timeimmortal

Leave it to Mr. Warren to find the silver lining in the cloud that is Mallick’s anti-Palin screed:

I think Ms Mallick expresses openly what many, quite possibly most of her MSM colleagues are actually thinking, and in my experience, actually saying in social gatherings and while working away from the microphones — though seldom with such ebullience. Ms Mallick is rare in being so refreshingly candid, on the record.

Where such prejudices as hers exist, it is an advantage to everyone to have them expressed openly, discussed openly, demolished openly. Far worse is the poison in people who think like Ms Mallick, but contain themselves within the shallow literary conventions of “journalistic objectivity.”

I actually enjoy reading Ms Mallick’s blow-outs. I laugh out loud at many of her phrases and juxtapositions — the more, the farther they go “over the top” — and wince only when I think she has missed a good chance to shoot even higher.

Moreover, her assertions are often so malignantly unreasonable that one may extract some truth by reversing them. And her half-truths must necessarily contain some modest corn seed of reality. Laughter is an excellent guide: for truth is near, wherever there is spontaneous laughter.

He raises a good point. As vitriolic and hateful as Mallick’s hit piece obviously was, it did serve to cast her in the role of our — by “our,” I mean normal, reasonable, rational folk — canary in the coal mine, our first indicator of the malice that lurks beneath the skin of almost everyone in the media, whose contempt for Sarah Palin and the wholesome values she represents can only be measured in job lots.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

Seven years ago today, nineteen Islamic men commandeered four large passenger aircraft. Two of them were flown into the tallest towers of the World Trade Centre in New York. One was flown into the Pentagon. And one was retaken by its passengers, who rallied and overcame their hijackers…only to crash in a field in Pennsylvania. Roughly three thousand people died on a September Tuesday back in 2001.

This was a shattering act of Terrorism…and should have been proof positive that all those many violent things we see on the news, which transpire almost daily in many other parts of the world, can and will happen here unless we are vigilant. Our freedom, in the West, is not something which is without cost, nor is it something which simply endures on its own merits. It was bought in blood, and its ongoing cost is also blood. Because “freedom” is not “free.”

Seven years and one day ago, as David Warren so ably notes, was “the last day in history in which such an event was inconceivable.

The cost — which extends to blood on the fields of Afghanistan and Iraq, and in several other countries infrequently mentioned in the news, and to the lesser investments in blood and money by U.S. allies — may seem, by now, out of all proportion to the benefit conferred. This is a hard reality of democratic politics. For if the politicians are successful in restraining a mortal enemy, we assume the threat must have been overstated. Ditto, if serious threats remain, but are concealed from us because they are kept far away.“

Vigilance. What does this word mean? To read a dictionary, one sees that it means “watchfulness,” and this is a good starting point. But more than that, it should mean — for us who so depend on it to ensure our ongoing freedom — also that we remember what has transpired before. We should remember that just because the bully has not yet succeeded in giving us another bloody nose does not mean that he does not lurk nearby still, waiting for us to drop our guard but a little so as to give us a black eye to match.

No, we shouldn’t be paranoid about terrorism either. But we must be honest, at least: it happened, once, that Muslim terrorists were able to slaughter thousands of people on this continent. It is still possible that they might do so again, if we give them the opening they are looking for.

Update: As much as the above is not comedic in any way, shape, or form, I have to share Dale Price’s priceless warning to would-be commentators:

This is a “Truther”-[sic]-free zone. You try to peddle your fraudulent wares here — on this of all days — and I’ll boot your ass out so fast you’ll red-shift.

I don’t have a comment form on my posts anymore, although the good Reader is of course free — and encouraged — to offer his or her thoughts via the contact form (I have a very good track record of re-posting what I receive). That said, Trutherism is somewhat less likely to be re-posted.

For a Few Updates More: Welcome, Steynians!

Every so often, something I write gets wildly misinterpreted. NH provides us with a decent example of what I mean when I say this, in his (?) response to my recent article concerning Bristol Palin, the daughter of presidential candidate John McCain’s running mate, Sarah Palin. For those who have been living under a rock since last week, Bristol is, at age 17, pregnant. She will be keeping the baby, and will be marrying the father. Moreover, she will be doing both with the full love and support of her family, as has been pledged in a public statement by the Palins.

Not the most ideal of situations (teen pregnancy never is), but certainly not the worst of circumstances either.

So you’d rather she NOT get married and go on welfare?

