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Saturday, May 23, 2009
RULE 5 SATURDAYSince we're celebrating Memorial Day, I thought it would be fitting
to feature the lovely Gina Elise on Rule 5 Saturday. She is a great gal who is performing great
services for our men in uniform. Miss Elise started PINUPS FOR VETS several years ago:
I came up with the idea to recreate a nostalgic pin-up
calendar that would serve three purposes:
1. The calendars
would be sold to raise funds for our hospitalized Veterans.
2. The
calendars would be delivered as gifts to our ill and injured Veterans with messages of appreciation from the donors.
3. The calendars would be sent to our deployed
troops to help boost morale and to let them know that Americans back home are thinking of them.
She has
brought much comfort to our wounded warriors and raised money to help them.
Please take the time to visit her site and make a donation and buy a calendar(s).
Here she is:
23 may 09 @ 6:54 pm edt
MEMORIAL DAY IN THE YEAR ZEROAs it is Memorial Day weekend, I thought I would post some of
Herbert London's thoughts that he wrote after recently visiting Normandy [I hope he doesn't mind me posting a rather extensive
quote, but what he writes needs to be read]:
On June 6, 1944, the United States
and its allies launched the largest air and sea armada in world history. The purpose of this mission was clear: liberate Europe
from the grip of Nazi despotism.
The landings on the Normandy beaches led to unprecedented death and destruction.
American soldiers leaving their amphibious landing crafts measured their life expectancy in minutes. In the first hour of
battle hundreds lost their lives and in succeeding waves thousands were killed as the beaches at Omaha and Utah were soaked
with the blood of young men in their teens and early twenties.
At Pointe du Hoc Rangers scaled the sheer cliffs
on rope hangers. When one was killed by German bullets another stepped on the precarious rungs. Of the 224 Rangers who scaled
those cliffs only 90 survived, but as historians observed rarely in history has there been such a display of courage, fortitude
and sacrifice.
This was the beginning of a great epoch in history that led ultimately to the defeat of Hitler's
Germany. But history has a way of describing the big picture and leaving out the tales of individual bravery by young men
who a year or two earlier were playing high school basketball, working on a farm or applying to college. History called their
number and they responded. Tom Brokaw called them "America's greatest generation."
It is hard to know
if they made history or history demanded heroic deeds from them. Perhaps it was a little of both. But standing in the cemetery
at the Normandy Beach and observing row after row of those who gave their lives for a cause greater than themselves, I am
humbled by those who died so future generations could live freely.
There is another thought that crossed my mind
in this crowded necropolis. I don't understand how anyone, much less the president of the United States, could apologize for
American actions abroad in the last century or this one. With all the mistakes and miscalculations, there has never been a
force for good more notable than the United States' military.
I prefer not to think of that cretin in the
White House during this special weekend. I would rather concentrate on remembering the brave men who have fought to
defend this country so fools like him can spout their foolishness.
Mrs. Belvedere and I are eternally grateful
for the sacrifices that have been made and to be lucky enough to have been born in a country that deserves to be labeled 'the
land of the free and the home of the brave'.
Please take the time to click here and read Mr. London's full article.
23 may 09 @ 6:27 pm edt
VDH RANDOMIZEDWhile co-leading his annual tour of places in Europe, Victor Davis Hanson has
sent us a dispatch containing some of his random thoughts. It is well-worth perusing. Here are three of them:
I hope that urban density, apartment living, Smart cars, and motorbikes are not the
envisioned future of the United States. For all our perceived sins, the American with his suburban house and yard, and pickup
and boat, enjoys a freedom of choice and ease unmatched anywhere-and unappreciated in most surveys of comparable standards
of living. That autonomy in private life translates into a freewheeling, unpredictable electorate, about all we have left
of the modern equivalent of the homestead farmer of the nineteenth century.
And...
The very notion that the government in the United States would emulate Europe, hoping to nationalize or regulate
as much as possible, to be overseen by a professional technocratic class on top, aided by legions of government clerks, is
also frightening. How odd to see Europeans aspire to inherit an elegant villa, or a stately ancestral estate, appreciate the
beauty of past individual genius or the fruits of ancient overweening ambition, and yet in the here and now ensure that few
such expressions of individualism are any more likely. I understand the logic, and perhaps the necessity of, the state-subsidized
box-like apartment complex, and the hundreds who are jammed into it with access to good water, sewer, and power hookups, but
there is no beauty, no mark of the individual to be found there.
Finally...
Capitalists, farmers, eccentrics, and individualists created the American Constitution; clerks, bureaucrats, ministers,
and appointees wrote the Constitution of the European Union. Are we then surprised at the comparative results?
Please take the time to click here and read them all.
23 may 09 @ 6:14 pm edt
FIGHT THE POWER......by joining the folks at Not One Red Cent who are fighting
the dingbats over at the National Republican Senatorial Committee. I rarely join or associate with, or lend my
name to, organizations, but this one is one of the few worthy ones. They're doing the Lord's work on behalf
of all conservatives.
Please check out their site by clicking here.
23 may 09 @ 6:07 pm edt
AT ALL LEVELSOver at ReasonOnline, Nicole Russell reports on the fact that
its not only Federal legislators who are thinking of more ways to tax us and wasting time passing foolish laws and resolutions,
but also the state legislators who are guilty of the same thing. While I don't agree with all she says, she gets the
main points right. Here's an example from just one state:
Consider Colorado.
Though the state has a reputation for political conservatism, Democrats have controlled both houses of the legislature since
2004. Sadly, great responsibility did not follow from this great power. One particularly notable bill required "the owner of a cat that is 4 months or older to ensure that the cat has a
form of identification on or in its body." Shouldn't pet owners be able to take care of that on their own?
Thankfully,
that waste of paper didn't make it very far. But both Colorado houses did pass S.B. 14, which allows "vehicles with deficient
splash-guards to remain in service for the limited time necessary to replace the splash guards." While drivers may appreciate
the grace period, the drafting process for this vaguely worded bill seems like an awful waste of tax dollars.
Nor
are Colorado Democrats the only ones circulating suspect bills. State Republicans introduced, and then the governor passed,
H.B. 1027, a law that describes in great detail those situations where drivers should yield the right-of-way to transit buses
entering traffic. But isn't that what traffic signs are for? Do Colorado drivers really need a new law instructing them to
yield to buses?
Many of the so-called 'safety' laws and regulations are drafted specifically to be so complex
as it make it near impossible for the average person to comply with them. They're real purposes, in too many cases, are
to raise revenues or make it easier for police to pullover people they consider suspicious looking. This
latter reason arises out of the on-going militarization of law enforcement that I wrote of in my 20 March 2009 QUO VADIS entry on the IN GENERAL page of this Site. As for the former reason: if you emerged out of a long coma and
one of your concerns was to find out the current condition of the economy, the best way to get an answer would be to get in
a car and drive around for awhile. I would advise you to count the number of police pulling over drivers, the number
of check points set up, the number of metermaids writing tickets, and the number of cars being towed. Funny how the
numbers for all increase in rough economic times.
Please take the time to click here and read her full article.
23 may 09 @ 6:01 pm edt
HELLO DALISome of you may be wondering why I have been often referring to Barack Hussein
Obama as the 'Dali Bama' instead of the 'Dalai Bama' after the peace-loving Tibetan Buddist line of leaders. This is
not a spelling mistake. My turn-of-phrase is meant to invoke the unrealistic, peace-loving aspect and the surreal
aspect [as is Salvador Dali] of our Fearless Leader's thinking.
23 may 09 @ 5:30 pm edt
HEY ROCKY, WATCH ME PULL A RABBIT OUT OF THIS HATThere's a good article up by Gary Horne over at American Thinker.
In it he casts the Dali Bama as a magician and his followers as the wishful thinkers who believe all he does is real magic
and not stunts and tricks. I particularly like this passage:
Of course, the
magic hat will never work. The utopian dreams of the far left are incompatible with reality. These dreams are
nothing more than fantasy. Fantasies can only be brought about by magic, not wishful thinking. In Ayn Rand's
Atlas Shrugged, John Galt describes the mystics' belief in wishing:
...in their non-material, non-profit
world, they travel from planet to planet at the cost of a wish. If an honest person asks them: ‘How?' - they answer
with righteous scorn that a ‘how' is the concept of vulgar realists; the concept of superior spirits is ‘Somehow.'
On this earth restricted by matter and profit, rewards are achieved by thought; in a world set free of such restrictions
rewards are achieved by wishing.
Such wishing is described in Randall Hoven's excellent article:
The common theme of the wishful thinking method (aka "hope") is
that there never need be a tradeoff. There is always some other method, one never before tried, of dealing with life's problems.
And funny thing: only Democrats seem to have these methods.
Voters are encouraged to believe in the magic
methods by subtle hints and murky slogans, such as the recent "change" theme. The "Change" signs
held up by Obama supporters in the campaign could just as easily have read "Magic." The magician is never
mentioned but is always assumed somewhere offstage.
