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This week on the Ricochet Podcast, we’ve got…us. Once in while we just let the hosts host the show and let them talk off the top of their heads. Not going to synopsize it here except to say the conversation spans the globe from Saigon to Fargo and the topics are as far-flung as well. Finally — we have heard your pleas, faithful listeners: behold the new Ricochet Podcast open!
Music from this week’s podcast: I’m A Believer by The Monkees
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Is that Lileks or Don Knotts in the picture?
Ah James, the Euro bridges do exist…now.
“They love the smell of their burning hair.”
Best line of the podcast. Good work, James!
Rob might want to reflect on how much his beliefs about who we are come from projection of his own attitudes on the rest of us.
Dong? Reminds me of this character (and scenes) from Sixteen Candles …
Which Lileks do you refer to? There’s TWO of them in that photo.
“I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have the liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy. My sons ought to study Mathematicks and Philosophy, Geography, natural History, Naval Architecture, navigation, Commerce and Agriculture, in order to give their Children a right to study Painting, Poetry, Musick, Architecture, Statuary, Tapestry and Porcelaine.”
John Adams
Well, second from the left looks like Don Knotts.
The discussion of what young people are thinking made me think that having the folks on The Young Americans podcast on this podcast to talk about that would likely be pretty interesting.
Thanks to James for sharing the upcoming Kevin Costner and Woody Harrelson movie on Netflix about the Texas Rangers who shot Bonnie & Clyde. It’s called The Highwaymen if he didn’t mention the title in the podcast. The preview is badass.
My grandmother told me a story growing up that Bonnie & Clyde once hideout in her little hometown outside Abilene, TX when she was a child. She didn’t make it sound like it was a secret, but nobody wanted to turn them in.
The message to the young folks ought to address what it is about “socialism” they find appealing: that it helps people who are suffering or oppressed. It’s that care/harm ethic that’s got them fired up, hence the willingness to destroy people who say “harmful” things.
Ergo, we must tell them about the ways that conservatism protects the weak from the strong, namely, by having provisions such as the electoral college and equal Senate representation to make sure that minorities aren’t stomped on by the majority — instead, majorities have to take minority wants and needs into consideration if they want to elect a president or pass a law.
Myriad other examples of the Constitution protecting the weak from the strong would also be a propos. Such as how free speech isn’t about letting trolls be mean to people but about preventing those in power from silencing their critics. About how free speech permits everyone to speak truth to power. How the 2nd amendment means weak folks like women can protect themselves against predatory men. How the whole Founding was about preventing the abuse of power.
Appeal to their desires to take care of people and avoid harm. Don’t try to convince them to care about things in the way we typically care about them.
This week, our three intrepid heroes sounded very Pollyanna-ish (Lileks less so) about Millennials and Generation Z. Rob’s prescription for “reaching” our young people seemed to be rooted primarily in economics.
Only problem is, these kids are not animated by economics. Their chief animating influence is Identity (Race, Gender, and Sexuality). Identity Politics is a de facto religion for them.
And for the life of me, I can’t imagine how you argue or persuade someone out of their religious belief. Indeed I’m not sure it’s even possible.
They can be “shaken” out of it, but this almost always requires a calamitous external event.
Curiously, Rob gauges conservative success by how many politicians have an “R” after their names — blithely disregarding (or not caring about) the fact that society and government continue their long march to the left.
Their long rapid march to the left.
It really is amazing just how quick the change has been.
A good first question to someone who defines his or herself as a socialist is to ask him or her to define what socialism is. I’ve noticed attempts to alter/shift aspects of the definition. The example that comes to my mind is a YouTube video (I’d post the link if I remembered the exact video) a friend of mine posted in which the host/subject of the video’s first sentence was something like “Socialism means community ownership.” Government equals community? Scary. Why have the Rotary Club, Elks Lodge, etc. when government is our community – it’s something we all do together (another definition of government I’ve heard). The fact that coercion is a big part of how government gets us to do things together seems to be always left out in their definition of socialism, community, etc.
All modern central banking and government is nothing but coercion. There is no value added when they go beyond “public goods” especially at the federal level. So we just use it to steal from each other. Mark Levin was just brilliant on this on Friday.
What is the purpose of so many unfunded liabilities? Stealing. Theft.
Watch the speech by Jeff Deist in Seattle called “the greatest myth’. Then watch the latest interviews of Jeffrey Gundlach on Yahoo Finance. One is 20 minutes and the other one is 35 minutes. They are on YouTube.
