Despite the alleged separation of church and state, BELIEF in Sustainability is widely held in American secular government. Judeo-Christian moral guidelines have been incrementally supplanted by what can best be described as neo-pagan ones. Consequently, notice where rulers never utter a harsh word against Malthusian, Utilitarian, Green and Islamistophilic nutcases. There the ruled are at grave risk.
"I'm trying to think if I remember a case where the Supreme Court has addressed that particular question. Is there a constitutional right to self-defense? And I can't think of one. I could be wrong, but I can't think of one." -- Sonia Sotomayor in Senate confirmation hearings.
Well, she was wrong; no doubt remains.
Since her testimony, fourteen separate cases wherein the Supreme Court indicated that the right to self defense is a natural right (not a right granted by any government) were revealed by author Alan Korwin. So that you may be fully informed, here is the article.
Well, no matter. It seems that the U.S. Senate is on track tomorrow to elevate to the Supreme Court this jurist who thought -- poorly as you now know -- that your right to self defense does not exist unless the Supreme Court rules accordingly.
That she was witless as to your right to defend your own life is now proven. In light of this evidence, it should send more than chills down your spine that a majority of your representatives in the Senate of this once great innocent life-defending nation tomorrow will prove to be deliberately witless for your life.
On the other hand, can anyone be deliberately witless? Or is that the sneeringly thin disguise of fifty plus evil human beings?
Stewart Cink birdied the 18th hole and a few minutes later Tom Watson bogied it for a two stroke swing. Result: a tie at end of regulation play.
This forced a four hole playoff that Cink won. And he was classy in his win and his salute to Watson. However bittersweet was the win for Cink and us, it was a great day in that God destined there be a champion with class.
Tom said he regretted that he didn't offer Stewart more of a challenge in the playoff. He had lost whatever had allowed him to stay in the lead for four days of regulation play. Badly. Tom lost a four hole playoff by six strokes. Clearly, that was not characteristic of his play during all the rest of the tourney. It is my guess that his miss on 18 was simply more deflating than many will ever experience themselves. So he lost the playoff.
Clearly, Watson lost the tourney before the playoff. When he blew that last 8 foot putt for par that would have earned him the clean win, the old man may have been physically and mentally tired to putt well one more time.
There have been and will be no few commentators who will say he choked. And maybe he did. But, so what?
This is what.
What prompted me most to publish this update to Class of yesterday was a quip today by one of the ABC sportscasters.
He said "Tom Watson's deal with the devil lasted up to the last 30 minutes."
He may claim he was joking with a lame allusion to the old musical, Damn Yankees; but I have my doubts that more than 2% of the audience would get it. I'm not buying that it was anything but an attempt to kick Watson for his blowing it all on one last shot. Because it is exactly the sort of thing I expected.
As I predicted yesterday, "TV rarely gives us a chance to witness [class] without it self-consciously trying to tarnish the champion." Sad how predictably rotten TV has become, is it not?
How much more tarnishing could they have been had Watson won?
The best observation by the sportscasters followed right on the heels of Mr. jackass above:
"Had Tom Watson won this it would not have changed his life. But for Stewart Cink, it is a big event."
The people who currently are TVs lifeblood, its sponsors, may still allow the employment of broadcasters who understand common human decency and its desire to applaud efforts well done. What your humble commentator finds troubling is that foolish men, such as the first commentator, are more apt to find a welcome spot on national television in future.
Why? Our elitists believe that jackasses serve as perfect examples for how they view the rest of us.
The jackass who thought it cute to suggest that the devil had double-crossed Tom Watson today was certainly crass. The fact that the jackass was put in that job and will probably remain there is pretty much an indication of a much deeper problem.
Those at the top of our entertainment and news chain -- the moneyed backers -- are the crassest of all.
Tom Watson, at the end of the third day of the British Open, holds the tourney lead by one stroke.
It is said that golf is the classiest game. Despite that being merely an opinion of a highly subjective quality, it's an assertion that hardly ever gets contradicted. Certainly those who govern its rules and professional tours work hard to build class in its players. But like so many activities in which man engages, men tend to meet the challenge with differing degrees of success.
I do not play golf anymore. I haven't for over twenty years. Maybe my lack of talent for playing golf says that I am lacking something more than merely playing skills.
Still, I know class when I see it. And I like seeing it. So I appreciate watching golf even though I don't play because it provides me an opportunity to witness more of that quality.
In my opinion, as I stated yesterday, Tom Watson is one of the classiest players of the classiest game. Win or place tomorrow, I do not expect Mr. Watson to let me down.
So listen up people. (At least yee few who regularly stop by here.) Whether or not you give a damn about any game or no games at all, I think you may fully enjoy catching a rare peak. This is a quality that TV rarely gives us a chance to witness without it self-consciously trying to tarnish the champion. (And they may yet do that; whomever dares, I wish for them extra whacks in Hell for trying.)
So let me strongly recommend watching ABC tomorrow morning. Catch maybe the last televised and untarnished glimpse of class in action.
-------------------------------*** U P D A T E ***----------------------------------------- Please see my post for today, 7/19/09.
One of Golf's most classy players, Tom Watson, is tied for the lead of the British Open.
He shot a 65 the first day, and was in a 4or5 way tie for first.
At the end of the second day, he was the only one of those to remain in the lead as he shot par 70 while the others didn't fare so well in the weather. There are still two more days to go. You can do it Tom! You can do it in your sleep. You won the Brit Open five times before. The last time you were still a pup and under 40.
Oh, Tom doesn't usually play with the regular pros. He's been on the Senior tour for a decade now. That last major win was 26 years ago. That's right. This man is 59.Fifty-nine.
The following is a public service reminder.
As you hear nasty things about the ØCare plan DC is trying to force down the throats of us all -- such as: mandatory suicide counseling for all medicare recipients -- remember that sometimes even seniors can still teach the youngsters a thing or two.
Now, let us return to our joyous moment, however long they allow us we have left.
Sonia Sotomayor's cavalier assessment of American intelligence appears to be: "You all are a bunch of dopes."
Is that okay with you?
Analysis Summary:
Sonia Sotomayor(SS) has frequently scoffed at public expectations of judicial restraint. She has injudiciously mocked the faith of the public that judges will refrain from making policy. (Hear her laughing and scoffing in the video embedded below.)
SS now denies her past statements are how she thinks today.
SS has been evading questions that could reveal if her attitude has or has not changed.
