Who's the Stuck Pig?

Tarnsman, in this thread at Belmont Club, joked:

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.”

PDS

So you think that Bush Derangement Syndrome has been bad?

I think Palin Derangement Syndrome is gonna top it.

(This is not my promised expounding upon the reactions to Sarah Palin. Stay tuned.)

---------------updated with related posts:

• A Palin' Reactions
• The Emmanuel Goldsteining of Sarah P

A Palin' Reactions

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.

Balking Horse

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.

He will be America's first balking horse.

Justification

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.

Postmodernism's Paradigm

My comment at Belmont Club to:

Konyok @ 10:53AM

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).

Konyok; I’m not sure what else to tell you.

Here is what one dame whispered to me about my concerns: “You are not alone Pascal; but you may as well be.”

Aug 15, 2008 - 12:51 pm

Confidence

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.

Placing Demands On Others

"Why isn't the world perfectible?" whined the social engineer.

"Ask The Perfectionist when you arrive where I cast him," replied The King of the universe.

Determination

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.

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:

Stop silencing watchdogs; start punishing criminals.

Resolved: Conservatives Are Useless As Defenders of Liberty

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.

MSM Easily Forgives You For Not Loving It

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."

So, I'm Human

"Dear Mr. Fervor,

Some months ago you wrote an editorial about me entitled She Thinks Her **** Doesn't Stink. Could you not have disparaged my, er, priggishness with words that are readable on radio?

Well anyway, I'm writing today to inform you that you were wrong Mr. Fervor.

I must admit that my story about the tensions I endured while in Bosnia was a real stinker. Peee-Hew! Seeeee! </fantasy>

I made a mistake. I have a different memory. That happens. I'm human. For some people that's a revelation."

Hillary Clinton

They Who Refused To Pay the Piper...

...Today Have No Children.

Most of the most bitter women I have ever met (Cal State Sen. Jackie Goldberg, call your office) were my sisters of the baby boom generation who are now long past their time to bear children. My brothers are merely sad, though some of them are still too adolescent to realize it.

Go read the Brothers Grimm (Hah! Irony!) tale again, and this time with the perspective of what the cost of ridding ones personal life of "rats" -- rugrats being particularly vulnerable to such a mien -- really has been.

Metamorphosis

In Weapons Turned Inward, Wretchard observed how some left-leaning partisans see insanity in the internecine warfare that has erupted in the Democratic Party because of rock star Obama's "new" front moving in from the Left and threatening the Clintonista leadership as nobody has before.

Wretchard opined that it was not truly insanity "but the rational application of the demented rules of left-wing politics."
Well, what are the demented rules to which Wretchard is referring? He mostly alluded to them in much the same manner that the Democratic front-runners avoid admitting what rules they are following.

But in the comments others flushed it out. It is of the politics of division that Democratic Party has nurtured for, it seems, forever. And it has become brittle as its subdivisions jockey for position, in a hierarchy that is now viewed up for grabs. "Me first! No me!"

Wretchard finally gave us an inkling as to how he viewed where the application of those rules were leading with this:

"The problem with the politics of infinite subdivision is that it inevitably fractures the party which manufactures the categories itself. Eventually the Party itself becomes a pile of sticks that can't be shifted without everything falling to the ground."

And that is where he inspired me to comment. I saw that Wretchard's pile of sticks were symbolically what happens when a fasces has lost its binding chord.

I asked Wretchard of what he thought the binding chord was made. He responded: "Hate" and a bit more. Go read it.

Alright, now here's the point of the title of this piece as inspired by Wretchard's invoking the symbol of the fasces.

The fasces was originally a symbol among those with a common interest to provide for their defense. It originated with the Etruscan League.

After the Etruscan King was kicked out of Rome, it was adopted by the Romans to represent their republic: A state formed to provide a common defense among more or less equals; who were bound together in a ways similar to how the sticks bound to the ax handle protects it from attacks to it flank, its weakest point; and who elected its leaders to wield the weapons of the state.

These United States also adopted the fasces. It symbolized the words of Benjamin Franklin:

“We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.”

However, the fasces had also carried over into the Roman Empire as a symbol. The difference was that the dictator then decided who it was that he represented; who it was that protected his flank; and who was not to be included because they were a threat to his power -- and, of course, by extension, a threat to the state. This was the meaning of the symbol that Mussolini has come to represent. It is the meaning most associated with the fasces today.

Wretchard's post clearly shows that in the Democratic Party at least, the common interests that it represented once, working folk, the less privileged members of society, who banded together to elect its leader, have morphed from a republican form into a fascist form of organization. Wherein its leaders decided WHO best represents the special interests for whom it claims to speak. In other words, the leadership decides who are allowed to be the sticks that protect its flank rather than "the sticks" deciding who its leadership should be.

Wretchard laid the groundwork for today's observation a few years ago with this line:

"One of the sources of the inhuman 'strength' of the Left is its refusal to acknowledge the existence of anything smaller than a mass noun. Rhetorical service to the people, masses, workers, peasants; the poor and the downtrodden are objects worthy of the Left; but love, pity and sorrow for individuals is sentiment beneath contempt."

The reason the Left can ignore individuals is because it is not individual's voices that are heard. Individuals from each of the interests groups the Left claims to represent are MARGINALIZED whenever they disagree with the Left's leadership. How could it be made much more clearer than suffering from or even witnessing such behavior? The Left's leadership clearly cares less for members of any of its groups than it does about being able to claim without contradiction to be doing what it wants "in the interest" of its groups. (And largely succeeds since both it and the MSM it inhabits block or discredit complainants from its groups.)

Examples abound. The left calls women who reject feminist ideology female impersonators. It loves Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, men who make demands that provide government an excuse to grow and to steal via taxation, but it hates brilliant economists like Sowell and Williams because they recommend the opposite. Duh. And homosexuals who merely want to be left alone, and are appalled by the radicals' agenda, are dismissed or threatened. In fact they have nasty names and exclusionary labels for members of every group who dare say "Now wait, not so fast..." even before they can finish stating their complaints.

That behavior is simply more obvious in the Left, because it has been going on there much longer. But ask most any conservative today if the GOP hears his complaints. You will hear that his words have been shucked to the side with a sneering "what can you do about it other than elect people who are worse than me? Shut up, you bother me."