You Obama nuts kill me.

You’re willing to support some dangerous racist fringe candidate and attack a woman who’s kid did something she had little control over.

Shame on you all.

It would seem I am being mistaken for a supporter of Barrack Hussein Obama, an allegation which even a cursory search of this site should dispel. Perhaps it would be beneficial to re-state some of that which I wrote previously.

Firstly, the point of my writing was to note a disagreement I had with the opinion of another blogger, albeit one with whom I usually agree. I noted, correctly I think, that there was a moral argument to be made in the case of Bristol’s pregnancy: pregnancy out of wedlock is not something which should be encouraged, and is (in fact) wrong. That she is pregnant does, in fact, indicate that Bristol Palin has made some poor choices in her life. I think we’re within our rights to note as much.

But that’s also where our rights end, in that regard. At the end of the day, what has happened? A teenager made the choice to sleep with her boyfriend, and she got pregnant because of it. This is her mother’s fault…how? Yes, her mother is ardently pro-life, to the point of putting her money where her mouth is and choosing to carry a child with Down’s to term. Yes, her mother is pro-abstinence, and supports teaching abstinence as a part of sex-ed in schools. And yes, legally speaking, Bristol Palin is still the responsibility of her parents, and will be for another year.

She’s still her own person, and she made a bad choice. I don’t see how her bad choices reflect poorly on her mother. Some have speculated that Sarah and Todd Palin have been lax in their duties as parents to impart good sex-ed to their children. Maybe they have been lax — we cannot and do not know — but even if they were, their daughter still had a choice to make between right and wrong, and chose “wrong.” And as to the matter of the possibility of the Palins having been lax in teaching their daughter about sex…well, I come back to the observation that she is still her own person.

As my wife noted previously, one of her sisters is pregnant (indeed, at the time of this writing, I may already be an uncle) out of wedlock — this despite being raised by devout Catholic parents, and despite receiving (I am told) education about sexuality and sexual morality within that framework. The best a parent can hope for is that the lessons imparted to children will, somehow, stick. But there is no way to know for sure, and sometimes even those children raised in the most optimal, moral fashion will choose to go astray. That’s. Life.

And given her situation, I do think Bristol Palin is making the best choices she can. She will not be seeking an abortion¹, she will be getting married to the father of the child, and she will be doing so with the full love and support of her family. She’ll have a tough life ahead, at least initially, but she stands a better chance of making it work than the welfare mamas that Kathy decried in the post that I was responding to. And while it’s still not good that Bristol is pregnant at this early age, and then out of wedlock, it is good that she is making the right decisions now.

And no, I don’t think it would be better for Bristol to remain unmarried and go on welfare.

I didn’t say that explicitly, but I did note that Kathy is exactly right that we should want “people better than ‘tacky and low class’ in the White House.” But really, given the respective examples of Sarah Palin and Barrack Obama — the latter of whom defended his stance on abortion by stating his desire to protect his daughters from being “punished with a baby” if they should happen to make a bit of a mistake in the sex department — who is the one who is really tacky and low class? Sarah and Todd Palin, with their messages of accepting responsibility, reminders of just how difficult the road ahead will be for their daughter, and emphasis on the importance of the love and support of family in such times? Or Obama’s “screw now, abort later” attitude?

Who really has the Hamilton ghetto attitude?

Kathy notes that she is happy that Bristol has chosen not to seek an abortion, less happy that she has chosen to wed. I don’t share this view: I think both are positive steps, and I think she will grow up quite a lot thanks to both of them. Bristol Palin will indeed have a tough road ahead. But she will have the loving support of her family, she will have a child to nurture and love, and she will have a husband who may just turn out to be a decent sort who will love and care for her “till death do they part.” Stranger things have happened, and as fates go that one is not so terrible at all. Bristol is unlikely to become another welfare baby mama…and that is a good thing.

And in the end, I don’t think Bristol’s pregnancy will be detrimental to the McCain/Palin (or, as George Jonas suggests, Palin/McCain (can’t we flip the ticket?)) campaign. If anything, it will increase the already broad appeal that Palin has with the Heartland voters. Even many liberals are noting the brilliance of Palin’s selection:

“We may be seeing the first woman president. As a Democrat, I am reeling,” said Camille Paglia, the cultural critic. “That was the best political speech I have ever seen delivered by an American woman politician. Palin is as tough as nails.”

…

“Good Lord, we had barely 12 hours of Democrat optimism,” said Paglia. “It was a stunningly timed piece of PR by the Republicans.”