Time will drag on and the stuff will never come out of the
magic hat. What will the Obama supporters do then? Substitute "utopia" for "prophecy" in the following quote about when prophecy fails:
You might also think that followers would decide
they'd been fooled and rebel. More often, however, the failed prophecy actually makes their belief stronger. In the case of
cults, members have invested their money, time, lives, and sometimes even children in the cult leader. It's very difficult
to suddenly reject all that, since their very identity is often linked to the beliefs.
Most likely, the true
believers will find a reason utopia didn't appear, like we didn't let them have enough of our money. They will find
someone else to hate. The statist ideologue believes it is some else's fault....
You think
they might just blame us RWE's?
Please take the time to click here and read the full article.
23 may 09 @ 5:19 pm edt
DICK 'THE EXECUTIONER' CHENEY VERSUS BARACK 'LITTLE BARRY' OBAMASince Thursday, I've been careening through the ether reading the commentaries
on the speeches given by former Vice President Cheney and our Fearless Leader. The following are samples from the four
best ones and that I agree with wholeheartedly...
1) The London Daily Telegraph's Washington Correspondent, Toby Harnden heard both speeches live:
So who won the fight? (it's hard to use anything other than a martial or pugilistic
metaphor). Well, most people are on either one side or the other of this issue and I doubt today will have prompted many to
switch sides.
But the very fact that Obama chose to schedule his speech (Cheney's was announced first) at exactly
the same time as the former veep was a sign of some weakness.
Quite. Mr. Harnden thinks Mr. Cheney
landed at least ten punches on Barack The Unready's jaw. Here are three:
1. "I've heard occasional speculation that I'm a different man after 9/11. I wouldn't
say that, but I'll freely admit that watching a coordinated, devastating attack on our country from an underground bunker
at the White House can affect how you view your responsibilities."
Anyone who was in New York or Washington
on 9/11 (I was here in DC) was profoundly affected and most Americans understand this. Obama was, as far as I can tell, in
Chicago. His response - he was then a mere state senator for liberal Hyde Park - was startlingly hand-wringing and out of
step with how most Americans were feeling. This statement by Cheney reminds people of the tough decisions he and Bush had
to make - ones that Obama has not yet faced.
8."If
fine speechmaking, appeals to reason, or pleas for compassion had the power to move them, the terrorists would long ago have
abandoned the field."
As Cheney said this, sarcasm dripped from his lips. Obviously "fine speechmaking"
but no real substance is not a new charge against Obama and it hits home. And Cheney successfully mades [sic] the point that
much of the rhetoric from the Left tends to suggest that if only the US did not waterboard people, if only the US was viewed
as Obama rather than Bush, Venus rather than Mars then it would be universally loved and al-Qaeda would wither away.
UNfortunately [sic], that's not the real world.
9. "It's
worth recalling that ultimate power of declassification belongs to the president himself. President Obama has used his declassification
authority to reveal what happens in the interrogation of terrorists. Now let him use that same power to show Americans what
did not happen thanks to the good work of our intelligence officials."
Cheney is pushing Obama to declassify
documeents [sic] relating to the information gained from terrorist suspects who were subjected to Enhanced Interrogation
Techniques. This puts Obama in a bind. If he does so, it prolongs an argument he wants to move on from and prolongs the Obama
vs Cheney meme that is distracting and doesn't really help him. if he doesn't, he looks like he has something to hide.
2) This last theme is touched on by Andrew McCarthy:
It is also not true, no matter how many times Mr. Obama and his supporters repeat it,
that Guantanamo Bay and enhanced interrogation (or “torture” as they call it) are primary drivers of terrorist
recruitment. The principal exacerbating factor in recruitment is successful terrorist attacks. That is what convinces the
undecided to join jihadist movements, and that is what the Bush administration’s approach prevented. And if the president
truly insists on “transparency,” he should stop suppressing memoranda that detail the effectiveness of the CIA
interrogation program. Given his decision to reveal CIA tactics, is it too much to ask that the American people be informed
about what intelligence the program yielded?
Mr. McCarthy also offered this spot-on observation:
President Obama’s speech is the September 10th mindset trying to come to grips with September
11th reality. It is excruciating to watch as the brute facts of life under a jihadist threat, which the president is now accountable
for confronting, compel him forever to climb out of holes dug by his high-minded campaign rhetoric — the reversals on
military detention, commission trials, prisoner-abuse photos, and the like.
The need to castigate his predecessor,
even as he substantially adopts the Bush administration’s counterterrorism policy, is especially unbecoming in a president
who purports to transcend our ideological divisions.
'Unbceoming' is Mr. McCarthy being too kind; 'excruciating'
is an apt description watching any speech by The Anointed One [what I call 'The Teleprompter Swing'—head flying
left to right then right to left in a sweeping motion—can make you seasick].
3) Over at Pajamas Media, Roger Kimball weighs in by giving Little Barry a spanking:
My fellow PJM columnist Victor Davis Hanson recently noticed some cracks in the impressive Obama facade. With yesterday’s performance, I’d say those cracks
had become gaping fissures. Not everyone will agree, of course, but I hope that even Obama’s partisan acolytes will
agree that there is something unseemly about the President whining about the supposed sins of his predecessors even as he
scrambles to continue as much of their policies as he can without totally alienating his left-leaning base. ...The Obama administration
has specialized in exhibitions of moral outrage over the actions of America’s intelligence agencies and armed forces.
But what if the changes they contemplate make America less safe? What if our terrorist enemies, sensing weakness, smelling
fear, are emboldened to attack us again? What will Obama say then? Will that too be the fault of the Bush administration,
whose moral antennae were not so sensitively calibrated as Barack Obama’s, Nancy Pelosi’s, and Harry Reid’s?
No, the President should stop whining and start going about his business like a man, not a Harvard lawyer.
Johnny Fontane: ...Oh, Godfather, I don't know what to do, I don't know what to do...
[All
of a sudden, Don Corleone rises from his chair and gives Fontane a savage shake]
Don Corleone:YOU
CAN ACT LIKE A MAN! What's the matter with you? Is this what you've become, a Hollywood finocchio who cries like a woman?
[in a mock woman's voice] "Oh, what do I do? What do I do?" What is that nonsense? Ridiculous!
[tip
of the fedora to IMDB]
4) Robert Stacy McCain comments on the coverage of the former VP's speech:
I'm watching MSNBC, where Chris Matthews, Lawrence O'Donnell and that horrible woman
(whose name escapes me) take turns reciting DNC talking points and calling Cheney a liar.
Next time some liberal
starts lecturing me about "civility," I'm going to play them video of O'Donnell's reaction. Pat Buchanan -- the
only Republican allowed on "Hardball" -- grinned and said, "Larry's reaction tells you that Cheney's speech
worked."
Love to see it when Leftists lose it.
Last night, Red Eye played two snippets from Keith Olbermann's reaction to Mr. Cheney's speech, which can be found by clicking here [be warned beforehand: viewing this may cause a psychotic break]. In all seriousness: the man is obviously mentally
disturbed.
SHOULD WE PUT BELVEDERE ON A MILK CARTON?I apologize for not posting at all yesterday. The new DIY project I was
working on took longer than expected [didn't finish until nearly 7PM EST]. After a long shower and some pain meds, I
was too fagged-out to post. I'll try and make up for the lost day by fitting three days of work into two, today
and Monday [Rule 5 compliance will occur]. Let's get this gig going...
23 may 09 @ 4:14 pm edt
Thursday, May 21, 2009
QUOTE OF THE WEEKFrom Jay Nordlinger over at The Corner:
After World War II, someone asked a survivor of Auschwitz what had been the most important lesson he had learned.
He answered, “When someone says he’s going to kill you, believe him.” That applies to Israel today, where
Tehran is concerned.
And we get to the most fundamental question: What is Israel for? The answer, or one answer,
is: To shelter the Jews against exterminationist attack. So how long does Israel stand around, while the threat gathers? How
patient is Israel in waiting for an American green light, or an American blessing? Isn’t the whole idea of Israel that
the Jews no longer have to depend on the kindness of strangers?
I do not say there are easy answers. I don’t
envy the government of Israel, whoever is in power. In Jordan the other day, Ephraim Sneh told me, “No government in
Jerusalem — no government: left, right, or center — would allow Iran to go atomic.” The world fears an Israeli
attack on Iran. Israel — almost alone — fears an Iranian attack on Israel.
How long would you
wait, if you were Israel? What would you do? Something to think about, in your idle moments.
Please take the time to click here and read the full posting.
21 may 09 @ 8:13 pm edt
FASCISM! ON THE MARCH!The amount of 'fun' we'll all enjoy when the Waxman-Markey Cap-And-Trade
Bill gets passed keeps getting better and better. Yesterday, over at Red State, Rep. John Shadegg informed us:
...the Democrats have added an amendment to essentially require every new and
existing home sold in America to be inspected and labeled as to its energy efficiency. If you thought the emissions tests
required by the DMV were a pain, just wait to have your home inspected and “labeled.” In addition, on a party-line
vote, the Majority has included a mandated study on requiring all products sold in the United States, down to potato chips,
to be labeled as to their CO2 “content,” showing how much CO2 is emitted in the manufacturing of each product.
