June 16, 2008
Unity Means Our Unity, You S.O.B.
Jeff Goldstein at Protein Wisdom, foreshadowing Our Savior’s presidency:
It looks like an Obama presidency will give us a frank discussion on the issue of race. If by “frank” we mean, “shut up and quit you’re bitching, whitey. We’ll tell you what racism is.”Seizing the means of linguistic production. Boutique Marxism enters the mainstream — and once it is accepted, it will most certainly undermine classical liberalism and the idea of free speech.
Or to quote Obama's friend Billy Ayer's former Weather Underground cohort Mark Rudd: "Up against the wall, motherfucker!" I won't delve into the physiological excitement that's bound to be running through all those sensitive emotional lefty psyches. It's way too gross.
By the way, Goldstein is right on about the effects of boutique Marxism--though the term "boutique" belies the lethal danger hidden in the concept. It's been obvious for a while now that Gramsci has been the one to bet on, not Marx himself.
June 01, 2008
The Perfect Rhetorical Question
Peter Robinson gives a perfect example of a rhetorical question when he asks:
Can anybody tell me why, when we possess technology so dazzling that pretty good face recognition is available in cameras that cost less than a hundred and fifty bucks—why does the Transportation Security Authority still insist on herding all air travellers, including such obviously unlikely terrorists as toddlers and little old ladies, through security checks that are slow, cumbersome, and, manifestly, stupid? Why doesn't the federal government get smart? We're in the eighth year of a Republican administration, for goodness's sake. And—really, the most disturbing question—why do we all put up with it?
Okay, maybe not one rhetorical question, but several. I could ask an even dozen more off the top of my head.
Posted by Jeff at 12:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)May 22, 2008
Can We Get A Platform Like This, Please?
I like Sean Hannity OK, although he's not who I look to for stringent analysis. But he's right on here (hat tip to K-Lo):
Hannity's Top 10 Items for VictoryPosted by Jeff at 10:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)1) To be the Candidate of National security:
a) Victory in Iraq
b) Fully support NSA, Patriot act, tough interrogations, keeping Gitmo open
c) A Candidate that pledges to NOT demean our military while they are fighting for their Country. eg Harry Reid: "the surge has failed", "the war is lost"
d) Candidate that promises to ensure that our veterans can live out their lives in dignity.2) The Candidate who pledges to oppose Appeasement:
a) The Candidate will oppose any and all efforts to negotiate with dictators of the world in places like Iran, Syria, N. Korea, Cuba, and Venezuela without "pre-conditions"3) The Candidate Pledges to support Tax CUTS, and fiscal responsibility:
a) The American people are NOT under taxed, Government Spends too much
b) The Candidate who Pledges to ELIMINATE and VOTE AGAINST ALL Earmarks
c) The Candidate pledges to BALANCE the budget4) The Candidate Pledges to be a supporter of "Energy Independence"
a) supports Immediate drilling in Anwar and the 48 states
b) Building new refineries
c) Begin building and using Nuclear Facilities
d) expand coal mining
e) realistic steward of the environment
While simultaneously working with private industry to develop the new energy technologies for the future, with the goal being that America becomes completely energy independent within the next 15 years.5) The Candidate pledges to secure our borders completely within 12 months:
a) build all necessary fences
b) use all available technology to help and support agents at the border
c) train and hire agents as needed6) Healthcare:
The Candidate will look for Free-Market solutions to the problems facing the Healthcare industry, and will vigorously oppose any efforts to "nationalize healthcare".
a) The Candidate will fight for Individual health savings accounts, that includes "catastrophic insurance" for every American, so people can control their own healthcare choices.7) Education:
a) The Candidate pledges to "save" American children from the failing educational system
b) The Candidate will fight to break the unholy alliance of the Democratic party and teachers unions, which at best has institutionalized mediocrity, and has failed children across the country
c) fight for "CHOICE" in education and let parents decide
d) fight for vouchers for parents8) Social Security and Medicare:
a) The Candidate will "save" social security and medicare from bankruptcy.
b) Options will include "private retirement" funds so people can "control" their own destiny.9) Judges
a) The Candidate vows to support ONLY judges who recognize that their job is to interpret the Constitution, and NOT legislate from the bench.10) American Dream:
The Candidate accepts as their duty and responsibility to educate, inform, and remind people that with the blessings of Freedom comes a Great responsibility. That Government's primary goal is to preserve, protect and defend our God given gift of freedom.That Government's do not have the ability to solve all of our problems, and to take away all of our fears and concerns. We need their pledge that we will be the candidate that promotes Individual liberty, Capitalism, a strong national defense and will support policies that encourage such...
