Assorted

     “I don’t like Mondays. This livens up the day.” -- Brenda Ann Spencer

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1. Economic Thought.

     If you’ve ever wondered why governments are so fond of the economic theories of John Maynard Keyes and so averse to the thinking of Austrians Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek, Mike at 90 Miles from Tyranny has an instructive graphic for you. Go thou forth, peruse it, and return hither.

     The Keynesian side of that graphic is filled with all manner of obsequies toward government: government spending, government managed “fiat” currencies, government superintendence of the national economy. It also aims a few slaps at private enterprise: e.g., that inflation is caused when “corporations raise prices.” In contrast, the Austrian side speaks of the power of private enterprise to create prosperity while regulating itself through the laws of supply and demand. It deplores government-managed “fiat” currencies as the engine of inflation and rejects the notion that government interventions into the economy are constructive overall.

     Not much of a surprise why statists prefer Keynesianism, is it?

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2. Why Hillary Clinton Lost The Presidential Election.

     Daniel Greenfield has the answer, deduced straight from Mrs. Clinton’s ponderous, irritating book:

     Current ‘blamees’ include the FBI, millions of white people, sexism, the Russians, Russian sexism, Bernie Sanders, Jill Stein, Joe Biden, Matt Lauer and the Electoral College.

     And probably the starting lineup of the Denver Broncos. You’ll have to buy the book for the full list.

     But What Happened, Hillary’s spiteful magnum opus, does actually answer its titular question.

     Hillary happened....

     The carefully constructed machine built to take Hillary to the White House broke down on Wisconsin Highway 14, Florida State Road 20 and Pennsylvania Route 22. Only a skeleton staff of loyalists stayed to help Hillary turn her name recognition and remaining connections into filthy lucre and filthier spite.

     That’s what What Happened is. Hillary gets to lash out at everyone and get paid for it. Not only is she upstaging Bernie’s book tour while trying to tie him to Trump, she’s taking shots at another likely Dem 2020er, Joe Biden, not to mention her own badly used DNC and everyone who didn’t vote for her.

     If Hillary can’t be president, she’s going to make damn sure that none of her Dem rivals will either.

     I have no intention of reading What Happened -- link conveniently provided so that you, Gentle Reader, can sneer at it too – but so far, every mention of the book I’ve seen, whether from a Right or a Left source, has concurred with Greenfield’s sentiments. All that remains is for the media to conclude that there’s no more “juice” in the election and for her supposed party to pass a sentence of exile upon her. These are consummations devoutly to be wished, even by many who didn’t vote for Donald Trump.

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3. Those Damned Episcopalians!

     The whole of France is becoming a no-go zone for Americans:

     Four American women visiting France were attacked with acid Sunday in the southern city of Marseille, according to a report.

     A 41-year-old woman was arrested in connection with the attack. Two of the female tourists suffered facial injuries from the incident, which occurred at the Saint Charles train station. One of the women may have an eye injury, a spokeswoman for the Marseille prosecutor's office told the Associated Press.

     As usual, the French government has said that there are “no indications” that this was a terrorist attack. Where would you place your bet, Gentle Reader?

     It’s been said innumerable times, including by me, that no one has ever won a war playing defense. This is especially the case regarding today’s “asymmetric” warfare, conducted in spurts by un-uniformed combatants whose allegiances are generally plain but whose intentions are cloaked until the instant they act. If we want this madness to stop, the entire First World must go on the attack.

     Islam in the First World must be destroyed. There must be no Muslims in the nations of the West, no matter what must be done to cleanse ourselves of them. And yes, I mean that exactly as it sounds.

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4. The Campus Campaign Against Conservative Speech.

     Matt Lewis of The Daily Beast has some first-hand information for us:

     To get a better perspective on the problem, I reached out to Madison Faupel, who interned for my wife this summer. Instead of perspective, I got a first-hand testimonial.

