False Choices

Posted the title of this post before I wrote the text. Oh well.

My subject is Allen Hunt's latest article in which he invokes ol' Neville Chamberlain to suggest that President Obama is an appeaser.

Relying solely on one's supernatural powers of persuasion usually leads to delusion, failure, or worse, collapse. In fact, this tall task of confronting evil requires a strategy of strength rather than a policy of appeasement. Regrettably, the latter seems to be the bailiwick of Mr. Obama.

This subject has, of course, come up before (Most notably during the run up to the Iraq War). And it always strikes me as a foolish argument; because the argument boils down to any attempt at diplomacy is, essentially, appeasement. Rather than trying to avoid war through negotiation, we should be seeking war - presumably what Hunt means by a strategy of strength. This becomes more apparent when you read through the mistakes he accuses Obama of.

We have now witnessed a supposed “re-booting of America's image” in the Muslim world as inaugurated by President Obama's much ballyhooed Cairo speech. He and the First Lady have treated us to Muslim celebrations and declarations in the White House for Ramadan. The president has hosted an “Entrepreneur Summit” for Muslim leaders. He has issued paeans on the inspiring splendors of Islam, “one of the world's great religions.” Mr. Obama has even gone to great lengths to praise an Islamic cartoonist for creating pretend superheroes skilled in the art of collaboration and peace, skills supposedly rooted in the Koran.

The implication of Mr. Hunts argument is that rather than defending America from Islamic Extremists, Obama is instead choosing to appease them (by treating them as human beings and showing respect to their faith). But of course this is a false choice (indicated by my title). President Obama can fight terrorists while also appealing to the Muslim world.

Unless of course you see Islam as a terrorist religion and really do want us to be at war with it. That may be what Hunt wants; that's not what the President wants. And in this case, I think I stand with the President.

Nothing I can Add

Doug Giles' latest aritcle is about the bombing in Times Square.

Oh well, this column is just pointing out what everyone who can still think freely already knows to be true: Progressives hate America and will always side against those who love this nation and that for which it stands. Personally, I’d like to thank them for their antipathy toward the USA because it’s sure making me a great living as they present an unending supply of stupid crap to talk about on my show and plenty of fodder for my weekly column.

In the meantime I’m going to go celebrate my 40-year-old whiteness.

I'd be interested in how Mr. Giles is going to celebrate his whiteness. Oh and for the record, I am a Progressive and I love America.

Even for Limbaugh this Doesn't Make a Lot of Sense

From yestedays show - Rush takes on Obama's Cinco De Mayo comments.

And yesterday, this is White House Rose Garden, Cinco De Mayo, the president distorting the Arizona law and ripping it to shreds again.

OBAMA: The answer isn't to undermine fundamental principles that define us as a nation. We can't start singling out people because of who they look like or how they talk or how they dress. We can't turn law-abiding American citizens and law-abiding immigrants into subjects of suspicion and abuse. We can't divide the American people that way. That's not the answer. That's not who we are as the United States of America. And that's why I've instructed my administration to closely monitor the new law in Arizona, to examine the civil rights and other implications that it may have.

RUSH: So once again we have the race card being thrown down. We can't divide the American people that way. Of course, who is dividing America? It's Obama, with comments like this. "The answer isn't to undermine fundamental principles that define us as a nation. We can't start singling out people because of who they look like."

Yep. Obama is dividing America between those who want to, well, divide America and those who don't. If it weren't for America, America would be united in its desire to divide America.

The way to finesse this, of course, is to consider that Obama doesn't see Hispanics as American (except Conservative Hispanics of course), so dividing them out is fine.

More Townhall Comments on Immigration

From Jacob Sullums article earlier.

Exactly how do we identify the flood of illegal Mexicans flooding this country if we don't in some way identify Mexicans? Your type of political correctness is what will bring this country to it's knees.

Maybe if the legal Latino population were to actively oppose illegals... oh wait, that's like asking "moderate" muslims to oppose their terrorist brethren... silly me!

If those Hispanics would just stop being so Hispanic we'd leave them alone!

I'm so SICK of you pathetic jerk off weasels with your insane ethnic shirk and jerk crews who can't stand a minute of your emotional crap brains being assaulted in the name of your imagined collective governed group you so unashamedly slather the backside of.

I have to admit I don't like pathetic jerk off weasels either.

David Rodriguez was cited for "disobeying a road sign" after he disobeyed a road sign.

He was not arrested, he was not handcuffed, he was not put in a jail cell. He was cited for "Disobeying a road sign" after he disobeyed a road sign.

And the problem is what?

This argument is made many many times. Of course the problem is that white citizens were let off with a warning and Hispanic citizens were punished to the full extent of the law. That's seperate and unequal enforcement of the law. But Townhall readers, I gather, don't have a problem with that.

Does anyone else remember when the term "discriminating individual" was a high compliment, not an indictment for a federal capital crime? "I can discriminate between night and day" - "YOU'RE A GD TIME-IST! - ALL TIMES ARE CREATED EQUAL!"

What a gorgeous non-sequiter. Discriminating is not, as it turns out, a capital crime; a capital crime being one that requires the death penalty.

Someone's Going to Get Yelled At

Jacob Sullum's latest article is about immigration - and he takes the odd approach of arguing that racial profiling is unconstitutional and, well, just plain wrong.

A few years ago, David and Jessica Rodriguez were leaving Arizona's Bartlett Lake with their two children when they accidentally headed down a road that had been closed because of rain damage. They were stopped by deputies from the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, who demanded documentation from David Rodriguez, including his Social Security card, and cited him for failing to obey a road sign.

Although several other motorists made the same mistake around the same time, the deputies simply warned them about the washed-out road and let them go. Unlike David and Jessica Rodriguez, who are U.S. citizens of Latino descent, the other drivers were white.

Sullum seems to see harrassing American Citizens for being Latino as a bad thing. Let's see what Townhall Readers have to say.

Middle Americans JUST LIKE YOU have stopped scamnesty so far, but it is an ongoing challenge against moneyed, powerful, organized special interests!

As Mexifornia residents can attest, we risk losing America soon due to the ILLEGAL alien incursion and morphing ineluctably into a third world welfare state as they vote it in.

The left is not waiting for them to become citizens-- why be bothered by that mere technicality?! They load them up in vans and hand them instructions in Espanol on how to vote.

Many RINOS/CINO'S are utter FOOLS to speak of capturing some of their votes because of purported "conservative social values."

Yeah - I don't know. In fairness most of them ignore the question of how racial profiling hurts American Citizens, but that could just be choosing not to argue the unarguable. Or it could be that they don't consider Latino Americans to be real Americans. Let's be charitable and assume it's the former.

Nazi Nazis

Dennis Prager's latest aritcle is upset at Naxi analogies, particularly when used by liberal jews. And fair enough; Nazi analogies usually provide more fire than understanding. But then he makes this hilarious point.

Third, when Jews on the Left call conservative Americans Nazis, they mean it in its literal sense -- they really do regard the conservatives they compare to Nazis as racists comparable to Nazi anti-Semites. On the other hand, when conservatives use the term, it is meant to signify non-democratic or dictatorial policies, regimes or individuals -- e.g., Seinfeld's "soup Nazi" or Rush Limbaugh's "feminazis" -- not as potential or likely mass murderers.

Get that? Liberals who throw around Nazi mean it while Conservatives who throw it around are just joking - like on Seinfeld! Hilarious.

In fairness earlier he does note that the tea-partiers seem to mean it, and he takes them to task for the pictures of Obama as Hitler.

Dishonesty

Steve Chapman's latest article takes Sarah Palins plan to shrink the Government to task.

Palin's idea, a favorite among small-government advocates, is that the best way to shrink Washington is a permanent regimen of low taxes.

Simple. Dishonest but simple.

Why dishonest? Because it avoids the real question, which is what programs are necessary. An honest discussion would determine if programs like School Lunches or the National Endowment for the Arts or Apache Helicoptors for the Military are necessary (I think they are all useful) and then determining how much money we need to acquire to fund said programs. But that would require Congress-critters and others to actually sit down and think about what programs are useful, and explain to their constituents that if they want this or that program, they need to pay for it.

As it turns out, the plan to starve the beast doesn't even work from a conservative point of view. The government continues to spend money, wracking up large deficits. And the voters are actually pretty happy with this turn of events.

Think of it this way. If you want people to consume more of something, you reduce the price. If you want them to consume less, you raise the price. For most of the last 30 years, federal programs have been on sale, and they've found lots of buyers.

It's not actually sustainable, though.

Going on the Offensive

Emmet Tyrell's latest article strikes a pretty aggressive tone.

