http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xx4yr0FFhMQ

Pretty horrifying.

Apparently, enough uproar has resulted that 1010 has removed the video from its site and issued an apology. The organization pleads humor as its excuse and adds “many people found the resulting film extremely funny.”

Actually, I can see how “many people” found the film to be funny. In order for any sort of joke to work, it has to have at least some basis in reality. And, in this case, there is a basis in reality – the sort of groupthink that is pervasive among the Left and its hatred and hostility towards dissenters. For those who share such a mindset, this video probably is funny.

I am quite sure that the SS in Germany and the guards at the gulags in the USSR had any number of jokes about the inmates they presided over that they probably fond quite hilarious. But the reaction of any civilized person to the same “humor” is one of revulsion and horror.

“Obey or die” has always been the ultimate argument that the Left falls back on when push comes to shove – and Nazi Germany and the USSR are but two of many examples. The recent “climate change” scandals have the environmentalist movement on the defensive. Arguments by intimidation are all they have in order to press their agenda.

No, the people who made this video are not on par with Nazis and Soviets – not yet. Real totalitarians would be much more careful and guarded in their propaganda. A Joseph Goebbels would never allow something so explicit to see the light of general circulation. What went on in the Nazi slave camps and extermination chambers was regarded as a state secret and kept from the general public.

This video is merely a reflection of its creators’ deepest, darkest premises – premises that they are too ignorant and brainwashed to grasp the full, logical implications of. If they fully understood and agreed with where such premises lead, they would, like Goebbels, keep their jokes to themselves. The would immediately understand how any such humor that makes their premises explicit for all to see would set back and not advance their ultimate agenda. But since these filmmakers either cannot grasp or refuse to grasp what their premises ultimately lead to in practice, it simply does not occur to them that being open and explicit about them is extremely counterproductive.

When the Allies liberated the concentration camps after World War II, some military commanders ordered ordinary German civilians from nearby villages to be rounded up and forced them to be marched through the camps and actually look at the piles of half burned corpses. Most of these civilians reacted to what they saw with fright and horror – many to the point of throwing up or passing out. Not all Germans supported the Nazis – but a very large percentage did to some degree or another. What occurred in those camps was a sadistic nightmare that the average German citizen could never have conceived of or imagined. And yet those camps were the logical expression of exactly what the Nazis stood for with the full and enthusiastic consent of a very significant portion of the German public.

These filmmakers and any member of the general public who regards this video as “humorous” are to the would-be totalitarians of the future what the German public was to the actual totalitarians of the 1930s and 1940s.

If CNN had an ounce of journalistic credibility left it would immediately terminate Susan Roesgen, give a warning to the anchor back in the studio and issue an apology both to the protesters in Chicago and to its audience. But I seriously doubt that will happen. My guess is Susan Roesgen accurately reflects the attitudes and views of her editors and CNN management.

Anyhow, my reason for posting the clip here is to make the following observation: Observe that what really sets Roesgen off is when the protester took offense at Obama quoting Lincoln on grounds that what Lincoln actually stood for was liberty.

Something I have noticed over the years is that, whenever I have had discussions with Leftists and brought up the authoritarian nature of their agenda and its totalitarian implications, they are often thrown into what Ayn Rand referred to as a “blank out” which she defined as “the willful suspension of one’s consciousness, the refusal to think — not blindness, but the refusal to see; not ignorance, but the refusal to know.”

Sometimes the “blank out” takes the form of the Leftist suddenly wanting to terminate the conversation, usually by tossing out a final insult and making a statement to the effect that one is “hopeless.” Sometimes it takes the form of desperately trying to change the subject. And sometimes it takes the form of a sudden outburst of hostility and rage. In the case of Susan Roesgen, we see all three.

I suspect that the reaction of hostility and rage is usually the result of the person not being able to successfully blank out fast enough thus allowing the offending fact of reality to actually get past their defenses and though to their consciousness. Hostility and rage is their way of attempting to forever bury that which they momentarily grasped. Those who are able to successfully blank out before the implications fully hit them are usually able to maintain self-control and simply change the subject or walk away.

Had the protester in the video been more explicit about Obama’s authoritarianism, had he carried a sign stating that Obama was a thug, it would probably have had little impact in terms of unnerving Roesgen. Such explicit statements would have been dismissed out of hand as proof that the protesters were right wing bumpkins and boobs from flyover country who drink the sort of coffee served in truck stops and gas stations and thus should not be taken seriously. The danger for people such as Roesgen is the workings of their own mind when the implications of what they are seeking to avoid knowing sneak past and sink in.