In short, what we are seeing here has been metamorphosing in these United States in both main parties, and in the central government as well, but quite a bit more obviously in the Democratic party. The fasces today stands less for the republican form and more for the dictatorial form of the state.

Metamorphosis is how the fasces went from representing the defense of common interests who choose their leader, to one where the leader replaces, one by one, those who represent the individual interests with men of his liking.

Can what is left of free men still form a strong defense for the common interest of all and elect real leaders to defend them? Can the republican form symbolized by the fasces be brought back to save the day? That remains to be seen.

**UPDATE**

I received an email from "Carry_okie" in which he stated something with which I agree in large part because I know how violations of the tenth commandment easily lead to personal unhappiness.

In it Carryokie is indirectly referring to Wretchard's comment that what binds the fasces of the Democratic Party is hate. Carryokie qualified that a bit more:

"Not quite.

Its leaders decide WHO gets protected, who takes the whack, and who gets to define the covetousness with which it is bound.

Covetousness is a better binder than hate because it is entirely subjective and need not be sated. Indeed, it is the insatiable nature of covetousness and the fact that any attempt to sate it leaves the "benefactor" less capable of delivering that makes it such a powerful binder. One need only offer the hope that you'll deliver the goodies, because you can always blame the bad guy if you don't.

Certainly one hates those they envy, but it is the unrequited desire to take that drives that hate." [emphasis added]

Thank you Carryokie.

Something Eternally Undeniable

There are many believers in God: the theist.

There are many believers that God does not exist: the atheist.

But one thing this agnostic does know for a certainty:

The Concept of God exists.

And that irritates all the rulers and demigods and their nefarious aides that ever existed.

Whether or not God exists, the Concept of God stands between the individual and those who would treat him as less than human. All the anti-theistic efforts in the world can never put an end to the Concept.

Where there are human beings -- or, indeed, any thinking beings -- there will be the Concept of God.

Ades to Corruption

aide

–noun
1. nurse's aide.
2. an aide-de-camp.
3. an assistant or helper, esp. a confidential one.

-- from Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)

I've long wanted to have a short word that I and others could use that would be an apt label for one who helps forestall or prevent reforms to decadent institutions.

The closest historical word, antidisestablishmentarian, is way too unwieldy to use for reformers to make any headway with.

I initially thought about using the near acronym ADET. This is comprised by taking the first letters of antidisestablishmentarian's two prefixes (Anti and Dis), the the first letter in Establishment and the first letter of the suffix (Tarian). While it has the advantage of a unique appearance, it sounds way too diminutive in speech. Hence I think it sounds far too benign to convey the nastiness to which protectors of bad bureaucracies have been known to resort.

However, the word aide already exists, and the word antidisestablishmentarian is clearly a subset of aide definitions 2 and 3. So, I think I've found my answer.

I propose the semi-acronymic word ade be adopted. It is far less cumbersome a word than antidisestablishmentarian, and so lends itself well to public speaking, and better, to public acceptance. Good public speakers should be able, with proper inflections, to make it clear that they are speaking of ades and not the wider aides. And ade also separates such people from the true aids for our woes, the reformers who we so desperately need to stop the growth of Leviathan.

I intend to speak out in print using the word ade, so I just wanted to prepare the way.

**Update**

A reader has suggested this following line helps drive home the point about how much damage antidisestablishmentarians (ades) make inevitable because ades stymie society's natural defenses. Ades hinder society from reforming needed institutions and thwart her from eliminating unneeded and bad ones.

What AIDS does to the body, ades do to society.

------
Update 2  observation:

The Church of England is still.  Nineteenth Century Antidisestablishmentarianism succeeded. And now, today, given the Archbishop of Canterbury's  willingness to allow shariah law,  what in postmodern politics will keep the C of E from converting to Muslim? Knowing what we know of the cushy relationship between the Left and radical Islam, that is a frighteningly real prospect.

**Update 3**[12/16/10]

TrueblueNZ reader Kris K has suggested that ADE need not be simply a quasi-acronym.  Antidiestablishmentarians may be viewed functionally as "Appeasers, Dunces, and Enablers." ADE can stand as a true acronym.

I think that is a good idea. What remains missing in Kris' suggestion is any reference to the heavy handed thugs who assault reformers. Now since Appeaser and Enabler are much the same thing, I think the following set of three words carry the weight much better:

Appeasers, Dunces and Enforcers (ADEs)

The Useful Idiots Who Blindly Assist Achieving Hell On Earth

"For we can make the dead live whether they wish it or not....They cannot refuse the little present." -- C.S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength.

Lewis gave us a glimpse of hell on earth with that one line. I'd forgotten that that was how it struck me when I first read it. I don't recall if I'd ever told you.

Thus began a comment I left for Fran Porretto in particular response to his using that line from Lewis's great novel in today's Sunday Ruminations: Assorted. Fran had many years ago penned an important series (spurred on by some thoughts I had shared with him) titled: The Convergence of the Death Cults

I continued...

A pity too. Your series on the death cults would have been more compelling had you explored this implication. The lust of some to supplant God is aided by those like your young colleague who remain ignorant of the horrors such hubris is promising to visit upon him. [End comment as it appeared at Eternity Road]

For those who don't know, there was a key character in that novel who very much resembles Fran's young colleague. Sadly, there are quite a few like him abounding today. But it need not remain so. Speak up and loudly my friends.

I don't know how many of my readers or Fran's readers agree with our concerns in this matter. But if you do, I recommend that you not remain silent about such strivings. And don't be foolish enough to be silenced by those who'd glibly fit you for a tinfoil hat. Here's a quip by a late revered spokesman for the Left who bragged about what we can expect from the anti-humanists who hide amongst the research granters:

The more a man can achieve, the more he may be certain that the devil will inhabit a part of his creation. -- Norman Mailer

Courage:
It will not be easy to fight the forces who are actively seeking such "progress." If you think you lack the courage to take on this fight, I am willing to bet that both Fran and I have good suggestions about how you could build some. I doubt I need to say more as to why you'll need it.

Beware The Wrath of 'Cain

McCain, that is. John McCain.

Whether or not we like it – I most certainly do not – John McCain will be the Republican candidate for President. The best reason for not backing his campaign, and not voting for him, are secondary. That is, a government growing, illegal immigrant welcoming Democratic president is more readily thwarted by GOP opposition than is a government growing, illegal immigrant welcoming Republican one.

