Blogs for 2006 - Road to the Middle Class

The most important--and unfortunately the least debated--issue in politics today is our society's steady drift toward a class-based system, the likes of which we have not seen since the 19th century.

When did Democrats ever stop worrying about inequality? Please, Mr. Webb.

And what’s all unfold

Baby-Boomers Break the Budget

by Christopher Chantrill

WHAT WILL HAPPEN as the baby boom generation retires? Will they break the budget and saddle Gen X and Y with enormous taxes and debt?

Or will the taxpayers of the era just say no?

Richard Fairbanks and Paul S. Hewitt rehearse the gloomy predictions.

Say what you will about global warming or Iraq, over the next generation no trend will more directly shape the substance of American politics than the looming self-impoverishment of legions of unfold

WHEN THEY WERE in opposition in Congress the Democrats opposed, ferociously. Now they are the majority, committed to increase subsidies for the already subsidized in education and health care, as provided in their New Direction for America.

But will their instinct to increase the welfare state be possible? Michael Barone has his doubts.

In their hearts, most elected Democrats would like to move us some distance closer to a European-style welfare unfold

Are The French Toast Yet?

by Christopher Chantrill

IS EUROPE TOAST, or merely warming up the toaster? Mark Steyn has advanced the theory that the lack of heat between the matrimonial sheets (indeed the lack of any matrimonial sheets) in Europe and the demographic deficit in Eurobabies pretty much defines Europe as over, unless. But it’s a pretty big Unless.

Ralph Peters isn’t buying the Steyn gloom-and-doom. unfold

RMC Third World Index

by Christopher Chantrill

AS YOU TRAVEL around the world how do you tell if you are in a Third World country or not?

It’s a ticklish question and a challenging one. But here at the Road to the Middle Class we have devised the RMC Third World Index so you can tell immediately where you are.

It is simple really. As you drive along, check the side of the road. Are there any tracks winding into the fields or the bush, tracks that look like they are used by foot traffic or by bicycles? If there are, then you are in the Third World, because the tracks mean that unfold

Clamber over Angkor Wat, While You Still Can

by Christopher Chantrill

SIEM REAP, CAMBODIA — You haven’t lived until you have seen the gigantic rush hours at Siem Reap, the closest town to the monster palace and temple complex at Angkor Wat.

In 2005 they booked 1.5 million visitors to Angkor Wat, and this year they are predicting 2 million.

In consequence the sleepy village of Siem Reap has got itself an airport with a spanking new international terminal, and a permanent construction zone in which over 80 tourist hotels have been built in the last few years.

When the tourists are heading out of unfold

Back From The Thai Jungle

by Christopher Chantrill

CHIANG MAI, THAILAND — Out on the marches between Thailand and Myanmar the terrain is pretty rough. They call it the “tribal areas.” And a lot of the inhabitants are refugees from Myanmar, as you might expect.

We visited a couple of villages, two of the few true agricultural villages left in Thailand. They are located in a National Park at the end of jeep trails.

But the Thai government does not just leave these villages in splendid isolation. Oh no. It is, you might say, very interested in village life in the tribal unfold

At The Royal Flora Expo

by Christopher Chantrill

CHIANG MAI, THAILAND — The Royal Flora Expo opened here November 1 in Thailand’s second city, up in the north west of the nation near the border with Myanmar.

It’s an exposition of flowers plain and exotic on exhibition grounds perhaps a quarter of a mile on a side, nestled up against the mountains.

Central to the Expo is the Royal Pavilion, featuring the King of Thailand’s “initiatives and activities focusing on the unfold

First Impressions of Thailand

by Christopher Chantrill

ON THE ROAD IN THAILAND — It’s the roads, stupid. You drive for mile after mile, for hour after hour on first class roads all across southern Thailand. And there are four lane, six lane arterials through most of the towns you drive through.

And another thing. There don’t seem to be any traditional villages. Everyone is living in the towns, or in western-style isolated farm complexes.

It’s a surprise. You know that Thailand has recovered from the Asian Contagion of 1997-98. But the appearance of solid prosperity, the unfold

Milton Friedman Dead at 94

by Christopher Chantrill

BACK IN THE 1960s and 1970s there were three high-profile economists in the United States: John Kenneth Galbraith, Paul Samuelson, and Milton Friedman. For many years Samuelson and Friedman alternated writing a column at the back of Newsweek. Yes, those were the days when Time and Newsweek had pretensions of offering serious intellectual opinion.

Each of the three economists occupied an important niche. Galbraith offered liberals comforting liberal “conventional wisdom” while couched as though it was a courageous unfold

Language Does Matter

by Christopher Chantrill

LANGUAGE, WE are taught, is an innate human ability. We have, according to Noam Chomsky, an internal syntax that enables us to acquire language. Therefore, says MIT psychologist Steven Pinker, we should regard all language as equally valid. In other words the vernacular lanugage of the streets is just as human as the language of the academy.

