Tag: Culture

Sad Puppies Victorious

Science fiction is full of stories of a rag-tag group of rebels taking on the Big Bad Empire. These rebels, using a combination of wits, pluck, and determination, inevitably manage to take the Empire down and bring a new era of peace to the galaxy.

Rarely, however, does such a thing happen in real life.

The Hugos are the Oscars of science fiction and fantasy, an award with a long and pedigreed history of honoring the greatest visionary minds in the genre. However, in the last few years the Hugos have become the exclusive playground of a clique—the “Mean Girls” of genre fiction—who have tried to use the Hugos as a political statement rather than a celebration of the incredible diversity of science fiction and fantasy. Instead of being awarded on merit, the Hugos were passed out to members of the clique, led by a powerful and influential publisher, and restricted to only those who towed the political line.

Cue the rebels.

A group of science fiction authors had enough. They founded “Sad Puppies 3,” a slate of deserving works and authors long passed-over by the Hugo clique. These works were not picked on politics, but on their merit.

The fans—the fans that have been neglected, insulted, or ignored by the ruling clique—won. The plucky rebels defeated the Empire.

Just like the great sci-fi epics, the rebels won—the Sad Puppies slate dominated the Hugo nomination process, along with another fan-driven slate. The old system of exclusion was broken by a flood of new entrants.

Of course, the Empire tried to strike back. As SF author Brad Torgersen put it:

It’s been most of a full day since the final Hugo award ballot was announced, for the 73rd World Science Fiction Convention. If you’re tuned in to this thing — and if you’re reading this, you probably are — you’ve no doubt seen the small mountain of verbal outrage which has flooded forth. Because the SP3 slate didn’t just do well with nominating voters, it did overwhelmingly well. A raft of notions has been forwarded by different critics, to explain the “discrepancy” in the 2015 ballot. Most of the critical commentary takes the form of very earnest protestations focusing on violation of etiquette — though, again, SP3 broke no rules — and seem intent to make SP3 out as nothing more than a “fringe effort” by a minority.

. . .

You, gentle SP3 supporter, are not good enough. The refined arbiters of the field all say so. Your politics are wrong, your taste is wrong, your reading habits are wrong, your affiliations within fandom are wrong, you like the wrong things, you go to the wrong fan meetings, you are part of the wrong circles, you like the wrong publishers, and you vote wrong when you cast your ballots. You’ve been told this for years, in variously subtle and sometimes unintentional ways. But now your intellectual and moral betters in the field are getting more explicit about it.

But the self-appointer arbiters lost out this week. The fans—the fans that have been neglected, insulted, or ignored by the ruling clique—won. The plucky rebels defeated the Empire.

The Empire would rather blow up the Death Star than let it get captured—there’s an organized campaign to vote for “No Award” rather than let us heathens sully the Hugos with our doubleplus ungood badthink. However, even though nominations are closed, for $40 you can be entitled to vote on which work you believe deserves a Hugo. Anyone with a love of science fiction and fantasy is welcome—and the more people who vote for the Hugos, the more representative it will be of the entirety of fandom, not the ruling few.

There is a lesson to be learned here. Too often those of us on the right-leaning side of the political spectrum just throw our hands up and say that we can’t change the culture. We spent inordinate amount of time trying to change the political system while forgetting the culture moves politics, not the other way around. So many of the issue for which we advocate are cultural issues, not political ones.

Despite this, we barely show up to the fight in the culture wars. We give up the battle before it even begins, and the Empire takes over.

What the Sad Puppies campaign teaches us is that we can make a difference—we can change the culture. All we have to do is show up. We think that culture is built from the top down, when more often than not it comes from the bottom up.

How big a difference could be made if small book clubs featured more conservative or libertarian works? How big a difference could some political diversity make on local library boards? There are countless little opportunities for change that those on the right neglect because they become so focused on the narrow canvas of politics. Meanwhile, the other side began its “long march through the institutions” fifty years ago and have burrowed their way into nearly every facet of American life. What strategy is more effective?

Sad Puppies is an excellent reminder of the difference that individuals can make if they band together, work towards a goal, and execute. Cultures do not change overnight, but they can change.

As a die-hard science fiction fan, growing up watching Star Trek: The Next Generation and reading Asimov, Bradberry, and Clarke, I loved stories about the brave rebels defeating the Empire. Those stories were designed to inspire, empower, and teach important lessons about courage, initiative, and determination. The best science fiction and fantasy holds a mirror up to our society and gives us the opportunity to look at our world from an entirely new perspective. The Sad Puppies movement is in the spirit of the best of the genre, and serves as a valuable reminder that we are only powerless if we choose to be so.

UPDATE: Entertainment Weekly published a shameless hit-piece on the Sad Puppies campaign. Glenn Reynolds has a compendium of links to the original EW piece and reactions from the Sad Puppies organizers. Of course, EW got it entirely wrong, slimed the Sad Puppies organization, and never bothered to ask for the other side. In other words, the typical practice of the mainstream ideological media. This is why groups like Sad Puppies not only need to exist, but must be willing to speak out against the agenda-driven journalism that would try to marginalize them.

Crystal Ball Watch 2011

It’s that time already (where did 2011 go?!)—time to see how my New Year’s predictions faired in the cold, hard light of reality.

Last year’s New Year’s predictions forecasted an unpopular Obama, an unraveling Europe, and a Verizon iPhone. And, surprisingly enough, we had an unpopular Obama, an unraveling Europe, and a Verizon iPhone. On the other hand, Fidel Castro hasn’t yet gone off to his villa in Hell, and the Bush tax cuts aren’t permanent—yet. Let’s see how I did:

Politics

  • President Obama, increasingly embittered by the political process and the Republican House, retreats from the public eye and rumors swirl that he will not run for a second term.