By evasively answering questions, SS is exploiting senate traditions because she expects Republican Senators will demand their caucus stick to the conservative rules of senatorial restraint unlike the behavior of Democratic Senators were she a Republican nominee.
After repeated viewing of the videos, how can those who think SS is one of them, and so aid and abet SS in the evasions, be trustful of her?
Democrats, Republicans or independents: How in the world can such a scoffer of faith, and exploiter of courtesies extended to her, be trusted to respect your wishes tomorrow?
My fellow Americans: I know most of you have had your fill of politicians who hide their intentions only to go on prove their corruption. How much worse to watch our elected gatekeepers allow advancement of a power seeker who brazenly dares them to stop her despite her open contempt for the trustworthy?
Senators: Have you become so corrupt that you can stand there and take Sonia Sotomayor's exploitation of Senate's traditions and abuse of its niceties and also expect us Americans to believe you still have spines?
Sonia Sotomayor's cavalier assessment of American intelligence appears to be: "You all are a bunch of dopes."
Is that okay with you?
Preface: Our Constitution and traditions provide us safety nets. They are meant to keep incompetents and despots from attaining high office. Observations that the safety nets are badly frayed are too important for anyone to raise an alarm without providing details supporting the alarms. So details supporting my analysis follows.
Today's Alert: A commenter yesterday reminds us that
Judges enforce a demand for straight answers from those testifying on the stand by threatening them with contempt of court. Well, then is not it inequitable to permit a judge to evade questions?
Traditionally, yes, we have granted that exclusion, particularly about their inclinations and beliefs that inform their judgments. Because such questions tended to be political in nature, and we wanted our judges to be freer from the political process than our lawmakers and executives. It was part of a unwritten code of conduct carried over from noble and chivalrous times:
"We won't subject you to a political third degree because we have faith that you won't permit your political inclinations to color your judgments."
When faith in judges' political neutrality was consistent with the result, judges were spared intense questioning. When a judge has demonstrated with his or her record to have kept faith with that expectation, then they have earned our trust.
In our current state of the courts there are a great many activist judges who have made their presence known. That informs us that procedures designed to prevent them gaining access have failed. Thus, we expect our elected representatives to revise the procedure. We expect them to take a harder look before acceding to a nominees promotion. We expect them to test on a case by case basis: "has this judicial nominee earned our trust?"
And so we have the case for the current nominee, Sonia Sotomayor. Has she earned our trust she'll be neutral? Has she demonstrated impartiality by not permitting her personal inclinations to color her judgments?
Since she became a nominee to advance to our highest court, her political backers and our media expect us to believe that the lady sitting in the dock of the senate is the epitome of the modest jurist. We are to believe that despite her past rulings that belied the faith placed in her before, she has since undergone a miraculous conversion? Doesn't that seems an odd belief and level of faith to place in a human? (And from those who run secular institutions no less. Well, it is miraculous, or something.)
But when Judge Sotomayor was questioned even indirectly into how deeply regretful she has been of her past remarks and rulings and current beliefs, she has been deliberately evasive. Does that not rate a prolonged procedural "Hmmmm?"
In matter of fact, in addition to the activist stances she has exhibited in rulings, she has been brazenly injudicious with political statements she has made in public appearances, on tape. One of those outright mocks the presumption that judges are not permitted to make policy. She laughs at the very idea that judges don't make policy.
That video show us a woman mocking you for expecting restraint from a judge, a person to whom you have granted your trust. It should not matter if you believe she is for your cause today. How in the world can you trust such a scoffer to respect your wishes tomorrow?
This video also sends another message. The candidate is counting on the Senate procedure to lack substance even as its participants carry out its formalities using polite and sonorous voices. She expects the Senate to go through the motions and never push too hard. She is saying the current confirmation process is a joke.
Listen again to that video people!
Listen over and over again to that video Senators until its meaning penetrates your protective layers long hardened by the grind! Have you become so corrupt that you can stand there and take Sonia Sotomayor's abuse of the Senate's traditions and also believe you still have spines?
What she is essentially saying in that video is: "Those people who extend to me the faith in judicial neutrality that they grant other judges are dopes."
I just heard a soundbite of the following question "Do you believe that an individual has the right to self defense?" and Sonia Sotomayor's response to it:
"I don't believe the court has addressed that issue.... but I could be wronnnnnnng."
Evading the question of whether or not an individual has the right to self defense calls to question her intelligence and her decency BIG TIME.
Charges are dropped based on the presumption of self defense all the time. People have been exonerated forever based on a determination of self defense. But Sotomayor, rather than simply say "Yes," the answer that God fearing human beings have been saying forever, demurred.
Let me observe that I have a right to demand that she promise not to introduce to the United States the kind of horrors visited upon our British cousins. They have been denied this basic right now for over a decade. Thus, I do not believe she was being stupid as some will claim. She is being devious.
This nomination is OVER.
Unless, of course, a majority of senators hate the innocent human beings whose inalienable right to life they have vowed to protect!
******************----------- U P D A T E -------------*************************
Let me follow up with one other question. As a citizen of this country, do you believe innately in my ability to have self-defense of myself -- personal self-defense? Do I have a right to personal self- defense?
SOTOMAYOR: I'm trying to think if I remember a case where the Supreme Court has addressed that particular question. Is there a constitutional right to self-defense? And I can't think of one. I could be wrong, but I can't think of one.
I am happy to report, based on the above report, that my memory stood up well to the test.
The Emmanuel Goldsteining of Sarah P is what I conclude has been an ongoing two step process we have been observing and often participating in.
The statists and their media want us to focus on Sarah Palin to get the focus off them.
They seem to want us to think of her as the embodiment of their opposition.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
For those who do not recall details of George Orwell's novel "1984" I will mark* them as I mention them below: Emmanuel Goldstein* was the alleged leader of the opposition to the ruling party of the novel's totalitarian country. I say alleged because it was not clear if he exists or ever existed. He simply serves as the whipping boy for all bad things. And good party members were expected to participate in daily cathartic exercises called "The Two Minutes Hate"* in which images of Goldstein and his brotherhood* and allies were flashed across media (Ministry of Truth*) controlled viewing screens* everywhere (really everywhere) in the country.
I decided to write of this today because someone made the following proposal which seems to be the generic wish of most people who would rather focus on solving problems than the politicians who exploit them.
