Your wish is my command. And this one just happens to be at my fingertips. I was looking for the speech that I mentioned below in my notes when I came across a few handwritten scribbles from an interview with Thatcher's foreign secretary, Lord Charles Powell.

13-hour meeting between Thatcher and Gorbachev in Moscow. CP had to go to the bathroom terribly. Dying for a pee. Couldn’t figure out how to get out the door. Gorbachev finally took mercy on him, pushed a button that opened the door. "It was one of the most embarrassing moments of my life."

Claire: Didn't she have to the bathroom?

CP: No. She never did.

Claire: Never?

CP: Never.

In my notes, I've underlined never twice. Now, I don't believe this. I believe Margaret Thatcher was human. But it's fascinating that she managed to convince so many people that she wasn't, isn't it?

For those of you who have truly persuaded yourselves that all is lost, let me remind you that people were saying exactly, but exactly, the same thing about Britain in the 1970s. The decline, they said, was terminal; British values had been permanently undermined; socialism would be impossible to reverse; you might as well just move. And the grounds for this pessimism were by all objective measures substantially greater. Britain–upon whose Empire the sun once rose and set–was enduring the Winter of Discontent. Labor unrest shut down public services, paralyzing the nation for months on end. Rubbish was piled high on the street, and so were human corpses. (“Not that many corpses,” say Thatcher’s detractors, a rejoinder that speaks for itself.) Britain had recently become the first country in the OECD to supplicate for a loan from the International Monetary Fund. The Soviet trade minister told his British counterpart, “We don’t want to increase our trade with you. Your goods are unreliable, you’re always on strike, you never deliver.”

Here's Margaret Thatcher in 1978.

The coming election is a watershed election. Every General Election is important. But next time the vote could decide what sort of country we are going to live in for the rest of this century.

It could decide whether we turn our backs on the free society and the enterprise economy. It could push the point of balance in Britain so far to the left that no Government would ever be able to redress it.

The balance in a society decides what sort of country you live in—how free it is, how prosperous, how concerned about standards in moral, social and economic life. When you look at the balancing points in Britain today, what do you conclude about the reasons for our failings in the past and about the approach we need to take to the future?

Imagine yourself an uncommitted, rather neutral, non-party voter, and ask yourself these questions.

Do you think that our problems are caused by the State doing too much or doing too little? By State spending consuming too large a share of the nation's resources or too small a share? Do you think that our industry would be strengthened if there was more nationalisation and interference or less? Do you believe that we would be a happier and more prosperous and more free people if the trade union leaders had more political power over our lives or less power?

Those are the sort of questions we must put before Britain. And I guarantee you this. When you ask them, you won't find many people giving Socialist answers.

So, is the common-sense majority, who would give a Conservative answer, extremist or reactionary? Are we extremist or reactionary because we say with the people that the effect of having a Labour Government for roughly ten out of the last thirteen years is that the balance in our society has shifted too far towards the State and too far away from the individual, too far towards regulations and control, and too far away from freedom and independence?

You know how the electorate answered these questions, and you know what happened afterwards. It takes only one election and one leader to turn things around. That's the lesson of Margaret Thatcher.

Tomorrow morning our entire family, right down to the dog, will climb into the Chevy Suburban for the drive across California from Palo Alto to the high Sierras, where we'll hike, swim, boat, and play speed chess, a game I learned about here on Ricochet. (Scott Reusser, I bought the very chess clock you recommended.) Pictured, Rancheria Falls, in a photo I snapped two years ago. We expect to climb to the Falls again on Wednesday.

Think good thoughts of us Robinsons, if you would, make John Hinderaker feel welcome, and keep an eye, as ever, on Rob.

Back in a week.

My friend the Crazy Uke is a mortgage guy; he’s getting me another refi. Years ago - oh, decades - we sat up all night in the back booth of a college restaurant and argued politics; now we sit around the kitchen table of the house he helped us buy, sign endless forms and documents, then pour a drink and agree about politics. I changed. He didn’t. As the son of Ukrainian DPs, he had anti-Soviet and anti-statist ideas poured into his marrow as he grew up, and his accounts of his parents’ lives during the famine and the war were not inconsiderable elements in my political education. It’s one thing to have a college bull session about the Cold War; it’s another to argue with a guy who was actually detained by the KGB and kicked out of the Eastern Bloc.

The Ukrainian famine is one of those episodes known more to anti-commies, I suspect; if I’m right about that, it says something about the people who regard such episodes as inconvenient anomalies and insist we talk about smallpox-infested blankets. But I remember hearing about how people were hauled away for harboring wheat - Kulaks! Wreckers! - and so I got a jolt when I read a NYT article last month about the Administration’s pivot on the health-care mandate question. Uh, well, yeah, it’s a tax, I guess, they said, and they cited some interesting Supreme Court law:

In their lawsuit, Florida and other states say: “Congress is attempting to regulate and penalize Americans for choosing not to engage in economic activity. If Congress can do this much, there will be virtually no sphere of private decision-making beyond the reach of federal power.”

In reply, the administration and its allies say that a person who goes without insurance is simply choosing to pay for health care out of pocket at a later date. In the aggregate, they say, these decisions have a substantial effect on the interstate market for health care and health insurance.

In its legal briefs, the Obama administration points to a famous New Deal case, Wickard v. Filburn, in which the Supreme Court upheld a penalty imposed on an Ohio farmer who had grown a small amount of wheat, in excess of his production quota, purely for his own use.

The wheat grown by Roscoe Filburn “may be trivial by itself,” the court said, but when combined with the output of other small farmers, it significantly affected interstate commerce and could therefore be regulated by the government as part of a broad scheme regulating interstate commerce.

