Ruminations on Justin Trudeau

The New Neo Posted on by

Our Founders set up our republic in a certain way because they were students of history, and also because they were extremely thoughtful and smart. They had studied the history of governmental rise and decline and fall, tried to learn the lessons it conveyed, and were going to make a valiant effort to create something different and better. They anticipated as many pitfalls as they could, although they also realized that such problems could not all be avoided over time. The Founders understood that this republic might not last forever, but they wanted to build in all the safeguards they could think of in order to help it last as long as possible and protect liberty as much as possible while avoiding anarchy.

The majority of them therefore wished to limit the power of government and of the federal government in particular. That wasn’t just because they were curmudgeons who didn’t want government to do all sorts of wonderful things for people. It was because they knew that such power inevitably would be abused and liberty would die. Power is simply too tempting.

Which brings us to Justin Trudeau. He has yielded to such temptation, and although he’s certainly not the only one, he’s especially visible right now in a way that Canadian prime ministers usually aren’t.

Does Trudeau not realize that history tells us that thwarting a huge populist movement and insulting its participants might not be a good move? But what does Trudeau know about history, anyway?

That’s a real question, not a rhetorical one.

I realize, of course, that Trudeau is a leftist, and as such he may believe that he’s exempt from the lessons and errors of the past even if he knows about them. But I wonder if he does know them. For example, did Trudeau ever study history in any depth? Looking at his Wiki profile, I see no evidence of any such study, except for whatever might have been required in grade school and college. His college major was literature and then he got another degree in education. He went on to teach math and French, and later to study engineering and environmental geography without getting degrees. He entered politics instead.

Of course, one needn’t study history formally to be interested in it and read a great deal about it. But I see no indication of that, although I can’t say I’m expert on what Trudeau does in his spare time.

But perhaps even more importantly, Justin Trudeau had a most usual upbringing, having been born when his father, Pierre Trudeau, was the prime minister of Canada. Until shortly before his eighth birthday, he resided in the prime minister’s official residence with his father (his parents divorced when he was five). Less than a year after his father’s brief time out of office, his father was re-elected and they moved back into that residence for another four years.

It would not have been surprising if Justin Trudeau had considered the prime minister’s residence his childhood home, and even that it was his birthright to live in it once again. After all – and this is a very odd detail indeed:

On April 14, 1972 [when Justin was only about 10 months old], Trudeau’s father and mother hosted a gala at the National Arts Centre, at which visiting U.S. president Richard Nixon said, “I’d like to toast the future prime minister of Canada, to Justin Pierre Trudeau” to which Pierre Elliott Trudeau responded that should his son ever assume the role, he hoped he would have “the grace and skill of the president”. Earlier that same day U.S. first lady Pat Nixon had come to see him in his nursery to deliver a gift, a stuffed toy Snoopy. Nixon’s White House audio tapes later revealed Nixon referred to that visit as “wasting three days up there. That trip we needed like a hole in the head.”

I realize that Justin was way too young at the time to have known what Nixon said about him. But he probably heard the story later on, plus many more in the same vein. So did he consider himself the heir apparent? The prince ascending to the throne?

[NOTE: In related news, the Ontario government tries to stop the truckers’ GoFundMe replacement, GiveSendGo, from helping the truckers:

However, GiveSendGo – which is an American company – reminds them that America is not a colony of Canada.]

It’s not about vaccines. It’s not even about mandates.

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s about obedience. That thought struck me after reading various articles on the Canadian government’s reaction to the trucker convoy.

I find it to be an inescapable conclusion. At this point in time, the left is discovering that mandates aren’t winning them any friends and in fact are harming them politically, and they’re involved in jettisoning them even in blue states. In Canada, I imagine the situation was already coming close to that, as well. So why force the issue, especially now? And especially in the face of such a populist uprising?

But you see, those truckers and their supporters have defied the government. And the government has learned in the past couple of years how much power it is able to grab without any of the usual boring steps (legislative or otherwise), and it has come to rely on a docile public to cooperate out of fear (and in Canada, perhaps politeness).