But let's put that aside just for now. I've a much more important question to ask. What are we going to do while John McCain is at the top of the ticket?

First of all, while John McCain is the Republican standard bearer, he has at his disposal all the facets and funds of the GOP. That is hardly insignificant. There are a number of things, both good and bad, that such control forebodes.

Second. John McCain is a man who wants to be president quite noticeably more – perhaps beyond measure – than displayed by the favorite of many conservatives, Fred Thompson. That desire can be quite a plus. But as I make clear below, it can be an even more terrible minus.

Third, read Pat Buchanan's summarization of John McCain's speech at CPAC. Here are a few excerpts from that [emphasis mine]:

What he said essentially was this. [I]f we do not work together, we lose the presidency. And if we lose the presidency, your causes will be lost, as well as my last chance to be president.

If my end of the dinghy sinks, yours will not stay afloat.

While I know Pat Buchanan's own maverick status is hardly a recommendation to read his spin with a great deal of confidence, he assuredly has himself demonstrated how sour a loser can be. And I think, within Buchanan's summary can be gleaned a warning to conservatives around the country. "Be prepared for anything."

Surely it cannot be unreasonable to expect conservatives to heed the Boyscout motto: Be prepared.

In general, a Democratic president will likely have a favorable congress come January 2009, not the least because there is one there now. And a very strong win by the Democrat could easily put enough Dems in the Senate to kill GOP filibusters.

And should John McCain self-destruct or be pushed by the Dem candidate or her entourage into one of his intemperate exhibitions of bruised ego, his candidacy will be sunk.

And when McCain goes down, our hopes for many very good GOP congressional candidates will be lost too, as a matter of course.

But it can get even much worse than that. And that is why I felt compelled to write this.

For when McCain self destructs, I am virtually certain he is not going to blame himself. He is going to blame conservatives. Thus picturing the following assuredly is not too hard.

From hell's heart, I stab at thee. For hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee.

Yes, I know: That scene from Star Trek II, The Wrath of Khan, is about as melodramatic as anything ever produced by Gene Roddenberry. But it captures the kind of fire that McCain must have had to endure all that he did at the Hanoi Hilton.

I am daring to risk your displeasure to raise this alarm due to the fact that I believe he can still draw on that fire. We will not like how he'll use it should he think he has not received enough repayment over the years for all he endured. This is where his demand for high office gets tacky. How is it possible that we owe him even up to and including turning over to his unpredictable vicissitudes the signatory protection of cornerstones of the republic itself? Such as protecting the First Amendment. But he feels he deserves the presidency.

As self-centered as his anger has been at times, what must we be ready for should he not get that which he believes he deserves? It is simply too likely that the angry McCain will once again emerge. That McCain will not be content to go down alone in this, his one "last chance."

Because conservative Congressional delegates are vastly more important to our interests than leftist ones, we must not forget to get out the vote. And because McCain will control the purse strings of the GOP from now until the elections, now is the time to prepare to get out the vote (GOTV) on our own.

So, once again, why do we need to be prepared? We must be prepared for the likelihood that McCain's wrath will go full blown. Once he's convinced that he cannot win, and because he already seems poised to blame us for it, then we must prepare now that he will for spite hold back GOTV funds (and Lord knows what other mischief). There will be nothing we can do about it then should we fail to prepare for it now.

I am sorry, but this man's recent history demands that we have a plan B.

We need be prepared to Spock our warp drive so it can propel our conservative ship to safety. We must be prepared for just that time when 'Cain believes that he's gonna fail. For by God or the devil, he'll be damned if he doesn't try take us with him.

Be prepared.

Outside the Box: Reviving A Lost Autumnal Ritual

Lost Ritual: Burning autumn leaves.

Reason: Leftist enviro policies, usually at city council level, but also brought by EPA air quality boards.

Difficulty in fighting: these policies have been either bought into or not fought by a whole lot of overregulated common folks.

Avenue of attack: Exploiting gaping Leftist inconsistencies.

So, the following are ingredients for burning autumn leaves under conditions I imagine are fully authorized by no less an authority than the United States Supreme Court.

1. Fallen leaves
2. Chicken wire
3. Several cans of quick drying spray paint: 6 white, 3 red, and 2 navy blue.
   
4. Matches.

Build a rectangular cage, roughly 69"x39" and 6" deep, with 69"x39" hinged lid, all made of chicken wire.

With the cage laying flat, lid at top end and open, fill cage with leaves. Close and secure lid.

Now spray paint the 69"x39" top layer of leaves white. Let dry.

Next, with your red paint, spray on top of the white, a 69 inch long, 3" wide band along one edge of your cage

Then spray another matching band along the opposite edge of your cage.

Next spray five more 3" bands on top of the white layer, roughly equally spaced at 3" increments between the first two 3" wide bands of red. Let dry.

Now, with your blue paint, spray a blue rectangle roughly 32"x21" at the lower right of your cage, fully covering 32 inches of seven of the red and white stripes. Let dry.

For your final painting job you will need your white paint again. If at this point it is not absolutely obvious what you must do next, just forget about the whole thing.

But if you have caught on what few procedures need next to be followed, then get ready to enjoy a long lost American tradition and its lovely aroma.

For you patriots out there, did you know that the proper disposal of a worn American flag is to burn it? And it just so happens that fallen autumn leaves are long past their prime.

Be careful. Nobody but someone above the age of 21 should consider doing this, and they best be prepared to explain and fight for their rights. With all that understood, carry on at your own risk. With or without a patriotic conscience, this just seems to be a loophole that the Left and the autocrats would have difficulty filling after all their efforts at making flag burning a legal right.

Help Me Defeat Leftist Social Engineers

People generally do not like being manipulated. I believe that the more people understand how they and their neighbors are manipulated the better are the chances that the majority can mount a defense against the divisive, dissembling demagogues.

A long time ago I explained the mechanics of how social engineering works to various technical engineers I work with. Each and every one understood. More recently I wrote an entry for my Glossary in an attempt to make more concrete what I mean by social engineering. Fundamentally it can be expressed by the formula D = LR, where D is dissatisfaction, L is liberty of action, and R is resistance to the action.

