Large Roman villa found in England

The New Neo Posted on by

When I was a newlywed my husband and I took a trip to Europe, spending most of our time in England and France. It was the 70s, and Europe (and the world) was a lot less crowded and traveling not particularly hectic compared to today. We rented a car and drove around the countryside in a leisurely fashion (that is, my husband drove around—I was the happy passenger) wherever the mood took us.

I had studied my history, and so of course I knew that long ago the Romans had gotten around those parts rather extensively. But what I’d never realized, probably because I’d never thought about it, was how much of a mark they left. Roman ruins were all over the place, almost wherever you drove in the countryside, standing in their classic splendor and reminding us of antiquity. In New England we’ve got some old buildings, but nothing quite like that.

And so I find this news very exciting:

It started off as a bit of basic home improvement, but it ended up with the discovery of one of the largest Roman Villas ever found in the UK.

While laying an electricity cable beneath the grounds of his home, near the village of Tisbury, in Wiltshire, Luke Irwin found the remains of what appeared to be an ornate Roman Mosaic.

But what emerged when archaeologists from Historic England and Salisbury Museum began excavating the site was even more of a surprise.

They found the mosaic was part of the floor of a much larger Roman property, similar in size and structure to the great Roman villa at Chedworth.

But in a move that will surprise many, the remains ”“ some of the most important to be found in decades – have now been re-buried, as Historic England cannot afford to fully excavate and preserve such an extensive site.

That last sentence is less exciting. But perhaps some day—

Take a look at how elaborate the villa was, and how it wouldn’t look so out of place today were it to be reconstructed:

SCOTUS hears immigration challenge

The New Neo Posted on by

Reading SCOTUS tea leaves is a difficult but nearly irresistible temptation. This time the case is a big one (and Justice Scalia will be sorely missed by the right, as he has been several times since his death): whether President Obama overreached when he granted amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants.

Some historic background:

“In 225 years, the Supreme Court has never had occasion to ask the president whether he has reneged on his oath to take care that the laws are faithfully executed. However, with pens and phones replacing checks and balances, the Supreme Court is now poised to break new constitutional ground in order to preserve our embattled separation of powers,” said Josh Blackman, associate professor at the South Texas College of Law, who has followed the case from the start and filed amicus briefs opposing Mr. Obama’s claim of powers.

At issue is the Take Care Clause, which is what scholars call the Constitution’s charge to presidents to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”

That clause has been read to be both empowering to presidents, emboldening them with independent authority to see through the execution of laws, but also as a check ”” that, in the end, he carry out laws rather than write them.

Illegal immigration is a very large issue, to be sure. But the issue described in that quote is an even larger one, because it applies to executive power vs. legislative power as a whole, not just regarding immigration. Is not enforcing a law within the scope of “faithfully executing” it? I think it’s clear that it is not—except in the Orwellian sense. But of course the justices on the left side of the Court can probably come up with some excellent-sounding counter-arguments if they wish to, and I think they will wish to, because it’s President Obama who did it.

Now that there are only eight justices on the Court, many pundits say that the result of this case is likely to be a tie. That’s not a bad bet, considering the way SCOTUS has been split in the past and the way these justices usually decide. There’s much extra speculation about Justice Roberts, of course, who—despite having been appointed by a GOP president—twisted himself into a rhetorical knot in order to allow Obamacare to stand. Roberts may indeed, as the article I just linked indicates, avoid the hot issue of Obama’s overreach by ruling on narrow grounds that the states suing don’t have standing because they haven’t suffered the kind of damage that would give them a cause of action. That would preserve the question for a possible later date.

That’s certainly the sort of thing Roberts might do, because if there’s been one constant in his rulings it’s the desire to avoid making the Court the arbiter of tough decisions that overrule one or another branch of Congress. IMHO, that is why he didn’t want to overrule Obamacare—because it was an act of Congress and supposedly represented the will of the people (ignoring, of course, how it was passed). In this case, though, we’re talking about a conflict between Congress and the president in which the president has usurped both the power of Congress and the explicit wording of the Constitution (“faithfully execute”). That seems different to me—but will it seem different to Justice Roberts?

In this particular case, by the way, a tie vote would have the effect of leaving a lower court’s injunction in place, which would block Obama’s plan for now. So a tie would be something like a small victory for the right.

