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February 10, 2012
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February 2, 2012
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Tina Susman: For woodchuck rescuer, every day is Groundhog Day
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Emily Brandon: How to Take Advantage of New 401(k) Fee Disclosures
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January 27, 2012
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Yochonon Donn: In liberal New York City, fervently-Orthodox Jews may soon be getting a district to call their own
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Katy Hopkins: New budget rules may affect how much money you get for college
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Jeannine Stein: Mental illness struck one in five U.S. adults in 2010: Report
January 25, 2012
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Fred Weir: Putin: Multiethnic Russia cannot survive as a US-style 'melting pot'; must find its own way
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Warren Richey: Drug criminal scores win in GPS ruling from conservative-leaning high court
Erika Bolstad: Black conservatives gather to talk about gaining strength
January 23, 2012
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Ali Safi: U.S. envoy gives Taliban terms for peace talks
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January 12, 2012
Warren Richey: Landmark Supreme Court ruling a 'resounding win' for religious groups
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Katy Hopkins : Consider This Before You Pay for an Online Degree
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January 11, 2012
Shari Roan: Millions of atrial fibrillation sufferers at risk for devastating, but preventable, stroke
Tom Hussain: Pakistan -- recipient of more than $21 billion in civilian and military aid -- speeds pursuit of Iranian pipeline, defying US
David G. Savage: High court signals it won't be loosening TV's 'indecency' rules
Stephen Ceasar: Oklahoma's Islamic law amendment can't go into effect, court rules
January 10, 2012
Reza Kahlili: From an ex-CIA spy: US must exploit new split in Iran's Revolutionary Guard
Karen Kaplan: Study: Nicotine replacement products ineffective when used in real-life situations
January 9, 2012
Michael Doyle: Put through legal hell over dream home, couple fought back hard --- all the way to Supreme Court
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Jewish World Review
March 20, 2009
24 Adar 5769
Red meat for dinner
By
Suzanne Fields
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
The conservatives in party frocks and black tie were restless. They were hungry and thirsty. The bread had been devoured, the wine bottles were empty, and the speaker had not yet begun. There was one speech and one hour to go until dinner was served.
This was tradition, to mark the protocol at the annual Irving Kristol Lecture by the American Enterprise Institute, and everyone subscribed to the formal contract: "If ideology be the food of politics, think before you eat. Give me excess of it." Very Washington. There would be time to eat, drink and be merry after the enlightenment.
This was not the Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity crowd; there would be no knock 'em, sock 'em, beat 'em rhetoric. The audience expected something "thoughty," a speech from a conservative intellectual accustomed to looking at the big picture.
Tonight's speaker was Charles Murray, whose ideas give liberals indigestion and usually spark intelligent debate that eventually spills over into public policy. His book, "Losing Ground," published a quarter of a century ago, demonstrated how many government social programs, for all their good intentions, contributed to the destruction of social networks for poor black families. His data and analysis were the impetus for the welfare reform legislation that Bill Clinton, reluctant or not, signed into law.
While Murray fretted that his subject, the nature of happiness, sounded abstract, he knew an audience upset over President Obama's unfolding domestic agenda would find it "relevant" when put in the form of a succinct question: "Do we want the United States to be like Europe?"
The question was not about the cozy ambiance of the cafes of Paris, the beer gardens of Munich or the tapas bars of Barcelona; he's known to partake of the delights that make everyday life in Paris and Berlin, Amsterdam and Rome easy to love. But the Europe of familiar song and story will disappear in the lifetimes of those now small children if present trends continue.
Europeans suffer catastrophically low birthrates, as if the pleasures of daily life are not wonderful enough to pass on to the succeeding generations. The price of the long vacations, extended maternity leaves, generous child allowances and good daycare of the modern welfare state will be collected soon enough, and will be steep indeed.
Government policies have led Europeans to discount the "transcendent meaning" that Western civilization has given to human life. "If we ask what are the institutions through which human beings achieve deep satisfactions in life," he says, "the answer is that there are just four: family, community, vocation and faith." Almost anything government does impinges on these institutions, and while social policy in Europe legislates to make life happier, it fosters a narcissism that undercuts those institutions.
And here's the crux of his argument: Barack Obama's intellectual heroes, political theorists and policymakers are the American equivalent of Europe's social democrats. They want the government to take over ever more of our lives, to remake America in the mould of Europe, with all its attendant unhappy consequences.
"Happiness" can sound esoteric and distant in the midst of a recession that threatens to make all our lives less than happy. It's precisely this "crisis" that tempts us to embrace the example of Europe without facing up to the future costs, psychological and financial, of government spending and bureaucratic regulation and control. Marriage rates are plunging in Europe, and Europeans are not replacing themselves. Longer vacations take priority over job satisfaction, work is a "necessary evil" that intrudes on leisure, and the ancient churches are crowded with tourists who are there only to admire the architecture, not to worship.
Government policy can't be blamed for it all, but it's impossible to ignore government and the flabby intellectual concepts driving unintended change. Government is by far the strongest influence on the European "mindset." This even goes to the heart of Europe's military impotence: "If the purpose of life is to while away the time as pleasantly as possible," Murray asks, "what can be worth dying for?"
America's sense of itself comes from the "cultural capital" of its democratic institutions that at their best prize individual opportunity and satisfaction over equality of outcome, enabling the individual to take control of his own destiny and to accept the consequences of his actions.
That's hard to appreciate in the fog of a recession made worse by greed run amok. Government action may be "urgent," but legislation to correct mistakes can be fraught with good intentions that can make things worse. This was the evening's red meat, which arrived at the table before the filet mignon.
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© 2006, Creators Syndicate, Suzanne Fields
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