The liberals hate the middle class. There, I said it, and I am glad. Once again I am a truth teller, in this case speaking truth to stone heads. So certain am I of the truth of my asseveration that I honestly doubt any liberal will take issue with me. Can you imagine a liberal coming forward and saying: "Wrong, Tyrrell! I love the middle class." Well, I guess I can imagine it, because liberals are effortless liars. Yet what specifically about the middle class might the liberals adduce to demonstrate their affection? The middle class' sobriety? Hard work? Love of country? Love of liberty?

This is pretty transperent. Actually I do admire any American who works hard, loves his country, and loves liberty. Unless of course what Tyrell means by loving liberty is that they are conservative. Which, of course is what he does mean.

"Look middle class, liberals hate you because you are so conservative," works great if the reader is conservative. I'm not sure it works if the middle class reader considers himself or herself moderate or liberal.

Proof of our hatred of the middle class is found in our disdain for Sarah Palin. I don't know many members of the actual middle class who can essentially quit their jobs because it's too difficult and then get paid hundreds of thousands to do a sporting show and to contribute to Fox News.

Personally I want to see the middle class grow and be more prosperous, and therefore I favor programs that will accomplish those goals. I also favor snake-oil salesmen like Tyrell being ignored.

Judges and Feelings

Mario Diaz's latest article really swings for the fences. Right out of the gate he references the Nazis, and then movs on to how liberals use their feelings and subjective morality to defend their actions.

Many policymakers hide behind the “don’t judge me” masquerade to avoid the gargantuan task of defending the foolishness they try to pass off as sensible policy.

If I were actually debating Diaz this would be the point where I would ask him "Who exactly are you talking about here? What lawmaker actually says "Don't Judge me" or some varient thereof in defense of his legislation?"

Diaz then moves on to Judicial activism with a basically hamhanded attack on judges for interpreting the law and the constitution.

All judicial philosophies are not created equal. The Constitution is one. It is what unites us all — Republican or Democrat. And we must stick to that standard.

There are very real consequences to the idea that a judge can make decisions based on what is in his heart.

As we've talked about before, the conservative argument against judicial activism presupposes that there is one right answer to judicial questions, and that right answer is the conservative interpretation. So for any judge to disagree with conservative judicial doctrine, he must be ignoring the Constitution and the Law.

Rational thought might lead one to the conclusion that if the Law and the Constitution were so clear and easy to understand there would be little need for Appellite Courts or Supreme Courts.

Resuming Transmissions

Apparently Immigration is going to be the issue of the next couple of weeks, what with Arizona's plan to crack down on illegal immigrants and Congress taking back up immigration reform. Naturally the writers at townhall are all over this.

Arizona has decided that if the federal government will not live up to its responsibility to control the border, it will. Governor Jan Brewer, a Republican, signed a bill that allows police officers to inquire about a person's immigration status if there is reason to suspect that individual might be an illegal immigrant. The governor correctly noted that the new law "represents another tool for our state to use as we work to solve a crisis we did not create and the federal government has refused to fix."

The latest example of that failure is the Obama administration's refusal to finish the border fence begun with some reluctance by the Bush administration.

Cal Thomas

What is the response of Barack Obama, who took an oath to see to it that federal laws are faithfully executed?

He is siding with the law-breakers. He is pandering to the ethnic lobbies. He is not berating a Mexican regime that aids and abets this invasion of the country of which he is commander in chief. Instead, he attacks the government of Arizona for trying to fill a gaping hole in law enforcement left by his own dereliction of duty.

Pat Buchanan

So, why would anyone who actually wants to solve the problem suggest implementing a government policy that's already a proven failure? Of course, that's just it: What politicians want is more illegal workers to pad the bottom lines of businesses that give them campaign contributions and more potential voters for the Democratic Party. What they don't want is to fix the problem because they're worried about what's good for them personally, not what's good for the country.

John Hawkins.

So that's the argument of the week.

Salon's War Room has some thoughts on it too, saying it is a cynical but likely successful strategy.

For showing some political savvy, at least, the Democrats deserve some applause. With the election approaching and vulnerable incumbents -- not least Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, of 25-percent-Latino Nevada -- getting nervous, putting immigration at the center of the national agenda seems to make a certain strategic sense. It's an issue that divides Republicans more than it does Democrats. Not to mention that, in the wake of Arizona’s new draconian anti-immigration law, getting behind reform is a way for the Democrats signal to Latino voters that at least one party is still friendly territory. Democrats are hoping that they can repeat the electoral gains them made off of California’s 1994 crackdown, Proposition 187. That confrontation helped drive Latino votes away from the GOP for years.

Democrats are probably right to think that another major showdown over immigration with an angry, out-of-power GOP will pay off, even though the bill will most likely not pass. That prospect has the conservative base freaked out about an issue of American national identity. And you know what that means: White people -- engage!

Makes sense to me. A debate on National Identity isn't going to hurt Democrats that bad, but should bring out the worst in conservatives/Republicans, and that's good for the party.

In which David Stokes Blames Obama for Stuff He's not Reponsible For

David Stokes latest article is about an anti-theist group (Freedom From Religion Foundation) that has filed a suit trying to make National Days of Prayer illegal. Apparntly it's past one legal hurdle. And who is reponsible? That's right. President Obama.

I would appeal to President Barack Hussein Obama today, to reach back beyond his Muslim, Marxist, and Liberation Theology (which is to real Christianity as anthrax is to sugar) roots and try to connect with his “inner-Lincoln.”

You see Lincoln declare National Days of Prayer, so Obama, loving Lincoln, should love them too.

A few points. First of all Obama isn't responsible for any of this. Granted he did fail to hold a ceremony on the National Day of Prayer, but Clinton never held one, and Reagan and George H. W. Bush held only one apiece in their terms of office. But this is a judge appointed by Carter, and a

He compounds his idiocy with the Muslim bit, incidentally. Just insulting and stupid, as he is throughout his article. Stokes would make a very predictable detective. "Who done it? Obama!"

Social Justice or The Bible Says what I want it to Say

Mark W. Hendrickson has written an article on Social Justice; he follows the Glen Beck mentality of opposing it.

The standard of biblical justice is equal treatment by law: “Thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honour the person of the mighty” (Leviticus 19:15). Justice not only means that nobody is to be picked on because he is poor or favored because he is rich, but that (contrary to the doctrine of “social justice”) nobody is to be picked on because he is rich or favored because he is poor. Everyone’s rights deserve the same protection. Thus, nobody should be taxed at a higher rate than his neighbors, nor should anyone receive special government handouts.

So basically the Bible opposes modern liberalism; to be Biblical you need to support the flat tax and oppose welfare.

I think it's helpful here to define three terms, equal access, equal opportunity, and equal results.

Equal Access implies that everybody technically has the same access to societies benefits. Kids can go to college (if they can afford it), parents can by homes (if they can afford them), sick people can get medical care (if they can afford it) and so on.

Equal Opportunity does it's best to afford everybody the same tools to succeed. Thus a poor black kid who's talented should have access to the same educational system as a wealthy white kid.

Equal Results are of course everybody succeeds regardless of efforts or abilities - spreading success over that many people naturally implies that this success is pretty modest.

Hendrickson is going to stop at equal access, while accusing liberals of wanting equal results. This is because, protestations aside, he can't really conceive of economic injustice. If a poor black kid wants to go to college, he can work hard and earn the money to attend. If this ends up with a situation where wealthy and upper middle class white kids out number poor black and Latino kids 100 to 1, well that's the breaks. So long as it's theoretically possible for the poor to participate in societies benefits that's all that's required. And in fact, the Bible apparently mandates that we stop there.

I, on the other hand, favor equal opportunities. Or to put it another way, we as a society need to invest in all Americans not just those who have already succeeded (or who's parents have succeeded). This is more just and better policy. Yes you are always going to have people who don't try that hard or people who's capabilities aren't that great - but you will also have people who, under Hendrickson's preferred system will be lost, becoming solid and productive citizens.

The Pimp and the Prostitute

This is from Salon's War Room - apparently the story about James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles getting help from ACORN to set up a prostitution ring for underage girls has some significant holes in it. And Rachel Maddow pointed those out with a certain amount of glee.

Worth Looking at

Glenn Greenwald over at Salon has an article on this video that has been released by WikiLeaks. The video shows a helicopter crew opening fire on civilians, including a Rueters writer and photographer. It is clear from the tape that the helicopter crew believed them to be hostiles, and believed that the camera was an RPG. That said, it is pretty grim footage.

Hateful Words

Mike Adams latest article is about how hard it is to be a conservative on campus - as all of his articles are. In this particular case, he takes on a wall of hate tradition at his campus. Apparently there is a wall where people right hateful words and then spraypaint over them, symbolizing the desire to end those phrases. Well Adams thinks this is stupid - as he thinks any concerns by minority students are stupid.

