Definition of the day

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What you are about to read was once derided by a political set of people not all that long ago:

CORPORATISM: the organization of a society into industrial and professional corporations serving as organs of political representation and exercising control over persons and activities within their jurisdiction.

And in other totally related news:

How big of a headache has the implementation of Obamacare and the subsequent health insurance cancellations become for the Obama White House?

Big enough for the president to call on health insurance executives to help him explain the situation to upset Americans.

The White House is asking insurance companies to explain to millions of Americans the cancellation letters they’re receiving in the mail.

President Barack Obama’s chief of staff, Denis McDonough, met Tuesday with CEOs from some of the largest health insurers. The White House says McDonough updated the CEOs on fixes to healthcare.gov and problems with enrollment data sent electronically to insurers. McDonough also solicited input on whether the system is getting better.

The White House says McDonough urged insurance companies to “ramp up communication and education efforts” to those who have lost their insurance.

Millions have received cancellation notices, sparking outrage because Obama repeatedly promised that those who liked their health care could keep it. The White House says many of those losing coverage have better, cheaper options through the new exchanges.

No conflicts of interest here, right? Just what sort of pressure is the White House exerting on Big Health and how much of it is being exerted?


Are you comfortable with Big Health and Big Government being in bed together to the extent that they are? You would not be mistaken if you felt that the well-being of both are hopelessly tied together at this point.


Of course, the cynic in us would say that this sort of arrangement is precisely the sort of thing Republicans would play politics with and hold hostage during the next budget showdown and that is precisely the problem. The public-private enterprise that is the Affordable Care Act serves only those two entities and not the needs of the individual. Millions of Americans who have and will have their current insurance plans cancelled transitioned are finding this out.



This from Roger L. Simon:

Liberalism as practiced in today’s America is a chimera, not actually an ideology but an alliance of interest groups controlled by elites for the preservation of their (the elites’) wealth and power. The interest groups often seem to be working against their own advantage by being so affiliated (e. g. African-Americans are in the worst shape in years under Obama), but not the elites who have been able to thrive. These elites are also able to appear altruistic to themselves and others while behaving in manners that are hideously selfish and atrocious to the common good. Liberalism is not so much an ideology in our society as it is a shield, a defense mechanism for a lifestyle.

(italics, ours)



We scarcely recognize modern liberalism and it's once-adherents. What ever cronyism or in-bed-together arrangements (remember Haliburton and Enron?) is not recognized during this administration as the saintly good intentions and infinite and benevolent wisdom of the current crop of our betters in D.C. trump any sort of principle our liberal friends once professed to possess.


As it stands, we will call them out for what they are: hypocrites.

Video clip of the day

Sarah Silverman and some comedian friends of her put together a mocking video touting the formation of a fictional "Black NRA", portions of which you will see in the video below.


AlphoZo Rachel and some buddies of his own put together a devastating critique of the motives and intent behind Silverman's video and the larger issue of how liberals view race with their attempts to keep minorities and particularly blacks from wandering off the reservation.



(video approx 4-1/2 minutes long)








Precisely because of what was said above, we don't think we have any greater respect for a group of people than gay and black conservatives.



Exit question: when does pandering, parochialism and paternalism as practiced by America's left start blurring into bigotry and perhaps even racism?


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Not so random thoughts of the day

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Via Shane Atwell:

Check out this approx. 4-1/2 minute video on Chicago residents fed up with the Great Society welfare machine of Democrat pols, unions and failed liberal policies.

Community resident Paul McKinley says, “Everything in Chicago is controlled by the Democratic party. Everything in my community is controlled by Black Democrats. There is no Tea Party in my community. There is no Republicans. So they can’t blame the Tea Party.” Later, he says, “I tell you that the liberal agenda is not the black agenda, it is not the family agenda, and it is not the American agenda.”

This video and what these folks were saying reminded us of our experiences in the black community here in San Diego.

