And where a Salon writer wades into (for him) completely uncharted waters

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Over the weekend, Salon writer, DAVID MASCIOTRA, caused quite a bit of dust-up on social media with his own “salute to the troops” ahead of Veteran’s Day . Here is the headline, followed by the sub-headline and then followed by the first paragraph of the piece.

You don’t protect my freedom: Our childish insistence on calling soldiers heroes deadens real democracy

It's been 70 years since we fought a war about freedom. Forced troop worship and compulsory patriotism must end

Put a man in uniform, preferably a white man, give him a gun, and Americans will worship him. It is a particularly childish trait, of a childlike culture, that insists on anointing all active military members and police officers as “heroes.”

If you desire, you can read it in its entirety, here.


The first thing that jumped out at us was the use of “forced” and “compulsory”. His definition of the words would be at odds with ours or else he would be in some sort of legal trouble outside of being roundly criticized on the internet. But, we suppose, if you are going to pen this on the weekend prior to Veteran’s Day, you’d be well-served to go big on hyperbole. And what we’ve seen on T.V. this weekend, mostly at sporting events, was expressions of thankfulness and gratitude, not worship. But, again, if you are going to go there, go big.


So, let’s put semantics aside and dig right into this with a critique angle that originates from the American left, Saul Alinsky specifically, and which is rooted in using one’s own arguments against them. Are you familiar with the term “mansplaining”? Wiki has got it covered here, but in short it is: "a man condescendingly explain[ing] something to female listeners".


And more expansively, it is the phenomena of the explainer knowing less about the subject than the explainee. Narrowing it down again, we’ve seen the term used most consistently in the abortion argument where men have no right to an opinion on the matter since they are biologically incapable of having one. OK, then. So, what say you, Mr. Masciotra? Oh, wait. Who cares what this guy has to say? He is the ideological heir of those who spit on the G.I.s and Marines returning home from Vietnam. The man despises the military as an institution so WTF right does he have on even opining on the subject? By the logic of the left, his arguments are null and void from the start. See how that works?


But shutting down dissent is no fun, right? Especially when we can have more fun deconstructing his argument.


Maybe ol’ boy is pitching such a fit because he’s jealous. That’s right, jealous. Gallup has been tracking respect in/confidence in various American institutions for decades. Follow the link here and you’ll see the military has, over the years, been the most respected institution in America. And where would Masciotra’s profession(s) be? Newspapers, Television news, internet news, i.e., the mainstream media, are towards or right at the bottom of the heap.


Scroll down to the performances of the individual institutions over the years and you’ll see that the military’s numbers have remained steady where the public’s confidence in the media has eroded over time. So, perhaps having a 4th estate, the watchdog of democracy, that is so un-respected because the public lacks confidence they are doing their job is more deadening to real democracy than “worshipping” the troops.


The definition of “hero” is very much open to interpretation as it should be. One man’s hero may not be another’s and that’s fine. But here’s the thing Masciotra and his ilk don’t understand: Members of the most respected institution in the country will get the benefit of the doubt in this country’s cultural lexicon. And members of the least respected institutions in this country, the media hackeratti, of which he is a member, will not. Sorry, Dave, no one likes you.


Pre-historic societies passed along history and the pillars of that particular culture through story-telling and myth-making. Warriors were held up as models of physical bravery, courage and honor. There is a positive aspect to mythologizing the favorable aspects of society be they soldiers or not. Characters in our country’s past like, Paul Bunyan, Johnny Appleseed and John Henry have been mythologized and made figuratively larger-than-life in an effort to strengthen a shared American cultural experience and to perhaps serve as an anology to vastness of our country.


The vet = hero narrative is really no different. We’ve seen it a couple of times when we are out with my little brother and his family where he will “force” his 3 young children to approach members of the Huntington Beach Fire Department to express their gratitude and thanks for the work they do that if it hasn’t already, may certainly in the future, put their limb and life in harm’s way. My little brother is mythologizing (making his children look up to) the best aspects of our culture through these men: sacrifice, courage and bravery being among them.