     She’s the president of the University of Minnesota's College Republican chapter. Her group sparked controversy last fall when it reserved space and painted a mural on the Washington Avenue Bridge to promote their student group.

     Her group settled on three slogans: “College Republicans, The Best Party on Campus,” “Trump Pence 2016,” and “Build the Wall.”

     Within an hour, the panels had been vandalized, and protesters had surrounded the panels. Some of the vandalism included the following statements: “STOP WHITE SUPREMACY NOW” and “Hate Speech is not Free Speech.”

     The notion that Madison is a white supremacist is about as laughable as the notion that Ben Shapiro is one. In their insistence on tolerance, leftists are increasingly intolerant of anyone who may not like their choice of candidate or political ideas. The charge of "racism" is becoming an easy way to shut down robust political discussion.

     That last sentence above indicates that Lewis is a little behind the curve. “Racist!” has been the silencing cry of campus totalitarians for quite some time now. But I’m not telling my Gentle Readers anything they don’t already know.

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5. Conservatism Needs Joy.

     Via our most recent Co-Contributor, we have this inspiring, even exciting article from Jacobite Magazine:

     Contemporary young people on the right may be described in many ways: Transgressive. Ostracized. Principled. Unpopular. Free-thinking. Reactionary. Traditional. However accurate—and perhaps damning — one thinks these are, there is one label that greatly worries me: Joyless.

     A somewhat bleak opening, you say? Well, yes, but it assists writer Felix James Miller’s thesis in two ways. Here’s the first of them:

     There are many examples of figures rejoicing despite the odds, but I would like to hold up one as particularly helpful for today: Gilbert Keith Chesterton. Born in 1874, Chesterton saw in the modernism of his day the monster in has since become. As a Catholic convert and a critic of atheism, Islam, first-wave feminism, and many other intellectual movements, Chesterton is an easy friend to Jacobite readers. He understands that “Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions,” and that “Progress is a comparative of which we have not settled the superlative.”

     The reason G.K. Chesterton is so important to the right today is that his writings express a deep joy about life. This joy is not superficial, but is simply the natural result of his love for reality. And he did not simply display this joy, he worked to spread it to others. His critique of self-referential, modernist conceptions of joy still packs the punch today that it did when first published:

     Do not enjoy yourself. Enjoy dances and theaters and joy-rides and champagne and oysters; enjoy jazz and cocktails and night-clubs if you can enjoy nothing better; enjoy bigamy and burglary and any crime in the calendar, in preference to the other alternative; but never learn to enjoy yourself.

     It’s the Left that refuses to find joy in normal life! Joy is antithetical to the Left’s need to politicize all of life. Conservatives could easily exploit this simply by being exemplars of the joy that arises from simply paying attention to and honoring reality: productive work done willingly and well, properly balanced by leisure and leisurely pursuits; love in all its many forms; gratitude to God for our world, our lives, and the many blessings He has granted us. A snippet from 1984 captures this nicely:

     ‘When you make love you're using up energy; and afterwards you feel happy and don’t give a damn for anything. They can't bear you to feel like that. They want you to be bursting with energy all the time. All this marching up and down and cheering and waving flags is simply sex gone sour. If you’re happy inside yourself, why should you get excited about Big Brother and the Three-Year Plans and the Two Minutes Hate and all the rest of their bloody rot?’

     Here’s the second one, which Miller only implies: It’s the doing of the media, which is in bed with the Left, that conservatives are caricatured as joyless scolds. But we have “our own media” now – you’re reading a bit of it – and we needn’t scruple to use it to bray at them – joyfully.

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6. It’s Coming.

     Innocents is nearing completion, albeit agonizingly slowly. Parts of this story have been harder to write than anything else I’ve attempted. (For a useful perspective, be aware that Which Art In Hope took me twelve years to finish.) But it’s usually the case that the harder a story is for me to get right, the more satisfied I am with the result – and the more striking it will be to the ultimate reader. Please bear with me.