Feature of the Week
There can be only one SherWright.com feature spotlighted today – the Patriot’s Preamble. It serves the same purpose for Con-munism that the Preamble to the US Constitution serves for Liberalism. For comparison, here is the “liberal” Preamble: “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” Tomorrow we’ll talk about how liberal democracies champion the ideals of the Preamble, and how Con-munism is in fact defined by its hostility to these ideals.
12.11.04 @ 10:12 PM EDT [link]

Sher’s History of Con-munism
Yesterday marked the beginning of a new epoch in political science, the formal identification of a new species of socio-political organization! While biologists identify many new species every day, the situation in political science is much different. You just don’t get entirely new categories. Consider that during over the last three hundred years there have only be four: Liberalism (18th century), Communism (19th century), and Fascism (20th Century). Imperialism has been around since the beginning of civilization, of course, so it’s hardly a surprise that the new addition, Con-munism, shares many of its characteristics. Con-munism is, after all, virtually defined by its retrogression to approaches lost to the “dust-bin of history,” as put by one of the Founding Fathers of Con-munism. Speaking of Reagan, he will forever be remembered as the Con-munism’s first great leader. He served the same role as Lenin for Communism, the visionary who first established the new socio-political system in a country. The role of Marx, the theoretician on which the new system was built, is played for Con-munism by Laffer. Laffer was the originator of the Das Capital of Con-munism, Supply Side Economics. Like Communism, Con-munism is fundamentally based on a romantic but flawed premise. Communism’s romantic notion is “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.” The flaw in Communism is that a huge proportion of society’s output is motivated by individuals who exceed minimum job requirements in the hope of additional pay and reward. In other words, people work for more than their basic needs. The romantic notion in supply side economics is that by cutting taxes you can increase tax revenues. The flaw is that it’s idiotic. This has not discouraged the proponents of Con-munism, considering the tremendous wealth that can be generated (at least in the short run) by keeping the benefits of liberalism without having to actually pay for them. This is where the “con” in Con-munism comes in. The Con-munist movement, like Communism once did, has a huge infrastructure of institutes and think tanks that churn out a daily flood of disinformation. Finally, we need to note that Communism had one other historical figure with an analogous role to Con-munism. We’re talking about Stalin, Lenin’s successor, who took the basic concepts of Communism and pushed them to absolute extremes. Indeed, it’s generally understood that Stalin’s extremes reflected a degree of insanity that set the stage for the final collapse of the system under Gorbachev. So who are the counterparts on Con-munism? Well, we can expect a Gorbachev figure right about the time the baby boomers are fully retired and the younger generation of workers are squeezed by huge tax increases to continue benefits for the connected boomers, to pay interest on a much larger debt, and to redeem the social security trust fund bonds taken out during the years of surplus with the program. In other words, we’ll see the Gorbachev figure when intergenerational war breaks out. And who is the insane Stalin figure? Do I need to spell it out?
12.10.04 @ 10:09 PM EDT [link]

How to Talk to a Dittohead about Government – The Sequel
Government is just too big a topic for just one blog entry. Besides, there’s so much more to government than just social services. Finally, we still haven’t yet achieved nirvana under the Tao of Ann: “always outrage the enemy.” And I’ve got just what you need to do that, a delicious insight that came to me at 2 AM this very morning! Here it is: Tell your Dittohead acquaintances that right-wing American politicians have invented an entirely new form of social organization: Con-munism. This new form of government takes its place among the four other forms that have been tried to date. The first, the developed world’s international standard, can be described as “regulated capitalism with a safety net.” It is usually called “liberalism.” It was the system used in the US until Reagan. Historically, there are three other, discredited forms – communism, fascism, and imperialism. Bush has perfected a fifth form of socio-political organization. It is based at a very fundamental level on various kinds of immoral schemes - cons – similar to the schemes of con artists. In other words, cons by Cons. It has similarities but important differences to the three discredited approaches. For example, it’s similar to imperialism’s transfer of wealth from conquered provinces to achieve prosperity for the citizens of the empire. The difference is that under Con-munism the wealth is coming from future generations via debt. This is where the “con” part comes in. For Con-munism to work, citizens must go along with this transfer despite the on-its-face immorality of imposing trillions and trillions of dollars of obligation on those with no say in the matter. It’s similar to the moral dilemmas faced by citizens of empire, but worse because the victims are defenseless babies who are in fact our very own children. Strategies used by Dittohead Con-munists for dealing with and generally covering up the moral dilemmas are straight out of Orwell and Himmler, the definitive authorities on communist and fascist “truth management.” Particularly relevant is Orwellian reversal of reality. If you have a morality problem, you deal with it by wrapping yourself in the mantle of high morality and by tarring your opponents as the forces of darkness. In other words, exactly the strategy that Ann Coulter urges on her right-wing aficionados!
12.09.04 @ 09:58 PM EDT [link]