Social Engineering is used by those in a position to implement their plans or schemes, or defeat the plans of schemes of someone else, but who are afraid of the consequences should they try and fail. The selling of a political idea more than anything involves overcoming resistance to that idea. Pushing too hard or too fast will anger or scare the general public. When that happens, a large enough bloc of the public is more apt to revolt. Thus most politicians and their backers will only feel comfortable in forcing their plans upon the public when the resistance to the plans are suitably fractured so as not to infuriate too large a bloc.

Hold on. I fear I'm getting too deep too fast once again. Look, if you can find the patience, please try reading social engineering and come back.

What I haven't gotten done in all these years is the simplifying of the concept so that more people can understand. I'd like to break the analogy down into small soundbites that may capture the imagination of more people. At least enough people so that the discussion that might emerge would help the larger body of people be able to foil the most rotten plans and schemes proposed by our ever more arrogant (thinking they can't be stopped by puny, unorganized and ignorant rabble) power-seeking class.

Help me make myself more clear.

Made My Day!

I received a telephone call out of the blue today from a young professional of my acquaintance.

"I thought I should let you know that my wife and I had a daughter about a month ago. I don't know if you recall our conversation, but it was your comments about the influence of death cults that encouraged us to try even harder. Thank you."

I had only just returned from an enjoyable visit to France, and I might never have received his message had he called two days earlier. It's not the kind of thing I'd have left on a voice mail. The trip was nice, but this was wonderful.

I'm in such a good mood, I'll share two photos from my trip.

A double sized bronze sculpture of Charlemagne on war horse with two warrior attendants guards the entrance to Notre Dame de Paris. I noticed that he was glaring at the Préfet de Police across the street. I think Og the Neanderpundit would fit in here.

And here is the rear of Notre Dame that isn't often publicized.

If you'd like a high resolution copy of either photo, let me know.

Subtlety and Threat

Time and again I see where Wretchard and I are looking at the same larger panoramic. He does a marvelous job of piecing together the fabric -- the pixels if you will -- of that larger picture. In that sense, I am merely a customer of his.

But beyond that, he and I appear to be equally alarmed (though I could be wrong) by the same developments. The big difference in our responses, however, is that he somehow manages to write of what he sees with subtlety, and I don't think I've ever been accused of that.

Last night I responded to Wretchard's clever and typically subtle White Lies and Promises (which begins: "Who said the Minority Report was science fiction?") with a wry comment that didn't quite convey all of my thoughts (and was grammatically faulty to boot). I will try to fix that error here.

When what appears to be a trap is being built around one, one may feel at leisure to remark at the contraption with subtlety and seeming disinterest. Any threat it might impose may seem too far off.

The danger of course is that at some point one's subtlety may have become a comfortable old habit. For once the walls of that trap you so calmly watched being built have closed in, do you really hope others will say that you must have felt your bones were crunched oh so subtly?

A Progressive Rant

I started to write a screed in July in response to a Belmont Club post, Definitions, entitled Those Hellbent On Leading Us Into A New Dark Ages. But I cooled off after I answered a misunderstanding posted by BC commenter 3Case.

In June I wrote "Progressives" Are Demonstrably Dangerous to Human Life, but I still wasn't satisfied. This was to be followed by a part II that had been provoked by Mark Alger here. Instead, it languished incomplete for a couple months. I was feeling downright low about how hard a nut this was going to be to crack.

Many years ago I wrote this of Progressives. My wry humor sprung from the fact that it didn't take long for the Progressive reform movement that grew out of the late 19th Century American Populist movement to degrade into a comfy home for deceptive power seekers who succeeded in breeching our government's constitutional limits incrementally for "only the best of reasons."

In early August, Our Curmudgeon, in the pursuit of another topic, wrote of the treachery of "Progressives" as I've always wished him to do, but it still was not enough. For, on that same day, I had heard parts of a speech by Hilliary Clinton that got me started on another screed that I never finished: The "Progressive" Hatred for People.

And now this last week, Mark Alger needled me with the thought that we who are representative of true progress ought steal the progressive label from the phonies.

ARRRGGGGHHHHHHHH! 8/17/07

Continued on 9/05/07

The people who have been granted (by the PC crowd) the leave to wear the label Progressive are anything but. In addition to having long ago become the home for those whose lust for power may well set a new standard for perversion, they are well on their way to making a pejorative of the word progress just as they have made an unbearable burden for anyone who is truly liberal. Those who would wish we will not progress could not be happier.

More and more I run across both writers on the Internet and casual conversants who see that "Progressive" must be put in scorn quotes whenever we refer to those who claim that label.

This is unacceptable. This is Orwellian Newspeak being thrust upon us because we people who must speak with each other in order to counter this road to serfdom and a new dark age do not control the mainstream news media's effluent. We so badly need a new and widely influential means of communicating our viewpoint so that we can counter the anti-language corps. Where is our John Galt who can pirate, even for a little while, all media outlets away from those who relentlessly destroy our language?

A few days ago I had to contend with the confusion over what is a "Progressive" at The Belmont Club. After my initial comment to Wretchard, I had a short interchange with two of his active readers, Charles and LarryD, over the words Postmodern and Progressive. I think I stumbled on the best way verbally to deal with our tormentors: call them Postmodern Progressives.

In the end I think we were all dancing around the same idea at core. Today's Progressives are not advancers of civilization even if there were once some who could rightly claim to have been. Just as "Liberals" view as progressive the liberal growth of government -- and thereby the growth of restrictions on the liberty of individuals (anti-liberalism) -- so too when something will lead to mankind's diminishment, that is what "Progressives" view as progress (anti-progress).

I think we all understand that "Progressives" are NOT. But what are we who really love to see progress going to do about it?

I am convinced that most "Progressives" fall under the category of the misled. The most troublesome of them are the true-believers who allow themselves to become useful idiots. But the task that we who are optimists must find is how to unmask the mostly quiescent troublemakers who lend their support to the useful idiots, thereby accomplishing what they themselves could never achieve: mankind's self-destruction.

I know from what I've read throughout the web on the Right that most Right thinkers see that the label of Progressive has been stolen every bit as much as classical liberals have had Liberal stolen from them.

