Yeah, yeah, it’s a Catholic thing. My parish boasts a Social Justice Commission, and it’s not particularly remarkable in that regard. The pursuit of “social justice” is the intellectual and moral vice of contemporary Catholicism.

I sometimes wonder what the members of the Social Justice Commission would say if I pointed out to them that a healthy, growing economy is the sine qua non of social justice. Jobs? Only a productive, profit-oriented economy generates jobs. Opportunity? Only a strong, expanding economy makes space for the risk taker, the innovator and the entrepreneur. Come to think of it, all that makes the social justice advocate tremble with indignation—profits, risk, the pursuit of self interest, celebration of success and acceptance of unequal outcomes—are the very things that guarantee a tolerable social, economic and political order.

This is the paradox of modern compassion: the feeling, amounting to an article of faith, that basic principles of economics are inapplicable to questions of “social justice.” Sure, official Catholic social teaching is more sophisticated than the version practiced at the parish level. But it’s sadly true that such words as “market,” “profit” and “capitalism” make many good Catholics cringe. And how they dislike being reminded of that perennial truth of economics: “There is no free lunch!”

Posted by tmg110 at 8:36 PM EDT

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The aftermath of the Libyan Revolution? A sea of al-Qaeda flags. So much for the claim that the Obama Administration was fostering democracy by supporting the uprising against the late, unlamented Colonel Qaddafi. Really, after our experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan, plus the sad outcome of the Arab Spring uprising in Egypt, was there really any reason to think that the overthrow of Qaddafi would produce anything but a radical Islamist regime?

Whatever gang of Islamofascist thugs emerges as the government of the new Libya, they’ll probably be no better than the man they replaced. True, true, Qaddafi deserved his death—but why should we have expended an ounce of effort to replace him with people for whom 9/11 was a great and glorious victory over satanic America?

Posted by tmg110 at 8:08 PM EDT

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I should mention that such classics as Ed Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space have been ruled ineligible for my personal worst-ever movie list. Adding the legendary schlockmeister’s body of work to the pool of nominees would crowd out so many other deserving candidates! Indeed, you could argue—I have argued—that big money and a big-name cast can actually magnify the effects of badness. By that standard, The Ten Commandments is much worse than Bride of the Monster! So sorry Ed, but you’re in a class by yourself.

Posted by tmg110 at 1:22 PM EDT

Updated: Wednesday, 14 December 2011 10:28 AM EST

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There are times when the literary side of life can become a burden.

Atlas Shrugged was one of those books that I felt I had to read, if only because it's so talked about in libertarian/conservative circles. I was aware, of course, that National Review had pronounced the anathema on Rand and her slap-up philosophy many years ago. Whittaker Chambers, no less, savaged both her and her elephantine novel in a famous review. Still, its premise—that the world’s productive people might someday get fed up and just go on strike—seemed rather intriguing. So I slapped down my money and lugged the thing home from B&N.

I read it from cover to cover and came away feeling that Rand was indeed the unbalanced fanatic that Chambers & Co. claimed her to be. Certainly she couldn’t be called a conservative. It wasn’t that she was wrong in everything she said. I often found myself in agreement with her bitter critique of the welfare/nanny state—any conservatively minded person would. But the wretched excess of Atlas Shrugged! By the end, Rand’s ranting left me feeling that libertarianism is just ridiculous. Instead of making her case, she pitched a hissy fit. Also, she wasn’t a very good writer. Frequently, her prose made me cringe in the way you do when someone scrapes his fingernails down the blackboard.

However, I can see why Atlas Shrugged is a perennial best seller. It appeals to the adolescent/young adult type of mind so well on display among the Occupy Wall Street protesters. It will probably live on for as long as late-night college dorm bull sessions continue to be held.

Atlas Shrugged isn't a must read as far as I'm concerned, but Chambers' review is. Check that one out.

Posted by tmg110 at 1:17 PM EDT

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Isn’t it interesting that despite the allegations of sexual harassment that have been leveled against him, Herman Cain is still doing well in the polls? I suspect that there are a couple of reasons for this.