    More-or-less right: President Obama made a few speeches through the year, but for a politician that was elected based on his oratory, he’s made himself scarce over the past year. As his approval ratings have declined, the President has been trying to sell his unpopular policies to a diminishing office. But he’s made no bones about it: he’s running again.

  • The GOP won’t have a much better year. Their commitment to fiscal discipline will be continually tested, meaning that there will be plenty of difficult votes on spending in 2011.

    Right: Indeed, the Tea Party-backed GOP has been trying to be fiscally-responsible, but have not been able to do much to slow the rapacious growth of government.

  • Sarah Palin will continue to tease a run for the Republican nomination in 2012, but won’t actually commit to anything.

    Wrong: Sarah Palin is, mercifully, not running for President, and while she remains popular with the Republican base, her celebrity is fading.

  • The Democrats will once again learn the wrong lessons from their 2010 drubbing, and will embrace the far left instead of running to the center.

    Correct: Instead of moving to the center, the Democrats have decided that it’s time to stop pretending that they’re anything but a party owned by the left. Their supportive reaction to the Occupy movement and their embrace of populist rhetoric demonstrates foretell their strategy for 2012.

  • Redistricting battles will end up getting fought in court as the Democrats try to fight to keep as many Democratic seats as they can.

    Correct

  • ObamaCare suits will be appealed, and will eventually end up on the Supreme Court’s docket. But because Congress will end up removing the mandates from the bill, the Supreme Court will declare the issue moot.

    Half-Right: The Supreme Court will take up the ObamaCare issue in three days of oral arguments this March. But despite Republican opposition, the GOP just doesn’t have the votes to repeal ObamaCare… yet.

International

  • The last vestiges of democracy in Venezuela will be cast aside as Hugo Chavez extends his emergency rule into a lifetime dictatorship.

    Correct: And even though the Venezuelan dictator is nearly ready to join Osama bin Laden, Mohammar Qadafi, and Kim Jong-Il in Hell, what will happen to the country he has plundered is still very much in the air. But it looks like Chavez will be the Venezuelan dictator for life—what little life he has left.

  • The conflict in Afghanistan will continue to be bloody and difficult. By the end of the year the conventional wisdom will be that Afghanistan is Obama’s Vietnam, and the future of the US mission there will be in doubt.

    Partially Right: As the mission in Iraq winds down, the mission in Afghanistan continues to drag on. But the media, ever faithful to Obama, has avoided turning Afghanistan into another Vietnam. But if the situation there continues to destabilize over the next year, it may become harder to sweep it all under the rug.

  • North Korea will continue to rattle their saber, but they will stop just short of provoking a full-scale war.

    Right: And now that Kim Jong-Il has shuffled off this mortal coil, and his son is (allegedly) in power, all bets are off for the future.

  • Iraq’s biggest problem in 2011 will be corruption rather than terrorism, and civilian casualties will remain low.

    Right, Maybe: So far Iraq has been relatively quiet, although now that the U.S. has pulled out, the country is once again in danger of flying apart. The fact that sectarian tensions are once again bubbling to the surface may mean that Iraq will be a hotspot once again. Let’s all hope the Iraqis will be able to keep a republic.

  • Fidel Castro will die, and Raul Castro will begin implementing policies similar to the glasnost and perestroika of the old Soviet Union in order to liberalize the Cuban economy and pave the way for a free-market system.

    If Only It Were True: Even though Cuba is very slowly liberalizing, it has a very long way to go.

Economics

  • The US economy will improve, but much too slowly. Unemployment will remain high, only retreating to around 8%.

    True: Unemployment has retreated—but much of the decline is due to people leaving the workforce. The endemic level of unemployment is both an economic and a societal disaster that we will be dealing with for a very long time.

  • The Bush tax cuts will be made permanent, and while President Obama will complain, he will still sign the tax reductions into law.

    Wrong: The tax cuts were extended, but have not yet been made permanent. And while Obama campaigns on raising taxes for the rich, he still signed off on extending the Bush tax cuts.

  • The Eurozone will face collapse as the fiscal crisis in nations like Greece and Portugal tug at the Euro’s foundations. Germany will refuse to bail out European banks and will threaten to leave the Euro.

    Right and Wrong: The first sentence was right on the money, as we’ve seen in the last few months. But Germany has (thus far) gone along with bailing out the debts of the countries on the periphery in order to keep the Eurozone afloat—but they will not be willing or able to do that for very long, especially if a large country like Spain or Italy starts failing.

  • The Chinese economy will begin to slow, stoking fears of another worldwide economic panic.

    Not Yet: There are serious concerns about China’s economy, but they haven’t yet manifested themselves as serious worries yet. The world seems more concerned about the situation with the Euro.

Society/Culture/Technology

  • The iPhone will come to Verizon, and will sell like hotcakes. The next version of the iPad will also come to Verizon, and will be accompanied by a major push by Apple to get the iPad into the business market.

    Correct: I got this one right, but it wasn’t that bold a prediction…

  • The battle between Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS will continue, but the Verizon iPhone will put a serious dent in Android’s growth.

    Wrong: Android continues growing like gangbusters. But don’t think that means that Android is “winning.” Apple does not compete based on market share, they compete based on making the best products and making the most money selling them. On that front, Apple remains the key player. Given that Apple is using the 3GS to try and compete in the entry-level market, they are not ceding anything to Google. Android’s growth seems to be more driven by people trading in their dumbphones or featurephones for smartphones—just try and buy a cellphone that isn’t a smartphone these days, it’s not easy. And most of those cut-rate smartphones that the carriers are pushing run some variant of Android.