Our job on the waterfront has afforded us the opportunity to play in shipyard leagues over the years. In our first season, many, many moons ago, we played on a team of all white staff engineers in a predominately black and latino league. We did alright and held our own with ourselves and our boy, "Tommy Gun" leading the way (everyone hated playing us because "those white boys be shootin' that ball!"). We didn't get the team back together the following year, so we were, more or less, recruited to play on one of the other teams the following year.

From then on, we were pretty much the only white player on whatever team we happened to be playing on. It was an eye-opening experience, though, for reasons you may not have expected.

At least once or twice a year, our team would get together to cook out, most of the time at Mission Bay where we would pot-luck it. Perhaps some of whatever grilling prowess we possess stemmed from the fact that we did not want to get embarrassed in front our brothers when it came to grillin'.

We're getting to the point, trust us: the conversations we had were fascinating. Amid all the ribbing and smack-talk, there would be openings of somewhat serious discussion about our families and where we came from and how we were reared. Mild competition arose over who had it tougher as a kid. We mostly listened as who wants to hear about growing up in North Orange County whose family's idea of austerity was focusing on school, church, youth sports and Dad's Sunday evening home-cooked dinner extravaganzas at the expense of dining out, vacations to Hawai'i or trips to Disneyland, though that may have won the Riehm family some medals for our particular demographic there in Placentia because it seemed all our neighbors were having all that fun.

Shorter: if you had a transcript of those conversations and cleaned up the language, you'd've sworn it was a bunch of cranky old white men talking about who had it worse. These were not the conversations envisioned by rich white liberals rather, without the political rhetoric, they were conversations about family, commitment, fishing, of course, and "doing the right thing". Mind you, these guys weren't angels but, they knew. They knew. Amid their own self-inflicted wounds of perhaps fathering children out of wedlock and other indiscretions, these guys all knew what was expected of them as grown men and none of it ever involved getting help from some other entity. Though, perhaps, their actions did not always reflect it, they were grown-ass men and knew they had to produce... for their children, for their family and for their bosses at the yard

We think the word has been trivialized and cartoon-ized but we believe there is a simple honor in machismo. There is a singularity and dignity in that word that says, "No, I got this. Thanks for the offer but this one is mine".

All the above, of course, is at odds with the modern statist welfare complex which has succeeded in infantilizing and apologizing for two, maybe three now, generations of black males. My friends, my teammates are fighting against a near-irreversible tide of culture that is stacked against establishing functioning nuclear families, functioning schools and functioning communities.

If we were, say, a 70 year-old black male living in inner-city Chicago, we'd probably be in a blind rage at this point knowing that the welfare state of LBJ's Great Society, for whatever good it had intended, had transformed into a a self-sustaining monetary black hole that, in reality, preyed upon and thus profited from the misery of the very people it had set out to help.

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Of Chick-fil-A, government tyranny and hypocrisy

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Supporters of the Chick-fil-A ban in Chicago should hit pause, step back and assess for what they are really advocating.




By now, you are aware of the Chick-fil-A dust-up regarding their owner's remarks on supporting a traditional definition of marriage: "guilty as charged" he quoth.

Because of those remarks, Boston mayor Thomas Menino has told the Southern fried chicken outfit they are not welcome there in Boston (on the Freedom Way, ironically enough) and Chicago mayor, Rahm Emanuel has the back of a city alderman who has ominously warned that he would use his authority to deny a business permit to the chain should they attempt to set up shop in his district, claiming Chick-fil-A doesn't represent "Chicago values".

Menino has allowed himself some wiggle room by mere rhetorical saber-rattling but what is happening in Chicago is what is referred to in more polite circles as thuggery and tyranny, or as the mayor himself would describe as "Chicago values".

Threatening livelihood-harm to a business and a person for exercising their Constitutionally-protected 1st amendment rights ought to freak-out every single American, straight, gay or otherwise.