We must fight to take back the label Progressive so that those that follow us will be able to progress. So that those that follow do not find themselves under a yoke that so many Americans have fought to keep from being institutionalized on these shores. This is a patriotic battle. This is a battle that the bulk of humanity will always have with the effete elite. Understanding it does not require rocket science. It does not require knowing what Postmodernism is, only that it is something that wants you to return to times of enslavement over men's minds. It wishes for nothing less than a new Dark Age.

My friend Og often suggests that at some point the need to argue must end; that it is time for the cricket bats. He may be close to right.

On Balance, Jay Leno Owes Us One

I have to admit I've had trepidations about Fred Thompson announcing on Jay Leno tonight.

The primary reason is that last actor to do so was Arnold Schwarzenkaiser, the radically green, anti-conservative governor of California.

Since most conservatives know how to pray, I think this might be a good time to pray that it is the progressive statists who will be sold out this time.

She Thinks Her Shit Doesn't Stink

I grew up where the vernacular expression for someone who believes themselves more important than anyone else was "He thinks his shit doesn't stink." It was invariably heard about a man whose attitude fit the expression.

I don't know if there were women then who rated such an observation, but given experience which shows that human foibles cross the sex line, I suspect there must have been a few. Only the niceties of the times prevented most men from using it to describe her haughtiness. "Niceties." Right. Reality was that any man who dared use such language risked running up against other men who'd ride to the damsel's rescue whether or not she deserved such gallantry. And the woman who used it on another woman or man would have caused a scene since women were believed to be above such gutter-level language no matter how accurate. Afterall, such a line appears only to be a derogatory statement of opinion about someone else's attitude. And are you not warned against judging others lest ye too be judged?

Well, to cap it all, the intent of my raising this issue is that civilized behavior often prevents noting that civilization's shit doesn't stink. Somehow we just don't bury what we know to be our toxic waste-products as more primitive cultures have done without giving their crap a second thought. No. We pick it up and carry it around and force our subsequent generations to learn to live with it and even venerate it.

Let's be clear so that our elected officials cannot hide their behavior no matter what banner they serve under. In our time, Leftism is not only practiced by the official Left, but also by members of our Right in high office.

Among the worst shit that Leftism still refuses to admit stinks is Marxism and its fundamental determination to secure "social justice." In their relentless grasping for power, today's "progressives" will harass anything and everything that is or may be successful in its insane attempt to secure Nirvana for everyone equally. But what they ultimately achieve is an awful outcome for everyone as they stifle the creativity (the least negative of its known behaviors I can think of) that is buried within the few who would be our culture's future champions.

The legacy of Marxism is a trail of human tragedy unmatched in the annals of history. Yet our Leftists still think that shit doesn't stink.

And we now have a major candidate for one party who has always been focused on aims that are clearly seen to be Marxist. And that's even before we bother to note her unmistakable bearing which provoked this commentary.

Well, now that the period of nicety is over, let me be the first to put this in print: Hillary thinks her shit doesn't stink. Do you really want that for President?

Some Problems On Our Right

I have since as far back as I can remember been associated with the Right by those who know me. That was primarily because of my archly conservative nature compared within my family and circle of friends. Still, because of familial influences, I considered myself a liberal politically up to 1972. I knew of one vocal conservative in high school, and that was from a distance. My exposure to Right thinking was pretty much limited to warnings from my Dad about using my common sense. What more need be said for the well-rounded (not!) early 60s secondary education on Long Island?

It was in my freshman year at Michigan when the first Teach-Ins were staged that my conservative nature began to kick back in to affect my political viewpoint. But even after witnessing those early Viet Nam war protesters and how quickly they turned viciously anti-liberal on anyone who dared question them earnestly, I was slow to associate their behavior with what liberal politics was becoming.

That was mostly because I was somewhat oblivious to the blow-hards. The presence of the Right on any campus stage was almost non-existent except for the engineering students in general who would turn up for student votes in large numbers and set-back the hopes of the radicals, who were mostly from the school of Literature, Science and the Arts. That is when they weren't "professional students" like Tom Haydn (Did he ever earn a degree?) and others in his chapter of SDS. The campus Leftists would mostly rejoin after every student defeat of whatever anti-war, anti-American resolution they tried to foist with the threat ( I can still hear her raspy whine today) "oh, we will educate you." (It is now too apparently clear what it was they were planning to take over -- everything linked to education. Too bad I was unaware back then of C.S.Lewis' lecture Men Without Chests.)

I started to write simply what is to immediately follow, and decided to fill in the above background first. Go figure how my own mind works. It surprises me constantly. I guess this is the price I ask of my readers if I'm going to write more material.

Some problems I identify on the Right.

• Too calm for our own good. Almost always arguing with a calm facade when it takes thoughts like that expressed by Michael Savage (but too polite or fearful to admit it) to drive many people to act against even the worst affronts by the Left. The Right needs less "country-club rules of behavior" Republicans and more street fighters to be installed in GOP leadership if the GOP is to mean anything. God grant us far less Bushes and at least one more Reagan.

• The Right's kowtowing to the mythical political center voter. Provide leadership and the Right will shift the center to the right rather than letting radical Leftists dictate the march. The Political Center is hardly middle politically since even yesterday. It is left of last week, and widely left of last year. The term Progressive was used for self-description by left-leaning Republicans even before the Dems abandoned their Liberal label (because by their owning it they had made it a dirty word) to try and gain some ground under Progressive (before they brought a pejorative sense to that word too). The Right needs to strip much if not all of the authority it has allowed its Progressives because they keep forcing the party to move Left and thus allowing the middle to shift left. WTF are you saying Pascal? I am saying that our society is being dragged left because the Dems and the GOP Progressives are constantly placating the Left fringe. And then they have the balls to call progressive their stupid responses to anecdotal hardships both real and staged, and their cowardly giving into interest group tantrums and threats of even wilder antisocial behavior. Or is it really stupid and cowardly? I think that perception most heavily depends on which side of the tax bill and liberty infringements you are sitting on. It is hardly news that both government lovers and corporate financiers gain when the central government grows. But the depth of the corruption brings on more corruption because govt's vast inefficiencies guarantee that the bulk of the largess and power will go to the providers of whatever service yesterday's radicals had been given the microphone to ask for. The perpetual charade of responding to radical demands is insane only to the taxpayers, not to the taxers. We are funding our own long term destruction for the short term feather-bedding of those whom we allow to run our institutions.