My guess is that, between some of premises displayed by the better posters which were evident in great number at these Tea Parties and the protester’s implicit suggestion that Obama is anti-liberty, for a brief fraction of a second, Roesgen’s mind was able to put two and two together and she understood exactly what the Tea Party was all about. That was the moment that set her off and her reaction to it was so intense that she completely dropped any pretense at journalistic professionalism. Even by twisted Walter Duranty media standards, it is unacceptable to “lose one’s cool” on camera.

Observe that Roesgen engaged in all of the three forms of blanking out that I described – she tried to change the subject (“What does this have to do with your taxes?”), she became hostile and, finally, she attempted to run away from the whole thing by ending the broadcast on the excuse that “since I cannot really hear much more and since I think this is not really family viewing, [I will] toss it back to you Karen.”

Ultimately, this is a good thing and Susan Roesgen has done the people she so desperately hates a huge favor. Displays such as this make it more and more difficult for decent, busy people who do not pay close attention to politics to realize that Leftist arrogance and Leftist media bias is more than a mere sore loser sort of Right wing accusation and that something is very wrong. Displays such as this only helps motivate those who do realize what is happening to become angry and speak up. Nasty people like her are the greatest recruitment tool the Tea Party movement has. Above all, displays such as this are a good example of why anybody who grasps at whatever level the connection between big government and tyranny should call a spade a spade as opposed to self-censoring one’s statements in order to conform to the unspoken requirements of being perceived as a “moderate.”

The Dallas event exceeded my expectations.   The speakers, for the most part, were articulate and interesting.  The event was emceed by local talk show host Mark Davis – people outside North Texas might be familiar with him as an occasional fill-in host on the Rush Limbaugh program.   Blogger and columnist Michell Malkin phoned in and briefly spoke to the crowd via a cell phone held up to a microphone. 

My favorite speaker was the very first in the line up,  Phillip Dennis, the man who initially organized the Dallas protest and someone I had never heard of before.  He  noted that he had spotted several signs in the crowd that made mention of Atlas Shrugged and John Galt.    He asked for a show of hands from the people who had read Atlas Shrugged.   A lot of hands were raised –  from my vantage point, it looked to be  perhaps 30 – 40 percent.  He then said something to the effect of:  ”Well, the rest of you now have your reading assignment – and we are going to be doing another one of these tea parties in July and there will be a quiz, so go out and get the book and not just the Cliff’s Notes.”    He then went into a brief description of the plot and concluded by quoting John Galt’s oath: “I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”   I was a little stunned that I was actually watching it.  I overheard someone in front of me asking the lady next to her:  ”have you ever heard of this book?” to which she replied: “Oh, yes – it’s LONG, over 1,000 pages, but it is great, you need to read it. “ 

My rather pathetic homemade sign (I am NOT good at arts and crafts type stuff) read “Atlas Will Shrug” on one side and “It’s Not Your Wealth To Spread Around” on the other.   At some point, a nicely dressed man in a suit walked up to me, put his hand on my shoulder and said with a little grin in his voice “It’s not your wealth to spread around – boy, you just don’t understand, do you?”   The man somehow looked VERY familiar but I couldn’t place him until later on in the event when Mark Davis mentioned that “Dennis McCuistion of PBS” was on the stage.  Some readers might recognize McCuistion from Leonard Peikoff’s and Yaron Brook’s appearances on his program.  

I did take some photographs.  Here are the ones I was able to get of some of the Atlas Shrugged related signs I spotted – there were a few more that I saw that I either did not have a good vantage point of or spotted when it was inconvenient to reach for my camera.    All of these signs I had to zoom in from quite a distance to photograph.  Unfortunately, because the crowd was so large and dense, it was not really practical for me to walk in closer and see if they were being carried by anyone I might recognize from the local Objectivist community. 

This sign says the same as the one I carried - except mine was a LOT less artistic than even this one.

The greatest guilt today is that of people who accept collectivism by moral default; the people who seek protection from the necessity of taking a stand, by refusing to admit to themselves the nature of that which they are accepting; the people who support plans specifically designed to achieve serfdom, but hide behind the empty assertion that they are lovers of freedom, with no concrete meaning attached to the word; the people who believe that the content of ideas need not be examined, that principles need not be defined, and that facts can be eliminated by keeping one’s eyes shut. They expect, when they find themselves in a world of bloody ruins and concentration camps, to escape moral responsibility by wailing: “But I didn’t mean this!”