  • The SyFy Channel will stop airing real science fiction.

    Correct: SyFy has a few decent shows that arguably qualify as science fiction (I’ve heard Warehouse 13 and Eureka are good), but is basically a dumping ground for B-movies, shitty reality shows, and wrestling. NBC/Universal have completed what former channel head Bonnie Hammer started in killing what made the network unique.

  • Global warming hysteria will officially jump the shark after 2011 sees record cold temperatures.

    Correct, Sort Of: Winter 2011 was miserable, and Summer 2011 was not the scorcher that some were predicting. But despite even more leaked emails demonstrating that “climate science” has become an echo chamber, global warming hysteria has not gone away. That’s because global warming is less about science than it is about creating a quasi-religion, complete with all the trappings.

  • SpaceX will successfully dock a Falcon capsule to the International Space Station and will announce that they will be ready to bring tourists to the ISS before 2016.

    Not Yet: But it looks like they will dock with the ISS early in 2012, and that 2016 date might be optimistic, but it’s within the realm of possibility.

  • The 3D movie trend won’t save Hollywood from declining box office figures and their own creative stagnation.

    Correct: Hollywood’s creative bankruptcy knows no ends: now they’re re-releasing the same old crap, but this time in 3D! Kids, the extra D in the re-release of Star Wars: Episode I is for an extra dose of disappointment…

Wrapping Up

So, I didn’t do too badly on my predictions, although a lot of them were fairly obvious even back then. What I didn’t predict is notable: I wouldn’t have thought that this year would have seen the deaths of Osama bin Laden, Mohammar Qadafi, and Kim Jong-Il. I would not have imagined that the self-immolation of a Tunisian fruit dealer would lead to a wave of revolution that would remake the Middle East. I wouldn’t have imagined in December 2010 that Newt Gingrich would have been a front-runner for the 2012 GOP nomination (albeit briefly).

And sadly, I wouldn’t have predicted that Steve Jobs would leave us, even though it wasn’t that great a surprise. Genius is often fleeting.

What a long, strange year it has been—and who knows what 2012 may bring… but that won’t stop me from making another set of predictions for the next year…

Steve Jobs RIP: An American Icon Is Gone

There are, on rare occasions, people of brilliance and insight that forever change the world around them. Ford. DaVinci. Einstein. Disney.

Add to that Steve Jobs.

Even though he only lived to 56 years, Steve Jobs changed the world forever. Not just the world of technology, but the way millions of people across the world communicate. He took the personal computer, which had been a utilitarian appliance, and made into into a work of art. That would have been enough for many, but Jobs went even farther. The iPhone transformed the industry. The iPad took an idea that had never quite worked and made it into something extraordinary.

There may never be another like Steve Jobs for a very long time: but the impact he made on technology and culture will live on. He wanted to change the world, and he did.

Rest in peace, Mr. Jobs, and know that your vision will live on.

Predictions 2011

It’s been a long tradition on this site to make some predictions for the new year just before the ball drops in Times Square. This year is no exceptions. So here are some predictions for 2011.

In the meantime, I hope everyone has a wonderful New Year, and that 2011 brings much health and happiness…

Politics

  • President Obama, increasingly embittered by the political process and the Republican House, retreats from the public eye and rumors swirl that he will not run for a second term.
  • The GOP won’t have a much better year. Their commitment to fiscal discipline will be continually tested, meaning that there will be plenty of difficult votes on spending in 2011.
  • Sarah Palin will continue to tease a run for the Republican nomination in 2012, but won’t actually commit to anything.
  • The Democrats will once again learn the wrong lessons from their 2010 drubbing, and will embrace the far left instead of running to the center.
  • Redistricting battles will end up getting fought in court as the Democrats try to fight to keep as many Democratic seats as they can.
  • ObamaCare suits will be appealed, and will eventually end up on the Supreme Court’s docket. But because Congress will end up removing the mandates from the bill, the Supreme Court will declare the issue moot.

International

  • The last vestiges of democracy in Venezuela will be cast aside as Hugo Chavez extends his emergency rule into a lifetime dictatorship.
  • The conflict in Afghanistan will continue to be bloody and difficult. By the end of the year the conventional wisdom will be that Afghanistan is Obama’s Vietnam, and the future of the US mission there will be in doubt.
  • North Korea will continue to rattle their saber, but they will stop just short of provoking a full-scale war.
  • Iraq’s biggest problem in 2011 will be corruption rather than terrorism, and civilian casualties will remain low.
  • Fidel Castro will die, and Raul Castro will begin implementing policies similar to the glasnost and perestroika of the old Soviet Union in order to liberalize the Cuban economy and pave the way for a free-market system.

Economics

  • The US economy will improve, but much too slowly. Unemployment will remain high, only retreating to around 8%.
  • The Bush tax cuts will be made permanent, and while President Obama will complain, he will still sign the tax reductions into law.
  • The Eurozone will face collapse as the fiscal crisis in nations like Greece and Portugal tug at the Euro’s foundations. Germany will refuse to bail out European banks and will threaten to leave the Euro.
  • The Chinese economy will begin to slow, stoking fears of another worldwide economic panic.

Society/Culture/Technology

  • The iPhone will come to Verizon, and will sell like hotcakes. The next version of the iPad will also come to Verizon, and will be accompanied by a major push by Apple to get the iPad into the business market.
  • The battle between Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS will continue, but the Verizon iPhone will put a serious dent in Android’s growth.
  • The SyFy Channel will stop airing real science fiction.
  • Global warming hysteria will officially jump the shark after 2011 sees record cold temperatures.
  • SpaceX will successfully dock a Falcon capsule to the International Space Station and will announce that they will be ready to bring tourists to the ISS before 2016.
  • The 3D movie trend won’t save Hollywood from declining box office figures and their own creative stagnation.

