In going through some old notes from the 2004 campaign for President, in order to decide whether it’s time to throw them out, I was reminded of GOPUSA and decided to check whether they, unlike several luminaries like Mr. Belo of Texas, are still alive and kicking. Sure enough, GOPUSA is opinionating on the internet and, in fact, sponsors our old friend Stephen Moore, the founder and director of the Club for Growth back in the day. And Stephen Moore, whom the Columbia Journalism Review falsely identifies as an economist, has been making waves again by taking on the bona fide economist, Paul Krugman, and, more recently, the millennials.
The CJR piece on why one editor won’t be printing op-eds from Moore any more is most instructive.
Moore, formerly of The Wall Street Journal, submitted a version of a column that originally ran in Investor’s Business Daily. Contra Krugman, the column argued that Kansas’s tax-cut experiment needed more time to work, and cited statistics to show that states “following Krugman’s (and President Barack Obama’s) economic strategy are getting clobbered by tax-cutting states.”
Moore’s numbers turned out to be wrong because he cherry-picked a five year period that’s not representative. But, the point I want to make is that the premise, that the President of the United States sets “economic strategy” is all wrong. Similarly, the Governor of Kansas is not to blame either that the legislature reduced the flow of currency into state coffers from a trickle to a drip by cutting the requirement to “give unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s”— i.e. send the dollars back to the head of the line.
Where Moore is right (consistent) is in pointing the finger at some leader, any leader, to fix blame. That’s what authoritarians do.
OK, so that pattern is also in evidence in Moore’s Thanksgiving diatribe against the youth who are taking an active part in governmental issues.
His title, which Moore may well not have chosen himself but accurately reflects his theme, refers to university students as whiners,
and, typically, points the finger at authority.
Now we are witnessing whiny college kids marching in the streets, screaming obscenities or taking over the university president's office, and for what? Feeling slighted? Having their feelings hurt? Talk about rebels without a cause.
Well, actually, that paragraph is a better example of the conservative penchant for repeating stock phrases and cultural allusions to provide authority for themselves. It’s a subsequent paragraph that provides evidence of Moore’s animus at having HIS authority challenged, even as the students are supposedly disenchanted with their own authorities.
These leftist kids are agitated and angry. This is a hangover effect, I suspect, from the shattered Utopian dreams of "Hope and Change." I have noticed in recent months that these students attend my lectures not to learn anything -- they know everything already -- but hoping that I will slip up or say something they can label as offensive or that violates their eight-volume campus speech code.
Stephen Moore is hung up on authority. Moreover, he makes a living regurgitating stock phrases.
At one recent visit to the University of Massachusetts, I asked a few kids what their plans were for Thanksgiving. They practically spat at me for even mentioning this white-supremacy holiday, which only trivializes and glorifies the genocide of the Native Americans by the pilgrims. Wow. Sorry I brought it up, especially in your "safe space."
Repetition and regurgitation. If people aren’t paying close attention, as most people aren’t when they’re being lectured, what they’re hearing almost makes sense. But, there’s one other indispensable element in the conservative world view — jealousy.
See if you don’t agree that Stephen Moore is jealous.
Who's to blame for all of this? Alas, we are: the parents who caved in to every instant-gratification demand they ever had, arranged "play dates" for them, showered them with positive affirmation daily and gave them timeouts rather than spankings. Our schools are to blame for labeling them "gifted and talented" and awarding them towering trophies for finishing in sixth place so as not to damage self-esteem. College professors are to blame for corrupting their minds with hate-America ideology. And now the administrators are to blame, too, as they bend to students' every petty demand.
It’s really not fair. I get dissed by Krugman and some penny-ante paper in Kansas and the whiners get university presidents to resign. Whatever happened to respect for authority?
Personally, I discarded it when the parish priest lied about me.