Those who want slavery should have the grace to name it by its proper name. They must face the full meaning of that which they are advocating or condoning; the full, exact, specific meaning of collectivism, of its logical implications, of the principles upon which it is based, and of the ultimate consequences to which these principles will lead.

They must face it, then decide whether this is what they want or not.

Isn’t that a perfect description of today’s liberals and self-described moderates?   I say “liberals” as opposed to “Leftists” because Leftists are those who already have decided that slavery is what they want but dare not call it by its proper name lest the people they wish to enslave catch on.  

One positive trend I have noticed recently is that, despite whatever disagreements I might have with them, a number of conservative commentators, especially on talk radio, are beginning to call a spade a spade.    When I first became aware of politics as a teenager, one of the things that frustrated me was the fact that there was, at the time, an almost unspoken rule even among staunch conservatives that to refer to socialism as “socialism” in public was a huge no-no that would immediately place one in the ranks of the kook fringe.    

Today, even New York Times reporters dare utter the word and question the President about it.   Some commentators are  beginning to use terms such as “authoritiarian” and “collectivism” and radio talk show host Mark Levin has been regularly using the term “statist” over the  past several months.   Such terminology is not only accurate, it is very much needed right now. Accurate terminology makes it more difficult for the better sorts of liberals and moderates to continue practicing their evasion and it enables those who usually do not pay all that much attention to politics to more quickly grasp what is going on and what is at stake.  

The only downside is that it does have the effect of further radicalizing and emboldening the Leftists.  People who have no illusions that what they are after is  slavery  and power for the sake of power are far less squeamish when it comes to “breaking a few eggs” in order to make their omlets.  We can only hope that as the Leftists become increasingly bold and thuggish sufficient numbers of liberals, moderates and non-participants still have within them what it takes to wake up and realize what is happening.

Below is the conclusion of the monologue in which he describes Peter Keating type personalities as drags on society who are harming the country.  This (along with his wonderful sense of humor) is a great example of why, whatever philosophical disagreements I might occasionally have with him, Rush Limbaugh is by far my favorite conservative.

When any of you decide to do away with pursuing what you want in your best self-interest, you are sacrificing who you are.  You are giving up control of your essence, and you are saying, I would rather be a member of a group that is approved by people so that I don’t get criticized or so that I’m thought of as enlightened or so that I’m thought of as advanced.  In the process, you are helping to destroy the very foundational building blocks of the greatest country on earth, the country in which you happen to be born and the country in which you happen to live.  So giving up your individual identity, giving up who you are, sacrificing your passions and your desires and your own self-interests for the so-called common good, who gets to define the common good?  I would define the common good as everybody acting as an individual, born as he or she is, pursuing self-interest.  That’s the common good.  That built cities; that built a great country; that built railroads and engines.  It built airplanes.  It built everything.  People denying who they are did not.

When you deny your individuality, when you give it away for acceptance into a subgroup of people, you are harming the country; you are letting the country down; you are not pulling your weight.  You are seeking approval, self-love and acceptance from all of the wrong sources.  You’re giving up the greatest gift you ever had, and that’s who you are.  And we have an administration that wants you to willingly and excitedly, eagerly give up who you are for a common good they define, a common good that requires you to deny who you are, your individuality, what makes you different from everybody else, whether you’re not as good or whether you’re much better at certain things.  You will become a number.  You will become a robot who can be programmed and inspired and motivated to behave in approved ways, and you will be taught to think you are virtuous when doing so, when all you’ve done is sold yourself and your country out.  You give up your individuality, you sacrifice who you are, you allow that to be taken away for some mythical status as a member of a group, you are giving up your passion to become a moderate, or worse.  People without passion never built anything.  People without passion never got one thing done.  People without passion are drags on achievement and accomplishment.  That’s what this administration wants you to become.

He has a blog too.   While I have not yet had a chance to read very much of it, his most recent posting about the success of the YouTube clip and how it has bypassed the traditional, mainstream Walter Duranty media outlets is interesting.

In my mail this morning, I received the following solicitation.  After I got over the initial shock – well, I wanted to throw up. 