If you’ve read Amity Shlaes’ “Forgotten Man,” this isn’t a total surprise, but to put in the modern web vernacular: Wow. Just - wow. So a guy grows wheat for himself, and bang! he’s a Kulak, too - not because he intended to sell the wheat, mind you, but he could have, and everyone did it, then prices would collapse and Walker Evans would have to go out and reshoot the Midwest to capture the new wave of human misery.

Something to keep in mind when someone says “if they can do this, they can do anything.” They’ve already done that. They already can do anything. I don’t know what’s worse: that it still exists as a decision the government could cite, or the fact that the administration thought it would be a good idea to bring it up to defend their tax.

By the way, the Crazy Uke’s parents are still alive, hale and sturdy. They lived long enough to see Ukraine declare its independence; they lived long enough to go home for a visit without Intourist minders.

Things change.

My smart phone's alarm sounded at 2:30 this morning. I had to be just west of Cleveland, OH by 5AM. Armed with coffee and an Egg McMuffin (my Dad calls it a McEggwich), I followed my regular routine of paperwork and verifying directions to the consignee. Few things are as unnerving as getting lost in an 18 wheeler. You can't exactly whip into a convenience store parking lot and ask directions. For peace of mind, I entered the address of the customer in my Droid phone's GPS application.

On I-80/90 headed west, I plugged the phone into the truck's big speaker system and called up an internet classical music station to start the day on a soothing note. Bad move. From the cerebral point and counter point of Bach, we quickly degenerated to opera. I appreciate the training, the control, and the range that go into opera, but I haven't acquired much appreciation for what comes back out again.

Today's operatic howler was a baritone. He did pretty well at the outset, when the melody had handles on it. But soon they fell off. And then the instrumentalists took a smoke break, leaving our baritone with nothing but a vibrato I could drive my Freightliner through. At that point, the melody made a break for it, and the singer began chasing it. Up and down the scale, through every key ever written, and several that are as yet unwritten, he searched every note in his considerable range. A friend of his heard the commotion and soon there was a duet of them, their voices running hither and thither, but the melody had gone into hiding in the general direction of the instruments. Suddenly the percussionist tried to hit it with his cymbals, but the melody was too fast, and there was an awful crash. Eventually, with the assistance of a massive and roaring flanking maneuver by the symphony, one of the singers held the melody down while the other murdered it. I thought I'd rather listen to Johnny Cash anyway.

Approaching the exit for my delivery, I heard the gentle female voice on my phone say, "GPS signal lost." As Jack Sparrow would say, "Not good." But I had my notes, and I had already entered the customer's phone number in my ostensibly smart phone. Right turn on highway 57, another right on Lake, followed by an immediate left on tiny Lowell St. No problem. But I couldn't find the warehouse. Reading signs is difficult enough in darkness, but it's even harder when the signs aren't there. I called the customer and got their answering machine. All these gadgets, computers, phones, machines, and I'm still reduced to searching in the dark, trying not to take out fences, low lying tree limbs, or put the rear wheels of the trailer in a ditch at 4:45AM while trying to find a dark unmarked warehouse in a neighborhood I've never seen before.

Eventually finding the customer, I shut off the truck engine so I could hear the security guard's instructions. And then, yep, the truck wouldn't start. A nice shiny Freightliner equipped with a condo sleeper, a desk, bunk beds, book shelves, a little closet, television, a smart phone and a partridge in a pear tree, deader than an opera melody right there in the driveway.

Three hours later, I was on my way, but the lesson was learned anew. We depend on our technology every day. Every new gadget becomes tethered to us. But it helps, from time to time, to become reacquainted with the rudimentary skills we so often leave to the gadgets. We still need to able to think for ourselves. This lesson is brought to you via smart phone. Ugh.

I have no idea why President Obama would say this to Republicans[:] Now we've got three months to go so we've decided, well, we can politick. They've forgot I know how to politick pretty good.

[...] Generally, I think the first black president with the middle name Hussein is good at politicking. But ever since the 2004 race against Alan Keyes, with a pause during the 2008 primaries, he's shown an amazing willingness to be baited into unwinnable news cycle spats. This sounds like something George W. Bush would say, only days after the "Welcome to the Recovery" Geithner column, which also sounded like something George W. Bush would say. -- Dave Weigel

Mission Accomplished! I suppose someone out to defend our President would say that Obama takes the bait because his implacably unfair political enemies will stop at nothing to destroy him, and that gets under a dude's skin, even someone with the supremely collected cool of Barack Obama. And someone out to deride our President at every turn would insist that evidence like this keeps showing Americans how arrogant and petty this supposedly hope-filled and transcendent human being really is.

Whatever the answer, it seems hard to dismiss the impression that what we're seeing here is a consequence of how Obama sees himself. In the same way, George W. Bush didn't look so hot when he clutched the podium during his debates with Kerry and complained that being President was hard. Gripes like that make the Presidency look too hard for the guy doing the griping -- and a President who has to remind the world that he knows a thing or two about politics makes him look like he doesn't know a thing.

Duane Oyen remarks:

Prof. Epstein has done a lot of consulting work for pharmas (he did a good EconTalk show on it that dealt a bit with IP issues). I'd like to see him comment on "pay for delay" where big pharmas pay off generic providers to forego generic sales preparation for patented drugs. FTC thinks it is restraint of trade,... most courts don't. It certainly doesn't belong in the DoD Appropriation, of course.

The correct approach for this question, Duane, is to avoid all per se rules. The way you put the issue, a payment to delay entry is in fact an antitrust violation if that is all there is to it. It is a division of markets where the incumbent pays the generic to stay out.