One is the suspicion among Republican primary voters that the whole thing is a base smear. They well remember the travails of Clarence Thomas, another conservative black man whom the Left sought to destroy with a sexual harassment charge. The attack on Cain, I believe, has rallied more conservative GOP voters to his cause. Whether this will prove to be a durable phenomenon remains to be seen.

I also think that there are many Americans—not necessarily all on the conservative side of the political divide—who regard the very concept of “sexual harassment” with a suspicious eye. They believe that what began some thirty years ago as a campaign against genuine sexual predators in the workplace has now degenerated into a jihad against “inappropriate behavior”—in effect criminalizing the off-color joke, the socially inept come-on and even the glance that lingers a second too long. The feminist zealots who labored to extend the definition of sexual harassment have, in the process, demolished the credibility of the charge.

Finally, there’s the fact that none of the women who were supposed to have been sexually harassed by Cain have actually come forward to tell their stories. This raises the suspicion that there’s nothing much to the charges after all. If no one’s willing to pull an Anita Hill on him—where’s the beef (or the pepperoni, given the candidate’s business background)?

True, the Cain campaign’s fumbling, bumbling management of the sexual harassment charge raises questions about his fitness as a candidate. But that issue stands apart from the charge itself. Unless he really did do something vicious or predatory, I think that Cain will get a pass. He may deserve it or not, but unless this story gets taken to a new level, Herman’s cool.

Posted by tmg110 at 3:47 PM EDT

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Now that I have more time on my hands, I’m returning to a cherished project: compiling my personal list of the worst movies ever made. Here’s a nominee that will, I suspect, make the final cut: The Haunting (1999). This remake of the 1963 classic based on Shirley Jackson’s superb novel, The Haunting of Hill House, constitutes a cultural crime of the first order. I wish I could send director Jan de Bolt, his cast including Liam Neeson, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Owen Wilson, Lili Taylor and Bruce Dearn, plus the whole wretched mob responsible for this travesty to some cinematic Gulag, there to mine uranium for twenty years or so.

The hideous badness of this movie begins with its reimagining of Hill House itself. Whereas the novel and the 1963 film depicted it as a conventional house that was somehow wrong, the 1999 remake turned the place into a sort of Tim Burton theme park. This was stupid, offensive—and it immediately killed my willingness to suspend disbelief for the duration of the movie.

Next came plain bad acting—though I suppose that in such surroundings even Lawrence Olivier would have looked ridiculous. Still, Owen Wilson was beyond awful as Luke, while the undeniably beauteous Catherine Zeta-Jones was somewhat less than convincing as Theo, the Sapphic love interest. Then there were the cheesy computer-generated special effects, which wouldn’t have been needed at all had Jackson’s original story been followed. But I suppose that the studio marketing people insisted on some flashy, whiz-bang pyrotechnics. That’s what the kids like!

As for the screenplay, if the writers had had a better idea than Jackson, I wouldn’t have minded that they strayed so far from her novel. But no, they replaced it with a heaping helping of tripe involving murdered children whose souls have to be freed by Nell (Lilli Taylor) and…whatever. I was about to observe that the ending makes no sense, but it’s actually worse than that. Considering that people paid good money to watch this thing, the ending is an insult.

But perhaps The Haunting should be judged not as a movie, but as a Marketing 101 homework assignment. Check the requisite boxes—scary house, flashy special effects, hot babe and handsome leading man with good name recognition, ghosts, happy ending—and presto! There’s your box office hit. And The Haunting did make money. It cost $80 to make, earned $91.2 million domestically and $177.3 million worldwide. Not bad for a crime against movie-going humanity.

Posted by tmg110 at 3:11 PM EDT

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Just a note to advise that my site devoted to military flags, WAR FLAGS, was updated on October 31. Link in the left-hand sidebar.

Posted by tmg110 at 11:26 AM EDT

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The coming Greek referendum on acceptance of the European Union’s latest bailout plan is an omen of doom for ‘Europe.” Just a few years ago, the European Union was being touted as the next superpower, an economic colossus to rival America—see this book, for example. But now? The Euro, the common currency that was supposed to foster unification by integrating the economies of the continent, is looking more like a fiscal suicide pact.