For those who cannot view the image, it features a photo of Obama on a black background with white lettering “DON’T MISS HISTORY IN THE MAKING November 4 was just the beginning.”

Just the beginning?   Of what?  Whatever it is they have in mind, I can assure you it is quite dreadful.  

Even I wouldn’t have suspected that the Times would stoop so low in such an explicit manner. 

This is a publication that has the nerve to go around suggesting that it is credible, “objective,” non-biased and somehow a cut above all other American newspapers. 

Here is the flip side of the solicitation:

This side is on white background with black text:  ”IN THESE MOMENTOUS TIMES there is no better way to stay on top of all the historic moments yet to come than by subscribing to the nation’s most honored newspaper.”

Honored? By whom and for what?  Walter Duranty’s Pulitzer? 

On the right hand side is an image of spread out newspaper sections.  The top section has the headline “OBAMA Racial Barrier Falls In Decisive Victory.” One of the sections shows the cover of The New York Times Magazine featuring a photo of the Oval Office and an anti-Bush article “After The Imperial Presidency.” 

Lots of newspapers have an  editorial slant.  But I have never seen a mainstream daily newspaper be so explicitly slanted in its circulation efforts.   Perhaps they realize that, with all of the options now available on the Internet, nobody else other than liberals and Leftists would be interested enough in their product to actually pay for it.   And having to depend on convincing Leftists to pay for something – well, I suspect that would be a rather tough sell given that even affluent Leftists tend to be notorious for trying to get everybody else to pay for the the things they claim to value. 

I shed no tears for the decline and fall of this contemptible rag. 

“From the beginning of this decade, the process of new company creation has been under assault by legislators and regulators. They treat it as if it is a natural phenomenon that can be manipulated and exploited, rather than the fragile creation of several generations of hard work, risk-taking and inventiveness. In the name of “fairness,” preventing future Enrons, and increased oversight, Congress, the SEC and the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) have piled burdens onto the economy that put entrepreneurship at risk.

The new laws and regulations have neither prevented frauds nor instituted fairness. But they have managed to kill the creation of new public companies in the U.S., cripple the venture capital business, and damage entrepreneurship. According to the National Venture Capital Association, in all of 2008 there have been just six companies that have gone public. Compare that with 269 IPOs in 1999, 272 in 1996, and 365 in 1986.”

Malone blames this on Sarbanes-Oxley which has also had the unintended consequence of transferring the world’s financial capital from New York to London.

Regarding other regulations, Malone writes:

“FASB’s biggest crime against the economy and the American people came when it decided to measure the impossible: options expensing. Given that most stock options in new start-up companies are never worth anything, this would seem a fool’s errand. But FASB went ahead — thereby drying up options as an incentive for people to take the risk of joining a young company and guaranteeing that the legendary millionaire secretaries would never be seen again.

Not to be outdone, the SEC has, through the minefield of “full disclosure” requirements and other regulations, made sure that corporate directors would never again have financial privacy and would be personally culpable for malfeasance anywhere in the company. This has led to a mass exodus of talented people from boards of directors in places like Silicon Valley. Full disclosure was supposed to make boards more responsible. Instead, it has made them less competent.”

The article is not very long and is worth taking a moment to check out.

Obviously there is  little chance that any of this will be reversed under an Obama Administration with strong Democrat majorities in Congress.   The only good thing is that such nonsense will at least no longer be coming from a Republican Administration which means there is at least a chance for principled opposition to perhaps eventually exploit the disastrous consequences which will follow in order to gain a hearing. 

Malone concludes by saying:

“ If Mr. Obama is serious about getting the country out of this recession using something more than public make-work projects, he should restore the integrity of the new company creation cycle: rewrite full disclosure, throw out options expensing, make compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley rules voluntary, and if he won’t cut it, then at least leave the capital gains tax rate alone.

Otherwise, Mr. Obama might end up being remembered as the second Herbert Hoover, not the next FDR.”

Fat chance of Obama doing any of that.   But if the stigma of being the next Herbert Hoover can somehow be transferred to Obama and the Democrats from the person who has certainly earned it, George Bush, that would be a good thing.

“I can’t help thinking how similar it is to the characters who invested with the “playboy” version of Francisco D’Anconia, because he “knew how to make money.”  They did no research into the actual projects they were investing in. “

The Wall Street Journal recently ran an interesting article by Mark Penn & E. Kinney Zalesne that attempted to explain this phenomenon.   While I am not familiar with and thus do not have an opinion about Penn & Zalesne’s theory of “micro-trends,”  I do think they make several astute observations.