Crystal Ball Watch 2010

Every year I make a bunch of predictions for the coming year, and each subsequent year I note just how far off I was. And this year is no exception.

Last year’s predictions ranged from politics to technology and everywhere in between. It’s hard to believe that last year at this time the iPad was just a rumor, Democrats were crowing about the popularity of their health care plans, and 3D movies weren’t yet an overused gimmick.

Let’s see how my prognostications actually matched the reality of the past
year:

Politics

Prediction: President Obama’s popularity will remain mired below 50% throughout most of the year.

Verdict: Correct. The health care debate and the BP oil spill sapped Obama’s popularity, and he never really recovered from either. Obama’s approval rating went underwater right along with the Deepwater Horizon oil platform, and his low popularity contributed to the GOP gains in November.

Prediction:The Democrats will lose more the 40 seats, putting the GOP in control of the House.

Verdict: Correct. The GOP gained over 60 seats in November, which was more than they gained in the 1994 cycle. The GOP’s gains in the House were substantial, and bigger than I would have predicted.

Prediction: In the Senate, Democrats will not fare much better. Majority Leader Reid will lose his seat, following in the footsteps of Tom Daschle. Chris Dodd also loses his seat to a GOP upstart. Same with Blanche Lincoln.

Verdict: Not quite. Harry Reid kept his seat, thanks to Sharron Angle being an even worse alternative in the eyes of Nevada voters. Chris Dodd resigned before his inevitable loss, and once again the Tea Party nominated a candidate that was simply not electable. On the other hand, Blanche Lincoln lost handily, along with several other Democratic incumbents. But the GOP didn’t take the Senate, even in a year that gave them a clear opportunity to do so. You can have a fire breathing conservative candidate who can win—see Rand Paul. But being a fire-breathing Tea Party candidate is not in itself enough, and it certainly doesn’t make up for being a complete and utter basket case—see Christine O’Donnell.

Prediction: The health care bill will be signed into law, and will be a major albatross around the necks of Democrats.

Verdict: Absolutely correct.

Prediction: The Democrats, rather than moving towards the center, will lurch left as the “netroots” convinces many in the party that the reason for the 2010 defeat was because the party was insufficiently “progressive.” The Democrats will end up in the same position the Republicans were in a year ago.

Verdict: Partially correct. The Democrats wisely divorced themselves from their own positions of the past 10 months and tried to run as centrists. But many “progressives” wanted them to run to the far left—convinced that the reason why health care was so unpopular was because it was insufficiently socialist instead of too much so. Now even Barack Obama’s positions are becoming indistinguishable from his predecessor, and the “netroots” are not happy with it.

Prediction: But Republicans should be wary as well. They will have won not on their own laurels, but because of disgust with the current Congress.

Verdict: Again correct. The GOP had better not get cocky in 2011.

Prediction: Cap and trade will be DOA as Congress gets increasingly worried about the political backlash.

Verdict: Again, correct. Cap and trade was even more politically poisonous than health care, and for good reason.

International

Prediction: The protests in Iran continue in fits and starts, weakening the foundations of the regime. The Iranian government continues to brutalize its own people, while the West does little of consequence to stop them.

Verdict: Iran has been much quieter than I would have expected: the regime has brutalized the opposition to the point where widespread protests aren’t gaining traction. Every year I predict that the regime in Iran will be weakened to near collapse—and every year it is less a prediction than a hope for something better for the Iranian people.

Prediction: President Obama launches further military action in Yemen to try to remove al-Qaeda.

Verdict: Covertly, this may be happening. But the conflict in Afghanistan is continuing to be the major flashpoint in the world.

Prediction: A major economic collapse in the EU shakes the foundation of the Euro.

Verdict: The Greek fiscal crisis fits the bill, and the contagion continues to spread across the Eurozone. The once unthinkable idea of a collapse of the Euro remains a distant possibility, but it gets closer as more and more countries in the Eurozone continue to see their economies decline.

Prediction: Gordon Brown faces a vote of no-confidence in Parliament, causing the him to call new elections in the UK.

Verdict: Indeed, Gordon Brown was defeated by the charismatic Conservative David Cameron in May. But the Tories fell short of a majority, leading to the first hung Parliament since 1974 and eventually to a coalition government.

Prediction: The situation in Afghanistan remains unsettled, but the addition of U.S. troops helps calm some of the tensions.

Verdict: This year has been the bloodiest year in Afghanistan for US and coalition troops and the country remains unstable. The addition of more troops does not seem to have substantially calmed the country, and it’s uncertain whether the Obama Administration will have the political will to continue to try and stabilize the country over the long term.

Prediction: Iran will come closer to testing a nuclear weapon, and will likely have the capability of doing so by the end of 2010.

Verdict: Had it not been for the Stuxnet worm—which was almost certainly the product of Israeil or Western sabotage—Iran might have been much closer to a working nuclear weapon. But Stuxnet actually appears to have worked in slowing down Tehran’s progress. It sounds like the plot of a bad thriller novel, but Stuxnet was probably one of the most ingenuous covert weapons ever used. Whoever came up with it deserves a medal.

Economics

Prediction: Unemployment will remain high throughout the year as discouraged workers reenter the workforce. This will be a huge political problem for the Democrats in the 2010 cycle.

Verdict: Indeed, this was true. Unemployment continues to flirt with double-digit levels, and may not go down that much in 2011. Not only was this a political problem for the Democrats in 2010, but the human cost of this kind of endemic unemployment is far too high.

Prediction: The price of gold and other hard assets will continue to skyrocket on inflation fears, leading to a mini-bubble in asset prices.