It doesn’t matter what the government edict is, really. It’s game of “Simon Says,” and when the government speaks you must obey.

That’s why the truckers must be branded with the left’s favorite all-purpose epithets: white supremacists, Nazis, racists. If there is even a single sign with a swastika on it – and who knows if it’s a bona fide sign or some astroturfing by the left? – the entire movement can be conveniently labeled and vilified that way. It doesn’t matter that the movement and virtually everyone in it stands for something quite different.

It worked with the Tea Party, didn’t it? Although perhaps the general public is getting tired of the same old charges by the left, as tired as they are of mask mandates and vaccine passports.

Sarah Palin’s defamation lawsuit against the Times…

The New Neo Posted on by

…is ongoing, and recently one of the Times’ editors made a funny (emphasis mine):

James Bennet, the former New York Times editorial page editor, said Wednesday that an error he wrote into a 2017 editorial about Sarah Palin stung particularly hard because it made the newspaper’s editorial board appear partisan…

“It’s just a terrible thing to make a mistake. I’ve edited and written hundreds of pieces on deadline, thousands. I have made very few mistakes, at least ones that I know of,” Bennet said.

“I made one that night. And it’s terrible. And it’s a mistake … that made it look like we were being partisan. It’s extremely important for the editorial board to have a reputation to call balls and strikes without partisanship,” he added.

Can he be charged with perjury for that? Yeah, that’s a joke on my part, but not entirely, because it is so blatantly obvious, and has been for decades, that the Times is nothing if not partisan.

Bennett’s statement is self-serving, of course. But does he really expect us – or a jury – to believe it? The other question, of course, is the old “knave vs. fool” one – does he actually believe it? I very very much doubt it, but then again there’s almost no limit to a “journalist’s” (or many people’s) capacity for self-delusion and the need to wrap him or herself in the mantle of virtue.

Note also the way Bennett frames this: “It’s extremely important for the editorial board to have a reputation to call balls and strikes without partisanship.” He doesn’t say, “It’s extremely important for the editorial board to call balls and strikes without partisanship;” he says it’s important to give that appearance and have that reputation.

Here’s what Palin said in today’s testimony:

“I felt powerless,” Palin told the jury while being questioned by her attorney, Kenneth Turkel.

“If I wanted to raise my head and try to get the word out, I knew I was up against Goliath,” she said, adding that she wasn’t sure of the “stones” she could use to respond.

She described the Times as the “end-all and be-all” of the media and said it was devastating that one of the largest newspaper in the country had linked her to a mass shooting that killed six people and wounded others.

Because of Sullivan, I believe Palin will have a very tough time winning this case.

Why, what a surprise! Inflation is worse than expected

The New Neo Posted on by

You probably already have noticed it in your daily life, but the latest figures on inflation are not good at all:

Inflation has now hit the highest rate in 40 years, jumping 7.5 percent since last February, the biggest year-over-year increase since February 1982, more than experts had expected. Among the reasons that the AP blamed were “shortages of supplies and workers” as well as “heavy doses of federal aid.” Paging Joe Biden, his mandates, and his spending, although, of course, they don’t say that. Unfortunately, they’re not expecting it to slow anytime soon.

The place I’ve noticed it most is at the grocery store. I’ve long gone to Market Basket, which has the best prices in my area, but I’ve watched the tab go up and up. The other day I decided that I might buy some loin lamb chops as a treat. I don’t buy meat very often, and so although I’m aware that meat has had one of the biggest increases, I was still shocked to see that the price of this already-expensive item had doubled. Four little lamb chops = $23.00. I didn’t buy them; I opted for lamb shanks, which are still a treat but you get more bang for your buck. I make them Greek-style, something like this, but I’ve found it works better in the oven than top-of-the-stove.