Will they put a big yellow sticker on my house?
That's not all...from Politico, Erika Lovley reporting, we learn:
Rep. Alan Grayson was standing in the middle of Disney World when it hit him:
What Americans really need is a week of paid vacation.
So on
Thursday, the Florida Democrat will introduce the Paid Vacation Act - legislation that would be the first to make paid vacation
time a requirement under federal law.
The bill would require
companies with more than 100 employees to offer a week of paid vacation for both full-time and part-time employees after they've
put in a year on the job. Three years after the effective date of the law, those same companies would be required to provide
two weeks of paid vacation, and companies with 50 or more employees would have to provide one week.
The idea: More vacation will stimulate the economy through fewer sick days, better productivity
and happier employees.
"There's
a reason why Disney World is the happiest place on Earth: The people who go there are on vacation," said Grayson, a freshman
who counts Orlando as part of his home district.
"Honestly, as much as I appreciate this job and as much as
I enjoy it, the best days of my life are and always have been the days I'm on vacation."
I wish Goofy
had hit him instead—upside the head with a 2x4. Let's hope the voters of his District send him on a permanent
vacation.
21 may 09 @ 8:04 pm edt
TALES FROM THE STUPID PARTYIn line with my two most recent postings: the credit card bill has passed
both Houses of the Congress by overwhelming margins. The majority of Republicans in each voted in favor of the bill
which would weaken the ability of responsible Americans to obtain credit at reasonable rates and be awarded for paying their
card bills on time. Why? From David Freddoso we learn:
Included in the bill's current version, which will go straight to the president
after House passage, is the Coburn amendment, which allows the carrying of firearms in national parks to whatever extent is
legal in the state where the park resides.The bill would also standardize the gun policy of the various federal agencies that
manage federal lands. For example, the Parks Service forbids firearms on its lands, whereas the Bureau of Land Management
permits them. Thirty-one states already allow the carrying of firearms in their state parks.
"We have been
working on this measure for close to a decade," said Andrew Arulanandam, spokesman for the National Rifle Association.
"We think it's a reasonable measure that helps law-abiding people"
Here is one of the core problems
with Republicans [and the NRA], in this case specifically, and the Congress in general: these added provisions
have absolutely nothing, nothingto do with credit and credit cards. What the Hell are they
doing in this bill?!? For some minor expansion of gun rights, the Goddamn Stupid Party is willing to seriously damage
one of the backbones of American success and prosperity? I'm so angry, I can only quote Orwell at this point:
This age makes me so sick that sometimes I am almost impelled to stop at a corner and start
calling down curses from Heaven.
21 may 09 @ 11:40 am edt
THE GOP CAN'T HELP ITYesterday, from Chris Cillizza over at The Fix, we learned:
Twenty-four hours after Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele sought to turn the page on five months of infighting and
bad press for the GOP, the organization passed a resolution condemning the Democratic party's
"march toward socialism".
"Resolved, that we the members of the Republican National Committee recognize
that the Democratic Party is dedicated to restructuring American society along socialist ideals," reads the resolution.
The vote, which has no practical impact, was cast as a victory by allies of Steele who insisted that catastrophe
had been averted when an agreement was reached not to bring forward a resolution that would have re-nicknamed the Democratic
party as the "Democrat Socialist Party." Steele had voiced his opposition to the resolution -- telling "Meet the Press" moderator David Gregory last Sunday that he didn't "think that that is an appropriate way to, to express our views on the
issues of the day."
Over at AmSpecBlog, W. James Antle III had this comment:
I'm just glad they didn't adopt a resolution renaming the Democrats the "Democrat
Socialist Party." Why? Because there's a fine line between ideological labeling and childish-sounding name-calling, and
that proposed resolution seemed to be on that wrong side of that line. Sort of like insisting on calling the Democrats the
"Democrat Party" instead of the "Democratic Party."
I agree that the rename would have
come-off as immature. Besides...while the majority of them are socialists in their hearts, most are smart enough to
realize they can't advocate out-and-out socialist programs; they have to tone it down for mass consumption...therefore, if
these Republicans wanted a more fitting name, they would have chosen 'the Democratic Fascist Party'. Not that I'm advocating
that—it would still be a juvenile gesture. Jeez, they can't even get a renaming right. If we have to rely
on these droogies to win elections, as Charlie Brown would say, 'We're doomed'.
As for the insistence by many Republicans
to call them 'the Democrat Party' instead of 'the Democratic Party': I have always been opposed to this. Let them
wear the label 'democracy'. Who wants democracy? Who wants the rule of the mob? This country was not set
up as a democracy. The Founders, in fact, feared democracy and accordingly devised a Constitution that provided guards
against such a form of government ['A republic, if you can keep it'.]. Enough with the pissiness.
21 may 09 @ 11:22 am edt
FIGHT THE POWEROver at Red State, Erick Erickson has posted some very good advice.
Two highlights:
To rebuild the Republican Party, the party must run against
both Washington and itself.
It is almost a schizophrenic dichotomy
to suggest Republicans must run against the Republican Party, but it is, in fact, a critical necessity. In so doing, the GOP
must run against the Washington Establishment, both in general and against Republicans in particular.
And...
If we want to rebuild the party, we must stand up for and support candidates who want to
reform the party — not away from its conservative roots, but away from the politics of power. The politics of power
is the fundamental flaw within the GOP right now and is reflected in everything from Michael Steele’s exorbitant staff
salaries in his quest to make the RNC all about him and in John Cornyn’s endorsement of Charlie Crist.
The
Republican establishment wants its power back to have its power back. It does not want its power back to actually do anything.
And until we elect candidates who stand for something other than the acquisition of power, we, like them, will stand for nothing.
This is why it is the grassroots, the conservatives and the realistic libertarians, who must gain control of
events. Forget the structures in Washington. What is called for is a 'federalized' effort—groups in every
state, every county even, working on their own in their area to promote the right [pun intended] candidates and to fight
against anti-freedom bills and regulations. Such groups should coordinate through Committees Of Correspondence, just
like the Founders did among the several colonies. But, for success to occur, we have to fight and organize at the fundamental
level.
PUT THE 'ROOT' BACK IN 'GRASSROOT'! [Also, while I'm at it: NO MORE BUSHES!]
Please take the time to click here and read Mr. Erickson's full posting.
21 may 09 @ 10:57 am edt
CAN YA DIG IT?In my immediately previous posting below [which The Other McCain linked to—thanks RSM], I declared that Robert Stacy McCain was The Conservative Shaft.
However, I offered no explanation for how I came to that epiphany. It was actually a manifestation born out many things
he has written over time, and, or course, the lyrics:
Who is the
man that would risk his neck for his brother man?
(Shaft!)
Can ya dig it?
Who's the cat that won't cop
out when there's danger all about
(Shaft!)
Right on
You see this cat Shaft is a bad mother--
(Shut
your mouth)
But I'm talkin' about Shaft
(Then we can dig it)
He's a complicated man but no one understands
him but his woman
(John Shaft)
And it was also based on this:
21 may 09 @ 8:27 am edt
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
IT WURNT LAST NIGHTFrom The Greenroom, the prolific Robert Stacy McCain on 'centrist'
weinerheads, Republicans, and the grassroots:
You see, the grassroots conservative
might have been born at night, but it wasn’t lastnight. He remembers very clearly hearing this same kind
of claptrap before, from the same kind of “centrist” wienerheads who always seem to gravitate toward the
top of the GOP prestige pyramid. They’re not much good in a fight, these elitists, because they are ambitious cowards.
Since my blogging sucks so bad that there’s no chance that you’ll
actually click that link, I’ll explain to the two or three people who actually managed to read this far what I
mean. In a society dominated by the perverse falsehoods of liberalism, where political correctness exercises such fearsome
power within the precincts of the elite — media, academia, politics — ambition requires that one never question
or dispute liberal dogma.
Only by becoming an independent success, like Rush Limbaugh, or by foreswearing any ambition that would require mute acceptance of elite orthodoxy, can
you have the freedom to say out loud that abortion is murder and sodomy is sin. So the churchgoing small businessman
in Topeka or the tattooed truck driver in Tallahassee is utterly unintimidated by slurs like “sexist” and “homophobe,”
and he can’t understand for the life of him why the Republican politician he elects to public office doesn’t
stand up on his hind legs and fight for the truth.
Ah, ambition, you see! The Congressman hopes
to become Senator, and the Senator aspires to be President, and none of them fancies the reputation he’d acquire if
he started quoting the first chapter of Romans in his speeches. The arbiters of respectability in Washington — and the consultants
and strategists who dispense political advice — don’t go in for that Bible-thumping holy-roller stuff, and ambition
makes the politician a coward.