• Who today on the Right, in a notable leadership position, is arguing consistently at all the last highlighted segment of my last point? It is maybe the biggest problem of the Right that I do not know of a single one.
  

Regarding that last point. C'mon you allegedly brilliant writers on the Right out there: show me how wrong I am.

What Makes This Video Extraordinary?

I was directed to this video posted at Observanda by 2164th who was quite astounded and pleased. He was hardly alone.

An Englishman explains Islam:

However, aside from the danger that has been directed at people such as this brave man by Jihadis, there is also the intolerance of those in positions of authority and censorship watchdogs of political correctness.

Here's my observation:

The problems posed to us by militant Islamists I don't think are really in contention.

I think the real problem was only obliquely touched by the man in this video:

"we live in a liberal democracy and therefore have certain double-standards to maintain... which seeks to portray legitimate comment as some kind of hate crime."

How far would any of this nonsense have gotten if it weren't for these fifth columnists, whose hamstringing of frank assessment of the threats and those who are most threatening, aids and abets the enemies of the West? The Left and other Statists would have us "submit" one way or the other.

This video is only extraordinary because our "leaders" kowtow to everyone with a "chip on their shoulder the size of a mosque," and to hell with the rest of us. If our leaders spoke like leaders, this man wouldn't feel the need to show them how.

The video that needs publishing is one that would drive the PC crowd from office.

Wouldn't you pay to see that one?

I would.

 

Dilemmas Facing Advanced Civilization -Pt2

Part one of this series can be found at Open List: Dilemmas of Advanced Civilization

1. Wanton wastefulness solely to temporarily slake the appetite of a bored audience for exciting entertainment.
   
2. A sense of defeat -- "oh, what's the use?" -- that may sideline a cultural defender. This effect may be temporary but can be permanent.
   
3. Exhaustion of the virtuous. An otherwise strong defender recognizes a clear adversary; adversary's offense could be anything from an incremental point of contention all the way to a significant assault on an essential institution, but defender still retreats from even a verbal battle for reasons unstated; letting important opportunities slide becomes easier with each passing incident.

For an "entertaining" example of wanton wastefulness, click on this episode of Top Gear. Top Gear is the BBC's most watched program (at over 50% share). BBC programing is paid for with the BBC tax on all UK TV sets. Watch for the intermittent expression on the face of the host (one of the three) affectionately known as the Hamster.

Perhaps I'm overly optimistic, but I think his mugging could indicate that while shame may not be thoroughly dead in the UK, its agonizing death throes are beyond the denial stage.

For an example of ailment number 2, I offer my own intermittent posting of entries here.

For an example of ailment number 3, I offer this episode from Eternity Road.

**UPDATE Aug 7**
Coincidentally, Dennis Prager wrote this for Townhall.com today: Excitement Deprives Children of Happiness, that explores the circumstances that lead to consequences such as ailment number 1. He admits it is not just children, but the adults they grow up to be.

Litmus Test

Does your favorite champion unflinchingly defend innocent human life?

Fear and Hatred for Real Leaders

Pursuing themes I raised earlier this month, (causes of civilizational decline, and more specifically, who and what blocks reforms) I spoke with Og the Neanderpundit about how much we providers and guardians of real progress need a true leader. Og, widely known for his love of the simpler life (not to be confused with Luddites), hates red tape more than the average guy, and complicated arguments even more so.

I spoke with Og on this because he is excellent at cutting to the essentials of an issue. For instance, he reduces John Galt's 57 page speech down to the summary: "Liberalism is stupid." When I want to make important points concisely, I find my thoughts condense easier while speaking with him.

Yesterday Og rendered one part of our discussion down to the "simple" question: Why can’t we find a hero? His illumination of the situation facing potential leaders culminates with the rhetorical question: "Sure, why isn’t there a HUGE line of people anxious to serve?" Please read it all and then come back.

The most virulent attacks on emerging heroes will reach you through from our Establishment's media, more widely known as Mainstream media (MSM).

Well, who pays the salaries of MSM? It's customers do. One is forced to the conclusion that a majority of MSM's customers are either comfortable with or favoring such attacks.

Well, who are MSM's customers? No, it is not readers and viewers. Reading and viewing fees provide a small part of all MSM costs, including its salaries and profits. It is advertising that provides the vast bulk of MSM's revenues.

Readers and viewers are merely MSM's audience. And we know from polls that the majority of MSM's audience is beyond tired and is now outright annoyed with most of the inane reporting, reporting spin, and commentary emanating from MSM.

MSM's customers -- the people who pay for the programming and editorial decisions with their advertising fees -- are the heads of our institutions. The bigger the corporation or public servant's office or public or private institution, the more money they will pay to MSM to get out their messages. And the more they spend, the more MSM is inclined to be influenced by its customer.

This situation is in place all before we even consider the political inclinations of the people employed at MSM, which tends to be collectivist in one way or another. And if you think that even the largest corporations do not favor collectivism, you are not paying attention.

The point I am aiming towards is how much those steeped in management perspective - its power and perquisites -- have every reason to be fearful, loathsome and outright hostile to leaders whose actions and abilities sway public opinion simply through the strength of their persona or depth of character. They fear loss of what they now have, and they will play with your fears of losing whatever goods you now have should you dare vote to endanger them.

Leaders of that sort might upset their applecart. They want a handle on every potential leader so much that it has become -- at least in their narrow minds -- a need. They need to be able to bring every leader to heel -- or else -- when the need arises. They are paying big fees to MSM to do so. They will try with every trick at their disposal.

Dear reader, I am hoping you have learned to greet every new revelation about some rising leader with quite a bit of skepticism. At some point in the future, maybe the near future, you will be asked to make a decisions favoring leaders who have compromising situations hounding them. Among them will be real leaders.

Know this to be a fact. Those currently in positions of greatest consequence and power will fear the most heroic. MSM's customers will wish them to be feared and detested by the majority of us for all the wrong reasons. MSM will find some and any cause to rain upon your heroes' heads; all kinds of visually compelling nastiness. MSM is well on its way to owning and controlling YouTube. There are countless reasons to believe how every other delivery system on the web could come under moneyed control too in one way or another.

It's going to be up to you more than ever to improve your analytical capabilities and communication skills in order to keep the web the potent new forum it is quickly becoming. Forces bigger than us are working against your interests -- against what's good for you in the long haul -- simply to protect their short-term goals and to lengthen their retention of power.

