Here's some more of that new civility we've been hearing about: a round-up

Alternate headline: You know you're winning the battle when the liberal-Left responds with violence and misogyny but we're being redundant.


The liberal-left is hitting back against conservatives in the only way they know how.


First up, here's an AFL-CIO honcho taking it to a South Carolina governor, Nikki Haley, pinata. Click here for Youtube video as embed was disabled.

That probably was not that egregious but ask yourself something: do those look and sound like the kind of folks your Mom and Pop would be pleased to see you hanging out with?






Next up, Hustler (yes, it's still around) published a photoshopped image of conservative pundit/talker S.E. Cupp performing oral sex. If you must, a blurred image can be found here.

A couple of things raced through our mind when we found out about this: the real outrage here would be if Hustler didn't pull a sophmoric toilet-stall stunt like this. And, who really thinks the 82 zit-riddled 16 yr. olds that don't have internet and which comprise Hustler's target demographic out there would know who S.E. Cupp is?

And yes, Twitter has been blowing up at #istandwithsecupp.

Our favorite contribution thus far: S.E. Cupp: still faster than LarryFlynt.

(shameless plug: get in on the Twitter fun and follow us at @deanriehm)





And finally, conservative blogger/writer Robert Stacy McCain (The Other McCain blog) and his family have taken flight from their home in Maryland to an undisclosed location due to credible threats on him by convicted terrorist and lefty sweetheart, Brett Kimberlin.

Law enforcement officials have been made aware that convicted terrorist Brett Kimberlin appears to be engaged in an attempt to intimidate me into being silent about his sordid criminal history.

Appropriate precautions have been taken to ensure the safety of my family and others who might be endangered if Kimberlin resorts to violence to accomplish his malicious purposes. At the urging of concerned friends, we have vacated our former residence and I am now blogging from a secret location which Kimberlin will be unable to discover or reach. Nevertheless, we sincerely ask for intercessory prayer, that God will send angels to guard us in this grave crisis.

In fact, this crisis is an answer to prayer: My wife and I had been contemplating whether to leave Maryland, and had asked that God would give us a sign. Guess we got what we prayed for — unexpectedly!

Nevertheless, my sudden relocation — The Mother of All Road Trips, as it were — will involve large expenses. We will have to rent a new house, pay people to pack up the belongings at our former residence, and move everything to the new location.

Remember that this is still a Shameless Capitalist Blog, and keep in mind The Five Most Important Words in the English Language . . .

HIT THE FREAKING TIP JAR!

We could never figure out just what is the fascination with violent criminals and terrorists and the liberal-Left of this country. Blowing up stuff and trying to blou up people is not romantic. It's stupid. And your a damn fool if you think otherwise.

With the election season heating up, we suppose we should brace ourselves for more of the same.

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A few more thoughts on the battle for the soul of the tea party or something (Redux)

Dawn Wildman, one of the lionesses of the SoCal tea party movement passed along this to us. It would appear that a group of rich and influential RINOs within the California Republican Party (CRP) are moving to either abandon or significantly weaken "divisive" conservative postions on a few key social issues such as gay marriage, abortion and illegal immigration in order to "focus on fiscal issues".

Now, we weren't aware that "tabling" or "back-burnering" social issues until we make some key gains in the fiscal arena meant chucking them all out with the baby and bath water. Strange, we know.

Not only is this a complete sell-out (if they were to do this and they were truly serious about fiscal issues, why wouldn't they make life easier for themselves and just up and join the Libertarian party?) this is also a ploy to drive a wedge into the tea party, many of whose members don't give a hoot about the issues mentioned above or perhaps have quite different stances on these issues as would a social conservative.

We're re-running something we posted back in December of last year in the wake of the mid-term ass-kicking when the whole social issues dust-up within the tea party first reared up. We hope it transmitted the conviction that beating government control and influence back into the box has its own positive effects on social issues.

Our first thoughts on "the debate" can be found here.


We think it's important to remember that the tea party did not form over social issues. Rick Santelli was not ranting about abortion on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange on February of '09 (we say this as strong pro-life types) which proved to be the flashpoint for the tea party movement.

