PRESIDENT BUSH

Give the President a break!

Time to give poor President Bush a break. His approval ratings are at an all time low, and he gets absolutely no credit for good things that have happened during his extraordinarily difficult terms of office. Though there are several things that have disappointed me during his presidency, as I'm sure there are you as well, one must step back at this juncture and take a look at some of the positives.

Think of it - if a Democrat were in office, we would never hear the end of how "good" the economy was, and how it was to their credit. However, the contemporary press dont' seem to want to give President Bush and his team any credit whatsoever for the relatively good performance of our economy.

Consider that these last six years have been among the most difficult in our nation's history. We endured the worst stock market crash since the Great Depression (the Nasdaq declined nearly 80% peak to trough in a long, grinding, miserable fashion, destroying massive amounts of wealth; a real catastrophe!). We have endured a recession. We have endured the worst terrorist act ever on US soil, which was also a painful blow for our economy to absorb. Furthermore, we have endured two very costly wars (the actual "offensive war" aspects of these conflicts enormously successful, in my view).

Granted, the "war on terror" continues. How can it not? Perhaps we conservatives need to come up with a differenct label than the "war on terror." It reminds me of slogans such as the "war on drugs," or the "war on poverty." Worthy causes; perhaps with flawed premises and reasoning. The human experience over the millennia demonstrates that we will never "win" these particular wars. In fact, in a strange sort of way, we are "victims of our own success." Because the human species has been so successful at propagating itself, lengthening our lifespans, increasing out populations (look at the evolution of the human species over time), etc., we virtually guarantee that these types of experiences, or "states of being," will perpetuate. "The poor you will always have with you," said Jesus of Nazareth. (I take the statement at face value.

The "war on terror" should be put into proper context: it is much like crime. We will never win the "war on crime," no matter what hair-brained theories put forth by liberal, humanist lunatics over the years have posited. The human condition will always remain what it is. To believe in some "paradise" on earth - where we "all just get along"; there's no crime, no vice, no poverty - is extraordinarily naive. Human beings are, indeed, "fallen" in a theological sense. The thoughtful among us recognize this, yet we move on, believing in human progress and our reason to compensate as best as humanly possible in order to find some way for right reason to prevail. At best, we contain terrorism (much as we contained communism, though the virus still lurks out there), and, much as law enforcement contains crime - with a strong military (i.e. police) presence; both a defensive and offensive one.

President Bush is absolutely right to go after known terrorists whenever the USA can identify the clear threats. Whether we should indefinitely occupy a country in order to institute a "democratic" form of government, thinking that that in itself will solve any of the larger problems, is a vastly different matter. (This is where I'm not onboard with the President re: the current Iraq policy.) I think trying to get countries such as Iraq to govern themselves in a peaceful, reasonable, and democratic manner is a futile endeavor. You'd have better luck trying to teach quantum mechanics to a dullard.

The war is something I want to address more fully in another post...

Let's look at the recovery in the economy. Thanks to the stimulus we've had in housing (low interest rates - artificial there for a while there, of course), and the recovery in jobs and the equity markets, the USA has once again risen up to the most challenging of occasions and is prospering. Are there pockets of our economy that could be doing better? Of course! We are never satisfied. However, one must remember how bad things really were just 4-6 years ago, when the market crashed and our country was viciously attacked. There is no comparison with the state of affairs today... (Democrats - please concede the obvious - you know you'd be taking credit if your guy was in office.)

Economist Larry Kudlow (of CNBC's "Kudlow & Company") is absolutely right - today's economy is "the greatest story never told."

Despite all of his faults (and we acknowledge that President Bush isn't the brightest bulb in town, but he was certainly preferable to the appalling alternatives in 2000 and 2004!), it's time to give the President a break!

TTC

WELCOME TO MY BLOG! (and Aristotle, Ayn Rand, and Friedrich Nietzsche...)

Welcome to the exciting world of blogging! My vision is to take an incisive look at current political and economic trends (especially those of global equity markets) as viewed through the incisive and ever-fascinating world of philosophy and its related disciplines. Whether we know it or not, most of us express some sort of philosophical "school" or thinking apparatus in our everyday observations, thoughts, and comments. I very much enjoy the millennia-old "conversation," and am a lifelong student of philosophy. Moreover, I am a global traveler, so this naturally feeds into my observations.

I believe in, and intend to promulgate, an eclectic mix of generally conservative and some libertarian political beliefs. Moreover, I am a believer in global capitalism and its enormous potential to further our collective standards of living.

With that being said, allow me to get on with my first post at this site.