Precisely because this naked division is illegal, we don't see it. What we tend to see are arrangements where there is some genuine disagreement as to whether the generic is entitled ti enter before the patent has expired. One way to resolve that dispute is to split the difference, so that the generic gets to come in one year earlier but not two. That now looks more like a legitimate settlement. But it could easily be a shield for the antitrust violation, which means that some degree of judicial oversight is needed to monitor the situation. But I think that the FTA goes overboard to condemn all these arrangements all the time.

Paul Rahe is seriously cheerful. I learned this when I interviewed the Hillsdale historian for Uncommon Knowledge last autumn. Prof. Rahe had just published Soft Despotism, Democracy’s Drift. The volume argues that “soft despotism,” the tendency, first identified by Tocqueville, to concentrate power in the central government by small, well-intentioned degrees, is all but choking America. Yet as he made his distressing case Prof. Rahe displayed a marvelous ebullience. When I asked why, he explained that the worst was already over. President Obama and the Democrats in Congress were even then in the process of overreaching, Prof. Rahe insisted. Soon enough, the American people would come to, realize what was happening, and push back, good and hard. The election of Barack Obama, Prof. Rahe insisted, represented “a gift to the friends of liberty.”

Which brings me to Ricochet.

Over the last week or so, we’ve been debating a) just how bad things are (general consensus: pretty bad), and, b) the proper way to comport ourselves. Should we wring our hands? (I'm never so happy as when I have an excuse to be gloomy.) Or should we instead buck up, as Claire has insisted with a Thatcheresque elan?

Over the weekend, I thought I’d get in touch with Paul Rahe, inviting him to let us know whether he remains as optimistic today as he did last autumn. Below, Prof. Rahe’s gracious reply. Claire will rejoice.

Paul Rahe writes:

Most conservatives regard Barack Obama's election as a calamity. I see it as the opportunity of a lifetime. A year ago, in a blog post entitled The Great Awakening, I observed that "one cannot fool the American people for long," and I predicted that "the real effect of the effort made by Obama and by figures such as Rahm Emanuel will be to unmask the Democratic Party as a conspiracy on the part of a would-be aristocracy of do-gooders hostile to very idea of self-government in the United States." At the end of that post, I concluded,

We should be grateful to Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Rahm Emanuel. For, in their audacity, they have done what their predecessors feared to do; and, in the process, they have made the tyrannical propensities inherent within the progressive impulse visible to anyone who cares to take notice. What Franklin Delano Roosevelt falsely charged in 1936 is visibly true today. "A small group" is intent on concentrating "into their own hands an almost complete control over other people's property, other people's money, other people's labor - other people's lives."

From time to time, in other posts linked to here or archived here and here, I have returned to this theme, suggesting that, thanks to President Obama, we will soon have an opportunity to roll back the administrative state and to re-establish constitutional government and the rule of law within the United States. If the Republicans have the moxie to seize the opportunity that they have been afforded, if they use the current crisis as an occasion for rearticulating the principles on which this country was founded, I am now more confident than ever that such a transformation will take place. All that is required is statesmanship.

An engineer friend of mine sent me a calculation of how much oil has spilled into the Gulf of Mexico. He says that if the Gulf were the size of the Superdome, the spilled oil would amount to two cans of beer worth--in other words, nothing, relatively speaking. So I sent this calculation to another engineer friend (engineers like me; I'm solidly built). He confirmed the figures and added that if you add up all the oil spilled by oil industries serving the US for the last 20 years (since Exxon Valdez) and compare it to the amount of oil the US has used, you end up with an oil industry safety record of 99.9997%.

So when you consider all the glorious wonders with which oil provides us from the gas in our cars to Megan Fox's lipstick (indeed, for all I know, most of what matters about Megan Fox), and then consider the relatively minor cost to our eco-system, despite the heart-wrenching TV pictures of the occasional gooey heron or whatever - and finally consider the disastrous toll to human life and the economy of the Obama administration's suspension of off-shore drilling permits in the Gulf, you are forced to conclude that the nation is being run by panicky and self-righteous idiots.

I mean, we knew that. But now it's mathematically proven!

Ross Douthat of the New York Times wrote a very mild column today suggesting that "lifelong heterosexual monogamy [is] a unique and indispensable estate. That ideal is still worth honoring, and still worth striving to preserve." He goes on:

And preserving it ultimately requires some public acknowledgment that heterosexual unions and gay relationships are different: similar in emotional commitment, but distinct both in their challenges and their potential fruit.

But based on Judge Walker’s logic — which suggests that any such distinction is bigoted and un-American — I don’t think a society that declares gay marriage to be a fundamental right will be capable of even entertaining this idea.

To which Adam Serwer of The American Prospect responds that Douthat's views were formed without knowledge, thought, or reason (i.e. that they're "prejudiced"). He links to a piece where law professor Nelson Lund makes a case against treating views in favor of traditional marriage as nothing more than bigotry. Lund uses, among other things, past Supreme Court handlings of same-sex marriage, California's progressive laws regarding same-sex relationships, and logic:

The fundamental purpose of marriage is to encourage biological parents, especially fathers, to take responsibility for their children. Because this institution responds to a phenomenon uniquely created by heterosexual intercourse, the meaning of marriage has always been inseparable from the problem it addresses.

Serwer unfairly suggests Lund's argument is simply that if a lot of people hold views in favor of traditional marriage, then it can't be bigoted. Julian "epistemic closure" Sanchez reiterated this characterization. Sanchez went on to say that there are no legitimate arguments against gay marriage. That they're all stupid or bigoted.

