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Mark Steyn writes on the ”deprived” youth in Great Britain.
… In fact, these feral youth live better than 90 percent of the population of the planet. They certainly live better than their fellow youths halfway around the world who go to work each day in factories across China and India to make the cool electronic toys young Westerners expect to enjoy as their birthright. In Britain, as in America and Europe, the young take it for granted that this agreeable division of responsibilities is as permanent a feature of life as the earth and sky: Rajiv and Suresh in Bangalore make the state-of-the-art gizmo, Kevin and Ron in Birmingham get to play with it. That’s just the way it is. And, because that’s the way it is, Kevin and Ron and the welfare state that attends their every need assume ’twill always be so.
To justify their looting, the looters appealed to the conventional desperation-of-deprivation narrative: They’d “do anything to get more money.” Anything, that is, except get up in the morning, put on a clean shirt and go off to do a day’s work. That concept is all but unknown to the homes in which these guys were raised. Indeed, “Newsnight” immediately followed the riot discussion with a report on immigration to Britain from Eastern Europe. Any tourist in London quickly accepts that, unless he hails a cab or gets mugged, he will never be served by a native Londoner: Polish baristas, Balkan waitresses, but, until the mob shows up to torch his hotel, not a lot of Cockneys. A genial Member of Parliament argued that the real issue underlying the riots is “education and jobs,” but large numbers of employers seem to have concluded that, if you’ve got a job to offer, the best person to give it to is someone with the least exposure to a British education. …
Charles Krauthammer celebrates the King Memorial.
It is one of the enduring mysteries of American history — so near-providential as to give the most hardened atheist pause — that it should have produced, at every hinge point, great men who matched the moment. A roiling, revolutionary 18th-century British colony gives birth to the greatest cohort of political thinkers ever: Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Hamilton, Washington, Franklin, Jay. The crisis of the 19th century brings forth Lincoln; the 20th, FDR.
Equally miraculous is Martin Luther King Jr. Black America’s righteous revolt against a century of post-emancipation oppression could have gone in many bitter and destructive directions. It did not. This was largely the work of one man’s leadership, moral imagination and strategic genius. He turned his own deeply Christian belief that “unearned suffering is redemptive” into a creed of nonviolence that he carved into America’s political consciousness. The result was not just racial liberation but national redemption.
Such an achievement, such a life, deserves a monument alongside the other miracles of our history …
David Warren understands why he likes Rick Perry. Hayek is in the middle of it. The first sentence in the following pull quote is one to think about for a long time. It might more sense to trade “educated” for “intelligent.” Then it would read, “There are some issues that are too simple for educated people to understand.”
… There are some issues that are too simple for intelligent people to understand. Most moral issues are like that. The problem isn’t distinguishing between right and wrong. That is not always as plain as day, but usually it is. The problem is finding a way to justify doing the wrong thing. And once you think you have found it, the people still arguing for doing the right thing may be dismissed as “simplistic.”
On the grand economic questions, “simplisme” has long been decried. John Maynard Keynes, a truly brilliant man, and an entertaining one with wide cultural interests, made wonderfully entertaining arguments for doing the wrong thing, many of them ingeniously counter-intuitive. “Public economists” (on the analogy of “public intellectuals”) such as John Kenneth Galbraith in the last generation, and Paul Krugman in this, stand in direct succession to him: same attitudes, same habits.
Lord Keynes’ great rival, Friedrich Hayek, exploded many of the economic fallacies upon which Keynes depended, along with many of the facts which Keynes massaged to fit his own passing needs. But Hayek’s strongest criticism is too lightly passed over. He said that Keynes was interested in economic theory only as a means to influence current policy. He had not, in fact, the “intellectual chastity” to examine anything on its own terms. …
Josh Kraushaar columns on Rick Perry for the National Journal.
… With Obama’s job-approval rating now below 40 percent in Gallup’s latest survey, nominating a candidate based on electability is becoming a nonissue for Republicans. If the economy fails to grow — and the current economic forecasts are grim — it’s hard to see Perry’s style being a serious impediment to becoming president. The notion that a three-term governor of the second most-populous state in the country is somehow unelectable simply because of his Texas twang strikes me as fanciful.
If Obama is in trouble, Perry should be able to hold the states Bush carried in 2004. He could be stronger in some of the Southern battlegrounds, like North Carolina, Florida, and Virginia. But he’d probably face a higher hurdle winning suddenly-competitive Democratic-leaning, Rust-Belt states like Pennsylvania and Michigan, where his style could wear thin and Romney would be a better match for the electorate.
No two elections are alike, but in style and substance, this year’s Republican primary and general election are shaping up to be replays of the 1980 presidential race: President runs as an outsider looking to clean up Washington, but deals with the harsh reality of an economy out of control; a Republican primary pitting an outspoken conservative governor of a large state, considered unelectable by Democrats and the establishment, against a moderate blue-blood preparing for a candidacy for some time.
Reagan, the famous cowboy, dispatched George H.W. Bush and went on to win 489 electoral votes in 44 states. We’re about to see if another cowboy will repeat the trick.
Toby Harnden’s weekly American Way column was on Mitt Romney.
… In essence, Romney’s campaign calculates, everything voters like about Perry they already know – but before the primary race is over, the voters are going to know a lot more about the Texas governor.
Romney is nothing if not steady and his business career made him intensely competitive. He has already shown resilience and determination.
Jibes about Romney’s wealth and whispers about his Mormon religion can be overplayed. Neither subject was raised by a voter in four lengthy question-and-answer sessions in New Hampshire. The only person who asked about Romney’s decision to rebuild his $12 million house in California to make it four times bigger (he says this is to accommodate his 16 grandchildren) was a reporter.
Presidential campaigns are often referred to as marathons and Romney has so far paced himself like a long-distance runner. The 2012 race could also be viewed as being between Romney the tortoise and Perry the hare. But another analogy is the Indy 500 race, a brutal 500-mile contest in which some cars crash into each other allowing others to speed past.
Romney will never be the most exciting, inspiring or even most likeable of candidates. He’s plainly more comfortable running an organisation than running for office. That does not guarantee, however, that he will not ultimately prevail and emerge as the Republican nominee.
IBD editors note the fall in employment in Illinois since the January tax hikes.
As another manufacturer leaves, Illinois leads the nation in job loss in July. The free fall began with a tax hike. When will liberals learn when you tax something, you get less of it?
The states were envisioned by the Founding Fathers as islands of sovereignty, laboratories of democracy, each free to discover what works and what doesn’t. In Illinois, the experiment of taxing your way back to prosperity has failed miserably.
The passage of a 67% income tax hike in January 2011, as well as higher corporate taxes, has coincided with a downturn in state employment. Since the enactment of this massive tax increase, Illinois has lost 89,000 jobs.
This move by Illinois Democrats in the state legislature and Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn has helped drive businesses such as Blue Island, Ill..-based Modern Drop Forge Co., an automotive parts company with 240 employees, out of the state, in this case into the welcoming arms of Republican Gov. Mitch Daniel’s Indiana. …