Edward Villella: on “a guy” called Stravinsky

The New Neo Posted on by

In my relative youth, Edward Villella was one of my favorite dancers—and to tell you the truth I was more than a little bit in love with him. Here he talks—with his usual modesty—about what it’s like to be in the presence of greatness. I think he’s in his 60s or 70s here (he’s now close to 80):

Edward Villella Interview from Deb kaufman on Vimeo.

It shows why I love Villella, who in his prime once taught a class of mine and had me swooning. I married someone who looked more than a little bit like him, by the way.

Years ago when I last checked, I could find very little video of Villella dancing, even on YouTube. But let me just say he was handsome, virile, graceful, and emotional all at once, although I don’t think his power as a dancer would transfer all that well to film or video. Yes, his technique didn’t have the perfect polish of many of today’s male dancers, but in person that didn’t detract, it somehow added.

I’ve just noticed, though, that someone has uploaded on YouTube a lengthy documentary on Villella. I haven’t had a chance to look at it except for a couple of minutes, but I like Villella’s little speech at the beginning of this segment:

[NOTE: I’ve written before about Villella, here.]

Vash your hands

The New Neo Posted on by

You know those hot air hand dryers found in almost all public restrooms? I’ve never liked them to begin with. Time-consuming, don’t really dry your hands thoroughly—and now I discover that they throw a bunch of viruses into the air, particularly one of the newer designs called the Dyson:

Researchers have long known that warm hand dryers can launch bacteria into the air””compared to dabbing with paper towels, which unleashes virtually none. But new jet air dryers, made by Dyson, are significantly more problematic””they launch far more viruses into the air, which linger for longer periods of time and reach much farther distances, researchers recently reported in the Journal of Applied Microbiology. This is particularly concerning because viruses, unlike many infectious bacteria, can easily maintain their infectiousness in the air and on surfaces, and just a few viral particles can spark an infection.

Peachy keen.

Then again, what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, right? Doesn’t exposure to a “normal” amount of bacteria (not sure about viruses), particularly when young, increase our resistance and in particular decrease allergies?

Not only that, but you know those antibiotic soaps and washes that have become so popular in recent years? Just to show you how curmudgeonly I am, I go to great lengths to buy soap that doesn’t have them, because from the start I haven’t trusted them. I ordinarily wash my hands with regular soap in order to reduce colds and the like, and when I’m leaving a hospital or medical building I usually do take a shot at those antibiotic washes, but otherwise I steer clear of them.

And it turns out I might be wise to do so:

Aiello next considered the antibiotic soaps and wipes now used, in one form or another, by 75% of American households. Odds are that you use them. Go check your labels. Sadly, Aiello and colleagues found that antibiotic soaps and wipes with triclosan were no more likely than good old-fashioned soap to prevent gastrointestinal or respiratory illness. In Aiello’s words, “There was little evidence for an additional impact of new products, such as alcohol-based hand sanitizers or antibacterial soaps compared with nonantibacterial soaps, for reducing either gastrointestinal or respiratory infectious illness symptoms.”

For example, in a study Aiello reviewed that was conducted in Pakistan, gastrointestinal illnesses were reduced by half when people washed their hands with soap and by a little less than half when they washed their hands with antibiotic soap. What is worse, perhaps the most comprehensive study of the effectiveness of antibiotic and non-antibiotic soaps in the U.S., led by Elaine Larson at Columbia University (with Aiello as a coauthor), found that while for healthy hand washers there was no difference between the effects of the two, for chronically sick patients (those with asthma and diabetes, for example) antibiotic soaps were actually associated with increases in the frequencies of fevers, runny noses and coughs. In other words, antibiotic soaps appeared to have made those patients sicker. Let me say that again: Most people who use antibiotic soap are no healthier than those who use normal soap. AND those individuals who are chronically sick and use antibiotic soap appear to get SICKER.

Not only that, but take a look at this:

…[A] group of scientists recently made artificial drains clogged with bacteria (oh, the difficulties of science) and then subjected them to low and high doses of [one of the main ingredients in these antibacterial soaps] triclosan (similar to what happens when your detergent goes down the drain). Even at high concentrations, triclosan appears to have no effect on the number of bacterial cells in our drains. BUT, it does affect which species are found there. Triclosan kills “weak” bacteria but favors the tolerant, among them species of bacteria that eat triclosan. Yes, I said eat triclosan. Triclosan may also favor lineages of bacteria that are also resistant to the oral antibiotics used in hospitals and elsewhere, though how often and consistently is, as of yet, unclear.

Not good. No, not good, and pretty much what I suspected might happen from the start, when I first saw these products on the market.

