Orson Scott Card calls out mainstream media

To my shame, Power Line beat me to highlighting an excellent essay by Democrat-with-a-mean-conservative-streak Orson Scott Card, ensconced at the top of my Sith blog roll.

The essay isn't even his latest, but it's certainly worth attention.

I remember reading All the President's Men and thinking: That's journalism. You do what it takes to get the truth and you lay it before the public, because the public has a right to know.

This housing crisis didn't come out of nowhere. It was not a vague emanation of the evil Bush administration.

It was a direct result of the political decision, back in the late 1990s, to loosen the rules of lending so that home loans would be more accessible to poor people. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were authorized to approve risky loans.

Card provides much more detail along with stinging criticism of the media. Though some news stories, such as one I reviewed from The St. Petersburg Times, do mention the role of relaxed lending standards in bringing on the subprime mortgage crisis, Card rightly points out that a great deal more news reporting could have and should have come out of the situation.

John Hinderaker might be interested to know that Card is a Mormon and a science fiction writer in addition to being a conservative Democrat and columnist.

Orson Scott Card looks askance at the Obama on his shoulder

Please forgive the tie-in to the HamNation video from Orson Scott Card's ruminations on Barack Obama's global test.

No, what troubles me most is what he said right after that, while campaigning in Oregon: "We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times ... and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK."

"That's not leadership," Obama declared. "That's not going to happen."

What's not going to happen? Us continuing to drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes at 72 degrees? Or other nations saying OK?

(Worldwatch)

The whole piece is worthwhile reading, as Card makes the same connection between socialism and the environmental movement that so many have now noticed.

I've wished in the past for more Democrats like Joe Lieberman. Even better more Democrats like Orson Scott Card, given Lieberman's sponsorship of a environmentalism-based bill that would likely strangle our economy.

I was going to coin the term "ecosocialist" for this movement, but somebody apparently beat me to it.

Orson Scott Card on the Iraq War

Orson Scott Card's latest WorldWatch column makes him appear of a mind with Christopher Hitchens. Card takes note of the powerful parallel between the political climate during the American Civil War and that of today.

Lincoln's point was plain: McClellan had so bound himself to the promise to declare defeat by negotiating an end to the war that Lincoln had to make sure that between the election and the inauguration the war was won so there would be nothing for his successor to negotiate.

Furthermore, it is an obvious historical fact, supported by evidence from the South, that because McClellan was running with the pledge to let the South have its victory in the Civil War after all, the Confederacy based all its hopes on prolonging the war long enough for McClellan to become president.

Campaigns that subvert an ongoing war effort -- campaigns like the ones both the current Democrats are running -- offer hope to and stiffen the resolve of a nearly-defeated enemy, leading to the deaths of more American soldiers than would otherwise have occurred. That these candidates are free to run such a campaign is undisputed. That it is contemptible for them to do so is my heartfelt opinion.

(read it all at WorldWatch)

The surge strategy as Bush's version of unleashing General Grant to strike repeatedly against the Confederacy only strengthens the parallel.

We may regard it as fortunate that Bush had time to allow General Petraeus to successfully press the counterinsurgency campaign in Iraq.

During the leadup to the election Union forces lost by the month the number of soldiers lost by the U.S. in the entire Iraq War. How would the modern liberal justify the Civil War?

A friendly review of "Expelled"

Why I don't regularly read Orson Scott Card's regular column is a mystery. I recommend the column to others. Scratch that. If I place a link in my "Favorites" folder I'll get around to checking his column as I should.

Card's most recent column, from earlier this month, praises "Expelled" even as Card makes clear that he thinks that Intelligent Design ideas are inappropriate for the science classroom. And Card makes several points that are unusual coming from a (center left) liberal and (from what I can tell) religious skeptic.

I think Ben Stein's movie deals fairly yet powerfully with a vitally important issue and should be seen by everyone with enough education to make sense of it (which means not your average middle school student).

But let me make it clear from the start that I believe Intelligent Design is wrong and potentially dangerous -- and shouldn't be taught in science classes as if it were a scientific theory, because it is not.

(WorldWatch)

Read the whole thing for the juicy bits, including Card's skepticism of human-caused global warming.

Small update on Sith blogroll

In a long overdue move, I updated the URL associated with Orson Scott Card's weekly "World Watch" column.

I'm a bit sheepish over the fact that his views on the war substantially agree with my own, since it makes the Sith blogroll look like the spot for Democrats who happen to agree with me on stuff.

There's always that risk, of course, since the quality of argumentation that results in placement on the Sith blogroll is pretty much judged by yours truly.

Barnum's Baileywick of "Wick o' the Bailey" can still serve to dispel the former notion, though BB hasn't updated his blog since fall of 2006.

