Son of Timatollah

I generally hate digest posts, but I'm forgiving myself this one time. You forgive me, too, okay?

Yglesias, "Freedom’s Just Another Word for I’m An Orthodox Conservative With Orthodox Conservative Views". "Freedom" neither as "free beer" nor as "free speech."

This isn’t to say that talk about freedom is a mask for racism, but rather tha[t] talk about “freedom” is just talk about conservatism. Conservatives side with business over unions and environmentalists, with police and prosecutors over criminal defendants, with nationalists against cosmopolitans, with majoritarian ethnic and religious groups against annoying weirdos, and with the military against peaceniks. Ideas about freedom and small government are totally irrelevant to the actual political agenda and the Tea Party is no different from any other conservative movement in this regard.

Mixmaster at Balloon Juice: "Dead to Her".

Mom’s a proud Goldwater Republican. She was happy with Reagan, voted for Bush II in 2000 (but not in ‘04), and has long been active in the local Republican party. But I can say with absolute certainty that she will not vote for a Republican, for any office, ever again. She’s the proudest person I know—proud of her family, her achievements in life, and her Mexican heritage. And, whatever else this new law is, it is profoundly disrespectful. I don’t know if this law will kill the Republican party in Arizona, but I can assure you that they’re already dead to her.

Noah Millman at The American Scene: "Notes Toward a New Political Taxonomy".

The core of the difference between a liberal and a conservative outlook relates to one’s basic assumptions about human capacities. A liberal is someone who is generally impressed with the capacities of an individual, and who therefore wants individuals to be free to develop those capacities. [...] A conservative by temperament takes the opposite side in this dispute.
[...]
A left-wing perspective is animated by failure and the consequences thereof. [...] A right-wing perspective is opposite to this.
[...]
The progressive-reactionary axis revolves around attitudes toward time and history.
[...]
The progressive is future-oriented. [...] The reactionary, by contrast, is past-oriented.

There's something both appealing and yet wrong wrong wrong about this taxonomy. For example, where is the Justice axis? And I think the "left-wing is animated by failure" is just ugly right-wing marketing. I don't know anyone who thinks a sustainable culture can be built on failure. But then, by Millman's scheme, I'm a liberal, right-wing, progressive.

Booga booga!

Labels: mohammed, park, south

When I left home to go off to prep school for the 8th grade, I had an old trunk full of comics, some from the times I had DC subscriptions, others bought at the one store in town—Tilley's—that sold comic books. I'd beg my mom to take me out there about once a week just to by comic books. I didn't put them in little plastic bags or anything, just bought them and stacked them up in the trunk.

When I got back home for the first time—Christmas 1969—they were all gone. My mom claimed to have given them away to "poor kids," but I figure that's probably on the same level as folks who take that dog they don't want to live with a rural aunt and uncle on the farm.

The first time I ever learned how much a copy of Silver Surfer #1 was worth, I just about crapped. My mom was great at finding value in other peoples' discarded junk—wash stands, pie boxes, etc.—but didn't imagine that someday those childish comic books would be worth something to someone. I know I'm not alone in having this experience. I'm just surprised at how much it still bugs me.

Parents: Don't throw your kids' stuff away without asking.

Labels: book, comic, comics, funny, silver surfer