You perceive, therefore, why the orthodoxy of the elite is sacrosanct,
while the fundamental beliefs of the average Republican in Temecula or Tupelo almost never find a defender in the
political class or elsewhere in the elite. For what is true of the politician is true also of the journalist, the professor,
the beauty who hopes to become an actress or model. To identify yourself with the Ordinary American – plain-spoken
rustic types like Joe the Plumber and Sarah the Hockey Mom – is to abandon any prospect of being accepted by the arbiters of respectability.
An old friend of mine spent his career working for the U.S. Postal Service, the kind of dysfunctional organization
that makes “bureaucracy” an epithet. My friend once said to me, “There are two kinds of people: People who
make lists, and people who are on lists.”
No better expression of the top-down, hierarchical,
control-oriented method of organization is possible. In describing that kind of operation, it is absurd to use words
like “teamwork,” ”morale” and “communication.” There are merely bosses — “list-makers”
who monopolize all the prestige and authority of the organization — and the poor shmoes who show up, clock in, put in
their hours, clock out, and pray for the weekend.
This is what the Republican Party has become, and this is the
deadly spirit of “bossism” that has destroyed the grassroots energy of the party.
Unlike the dysfunctional
workplace, however, nobody in the conservative grassroots is obligated to show up for “work” on Election Day.
He doesn’t have to put up yard signs or volunteer to canvass neighborhoods or contribute money to the party. If the
Republican Party is going to adopt a go-along-to-get-along policy, enact a me-too Liberalism Lite agenda, and never speak
up for the values that the grassroots believe in . . . well, the grassroots will just go fishing instead.
Right on, Brother, right on. Robert Stacy McCain is the conservative Shaft.
I urge you to read the whole posting by clicking here.
20 may 09 @ 2:16 pm edt
AND THE OBAMA SAID...Well...it looks like its finally time to add another book to The Bible.
From Yuval Levin we learn:
The US State Department’s Bureau of International
Information Programs, in an effort, one presumes, to shape America’s image abroad, has put out a bookof President Obama’s speeches, to be read the world over. Of course, President Obama
has only been president a few months, and putting out such a book takes a few months, so there is actually only one speech
in the book that he delivered after becoming president: it is his inaugural address, which the State Department entitles:
“The Remaking of America.”
Other speeches in the book are mostly from the presidential campaign: from
his announcement speech (entitled “Our Past, Future & Vision for America” in the book) to his election night
speech (entitled “Change Has Come to America”). There are also excerpts from his 2004 Democratic convention speech
and, most amazing of all, from his 2002 speech against the Iraq war.
For nearly two millenia The Christian
Bible has remained good enough as it was. But, since we have embarked on a new age—a third age [shall
we call it AO in line with BC and AD?]—and the oceans are beginning to recede due to the miracles being performed every
blessed day by The Messiah—The Divine Obamacus—should we not let this book be the first one in a New
& Improved Testament?
And the Obama said: 'Let there be 50 mpg; And there was 50 mpg'.
Please take the time to click here and read the full posting.
20 may 09 @ 2:07 pm edt
AUTO-MORONIC ASPHYXIATIONOver at Contentions, Jennifer Rubin has up a very good posting
on Barack The Unready's diktat on fuel economy and the auto industry's meek response. I'll just link to it because her
comments wrap around quotes from a very good article in The Wall Street Journal and the two should not be
separated. Her final sentence gloomily, but realistically, says it all:
Welcome
to the car industry in the era of post-capitalism.
Please take the time to click here and read the full posting.
Also at the same site, on a related matter, Noah Pollak does us a service and directs towards Jeremy Clarkson's review of
the new Honda Insight Hybrid in The Times Of London. Nothing is so entertaining as a good writer in a fully flowering bit of outrage. Some highlights:
Much has been written about the Insight, Honda’s new low-priced hybrid. We’ve been told
how much carbon dioxide it produces, how its dashboard encourages frugal driving by glowing green when you’re easy on
the throttle and how it is the dawn of all things. The beginning of days.
So far, though, you have not been told
what it’s like as a car; as a tool for moving you, your friends and your things from place to place.
So here
goes. It’s terrible. Biblically terrible. Possibly the worst new car money can buy. It’s the first car I’ve
ever considered crashing into a tree, on purpose, so I didn’t have to drive it any more.
The biggest problem,
and it’s taken me a while to work this out, because all the other problems are so vast and so cancerous, is the gearbox....
...
And the sound is worse. The Honda’s petrol engine is a much-shaved, built-for-economy, low-friction
1.3 that, at full chat, makes a noise worse than someone else’s crying baby on an airliner. It’s worse than the
sound of your parachute failing to open. Really, to get an idea of how awful it is, you’d have to sit a dog on a ham
slicer.
...
The nickel for the battery has to come from somewhere. Canada, usually. It has to be shipped
to Japan, not on a sailing boat, I presume. And then it must be converted, not in a tree house, into a battery, and then that
battery must be transported, not on an ox cart, to the Insight production plant in Suzuka. And then the finished car has to
be shipped, not by Thor Heyerdahl, to Britain, where it can be transported, not by wind, to the home of a man with a beard
who thinks he’s doing the world a favour.
Why doesn’t he just buy a Range Rover, which is made from
local components, just down the road? No, really — weird-beards buy locally produced meat and vegetables for eco-reasons.
So why not apply the same logic to cars?
...
But let me be clear that hybrid cars are designed solely
to milk the guilt genes of the smug and the foolish....
Please take the time to click here and read the full review.
20 may 09 @ 1:50 pm edt
NO FUN, MY BABE NO FUNMark Steyn on the several states going for federal bailouts:
As [Megan] McArdle notes, whether you bail out states "too big to fail" or let them go
bankrupt, it will cause pain to taxpayers. But the pain of the latter is relatively short-term. Passing Sacramento's buck
to Washington will accelerate the centralizing pull in American politics and eventually eliminate any advantage to voting with your feet.
Not to be too gloomy, but the country feels like it's seizing up. It's as if
California and New York have burst their bodices like two corpulent gin-soaked trollops and rolled over the fruited plain
to rub bellies at the Mississippi. If you're underneath, it's not going to be fun.
And then you can say
a full goodbye to state sovereignty [the 'Stimulus' Plan has already destroyed a good chunk of state independence].
At that point, The Constitution will be so damaged that the wound will be rightly pronounced 'mortal'.
Please click here to read the full posting.
20 may 09 @ 1:25 pm edt
YOU TOO CAN BE LIKE DAVID CHAUNCEY GARDINER-BROOKS!The lovely, the talented Robert Stacy McCain has up a how-to guide on how to become
a Republican writer 'who really matters'.
Among the things to do:
• Establish
yourself early as a "promising conservative intellectual" -- Become the token conservative columnist for
your college newspaper, get into a Republican youth leadership summer program, do an internship at National Review
or a GOP-leaning non-profit.
• Aggressively suck up to Republican politicians-- Try
to land a speechwriting or "policy advisor" gig for a senator or governor who is seen as a prospect in the next
presidential campaign.
• Once you've made a name for yourself, go "rogue"
-- That is to say, after leaving your job as a Republican staffer, think-tank analyst or conservative journalist, do everything
possible to sabotage GOP prospects.
Followed carefully, this plan will land you a book deal before you're 30, a
regular spot as a panelist on a Sunday network news show, and a twice-weekly op-ed column in an influential newspaper.
Important magazines will devote their covers to a 5,000-word excerpt from your latest book, which must bear a provocative
title like, Lose One for the Gipper: How Evangelical Extremists Hijacked the Reagan Legacy. CNN will offer you a
lucrative contract as a "conservative analyst" for their coverage of GOP national convention, and you'll be invited
to all the right cocktail parties in Georgetown.
In your meteoric ascent through the ranks of the punditocracy,
be sure to choose as your friends only those who are important enough to be helpful in your career. Take care never to stake
yourself too clearly to any policy position that might be unfashionable with the producers of "Nightline," and avoid
directly denouncing any Democrat named Kennedy.
I'm so screwed on this last one [here's just one example (one of many)].
Among the things not to do:
Such prestige is never attained by anyone who
is a straight-forward, down-the-line conservative, because the arbitrators of Republican prestige are not conservative. You're
not going to get favorable treatment from, say, "60 Minutes" by being a dependable voice for the grassroots GOP.
Nor will any out-and-out conservative be cited as an authoritative source in the latest iteration of the twice-yearly Time
magazine feature on Republican Party infighting. (Sample cover blurb: "Right-Wing Insurgency: Threat or Menace?")
Please take the time to click here and for the full how-to and maybe you too can be the next Kathleen Parker.
20 may 09 @ 9:49 am edt
HIGHER FORMS OF WITSarcasm is a funny thing [pun intended]: when done correctly, it shreds pomposities
and pretensions that need tearing; when done badly, it causes us to wince and have sympathy for the targets of it. It's
not an easy thing to pull-off.
This morning I discovered two examples that were done beautifully...