You might think that Adams thinks that minority students are stupid, but I think that's not quite accurate. If a black, gay, or female student was careful to agree with Adams he'd be fine with him or her.

Anyway - even though he clearly thinks it's stupid, he intends to participate to illustrate how stupid it is, and how racist and bigoted everybody but him is.

I think the Black Student Union should change its name to something not only more sensitive but more accurate. Personally, I prefer the Union of African Students for Segregation (U-ASS). In my view, if you need to segregate yourself on the basic of race U are an ASS. And you are probably a racist.

. . . Gay. Let’s just use the term “sodomite.” They are way too angry to be called “gay.” Plus, I’d like to be able to once again use the term “gay” without having people think about sodomy.

Yeah - Adams is a class act.

Earlier he comments on homophobia - a phrase he and most of the right wing hates. You see Adams and many on the right wing want liberals and homosexuals to seriously consider their position that homosexuality is a sin and should be formarly persecuted by society. And if they just thought about it seriously, well gays would probably agree that they should be persecuted. But even if they disagree with that proposition, they should still be happy to share the public forum with who are arguing in favor of their persecution.

At least that's how Adams seems to look at it.

News from the Past - March 31, 1930

Haven't done one of these in a while. I'm forced to bring you a cautionary tale from The Bradford Era, the only paper in M'Kean County recieving the unrivaled news service of the Associated press. Don't kow if that is still true - anyway this particular Bradford is in Pennsylvania.

Attending Too Many
Church Services Brings
Three Youths to Jail

Ann Arbor, Mich., March 30. Attending tco many church services brought Clarence Hapgood, 20, Toledo, Robert Powell, 21, Portsmouth, O., and Roy C. Martin, Detroit, to jail today. At the place of first attendance, the German Lutheran church, three overcoats were missed. Police were notified with a description of the suspects.

A few minutes later, a patrolman noticed three youths answering the description, entering the Presbyterian church, all three without overcoats. He waited and in five minutes the trio came out each equipped with a good coat. Search of their room disclosed ten overcoats.

Just for the record - attending church didn't send these coat-stealers to jail. Stealing coats did.

Is Obama Evil?

Maybe but Michael Medved says there's not much point in trying to convince the American people of that, in his latest article.

Based on human nature and political history, the answer to that question ought to be obvious: Americans have often felt that our leaders make mistakes or pursue destructive policies but we have rarely (if ever) believed that they did it deliberately to damage the country. In the last 80 years, Herbert Hoover, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and George H. W. Bush all got voted out of office by an angry electorate but a majority of the public never embraced the idea that these floundering presidents were actually bad guys.

He really lays in to the Republican Base, purely on practical grounds.

The same Harris Poll that showed a majority of GOP’ers think Obama is a Muslim also suggested that a full 24% of Republicans believe he “may be the Antichrist.” Why would independent, moderate or undecided voters ever want to associate themselves with such people?

He's not wrong, from a tactical sense at least. But of course I hope that Republican Party fails to heed his advice; since as dissappointing as Obama has been, he's still far better than any Republican would be.

I'm wonedering what Medved's readers at Townhall thought of his prescription.

We don't need another John McCain disaster from you Rockeffeler republcans. Take your arrogant, condescending,losing, wishy washy strategies and get lost.

Who cares whether Obama is wrong or evil. He is dangerous and is destroying America.

There can be no denying the reams od evidence and facts pointing to Obama's psychopath narcissism. You can point to Hitler's successes in building the autobahn, rebuilding German industry, or reuniting German-speakers in the Sudetenland, but that does not negate teh fact that Hitler was a psychopath narcissist, and a very popular one at that.

He [Obama ] is leading us down a road traveled by the U.S.S.R. and China and it leads to impoverishment for all Americans.

What he [Obama] is, is The Great Deceiver, the Great Divider, The Great Depressor for a destructive leftist agenda. I guess that would also make him The Great Destroyer.

Yeah Medved isn't exactly winning them over - in fairness there are other posts who totally agree with Medved though.

Pretending to Understand

Dennis Prager's latest article takes on the age old question of why are people liberals in a fairly standard ways. Liberalism/Leftism is a religion - we are converts.

Leftism, though secular, must be understood as a religion (which is why I have begun capitalizing it). The Leftist value system's hold on its adherents is as strong as the hold Christianity, Judaism and Islam have on their adherents.

It's not new to Prager - many have proposed this theory. What's interesting about it are the implications of it.

First of all, Prager suggests fairly strongly that our Leftist religious concerns are irrational and therefore not worth dealing with. There is a gulf between world views that seems unbridgable.

But the implication is - since he clearly points to right wing Christians and Jews as being motiviated by their faith, that both sides are equally irrational? But that is presumably not Prager's intent.

He also trots out the old canard that Leftist Jews and Christians are keen on seeing Israel destroyed. Kind of sad that; a child could see that one can want to see a better situation for the Palestinians without wanting to see Israel destroyed.

At the end of the day, Prager isn't interested in understanding liberals or leftists or in helping his readers understand them. Quite the contrary; he is putting up barriers to ensure that his followers don't grapple with liberalism or leftism in any real way.

Why I Like Paul O’Brien

I mean, what do these intergalactic ambassadors say when they get home? "Ah, Z'Krj. Did you read out the prepared speech, explain our position thoughtfully, and phone back for instructions before responding to any new development on behalf of our entire planet?" "No, great leader. I got rather carried away and signed our planet up to invade another world because everyone else was shouting very loudly." "You useless asshole, Z'Krj."

Paul O’Brien, back in the day.

Also check out House to Astonish - where he blogs about comics and also has a podcast with Al Kennedy. They should podcast continuously, but they apparently have jobs, so that isn't possible.

Doing this because townhall isn't working for me just yet.

Bring on the Night

I've been sick so haven't been posting much. Feeling better. Sort of.

Of course there's always something to bring me down. Like 37 people dead in Moscow Subway bombings.

And the knowledge that this will immediately and inexorably lead to articles by conservatoids calling Obama weak and suggesting we need to torture more and possibly invade other countries that are a threat.

More Intemperete Language

This is from Dennis Prager's latest article.

Acknowledge that we are in a non-violent civil war.

I write the words "civil war" with an ache in my heart. But we are in one.

Thank God this civil war is non-violent. But the fact is that the left and the rest of the country share almost no values. The American value system and the leftist value system are irreconcilable. If the left wins, America's values lose. If American values prevail, the left loses.

Again, Obama and Congressional Democrats cut out the Public Option, cut out letting citizens sign up for medicare and didn't even make a real attempt at universal healthcare or single payer. They caved into the right again and again and again. And in return? Civil War.

Makes you wonder if maybe Obama should have fought for a stronger bill. Still a stronger bill might not have passed; so maybe this was the best we could get. But it is discouraging to find a watered down, weak bill such as this described as essentially socialist.

Intemperate Language

You don't expect temperate language out of Austin Hill anyway, but his latest article takes the proverbial cake.

If a frontal assault on the foundational principals and values of American life can qualify as being “at war” - then yes, Barack Obama is in combat with our country.

Nice. That'a even a step further than the treason comments we saw during the Iraq war. Or effectively pro-terrorist.

Unfortunately his evidence will largely convince only those who already agree with him.

The stunning, “we’ll-stop-at-nothing” fight to take-over the healthcare industry and the medical profession has put Obama-styled cronyism on full display – and therein lies the greatest assault on America.

Stop at nothing? Correct me if I'm wrong, but if he were really stopping at nothing wouldn't we have a public option? Instead the Obama administration chose to fight the left wint of his supporters with far more vigor than he expended on beating back conservative watering down of his plan.

The result? A somewhat weak bill that that conservatoids are still complaining about in terms that make you think Karl Marx wrote it.

Sean Hannity's Scam

This is an interesting story from conservative bloggist Debbie Schlussel. Sean Hannity has been giving Freedom Concerts for the last few years - shows where his fans can come, see him, Charlie Daniels, and a half dozen other performers, the proceeds of which are supposed to do to scholarships for the children of deceased soldiers. Sounds like a nice noble cause to me.

Except it turns out that the charity gives less than 25% of the money they take in to charity. The rest goes to expenses, which in the case of Hannity and his family and friends are somewhat extensive. Shlussel quotes a conservative writer who describes them.

Of course, as the guy tells it, there’d be a lot more money every concert to go to the cause if Hannity didn’t demand–and get–use of a Gulfstream 5 plane to fly him and his family/entourage to the concerts; a “fleet” (that’s the word the guy used) of either Cadillac or Lincoln SUVs for him and his family/entourage; and several suites at really expensive hotels for him and his family/entourage. The promoter apparently values Hannity’s star demands at well over $200,000 per event.