Verdict: I keep hearing all those advertisements telling people to buy gold: consider me a skeptic. Perhaps gold and other asset prices will continue to climb at a steady rates, but the risk of a bubble is still very real.

Prediction: The government will continue with bailouts of major companies, despite President Obama’s focus on debt reduction.

Verdict: The bailout culture didn’t reach the fever pitch of 2009, but it was still alive and well in 2010.

Prediction: The national deficit will continue to skyrocket as Congress is unable to restrain spending.

Verdict: Predicting this was as obvious as predicting that the sun would rise in the east…

Society/Culture/Technology

Prediction: Apple will announce their tablet in early 2010, with a 10-inch touch screen and optional 3G wireless through Verizon rather than AT&T. The tablet (probably not called the iSlate) will have a major effect on the e-reader market, although Amazon will counter by making Kindle content available on the new device. Critics will complain that the price point is too high, but the device will sell like hotcakes anyway.

Verdict: Of course, Apple announced the iPad in early 2010, with a 9.7 inch screen and 3G wireless through AT&T. But Verizon is already selling the iPad, and it’s likely that a version with built-in Verizon 3G will be coming in 2011. And Amazon has been selling Kindles like hotcakes, along with selling books on their Kindle app for the iPad. The iPad is the hit device of the year, and for good reason—Apple priced it very competitively and helped to define the market.

Prediction: E-Books will begin to outsell physical book copies.

Verdict: Not quite true yet, but within a few years this could be a real possibility.

Prediction: The reality TV show craze will finally, mercifully die off as people get sick of the them.

Verdict: If only…

Prediction: Web series will continue to take off from being largely low-budget affairs to being more like regular TV shows. Shows akin to Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog will receive much critical acclaim and will begin to supplant conventional TV.

Verdict: Not quite yet, although there are web series like SyFy’s Sanctuary that crossed over from web series to cable TV. But there isn’t an online show that’s been a true widespread hit… at least not in 2010.

Prediction: “Steampunk” will go from a small subculture to the next major popular phenomenon. Things like home canning, writing letters on fine stationery, and Victorian styles will become increasingly popular.

Verdict: No, not even close. The “steampunk” subculture remains just that.

Prediction: The death of the newspaper industry will not stop, even though many papers start
reconciling themselves with the digital world.

Verdict: Newspapers continue to struggle with the digital world, and traditional newsprint is still in deep trouble.

The Final Word

Once again, there were some hits and some misses in my predictions last year, Many of my predictions were fairly obvious even back in December: the Democrats’ political misfortunes were widely predicted even a year ago. The rumors of an Apple tablet were rampant. And my usual predictions on Iran were once again not quite as prescient as I would have hoped.

But all in all, not a bad set of predictions, even if there were some stinkers there. Shortly I’ll be posting some predictions for 2011, and a year from now we’ll see if my crystal ball remains clear or is stuffed with crap…

Reading Conservatively

Five Books, a great and very interesting bookblog has a list of the five best conservative books as rated by some luminaries of the conservative movement. The list is what you’d expect—F.A. Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom came out as number one, followed closely by Whittaker Chambers’ Witness and De Toqueville’s Democracy in America.

But this got me thinking—a dangerous thing indeed! What would be my top five list of the best conservative books of all time?

So here are my rankings for the top five books on conservatism. Of course, some of them are part of the classic canon of conservative thought, but others a little more modern and accessible. After all, as important as Edmund Burke’s political and social thought is to the principles of conservatism, it’s not exactly the sort of thing you’d load onto your Kindle for a long weekend.

  1. The Conservative Mind by Russell Kirk

    This is not easy weekend reading, but Russell Kirk’s book is one of the most important works for those wanting to understand modern American conservatism. It brings together some of the biggest luminaries like Edmund Burke and John Adams as well as some brilliant but obscure thinkers and weaves them into the foundation of a lasting ideology.

    If you are a conservative, you need to read this book to understand what the basic principles of conservatism really are. If you are not a conservative, this book is essential to understanding what conservatism is actually about. It is a seminal work. This, along with William F. Buckley’s God and Man at Yale, are the foundational works of modern American conservatism. It is a master’s class in conservative political thought in one volume, and well worth reading and digesting.

  2. Parliament of Whores by P.J. O’Rourke

    This is one of my favorite books, one of the books I’d take with me to a hypothetical desert island, a book that I could read again and again. It is a trenchant and uproariously funny satire of American politics, and even though it dates from the early days of the Clinton Administration, it’s still relevant to today’s politics. If you were going to give one book to a friend to try to convert them to conservatism, this would be the book. It’s accessible, funny, and does a great job of explaining why conservatives believe what they do.

  3. Free to Choose: A Personal Statement by Milton and Rose Friedman

    Another classic, and also very accessible. Milton Friedman, of course, is a giant among conservative economists, and this is a very rare work&madsh;a book about economics that’s easy to read and easy to understand. Milton Friedman ties the concepts of individual liberty and economic liberty together and makes a persuasive case for why they are truly the same thing.

  4. The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism by Michael Novak

    But what about the poor? What is the moral case for free markets? This book is the Theory of Moral Sentiments to Friedman’s Wealth of Nations. So many critics of conservatism accuse conservatives of not caring about the poor, of not caring about others, etc. But this book explains why these arguments miss the mark. Michael Novak is a theologian, and he approaches the topic of capitalism from a Christian perspective, but his moral insights are universal. Conservatives believe in economic freedom because a state that respects human rights will inevitably be capitalist—because democratic capitalism is the only system of government and economics that truly respect human rights. If that argument seems bizarre to you, then you need to read this book.