How to Talk to a Dittohead (If You Must) about Social Services and Government
Let’s get back to our series on chitchatting with Dittoheads at holiday get-togethers with family, office acquaintances, and affinity groups. An example of the latter is my scuba club, whose holiday party is tomorrow. As an aside, what is it about scuba that so attracts Dittoheads? Not that I want to discourage any visitors from participating in this very rewarding and worthwhile hobby, but I have to say that the Dittohead ratio seems a bit high (though not hopelessly so). Fortunately, divers are also very “live and let live” kinds of people, so even those with right wing tendencies don’t get personal about it. Besides, nobody’s talking politics at a depth of 100 FSW (Feet Sea Water)! Anyway, Social Services and Government is a common topic in conversations with Dittoheads. They see the topics as exactly equivalent – government only exists to provide useless giveaways to immigrants and the chronically lazy. Dittoheads never mention services they are enthusiastic about, like interstate highways, national parks, aircraft carriers, and for divers in particular, Air-Sea Rescue. Sometimes you get the impression that they think the “good” services are coming from somewhere other than taxpayer dollars (and I don’t mean borrowing!) That’s why Dittoheads see government as inherently evil, so much so that bashing government, bureaucrats, and the taxes that fund them is considered an absolutely safe topic. In other words, they assume that any of their general-purpose anti-government phrases will elicit only nods and laughs from any audience. Of course they are largely correct in this, making this all the more valuable a topic - they won’t be expecting pushback. But how to counter twenty-years of right-wing demagoguery on the issue? Here’s an angle: present government as a kind of insurance pool – like a group life policy – that is all the more effective because it applies to the entire population. Most people have a group policy at work for life or heath or both. Most people will ready agree that this kind of coverage a good deal, with low rates and virtually no paperwork. Companies offer these policies because they are simple to administer and because expenses are consistent and low in comparison to other alternatives. The larger the pool, the cheaper and simpler these plans are. Government is simply a risk pool that includes the entire country, the largest possible! This minimizes overhead and maximizes consistency. Could everyone in the country individually contract for every service provided by government? Sure, but it would much more of a hassle for everyone, and much more expensive. It also would lead the same social conditions that existed before governments started providing such services. Anyone interested in what that looked like should read Dickens. And that’s the last and best argument for social services from government – they were implemented as an entirely affordable way for citizens to not have to be bombarded on the street with the sight of fellow citizens who for whatever reasons find themselves starving to death. This is particularly important for people in that fix through no fault of their own: children, disaster victims, the disabled, the elderly. At the core of virtually every government service program is a desire to prevent people, particularly children and old people, from dying or suffering. Getting rid of these programs takes us back to the days of childhood theft rings and starving Grannies. That hardly squares with right-wing trumpeting of their glorious battle with the evil government beast!
12.08.04 @ 07:51 PM EDT [link]

What Would Jesus Do?
Let’s say for the sake of argument that one of Jesus’ concerns for His Church was that it stay out of politics. He knew exactly what would happen to him personally, that religious authorities would enlist civil authorities to have him put to a tortuous death. Those events themselves would be a powerful message to the Church, to not do the same. Just to be sure, Jesus devoted a substantial proportion of his final words to the need to keep faith and political spheres separate, when for example He said “my kingdom is not of this world.” But if He judged that this was not enough to prevent the entanglement of His Church with the affairs of civil power, what more could He do? One option would be to devote some parables to the topic, but the problem with parables is that they require interpretation. No, He needed the equivalent of the nuclear option to make it absolutely clear to his followers how he felt about them using His name to advance political causes. So what did he do? He put the words directly into the mouth of Satan! How could He possibly make it any more clear? Here are Satan’s words from the gospel of Luke, Chapter 4: And the devil took him up, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and said to him, "To you I will give all this authority and their glory; for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. If you, then, will worship me, it shall all be yours." Did Jesus leave any wriggle room in these scriptures? I sure don’t see it! He spelled out that he was talking about power rather than wealth by calling out the words “authority” and “glory.” Also, he dealt with wealth separately, via parables. He made it very clear that all civil power was owned by Satan. How much more explicit can you be? And He put it in the form of temptation, knowing that his followers would be tempted by opportunities to use civil power as a short-cut to force compliance to His teachings rather than by using the approach that Jesus Himself used – teaching and convincing rather than physically threatening. Mao was right about one thing – power comes from the barrel of a gun. All civil power is based on the principle that law must have the final fallback of physical coercion when all other measures of enforcement fail. Small wonder that Jesus wanted no part of this kind of power, particularly when spiritual power, power that comes from belief rather than physical coercion, is so much powerful!
12.07.04 @ 08:29 PM EDT [link]