Obviously, we would all be united in singular outrage if, say, a Southern mayor denied a business permit to a fast food chain because the owner of that chain was an active supporter of gay marriage. Effectively, how is this any different?

It's apparent that Chicago doesn't produce too many Constitutional scholars, let alone anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of its intent. Alums of the Chicago politics that have moved on to national prominence have proven that beyond reasonable doubt.


The 1st amendment was established precisely to protect unpopular speech and thought. There would be no need for it if we all talked and acted in the "correct" manner, however, we are seeing more and more with one particular line of political thinking in this country, an intolerance and outright hostility to what they believe as existing outside the boundaries of what they have deemed "proper" speech and thought.



But back to "Chicago values". If you are wondering why it is that a city with over 300 murders to its credit since Jan. 1 is doing focusing on bullying a fast food chain, wonder no more as the cavalry is on the way.

To combat the violence on the street, Chicago's first Jewish mayor is rolling out the welcome wagon for none other than the Nation of Islam and its noted anti-Semite leader "Calypso Louie" Farrakhan to help combat the city's violence problem. You just can't make this stuff up.

In addition to his virulent racism, liberals and gay activists around the country would be pleased to know the man the mayor of Chicago has called upon to save his ass has similarly enlightened views regarding same-sex marriage.

On Sunday, May 27, Minister Louis Farrakhan spoke in San Diego, California, where he delved into a plethora of subjects, ranging from Mexican heritage to Israel’s alleged “war-mongering.” Among the topics he weighed in on, Farrakhan also took the time to tackle homosexuality and President Barack Obama’s recent endorsement of same-sex marriage.

The fiery Nation of Islam leader began by utilizing stories from both the Koran and the Bible to illustrate God’s views on same-sex attraction. He also made it overtly clear that, though he disagrees with the homosexual lifestyle, he isn’t afraid of gays and lesbians. In addition to attempting to convince the audience that homosexuality is sinful in nature, Farrakhan seemed particularly irritated that critics would label him a homophobe.

If you are scoring at home, in the liberalism mindset: racist, homo-phobic anti-Americanism is a suitable crime fighter for your city streets, however, job-creating, food-providing Southern-fried belief in traditional marriage will be told to take a hike.

Square that circle, gang.

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Is it a conservative vs. liberal thing?

Last month, the NY Times published an article titled, "The Left Leaning Tower." Here was the lede:

Why are conservatives such a minority at so many graduate schools? Conservatives like to blame liberal bias. Liberals like other explanations.

One — the most tactful hypothesis — is that conservatives just aren’t interested in academic careers. Another — the most smug hypothesis — is that conservatives are just too close-minded and dimwitted.

All the usual suspects such as group-think, "departmental majoritarianism", "multi-culturalist vetoes" and outright bias are lent some degree of credence.

After chewing on these, however, we got to thinking about our own experience and our weighing of returning to grad school upon graduation from Seminary and ultimately deciding to stay in the work force.

What was our rationale?: Time to get on with it!

After 16 years of schooling, it was high time to leave the protective cocoon of formalized education. It was time to get a job, get an apartment, make some money and enjoy the fruits of our labor and education as a full-blown adult. Ironically enough, having the means of a mature, responsible adult also meant having the means to party, and brothers and sisters, it was definetely time to party. We proved the two concepts are far from being mutually exclusive of one another

Highly anecdotal and very personal, to be sure, but we had no desire, really, to go to grad school and we were anxious to get back out to the West Coast with an opportunity to get a good job that would afford us nice living arrangements, vehicular transportation and some walking around money. At last, freedom and independence for the first time in our life.

Obviously, this does not mean that going to grad school automatically makes you a liberal but does what we laid out above sound more like standard "conservative" or "liberal" rationalizing?

We know we've got some readers out there with advanced degrees, so we would love to hear what you all think, advanced degree or not.

Quickies (the crosshairs edition)

A round-up of articles, columns, news items and blog posts that caught our eye this past week.