Penn & Zalesne take the view that, in today’s world

“rational, informed behavior is spreading through the better-educated lower and middle classes — those who went to college, have information-economy jobs, and use the Internet. But at the same time, the elites have become more impressionable — more removed from everyday problems, more trusting of what they hear, and more likely to adopt unthinking viewpoints based on brand or emotion.”

In other words,  the elites tend to be less in touch with and less capable of dealing with reality.  I think there are a few reasons for this which help explain why Madoff’s particular clientele was especially vulnerable. 

Despite the fact that we live in a society where wealth and success is still, for the most part, based on merit and achievement,  it is entirely possible for a person to become extremely rich and successful honestly and through his own efforts and yet be utterly clueless about the nature and source of wealth and, yes, even be hopelessly neurotic and/or irrational. 

An extreme and classic example of this is a Hollywood celebrity.   Somebody  (I forget who, unfortunately) once made an observation that Hollywood celebrities are nothing special – as a group they are no different than the kids you knew from your high school’s drama department except that, unlike your classmates, they just happened to pursue that interest and become one of the very few who made it in a profession where success means wealth and fame.  

I am not suggesting that Hollywood celebrities have not earned their wealth or are somehow not deserving of it.   All I am suggesting is that, had they chosen instead to become successful in some other profession, they might very well have worked ten times as hard and been ten times as virtuous in every way possible and yet lead a life of obscurity and financial struggle. Your level of  fame and financial status relative to somebody else’s is not determined merely by how intelligent or hard working you are but also by how much the marketplace values the things you happen to pursue and be good at verses things that other people pursue.  

Thus a physically attractive neurotic with a flair for the dramatic can become a world famous movie star and a thug with a moron level IQ can become a famous athlete and, by virtue of the one and only thing in this world they happen to be good at, achieve more wealth and career success than an entire army of their moral and intellectual betters could ever hope to. 

Such people are examples of what I call being wealthy in spite of one’s self.   Obviously people who inherit large fortunes fall into that category as well.  It can also happen on a more modest level.   For example,  a somewhat mediocre fellow with family connections who pursues a career in law can usually go further in terms of achieving wealth and high position than someone who is his moral and intellectual superior in every way but happens to be passionate about teaching grade school.

For some people, becoming wealthy in spite of themselves can be an extremely destructive experience precisely because such wealth can, at least temporarily, insulate them from reality and shield them from the negative consequences of their whims and various forms of neurotic, dysfunctional and irrational behavior.   We have all read stories of extremely successful celebrities who tragically crash and burn.   And if you ever find yourself stuck someplace with nothing to do, an amusing mind game you can play to pass the time is to imagine what would play out if various dysfunctional people you are acquainted with were to suddenly come into a fortune. 

People who live in more modest circumstances do not have the luxury of being insulated from and putting off the eventual consequences of irrational behavior.  It does not take long for reality to slap them in the face and force them to seriously confront important issues.   They do not have the ability to simply write a check and make all things unpleasant magically disappear.   People such as Michael Jackson or Britney Spears who do not become rich and famous will probably still be utterly neurotic.  But economic necessity provides a powerful incentive for them to find ways to function around their neurosis or else they will end up on the streets or worse.  For such people, wealth, fame and universal adoration only fuels their dysfunctional personalities  and becomes like crack with an ending that is usually a tragic freak show.

Of course, not all people who are wealthy in spite of themselves are self-destructive or irrational.    A great many are perfectly virtuous and many fully recognize that much of their wealth was achieved largely due to happy circumstances or having become successful in the right field of endeavor at the right time.   Responsible athletes and Hollywood stars grounded in reality understand, for example, that they are in professions where success is fleeting and seek to make arrangements for their wealth to last beyond their careers.   

The problem for such people is that, despite their enormous wealth,  most of them probably have no more, and perhaps even less, knowledge about how to properly manage their money than does the average intelligent person of more modest means. 

Penn & Zalesne write:

“But our research shows that the top 1% is heavily swayed by gut and impression, not numbers and facts. They vote more on the basis of personality in campaigns; buy products more on the basis of brands; and invest more on the basis of the tip than on sound logic. Who else would pay a premium for jungle-ready vehicles to run the rugged terrains of Scarsdale and Georgetown? Or shop at doggy bakeries for their pampered pooches?”

