Daily Beast’s David Frum on American Corruption

By Matt Staggs on October 22, 2012 in News 13

David Frum discusses American corruption at the University of Florida:

“…what we now see are members voting for very specific investment-oriented things in which they share the benefit with ten people, or twelve people. And finally there’s this very haunting fact that whenever we study the stock portfolios of members of congress, they seem to do about twice as well as the market.”

Congress, Corruption, David Frum, Money

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Littlemisteramerica

A non-Bible thumping modern conservative? This itself may be conclusive proof of evolution!
- http://twitter.com/TedHeistman Ted Heistman
  
  They’re called Neo-cons. they’ve been around for years. Most of them are out of the University of Chicago. Google “Leo Strauss” and or “The Closing of the American Mind” by Allan Bloom.
  
  Basically a bunch of Jews(not that there’s anything wrong with that) that love the writings of the Ancient Greeks and think the Goyim are better off worshiping Jesus than getting all Marxist on their asses.
  - http://twitter.com/TedHeistman Ted Heistman
    
    So right there is proof that “The Jews” are not “all working together” “to bring about Communism”
    
    These Jews want the masses to have their opiates.
    - Bluebird_of_Fastidiousness
      
      TEH JOOZ!
- http://twitter.com/TedHeistman Ted Heistman
  
  speaking of evolution-some Neo-cons support “intelligent design” like Ben Stein.
http://twitter.com/TedHeistman Ted Heistman

I totally understand this guy’s point of view by the way. He basically believes in Aristocracy. Leo Strauss makes one of the best case for Aristocracy of anyone I’ve read outside of Nietzsche and Emerson. Probably better than Nietzsche. But Emerson makes the best case for it.

They think Smart People should be in charge and that for everyone else there is “Churches, Mosques and Synagogues”

The problem with most Left Wingers is they haven’t read Leo Strauss. He’s actually pretty brilliant. He was in the news for a while but all the liberals kept re-quoting Shadia Drury’s book. They couldn’t be bothered to go to the original source and read beyond a 12th grade reading level.

These guys are all Atheists by the way.

The problem I have with their philosophy is that this gulf that they see between smart people and dumb people isn’t as clear cut as they’d like to think. Most people are dumb in some ways and smart in others. I don’t think a class called “the wise” actually exists and many elites are dumb and lots of slackers are smart.
BuzzCoastin

this is what change and reform is up against
someone who can acknowledge the extensive corruption in government
and then continue the discussion as if that really had not tainted the government
and that with a few minor tweaks it will be just fine

considering his elite pedigree & Yale edumacation
he worked a Bush’s script writer & thinks Bush was maligned
I would be surprised if said it any other way
- http://twitter.com/TedHeistman Ted Heistman
  
  About Frum this neo-con guy.
  
  The fact that hearing this guy talk
  sounds like listening to Howard Bloom from beyond the grave tells me
  that he is a bit of a chuckle head. The world is a big clusterfuck
  and nobody knows exactly what’s going on. So to follow a pre-packaged
  philosophy just about to the letter is not a sign of intelligence.
  Its not the sign of an original thinker.
  
  And the fact that the basic premise of
  this philosophy is that certain people are way smarter than everybody
  else and are thus Our natural rulers does not bode well for Frum.
  
  If he were that superior he’d be more
  original and not such a follower. Doing what he does is like having
  cheat notes. Its like joing a religion. Instead of thinking through
  every issue himself he just memorizes what others in his school of
  thought have to say about stuff and tries to be as consistent as
  possible.
  
  Strauss read ancient Greeks, like some
  people read the Bible. He grants these thinkers near omniscience.
  Like they were oracles for all time. I’ll grant They were great
  thinkers and the reason they were so great is because they invented
  philosophy basically. They didn’t have cheat notes to go on like
  these guys.
  
  So Strauss worshipped the Greeks,
  these other guys worship Strauss and at each remove it gets more and
  more watered down.
  
  Until its basically just Narcissistic
  hubris. The idea that there could be a master class born to rule and
  that if that were even possible, that it would be these clowns.
  
  I say clowns, but The Neocons are less
  idiotic than most. But the bar for politicians and by extension
  political philosophers is not high to begin with.
  
  These guys like to read good books,
  the classics, I’ll give them that. They aren’t illiterate.
  
  Anybody that thinks they can rule the
  World, or that they know just how the world should be ruled is a
  narcissist. The best and brightest don’t entertain those notions.
  
  Arguably Strauss didn’t even think it
  could be done.
  
  This is the think tank that brought us
  9/11. The PNAC. “The Project for the New American Century” think
  of how fucked up America has become since the late 1990′s and you
  will see what mendacious hubris is inherent in just the name of the
  think tank itself.
  
  So he’s doing damage control. Saying
  “we are all of course going to die, but its not good to think
  America is going to die.” which is a far cry from this “Pax
  Americana” bullshit they were spouting a few decades ago.
  - http://twitter.com/TedHeistman Ted Heistman
    
    I wasn’t trying to write prose I just copied this from word. I had it in my journal.
  - Andrew
    
    > So to follow a pre-packaged philosophy just about to the letter is not a sign of intelligence.
    
    Bullseye!
  - BuzzCoastin
    
    > These guys like to read good books,the classics, I’ll give them that. They aren’t illiterate.
    
    alphabetic literacy is the cause of all points of view
    literacy creates a point of view through the printed alphabet
    Chinese and other languages can be read in multiple directions
    (points of view)and in different orders of words
    读中国印刷可以有很多方式 or
    可
    以
    有
    很
    多
    方
    法
    读
    中
    国
    印
    刷
    the western alphabets can only be read in one direction
    one line on top of the other
    and if you stray too far from:
    proper grammar, punctuation, spelling and form
    (like I do)
    literate people will object and find it difficult to deal with
    literacy creates an inflexible point of view for the literati
    
    and because they read it and believed it
    they had no reason to reflect upon their point of view
    or even entertain the fact
    that there may be other aspects that they have not considered
    or that their literate POV
    is not an accurate reflection of reality
    but merely a POV
Borgar

David Frum is a neocon scumbag.
BunkersTrust

Most of his politico-babble is a series of non-sequiturs, juxtaposed in a political context, kinda like a Burroughs cut-up technique. It’s pure magic that this passes for insightful commentary.

Around 1:30 he begins to list the ways that Congress has made corruption and malfeasance legal. Besides the bemused look on his face, there is no hint as to what the consequences of a bribed Congress might be on the country.

He also mentions the DEFICIT as being bad in most cases but says nothing of it being greatly added to by Bush and disproportionately skewed towards the military. Empty words about an empty idea.

He also says, “Most people think we need more of the same medicine that’s making us sick and I tend to think we need to do the opposite. The problem is… there’s not enough responsibility in American politics because there’s not enough visibility. And my solution is always more centralized authority in the political system.”

While I agree a major problem is a lack of transparency and that we don’t need more of the same, I fail to see how a more centralized government fixes this problem.

WTF, is this what happens when you go to Yale? You belch political non-sequiturs and you’re a pundit and an insider?