Zack Adamson is an agent of cultural poison

On our podcast Barney & Clyde, libertarian blogger and occasional candidate for statewide office Clyde Myers and I have a semi-regular segment called Old News, in which we re-examine items that have fallen off the radar screen but still merit a look. I have one such story that I'll offer here. It involves a particularly smelly chunk of dog vomit named Zack Adamson:

Speaking of Democratic lawmakers and accusations of anti-Semitism, my friend Tony Katz called my attention to this controversy about a Jewish deli owner getting accused of “feeding Nazis” by an Indianapolis city councilman.

As the National Rifle Association’s members arrived in Indianapolis, local eatery Shapiro’s Deli offered a message on Twitter welcoming NRA members, and urging them to eat there, as Donald Trump had in 2016.

Indianapolis City-County Councilor Zach Adamson criticized the restaurant for welcoming NRA members and declared on Facebook, “This is about bragging that you feed Nazis and then being shocked with (sic) all the locals avoid you.”

As you may have guessed, Brian Shapiro, the owner of the deli, is Jewish. Shapiro’s great-grandmother, fled Russia in the late 19th century because of pogroms, violent anti-Jewish riots.

First, NRA members are not Nazis, and the city councilman damages understanding of history when he makes knee-jerk accusations of people of being Nazis just because he disagrees with them on gun control. We can choke on the historical irony of Adamson labeling his political foes the name of a regime that banned the possession of firearms for any group they deemed a potential threat to their power and confiscated those firearms.

Second, it is not the job of local elected officials to denounce local eateries for “feeding Nazis.” Your job is to help your community thrive, not attempt to shut down businesses whose owners have the audacity to disagree with you.

Circle City voters, give this guy the pink slip at the next opportunity.

Saturday morning roundup

Jazz Shaw at Hot Air on how the Washington Post is on the verge of a major well-duh revelation - namely, that the reason why a country so astoundingly rich in natural resources - namely, Venezuela - is a sewer of poverty, violence and despair:

The cause of the starvation is obvious. Even under the most benevolent of socialist regimes, the government is ill equipped to operate such a complex system. And this one is far from benevolent, with the party leaders more interested in ensuring their own comfort and security than that of the rank and file. But all of this was predictable because, as we’ve said here more times than I can count, this is how socialism ends. Every. Single. Time.

A bracing upside-the-head from Secretary Kelly:

Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly on Friday said the terror threat is worse than most realize, saying some people would "never leave the house" if they knew the truth.

“I was telling [Fox host] Steve [Doocy] on the way in here, if he knew what I knew about terrorism, he’d never leave the house in the morning,” Kelly said on “Fox & Friends.”

He noted there were four major terror attacks in the last week — in England, Egypt, the Philippines and Indonesia — "by generally the same groups."

David French at NRO makes a great point about how today's campus jackboots may well avoid ever having a real-world wake-up call:

Conservatives tend to respond to incidents like this by rolling their eyes, calling the students “snowflakes” (a term many on the right need to stop using, given their own hysterical reactions to leftist critiques), and relishing their inevitable education in the so-called “real world.” The presumption is simple — these kinds of antics won’t fly when they’re trying to sell insurance or write code or balance a company’s budget. The “real world” is a harsh teacher, and soon they’ll have to grow up.

This response, however, is fundamentally wrong. For the most committed campus radical, the “real world” doesn’t await; a lifetime of activism does. They’ll move seamlessly from academia into government, art, and politics, and sometimes right back into academia.

They can avoid it even if they join the corporate world:

Indeed, even the “real world” isn’t what it used to be. Now that we live in hyper-partisan times and increasingly work in geographically separated ideological cocoons, it’s easy to take your activism straight to work, even if it’s not a philosophy department or progressive law firm. Corporate boycotts directly extend campus politics into the world of commerce, and any person who works for a major progressive corporation knows very well what they risk if they publicly dissent from the company line on the same hot-button cultural issues that trigger campus meltdowns.

There are many real worlds now, and a person of any ideology — if they so choose — can live their entire life without facing the stereotypical “wake-up call” that tends to moderate political extremes. So don’t look at campus craziness and take any comfort at all from the fact that these so-called “snowflakes” will graduate and enter the marketplace. The real world they’ll choose to join will indeed change them, but not in the way that conservatives imagine. Their real world will only magnify their voice.

Dale M. Coulter, associate professor of historical theology at Regent University, has a great piece at First Things on something I personally relish: verbal jousting:

During my brief sojourn in the English system, I became accustomed to the English model of clear argumentation spiced with wit and supported by a well-crafted rejoinder. For those not used to such an approach, it can feel more like a bludgeoning with a long sword than the incisive jabs of a rapier. There is always a fine line between destroying an argument and destroying the person who made it.