Bigotry is, of course, the "stubborn and complete intolerance of any creed, belief, or opinion that differs from one's own." I'll leave it to others to decide who best matches that description.

Perhaps proponents of same-sex marriage, emboldened by Judge Walker's assertions, might think that they no longer need to persuade those with whom they disagree. Voters have routinely shunned arguments in favor of same-sex marriage while judges have forced it on some states. But it is telling that so many proponents of same-sex marriage are unable or unwilling to respond fairly to the arguments in favor of traditional marriage law.

A few months ago, at the end of May, real estate/casino billionaire Steve Wynn appeared on CNBC lambasting the anti-business policies coming out of Washington. Calling congressmen "hypocritical SOBs," he said,

Is there a business man or a media person in America that...isn't frightened by the next crazy idea coming from Washington? The financial institution, the cars, the businessmen, the taxes, the healthcare, everything is cuckoo and god knows what comes next.

This clip has recently gone viral on the net--it's been making the chain e-mail rounds--and I think it's because Wynn articulated in May what many people are saying now, that "the uncertainty in the business climate in America is frightening, frightening to everybody and it's delaying recovery." Friday's job numbers and the current debate about raising taxes has heightened that uncertainty.

Back in the spring, Wynn found his own way to deal with the unpredictable business climate in this country. He announced he would split his company's headquarters between Las Vegas and Macau, China. "The opportunities I see are far superior abroad than in America." He explained,

Macau has been steady. The shocking, unexpected government is the one in Washington. That's where we get surprises every day. That's where taxes are changed every five minutes. That's where you don't know what to expect tomorrow. To compare political stability and predictability in China to Washington is like comparing Mt. Everest to an ant hill. Makow and China is stable. Washington is not...So when you ask me about predictability and uncertaintily politically in China compared to Washington, I take China. Washington in unpredictable these days.

Days ago, his decision was vindicated when his company posted its quarterly profits. Despite the recession, Wynn Resorts' profits doubled in large part due to the revenue coming in from Macau.

Put this one down as a cautionary tale.

Wynn’s story is compelling because it appeals to the bottom line. He’s following the money. And the jobs are following him—leaving this country for China. He’s looking for common sense governance—not abstract politicalese, nor patriotic boilerplate. His message, spoken in words all can understand, is exactly what the GOP and the tea party movement needs right now.

Sarah Palin is right: English is a "living language."

Michael Deacon writes in the London Telegraph about the Oxford English Dictionary's secret vault.

It's where they keep the words that aren't yet words, that haven't yet been approved but are nonetheless descriptive.  And probably necessary.

Words like scrax, which describes that stuff that collects on your thumbnail when you scratch off the coating on an instant lottery ticket.  Or polkadodge, which describes the awkward dance between two people, walking in opposite directions, who try to pass each other but keep moving to the same side.

What's wrong with making up words, as long as they're descriptive and stylish?  As Michael Deacon concludes in the Telegraph:   

You may argue that our language is large enough as it is. Perhaps so. But there are terms and phrases we could jettison to make room. I'd rather hear someone talk of "scrax" or even "quackmire" than of a "work colleague" or an "added bonus". Such usages, in my view, are unspeakably pustipulent and the scrunks who utter them deserve a damn good throggin.

Which is impossible to refudiate.

Andrew Sullivan weighs in on Paul Ryan's roadmap:

My view, I guess, is that Ryan's spending cuts look promising. His tax cuts look like a replay of Reaganomics, whose failure could not be clearer in the soaring budget deficits today.

[...] Cutting taxes at this point in American history, in the face of this much debt, strikes me as loony. Revenue will have to come from somewhere if the debt is to be tackled. And defense will need to take a real cut as well. Serious fiscal conservatives will acknowledge this. The others are dreaming.

Let's get one point out of the way up front. Once Jeb Hensarling told me point blank that Republicans ought to give the Dems whatever they want on domestic spending -- just like Reagan -- in order to get everything Republicans wanted on military spending -- just like Reagan. So I understand the urge to blame Reagan for the bipartisan drunken-sailorism of the past ten years. I find it unimaginable, however, that Reagan would ever endorse, much less initiate, the kind of spending policies that held sway in Congress and the White House for the past ten years.

More important, although Andrew is right that tax cuts aren't God, the tax cut obsession that troubles him needs to be better explained. Let me know if I go astray with the following intuition: simple selfishness isn't what fuels today's animus against taxes. Rather, it's a conviction that tax policy itself is being abused, that the reasons why taxes are being levied are illegitimate. Yes, we're annoyed by the size of the tax burden. But we're outraged by the use of taxation as government's primary tool of behavioral modification. Taxes are supposed to raise revenue. Spending needs to be cut because spending has been significantly (if not completely) delinked from revenue-raising. But that's not enough, because the illegitimacy of our tax policy isn't cured by simply reducing the size of the tax burden.

When we're offered that reduction, we're inclined to take it out of frustration, but this can simply prolong the problem. I have a suspicion that there's an inchoate coalition out there that would accept higher national tax revenues in principle if we were relieved in practice of the true burden: the use of taxation to change the way we behave.

Two indices:

According to Intrade, the likelihood that Republicans will capture control of the House of Representatives this November is now 59 percent.

And over at Real Clear Politics, the GOP now leads the Democratic Party in the generic congressional vote by six percent, a virtually unprecedented margin.

Proud of me, Claire? 