And almost identically, the vet = hero narrative mythologizes and makes larger-than-life its subject because a huge swath of the country of which Masciotra finds foreign, still believe these traits to be important to our country.


Let’s leave with this: Guys: when you were growing up, what did you play? “Army” or “crap-weasel columnist at a lefty rag”? Ladies: “Into whose arms do you wish to fall? A fireman’s (mustachio and all), or David Masciotra?



* Pearl Harbor survivor Houston James of Dallas, Texas embraces Marine Staff Sgt. Mark Graunke Jr. during a Veterans Day commemoration in Dallas. Graunke lost a hand, a leg and and eye when he was injured by a bomb in Iraq.



A special Veterans’ Day shoutout to my two older brothers who also happen to be two of my favorite Cold War warriors who served with distinction and honor in this country’s nuclear sub fleet and the U.S. Army’s vaunted 82nd Airborne Division, respectively.

Political cartoon of the day...

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... from the best, Michael Ramirez:

We don't make it a habit of banging on the American electorate as a whole in this blog. Overt criticism of the electoral decisions of our fellow Americans has never sat well with us. It makes us feel… well, it makes us feel like these whiny, petulant, 3 yr. old-acting secessionists that have sprung up overnight since last Tuesday night. (We may have more on that later but for the time being, please crawl back into the whole from whence you came)


Without having seen the cartoon, we tweeted something earlier this week along the lines of “We’ve been told that the GOP got beat on “messaging”. But how do you competed against “free stuff”". And just yesterday, again, without having seen the cartoon we tweeted: “We’ve been told GOP needs a freedom and liberty-centric message. Perhaps but election proved nation into shiny things-centric message."


That a President presiding over the worst economy in decades while making hash of the Constitution via his actions both here and abroad could campaign essentially on Big Bird and making sure a middle-aged Georgetown law student got free rubbers speaks to a combination of his amazing campaign skills and, quite frankly, a nation that has completely lost its bearings. You can talk internals, ground games, over-eager Republican pollsters and pundits all you want but there is just no other way to explain how in the end this was not really that close of a race, certainly not as close as some (formerly) respected people were calling it.


Did this represent the war cry of the baby-boomers, our most spoiled generation, riding off into a Social Security back-lit setting sun? Was this their way of leading from the front, electorally speaking, and telling the rest of us that, “Hell yeah! You can have yours and the person’s next to you”?


Or maybe it is the inevitable result of decades upon decades of an education system that holds on a pedestal “diversity” and dares not speak of American Exceptionalism let alone the basic virtues of property rights, free speech, free markets and the rule of law.


Perhaps we should also be looking at the 4th estate. That they have not come after, in the most forceful manner possible, a Commander-in-Chief that holds the completely incongruent positions of wanting to try foreign terrorist master-minds in civilian court yet has no problem wacking U.S. civilians overseas via drone strikes is a white-flagged signal that they’ve packed it in and thus have no interest in performing the essential duties that the press must in a viable republic.


There is plenty of blame to go around but suffice to say the long march of statism through our nation’s institutions culminated, against all rational reasoning to the contrary, in a win for President Obama last Tuesday night.


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It's a Republic, as it should be

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People ask us to defend Romney. We won't. It's just an election, after all. One in a, hopefully, long-running series of such events where we can judge at some point down the road whether or not we made the right decision in the relative comfort of a safe and free Republic.


Here, however, is someone who will:

Romney is a decent business manager. He’s a decent man. He likes America. He wants America to like him. He’s not going to actively dismantle our way of life, as will the one now in power. There will be no attacks on freedom of religion, no wild power grabs for the Internet, no executive orders that violate the laws of the land. He will not hanker for more “flexibility” so he can give more to Putin. And — this is petty but important for how the world sees us — he will neither apologize nor bow to foreign leaders.

Is he perfect? Oh, goodness, no. Is he exactly what we need? Probably not. Who is? Do you know the trouble we’ve got ourselves into by trusting presidents for this long? It’s a big hole. No one man can get us out of it. Only we can. And it will take time.

