From "This Is Why We Need to Spend $4 Trillion" by David Brooks (NYT).
I quoted that because I found it really offensive, verging on insane, but not insane enough to dull the evil edge. Statecraft is soulcraft. It's like something the villain in a dystopian novel would say.
Speaking of dystopia (and reading the NYT), the new Michelle Goldberg column is titled: "If You’re Feeling ‘Fatalistic’ About Our Dystopia, You’re Not Alone." That's just great. We'll all go crazy together. Hello? Your party won. And yet:
I know of no one who cares about politics who feels relaxed now. The problem, rather, is a sort of numb despair.... During the last five years, it was at least possible to identify dates at which things might turn around. The midterms offered an opportunity to curb Trump. The 2020 election was a chance to get rid of him.
And you did get rid of him, so now your anguish is more amorphous and aimless, and therefore more existentially awful.
Biden’s agenda is stuck in a congressional standoff that’s at once frustrating, terrifying and extremely boring.
The new political suffering is boring!
Posts
114 comments:
David Brooks has evolved from a smug pseudo-intellectual to a fatuous self-regarding preacher of positively dangerous tripe.
“Statecraft is soulcraft” = what the Inquisitors said to their victims as they lit the purifying fire.
Don't blame me. I was never foolish enough or stupid enough to vote Democrat. The only ones who vote Democrat are either stupid, foolish beyond hope or have larceny in their hearts.
The goal of the left is destruction of the US, so yes, they might well blanch at each step they achieve towards that goal, and worry a bit more every day they aren't stopped.
In real, tangible ways, they would redistribute dignity back downward....""
If you don't have dignity, buy yourself some with this here government check.
"That's just great. We'll all go crazy together. Hello? Your party won."
If you don't like the world you're living in
Take a look around you
At least you got friends
You see I called my old lady
For a friendly word
She picked up the phone
Dropped it on the floor
(Ah, ah) is all I heard
Are we gonna let the elevator
Bring us down
Oh, no let's go!
Let's go crazy
Let's get nuts
Let's look for the purple banana
'Til they put us in the truck, let's go!
Too easy.
Someone else will probably point this out, but George Will once entitled a collection of his re-cycled pieces "Statecraft is Soulcraft." He used to say he was more for Burke's conservatism than Locke's: not just protecting the rights of isolated individuals, but somehow contributing to a way of life. Your point stands: there can hardly be "soulcraft" without obliterating privacy, unless it is educated people working on their own souls.
And I'm not a Brooks fan.
But we’re a nation enduring a national rupture, and the most violent parts of it may still be yet to come.
....and the most violent parts?? Ya' mean like......civil war???
I associate “Statecraft is soulcraft” with George Will. He has been using that phrase for decades. When he first started using it, I thought he intended a conservative meaning: Souls should not be corrupted by government dependency or propaganda In retrospect, I may have been overly generous to Will. As for Brooks, he seems clearly to mean souls should be made dependent on the government for both sustenance and truth.
Some of this new batch are literally communists. These are not the old Democrats with their cradle to grave social safety net. These are people who reject capitalism and believe in central planning of the state and only the state.
I didn’t elect them or sit out the election…I saw it coming and tried to stop it.
Now it could be too late to stop. I don’t put much faith in the Manchins and Cinnamons of the world stopping this.
In real, tangible ways, they would redistribute dignity back downward
Arthur Laffer promoted a Trickle Down economy, and was roundly criticized.
David Brooks promotes Trickle Down dignity. What could go wrong?
I'm trying to figure out the dignifying work that comes from the government just giving you money that you did not earn. I'm at least glad that David Brooks has moved from $3.5 Trillion is really zero dollars. Now it is $4 Trillion. I suppose they need to keep up with inflation.
Somebody on TV pointed out that this is all backwards. Wouldn't you want to find out what the country needs and wants and can't do with out, debate that, and total up your findings, rather than argue just about how much money we don't have is going to be spent on things we don't want or need? The argument is all about the final figure, not about what's in the various packages.
"Statecraft is soulcraft".
Says who? What is soulcraft anyway? It is hard for words to retain their meaning within the political class. "Infrastructure" is not daycare, or even bus driver pensions. And if it comes to include those things, we will need a new term to describe what was formerly known as infrastructure. Whatever "soulcraft" is, we should endeavor to keep it distinct from statecraft.
When a person must redefine or make up words, that person has run out of logic.
