Via Gerard: Review in Frontpage Magazine about Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There, by David Brooks. Must be a great book, since it notices what I’ve been noticing for a while; that’s long been one of my favorite litmus tests.

Bobos, or bourgeois bohemians, are, to put it bluntly, the new establishment. Bill Clinton is a bobo. So is anyone else who has the income and power that only fat old men in oil paintings used to have, but who also has the mores, personal tastes, and culture of a 60’s radical college student. This is easy to laugh at, but it is not a superficial phenomenon. Brooks has put his finger on the central weirdness of our current ruling class: they have blithely combined the power and wealth of the old establishment with the cultural and intellectual trappings of its supposed mortal enemy, the counterculture. The two camps that have seemed to be warring for America’s soul since the 60’s have not just reached a detente, they have merged. This is, of course, exactly what you get when you send your best and brightest to universities where bohemian ideals are taught and then release them into a world where the realities of material life inexorably impel them into moneyed positions. As the author puts it,

“This is an elite that has been raised to oppose elites. They are affluent yet opposed to materialism. They may spend their lives selling yet worry about selling out. They are by instinct anti-establishmentarian yet somehow sense they have become a new establishment.”
:
The essence of the bobo lifestyle is being rich while pretending you’re not. Bobos love luxury as much as anyone else with five senses, but because they have been educated in a leftist critique of it, they would suffer damage to their self-image if they openly and honestly imbibed it. Therefore their lives are a peculiar dance, whose subtle application of abstract rules to everyday life would boggle the mind of an ultra-Orthodox Jew, in which they seek to indulge luxury in ways that somehow, according to the bobo code, don’t count.

What this ushers in to our society with disturbing alacrity, is self-loathing, and up there among our highest echelons of private and state authority. The self-loathing comes out in bizarre, secularist but cultish rituals indulged to cleanse some kind of a “soul” — to manifest some inner goodness that isn’t really there.

The Holy One managed to touch on quite a few of these last night.

An American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, notorious for carrying much pork and little beef, held aloft as an emblem of victory nevertheless — even though it isn’t fooling anybody anymore. Tax cuts for “working households,” democrat code words for people who don’t work and don’t have taxes to cut. Oversight led by the Vice President “because nobody messes with Joe.” Renewable energy. Caps on carbon pollution. Socialized health care. Socialized education. Closing down Guantanamo.

Much of it is, of course, what has come to be the traditional “Christmas in February” from democrat Presidents to constituency groups — teachers’ unions, global warming scammers, aparatchiks of the ballooning single-payer healthcare movement. (The unintentional comedy is that in the days ahead this will be referred to as something new and bold, although there is very little in Obama’s first SOTU that isn’t recycled.)

But it’s something else. The euphemisms are carefully chosen. Chosen to make the upper-crusters feel better about themselves, as they toss those crusts to the rest of us. As if they were doing that, at their own expense instead of at the expense of our children. And as if we needed it. Obama, I’m afraid, doesn’t get it…just like any one of the other bobos doesn’t get it. He says “…even in the most trying times, amid the most difficult circumstances, there is a generosity, a resilience, a decency, and a determination that perseveres; a willingness to take responsibility for our future and for posterity.” Somehow, in the bobo mindset, that rugged determination that perseveres, mighty a fire as it may be, requires kindling. It needs to be actuated. It first requires a leviathan government to take our money away from us and give it back to us again.

The “credit crunch” demands more borrowing.

We’re all out of money; the solution is to spend it.

We aren’t living life the way we were intended to; the answer to the problem is a cap-and-trade carbon exchange system, so we can live less life.

It isn’t confined to the federal level either. Cities enact needle-exchange programs. They build skateboard parks, not because of exemplary behavior on the part of the skateboarders, but because of atrocious behavior. Violent thugs are paroled who don’t deserve or merit parole. Once Congress raises the minimum wage, several states raise it still higher — all to show what good people we have in charge running the show. See how good we are! Tomorrow we’ll show you again!

We are buried in bad laws, because a certain generation can’t live with itself.

It’s become an “Everyone Else is Blogging It, I Might As Well Do It Too” thing.

Santelli wants to know if President Obama is listening. Sen. Boxer, I’d like to know if you’re listening.

Paying your mortgage has become a moral hazard.

Update: Blogger friend Rick is following this back-n-forth — two additional installments as of now, more to come, fer sure.