Alternate paranthetical: The week that the professional liberal-Left media industrial complex augered-in in a fiery ball of hypocrisy, wild and baseless speculation and abject unprofessionalism.


The President made a fine speech at the memorial service/pep rally in Tucson this past Wednesday, striking the appropriate tone by backhanding the liberal-Left for their unhinged and appalling accusations against conservatives, Sarah Palin and the tea party.

And even now when everybody... everybody knows this guy had no political affiliations to speak of, we have not yet heard any apologies, corrections or walking back of the truly divisive and politically incendiary language from any of the same people making them though we feel no need to attempt a more civil tone as that is something we have possessed all along. So forgive us for thinking then that many of the President's supporters and cheerleaders have quite a bit to answer for and have willfully destroyed any credibility they may have thought they had by their words and actions this past week.


And with respect to the Tucson rally, Tammy Bruce tweeted:

"I went to a Massacre Rally and all I got was a lousy t-shirt."

James Taranto points out that not all massacres are created equally:

After the horrific shooting spree, the editorial board of New York Times offered a voice of reasoned circumspection: "In the aftermath of this unforgivable attack, it will be important to avoid drawing prejudicial conclusions . . .," the paper counseled.

Here's how the sentence continued: ". . . from the fact that Major Hasan is an American Muslim whose parents came from the Middle East."

The Tucson Safeway massacre prompted exactly the opposite reaction. What was once known as the paper of record egged on its readers to draw invidious conclusions that are not only prejudicial but contrary to fact. In doing so, the Times has crossed a moral line.

Allahpundit breaks down the media's predictable disdain for Palin's video/speech as compared to that of the President's.

Seriously, how dare she inject herself into this national tragedy by attempting to defend herself against all the crap we were making up about her out of the thin blue air. The nerve.





You know, since Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated JFK and since he was also a Marine, maybe the Marines should dial it back a notch.




Charles Krauthammer on the obvious Loughner/tea party/Sarah Palin links:

Furthermore, the available evidence dates Loughner’s fixation on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords back to at least 2007, when he attended a townhall of hers and felt slighted by her response. In 2007, no one had heard of Sarah Palin. Glenn Beck was still toiling on Headline News. There was no Tea Party or health-care reform. The only climate of hate was the pervasive post-Iraq campaign of vilification of George W. Bush, nicely captured by a New Republic editor who began an article thus: “I hate President George W. Bush. There, I said it.”

The always civil and thoughtful David Harsanyi of the Denver Post sees right through the non-sense and calls B.S.

We can argue about those things, I know. We can cobble together stupid remarks by radio talk show hosts or union activists or congresspeople and smear half the country. We can play tit-for-tat with Tea Party banners and anti-war bumper stickers and dig up some figurative rhetoric that sounds over the top retroactively and blow it out of proportion.

But this impending conversation about civility and our climate of hate is not only a useless one, it also is meant to discourage dissent. It is a rigged talk, because not only do we — by any standard and context available — reside in a highly civil and peaceful political system, violence is almost non-existent. The Tea Party didn't pick up pitchforks and storm the White House; they knocked off Republicans in primaries.

Now, we may want to have a conversation about our policies regarding the mentally ill or the need for more gun control (though I may disagree with the outcome) because, after all, they are relevant to the horrible events of the past week. But conservatives should be wary of any national dialogue about civility or any beer summit about the specter of political violence.

It is nothing more than a setup.

Yep. Roughly translated we believe Harsanyi is telling liberals they can take their "civility" and "conversation" and shove it in their ear.




B-Daddy is worried about a potential double-dip recession brought on, in part, by a housing market that has never been allowed to properly deflate and state economies that are an absolute mess.



Uh-oh. Tucson shooting victim not sticking with the liberal-Left's media narrative. W.C. Varones has the details, here.



The Scratching Post: Meat: good. Fur: bad. Why?