  5. Advise and Consent by Allen Drury

    I had to include at least one novel, and this is a largely-forgotten classic. So many political potboilers owe their existence to this book. It’s a tautly-written thriller that explores the inner workings of the U.S. Senate in the days before JFK. So many novels owe their existence to Drury—he is the forerunner of thriller writers like Tom Clancy and Dan Brown. Advise and Consent is the story of a President who nominates a Communist agent as Secretary of State, a conflicted gay Senator, and plenty of backroom wheeling and dealing in the Senate. It’s a book that’s over 50 years old, but still holds up quite well—perhaps even better now than in 1959.

Predictions 2010

It is another year, and that means time for another set of predictions. So, without further adieu, here are my predictions for the coming year:

Politics

  • President Obama’s popularity will remain mired below 50% throughout most of the year.
  • The Democrats will lose more the 40 seats, putting the GOP in control of the House.
  • In the Senate, Democrats will not fare much better. Majority Leader Reid will lose his seat, following in the footsteps of Tom Daschle. Chris Dodd also loses his seat to a GOP upstart. Same with Blanche Lincoln.
  • The health care bill will be signed into law, and will be a major albatross around the necks of Democrats.
  • The Democrats, rather than moving towards the center, will lurch left as the “netroots” convinces many in the party that the reason for the 2010 defeat was because the party was insufficiently “progressive.” The Democrats will end up in the same position the Republicans were in a year ago.
  • But Republicans should be wary as well. They will have won not on their own laurels, but because of disgust with the current Congress.
  • Cap and trade will be DOA as Congress gets increasingly worried about the political backlash.

International

  • The protests in Iran continue in fits and starts, weakening the foundations of the regime. The Iranian government continues to brutalize its own people, while the West does little of consequence to stop them.
  • President Obama launches further military action in Yemen to try to remove al-Qaeda.
  • A major economic collapse in the EU shakes the foundation of the Euro.
  • Gordon Brown faces a vote of no-confidence in Parliament, causing the him to call new elections in the UK.
  • The situation in Afghanistan remains unsettled, but the addition of U.S. troops helps calm some of the tensions.
  • Iran will come closer to testing a nuclear weapon, and will likely have the capability of doing so by the end of 2010.

Economics

  • Unemployment will remain high throughout the year as discouraged workers reenter the workforce. This will be a huge political problem for the Democrats in the 2010 cycle.
  • The price of gold and other hard assets will continue to skyrocket on inflation fears, leading to a mini-bubble in asset prices.
  • The government will continue with bailouts of major companies, despite President Obama’s focus on debt reduction.
  • The national deficit will continue to skyrocket as Congress is unable to restrain spending.

Society/Culture/Technology

  • Apple will announce their tablet in early 2010, with a 10-inch touch screen and optional 3G wireless through Verizon rather than AT&T. The tablet (probably not called the iSlate) will have a major effect on the e-reader market, although Amazon will counter by making Kindle content available on the new device. Critics will complain that the price point is too high, but the device will sell like hotcakes anyway.
  • E-Books will begin to outsell physical book copies.
  • The reality TV show craze will finally, mercifully die off as people get sick of the them.
  • Web series will continue to take off from being largely low-budget affairs to being more like regular TV shows. Shows akin to Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog will receive much critical acclaim and will begin to supplant conventional TV.
  • “Steampunk” will go from a small subculture to the next major popular phenomenon. Things like home canning, writing letters on fine stationery, and Victorian styles will become increasingly popular.
  • The death of the newspaper industry will not stop, even though many papers start reconciling themselves with the digital world.

Tyranny Of The Minority

Law professor Paul Campos takes a critical look at the Iowa Supreme Court’s recent decision upholding gay marriage. (The Court’s opinion is available here.) Campos finds that the legal reasoning behind the decision was lacking:

Stripped of its verbiage, the court’s opinion comes down to the following claims: First, it’s a bad thing for the state to treat people differently on the basis of sexual orientation, unless the state has a good enough reason. Second, the reasons the state gave for treating same sex-couples differently from opposite-sex couples in regard to marriage weren’t good enough.

That’s it. These conclusions might raise various questions in the mind of someone who hasn’t enjoyed the benefits of a legal education. Such as, what was the court’s basis for these claims? Is there anything specifically “legal” about these conclusions? And how did the judges figure this stuff out, especially given that it took more than a century before anyone noticed Iowa’s constitution contained this requirement?

The problem with the Iowa decision is that there isn’t a strong legal rationale for this decision. The Iowa Constitution cannot require the recognition of gay marriage because gay marriage was not acceptable at the time that the Iowa Constitution was written. In essence, the judges are reading their own personal feelings into the law. While the Iowa Constitution is more broadly worded than the federal Constitution, there is still no plausible argument that it was designed to allow for same-sex marriages. What the Iowa Supreme Court has done amounts to going back and changing the words of the Iowa Constitution to mean something that it never was intended to.

Even those who want gay marriage should be troubled by this. There are seven members of the Iowa Supreme Court. There are nearly 3 million Iowans. In a democratic state, 7 people should not be presumed to have the power to set sweeping social policy for the other 2,999,997 people.

Yet that is what happened. The Iowan people did not vote to have gay marriages recognized in their state. In fact, a clear majority of Iowans oppose gay marriage. Yet the voice of the people have been overruled by just 7 people. That is troubling, not only from a standpoint of separation of powers, but because it ultimately hurts the cause of gay marriage. The likely outcome of all of this will be another Prop 8, and even if the Iowa Constitution’s amendment process means that the vote won’t take place until 2012, having this decision essentially forced upon the people of Iowa will not make gay marriage more popular.

