Tag Archives: Capitalism

Commentary

Is Toyota the victim of persecution by the mainstream media?

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From National Review. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

For those who’ve been setting up the Japanese automaker as the latest symbol of heartless capitalism, it’s been a bewildering few days. On Wednesday the media jumped hard for the story of a man who frantically called 911 while his Prius ran away on a San Diego freeway (outstandingly gullible CBS News coverage here). Before long observers had begun poking holes in the story, and colorful details on the man’s earlier doings have been emerging all weekend. On Thursday, meanwhile, the New York Times — whose news columns had helped set the tone for the panic with accusatory coverage — ran what was actually a surprisingly good op-ed advancing the possibility that most of the Toyota cases will turn out to be the result of . . . driver error.

[…]With Audis, and in other acceleration scares affecting GM and other companies, we know that older drivers are not the only group disproportionately likely to be involved in a runaway. Others include drivers who are short in stature, who are unfamiliar with the vehicle (parking-lot attendants, new buyers), and who are taking off from a stopped position or backing up. Publicly available reports do not yet indicate whether the Toyota crashes fit all of these patterns… however… the L.A. Times compilation of fatal accidents seems to contain a striking number of drivers who were immigrants.

[…]The widely recalled low point of the Audi controversy came when CBS’s 60 Minutes ran a grossly unfair hatchet job on the automaker, complete with a bogus simulation rigged up by an expert witness working with lawyers suing Audi. This time around, it was the turn of ABC’s Brian Ross, who used, yes, an expert witness hired by litigators suing Toyota to rig up a supposed simulation of electronic failure. (Toyota promptly showed that you could get the same silly, artificial result by hooking up other automakers’ vehicles in the same way.) Matt Hardigree of Jalopnik called the results “ridiculous” and a “hoax,” while Gawker — noticing some stealthily falsified footage of tachometer results — headlined its coverage “How ABC News’ Brian Ross Staged His Toyota Death Ride” and “ABC News’ Toyota Test Fiasco.”

My view is that this is being blown out of all proportion like other media-induced scares. Fear sells newspapers.

News

New poll finds Canadians becoming more conservative and libertarian

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Political Map of Canada

Story here in the Globe and Mail.

Excerpt:

A survey by Allan Gregg of Harris-Decima and Carleton University’s Professor André Turcotte concludes that while a majority of Canadians identify with the “centre” position on the political ideology scale, this centre is increasingly embracing “traditionally conservative values.”

The poll says a plurality – or 47 per cent – of those respondents who consider themselves political “centrists” voted for the Conservatives in 2008. By comparison, back in 1997, 41 per cent of those self-identified as centrists voted Liberal.

“What is most surprising about these results is how mainstream conservative the political centre has become,” Mr. Turcotte said.

The survey found a majority of Canadians strongly agreed with traditionally conservative value statements on the morality of abortion, the definition of marriage as “between a man and a woman” and the supremacy of the family.

And:

Separately, the polling identified significant support for Tory government’s handling of issues like the long-gun registry and global warming.

The poll says six in 10 respondents back the Harper government’s decision to abolish the long-gun registry. It found half of respondents back the Tory go-slow approach to fighting climate change. And six in 10 said the Conservative government is doing “just enough” to deal with the economic recession.

Mr. Turcotte said Canadians also appear to be losing confidence in government ability’s to use social engineering to fix economic inequality in Canada.

Only 31 per cent of respondents felt government action is the best way to solve economic problems.

You can read a nice comparison of the US and Canadian economies from the libertarian Cato Institute.

I know I have a fair number of Canadian readers, especially the regular ones from Winkler, Morden, Coquitlam and Calgary (yes, I saw you all in the live traffic feed – why don’t you e-mail me ever? I’m not going bite you!). Please leave me a comment about where the best place to live is in Canada, in case I ever have to move there at some point to find a job.

Mentoring

The Wintery Knight’s greatest fears about the future

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I was asked recently to explain some of the big fears I have about the future, and I wrote a horrible paranoid screed that probably has scared her away from me for good. So, I thought I would re-write it in a more organized and sensible way.

So, I basically don’t have too many fears about the future as a single guy. I have economic fears about the future, but since I’m a good saver and having been saving all these years, I’m not worried about taking care of me because I’ve got the money to do that. And I don’t think things will get too bad before I die. Basically my fears for myself alone are because young people are being neglected by their working parents, and indoctrinated in the public schools.

Things that public schools teach:

  • taught Darwinism
  • taught sex education
  • taught that capitalism is evil
  • taught global warming alarmism
  • taught anti-Christian views
  • taught religious pluralism
  • taught moral relativism
  • taught postmodernism/skepticism
  • taught that Western civilization is evil
  • taught that America is evil
  • taught that war is never justified
  • taught that traditional marriage is wrong

…not to mention all things they don’t learn that put Christianity, America, capitalism, business, marriage and Western civilization in a positive light. I worry about how they will act and vote and demand entitlements from government to “equalize” their life outcomes after they make self-destructive decisions based on what they learned in school. And many of them are growing up without fathers which brings a whole host of other problems. But I am not too worried about this because I can always pick up and move somewhere else if things get really bad here.