But that’s fine. He won’t be anointed by any gods. There will be no halos and no Greek columns. Instead, he’ll be the elected by the people and the people — the sovereign people of this free land — who are now awake will stand ready to make sure he knows it.

Perhaps we will once more save our democratic republic for another generation. Perhaps we’ll turn the tiller and start the long way back from deep blue statism.

In the end, as someone said, perhaps we’re the ones we’ve been waiting for. No hero will ride to the rescue — we will.

Go to the link and read the whole thing. It's good - real good.


The linked piece represents more of a defense of the American ideal than a defense of Romney.

It's totally healthy and totally American to be skeptical of our leaders. Hell, it's even healthy and American to be skeptical of the person we will be pulling the lever for come November. It's who we are and it's in our DNA as Americans.

We don't need a Reagan - we don't need a saviour. We need us. We need an informed, enlightened and engaged people which, in our opinion, has been missing for a while. That is the backbone of a strong republic, not its leaders.

We don't need school children singing songs in praise of the President. We don't need creepy, insipid fan boy/girl pledge videos to the President. That really hasn't solved anything, now has it?

During the Republican National Convention, we were tweeting during Governor Chris Christie's keynote address and something he said triggered this response from us:

Christie nailed it. If Romney won't lead, we'll show him the way.

Now, get your asses to the polls in November.

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Video clip of the day

What can baseball and Babe Ruth tell us about American exceptionalism? Well, if you're Bob Costas spinning yarns, apparently quite a bit.

Here's Costas at the beginning of the 4th episode of Ken Burns' epic Baseball.

You give me Babe Ruth over any king who has ever sat on a throne and I'll be happy with that trade.

And we're sure that any General Manager who has ever sat in a front office would be quite OK with that trade also.


Seriously, how cool was that?



Americans are not a race but rather a people bound by ideas. Ideas that reject royalty and embrace meritocracy. Ideas of the sort that we will not be governed by any man, no matter his lineage or stature, except by our consent. No consent? There's the door, pal.


Babe Ruth: the living embodiment of this country during the Roaring 20s was also the living embodiment of some other uniquely American ideas: that of (larger than) life, liberty (who said baseball players could only hit 10 homeruns a season?) and the pursuit of happiness ('cause who had more fun than The Babe?)



Tangentially related: An acquaintance of ours, a chap named Mark moved here from England in the early 80s to go to school and make his life and fortune. He became naturalized, met and married his wife, raised his family and has never left. He loves his adoptive country. He loves America, he's passionate about it and we love naturalized citizens like Mark who love this country. One day he asked us with a mild degree of indignation: "If I wanted to be President, I couldn't. Why is that? " We were speechless. Literally. Since nothing remotely resembling a rational justification was coming to mind, other than some well-intended, at the time, nativist impulses, we simply shrugged and shook our head.

This story wasn't even the main point of the post and, obviously, we've got far bigger things to worry about currently but as a parlor exercise, is it time (when that time comes) to re-visit that foreign-born restriction in the Constitution? We think it may be. Your thoughts and comments, as always, are welcome.



H/T: Max

Why so "controversial"?

Jay Nordlinger of NRO recently interviewed Jeb Bush, whom we wish did not possess the last name that he does. Anyway, he paraphrased what it was that Bush thought was needed to be done to turn this country around and the third point really grabbed us.

And No. 3 — this one is controversial in conservative circles. We have to get our act together on immigration. We have to control our border — stop illegal immigration. That’s not controversial, of course. But this is: We then have to welcome people who can help us.

We’re a country that can absorb people from all over the world. The contract is, basically, “You share our American values, we allow you to pursue your dreams.” This fosters a vibrant, dynamic society.

So, again, control the border — any great country does. Any country worth its salt does. But then recognize that, if we’re going to grow at 4 percent a year, we have to have young, aspiring people to create that dynamism, and we can’t do it with our existing demographics. We have to bring in people who want to pursue their dreams in our country.

(italics, ours)


What?

In the conservative circles we run, we are not aware of a single person that is anti-immigrant and we certainly don't know a single person in those circles that is opposed to the outlines of an immigration policy that Bush is describing.

