Sue and be damned

The latest bulletin in the war of Washington against the United States:

Officials in the Obama administration are urging the extraordinary step of suing Arizona over its new immigration law, and the Justice Department is considering such an action to block the legislation from taking effect, government officials said Wednesday.

Go ahead. Make my day.

I hope the tinhorn Emperor and his warlords file the suit. Not, of course, for their reasons, but because the blowback on them will be spectacular.

If this were about some obscure law only political junkies were interested in, the federales might get away with it. Not so in this case. Arizona's stand against the Mexican Invasion, which several presidential administrations have winked at, will carry on being big news. And a politicized Justice Department suing the state will be a blockbuster.

Naturally the mainstream media will relate the story with their usual evasions, selective reporting, stories about poor Josefina and her 19 anchor babies having to move to another state to get their welfare benefits, and cheerleading for Washington showing who's boss. But relate it the media will, no more able to ignore it than a drunk can ignore a bottle of whiskey. You'll hear about it, see it, and read about it till your head can hold no more. This isn't a sneaky bit of manipulation the Emperor can pull off in the dead of night. It will be as prominent as a strip-tease in a church.

Americans don't like bullies. And even if they liked bullies, they wouldn't like big government bullies. And even if they liked big government bullies, they wouldn't like big government bullies who beat up their own citizens. And even if they liked big government bullies who beat up their own citizens, they wouldn't like big government bullies who beat up their own citizens and who follow orders from a president who hates his adopted country.

This could be another turning point in the struggle of individuals, localities, and states for self-determination against the Washington commissariat.

The Brahms Fourth

Johannes Brahms's Symphony no. 4 was the last he was to write, although he may not have known that; he was a little over 50 at the time -- an age older in his day than it seems now -- and he would live another dozen years. But his Fourth seems to me different in spirit, not only than any of his earlier orchestral compositions, but nearly unique even in the whole late-Romantic era. He perceived, and shaped in music, light from a distant star as yet undiscovered, possibly not even by himself.

Success had come relatively early to Brahms, deservedly so, but it was a mixed blessing. The public could not help designating him Beethoven's heir, and neither could he avoid feeling the responsibility. He long delayed writing a symphony after he had mastered other genres. When his First was eventually birthed, it was worthy of the preceding master. But while it's a great piece, the Brahms First often seems to be channeling Beethoven, and the big theme in the final movement openly mimics that of the Beethoven Ninth.

I haven't listened to no. 2 in a while; my recollection, always subject to revision, is that it embodies Brahms's melodic gift but is rather unwieldy (his longest symphony by a stretch). No. 3 has never really caught on and is infrequently programmed in concerts, but I like it.

Doing a little research, I was surprised to learn that scarcely two years had elapsed between Three and Four, the latter premiered in 1885. His soul seems to have shifted in between them. No doubt he still honored Beethoven, but Brahms was now his own man.

I am not a musician and can give you no musicological explanation of the Brahms Fourth, only an impressionistic glimpse.

Something about the Fourth is outside its own time. Much of it seems to recollect a mystical, imaginary Teutonic past, haunting, a little disturbing. It carries a tinge of Wordsworth's lass described in "The Solitary Reaper," singing to herself -- perhaps -- of "old unhappy far-off things, / And battles long ago."

The first movement begins with a gently rocking, wistful string melody. Later a counter-idea is introduced, a fanfare first heard in the brass, handed off to the strings and vice-versa. The original melody reappears in various liveries, though the second subject eventually dominates but never quite triumphs, hinting a secret sadness.

This seems to me the most "Slavic" orchestral music Brahms ever wrote, resembling Dvořák more than a little.

The second movement, marked andante moderato -- which I interpret as meaning slow enough to contrast with the opener, but not draggy -- is where the time-slip into a mythical world is most suggested. A conductor who miscalculates the tempo here blows the whole symphony.

A futile horn call, failing to wake the dead, leads off. It is answered by what sounds like clarinet and bassoon (sounds like -- I could be mistaken), and low strings take up a deliberate gait. An instrumental dialogue follows, mysterious and sensuous, not unlike the mood of the Allegretto of Beethoven's Seventh. The original theme takes on an air of classic Viennese charm, but just as you are getting comfortable with that, a shadow falls, the tone turns urgent. The score works up to moments of stirring passion, subsides in a soft melancholy.