Thanks to the Euro, Europe’s advanced economies are being held hostage by profligate spenders like Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain. The PIGS, as they’re called, are flat broke. Worse still, they’ve borrowed far more than they can ever hope to repay. Greece, for example, spent the last couple of decades constructing a lavish welfare state with borrowed money. Meanwhile the Greek economy was allowed to languish. To put it simply, Greece itself cannot possibly afford to fund the welfare state out of its own resources. Moreover, Greece can never hope to pay off its gargantuan national debt. The Greek bonds held by European banks are now toxic assets that threaten the stability of the whole European financial system.

In the good old days when it had its own currency, Greece could have skated out of its financial difficulties by devaluing the drachma. Paying off one’s debts with inflated money is one of the oldest tricks in the book. But now the Euro is Greece’s currency, and the Euro is controlled by Brussels. This gives the EU leverage over the Greeks. In return for a bailout Greece will have to accept stern austerity measures, mostly by pruning back entitlement programs. The dread prospect of being thrown off the government gravy train explains why the Greek people are rioting in the streets.

In Germany, people are discontented as well. The hard-pressed German taxpayer does not see why he should have his pocket picked to bail out the feckless and lazy Greeks. Each new proposal to save the PIGS from the consequences of their irresponsibility further diminishes the credibility of the EU in the eyes of Germans. Not incidentally, it also inflicts more political damage on the German chancellor, Angela Merkel.

Even in Europe, leaders cannot govern against the will of the people indefinitely. The European Union was created by the European elites, with scant regard for the views of the average citizen. Now the Greeks are going to have their say in a national referendum. It’s almost certain that they’ll vote down the EU bailout proposal by a wide margin, whereupon the Greek government will almost certainly ditch the Euro and return to the drachma.

Euroskeptics long predicted that the common currency would eventually drive Europe up a blind alley where the productive and thrifty (Germany, France) would be mugged by the PIGS. Because the Euro made no sense, they argued, it followed that the European Union made no sense. How right they have proved to be.

Posted by tmg110 at 12:42 PM EDT

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President Obama has cited the majestic Hoover Dam as the kind of project that’s too massive to be left to private enterprise. Only the government, he and his claque insist, is big enough and smart enough to create such wonders of the world. Thus do they justify their itch to spend trillions on “infrastructure,” “green jobs,” “high-speed rail,” etc.

It’s a good line with only one flaw: There’s not a word of truth in it. As Arthur Herman points out in this story for NRO, the Hoover Dam was actually built by a consortium of six private firms. As he notes:

They and their workers and engineers built not only the dam, but also all the roads, railways, and other infrastructure necessary to bring in their equipment and materials. Kaiser and his partners even built an entire town (today’s Boulder City) to house their 5,200-strong work force.

And the New Deal-era federal government wasn’t particularly helpful:

Interior Secretary Harold Ickes had seen the dam as essentially a federal make-work project for the unemployed. Kaiser and his colleagues had to point out that they needed men with genuine skills, not just people willing to turn up for a paycheck. Ickes wanted the door open to union organizing; the builders convinced him the key to happy workers was paying them well, not giving them a union card. Ickes wanted every federal health and safety regulation to be rigorously enforced, and counted no fewer than 70,000 violations of the letter of the contract. They patiently showed him that applying those standards would mean the dam would never be finished on time, let alone on budget.

In the end, the job was finished ahead of schedule and $4 million under budget. Even if you knew nothing else about the Hoover Dam, that fact alone would suffice to prove that the federal government had nothing to do with its construction.

Posted by tmg110 at 11:38 AM EDT

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If we don’t pay off their student loans, we’ll be sorry:

A day of demonstrations in Oakland that began as a significant step toward expanding the political and economic influence of the Occupy Wall Street movement, ended with police in riot gear arresting dozens of protesters who had marched through downtown to break into a vacant building, shattering windows, spraying graffiti and setting fires along the way.

Not exactly the Paris Commune, but still hard to square with the claim that Occupy Wall Street represents “the 99%,” i.e. you and me.

Incidentally, the headline over the story quoted above (from AP) reads: “Peaceful Occupy protests degenerate into chaos.” Yeah, sure, very peaceful. That is what’s know as putting lipstick on a pig.

Posted by tmg110 at 11:18 AM EDT

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