Althouse writes, "I quoted that because I found it really offensive, verging on insane, but not insane enough to dull the evil edge."
That's beautiful English prose.
That's Starship Trooperish!
So, "Conservative" David Brooks is praising Biden for spening $4 Trillion dollars we don't have, on some mysterious "retribution of dignity". Hello? Nobody even knows what's in this 2,000 page reconcilation bill. Or how much is being spent on what. I don't know about you, but when someone proposes to spend $4 Trillion on top of the $Trillions spent in 2020, I'd like an itemized list of where the money is going and a explaination as to why its neccessary.
Lord, this Brooks character still calls himself "Conservative" and one of fans was bemoaning that Buckley didn't make him National Review editor back in 2000. As far as I can tell, like Bill Kristol, Charlie Sykes, Goerge will, Jen Rubin and Erick Erickson, Brooks is just a liberal Democrat. A Biden voter.
BTW, just before CV-19 hit in early 2020, Nevertrumpers like Matt Lewis, ex-Gov Stanford and George Will were bemoaning Trump's "Runaway spending". How could that be permitted? Conservativism meant Smaller government. Now, its lets spend $4 trillion because joey biden wants it.
Ann, Thank You. For being here, for exposing the insane and inane, and for showing us some of the NYT (which I refuse to subsidize).
Brooks says " These packages say to the struggling parents and the warehouse workers: I see you. Your work has dignity. You are paving your way. You are at the center of our national vision. " While I'm no longer a struggling parent, I'm still the equivalent of a warehouse worker (I deliver to grocery stores and never had a day off during this whole pandemic panic attack). And this package does not say to me that I'm at the center of our national vision. It says that the politicians currently in charge of our government will stop at nothing to insure the gravy train continues to run to benefit themselves and their political allies while the rest of the country can get f****d. It looks like I retired just in time for another round of Jimmy Carter style inflation to erode what I thought would be a stable retirement (and that's best case, an Argentine or Venezuelan horror is not out of the realm of possibility).
You can't give people dignity. The give it to themselves by helping somebody else. They can likewise withhold it from themselves, which is what's happening today.
They ignore the border so I have no respect for their intellect.
So, Brooks thinks these programs are likely ineffective, but we need to blow $4 trillion of our grandchildren's money so we can tell "the struggling parents and the warehouse workers: I see you. Your work has dignity. You are paving your way. You are at the center of our national vision." This man is a total buffoon! Couldn't we just buy them a beer instead?
Then Michelle Goldberg jumps in to confirm the liberal-as-neurotic premise of yesterday's post. Even though the Democrats control the presidency and both houses of congress we're doomed, doomed I tell you! It was all going to be so easy once we got rid of Trump, but guess what: the reason we voted for Trump in the first place was because the Democrat party is completely bat shit crazy. Crazy people don't get things done, particularly when the head of government is senile and the principals in his administration are total incompetents. You bought it, now own it.
Apparently, judging performance by objective standards requires trickle down dignity. No one seems to notice the hilarity of the fact that this idea is racist. Please notice that white people remain in charge.
It could be a slogan (like "Build Back Better"):
"redistribute dignity back downward"
Back?
Back where it came from. You know, down there, with the lower people.
Redistribute? You mean like redistribution of the wealth?
No, we're putting it back. Back where it came from. But why are you calling that "redistributing." Who distributed it in the first place that now you are REdistributing it?
Don't worry about that. It's like redistributing the wealth... except it's DIGNITY being redistributed.
But how do you distribute dignity?
With wealth!!! That will be $4 trillion.
"I associate “Statecraft is soulcraft” with George Will. He has been using that phrase for decades."
Brooks just used someone else's catchphrase without attribution?! He's so concerned about dignity, but what about the dignity of George Will?!!
"When he first started using it, I thought he intended a conservative meaning: Souls should not be corrupted by government dependency or propaganda In retrospect, I may have been overly generous to Will. As for Brooks, he seems clearly to mean souls should be made dependent on the government for both sustenance and truth."
Ha. Ruthless abasement of George Will. Stole his catchphrase AND messed it up.
The "little guys" Brooks thinks he's helping are always the ones most damaged when the economy goes in the shitter.