Leslie at Temple of Mut has a great roundup of news and views (particularly from the SLOBS - San Diego Local Order of Bloggers) in her post So a Catholic Democrat, debauched libertarian, and Randian objectivist go to a gay bar… which is a brilliant title for conveying the big tent spirit of the tea party (and don't forget about the sage brush conservative Protestant and the recovering libertarian men's group leader that came stumbling in later).

No, the tea party is not abandoning social issues, per se, because it never was really about social issues in the first place. But the beauty of this is that by pursuing and achieving tea party objectives of fiscal discipline and checking the growth and influence of government, it will result in positive ends on many social fronts.

Part of the problem with picking up the mantle for any particular social cause is that the tea party is simply not structured to do so. We've got pro-life partiers, we've got pro-choice partiers... we've got pro-gay marriage partiers as well as anti-same sex marriage partners and, well, you get the point. There is simply no governing consensus that can be brokered on many of these issues, so why bother.

There's even debate over the issue of immigration and whether or not that qualifies as a social issue and thus whether or not immigration should be a plank, as it were, in the tea party platform. It's really a moot point. If the tea party is focused on demanding that the federal government be accountable to the Constitution and accountable in enforcing the laws that are on the books, then the tea party is a defacto anti-Amnesty/anti-illegal immigration/pro-legal immigration entity. Problem solved... without ever having fired a shot. (And we're sorry.... the naivete' of the Cato Institute, whom we otherwise greatly admire, is going to have to take a back seat on this one)

We believe that restraining the reach and influence of government has just, moral and righteous outcomes of its own. Hell, the act of restraining government as an existential state of being is just, moral and righteous in its own right.

Simply put, if the government no longer has the ability to subsidize or give cover to bad and/or anti-social behavior then individuals will make the rational decisions to alter their bad behavior. Think nurseries at high schools. Gee, isn't that compassionate? Isn't that forward-thinking and progressive? Sure is. But you are removing disincentives for getting pregnant in the first place.

Here's Paul Ryan speaking back in 2009 at the Hudson Institute:

A “libertarian” who wants limited government should embrace the means to his freedom: thriving mediating institutions that create the moral preconditions for economic markets and choice. A “social issues” conservative with a zeal for righteousness should insist on a free market economy to supply the material needs for families, schools, and churches that inspire moral and spiritual life. In a nutshell, the notion of separating the social from the economic issues is a false choice. They stem from the same root.

A little tinny but he makes the point. Beating government back into the box of the Constitution has positive results for everybody under this gloriously big tent.

While others may be dismayed that there is this dissent or divisiveness within the tea party (or overjoyed depending on one's viewpoint), we think it's an entirely positive development because these internal debates force dialog and theoretical exercises which will help shape and, in turn, strengthen the movement as we go forward.

With that in mind, please go on over to fellow SLOB W.C. Varones and Shane Atwell's blog (whom we had some disagreement and which was a catalyst for this blog post. Thanks, Shane!), for their takes on this matter.





An existential state of being? Relax. Crack open a cold one and this guy will explain it all to you.

Warning: the following content may be cause for conservatism

Here's some red meat to serve up going into the 4th of July weekend...


Bad news, libs... Don't let your kids anywhere near those gosh-darn xenophobic, John Phillips Souza-playing and flag-waving July 4th parades and celebrations.

Harvard: July 4th Parades Are Right-Wing

Democratic political candidates can skip this weekend's July 4th parades. A new Harvard University study finds that July 4th parades energize only Republicans, turn kids into Republicans, and help to boost the GOP turnout of adults on Election Day.

"Fourth of July celebrations in the United States shape the nation's political landscape by forming beliefs and increasing participation, primarily in favor of the Republican Party," said the report from Harvard. [See political cartoons about the 2012 GOP field.]

"The political right has been more successful in appropriating American patriotism and its symbols during the 20th century. Survey evidence also confirms that Republicans consider themselves more patriotic than Democrats. According to this interpretation, there is a political congruence between the patriotism promoted on Fourth of July and the values associated with the Republican party. Fourth of July celebrations in Republican dominated counties may thus be more politically biased events that socialize children into Republicans," write Harvard Kennedy School Assistant Professor David Yanagizawa-Drott and Bocconi University Assistant Professor Andreas Madestam.

(italics, ours)

Leave it to a bunch of egg-heads from Harvard to think that unabashed celebrations of the birth of this country can be more politically biased as celebrated by Republicans.

