Den umulige statsministerkandidaten

TV2 har ikke fått med seg at Siv Jensen umulig kan bli statsminister etter valget. Alle sier så, men likefullt sitter hun der i statsministerduell med Jens Stoltenberg.

Og hun gjør det bra. Jeg tror ikke jeg sier ikke det fordi jeg planlegger å stemme FrP. Stemmen min er halvhjertet. Ikke usikker, men basert på et kompromiss mellom saker, hvor formuleringsevnen til partilederen ikke er en bevisst faktor.

Men fra et TV-debatt-perspektiv er det ingen tvil om hvem som er på offensiven her, hvem som fremstår som et friskt alternativ til det samme gamle. Mye av det har med innrammingen å gjøre. TV2 har vært snille mot FrP. De reduserer partifloraen til de to store, og da framstår FrP som det klare alternativet til regjeringen.

Riktignok avholdes TV2’s neste statsministerduell med Erna Solberg, men til den tredje og siste duellen inviterer de “den partilederen som ligger best an på siste meningsmåling”. Altså Siv Jensen. Til tross for at alle vet at hun ikke kan bli statsminister.

Kanskje har “alle” rett. Jeg vet ingen grunn til at de skal ta feil. Men det er noe som ikke klinger helt riktig. Er det så merkelig at det største opposisjonspartiet tar over også statsministerstolen om Stoltenberg-regjeringen må gå? Det er noe med den selvsikre tonen som får meg til å tenke at selv om kommentatorene kanskje har rett, så gjør de noe feil. “Jovisst har FrP vunnet valget, men la oss nå slutte å tøyse: De kan selvsagt ikke få lov til å styre.”

Vi får se.

40’s movies marathon – part 21

Johnny Eager (1942, USA) – Robert Taylor is a gangster on parole, who pretends to be a taxi driver while running his gang in secret. He gets involved with a sociology student who has a thing for bad boys. The gangster movie looked dead there for a while, but this is something new and interesting. The conflict here isn’t between gangsters and the law, but between cynicism and compassion. Watched it all.

Babes on Broadway (1941, USA) – Why do musicals have to be self-refential? When it works it works, but when it doesn’t you’re left wondering why you’re supposed to care about these eager youths who want to “make it big on Broadway”. Go make it big in some other business. Watched: 13 minutes.

Saboteur (1942, USA) – A man is wrongly accused of a crime, escapes, runs all across America, unravels a conspiracy, then confronts the bad guy on top of a national monument. This time the bad guys are American fascists, but they might as well be anarchists. Favourite scene: Robert Cummings trying to convince guests at a party that their hostess is a traitor. Watched it all. IMDB reviewers say this is a “lesser” Hitchcock, a snobbish way of putting it.

The Talk of the Town (1942, USA) – Cary Grant has been innocently convicted of arson, but escapes and seeks help from a friend. There’s a good serious movie in here somewhere, but it’s hidden beneath a lot annoying goofiness that makes me hate every single major character. Watched: 35 minutes.

It’s a screwdriver and it’s .. sonic.

The worst thing that can be said about the new Doctor Who series is that it’s bloody stupid. The Doctor solves most of his problems by stumbling across the equivalent of a red button that says “press here to magically put everything back in order”. Which he does, and everything is put back in order. Hooray.

Time travel paradoxes are solved or ignored in whatever way is most convenient for the plot. In one episode, the Doctor’s sidekick confronts him about this. What about the butterfly effect? He shrugs it off. Who cares? Let’s go and meet Shakespeare!

Stupid.

But he’s right. Who cares? There are worse thing than stupid & fun sci-fi. Stupid & serious sci-fi, for instance, of which there’s plenty in these days of dark and gritty. Watched with the right lack of judgment, Doctor Who is brilliant.

Part of the reason for that is its cheerfulness. The Doctor’s first reaction in any crisis is enthusiasm. It’s not that the problems he faces are small, on the contrary. It’s that he doesn’t brood. He takes in the situation, laughs, and seizes the initiative.