"offensive, verging on insane"
An alternative is to relax and enjoy the show, as the best and the brightest try to talk themselves into ever more ridiculous reasons why spending $4T is the solution to what ails the country. No one even knows what that huge sum is intended to buy, how it will be spent or who will get it (but I think many suspect they know the answers -- nothing useful, focused on today's Solyndras, and all going to the CRT-approved in-crowd). DB's justification for the spend-a-thon -- it's to "fortify a compelling moral identity', to achieve "self-respect," and to bring about "cultural transformation." OK. Does it solve obesity and cure acne by any chance, too?
DB's effort to turn an exercise in cronyism and fiscal profligacy at its worst into a moral imperative is bat-shit crazy, and a fine example of what thoughtless drivel supposed thought-leaders come up with when they think they need to preach to the dedicated NYT types while also trying to bamboozle the rubes.
The new political suffering is boring!
I hear some people voted for boring.
Arthur Laffer promoted a Trickle Down economy, and was roundly criticized.
Just to clear the record Laffer did not promote a Trickle Down economy. ‘Trickle Down’ is a pejorative used by stupid Popes and opponents of any policy that appears to allow people to keep some of their own money rather than turning all their wealth over to the state.
Brooks is not just an empty suit. There’s an empty pair of jockey shorts in there too.
Glad others picked up on the George Will aspect.
But this bill would totally transform our economy with all the Green New Deal stuff in it.
Giant subsidizes for EV's.
FJB.
exhelodvr1 said: "That's Starship Trooperish!"
In what possible way?
It's certainly not the book, and I don't think it's even the movie (which is best envisioned as "a propaganda film from the book's universe").
Heinlein would have a fit over everything Brooks is saying, I think.
What bullshit!
Where are "moral and cultural" in the charter of duties granted by the People to the central government?
"Your work has dignity." Therefore we must send you fiat money so you do not have to work.
Dignity Dollars. "There is on deposit at the Treasury of the United States one Dollar of Dignity, payable to the bearer on demand."
I'm especially irked by "I see you."
It's like the Panopticon is the ideal. Big Brother is watching you.
Brooks imagines that ordinary people are languishing because the government isn't "seeing" them. And getting money would be good not because money is useful but because it conveys a message that you are seen. Ugh!
what about the dignity of George Will?!!
George Will's dignity went the way of the Lord God Bird years ago.
I was never foolish enough or stupid enough to vote Democrat.
Not voting Democrat is not good enough. It's not like Republicans are offering any alternative solutions. Good grief, Republicans got all excited the other day because 88-year old Chuck Grassley decided to run for another term. 88 years old. He's been in Congress since 1975. He was elected to the Iowa legislature in 1958. 63 years this guy has been in politics, and what does he have to show for it, other than a whopping stinking pile of Iowa pork?
I think it's time to muck out the pig pen.
The original Willism was "Statecraft AS Soulcraft." It's a small but real difference.
I used to like George, but he has plunged in my estimation over the last decade or so, and now it could hardly be lower. That would put him down there with Brooks, and the egregious Frum.
Anyway, I don't like political soul-talk, not even from self-identified conservative non-believers like Will. Especially not from them.
Nothing more dignified than being given money. This is why gold-diggers are so universally admired.
This is the stuff of religion.
State religion.
Lloyd W. Robertson,
Someone else will probably point this out, but George Will once entitled a collection of his re-cycled pieces "Statecraft is Soulcraft."
Not quite right. Will has worked his decades of WaPo columns into books, yes, but that isn't one of them; it's free-standing, not "re-cycled," and the title is actually Statecraft as Soulcraft, not "is." I still have my copy -- I bought it with part of a gift certificate I won in HS for some academic thing or other, right when it came out (1984).
The Will of thirty-odd years ago is much different from the current one; the book is largely an argument against libertarianism and for Burkean conservatism. Still, the flavor of the prose is the same. What he's arguing for is basically a polity that shapes its citizenry. Of course, all polities do that; but he wants America to give more thought to the sort of society America wants to be -- or, rather, ought to want to be.
“Ha. Ruthless abasement of George Will. Stole his catchphrase AND messed it up.” In fairness to Brooks (who I don’t much like) his use of the phrase may be closer to what Will intended than my interpretation of what Will meant (which was likely colored by the fact that I used to like Will a good deal and wanted to think well of him) when I heard him use it during TV appearances over the years.
Will wrote a book “Statecraft as Soulcraft” in the 1980’s which I have not read. Doubtless anyone who has read that could make clear what Will was arguing.
Peter Spieker writes, "I associate 'Statecraft is soulcraft' with George Will."
Spieker and Brooks both misquote George Will, the former innocently the latter with nefarious intent.