The most powerful in our world -- a kind of new aristocracy we have little control over -- wants to control every potential real leader. They feel they have paid for that right. They will control the leader or they'll aim to destroy him.

There is a risk to us all from every popular new leader. Hopefully the checks and balances will still work in that regard. The best leader will do more than merely give lip service to it. So that is one important test we can make. But there is a bigger risk.

If will don't permit them to grow, if we aren't aware enough or courageous enough to back those we like (for the most part) in the role of reforming new leader, we will lose in the long run. The reforms most needed involve ending the growth of government and large institutions. As things stand, those who think they know better have gotten to where they think they can overwhelm opposition to their fondest wish: to control every aspect of our lives. To defeat it will require a leader much like Ronald Reagan in his appeal, but for whom the well-established entrenched are willing and are planning to destroy. The entrenched mentality that is managing 21st Century America is in position and ready to convince you and your fellow citizens to fear and hate the next real leader.

Be prepared.

Watermelons

I just had a conversation with a friend who is a considerably more avid reader than I.

Politically speaking, he seemed only now to have learned what is meant by "watermelon."

I was quite surprised. Once again, I suspect MSM at core of this.

Since Establishment media suppresses the use of the apt metaphorical phrase "watermelon" in any of its reporting, it may very well be more obscure a term than it deserves to be.

Green on the outside, red on the inside, "watermelon" has been around from even before the fall of the Soviet Union heralded "the end of Communism as a force on the world stage." For those of us who've been fighting the Left for so many years, when we were confronted by the actions and programs of extreme environmentalism, the "Greens," we were not surprised when how "coincidentally" the greenies wound up with the same goals as Marxism: collective control of human activity ostensibly for the betterment of the common good. For yours truly, demonstrating the threat revealed by the vast death toll under Marxist regimes and the hatred for human life displayed by extreme environmentalists has long been my mission.

When the tiger who killed you before changes his stripes, you can be pretty sure he still aims to kill you.

Yes, the old Leftist's metamorphosis was clever enough; but their cover is quickly revealed by the metaphor "watermelon."

I'm adding a poll to my site asking simply: "Politically speaking, do you know what a watermelon is, yes or no?"

The poll software doesn't allow comments directly. However, as always, you may add your comments to this thread.

It also seems that Blogger doesn't provide a hyperlink address to so that anyone could send traffic to it directly.

Kindly consider adding the question to your own site and tie it to http://pascalfervor.blogspot.com/
with a note that states the poll is at the top of the left side bar.

Those Who Are Beyond Embarrassment

With Roasted Chickens Roosting, Wretchard calls our attention to the continuing self-serving trail of destructiveness that Ward Churchill wallows in. Be careful not to misread the last word in that title as roasting. For it is one thing for us to see dead people who don't know they're dead, and entirely another to continue to let their specter ruin us.

For you see, this is one heluva "cooked goose." A dead chicken come home not just to roost but to tear up the place as poltergeists are said to do to the domains from which they were unwillingly snatched.

Not satisfied with contributing to the intellectual bankruptcy of an academy, Churchill and his fellow travelers will now attempt to fiscally bankrupt it too.

I somehow doubt it will come to that though. Nihilists, having long been nurtured and protected by the Ivory Towers, are expert at avoiding annihilating their own home.

One more thing. Churchill is not at all embarrassed by his misconduct. He derives comfort from the evidence that CU let him slide until his outspokenness brought their hiring malfeasances to the attention of the outside world.

I have often said that the one thing the deepest cynics cannot abide is the possibility that someone somewhere is not corrupted. The corrupt are necessary for cynicism's existence, and so the corrupt are welcomed. But the very idea that innocence could exist becomes terrifying, because the existence of a single innocent becomes a devout cynic's self-condemnation to hell.

God, if there were only some way to sentence Churchill and ilk to life in perpetual embarrassment, it would provide a veritable stake through the heart of such destructiveness.

Oh dear fellow Americans: is it not time to bring back public stocks precisely to weal some small measure of appropriate punishment to such desperately needy reprobates?

Our Reform Dilemma

This Democratic Congress is the realization of the threat by the RINOs (combined with one other thing): "you better vote for the GOP run by us or we are going to give you them! Har, har, har!"

You know what that one other thing is? The majority of conservatives are not ready to put in the time to seize control of the GOP from those who accept -- however reluctantly -- the status quo.

And I'm as guilty as the rest of you. I am wishing for a leader so I can stop feeling guilty for not trying hard enough. (In Los Angeles, I've tried and failed: a story for another time). I can't say I haven't the faintest idea how to be a leader myself. However, in politics, I only know what has happened to so many who've expended their own efforts only to be attacked or whittled down by the system.

One thing is clear. Those currently in power do not trust anyone who does not seem to have well-known failings. They want a handle already in place so they don't need to invent one.

Before the next leader appears on the scene, remember how much managers hate leaders until they need one.


(This commentary was inspired while I was commenting on Elasticity of Mind's posted graph showing, among other things, the Dem Congress's approval rating at 14%.)

Open List: Dilemmas of Advanced Civilization

Just trying to identify major and minor factors that challenge today's advanced civilization. The developed world's pathologies affect the whole world. Here's a start with no leading item identified.

• Pessimism.
  
• Cynicism.
• Protection of wealth.
  
• Enervation of motivation.
  
• Lack of gratitude.
  
• Lack of humility.
• Seeking power for the sake of power, or "King of the Hill."
• Misanthropic notions.
• Reemergence of ancient irrationalities.
• Deliberate monkey-wrenching.
• Abandoning reasoning, preferring feeling. (Og)
• Choosing to go along with whatever is made popular. (Og)
• The notorious get press; the notable don't unless they screw up. (mts)
  

Help me add to this. Take as negative viewpoint as you wish. It is my position that for every trouble there is also some optimistic view that can be taken.

Update: Please see Dilemmas Facing Advanced Civilization -Pt2 for part 2 in this series

The Secret of Utopias

Practical jokers find delight in the confusion, discomfort, and predicaments they can inflict on their targets.

Misanthropes -- haters of humanity -- are easily enraged when humans find happiness in their "miserable" lives.

Utopia is commonly understood to be a perfect place where nothing bad happens. Those who are selling their vision of the perfect the world are oft described as Utopians.