But I also know—from many long years of involuntary observation—that the majority of people don’t even wash their hands after using the bathroom. And scientists back that up when they try to quantify it: “A study of nearly eight thousand individuals in five U.S. cities found almost half of the participants failed to wash their hands after going to the bathroom.”

Somehow, though, most of us manage to survive pretty well, until old age or some non-catchable disease gets us. We are a hardy bunch for the most part, at least nowadays when the plague and smallpox and many other traditional scourges of mankind have been mostly eradicated. That doesn’t mean something new couldn’t rise up—as the scaremonger media often likes to suggest is happening. Nor does it mean we shouldn’t wash our hands assiduously. We should.

Which reminds me of an old Jewish joke. It goes like this:

In the olden days, pharmacies often had soda counters too. An elderly woman walks into that kind of pharmacy and goes up to the pharmacist, and asks (best done with a Yiddish accent), “Do you test the pee here?” The pharmacist answers (best done with a generic American accent), “Yes, we do urine analysis here.” Then she asks, “And do you test the spit, too?” He answers, nodding, “Yes, we do sputum analysis.” Then she asks, “And how about the kaka? Do you test that, too?” He nods and solemnly says, “Yes, we do fecal analysis.”

She says, “Okay, then—vash your hands and make me a chocolate malt.”

ADDENDUM: And then there’s Sheldon:

Republican vs. Republican

The New Neo Posted on by

It doesn’t take a lot of smarts to recognize that intra-party politics seems angry these days, particularly on the right (the left is hardly immune, but I’m going to focus on the right for now). One big reason is the threat Obama has posed for the last seven years, and Republicans’ relative impotence at stopping him. Another is that in recent years the Republican nominees for president have come from the more moderate ranks of the Party rather than the more conservative,and the latter group feels thwarted by this. Still another is that Congress seems to have been rolling over without enough of a fight. Another is the influence of talk show hosts who for years have talked a great deal about how rotten the establishment is, and who energize their listeners further in their anger against the perceived wrongdoings and betrayals of that group. And the amnesty issue, on which Congressional Republicans have looked especially weak, has further brought people to the boiling point.

Have big-government Republicans controlled the party for much of its 20th-21st Century existence, as it often claimed? Well, what about Coolidge? He was tapped for the Vice-Presidency by GOP Party bosses, and he was about as small-government conservative as they come. He became president on Harding’s death, finished out Harding’s term, and went on to a term of his own. And the only reason he didn’t go for another term, in 1928 (the Party certainly would have let him) was that he bowed out, saying, “If I take another term, I will be in the White House till 1933 ”¦ Ten years in Washington is longer than any other man has had it””too long!”

Compare and contrast to FDR, who succeeded Coolidge’ successor Hoover, who was more aligned with the “big government” wing. Coolidge’s attitude towards serving another term was in the tradition of George Washington, and FDR’s showed both his ego and his split from that tradition.

And yet, despite FDR and the fact that his big government policies increased the general dependency of Americans on the federal government and got them more used to thinking of that as a good thing, the Republican Party—that “establishment”—still nominated (or allowed to be nominated; it was accomplished against their will) small-government conservative Barry Goldwater in 1964. How is his nomination explained? It wasn’t popular-vote primaries, it was that smoke-filled room, the establishment, nominating him—but as a result of a conservative effort to organize against that establishment, an effort that succeeded that time.

The story is instructive:

[Phyllis Schlafly’s book A Choice, Not an Echo] called for conservatives in the party to organize to counter this wing of the party and their “kingmaker” approach to nominating candidates. The book was a rallying call for conservatives in the party and helped Goldwater win the nomination. Reagan gave a speech as part of a “TV for Goldwater-Miller” television ad campaign which made him an up and coming star among conservatives…The 1964 Goldwater campaign was also followed by the rise of a growing conservative campus movement during the 1960s…the rise of a small libertarian movement which also supported Goldwater but would later split with conservatism over the draft and drug policy…

So the way for conservatives to fight the establishment candidates in those days was felt to be to organize and defeat them according to the rules. Goldwater’s nomination was a bold move, because he was very conservative (although more a libertarian than a social-con). Here’s an excerpt from his acceptance speech at the Convention; you probably recall the famous first paragraph here, which got a lot of negative press at the time. I’d never heard what followed it, which still seems very relevant today:

I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!