Will's phrase is statecaft as soulcraft, and it was the title of his book published in 1984 (the date is not insignificant). Will argued that the national government should function as a force for social change, which was a direct challenge to the then-dominant Reagan wing of the Republican Party which thought of governmental power as a necessary evil that should only be brought to bear when private conscience proves inadequate to the manifest national will. Essentially, Statecraft as Soulcraft became the Neo-Con manifesto, and George Will became the author of several expensive wars. The highest power of the state is deadly violence, therefore we as a nation have been practicing soulcraft on primitive Muslim tribesmen, teaching them with guns and drones about voting, civil liberties, and the vital importance of alphabet soup genders.
Statecraft as soulcraft is conditional, the phrase admits the possibility that government can leave souls alone, that there is such a thing as private conscience. Brooks, however, corrupts Will's phrase into an unconditional statement. Statecraft is soulcraft is unalloyed fascism.
“Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State.” That's Benito Mussolini's formulation of the identical heresy again liberty being preached by David Brooks and his fellow neo-fascists.
Dignity is not something you are given. It's something you have. It's what's in you that resists outside pressures.
Can someone smarter than me explain the difference between this downward dignity redistribution and trickle-down economics?
The Title of George Will's 1984 book is actually Statecraft AS Soulcraft.
"In normal times I’d argue that many of the programs in these packages may be ineffective.... But we’re a nation enduring a national rupture, and the most violent parts of it may still be yet to come. These packages say to the struggling parents and the warehouse workers: I see you. Your work has dignity."
The fuck they do.
The money isn't going to working people, the money is going to the thugs who run their unions for the befit of the Democrat Party, for government leeches, and for other Democrat Party hangers on.
You want to help the "warehouse workers"? Stop letting in so many illegal aliens coming to undercut their in the job market
Good thing that David brooks is a conservative. Otherwise he might be totally on board with Bernie’s $6.5 Trillion.
Anyone who believes that it is up to government to bestow dignity on people was never a conservative nor ever an intellectual nor ever a thinking person.
It's like the Panopticon is the ideal.
The Panopticon was an invention of Jeremy Betham's. (Yeah, that Jeremy Bentham, whose skeleton sits in a glass booth in the University College of London, wearing a straw hat.) It's a design for a prison!
Is it soulcraft to divorce your wife and mother of your kids for a young assistant?
"These packages say to the struggling parents and the warehouse workers: I see you. Your work has dignity. You are paving your way. You are at the center of our national vision."
I see others have commented on this (by the way, doesn't he mean "paying your way"?) In any case, I agree this is positively insane and truly horrifying. And not just because of the insanity of 4 trillion dollars we do not have. It is the "I see you" part that creeps me out totally. Brooks thinks dignity comes to people from the gaze of the cash-primed "eye" of government looking down upon us from on high. Meanwhile, while the eye looks kindly on us all, does Brooks even once tell us who actually will benefit from the trillions to be spent, who the lobbyists are that have larded up some mammoth wheelbarrow size "bill" with goodies -- all for people for whom dignity is the last thing on their minds? Media preachers and inquisitors like Brooks are just to overwhelmed with their notion of themselves as judges of the world they cannot be bothered by the hard work of finding out what all-knowing and kindly state they tout is up to. It would be hard work to do that. They do not want to or know how to.
Sorry for going on so, but this one just tips me over the edge.
The looting will continue until dignity is at an all-time high.
No one gives you dignity- you earn that all on your own.
moved from $3.5 Trillion is really zero dollars. Now it is $4 Trillion.
A trillion here, a trillion there, and pretty soon you're talking real dignity.
I eagerly await Chuck's defense of Brooks.
Ha!
I sent in a message exactly along your lines, Ann, as you were posting them. You took less time, but it's the same point.
Does this affect your "I'm for boring" stance?
I’d be in favor of redistributing dignity from David Brooks, Pelosi, Obama, etc. to the average WalMart shopper.
Joe Biden & Dr. Jill have too much dignity too, but Hunter is like buying a dignity offset for the whole family.
Ann said “ Don't worry about that. It's like redistributing the wealth... except it's DIGNITY being redistributed.
But how do you distribute dignity? “
Trickle-down dignity.
It's not about spreading "dignity" it's about spreading graft to the hard left.
This is the real goal of every new expansion of the federal government for at least half a century. It has little to nothing to do with helping its ostensible targets and everything to do with transferring money from taxpayers to Democrats and the hard left.