I attempted to point out to Rob, "Well, good luck with that" It is not as if it is we who determine what the Ministry of Truth and party hacks will consider important and promote into a brouhaha. Another pointed out the threatened trials of GWB and his officials would also become prominent; they would be persecuted in show-trials such as those endured by alleged members of "The Brotherhood."*
Look. I know there are people who think George Orwell’s dystopic vision is passé for any of a number of reasons, some reasonable, some silly. Nevertheless, Sarah P, whether she or we like it or not, appears to be serving as our ruling class’ Emmanuel Goldstein.
If only she was subjected to simply two minutes hate every day.
It’s more like an industry has sprung up to deliver to us some variation of it 24/7. And it’s been going on every single day for coming up on a full year. Will there be a first anniversary doubleplus* hate session? Count on it!
(How about, instead, a first anniversary memorial session to remind us that once, long ago, it was still okay to be normal?)
She has so been the target of BOTH party’s core leadership that it is bordering on proof positive that the “two” parties share the same central command office.
It has become cliché to say that aiming at Sarah is deliberate so as to divert our focus from the widespread thefts and multifaceted constitutional violations. Well, duh!
Bottom line: The attention directed at Sarah is so obviously diversionary, it is logical to expect that if any birth certificate is eventually made public, it will be hers.
The decline of the seemingly intelligent Progressives, "blessed" with an abundance of influence, money and power, is one of life's very sad ironies.
Progressives have so bought into the idea of population growth being a zero sum game, they've been blind to their inevitable fate due their contribution to the progress of Zero's home game.
BTW, Zero may aptly fit the current puppet of the power-mad, but it is to another, older Zero to which I allude.
Original Sin was revealed for its essence when the snake saw that Eve had an ego through which he could gain access to her soul.
By telling her that God had lied to her and Adam; that the reason He didn't want her to eat of the Tree Of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, was that it would allow her to know what God knows.
That is the original sin.
The desire to be as God has been used to mislead and harm mankind from the beginning. We are merely His agent. We fall short in our pursuit of our purpose when we seek to be as Him, insisting that only achieving the Zenith of Perfection can we really be satisfied.
It is a foolish insistence. Time after time there are those amongst us who overreach. That displays more than dissatisfaction, more than ingratitude; a hubris without equal.
And yet, there it is like a willful childishness that too easily leads to death. And that appears to be the aim, all along, of our stalker.
The folly in trying to be what we are not meant to be is hinted at in the story of "The Sorcerer's Apprentice."
You are major strategist for a large government program.
You know you will meet strong resistance.
You review your plans to pinpoint where you are weakest so as to know where your opposition should attack.
You discover that your weakest point cannot be adequately fortified.
So, might there be there some way to blunt your opponent's attack?
One strategy, a priori to widespread disclosure so that opponents lack time to ally and amass into too big a number, is to select an opponent -- preferably a hot-head -- who you fully expect will initiate an attack under circumstances controlled by you.
What sort of circumstances would you choose, and what kind of opponent?
Arrange a forum where you choose the moderator and only comments and not debate are permitted.
Choose an opponent who has a checkered past or questionable connections and with whom other opponents would not choose to be allied.
Expect that the reports of the interchange will be limited.
Expect that your allies will connect all who attack your weakest position with the initial attacker whom you chose because others do not wish to be associated with him.
Expect dissipation amongst attackers on your weak position as they labor around the obstacle of that opponent you picked.
Expect opponents to bicker amongst themselves over whether or not his being there is good or bad or matters or doesn't matter.
Expect many big names from whom you otherwise expected opposition to now exempt themselves from the battle. They've positions of respect to protect, and will not risk their reputations by attacking an obvious point that is closely tied to that pariah you had the foresight to pick.
The following video is of Ezekiel Emanual, BHO's chief health care advisor, being excoriated by an historian, who "coincidentally" works for a Lyndon LaRouche organization, at a forum where only comments are permitted.
Fully expect MSM to tar with a Lyndon LaRouche label all who point out the many ways ObamaCare really does resemble something out of the Third Reich.
No man, and no lesser god, has the right to decide who may live and who may die in the manner that herds of animals are kept in check.
The difference between a life affirming religion and all the other belief systems is this central message.
This story finally breaks the illusion that fear of radical human population control is nothing more than the product of a fevered imagination.
For instance, what is one to make of that item under the title Utilitarianism? "Saving the most socially useful?"
Mind you, this was no crackpot publication this appeared in, The Lancet, penned by Health Care Czar Ezekiel Emmanuel. And as you read on, as you should, you'll find there is much more to be opposed to in the proposed health care legislation that our country's leadership is trying to rush through Congress.
Here is the one thing that I think every American should mull over in their minds, most especially those who revere those who fought World War II, "The Greatest Generation."
Obama's health care geniuses* think that the term “useful individuals” is now safe to use in public, but it is for the first time since its frequent use by the Third Reich.
Adding this to the recent “Electing God” thread ... even I am finding it hard to believe that our alleged supermen think they can be this brazenly open.
It is amazing how rapidly this sort of thinking went from “Hush, don’t wanna disturb the sheep” to “Oh, what the hell?”
When this sort of thinking was relegated to but a few comments here and there, and when the only high profile websites were lunatics like the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (VHEMT) and The Church of Euthanasia, many of you could sit back and say “Oh, it’s only a bunch of lunatic fringies and some Ivory Tower Elitists.”
Well, guess what? That thinking is now ruling in our White House.
I pray you all think that now is the time to spread the word, given this mountain of evidence, that the lunatics have taken over the asylum right at the top.
The oddly constructed word postmodern was invented by "Progressives" to refer to the future they envision. It is mostly a suggestive word.
Whereas normal people say "but who can really foretell the future," after they tell us of their plans and wishes, "Progressives" know normal people may not like their plans. So when they observe that some thing or action is to their liking, rather than become enthralled and proclaim: "Yay! That's more like it!", they may observe that it is postmodern, and then laugh and say "whatever that means."
To comprehend how postmodernist thinking incrementally assails normal thought, notice how often you hear "whatever that means" whenever somebody uses the adjective normal. Indeed, did you use it before completing that sentence? That is a postmodernist reflex inculcated into us by those who we have permitted to dominate our culture.
The more you think about postmodern, it is hard to imagine a word that better proves how abnormal "Progressives" and their goals for the future are.
"Your country is a den of dopes," snarked Ms Ann Thrope. "Your fans who run my nation's propaganda mills were too easily seduced for you to gloat," observed Pascal.
We are often gifted by Hollywood with productions that have a patriotic theme.
It was filled with a good mix of characters, some renowned, some unknown. Much of the action was filled with bathos, where with help from a swelling score, we are driven to patriotic nostalgia. Aside from the saccharin melodrama, there was something far more disturbing.