Let's start with philosophy... I am definitely in the Aristotelian camp as to the "big picture" of human experience. Alfred North Whitehead is famous for saying that "all of philosophy is but a footnote to Plato." More correctly, I would say that all of philosophy is a footnote to the ancient Greek philosophers in general (including Aristotle and the pre-Socratics). I am not a fan of Plato at all, but I do recognize his enormous genius and effect on the entire world of human thought. (Much of it quite deleterious, in my view.) It is incredible how much Platonism has influenced all of western (and world) thought, and I still see/hear his influences every day - in the newspapers, in the churches, on TV, etc., and in the pronouncements of every day people themselves. It was Aristotle who promulgated reason as an absolute, was the original "Renaissance Man," and was actively involved in codifying empirical knowledge long before Francis Bacon stepped onto the scene. For that, the human race should very, very grateful.

Allow me to leap ahead to Friedrich Nietzsche, another of my favorite "characters." I would say that all (or certainly most) of philosophy from Aristotle up to the 19th century is a footnote to Nietzsche, and one need only do a very thorough and careful reading of Nietzsche's works to understand this. Nietzsche, unfortunately, is not very well understood. You cannot properly understand Nietzsche without first reading his "Birth of Tragedy," his first monumental philosophical work. This is the key to reading Nietzsche all the way, chronologically, through his entire corpus. He loved the Greek experience (of course he was a philologist and specialist in Greek language and literature). Specifically, he lionized the "Dionysian" cult (and mode of thought - irrational - perhaps a little too simply put) as opposed to the "Apollinian" (highly rational, "sedate," conformative).

Moreover, I would counsel the beginner to not even think about reading Nietzsche unless you are reading the several volumes published by his best critical editor, former Princeton professor Walter Kaufmann. Kaufmann does the most incisive and helpful exegesis of Nietzsche, and dispels many of the racist myths that still surround his writings to this day (among those who do not understand him). Allow Kaufmann to "hold your hand" as you enjoy Nietzsche's excoriations of the stale European life and ethos of his era (mid-late 19th century).

Although I believe his criticisms of Christianity (cf. "Antichrist") are unduly harsh (not to mention contradictory and wrong on many points), one must realize what Nietzsche is reacting against: the State European Christian churches of his day and their often "unholy" alliances with their respective state governments. If you are reading Nietzsche carefully, you will see him praise the ancient Jewish and Islamic religious experiences in a quite favorable light. Moreover, he really never has anything negative to say about Jesus of Nazareth, though he excoriates the Church. (I believe he misunderstands several things about Christianity, but that's another post for another day...) If you think Nietzsche was an advocate of racism or anti-Semitism, you do not properly understand him (not to mention that you are just plain wrong!), and I'd venture to say you haven't really read him.

I would say that Ayn Rand is the most important philosopher and political commentator of the 20th century. She is a giant and a treasure, and our current political and economic landscape is in sorry need of her influences. Ayn - where are you when we need you? Ms. Rand was a champion of Aristotle and his rational, "objectivist" approach to human comprehension and experience; hence, the evolution of her own "objectivist" philosophy. It is quite remarkable that a (then) young Russian Jewish woman, who emigrated to the USA with hardly any money at all, went on to write phenomenal novels that illustrate the American experience better than anyone else ever has! She understood the American ethos so much better than any of the political and academic figures of her day, and, moreover, to this day as well.

She so incisively understood, explicated, and railed against the "mystical-altruistic-collectivist" axis of human thought (primarily here in the USA and Europe), and championed their opposites: "reason, individualism, and capitalism." For some people, the government is their de facto "church." They seem to enjoy "tithing" to it in the form of punitive taxes (and all of its various levels - local, state, and federal), and seeing those "tithes" get re-distributed all across the globe for various derelict projects and "social experiments." (Not to mention that governments are our largest employers - we literally "rob" from Peter to pay "Paul"!) The collectivists enjoy this, since they cannot stand the fact that some individualistic men, of high ability, ambition, and work ethic, succeed quite well on their own and amass wealth as a result of their own smarts and hard work. "They still believe [and always have] that money is the root of all evil - except government money, which is the solution to all problems." (I quote directly from Ayn's essay "The Establishing of an Establishment," from her collection of phenomenal essays : "Philosophy - Who Needs It?")

Though I disagree with her atheism, I completely agree with her political and economic views. Let me point out that Aristotle, her great philosophical hero and "basis," posited a "Prime Mover." He correctly reasoned that "something" (i.e., matter) cannot come into being from "nothing." (Succinctly put, I believe this is the prime metaphysical question of all of human history: Why is there something rather than nothing?)

Well then, that's quite enough for this blog post. The above will set the stage for many "thoughtful" posts in the future (more concise, I trust!), as the three above-named philosophers provide so much "thoughtful" commentary on the human situation that I could exhaust a few lifetimes re-visiting the issues that they raise. They are still pertinent, in every way, to the contemporary world scene, and especially the American experience. "There is nothing new under the sun..."


David Hooker, "The Thoughtful Conservative"