Shanty-town anarchy

... and those who subsidize it.


If you read nothing else this week please check out Victor Davis Hanson's "Two Californias".

Hanson goes on a biking and car tour of California's fruit and vegetable basket, the Central Valley and makes many anecdotal observations and notes that the California regulatory regime which is one of the most pervasive and invasive in the Union is curiously absent in the Central Valley.

Many of the rural trailer-house compounds I saw appear to the naked eye no different from what I have seen in the Third World. There is a Caribbean look to the junked cars, electric wires crisscrossing between various outbuildings, plastic tarps substituting for replacement shingles, lean-tos cobbled together as auxiliary housing, pit bulls unleashed, and geese, goats, and chickens roaming around the yards. The public hears about all sorts of tough California regulations that stymie business — rigid zoning laws, strict building codes, constant inspections — but apparently none of that applies out here.

It is almost as if the more California regulates, the more it does not regulate. Its public employees prefer to go after misdemeanors in the upscale areas to justify our expensive oversight industry, while ignoring the felonies in the downtrodden areas, which are becoming feral and beyond the ability of any inspector to do anything but feel irrelevant. But in the regulators’ defense, where would one get the money to redo an ad hoc trailer park with a spider web of illegal bare wires?

Thomas Sowell provided an accompanying article, here, where he makes specific mention of minority enclaves here in this country that appear to be shut off from the rest of society.

What is going on? These and other groups, here and abroad, are treated as mascots of the self-congratulatory elites.

These elites are able to indulge themselves in non-judgmental permissiveness toward those selected as mascots, while cracking down with heavy-handed, nanny-state control on others.

The effect of all this on the mascots themselves is not a big concern for the elites. Mascots symbolize something for others. The actual fate of the mascots themselves seldom matters much to their supposed benefactors.

So long as the elites have control of the public purse, they can subsidize self-destructive behavior on the part of the mascots. And so long as the elites can send their own children to private schools, they needn’t worry about what happens to the children of the mascots in the public schools.

Other people who cannot afford to send their children to private schools can simply be called “racists” for objecting to what the indulgence of the mascots is doing to the public schools or what the violence of the mascots is doing to other children trapped in the same schools with them.

An ideology and thought process based upon a dysfunctional mutual dependency.

Keepin' up with BwD

It would appear Jonah Goldberg has caught up to us in looking for that good liberal who fought the righteous fight back in the day and now has faded into a hazy memory and cannot be found anywhere.

I’m something of a product of my times. In the 1980s and 1990s I heard a lot of putatively honest liberals insist that the one zone of life that was absolutely sacrosanct was our own bodies. The state simply had no business getting involved in “our bodies.” Admittedly, this was mostly the rhetoric of abortion. I still remember Anna Quindlen on one of those Fred Friendly seminars waxing terribly righteous about the absolute sovereignty of a woman’s body. There was some spill-over into such topics as euthanasia and assisted suicide (remember “Whoes Life Is It Anyway?”), but the passion and heat was over abortion.

Flash forward to today and pretty much the entire edifice of liberalism insists that our bodies — what we put into them, how we maintain them — are fair game not just for Congress but for bureaucrats.

So, is it rank hypocrisy, intellectual disingenuousness (back in the day) or all just a way of making, as Goldberg put it, "the pro-abortion stance sound more highfalutin?"

Because menu board calorie counts at Taco Bell are a "must-have" for those healthy choice decisions.

Photo (and sentiment) courtesy W.C. Varones - the Taco Bell photo not the tea party babe, that is.

You're not one of those football fans, are you?

We were hanging with our buddy "Max" the other evening and got to talking about the intersection of sports and politics. Max is of the belief that football fans (or people that prefer watching football to other sports) tend to be more conservative than, say, baseball fans.