And leave it to a bunch of egg-heads from Harvard to misinterpret their own findings. We don't think 4th of July parades turn you into an (R) per se. It's probably more a case of right-leaning folks are more apt to turn up at the pie-eating and apple-bob contests on the 4th. Whaddya want? We're simple-minded folk. If you think yourself to be more patriotic than the other guy, you're more likely to go to events that celebrate the birth of this country, right?

And compounding this, we know as anecdotal fact that many liberals are extremely uncomfortable with open displays of patriotism. Therefore, it is actually they who politicize these 4th of July events by their mere non-attendance.

The solution: hug a liberal this weekend. Seriously. Let them know that it's cool to be happy that they live in the greatest nation on earth and enjoy freedoms that nearly every other person on this planet does not. We just don't get it. How could you simply not be bursting with joy, pride and gratefulness all this weekend?

Here's to a great 4th of July weekend!

Switch?

Trans-fat bans, fast-food restaurant bans, cell phone while driving bans, compulsory health insurance, dubious and/or counterproductive green technology, red meat and hard liquor frowning upon, cigarette pillorying, gun bans, red-light cameras, legislation via junk science, motorcycle helmets, off-roading restrictions, menu calorie counts, Happy Meal bans, dubious recycling policies....

There are several reasons behind the backlash. One is that campaigns to promote healthy behavior have a way of escalating from friendly persuasion to ham-fisted propaganda and prohibitionism. The war on tobacco is an obvious example (though the case for harsh anti-smoking laws was based on claims about the harm of second-hand smoke). Anti-drug zealotry in schools has caused teens to get in trouble for such crimes as sharing an aspirin with a friend who had a headache. It's not completely unreasonable to ask if cookie witch-hunts are next. Some states already prohibit bake sales at schools—even though it is very doubtful that they are a major cause of obesity—and the new child nutrition bill empowers the Department of Agriculture to restrict them if they are deemed too frequent. And some anti-obesity crusaders advocate using the power of the state in frankly coercive ways, from taxing unhealthy food to restricting its advertising.

When did it happen? Or, perhaps more accurately, how did it happen? How is it that once perfectly sensible, button-down, semi-sober, Reagan/Goldwater conservatives like ourselves go completely bat-crap crazy and start behaving like a bunch of card burning, protesting, long-haired, New Left hippies circa 1970?







And conversely, how is it that well-intended good government liberals started behaving like moral scolds, bossing everyone around under the premise of "it's for your safety/health" and "it's for the overall good of society" and even "it's a national security threat"?


The harangues from the pulpits of bogeymen like Jerry Falwell, Oral Roberts and Pat Robertson ain't got nothing on the people who have actually been successful at codifying into law the tenets of their "religion".

A few words about those pesky social issues

Via B-Daddy:

After a letter signed by a handful of Tea Party activists made national headlines for its request to downplay social issues like abortion, a new letter signed by Tea Party Nation leaders goes the other direction

The Tennessee-based tea party group led by National Tea Party Convention organizer Judson Phillips has a new letter and a list of action items that reflects the views of pro-life advocates.

Calling for the dismantling of the “liberal-political complex,” the new letter, addressed to Sen. Mitch McConnell and Speaker-elect John Boehner, calls for dismantling ObamaCare and its abortion-funding provisions and de-funding the Planned Parenthood abortion business.

“America is a conservative country. We expect conservative leadership,” the more than 185 tea party activists who signed this new letter say.

Last week a dozen Tea Party activists signed on to a letter to Congress urging them to abandon social issues and focus exclusively on economic matters. The letter was sponsored by the homosexual rights advocacy group GOProud.

This is unfortunate because when you start using words like "abandon" and then get the immediate blow back from social conservatives, it illustrates the failure to understand that fighting for fiscal responsibility/limited government on one hand and social conservative values on the other are not mutually exclusive ideas, in fact, they are very much intertwined.

Here's B-Daddy:

Leslie alerted me to a move by some Tea Partyers to take a turn towards social issues. I am somewhat of a social conservative, at a time when those issues are being forced to the back burner by the severity of the fiscal issues facing the country. The Tea Party has amassed an impressive coalition that has seized both the imagination of the country and many seats in state and national legislative bodies. However, those who believe that we should somehow turn to social issues, when the hard work of dealing with the fiscal crisis has not even begun are insane. Almost no progress has been made on the most pressing fiscal crisis our country has faced since the Great Depression. We cannot afford to lose any allies in this fight. Picking fights with gays, or any other group that is supporting our core issues is a costly waste.

