Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Hatchet Man At PJ Media

Re: PJ Media has taken a novel approach to doing business.  Tells all its best customers that what they have to say carries no weight with, has no value whatsoever to, them.

"Send ideas, comments, suggestions, links or tips to tips@pjmedia.com"

To whom is endangering PJMedia.

We Are Fighting Elitism -- and then you take a cavalier attitude towards comments.
All comments of the past are now down the memory hole. You must be proud!

Gee, and we thought you were different. Silly we.

Buh bye.

Pascal
Some of Wretchard's best work was in the comments to his own Belmont Club posts. Unless those comments are recovered, I cannot imagine how this can end well for PJ Media. Maybe that's the point. Hatchet men are usually employed to rid a company of dead wood, not to eliminate the company itself.

Wednesday, February 06, 2013

Ronald Reagan's Political Model

Today Is the 102nd anniversary of Ronald Reagan's birth.

Many revere the man not so much for his years in office but for voicing his vision of American ideals clearly and with enthusiasm. Among the best examples of that vision was elucidated in his 1964 stump speech "A Time for Choosing." Excerpt:

You and I are told increasingly we have to choose between a left or right. Well I'd like to suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There's only an up or down: up to man's ages-old dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order, or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. And regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motive, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course.


It was delivered on behalf of Barry Goldwater's run for president. But far more effectively, it established Mr. Reagan as a first-rate conservative voice in America.

Wait. Don't leave yet just because you think you have heard the 1964 speech before.

Some time in Mr Reagan's first term as president, circa 1982, while traveling in my car, I heard what I consider to be a very important expansion on that speech. I have repeatedly tried to find that later version, but I have not yet succeeded.

So I had a dilemma. Continue to search and wait to pass along what Mr. Reagan attempted to portray or pass along his words as best as I could recall. I made the decision a few years ago that until  someone answers my request to unearth the last version of that speech and provide the man's actual words, I would on various occasions publish it. It is what I remember about Mr. Reagan's more detailed explanation of the political mechanism that Americans find themselves saddled with and he meant for you to know it.

He clearly was attempting to provide us with a new model that could be used to override the Marxist model that he rejected. In my opinion he was correct in rejecting it. When we stick to the mono-directional model made famous by Marx and promulgated by our media, we are playing on the field of their choosing. Mr. Reagan offered us an alternative, and we ought to have learned to listen to him by now.

Please forgive me my inabilities to be precise. It is more important that those who love freedom know the essence of his vision as I recall them.

Thank you.

As best as I can recall, Mr. Reagan referred to a political platform. He likened what he considered to be the Marxist political spectrum of left and right to a see-saw of a platform.

The Left would gain control, and they'd pile up programs on their side of the platform. The foundation beneath the platform would begin to sink from the weight of their efforts. This resulted in the platform being tilted noticeably. It made the voters feel uncomfortable. So the voters would turn to the Right to straighten things out. 


Well the right might try to prop up the left side a bit, and refill the foundation, but in doing so, they'd dig a hole under their side of the platform next. Those who gain power always have interests who want something back -- usually in the form of legislation that favors them or taxes their competitors -- for their support. Thus the weight of these efforts and favors repaid cause the platform to tip to the right this time. That sinking feeling leaves the voters uncomfortable again.


So the voters would then put the Left back into power. And the Left would begin to fill in the hole under the right, but pile up more programs on their side and drive their side of the platform even deeper into the foundation of America's liberties.


And so it would go on, back and forth, Left and Right, Left then Right. Pretty soon the citizens of this great nation would find themselves in a pit of despair; a pit dug by the machinations of those who built up the oppressive weight of government. Government has been built up incrementally, one law after another, ruling upon ruling, practice becoming entrenched policy. And it was all done under the guise of representing a left or a right side, but both headed in one direction -- into the pit of tyranny. All those vested interests would insist it stay that way. Worse, as they'd get more demanding they'd cloak it with fairness. They were owed all that they'd "earned" for their efforts to gain "their people" power in the past.


At some point the vast majority of Americans will insist on climbing out of the hole dug for them by this political machine -- that single minded and ruthless incremental see-saw of power-seeking achieved by eating away at the foundation of our liberties. Taxes and regulations and busybodyness that is in no way justified in a nation dedicated to individual freedom.


Americans were passed a birthright containing the fresh air of freedom. It is what  our Founders had envisioned, and it is what our fathers fought to keep. And it's pretty much still been available to most Americans for around 200 years. If we do not stop the digging soon, somewhere along the way, Americans will demand to be let out of this pit. May God bless them then as He has in the past.