Looks like there is a “bullying issue.” Not sure I agree with that. Propaganda Minister Gibbs is being not quite so much a bully, as a snot. Same ol’ fluff and nonsense from the Obamaton camp: If you disagree with our wonderful remedies, you’re a dolt and we have some reading for you to do. If you agree, on the other hand, we’re not even going to inspect your level of intellect let alone ridicule it. Even though you might think President Obama is gonna put gas in your car.

It’s a case of making complicated things simple and simple things complicated…which is what you have to do to make left-wing ideas look good. In this case, this doesn’t even involve reading anything. Not so much as a page. It’s human behavior: If people are entitled to wealth without working for it — or if they are no longer entitled to the property for which they did work — guess what? People don’t feel like working for wealth anymore.

And other than people working for wealth, what is an economy?

Now the ball’s in your court, Mr. Gibbs. Do tell me what I should print out and read, that will shed new light on the situation, as it exists today in the way I’ve summed it up.

The wireless connection is up & down like a whore’s drawers. We’re arguing with the broadband company about it, and I must say this morning the experience has sapped my creative energies somewhat. It’s not so much that I’m exhausted, it’s more like I don’t feel like writing things if it’s just an exercise in frustration to get them posted.

But there’s one thing I want to make damn sure I preserve for posterity.

Neo-Neocon on “Tragedy of the Commons” (from Wednesday), whose words I’ll just suck in here verbatim, without editing nuthin’. Besides, I got a feeling these wireless woes represent a great example of what she’s talking about.

The economy, bubbles, and the tragedy of the commons

The current economic crisis exhibits characteristics that illustrate the tragedy of the commons:

“The Tragedy of the Commons” is an influential article written by Garrett Hardin and first published in the journal Science in 1968. The article describes a dilemma in which multiple individuals acting independently in their own self-interest can ultimately destroy a shared limited resource even where it is clear that it is not in anyone’s long term interest for this to happen.

Central to Hardin’s article is a metaphor of herders sharing a common parcel of land (the commons), on which they are all entitled to let their cows graze. In Hardin’s view, it is in each herder’s interest to put as many cows as possible onto the land, even if the commons is damaged as a result. The herder receives all of the benefits from the additional cows, while the damage to the commons is shared by the entire group.

Subprime mortgages began with Congressional acts that ordered banks to make bad loans in order to bring housing opportunities to the poor. But, although we can blame that for opening the door to the practice, the mortgages made under Congressional fiat were but a small percentage of the final total of bad real estate paper. Over time, mortgage companies and other lenders ran amok with the notion. Ultimately, the toxic paper was spread throughout our entire financial system.

Why? Why did so many people violate the most obvious standards of prudence, and endanger us all?

It’s the tragedy of the commons, stupid: there was money to be made from these loans in the era of ever-ascending housing prices that constituted the real estate bubble. The lenders and borrowers involved in such loans not only profited from the rising housing prices, but they also helped fuel them. And all homeowners liked seeing the value of their homes increase, especially those who took out second mortgages counting on that figure to remain the same or to continue to go up. Many people seemed to benefit.

In the short run, that is—although in this case, the “short run” lasted many years. Those involved in the deals were betting either that housing prices would never come down (a truly insane assumption, but it seems that many otherwise rational people convinced themselves it was true),—or that, when the decline did happen, they themselves would still have come out ahead.

What was ignored was that, despite individual benefit, such gains would be temporary for most. The fact that the risk was so thoroughly spread throughout the entire financial sector that it poisoned everything was either not understood, or ignored. In addition, even among those who did see a downturn coming in a general sense, most did not foresee that there would not necessarily be enough warning when the bubble burst to get out safely.

After all, that’s the nature of bubbles—they get larger and larger, and while that is happening, their outer surfaces become thinner and thinner, stretched finally to the breaking point.

Where exactly will that breaking point be? Hard to predict, but when it happens it happens suddenly and dramatically. Poof! The bubble is gone, and all that’s left behind is a tiny bit of slimy foam.

[NOTE: And don’t think government can rectify the situation. Not only does Congress lack the tools to foresee and correct the problems, but it is an excellent example of the tragedy of the commons in action.]

Good to see.

Malkin:

Hundreds of taxpayers took time out of their busy day to protest President Obama’s “stimulus” bill-signing in Denver today. Jim Pfaff of Colorado Americans for Prosperity, Jon Caldara and the Independence Institute, former Rep. Tom Tancredo, and several GOP officials and state legislators spearheaded the event. Count us all among the “chattering classes” appalled at the massive pork and the short-circuited process that paved the way for the trillion-dollar Generational Theft Act.

