The Mainstream Media and Quantum Mechanics

When scientists began to study systems at the atomic level, they realized that the otherwise universal laws of Newtonian physics didn’t apply to atoms. In order to understand the behavior of subatomic particles, they had to invent a new approach — quantum mechanics — which was unique to this tiny, enclosed world.

The mass media seems to occupy a similar place in Liberal ideology. Within the enclosed world of journalism, two of the otherwise universal Laws of Liberalism simply don’t function — “Truth is Subjective” and “Diversity is Vital.”

In all other contexts of human endeavor, Liberals insist that there is no objective truth. We all have our own truth. Truth is simply a strongly held opinion. Claims to objectivity are a white-male tool used to steal power, resources, or season tickets from women/gays/aborigines/red-cockaded woodpeckers.

However, when conservatives raise the subject of media bias, this universal law is suddenly suspended. Journalists, we are told, are professionals. Unique among human beings, they are able to donate to Democratic candidates, work in their administrations, give speeches on liberal political topics, and yet report the news with complete equanimity. Truth is subjective; reportage is not.

Another Law of Liberalism is the Diversity Principle, which states that diversity is a positive good because the viewpoint (or “voice”) of an individual is fundamentally and deterministically shaped by genitalia, melanin count, economic conditions, political background, sexuality and physical disability. In other words, one’s personal circumstances decisively influence one’s perspective. Diversity is thus necessary in order that all these various “voices” can be heard.

Weirdly, this principle doesn’t apply to newsrooms. Upper-middle class, elite college-educated liberals are overrepresented to an astounding degree. No one seems keen to “celebrate diversity” there. And whenever the subject of media bias comes up, we’re assured that the determinism which impacts the actions and beliefs of everyone else somehow manages to give journalists a pass. Mirabile dictu, hegemonic liberalism in their personal lives in no way contributes to hegemonic liberalism in their writing.

Journalists often seem to live in an alternate reality. According to the Laws of Liberalism, they really are.

Veepstakes Update

Obama’s Vice-Presidential Pick:

Bob Novak writes today that Michelle Obama is implacably set against Hillary for VP. He also claims that Ohio Gov. Strickland is gaining support among Dems as a VP choice.

Larry Sabato’s guest writer declares for VA Sen. Jim Webb.

Obama refuses to discuss the possibility of a HillBama “dream ticket”, calling it “premature.”

Chris Cillizza over at WaPo lists the Dem Top 5 from most to least likely: KS Gov. Kathleen Sebelius; OH Gov. Ted Strickland; Hillary Clinton; VA Gov. Tim Kaine; and Sen. Sam Nunn.

Over at BetUS.com, the smart money seems to be on Hillary, Sebelius, Bill Richardson, and Jim Webb, in that order.

McCain’s Vice-Presidential Pick:

The big news this week was 36 year old LA Gov. Bobby Jindal. Barely out of short-pants, politically speaking, he’s nevertheless wildly popular among conservatives and respected by both sides of the aisle. Bill Kristol is the biggest name to boost Jindal for VP, devoting a NYT column to the cause.

Chris Cillizza on the Republican Top 5 from most to least likely: MN Gov. Tim Pawlenty; SD Sen. John Thune; former OMB Dir. Rob Portman; FL Gov. Charlie Crist (say it ain’t so!); Mitt Romney.

NRO’s Jim Geraghty also brought RI Gov. Don Carcieri into the mix. According to Geraghty, Carcieri’s a “Two term governor, pro-life Catholic, tough on illegal immigration and corruption in his home state.” I saw at least two other major conservatives float his name this week.

McCain himself gave some insight into his thought process on VP selection in an interview: “McCain answered that history shows that people generally vote for the person at the top of the ticket and the criteria should be someone who is best qualified by sharing similar principals and values.” That’s a strike against Romney. . .

. . .On the other hand, BetUS.com has Romney on top, followed by Tim Pawlenty, Lindsay Graham (No!), and a tie between Chris Cox and Charlie Crist.

Stuart Rothenberg does his best to sabotage the McCain campaign, calling Joe Lieberman the “perfect candidate” for VP. Yeah, if by perfect you mean “guaranteed to cause a Republican Party rebellion/meltdown and elect Obama.” Otherwise, not so perfect.

