Articles: The New Patricians

Articles: The New Patricians

The New Patricians

By Bruce Robinson

 October 26, 2013


During a recent PBS panel on Washington politics, This Town author Mark Leibowitz said our Founding Fathers were like the patricians of ancient Rome -- prosperous landowners who returned home as soon as their civic duties ended. Unlike the Founders, Leibowitz warned, our elected leaders in Washington today "have no intention of going back to the farm." There's too much money to be made in the halls of political power.
Washington has long been a honeycomb for career politicians. Since 2006, however, that phenomenon has spawned a city state completely separated from the rest of the country. No matter how important an issue may be for the nation at large, members of congress now seem incapable of negotiation and compromise -- the essential catalysts of a working democracy.
The executive branch is even more intransigent, not only refusing to negotiate such critical issues as the debt ceiling but openly threatening to "go around" Congress on everything from key White House appointments to foreign policy. Yet, despite the president's repeated calls for "redistributive justice," it is some of America's wealthiest and well-educated who continue to support Obama's most transformative initiatives.
In Fortunes of Change (Wiley & Son, 2010), Demos blogger David Callahan has tallied the hundreds of super-rich liberals who have pumped their own inherited millions into buying an office in Obama's army. These include such wealthy heirs of private fortune as Colorado's Jared Polis, Illinois' Blair Hull, Washington's Maria Cantwell, and Massachusetts' John Kerry. All are members of America's New Patrician class.
Today's crop of progressive patricians may be best represented by current Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton. Grandson of Target store chain founder George Dayton, Mark went to private school in Minneapolis and then to Yale where he majored in psychology and joined the DKE house with George W. Bush. Mark's biggest interests at Yale were partying and playing hockey until the summer of 1968 when he saw in real time the assassination of Bobby Kennedy. Mark was instantly radicalized.
Simultaneously graduating from Yale and inheriting his first million in 1969, Mark jumped on the social justice bandwagon by getting a teaching job at a Lower East Side school in New York City. During his first summer there, he also volunteered to live in a two-room apartment with six members of an African-American family on welfare. Radicalized again, Mark soon quit teaching the poor and moved to Washington where he worked as a legislative aide for Senator Mondale. There in 1978 he met and married the daughter of John D. Rockefeller III.
Having moved from riches to rags to even more riches in less than a decade, Mark saw himself as a man with a mission and spent $8 million of his family fortune on political races -- first for the U.S. Senate in 1982 and then for state governor in 1998. He lost both times. Undeterred, in 2000 Mark upped his personal ante to $12 million in another run for the U.S. Senate. The big money talked.
Frustrated yet again by his failure to convince Senate colleagues to vote for his plan to create a cabinet-level "Department of Peace," Mark quit the Senate and returned home to make another try for state governor. This time he won, thus proving the truth of the old saying: "Where there's a Will there's a way." One can't help wondering, though, what happened to the six African-Americans Mark lived with during the summer of '69.
"Doesn't matter," the governor would probably say. "You've got to look at the big picture and keep your eye on the prize." Such platitudes are the coinage of today's patrician realm. As columnist Peggy Noonan observed in the Wall Street Journal on November 2, 2009: "We are governed at all levels by America's luckiest children, sons and daughters of the abundance, and they call themselves optimists but they're not optimists-they're unimaginative. They don't have faith, they've just never been foreclosed on. They are stupid and they are callous, and they don't mind it when people become disheartened. They don't even notice."

