Brooks on Jindal
D. Brooks for me is hot/cold–when he’s on he’s on, when he’s off he’s off. Here he is dead-on. I’m sure the Limbaugh/Happy Meal Cons won’t love this, but they need to move from denial to some kind of reality. Listening to what David has to say here would be a good start.
Apparently John Huntsman, (R) Gov of Utah (of Utah!!!) is waking up and smelling some coffee on this one.
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Update I: Check out this Larison post for some (slight) disagreement. Daniel’s point is that the Republicans believe in something (just something pretty small bore and mono-explanatory in this case) hence they are not nihilists. Obviously he’s got a point. (And being against earmarks isn’t all bad, just in this case basically by itself laughable).
But to defend Brooks for a second, I took nihlist more in The Big Lebowski tradition of “We are Nihilists, we Believe in Nothin’ Lebowski.” Obviously they are driven by something (in that case, greed/money) but put on this front which is ludicrous and hence deserve to be mocked.
If we want to get really semiotic here, Brooks’ exact words were “it’s a form of nihilism.” It being a policy of tax cuts, earmarks reform, and charges that federal gov’t is the problem relative to what he refers to us as “this moment in history.” There must I guess then be other forms of nihilism and what I take him to mean is that such a meagre response (and to be clear, Brooks says he opposed the stimulus package as drafted, so he’s not totally against corruption charges nor for the idea that bigger government is always better) would presumably in Brooks’ mind lead to absolute disaster and hence a kind of nothingness, certainly for the GOP and perhaps even (I’m extending here) for the country as a whole. It would lead to a kind of implosion into an abyss and hence has a kind of nihilistic turn–even if not formally nihilistic as understood say as a philosophical worldview.
Step back, Dierkes, and consider what you are proposing. Namely, the party in power at the federal level of this country believes that the federal government should have its direct hand in many, many, many aspects of daily life in this country, and the party that (not uniformly, but largely) believes that the federal government should not have its hand in many, many, many aspects of daily life in this country should . . . not say so?!?
And, precisely, why? Nearly half the country didn’t vote Democrat for president. Do these people not count?
Again, this country used to have an incredibly vibrant and healthy and effective means to remedy social ills. See the statistics, for example, In Our Hands by Charles Murray, a book I know you know about.
It makes no sense for you, using Brooks, to claim it foul for non-lefty-progressives to point away from the federal government — which, STILL, has such a terrible track record when it comes to social remedies — and essentially towards Civil Society sort of remedies (the levels of government below City level and the most decentralized, i.e. neighborhoods, civic associations, families, individuals).
Where else would you like conservatives to point?Report
Hot/cold is exactly how I’d say I feel towards Brooks– half the time I read him, I say to myself, “right on.” The other half of the time, I think “where did that thoughtful guy go?”Report
Freddie,
I don’t know maybe it’s because he has to every once in awhile throw out some red meat to the Limbaugh types to keep his conservative cred (which is often under attack from certain quarters). Also he seems to be kinda ADD sometimes going from one thing to the next. Or maybe two op-eds/week is one too many.Report
“We are nihilists… we believe in nothing… NOW GIVE US THE MONEY!”Report
Nice marmet.Report
When I stumble out to get the Times I first turn to the OpEd page. If it is a Brook’s day I read him first, I can’t explain. Must be a way to punish myself. Anyway, I usually feel that David has spent days scouring the net for an obscure academic paper, or journal article, “look how erudite I am.”
OK, it’s not fair, but that is the feeling I get.
Jesus, it’s really cold cold cold hot.Report
The Marmet Technique.
Manually Expressing Breast Milk — The Marmet Technique
Expressing milk by hand can be done to relieve engorged breasts or to stimulate let down of milk when you are ready to begin nursing. The Marmet Technique, developed by Drs. William and Martha Sears with the La Leche League International, is an easy way to express breast milk.
Start by positioning the thumb above the nipple and the first two fingers below the nipple, about 1″ to 1-1/2″ from the nipple, although not necessarily at the outer edges of the areola. Use this measurement as a guide, since breasts and areolas vary in size from one woman to another. Be sure the hand forms the letter “C” and the finger pads are at 6 and 12 o’clock in line with the nipple. This way, the fingers are positioned so that the milk reservoirs lie beneath them. (Avoid cupping the breast.)Report
Mr Dierkes,
You say the Republicans are being “pretty small bore and mono-explanatory”.
The Republicans proposed a stimulus package that included tax cuts on income taxes for individuals, cuts on taxes on businesses, including various targeted tax cuts for various incentives, along with various actually “shovel-ready” projects to put people temporarily to work.
More or less, this kind of proposal is “what Republicans do”.
On the other hand, the Democrats passed a bill that takes money we don’t have to fund various safety net operations, pork projects that arguably have little to do with stimulating the lack of jobs, give people an average of $8 more a week through a lowered payroll tax, and various “green” initiatives, some of which are truly shovel ready and some are decidedly not.
All in all, nothing of what the Democrats passed struck anyone as particularly “un-Democrat-like”. In fact, this too was basically “what Democrats do”.
So, again, precisely HOW is what the Republicans proposed “pretty small bore and mono-explanatory”? Or, if you are going to take one trillion words to answer that, here is the question from another angle: how isn’t what the Democrats passed also, more or less, equally “pretty small bore and mono-explanatory”?Report