Brahms undoubtedly felt that listeners needed a change-up afterward. The third movement is lively, the only part of the symphony that I hear as what we in our post-Jungian age would call extroverted. It's exciting, lovingly sculpted, a little conventional (for Brahms), but with a surprising punctuation: rhythmic points accentuated by a triangle. I could be ignorant, but I can't think offhand of any other Brahms symphony where that unusual percussion instrument comes into play.

The notes of the finale seem to be scattered by the winds. Brahms's music is often described as "autumnal," but here we seem to be post-autumn, winter's chill starting to register in the bones. The calm of a half-forgotten summer descends, but is superseded by an Aeolian rush. The symphony ends, to my reckoning, in a frenzy of emotional ambiguity.

The program notes for one recording tell me that the Fourth was the last of his own compositions that Brahms heard performed in concert, in Vienna on March 7, 1897. He passed out of this life three weeks later, perhaps to better understand the mystery that he had set in sound.

Arizona's shot heard round the world

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled;
Here once the embattled farmers stood;
And fired the shot heard round the world.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Concord Hymn"

As the Washington buffoons cry about the need for immigration reform, Arizona has passed the kind of immigration reform we need. It's a radical step only in the minds of the Leftist Establishment. All it does, really, is treat criminals as criminals exactly the way the federal government is supposed to do, but doesn't. Not out of some twisted version of benign neglect, but a very malign neglect. The power structure in this country wants population replacement. Its purposes can best be realized by importing a majority of Third World peasants who are easily manipulated via their dependence on the government.

The reactions from the political/alleged victim group/mainstream media axis could have been scripted in advance.

Emperor Obama denounced the law, calling it “misguided’’ and said it threatens to “undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans, as well as the trust between police and their communities that is so crucial to keeping us safe.’’ He probably had to bite his tongue to refrain from saying Arizona "acted stupidly." Instead, he declared his view that we Americans, with our cherished notions of fairness, want a level playing field for police and criminals.

New York Senator Chuck Schumer: "We do need comprehensive immigration law in this country but not like this. This law is mean-spirited and I'm opposed to it." Comprehensive immigration law: politicobabble for open borders and amnesty.

New York Mayor Bloomberg: The Arizona law "sends exactly the wrong message." Exactly the message he and his fellow immigration pimps don't want to hear.

Rev. Jim Wallis:

The law signed today by Arizona Gov. Brewer is a social and racial sin, and should be denounced as such by people of faith and conscience across the nation. ... Enforcement without compassion is immoral. Enforcement that breaks up families is unacceptable. This law will make it illegal to love your neighbor in Arizona, and will force us to disobey Jesus and his gospel. We will not comply.

Reverend Wallis, you are a fool and a pompous asshole. Preventing a large-scale invasion is neither a social nor a racial sin; it is a legitimate function of government. We are not breaking up anyone's family: illegals who knowingly chose to sneak into the United States in violation of our laws are responsible for any resulting family break-ups.

You, with your political leftism cloaked in religious platitudes, are displaying your own moral ignorance and selective compassion. You have no compassion for the citizens of Arizona who are tired of the trespassing, violence, environmental destruction, drug dealing, gang warfare, and welfare dependency of your precious illegals.

"This law will make it illegal to love your neighbor in Arizona"? That has to be the most laughable statement anyone will ever make on this subject. Don't try to top it for sanctimonious absurdity, Rev. You won't be able to do better.

Despite the howls of outrage from political bosses, the compliant Stalinist media (which invariably have written their "news" stories not about the law and the reasons for it, but about protests against it), and Left-wing Fundamentalist preachers, Arizona may have turned a page in American history. A state has openly, legally thumbed its nose at Washington's claim to rule everyone and everything.

Arizona is leading the way, but others are taking up the flag. Florida (and other states) have voted to prevent enforcement of the Bad Medicine Act.

Naturally, the federal commissariat will turn its guns (figuratively, one hopes, not literally) on resisters. Health News Florida reports:

Only hours after the Florida House and Senate voted to “opt out” of the new federal health law, the top U.S. health official said Thursday night that will not be permitted.

Without mentioning any particular state or going into detail, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said that state and local officials can vent all they want about a so-called “federal takeover” of health care. But they cannot deny their citizens access to its benefits or requirements, she told the Association of Health Care Journalists.