So, what is going on here? We think what is going on here is Bush is essentially giving into the media narrative of not being content with branding conservatives as merely anti-illegal immigration but rather broad- brushing conservatives as anti-immigration all around. It seems to fit better with the broader nativist, bigoted and, you know, terrorist narrative for conservatives.

Perhaps, we conservatives that are concerned with illegal immigration have done a poor job of communicating the fact that we are indeed in favor of young, bright, hard-working foreigners who hold American values dear and who want to come here to pursue the American dream. It's hard, though, being on anything but the defensive and yes, even reactionary to a degree when the other side constantly brings up "comprehensive" immigration reform and everybody... everybody knows that's simply thinly-veiled code-speak for "amnesty".

And this is compounded by the fact that the Beltway's ruling elite boots-on-the-ground in the immigration debate hold some of the most virulent anti-American, anti-free market and pro-Third World socialist views. Yes, that can cause a rather vociferous response among conservatives that would be easy to twist as nativist or bigoted by the other side.

Simply put, we pro-legal immigration types need to do a better job of communicating our desires to see an immigration system that favors those who we would love to have as neighbors, the kind of immigration system that rewards those who want to contribute to the exceptional spirit of America and an immigration system as described by Jeb Bush.

Perhaps, that attitude and sentiment should be our going-in position before we get around to the "Hell, no!" that the open-borders set almost always elicits.

Rejoice...!

... because it's America here, every day of the year.

Quote of the day

For as much bitching and complaining we do around here from time to time, it's important to remember...

“Whatever else has happened to you, wake up happy every morning that you are in the United States of America,” said Stein, an actor, lawyer and celebrity commentator on political and economic issues.

“We are still the light of the world,” he said. “We are an amazing magnet for hardworking, energetic people. You don’t see too many people leaving Encinitas to drive taxis in Cairo or Bangladesh.”

Follower blog post of the day

Our daily effort to keep up with the blogging of our followers and to spread around a little love.



Les Carpenter of Rational Nation USA just returned from Britain and found out we can learn an awful lot about American exceptionalism from a Brit.

My guess is that, if anything, Obama would verbalize his ideology using the same vocabulary that Eurocrats do. He would say he wants a fairer America, a more tolerant America, a less arrogant America, a more engaged America. When you prize away the cliché, what these phrases amount to are higher taxes, less patriotism, a bigger role for state bureaucracies, and a transfer of sovereignty to global institutions.

Read the entire very worthwhile post here.

Ugly has its day

From earlier today:

The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that a grieving father's pain over mocking protests at his Marine son's funeral must yield to First Amendment protections for free speech. All but one justice sided with a fundamentalist church that has stirred outrage with raucous demonstrations contending God is punishing the military for the nation's tolerance of homosexuality.

The 8-1 decision in favor of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., was the latest in a line of court rulings that, as Chief Justice John Roberts said in his opinion for the court, protects "even hurtful speech on public issues to ensure that we do not stifle public debate."

The decision ended a lawsuit by Albert Snyder, who sued church members for the emotional pain they caused by showing up at his son Matthew's funeral. As they have at hundreds of other funerals, the Westboro members held signs with provocative messages, including "Thank God for dead soldiers," `'You're Going to Hell," `'God Hates the USA/Thank God for 9/11," and one that combined the U.S. Marine Corps motto, Semper Fi, with a slur against gay men.

Our hearts go out to the families and friends of fallen service members who have had to endure the morally repugnant actions of these jerks from Westboro Baptist Church but this is absolutely the right call.

Free speech matters. And free speech still matters in this country.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion for the court and Justice Samuel Alito was the lone dissenter.

The 8-1 split is an ecouraging sign for this country in that a right guaranteed by the very first amendment to the Constitution is held this importantly by both the left and the right. A 9-0 decision, however, would have been more preferable.

This carries cultural implications as well, we belive. Recently, in France, they have banned the burqa and even more recently a fashion designer there will stand trial for alleged anti-semetic rants he made in public. To Americans, the speech trial would appear to run counter to our concept of free speech.