But these fears pale in comparison to my fears about what might happen if I took on marriage and parenting. That’s when things could really go downhill fast, and all the chastity and money in the world won’t save me.

Below I’ll summarize some of the biggest problems:

  • The biggest fear I have about marriage is that my wife will be pressured to abandon the idea that marriage and parenting is about self-sacrificial love of her husband and children in order to please God. That could mean ignoring or not meeting my needs as a man for things like sex and approval. It could also mean just giving up on the children and refusing to protect their worldviews from the outside world, e.g. – the public schools, Hollywood, etc. Maybe she will just become totally disinterested in the threats posed to the children by these enemies? Or undermine my efforts to teach the children theology, apologetics and morality?
  • I am also concerned about increasing encroachment by the state into the education of children. I hear stories about homeschooling being outlawed, about parents not being able to opt children out of anti-Christian educational programs, about children as young as five being put on hate registries for being politically incorrect, and homeschooled children being placed in government-run schools for believing that Christianity is true. My fear is that this trend could get worse to the point where children are seized by the government because they are being taught Biblical Christianity in the home.
  • What if government spends so much money that they end up increasing inflation and raising taxes such that my wife has to go to work, or that I lose my job due to economic decline? Without money, it is almost impossible for us to protect the children from all of the anti-Christian influences we would face. If we took government money or relied on government services (e.g. – health care) then we might even have to comply with government regulations and conditions that would be antithetical to our plans.
  • I am also afraid that I will be charged by something like the Canadian Human Rights Commissions for expressing traditional Christian views in public. In Canada, there is no such thing as free speech. If you cause someone to feel badly with your speech, you will be placed on trial for several years, pay about $100,000 in legal fees, and then you will be convicted, forced to apologize, force to deny your Christian faith in public, and prohibited from speaking freely in any public forum including on web sites or e-mail.
  • I am concerned that government programs that push feminism, no-fault divorce and generally paint men as irresponsible and aggressive could turn my wife against me and cause her to divorce me for the money. I read a lot about divorce courts, fake charges of domestic violence, etc. And I think there is a concerted effort to paint men as being unreliable, aggressive and harmful to children. What if my wife began to believe all of these myths and felt that she could do a better job parenting the children without me? The children would be harmed, I would be penniless and I might never see my children again.
  • Finally, I am worried that she will become less tolerant about my desires to be romantic and chivalrous and just sort of check out of the marriage emotionally. That she will not give me things to do, or dragons to slay, trophies to collect, etc. That she won’t speak to me for long periods of time, or write to me, spend time alone with me. I worry that she will instead become interested in her own interests and causes and forget that I need a romantic relationship with her! I’ll die if I can’t express myself romantically.

So I hope this explains to all a little bit about why I am skeptical about marriage, even if I met a perfect person to marry. I would like to see a lot more work being done by the church to focus on things like fiscal conservatism, small government and politics. As it stands, I am not hearing very much that is re-assuring me that potential Christian wives are as aware about these issues as I am, or that they are prepared to fight them.

When I talk to Christian women, they are usually not aware of any of these concerns, and in fact are quite secular and leftist in their voting. This is very disconcerting to me because it seems like they are not applying their state Christian beliefs to their future plans for marriage and parenting. Instead, they are happily voting for bigger and bigger government and they are oblivious to how this undermines Christian marriage and family.

When I ask them what they have read about these issues, they are usually reading Christian self-help books, devotional literature, theology-lite (Phillip Yancey), emergent church, social justice stuff from the religious left, sensational Dan Brown fiction that undermines the Bible’s authority and makes women appear to be the victims or men, or end-times fiction. Many read things like “Blue Like Jazz” or other mystical craziness. Are there any women out there who read Thomas Sowell and Wayne Grudem and William Lane Craig and Stephen C. Meyer and Craig Evans and Stephen Baskerville and Jennifer Roback Morse? Or even Lee Strobel and C.S. Lewis, for starters?

I think some of these problems might go away if I married someone with the foreign policy views of Marsha Blackburn, the fiscal conservatism of Michele Bachmann, and the social conservatism of Jennifer Roback Morse. But one woman cannot remake the whole world. One woman can’t get taxes lowered, secure school choice, protect religious liberty, and get the government out of the marriage and away from the children.

And it’s not just that there are problems today – it’s tomorrow, too. I am quite surprised at how passionately young people advocate for ideas that undermine their own liberty, prosperity and security. The very things needed to make Christian marriage and Christian parenting work. Can one woman fix the irrationality of the young people who are voting today? I don’t think that one woman can fix everything.

Well, Michele Bachmann can fix everything if we would just vote her in as President, like I want. If we put Michele in charge of the world, then I’ll get married.

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