Feel That Nose?
A fifth grade history teacher in CA has recently become a cause celebre, a poster child for the right wing “God in public school” militants, in the same way (but on the opposite side of the political spectrum) that Scopes became the cause celebre among progressives when he was tried in Tennessee for teaching evolution in science class. This “history teacher” has gained the acclaim of the right wing by going out of his way to spotlight references to a Creator in the Declaration of Independence. His act has reportedly launched a torrent of emails to compete with the 88% that (according to a recent internet traffic study) constitute spam. So what’s wrong with what he’s doing? The answer is simple. Just as a science teacher should be teaching science rather than pseudo-science, a history teacher should be teaching history rather than pseudo-history. It’s a question of motivation. Why is making a special effort to call out references to God in the Declaration? He’s using his platform as a teacher to mislead his students about the intent of the Founding Fathers. This intent is quite clear, as spelled out in the Constitution, that most important document of American government. The Constitution proscribes government entanglement with religion. Indeed, and very significantly, it is We the People who legitimize the government, not God, who is not mentioned a single time. Was this an oversight? Not at all – these were religious men, as amply shown by their letters, speeches, and, as the political right is so fond of pointing out, the Declaration of Independence. So couldn’t they see that “forgetting” to mention God in the Constitution would cause all sorts of problems for future generations, who would have to scour other sources to justify creating an establishment of religion supported by government programs like public education? Nope - they were very deliberate about their intent to keep government out of religion and religion out of government. Getting back to our history teacher, it’s clear that what he’s up to is un-teaching of history, trying to give his students a false perspective on history. You can bet he’s not mentioning how Jefferson’s invoking of God in the Declaration served a very practical political purpose! This purpose, as we pointed out yesterday, was to contradict the divine right of kings by replacing it with a divine right to rebel against tyranny. In contrast to what the political right wants to teach in public school history class, the Founding Fathers did not use religious references to indicate their desire to create a theocracy. If they wanted theocracy, they had only to write it into the Constitution. Letting a history teacher with a political agenda slide by with teaching un-history is exactly the same as letting a science teacher with a political agenda slide by with teaching non-science. Letting them do it is letting the camel’s nose in the tent, and I know from personal experience that the political religious right is one persistent camel!
12.06.04 @ 07:58 PM EDT [link]

How the Founding Fathers Stuck it to George III
I’ve been reading a book called Quicksilver from one of my favorite authors, Neil Stephenson. It’s the story of Daniel Waterhouse, founder of MIT. As a young man in England, he interacted with great minds like Newton (his roommate at Cambridge). The book is really about the birth of modern science. At that point in history it was called Natural Philosophy, and was seen as the systematic examination of God’s handiwork. One of the most interesting features of the story is how virtually every country in the civilized world had a single established church, and England was no exception. What made England unique, though, was that the established church changed every few years when the new monarch had a different religious affiliation from the prior one. This is the origin of the nursery rhyme “Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack jump over the candlestick,” referring to ministers who had to change their affiliation. Fast forward to 1776, where men with the same scientific interests as Waterhouse were rebelling against England. I often picture Jefferson sitting down to write the Declaration he knows will be read by King George III and the rest of the royalty in Europe. (Here’s a hint about how I feel about Jefferson – I have his bust prominently displayed in the den). I imagine him wondering how he can really stick it to George; after all, they considered him the Saddam Hussein of his age. I picture the moment the answer came to him – to mock the divine right of kings that George uses to justify his despotism, instead proposing a divine right to rebel against tyranny. I sometimes imagine that the joy Jefferson felt at this great idea is like how I feel when I come up with a particularly good Dittohead definition (Dulles, for example). The irony of it all is that Jefferson’s mocking of the divine right of kings in the Declaration of Independence has backfired against the even greater accomplishment of the Founding Fathers, the Constitution. There they enshrined their distaste for the entanglement of religion with civil power, entanglement that took its most powerful form as Kings who held that they were God’s representatives on earth. So what has happened? The Right Wing now points to the Declaration’s references to a divine right to rebel against sanctimonious tyrants to support their obsession with establishing a more sanctimonious government. The Founding Fathers must be spinning in their graves!
12.05.04 @ 09:11 PM EDT [link]