Brooks just used someone else's catchphrase without attribution?
In politics, as in letters, there are phrases so famous that attributing them is both unnecessary and pedantic: We don’t mention Shakespeare when we say “Brevity is the soul of wit” or Donne when we say “No man is an island.”
It seems the dignity checks are going out to help Trump supporters feel as much self-esteem for themselves as Brooks does for himself. Wouldn't it be cheaper and more real for Brooks and the others to just see that they're not really as great as they think they are? Not much more significant really than the crease in their trousers.
Brooks imagines that ordinary people are languishing because the government isn't "seeing" them. And getting money would be good not because money is useful but because it conveys a message that you are seen. Ugh!
I prefer the government forget about me all together. As a sainted president once said, "“The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help.” Private charities, including churches, know who needs help and how to help them on a personal level.
"Hello? Your party won."
Spoken like a sane person with a sense of proportion. But the problem is, the Others are still out there. They're not vanquished, and worse yet they don't even feel defeated.
God knows the right has its problems and its share of assholes. But the left has spent decades pushing ever more power upward, and the more they succeed the more the prospect of anyone else wielding it becomes a nightmare to them.
I'd have thought Trump redistributed dignity downwards with an economy that provided more people with jobs, and I don't see how Biden/Pelosi's plan redistributes economic growth or jobs or hope or dignity or self-reliance downwards.
You can certainly argue that democracy, labor unions, and the civil rights movement redistributed dignity downwards, but now everything is so tied up in bureaucracy, interest groups and public relations that it's hard to see where the real benefits to the poor or disadvantaged are. Some of the "green" aspects of the program cut against the aspirations of poor and working people and other aspects encourage dependence, rather than self-reliance.
In part, talk like Brooks' is based on the "politics of recognition." People want a piece of the pie for their ethnic group, but the benefits go to the successful and to spokespeople and figureheads and don't reach the people below. But because this is the age of public relations and lies, Brooks' slogan might just catch on.
Brooks' career relies on his being a "conservative" voice at the time, but does he really still think of himself or call himself a conservative? Maybe one could call him a "reconstructionist," somebody who has a lot of talk about rebuilding society and its institutions, talk that could pass as liberal or conservative depending on how you want to describe it.
Biden’s agenda is stuck in a congressional standoff that’s at once frustrating, terrifying and extremely boring.
There is no Biden, only Zuul.
Back when we were 'only' spending only billions of dollars on giveaways, nobody dreamed they could get away with upping the ante like this. If government could save souls or impart dignity by giveaways, we'd already be the most soulful and dignified society on the planet.
We don't have the $4 trillion, and when we're done spending it, we won't have the Dignity either.
I think Brooks assumed his allusion to Will would be understood, by the enlightened of course. Like me! lol I read that book back when it came out and it meant a lot to me but I had not read much in that genre anyway.
It seemed to me he inveighed against viewing everything strictly through the lens of individual rights. I get that. It resonated with what my high school psych teacher had gently pointed out to us, that telling our parents, It's my life and I'll do what I want is not a valid rebuttal to your parent asking, Why are you doing this to yourself?
So I do things like get the vax, instead I got it for my good and the good of the community, without really thinking about it. Herd immunity and all that.
But in this country rights trump everything else. They can't make me do it.
George Will is not a lawyer.
In our dystopian world, which I hesitate to admit exists in any objective sense, people like Brooks imagine that other people suffer from a sort of dignity deficit, which he feels should be addressed by some sort of dignity redistribution. The vehicle of redistribution for dignity, he intuits, is money. Surely one can handle all of this through electronic transfers to EBT cards, correct?
The dignity deficit appears to be a feeling of disconnection and powerlessness in society. Goldberg feels this powerlessness and despairs. No one listens to her. When will this end? Perhaps more money would assuage her inner turmoil, but only for a short while, because no one will ever listen to her again, and time will bring her no wisdom.
Brian McKim and/or Traci Skene said...
Can someone smarter than me explain the difference between this downward dignity redistribution and trickle-down economics?
"trickle-down economics" was the attack on the belief that letting rich people keep more of their money, rather than paying it in taxes, meant they'd spend it on things that would lead to jobs for the not-rich, thus the wealth would "trickle down".
"downward dignity redistribution" is the belief that we're all too stupid and worthless to have any dignity unless our betters in the governing class bless us with the grant of their approbation.