It is almost dead certain that Arizona's law will be declared unconstitutional by a state court, then by the loony left 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Emperor Obama and his retainers are mistaken if they imagine that will stop the resistance. It will only show patriots how determined their masters are to ignore the people's will, serving only their own hunger for absolute power. Their attempts at a clampdown are dangerous for the rest of us; but perhaps ultimately, even more dangerous for those who flout the checks and balances of the Constitution.

Arizona puts the "illegal" back in "illegal immigration"

Arizona: The path to citizenship for border jumpers.

My previous home state has suffered more than any other except California from its proximity to the border and the population replacement encouraged the emperors of the federal government and enabled by the little corporals on the public payroll. Washington has failed, year after year, in protecting the United States against enemies while extending its military presence to 63 foreign countries. Illegal colonists are enemies. If I were Mark Levin, that would be followed by, "Yes! I said it!"

Well, guess what. The massive contempt of the Washington Establishment for the American people has met open rebellion in ... Arizona.

CNN reports:

It’s being called the toughest crackdown on illegal immigration in the country. A bill requiring police to determine if a person is in the U.S. legally is expected to be signed into law by Arizona Governor Jan Brewer. ... Under the bill, police would be required to question anyone they suspect of being undocumented. The bill also targets those who hire illegal immigrant day laborers or knowingly transport them.

Naturally, CNN being CNN, it adds its own slant, before even describing the contents of the bill: "Immigration advocate Isabel Garcia says the bill 'legalizes racial profiling.' "

Stuff white progressives like.

Arizonans, on the sharp end of the Mexican Invasion, have had enough and are making it illegal to be an illegal Mexican colonist. The original American federalist system, in which states are a check on the inevitable tendency for a central government to annex as much power to itself as possible, isn't dead yet. It is coming back to life and just might bring liberty back to life.

Well, guess what. No, you don't need to guess. The Failed Messiah, worried that his plan for putting 30 million illegals in his pocket for the next election faces resistance, calls the Arizona bill "misguided." Can't have American citizens protecting their lives and property. If that sounds exaggerated, consider the case of rancher Robert Krentz, murdered on his ranch near Douglas, Arizona.

(A younger, more innocent me stayed overnight in Douglas and walked across the border to Agua Prieta, Mexico. Agua Prieta was a sad little town and not overtly sinister; I bought a pair of miniature concha straps to adorn my western boots, and still have them. What I remember most was the strange vibes on the Douglas side. The woman desk clerk at the motel, a few hundred feet from the border crossing, stiffened a little when I mentioned my plans to look around Agua Prieta. "If you cross in the daytime, they'll probably leave you alone," she said. Who would "probably" leave me alone? She would not be drawn further into the discussion. In retrospect, I am pretty sure the motel I stayed at was a clearinghouse for dope deals. Who knows, maybe I occupied a room where an argument had been settled with a knife or pistol. I had such creepy feelings it was hard to sleep that night.)

Anyway, back to the leader of the Mexican world. Said Obama:

"Our failure to act responsible at the federal level will only open the door to irresponsibility by others. That includes, for example, the recent efforts in Arizona which threaten to undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans, as well as the trust between police and their communities that is so crucial to keeping us safe," the president said at a naturalization ceremony for members of the military.

"In fact, I've instructed members of my administration to closely monitor the situation and examine the civil rights and other implications of this legislation. But if we continue to fail to act at the federal level, we will continue to see misguided efforts opening up around the country."

He added, "As a nation, as a people, we can choose a different future - a future that keeps faith with our history, with our heritage, and with the hope that America has always inspired in the hearts of people all over the world."

He really loves that Caesarian swagger, doesn't he? "I've instructed members of my administration ... ."

But he's right about one thing. As a nation, as a people, we can choose a different future than the population replacement he would enforce, or "instruct members" of "his" country to submit to.

Detroit Resurrection, New Republic style

Several decades ago, Detroit's city fathers fathered a development called the Renaissance Center. Today, Detroit's urban core looks like a renaissance, all right -- of Berlin in 1945. It is the very symbol of a failed city. I don't know what, if anything, can be done to revive it. But Bruce Katz and Jennifer Bradley, writing in The New Republic, think they do.

Before getting into their prescription, let me acknowledge that as leftist periodicals go, The New Republic is sane, even when it's wrong. It generally steers wide of the kind of hysteria and fanaticism so often found in "progressive" publications and blog sites. If the writing tends to the academic, it at least shows evidence of thought.