The burqa ban is odder even still and is representative of a capitulation of the highest order. It is as if the French threw up their hands and cryed, "We give up!" in the matter of cultural assimilation. France's and much of Europe's embrace of multiculturalism painted themselves into a corner with respect to assimilation and when the Muslim immigrant population took this as a cue to not assimilate, reactionary policies such as the burqa ban and the Swiss flirtation with a minaret ban became the results that appear wholy un-American to us.

That is why this court decision and what the rest of the world would view as our completely radical concept of free speech are so important to the republic.

When Westboro Baptist sets up shop at military funerals, they are met by scores of counter-protesters including veteran biker groups. These folks came here to San Diego a couple of years ago and protested in front of The Rock church in Pt. Loma and were greeted by hundreds of countering gays, Christians, veteran, bikers, gay Christians, Christian bikers, gay vets, Christian vets, gay bikers... the whole lot, actively participating in democracy and "voting" in the market place of ideas.

If all 6 members of Westboro Baptist were simply hauled off to the slammer, our democracy is diminished as someone or something took care of the "problem" for us. Instead of an examination of what is being said and done which then results in those words and deeds getting trounced in the marketplace of ideas, the threat of being offended or seeing/hearing something unsavory is removed. Hold ridiculous and/or repulsive speech and ideas up to the light so they can be mocked and ridiculed for what they are.

A banning of "Thank God for dead soldiers" or the burqa does nothing to promote the shared cultural values of countrymen, be they native-born or foreign.

This notion that speech, even offensive speech, is protected is of paramount importance for a robust democracy and yes, for assimilation. We don't care what people wear but we do care what they believe.

So tying the ideas of free speech, American exceptionalism and assimilation all togther:

Wear your burqa, please. But please also embrace freedom of speech, religion, property rights and the rule of law and also embrace an allegiance to this country because all of this makes us who we are as Americans. If you cannot carry through on these beliefs, perhaps you would feel more comfortable living elsewhere.

Christianity in America

Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are a gift from God? That they are not violated but with his wrath?

- Thomas Jefferson, 1781


Bill Whittle provides an outstanding summation of morality, Christianity, self-governance and how they are woven into the fabric of America in the 8-minute Firewall video below.

If you are of a non-Christian faith or no faith at all, don't be alarmed. Give it a view and let us know what you think.





We dig the fact that he brings up good citizenship and upright behavior as the bulwark against government intrusion.

When we don't govern ourselves internally, there is always someone else who will do it for us.

See also: the myriad of social programs that have attempted to clean-up the mess caused by anti-social behavior to little or no effect.

Link of the Day

It's Constitution/Bill of Rights Day.



Go on over to B-Daddy's place to chime in on what specific cases regarding the freedoms and liberties guaranteed by the Constitution have suffered the greatest.

Link of the day

Yesterday, we blogged about 1st Lt. Will Donnelly (Kings Point '08) who was killed in action on Thanksgiving Day.

Regular reader and frequent commenter, Steve (a former Navy Corpsman who served alongside Marines) suggested that to honor the life and sacrifice of Will, a donation be made to the Marine Corps Scholarship Fund.

The site is here where you can find out more about this worthy program.

Though they did not have children, we feel that would be an excellent way to honor William J. Donnelly IV and support his wife, Linsey.

Right now, we're doing exactly what Americans should be doing

Via MSNBC, here is Stewart Baker, who worked at the Department of Homeland Security as its first secretary of policy under President George W. Bush, and had this to say regarding the TSA controversy:

“Instead of making this Wednesday National Opt-Out Day in which a bunch of self-appointed guardians of liberty slow down the line for everyone by asking for pat-downs,” said Baker, “maybe what we need is a day when everyone who goes through the line says, ‘Thanks for what you do.

We're not going to argue the merits of what Baker is suggesting you do on pain-in-the-ass Wednesday as that is not what grabbed us but rather it was the (in our humble assumption) snide "self-appointed guardians of liberty" swipe.

At the end of the day and especially with respect to the TSA debate, who the hell does Baker feel are the guardians of liberty? Is not Baker familiar with the words and larger context of "We the People"?