1)
Over at The Corner,Andrew McCarthy posts a picture of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meeting with
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and speculates [this is worth quoting in full]:
So what happens? Six years from now she
tells us, sure, she may have been in a meeting, and she may have heard, by and by, that they were considering
a bombing raid or something like that against Iran's nukes, but she had absolutely no idea they were actually, like, gonna
do it — in fact, they expressly told her they were not gonna to do it, only consider doing it. And
look, we all know they always lie anyway. And let her assure you, she has always detested preemptive attacks —
war crimes which have made us less safe and harmed our reputation in the international community. She would
certainly have objected in the very strongest terms, and even moved to cut off the funding for the working group, but you
see, she heard Jane Harman had written a very strong letter, and ...
2) Over at Red State,
Josh Painter touts the virtues of the Obamobile:
The Obamobile is coming to a dealer showroom near you. Well, it may not actually be that nearto you, now that GM (Government Motors) and CFUG (Chrysler-FIAT-UAW-Government) are throwing so many of
their dealers under the bus. Say, this is a hybrid bus, isn’t
it, citizen? But I digress. It’s only those in rural areas clinging to their guns and bibles who will have to drive
to another town to find a dealer. But that’s their problem, citizen. The former Big Three Detroit automakers are
now right where they deserve to be - under the thumb of The One who says, “I won!”
The Obamobile will
be like no vehicle you’ve ever owned before. First, the good news. It will get much better fuel economy than the less
hopeful, less changed competition, and it will belch fewer pollutants into the air. More good news - it weighs less than vehicles lacking the refinement
of the Obamobile.
Now for the bad news. It weighs lessthan vehicles lacking the refinement of the Obamobile. There will be a minor period of adjustment
until the ordinary vehicles are gone from our roads during which, if your Obamobile collides with an older, less nuanced vehicle,
it collapses into a box roughly shaped like a coffin. But there’s a silver lining, citizen. You can be buried in your
Obamobile, and there will be one less burial option your survivors will have to dicker over at the funeral home.
More bad news. The Obamobile will be more expensive than other vehicles which lack the advantage of having been conceived
and built by a company owned and operated by the federal government. The Obama administration says all the hope and change
built right into every Obamobile will make it cost roughly $1,300 more. Pay no attention to those private analysts who say
the price jack will be much higher than merely 1300 bucks. Nothing to see here, citizen. Move along, move along. Besides,
there is yet another silver lining. The automotive experts in the Obama administration say gas savings will make up the difference
in about three years. See? It all comes out in the (car) wash, so to speak. Do not listen to that horrible Michelle Malkin woman, who calls the $1,300 price increase a “car tax.” Citizen, that is downright unpatriotic!
More bad news, but only if you really must have one of those wasteful pickup trucks or vans: Eric Fedewa, vice president of global powertrain forecasting for the auto consulting firm CSM Worldwide
in Northville, Mich., said the changes will make pickup trucks so much more expensive that they will be used almost exclusively
for work.
Cheer up, citizen, for Obama sayeth: “We can’t drive our
SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times … and then just expect that other countries
are going to say OK.”
Remember, citizen, we must all make
sacrifices for the other countries. No, really. It’s not for the labor unions or the environmental activist groups our
Dear Leader is asking these things of you. It’s to change the opinion of those who live in other countries about us.
What could be a better reason, citizen?
Please take the time to click here and continue reading his posting.
20 may 09 @ 9:15 am edt
WHAT'S THAT I SMELL FLOATING DOWN FROM THE NORTH?...Could it be the aroma of hy-pocrisy?*
From The Hill, Alexander Bolton and Michael Sandler reporting, we learn:
Sen. Edward Kennedy’s brain cancer is in remission and he is expected back
in the Senate after the Memorial Day recess to spearhead healthcare reform, according to Democratic colleagues.
Senate
Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Tuesday that he spoke with Kennedy’s wife, Vicki, in the past few days and
was told the 77-year-old lawmaker is “doing fine.”
Reid said Kennedy’s cancer is in remission
and added that while the lawmaker is going through another regiment of treatment, the procedure “is not unusual.”
I am no fan of the Kennedy Family. Frankly I wish they would all go away—leave public life forever.
But, I wish the Senator well in his battle against The Big C.
With that being said...
Over at Red State, Erick Erickson makes a spot-on point:
Through the wonders of the American healthcare system — the finest on earth —
Senator Kennedy was able to seek life saving treatment and, through that treatment, have his cancer go in remission.
The sad and tragic irony is that when Senator Kennedy returns to work, he will actively work to deny you the access to treatment
he himself had.
We are not supposed to be so impolite to say such things, but the truth must be spoken.
We know, from what was publicly reported, that Senator Kennedy’s condition was extremely serious. We also know that
Senator Kennedy’s compatriot, Senator Jay Rockefeller, said that under Senator Kennedy’s and the Democrats’
healthcare plan the government is going to weigh the cost/benefit of healthcare choices and deny you access to treatment if
the cost outweighed the benefit.
Given media reports of Senator Kennedy’s health, we can postulate that,
had Senator Kennedy had access to healthcare under the system he intends to design, he would not have gotten the treatment
that put his cancer in remission.
We can also postulate one other thing — when Senator Kennedy does design
the Democrats’ healthcare system, they will make sure people like Senator Kennedy are not subjected to it.
Just you and me.
It seems appropriate to once again quote Leo Amery to Neville Chamberlain:
You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you.
In the name of God, go!
Go, Senator, take care of your own health and take your hands off our's.
* From 1776.
20 may 09 @ 8:34 am edt
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
WHAT WE'RE UP AGAINSTEveryday it seems, I read, in blog postings and articles, polls citied that supposedly
show growing opposition to this or that measure being proposed by the Administration and/or by the Congress. For the
sake of argument, I will concede that these polls truly reflect festering opposition to the radical policies in question.
Still, none of them matter. Those in power in Washington DO NOT CARE. They have an agenda, a plan, THE ANSWER,
THE INSIGHT—call it what you will—and they're going to implement it no matter what anyone thinks. They have
been doing, and will continue to do, it (1) by outright lying [The Big Lie] or (2) by putting moving forward, full-steam ahead, blinders firmly in place. This is how they have conducted themselves
since 20 January and I see no reason for them to stop it. THEY DON'T CARE WHAT YOU THINK. They are the ONLY
enlightened ones. True believers cannot be swayed from their course by appeals to reason. We have reason on our
side; they have fervour and no doubt.
19 may 09 @ 2:31 pm edt
FEAR AND LOATHING IN ANDREW SULLIVANDuring the course of reading a very good article last week on Carrie Prejean by
George Neumayr over at The American Spectator, I came across this observation that is spot-on and dead-solid-perfect:
Are we witnessing an outbreak of "heterophobia"? The violent reaction to
Prejean's remarks illustrates once again not only the intrinsically violent character of homosexual activism -- it rallies
around a sexual act that violates nature, after all -- but also its deep fear of fertile, heterosexual women. Carrie Prejean
scares the hell out of them.
Please take the time to click here and read the full article.
19 may 09 @ 2:17 pm edt
SPEAKING OF THE GIRL SCOUTS OF AMERICA [GSA]...There's an article up over at World Net Daily by Chelsea Schilling
that looks at how radicalized the GSA has become. One of the things they are promoting is lesbianism
as acceptable and lesbians as role models. The ever insightful Robert Stacy McCain has the best commentary I've seen
so far on this over at The Other McCain:
Conservatives saw this
one coming down the pike a few years ago, when the Boy Scouts got raked over the coals for prohibiting gay scoutmasters and
the Girl Scouts were so quiet you could hear the crickets chirping.
Back in the day, Bill Buckley* postulated a
law of organizational dynamics: All institutions that are not explicitly
conservative will eventually become liberal. Fast-forward to 2009, and
all institutions that do not explicitly prohibit homosexuality will eventually become pro-gay. So next time the Girl Scouts
come knocking at your door selling cookies, try not to notice they're now wearing flannel shirts, butch haircuts and sensible
shoes.
Mama, don't let your daughters grow up to be soft-ball players.
This propagandizing of
our children is nothing but the soft version of what was done by the Hitler Youth, the Young Communist
League, and the Thought Police. One could call it 'soft abuse'.
Please take the time to click here and read the full posting by Mr. McCain. And here to read the World Net Daily article.
19 may 09 @ 2:09 pm edt
HEY! TEACHER! LEAVE THEM KIDS ALONE!In a posting yesterday, I bemoaned the fact that the Left, which has been propagandizing
school curriculums for years has now sunk to a new low: trying to do it to children in kindergarten [please click here to read that posting]. Now Pundette has weighed in on the matter over at The Greenroom:
Liberals have no qualms about using children as pawns to push through their agenda.