In the current City Journal psychiatrist Theodore Dalrymple begs to differ. No doubt there is an inherent ability unfold

Tsunami Lays Down 600 Ft High Deposit

by Christopher Chantrill

HERE’S ANOTHER reason to stop worrying about global warming, courtesy of The New York Times.

It seems that in Madagascar there are these 600 foot high “chevrons,” according to Sandra Blakeslee. What is a chevron? It’s a “wedge-shaped sediment deposit.” You can see them in the gutter after a heavy rain. But 600 feet high? Well you take a look at this photo from Google Earth. (It’s the unfold

A Cure for Health Woes

by Christopher Chantrill

OK, SO WE KNOW that we can fix the education system with a dose of private enterprise. But what about health care? Surely, with the spiraling costs of health care, there is no substitute for a large government presence?

Not according to Canadian psychiatrist unfold

Rudy's Leadership and Newt's Ideas

by Christopher Chantrill

THE GRAVE OF Republican hopes in 2006 is scarcely filled in, but the hopefuls are lining up for 2008. According to David Saltonstall and Helen Kennedy Rudy Giuliani’s lieutenants have filed the papers for an exploratory presidential committee.

On Sunday in Pennsylvania, Giuliani said he was giving a run for unfold

Pelosi's New Direction for America

by Christopher Chantrill

IF YOU WANT to know what life will be like under a Democratic Congress, here is an article by House Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi that lays out her agenda for the 110th Congress.

She writes that the American people voted for a change, for “greater integrity” and “greater civility” in Washington D.C. On Iraq, she writes,

The strategy of "stay the course" is not working, has not made our country safer, has not honored our commitment to our troops and unfold

Clinton's Analysis of the Thumpin'

by Christopher Chantrill

HERE IS HOW Jeff Jacoby tells it—out of the mouth of Clinton.

"The reason we are at this moment," former president Bill Clinton told a group of Democratic donors on Nov. 1, "is that they do not represent faithfully the Republicans and the more conservative independents in the country. Otherwise, we wouldn't be here tonight. This is a sweeping, deep, big thing." According to the nation's most popular Democrat, in other words, Republicans were about to be unfold

Is Islam Strong or Just Brittle?

by Christopher Chantrill

SOME PEOPLE think that Islam is taking over the world. In America Alone, Mark Steyn claims that it is taking over Europe.

But other people, such as the cryptic Spengler that Islam is facing a terminal encounter with modernity.

British physician and critic of the welfare state (Life at the Bottom) Theodore Dalrymple inclines towards the latter perspective. In a review of Robert unfold

Let's Get Serious, Say Spy, Blair, and Noonan

by Christopher Chantrill

NOW THAT THE Democrats are back it’s Happy Days Are Here Again, right?

But yesterday Prime Minister Tony Blair has trundled out the head of MI5, the British spy agency, for a little straight talk. Said Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller at a speech on November 9:

What I can say is that today, my officers and the police are working to contend with some 200 groupings or networks, totalling over 1600 identified individuals (and there will be many we don't know) who are actively engaged in plotting, or facilitating, terrorist acts unfold

Looking Forward

by Christopher Chantrill

IT’S TOO LATE now, but suppose that Congressional Republicans had followed President Bush’s lead and reformed Social Security? Maybe they would still have been stiffed by the voters, but they would have left behind a landmark piece of legislation to prove that they were there.

Well, that’s all history now. And The Wall Street Journal in today’s editorial looks towards the future. But first the bad news:

Here's one telling exit poll unfold

Young People Support Civil Rights in Michigan

by Christopher Chantrill

LISTEN TO THE people, they say. As they reelected Democrat Governor Granholm and Senator Stabenow Michiganders also passed Proposition 2, the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, by an overwhelming margin of 58% to 42%.

That’s remarkable when you realize that MCRI supporters were outspent 4 to 1 in the campaign and that all the great and the good had lined up against it.

It is another victory in the lonely campaign of Ward Connerly to return the nation to the civil rights unfold

About Those Tough-guy Freshman Democrats

by Christopher Chantrill

WHAT HAPPENS when all those freshman Democrats get to Washington. You know, the ones like Brad Ellsworth, whose campaign commercials talked about stuff like this, according to Terence P. Jeffrey:

A lifetime of Hoosier values, a southwest Indiana native, Brad Ellsworth knows faith and family comes first.
...
Opposes abortion, and supports traditional marriage... a hunter who supports the Second Amendment, who will fight to protect our kids from unfold

Build An Agenda of Hope

by Christopher Chantrill

SOME REPUBLICANS are out blaming President Bush, Congressional Republicans, immigration policies, an unpopular war, and big government conservatism as they look at defeat on the morning after.

But others are saying: Look, we gave the election our best shot and the American people told us to get lost. So let us accept their decision and move on.