Shlussel throws around a figure that 75% of the intake for a legitimate charity needs to go to the kids. I suspect that is after expenses, because otherwise it makes little sense. The larger point is whether or not Hannity is doing what needs to be done to keep expenses down, in order to send more money to the kids. And it kind of sounds like the answer is no. .

Deception by Omission

Jacki Gingrich Cushman's latest article takes on the current attempt to get healthcare passed by the House. She takes Pelosi to task for suggesting this "deemed to pass" method which owuld allow the bill to pass without an actual vote.

This process of voting on the amendments and deeming the bill passed would allow House members to return home and say, "I didn't vote for the Senate bill." They could pass a lie-detector test with flying colors. The statement would be truth, but not necessarily truthful.

It's interesting that Cushman takes this tack, as her own article isn't necessarily an accurate representation. While she doesn't specifically say what problems the House has with the Senate bill, she certainly implies that they are opposing the Health Care Reform bill for being too liberal or too socialist. In fact the House doesn't want to pass the Senate bill because they feel it is considerably weaker and less conservative than their own bill.

But I suppose that would change Cushman's narrative considerably.

The World of Libraries

There's an article over at Salon about libraries - kind of noodly but interesting enough.

I worked in Libraries in high school and again in college - it's very tiresome work but not too bad. I got in big trouble once for locking the friends of the library room up and leaving a soda inside. Yeah, I was kind of a rebel.

Friends of the library were not very friendly to those of us who worked for the library -but they did book sales and fund raisers to help the library buy new books. And they had special room in the basement of the library where they kept their junk books - and we pages would be sent down there from time to time. One time I took a soda with me and then locked the key inside. All the other keys had gone home for the night so I was boned.

Also someone donated a book on how to effectively stage and shoot soft core porn. Nice hardcover book, with, as I recall, a special page on the uses of the trampoline. That book didn't stick around for very long.

What did stick around was national geographic. Hole crap did national geographic stick around. I don't know what it is about that magazine - people feel guilty throwing it out or something. So they take it to donate to the library and it's always like "Thanks - we are working on our seventh complete set of this magazine, but we can always use an eighth."

My college experience was a bit more pedestrian - I mostly remeber the head pages not really giving a damn, which was nice since I didn't give a damn either.

Libraries are good, but I can understand why they need to change with the times.

Comments Closed

On Friday Night, Sen. Harry Rieds daughter and wife were involved in a serious accident. The daughter sustained minor injuries; the wife a broken back and neck. Dan Riehl, Conservative Blogger, has called on Reid to euthanize his wife.

Come on, Harry - do your civic duty. The nation's broke and counting on you guy. Pull the plug and get back to work. And don't bill us for a full day today, either. This is no time to be sloughing off. Air freight her home, you can bury her during recess on your own time and dime. Or are you going to bill us for that, too?

He also has this comment at the top of his inhumanely cruel political post.

Comments closed. I don't have time to mind the idiots and Lefty trolls who need to spew filth of no consequnce. yawn.

Filth of no consequence, eh. I'm guessing that Riehl is an expert on that.

Faith

Allen Hunt's latest article is on the role that faith should play in our national politics, using the race between John McCain and J.D. Hayworth as his touchstone.

Both McCain and Hayworth reduce faith and debase it. McCain reduces it to a relic socked away in the recesses of a memory. A lifeless, fossilized relic not to be examined or even given much credence. Hayworth reduces faith to a predictable, mathematical equation. Stake out five clear positions and call yourself “a good Christian.” In these reductions, we discover problems not just with John McCain and J.D. Hayworth, but also with America's inability to discern the proper role faith should play in one's life and in our public life together.

It's an interesting article, albeit one that uses the unfortunate metaphor of worms in the underwear. Basically he says that neither Hayworth or McCain give him actual insight into how faith has influenced their lives. McCain because he says nothing; Hayworth because what he says is simply a checklist. He's not wrong on this point. That said, Hayworth is following his approach because it's clear that significant number of Conservative Christians want to hear it formulated that way, and, more to the point, want to believe that McCain is a bad Christian because he fails to follow this articulation (and because of his middle of the road stances on a number of issues, in fairness.

Praising a Townhall Article

Usually I am into tearing down articles from Conservatoid website, Townhall.com. But today let's praise an article, "The Crumbling Pillars of the Culture War," by Michael Gerson. I don't necessarily agree with everything in the article; but the basic argument is interesting and worth considering.

Basically Gerson traces how both the Pro-Life movement and the Gay Rights movement have progressed and become more mainstream.

But so far the gay rights movement has succeeded for many of the same reasons that the pro-life movement (to a lesser extent) has succeeded. Both have taken sometimes abstract, theoretical arguments and humanized them. Both have moved away from extreme-sounding moralism (or anti-moralism) and placed their cause in the context of civil rights progress. Whatever your view on the application of these arguments, this is the way social movements advance in America.

It's an interesting article, and worth considering.

Why are there liberals?

This is the question Frank Turek dares to ask in his latest article. Given that liberals know they are wrong on all the issues why do they continue being liberals?

And yes, that really is the premise - we liberals know we are wrong but we keep on being liberals. We know that socialized medicine doesn't work, yet we push for healthcare reform. We know that tax cuts produce more revenue, yet we push for tax increases on the wealthy. We know that government relief hurts the poor, but we push for it anyway. We know that terrorists can't be negotiated with but we want to negotiate anyway.

Put that way, we liberals are pretty nasty aren't we? Of course, Turek does resort to distoring liberalism to prove his point. Liberals don't favor negotiating with terrorists, we favor negotiating with nation states to help eliminate terrorists. In other cases, he claims that we know things we don't actually know. For example, I don't know that tax cuts always generate more revenue - logically it seems like that can't be true (or at a 0% tax rate we'd have infinite revenue?

Still, if you grant the premise that we liberals are willfully wrong for just a moment, his explanation is pretty nasty. We liberals are in rebellion - a childish rebellion against our fellow citizens and against the founding principles of this nation.

If liberals really cared, they would abandon their false and failed ideas, and acknowledge what history and common sense tell us—liberalism hurts everyone but those in government.

It's not that uncommon an explanation - at the core we liberals are bastards. Most conservatives believe that of liberals and liberals increasingly believe that of conservatives. Pretty harmful to our national discourse I should think - why bother talking to bastards who want to ruin the country?

Slavery and the Founding Fathers

Usually conservatives aren't keen on remembering that many of our founding fathers were slave owners. But Tony Blankley is a more positive fellow, and, in his latest article, argues that slave-owning actually helped our founding fathers.

He [Edmund Burke] recognized that it wasn't despite being slaveholders that American Colonists felt so powerfully about liberty. Rather, being in the midst of the obvious evils of slavery, those men who were free more fully appreciated their freedom. "Those who are free are by far the most proud and jealous of rank and privilege," Burke argued. Or, as Jedediah Purdy (from whose historically rich and ingenious book "A Tolerable Anarchy" I have abstracted these observations) put it: "Slavery made masters uniquely sensitive to any invasion of their independence."

It's a tricky argument isn't it? Slaveowners were very sensitive to losing their freedom because they were so dependent on removing the freedom of others. This transformed the denier of freedom into the champion of freedom. Somehow.

I suppose the parallel to today would the corporations - corporations do control our lives to an increasing extent - and yet they are champions of freedom, simply by being aware of how precarious freedom is. Which is why they work hard to protect their own freedom - freedom to pollute, freedom to treat their workers poorly, freedom to foist unsafe products on consumers, freedom to buy votes as they see fit. One might argue that these "freedoms" impinge on the freedoms of other American citizens. But like in the time of our founding, without this impingement, these champions of liberty would not realize how very valuable freedom is.

Or something like that.

Dirhams rather than Dollars

Dennis Prager's latest article is about how American Democrats don't care about bankrupting the nation because they want to redistribute wealth more than they want to help people. It must be very comforting to know your political enemies are such blackguards. He then notes how Obama is ruining America through the medium of foriegn nations not being keen on the dollar.

As for the dollar, I can bear personal testimony to the decline of the dollar's prestige. I am writing this column in Morocco. In Casablanca, my wife and I and another couple hired a Moroccan driver for the day. And when it came time to pay, the man refused to accept dollars; he wanted to be paid in either Euros or Moroccan dirhams. Yes, dirhams rather than dollars.

I suppose it doesn't occur to Prager that if the takes dollars he's got to convert the prices to dollars, take the dollars, then get them converted back into dirhams.

But if America had real prestige, of course, the driver would be happy to go to all this trouble. Because real prestige means that other nation's drivers are happy to put up with inconviences just for the chance to touch a dollar. Prager should try to pay for a New York cab ride with anything but a dollar and see what happens.