In other words, such people are more likely to make important decisions based on their emotions.    This would certainly explain why wealthy in spite of themselves elitists tend to be Leftists.   The successful middle-class tends to lean heavily to the Right on economic issues because their circumstances force them to confront and deal with the facts of reality on a daily basis and they can clearly see the havoc that the policies of the Left will wreck on their lives if implemented.  The environmental agenda, for example, is a disaster for the middle class who suffer mightily as the price of transportation, shelter, food and energy are needlessly and artificially forced upwards.  Not so for Leftist elitists who are financially insulated from such consequences and, indeed, having bought into emotion driven agendas, are already  throwing their money down the drain for their Prius cars, “green” houses, carbon offset purchases and overpriced “organics” at places such as Whole Foods.  Having more wealth than they know what to do with, they can throw it at such things for the purpose of maintaining their fantasy of moral virtue and elitist superiority.  And when they angrily demand that everybody else do likewise, they genuinely have little grasp as to how economically wasteful such things are and of the fact that they are beyond the means of most people. 

As for the doggie bakeries and pampered pooches, there is an old saying: easy come, easy go.  Managing a large amount of money is a tremendous responsibility and, unfortunately, many who end up with large amounts of money are ill prepared in terms of background and specialized knowledge to take on such a responsibility.   Thus they buy into the exact same notions and misconceptions about wealth and the wealthy spread by the pop culture that envious and unaccomplished poor people tend to hold.   Our pop culture celebrates high profile, irresponsible, spendthrift behavior and adherence to the latest fashions and trends as being somehow glamorous.  Our pop culture holds people who live such a lifestyle up as being more sophisticated and more virtuous in every way over the unwashed rabble who drink the sort of coffee served in truck stops and gas stations.  People of modest means who have self-esteem and are grounded in reality can easily see through such nonsense.  But a great many people who find themselves with more money than they know what to do with buy into such a lifestyle and its notions about their alleged superiority over the unwashed rabble. They are merely following the pop culture template of how affluent people are supposed to behave.   This is why members of the trendy,  Leftist, self-proclaimed “creative class” are so annoyingly self-righteous, arrogant and condescending.  They are no longer grounded in reality.  They live in a fantasy universe where adherence to whatever others deem to be chic and the approval of the trendy becomes the metaphysically given that they seek to conform to.

Penn & Zalesne write:

“Elites are on information and time-management overload, and the result is that they have been making big decisions with less information, not more. They throw their hands up in the face of adversity and complexity, relying upon the judgment of others instead of forming their own.”

In some ways, I am actually quite sympathetic with this.   If I were to suddenly come into a huge fortune tomorrow, I would be utterly clueless as to what to do with it.   My very first task after perhaps spending a very tiny portion of it on a celebratory luxury would be take time off from everything else in my life and make a full-time job of figuring out what on earth I should do with it and what I wish to do with the rest of my life given the suddenly expanded range of that which is open to me.  For me, it would be a full-time job to educate myself to the point where I could responsibly form my own judgments on how to manage the money.   But what if the source of my wealth was a demanding  full-time career that I was already engaged in but which had very little do to with building wealth per se?   Without the time and interest to become expert on investing, I would have to rely on the advice of competent experts.   Finding such experts, especially when the stakes are high and one knows that there are shysters out there, can be profoundly stressful.

I myself have been the victim of a few shysters.  A few years ago, I had a very painful toothache and ended up taking a dentist at her word and forked over $5,000 for two root canals and three crowns. Today, I know I vastly overpaid and question how much of that work I even needed at all.   Unfortunately, I was in excruciating pain and taking even a day to locate another dentist to see me at the last moment for a second opinion was not a viable option.  After all was done, the dentist scheduled me back for another appointment and claimed that almost every tooth in my head needed a crown or a root canal and gave me an estimate of an additional $15,000 to fix the rest.  By this time,  I was becoming suspicious and never showed for the appointment.  I eventually went to another dentist who told me I only needed a couple of fillings and I was able to take care of everything for less than $400.    I was also on the receiving end of a mechanic who deliberately sabotaged perfectly good parts on my car in order to turn a routine front end alignment into an expensive repair bill.    

Because of experiences like this, I become extremely stressed out almost to the point of paralysis whenever I need emergency services from people such as mechanics, plumbers and dentists that I have no previous experience with and had to locate at the last minute.  Because it is an emergency, there is little opportunity to get a second opinion – and because of my lack of specialized knowledge about such fields – I fully realize that I am vulnerable to being taken advantage of.   

