neighborhood musings

Left-Liberal Hypocrisy and Bad Taste

Jacques Delacroix Liberty , , ,

Leftists always let their real soul slip through, somehow.

I know a young woman who lives in a country other than the US. She is not American. What she has in common with Santa Cruz, California liberals is, well, everything she says. (I can’t really know what she actually believes.) She says the world is fast coming to an end because of fossil fuels. She says, in so many words, that governments should take their money from the rich to give it to the poor (as defined by herself, of course). She says socialism is more fair than capitalism. (She has no idea what capitalism means.) Of, course, she talks as if the US government were a far worse terrorist than say, Osama Bin Laden. By the way, she does not want to talk about who was responsible for 9/11. I think she likes to feed ambiguity without paying the price deniers of terrorism pay in intelligent society.

This young woman also holds a responsible position in the service of a NATO government. She received an education from one of the very best schools in her country. Personally, I think that one-on-one, she is quite likable. At least, I like her in most respects.

Recently, I had a chance to look at her wedding pictures. They showed the bride in her bridal splendor, laughing guests, parts of a dinner party. Nothing more natural there. However, included in the set of published pictures was one of an expensive Mercedes convertible.

Why was the car treated as prominent member of a wedding party?

Weddings are about two individuals joining their lives together, in part, to rear children. It’s about their friends celebrating. It’s about people, isn’t it? Should be, especially among liberals who always act holier-than-thou in matters of material consumption, liberals who see themselves as are more spiritual than selfish, narrow-minded, gross conservatives like me.

What’s the flashy, environmentally unsound, insulting-to-the-poor, imported car doing in the middle of the wedding party? Do I detect such mind-boggling hypocrisy that the hypocrites don’t even recognize what they are?

By the way, no sour grapes here. I don’t care much about cars, never did. I only ask of a car that it protect me against highway drunks and that I don’t have to think about it. Conservatives are simplistic, for sure! I think expensive cars are the poor man’s art (and, I don’t mean financially poor! Wow, what a bitch I am!) The Mercedes in the picture did look good, not $100,000-good though. Think about how much you could do with that kind of money, for others, and even to cultivate your own self.

How utterly vulgar; how infantile; how astonishingly self-centered, how amazingly incoherent; how so very left-liberal!

The Cold in California, in Europe, and in Liberal Hearts (Updated)

Jacques Delacroix Current Events, Politics , , , , , , , ,

Note: This is a replay.

It’s been an unusually cold and rainy month of May in northern California. Thousands of miles to the east and north, in Paris, France, a May cold record held for sixteen years was beaten recently according to Le Figaro of 5/11/10. I don’t know if any of this means anything in terms of so-called “ global warming” ( a few points don’t make a trend). I am certain however that the climate duffuses would be clamoring if the month of May had been especially warm in either part of the world. Al Gore is speaking in Santa Cruz this week. He is a rich man with no sense of ridicule. He became rich by selling imaginary protection against an imaginary ill, global warming, while living in a giant house and flying in executive jets with his entourage, Hollywood-style. Meanwhile, my wife and I dry our laundry on the line, in the backyard, like both of our grand mothers used to do. I wonder how many climate activists forgo an electric or gas dryer, to help save the planet. I have not found one yet though I keep asking.

Here is a micro story about how liberals think, a slice of life. Last Saturday, I go by a young friend’s of mine who is holding a garage sale. I may find something to buy from her in spite of my wife’s warning that she will divorce me if I bring anything else into the house (except the beautiful quilts I get for her at the flea market, of course). At least, I will bring my friend cheerful moral support. I know I am in enemy territory there, ideologically. It matters not because likability does not follow strict ideological lines and because those who are meritorious by conservative standards are not all conservatives. (A reason for hope, by the way.) Continue reading →

Santa Cruz Vandals, Drums, and Left-Wing Authoritarianism

Jacques Delacroix Current Events, Politics , , , , , , , , , , ,

I live in wonderful times in a wonderful place. Important history is re-playing itself before my eyes. This a sequel to my recent previous blogs (“Freedom Fighters…” and, “The Leftist Municipality….”)

The story has to do with the fact that a few fast-moving people dressed in black caused about $100,000 worth of damage in six or seven storefronts withing three blocks of each other. (The damage cost estimate comes from the local paper. I cannot verify it.) That was in Santa Cruz, California.

The vandals came out of a demonstration of a few hundred young people with no particular agenda, except the usual vague left-wing slogans and a few more about the new Arizona law on illegal immigration . (See my posting on that too: “Illegal Immigration…,” “The Arizona Immigration Law…,” and, “Immigration: More on Conservative….”) It was supposed to be a “May Day” celebration, but May Day is the first of May and the demonstration was on the second. Well, nobody is perfect and this is a beach town.

I did not learn much from the videos on YouTube except that one demonstrator was wearing a tie. There seems to be a consensus that the window breakers were few and well prepared and that they had kept their intentions secret. I believe there were fewer than ten actively involved in the vandalism.

There were no police present at the scene for a long time. I pointed out in previous postings: 1 That the police had other priorities, and, 2 That it was not surprising that they did, given the nature of the city government. Here is more, more blatant evidence. Again, this is contemporary political history in a small capsule. Continue reading →

Le voisinage. (C’est presque pareil partout!)

Jacques Delacroix Liberty ,

La banque, ma femme et moi possèdons une jolie maison de style victorien. Elle est située dans une petite ville côtière, à 100 kilomètres au sud de San Franciso. Notre maison, comme toutes celles du quartier, date d’environ 1900. Elle est en bois, comme presque toutes les autres, dans ce pays de tremblements de terre.

Le terrain comporte un arrière-jardin clos, avec des arbres fruitiers (qui produisent bien, merci) et un avant-jardin donnant sur la rue. De ce côté-là, nous jouissons d’une vue imprenable sur le parking de la mairie, un bâtiment long et bas, en fer-a-cheval, dans le goût faux-mexicain des années 20, plutôt agréable, à vrai-dire. En saison, un vrai train folklo (pas un tramway) passe devant chez nous, au beau milieu de la rue. Les voyageurs, en wagons ouverts, saluent de la main. On leur rend leurs saluts quand on a le temps.

Les voisins de gauche sont des gens à la cinquantaine accusée, bienveillants et serviables mais pas éclatants de beauté. Lui, est musicien de blues, amateur certes mais tout à fait actif. Elle, est en retraite, je ne sais pas de quoi ou d’où. C’est sans importance; l’étiquette sociale de “retraitée” lui va comme un gant. Elle, est gentille mais elle a l’allure de la retraitée règlementaire: pas toujours coiffée dès le matin, les espadrilles un peu éculées. Ces voisins de gauche se sâoulent plusieurs soirs par semaine, en famille, gentiment, sans troubler la tranquilité du voisinage. Quand ils ont bien bu, ils se déshabillent complètement et font trempette dans leur jaccuzi plusieurs heures d’affilée. Ils ont placé la cuve chauffée, à dessein, sous un gros arbre feuillu censé les abriter des regards, ou censé abriter les voisins du spectacle, ce n’est pas clair. Malheureusement, en Californie, la température reste douce bien après la chute des dernières feuilles. Malheureusement, mon second étage surplombe leur arrière-jardin, lieu de leurs ébats aquatiques. Continue reading →