And this is why we have spent as much time on this subject, because it is a debate regarding liberty and it is we the people who are initiating it. It is also a debate regarding national security and the most effective means of screening so the bad guys cannot get on the plane.

The American people, contrary to what Baker may think, are doing exactly what they should be doing right now: Questioning authority. And right now, authority has been doing a pretty piss-poor job of justifying these new enhanced TSA security measures.

If We the People, do not behave in an ungovernable fashion and ask difficult questions of the people who work for us, then who the hell is?

What is happening right now is precisely what should be happening in a healthy and vibrant democracy? While newspaper editorial boards across the country are telling us all to just shut up and bend over, the American people are demonstrating that demanding accountability of those in authority is no longer solely an election year exercise.

To paraphrase the First Lady, we've always been proud of our country but we are exceedingly proud, right now.




As always, be exceptional and...






(Correction: Anon, in the comments, alerted us to the fact we had quoted the wrong person. It is indeed Stewart Baker to whom we will direct the ire if not the full and glorious intention of this post - that is for you our dear friends. The post has been amended to reflect the same. Thanks, Anon.)

A 13 yr. old shows what it is to be "ungovernable"

Last week, Cody Alicea, a middle-schooler in Denair, California, was told by school officials to take the flag off his bike he had been riding back and forth to school with for the past couple of months in order to honor this nation's veterans including his grandfather. The school district warned of potential violence against Cody because of his clearly insensitive flag-waving. The school district eventually relented after um, pretty much all of America descended upon Denair in one big electronic shit storm tying up the switchboards and effectively shutting down Denair Middle School's website.

Cody was back at school on Monday receiving an escort from a group of vet bikers and attended a small pep rally of sorts out in front of the school.

Behold this gloriously off-key salute to Cody and this country.




A few thoughts:

After all the hoopla dies down, we sincerely hope that Cody has some large and loyal friends who will have his back when the time comes, because it will come.

We're thinking of setting up some sort of 1-800 public servant hot line to keep people like the Denair school district from making fantastically inept and tone-deaf decisions. After fielding this particular call, we would advise the following: "Are you sure you want to do that? Are you sure you want every Fox News affiliate from here to inner Mongolia descending upon your town there in Northern California like a swarm of locusts demanding answers as well as the rest of America melting down your grid in a veritable electronic assault? Do your job. Quarantine the aggressors. We thought bullying was supposed to be bad? Do the right thing and look like you actually give a damn about this country rather than kow-towing to the Mexican kids who want to beat up Cody. Now leave us alone and don't call back.

We think there is some potential in this hot line thing.



Recall that it was also up in Northern California this past spring where a handful of high schoolers in Morgan Hill were told to change their American flag t-shirts they wore to school on Cinco de Mayo. The aggrieved in this particular situation responded by walking out of school the next day to stage a march waving Mexican flags to demonstrate what were not really sure.

Lessons learned: Wave an American flag on your way to school? Get told to take it down. Wave a Mexican flag on your way out of school during school hours? Get a police escort.


Finally. Being "ungovernable" does not necessarily mean breaking or disrespecting the law. What it means, quite often, is cutting against the grain or orthodoxy of correct thought and behavior as defined by the political class. Clearly, young Cody was running afoul of "the law" so to speak and though he was threatened with bodily harm, it was obvious that he bore the responsibility for the actions of others. Unfortunately, for the ruling class, Cody and others did not back down from this challenge. May we behave accordingly.

As always...

China the exceptional

Last week, we took on Peter Beinart and his amorous feelings towards China as a counter to his perception of the "lunatic notion" of American exceptionalism.

Again, it's come to this: how badly is the statist brand tarnished that they can no longer look to the Greece fire that is Europe as the end-state of their progressive march but rather cast their lonely eyes to China? China, where natural resource exploitation, command and control blended with crony capitalism economics and forced abortions happen.

Now others are jumping on the bandwagon: Jonah Goldberg in response to Beinart's column, explains that the concept of American exceptionalism is not new and certainly not some exclusively right-wing construct.

