The silliness of those episodes speaks to a serious point about the great vulnerability of 21st-century American liberalism: an inability to set the priorities necessary for good government. As a result, government grows both bigger and less capable, especially for people who do not have the resources to fund other options. …In their own ways, Mayor Bloomberg and President Obama embody the obsessions of modern liberalism. Each holds an advanced Ivy League degree. Each believes he would make better choices for others than they could make for themselves. Each has consequently eschewed the gradual and the modest—the unglamorous improvements that might have better prepared, say, Staten Island, for a dangerous storm. These leaders prefer instead the shiny and large, whether it is Mr. Bloomberg’s huge and costly 2nd Avenue subway project or Mr. Obama’s $860 billion federal stimulus. …Hence too the modern unvirtuous circle, where intervention at the federal level encourages waste and grandiosity at the local level. These subsidies distort priorities, which helps explain why California votes to spend money it doesn’t have for a high-speed rail it can’t afford. …The irony is that modern American liberalism has become a movement grounded less in practical politics than a sort of religious fervor—and often requiring the same strong faith in the face of disappointment and failure. The difference, of course, is that while religions often promise to deliver in the next world, government is supposed to do it in this one.

The best religions deliver in this world also, which is one reason the leftists oppose them so fanatically: they know they can’t compete on equal grounds.

a mayor who jets down to his mansion in the Bahamas on weekends tells working- and middle-class New Yorkers that they really shouldn’t be driving to work or living in single-family homes

NYC gets what it deserves. They continually vote to inflict this kind of madness upon themselves.

HotAirian on November 6, 2012 at 10:29 AM

Sums it up.

NYC gets what it deserves. They continually vote to inflict this kind of madness upon themselves.

HotAirian on November 6, 2012 at 10:29 AM

The thing is two of the three most heavily-damaged areas in the city — Staten Island and Breezy Point — are among the few islands of Red in Blue New York (Coney Island is the other area, and it trends Blue, but even there, you’ve got push-back against the standard liberal orthodoxy).

And that’s the point — Bloomberg and the big media cared about the power outages and flooding in Lower Manhattan, and they cared about select areas of the outer boroughs that Manhattanites are familiar with, like getting JFK and LaGuardia operating again. Breezy Point only gained attention the night of the storm because Ch. 4 happened to have a camera on scene when the fire broke out, but once it looked like Manhattan south of 39th Street was powered back up at the airports were reopening last Thursday, the city officials did a victory lap, because to them, Staten Island might as well be in Nebraska, since those people don’t vote for the ones running New York. That’s why the borough tried to secede from the city back in the early 1990s under David Dinkins, and why it wouldn’t be a big shock if the secession talk gains traction again, if the relief efforts there are forgotten again once Election Day is passed.

a mayor who jets down to his mansion in the Bahamas on weekends tells working- and middle-class New Yorkers that they really shouldn’t be driving to work or living in single-family homes

NYC gets what it deserves. They continually vote to inflict this kind of madness upon themselves.

New Black Panther thugs reportedly back at the polls in Philly; Update: Confirmed; Video added
http://twitchy.com/2012/11/06/new-black-panther-thugs-reportedly-back-at-the-polls-in-philly/

Update: Reports that the New Black Panthers are also in Ohio are coming in. Further reports indicate that former Navy SEALs are on their way to Philadelphia, Pa. and Ohio in order to guard against this voter intimidation.