Those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth. And let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyrannies. Absolute power does corrupt, and those who seek it must be suspect and must be opposed. Their mistaken course stems from false notions of equality, ladies and gentlemen. Equality, rightly understood, as our founding fathers understood it, leads to liberty and to the emancipation of creative differences. Wrongly understood, as it has been so tragically in our time, it leads first to conformity and then to despotism.

I sure can’t argue with that. It seems mighty prescient. Nominating Goldwater was a bold move that backfired, because he got absolutely creamed in the election. Why? Well, he wasn’t an appealing politician; he didn’t have Reagan’s winning personality. But it’s not at all easy to combine conservatism with winning on a national level, unfortunately. And although that doesn’t mean it’s impossible, it may take someone with conservative principles plus a charismatic personality to do it (Trump lacks the former and IMHO also the latter, and Cruz lacks the latter).

The flaw is in people as a whole, not some special flaw of the Republican establishment. People like politicians who offer them pie-in-the-sky, not tough-love. Liberals and big government people sell the idea of helping and caring to the voters. Conservatives sell liberty, yes, but at what cost? Teach people to fish instead of giving them fish, yada yada yada.

So all elected officials—or people who would like to be elected—will naturally tend to drift in the direction of big government even if they didn’t start out that way. It’s not an evil design to thwart the Republican “base.” The base just hasn’t always been big enough and strong enough to counter it.

The Wainwright divorce chronicles

The New Neo Posted on by

It isn’t so often that you get two singer-songwriters who marry and then divorce, and who both write songs about it.

Two offerings in this genre are from Loudon Wainwright III and Kate McGarrigle, who were married for a few years back in the 1970s. This article chronicles some of their turbulent history, as well as that of two of their musically talented children, Rufus Wainwright and Martha Wainwright, who have taken up not only the family business but the family tendency to write revealing songs about—the family.

Patriarch Loudon’s (although he doesn’t exactly live up to the “patriarch” role in the traditional sense) father was a well-known writer from a patrician family, who divorced the singer’s mother fairly early on. Wainwright III is a very odd commodity, and something of an acquired taste that not everyone acquires. But I liked him from the moment I first heard him, and find him an intriguing combination of biting humor, biting sarcasm, and biting sorrow. Here you see him mostly in the latter (sorrow) mode, and note that he doesn’t spare himself or evade blame:

Here is his ex-wife some years earlier, singing on roughly the same subject—their divorce. Poignant:

And here’s much more about the relationship and the divorce of these two complex, gifted people. This quote is from their daughter:

Sometimes, the Loudon records would emerge from the vinyl stacks. “Kate would pull them out very late at night,” Martha says, “and she’d listen to two or three of the songs and cry.” Did it seem, to young Martha, that her mother was still in love with him? “Yes,” Martha says. “Very much. Not in love with him. In anger with him. In a good way. In something with him. In wanting to have had more with him, with the father of her children.”

There are many YouTube videos of the children singing with their father, and although they seem to have reconciled there’s an edge. But with Loudon Wainwright III, there’s always an edge. Here’s son Rufus—whose fame has eclipsed his father’s, but whose style I’m not really into—taking on the subject of his father and leave-taking. I don’t doubt for a moment that it was an intense experience to have been the child (or spouse) of the old man:

Sadly, McGarrigle died in 2010.

Old Testament and New: Trump and “an eye for an eye”

The New Neo Posted on by

Get ready for something unusual: I’m going to defend Donald Trump. At least, a little bit.

Yesterday Trump said something that was immediately pounced on by many listeners as being un-Christian:

WHAM 1180 AM radio host Bob Lonsberry asked the Republican front-runner if he had a favorite verse or story from the Bible that’s impacted his thinking or character.

“Well, I think many. I mean, you know, when we get into the Bible, I think many. So many,” he responded. “And some people””look, an eye for an eye, you can almost say that. That’s not a particularly nice thing. But you know, if you look at what’s happening to our country, I mean, when you see what’s going on with our country, how people are taking advantage of us, and how they scoff at us and laugh at us.”

“And they laugh at our face, and they’re taking our jobs, they’re taking our money, they’re taking the health of our country,” he continued. “And we have to be firm and have to be very strong. And we can learn a lot from the Bible, that I can tell you.”

Trump appears to be referring to a passage from Exodus 21-24, which lays out the Old Testament rules governing personal behavior.