We weren't quite so sure but then we got to thinking about the video clip below and thought that maybe Max was onto something. How? We'll let George Carlin explain:






Of course, the natural reaction to that classic Carlin routine is to think one sport inherently attracts a particular ideology over another but it is really more complicated than that.

With that said, folks, it's time to take the test!

The old one-dimensional categories of 'right' and 'left', established for the seating arrangement of the French National Assembly of 1789, are overly simplistic for today's complex political landscape. For example, who are the 'conservatives' in today's Russia? Are they the unreconstructed Stalinists, or the reformers who have adopted the right-wing views of conservatives like Margaret Thatcher ?

On the standard left-right scale, how do you distinguish leftists like Stalin and Gandhi? It's not sufficient to say that Stalin was simply more left than Gandhi. There are fundamental political differences between them that the old categories on their own can't explain. Similarly, we generally describe social reactionaries as 'right-wingers', yet that leaves left-wing reactionaries like Robert Mugabe and Pol Pot off the hook.

Take it here.



Here's a look at where some famous political and economics figures from the past land on the grid.

And us?

Hanging with our boy Milton.

Frankly, we thought we'd be a little more to the Southeast but we suppose we can't shake all of our radical centrist ways.

Go ahead and take the test and see if it grids you where you thought you would be.


Oh, and as for Max? He's a big baseball and soccer fan so of course he's a worthless liberal hipster.

Finally: Life's "easy button" has arrived in Connecticut

We stole the video below from KT who uses the no-touching policy at a middle school in Milford, Connecticut as a metaphor for the concept of "competition" in global markets and the ultimate folly of attempting to establish fair outcomes in those same markets.






We don't even know where to begin with this. This is the evil twin brother of the "zero-tolerance" policies at schools where, seemingly, school administrators just threw up their hands and said "screw it" - for myriads of reasons, we're sure, teachers and school administrators, unable to enforce the existing policies decided to opt for the room temperature I.Q. easy button of "no-touching".

There are parallels here with the young lad here in California who was told to take the flag off the bike he rode to and from school. The rational response would have been to identify and take the appropriate measures against those who threatened violence upon the kid. Instead, the "easy button" response, the truly no-brainer response prevailed. Whew. Didn't have to work to hard to solve that problem, right?

If you can't enforce against fighting, bullying, rough housing or "badly kicked in the groin", we suppose the next logical step is "no-touching".

And pity the kid at the end of the clip. He is absolutely baffled. He is attempting to explain this new Bizarro world for which there is simply no rational explanation and his tone and demeanor seem to ask, "Where are the adults, man?" Son, the adults have left the building.

And to bring it full circle: this is the logical extension of attempting to ensure "fair" outcomes. This is the logical extension of years and years of awarding ribbons and trophies to kids in junior leagues for merely participating instead of achieving anything of real consequence.

The leftist dream of eliminating pain, challenges, accommplishments, individual achievement, unequal outcomes and life's necessary and inevitable ass-kickings has been realized in deep blue Connecticut.



P.S. We went to the school's website to see if there was anything there regarding the school's no-touch policy. It seems their no-touch policy extends to the website as well. Not sure we've seen a more dreadful design and layout. Oh, and mum's the word on the touchy.

P.P.S. In the spirit of being ungovernable, how cool would it be for the students to execute a school-wide high-five at lunch when they get back from Thanksgiving? It would be the coolest thing ever, that's what.

That didn't work out so well, did it? (UPDATED)

(please scroll to bottom of post for update)

Let's get straight to it. Left Coast Rebel has the full video of the axed USDA worker, Shirley Sherrod, in her presentation at an NAACP event where she allegedly makes her racist comments regarding a white farmer which caused her termination. Here's what we wrote in the comment section at LCR in an earlier post on this subject:

At this point, I don't feel comfortable with this. The video I saw cut off at what possibly may have been the "but..." moment. As if her narrative went from an act of bigotry to the realization that what she was doing was wrong. Except, if the realization part did indeed happen, we didn't see it.