This is a clear case of judicial activism. Judges should follow the law, and avoid legislating from the bench. The legal case for gay marriage presented in this opinion is woefully thin—rather the judges decided to enforce a set of social norms on Iowans by their will rather than the legislative process. Even those who support gay marriage should be troubled by that. This is an example of the tyranny of the minority, where the few use judicial overreach to enforce their views in a way they otherwise could not. No matter what the outcome, that kind of circumvention of the democratic process is wrong. The very foundation of our government is based on fundamental values like separation of powers and the consent of the governed. The Iowa Supreme Court has made a sweeping change to Iowa’s social policies and laws without the consent of the people. If such a thing were to stand, it would mean that states are governed not by voters, but by the few.

Crystal Ball Watch 2008

Every year I do my annual round-up of predictions for the coming year, some of which come true, many of which, well, do not. Last year’s predictions turned out to be less than accurate—let’s see how I did.

Politics/National

  • Hillary Clinton defeats Obama for the Democratic Nomination. She picks Mark Warner as her running mate. — Nope, instead Obama managed to run a better ground game, and buoyed by a synchophatic media, he took the nomination. Instead, Clinton gets to be Obama’s Secretary of State, where she will enjoy the Sisyphean task of trying to create peace in the Middle East rather than resurrecting her political career. It’s essentially like being exiled to Siberia for her.
  • She then narrowly loses to the Republican candidate (who is not Mike Huckabee). — Instead, Obama won by a convincing margin and an Electoral College blowout. But Huckabee was not the nominee, thankfully.
  • Sensing a weak field, Michael Bloomberg runs for the Presidency on a third-party ticket, picking CNN anchor Lou Dobbs — Chuck Hagel as his running mate. He barely registers in the polls, despite pouring millions of his own money into the race. Not even close. Apparently Bloomberg isn’t a dumb as I thought.
  • The Democrats retain control of Congress, but not be margins large enough to threaten vetos. Pelosi and Reid remain in control of their respective chambers, but end up being just as ineffectual as they have been over the last major year. Congress still does almost nothing throughout the year, and this Congress leaves with no major legislative achievements to its name. — The Democrats won’t get their veto-proof Senate majority, but this year was another GOP bloodbath. The Democrats have to lead now, however, and that will be more challenging for them. The only legislative “achievement” this year? A massively unpopular “bailout” bill that represents one of the biggest dangers to this Republic in decades. Congress is and will remain profoundly unpopular because of it.

International

  • Violence in Iraq remains sporadic, as US forces slowly withdraw. Iraq becomes less and less of a domestic political issue. Al-Qaeda attempts a Tet Offensive, but it is quickly crushed thanks to solid intelligence provided by Iraqi civilians. — I was correct on the first part, but al-Qaeda hasn’t been able to push back in Iraq. For all practical purposes, the “war” in Iraq is over, and our mission will be to train the Iraqi police, military, and government as best we can. President Obama seems like he will not precipitously withdraw from Iraq, and there’s no reason to. Gen. Petraeus and the U.S. military has done its job in Iraq. What’s sad is how little recognized their monumental achievement has been.
  • The center-right remains triumphant as Nicolas Sarkozy, Angela Merkel, Kevin Rudd, and Stephen Harper all work towards free market reforms in their respective countries to great popular acclaim. — For the most part, this is true. Stephen Harper’s problems in Canada may end up hurting the divided Canadian left more than him. The big problem is whether the financial crisis will lead to a dangerous expansion of government or the realization that the more control government has over industry, the more problems with one will harm the other.
  • The situation in Pakistan remains deeply unsettled, with Musharraf having only a tenuous hold on power. — Musharraf is out of power, and so far Pakistan has not yet exploded as some had feared. But it hangs on the knife’s edge, and if Pakistan collapses, the effects would be catastrophic.
  • Iran continues to rattle sabers, and continues to enrich uranium, while the Bush Administration tries to ratchet up diplomatic pressure—to no avail. — This was a sure bet. Iran has no reason not to rattle their sabers, because they know that no one has the stones to stop them. However, with oil price plummeting, it may be domestic turmoil that does what the rest of the world won’t.
  • The Annapolis Peace Conference accomplishes nothing as once again Israel offers concessions and the Palestinians end up being too divided to offer anything in return. — This was like predicting that the sun will rise in the East and set in the West.
  • China improves its image with the Beijing Olympics. — They did, but they remain a curious hybrid of free-market optimism and state-run oppression. China remains a country that is divided between the future and the past, and what is keeping that arrangement together is the entrepreneurial spirit of their people. They could be a superpower, or their country could collapse, and it’s hard to tell which way things will go. There is the potential for a major economic crisis in China this year, and the effects could be massive.

Economics

  • While the media continues to paint their picture of economic despair, the real story continues to be the “Goldilocks economy” of low unemployment, high economic growth, and steady wage growth. — Oh, how I wish that came true. While the first half of 2008 was relatively strong, the economic crisis of the last half was the beginning of a fundamental economic shift. What happens from here is anyone’s guess, but it seems likely to get worse before it gets better.
  • The sub-prime mortgage issue fades as the impact becomes more fully known. As the uncertainty fades, it becomes clear that the fears of recession were baseless. — I don’t think that the assumptions about the recession were right at that time (although there is some evidence that the recession did start around December of 2007), but there is little question we’re now in a recession. While everyone blames Bush, the real culprit is years of Washington and Wall Street engaging in an incestuous relationship—and both parties are guilty of that. We need to realize that in many cases regulation does not level the playing field, it tilts it.
  • Oil prices stabilize around $100/barrel. — Oil has fallen to around $40/barrel this month, which is probably too low. The equilibrium price is probably closer to $100, but right now the market is seeing a major collapse in demand. That means cheaper oil, and more hurt for petro-dictators like Chavez and Ahmadinejad. However, we can’t expect the prices to stay this low forever.