“If people are fighting and hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman’s husband demands and the court allows,” the passage reads, in the King James translation. “But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.” [other quotes of a similar nature follow]…

But in Matthew (5:38-42) in the New Testament, Jesus repudiates even that notion. “Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also…

But I think Trump’s reply was one of the most honest things Trump has ever said. He has always been clear about the idea that a perceived insult or attack should be met with an attack in response.

In addition, like many other people who discuss the “eye for eye” Old Testament principle, he has sometimes showed a lack of understanding of what it’s actually about, which is that “Biblical scholars generally interpret ‘eye for eye,’ which was derived from the ancient Babylonian Code of Hammurabi, as a restriction on retaliation for personal injuries ”” in other words, only an eye for an eye.”

Trump’s form of it has actually tended to be even more extreme than the most extreme interpretations of the Old Testament prescription, because in the past Trump has indicated he thinks a person should sometimes strike back even harder. He has written this (and it’s not out of either Testament, Old or New):

For many years I’ve said that if someone screws you, screw them back. When somebody hurts you, just go after them as viciously and as violently as you can.

That’s from a 2004 book of Trump’s called How To Get Rich, so it’s not something he said a long long time ago. It seems to completely lack that restrictive function of the Old Testament “only an eye for an eye” statement, except in the practical sense of a restriction caused by your own physical limitations, or what you are able to get away with.

The Biblical Old Testament quote appears to be describing a rule of official justice, not personal retribution. Therefore it may also represent the substitution of an official response for an earlier private (retaliatory feuding) sort of extra-judicial response, and therefore the triumph of the courts over the private methods of retribution, a triumph that represented the march of what we call civilization.

[NOTE: I’ve noticed that Ben Howe at RedState gets it right.]

The lack of endorsements from Republican senators and governors

The New Neo Posted on by

Leon H. Wolf points out that there have been relatively few endorsements of either Trump or Cruz from elected GOP officials:

Surprising as it is, there are still a lot of people who are on the sidelines as the party decides between Trump and Cruz. Almost the entire United States Senate, many sitting governors, and a large number of ostensibly conservative pundits have said that they are not going to endorse either Cruz or Trump. This is the coward’s way of tacitly endorsing Trump without risking any fallout for doing so, or taking any responsibility for the crazy things that Trump says and does…

Many people have fallen into the trap of believing that Trump’s chances of reaching 50% have already gone down the tubes, but it just isn’t so…

…[I]f the GOP does nothing to unite to stop Trump, he will win, either before the convention or at the convention. And the pundits and elected officials who are sitting on the sidelines now know this ”“ or at least they should. The only reason anyone would refuse to take a stand against Trump at this point ”“ even for Kasich ”“ is because they secretly want Trump to win. If that’s what they want, they should have the courage of their convictions and come out and openly declare it.

Quite apart from the political considerations, there is no substantive reason for anyone to be neutral about Trump at this point.

I agree with a couple of things that Wolf says. I agree that Trump still has a very good chance of winning the nomination on the first ballot. I agree that there is no substantive reason to be neutral about Trump at this point. And I agree that a lot of people are sitting on the sidelines.

Where I disagree is that refusal to take a stand at this point means they secretly want Trump to win. What I actually think it means is this, depending on the person:

(1) Some don’t want either person to win—Trump or Cruz. They can’t figure out who is the worst candidate (there’s no question for them of who is the “best”—the answer is “neither”).

(2) Some are hedging their bets. The election is so close that they cannot predict the winner, so the bandwagon effect isn’t operating. Also, if they think neither candidate is likely to win the general election, they don’t stand to gain anything much from an endorsement (such as an appointment or a favor) and they also would lose the support of people who liked the other candidate. So they may see any endorsement as a lose-lose proposition.

(3) Some are afraid of retaliation if they back the wrong person and the other person is the nominee and perhaps even the eventual winner. In particular, Trump is known for taking revenge on anyone who has thwarted him.

Those are the big three reasons, in my opinion. I also have a question—in close races, are there usually a great many senators or governors who endorse? I really have little idea whether the premise of the whole thing is correct—that is, whether there are a lot fewer endorsements this year than usual at a similar point in the campaign (i.e. when there are still two leading candidates who are very competitive with each other).

Clearing the underbrush on the blog

The New Neo Posted on by

I just got a huge political post off my chest, and that means I’m tired of writing about politics today. So if you want to read about why Lewandowski won’t be prosecuted (in my opinion, because the battery was a relatively minor thing—an apology would always have sufficed—and because the politics involved are just too volatile, so the prosecutor exercised its discretion, probably wisely), or about how Trump didn’t know that Joe Paterno is deceased (not one of my big beefs with Trump, I must say, but your mileage may differ), or about Cruz’s 100 cans of soup (I’m not going to even dignify that one with a link), go right ahead.