This approach teaches you to turn words into weapons in the service of argument. It can begin with a series of questions, seemingly innocent and yet designed to ferret out weaknesses. Depending on the answer, the second round of questions may be punctuated by “Surely you don’t mean X,” or a series of well-placed modifiers (“gross” oversimplification, “fallacious” reasoning, etc.). Appeals to authority are sometimes dismissed with a simple wave of the hand (“Shortest dissertation in the history of that school” was one such dismissal I witnessed). For those who understand it, this cultural form is a kind of rhetorical flair designed to elicit a strong response, rather than deliver an actual blow to the argument.

I experienced reverse culture-shock after moving back to the U.S., when I offered a critique of a paper written by a colleague. I had assumed that my own concern for the colleague’s argument would come through in the careful way I had read the paper. Not so. I discovered that I had offended not only my colleague, but many observers, who rushed in as though my criticisms had done permanent damage. I realized that I had to find softer ways to criticize my American colleagues, who had not been formed in the hard-hitting English system.

One thing to be said for that “aggressively English dialectic of debate” is that it has a leveling effect among socio-economic classes. On the other side of the pond, where regional accents function as signifiers of whether one is cultured or not, the art of skillful argumentation can make equals out of those who come from different classes. One learns to stand on the strength of argument alone.

This art of verbal jousting does not fit in the postmodern world, so concerned with providing safe spaces. Verbal jousting is an invitation to respond in kind, much as “joning” functions in the African-American community to cultivate and display verbal skills that integrate individuals into the community. Yes, joning can lead to violence—just as there is a reason why, at an Oxford viva in the Middle Ages, there was to be precisely one sword length between the examiners and the examined.

Many a writer has dealt with the subject of why the Indianapolis 500 is unique and even magical among the world's sporting events, but I think Christopher Jacobs at The Federalist nails it as well as any effort I've seen.

 

Principled righties must dig in their heels regarding protectionism

Tyler Cowen has a Bloomberg column today that is definitely worth your time. It's entitled "Trump's Disastrous Pledge to Keep Jobs in the U.S."

One of Donald Trump’s most consistent campaign promises has been to prevent U.S. businesses from moving good jobs to Mexico -- whether through taxes, jawboning, or more drastic means, such as an outright prohibition. Economists might regard this as a misguided form of protectionism, but in fact, it’s worse than that: If instituted, it could prove a major step toward imposing capital controls on the American economy and politicizing many business decisions.

Let’s consider how such a policy would be enforced in practice.

When an American company “moves jobs to Mexico,” it doesn’t disassemble a factory and load all of the parts onto border-crossing trucks. That might be relatively easy to stop. Instead, the company closes or limits some U.S. production while expanding or initiating new production south of the border. Given that reality, how is government supposed to respond?

Using the law to forbid factory closures would have serious negative consequences. For one thing, those factories may be losing money and end up going bankrupt. For another, stopping the closure of old plants would lock the U.S. into earlier technologies and modes of production, limiting progress and economic advancement.

An alternative policy would prohibit companies from cutting American production and expanding in Mexico within, say, a two-year window. But would that be effective? If a law is needed, it presumably means that Mexican production is more profitable, at the margin, than U.S. production. So if American companies couldn’t shift production to Mexico, Mexican companies could expand production on their own. Or perhaps Mexico would look to non-American multinationals. The end result would be that Asian, European and Mexican investors would gain at the expense of U.S. companies.

American investors could also work around the law. If regulations prevented, say, Ford Motor Company from transferring its own capital funds to Mexico, what would keep it from using affiliates, subsidiaries, commercial alliances, or a complex web of foreign transfers to achieve more or less the same ends? The initial restrictions might prove as porous as the U.S. corporate income tax system.

Furthermore, if we limit the export of American capital to Mexico, the biggest winner would be China, as one of its most significant low-wage competitors -- Mexico -- suddenly would be hobbled.

Perhaps most importantly, a policy limiting the ability of American companies to move funds outside of the U.S. would create a dangerous new set of government powers. Imagine giving an administration the potential to rule whether a given transfer of funds would endanger job creation or job maintenance in the United States. That’s not exactly an objective standard, and so every capital transfer decision would be subject to the arbitrary diktats of politicians and bureaucrats. It’s not hard to imagine a Trump administration using such regulations to reward supportive businesses and to punish opponents. Even in the absence of explicit favoritism, companies wouldn’t know the rules of the game in advance, and they would be reluctant to speak out in ways that anger the powers that be.

This is one of the aspects of the Squirrel-Hair phenomenon that has most spooked me all along. If the point is to eradicate crony capitalism and minimize the role of government in the nation's economic life - and that is the point if one is a proponent of free-market economics - this is quite clearly not the route to take. I'm happy for the Carrier workers in Indianapolis, but, while I'm not generally fond of watching the sausage-making process by which this kind of thing is accomplished, I do want to know what went down in this case. Whatever happened, it sets a precedent.

