The Harvard Delusion

           Beware the political and philosophical buffoons who masquerade as statesmen, and who fool the ignorant masses into believing them with trite phrases no more profound than “hope” and “change.”  Beware of those whom Roy Campbell, in his poetic satire “The Botanocracy” described as

         “Statesmen-philosophers with earnest souls,

            Whose lofty theories embrace the Poles

            Yet only prove their minds are full of Holes.”

         Real statesmen are not philosophers or metaphysicians.  Rather, they are persons of wisdom, educated at the feet of our ancestors.   As Charles Kingsley explained in his essay “Ancient Civilizations,” the wise do not feed on the shame of our forebears, but on their honor and glory, on great times, noble epochs, noble movements, noble deeds, and noble folk, which mental feast Kingsley also points out, is the political implementation of St. Paul’s wise injunction for us to think about whatever things are just, pure, true, lovely, and of good report (Phil. 4:8).

         Those are not the channels in which most modern political minds now move.  If Alinsky, Marx, Keynes, or the latest New York Times poll are your mentors, you are a fool.  So are those who vote for you.  When you, your voters, and your schemes are finally shipwrecked on the rocks of reality, undeception follows, at least for a moment, until human nature and the noetic effects of sin again re-assert themselves and we unlearn the lessons of history and replace them with fantasies spun out nothing more substantial than the arrogance of the so-called experts and the attendant practical hubris and self-deception that they alone can do what all others failed to do:  namely, to escape the rule of reality.  For them, somehow (we know not how) bad ideas will not yield bad consequences.

         I call it the Harvard delusion. 

        

Fragments: An Anti-Regime Potpourri

(1.) The Obama administration has practiced no self-restraint when it comes to commandeering the auto industry, trying to control and limit our exercise of second amendment rights, trampling boldly and broadly on our first amendment rights, and hijacking health care.  This administration has no trouble at all extending its reach into broad areas of human life that the Constitution sequesters from it.  But it simply cannot find the will to do the things the Constitution requires, like securing the borders.  Indeed, it will sue the states that, desperate for the border control the federal government refuses to provide, try to provide it for themselves.

(2.) The number of those no longer in the work force has grown by more than 8 million under Obama.  Those millions hoped for change, but the change they got wasn't the change they hoped for.  Those 8 million aren't counted in the unemployment percentage, so even if their number grew to 18.5 million, government unemployment numbers might still actually improve, at which time the gov't would declare its pathetic record a rousing success, and the benighted American voters would reward the economic wrecking crew by sending them back into office.

(3.) At the moment, because of the staggering ignorance of the American voter, America is becoming Detroit.  Our electorate seems incapable of continued self-government.  I say this so that you will know what your public schools too often produce:  Relativistic sheep incapable of sustained logical, historical or economic analysis.  So let me put it plainly --  save your country:  home school.  If you are a Democrat, you don’t need to home school.  All you need to do is send Suzy and Johnny off each morning to the local socialist indoctrination facility where the teachers, the principal, and the NEA will produce millions of mind-benumbed little lefties for you.

      

(4.) Confiscatory tax rates and other anti-business government policies stifle investment and, therefore, job production.  So, after Obama changes his policies, businesses will gladly invest the (literally) trillions of dollars they now prudently are holding in reserve.  But BHO won't do that.  He's too busy trying to put the coal industry out of business and investing in green energy offerings that keep dying.  He is anti-big business, and he's getting what he wants -- less and less big business.  And if, despite the currently bad investment environment, a number of courageous, insightful, and hard-working entrepreneurs still succeed growing a thriving business, he'll tell them that they didn't build that.

       He's bad for America in more ways than anyone can count.  Period.