But presumably this ties back to American exceptionalism; while other nations should be grateful to take our dollars, it's just silly to assume that America, the bestest nation on all the earth, would take their micky mouse money.

Who is Reponsible for your Health and Happiness?

Kevin McCullough's latest article is warmed over tripe on the theme of personal responsibility. He claims, as conservatoids often do, that liberals want the state to take care of individuals while conservatives want individuals to take care of themselves.

If you wish to see an enjoyable evening with friends become quite animated, then overly hostile, and end in exacting bitterness, ask those in attendance to choose between the following.

As an individual citizen, is it more American to believe that you have a personal responsibility to be personally accountable for your actions, and those of your family? Or is it more American to believe that you should wait for the giant collective to take care of you?

Of course this presupposes two situations.

One a state of nature where individuals are completely responsible for their own actions and live or die on their own merits.

Two a state of collectivism where the individuals needs are the responsibility of the nanny state.

There's quite a bit of a gap between those two. The state of nature, which McCullough apparently supports is, inevitably, one in which the strong control the weak and their is little to no recourse. You may believe I'm exaggerating, but consider how much of the right wing's program is involved in ensuring that citizens have no way to protect themselves from corporations.

I can't speak for all liberals, but I want a society that allows each citizen the space to find his or her own success - governments job isn't to coddle and take care of citizens. It's to protect them from those societal forces like crime and corporations, that would prevent them from seeking life, liberty, and happiness.

Reality vs. The Dictionary

Douglas MacKinnons latest article utilizes a nice technique; he uses a cold dictionary definition without reference to additional meanings of the word or the emotional resonance of the word. In this case he selects a very broad definition of socialist and asks why we can't call Obama a socialist. He then takes a very broad, value nuetral definition of the word ideologue and asks why we can't call Obama an ideaologue.

He even basically implies that Obama is dumb or disingenuous for not accepting those labels.

It's the socialist label he's really interested in pasting on Obama. I'm sure it will stick with his readership despite the many and constant concessions President Obama has made to both big business and the right. I rather wish Obama would just accept the socialist mantle and start fighting; but I doubt he will.

Oy

I haven't read much that piqued my interest over the last few days - so I will point you to this blog post at Comic Book Resources about Political Commentary in comic books. It's pretty interesting.

The Tyranny of False Choices

Joseph C. Phillips latest article starts out ok, despite it's aggressive title, "Saving the Soul of the Religious Left." He takes liberals to task for suggesting any failure on the part of the Religious Right is evidence of hypocrisy; fair enough. Sometimes it clearly is, but sometimes it is just human weakness.

The bulk of his article argues however, that Liberal Christians believe in the state more than they believe in God. He ends with this challenge.

And here ultimately is the greatest question the religious left must be prepared to answer. Do we walk by faith in the administrative state? Or do we believe in mans capacity to change his life through the grace and mercy of God?

It's a false choice (as referenced by the title of this post). One can both serve God and believe in the spiritual improvement of ones fellow man while also working to make a society that works. Some might feel a calling more in one direction or the other, but there is no conflict between the two. Consider, for a moment, the abolition movement. There were plenty of religious abolitionists who looked at America in the first half of the 19th century and worked to improve it (by fighting slavery). They didn't see a conflict between their religious devotion and their desire to create a more just America. And I don't either.

by jingo by gee by gosh by gum

Dustin Hawkins latest article is about illegal immigration, which he opposes. He also opposes any consideration given to those who have entered this country illegal. Rather he'd like to see them rounded up and shipped off. Pat for the course, but the last bit really goes off.

Is this Cuba? Is this Afghanistan? Is this Rwanda? Are we such a garbage dump of a nation that we have to desperately give citizenship to anybody and everybody we can find? Newsflash: This is the greatest nation God has seen fit to raise up in the history of mankind. We can not only have the cream of the crop from other nations; we can ask them to wait in line, obey our laws, and prove themselves -- and the ones worth having will do it because this is the place people all over the world dream of coming one day.

So two points. America is the bestest nation on the earth, which is par for the course I guess. It did put me in mind of the e. e. cummings poem referenced above.

But also Hawkins makes America sound like a sort of exclusive country club. Of course we should have only the best sorts. Which is why there is really no problem with immigration laws that prioritize European immigrants and penalize Latin American immigrants. Only the best for the best nation.

FDR

Michael Barone's latest article is a knock on Barack Obama for having bad intiuation. Sort of a dog bites man story, except for Barone's example of a good intuitive President.

In the first category are great American presidents like Franklin Roosevelt. FDR could have nationalized the banks in 1933 and war industries in the 1940s. Instead, he prevented runs on the banks and called in captains of industry to help run the war effort.

Fluent in German, he listened to Adolf Hitler on shortwave radio and recognized by 1938 that he was a monster that must be destroyed. Alerted by Albert Einstein's letter to the possibilities of nuclear fission, he said, "We can't let Hitler get this before we do," and authorized the spending in secret of something approaching 1 percent of gross domestic product on building the atomic bomb.

His judgment in picking military leaders -- Gens. Marshall, MacArthur, Eisenhower, and Adms. King and Nimitz -- was unerringly brilliant. His decisions to invade North Africa in 1942 (against all military advice), to concentrate on the European theater and not the Pacific in 1943 (against the Navy's urging), to stage the cross-channel invasion in 1944 rather than 1943 (despite British and Russian pressure) all look very good in retrospect. It wasn't so easy to make them at the time.

So it's nice that Barone is seeing FDR clearly and acknowledging the contributions of this great President.

Townhalls readers are not as convinced, however. In particular they take issue with the theory that Obama's intuition is to blame - rather they think he is deliberately working to destroy America and succeeding.

Obama is doing very well at orchestrating the demise of our rights and ownership -- heading straight toward a brand of Marxism and Socialism. His actions are intentional - it is not a failure of intuition. Barone, work it out on a clean sheet of paper. Try to devise the best way of transforming the citizens from owning the government to a government owning its citizens. Just go back to the founders and designers of Marxism and Socialism and you will find your way.

Some of them do take issue with the praise of FDR but not as many as you would think.

American Voters

Roger Chapin's latest article takes aim at American Voters for being too reactionary, and not thinking things through. That's why the voted in Obama; not that he was good, but that he wasn't Bush. But then he says this interesting bit about Sarah Palin.

And now a large number of them – including many who enthusiastically voted for Obama - are now rallying to another pied piper, Sarah Palin. She wows her audiences with high-sounding platitudes and free market principles but often fails to give specifics on her policy proposals. Too often, it’s as if one need only smell their date’s perfume and they’re ready to get married. Palin needs to display more substance.

I am curious as to how many Obama supporters are really going for Sarah Palin. Seems like a bizarre move; Sarah Palin and Barack Obama are somewhat ideologically different, seem to have different leadership styles, and certainly have different personas. My guess is that the bulk of Palin's supporters are people who hated Obama before the election and still hate him today.

The rest of his article is about who we need politicians willing to make the hard choices and do unpopular things - like deal seriously with Iran, whatever he means by that.

Walter E. Williams and the Census

Walter E. Williams' latest article concerns the Census; he essentially argues that the census should consist of one question, specifically how many people live in that house.

Unless a census taker can show me a constitutional requirement, the only information I plan to give are the number and names of the people in my household. The census taker might say, "It's the law." Thomas Jefferson said, "Whensoever the General Government (Washington) assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force."

For those of you wondering, I doubt that Williams would accept the General Welfare clause as applying in this case. He kind of hates that clause anyway. But this would seem an ideal place to apply it. Gathering that information is useful for administering government programs and for research purposes.

But then again Williams opposes most of those government programs as well, if not all of them.

Palin for President?

Maybe not says Bruce Biolosky in his latest article. After taking some time to slag off Obama (kind of a requisite these days), he notes that Palin may not be an ideal candidate either.

As attractive as Ms. Palin may be as a political personality, she does not have any of these elements of a political resume. She may have done an extraordinary job as Alaskan Governor, but she did that for only two and one-half years. She may have electrified a portion of the electorate, but she has few political allegiances to call on if she becomes President. Most importantly, she has not spent the amount of time needed to work on the issues of the day. By her own admission, she has had to expand the scope of her political universe since resigning as Governor. She has started to receive daily updates on her Blackberry, but that is not the same as Reagan’s detailed policy statements in his own hand.

. . . Sarah Palin may turn out to be an excellent candidate and an excellent President. She has certain innate abilities that cannot be molded into a political figure. She just needs to spend a lot more time enveloping herself in the political process and understanding the issues and possible solutions facing our country. This will not ruin her – it did not ruin Reagan.