Lost in the shuffle of bullying school boards and angry parents whose rights have been violated is the concept of childhood innocence. It’s something worth preserving. Kindergarteners shouldn’t
have sexuality pushed on them, even in the form of good old plain-vanilla heterosexuality;
homosexuality wouldn’t enter the mind of an elementary school age child unless
it was shoved in his face. And exposing children to transsexuality and other permutations
beyond that is the equivalent of child abuse. Why is this something their innocent, developing minds and imaginations need
to confront? This is clearly not being done for the benefit of the children.
But when indoctrination is the goal,
younger is better, and this is one reason behind the push for universal pre-school.
This California case is getting our attention because it’s so extreme and
blatant. But subtler indoctrination takes place in our schools every day. If parents are serious about passing their values on to their children, they might
want to consider whether they’re undermining their own cause by sending them to public schools.
Yes.
Absolutely. If at all possible, get your children out of the public school system. The trouble is: even the private
schools have been infiltrated by the Left. My brother's two daughters were in private Catholic elementary schools
in the late 1980's and they were coming home and scolding me for smoking and not recycling. I think parents have to
talk with their children and find out what they're being taught and counter the propaganda if necessary. Children being
children and rebellious urges nestling in their souls, this will require some diplomacy on the parents part. They must
do this; it is their duty. As I wrote yesterday: 'To not battle these insidious forces is to be guilty of neglect'.
Please take the time to click here and read the full posting which also covers the issue of the Girl Scouts Of America'splan
to promote the mornalcy of lesbianism. [tip of the fedora to Robert Stacy McCain]
19 may 09 @ 1:53 pm edt
Monday, May 18, 2009
NO MORE CENTRISTSRobert Stacy McCain has up a terrific posting wherein he demonstrates why the
Republican Party going 'centrist' will fail. He wrote it in response to a posting by former Democrat-turned-Republican A.J. Strata who wrote:
Well, game on it seems in for the heart and soul of the conservative movement
and GOP party. We have a choice on whether there should be a centrist, sane and effective opposition to the liberal Democratic
policies in DC that are destroying our country’s economic system. A centrist coalition which can support our President
when he makes good decisions, as he has done on Iraq, Afghanisatan [sic] and FISA, and hopefully as he will do in
the end with GITMO and the terrorists detainees. A centrist and sane opposition that can win seats and influence the decisions
of the day.
Not some right wing drama queen show where mad conspiracy theories fly about memos from DHS, or forged
birth certificates, or the second coming of the Nazi Hitler youth. Instead of some effective opposition we could chose
the impotent ravings of those who had power and muffed it, and are still muffing it.
It seems the far right is
now calling on all wingersto boycott the Senate run of Governor Crist in Florida. You may remember my reaction when the “treacherous bastards”at the National Republican
Senatorial Committee endorsed Charlie Crist in the Florida Senate race — 15 months before the primary!
As a treacherous bastard supporter I say “Amen Brother!” These people are going to grab
their marbles and sit home in a snit. That leaves a window of opportunity for all those conservative leaning centrists (from
the blue dogs rightward) to support Crist and have him represent the new GOP.
That quote used by Mr. Strata
was from Mr. McCain. Mr. Strata was a fool to bring a knife to a gunfight. Here are some highlights from RSMcC's
reply:
Attempting to re-build the Republican Party as a "centrist coalition"
would require ignoring the solid core of the GOP's grassroots conservative support, and instead allowing mercurial "swing"
voters -- non-participants in the political process except on Election Day every four years -- to set the agenda.
This won't work, because it is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of "swing" voters. They didn't sit down
in October 2008 and compare the party platforms, or analyze the various policy proposals of McCain and Obama. They turned
on their TVs and saw a young articulate candidate (who vaguely reminded them of the Allstate Insurance spokesman) debating
a short, grumpy, old bald guy.
Guess what? The old bald guy lost!
And...
As I've said before, Republicans are now painfully re-learning a lesson they should have learned the first time:
"Lie down with Bushes, wake up with Democrats." And it is perhap not coincidental that the NRSC chose Jeb
Bush's Florida as the battleground for its latest assault on the party's grassroots. This "kingmaker" move from
Washington has all the hallmarks of the highhanded Bush family style. (Read my lips: NO MORE BUSHES!)
If Charlie Crist wins the GOP primary in 2010, he will lose the general election.
Crist is covered in the taint of Bushism, and if there is one thing Nov. 4, 2008, made clear, it's that the American people
are sick and tired of Bush-brand Republicanism: Sound-bite rhetoric and patriotic-sounding speeches in support of an incoherent
mishmash of bad policy.
America is fed up with that crap. Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are the beneficiaries
of Bush-era Republican failure, and there is no political calculus in favor of a go-along-to-get-along "centrist"
approach to the present situation.
You say, A.J. Strata, that you are an ex-Democrat who switched during Ronald Reagan's first term. Well, I was such a yellow-dog loyalist that it wasn't until after I'd voted for Bill Clinton in 1992 that I became an
ex-Democrat.
In the process of becoming an ex-Democrat, however, I did something else: I became
a conservative. Having been burned and betrayed by the party of my birth, I was certainly not going to embrace an alternative
unexamined. So in my 30s, I went back and read all the conservative books I'd ignored in my youth.
One of the first
conservative books I read was Bill Buckley's Up From Liberalism, in which he examined -- and rejected -- the "Modern
Republican" agenda that prevailed in the Eisenhower-era GOP. It was Buckley's rejection of that Laodicean "centrism"
that proved pivotal in the course of the subsequent epoch in world history: The Sharon Statement, the Goldwater campaign, the Reagan revolution, and the collapse of the "Evil Empire."
And...
...If A.J. Strata wants to sit around whining on the sidelines,
that's his choice. But if anybody thinks they're going to stop Obama with that kind of defeatist, defensive, me-too-ism --
"We're Republicans, but we're really not all bad!" -- they're deluding themselves. That way lies the oblivion
of irrelevance.
I urge you to take the time to click here and read Mr. McCain's full posting.
SIDENOTE: That line of Mr. McCain's "We're Republicans, but we're really not all bad!" has caused
an old Public Image Limited song to start playing in my head [as it always does when the Strata-types are on my mind]: Fodderstompf. Back in October, I decided it would be a fitting theme song for these 'centrists'—it still fits: We only wanted to be loved
We only...
Love
We wanted to be accepted by society
We wanted to be accepted
We wanted to be accepted as people
We
only wanted to be loved
We only wanted to be loved
Love
We wanted to be loved
We only wanted to be loved
We only wanted to be loved
We only wanted to be loved
... Be bland
Be dull
Be boring
Be in love
Only wanted to be loved
Only wanted to be
loved
Only wanted to be loved
Only wanted to be loved
Love
Every time I walk up and down the street
I look at people and I think why don't you love me
Why don't you love me
We only wanted to be loved
We only
wanted to be loved
We only wanted to be loved
We only wanted to be loved
We only wanted to be loved
We
only wanted to be loved
We only wanted to be loved
We only wanted to be lovedddd
18 may 09 @ 8:30 pm edt
BRICKS IN THE WALLVictor Davis Hanson thinks that cracks are starting to appear in The Messiah's
facade and this is only the beginning: 'And the cracks will widen, because in about six areas he has taken on human nature
itself, age-old logic, and common sense-opponents that even a Harvard Law degree and Chicago organizing are no match for'.
Here are two of the areas:
5). Civil Discord.In just three months Obama has caused more disunity than most presidents in recent memory. Why and how? He has chosen
to demonize as greedy (cf. the Super bowl quips, the “speculators” jab, the “fair share” and “spread
the wealth” slips, etc.) capitalists en masse. Why laugh as Ms. Sykes wished for Limbaugh to die of kidney failure,
which set a new low for presidential uncouthness. He treats the media with contempt as all earls do with obsequious court
jesters. There is a mood of ‘them/us’ and ‘time is running out’, as the Obama administration used
the panic over the autumn 2008 financial meltdown to steamroll through a statist, postmodern economic and social agenda before
the people woke up. They embrace the term “100 days”; do they realize its genesis is 1815 and Napoleon’s
return from Elba? (they should: it ended at Waterloo). The cynicism is now such that anytime Obama offers a grand assurance
(most ethical administration, no interest in government take-overs of autos and finance, unwavering support of Israel, no
desire to look backward at the Bush administration, etc.), in Pavlovian fashion we expect the very opposite to follow.
That's because it always does.
6). Race relations.
Here I am worried. Far from bringing us together, I think Obama’s serial emphasis on race may achieve the unintended
opposite of polarization. He should have learned in the campaign (Rev. Wright, Trinity Church, typical white person, clingers,
call for reparations, his grandmother — the purported prejudicial stereotyper, etc.), the perils of seeing the world
through skin color. Yet to establish his own diplomatic fides abroad, he immediately evokes race at the South American summit.
His interview with al Arabiya highlights his race and family’s religion. Race appears in presidential jokes.
He distances himself from America prior to his coming of age.