The American Bar Association forces CRT-based education into all accredited law schools

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s probably somewhat fitting, I guess – although it took some forty years – for CRT to become part of the curriculum of every law school that wants accreditation. By saying it’s “fitting,” I don’t mean it’s good. I actually think it’s terrible, because I think CRT is not only a crock intellectually but very damaging to everyone and everything it touches. The reason I say it’s fitting, however, is that law schools were the birthplace of CRT in the very late 70s and early 80s, a phenomenon I noticed at the time because I wasn’t so far removed from my own law school years.

If you want to read a really excellent book on the subject of how CRT began in its law school manifestation known as Critical Legal Studies, please take a look at this book written in 1997 by Daniel Farber and Suzanna Sherry entitled Beyond All Reason: The Radical Assault on Truth in American Law. Even though it’s about twenty-five years old, it presciently tells the story of how this happened and outlines the dangers. The liberal authors were highly alarmed, and the passage of time has proven their alarm fully justified and then some.

A pernicious and destructive philosophy had been introduced as a fringe idea, was gaining ground by the time the book was written, and has now – in the newer but highly related form of CRT – become entrenched not just in law schools across the country but in education as a whole and even in the workplace. The hour is late to be fighting back, but the right as well as many non-idealogical but concerned parents have been fighting it lately with some marginal success.

This move by the American Bar Association shows the vast reach of the power of the left:

In multiple proposals, one of which will be voted on by the ABA House of Delegates on February 14, 2022, and is all but certain to pass, ABA is forcing law schools to require that students take courses on race, particularly the CRT-driven systemic racism narrative. The hammer is that this is a requirement for the ABA to accredit the law school, so almost all law schools will have to comply.

Now, the traditional mandatory ‘building block’ courses on contracts, torts, constitutional law, and others will be accompanied by the mandatory study of race. Of course, courses on race — namely Critical Race Theory — are offered in many if not most law schools. But the study is voluntary. No longer. Ideological dogma will be enforced by the ABA.

ABA is abusing its accreditation power. States provided the ABA with this near-monopoly, and states need to act.

And here’s a longer piece on the subject. CRT is apparently not explicitly required in the law schools, but it is extremely likely to end up being what is taught:

The ABA pretended to address the problem by adding Interpretation 303-8: “Standard 303 does not prescribe the form or content” of the required education. This doesn’t fix the problem, because law school faculties overwhelmingly lean hard left. Only the naïve or dishonest would expect schools to teach anything other than CRT and a “systemic racism” approach.

This all reflects a politicized sea change. Existing ABA legal education standards stick to general principles of legal education. The ABA requires schools to inculcate “knowledge and understanding of substantive and procedural law,” “legal analysis and reasoning, legal research,” and legal writing (Standard 302). The only specific requirements are a professional responsibility course (added post-Watergate), an experiential course, and two legal writing experiences (current Standard 303).

By contrast, the proposed “bias” education requires specific and non-legal content. As the Yale professors observed, “mandating the content of [required courses] misconstrues the accreditation function.”…

he most important action that states can take is to stop requiring bar applicants to graduate from an ABA-accredited school. Because state structures vary, in some states this may require changes implemented through state supreme courts or quasi-independent bar agencies. States also can substitute state licensing, as already takes place in Alabama, California, Massachusetts, and Tennessee, which allow graduates of local non-ABA law schools take their bar exams. States also should consider whether a law school degree is needed, by revisiting self-study and apprenticeship in lieu of increasingly politicized law school curriculum and related student debt.

I agree that the ABA now has way too much power, and it’s time to remove that power.

What’s up with China’s Olympic accommodations?

The New Neo Posted on by

Don’t the Chinese even have the Potemkin village concept down?

Maybe they realize that ratings are abysmal, and so this time the whole world isn’t watching. Because this sounds awful:

Complaints from athletes and officials are pouring in about the alleged poor living conditions, dining options, isolating rooms, and debilitating weather conditions, according to social media posts.

German Alpine skiing coach Christian Schwaiger criticized the catering in Beijing and raised concern about limited food options to fuel the high-performing pro athletes.