Unfortunately for Mr. Biolosky, Palin is getting her political tutelage not from the mechanisms of government, but from the political fringes. She is proving popular to the Republican Base, and those seem to be the people she most wants to talk to.

Republicans are quick to dismiss any politician (well, liberal politician) who has an extensive academic background as being from an Ivory Tower, as being out of touch with how real America works. Well Palin is building her own kind of tower, one made of conservative ideology perhaps, but a tower nonetheless.

Doug Giles Latest Article is entitled "The Vagina Monologues Chick Speaks Out of Her Backside Regarding Palin"

I've really got nothing to add to that (but I won't let that stop me). Doug Giles just gets worse and worse, but since the Conservative Movement already has an Ann Coulter, it's hard for him to get sufficient nastiness to really stand out.

As you might expect, he constructs caricatures of his chosen targets (in this case, Joy Behar of the View and Eve Ensler of the Vagina Monologues) and attacks them rather than responding to anything they might say.

Joy and Eve spent three and a half eye-burning, ear-screeching minutes blah-blah-blah-ing about how Sarah Palin, from an intelligence standpoint, hasn’t “evolved” yet.

. . . Palin is ignorant? These two … uh … um … what should I call them? These two uh, “women,” are calling Palin out in regard to her intelligence? Now that’s funny, I don’t care who you are!

It's so much easier to debate a caricature rather than present their arguments and deal with them.

Doug Giles also would to see Behar and Ensler debate Sarah Palin. So would I, but it will never happen. Palin is a dingbat and putting her up against those two would surely reveal the depths of her dingbattery. And unfortunately for us all, she's not quite enough of a dingbat to participate in activities that would reveal the depths of her dingbattery.

According to spell check dingbattery isn't a word, so I, your beloved blog-o-fascist, command you, my minions, to use it in a sentence at your earliest convenience.

I shouldn't pass over the generalized sexism in Giles article - he spends some time feeling sorry for Behar and Ensler's husbands before noting they aren't married - because they are too outspoken to land a man.

For those interested, here's the article.

The Republican Plan to Healthcare Reform

Republicans have a plan to fix health care. I know it seems like they are the party of "No," but really they have some ideas. And Dick Morris and Eileen McGann have articulated these ideas in their latest article.

The Republicans need to explain how much of the unnecessary medical costs are being driven by useless tort litigation. In Mississippi, where they acted to preclude much of it, malpractice premiums have declined by 50 percent.

Hmmmm. Malpractice premiums have declined - how much has that affected the patients bills? Presumably were that number as impressive they would have cited it. I generally favor the jury system; but I know that Conservatives have grave doubts about their fellow citizens ability to judge cases fairly.

Frankly I think Andrew Cohen, of the Atlantic, has it right.

Make no mistake-- the "reform" in "tort reform" is about eliminating or reducing the ability of trial juries to act as levelers of the playing field; as avengers of otherwise toothless victims; as the voice of a community in meting out justice. It is about helping corporations before individuals; about the bottom line and not the bottom rung.

Yep. It is baffling to me that republicans think the solution to overly expensive healthcare is to hold doctors less responsible.

But Morris and McGann have other suggestions.

Then Republicans need to discuss other cost-saving measures, such as allowing health insurance to be sold across state lines and other measures to encourage competition.

It will encourage competition exactly as long as it takes for the big insurers to crush the little guys, at which point the competition will end. It does seem like the Republican/Conservative plans are to empower corporations and weaken the power of the people. I'm not sure that will actually improve things that much.

Demonization

David Limbaugh's latest article opens with this amusing sentence.

Conservatives understand that liberals often demonize their opponents rather than debate the merits of the issues because the tactic works.

Does David even listen to his brother's show? Evidence suggests that he may not.

Is an Honest Debate on Abortion possible?

I have doubted it for a long time. Take the flap over a Superbowl ad in which the mother of Tim Tebow explains how she was asked to consider aborting her future son, but she didn't and she's glad she didn't. On the face of it pretty benign - certainly better than that truck you see occasionally with aborted fetuses on it.

Maybe they don't have that truck where you live - but yeah, it's a billboard truck, with a billboard of an aborted fetus. I hate it particularly because the first time I saw it, my brain didn't process what it was initially. I thought it was Mongolian Beef, and thought it looked kind of tasty - until I pulled a little closer. That was unpleasant.

At any rate, they have pointed out some potential problems in Pam Tebow's story, and in his latest article, Kevin McCullough takes them to task for it. Some pro-Choice people have suggested that Abortion in the Phillipines was illegal; he counters with illegal or not, up to 0.27% of women have abortions even today (he uses 27 out of a 1,000, but I put it into percents for you), and that as she had amoebic dysentery, it's likely that she would have been offered it.

I can't parse it myself, and don't see any reason too. I tend to doubt that the Tebows are making anything up, but they may have embellished it over the years as their opposition to Abortion seems heart felt.

What's frustrating about the debate however, is that the Tebows and McCullough pretending they don't understand the issue. All they want, apparently, is to encourage woman to think twice before having an abortion. But of course that isn't all they want. What the Tebows and McCullough would like to see is an America where Tebow didn't have that decision to make - they are very clear about that. They want an America in which Abortion is illegal, like it is in the Phillipines.

So behind that heartwarming story about Pam Tebow choosing to have her son is her belief that it shouldn't be a choice but a requirement.

In fairness there is a bit of this on the other side as well, since as the Pro Choice movements regular unwillingness to grapple with why, exactly, the Pro Life people are upset with the practice of Abortion. Rather some ascribe it all to a desire to control women, which I guess I can understand, since there certainly is an element of that in all of this.

Radical Social Experiment

Oliver North's latest article concerns how much he loves the military and how he opposes Obama's "Radical Social Experiment," by which he means allowing homosexuals to serve openly in the military.

Both houses should go on record now so "We the People" know who favors treating America's soldiers, sailors, airmen, guardsmen and Marines like lab rats in Mr. Obama's radical social experiment.

The social experiment trope is, I suppose, pretty well set at this point. But it's an odd one isn't it? I mean it's not like Obama is trying this experiment to prove some sort of scientific or sociological theory. He's doing this because he believes it's the right thing to do; he believes that gay Americans should have the same rights and privileges as straight Americans. But I suppose the propaganda benefits of portraying Obama as a mad and heartless scientist outweigh the benefits of honestly portraying people you disagree with.

Ben Shapiro - then and now

Maybe I'm a hard-hearted guy, but when I see in the newspapers that civilians in Afghanistan or the West Bank were killed by American or Israeli troops, I don't really care. In fact, I would rather that the good guys use the Air Force to kill the bad guys, even if that means some civilians get killed along the way. One American soldier is worth far more than an Afghan civilian.

Fall 2001 (I believe, don't have a direct link to the article)

Since the death of the Soviet Union, we are unquestionably the world's only superpower, the world's remaining empire. Acquiring an empire requires a different mindset than maintaining and expanding one. Empires either decline or they grow. If America is to survive and flourish, Americans must realize that empire isn't a choice: It's a duty.

- August 2005

Some restrictions, however, are just and right and Constitutional -- and necessary. No war can be won when members of a disloyal opposition are given free reign to undermine it.

- February 2006

President Obama is, however, a man who embodies all the personal characteristics of a fascist leader, right down to the arrogant chin-up head tilt he utilizes when waiting for applause. He sees democracy as a filthy process that can be cured only by the centralized power of bureaucrats. He sees his presidency as a Hegelian synthesis marking the end of political conflict. He sees himself as embodiment of the collective will. No president should speak in these terms -- not in a representative republic. Obama does it habitually.

-February 3, 2010

I know I'm missing some doozies by Ben Shapiro - but this is just sad. After arguing that President Bush and the Republican Congress should embrace Empire and should pass and enforce sedition laws to silence criticism, not to mention glorifying civilian death on the grounds that only American Soldiers matter, he has the gall to attack President Obama as a fascist.

His technique is to take Obama's state of the Union and translate it as nastily as possible.

But in Obama's mind, it is not even the government that embodies us -- it is Obama himself who encapsulates our hopes, dreams and spirit. "What keeps me going -- what keeps me fighting," he blathered, as though we were all deeply interested in the state of his psyche, "is that despite all these setbacks, that spirit of determination and optimism, that fundamental deceny that has always been at the core of the American people, that lives on."

See - when Obama talks about being inspired by the American people that's supremely arrogant. He assumes that the American people care about what inspires him. I wonder if this awkward assignation of arrogance manifests itself in Bens normal life.

"Hey Ben, Great show today."

"Why are you so arrogant as to assume I care what you think about my show?"

Oh well, consistency and logic really aren't Ben's strengths.

How do liberal think?