These do indeed seem to be the most conspicuous traits of our New Patrician leaders. For many American voters, though, how those traits are revealed is not so conspicuous. Partly that's because the news media are fierce defenders of the New Patricians. No matter how "callous" or "stupid" their behavior, it's never reported on ABC, CBS, or CNN and rarely mentioned in the faux news from "The Daily Show."
There's much more than Comedy Central behind the stealth evolution of the New Patrician class, however. It goes back at least to the late 19th Century when American intellectuals like Thomas Dewey were formulating their progressive education theories and economists like Thorstein Veblen first used the term "conspicuous consumption" to describe the buying patterns of America's leisure class. It was also nurtured by the growing sense that our free-wheeling democracy somehow needed the social equivalent of Europe's landed aristocracy.
Many Americans who struck it rich in banking and railroads during the 1870s began sending their sons to be educated in Europe or to one of several private "academies" such as Exeter in Massachusetts or Lawrenceville in New Jersey. Since then, thousands of private secondary schools have sprouted up across the country. When federal school integration laws went into effect during the early 1960s, these private "non-profits" proliferated like mushrooms to meet the demands of Americans able to afford the luxury of de facto segregation in education.
During the first half of the 20th Century, non-sectarian private schools were the bastions of conservative values in America. Even the most traditional of these were affected by the cultural revolutions of the 1960s and 1970s, however. Many of the same students who burned their draft cards and bras as undergraduates at Harvard and Vassar saw the genteel poverty of a prep-school teaching job as a much easier career than hawking junk bonds on Wall Street. Thus have they helped spread the gospel of free love and social justice to those born after 1980 -- the so-called "millennials."
Coincidentally, 1980 was the year when Lisa Birnbach first published The Official Preppy Handbook -- a fatuous little paperback that became an instant best seller. Overnight, private school education shot to the top of America's "conspicuous consumption" list.
During the next thirty years, tuition and fees at the most prestigious private schools increased exponentially. When my parents enrolled me as a boarding student at Lawrenceville in the fall of 1950, the annual tuition (including room and board) was only $2,000. Today, it's twenty times that.
The truth is most "non-profit" private schools have always been in the business of making money. It's the only way to keep their wealthiest alums donating and attract more rich kids in the future. From a Board of Trustee member's point of view, a quality education is not so much about lifelong learning as it is lifelong giving.
So what do parents get for all this money? Essentially, it's an animal training program. Their children are not being taught to think but to respond -- in other words, to "channel" the values of secular progressivism. These values involve an obsessive preoccupation with such "hot topics" in the liberal media as environmentalism, cultural diversity, and social justice.
Like corporations and universities nowadays, the top prep schools all have something like a chief diversity officer (CDO). At Phillips Exeter Academy, it's called the "Office of Multicultural Affairs (OMP)." As the school's website explains, "The office is particularly focused on working with the community to create an environment where everyone, regardless of his or her race, gender, ethnicity, religion, socioeconomic class, geographical origin, physical ability and sexual orientation, is included and respected."
Exeter isn't the only New Patrician school to put diversity, environmentalism, and social justice front and center. In fact, there's a consortium of top-ranked prep schools called "The Diversity Roundtable" or "The Ten Schools Admission Organization (TSAO)." Here's the list, with the state locations:

1. Choate Rosemary Hall (CT)

2. Deerfield Academy (MA)

3. The Hill School (PA)

4. The Hotchkiss School (CT)

5. The Lawrenceville School (NJ)

6. The Loomis Chaffee School (CT)

7. Phillips Academy (MA)

8. Phillips Exeter Academy (MA)

9. St. Paul's School (MD)

10. The Taft School (CT)

If you visit the websites of these schools, you'll discover just how much they are committed to the New Patrician ethos. All are co-educational and make a brave show of racial diversity in the "optics" of their websites. What's less conspicuous in the prep-school circuit, however, is the mission creep of secular progressivism.
Mission creep in private school education was brought to my personal attention recently when I received an e-mail invitation to an Alumni Weekend soiree sponsored by Lawrenceville School's new LGBT (Lesbian Gay Bi-sexual Transgender) group. Suddenly, I was reminded of how Nathan Harden describes the new "Sex Week" curriculum at Yale: "a festival of sleaze, porn and debauchery, dressed up as sex education."
Will something like this soon be added to the TSAO schools curricula?
Sexual promiscuity and ambivalence are only minor symptoms of the moral relativism that is rendering so many New Patricians insensitive to the needs if their fellow citizens.
As columnist Daniel Henninger reported recently, public charter schools in New York City provide "an educational environment of achievement, discipline and esprit" for 70,000 inner city children. If secular progressive Bill de Blazio is elected Mayor next month, though, he threatens to make charter school parents pay rent for the public school buildings their children now use rent-free. Inevitably, this will force the charter schools to close. "Most New York voters" Henninger notes, "...have no direct stake in New York's charter schools. They do, however, have a stake in the integrity of their own political beliefs."
Clearly our first African American president acknowledges the importance of a good education for he sends his own daughters to the prestigious Sidwell Friends School. So why wouldn't he and every member of congress also acknowledge they "have a stake in the integrity of their own political beliefs" by supporting Opportunity Scholarships as well as vouchers to support public charter schools in Washington, New York, Chicago, Detroit, and all across America?
Obama has often compared himself with Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln freed the slaves. Are we now to conclude New Patrician Obama can only enslave the free?