The Katz and Bradley piece, while reasonably argued within its own premises, shows how entrenched in the liberal mind are certain notions that seem never to change. Here are some quoted excerpts to show you what I mean. The boldface emphasis is mine.

This year alone, at least 48 Detroit public-school employees have been investigated for fraud--which might help explain why only one in four high school freshmen ever receives a diploma.

It might, or it might not. Presumably those fraudsters were guilty of embezzlement or something on that order. I suspect few if any stole the students' schoolbooks or their teachers' chalk. Perhaps the result has more to do with the students themselves, their lack of future-time orientation, and their subculture with its contempt for learning. But Katz and Bradley would probably say that's "blaming the victim."

Institutions developed at the height of Detroit’s postwar prosperity remain--and provide the city with advantages that similarly depressed industrial cities cannot claim. It has educational institutions in or near the city (the University of Michigan, Wayne State) and medical institutions (in part, a legacy of all those union health care plans) that are innovative powerhouses and that currently generate private-sector activity in biomedicine, information technology, and health care management.

Institutions. Always institutions. Leftists have faith in groups, official bodies, organizations. They may well be an asset, but since they have been operating all along, they don't seem to have done much to stop Detroit's slide into destitution.

And there is already a smattering of examples of old industrial outposts that have reacquired relevance. An old GM plant in Wixom has been retrofitted to produce advanced batteries. There’s a new automotive-design lab based in Ann Arbor. And Ford, the most promising of the Big Three, has made a decisive shift toward smaller, cleaner cars.

That, too, is fine. But it hasn't helped so far. How many people from the central city will a few auto design labs employ? Can battery makers replace car makers as a driver of prosperity? Smaller, cleaner cars may be good for the country, but what's good for the country isn't necessarily good for Detroit.

Retooling Detroit’s old industries and advancing its new ones will take public money, and the feds are the only ones with money to give these days. But Washington already spends heavily on Detroit--$18.4 billion went to the city and the surrounding county in 2008.

Wrong. "The feds" have no money to give these days. First, the feds cannot give money of their own, only money they have extracted through taxes -- including taxes on companies. Second, even the cutpurse government is broke, bankrupt, in debt to the tune of $13 trillion and counting (not including the cost of future entitlement programs).

A better return on federal investments will take a functioning local government as well as leadership in suburban counties that is willing to collaborate closely with the city. And, with so much sclerosis, change will only emerge with a strong hand from above.

A strong hand from above. A mighty fortress is our God, the government.

Leadership in suburban counties that is willing to collaborate closely with the city. Get real. Those suburban counties are populated largely by people who move there to escape the tar pit that is the central city. Here's a cell phone -- call someone who cares. Of course, to our authors, those suburbanites, many of whom are struggling like the rest of the country in the Great Recession, are "the rich." They should give till it hurts.

State and federal governments should place the city’s most dysfunctional agencies in receivership ... These higher-level governments should also insist that the city and its suburbs end their wasteful bickering and act as one on issues that naturally cross borders, like transportation and the environment.

If you can't work it out, Motown and 'burbs, the higher-level government's gonna insist. History has many examples of what happens when higher-level governments insist.

Because of the current credit desert, these companies should receive low-interest loans that allow them to reconfigure their plants to produce parts that can be sold to the international auto market--or for other types of machinery. And local government (or NGOs, even) can play the role of industrial planner. That is, they can look across the map and find instances where research institutions and manufacturers should collaborate on new ventures.

Industrial planning. We've read about that, although maybe schools don't teach it these days. A certain regime was keen on five-year plans. Leftists believe only chaos can result if individuals, or groups of individuals, find their own solutions. The answers, to be valid for them, must come from politicians, bureaucrats, committees, think tanks -- anyone but the people being planned for.

European cities faced a similar challenge. After decades of population and job loss, they were saddled with an excess of housing and too much unproductive, polluted, or vacant land. This derelict land was as much an economic problem as a physical one, depressing property values and repelling new investments. So these cities reconfigured themselves into denser communities ...

Leftists hate "wasted" space around people's homes. The residents are anti-social, anti-community for wanting some land of their own. They must be re-educated, gathered into "efficient" high-rises.

This physical regeneration, much more than economic reorientation, is where governments have a major role.

Where don't they, in the new republic?

The great object lesson is Bilbao, Spain. As in Turin, leaders--in this case, the Basque regional government, worried about the condition of its largest city--created a master plan and two public-private agencies to support it, one of which, Bilbao Ria, focused specifically on managing large-scale land-cleanup-and-revitalization projects.