If Breitbart edited the video in any way so that we did not get the full context then that is despicable as, for all we know, a dedicated civil servant was terminated.

If I am mistaken then so be it. This one, however, doesn't pass my gut check and is why I ran, instead, with goofy Brown Beret mama at the Angels game for my daily lefty racism/bigotry post.

At 18:45 begins the "but..." moment that did not make the original video that blew up on the internet on Monday.

Now, about these Alinsky tactics that many on the right, including ourselves, were so eager to embrace, especially after witnessing the guerrilla ops of James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles as they infiltrated Planned Parenthood offices: Be careful what you wish for. The left lives and dies by these tactics - we merely die because we can't afford screw-ups like that which Andrew Breitbart presented us.

The problem with adopting Alinsky tactics is precisely because in adopting Alinsky tactics you have explicitly bought into the mindset of the opposition. It is a mindset where everything you do, everything you say is informed by politics; that being the politics of gender, race, sexual orientation, religion, class warfare, grievances, victimhood, etc.

It is our contention that our conservative beliefs are apolitical by nature. In our mind, the embracing of conservatism is, in large part, to free the mind of the political road map by which to live your life. The Alinsky tactics represent a day after day grind of bending the individual will to the machinery of politics as dictated by the ruling class when what it is we are trying to accomplish is to free the individual from this crushing grind.

In the end, it's about ideas, not gotcha. Should real instances of racism be brought to light? Absolutely. But playing this game is a dangerous one because it detracts from the end goals of increased individual freedom and liberty and too easily lends itself to embarrassing and shameful instances like this.

Shirley Sherrod is no racist and deserves her job back.

Let's all chill out for a moment, spend some time with Friedman, Hayek and the Book of Proverbs and think about what were doing.


UPDATE #1: We understand Andrew Breitbart received the edited version of the video and did not edit it himself. This does not excuse him from what transpired after he released this video. His supporters will say that he merely threw the video out there so that we all could come to our own conclusions. Bull shit. The "context" provided was to smear this woman as a bigot. Breitbart should have demanded to see the full-length video when presented with the edited version.

Having said that, we're big fans of Andrew Breitbart and the work he has done to date in battling the statist left. He screwed up on this one, however, and he needs to make things right.

Re: the White House... who acted stupidly. Good lord. What a bunch of spineless creeps. Video shows up Monday, Sherrod is out Tuesday. Got due process? Not these guys.

Taking the forgiveness path

From "Living Like a Liberal: it's hard work politicizing your whole life":

When we get there, I quickly unrack the bikes, and we tear off down the trail before anyone can stop us. There are signs everywhere warning park vehicles to slow for turtles. The river below is thick with spatterdock and pickerelweed. Our bikes slalom through trails lined with Green Ash, Red Maple, and Swamp Magnolia, while the skies overhead are patrolled by red-tail hawks, ospreys, and even the occasional bald eagle.

We have a fine time of it. But when we return, and I start re-racking the bikes, as sure as the sun rises, a park employee comes shuffling across the parking lot. “For future reference,” she says, “there’s no biking here. We are a sanctuary.”

“Really?” I say. “You allow vehicles to go through. There’s no sign saying ‘no biking.’ ”

“Well,” she says, “we have one on our website.”

I thank her for her attention, telling her we just finished biking, so we won’t be needing to anymore today. Back in the car, the kids are puzzled. “Man,” says Luke. “Isn’t it annoying when people try to ruin our walks and rides? They don’t let us do anything. They don’t allow dogs. They don’t allow bikes. They only allow turtles.”

“Yes,” I say, trying to share my values. “But we learned an important lesson.”

“Don’t bike there?” asks Dean.

No, I say, trying to bring it home. I explain to them that my assignment is to live liberally, and that classic liberalism was all about fighting for freedoms to do things (for voting rights, for civil rights, etc.). But that modern liberalism is mostly about people telling you what you can’t do—no smoking, no sodas in schools, no trans fats, no biking in parks.