It is our fundamental belief that limited Government, and Greater individual responsibility will insure the continued prosperity and success for future generations.
We the people who believe in the words of Ronald Reagan, that we are "the best last hope for man on this earth," "a shining city on a hill," and that our best days are before us if our Government will simply trust the American people.
April 29, 2008
At This Point, The Scariest Thing About Hillary Is...
...The left hates her and treats her like Lieberman.
So says a friend of Rich Lowry's. His friend also thinks HRC is trying to present herself as the new Scoop Jacskon. I have personally observed the potency of the antipathy held by the true left for Hillary. A complementary observation is that the center (whose votes will decide the election, as always) might well take that antipathy by the left as a kind of backhanded endorsement. All the more reason that Clinton would be the more formidable candidate for McCain, especially if she can successfully channel Jackson and Lieberman.
But she has to get nominated first. Imagine: Hillary almost, but not quite, succeeds in wresting the nomination from Obama. Nominatus interruptus, indeed! Oh, the humanity!
Posted by Jeff at 03:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)April 22, 2008
Billy Ayers: Never Mind, It Was So Long Ago...
James Lileks notes a Chicago Tribune editorial that quotes mayor Richard Daley of Chicago speaking about Obama and Billy Ayers:
"I don't condone what he did 40 years ago [Daley said] but I remember that period well. It was a difficult time, but those days are long over.”
Oh boy, talk about a batting practice fastball over the heart of the plate. But I'll pass on it, and let Lileks take it:
It was a difficult time. What a wonderful absolution. Oh, we all went a little mad. Some of us listened to Steppenwolf, some of us bombed government buildings and plotted robberies that killed people, some of us were rotting in Vietnamese prisons having our teeth bashed out by torture experts. Those days are behind us now, best forgotten. (Unlike the McCarthy era, which will be the subject of 163 movies about the blacklist next year, bringing the total to 45,203.)
Yeah, sure, what's a few bombings in the name of revolution? Hell, we deserved it.
Posted by Jeff at 06:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)April 21, 2008
Joke Headline Of The Day (Or The Year...)
From MSNBC:
Hamas offers truce in return for 1967 bordersLeader of Islamic group makes statement after meetings with Carter
The leader of Hamas said Monday that his Palestinian militant group would offer Israel a 10-year "hudna," or truce, as implicit proof of recognition of Israel if it withdrew from all lands it seized in the 1967 Middle East War. [...}
Ha ha ha! Oh Hamas, you crack me up! Pull the other one! You guys could be the life of the party--now, where's Lenny Bernstein?
Posted by Jeff at 12:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)April 09, 2008
Steyn on WFB
Kathryn Judson posted this snippet of Mark Steyn's observations on the impact of William F. Buckley:
"...The 1950s are assumed, at least by children of the Sixties, to be a “conservative” era. But at home New Deal liberalism controlled all the levers of society and abroad the Communists had gobbled up half of Europe, neutered most of the rest, swiped China, were eyeing up other valuable real estate across the planet, and Washington’s foreign-policy establishment was inclined to accept this as a permanent feature of life to be “managed” rather than defeated.The Republican minority in Congress were isolationists or country-club liberals, and their presidential nominees were “moderates” like Dewey or non-partisans like Ike. There was virtually no serious intellectual energy in American conservatism. The notion that in the early 21st century more Americans would identify themselves as “conservatives” than as “liberals” would have struck the elites of 50 years ago as preposterous: a scenario unimaginable outside the more fanciful dystopian science fiction... [snip]...