So does the show’s many minor heroes, people who have their world turned upside down, but quickly grasp the new reality, uses their head, and does something clever on their own initiative. Feeling sorry for yourself won’t protect you from the werewolf outside the door. Thinking and acting will. What a wonderful message.

With simplicity, vividness and force

The Old Testament is not only law; it is history, poetry and philosophy of the highest order. After making every deduction for primitive legend and pious fraud, after admitting that the historical books are not quite as accurate or as ancient as our forefathers supposed, we find in them, nevertheless, not merely some of the oldest historical writing known to us, but some of the best. [..] The stories of Saul, David and Solomon are immeasurably finer in structure and style than the other historical writing of the ancient Near East. Even Genesis, if we read it with some understanding of the function of legend is, (barring its genealogies), an admirable story, told without frill or ornament, with simplicity, vividness and force. [..]

[The Psalms] are marred for us by bitter imprecations, tiresome “groanings” and complaints, and endless adulation of a Yahveh who, with all his “lovingkindness”, “longsuffering” and “compassion”, pours “smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth”, promises that “the wicked shall be turned into hell”, laps up flattery, and threatens to “cut off all flattering lips”. The Psalms are full of military ardor, hardly Christian, but very Pilgrim. Some of them, however, are jewels of tenderness, or cameos of humility . “[..] As for man, his days are as grass; as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more”.

- Will Durant, Our Oriental Heritage

Mikropartiene – kjerringene mot strømmen

Ny partivurdering i blåbloggen på dagbladet.no: Mikropartiene – kjerringene mot strømmen.

Bak den grå merkelappen “andre” gjemmer det seg viktige demokratiske prosesser. Når velgerne ikke lenger stoler på noen av de store partiene, kan de opprette sitt eget. Som regel blir det ikke noe av. Som regel blir disse partiene et fåfengt protestrop fra ekstremister og snevre enkeltsakbevegelser.

Men prosessen er viktig, og vi bør ikke for lett le av mikropartiene. Alle partier starter med noen få personer som brenner for noe ingen andre bryr seg om. I blant blir det noe av.

Resten kjemper tapte saker. Men jeg har respekt for disse kjerringene mot strømmen. Det er noe vakkert med noen som ser på samfunnet rundt seg, og sier: “Dere tar feil, alle sammen. Nå går jeg min egen vei, og så er det bare å følge etter når dere innser at jeg har rett.”

Er det bortkastet å stemme på dem? Ja, hvis du tenker i forhold til Stortingsrepresentanter og regjering. Nei, hvis du tenker i forhold til å introdusere nye stemmer i norsk politikk. Det er ikke mye som skal til. Det er uansett lite sannsynlig at din stemme avgjør et mandat, så du kan like gjerne stemme på en sak du tror på.

Les resten. Se også Mihoes bidrag.

40’s movies marathon – part 20

Meet John Doe (1941, USA) – Journalist Barbara Stanwyck invents John Doe, a man who plans to kill himself as a protest against the state of civilization. She hires Gary Cooper to play the part, and, this being a Frank Capra movie, Cooper’s speeches accidentally create a mass movement based on being nice to your neigbours. Watched it all.

Fiesta (1941, USA) – Fake Techni!Color! Mexicans, singing and dancing. Watched: 4 minutes.

Texas (1941, USA) – Two mischievous gunslingers walk in and out of sticky situations, eventually landing on different sides of the law in a cattle conflict. Contains the funniest boxing scene I’ve seen. Watched it all.

Man Made Monster (1941, USA) – Behold the power of electrical radioactivity! With this mysterious substance I shall create a race of superior men! “Black magic”, they called it. “Meddling with the forces of Creation” – bah! Cowards, my colleagues are all cowards! Watched: 25 minutes.

The Reluctant Dragon (1941, USA) – Robert Benchley gets a tour of the Disney studio, in this part self-promoting documentary, part comedy, and part cartoon. This was back when Disney was the greatest creative force in movies. Being the Disney version of itself, it’s way too idyllic. The real Disney Studio was about to enter a major strike at this time. But I just love it. Watched it all.