K-Lo declares for Mitt Romney. Wow, no one saw that one coming. /snark

Today’s Glittery Ephemera: Homemade Trebuchets

As if trainspotting, salted fish and hot dogs for breakfast, and Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee weren’t enough, the Brits have added homemade trebuchets to their list of cultural achievements. I’m too jealous:

But Americans won’t be left behind in the trebuchet arms race. Here’s an All-American flaming-piano-launching trebuchet.

the New Left and Liberal Fascism

The “New Left” has come up several times, here, recently, and J. Wesley’s review of Ron Radosh’s book puts me in mind of an longish panel discussion during which Ron Radosh and Fred Siegel, both New Left escapees, managed to quibble very interestingly. As Michael Ledeen, one of my heroes among public intellectuals, was present and commented at some length; and as Jonah Goldberg’s essential book Liberal Fascism was the subject of the discussion, how could I fail to post this? It’s quite long, so use your time wisely.

Book Review - Commies: A Journey Through the Old Left, the New Left and the Leftover Left by Ronald Radosh

Commies: A Journey Through the Old Left, the New Left and the Leftover Left is the best sort of memoir, a charming, controversial, score-settling peek into a world otherwise hidden from outsiders — in this case, the world of American Communists and fellow-travelers. Written by a red diaper baby, the book opens in the tightly-knit world of the New York City Jewish immigrant community during the late 1930s.

To those raised on the notion that American Communists were a McCarthyite myth, it will be a novelty to read of Radosh’s yearly vacations at one of four Communist summer camps operating in the U.S. (his was often frequented by Woody Guthrie) and his education at the “little Red schoolhouse” — Elizabeth Irwin School. Radosh began his activist career with the Communist youth, working to free the Rosenbergs after they were arrested for spying. From there he entered into the New Left during the 1960s, helping to found the movement. Along the way, Radosh rubbed elbows with practically everyone on the hard Left: Michael Harrington; Ed Asner; Obama’s terrorist pal Bernadine Dorn; Irving Howe; Bianca Jagger; Bob Dylan; Henry Wallace and a host of others.

Commies operates on multiple levels. Anyone looking for a big picture view of the hard Left will find it here (though Rise and Fall of the American Left by Diggins is more comprehensive.) More personally, Radosh recounts his journey from fervent Communist to staunch advocate of the United States and its way of life. This transition began with his attempts in the 1970s to prove the innocence of the Rosenbergs. When he discovered that they truly were spying for the Soviets, it shook his faith deeply. Moreover, his publication of these findings caused his expulsion from the Left, with old friends declaring him an enemy of the cause. In typical Soviet fashion, even respected Marxist historians such as Paul Buhle of Brown University and Columbia’s Eric Foner have written Radosh out of the history of the American Left. His memoir serves as a corrective to the official record. It isn’t hard to see why they want him forgotten — this is a man who knows quite a few inconvenient truths.

Media Bias and the Totalitarian Left

Bill in Portland is crowing about upcoming liberal films or plays over at the Daily Kos. These include: Standard Operating Procedure - a documentary on Abu Ghraib; War, Inc. - a John Cusack satire on Iraq; Recount - an HBO original on the “stolen” 2000 election in Florida; Thurgood - a hagiographical Broadway play on Thurgood Marshall; We Were This Close - Michael Moore’s latest offering offal; and W - Oliver Stone’s cinematic attack on George Bush.

Having published this long list, Bill in Portland is likely to write a angry diatribe on the right-wing bias of the media in the next few days, and do so without irony. When he does, it will be one of a million such pieces over the past five years. Bizarrely, it is an article of faith in the American Left that the media is biased against them. One must assume that the Democratic Netroots don’t watch the Academy Awards or read newspapers, are unaware of the career track which flows naturally from Democratic presidential administrations to major press outlets, and have no clue about the curricula taught at today’s journalism schools.

So their view of reality is warped, I get that. But what is truly telling is their REACTION to this perceived bias. Both conservatives and liberals think the media is biased against them. Conservative politicians recognize this, but still attend debates moderated by Chris Matthews, Tim Russert and their sort. Conservatives also work to build up alternative media sources such as Fox News or talk radio.

The Left, meanwhile, remains true to its totalitarian impulses. Democratic politicians refuse to debate on a network which they disagree with, and their activists demand an absolute ban on Fox News by their politicians, on pain of punishment. More significantly, Democrats are dying for a chance to reimpose the fairness doctrine and silence conservative talk radio.

It’s ironic that an ideological group which had its roots in the Free Speech Movement is now the advocate campus speech codes, “hate speech” bans, and of silencing dissent through the blunt power of the state.

apropos our boy on global wa–coo–whatever,

After all that intelligent criticism (and Jim Croce!), I felt the need to offer an even more succinct summary of McCain’s eco-frenzy:

Any questions?

(How I learned to stop worrying and lick the boot)

Jim Croce advises McCain from the grave.

McCain is reportedly planning an “energy and global climate change” tour.