Boy John Hawkins is really a revelation. He is so good at regurgitating what he heard on talk radio while making it sound even dumber. Perhaps that's a function of reading vs. listening, but his latest article, Seven Huge Flaws in the Way Liberals Think, is just hilariously bad. Here are the flaws.

1) Liberals believe they can change human nature.
2) Liberals believe we can talk everything out with our enemies.
3) Liberals don't have enough respect for our culture and traditions.
4) Liberalism is a fundamentally immoral political philosophy.
5) Liberals believe merely being liberal makes them good people.
6) Liberals have too much faith in government.
7) Liberals have minimal interest in whether the programs they support work or not.

Got that?

Flaw number one is one that we share with Christians. It's also logical. What Hawkin's and others assume is that Human Nature is set and no amount of abuse or support can change. What I think is that we will always have crime, but if the economy improves and people are doing better there will be less crime.

Flaw number two is based on a purposeful misconception. Liberals, for the most part, don't really think we can sit down and talk with Osama Bin Ladin and his ilk; they do think we should be involved in diplomacy with other nations. Conservatives of Hawkin's ilk seem to think that we should only talk with anybody the least bit hostile down the barrel of a gun.

Flaw number three is standard conservative talking point, and to a certain extent true. That said, George W. Bush was willing to overthrow plenty of long term beliefs about privacy and the rights of prisoners and torture; I doubt Hawkins had much trouble with that. We used to believe that Americans were better than other nations because we acted better than they did; we weren't willing to get down to their level. Not sure that's true anymore.

Flaw number four isn't very specific, is it? What Hawkins is referring to is that we believe our political enemies to be devils, while we will excuse any immorality in our political allies. Again, this is somewhat true, but it's true of both parties. And conservatives are far worse about describing their political enemies as monsters.

Flaw number five is true of both parties, in so far as it is true at all.

Flaw number six is a judgment call; I think it's more fair to say that Conservatives believe that Government can't do anything and when they get power they try to prove their point. But perhaps that's overly harsh.

Flaw number seven is standard radio claptrap. Again conservatives believe that all non-military or law enforcement government programs have failed. And yet liberals continue to support government programs. This means they don't care if they succeed or fail. No. What it actually means is that liberals don't share conservative beliefs on the success or failure of government programs.

Oh well - good on you Hawkins - another article, another paycheck. It doesn't have to make sense, does it?

Maddening

Dick Morris and Eileen McGann's latest article is maddening. It is also the conventional wisdom regarding Obama.

On the other hand, we reject the total revamping of the health care industry, the reduction of doctor pay, the cuts in Medicare and the mandatory insurance embedded in the Obamacare legislation. Were Obama to embrace these solutions, he would quickly be able to pass his bill and would be hailed for it.

But will Obama do it? Will he emulate Bill Clinton and save his presidency by moving to the center? Certainly not before he has lost his control over Congress.

At least Morris isn't pretending that Obama is beholden to the left wing like some morons are. But the whole thing is insane. Obama and congressional democrats have moved as much towards the middle as they can, without being on the right.

But presumably Morris and McGann would encourage Obama to move all the way to the right, while constantly lambasting him for being one step to the left of Mao.

Motivations

It's like the 1990s all over again with our friends the Republicans. For 8 years they complained about the vanity and narcissism of President Clinton. I suspect we will have another 4 or 8 years of similar complaints about President Obama.

Certainly David Limbaugh's latest seems like a blast from the past.

The more painful exposure we have to Barack Obama -- and we're talking hyper-exposure at this point -- the more we realize how narcissistic he is. Indeed, we are treated to this overexposure precisely because of his narcissistic impulses. He can't keep himself out of the spotlight.

Obama suffers these complaints because he seems to see part of his job as being involved in the problems of America. George W. Bush felt no such illusion, and such ignored many of the problems of America. Because he was humble. Apparently.

Lets face it, a really humble guy or gal is unlikely to run for President and less likely to be elected. If you become President it's because, in part, you want to tackle the problems of a whole nation. That's not a humble thing to want to do. So to complain about the vanity of Obama? Well it's just pretty silly.

But since Obama can't really help but look narcissistic I don't expect our friends on the right to stop any time soon.

New Blog Joint

Added a new Blog Joint over there - "Jusies." Tis me brothers blog.

Comforting Truisms

One of the Right's favorite beliefs is that this is a Center-Right country. This is sort of true; certainly by international standards all American politics is right wing. But that's not how Conservatives mean it - particularly since they see moderate liberals like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama as almost as liberal as Mao. Take Matt Barber's latest article, in which he argues firmly for the RNC to push strongly conservative candidates.

We remain a center-right country. In fact, a recent Gallup poll established that Americans identify as conservative vs. liberal by a nearly two-to-one margin.

So, whose advice will Republicans follow in 2010? Will it be that of a fork-tongued Democratic emissary like Tim Kaine? Or will it be that of the GOP's highly motivated, itchin'-to-vote, grass-roots Party faithful?

Essentially Tim Kaine argued that Republicans shouldn't purge out the moderates in their party, but should support them (this is in part a reference to Governor Crist in Florida, I am guessing and Marc Rubio).

Barber doesn't like that idea, but presumably he wants to see Republicans / Conservatives victorious rather than getting a long with Democrats. I want to return to the original thought - are we are Center Right nation? Well many people describe themselves as Consrvatives. But if you go down the issues presented in a neutral light, Liberalism does a bit better.

But that's the issue - issues aren't presented in a neutral light. Rather they are presented by half-hearted liberals (like the aforementioned Obama and Clinton) against full-throated opposition from the right wing chorus. And a significant number of Americans trust Conservatives more on this than they do Liberals, even when Conservatives are clearly talking out of their ass.

Kind of depressing. We'll see what happens up in Mass. today, and it's starting to look like more depression.

Mike S Adams

Mike S. Adams latest article is about how difficult it is to be a Conservative in a College environment, and how heroic it is for those Conservatives to stick it out. As a heroic Conservative in a college environment he loves writing these articles, which are, essentially about how heroic he is.

But there's something else.

I think you should take a digital tape recorder to your classes and record the strong emotional reactions, otherwise known as nervous breakdowns, when your professors hear about your ideas.

. . . I want you to begin right away with an attitude of going on the offensive. This is easy to do effectively by simply asking tough questions while they are in front of an audience of students.

Basically Adams doesn't like most of his colleagues and encourages his college readers to humiliate them. It makes me wonder if some Campus Conservative Heroes, like Mr. Adams, maybe create their own problems?

I-Pod Ten

Just random stuff today.

1. The Cranberries - "So Cold in Ireland"
2. Morrissey - "We'll Let You Know"
3. 311 - "Down"
4. Sergio Mendes and Brasil 66 - "Tristeza (Goodbye Sadness)"
5. The Crystal Method - "High Roller"
6. The Beatles - "Helter Skelter (Anthology Version)"
7. Sarah Vaugh - "Tea for Two (Chris Shaw Remix)"
8. R.E.M. - "Shaking Through"
9. Beastie Boys - "Root Down (Free Zone Mix - Prunes)"
10. Linda Perhacs "Parallelograms"

The last one is from Four Tet's contribution to the Late Night Tales series.

A Clear Statement

I have to applaud Terry Jeffrey's latest article for making the case against Gay Marriage so clear.

Any inquiry aimed at discovering the nature of marriage must ultimately arrive at one of two conclusions: Either marriage is something with an absolute nature ordained by God and thus unchangeable or it is an artificial thing, created by human beings on their own authority, and thus changeable according to the whims of whatever members of the human race happen to gain the political power needed to define it for the rest of the species.

Yeah that's pretty much it. Jeffrey's conclusion is, naturally, that God created Marriage and we have a duty to preserve the traditional definition of it. Because if we don't than we will have plural marriage and other bad stuff.

The weakness in the argument is that it presupposes that we should legislate based on what God wants. God may very well be the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow (I believe he is) but our mortal and fallible opinions on what God wants are as changeable as the wind. More to the point we live in a multicultural society. Americans practice a multitude of faiths and some practice no faith at all.

What Jeffrey is explicitly asking for is that we set a theocratic law - we rule from the Bible, or to be more precise, his interpretation of the Bible. I personally think that's a very bad precedent, and if that is the strongest argument proponents of marriage discrimination should bring to bear, than I hope we start coming to our senses.

Obama Must Know

David Limbaugh's latest article starts with a classic opening paragraph.

Could we all agree that we are doomed as a nation if President Barack Obama continues his deficit spending at unprecedented levels? Can you think of any reason, then, to justify this spending? Oh, our president says it's to jump-start the economy? Sorry, that dog won't hunt. So what's his real motive?