Stranger still, Obama’s heritage is unlike
that of a Clarence Thomas, Tom Sowell, or Bill Cosby, who all knew real prejudice in 1950s America. He matured at a different
time, was of African, rather than African-American, heritage, went from prep school to Occidental without the sting of experiencing
the underbelly of American working class life, and yet has showcased (here I refer to his book Dreams From My Father)
racial difference and knows its emphasis is a proven route to professional success. Again, there is too much disingenuousness
for such racial identification to turn out well.
As far as I've seen and heard and read, its only
the Left that has been bringing up race since 20 January [actually, since November last year]. Every action they have
taken over the years to help some minority group achieve equality has actually set back race relations. They've tried
to engineer equality and all they have created are hard feelings and ill will. Now, with such turbo engineers controlling
the government, I fear that we will see a further degeneration of race relations in America.
Please take the time to click here and read the full article.
18 may 09 @ 7:53 pm edt
STEYN OF THE WEEKENDFrom his latest appearance on the Hugh Hewitt Show:
HEWITT: ...I think Cheney’s taking the Churchill in the 30s role, and I think he’s
being met with exactly the same kind of robust dismissiveness and scorn that Churchill was met with in the 30s. Am I overreaching
for a comparison, Mark Steyn?
STEYN: No, I think you’re not. I mean, I think the President, President Bush,
has concluded, if you look at the remarks he makes when he’s giving speeches in foreign countries, in contrast to Obama
blaming everything on Bush, Bush speaks very warmly about Obama, wishes him well, and generally speaking, says nothing controversial
about him. I think Cheney has real concerns, not about stuff he did in 2002 or 2003, but I think he has real concerns about
the way the rest of the world is concluding very rapidly that Obama is simply not interested. We’re moving into the
post-American era, the post-American era.
Please take the time to click here and read the full transcript.
18 may 09 @ 7:24 pm edt
NAPOLI'S BELIEVE IT, OR NOT!From The Washington Times, Audrey Hudson reporting, we learn:
A contentious "Rightwing Extremism" report that warned of military veterans
as possible recruits for terrorist attacks against the U.S. was not authorized, has been withdrawn and is being rewritten,
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told Capitol Hill lawmakers.
"The wheels came off the wagon because
the vetting process was not followed," Ms. Napolitano told the House Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday.
"The report is no longer out there," she said. "An employee sent it out without authorization."
The report was shared with state and local law enforcement officials nationwide via the department's internal Web site on
April 7, angering Republican lawmakers and military veterans who said it unfairly stereotyped veterans.
Ms. Napolitano
did not say when the report was taken off the "intel Web site" and all Homeland Security Department Web sites, but
she said it is in the process of being "replaced or redone in a much more useful and much more precise fashion."
And what of the person who wrote it?...
Asked whether the person who wrote the
report is still employed, Ms. Napolitano said, "Appropriate personnel action is being taken."
I
don't think this requires any comment from me; it speaks for itself.
What a clown.
Please take the time to click here and read the full report. [tip of the fedora to Matthew Vadum]
18 may 09 @ 2:38 pm edt
GET 'EM WHILE THEY'RE YOUNGThe modern Leftists show an appalling ignorance of life in many areas.
However, no one can deny that they understand how to effectively use propaganda. They know the best way to pave the
way for a future where the rising generations will easily get in line with their programs is to capture their minds when they're
very young. If they can influence the thinking patterns of the young, they can shape them into being unquestioning
acceptors of the premises of the Left. For years, Leftist influences on school curriculums have been winning out
against the traditional teachings in colleges, high schools, middle schools, and elementary schools. But, they
have dared not go too low in the age groups. No more. Now, feeling their oats, they are openly seeking to mould
the very, very young. What once would have seemed impossible and absurd and abhorrent is now being advocated and implemented
openly. Here's an example:
A California school district seems intent on teaching
pre-school children to accept the homosexual lifestyle.
The Alameda Unified School District announced it was considering
a supplemental curriculum to eradicate "homophobia" in kindergarten children....
Over the last
forty or so years, we've let the Left dominate our children's upbringing. This has to be stopped. Once and for
all, the parents of the young have to fight back against these utopian ideologues who want to steal their children's minds.
The parents have to make time and fight. To not battle these insidious forces is to be guilty of neglect.
Please click here to read the full report. [tip of the fedora to Mary Katharine Ham]
18 may 09 @ 2:15 pm edt
WACHT AM OBAMICHIn the course of commenting on a recent article by Nancy Gibbs in Time
Magazine, Michael New makes this spot-on observation about our Fearless Leader's tactics:
However, I disagree strongly with Gibbs's assertion that President Obama "isn't interested in the culture war."
Since taking office, President Obama's actions have indicated that he is shrewd, not disinterested. With regard to same-sex
marriage, he probably senses that public opinion is becoming more sympathetic toward gay rights. As such, he does not want
to pursue policies that would provoke a backlash. With regard to pro-life issues, President Obama was quick to rescind the
Mexico City Policy which prevents U.S. foreign aid from going organizations that perform abortions. President Obama also loosened
federal regulations on the funding of embryonic stem-cell research. In short, he has sought to change policy on those pro-life
issues that are obscure, somewhat difficult to understand, and unlikely to cost him support among moderate voters. Furthermore,
even though President Obama has said that the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) is not a top priority, it is certainly possible
that elements of FOCA could be enacted in a piecemeal fashion, or as part of health-care reform. Pro-lifers, as always, would
do well to be vigilant.
Not simply vigilant. Once we discover he is making a stealthy move in this
area, we have to get the word around the ether and put the pressure on the dunderheads who are the elected Republicans to
speak out. This shifty bastard requires constant monitoring.
Please click here to read the full posting.
18 may 09 @ 1:51 pm edt
AN HONORABLE MANFor the past nine years, the Left has had a field day demonizing Dick Cheney.
We on the Right have always known all of it was so much bull. This anecdote from Quin Hillyer shows the real man:
At a lunch in the Veep's residence for about eight conservative writers about
10 days before Cheney left office, we asked Cheney why he had not been more active in the past eight years in fighting in
public to defend himself and the administration he served. He explained that the more he was out in public, the more the media
would try to drive a wedge, whether real or imaginary, between him and the president, and also the more chances there would
be for his public statements to be interpreted (wrongly) as a way to supplement his private advice to the president. For the
president to fully and without reservation trust that private advice would remain private, etc., Cheney said it was not wise
for him to be front and center. (He explained all this far more clearly than I just have.)
What struck me was just
how non-egocentric Cheney's attitude was. This was a man who really believed that his own image was of secondary importance.
This was a man who really believed that Number Two should defer to Number One. And this was a man who thought "big picture"
rather than focusing on his immediate personal perspective. It was admirable as could be.
I happened to disagree
with Cheney. I thought that his ability to concisely and forcefully frame issues was so important and could be so useful to
the administration that it should have overriden those other considerations, especially in light of the administration's weak
communications performance for much of its two terms. (Yes, Tony Snow and Dan Perino did good jobs behind the podium every
day toward the end of Bush's term, but the overall communications strategy behind the press secretaries was weak even with
those highly competent and likable people doing the most public work.) I think Cheney could have helped the president make
a far better case than was otherwise made.
You only have to watch Mr. Cheney now to know that
Mr. Hillyer is correct.
It is because of such men over the last two-hundred-plus years, this country has flourished
and survived intact.
Please take the time to click here and read the full posting.
18 may 09 @ 1:39 pm edt
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'This one was worth
the fight.
And it's only one fight in the battle, and we have to keep fighting.'
—Doug
Hoffman
The Restoration will not be televised; it will be blogged.
—Robert Belvedere
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'Bob Belvedere may have the best compilationof IG-Gate information.'
—Robert Stacy McCain
'Robert Belvedere at The Camp
of the Saints appears to be maintaining the definitive index of all things PIG-gate...at TCOTS. ...This is an excellent resource.
We thank you, sir.'
—Smitty 'More great commentary and juicy
links on l'affaire IG from Camp of the Saints..'
—Paco
Captain Ohab:
'From hell's
heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee. Ye damned Fox News.'
I may be reached at
Robert.Belvedere AT gmail DOT com
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T E R M S
Let us make precise and clear-cut the terms we should be using.
Aristotle wrote that A is A; you may also call it B, but
it always remains A. A thing is what it is and, to say it is something else, is to deny reality. There is a lot of denial
of reality going around these days.
As John Adams wrote: 'Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes,
our inclinations, the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence'.
POINT 1: There is no "War in Iraq"
or "War in Afghanistan". Like the Pacific and Europe in World War II, Iraq and Afghanistan are
just parts of a larger war. Unlike them, they are not separate from each other. Therefore,
they are part of the Middle East Theatre of Operations [METO] as the Pacific was the PTO and Europe the ETO.
POINT 2: Many on the Left and some on the Right want to "end
the War". There are only two ways to end a war: (1) by achieving Victory or (2) by being Defeated.
A pullout, before Victory is achieved, is Defeat. They want Defeat. Pullout may
be the best policy―I am not arguing that here―but, leaving without achieving our objective is Defeat.
POINT 3: We are engaged in a War Against Islam.