My friend Mustafa X is on his way with his family to visit the United States. It will be their first trip to America. They'll be going to New York and Los Angeles. I've been telling Mustafa X for some time now how terrific America is, and I want to make sure my country lives up to its reputation--I'm a little worried, because it's hard to be a tourist anywhere, and you can easily end up not seeing the best parts of any country if you don't know where you're going or what you're doing.

It's actually been a while since I've been in either New York or Los Angeles, though, so I'm not really sure what to recommend. Obviously, they'll see the famous tourist attractions. But what restaurants should they go to? Think mid-price as well as fancy. (Mustafa X is a big fan of sushi, and it's rare and overpriced in Istanbul, so if you've got great sushi tips, I bet he'd love that.)

But more importantly, what sights and places off the typical tourist agenda might they visit that would give them a sense of what's really remarkable and astonishing about America? I should say that when I first met Mustafa X, he didn't believe me when I told him about the First Amendment. He figured that was just American propaganda. I've done my best to convince him otherwise, and I think he basically believes me now. But I'd like him to really see it in action. Where should he go, what should he see, to be persuaded immediately that everything I've been telling him about the American political and economic system is real?

I reckon they should go see a jury trial: I think that would be mind-blowing to Turks, who are used to a completely opaque, mysterious justice system. I wonder if they'd find it interesting to see a tea party? Are any scheduled in those regions? I've never seen one, myself, but I'm curious.

Let's put our heads together and write a little guide, shall we? "American Liberty and Justice is Real: A Tourist Handbook for the Slightly Skeptical Turk."

Never let it be said we're not listening. In response to James's Assignment Desk request, our loyal member Paules offered this suggestion:

Does anyone besides me know who Yuri (Uri) Bezmenov is? His explanation from the perspective of an ex-KGB operative and defector explains the culture war in America and our current political crisis. His interviews are available on Youtube. You will be as fascinated as you are horrified.

An excellent assignment. I know of Bezmenov because my friend and colleague Okan (of Murky in Turkey fame) is obsessed with him. If you meet Okan at a bar, within five minutes he'll be grabbing your lapels and gibbering: "Bezmenov explained it all! It's all there! It's all spelled out! You've got to watch this!"

Bezmenov was a KGB defector who in 1984 gave an interview to G. Edward Griffin, a prominent member of the John Birch Society, in which he discussed the "ideological subversion" methods used by the KGB.

Ideological subversion is the process, which is legitimate, overt, and open; you can see it with your own eyes. All you have to do, all American mass media has to do, is to unplug their bananas from their ears, open up their eyes, and they can see it. There is no mystery. [It has] nothing to do with espionage. I know that espionage intelligence-gathering looks more romantic. It sells more deodorants through the advertising, probably. That’s why your Hollywood producers are so crazy about James Bond-type of thrillers.

But in reality, the main emphasis of the KGB is not in the area of intelligence at all. According to my opinion and [the] opinion of many defectors of my caliber, only about 15% of time, money, and manpower [are] spent on espionage as such. The other 85% is a slow process, which we call either ‘ideological subversion,’ or ‘active measures’—in the language of the KGB—or ‘psychological warfare.’ What it basically means is, to change the perception of reality, of every American, to such an extent that despite of the abundance of information, no one is able to come to sensible conclusions in the interests of defending themselves, their families, their community and their country.

It’s a great brainwashing process, which goes very slow[ly] and is divided [into] four basic stages. The first one [is] demoralization; it takes from 15-20 years to demoralize a nation. Why that many years? Because this is the minimum number of years which [is required] to educate one generation of students in the country of your enemy, exposed to the ideology of the enemy. In other words, Marxist-Leninist ideology is being pumped into the soft heads of at least three generations of American students, without being challenged, or counter-balanced by the basic values of Americanism (American patriotism).

The result? The result you can see. Most of the people who graduated in the sixties (drop-outs or half-baked intellectuals) are now occupying the positions of power in the government, civil service, business, mass media, [and the] educational system. You are stuck with them. You cannot get rid of them. They are contaminated; they are programmed to think and react to certain stimuli in a certain pattern. You cannot change their mind[s], even if you expose them to authentic information, even if you prove that white is white and black is black, you still cannot change the basic perception and the logic of behavior. In other words, these people... the process of demoralization is complete and irreversible. To [rid] society of these people, you need another twenty or fifteen years to educate a new generation of patriotically-minded and common sense people, who would be acting in favor and in the interests of United States society.

Here's an excerpt from that video; and here's the whole thing:

Does Bezmenov explain some of the trends in thought, particularly in American universities, that we've seen in the United States in the past two generations? Does he explain what's happening now? Not entirely, certainly not. But Soviet ideological subversion was, we now know, a reality, not a right-wing fantasy, and I certainly do think it's reasonable to surmise that it had a profound effect--another reason that a proper historical reckoning with the Cold War is so urgently needed. (Get back to work, Peter. Let me know if there's anything I can do to help.)

Thanks for reminding me, Paules.

There is a strange relationship between misery and dignity. I have to say that I thought of Hitchens as tonight's cancer-themed episode played out. But there was very little stoicism on offer tonight. Don's dignified choice to say nothing about the cancer made him miserable, but he made himself much less miserable of a figure by sleeping with a prostitute in his own home than by putting the moves on a college girl wearing his blazer in the front seat. Price's undignified display with the steak was a momentarily successful attempt to reclaim his dignity and escape the misery of being a man who sadly can't blame anyone but himself for the way his family life's turned out.