Unlike Democrats over the past years, Republicans should be philosophical about defeat. The American people decided what they wanted, and that’s the way it’s supposed to be. If we can’t unfold

The Day After

by Christopher Chantrill

WITH AT LEAST a gain of 30 seats in the House of Representatives and a gain of 4 to 6 seats in the United States Senate the Democrats have earned a famous victory. It seems to be about average for a second-term off-year election.

I have felt for some time that it was time to Democrats to be back in power. They need to be in power to connect with reality in the post 9/11 world, and the American people need to see them at it. So it is probably best if the Democrats win the presidency in 2008.

Right now the Democrats say that it is all unfold

Disaffected Reagan Democrats Call The Tune

by Christopher Chantrill

REMEMBER THE old Clinton campaign song? “Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow.”

Actually, it should have been: Don’t Stop Thinking About the Reagan Democrats. It was forgetting about them that was the undoing of the New Deal coalition. And it is forgetting about them that is returning the Democrats to power today, according to James Pinkerton.

Reagan Democrats are the key swing voting bloc... Democrats by unfold

On Election Day

by Christopher Chantrill

IT’S ELECTION Day and pundit John Podhoretz admits that “nobody knows anything.”

All the polling and prognosticating ends up being what it says it is, polling and prognosticaing.

What really matters is what the polls find so hard to measure: intensity and commitment.

Meanwhile, Iowa Electronic Markets is pretty clear about the outcome. unfold

Until Conservatives Can Influence Upper-Middle Class Opinion...

by Christopher Chantrill

DURING THE Vietnam War, relates James Q. Wilson, the sea-change in public opinion from support for the war in 1964 to opposition in 1968 occurred mainly among upper-middle class readers of news and opinion.

Strikingly, opinion did not shift much among working-class voters, no matter whether they read these press accounts or not. Affluent people who read the press apparently have more changeable opinions than ordinary folks. Public opinion may not have unfold

Saddam Gets The Death Penalty

by Christopher Chantrill

YOU CAN SAY that Bush’s War is a disaster. You can say that it has roiled the Middle East into a cauldron. OK, things are a mess.

But the image of Saddam Hussein being tried and convicted in an Iraqi court means something.

That’s what political philosopher Michael Novak opines.

In what other Arab or Persian nation of the region would a former leader be so well treated in prison, appear in court looking so dapper, and sit unfold

Who Knew Rick Santorum Was a Nice Guy?

by Christopher Chantrill

WHY DO I GET a feeling of déjà vu about Peggy Noonan’s appreciation of Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA), now in a fight for his political life?

Noonan wheels out an unnamed moderate Republican senator to give us a look at his character.

The other day I called a former senator, a crusty old moderate Republican, and asked him if he liked Mr. Santorum. "No," he said, "I love him."
...
The former senator: "The political scientists all say to be unfold

Get Real, America

by Christopher Chantrill

MAD AT THE Republicans because they haven’t “done enough during their 12 years in control of the House and Senate,” asks Cal Thomas? There’s a simple solution. Elect more conservatives.

OK, so all we conservative Republicans who were so bright eyed and bushy tailed back in 1994 are disappointed. But what do you expect? That liberals would lie down and let us take their privileges and sinecures away from them without a fight?

The whole concept of the welfare unfold

Liberals Like Race-based Politics

by Christopher Chantrill

IN THE STATE of Michigan Jennifer Gratz and “wealthy black Republican” Ward Connerly are campaigning to pass the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, Proposition 2 on the ballot. They are just two people. Against them, says Tamar Lewin in The New York Times is the whole elite class of Michigan.

Opposition to the measure is led by One United Michigan, an unusually broad coalition that includes unfold

"Call For Action" or "Dodgy Numbers" on Climate Change?

by Christopher Chantrill

READING THE British papers you’d think that it was all over bar shouting. The Stern Review conducted for the British government by Sir Nicholas Stern recommends that the British spend 1 percent of GDP on climate change policies. The cost of inaction, the report advises, could reach as high as 20 percent of global GDP.

Prime Minister Tony Blair hailed the report as a call to action saying the document "demolished the last remaining argument for inaction in unfold

SUV Sales Up at Ford

by Christopher Chantrill

EARLIER THIS year the media reported that sales of the big truck-based SUVs were going into a nose dive. With sky-high gas prices, Americans were finally jumping off their humungous land yachts in fuel-efficient dinghies.

But now Ford Motor Corporation is reporting overall sales increases and sharply higher sales of its mega-SUV Ford Expedition and Lincoln Navigator (curb weight over 7,000 unfold

Should We Know How Journalists Vote?

by Christopher Chantrill

TALK SHOW HOST Hugh Hewitt is making a career of asking MSM journalists the Question. Who did you vote for at the last presidential election?

Their usual response is that their professional ethics prevents them from responding. You see, if we don’t know a journalist’s political opinions it makes it easier for us to accept his/her journalism as objective. (Yes, they really make that argument!)

So yesterday Hugh asked the Question in an unfold