The term is more correct than "War against Islamo-Fascism" or "War On Terror".
Islam has been at war with all non-Muslims since the
time of its founder, Muhammad [his name be cursed]. Like the Hundred Years' War, there have been periods
of peace in this long conflict, but the Muslim has never stopped believing that he is at war with all non-Muslims.
He can't: Allah commands that all of the world be conquered in his name and he must submit, in all things, to the
will of Allah [the word Islam means "submission", sometimes rendered as "surrender"]. Any
periods of peace we in the West have enjoyed have only occurred after we have dealt them such a devastating blow that they
have not been able to wage their jihad and then have pursued polices that have kept them subjugated. This
began to fade in the latter half of the 20th Century as we forgot the dangers posed by this militant religion and
as they regrouped under new and committed leaders.
If you
doubt that Islam is at war with all non-Muslims, keep in mind this:
Islamic apologists
often point out that Islam is not a monolith and that there are differences of opinion among the different Islamic schools
of thought. That is true, but, while there are differences, there are also common elements. Just as Orthodox, Roman Catholic,
and Protestant Christians differ on many aspects of Christianity, still they accept important common elements. So it is with
Islam. One of the common elements to all Islamic schools of thought is jihad, understood as the obligation of the Ummah to
conquer and subdue the world in the name of Allah and rule it under Sharia law. The four Sunni Madhhabs (schools of fiqh [Islamic
religious jurisprudence]) -- Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i, and Hanbali -- all agree that there is a collective obligation on
Muslims to make war on the rest of the world. Furthermore, even the schools of thought outside Sunni orthodoxy, including
Sufism and the Jafari (Shia) school, agree on the necessity of jihad. When it comes to matters of jihad, the different schools
disagree on such questions as whether infidels must first be asked to convert to Islam before hostilities may begin (Osama
bin Laden asked America to convert before Al-Qaeda’s attacks); how plunder should be distributed among victorious jihadists;
whether a long-term Fabian strategy against dar al-harb is preferable to an all-out frontal attack; etc. [Source: Gregory M. Davis, Islam 101, section
4g, found at http://www.jihadwatch.org/islam101/]
They have been at war with us for
centuries and we, therefore, have been at war with them. We are engaged in a War Against Islam whether
we want to say so or not. In an interview with a Pakistani TV network on 23 July 2008, Mustafa Abu Al-Yazid,
Al-Qaeda's No. 3 man and top commander in Afghanistan, has this to say: “Islam does not distinguish between the
American people and the American government, since both are in a state of war with Islam”. [Source: http://www.memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SD200008]
POINT 4: The term "Islamo-Fascism" seems
to have been created by Leftists. Since (1) they wrongly place fascism on the Right, (2) they believe [rightly]
Muslims want to establish a theocratic regime on Earth, and (3) anything political that has any connection with religion is
bad and emanates out of rightwing thinking, the term makes sense to them. Therefore, the term is nothing
but a way to associate Islam with the right-wing. Muslims believe in a totalitarian way of governing; in
submission [that word] to an all-powerful Islamic leader or leaders.
POINT 5: As to the term "War On Terror",
it is just plain silly: how can you wage war on a thing?
POINT 6: What is fascism? It is when a government
allows private property to exist, but controls and manages the use and disposal of property in all its forms. Citizens
retain all of the burdens and responsibilities associated with property ownership, but are not allowed to control and shape
its use.
As an economic system, fascism is socialism with a capitalist veneer. The word derives from fasces, the Roman symbol of collectivism and power: a tied
bundle of rods with a protruding ax. In its day (the 1920s and 1930s), fascism was seen as the happy medium between boom-and-bust-prone
liberal capitalism, with its alleged class conflict, wasteful competition, and profit-oriented egoism, and revolutionary Marxism, with its violent and socially divisive persecution of the bourgeoisie. Fascism substituted the particularity of nationalism
and racialism—“blood and soil”—for the internationalism of both classical liberalism and Marxism.
Where socialism sought totalitarian control of a society’s economic processes through
direct state operation of the means of production, fascism sought that control indirectly, through domination of nominally
private owners. Where socialism nationalized property explicitly, fascism did so implicitly, by requiring owners to use their
property in the “national interest”—that is, as the autocratic authority conceived it. (Nevertheless, a
few industries were operated by the state.) Where socialism abolished all market relations outright, fascism left the appearance
of market relations while planning all economic activities. Where socialism abolished money and prices, fascism controlled
the monetary system and set all prices and wages politically. In doing all this, fascism denatured the marketplace. Entrepreneurship was abolished. State ministries, rather than consumers, determined what was produced and under what conditions.
[Source: Sheldon Richman, The Concise Encylcopedia Of Economics,
Liberty Fund, found at http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Fascism.html]
On the political spectrum, therefore, it is located between modern liberalism
and socialism.
POINT 7: What is socialism? It is when a government
allows no private property to exist, and controls and manages the use and disposal of property in all its forms.
Citizens are not allowed to control their lives and are subject to the whims of bureaucrats and officials. If they
retain freedoms and liberties, they do so at the discretion of them. On the political spectrum, therefore, it
is the next logical stage after fascism; some would argue that it lies between fascism and communism.
POINT 8: What is pragmatism? It is a tool used by Leftists,
or those operating under the influence of Leftist logic, to achieve Utopian ends—heaven on earth through social, political,
cultural, and spiritual engineering. It is merely a tool of ideology, part of the means to an end.
POINT 9:The Big Lie - When confronted with truths that reflect
unpleasantly on them, the Leftists deflect it buy claiming over-an-over ad nauseum that these truths apply to and are products
of the Right. This practice is known as The Big Lie. It has been successfully practiced by the
Left since, at the very least, the French Revolution. Thus, we have the now-widespread belief that the Nazis and the
Black Shirts of Italy were right-wingers when the reality-the truth-is they were both people of the Left. I suspect
the violent objections from the Left to conservatives use of the term 'fascist' arise from the fact that they have spent well
over seventy years trying to convince the world of The Big Lie that it is not and never has been a Leftist
ideology.
How does one practice this distortion truth and why is it effective? In a report issued during
World War II by the OSS, the author provided an explanation for all practitioners by describing how Hitler practiced it:
His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault
or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame;
concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than
a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.
By repeating
their lies over and over, the Left creates a false reality that supplements the real world. In this false reality, the
lie is the truth, the truth is the lie. A is not A. [But we know that A must always be A.]
The Left
also practices a variation of The Big Lie that I like to call The Big Deception which involves
a Big Deflection away from the reality of the situation. None of their policies or actions can survive
direct questioning, so the Leftists must turn the tables on the questioners and make it seem as though the inquisitors have
bad or evil intentions. Overtime and after constant and unrelenting hectoring, the Left's way of thinking triumphs.
They successfully infect enough people so that this diseased mode of thinking becomes chronic, deep-rooted, instinctual. If
the Devil's greatest triumph was that he convinced people he did not exist, the Left's greatest triumph has been to convince
people that the Leftist way of thinking is normal. It is not. It is a perversion of reason and a horribly mutant
form of logic. It is antithetical to human life. Nothing but decay and destruction are left [pun intended] in it's wake.
What They're Saying
About
BOB BELVEDERE &
The Camp Of The Saints... 'Sir Bob of Belvedere'
—Smitty—
'So many good things at Camp of the Saints that you need to just click and keep scrolling.'
—Paco—
'Go, read it, fine stuff over there!'
—GatorDoug—
''Belvederus Maximus'
—Smitty—
'You are contributing to a noble yet futile cause -- the butchification of metrosexuals.
TCOTS
roolz!'
—Red—
'[H]e takes retro dame blogging to a new, narrative noir level.'
—Smitty—
'Staunch Rule 5 aficionado Bob Belvedere, is shameless indeed (I have so much respect for this man)!'
—The Classic Liberal—
'Who knew he was such a fan of the undead?'
—Smitty—
'We need fighters, and I suspect Beck will fight 'til ev'ry foe is vanquished.
Bob Belvedere gets it. Phyllis Chesler gets it.
We defend truth and
liberty against lies and tyranny. Every eye is upon us and we are surrounded by enemies as numerous as the grains of sand
on the shore. Let us determine to die here, and we will conquer.
WOLVERINES!'
—Stacy McCain—
'Bob Belvedere, you're a nasty piece of work.'
—Anonymous—
'you charming rogue'
—Robert—
'The sad decay of Bob Belvedere into a Rule 5 junkie saddens us all.'
—Smitty—
'Belvedere went slightly crazy on us.'
—Smitty—
'And thank you, Dr. Belvedere, for setting me straight on Rule 5! I tell ya, that Belvedere Dude
is Funny!'
—Irish Cicero—
'Kevin Binversie is not nearly so shameless a blogwhore as Troglopundit . . .
but then again, nobody really is. OK, maybe Bob Belvedere, as if anyone could compete with Bob.'
—Stacy McCain—
'Lord Fatheringay von Whoopsie of the Dung Heap Hooter'
—Anon. —
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