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/10/the_new_patricians.html#ixzz2ioEunkuT
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The Metro hater's guide to Windows 8.1 | ZDNet

The Metro hater's guide to Windows 8.1 | ZDNet

The Metro hater's guide to Windows 8.1

Summary: Are you a desktop diehard? If you've got no use for the Start screen and Metro-style apps, I have some good news for you. Windows 8.1 has a handful of interface tweaks you can make that will put the Windows desktop back in charge. Here's what you need to do to make Windows 8.1 work like Windows 7 (almost). [Updated for final release]

By Ed Bott for The Ed Bott Report | October 17, 2013 -- 18:00 GMT (11:00 PDT)

[October 17, 2013: Instructions and screenshots updated for official release of Windows 8.1]

In unveiling Windows 8.1 earlier this year, Microsoft executives said, “We’re listening to feedback.” That’s a polite way of saying they were trying to avoid being splattered by a barrage of rotten tomatoes.

Some of the most vocal complaints—sorry, feedback—came from longtime Windows users who wanted the good parts of Windows 8 without sacrificing the familiar Windows 7 desktop. Responding to that complaint was the impetus behind Microsoft’s decision to restore the Start button in Windows 8.1 to its traditional place at the left side of the taskbar.

The good news: Windows 8.1 has all the user-interface pieces you need to bring the desktop to the foreground and make the Start screen recede far, far into the background.

The bad news: Windows 8.1 doesn’t have a magic “make Metro go away” button. Desktop diehards will need to spend a couple minutes (really, that’s all the time it takes) to tweak Windows 8.1 into submission.

Here’s what you need to do to make Windows 8.1 as desktop-friendly as possible. Note that all of the features I describe here are new or significantly changed in Windows 8.1 compared to Windows 8.

Step 1: Uninstall unwanted apps.

Your focus is on desktop apps. You have no desire to use any of the 20-plus built-in Metro apps and no plans to download any from the Windows Store. To reduce the chance that you will inadvertently launch one of the built-in apps, uninstall as many as you can. Windows 8.1 allows you to uninstall all of those apps in one operation; that’s a big improvement over Windows 8, which made you uninstall each app separately. (Note that you have the option to uninstall from a single machine or from all your synced devices.)

Step 2: Adjust the look of the Start screen.

Windows 8.1 includes an option that allows the Start screen to share the same background as the desktop. Personally, I find that setting somewhat distracting, so I leave it off. Instead, I recommend removing the pattern and adjusting the background color to something neutral. This dialog box isn’t in PC Settings, where you might expect it. Instead, you have to go to the Start screen, click the Settings charm, and then click Personalize. Note the background with no pattern is in the bottom row, second from the right.

Step 3: Tweak the Start screen settings to suit your preferences.

Right-click any empty space on the taskbar and click Properties. That opens up the familiar-looking Taskbar And Navigation Properties dialog box, with a Navigation tab that’s new to Windows 8.1. Options here allow you to bypass the Start screen at sign-in, show the All Apps screen when you click or tap Start, and disable the two hot corners at the top of the screen.

Step 4: Arrange the Apps screen.

You’ll probably want to avoid the Start screen completely, but you can’t avoid an occasional visit to the Apps view. It replaces the All Programs menu with a full-screen list, organized into groups. You have several sorting and grouping options in Windows 8.1 that aren’t available in Windows 8.

Step 5: Pin your favorite desktop programs to the taskbar.

This is actually one thing Windows 8.1 does better than Windows 7. From the Apps view you can select as many desktop programs as you want and then click Pin to Taskbar from the command bar at the bottom of the screen.

Step 6: Set your default apps.

This is a step a lot of people overlook. By default, Windows 8 sets several common file types to open with Metro-style apps. Windows 8.1 follows in that tradition. You can use the awkward and confusing Default Programs option in the desktop Control Panel. But it’s much, much easier to use the new Defaults option, which you’ll find in PC Settings under Search & Apps.

Don’t forget to change your default browser here. If you use Chrome or Firefox, the desktop version of your preferred browser becomes the default. If you use Internet Explorer, be sure to visit the Internet Options dialog box using the desktop interface. On the Programs tab, under Opening Internet Explorer, choose Always In Internet Explorer On The Desktop, and also check the box beneath that setting (Open Internet Explorer tiles on the desktop).

There, you’re done.