“The catering is extremely questionable because really it’s not catering at all. “There are no hot meals,” Schwaiger said, via the Sun.

“There are crisps, some nuts and chocolate, and nothing else. This shows a lack of focus on high-performance sport.”

Team USA reportedly came prepared and brought extra food to the Winter Games, including bags of pasta.

Starve and freeze and isolate the athletes from foreign countries, and maybe your own athletes will get more medals. But you won’t be getting any PR points for style.

They’re isolating anyone who test positive for COVID:

Athletes who test positive for COVID-19 at the Winter Games, but are asymptomatic, must isolate in a designated hotel. For those experiencing COVID-19 symptoms, immediate hospitalization is required.

Athletes can return to competition once they have submitted two consecutive negative tests.

Here’s a quote from a Finnish ice hockey coach:

Head coach Jukka Jalonen blasted: “Marko has been with our team for about a week before we came here and he tested negative.”

“We know that he’s fully healthy and ready to go and that’s why we think that China, for some reason, they won’t respect his human rights and that’s not a great situation,” he added.

For some reason China “won’t respect his human rights”? Where have you been, Jukka?

To top it all off, the weather has been bad, too. Doesn’t harm the indoor venues, but for outdoor sports it’s a problem.

Open thread 2/10/22

The New Neo Posted on by

When I listened to this video I wondered why Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris would be covering a song I knew from the Everly Brothers. Turns out it was the Everlys who’d done the cover and it was Knopfler who had written and recorded it first.

I wouldn’t think Knopfler’s and Harris’ voices would blend well, because they’re so very different. But they do:

Biden’s Afghanistan retreat

The New Neo Posted on by

I think for the most part we already knew much of what’s reported here, at least those who were paying attention:

A 2,000-page Army investigation found that senior military officials were frustrated by the inability of the White House and State Department to recognize the imminent security threat that led to the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The investigation, first obtained by the Washington Post Tuesday through a Freedom of Information Act request, was launched in response to the deadly events of Aug. 26, when 13 U.S. service members and roughly 170 Afghan civilians were killed by a suicide bomb attack…

he top U.S commander on the ground during the evacuation, Navy Rear Adm. Peter Vasely, told Army investigators that service members would have been “much better prepared to conduct a more orderly” evacuation “if policymakers had paid attention to the indicators of what was happening on the ground.”…

The State Department, DOD and National Security Council (NSC) began planning for a potential mass evacuation that summer but did not predict Kabul would fall as fast as it did. The U.S. military had complained privately for months that the State Department and U.S. Embassy were not moving fast enough to approve Special Immigrant Visas (SIV) and begin evacuating Afghan allies.

What was happening on the ground was obvious. The need to keep Bagram open was also obvious. But the administration insisted that military personnel be reduced to a number that necessitated closing it prematurely.

The State Department comes out especially badly in this report, but they say the military is just passing the buck to them. Who knows? I think there’s more than enough blame to go around, but I place it primarily on State and the Biden administration. However, long before this report, I felt the military had better plans that were overruled by Biden and company.

The Afghanistan withdrawal was a turning point for the Biden administration in terms of public perception. This report won’t help, but I imagine most people aren’t paying too much attention at this point. It’s over. But I think the damage has been done – to the administration, to Afghanistan, and to the United States.

The mother “realignment”

The New Neo Posted on by

There seems to be something of a political change in some mothers:

“Those on the left keep ignoring parental concerns and diminishing them,” Steinkamp says. “All it does is radicalize people and foster realignment.”