The film staged the first public readings of the Declaration of Independence as might have happened all around the colonies. Good. The actors in different scenes got to read and react to, or simply react to the reading of, our Declaration. Fine. And it was all put together in a good collage that conveys the feelings of hearing it for the first time.
But something was missing -- literally.
The viewer is given little more than a sense of pride in the product, plus much tight jawed resolve and dread due to --- what? Irritation? Discomfort?
Somehow, no doubt for editorial reasons that are above Joe Biden's pay grade, the long litany of abuses by King George III, written out at length in the Declaration of Independence, were completely left out of this reading. Not a single outrage was mentioned, many of which could have afforded the actors to demonstrate the hard feelings of the times.
And what is worse, I am sure most students today, and likely few of their parents, ever set eyes on that list of British excesses visited upon the colonies. Who ever reads the Declaration in its entirety?
Well, apparently I did. Long ago. It made an impression on me. Enough of an impression that I noticed the meat of the matter was written out of this Hollywood production. It is a production that could easily become part of misleading indoctrination for the next generation of grade school students.
Enough of an impression that its absence drove me to complain and publish after five months silence.
For your benefit, especially when you know people who are totally in the dark who might be awakened thanks to you giving them the facts, here is the list of grievances that our forebears found so intolerable that they formally revolted against the country that inflicted the tyrannies. My personal "favorites" are reproduced in bold type.
He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.
He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.
He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.
He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:
For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing taxes on us without our consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:
For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:
For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:
For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:
For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
I considered inserting little editors notes along side some of the items in the list. For example [Ruby Ridge] could easily have fit along side one of the items. I decided against it because I simply want the grievances highlighted in one place because they so often are forgotten (as all statists would wish).
I invite others to add what they wish to this list at their own sites. But better, simply print out the list (maybe edited a little) and give it to one of your "liberal" family members. Ask them where the list originated. The ensuing discussion could be helpful.
In the dystopic world of George Orwell's 1984, all news and historical records were governed by the Ministry of Truth.*
I have played with this cognomen over the years by identifying the mainstream media (MSM) with various appellations such as the Ministry of (mis)Information, and MinInfo whenever MSM's manner of coverage of a story revealed its bias favoring most any form of statism.
Over the last two years, unlike any time in my long life, the MSM has warranted the name Ministry of MisInformation more than ever. It got to be an open joke among my acquaintences of how open the bias could get.
"Have they gotten around to framing every picture of Bush wearing a dunce cap?"
"It can't be long before every frame of Obama has him walking on water."
As the bailouts came into play last year, I observed that once news sources like the AP and newspapers like the NY Times were bailed out, they would be well along to becoming official state organs along the lines of the USSR's Izvestia and Pravda, reporting and printing only what those holding their purse-strings wished to see made known.
Now, as if the MSM hasn't done enough to show they can be trusted to be good Ministry of Truth employees, I have to hand it to my old buddy Fran Porretto for succinctly showing how much more they are worthy:
America got to its current state because of permanent government deficit finance, government debasement of the dollar, government redistribution, and government meddling in the economy, most particularly the credit market. Not one of these things was contemplated by the Founders or authorized by the Constitution of the United States. Washington proceeded with them anyway. Not one economist of any standing would disagree that our troubles are rooted in the very policy arrogances I just enumerated. But politicians, to whom government is the one and only "solution" to any and every "problem," have proposed that we address our difficulties by intensifying the very practices that produced them.
It is a sad fact that such a concise review of the why, and excuses for, the Obama stimulus and the TARP before it, can only be found on a relatively obscure website. Nowhere in the MSM are they discussed as a consistent group of related issues where logic would bring the listener or reader to Fran's conclusion. The fact these facts are never allowed to be built into an argument filled with legitimate observations and concerns anywhere in MSMdom tells us how in love with total state control visible MSM employees either are (true-believers) or think they must demonstrate they are (cynical self-servers).
With such able employees already well stationed in various MSM outlets, how soon before the Ministry of Truth emerges, fully grown and indomitable?
[*Editor's note: In later years Pascal Fervor began referring to American media as the Agency of Lies because
he saw that we were not an Orwellian world quite yet, and felt it best
that he speak the truth while he still could. He also used the acronym
SKUNCs instead of RINOs for much the same reason.]
Stimulus Package ► $5 Billion to community groups ►A.C.O.R.N. gets its share (thanks to A.C.O.R.N. friend Obama) ►A.C.O.R.N. diverts much of that money to defend itself from voter fraud charges ►A.C.O.R.N. outspends states' attorneys and gets charges dropped ►A.C.O.R.N. continues as before, undeterred, invigorated.
The bill does include funds for which ACORN would be eligible to compete - against hundreds of other groups.
Right. Which would incline a fair and impartial judge to ask: "How many of those hundreds of other groups has a former member and grateful friend in the White House?"
An administration official said Gregg dropped out without warning for a position that he had expressed interest in just a few weeks ago.
Heh, heh. Maybe Obama's decision to let White House Chief of staff Rahm Emanuel to run the 2010 census in violation of our constitution had something to do with Senator Gregg's decision. It has been viewed as an unprecedented WH power grab. The WH plan to run the census instead of the commerce department did not come to light until after Senator Gregg's nomination had been announced and he had accepted. Perhaps my cartoonist should redraw this piece by inserting a caricature of President Obama where Governor Lynch is depicted now.
To further quote the above article:
The unexpected withdrawal marked the latest setback for Obama in his attempt to build a Cabinet.
Well, we can only hope that President, uh, Bama's clear sightedness is considerably better than the luck he is having sucking good people into his cabinet,
Here's hoping that I get many more contributions of art soon. Contributors are welcome to submit here, but it would be more effective were the art posted at many more sites than this. Besides, I am enjoying the response so far to this riff on a celebrated American tradition. I'd love to share the catharsis it provides from the oppressive designs of dour Ecodoomers who worship Mr. Gore.
I hope and suspect that many others will eagerly host artful contribution for so important event as this. ;)
Yes, it is time to initiate a viral meme on the Internet to honor our illustrious fearmonger protector of Mother Gaia. Let February 2, 2009 be declared Groundhog Al Gore day.
If, in the dead of this record setting cold winter, Al Gore comes out from whatever hole he's been hiding, it means he thinks the winter is going to be short. Let us hope he is finally right as too many people are hurting from this cold already.
***Update***
I thank Og the Neanderpundit for all the traffic he sent this way; but honestly that is not important. If I craved attention, I know how to get it well enough.