More complicated is Don's reliance on a hired hookup, which can't help but fill the viewer with relief. Sometimes the contractual approach to sex seems to leave both parties less miserable and more dignified than they'd be otherwise if they tried to satisfy their respective desires on their own. There's no doubt that we're all taking our dignity down a peg by arguing that prostitution makes matters better insofar as it softens the blows of some of life's real miseries. But the relief I'm talking about, which I think it pretty palpable, comes from the realization that Don is escaping another tryst where at least one person involved is being exploited in a rawer, more consequential way than the call girl seems to be. Of course, we don't to get as close to her as, say, Don's secretary. So the deck is dramatically stacked against people who want to be reassured that prostitution in practice is always worse for everyone than the alternative.

Still, the big upside for Don is that spending a night with a prostitute means not having to try to treat a girl who isn't one like she is. The question is how insistent we are that real dignity is to be found in bearing one's misery alone. The dying stoic might answer yes. But how well can the dying stoic speak for the rest of us?

The worst-paying college degrees, according to Payscale, Inc. are listed here.  Among the worst?  Child and Family Studies, Social Work, and Elementary Education.  At the top of the worst-paying list?  Music, Art History, and Graphic Design.

Education, in fact, is all over the list: Elementary Education is at the bottom, but Special Education is smack dab in the middle, and just plain old Education (whatever that means) is in the top third.  Of the worst-paying college degrees, remember.

What's interesting is that the degrees are ranked two ways: by starting salary and by mid-career salary.  The starting pay of the lowest-ranked college degree, Child and Family Studies, is $29,500.  At mid-career, that becomes $38,400.  The highest of the lowest is Art History.  Starting pay is $39,400; mid-career is $57,100.

I wonder if students studying Social Work feel ripped off when they start paying their student loans.  I wonder if Senator Harkin is going to hold hearings on this?

And finally, I wonder if this list should be required reading for every incoming college freshman this fall?  Under the heading: Why You Need to Take Math.

Because -- surprise! -- none of the lowest-paying college degrees require any math skills at all.

(via The College Solution Blog)

Prepping for my Monday Uncommon Knowledge interview with Harvard professor Harvey Mansfield, I discovered just now that Princeton figured out how to bring grade inflation to an end once and for all.  In 2004, Princeton enacted a simple rule: no department could award A’s to more than 35 percent of its students.  Why did such a rule prove necessary?  According to one report:

Grade inflation, well documented at many schools, is most pronounced in the Ivy League, according to an American Academy of Arts and Sciences 2002 study. For example, in 1966, 22% of all grades given to Harvard undergraduates were A's. That grew to 46% in 1996, the study found.

As I say, Princeton enacted its rule six years ago.  How many of the seven other Ivy League institutions have followed Princeton’s example?

Not one.

Claire's call for book topics reminds me of a great blog convention that I strangely haven't taken for a spin at Ricochet. It's called the assignment desk post, and it goes something like this: OK, ladies and gents -- tell us who you'd like to see post about what.

Have at it!

Rob's description of the New York Times's advice to Democrats fits the Times's entire approach to journalism, I'd say--as also that of every major newspaper in the country with the single exception of the Wall Street Journal.

That's the bad news. Here's the good news. From a report in the Times itself:

In the last year, circulation at The New York Times dropped 5.2 percent on Sunday, to 1.4 million copies, and 8.5 percent on weekdays, to 950,000. The Los Angeles Times declined 7.6 percent on Sunday and 14.7 percent during the week. The Chicago Tribune fell 7.5 percent on Sunday and 9.8 percent during the week....

Compared with a year ago, The Wall Street Journal was up 0.5 percent, the only newspaper among the 25 largest to experience a weekday increase. (It does not publish on Sunday.)

Here's how you know the Democrats are in trouble: the New York Times is giving them campaign advice.

It's a campaign-year staple, as autumn draws near, that the usual suspects -- the NYTimes, NPR, the broadcast news outfits -- with convene roundtables and publish editorials all wondering, in varying degrees of panic and rage, What should the Democrats do?

They do this because, of course, they're all Democrats.

The New York Times begins its service as unpaid media advisors for the DNC with this nonsense:

In less than 90 days, millions of irritable voters will go to the polls to choose a new House and much of the Senate. If Democrats hope to retain control of both chambers in a year of deep dissatisfaction with incumbents, they need a sharper and more inspirational playbook than the one they are using.

Wait. Digest that. We're "irritable." Like babies.

And now a truly idiotic statement, contradicted by every available fact:

Put most broadly, the Democrats have been failing to delineate the differences between themselves and Republicans...

What? Hello? Is anybody over there on 8th Avenue and 41st Street reading the paper? Democrats don't need to "delineate the differences" with the Republicans. The American voters are doing it for them. And it ain't good news. In poll after poll, the generic ballot swings harder and harder towards Republicans. The smart move isn't for Democrats to highlight their differences Republicans. It's to pretend that their aren't any.

So, before reading on, take a guess. What does the New York Times suggest that the Democrats do? Move to the center? Recapture the great middle? No, no, of course not:

Rather than spend time during the campaign stoking anxiety over Social Security, Democrats should aggressively counter the myth that the deficit is causing unemployment, and advocate using government in ways that might re- inspire voters.

A few suggestions: Using the revenue from reinstating taxes on the rich to put people back to work, rebuilding and repairing the country. Providing robust support for state and local governments, many of which have cut past the bone. Repairing the unemployment system so that it is a real safety net and not a political tool.

In other words, spend more! Defend the fatty, greasy mess of stimulus harder! Make bigger promises!

This advice is so silly, so stupid, so utterly tone-deaf and wrong, that I'm starting to wonder: maybe the editors of the New York Times are on our side?

The Atlantic Wire has a solid roundup of post-Perry polygamy posts. What troubles me is less an inevitable creep toward a whole new legal regime officializing exotic new marriages-so-called -- although, yes, that's troubling -- than the other legal regime which that creep will inevitably produce.