I  suspect that many affluent people find themselves in a similar position when it comes to finding someone to manage their money.   The wealthy are constantly pestered by all sorts of sales people trying to promote investments of all kinds and they realize that some of them are probably scam artists.  But how does one differentiate between a competent advisor and a scam artist?  How does one find a good dentist or a good mechanic and learn which ones  to avoid without enduring the negative experiences I went through?   One asks around and seeks referrals from friends and colleagues who have used such services.   One of the reasons that Madoff’s scam worked is it preyed on people who attempted to do exactly that. Many knew that they were in over their head and they did not even know how to properly seek out rational advice and guidance.  For this reason, I am open to the possibility that at least some of Madoff’s victims were done in more by honest ignorance and the intellectual paralysis than by the motives of those wiped out by Francisco D’Anconia.

Ultimately, all of us end up having to turn to and rely on the advice of specialists and experts at various points in our lives.   When it comes to seeking financial advice, the wealthier one is the higher the stakes and the greater the need for that advice to be sound and to be scrutinized by one’s own independent judgment.    The difficulty for many affluent people is that their life experience and background often does not make them any more prepared to make such judgments than people  who live in very modest circumstances.

The article points out:

“So now these same elites…are going to have to look at the numbers again. They can’t just put their money in mysterious hedge funds and bigger houses and wait for manna to drop from the sky. They are going to have to start balancing their checkbooks, managing their healthcare costs and setting a monthly budget that they actually meet. Looking at greatly diminished assets and futures, these elites might just be shocked into reading the fine print on what they buy, or demanding detailed statements every month that they open and read….

Maybe people will start ordering up mini SOX audits of their own finances, catching those repeating credit card subscriptions that go on their credit cards for things they have not used in years; demanding that each and every fund they invest in meet strict new criteria. They might even ask elite colleges to justify $50,000 a year in tuition for little personalized instruction.”

In other words, they have been slapped down by reality which is now forcing them to discover responsible behaviors that most of us take for granted as a matter of common sense.   Adhering to and being confident in the face of the facts of reality is a lot easier when one has never had the “luxury” of being insulated from them.

Although the treason indictment came as no surprise to most observers, what was completely unexpected was the party who brought it.

“The case is highly unusual in a number of ways,” said Bugliosi, “not the least of which is that the defendant is actually accusing himself.”

In a press conference held close to midnight yesterday at his Crawford, Texas ranch, former President Bush cited his renewed Christian faith as the catalyst for this unprecedented action. “Last month, I had a conversation with Jesus Christ. A new conversation. And I’ve been very blessed to have been born again, again. This time, for real,” Mr. Bush read in a prepared statement to half a dozen stunned reporters.

“It’s taken a lot of soul searching, or more like deep-soul diving, I think is the term. But now I see that it was wrong to lead our nation to war under false pretenses. Millions have suffered for my sins, and I see now that it is only fitting that I should suffer as well.”

Mr. Bush’s self-accusation seems largely to have been plagiarized from years of accusations made against him in the press. It refers to his “political propaganda campaign to sell the war to the American people,” and describes how he and his team attempted to make the “W.M.D. threat and the Iraqi connection to terrorism appear certain, whereas in fact we knew there wasn’t one at all.”

“The death and economic collapse that resulted has been completely devastating to our nation and, most of all, to me,” read Mr. Bush’s indictment. “I want to make amends, and it is for this reason that I am requesting that I be indicted for high treason. I thank the court for allowing me to right my grave wrongs. Bring it on!”

….Mr. Bush maintained his characteristically jovial manner throughout the proceedings. “I could be executed, but what good would that do anybody? Especially me. I think the nation would rather I spend a good long while considering what happened — not only the tragic end of hundreds of thousands of lives, but the end of American capitalism, that I liked, I sincerely liked,” Mr. Bush said. 

As for the real New York Times –  well, considering the extremely dire situation the entire newspaper industry is in and New York Time’s own financial problems,  the “Old Gray Lady” and venerable home of Walter Duranty, the spiritual father of today’s dominant media,  may not be around for very many more 4th of Julys even if the Leftist fantasy world is shoved down our throats.    But we still have a few more weeks left of Bush and Paulson – perhaps they will give the Times a nice bucket full of bailout money.