It is my opinion that the Tea Party movement is the realization of Mr. Reagan's vision. We will no longer limit ourselves to the thinking that we must choose to accept a Left or a Right.  We are trying to climb out of the Marxist/Statist pit dug by influential forces who've been incrementally overriding the restraints on their power. We are seeking freedom from the tyranny of those tired old partisans who claim to be working for our common good but are enthusiastically enslaving us and our posterity. 

Tuesday, February 05, 2013

More TEA Party Betrayal

Today's episode is headlined at Breitbart.
Surrender: Ohio Gov. Kasich Spurns Tea Party, Backs Obamacare Medicaid Expansion; Left Celebrates . 

John Kasich. Once a creature of DC (which also stands for death cult, but who notices?), always a creature of DC. Probably because the ones that remain still have handles on you.

The former Congressman and former Fox commentator and current governor could not help himself. It’s in his nature to betray those who believed him.

I took the opportunity to introduce some readers at Breitbart.com to the SKUNC acronym. One of the Lefty trolls there (and it could be a sock-troll since "Gary" seems to be a regular pest) somehow "corrected" me by misreading my definition and redoubling what I said. So natch I played it straight with my response.

Sequence begins.

  • thunder2984
 When push comes to shove, 90% of "Republicans" are RINOs.

  • Pascal
RINO is too good a term. Since they all think of themselves as Platonic elitist republicans, they laugh at the term.

They won't laugh at being called traitors, but that may need to be proven.

Until that time, SKUNC fits.

Statists Knowingly Undermining National Charters fits all those in the formerly Western culture countries who are elected allegedly to represent (allegedly) those who voted for them.

To spell out the globalist connection more clearly, SKUNC can also be thought to mean Scoundrels Kneeling to United Nations Control.

RINO is simply too easy on them. These stinkers have earned the label SKUNC.
Okay SKUNC, but wouldn't Statists prefer as opposed to try to undermine National Charters. I'm confused.

And there is precisely NO United Nations Control going on to be a feared of. That is just propaganda you have chosen not to see through.

  • Pascal
 Gary, the Statist forces in the United States have been doing everything they can to hollow out the constitution which is written to limit their power in very many ways. Hence, those who want power need to undermine and ultimately cancel out the importance of the national charter of the USA.

Monday, February 04, 2013

Rove Begins the Split of the GOP

The Establishment Republicans have finally decided it's gonna be them alone without anyone else I guess. Who made Karl Rove King of the GOP?

Rove Declares War On the TEA Party.
“biggest donors in the Republican Party [coincidentally includes many of the biggest donors to the Democratic Party]” have joined forces with Karl Rove and Steven J. Law, president of American Crossroads, to create the Conservative Victory Project. ...this new group will dedicate itself to “recruit seasoned candidates and protect Senate incumbents from challenges by far-right conservatives and Tea Party enthusiasts who Republican leaders worry could complicate the party’s effort to win control of the Senate.”


If that title seems a bit raw, you ain't seen nothing yet. Here's Ace on the subject:

The Establishment Strikes Back: Rove Group To Put Money Into Protecting And Promoting Party Favorites From Tea Party Kooks.
So, the same donor group that closed ranks behind Mitt Romney and helped shut out credible challengers has decided that fresh off that success, they are ready to pick candidates for the Senate.

What could go wrong?

And if that isn't enough for you, you'll surely get your fill by listening to the first half hour of Mark Levin today.  Some excerpts
  • I would tell independents and republicans and conservatives and right of center people: you are a target right now. You are target by the Republican Establishment, the RINOs [the SKUNCs] in Washington DC. Because these people really do not believe in reestablishing constitutional government. These people really don't believe in capitalism. They're leaders in the fight for crony capitalism. 
  • I want you to remember that when George W Bush was president and controlled both houses of Congress for 6 of his 8 years, the Republicans in the congress and the Republican in the white house were out of control. We'd never seen spending like that in human history.... We did not take a single step in this country towards advancing free market capitalism. We did not take a single step in this country towards reestablishing constitutional government. We have to be honest with ourselves or we cannot effectively address this. [In that last sentence he sounds like me.]
  •  But the worst problem right now, from a political organizing and political strategic point of view, isn't even Obama; it's the Republican Establishment -- the RINOs [the SKUNCs] -- who are trying to hold on to power. Who are trying to hold on to the largesse that they get from the growing federal leviathan.... These are the people we are up against. These are the people we are up against. [sic] ...The parasite class I call them. They no more believe in liberty and capitalism and limited government than the people we're battling.Those are platitudes for these people.
  • Here we are folks, looking into the abyss; hanging on by a thread as a society. Our biggest problem is Barack Obama, and we're being stabbed in the back. Listen to the name this group assigns itself: "The Conservative Victory Project." So here's a project funded by crony capitalists, funded by corporatists, who are not conservative, funding a group called the conservative victory project. This is the sort of thing Obama does, that Marxists do. They give a name to themselves that really has nothing to do with what they're up to in order to try and control the propaganda. To position themselves. "Oh, you're against the conservative victory project." And then you have to spend ten minutes explaining why they're not the conservatives why you are. I'm just showing you how diabolical this is.