That was probably more complicated than it needs to be, but the end result should be a system that is far more tolerant of your desktop habits, with far less Metro style.

Articles: The War between Texas and DC

Articles: The War between Texas and DC

The War between Texas and DC

October 16, 2013

By Ben Voth

George P. Mitchell died this past summer. Though not widely noted, his American ingenuity has laid siege to the fundamental injustices of the world and promised a now inevitable American economic renaissance. In the 1980s, industry experts thought his idea was "stupid." Today, Mitchell's invention is completely reversing global fortunes. His invention: Fracking.

Because of the ingenuity of this Texan, global oil and gas markets are in complete upheaval. His home state of Texas is experiencing skyrocketing production of oil and natural gas. Texas is the thirteenth largest producer of oil in the world today and production continues to rise dramatically in places like the Eagle Ford and Barnett Shale oil plays. Mitchell's invention insures that Vladimir Putin's claims to increased Russian hegemony are largely vain. The abundance of fossil fuels yielded by the Texan's genius threatens the cornerstone of Russian economic prowess: natural gas. With oil at over $100 a barrel, money is pouring into the Texas treasury and the state, already in surplus, finds itself with an improbable exponential windfall. The United States surpassed Saudi Arabia this past year to become the largest producer of fossil fuels. The United States is easily on track to become a fossil fuel exporter -- especially in natural gas.

European leaders recently issued warnings that European industry is at risk of an 'industrial massacre' due to industry departing the region for America because of high energy costs. The plummeting prices of oil and gas poise the United States for an unprecedented industrial renaissance. The driving cost of industrial production is energy and America is drowning in it.

In the midst of this economic boom, there stands the one rival: Washington DC. The federal government is the nation's largest employer. DC is the only part of America that did not feel the effects of the 2008 recession. DC and its surrounding wealthiest counties in America experience rising property values and rising median incomes while the nation lost more than $6 trillion in property values and witnessed a decline of median incomes of more than 6%. The 18% cutback in the federal government described as a 'total shutdown' by partisan media outlets corresponds to the typical losses of average Americans over the past five years. But Americans cannot vote themselves a reimbursement for their 'furloughs' like DC can.

In the heat of the battle over declining DC hegemony stands a tall Texan: Ted Cruz. It is little surprise that this rival hails from Texas. Texas has a long history of powerful political Federal powerbrokers: President Lyndon Baines Johnson, Civil Rights leader James Farmer Jr., House Speaker Jim Wright, President George Bush Sr., and President George W. Bush. All manner of name-calling emanates from the politicos against Cruz. But Cruz embodies a cultural shift in American thinking. DC takes in trillions of dollars every year doing what? Shutting down national malls with park rangers? Building web sites that don't work?

The shutdown indicates the decline of DC as an economic hegemon. DC blocked the Keystone pipeline to prevent the equivalent of Saudi Arabian oil resources from reaching the U.S. The effort only postponed a fossil fuel resource boom that dwarfs DC's capacity to prevent it. Today, West Texas Intermediate crude trades below the price of Brent North Sea crude because of the powerful dynamics of production in the United States. DC will not be able to limit the power of free markets and free thinking to lift this nation out of its economic despair. The 21st century energy renaissance will topple not only the quaint aspirations of DC but the cruel injustices of states like Saudi Arabia, Northern Sudan, and Iran.

This energy revolution makes a mockery of one of the principal arguments against it: Global Warming. Regardless of what one thinks of the science behind the argument, the natural gas revolution has sidelined coal production far more effectively than government regulation. This process has already reduced CO2 emissions in the United States to 1995 levels and the decline in CO2 continues. The goals of the Kyoto protocol will be met easily by the United States. Natural gas can and is creating a world with dramatically less CO2 while increasing energy production. The consequence of this market reality means that efforts to stop this energy revolution can be accurately described as anti-environmental.

Ultimately, the statists cannot plot and predict the ultimate global resource: human ingenuity. George P. Mitchell's 'stupid' invention of fracking means the end of the world as we know it -- and the beginning of a much better one. The better world will feature cheaper energy as the root of economic growth and the strangleholds of energy blackmail built in the 1970s will finally be torn down-- liberating millions from the shadows of petro hegemons like Russia. God Bless Texas and her humble Texan, George P. Mitchell.

Ben Voth is an associate professor of Communication and director of debate and speech at Southern Methodist University and an advisor to the George W. Bush Institute in Dallas, Texas.