Question:

What provision do Utopians make for practical jokers and misanthropes?

Answer:

What? Do you really expect them to reveal to you ahead of time that it is they who plan to run things?

Practical jokers are the salesmen, misanthropes run the camps.

Missed the Misanthropes Hiding Behind Malthusianism

Dennis Prager wrote a column today, Why Are Atheist Books Best Sellers?.

Among the reasons he stated, he did not mention the haters of humanity.

The radical environmental movement has provided the misanthropes the perfect place to disguise their hatred. They do it under the cover of the "moral" authority asserted by Neo-Malthusianic movements like that foisted by the Global Warming crisis mongers.

I've made the case for this connection many times. Notably here and here. I've tried to get Mr. Prager to acknowledge the threat before. But for some unfathomable reason he chooses to miss it, not discuss it in depth. He even outright evaded it as can be heard here. Notice in that clip how he shunted all of the death worship onto the shoulders of radical Islam and let the radical Left slip by unscathed.

At the core of the Judeo-Christian branch of theology is the conviction that innocent people (like children in the womb) must not be sacrificed to whatever human fear or true-believer movement demands it.

It should thus come as no surprise that because of this protective covenant with their God that observant Christians and Jews -- and their rights to be safe with their thinking -- are being targeted.

It is not hard to see that we are in the middle stages of gradually having Christianity deemed intolerable by authorities with the mind-altering intolerance that these anti-theists (with whom Mr. Prager slammed all atheists with the title of his column) are advancing. The final stage, for which they are clearly aiming, is the status of the church depicted in the Orwellian dystopia of the novel 1984: for the church to be a vague memory.

Bottom line: It should be no surprise that Malthusian misanthropes and radical environmentalists, including some of the GW true-believers, would be prevalent at the same time as the popularity of these books. Mr. Prager failed to include them.

Essential Tangential Capture

When in conversation -- talking at length invariably touches on many subjects and... -- I frequently catch hold of a phrase of my partner's -- I delight in catching these things because it so frequently leads to discovering new depths. For instance... -- and I either can hardly wait to share my thought, or my mind is racing well past what my partner is saying.

Needless to say, this has been off-putting if not damaging to my development of friends quickly. First impressions are hard to break. And I have to admit that even I find that a fast-talking, both seemingly distant and yet interruptive conversant is not one of my favorite types with whom to spend much time.

Then add varied degrees of defensiveness or a desire to stop the other in mid-speech when they've misunderstood me, and what started out as a simple conversation, can quickly development into a heated discussion or a consequential dispute.

All this even before anything of substance has been stated.

Such can be the troubles of the owner of a semi-rapid mind like mine.


However, anyone who has dealt with me professionally and wants to gain from the skills pent up in this semi-rapid mind, knows to just let me go and occasionally check that I haven't gone too far afield. In my day job I rarely run across a problem that didn't look like another one I've already solved, so this is seldom a problem there.

There my problems can stem from others not knowing what I'm doing. When I move fast it makes some nervous even if it regains time others have lost; though I've never gone wrong [knock wood], I am reluctant to say so lest spoilsport "Murphy" be listening. I can do things that I often can't easily explain to others. Why? See above! The best thing would be for them to go away until I'm done. Sometimes they can't. So it has sometimes come down to this: they either trust me or I tell 'em to find someone else.

Usually they trust me. [knock wood]. But why should they?

Oh, I could write it out all right. But in the heat of the battle, you don't write out your tactics as you're figuring out what the next one must be even as you're deploying the last tactic. You're moving and reacting to rapid changes. And remember, I only have a semi-rapid mind. Hence, you can see why I attribute much of my success to luck.

Heh, heh. Well, if you know the nature of luck, then you know how much my success really isn't all luck.

Anyway, I have just passed along to you what its like to live with my limitations. They can and have made things difficult.

However. It is the very nature of my mind, a type that I share with to some extent with a lot of nerdy engineers, that makes our performance possible. The applying of ingenuity to solve problems quickly, safely, and profitably.

Tangential thought is key to human ingenuity. You run up an alley. Take in the view quickly. Run back to the main path. Run up the next alley. Repeat. Just suppress mentioning it all. Even if you could, hardly anyone will understand. One simply cannot speak as quickly as one can make observations, note the values revealed, and not be distracted from the task at hand. Well, at least not someone with a semi-rapid mind like myself.

And you can see, if this is possibly a wide-spread attribute of engineers, then in this is why many often seem distant to the rest of the public. Their experience tells them that conversations about their work aren't always productive. The essential product of their tangential minds -- well suited to solving problems on the fly -- is not easily captured in conversation, and even on paper. As to speaking with someone who has no experience at all, well, after a minute or two these are typically looking for an exit, any exit.

And so, here is where I get to one solution that has worked for me and which I heartily recommend to others.

I've rediscovered something that helps fill in for my limitations. The great tool to extended and useful conversation that is made possible by instant messaging -- IMs.


I have much thanks for Og, the Neanderpundit, who sought me out some time in the past years because of my comments and contributions at Eternity Road. And who recently renewed our acquaintance by replacing those brief IMs with now some rather elaborate ones that have helped me make this blog explode.

The gist of the matter as far as I am concerned is demonstrated thus.

When I am writing an entry to an IM, Og is doing whatever.

As he responds, I am writing more to elaborate.

He isn't distracted by my voice or by what I've written and continues to write his response.

I latch onto what he has written, and elaborate on some tangential thing.

He continues to write, or starts to respond to what I've taken off on.

Each time I hit enter, I go back and read what he's written while I was writing.

At no time do I miss what he's written, nor he mine.

When I did this with my Dad some five or six years ago, all those conversations we used have that deteriorated into shouting matches became history. Even in person, our ability to converse in a more gentle manner had been established (although my ability to hold on to a new thought of my own while he was speaking had only gotten a little better) He'd let me cue him while he was speaking and he'd continue and we could come back to my thought, sometimes even successfully. The most important thing of all, is that IMs led to the best moments I had with my Dad in his last days; and intellectually speaking, this was our best days.

So, for me at least, there still is nothing like the IM to let a wandering mind capture those things it generates off of another great mind. So thank you Og for helping me in many ways.

OTOH, for those of you who don't like the product of my output? You can blame Og for enabling me.