Society/Culture/Technology

  • At MacWorld, Apple announces iTunes movie rentals – in HD, with a new Apple TV to match. They also announce an enhanced iPhone, an ultraportable MacBook with a flash-based hard drive and long battery life. Apple stock continues to climb. — This all turned out to be true. The MacBook Air is not quite the machine I imagined, but I love mine and think it’s the best built laptop I’ve ever bought.
  • However, Amazon’s DRM-free MP3 download store starts stealing some marketshare from iTunes. More studios embrace selling their music unencumbered by DRM, leading iTunes to abandon their FairPlay DRM on music by the end of the year. — Amazon’s store is still very nice, and Apple would love to ditch DRM, but the music labels are still resisting. The day the RIAA and the labels become irrelevant is rapidly approaching, however.
  • Despite blockbusters like Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Star Trek, box office receipts decline both in number of tickets and dollars grossed as the price of high-def movie equipment declines. While movie ticket sales decline, sales of HDTVs, home theater setups, and HD-DVD and Blu-Ray players soar. HD-DVD players hit the $100 mark by the end of the year, meaning that HD-DVD adoption pulls away from Blu-Ray. — Star Trek was pushed back to next summer. HD-DVD lost the format war. But the larger point remains, movies are becoming more of a personal thing, and with the economic downturn, that’s going to be ever more of a factor next year.

Also, No Country for Old Men did win Best Picture, as it very well should have.

My predictions were widely off the mark in a year of phenomenal “change.” Obama’s surge, the economy’s collapse, and the aftereffects of both were currents that will carry us into a turbulent new year. But every new year is a turbulent one, and the assumptions we all make now may be as broken as the ones I made a year ago.

Later, my predictions for 2009, as well as an important announcement.

The Great American Brain Drain?

The Asia Times has an interesting, if disturbing look at how the world’s “intellectual capital” is making an unprecedented shift to the East:

Chinese parents are selling plasma-screen TVs to America, and saving their wages to buy their kids pianos – making American kids stupider and Chinese kids smarter. Watch out, Americans – a generation from now, your kid is going to fetch coffee for a Chinese boss. That is a bit of an exaggeration, of course – some of the bosses will be Indian. Americans really, really don’t have a clue what is coming down the pike. The present shift in intellectual capital in favor of the East has no precedent in world history.

Our language is shaped by the way we think, and we have an entire generation where the ability to think critically has withered. When we replace Homer with Homer Simpson, can we really expect people to be able to think deep thoughts?

Sadly, that analysis is likely correct. The United States is losing its competitive edge. We are not preparing our children for the future. We immerse then in Barney rather than Bach, and the results are a generation that simply can’t think. The Asia Times talks about the value of classical music in forming a strong and supple mind:

Any activity that requires discipline and deferred gratification benefits children, but classical music does more than sports or crafts. Playing tennis at a high level requires great concentration, but nothing like the concentration required to perform the major repertoire of classical music. Perhaps the only pursuit with comparable benefits is the study of classical languages. It is not just concentration as such, but its content that makes classical music such a formative tool. Music, contrary to a common misconception, does not foster mathematical ability, although individuals with a talent for one often show aptitude for the other.

The problem is that the concepts of “discipline” and “delayed gratification” are practically foreign to Americans these days. We’ve become a nation that has begun to systematically rout out the qualities that make us strong. Instead of allowing children to explore, we coddle them. Instead of teaching the classics, we teach drivel. We teach “self esteem” instead of formal logic. A classical education trained young minds to think critically, appreciate culture, and inculcated them with the values necessary for life in a democratic society. Now, thanks to the relentless dumbing-down of society, that sort of education has been cast out as being “patriarchal,” “ethnocentric” and even just plain “racist.” It is any irony that the Chinese seem to have a finer appreciation for our culture than we do.

Our pop culture hardly helps. As one former teacher finds, many American students are unable to express itself in any meaningful way. As the retired English teacher in the article noted: “When you read, you get to see the language used correctly, and you’re exposed to a range of vocabulary far beyond your own. I listen to students today, and the number of words they use is limited to slang and colloquialisms.” That dumbing-down will have a major effect on this nation’s ability to compete. Our language is shaped by the way we think, and we have an entire generation where the ability to think critically has withered. When we replace Homer with Homer Simpson, can we really expect people to be able to think deep thoughts? Because we never expose our children to culture, they never learn to truly appreciate it.

Not only that, but the values of hard work and diligence are not just values that enhance one’s own life. In his fascinating new book, author Malcom Gladwell notes it takes 10,000 hours of practice to excel at a given task. That’s three hours a day for a decade—which requires patience, determination, and a strong work ethic. But if we do not have a culture that supports patience, determination, and work ethic, then our chances of creating great artists, scientists, engineers, and scholars diminishes. Culture plays a major role in the success or failure of a nation, and we are losing the cultural basis for our success.

We can, and must, do better. We need to radically reform our educational system and reform our culture, or we will be unable to remain the superpower that we are today. Our competitiveness is based not as much on GNP or military power as it is in our ability to innovate and explore. We have the world’s greatest economy because we have the most innovative and entrepreneurial people on the globe. But it does not have to stay that way. We have to recognize that our education and our culture has to be about developing the skills needed to compete, and rewarding success while marginalizing failure. We cannot be a nation that has full self-esteem about our own decline.

It is time to dust off the Caesars and the sonatas, and push our children to be something more. Each generation has the potential to outshine the last, but only if we push them to do so. The United States can remain a superpower, but only if we are willing to keep it so.