Oh, find the time to listen to the first 30 minutes or so. He is well voiced and you'll enjoy it while you learn good talking points.

Conclusion:
Add this threat to your control of the opposition party to what I published on February 1: the long-delayed news (30 years!) that the GOP deliberately has not fought to protect our votes against Democratic Party fraud. I think you have a quite enough already in the recipe for abandoning the GOP in total and moving on to the next steps with the zeal that begot the TEA Party.

Developing...

Sunday, February 03, 2013

Overspecialization and Misanthropy

A blind nut finds a squirrel now and then. It looks like an observation I left at NRO yesterday rang a few bells there. So far my comment has received 7 thumbs up, and that pleases me. I have already added it to my annual Gorehog Day contempt post, but in hindsight its message deserves more than to be an add-on to some throw-away humor.

Jonah Goldberg had waxed eloquently about the movie "Groundhog Day" nearly a decade ago, and has seen fit to republish it each year on February 2. This was the first year I'd read it, and it struck me that he'd missed something I thought I should share with his audience, and as I implied above, it seems to have struck a harmonious chord there.

I could not help but notice how Goldberg's examination (as have myriad others who've discussed the movie) somehow missed out on one deeper ramification of Bill Murray's character due to him becoming so well versed in so many skills and trades and professions. Knowledge that he was compelled to learn only from all the locals for whom he had nothing but disdain before his nightmare began. There was something more there than him solely transforming from the  the soulless, smart-Alec, weatherman celebrity. The movie provided, maybe unwittingly, what may be an insight as to why someone like him could be transformed.


You might want to consider that Phil Connors has essentially become a Renaissance man by the end of the film. His postmodernist cynicism that accompanies celebrities in particular (famous for usually some specialty, or even for only being well-known) is finally vanquished by him no longer being a narrow specialist.

By engaging in depth in all those other activities, he trashes the contempt our society implies in its appellation "Jack of all trades." After he picks up all that additional depth, we see he begins to respect and love those who are now colleagues of a sort. Most noticeably supplanted is the casual contempt Phil had for others ("hicks") that so many like his former self display towards those who are not a part of ones narrow circle. That is a true love that is apparently vacant in those at the top of our contemporary world.

Those who miss or reject this additional concept really are missing the key on how it is possible to learn love of mankind. In a world where Sustainability is becoming even more worshiped than money, such an outlook offers an antidote.

Saturday, February 02, 2013

Happy Gorehog Day

I may have sold Current TV so that I'm in the news again, but otherwise you won't see me declaring CAGW is not a scheme while it's cold out here.
Jonah Goldberg's retrospective on the movie "Groundhog Day" is one worth reading. I could not help but notice how Goldberg's examination (as have the myriad others who've discussed the movie) somehow missed out on one deeper ramification of Bill Murray's character due to him becoming so well versed in so many skills and trades and professions. Something more than him solely transforming from the  the soulless, smart-Alec, weatherman celebrity – by providing what may be an insight as to why he transformed.

You might want to consider that Phil Connors has essentially become a Renaissance man by the end of the film. His postmodernist cynicism that accompanies celebrities in particular (famous for usually some specialty, or even for only being well-known) is finally vanquished by him no longer being a narrow specialist.

By engaging in depth in all those other activities, he trashes the contempt our society implies in its appellation "Jack of all trades." After he picks up all that additional depth, we see he begins to respect and love those who are now colleagues of a sort. Most noticeably supplanted is the casual contempt Phil had for others ("hicks") that so many like his former self display towards those who are not a part of ones narrow circle. That is a true love that is apparently vacant in those at the top of our contemporary world.

Those who miss or reject this additional concept really are missing the key on how it is possible to learn love of mankind. In a world where Sustainability is becoming even more worshiped than money, such an outlook offers an antidote.

Friday, February 01, 2013

This Post Cost Me Over $11K

I am posting this just for those who are so cynical they believe my silence proves that I must have  come to my "senses."  No. I have still refused to file for Social Security. And no, I am not independently wealthy. What with Obama urging all sorts of people to steal from your posterity even when they never put a penny into the coffers as I have, I can only say "Thank God You have made it possible for me to take a stand for the truth."

The estimating software at the Social Security Administration site told me I had something in the neighborhood of $22xx.00 per month coming beginning on my 66th Birthday last September. I still haven't gone in to the more detailed software to find out exactly how much I am choosing not to claim. I think it is better that I don't really know.

For those who are new here and don't know my reasons for taking this stand, please click on the label below.
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