The Bad Man of Deadwood (1941, USA) – Not quite HBO. Watched: 2 minutes.

Ziegfeld Girl (1941, USA) – Everybody wants to be a Ziegfeld girl. Why? Watched: 15 minutes.

Futile voices

Moral progress in history lies not so much in the improvement of the moral code as in the enlargement of the area within which it is applied. The morals of modern man are not unquestionably superior to those of primitive man, though the two groups of codes may differ considerably in content, practice and profession; but modern morals are, in normal times, extended – though with decreasing intensity – to a greater number of people than before. As tribes were gathered up into those larger units called states, morality overflowed its tribal bounds; and as communication – or a common danger – united and assimilated states, morals seeped through frontiers, and some men began to apply their commandments to all Europeans, to all whites, at last to all men. Perhaps there have always been idealists who wished to love all men as their neighbors, and perhaps in every generation they have been futile voices crying in a wilderness of nationalism and war. But probably the number – even the relative number – of such men has increased. There are no morals in diplomacy, and la politique n’a pas d’entrailles; but there are morals in international trade, merely because such trade cannot go on without some degree of restraint, regulation, and confidence. Trade began in piracy; it culminates in morality.

- Will Durant, Our Oriental Heritage

Hvordan kan friheten fylles med innhold?

Høyre trenger å gjenoppdage konservatismen, skriver Torbjørn Røe Isaksen i Høyre om!, og tar oss med på en vandring i konservatismens historie, fra Burke til Hayek.

Konservatisme handler for Isaksen om ydmykhet i forhold til vår evne til å ville en bedre verden. Konservatismen må bygge på liberale verdier, som setter enkeltmennesket og dets frihet i sentrum. Den må respektere tradisjoner, fordi vi ved å rive opp det eksisterende ved roten risikerer kaos. Reformarbeid må gå ett skritt om gangen.

Isaksen avgrenser konservatismen mot de som vil gjøre politikk til noe rent materialistisk. Markedsliberalismen reduserer mennesket til frittstående økonomiske aktører. Konservatismen er for markedsøkonomi, men ser også mennesket som en del av felleskapet. Politikk må være for hele mennesket, ikke bare mennesket som økonomisk aktør.

Det er flott å se at Hayek står i Høyres bokhyller. Hayek er en av de viktigste tenkerne i vår tid, og er forøvrig relevant også for venstresiden.

Men Isaksens konservatisme ser jeg ikke poenget med. Den blir et sett med tommelfingerregler som på den ene siden mange er enige om, (de utopiske drømmene er forlengst døde), og som på den andre siden er av tvilsom relevans i en verden som endrer seg radikalt fra år til år. Hva betyr det å respekterer tradisjoner som vokste fram i en verden som ikke finnes lenger?

Konservatisme er også en ganske tynn nisje å bygge et parti på. Stengt inne mellom Arbeiderpartiet, Venstre og FrP, hva er igjen for et konservativt Høyre?

The force behind the law

When to this natural basis of custom a supernatural sanction is added by religion, and the ways of one’s ancestors are also the will of the gods, then custom becomes stronger than law, and subtracts substantially from primitive freedom. To violate law is to win the admiration of half the populace, who secretly envy anyone who can outwit this ancient enemy; to violate custom is to incur almost universal hostility. For custom rises out of the people, whereas law is forced upon them from above; law is usually a decree of the master, but custom is the natural selection of those modes of action that have been found most convenient in the experience of the group.

Law partly replaces custom when the state replaces the natural order of the family, the clan, the tribe, and the village community; it more fully replaces custom when writing appears, and laws graduate from a code carried down in the memory of elders and priests into a system of legislation proclaimed in written tables. But the replacement is never complete; in the determination and judgment of human conduct custom remains to the end the force behind the law, the power behind the throne, the last “magistrate of men’s lives.”

- Will Durant, Our Oriental Heritage