The first was true, until we gave our manufacturing base to China.
The second is the arrogant twaddle of self-important losers
We had $8 trillion to flush down the shitter in middle east wars. It would be a sin to spend half that amount on our own people. Instead, we need to make even more war on the world with that money. It's what Jeebus wants.
Althouse: somebody get me off this soul train Biden put us all on.
The problem is, they got rid of him by fraud. 6 cities, in 6 states...and it is starting to come apart on them. They have found that they have not only no mandate, they have no legitimacy, and it is gnawing at them. They are starting to understand that gaming the system can destroy the system. What happens if the breakup happens? It will not be a neat little package of states going their own way. Counties are going to be opting out en masse from places like California and New York. And while the money might be concentrated in the cities, the means of producing wealth are concentrated in the suburbs and small rural towns and cities. It will be truly ugly if it happens....and for the first time in my life I consider it more likely than not. Chilling to anyone who has studied history.
Lance said...
I was never foolish enough or stupid enough to vote Democrat.
Not voting Democrat is not good enough. It's not like Republicans are offering any alternative solutions. Good grief, Republicans got all excited the other day because 88-year old Chuck Grassley decided to run for another term. 88 years old. He's been in Congress since 1975. He was elected to the Iowa legislature in 1958. 63 years this guy has been in politics, and what does he have to show for it, other than a whopping stinking pile of Iowa pork?
I think it's time to muck out the pig pen."
That alone is better than what 50-70% of the voters voted. 100% better than those who don't vote. Slogans are cheap and easy. What are you proposing that will actually get the job done?
At least with Republicans in general ( excluding Nixon and GW Bush) Republicans don't vote to raise taxes or expand government ( other than defense and defense related items) so lesser of the two evils is a significant improvement over Democrats. Indeed the last Republican who proposed a massive and needed infrastructure bill was Eisenhower with the interstate highway bill which accomplishes two major goals for the same money: national defense and promoting economic growth.
How should you feel if you work hard, aren't rich, and can't have children for health or other reasons, and you are being forced to subsidize relatively wealthy people simply because they are lucky enough to experience the joy of being a parent?
Who are these parents who need subsidies from childless people, and why tf didn't they just have abortions, which are easily available in our progressive utopia?
Brooks is creepy
"I see you. Your work has dignity. You are paving your way. You are at the center of our national vision. "
what garbage. What crap. The corrupt left have a gravy train and they could NOT care less about real people. Exhibit A - the open covid border.
Quite striking how the people who are for these monstrous big-government expansion bills never say what is in it that makes it worth $5 trillion. Why do we need it? What exactly is IN the bills that they can persuade us with? Because it has the Obamacare stink about it, like it’s so horrible they can’t admit what’s in it, so there’s just a bunch of jargon and happy talk that elide specifics. When the content is mentioned at all that is. Usually the story each day is of the horse race variety or how horrible the two senators are who aren’t going along. Nothing about this speaks to a healthy democracy or republic.
This is all wrong. It is so wrong I've found it difficult to articulate how wrong it is. Even the punctuation should be considered suspect.
How offensive is it that Brooks thinks the government can purchase dignity for people at the rate of a few dollars a week? "Hey, buddy, here's a few extra bucks, and another bureaucracy that you can use to to navigate the other bureaucracy we hope will help in some fashion. Now, consider yourself dignified." If I was ever a recipient I don't think I'd feel dignified, I'd feel... cheap. I think it would take whatever natural dignity I did have and flush it down the hopper. Money, distributed from the government, is supposed to make me look in the mirror with a sense of self-respect? The term "bread and circuses" was supposed to be a pejorative, not a prescription.
Not for nothing, if I am supposed to be at the center of our national vision shouldn't I be worth more than the pittance the $4T will afford?? So, how much will it cost us, David Brooks?? I want to see the sticker price. What is the rock bottom price of human dignity?
Human dignity is priceless.
LLR Chuck's bestest lefty buddy Howard: "We had $8 trillion to flush down the shitter in middle east wars."
Joe Biden's Earpiece voted for every single item of that $8 Trillion every step of the way.
And none of the money in the $3.5 Trillion package is targeted toward "our own people". As you well know.
It's just lots and lots and lots of cash for the lefty political groups, making permanent the federalizing and corrupting of all state and local elections, and kicking cash to failed blue state governments for their own army of lobbyists. But you and LLR Chuck just go on bleating about how its all for the little guy......after awhile you might even convince yourself to believe those pathetic delusions.