What, with a tanking economy, a faltering war in Afghanistan, a saber-rattling Iran, a meltdown in Lebanon, an oil crisis and a screwed-up medical system, there was such a shortage of issues that he just HAD to make global warming a center-piece? The one issue guaranteed to worry business supporters, small-government conservatives and much of the rest of the Republican base? The one issue which will do the most to remind us of past betrayals?

I struggle to find an adequate illustration to describe him. He’s a self-saboteur setting up himself the bomb. As the saying goes, all his political base are belong to us. He should try and remember that.

To really mix metaphors, John McCain is like a kamikaze toreador who can’t help but goad the Republican base. He drives himself to ever-riskier feats of political peril, apparently to please his adoring media audience. Sure, John Stewart will continue tossing him flowers, but if McCain keeps it up, Republicans are likely to give him the horns.

John’s my candidate, however, so I’m gonna give him a nickel’s worth of free advice, courtesy of Jim Croce:

You don’t tug on Superman’s cape
You don’t spit into the wind
You don’t pull the mask off that old Lone Ranger
And you don’t mess around with Jim your base.

further and further thoughts

Further Thoughts on Phil Johnson and the Christian Right

I wanted to lead off with a straight-up agreement with my gracious host:

If Phil thinks things are bad now, what would America look like if the New Left had been handed carte blanche to refashion our society? Conservative Christians have been the primary defense against the New Left’s radically immoral and anti-Christian agenda.

Beyond a doubt, the weakest point I could see in Phil’s discussion in these posts was his tendency (and this habit of argument runs among preachers a bit, I think) to dismiss all that has been achieved by the fusion of “Religious Right” with small-government conservatives, fiscal supply-siders, and anti-Communists (one should not forget the “Bear in the woods“).

At the same time, I’ve already anticipated a disagreement in how I phrased that.

See, without small-government conservatives, the “Religious Right” and the “Religious Left” would be playing power politics for the right to impose their particular flavor of “pure” or “tolerant” morality, with similarly unpleasant results either way.

Without fiscal supply-siders, we’d be at the mercy of “compassionate conservatives” who manage to use God-talk to make both “Religious Right” (faith-based initiatives!) and “Religious Left” (Jesus was homeless!) ply the Providence of the State for their well-being.

In other words, to say that “Conservative Christians” form the front line against “the New Left” is to miss the point that many a non-Christian conservative (like Jonah Goldberg) has had a hand in saving us from many a non-conservative Christian (like Mike Huckabee).

And that many of those non-conservative Christians have been Republicans, and darlings of the “Religious Right.” There are virtues to be found in opposing Gore or Kerry or Dukakis, even if the results are Bush presidencies; but we should know “it wouldn’t be prudent” to attribute that too much to Christians as God’s people, however much it may be attributed (for better and worse) to some subgroup of American voters and consumers who say “Christian” when they’re polled.

For there is no metric in Scripture by which we can judge the “success” or “decline” of the nations; there is only the surrender of their citizens to the Kingdom to come, their inclusion and incorporation into the Body of Christ, their serving one Lord, professing one faith, submitting to one baptism, zealous for the unity of that Body, the building of that Temple, of which they are members in the redoubled body.

For here lies the key of our disagreement:

“The church as a body has no calling to organize and protest in the political realm.”

What room does this leave for the prophetic role of the church? The church had no calling to organize against slavery, genocide, or the the killing of the unborn?

“The prophetic role of the church” is a misnomer; it suggests precisely the category error which, I hope, we’ve all agreed must not be made. The error of picturing the church as the prophet, and the country as the People.

No nation-state on Earth is God’s People. And we all agree to that, I think. (more…)

Stuff You Should Know

While still dropping knowledge with us, our friend PG Epps has himself some new digs — inkanblot. It’s a quieter, less gonzo blog than Conservative Intelligencer. (And undoubtedly a good bit wiser, too. . .)

Asides

• There's been some mention, hereabouts, of the Evangelical Manifesto. May I suggest we consider first A Christian Manifesto? (more...) #
• (Power Line) Well, oops, the Earth will do it again. #
• Apropos of very little: Being Arrested for a Turn Signal Violation prompts me to think of Arlo Guthrie, whose politics are as bad as his creativity in protest and resistance tactics are ingenious, and Alice's Restaurant. (more...) #
• Peter Suderman, reviewing Speed Racer: "[Emile Hirsch] seems to have taken Keanu Reeves as his performance model (whereas Reeves models his own performances on drying paint)." #
• In The Corner at NRO Andy McCarthy asks, Have you noticed that a lot of the people who are trying to purge all mention of jihad are the same folk who insist that restaurants must post calorie counts on the menu? Because, y'know, we're in a mortal crisis, the War on Obesity, and that means we must make sure everyone understands the threat, whether they want to or not? #