"The position of the Americans is therefore quite exceptional," wrote Alexis de Tocqueville in "Democracy in America," "and it may be believed that no democratic people will ever be placed in a similar one." Ever since, historians have argued that America's lack of a feudal past, its Puritan roots, the realism of its revolutionary ambitions and many other ingredients contributed to America's status as the "first new nation," to borrow a phrase from Seymour Martin Lipset, who spent his life writing about American exceptionalism.

Goldberg goes on to give several other examples of the study of this country's exceptionalism as a historical pursuit.

And the Washington Times, on the President's own dubiousness towards American exceptionalism, provides this quote from Margaret Thatcher:

"Americans and Europeans alike sometimes forget how unique is the United States of America. No other nation has been built upon an idea, the idea of liberty. No other nation has so successfully combined people of different races and nations within a single culture. ... Whether in flight from persecution or from poverty, the huddled masses have, with few exceptions welcomed American values, the American way of life and American opportunities. And America herself has bound them to her with powerful bonds of patriotism and pride."

Back to Goldberg:

Ultimately, it's not that liberals don't believe in American exceptionalism so much as they believe it is holding America back, which might explain why they're lashing out at the people who want to keep it exceptional. But that too is nothing new. "The Coolidge myth has been created by amazingly skillful propaganda," editorialized the Nation in 1924 about the unfathomable popularity of Calvin Coolidge. "The American people dearly love to be fooled."

Wow. We guess Americans were stupid in not appreciating liberalism back then also.

Again, what is wrong with greatness? What is wrong with having, collectively, one of the most liberal interpretations of free speech in the world? What is wrong with a firm belief in robust and transparent market economics? What is wrong with a healthy distrust of central authority? We suppose if you are fawning over China, these concepts would indeed be "lunatic".

Please remind us one more time just who the "extremists" are.

China: the new city on the hill

Pete Beinart of The Daily Beast bummed because utterly hopeless Keynesian economics died two nights ago.

It wasn’t the Democrats. It was the belief that government spending must shrink. Peter Beinart on the GOP’s lunatic notion of America’s exceptionalism—and how it could help get Obama re-elected.

Historians may also look back at 2010 as the first post-9/11 election in which fears of China loomed larger than fears of Al Qaeda. Given that China has stimulated its way out of recession and is set to pour even more government money into infrastructure, leaving America further behind, I doubt it will be the last. In his Senate victory speech, Republican megastar Marco Rubio announced that “America is the single greatest nation in all of human history. A place without equal in the history of all mankind” because “almost every other place in the world…what you were going to be when you grow up was determined for you.” Almost every other place in the world? From China to India to Brazil, hundreds of millions of people are rising economically in ways their parents could scarcely have imagined, in part because their governments are investing in infrastructure in the way the United States did in the late nineteenth century. The American dream of upward mobility is alive and well, just not in America. And rather than looking at what those other countries are doing right, the Republicans have taken refuge in an anti-government ideology premised on the lunatic notion that America is the only truly free and successful country in the world. That ideology won last night, and Keynesianism lost. Have a good day!

We have found that when statists talk about "thinking big" it is with exclusive respect to government programs. "Thinking big" in the context of expanding opportunities via the expansion of liberty are foreign concepts. What's wrong with greatness? What is so unseemly about being and continuing to strive for exceptionalism?

We note with irony that the author chooses two beacons of "countries on the rise" (China and Brazil), two countries that are not afraid to exploit their natural resources, a concept we have developed a complete aversion to over the past few decades.

Again, thinking big with the liberal-Left entails dictating your health care decisions, filling potholes (infrastructure!) and building wind turbines (which no one seems to want in their backyards) which require rare earths from... China.

(Look at the quote in the picture)*

Exceptionalism: Americans demonstrate for less government, Europeans demonstrate for more.

From the Economist:

Not French, not fabricated and not as flaky as their detractors aver: these are the positives. Another one: in how many other countries would a powerful populist movement demand less of government, rather than endlessly and expensively more? Much of what is exceptional about America is its ideology of small government, free enterprise and self reliance. If that is what the tea-party movement is for, more power to its elbow.


Can they be serious?