David Brooks continues to be a DOPE!
Earnest Prole,
In politics, as in letters, there are phrases so famous that attributing them is both unnecessary and pedantic: We don’t mention Shakespeare when we say “Brevity is the soul of wit” or Donne when we say “No man is an island.”
Yes, but Donne and Shakespeare are several centuries old. Will's book is in its late 30s. Big difference.
Two "nut grafs":
Keats said that the world is a "vale of soul-making." I say statecraft is soulcraft. Just as all education is moral education because learning conditions conduct, much legislation is moral legislation because it conditions the action and the thought of the nation in broad and important spheres in life.
It is generally considered obvious that government should not, indeed cannot legislate morality. But in fact it does so, frequently; it should do so more often; and it never does anything more important. By the legislation of morality I mean the enactment of laws and implementation of policies that proscribe, mandate, regulate, or subsidize behavior that will, over time, have the predictable effect of nurturing, bolstering, or altering habits, dispositions and value on a broad scale.
And, a little later on:
In a famous opinion in a famous case (one concerning compulsory flag salutes in public schools [Ann won't need me to point it out, but it's W. Va. St. Board of Education v. Barnette]), Justice Felix Frankfurter wrote: "Law is concerned with external behavior and not with the inner life of man." I am not sure what Frankfurter meant. I am sure that what he said cannot be true. The purpose of this book is to say why that proposition is radically wrong.
So: not like the current Will, who has gotten much, much more libertarian in recent years. But interesting enough that it's one of those books I keep dipping into occasionally.
I would like to thank David Brooks for openly admitting that Conservatism Inc is simply just another political grift.
Hey heartbeat got no soul says the dumbocrats when slaughtering the youngin's. What does this schlub really know about soul? Gotta be something about him getting paid. That's what he does.
Someone once said "we know what they are, now we're haggling about the price".
But Brooksie has Howard backing him, so that is a tell.
I am seeing around 6 trillion as the total with overruns etc.
where is Brooks getting his figures?
Sit down and shut up you stupid hicks! We're trying to give you some dignity here!
One view is that this is the Democratic Party piling up $3.5 Trillion in the Capitol yard and setting it on fire while screaming "This Means I LOVE YOU!!!"
Another view is that $500 Billion of the total will find its way into Democrat campaign accounts laundered through Democrat contract government service providers, while also making the aforementioned persons wonderfully rich (people with last names the same as our government elites.)
Kids, don't go into STEM or Medicine, go into contracted government services.
Howard said...
We had $8 trillion to flush down the shitter in middle east wars. It would be a sin to spend half that amount on our own people. Instead, we need to make even more war on the world with that money. It's what Jeebus wants."
So you propose doubling down on stupid? So as a net taxpayer you're OK for me to pay bennies for people who should not be here and for people who should be working instead of mooching and the usual government grifters and hangers on. Thanks for nothing pal
@Howard:It would be a sin to spend half that amount on our own people.
We did spend that $8 trillion on "Middle East wars" (Afghanistan is in Central Asia last I checked but whatev) on "our own people". Defense contractors, military personnel, NGOs, etc. The vast majority of those people are Americans.
David Brooks is a master at McGurkin: Writing words which are individually clear, but when strung together are absolute nonsense.
If we are going to throw funny money at people can we customize/personalize it with each recipient portrait?
can also work as photo ID for voting then >>> gratitude for dignity redistributed.
Nothing confers dignity like other people's money.
Giant subsidizes for EV's.
@David Begley, how much is in there for beefing up and hardening our electrical grid to the point where we can recharge those EVs?
I gotta feeling JesseJackson will be standing at the front of that Dignitay Line.
If David Brooks were actually concerned about warehouse workers he would advocate for greater border security to drive real wage growth for the bottom quintile.
Brooks is supporting spending $4,000 Billion. That's $12,000 for each man/woman and child in the USA. So here's my suggestion: lets stop pretending we're spending this on roads/bridges or some mysterious Social programs that will restore "Dignity" and just give everyone a Check for $10,000. That's $40,000 for a family of four.
You could write the spending bill on a Napkin. But they won't do that because this bill isn't about "Dignity" for the working class. Its about Graft, corruption, tax breaks for the wealthy, corporate welfare, and rewarding the Democratic voters. And Amnesty for illegals was put in the bill but supposedly has been taken out. But what other craziness is in the 2,000 page reconcilation bill is anyone's guess.