We've already seen it with the dramatic explosion of family law-so-called. Family law today is virtually the opposite of what it sounds like. It's a complex body of rules, regulations, and litigation concerning not the legal creation but the legal breakup of marriages and families. Family law is how the state manages familial disintegration. The real post-Perry slippery slope, from this standpoint, leads toward the codification of a vast new set of intimate relationships, all right -- not between (or among!) individuals but between government and individuals.

The debate over marriage too often obscures the problem lurking beneath the general weakening of the marital institution: the growing vacuum in cultural authority fills with the legal power of the state. Already we probably lack the cultural confidence to articulate at a national level a convincing account of why at least some kinds of polygamous relationships should be deprived of the honor bestowed by the title of marriage. But that kind of confidence has crumbled apace with an insistence that somebody be around to pick up the pieces when relationships we feel disentitled not to honor also crumble. And only one somebody can claim to be there to play that ironically fatherly role for everyone -- the government, whose laws can penetrate everywhere, if only we let them.

On Monday, I’ll be filming an episode of Uncommon Knowledge with Harvard professor of political philosophy Harvey Mansfield. Prof. Mansfield is legendary at Harvard for brilliant lectures, accessibility to students, definitive work on Machiavelli and Toqueville—and standards.

Disgusted with grade inflation, Prof. Mansfield some years ago replaced the standard grading system at Harvard with a system of his own—a system his students call “ironic grading.” In effect, Prof. Mansfield keeps two sets of books, giving the students themselves the grades he believes they truly deserve while submitting to the University the usual, inflated grades for the students’ transcripts. As a former Mansfield student explains:

During the course, you have to write three papers and take a final exam. Those assignments are graded according to Prof. Mansfield’s guidelines. The first paper usually has an average grade of about C+/B- and the final two usually hover around B-/B. At the end of the course, Prof. Mansfield applies the typical curve, so half the course ends up with a final grade of A or A-. On your transcript, then, you see your inflated grade. The irony is only you know whether you deserve it.

There is a second irony. Instead of resenting Prof. Mansfield’s grading system, students enjoy it.

In the last course I took with Prof. Mansfield, my papers were A-, B+, and B+. My final exam grade was B+. My final grade [on the University transcript] was an A, but my true final grade was a B+. You may think this was disappointing, but frankly getting one A- on a paper in Prof. Mansfield’s course was quite satisfying. It felt like a real A-, unlike in other courses.

The good news from Harvard: Prof. Mansfield has no plans to retire. The bad news: The number of Harvard professors who have followed his example, awarding not only inflated grades but true grades, is zero.

On Meet the Press, David Gregory hosted John Boehner. Talking about Friday’s disappointing job numbers, Gregory said that private sector job growth is “anemic at best.”

Should Americans fear a double dip recession? Boehner sounded scripted when he said “the American people are asking where are the jobs?” There are no jobs because “employers are scared to death…fearful of what’s coming next out of Washington. All the spending, all the debt.”

Boehner said that allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire—or “raising taxes”—would likely lead to a double dip recession. But despite Boehner’s worry about “all the spending, all the debt,” he would not answer Gregory’s repeated question of whether the tax cuts are paid for. Instead, Boehner said, “What you’re trying to do is get into this Washington game…you cannot get the economy going again” by raising taxes.

If the Bush tax cuts are not paid for, do Republicans contradict themselves by wanting them extended? Juan Williams asked this question on Fox News Sunday. Again, Republicans did not answer him head on.

But maybe Boehner and other Republicans should note that letting people keep their own money (extending the tax cuts) is not the same as spending money you don't have (as the Democrats want to do). So the question of whether the tax cuts "paid for" doesn't really make sense.

Another issue Gregory and Boehner discussed was birthright citizenship—whether children born in the United States should automatically be citizens of this country, as the 14th amendment guarantees. Because birthright citizenship creates an incentive for illegal immigrants to cross the border and give birth to their children in the US, some Republicans have advocated amending the 14th amendment to end birthright citizenship.

Though Boehner said that this proposal is “worth considering," I think the issue is a distraction that makes Republicans look unfocused and small-minded. Sometimes the first thing you need to do is get your priorities straight.

On This Week, Christiane Amanpour hosted General Ray Odierno, commander of troops in Iraq. The U.S. is set to withdraw most of its troops in Iraq by September 1st, but the country seems to be suffering a storm of instability. Violence in that country has been on the rise. And Iraq still has not formed a government since its elections in March.

To these concerns, Gen. Odierno assured Amanpour that regardless of the scheduled withdrawal, 50,000 American troops will remain in Iraq past Sept 1 to help Iraqi security forces stabilize the country. By that September 1st date, Odierno said that “We will see some first steps toward forming a government.”

During the roundtable segment of the show, debate focused on the lasting impact of the surge and what will happen to Iraq after American troops withdraw. To that end, Amanpour played the infamous clip of Vice President Biden saying last February, “I’m very optimistic about Iraq. I think it will be one of the great achievements of this administration.” Amanpour laughed as the Biden clip ended.

In light of the recent instability in Iraq, I wonder if Biden is as optimistic as he was back in February.

It's that time of the week again--Sunday news show time! Let's start with Fox.

Today on Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace hosted Ted Olsen, the conservative lawyer who argued for striking down California’s Proposition 8, a ballot measure defining marriage between a man and a woman.

Was the judge’s ruling a case of judicial activism? Olsen said, “It’s not judicial activism when judges do what the Constitution tells them to do” and follows precedent. “We’re not talking about a new right, we’re talking about a fundamental right.” Marriage. The “judge is simply keeping that leading promise,” given to us in the aftermath of the Civil War, “that all men are created equal.”