Not even to mention the tragedy of the commons. That is how to really Scrooge things up.
This guy is really smart.
link
The other thing is, places that practice welfare capitalism, which isn’t really socialism, like Denmark, are very ethnically homogenous, and have far more honest and competent bureaucrats then what you see here. No big geographical issues.
Yes, the problem is that R victories haven’t translate down into much. In 2002, my company went under and I was looking for a new job. Both COBRA and the individual insurance market provided good policies at an affordable rate. In 2016 I was forced back into the job market because my COBRA was running out and OBamaCare policies were ruinously expensive and provided poor insurance. The R majorities appeared to enjoy running against Obamacare; when they had the power to repeal much of it John McCain stabbed the people in the back.
Many of us are cynical about the R party. People in California pass Prop 8 and a judge overrules it. If the Ds win they advance leftism. If the Rs win judges advance leftism. You can be sunny if you want, but a lot of us are being hit in the face by the advance of leftism and denial doesn’t make things better.
I’ve noticed that in the sit-com characters the Mr. Long has written for.
Rob is a fantastic sitcom writer, but you have to remember that most of the shows he’s written for lately were created by, or in tandem with, other people, and Rob has to answer to them, the powerful actors who (often) are saying the lines, the network airing the show, etc.
So please don’t think Rob has total control over the shows he’s been supervising. He doesn’t.
For me, Dong Nguyen in Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. You just can’t have too much Dong. (Look folks, “Let her hang me. He that is well hanged in this world needs to fear no colors.” is in Twelfth Night, Act I, scene 5.)
Oddly, the Hung Far Low matchbook (translates to “almond blossom fragrance” in a Taiwanese dialect) was my first happy acquaintance with the work of the great Mr. Lileks. Cheap jokes rule.
You really need to get this guy Lileks on more often.
@richardeaston — Before we condemn the R’s too much, let’s remember it’s better for society to drift slowly toward leftism, than swiftly plummet in that direction.
For example, the R’s will probably prevent the D’s from confiscating my retirement savings, at least long enough that I won’t need them anymore.
The five R’s on the Supreme Court will not repeal Roe v. Wade — they rightly fear the D’s will pack the Court if they do — but, for a while, they will head off additional outrages on the Constitution.
Translation: America just needs to stave off Leftism until I’m dead. After that, well — heh-heh — come what may. (And good luck, kids!)
The GOP is not strategic and tactical about this at all. They just want to get past the next election.
The left has infiltrated education, and the government has become and overly centralized theft system. This really caters to the Democrat party.
Why on earth we didn’t completely overhaul the ACA is proof.
Granted Mr. Long has talent, or he would not be working for said entertainment creators and actors. However, he comes across, to me anyway, as someone who doesn’t much care for the lower middle working class. I may be a little too sensitive about the the subject, but the middle working class in this country is the most open, giving and self-deprecating of any of the other American social/economic classes. It just seems to me that Mr. Rob enjoys piling on.
That whole show was really good. There were tons of little points that added up to a really good show.
People just need to realize that in an era of free trade and globalize labor and robots our current Fed policy and government policy just makes that situation way worse for the people it affects. There is absolutely no reason every single thing shouldn’t be going down in price right now or becoming a better value. There are several critical things, housing, Health insurance, healthcare, and education that are just killing people when wages are being driven down and jobs are being shipped overseas. There is no reason the Fed should run with any inflation at all.
I always talk about this, I post links, and I never get any feedback. Zero. I am certain this is why conservatism and libertarianism are losing out to populism and socialism.
Furthermore everything I described in the second paragraph isn’t just made worse by those policies it makes them happen faster. It’s outrageous. We don’t practice capitalism. That’s the problem.
Boilerplate: Watch the Jeff Deist speech from Seattle: “The Greatest Myth” and watch the two long interviews on Yahoo Finance with Jeffrey Gundlach. That is what the Republican Party isn’t dealing with.
@filmklassik — Do not confuse the descriptive with the prescriptive. I am not in favor of the Democratic politics of envy and greed, even if that’s what I think we’re going to get, in the end. “Vote for us: we’ll give you free stuff and rip off people you resent!”
The Democrats have been doing this for a very long time, with great success; starting with ripping off the Indians, regardless of treaties.
The reason the ancient philosophers were so down on democracy was that, in their experience, the people soon learn to vote themselves benefits; which is followed by economic collapse, civil war, and tyranny.
I am upset with W. who never pushed back on Obama’s ceaseless attacks during his two terms but immediately attacked Trump.