Re: Michele Goldberg. If you are psychologically unable to admit that you made a terrible mistake in 2020, and that we are now getting precisely what you voted for and should have known you were voting for, I'm not surprised that you feel frustrated and terrified. You know it is your fault and you are not allowed to say so.
But Statecraft is Soulcraft! Just ask the Taliban.
You know, there is anything in the world stopping progressive states from pursuing these policies. Why don't they?
So government can "distribute dignity downward"? A crack addled derelict can be handed dignity, sort of like a Boy Scout merit badge? Brooksie has been smoking some powerful stuff.
Solyndra. That's all the left is now. A defunct bogus hole where tax payer money ends up in democratic elite pockets.
Or you could call Brooks a "rhapsodist." The article is too much like Jon Meacham's meeching maunderings about the "Soul of America." It's an emotional appeal and an attempt to disguise the absence of a serious argument or point of view.
"We had $8 trillion to flush down the shitter in middle east wars."
That was done over the course of 20 years and 3 presidents. What's being proposed is all at once and sure to be inflationary as hell. Surprisingly enough, spending vast sums of money you don't have is not a good idea.
Howard said...
We had $8 trillion to flush down the shitter in middle east wars. It would be a sin to spend half that amount on our own people. Instead, we need to make even more war on the world with that money. It's what Jeebus wants.
Howard does his best to show us that every democrat voter is indeed this stupid.
But as you read the post you get the feeling he had to drink a lot of liquid courage actually to write it out and hit the publish button.
The $4 trillion would be as big a waste as Afghanistan's $8 trillion because the Incompetents of Afghanistan are now working over the homeland - the sociology majors with a minor in psychology who can't make anything work. Hollywood, Broadway, the universities, the NFL, the FBI, the Chicago PD, energy independence- is there anything they've touched that is even still working, let alone working better? And - they don't know they've messed up! They are too - well, what is the word - too dense? too caught up in words and process? They're like the WW I generals far behind the lines sending men with rifles across No Man's Land against machine guns. They just don't know what they are doing to people (and they themselves are living the good life while they do it. Sweet.) And the $4 trillion for "transformation" is like the men and arms accumulated for a big "breakthrough" at the Somme which was all wasted and destroyed by the faulty strategy, by the unacknowledged mistakes.
Achilles remains firmly in locked up with the davos billionaires
There are not enough of us left who remember stagflation and 21% mortgage interest rates. It seems these painful lessons are for each =generation to learn all over again.
Yes MK I bought my first house with an 18 pct rate, killed me on payments but renting was worse!
Joe Biden@JoeBiden
"I'm not going to shut down the country.
I'm not going to shut down the economy.
I'm going to shut down the virus."
1:10 PM · Oct 30, 2020
Bezos, Musk, and the gov't employee unions will end up with the bulk of the money. Minus 10% for the big guy, of course.
>>There are not enough of us left who remember stagflation and 21% mortgage interest rates. It seems these painful lessons are for each =generation to learn all over again.
My first mortgage in 1980 was 12+ percent. I thought the days when I needed to worry about stuff like that were long gone. As of the end of last year, I'm semi/mostly retired. I should be more than comfortably fixed after 40+ years of working. Now I'm wondering whether I need to start worrying about this sh*t again.
--gpm
‘ "Statecraft is soulcraft" ‘ What is soulcraft anyway? ‘
It’s Brooks’ way of saying that spending $4T is a moral imperative.
Because nothing quite says “dignity” like a government check.
Although Brooks never explains why $4T? Why 4 and not 8, or 2, or some other number? Or maybe you could mail a page of “Got Dignity?” stickers to everyone? Is it really necessary to point out that Brooks promotion of the $4T is utterly lacking any rational argument?
“Spend the $4T because doing this will make you feel good and virtuous!”? Why not just bellow, “Never enough! It’s never enough!! More, more, more! NEVER ENOUGH!!
If statecraft is soulcraft, the state is the Church.
The idea that dignity can be distributed seems odd to me. Dignity is inherent and is recognized by respect for individuals, not by handing out stuff the state says you need or should want.
We are not as rational or as reasonable as we believe, much more frequently ruled by our emotions than the other way around.
https://www.takimag.com/article/27390/
Conservatives have the more rational position, based on limited government and the fiscal math facing the federal government , but they are doomed to irrelevance if they can’t explain their rationale in moral terms.
Post a Comment