Meanwhile, I’m going to talk about my blog. It turns out that I’m a hoarder of post drafts. I didn’t see this coming—it developed slowly, over many years. Although blogging is not up there with digging ditches in terms of labor, churning out several blog posts a day is nevertheless work. It can be a challenge, but for most bloggers—who usually suffer from or are blessed with a hefty dose of ideophoria—getting ideas for enough posts is not a problem. More often, the problem is getting too many ideas and becoming scattered, or in my case researching posts and writing half of them but then putting them on hold because they become too unwieldy. I assume I’ll go back and finish them later on, but then new events happen, new thoughts come, new articles beckon, and the old ones pile up in a drafts folder that grows and grows and grows.

The upshot is that my old blog has about 150 old drafts still on it, some long and almost finished, and some short and mere sketches of an idea. The other day I noticed that the number of drafts on this blog (which I still think of as my “new blog,” although I’ve been here since 2007) was approaching 600.

That’s ridiculous.

When I set about weeding them out, I found that they fell into categories. Many were outdated, but they tracked issues that had obsessed me at the time. A lot of them, for example, were about Obamacare and health insurance as a whole. A surprising number were about defending Thomas Duncan, the ebola patient who was (unjustly, I strongly believe) accused of knowing he had ebola and hiding that fact in order to come to this country. I did so much research on that, and on ebola in general, that I could write a book, but ultimately I had to abandon the issue and move on.

Posts on the Iran deal, Romney’s candidacy, Iraq, Obama this and that, scattered like so many bread crumbs telling me where my trail had led me, and representing untold hours of work, so much that I can’t even begin to estimate how much. Most of these old drafts I deleted, leaving me with slightly under 300 at present that I think still have some meaning and promise. Many of them are about history or other non-topical subjects, and therefore are what in the trade is known as “evergreens.”

Yesterday’s post on Hoover and FDR was one of these, by the way. I spruced it up a bit, but most of what was in there was research I had done about three years ago. As sometimes happens, a couple of links I had used back then were now dead, but so be it—that’s what I get for procrastination. And this particular post I’m composing at the moment—the one whose finished version you are now reading—was a draft from many years ago entitled “Blog hoarding” and consisting solely of the words “new vice.”

I also found another category of long-held drafts that are more mysterious to me in terms of what’s going on here. They are mostly non-political posts—some personal essays, some about the arts—that seem to mean something more to me than the usual blah-blah-blah. I once thought I’d work some of them up and try to sell them, but I don’t think that’s what’s operating anymore. What’s operating now is a combination of my own sense of privacy—these posts seem somehow too revealing of my heart, even though many aren’t obviously personal in the least—and a strange notion that by publishing them I lose them.

This is absurd, but that’s the best explanation I can come up with. I’ll try to “let go” of some of them (i.e. publish them) over time, but I probably won’t tell you which ones they are. Best to keep you guessing.

Who are the “alt-right” and what do they want?

The New Neo Posted on by

You’ve probably heard of the “alt-right” in connection with this campaign season, and you probably don’t really know exactly who these people are and what they ultimately want.

Welcome to the club, which is a very large one (including me).

That doesn’t stop a lot of people from writing about it (including me). Witness two recent offerings: this one from Trump-friendly Breitbart (“friendly” isn’t quite a strong enough word, but it’ll do for now) and this rebuttal at the Federalist. They’re both well worth reading, although long.

The Breitbart piece treats the alt-right as predominantly a bunch of young, often bright and/or irreverent people most of whom are not racist but are merely defending whites and Western culture (which the alt-right equates as inextricably linked) against threats, and are not really bigots. The Federalist says no, a great many of them really are motivated by bigotry:

[The alt-right] is a movement that counters the toxic culture of the left with a toxic brew of its own: a mix of old bigotries and new identity and victimhood politics adapted for the straight white male. Bokhari and Yiannopoulos [authors of the Breitbart piece] try to connect it to “cultural libertarianism,” a concept coined by Bokhari last year and championed by both authors; but other than opposition to restrictions on “hate speech,” it’s hard to see what an ideology that explicitly subordinates the individual to the tribe could have in common with libertarianism of any kind.