I need hardly point out that the hated President Clinton created a budget surplus that the beloved President Bush pissed away.

But the best part is "What's his real motive?" I mean that just says it all. Limbaugh, unsurprisingly I suppose, believes that his right wing beliefs are so obviously correct that for the President not to accept them, he must have a sinister motive.

Of course this is a deceit after a fashion - he writes his article as if the President alone was controlling the spending of the country, when in fact it is Congress that has a lot to do with our fiscal priorities. But I suppose the rationale is that his readers need a focal person to hate, and Obama provides that focus.

Douglas MacKinnon sez "Don't Hug Obama"

MacKinnon's latest article is about rejecting Michael Steel and Charlie Crist, while building up core Conservative principles. Fair enough. I think him taking a shot at Steel for believing that God put in his position is a bit odd, considering the last Republican President clearly believed that God wanted him to be President and commented on it quite a few times.

But when he gets to Crist, things start getting odd.

As the National Review said, “One of the most liberal politicians in the Republican firmament.” Beyond that, Crist is literally an Obama hugger.

Why does Crist want to bolt the Governor’s mansion after only one term? Why does he not want to run for reelection? Could it be because when he took office, unemployment in Florida stood at 3.3 percent and that when he physically hugged President Obama and his “stimulus” package, it was at 9.6 percent and that now, it is at 11 percent?

I've highlighted what are apparently Crist's biggest problems.

In fairness to Crist, the housing bubble popping hit Florida particularly hard, and unemployment numbers throughout the nation has skyrocketed. But for having the gall to hug Obama, and physically no less, I can understand where MacKinnon is coming from.

If only he had kept his hugging ways to the mental sphere, like us decent Americans.

Democracy Not!

Pat Buchannan's latest article takes a strong stand against Democracy. We shouldn't encourage it.

Given free, inclusive elections in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt, there is a likelihood our allies would be dumped and leaders chosen who were committed to kicking us out of the Middle East and throwing the Israelis into the Mediterranean.

What, then, is the rationale for the National Endowment for Democracy to continue tax dollars to promote such elections?

Of course Buchannan doesn't seem to realize how much the middle east and other parts of the world resent us for interfering in their internal affairs. We have a long history of propping up friendly dictators and that history isn't lost in those parts of the world. That doesn't exactly win people over to our side. But then I suppose if we help friendly dictators keep their people down we don't have to worry about them.

2010 The Year of Doom

Maybe that should be Doooooooooooooom!

I guess not. Anyway this is from Victor David Hasnon's latest article in which he posits that a weak President (Obama) will lead to the middle east and china deciding to screw with us in a major way.

In general, al-Qaida interprets our outreach as a sign of moral weakness. Since 9/11, more than one-third of all terrorism-related incidents in the United States occurred in 2009 alone. Maj. Nidal Hasan's murderous rampage at Ford Hood, and al-Qaida's foiled Christmas Day effort to blow up a jet over Detroit are just precursors of what to expect this year.

The implication is that this is what we get for electing Barack Obama.

It's interesting that Hanson is so in tune with the thought processes of al-Qaeda.

Conservative Democrats

Dick Morris and Eileen Gann's latest article illustrates how differently the world looks from the right. It is about Conservative Democrats such as Ben Nelson or Mary Landrieu, and how they are basically done.

Now that Ben Nelson, Blanche Lincoln, Mary Landrieu and Byron Dorgan in the Senate and the likes of Marion Berry, Tom Perriello and John Spratt Jr. in the House have shown how easily they fold under pressure and how thin their conservatism really is, their states and districts will no longer be deceived into re-electing them. They will be replaced by real Republicans.

The Democratic game of electing moderates in conservative districts who then vote to keep liberals in power is over. It over-reached. By collapsing so completely and so publicly, it has become self-evident to the most gullible of voters that there is no such thing as a moderate Democrat. You are either an Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid clone or you are a Republican. That's the new two-party system.

It's kind of an odd argument. First of all, many liberals believe that the Health Reform bills were gutted by these people, particularly Nelson and Lieberman (who Morris leaves out of his article, for reasons that escape me). Nelson put pressure on Harry Reid to remove the Public Option and to ensure that none of this money will go to abortions. In my mind and many others he substantially weakened the bill. After getting all those concessions, does Morris really expect Nelson to vote against the bill after all?

But again, Morris sees this bill as excessively liberal, while many if not most liberals see it as excessively pro insurance industry. I guess the real question is how will the American people see it.

Waiting for the Adults

I think I'm overusing the description "Childish." I've been taken to task for it before, but it just seems to fit a lot of the time, when talking about Conservatives and the War on Terror. The latest example comes from David Limbaugh, in which he has the audacity to wait for adults to implement his childish world view.

The answer is Obama is a liberal and he has deliberately surrounded himself with like-minded, weak-willed leftists who are congenitally incapable of grasping the presence of evil in the world. They are blind to the reality that the terrorists hate us because of their ideology and theology and not because of any alleged misconduct at a detention facility. Do you really think it's plausible that people who engage in the brutal tactics these people engage in would bother recruiting on the absurd bases that Obama claims?

It was bad enough when these liberal Democrats were making such arguments for the cynical partisan motive of undermining President Bush and enhancing their own political positions. That was inexcusable. But now it's even worse. These arguments are just painfully reckless and, sorry, stupid. Oh, how I long for a return of the adults to Washington.

OK. Here's the argument - Terrorists are bad for reasons of their own and don't care about Guantanamo or the abuse of prisoners. A few points.

1. This does accurately describe a handful of the terrorists leaders.

2. It does not accurately describe the Islamic world or the Third world or the rest of the world as a whole. Most people have shifting views of everything.

3. Terrorists are recruiting - the people they are recruiting do not share that Manichean world view initially.

4. When Terrorists recruit, it helps to portray the United States as evil and depraved. It's even easier when we do things that are evil and depraved. Like say Abu Ghraib from a few years back.

5. In order to root out terrorists we need the support of countries in the middle east; both governmental support and support from the people of those countries. Such support is less likely to materialize or be full throated if the people beleave that America is doing bad things, particularly bad things to Muslims.

6. The United States has done bad things to Muslims - more to the point, in some cases they have done these things to non-terrorists that happened to get swept up.

It's childish to pretend that everybody is what they are and that nothing can change that. And many Conservatives, like David Limbaugh, suffer from this form of childishness.

I'm so Tired of the War on Terror

I mean we are stuck with it for now and the foreseeable future, but seriously. Still the one thing I'm even more tired of is children pretending to be warriors. Like Doug Giles.

It's one thing to argue that we need to be involved in the middle east militarily because it's in our best interests, no matter the cost. It's another to want to wage war vicariously because you feel it's the manly thing to do and because your philosophy does not admit to the humanity of Muslims.

Which brings us to Doug Giles latest article.

In case you didn’t hear about the Polite War we’re trying to wage with you, the gist of what we’ll do for you and your people who are trying to slaughter us is this: We will not attack you during your sacrosanct celebrations.

Matter of fact, we’ll go a step further and court martial our troops when they play a game of pin the tail on Mohammed at Gitmo, or flush a Koran, or accidentally serve Achmed Jell-O. Not only that, but we’ll prosecute our intel ops who ferret out your Islamic mass-murderous plots, and we’ll promote Muslim maniacs to major within our own ranks.

. . . However, if you don’t capitulate to our level of niceness, we will continue to maintain that level because we want to prove to the world that we’re pleasant even if thousands more Americans have to be killed.

Doug Giles can't be bothered to consider that this is a multi front war, in which we are trying to eliminate those dedicated to hurting us while preventing other Muslims from joining in their insanity. He can't be bothered because in his weak mind there is no difference between terrorists who want to kill us and Muslims who are minding their own business. He also can't be bothered to enforce military discipline - as I understand it, it doesn't matter what the regulations are or if Doug Giles agrees with them. Troops who break regulations need to be dealt with for the morale and cohesiveness of the units. But again Giles can't be bothered with that (in fairness, he'd probably prefer to see regulations allow for the abuse and torment of Muslims.

News From the Past - January 1, 1930

This is kind of a sad story - it's kind of like the last one - eye catching headline, but sad story. It's from the Havre Daily News, Havre Montana.

Woman Masquerading
As A Man Shot While
Robbing small Store

ROCHESTER, N. Y.. Dec. 31. (AP) — Masquerading as a man and accompanied by her husband and two of her six children on an early morning burglary, Mrs. Winifred Shields, 35, was fatally shot today as she fled from a store they had entered.
Her husband. James Sr.45 and two of her sons, James, jr., 17, and John, 16, returned when the woman fell and were arrested by deputy sheriffs.

There are also stories about how 1930 will be a good year economically. Didn't quite work out that way for many people.