StephenKMackSD's Blog

Gather round children Mr. David Brooks is about to spin a rather complex political fable with the assistance of Professor Tyler Cowen, of George Mason University and the Koch funded The Mercatus Center, and author of ‘Average is Over’! Be still for a moment as Mr. Brooks begins his little tale:

We’re living in an era of mechanized intelligence, an age in which you’re probably going to find yourself in a workplace with diagnostic systems, different algorithms and computer-driven data analysis. If you want to thrive in this era, you probably want to be good at working with intelligent machines. As Tyler Cowen puts it in his relentlessly provocative recent book, “Average Is Over,” “If you and your skills are a complement to the computer, your wage and labor market prospects are likely to be cheery. If your skills do not complement the computer, you may want to address that mismatch.”

So our challenge for the day is to think of exactly which mental abilities complement mechanized intelligence. Off the top of my head, I can think of a few mental types that will probably thrive in the years ahead. Continue reading →

Here is a paragraph, that is the central defense of the religious sensibility, from Mr. Douthat’s essay of November 23,2013 titled ‘Puddleglum and the Savage’:

In effect, both Huxley and Lewis looked at a utilitarian’s paradise — a world where all material needs are met, pleasure is maximized and pain eliminated — and pointed out what we might be giving up to get there: the entire vertical dimension in human life, the quest for the sublime and the transcendent, for romance and honor, beauty and truth. Continue reading →

Mr. Frum’s essay of November 26,2013 titled ‘Hillary Clinton’s Iran Trap’ provides a perfect propaganda opportunity for attacking both the current Democratic front runner of 2016, and President Obama’s Iran agreement, not to speak of the gratuitous ‘Professor Obama’ dig. The charge of hypocrisy hangs heavy in the air.  Never let an ‘opportunity’ pass by, without thoroughly exploiting it’s political potential, rule number one in Frum World. Mr. Frum’s political allies like Ms. Jennifer Rubin equated a potential attack on Iran by Israel as a ‘Defense of the West’, while Mr. Krauthammer likened the Iran agreement, in the stark terms of ‘Munich’. Those kind of political hysterics -Mr. Frum is a more adept, even sophisticated propagandist, in locating his critique of the Iran agreement in a politically holistic way, by using Ms. Clinton’s past pronouncements on the Iranian Problem. While ignoring in the most blatant self-serving way, the situation as being fundamentally changed in the wake of the agreement. Political opportunities are manufactured by propagandists like Mr. Frum.

Political Cynic 

Jennifer Rubin’s column for November 22, 2013 titled ‘Who will Defend the West’ is a faint echo of  Cold War rhetoric. This was written before the Iran accords were reached a few days later. Here is a telling paragraph:

Whether or not a deal is struck few expect Iran to give up its nuclear weapons ambitions. It may be the tiny Jewish state (albeit one with a first-rate military) in a sea of Arab lands that steps up to the plate to defend itself, its Sunni neighbors and the West. Winston Churchill, in his 1921 visit to what was then Palestine, may have been prophetic when he said, “I believe that the establishment of the a Jewish National Home in Palestine will be a blessing to the whole world, a blessing to the Jewish race scattered all over the world, and a blessing to Great Britain. . . . The hope of your race [the Jewish people] for so many centuries will be gradually realized here, not only for your own good but for the good of all the world.” Israel would quite literally be doing just that if forced to strike Iran. (The man who pointed this out to me and wrote a definitive work on Churchill and the Jewish state, Michael Makovsky, visitedthe current prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, who is himself a Churchill buff, this fall.) Let’s pray it doesn’t come to that. Continue reading →

Katrina vanden Heuval tweeted a link to this essay by Mr. John G. Taft at the New York Times of October 22, 2013, titled The Cry of the True Republican. Ancestor worship is quite a marvel to confront in such a heavy dose, it makes one feel an acquaintance with a  feudal mentality utterly foreign to the American notion of the self-made man. The essay itself is kind of potted history of the Taft contribution to the American Story, of the necessity of political dynasties and family largess. It does seem to manifest an arrogant and self-congratulatory tone that grates against the American Grain, a kind of inappropriate royalism? Continue reading →

Is adoration the wrong word? Some examples of the questions:

‘While your opinions are are delectable to read…’, ‘Is your favorite one-liner still the ­sausage one?’, ‘Fifty years from now, which decisions in your tenure do you think will be heroic? ‘

One wishes that a real interview with Justice Scalia might be conducted by an intellectual antagonist or at the least a more  tenacious inquirer. Continue reading →