Today, the excesses of the “social justice” movement have brought us to a point where reasonable conservatives, libertarians, and liberals are ready to join forces against quasi-totalitarian identity politics. We need to start reclaiming the principles of common humanity, freedom, and universal values, not put a positive spin on a different brand of divisive identitarianism.

Both articles are so long that to respond to them in any comprehensive and detailed way would take a great deal more time than I have now. So I’ll just say that I agree far more with the conclusions of Federalist author Cathy Young than with the Breitbart piece, but I reiterate that I don’t think anyone actually knows who the alt-right really is, because what we see is the tip of the iceberg. And I say that despite the fact that I generally don’t tend to go for conspiracy theories. But what I’ve seen of this phenomenon (and I’ve seen a lot of it) tells me—or tells my gut—that this is a large and dangerous movement with roots that may be well-hidden but are also international (foreign IP numbers, for example) and are the very opposite of classical liberalism and/or what is usually thought of as conservatism.

As a blogger for this last decade-plus, I’ve had to react to things in real time, often with very incomplete information. The alt-right is one of those things. I’ve found that I’ve had to go with my gut time and again, and that my gut has demonstrated a rather good track record. It’s not a compelling argument to say “my gut tells me something very bad about a lot of these people.” But my gut has become a far more perceptive instrument than it used to be, and I’ve come to really trust it, particularly in sensing something I’ll call “tone” and in understanding what it represents.

For example, I have seen nothing from the alt-right that makes me think they care in the least about individual liberty, truth, or what Young calls “universal values.” What I have seen is vicious ad hominem attacks, lies, propaganda, and yes, bigotry (including anti-Semitism, of course). And just to clarify—the “alt-right” I’m talking about are the activists; their much-more-numerous followers are a more varied bunch with varied motivations and methods, who may or may not even understand who or what the alt-right is, and may or may not sympathize with it.

The strongest force behind the Trump phenomenon appears to be populism mixed with anger at the GOP for its failure to fight successfully (or in some cases even to fight at all) against illegal immigration and other aspects of the Obama administration and the general drift of events in America lately. But as with most political movements there’s also a smaller, activist part working behind the scenes to provide the memes and tactics that help drive the larger movement. In the case of Trump the activists are also somewhat varied, but the portion that has come to be known as the alt right seems to me to be a well-motivated and organized group of people who have studied the methods of the left and adopted those methods to their own purposes—purposes that often do not come under the heading “conservative” at all:

…[T]he true conflict facing Republicans is…within the soul of American conservatives. Namely, a new, highly heterogeneous force in right-wing politics is taking hold, and they have their sights set firmly on the Republican “establishment.” Known collectively as the “alternative right,” this amalgam includes neo-reactionaries, monarchists, nativists, populists, and even a few self-declared fascists. They mostly congregate online, with a large swath of blogs and websites dedicated to their concerns. As an example of how truly diverse the alt right is, major and proverbial watering holes for them include everything from Breitbart and the libertarian-leaning Taki Mag to Alternative Right””a blog that openly supports white nationalism.

…The alt right taken the fight to the left in the best way possible””they’ve co-opted its tactics and deployed them against their bully makers.

Even though the alt right loves to mix it up with Gawker and Salon types, it (like Trump) may enjoy picking on other conservatives even more. Republican hesitancy to accept the alt right into the fold therefore makes sense for several reasons, especially since it’s becoming increasingly obvious that the alt right couldn’t care less about the Republican party. In fact, many on the alt right believe that the Republican party is in dire need of a purge.

Anyone who’s been around the right side of the blogosphere since last summer should instantly recognize what is being described here; you’ve seen them. Several blogs have been taken over by this group, notably Breitbart. Many alt-righters have come to this blog, too, but I’m relatively small potatoes and in addition I’ve always had an aggressive banning policy, so only the most polite ones tend to stay.

The alt-right is recognizable almost immediately by style and tone, which very much resembles the left. At first I thought it was the actual left, riding the coattails of the Trump phenomenon in order to hurt the conservative movement. And in fact a certain percentage probably does fall under that description, but I doubt it’s the majority. The majority of alt-right activists mimic the left’s methods, but this is not in the service of conservatism of the Buckley variety, this is bare-knuckles war that is in part a war against what for want of a better term I’ll call classical liberalism.

The alt-right’s main weapons of smears, lies, attacks, sabotage, and mockery are wielded by a relentless corps of people willing to hammer them home at every possible opportunity in every possible venue. The regular right didn’t and still doesn’t know what hit it, but it had better smarten up, although it may already be too late.