Then Bill Buckley showed up and was brilliantly effective. In the barren soil of the Fifties, he planted what became a mighty family tree that includes not just Barry Goldwater and then Ronald Reagan but millions of other Americans. I’ve been amazed in recent days by the number of e-mails I’ve received from readers retelling essentially the same story across the decades: Buckley came to their college in the Sixties, Seventies, Eighties, or Nineties, and the scales fell from their eyes. Or they were in the local library and found a stray copy of something called “National Review” that had somehow managed to penetrate the perimeter fence. Or they were flipping through the channels late at night and stumbled across this cool guy with a pencil effortlessly eviscerating some liberal panjandrum..."...
"There was virtually no serious intellectual energy in American conservatism." Absolutely spot on. I've come to the conclusion that the image of the "fifties" that is so reviled by the baby boomers is really a myth, a creation of Hollywood, really. Think of it: Leave It To Beaver and Father Knows Best were creations of the Hollywood studios and bear as little resemblance to everyday life in the fifties as Friends did to life in the early 2000's. And Steyn makes an observation that should be obvious: the fifties were the absolute low point of conservative ideological influence.
I'm pretty close with my praise of so-called great men or women, but it cannot be denied that WFB was a truly great man.
Posted by Jeff at 11:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)Michelle Obama's Latest Wisdom
The Charlotte Observer reports on Michelle Obama's campaign trip to Harrisburg PA (hat tip to Instapundit):
"The truth is, in order to get things like universal health care and a revamped education system, then someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie so that someone else can have more."
Yes. That top ten percent of wage earners (you know, the ones that pay over 70% of the total income tax revenue, see table 6, here) need to pay some more.
Posted by Jeff at 09:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)April 08, 2008
Hillary Says Our Military Needs "Rebuilding"...
...but the enlistment for one of our most-deployed infantry divisions has met its yearly quota--in half the allotted time! From the Mudville Gazette (hat tip: Instapundit):
In case that wasn't clear, I'll explain: the 3ID - the Division that took Baghdad in 2003, did a second tour in Iraq in 2005, and then bore the brunt of the surge in 2007, exceeded it's re-enlistment goal for FY2008 half way through the year.But I was just kidding when I called it a "news story" - no national news source in America would ever even consider running a story like that.
Yep, so true. Can you imagine what it would be like if we didn't have to run against the relentless hurricane-force wind of media bias?
Posted by Jeff at 10:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)April 02, 2008
Pining For Guatanamo
Cliff May notes the Turks have detained some suspected al Qaeda bad guys, and notes:
They're going to wish they were in Guantanamo.
[snicker]
Ya think?
Posted by Jeff at 11:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)April 01, 2008
The Liberals' Break With Their Past: Still Waiting
In response to a fair-minded liberal's query, Jonah Goldberg writes:
Whenever I hear the criticism as offered above [that Jonah's application of the fascism meme have become a bit "fevered"] I often want to ask: “Okay, if you agree with me that Progressivism, Wilsonian war socialism, and New Deal corporatism were all to one extent or another fascistic, when do you think liberalism went about the hard work of shedding itself of this baggage?”Because when I look around, I see a lot of liberals lionizing the New Deal and celebrating their own profound indebtedness to the very same progressives you admit were disturbingly fascistic.
Exactly. I'd be very interested in studying that defining moment when liberals changed their stripes. Over forty years ago, William F. Buckley read the John Birchers out of the conservative movement--when did the liberals do the same for the eugenicists, anti-individualists and imperialists that formed the basis of the Progressive party?
March 29, 2008
The Wages Of Identity Politics
Victor Davis Hanson offers a devastating analysis of the cumulative effects of the long-term practice of identity politics by liberals, effects which have been catalyzed by the Reverend Jeremiah Wright's recent remarks. (I guess I should amend that to the recent exposure of his remarks: Wright has been dealing his well-developed "theories" for years now.)