(Side note: While fairly social conservative ourselves (strongly pro-life), we've never had much use for what we have always seen as the frivolous pursuits of some of our conservative brethren on such matters as a flag-burning amendment and school prayer, which can legitimately be viewed as government intrusion into personal matters).

B-Daddy nails it on the head. Now that we have a majority in Congress, the work of rolling back government power has only just begun. We haven't won jack squat and now is not the time to declare victory and pull out on the matters that have united the tea party coalition in the first place.

Please go to B-Daddy's link where he explains that battling back against ObamaCare, as just one example, achieves the aims of both sides in this squabble.

People need to realize that, in a sense, the tea party has been fighting for social issues all along.







At the end of the day, ask yourself one thing, tea party people: Got Frank Meyer?

News reader has strange new respect for dead, white conservatives

Christiane Amanpour on ABC's This Week laments conservatism's good ol' days:

"I mean there's been a long and venerable tradition of conservatism in this country. You can go back at least to Ronald Reagan, William F. Buckley, all of that sort of intellectual conservatism that lasted about 30 years and people are saying that right now, it's really gone to the extreme. People are looking at the tea party and saying this is not conservatism as we knew it, but it's extreme."

George Will can barely conceal his contempt by rightly calling out Amanpour on her convenient revisionism by pointing out it was indeed people like Reagan, Goldwater and Buckley who were called extreme some 30, 40 years ago.

Go here for video at Real Clear Politics.

Screw it...

...Go Indie, Christine!

The GOP's initial reluctance to get behind O'Donnell after her stunning upset victory in the Republican Senate primaries in Delaware on Tuesday gave way to a $42,000 check sent to her campaign by the NRSC. Too late. The damage has been done. The Democrats will use this initial reluctance to paint O'Donnell as outside the mainstream of even her own party.

Our advice: Send the check back and run as an independent. The money bomb that has been dropped on her campaign (reportedly, $750,000 in the first 24 hrs. since her victory) should be evidence of that. Besides, in the deep blue city-state of Wilmington, this would be a powerful message to send to the voters of Delaware similar in vein to the "independent" brand Scott Brown fashioned for himself with great success in Massachusetts earlier this year.

For those out there miffed that the Republicans are essentially ceding this seat to the Democrats, two things: 1) anything is possible in this particular election cycle. Take a look around the country and at some of the minor electoral miracles that have occurred already this year, the quantity of which was not matched in preceding election cycles combined. And 2) achieving a majority in the Senate is going to be unlikely even if Castle did win - nearly as important and much more achievable is solidifying the filibuster.

Lastly, we think everybody needs to back off Karl Rove. Yes, he said some rather unfortunate things with respect to O'Donnell and the Delaware primary but he has solidly backed Sharon Angle and other non-RINO conservative candidates.

Graphic of the Day

Check out this graph on public perception of news networks.



Mike Flynn opines that by this, one can estimate that a full quarter of our nation is comprised of complete loons. How else would one describe a situation whereby 14% of people think that Fox News is "mostly liberal" and conversely, 11% of people think that MSNBC is "mostly conservative"?

We think he may be on to something.

H/T: Truth before dishonor

Video of the day

“We’ve got a black man kickin’ it in the White House but where’s the man in the black household?”

Greetings, Racists!

Self-hating blacks. That’s the only reasonable explanation for the video below.

(we were warned that it was only going to be up on YouTube for a limited time so if embed no workie, click on over to PajamasTV and watch it, here.



In all seriousness, how much strength of conviction would a black person such as, Buddy Sosthand (the suited one in the video), have to possess to be an openly conservative black person?

When a few people in our dinner party crowd found out we were conservatives, it was a mild shock to their system (“You’re hip, charming, smart, funny and a real lady-killer… how can you be a conservative?”) so we can only imagine what it would be like to stand up to an entire culture and mindset of racial grievances and victimhood let alone be openly critical of the this country's first black President.

P.S. Yes, that is the young man and his lady friend of ACORN video fame.