Is Trump aware of all of this? Or is he just the alt-right’s unwitting and perfect instrument, the “tool” that fits their needs exactly (the alt-right often refers to Trump as just a “tool” or a “weapon” to them). I don’t know; my guess is that he’s slightly aware of it, but not really in on its inner workings, and that he thinks they are the tools that he is using.

If Trump were to be nominated, I believe he would lose in the general, unless Hillary (or Sanders) weakens so much that literally anyone could beat them. Not only is a Trump loss indicated by nearly all the polls, but it appears to me that any gain Trump might get from some crossover votes would be more than offset by the number of Republican voters he’d lose. But the alt-right doesn’t much care if Trump gets elected or not, although of course they would like him to be elected and they will work for his election quite assiduously. But since their goal is to displace and take over and thus destroy the fragile coalition that has long been the Republican Party, I believe they have already come close to their aim, and that aim will have been accomplished whether Trump wins or not or even whether he is nominated or not.

No one will get the alt-right activists back into the fold—if they were even in the fold in the first place (I don’t think most of them were). They are gone for good. They’re not interested in joining, anyway; they’re interested in taking over and then imposing their will on the others. That’s a huge part of what this election has become. A vote for Trump is a vote for the alt-right, whether Trump knows it or not.

Gaming the Hoover-Roosevelt transition

The New Neo Posted on by

I was raised by parents who were Democrats who venerated FDR, but the more I learn about FDR the more I don’t like many things he did. For years I’ve been reading the conservative point of view on the Great Depression and the New Deal, for example, which has been a mind-changing experience. But right now I’d like to talk about something related but with a different emphasis: FDR’s pre-inauguration strategy.

Years ago I came across an article (here’s the link I had for it, but the link now leads nowhere) about how FDR sabotaged any attempts by Hoover to help the situation prior to FDR’s coming to power:

Hoover, according to [Jonathan Alter, who is not a conservative], tried to involve Roosevelt in end-of-term actions, suggesting to the then-President-elect that they jointly appoint delegates to a World Economic Conference to be held in June 1933 (three months after FDR’s inauguration), a highly touted meeting which was arranged to tackle the global Depression. Roosevelt rejected the overture, fearing that his New Deal would be seen as just a continuation of the Hoover Administration if he worked with the departing President.

Alter wrote that on February 18, just two weeks before inauguration day, Hoover tried again to enlist Roosevelt into a joint effort — including a bank holiday — to stabilize markets, but again Roosevelt rebuffed the President.

In his book, Alter quotes James Warburg, a member of Roosevelt’s inner circle. The Roosevelt brain trust “wanted it to get as bad as it was going to get before he took office, so that he could come in on the turn rather than in the continuing downward spiral.”

For his part, years later, Hoover wrote the bank crisis that ensued “was the most political and unnecessary bank panic in all our history” and “it could have been cured by simple cooperation.”

That’s stunning, but in a way it’s not surprising. Politics.

Here’s more:

[Hoover and FDR] met at the White House in late November and found little agreement. Later meetings produced little. At one point, Roosevelt declared, “It’s not my baby.” By Alter’s account, Roosevelt’s standoffish posture was calculated. “His political instincts told him that if he were enlisted by Hoover in November, he would not be able to break sharply from the past the following March,” Alter writes.

Also see this (from another dead link; that’ll teach me to delay so much in writing a post I’ve already researched):

One of the few anti-Depression steps that Hoover had taken, with Congressional approval, was the establishment of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation making the government the lender of last resort. Speaker of the House John Nance Garner, soon to be Vice President, pushed through a legislative requirement for the RFC to make public the names of banks that borrowed. Fearing that depositors would swiftly withdraw funds from institutions that identified themselves as in need of loans, banks simply stopped borrowing.

At the same time, Henry A. Wallace, newly designated as Secretary of Agriculture, suggested that going off the gold standard might be the best solution to the crisis. A run on the banks followed, with several states closing all their banks for periods up to twelve days. Unemployment continued to rise. Hoover was convinced, as he said in his memoirs, that Roosevelt wanted to let conditions worsen and then close the banks himself as a sign of taking charge.

Seems plausible.

[NOTE: For what it’s worth, John Nance Garner was the guy who is famously supposed to have said that “The vice-presidency isn’t worth a bucketful of warm spit.”

Or was it “warm piss“? Easier to obtain a bucketful of that.]