craft at the student paper, subsidized by a student service fee, in effect, a tax. You'd think on principle he would not take a salary there.
  
• Has been employed by newspapers, which probably would not exist if it was not for the first amendment, and subsidized logging and postage subsidies, from, argh, the Feds, skimmed from taxes.
• Lives on the Internet, a development of a large govt beuraucracy, DARPA, you know, the Feds, fully paid for by the very same taxes he now abhors. Private industry tried many times to build large networks, but somehow the lousy govt that should be strangled in a bathtub outdid the invisible hand of the market. How strange.
• Has not said a peep that I've read of about the growing national debt, which could be interpreted as the current generation borrowing, or taxing, our children. Not a peep. So he has no problem accepting tax benefits in the past, complaining about current taxes, plus grabbing them from the future too. He's a fully equal opportunity tax-grabber.
  
• He has roads he can drive on, civil order so he can sleep at night, zoning laws to keep smelly industries out of his wooded Eden, the FAA to keep airplanes from falling onto his mansion, the FCC to keep order on the airwaves for his iPhone and radio shows, school bus safety laws to protect his children, a huge legal framework that provides all kinds of security to property and employment. Oh I forgot the FDA and USDA to partially mollify his germophobia.
  
• And he has the NRC to keep nukes relatively safe and out of his backyard. And an Army, Navy, AirForce, Marines, and Coast Guard to protect him and his.

None of these things come for free, or could be replaced by private industry. But still in the bible according to Lileks, taxes are awful. He wants to have it every which way and still be able to spout off about how unfair it all is.

All that, and he still can complain about the straw man of "higher taxes for the rich". Yes, 33 to 36% is 3% higher, in a purely theoretical and mathematical sense. But many studies show that the rich actually end up paying fewer taxes, like 20% thanks to all the tax lawyers and tax deductions that Congress has put into tax law. The actual rate kinda peaks and then drops off when one's income gets high enough that you start looking for tax shelters. So the rich schlep that makes his money sitting on his butt off family wealth, pays like 15% tax, while the guy that delivers your papers at 5AM pays 30% in the end.

Somehow JL's long screed can go on and on huffing and huffing about taxes as theft, but he never gets around to mentioning any actual tangible facts.

Facts like how in the glory years of Eisenhower, with very high economic growth, personal and corporate taxes were much higher than now, like 50%. And in the Clinton years, 40% taxe, and huge growth. Funny, high taxes and huge growth over and over again. Somehow these facts don't make it into his screed.


Next there's a huffy fit about how charities work so much better than govt handouts. Never mind that most needs are not photogenic enough to build up public support. Free needles for heroin addicts and condoms for hokers are unlikely to get their hats filled up with spare change. Most things that govt tosses money at are not pretty-- single mothers, addicts, appalachian orphans, lepers, AIDS victims. Yes, helping in those areas is inefficient, but that's the nature of the beast. We as a society long ago made a simple social contract-- we give the govt some money, and the govt keeps the streets free of limbless lepers, crying children with eyes covers in flies, and all the painful cries of the downtrodden. Somehow JL has not heard of this social contract or thinks he can unsubscribe at will. I suggest he spend a year touring Mexico, India, Haiti, Bangladesh, Nigeria, and Burkina Faso. See how swell things are where the rich can keep all their money.

JL makes some points:

The Past

1. The most important thing to know about the past is that it has culminated in us, being here, now. Aside from that, it is useful for finding grievous sins which have nothing to do with human nature, but arise entirely from particular human institutions, most of which have appeared in the New York Times in the last month. These are not reflections of human nature, but Jell-O molds into which the malleable and perfectable human spirit has been cruelly poured. We are only a few tweaks away from solving everything. This process began about 40 years ago.

Classic JL tactic, exaggerate and stereotype. Let's do the same: apparently there is some twisted DNA in all of us that excuses every trace of wanton cruelty, Huey Long, selfishness, racism, Dick Cheney, exploitation, Alberto Gonzales and Fox News. And since these things went on in the past, they're just peachy-keen to go on forever. And since it's "human nature", we can absolve ourselves of all these sins.

2. You do not support the “War on Terror” because you are concerned about militant nutwads with overactive theology glands using things that go BANG to harm the planet’s liberal democracies; you hate Mooslems because they don’t pack into a musty hall and gibber at the same god-thing you do, so you’re willing to accept anything the government does as long as it makes your sheeple-knees stop knocking for a day or two.

So everything is black or white and can be simplified into silly reasons you can put in our mouths and then ridicule. And never mind that the "War on Terror" is more like "The Keystone Cops invade the wrong country" followed by "America's silliest airport searches". All this coming from a fallen Lutheran and card-carrying coward.

The rest of his blog I just cannot follow, but picture a scene much like when Hitler would roll around on the floor and chew on the rug. Minus the moustache.


The North Dakota HS debating coach has much to answer for. She must have coached them "When you have absolutely no facts, just strike a pompous uncompromising attitude, twist them clauses up with double negatives until the listeners are completely at sea and more flustered than a short busful of Carmelite Nuns touring a pickle factory." And write -30- to it before they can parse your twisty passages and realize though they sounded impressive as hot air they're no more navigable to logic than Alan Greenspan's eurethra is to a coathanger.

We begin

We begin this blog for several reasons:

• Mr. Lileks has restarted his own screedblog.
• It seems a shame that his level of whatever you call it, speciousness, vituperation, myopia, ingeniousity, and hard-headedness, is out there without at least some feeble attempt at balance.
  
• If we don't get this stuff off our chest we may explode.

Policies:

• We will try to be honest at all times. We will go as far as attempts at humor and obvious satire, but blatant widely accepted mistruths we will avoid and indeed want to be notified of.
  
• We harbor no personal grudge for Mr. Lileks. We understand that most people are not intentionally trying to be jerks, it's just something in their past that makes them that way. Or so I've read inside a matchbook.
  
• We will not use any of the typical fallacious techniques, such as argument by anecdote, sandmen, strawmen, polar extremes, generalities, obscurity, and ad hominem attacks.
• We expect to not change anyone's opinions. If you agree with JL's drift, you're probably beyond any hope of being influenced by our humble efforts.
  
• His family is completely off limits.