Ideology is one thing. But if the tea-partiers do well next week, especially if the Republicans capture the House, they need to move past ideology into the realm of practical policy. This means having something serious to say about how actually to bring spending under control.

Now what?

B-Daddy has the answers, here.


* The money quote from The Candidate starring Robert Redford.

Radio KBwD is on the air

Jazz, baseball, the PC, hickory-smoked ribs, rock'n'roll, the light bulb, the Chevy Camaro, the string bikini, the twelve-pack, "America the Beautiful", Stagger Lee, big box retailers, Mark Twain, Port Brewing Company, John Wayne, Christmas morning, side one of the Pretenders first album, the sweet spot, hands-free dialing, the Battle of New Orleans, 4th of July fireworks, Irving Berlin and Ray Charles, Shazam, the Kentucky Derby, the Bill of Rights, Abraham, Martin and John, deep-fried turkey, the Pacific at sunset and the Grand Canyon at sunrise, New Year's Day bowl games, Chick Hearn and Vin Scully and the peddle steel guitar... American originals, all.


And in that spirit of innovation, vitality, rebellion, creativity and American exceptionalism and in honor of one of the most idiotic statements ever made, we bring you an undeniable force of nature, an act of God, a force majeure that could only happen here in America.


Ladies and Gentlemen, it's the hardest working man in show business, Mr. James Brown, performing "Sex Machine" and "Get on the Good Foot".

Link of the day

Loyal reader and commenter, Sarah B., passed this along to us.


The American Festival on Saturday down on the Embarcadero here in San Diego from 10 A.M. to 8:30 P.M.

Beers from Ballast Point, Green Flash and Coronado Brewing Co., live music and classic cars. We think that about covers it.

What a great idea. Right, Left or completely indifferent, we think that sometimes the most important thing gets overlooked and that is the fact that as Americans we're free to speak our mind and to assemble peacefully to enjoy some of the stuff that a free and vibrant society produces as opposed to what the government produces as per our Vice President.

We're definitely going to be there for at least a portion of it and we hope you can make it as well. See ya down there.

NYT columnist wants you to know that Sarah Palin is no Marilyn Monroe

It's come to this: Marilyn Monroe as some sort of intellectual giant compared to, you know, those conservative chicks.

Marilyn was not completely in on the joke. Scarred by her schizophrenic mother and dislocated upbringing, she was happy to have the classics put in her hand. What’s more, she read some of them, from Proust to Dostoyevsky to Freud to Carl Sandburg’s six-volume biography of Lincoln (given to her by husband Arthur Miller), collecting a library of 400 books.

Miller once called Marilyn “a poet on a street corner trying to recite to a crowd pulling at her clothes.”

As conservatives we're not really sure what that means (Miller lost us a "poet") but we're confident that both Bobby and JFK can totally relate to that last clause in Miller's quote.

And how smart was Marilyn? Let's let Maureen describe her writing style.

“Fragments,” a new book of her poems, letters and musings, some written in her childlike hand with misspellings in leather books and others on stationery from the Waldorf-Astoria and the Beverly Hills Hotel, is affecting.

We can assume that Faulkner's,Whitman's, Twain's, Wolfe's (both of them) place atop the American literary food chain are secure.

But, hey, we're not here to pick on Monroe. He're the piece d'resistance from Mo:

On Saturday, at a G.O.P. rally in Anaheim, Calif., Palin mockingly noted that you won’t find her invoking Mao or Saul Alinsky. She says she believes in American exceptionalism. But when it comes to the people running the country, exceptionalism is suspect; leaders should be — as Palin, O’Donnell and Angle keep saying — just like you.

If liberals like Maureen Dowd and President Obama want to argue the merits of American exceptionalism and who possesses it and who doesn't, does it not make sense that they should at least have an inkling as to what it means?

That paragraph is stunning in that Dowd thinks of American exceptionalism as either a measure of qualification (for running the country) or as the opposite of commonness... we're not sure such is the degree of incoherency. Or maybe she does know and completely abused the meaning in order to make a cheap and lame point at the end of her column.

Either way, another sloppy, sloppy effort from the nation's paper of record.