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Home » Open thread 7/1/21

Open thread 7/1/21

The New Neo Posted on by

Music videos from the 1980s are often so bizarre that a literal video treatment only makes them slightly funnier:

Here’s the original video. I put it up for the spectacular tenor voice of Russell Hitchcock, which cannot be imitated:

Jim Steinman wrote the song, by the way (see this).

Comments

Open thread 7/1/21 — 19 Comments

  1. Michael Rectenwald, author, and NYU professor from 2008-2019, has a new essay on John Stuart Mill’s famous essay On Liberty: The Tyranny of the Minority Is Just as Dangerous as the Tyranny of the Majority:
    https://mises.org/wire/tyranny-minority-just-dangerous-tyranny-majority

    He links the first essay in the new one. Both concern current implications of an accurate interpretation of Mill’s position — particularly, state-subsidized concern for minority opinion.

    An excerpt:

    Leaving the nonremunerated voicing of opinion aside—that is, opinion expressed casually or even in public demonstrations—the question becomes whether in the actual marketplace of ideas, state subsidies are necessary for the opinions of minorities to get a fair hearing.

    The question implies that state actors are specially qualified or motivated to subsidize minority opinion in order to rectify the unfair treatment of minorities—that the state is the most qualified entity for intervening in opinion to favor minorities. But it is easily demonstrated that the market provides more incentives to advocate for the fair treatment of minorities than does the state. Markets encourage legal equality among buyers and sellers. The state, meanwhile, has no monopoly on equal treatment—to say the least. Quite to the contrary, states have more incentives to discriminate against particular groups, as state prerogatives often depend on discrimination. …

    The title is consistent with my only additional comment when I linked his first essay, how James Madison defined “faction” in Federalist 10:

    By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community. …

    Federalist No. 10
    https://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/federalist-no-10-2/

  3. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/06/30/donald-rumsfeld-what-the-world-got-wrong-497275

    That’s a Politico obit for Don Rumsfeld that essentially doubles as an obit for America’s ruling class. It’s really crystallized by one statement about how Rumsfeld could be an abusive a-hole to people (subordinates) who made the most insignificant and meaningless of mistakes contrasted against the author never even vaguely implying that Rumsfeld EVER felt the slightest bit of regret, shame, anger, or responsibility over his part in the failures of the Iraq War.

    The only thing that bothered him was feeling like he was being made the scapegoat for the whole mess. The tens of thousands of lives snuffed out or ruined by the Iraq War apparently never entered his mind.

    It’s all just a story to elites like Rumsfeld where they are the main characters and the rest of us are barely even plot devices. If America gets washed away be a flood of narcissism, it’s people like Rumsfeld who removed the first bricks out of the dam.

    Mike

  7. om:

    For the full, patriotic Whatever:
    _______________________

    For this is my United States of Whateva!

    –Brookers, “United States of Whateva!”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s35NaNkKwR4
    _______________________

    There are the original nerd-punk and sock-puppet versions, but give me Brookers or give me death.

  9. Walter Sobchak:

    I remember doing aerobics to “Safety Dance” in a class led by instructors in pastel spandex and headbands. That was the 80s.

    According to wiki, Men Without Hats were Canadian (thought they were Aussie) and the song was “a protest against bouncers prohibiting dancers from pogoing to 1980s new wave music in clubs.”

    So, Walter, does the Dude still abide?

  10. SCOTUS 2, Democrats 0 in rulings made today before the summer recess.

  13. Hmm…I was wondering why “Making Love Out of Nothing At All” blended in my mind with “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” Turns out they were both written by the same guy, Jim Steinman, and they were 1 and 2 at the same time on Billboard in 1983.

    Not only that, Steinman produced Meat Loaf’s “Bat Out of Hell.” Steinman got around in the music biz. Very long wiki entry.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Steinman

  16. Zaphod:

    Hell no, I ain’t growing up!
    __________________________________

    “Trigger warnings,” classroom devices once used to warn students of potentially controversial or offensive language, are now considered oppressive and violent speech, according to Brandeis University, because the word “triggered” is connected to gun violence.

    https://www.dailywire.com/news/trigger-warnings-are-now-triggering-violent-language-brandeis-university-says
    __________________________________

    Where does it end? I worry that the loophole, “n-word,” will become equally toxic and then where will we be?

    Maybe we should just start calling everything problematic, That Which Must Not Be Named.

  17. @Huxley:

    With all these Taboos proliferating, there’s only one thing a man can do: open a Tiki Lounge. Hipster Irony is the way — it’s not like there’s an oversupply of virgins to sacrifice to the Volcano Gods..

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