Why bother? It’s for posterity’s sake. For the historical record. And, hopefully, it will spur others to move from the phones and computers to the streets. Community organizing helped propel Barack Obama to the White House. It could work for fiscal conservatism, too.

Well, there are some Republican senators who don’t agree with that last remark. “Republicans pretending to be democrats” has such a rich, solid history of working out so swell (sarc), that they’d like to give it another go and make a national bank.

Long regarded in the US as a folly of Europeans, nationalisation is gaining rapid acceptance among Washington opinion-formers – and not just with Alan Greenspan, former Federal Reserve chairman. Perhaps stranger still, many of those talking about nationalising banks are Republicans.

Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator for South Carolina, says that many of his colleagues, including John McCain, the defeated presidential candidate, agree with his view that nationalisation of some banks should be “on the table”.

Mr Graham says that people across the US accept his argument that it is untenable to keep throwing good money after bad into institutions such as Citigroup and Bank of America, which now have a lower net value than the amount of public funds they have received.

“You should not get caught up on a word [nationalisation],” he told the Financial Times in an interview. “I would argue that we cannot be ideologically a little bit pregnant. It doesn’t matter what you call it, but we can’t keep on funding these zombie banks [without gaining public control]. That’s what the Japanese did.”

Actually, federal control is what got us into this mess. Federal control from zombie legislators. Sen. Graham, I revert to my age-old question about such things — as yet completely unanswered: What in tarnation is there to make a government regulator un-greedy? Or unzombified, in this case.

Founding Father Jefferson said it better:

I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That ” all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people.” [XIIth amendment.] To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition.

The incorporation of a bank, and the powers assumed by this bill, have not, in my opinion, been delegated to the United States, by the Constitution.

1. They are not among the powers specially enumerated: for these are: 1st A power to lay taxes for the purpose of paying the debts of the United States; but no debt is paid by this bill, nor any tax laid. Were it a bill to raise money, its origination in the Senate would condemn it by the Constitution.

2. “To borrow money.” But this bill neither borrows money nor ensures the borrowing it. The proprietors of the bank will be just as free as any other money holders, to lend or not to lend their money to the public. The operation proposed in the bill first, to lend them two millions, and then to borrow them back again, cannot change the nature of the latter act, which will still be a payment, and not a loan, call it by what name you please.

Jefferson expounds much, much further. Do go read it all, especially if your last name is McCain or Graham.

I still think we’ll survive this, folks. Capitalism will survive this. Our government has laid a siege upon capitalism before, in the 1930’s. Capitalism survived. But, it should be noted, it was scarred for life and has never been the same since then. This could end up being worse. Victory is not guaranteed.

Let the porkulus protesters be your role model. Your representatives need to hear from you, that you want to exchange goods and services freely, as the Founding Fathers decided God intended for you to do.

Maybe it’s time to storm a ship and throw some crates of tea into a harbor.

A Congressman who would like to see some more information about so-called “global warming” before he decides humans might be the cause, or supports any restrictions on “carbon emissions”…

…or a Congressman who supports a bill to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on bullshit social programs to “stimulate the economy” — without reading it?

Just askin’.

I was informed nearly a month ago that Rush Limbaugh hopes Barack Obama fails, and instructed to believe that this meant Limbaugh wants the economy to keep on tanking and for lots of people to suffer. I’m a big believer in following instructions, after all, if someone takes the time to give ’em to you, the least you can do is to obey them. So I penciled in my dutiful compliance, and proceeded to think with all my might that Rush Limbaugh wants the economy ruined.

I did jot myself a note to go and look up context, though. I couldn’t help noticing people were leaving it out when they were telling me what to think.

I just got around to looking it up, and I found out the context changed the message quite a bit. I’m not the least bit surprised. But I don’t think Rush Limbaugh wants the economy ruined or for people to suffer.

Why don’t you read the comments in whole, and tell me what you think.

I got a request here from a major American print publication. “Dear Rush: For the Obama [Immaculate] Inauguration we are asking a handful of very prominent politicians, statesmen, scholars, businessmen, commentators, and economists to write 400 words on their hope for the Obama presidency. We would love to include you. If you could send us 400 words on your hope for the Obama presidency, we need it by Monday night, that would be ideal.” Now, we’re caught in this trap again. The premise is, what is your “hope.” My hope, and please understand me when I say this. I disagree fervently with the people on our side of the aisle who have caved and who say, “Well, I hope he succeeds. We’ve got to give him a chance.” Why? They didn’t give Bush a chance in 2000. Before he was inaugurated the search-and-destroy mission had begun. I’m not talking about search-and-destroy, but I’ve been listening to Barack Obama for a year-and-a-half. I know what his politics are. I know what his plans are, as he has stated them. I don’t want them to succeed.

