David Brooks, Conservatism is about infantilization, not freedom

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Wednesday September 26, 2012 · 9:11 AM PDT

2012/09/26 · 09:11

I was infuriated reading David Brooks' column today in the NYT. According to Brooks', "life is best organized as a series of daring ventures from a secure base". Allow me to paraphrase: "You are infants, and we will make sure we keep you away from power so you don't get hurt."

Conservatives have been infantilizing for as long as power has existed. But Brooks is somehow more irritating and corrosive than even Burke. Burke was obviously a member of an upper class that was truly blind to the world. He grew up in privilege, and the lens through which he saw the world was abject fear of chaos and disorder. No society for more than 1,000 years had survived without a monarch or similar, so his support for aristocracy had the same legitimacy as support for Newtonian physics until Quantum physics came alone - rigid power structures around religion and class did seem to promise more stability than constant tribal and small-state warfare.

But Brooks, this is the 21st century. We have the French and American revolutions, the emergence of democratic Europe from Fascism, the Internet, and countless other examples that prove that while the rule of law is essential for the prosperity and happiness, rigid societal order is not. You know better, but you promote worse.

Before we knew that men and women could prosper in liberal democracy, Conservatism was a legitimate theory - neither proven nor disproven. At this point, its predictive ability as a model is false, and like any theory that fails to predict real-world behavior, it must be abandoned.

More below.

madmadmad

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Monday September 24, 2012 · 11:37 AM PDT

2012/09/24 · 11:37

I bought a Nissan Leaf a year ago, and I thought that National Plug-in day was a great time to reflect on the good, bad, and ugly of my first year. So here is why I did it, and what I learned.

I took ownership of my strange-looking grey Leaf 9/23/2011 from a dealership in Northern Marin. I had wanted an electric for 2 years, and I had totalled my Isuzu Trooper, a clear sign from God that I needed to get off my keister.

Why electric?

For one, I am a geek, and I loved the potential in moving from mechanical to software innovation in cars, so I was already a soft target.

But the real reason was that I hated the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and I felt that the only way I could make a difference was to stop buying oil directly. It was not even a climate change issue - I just hated the idea that I was sending money to a region that was using it to buy weapons and decrease stability, requiring me to send more money to fund military operations. Buying both sides' bullets seemed a bad idea.

So was it a good decision? More after the squiggle...

madmadmad

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Wednesday September 19, 2012 · 11:10 AM PDT

2012/09/19 · 11:10

From the standpoint of a CEO or board member of a company, you don't pay taxes, they do.

I am a CEO, and have been for the better part of 15 years. It has become clear over the past few days that most progressives don't really comprehend how CEOs and company owners understand payroll taxes and deductions. I am also a Liberal, so understand that I am trying to provide clarity on the other side's point of view, not to defend it.

Most of us take an employee's perspective. Lets say you are a full time employee, and you get your pay stub twice a month. You have gross earnings, and then the government takes its pieces and you are left with notably less than your salary.

You see that the government has taken some of the money you have earned, but being enlightened, you recognize that Social Security, Medicare, Parks, Police and the lot have to get paid for, and you understand that some of our money will get redistributed to those who need it.

But how does a CEO see it ... after the squiggle

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David Brooks, Conservatism is about infantilization, not freedom

My Leaf was 1 yr old on National Plug-in Day. The real scoop.

You are not paying taxes - a view from a CEO