I am convinced that there is a limit to shamelessness. Hence, burdening the shameless with an avalanche of shame is the aim here. Hate him or love him, algore is the point man for the global warming hoax that will destroy whatever limits the statists still fear to violate.
Our public figures have become a largely shameless bunch.
Carol Browner will become our next climate Czar despite her violation of trust and court orders when she was Clinton's EPA chief.
Eric Holder will be made Attorney General despite his part in falsifying the records in order to kidnap Elian Gonzales for Fidel Castro, and his large part in granting pardons by Bill to that Rich Bastard and Puerto Rican terrorists.
And Hillary going to State even as her hubby continues to accept gifts from foreign nations is merely the pièce de résistance today; tomorrow will surely present us with worse.
I believe that should enough websites start clamoring for Al Gore to come out of his hole so that we might be reasured that this vile winter will end sooner, even the most cynical political SOBs will start to hesitate just a wee bit more.
This is something WE can do. I hope to have cartoons soon.
*** Update 2 *** See here for our first bit of artwork.
Barack Obama demonstrated wonderful good sense for his own security by whom he chose and didn't choose for Vice President.
Similarly, let us presume that Obama has been informed about Hillary by Lyndon Johnson's rationale for keeping J. Edgar Hoover at the FBI: "Better to have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside pissing in."
Establish a special prosecutor to investigate if there was collusion between and among different Boards of Directors to give each other bonuses. "You vote for mine and I will vote for yours."
The days when the CEO built up the corporation so that he could hand over a larger and more prosperous one to his children are over.
The CEOs of today are trained to worry over this year's bottom line, not future ones, because the current one affects his bonus and ability to skim the corporate coffers. His contract won't cover following years.
Thanks to a variation of what Mario Puzo said in The Godfather; Wall Street has a new program:
Steal $50 -- petty larceny.
Steal $50, 000 -- grand larceny.
Steal $500, 000,000 -- an astute financial manipulation.
Now that the background has been established we can proceed to changes. No commission is needed for this problem: unbridled greed and avarice.
The total compensation for the top person at any public corporation shall be limited to 30 times1 the average compensation of salaried non-management personnel.
Under our system, the feds cannot dictate to the Board of Directors what to pay the top dog. However, the feds do have the authority to tax. Any compensation above the threshold shall be taxed at the rate of 95%. For computing total compensation, anything of value shall be included. This includes, but is not limited to event tickets, vacations, bonuses, golden parachutes, private use of corporate jets at charged cost of jet, not cost for public ticket for the same flight, etc.
It is the intent of this proposal to force the Board of Directors to say to themselves, "we will not pay these taxes to the feds. We will take these funds and:
Modernize the plant.
Establish sinking funds to pay for future modernizations.
Reduce the price of the product.
Increase the pay and/or benefits for the employees.
Or -- horror of horrors -- increase the dividends to the stockholder.
The 95% tax rate is no doubt onerous. This is not unprecedented as they have been this high before. However, this time there is a difference. This time there is a way out. When the corporation pays these taxes -- shareholders take note -- it is because The Board of Directors chose to pay them. ______________________________________________________________ 1 30 is subject to review and study; used here to demonstrate philosophy being suggested
Appoint a special prosecutor to determine if criminal activity was taking place during the collapse of the financial markets. This inquiry shall include mortgage, stocks, bonds and any other financial instruments used.
This is a parallel activity and the report shall be returned within two years.
The commission of Wall Street Inquiry I shall continue its work to return a report, in 15 months, of recommendations for new rules and regulations to prevent a recurrence.
It should be abundantly clear by now that Wall Street, CEOs and Congress, by themselves, will not do the "right thing." It is very difficult for Congress to do the "right thing" because they do not know what it is! This is obviously not 100% across the board. Not even Ivory soap is 100% pure.
Appoint a commission of highly qualified individuals to highlight those practices that led to the current disaster. The group shall consist of lawyers, CPAs, economists, CEOs and money managers.
The requirements for selection shall include, but not be limited to:
No previous or present conection to Wall Street or Washington politics.
Never having been a lobbyist or affiliated with one.
No conflict of interest, either real or apparent, through family or friends.
Task: Report back in four months what in their opinion caused and/or facilitated the disaster. The causes specified may include anything that, in their opinion, facilitated the collapse. They may include, for example, philosophies, rates, regulations, memos of understanding or any other instrument, procedure or instruction that was used.
The intent of this report is to identify only, not to suggest changes.
We didn't leave the Republican Party, the Republican Party left us.
This variation on the cool old quip by Ronald Reagan was suggested to me by Belmont Clubber Karen. It captures the situation that traditional conservatives find themselves in as McCain and cohorts have moved left.
If conservatives want to take back control of the GOP they need to rally locally, and this slogan could provide them with a very good focus.
I've more about how and why this intraparty revolt is absolutely necessary, but I will elaborate only when somebody asks.
The Mainstream Media (MSM, or very much MisInfo in this instance) is in love with an idea. Their one time cavort with the idea left them so pumped up and impressed by themselves that they are giddy for more. A kind of adolescent self-love gone public.
What idea is this? Calling the election early for their favored candidate so that it suppresses the vote for the other.
In 2000, based upon exit polling, MisInfo called Florida for Al Gore an hour before polls closed in the later time zone of the Western part of Florida. That stoked an "oh, what's the use of voting then) in the anti-Gore voters in the overwhelmingly conservative Florida panhandle.
MisInfo was and remains delighted and rewarded by that early call. Their meddling damaged the electoral process directly. The hated George W Bush has had a cloud over him for the last eight years. They see the cloud was placed there indirectly by the electoral difficulty they engineered, and they have concluded that they have the power to control the weather. What demigods do you know who can do that?
So now they're bursting with eagerness to do more; wild-eyed with the prospect of seducing us of the Anti-Left into giving them what they want. They want so very much to revisit that moment of their greatest thrill.
And they want it not just with one region, they want it nationally. The "Oooh, Oooh, Ooooooh!" popping from their eyes will become impossible for most of the talking heads to suppress. It's gonna be so disgusting. Wait! It already is disgusting. They either falsify polls or selectively report portions of legitimate polls in wild-eyed hope of suppressing voters who oppose Obama. Oh how they expect to succeed this time. Not like the last time on behalf of Gore when the wretched souls fell short of full climax.
I know that many Right get angry with MSM being in the Left's hip pocket. Frankly, these little jerks are not worth getting mad over. It's much better and satisfying to rally voters to thwart the creeps' raving grasp for this momentary thrill. Success (or near success as in 2000) would only encourage them to try again in another four years.