A thought upon watching the pre-race Indy 500 pageantry

They're doing it up right for the 100th running. No sparing of dazzle-dazzle.

What occurs to me is how much petroleum is going to be burned through by those mighty engines today. And that's fine; we're awash in the stuff.

The Greatest Spectacle in Racing can be seen as a celebration of the bounty of resources with which God has blessed us (along with, of course, his endowing of the species made in his image and likeness with the prowess to not only invent automobiles but take them to this level of advancement).

So burn it, people, and give us that thrill like no other once again.

Jay Nordlinger knows where to go to attend a fun dinner party

That would be Indianapolis:

Can I give you a definition of a fun evening? Dinner at the home of Bob and Becky Kevoian, in Indianapolis, with dozens of their friends, in support of National Review. If you ever have a chance . . .

Bob is a national radio star — one half of Bob & Tom. He has a signature hat, an L.A. Dodgers cap. That got me to thinking that I should wear a Detroit Tigers cap more. Becky is a singer. Their home is like Thoreau on Walden Pond, but with amenities.

Their co-hosts for the evening were Whit and Deb Grayson. There were yet more Graysons there, all interesting and charming.

Most of the guests were business owners, who are sick of being demonized. By whom? Well, by the president, the Democratic party, and the culture at large. These business owners employ people — often hundreds or thousands of people. They create new jobs, new wealth, new security, all the time. They pay millions upon millions of dollars in taxes. They give millions upon millions to charity.

How are they the problem, again?

Nordlinger enjoyed the conversation between Becky and another lady in attendance  about their handguns.

He also became aware of Becky's being one third of a singing group called The Fun Girls.

I became aware of them shortly after their album Seduced was released.  I am musical friends with the producer of the project, Michael Clark, and the arranger and pianist, Steve Allee.  Michael sent me a copy of the CD and asked me to review it.  (I can't remember what venue I wrote the review for at the moment; when I do, I'll link to it.  The album is indeed fun: three-part-harmony treatments of some classic pop-rock tunes.  Some big names among the session players, too: Sam Bush, Vince Gill.)

So, I'm glad to hear Nordlinger had a good time in the Circle City.  It seems that things went south at the airport, though, in his dealings with the TSA.

Melvin Rhyne, RIP

Really sad to hear about this development.  Great jazz organist.  He was in Wes Montgomery's trio from 1959 to 1964, appearing on two albums from Wes's Riverside period. During that time he made his recording debut under his own name on Riverside.  Over the years also did session work with blues artists such as T-Bone Walker and B.B. King.

Re-emerged in the 1990s on the European label Criss Cross.   He was regularly gigging in Indianapolis clubs until quite recently.

The way our paths crossed: his quintet played at one of my book signings for my novel High C at the Sunset Terrace.  I called him some months in advance to book the date.  Over the course of our phone conversations and then, in person on the day of the event, at a now-defunct wine bar in Bloomington, Indiana, I discovered his crusty, somewhat offbeat sense of humor.  I remember at the end of the event, he grabbed the microphone and went into a somewhat lengthy soliloquy about the importance of being happy.

With each of these passings, an era in American culture recedes into an ever mistier past.

In this apocalypse-bound world, there are worse places to live than my state

In his first official act, newly sworn-in Governor Mike Pence signs an executive order halting all regulation of business indefinitely.

Party central

I live in what could be considered the greater Indianapolis area (forty miles to the south), so the electricity is palpable. I didn't actually get to downtown - Super Bowl Village - but I know some folks who did the zip line, saw celebrities and such. (My last trip to Indy was a week ago Wednesday, but I went up to Broad Ripple to have lunch with my sister. Got off I-65 at 11th Street, at the north edge of downtown.)
It's very cool to see and be proximate to. I've been checking out some media coverage from around the nation and the consensus seems to be that the city is doing a world-class job of hosting a huge event.
I guess I'll be rooting for the Giants because of the Manning family connection.
That's another factor adding to the electricity. Peyton has been cleared by his doctors to get back to playing NFL football, but he is known to be dismayed by the way Colts owner Jim Irsay gutted the coaching staff and the management team. So he's pondering his options. Meanwhile, because the Colts had such a cruddy season, they get a first-round draft pick for quarterback and the guy they'll almost certainly go with, Andrew Luck, is in town for the big game. The press is inundating him with questions about how he'd feel being second string to Peyton, or, should Peyton move on, taking the reins of basically a whole new program.
I hope Peyton stays at least one more year. It would be supremely cool to see the Colts roar to glory under the leadership of his mighty arm and strategic eye one more time.