The need for American economic imperialism

Okay, I'm exaggerating a bit in the title to draw attention. So sue me.

Fall of 2006 was fairly busy for me, so I missed reading some stuff from my top Sith Blogroller, Orson Scott Card.

Card is allegedly a Democrat, but he cites Mark Steyn with some degree of approval in making an argument for the United States as the stabilizing force in the modern world.

Card did a great job of summarizing and adding to my idea of the role the United States plays in the world, along with the role of energy supplies.

Here's a nice cross-section, but read the whole thing.

America has not been imperial -- we have not been stripping other countries. On the contrary, those nations that were able to sustain the internal peace necessary for production, and that have joined the economy presided over by America, have all been able to join in the prosperity as equals.

We don't tax them -- quite the opposite. We have taxed ourselves to pay for the military protection that maintained the safety and perception of safety that allowed the European community and Japan to flourish. Their welfare economies are only possible because they did not have to pay for their own defense at anything like the levels we have paid.

People talk about America's enormous defense budget as if it were a menace to the world. But our enormous defense budget has allowed Japan and Europe -- and Taiwan and South Korea -- to thrive without having to invest much of their gross domestic product in defense.
(The Ornery American)

Amending the Sith blogroll

Some may have noticed that, unlike most partisan political blogs (I figure this one qualifies as partisan!), I will blogroll sites that disagree with me politically if it strikes me that they do a decent job of defending/rationalizing their political views.
I put such sites on the Sith blogroll.

Today I'm making a couple of changes to the Sith blogroll. I'm removing "Off the Kuff" by Charles Kuffner for no better reason than the fact that he doesn't write much that interests me. He's a reasonable enough writer, but most of it's about Texas and Texas politics--not too interesting to this Florida blogger. I'd be more interested in his writing if he wrote like Brad Friedman, whose blog was recently honored at my other blogging site, Bad Blogs' Blood.

I'm replacing "Off the Cuff" at the top of the Sith Blogroll with Democrat Orson Scott Card's weekly column. Scott is a science-fiction writer by trade, and according to my recollection I have read a few of his stories (my sci-fi faves are Lem, Niven, and Simmons, FWIW). I'd recently been reminded of Orson Scott Card's political writing when he issued a column bemoaning the Democratic Party's probable approach to the war on terror--he's not from the left fringe of the party in that he favors a decisive military stance against Islamic extremists.

I just want to make clear that he's not being elevated to the top of the Sith blogroll based on that opinion. I'm anticipating disagreements with his writing on other issues, and I'm more likely to find his topics interesting compared to Kuffner's subject matter.

The other two on the Sith blogroll, "Kele's Journey" and "Wick o' the Bailey," have both gone dormant--especially Kele Cable's blog (nothing new since mid-July).
I'll probably keep both on the Sith blogroll until something better displaces them

Don't hold your breath. The pickings seem fairly slim.

Orson Scott Card, with a view from the left

I've read a few of Orson Scott Card's sci-fi short stories. He's a decent author (not among my favorites), but he's a Democrat.
On the other hand, he's a Democrat with a clear-eyed view of the foreign policy stakes in this election:

There is only one issue in this election that will matter five or ten years from now, and that's the War on Terror.

And the success of the War on Terror now teeters on the fulcrum of this election.

If control of the House passes into Democratic hands, there are enough withdraw-on-a-timetable Democrats in positions of prominence that it will not only seem to be a victory for our enemies, it will be one.

Unfortunately, the opposite is not the case -- if the Republican Party remains in control of both houses of Congress there is no guarantee that the outcome of the present war will be favorable for us or anyone else.

But at least there will be a chance.

I say this as a Democrat, for whom the Republican domination of government threatens many values that I hold to be important to America's role as a light among nations.

But there are no values that matter to me that will not be gravely endangered if we lose this war. And since the Democratic Party seems hellbent on losing it -- and in the most damaging possible way -- I have no choice but to advocate that my party be kept from getting its hands on the reins of national power, until it proves itself once again to be capable of recognizing our core national interests instead of its own temporary partisan advantages.

(The Ornery American)

Hat tip to Rush Limbaugh, who pointed out Scott's piece during his radio program today. Rush also mentioned a roughly parallel opinion expressed by Michael Kinsley (once to the left of Pat Buchanan on CNN's "Crossfire").

The Iraq was is the big issue of this election because of the role it plays in the war over the ideological future of the planet. Read the whole (long) article.

It's still possible that the Republicans can wage the war over and against the obstructions of the Democrats--it may even be possible that the Democrats are insincere in advancing the "phased redeployment" suggestions that Kinsley rightly characterizes as euphemisms for defeat.