No, no. Far better come November 4th to disappoint them. Deny them badly. Throw cold water on them and let them sulk off to their circles to supplicate to each other. As MisInfo gets more animated in the next few weeks -- laughing at you, depressing you, lying to you, desperate to convince you "oh what's the use!" -- go out and vote and convince everyone dear and near to you to do so too.
And laugh. Laugh all the way to the polls. Laugh as you come out. Let them see you laughing.
I personally want to see MisInfo die by the excesses of its own hand. I know a majority of writers and commentators at places I visit around the web want MSM to go away too. So, if you count yourself in that crowd, and you personally would like to contribute a nail to the coffin of Mainstream Media, GO OUT AND VOTE.
Have children. It will piss off those who aim to manage the human herd and its size.
Have as many kids as you and your spouse are blessed with conceiving. That will really piss off your shepherds.
Time was that refusing to settle down and raise a family was the rebellious thing to do. Hah! Boy how times change!
Let's be frank. Engaging in this bit of rebellion will not be easy due to very many consequences. Among the trying elements will be expenses, time, limited mobility, added responsibility, schooling, increased vulnerability to public scrutiny, and of course, risk of incurring wrath for your resisting propaganda to relinquish your physical contribution to posterity.
Unless you are already wealthy, you won't live very high on the hog. So you should try to space out the new arrivals in ways you find governable. Nobody needs engage in coitus to the level our hedonistic society claims is wise and healthy. Moderation in all things was once the kind of wisdom one would hear regularly. (If you would be so kind -- send me a note, or answer in the comments below -- how long ago did you last hear that proverb?)
The task of raising kids provides a unique non-material happiness that you pay for by forgoing material excess. The masters of public opinion are counting on their almost total monopoly of popular media to have convinced you to forgo that experience so that you can and will pay for everything they are selling. The best way to tell them to fuck off is to raise your own family. And unlike the zombies in and made by the media, the bigger your family, the greater the chances that it is not they but you are the future.
Starring: Barack Obama Produced by: Mainstream Media Initial director: Democratic Party Working Title: The Bothersome Middle Class Final director: American Voters
It is located on a freeway entrance within half a mile of Los Angeles City Hall. I'm not sure what was to be gained by such an Orwellian suggestion.
I guess one could say our future rulers want to say "we gave you clear warnings."
I did a search on Google. Nearly every image that I could find under "Obama Obey" tended to show the official "Progress" poster, including the one at that Fairey guy's site. The few I could find that still had the Obey label on them in some way were all clearly unofficial. Not a single other one, after looking through seven pages, showed this one.
I'm now curious to see what may happen now that I've made this entry.
***Update***
I discovered that Sheppard Fairey's studio is located only one street over and two streets up from my home. Seeing that he's long been a self-promoter who plastered walls in the neighborhood with his posters (I didn't then know who he was) it makes sense that this "obey" sign would be on a nearby freeway counter box.
I've since found out that "Obey" is a Fairey trademark. It is not without irony that he would lend use of that trademark to highlight his famous idealized portrait of Barack Obama (proven in court to have been an act of plagiarism). It certainly does suggest that an Obama presidency is Fascism in the making. This guy, a major Obama publicist, can openly boast to us later
After the bailout passed I remained concerned about the role of envy and its exploitation by politicians and business in building the blocks that led to this crisis.
So I did a search to find any stories or editorials that dealt with it. I found NOTHING recent.
But I did stumble upon Henry Hazlitt's On Appeasing Envy first published in 1972.
Tocqueville went on to quote at length from the mutual recriminations of the king, the nobles, and the parliament in blaming each other for the miseries of the people. To read them now is to get the uncanny feeling that they are plagiarizing the rhetoric of the limousine liberals of our own day.
All this does not mean that we should hesitate to take any measure truly calculated to relieve hardship and reduce poverty. What it does mean is that we should never take governmental measures merely for the purpose of trying to assuage the envious or appease the agitators, or to buy off a revolution. Such measures, betraying weakness and a guilty conscience, only lead to more far-reaching and even ruinous demands. A government that pays social blackmail will precipitate the very consequences that it fears.
I hesitate to add my own poorly worded insights in order to update this clear thinking. Maybe later. Meanwhile, read the whole thing and pray that others (or you) can build a strong following who will demand an end to such madness.
Starting a new discussion might flush out the role played in all this by the exploiters of envy, jealousy, and covetousness all the while increasing their own powers and paying no personal price for their misdeeds.
Should we fail to shed light on this poison and bleed it out, but only accept the current palliative to get us past the pain of the current wound, it will remain in our system. Its ill effects are certain to return and then much worse.
I just heard (ca. 10:40 AM PST) Dennis Prager say "I am not among the panicking types as you well know" and conservatives must allow the bailout because "the last depression brought us gentlemen named Hitler and Mussolini -- remember? -- and so would this."
Aside from the alarming tone that makes it sound like Mr. Prager aims to infect conservatives with his own fears, he is factually wrong.
Mussolini was in power long before the crash of 1929 that itself preceded the Great Depression by a few years. And I am not even gonna bother with his simplistic cause for the depression (among the causes being governmental intrusions made in a panic). This is Prager's Joe Biden moment, and he hasn't a clue how panicked he is.
Dirty hands in both the Democratic and Republican Parties brought about the current financial crisis. I feel this cartoon demonstrates what happens when leaders in both parties agree so well that any lesser voices are simply ignored.
"Bipartisan" agreement is too often another way of announcing that differing interests have been silenced.
In my prior post, Invasion of the Sanity Snatchers, I observed that you are not insane for concluding the political parties and MSM are all behaving madly.
However accurate my observation and conclusion may be, I intentionally left out examples. I simply wanted to state what I think many of us relatively quiet observers are all taking for granted.
Today I begin a series of posts wherein I give examples of the madness.
Democratic Party activists and pundits started questioning the experience of Sarah Palin from the start. In another time it would have been thought the height of madness to question the experience of the opposition party's VeePee when the experience of your own Presidential candidate was so open to question. And, in fact, the Dems daring to bring it up actually highlights how many ways Barack Obama not only has less experience than that of the opposition Veepee, he has less experience than a very large number of ordinary Americans. All Dems who decided it was a good idea to make an issue of experience were mad.
In fact I'd like to nominate whatever Democrats chose not to do so as eligible to form the core of a New Democrat Party right after the elections when the current nuts can be properly eased into long term treatment.