At the same time, Palin’s appeal on the “traditional values” scale couldn’t be higher, I don’t think. She hunts and is a member of the NRA. She has five kids, all with the same husband, to whom she has been happily married for 20 years. She’s a former teen beauty queen runner-up, he’s an oilpatch roughneck and commercial fisherman. They’re both active churchgoers. My goodness…John Mellencamp could not contrive a more “All American” couple on his best day. And here’s the best part: it’s not uncommon to find her youngest two children in her office as governor of Alaska — Trig, the youngest, even has his own crib therein, a point David Warren did not miss:

To the people who work hard for a living; who pay taxes instead of collecting food stamps and subsidies; who face the vagaries of life with gratitude for existence, and take their lumps and setbacks in their stride; who raise multiple children instead of perhaps one designer child; who go to church on Sunday, and believe on Jesus; who volunteer for civic tasks, donate money to real charities, help each other materially in distress; who otherwise mind their own private business and expect others to mind theirs; and who, among other quaint customs, love the fresh air, and indulge such pleasures as hunting and fishing, through which they acquire a sense of stewardship over the land — Sarah Palin is the bee’s knees.

…

That she could wind up as President, inspires a gulp — with a Down’s syndrome kid in a playpen by the executive desk in the Oval Office. If God were to contrive a pro-life statement, it might look like that.

And let us not forget to mention the whole “Margaret Thatcher of the Frozen North” vibe that even a cursory glimpse at Palin’s record in office makes plain. She took on the corruption of her own party, even to the point of resigning from a six-figure-salary position when adequate action was not taken. She then ran for election against a popular incumbent and won, despite the fact that elements of her own party actually held fundraisers for the other guy. And she has consistently shown no tolerance whatsoever for corruption or money-wasting projects. Yes, she supports drilling in the wildlife reserves in Alaska…but by the same token, she is no friend of big oil either: she signed into law a massive “windfall tax” levied against oil developers in the state.

1) Ace remarks upon something interesting about Bristol’s pregnancy, balancing it against the statistics for unexpected pregnancies in the general population, and against the general pool of children of other presidential candidates (and those of their running mates).

Although it would be unnecessarily cruel and invasive to wonder about which specific daughters of previous presidential and vice presidential candidates may have had an “invisible pregnancy” — that is, one terminated by abortion — it’s less invasive to simply take the cohort as a group and play the percentages game.

Saletan here, for reasons I would call “mystifying” but are anything but, restricts the possible candidates to those between ages 17 and 30 when their fathers stood for election, rather than stood for election and then served, which is an utterly contrived parameter designed specifically to exclude Chelsea Clinton (who was of course dating during her dad’s term, and was 16 when he ran for re-election) from consideration. Note how they yet bend over backwards to refrain from smearing a child whose parents they like.

Nevertheless, that’s a minor quibble, and if Saletan had to do that to get his piece published and/or not send liberals screaming blue murder, fine, we’ll work with his transparently contrived parameters. There’s no particular reason we need Chelsea Clinton in the cohort.

Doesn’t matter. Might be even better if we didn’t name any particular names listed at all (just ages) and just dealt with the presidential daughters as pure actuarial abstractions, anyhow. We don’t care which of the presidential and vice presidential daughters may have become pregnant; that’s their business.

We only care about the likelihoods that one or several of them have been pregnant, “invisibly,” at some point, whomever they might be.

An unintended pregnancy rate of 6 to 7 percent, in a population of 37 women, means two to three pregnancies per year. Even if you discount the rate further, on the grounds that these are the wealthiest and best-educated families, the notion that none of these young women got knocked up before their parents’ nominations or elections is—pardon the term—almost inconceivable….

Most unintended pregnancies in the higher income and education brackets end in abortion.

Remember that before you judge or poke fun at Sarah Palin. She’s not the candidate whose daughter messed up. She’s the candidate who didn’t get rid of the mess.

Have all the presidential and vice presidential daughters really all been either abstinent, infertile, or extraordinarily well-disciplined in using birth control properly, even during those fumbling and reckless late teenaged years? Extraordinarily doubtful.

Bristol Palin is an anomaly, and is a first, and is noteworthy. And she is, I suppose, therefore worthy of media commentary, but not for the reason they insist–

She’s the only one who decided to have her baby rather than abort it.