Olsen continued, saying that the right to marry is a right guaranteed under the Constitution, as judges of the Supreme Court have declared in at least 14 cases. Olsen noted, for instance, that the Supreme Court struck down laws prohibiting interracial marriage in 1967 (Loving v Virginia). In those cases, they reasoned that the right to marriage in general is a right for all citizens. Since same-sex marriage is a particular kind of marriage, then it falls under the general right to marriage that the Court has codified into our society.

Of course, Olsen is a brilliant lawyer and I think he makes a compelling case. In fact, I see eye-to-eye with Olsen on this issue. However, I think there’s a weak point in his argument that, I was surprised to see, he did not address. Namely: in cases of interracial marriage—where he is deriving his legal precedent—marriage was still between a man and a woman. The essence of marriage, as society has understood it, is not altered if a black man marries a white woman. It does seem to me, however, that the definition of marriage does change once it applies to two members of the same-sex. For this reason, I don’t think that the precedents Olsen sites are as analogous to his own case as he was arguing them to be on Fox News.

Mitch Daniels also appeared on Fox News Sunday. Speaking sincerely and thoughtfully, he reiterated many of the fiscal conservative points that have given him great notoriety as governor of Indiana. For instance, he mentioned the necessity to scale back on entitlement programs like social security and medicaid.

He also discussed a controversial quote he recently gave to the Weekly Standard, saying we need to call a “truce on the so-called social issues,” until our country’s economic malaise is resolved. He sees a “Republic-threatening dimension and nature of this fiscal disaster that’s waiting for us.” Therefore, he thinks all conservatives must come together to address fiscal issues first.

Conservative leaders must “stop dividing people as these [social] issues do,” because “we need to come together in concert to do some very difficult and novel things.”

On running for president: “I have not decided to do this. Many people have said ‘at least keep an open mind,’ and I said ‘alright.’”

Whether he plans to run or not, his comments on Fox News Sunday are music to the ears of independent voters and tea partiers, two groups who are chiefly concerned with the country’s economic outlook and less concerned with social issues--and two groups that are bending the political winds these days and will likely continue to into 2012.

But on the panel, Juan Williams asked whether conservative leaders like Mitch Daniels—and Chris Christie, another intrepid governor—stand for what conservatives will represent in November 2010 and 2012, or whether more fringe figures like Sharron Angle and Rand Paul are more indicative.

What do you think?

I'm hoping--since you seem to be a group of avid readers, and you're probably quite close to my ideal target audience--that you can give me some good advice.

The book-publishing industry is dying. In the past few years I've sent at least a dozen book proposals off to do the rounds. I'm fairly sure that ten years ago, all would have generated some interest. Not anymore. The print publishing industry is well on its way to obsolescence, and the major publishers haven't a clue how to make money from new publishing technology.

I'm just not sure what kind of book to pitch. Writing fiction is out of the question. It just doesn't sell. Besides, reality these days is mighty interesting--why bother with fiction, I keep thinking, when the world seems stranger and more interesting than anything I could imagine? But non-fiction books about the things I'd naturally think of writing don't seem to sell, either. I was certain that a lively book about Margaret Thatcher would have real commercial potential. I was wrong.

Still, some books are selling. Some writers are still finding a way to make it work.

Suppose you were to commission me to write a bespoke book, just for you. What would it be about? Is there a subject you're just dying to know more about, but you just don't see any books about it in the book stores? What kind of book would you actually pay money to read and to own these days?

As long as I can make a reasonable living, I'm willing to write about just about anything. I'm willing to move anywhere to do it. The idea has to have obvious commercial appeal, because I need to convince a publisher to give me an advance: I don't have the savings to do it on spec. Besides, if I can't convince a publisher to buy it, I probably won't be able to convince anyone to buy it.

Beyond that, I'm open to anything.

Apart from writing, I don't actually have any marketable skills, I don't think. I'm just not seeing a real future for myself in the martial arts, whatever that fight promoter in London might have thought.

So I need to figure something out.

Ideas?

The gentleman was walking toward the building as I was leaving. I spotted his black cap that had the words "Vietnam Veteran" and a collection of medals pinned to the front. He saw my cap of medals, and we stopped to shake hands. I extended my right hand, but he extended his left. It was an awkward handshake and he said, "Sorry, this one got [expletive] up," while removing a mangled right hand from his pocket. I asked, "the war?" "Yeah," he answered, then pointed to the Purple Heart pin on his hat. He told me some of the places he served in Southeast Asia during two tours. We traded a few jokes and light hearted stories about our service, and then he told me how it did his heart good to see how well our troops are treated now when they return home. He said he didn't get a very pleasant reception. The protestors mocked him, and as an African American returning home to Alabama, he got a bonus round of abuse in Birmingham. After a few more minutes of chat, we both had to be on our way. I shook his left hand, welcomed him home, and then rendered a salute there in the parking lot. He seemed surprised, then his eyes moistened as he returned my salute with the injured hand.

Folks, watch this amazing video of the Voices of Liberty singing our National Anthem. So many have given so much. Freedom is not just a gift. It is a responsibility. The battles we engage are more important than ever. The distinctions we draw even amongst ourselves are relevant. But never lose sight of what we are trying to save.

On a personal note, I learned this week that once I kick over, I will be eligible for burial at Arlington. I can think of no better place to be laid to rest than with my brothers and sisters in arms. They are the reason I can't seem to get through this video with dry eyes. I think you will enjoy the song.