And as for the Republicans. How is it possible, given the opportunity Barack Obama has given them, that they do not pummel Senator Obama with the same questions he raises about Governor Palin? Using his own words and that of his closest allies. Daily. In ads. On TV. And in panel discussions everywhere.
Each time the Dems prove they're nuts and the GOP then chooses not to make an issue of it simply amplifies the fact the Pubbies are in their own way every bit as mad as the Dems.
***Update***09/29/08
Well, I am delighted to say that the following video responds well to my concerns about the GOP's sanity for failing to take advantage of the opening provided when the Obamaniacs made an issue of experience. (h/t Macsmind by way of Ace.)
If all seems mad to you, rest assured you are not. You'd only be mad were you to think the current political news is normal election cycle inanity. It's well past that.
It's not just that the Left becomes more unhinged on a daily basis. It's apparent to me that the Right believes their best chances for winning is to keep the Left looking like the raving mad threat they really are. For only in contrast to the Democrats do the Republicans appear comparatively sane. That's not saying much.
I keep getting requests for money, two or three a day, from the RNC and the McCain/Palin campaign. But I know I cannot countenance sending them a dime. Why?
Because they'll take the major portion of any money they have and give it to blatantly Leftist MSM -- what I fondly call by its Orwellian cognomen: The Ministry of Information. Thus, with help from the money of the unwitting Republican faithful, the Republican hating misinformation media survives another day.
And need I remind you that the MSM is the only "independent" that McCain-Feingold gives a free hand in the last days of an election to say what it wishes about any candidates?
Oh, by the way: what's the name of the Right-most candidate again?
In the old Soviet Union, those who questioned the sanity of the leaders wound up being treated for insanity. Damn. Kinda.
Looking at the denizens atop our major parties, insanity is neither red nor blue alone. They're the In crowd, and they're mates, and they ARE controlling the institution.
I will follow up this commentary with examples. Please feel free to offer up examples of your own.
I have to say give it a rest as far as the Lipstick on a Pig comment goes. That is a old saying with a well defined meaning. Obambi is many things but stupid isn’t one of them. Oh wait, he is clueless, so I take it back.
I responded to the clueless portion with a skeptical "As demonstrated [between .40 and .43 seconds] in the video by how most of his audience laughed when he said lipstick, and he didn’t bat an eye."
Well, an Obama supporter, "Watchman," complained next.
“and he didn’t bat an eye.”
What a bunch of hypocrites! You bitch about Obama smearing Palin then go on to tie him to Jeremiah Wright all over again.
Here is what I replied.
“and he didn’t bat an eye.”
For crying out loud! That’s an ages old metaphor for one who takes no notice or feels no pain.
What a bunch of hypocrites!
First of all you can’t legitimately blame the rest of the Belmont Clubbers for what you imagined *I* intended. Certainly none of them cheered and hooted and applauded as did Barry’s friends. I’d say I’m safe in saying that you saw the speck in the eyes of most clubbers but not the beam in your own.
Secondly, were Barry as smart and diplomatic as he wants you to believe, he’d have heard the crowd’s response, made an uneasy chuckle and said “I’m sorry, that’s not what I meant” and then finished the line. He didn’t. So he was either clueless (as Tarnsman said) or he bathed in the joy of his crowd after he fed it raw meat.
Thirdly. Obama clearly paused for the applause. The normal line has no long pause in it.
You bitch about Obama smearing Palin then go on to tie him to Jeremiah Wright all over again.
Fourthly. Had I wanted to make the connection to Rev. Wright I would have written my comment a bit differently. Here is what you should look for:
“You can put lipstick on a pig [pauses for applause] but it’s still a pig.” and he Never batteddd an ayyyye.
And fifthly. Were Obama as clever as he was in the primaries, and not unwinding so badly now, his campaign would have replied to the McCain campaign’s complaints with “We took the lady at her word that she was tough as a pit bull. Sorry to have upset the vision of herself that she has been selling.”
I know there are those who want to know what I think about the most recent political developments. Well, I'm still biden' my time about what pascal fervor has to say about the reactions.
On a human note: I worry for Sarah almost as much as I worry for our republic. Both should be able to take care of themselves except, well, except for the imminent presence of those who are not as they appear. Come back soon and I'll expound.
The performance of Barack Obama of late has become bizarrely lame. Early on in the primaries there was talk of him being a far-left stalking horse for Hillary so as to make her look moderate by comparison. But new-left Democrats such as backed Bill and openly dreamed of a 3rd Bill Clinton term found themselves outflanked by the radical left-wing. The nutters' candidate locked in enough votes to clinch the Dem ticket months before the June date when Obama actually accumulated the requisite delegates.
Politics is about gaining power; even losers maneuver after losses and even before impending losses to hold onto advantages so that their minority is still a force that must be reckoned with.
Hillary has not ended her campaign. The Dem convention has not ended. The fat-legged lady has not swan-songed.
That Barack Obama is one balky politician is more evident every day. Many in the GOP can hardly wait to broadcast with the help of talk radio to tell us all of the next false-step or tone-deaf comment even before the noise from the last incident has died down.
In baseball, where when the pitcher makes a motion that is against the rules, the pitcher is charged with a balk. The penalty is that opposition base runners advance a base.
Given how many delegates Hillary has accumulated and not relinquished yet, she is clearly still on the third base of the Democratic party. She awaits some inevitable errant move by Obama — some faux pas that will penalize Obama some number of delegates or other obscure party rule — that will advance Hillary to home plate. It may already have been committed and she is simply biding her time.
Such a late advance by her would put her at a distinct advantage against McCain. In part because so many voters are so put off by the unprecedentedly long campaign that they've tired of the two current faces. But more importantly, it will be because of some yet unrecognized comments that McCain politically uttered to advance himself against Obama but would hurt him against Hillary.
That is what the term stalking horse has always implied politically — some one to be the focal point, the target, to take the hits. But never the real one the party intends to put up. In that way the real candidate can take advantage of the opposition's revealed strategy and especially the political mistakes. The real candidate is then fresher and not as fatigued nor battle scarred as his opposition when election day arrives.
However, is it likely that all that Obama has done up to now was just so he could be a stalking horse for Hillary? Is he blowing it deliberately?
No! That is too bizarre a possibility. People who are this close to garnering power are not inclined to throw it away intentionally. That may be especially true of someone who has good reason to suspect he had been encouraged to run precisely to be a stalking horse. Such a man would find the position he'd achieved in June — one that was against the odds in December — to be particularly sweet.
