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This week, we’re fortunate to be able to access the deep mind of one of the country’s great thinkers and writers, George Will on the occasion of his new book, The Conservative Sensibility. We conduct a long and wide-ranging conversation with him covering everything from the meaning of conservatism, President powers, progressive regulation, and much more. Take our advice: pour yourself a tall, cool drink, put on the earbuds and take this one in. Also, next week is the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Was it a good use of government spending or a boondoggle? We debate. And finally, James talks a bit about the passing of a great American: Ralph J. Lileks.
Music from this week’s show: Keep Me In Your Heart by Warren Zevon
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My brother-in-law is liberal. Very productive, normal life. I can tell he really dislikes thinking through the limits of central planning and using government force to improve things.
It’s like if we just think really hard and vote right, we can take a bunch of money from the citizens and push things around so things improve. They just believe that has to work. How can did not work?
The reality is when you go beyond actual “public goods” and a flat tax, things go off the rails really fast. Same thing with the stupidity of central banks “helping” the economy.
It just blows my mind how government screwed up the health insurance system and basically everything they did just made it worse. The second World War II was over they should have wiped out employer-based insurance. Just one dumb thing after another. Now single-payer is almost a foregone conclusion.
Think about the negative value of the tax code. It’s all negative value. Complete minus. Congress points a gun at our heads and auctions off tax brackets and deductions. GOSPLAN couldn’t be any worse. All they should do is argue about what level a flat tax is set at. No deductions. It’s really more idiotic then what people think of as central planning.
I thought the part between 37:00 and 50:00 was really good. I love how Will accused the Republicans of practicing MMT. He’s right. LOL. You can’t get reelected unless you do that. The other thing he said was, people don’t really reflect on how much government owns them. This type of thing makes me really cynical and supportive of Trump.
This is really extreme, but some of you may like it:
I’m confident that was not Will’s intent. But I doubt he’s aware of how his arguments work against his arguments.
Honestly, that’s the way I see him. I’m always glad to hear him yak about anything, but that is my view.
That comment about politics being “dignified” or whatever was ridiculous.
The GOP had eight years to get ready for the moment to improve the health insurance system. Then nothing. They are all just a bunch of liars and captives of the system.
#MAGA
For a lot of young liberals that event is their first pay check and all the taxes that come out. I think Will was right about that. (I’ve now listened to the podcast.) but that’s not enough. I agree with you that many young people are inculcated in Leftism. They often literally don’t know what we on the Right believe. So we do need to reason with them. I also think Will was right about that. You mentioned white boards being ineffective. Well, that will work for some people and not others. I really do think that the Right needs to take over women’s magazines, and other cultural drivers.
The most depressing post I’ve read in weeks, maybe longer. Why? Because (due to circumstances I will not elaborate on)I am not in “a paid for home” nor —unless my professional circumstances change dramatically — am I likely to be anytime soon.
Crikey.
I believe that folks like Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson are having a positive effect. I think what will have a greater effect is when the left disintegrates into open revolt and anarchy and many of the non-political Americans (who have let schools raise their children to become sullen and resentful communists) finally wake up and push back. The problem is challenging, however, when political leaders and the media actually support lawlessness.
Exactly! And the schools, too. We need to take over women’s magazines and the schools, both elementary and secondary. And of course the universities and graduate schools.
So, K-12 education, the universities, and the graduate schools.
And of course the news media and scripted media (film and TV).
So, step one: the schools, step two: news media, and step three: scripted media. Once we do that, BAM! — the culture is ours. Nothin’ to it. Bippity boppity boo!
The whole education system needs to be completely atomized. Seriously, unless it’s about obvious hard sciences, what good is any form accreditation as we have right now? Education is a racket to steal from taxpayers / students and it’s for leftist indoctrination. Everything else is very secondary.
The Europeans are the bell weather. We seem to be about 20 years behind them, culturally speaking.
So whether it’s gay marriage, rampant Political Correctness, legalized drugs, secularism, national health care, etc., whenever the nations of Europe institute a trend or a policy, we in the U.S. initially resist it, then follow suit — always, always — with only one clear exception in the last 50 years:
The metric system.
That’s it, kids. That. Is. It.
In every other respect — wherever Europe goes, so goes America.
So the Left has to “disintegrate into open revolt” in Europe first, before it can happen over here.
Therefore, when the nations of Europe start rejecting socialized medicine, hate speech laws, widespread secularism, and Political Correctness run amok, I’ll be a lot more optimistic.
Gag me. I haven’t listened yet – did he also wax poetical about “Public service”?