Watching the parade of apologists for Rev. Wright’s hatred—“garlic noses”; “KKK of A;” “God Damn America;” “Condamnesia;” the U.S. deserved 9/11; America is no different from al-Qaeda; we caused the AIDs virus; Israel is a “dirty word” and sought an Arab and black ethnic bomb, etc—is, well, depressing. [...][T]he net message from the African-American liberal establishment, at least I fear, seems to be something like the following: ‘Wright is not going to offer an apology and we aren’t embarrassed about his ranting, which is not ranting at all, but rather historical and biblical exegesis which we endorse. And the problem is yours, not ours, since we expect exemption—given the history of race in this country—from your so-called norms of public discourse.’ [...]
I think VDH is quite correct in noting the reaction of the black churches; and as I have pointed out, there's also a not insignificant portion of the left that agrees with Wright's politics. After all, a group who is long-accustomed to making excuses for ideologies like Marxism will have no trouble with rationalizing Wright. But VDH believes there is a historical precedent that predicts how the voters will react to Obama's inability to put Americans' minds at ease over Wright's hate speech. He concludes by saying:
Barack Obama is on his way to a McGovern candidacy.
It is widely observed that Obama's voting record in the Senate makes him the most left-leaning presidential candidate since George McGovern. And of course, McGovern also ran against a centrist, even liberal, Republican who wasn't warmly endorsed by conservatives.
Will history repeat?
March 26, 2008
The Audacity Of Hiding One's Past
The reliably brilliant Thomas Sowell writes on Barack Obama's past:
Barack Obama's own account of his life shows that he consciously sought out people on the far left fringe. In college, "I chose my friends carefully," he said in his first book, "Dreams From My Father."These friends included "Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk rock performance poets" -- in Obama's own words -- as well as the "more politically active black students." He later visited a former member of the terrorist Weatherman underground, who endorsed him when he ran for state senator.
Obama didn't just happen to encounter Jeremiah Wright, who just happened to say some way out things. Jeremiah Wright is in the same mold as the kinds of people Barack Obama began seeking out in college -- members of the left, anti-American counter-culture. [...]
Nor has Obama changed in recent years. His voting record in the U.S. Senate is the furthest left of any Senator. There is a remarkable consistency in what Barack Obama has done over the years, despite inconsistencies in what he says.
As Sowell goes on to note, it is highly ironical that Obama is now projecting an image of a post-racial healer and uniter, and worrisome that Obama's polished skill has obscured his past so completely. Just the ticket for those who vote from their gut, and heart.
Posted by Jeff at 09:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)March 19, 2008
Wise Words
I mountain biking friend of mine asked:
I wonder if it would be OK that after attending KKK meetings for the last 20 years all one would have to do is condemn what was said at those meetings and everything would be fine?
That is a very good question. And the answer is: of course not. Whatever were you thinking?
Posted by Jeff at 12:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)March 14, 2008
The Reverend Wright: Some, No Doubt, Think He's Right
Barack Obama's pastor, Jeremiah Wright, has been the focus of quite a bit of outrage since his "God damn America" tirade hit the blogosphere. Yesterday, John Derbyshire at The Corner wondered what all the fuss was about--he contends that Wright's views are not "unorthodox", at least by the standards found in a lot of black churches.
Here is a 2005 poll showing that:Almost half of all African-Americans believe that HIV, the virus that causes Aids, is man-made, more than a quarter believe it was produced in a government laboratory and one in eight think it was created and spread by the CIA, according to a study released by Rand Corporation and the University of Oregon.I have no doubt that non-black Americans would be willing to vote for a black American as president. Not many of us, however, would be willing to vote for a candidate who thought of himself as black first and American second. That such people exist is proved by the success of Jeremiah Wright — and by the applause of his congregation.Is Barack Obama such a person? If he is not, why has he been such a loyal member of that congregation, making five-figure donations to Wright's church at least as late as 2006? Calling on Wright to bless his marriage and his house, and baptize his children? Using a passage from one of Wright's sermons as the title of his second book?
I've been thinking along the same lines, though not specifically about the community of black churches: there is a large segment of the liberal/Left who no doubt believes that the reverend is correct, too. I can easily imagine the following conversation:
Incredulous conservative laughs to leftie: “Did you hear Obama’s pastor thinks that America invented the AIDS virus, and the we’re the number one killer in the world? What a maroon.”Posted by Jeff at 04:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)Unsmiling leftie stares back: “Well, I don’t doubt it in the least.”