Government again. Master plan.

The new Detroit might be a patchwork of newly dense neighborhoods, large and small urban gardens, art installations, and old factories transformed into adventure parks.

Bring the kids to Blightland! Have fun wrench tightening at the Assembly Line Castle! Ride to the top of the smokestack! It's a pall world after all.

... The Obama administration is weighing a high-speed-rail plan that would link Detroit to Chicago and other Midwestern cities.

What will it do for passengers after the one-way traffic ends?

The federal government could support the physical regeneration of Detroit by footing the bill for the development of a new city plan focused on reconfiguring land uses and economic activity around the reality of population loss. More radically, the feds could overhaul that tired cliché of urban policy: the community-development block grant. They should require Detroit and other cities to use these grants (and other federal, state, and local resources) for reclaiming, reconfiguring, and reusing vacant and abandoned land and housing.

This whole article is a tired cliché of urban policy. Big Daddy government; tax money given to Detroiters with certain, er, requirements. Katz and Bradley's vision isn't just straight from the ivory tower. It's immoral. It's an imposed design using other people's money, funneled through institutions, destined to further central government control. Nobody had to dump grants and funding into the city to make it once the Mecca of American industry. If Detroit can't fix itself, it doesn't deserve fixing. Cities, like people, sometimes need tough love.

Tea parties: good news, but ...

Yesterday's "Tax Day" tea parties weren't about numbers, although the mainstream media will play their usual counting games (a few hundred, perhaps a thousand, several thousand, fewer than last year, &c.). They were about diversity -- wait, wait, put that thing down; geographical diversity. A nationwide movement, one even the left-controlled media couldn't pretend was skewed to "red" states.

Location, location, location

And they were about open defiance of out-of-control left radicalism. The conflict has moved beyond tame venues like magazine articles and Fox News. The counter-revolution has taken to the streets, and not before time.

For those of us who have blogged (and those who have written magazine articles, and talked on Fox News), it was exhilarating stuff. A weight has been lifted. Millions of Americans are saying publicly what a hermetic few argued only a handful of years ago. The cork has popped.

If there's anything to worry about, it's probably not co-option by the Republican Establishment. Many tea partyers have made it clear that they see the drawbacks of Pubby collaboration, except in hand-picked cases. This fight isn't taking place on the standard political chessboard.

Making allowances for the obvious connection with tax deadline day, it was still a little disturbing to see such obsession with taxes. Since ancient Rome, people have hated taxes. Politicians understand that, and have ways to anesthetize the pain -- "We need to raise taxes to reduce the deficit," "Soak the rich," and so on. Making the tea party protests essentially an anti-tax movement is playing a mug's game.

Taxes are a symptom, not the problem.

Raising cain about taxes will, at best, hold down increases while the political class takes the soft option, trying to postpone the reckoning.

Politicians act like they have lost any comprehension of how an economy should work. They operate on the Marxist belief system that every problem can be solved by voting government (i.e., taxpayer) money for it; that wealth can be redistributed while kneecapping the enterprise that creates the wealth they want to distribute.

Or maybe our rulers understand the damage they are doing. They just won't look at it. "I've got mine, Jack."

For a quick tour of our looming financial blow-up, I turn you over to tour guide Karl Denninger. If you don't like numbers, you don't need to focus on them so much as follow the argument.

" ... You can't fix debt intoxication with another bottle of whiskey," he says.

We added more Federal debt than had been accumulated in 217 years in just a little over THREE years - from 2007 to the third month 2010.

The ugly is that this debt load (currently $12.8 trillion, more or less) presents interest expense. If the Fed Funds Target was to reach just five percent, and every bit of the Treasury debt was to be refinanced into overnight obligations at that same 5%, the interest expense alone of the current debt would be $640 billion a year.

If the Treasury was to have to pay a roughly 6% average coupon (reasonably aggressive with a 5% Fed Funds Target) the interest expense would be $768 billion annually.

To put this in perspective that is an amount roughly equivalent to that spent on defense, and is higher than Social Security, Medicare, or all other "mandatory" program spending combined.

It would consume nearly all of Social Security and Medicare tax receipts ($891 billion) or the personal income tax ($915 billion) (ed. All 2009 federal budget numbers)

Denninger may be an alarmist, but only false alarms are bad.