If I wanted Obama to succeed, I’d be happy the Republicans have laid down. And I would be encouraging Republicans to lay down and support him. Look, what he’s talking about is the absorption of as much of the private sector by the US government as possible, from the banking business, to the mortgage industry, the automobile business, to health care. I do not want the government in charge of all of these things. I don’t want this to work. So I’m thinking of replying to the guy, “Okay, I’ll send you a response, but I don’t need 400 words, I need four: I hope he fails.” (interruption) What are you laughing at? See, here’s the point. Everybody thinks it’s outrageous to say. Look, even my staff, “Oh, you can’t do that.” Why not? Why is it any different, what’s new, what is unfair about my saying I hope liberalism fails? Liberalism is our problem. Liberalism is what’s gotten us dangerously close to the precipice here. Why do I want more of it? I don’t care what the Drive-By story is. I would be honored if the Drive-By Media headlined me all day long: “Limbaugh: I Hope Obama Fails.” Somebody’s gotta say it.

Were the liberals out there hoping Bush succeeded or were they out there trying to destroy him before he was even inaugurated? Why do we have to play the game by their rules? Why do we have to accept the premise here that because of the historical nature of his presidency, that we want him to succeed? This is affirmative action, if we do that. We want to promote failure, we want to promote incompetence, we want to stand by and not object to what he’s doing simply because of the color of his skin? Sorry. I got past the historical nature of this months ago. He is the president of the United States, he’s my president, he’s a human being, and his ideas and policies are what count for me, not his skin color, not his past, not whatever ties he doesn’t have to being down with the struggle, all of that’s irrelevant to me. We’re talking about my country, the United States of America, my nieces, my nephews, your kids, your grandkids. Why in the world do we want to saddle them with more liberalism and socialism? Why would I want to do that? So I can answer it, four words, “I hope he fails.” And that would be the most outrageous thing anybody in this climate could say. Shows you just how far gone we are. Well, I know, I know. I am the last man standing.

I’m happy to be the last man standing. I’m honored to be the last man standing. Yeah, I’m the true maverick. I can do more than four words. I could say I hope he fails and I could do a brief explanation of why. You know, I want to win. If my party doesn’t, I do. If my party has sacrificed the whole concept of victory, sorry, I’m now the Republican in name only, and they are the sellouts. I’m serious about this. Why in the world, it’s what Ann Coulter was talking about, the tyranny of the majority, all these victims here, we gotta make sure the victims are finally assuaged. Well, the dirty little secret is this isn’t going to assuage anybody’s victim status, and the race industry isn’t going to go away, and the fact that America’s original sin of slavery is going to be absolved, it’s not going to happen. Just isn’t, folks. It’s too big a business for the left to keep all those things alive that divide the people of this country into groups that are against each other. Yes, I’m fired up about this.

That changes things just a bit. At least in my world, it does.

Update 2/12/09: I’ve now reached that awkward age at which it is an everyday occurrence for one to follow certain complex thoughts and research projects through to their bloody conclusions, without having the slightest residual idea what originally brought one past the trailhead. I’m afraid it is now costing more than one good blogger friend some well-deserved credit.

Do go see what Rick had to say about this…he was talking about it before I was talking about it…

The culture today is replete with the notion that voices like mine (who Limbaugh represents, people who are direct, blunt, to the point, etc) should be marginalized and dismissed simply because we’re not politically correct in the methods employed in our communications. The substance of what is being said gets lost in the style.

What do you really need to know about leftist propaganda? It makes simple things needlessly complex, and complex things unrealistically simple. That’s what you have to do to make liberal ideas look good.

And so, Barack Obama is not a lousy judge of character because his pastor was Jeremiah Wright…there are way too many “after alls.” After all, Obama didn’t know Wright talked that way, and after all, it’s high time we had a national dialogue on race. Anytime a liberal politician is revealed to be systematically making potentially disastrous decisions, deliberately or otherwise, there’s a bunch of “truths” that have to be considered. Much of the time, these have to do with “moving on” to “more important” things.

On the other hand, Limbaugh wants the economy to tank, plain & simple. Sarah Palin’s a dumbass because she can see Russia from her house (something she never said) — plain & simple. And Guantanamo? We just gotta close it down. Nevermind the consequences.

Simple things complex, and complex things simple; that’s the formula.