Giving back a lame slogan

(Just checking in with a scheduled post that we trust has not yet staled with the passage of time)

For nearly all of the 8 years of the two Bush administrations, we heard the incessant rallying cries of liberals and Democrats that followed the general theme: "Let's take our country back!"

It struck a wrong chord in us then and it sets even more uneasily with us now that the Democrats have ruling majorities in the Senate and the House and have their guy in the White House as it is our side that has taken to the streets and is employing the same slogan to voice opposition to the Democrats' and the President's legislative agenda.

Why does this slogan bother us? It's simple. "Take" implies some sort of unsolicited unilateral action that is not in keeping with democratic principles. There should be nothing in campaigning or sloganeering that infers a group of people is going to "take" anything away from anybody else. Aren't we over here on the right the ones bitching about the unsolicited overreach of the Government into our lives?

And taking the statement as a whole... where are we taking the country? Yes, it's a figure of speech and we realize that there is not a literal place we are "taking" the country but there is an exclusiveness to the slogan that implies wherever we are taking it, you (on the other side) are not welcome to stop by and visit.

Now, we might be able to be talked into the reasoning that this slogan was meant to imply a blanket rejection of big government and that it is our personal freedoms and liberties that we are "taking back". While that may be true, we were soured on the slogan from jump street for the reasons given above. And besides, the liberal-Left was using it first so recycling lame slogans from the other side is a two-time loser.

Of course, we could be wrong so we welcome opinions to the contrary.

Legacy

There is a large measure of legitimacy to the popular image of conservatives wandering around in the wilderness searching for the “next Reagan” and it need not be that way. Its like folkies searching for the “next Dylan” after he went electric. It’s over, it’s done with, it was a moment in time – time to move on, folks (what were conservatives looking for before Reagan? Well, they were looking to Barry Goldwater not a divorced, B-movie Hollywood actor. The Lord works in mysterious ways, doesn’t He?). Besides, it’s a glass-half-empty view of things when you look at one particular aspect of his legacy.

The Reagan Revolution lives on in the judges Reagan appointed to the appellate benches. Of the 83 judges he appointed, 66 still hear cases today and they are at the height of their power as they have become heavyweights whose opinions are highly sought-after in legal circles. They have also been directly responsible for the Supreme Court weighing in on the 2nd Amendment as it applies to the D.C. hand gun ban as well as having a hand in restrictions on partial-birth abortion and affirmative action.

According to USA Today article, Bill Clinton did not want to risk political capital on judgeship appointments so the Reagan legacy which was continued to a degree under the current Administration was not countered.

For their parts, McCain has promised to appoint conservative judges in the vein of John Roberts while both Obama and Hillary Clinton have promised more liberal judges.

The lesson here is clear: the appointments made at the time have ramifications both legal and societal many years after and this next election will similarly shape the national landscape for many years to come.

Do They Make Tents That Big?

As British conservatives won a stunning series of local elections two weeks back, folks over here are seeing what can be gleaned from these Tory victories especially as the Republican brand is largely seen as flagging here stateside.

David Brooks from the NYT and Michael C. Moynihan of Reason Magazine have their thoughts here and here, respectively. Both articles focus on Tory leader David Cameron and divine for the Republican Party the strategies for success experienced by conservatives across-the-pond.

The message from both is clear: Move towards the Center. And because of that we are immediately skeptical.

Brooks appears to advocate getting away from an econo-centric message with voters and frame the message in a more holistic manner. Here’s Cameron: “The great challenge of the 1970s and 1980s was economic revival. The great challenge in this decade and the next is social revival.” And separately, “We used to stand for the individual. We still do. But individual freedoms count for little if society is disintegrating. Now we stand for the family, for the neighborhood — in a word, for society.”

And how is this to be accomplished? As Brooks describes it: “These conservatives are not trying to improve the souls of citizens. They’re trying to use government to foster dense social bonds.”

Oh boy...Haven’t we been down this path before? Doesn’t that sound like Bush’s compassionate conservatism or for you more cynical types, like Hillary’s “Politics of Meaning” voodoo. (Well, Hillary of the 90s, that is. Since seen doing shots in Pennsylvania she's ceded that witchcraft to Obama).

In Moynihan’s article, the emphasis was on actual policy shift. He argues that America is indeed becoming more socially tolerant and points to Cameron’s overtures to the gay and lesbian community with a willingness to be open to civil unions. The risk here, of course, is alienating as many or more of your social conservatives and evangelicals as you hope to gain from the gay/lesbian demo.