Radicalize is another way of saying “reconsider one’s tribe.” Burns, like Steinkamp, like Maron— like all of them—isn’t sure which tribe she belongs to. She belongs to the Kids Tribe. She likens herself to Glenn Youngkin, the surprise Republican victor in Virginia’s recent gubernatorial race, who rode to victory on a wave of angry parents fed up with the status quo. “Every Republican who misses that message of the betrayal of our kids—and there are a lot who are not fully engaged on this—is leaving votes on the table,” Burns says…

“I’ve seen movements rise and fall,” Maron tells me. “Occupy Wall Street was so omnipresent in this city, until it was completely gone.” She says she’s not interested in being a one-hit wonder. She sees herself as part of a new, emergent center, one interested in fixing the supply chain, having a functional police force, and treating the opioid epidemic. But before all that—the kids.

“When I saw my seven year-old’s backpack hanging at the door for months at a time, it broke my heart,” Murakhver says. “That’s what started all this.”

The article features women who previously were mostly liberal Democrats and a NeverTrump Republican. They are mothers activated to new awareness. They haven’t made the transition to Republican (except for one who started out as one), and that doesn’t surprise me. I doubt they ever will, although it’s possible. But they say they’ll vote for whoever helps their kids:

These women don’t really care about The Big Lie or Russiagate or filibuster reform. They could not care less about Big Abstract Theories Of Government. They traffic in hashtags like #TeamReality, #RationalGround and #SmilesMatter. After so many years of endless yammering about conservatives, neoliberals, progressives, alt-righters, the woke, the anti-woke, the only thing they really care about is what works. What is actually happening in the real world. What is being done to their children. And they are willing to vote for whoever can actually bring a return to normal.

I would ask them whether they think all these things are separate. Why is Russiagate and the deceptions involved with it not related to the lies that kept their children at home all this time? Wasn’t one party mainly involved – the party that most of them used to support? The same party that’s trying to get more and more power over their lives by (among other things) ending the filibuster?

“Abstract Theories of Government” end up being operationalized in the real world as policies – decisions and rules and edicts that affect you and me and your children and your children’s children.

I understand that children are the focus and that a lot of women – and a lot of people – hate politics. But, to paraphrase a remark attributed to Leon Trotsky, a man who was very in interested indeed in politics and Big Abstract Theories of Government, “You might not be interested in Big Abstract Theories of Government, but Government is interested in you.”

And just like that, it’s time to end COVID restrictions

The New Neo Posted on by

Funny how you’re seeing calls to end restrictions – coming from the left this time, now that they realize how much it’s hurting the Party. Draconian measures weren’t a bad thing, I guess, when they were just hurting people in general, and children, and the economy, and not even seeming to be clearly related to any improvement in COVID numbers. No, it’s only now that the left is getting worried about the midterms that it seems there are lots of calls to change tactics on COVID.

But first, of course, we have a disclaimer:

In March 2020, I wrote that America should “cancel everything” in response to the acute threat posed by COVID-19: Mass events should be postponed, companies should send employees home from the office, and schools should move classes online.

I remain convinced that this was the right thing to do. Before anyone was vaccinated, and before doctors had even a preliminary understanding of how to treat the disease, these measures were necessary to save lives and avert a collapse of the medical system.

No proof of that offered. No comparison of how a country such as Sweden, which didn’t have that approach, has fared.

Furthermore:

The most severe government restrictions on everyday activities adopted at the height of the pandemic have since been lifted. So in response to my call to open everything, some will inevitably claim that America is no longer closed. Just this week, they will note, Democrat-led states including New Jersey and Connecticut announced that they would soon end some mask mandates.

Ah, those wonderful Democratic-led states, leading the way! No mention of all the states that never imposed mask mandates, or ended them long ago, and how those states fared in comparison.

Accepting restrictions that weaken our social ties when they seemed temporary was one thing. Putting up with them indefinitely is quite another.

Two years was fine? But now – now that midterms are coming and polls show Democrats in big big trouble, it’s time.

It’s pretty clear that the Democrats are going to try to loosen things up and declare that they, and Biden, have vanquished COVID (except for those troglodyte unvaccinated, who get what they deserve). Victory! What I wonder is how many people will accept that claim at this point. Will it seem reasonable, or will it seem profoundly and disgustingly mendacious and hypocritical? Are memories short or are they long?