No, I'm recognizing that he's in danger of fumbling it all away simply because he's a much smoother reader of prepared scripts than he is a man of wider strengths. If he blows his nomination, he will effectively have been a stalking horse of a different variety.
Should Obama screw himself by stumbling, fumbling, bumbling once too much in the short time between now and the end of the convention, he will achieve an American first.
There is a wide variety of information available. It ranges from the purely factual to quite moving conscience raising opinions to the stress alleviating faiths.
The upshot is that I shouldn't be able to mislead anyone.
My followers earn their fate by how willing they are to follow me. The simplest of "libertarians" and the PC crowd have my blessings. --Ms Ann Thrope in private correspondence.
It’s a new paradigm…. Now, we have a perverse inversion in which the heirs of humanism seek to sacrifice the human being to a faceless god of nature.
Yes. However it is not new except to those who have only begun to notice. About those who remain silent after they notice — well — I ribbed Wretchard after he posted Meeting Engagement with Awakening to Fight Oblivion.
Human sacrifice: “Sustainability” is now the most common code word for battling human populations, though it is voiced quietly. It seems far too many are resignedly welcoming this “meeting engagement.”
Sustainability is newspeak for a pessimism at least as old as paganism with its ritual deaths.
I think the disease is clear. Traditional conservatives have let their loathing to fight what has slowly become common practice trump their fundamental (now ancient) moral view that the sole reason for government is its legal authority to protect the weak.
It is THAT paradigm which has shifted. I’ve stated this new world paradigm as “The strong must protect the useful from the _____.” What's in the blank? You know as assuredly as Winston Smith knew what was in Room 101.
I’d say you are a moral man reflexively rebelling from the effects of Malthusianism blended with Utilitarianism to create the replacement, Godless morality of a “humanist” elite.
Aug 15, 2008 - 12:46 pm
I followed the above comment with this one. (It was published promptly).
Perhaps you and I have lived with this miracle too long to be properly appreciative. Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation. — R. W. Reagan
You may fool all the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all of the time; but you cannot fool all of the people all the time. — A. Lincoln
I've convinced quite enough of your neighbors that you're the bad guy. They are now my eyes and ears. A handful more are so convinced that, with a clear conscience, they pack in extra votes so that you can't rid yourself of my guys at the polls. Lodge any complaints about the voter fraud: my guys laugh and dismiss the charges and spin the issue against you. Remember? You are the bad guy.
You are not alone Pascal; but you may as well be. You have neither the strength nor the nerve to really challenge me on your own; and I see to it on a daily basis that you distrust any new leader far more than you dread me. There are times when I fool none of the people and you are in such a state of disarray that there is not a damn thing you can do about it.
Thus, you will die watching your children wearing the shackles you forged for them because you were too blind in your youth to notice me at my work. — Ms Ann Thrope boasting privately.
You Boomers who wouldn't abort your babies as I suggested will be forced to watch as I seduce your grown babies into aborting themselves.-- Ms Ann Thrope in private boast.
When more offense is taken over what is said than what is done, we are witnessing Political Correctness. We have been forced to endure this despite the First Amendment prohibition on silencing free speech.
Why? Why must we endure PC? Why must we "tolerate" it? Someone please convince me.
Otherwise, I recommend a mantra along these lines to be shouted in unison the next time you hear some PC:
The title of this post strikes me as a good premise for a debate. Spinelessness is not a good trait for those claiming to defend what is Right.
Let me lay out some arguments that might be useful in this debate that I feel is long overdue.
First of all. the very word conservative implies someone who is not apt to budge much. The run-of-the-mill liberal, on his more docile days, might limit his definition of a conservative to that.
Of course "stick in the mud" might be the thought they have refrained from expressing on that day of benevolence. But that is the liberals' impression of a conservative on the libs' less outrageous days.
Ultimately the conservative individual has no desire to mess with politics. Politics is for busybodies. This is where the basic meaning of conservative – one who conserves – comes into play. "I've got mine. Gotta protect it. Best not to do anything that may endanger it; that wouldn't be prudent." These are hardly the same type of individuals who wrested colonial America from King George. On what pipe dream do you imagine they'll come through now, in the clinches?
The words "leave things as they are" is a front for another thought that just about every individual has uttered one time or another: "LEAVE ME ALONE." Yes sir. That is truly conservative.
I look at John McCain. I hear the Left SCREAMING that he is an extreme right winger. This is the man who fathered a bill that scrapped the first amendment to ultimately aid professional politicians, labels border defenders as racist, and thinks Americans cause global warming.
I hear radio host Hugh Hewitt promote his show with a Keith Olbermann spot calling Hugh a "fringe talker." A RINO like Hugh gratefully uses such "gifts" from lunatic-lefties to bolster his flaccid bono fides as a Rightist. [ugh!] It is a fact that Hewitt used his influence in California to aid the phony-right Schwarzenkennedy in the Davis recall election by blocking-out the legitimate-right McClintock with stupid-liberal tricks. His most effective ploy was in softening whatever backbone conservatives might have had with his relentless inflating of a Bustamonte Boogeyman. The latter pol really had not-an-icicle's-chance-in-hell because he was even more inclined to the policies that got Davis in trouble to begin with. The Lefty outrages of Davis gave the Right the first real chance to win on principle in decades, and Hewitt constantly fear-mongered against going that route. From envirofascism to illegals, Arnold is demonstrably more Left than Davis ever was.
Come on liberty loving Americans. With the Left labeling either of these gentleman as extreme Right and MSM echoing the labels, just where does that put the vast majority of Americans?
Do you know what MARGINALIZED means America?
Where are the true leaders of the Right? Real leaders of the Right will ride roughshod over of this "official" political spectrum foisted by establishment media and make a mockery of it. They will break out of the Ideological Corral once and for all.
Borrowing from Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, book iii, chapter iv
The mass media easily forgives you for not loving it provided that you don't love each other.
This is a very short warning for the Right:
Should you think that all members of mainstream media are stupid, you will never appreciate how well they dissemble facts and mislead the public by disingenuously composing stories that serve its biases, agendas and hatreds.
The precautionary principle demands that the adage "Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by stupidity" be reversed whenever the MSM is involved. The Left is not stupid: just ask them.
This can be summarized in a single line that I hope helps reunify the Right and stave off further efforts to divide it.
Where you find MSM, never attribute to stupidity what is easily driven by malice.
I would also add, given the propensity of the GOP to abandon its Right, "Watch your back."