Look. The overarching message of these articles is not lost on us. We recognize the need for a discussion on “re-branding” or re-assessing your policies, its just that we happen to believe that the core message of individual liberty and responsibility which is inherent to a platform of small government, low taxes, fiscal restraint, free speech, gun rights, school choice, etc. still resonates…. Its just that Republican, independent and swing voters need (R) politicians that actually believe it and more importantly, vote like they believe it when they get to Washington.

One point we will concede: Republicans have done a horrible job on the Environment. Through a combination of abject ignorance on policy and a failure to get out any message on sensible environmental solutions, the Republicans have allowed the Democrats to run away and hide with this issue and because there has been no meaningful debate, we are currently pursuing a policy course whose benefit to the environment is dubious but whose detriment to the economy and the world’s poor may well prove to be disastrous.

We want to leave you tonight with an anecdote from the book “Right Nation” written by two journalists from The Economist, Adrian Wooldridge and John Mickelthwait which informs our skepticism of this proposed rush to the center.

Lyndon Johnson is campaigning in the mid-60s for a fellow Democrat from the back of his limo, glad-handing the crowd. Recently enacted Civil Rights and Great Society legislation has been the fruition of liberal ideology of how government can re-shape society. As Johnson’s motorcade makes its way through the crowd, one gentleman approaches Johnson and shouts above the crowd, “What are you (Democrats) for.” Johnson, at first, seems caught off guard but immediately regains traction seeing this tremendous opening and enthusiastically shouts back: “We’re for a lot of things!”

Ronulans: We'll Leave the Light on For You.

We consider ourselves junior, junior historians of the modern American conservative movement so these little internecine squabbles make us warm and fuzzy all over.

Check out this post from Patrick Ruffini at Hugh Hewitt’s blog site regarding Ron Paul and the current status of libertarians with regard to the Republican Party. If the post is to be believed, then Ron Paul’s campaign, though itself being unlikely in winning the party nomination, has had a good deal of success in bringing libertarians back under the big tent of the Republican Party.

We think this is good news… you know, the more the merrier but we’ll believe it when we see it.

We’ve always had a soft-spot for libertarianism (Our stances against school prayer, the Flag burning amendment and most English-only laws always got us the cold shoulder at the Social Conservative cookouts so we usually just hung out and did shots and listened to the Vandals down in the basement with the South Park Conservatives who didn’t feel too welcome out on the back patio, either), its their acolytes that have tended to rub us the wrong way over the years.

The “Don’t blame me, I voted Libertarian” bumper stickers we would see from time to time were emblematic of their sanctimonious and self-righteous behavior. Yeah, we get it. Its beneath you to sacrifice your ideals to vote Republican but the third party thing isn’t working…. Why bother voting at all? Please drop the lone wolf routine and engage the debate and thus affect change from within the confines of a legit political entity.

Anyway, post says there is enough common ground for the libertarians and the conservative base in the Party to at least hold hands. That’s something we’ve believed all along and dog-gone, Frank Meyer says so also!

Campaigning: One Prius at a Time.

Former Democratic congresswoman from Colorado, Pat Schroeder is the President of something called the American Association of Publishers. Though a non-partisan group that did not stop her from opining that liberals read more books than conservatives.

As part of her reasoning and riffing off the bumper-sticker theme that liberals are fond of, Schroeder told the AP, “The Karl Roves of the world have built a generation that just wants a couple of slogans: “No don’t raise my taxes, no new taxes”. “It’s pretty hard to write a book saying, ‘No new taxes, no new taxes, no new taxes’ on every page.”

Pat: as knee-jerk reactionaries that repetitive mantra is merely the response to the liberal playbook which appears to be page after page of, “Raise taxes, raise taxes, raise taxes” with the random “Kill the unborn” thrown in just to keep the unwashed off-balance.

She also claimed that liberals were more wonkish and because of that “can’t say anything in less than paragraphs.” Paragraphs! Of course, Schroeder is on to something as we will freely own up to the fact that our politics in practical execution be summed up as: “No thanks, we’re fine. Now just leave us the hell alone”.

Well short of a paragraph but will probably fit on a bumper sticker.