Ace goes on to note that if we don’t just restrict the sample population, above, to daughters, the numbers only become more damning when weighed against the statistics.

David Warren — always a treat to read — hits one out of the park in his latest offering, noting that in the modern era, adults have given up having children but claimed the rights traditionally afforded to children for themselves.

Sound dubious? Let him explain:

It might even be said that the “rights of childhood” — I am trying to form this idea in contemporary terms — have been transferred, by successive Acts of Parliament, from children to the childless.

What are these rights? Chiefly, the right to play, often away from mature supervision; the right to breathe, away from traffic and similar threats; the right to live in a fantastical world of one’s own invention;* the right to refuse responsibilities; the right to demand entitlements, and to receive the fruits of others’ sacrifices; the right to be taken care of, and empathized with, whenever something goes wrong.

These were all, in previous generations, among the solemn rights of children, but today belong almost exclusively to a much older class with large disposable income, which is to say, “Dinks” (double income, no kids). To which we might add, “Shinkeroaks” (single high income, no kids, eschewing relationships of any kind). And I have noticed that the sound of a noisy child is extremely unwelcome in the environments they have created for themselves.

While this last remark might be taken as carrying a political edge — and it is true that the (mostly urban) childless provide the demographic backbone for all “liberal” and “progressive” parties today — it should be said explicitly that the Left has no monopoly on dinkish and shinkeroaksome behaviour. It is available to anyone who wants to buy into what the late Pope called “the culture of death,” in which we live only for ourselves, and for the moment.

…

This would be the formula for Pavlov’s dog, who under laboratory conditions gradually becomes the pure creature of pleasure and pain, reacting to stimuli like a machine whose controls lie entirely outside him. He may think he lives entirely for himself, but in fact he does not live at all, except within a scheme of “social engineering.” A normal “dog’s life” is something he can no longer even aspire to.

Make children if you want to rise out of the Pavlovian. Or if you can’t make children, find a difficult hobby: for the worst fate imaginable is a life of ease.

Just so, and as excellent a summary as one could ask for of what happens to a society that passes up on children. It is almost impossible to have kids and be selfish, for children force us to sacrifice in order to attend to their needs. Conversely, it is all to easy to be selfish when one has passed up on parenthood.

Footnote: in fairness, I have to disagree with Mr. Warren’s remark in this article concerning photographers. While I certainly will admit envy and appreciation for the many talents on display in a truly magnificent painting, and praise the skill of the artist, I cannot say that I agree with the categorization of photographers as being somehow “lesser” to those who craft images with easel, brush, pen, and paper.

* now isn’t that a marvelously concise summary of the progressive mind?

David Warren provides a most appropriate reflection, which I have chosen to use to re-open blogging after pausing a while to mark my wife’s birthday.

Some young aspiring journalist — obviously fishing for secrets of the trade — asked me the other day in email: “Do you purposely say things that are outrageous?”

“No,” I replied, “people are not so easy to shock, and these days everyone is used to the outrageous. Outrageous statements, and especially, outrageous half-truths and outright lies, will never ‘bring the ceiling down’. For if they did, politicians would never say them, let alone endlessly repeat them. Politicians, journalists, lawyers, university professors, and the other lower orders, constantly say the most outrageously untrue things, for the simple reason that they are so common, so uncontroversial. Nobody bats an eye.

“No,” I continued, “if you really want to bring the house down, say something that is obviously true. But it has to be something everyone knows, at least in his heart; something that everyone is thinking — subconsciously perhaps, but fairly near the surface. Be the first person to say aloud what everyone in the room is thinking, and then you may watch the ceiling come down.”

Amen. This is as good an answer to the question of why your good blogger, O Reader, does what he does as could be hoped for.

The always excellent David Warren provides:

“There is order in the universe.” The reader, or any scientist, may accept or reject this assertion, which is consistent only with the religious point of view. If he accepts it, he will be expecting to find order, everywhere he looks in nature. If he rejects it, he should expect to find disorder everywhere.

In this sense, a strict Creationist will find himself more confident and comfortable with any discovery of empirical science, than a strict Darwinist. For the latter is constantly confronting examples of order, that he must be at pains to explain away.

Neither I nor David Warren is a Young Earth fetishist, but we do nevertheless accept that God’s hand has moved through and guided creation from its earliest moments, and that things like evolution are not explanations that do away with the “need for God” — rather, being mere processes, they are just tools which the Almighty saw fit to employ the use of in the creation of this, His rational and ordered universe.