We watched that movie a lot in college – it was in heavy rotation on HBO. At the end of that scene we’d always yell at the screen “That’s not a man – that’s Chuck Yeager”.
Here is a video of the House of Commons speech Mr. Will mentioned. It is well worth watching.
Her name is Kemi Badenoch, and I dearly hope that some day I get to chance to vote for someone like her.
She attributes the line about the similarity between politics and sex to Woody Allen.
Listening again, it strikes me that George Will and the guys, have things a little backwards as they seem to work now.
The high tax bite (with the “FICA Scream” etc) doesn’t tell young people TODAY that their taxes should be lower, government should be smaller, etc.
It tells them that, because their actual net income is lower than it “should” be, their student loans should just go away; they shouldn’t have to pay to see, hear, or read anything; their health care should be “free”… and so on.
Right! Because that’s all they know. It’s not so much that we need to reason with them as literally just make them aware of an alternative. Which, of course, is why, according I guess to George Will, we should elect Democrats.
🤔
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/vote-against-the-gop-this-november/2018/06/22/a6378306-7575-11e8-b4b7-308400242c2e_story.html
Oh yeah. James’ tribute to his dad brought tears to these eyes . . .
Thanks, Max.
No criticism lodged against George Will can be nearly as damning has his own foolish words.
In his career, he went from “conservative acceptable to ABC News”, to “conservative acceptable to the Washington Post”.
You outlasted me, too, @jameslileks. Especially on the bits about never knowing what he heard. My father was a policeman, and in one incident another officer fired a shotgun at someone at a very short distance beside my father’s head. He came home with an eye patch (temporary) and a permanent hearing deficit. So many memories of his saying, “Come around to my other side where I might hear you.”
We buried him three weeks ago today. He was a youngster of 84, but we had much more warning that it was coming than your family had with your father. God bless.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
Sorry to hear it . . .
There is no evidence that Trump knew the extent of Epstein’s depravity.
But evidence has never been a prerequisite for Julia and other NeverTrumpers to bash Trump.
I don’t remember any NeverTrump bashing over the 21% corporate tax rate, or the destruction of ISIS, or the approval of KeystoneXL pipeline and ANWR drilling, or moving the embassy to Jerusalem, or …
Man oh man, for those of us who didn’t read the show notes before listening, what a gut punch.
My Dad was the same age as Lileks’ Dad. I couldn’t hold it together just listening to that brilliant eulogy, what a pro you are @JamesLileks that you could do so while conveying all the proper information – the respect, the strength, the love, …
RIP and thank you.
James,
My sincerest condolences on the loss of your father. Your written tribute, as well as the spoken tribute on the podcast, were top-notch. Your dad would be very proud of you.
As to dying unexpectedly…we had a family friend who died a few years ago and his obituary said something like, “Ray, aged 96, died unexpectedly…..” I kind of chuckled and thought, I guess they thought Ray had few more years in him yet. Even at that age, death can totally surprise you. You are never really ready.
Well put.
I also like my own version, from #62:
“I doubt he’s aware of how his arguments work against his arguments.”
But Bill Clinton did. And apparently so did a lot of other Democrats, including wealthy donors.
One other thing. The “liked ’em young” comment by Trump doesn’t necessarily mean “liked ’em underage”. Women 18 to 30 are “young” to us geezers. As pointed out, Trump gave Epstein the boot when he found out just how young Jeff actually liked ’em . . .
First, the interview of George Will was outstanding! You all spoke with him respectfully, and he returned the favor. I think at the end, his thanks to all of you and his gratitude was sincere–he probably gets a lot of mean-spirited interviews that he slogs through to promote his book. All in all, it was a delight.Second, thank you @jameslileks for the sweet tribute to your dad. You made me wish I’d known him!
It was a great interview. Still, he couldn’t hold back a snide comment or two about Trump.
When Donald Trump made the comment to New York magazine in 2002, he was in his 50s, and Jeffrey Epstein was 49. According to the old French formula (1/2+7), which roughly tracks fertility, for a 50-year-old man the ideal mate would be 32.
When Trump learned just how young Epstein preferred his girls, I imagine him saying, “Jeff, you’re a billionaire. You could sleep with a different supermodel every night. But you’re chasing — eighth graders?”
Incidentally, when Trump talks about somebody being a “friend”, he means a business acquaintance, someone he might do a deal with in the future.
Just as a point of order the “half your age plus seven” formula isn’t for “ideal mate”, it’s for “That’s as young as you should go.”
32 is not an “ideal” mate for a 50-year-old. But it’s really pathetic to see a 50-year-old going after 20-somethings.