“Some people tell you to question authority,” I explain, “But if you never ask authority for permission in the first place, they can’t tell you no.”

The boys nod their heads in unison, both of them wearing conspiratorial smiles. Sharing values can be rewarding. Let’s just hope they don’t tell their mother.

Remember this summer to be ungovernable and to experience life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness subversively and completely irresponsibly.

Quote of the day

Liberals hope to rid life of the “bad decisions” but of course only in the context of what they consider to be bad decisions. They look to lop off the tops and use it to fill the bottoms, thereby creating some sort of Utopian plain where there are no hills and valleys… where the risk and rewards of life are either eliminated or, at the very least, reduced as much as possible. Capt. Kirk always said he “needed his pain” but what we need is the freedom to make bad decisions… to buy stocks that go down, to not get an education… and, one hopes, thus learn the lessons and reform ourselves. Liberals seek to deny this for they are the arbiters of what we should choose for ourselves.

That from our blog buddy, Harrison at Just Politics? Of course, we know there are no such thing as liberals anymore but the point is well-taken.

Some friendly advice

Courtesy the L.A. Times totally rockin’ blogs...

Does one have to be a knuckle-dragging reactionary to be repulsed by Roman Polanski and his whole sordid namesake ordeal or does the Tinsel town literati just make it seem that way?

For the Times, the drugging and forced sodomy of a 13 yr. old = long-ago personal transgression.

The mere mention of Polanski is bordering on Hitler territory where any rationalization of anything even as benign as say his interpersonal management style (I am against everything Hitler ever did or stood for, however, he did….) makes one look like a complete imbecile.

The current tack of the Hollywood liberati is to defend Polanski by attacking the right-wingers for their attacks on Polanski, reminiscent of Cold War anti-anti-communists: Though we are somewhat troubled regarding what he did to an underaged girl over 30 years ago… he’s like a really good director or something.

Memo to Hollywood: Stop it. The man and everything about him is toxic. You stumble right into the briar patch with your righteous indignation concerning conservatives’ treatment of the man, looking the fool while doing it while re-enforcing the image of Hollywood as a relativistic cesspool.

We hereby declare this site as a Polanski-free zone.

Got hypocrisy?

A nice big juicy post to start your work week...

It’s all starting to make sense. And it all adds up when one thinks about it. The reason why Obama’s political agenda just hasn’t gained any broad-based popularity with the American electorate is because backers of Obama’s agenda haven’t become sufficiently extreme and radicalized so says Harold Meyerson in the Washington Post:

But if there's a common feature to the political landscapes in which Carter, Clinton and now Obama were compelled to work, it's the absence of a vibrant left movement. The America over which FDR presided was home to mass organizations of the unemployed; farmers' groups that blocked foreclosures, sometimes at gunpoint; general strikes that shut down entire cities, and militant new unions that seized factories. Both communists and democratic socialists were enough of a presence in America to help shape these movements, generating so much street heat in so many congressional districts that Democrats were compelled to look leftward as they crafted their response to the Depression.(H/T: B-Daddy)

(italics, ours)

Because nothing says vibrant like “gunpoint”, “militant”, “seized factories”, and “communists”. (If Meyerson were an ad-man would he pitch laundry detergent as having a formula that will give your clothing colors a militant and totalitarian look while still retaining that feel of thuggishness?)

The irony of people like Meyerson criticizing the Tea Party movement for creating a threatening environment is not lost on us. Because when describing the mood and energy of the liberal-Left, it’s passion but with the conservative-Right, it’s always anger.

Here’s Charles Blow of the New York Times on the Tea Party movement and recent Gallup poll results that show twice as many Americans identify themselves as conservatives as they do liberals:

This is a limited, emotional reaction. It’s a response to the trauma that is the Great Recession, the uncertainty and creeping suspicion about the risks being taken in Washington, a visceral reaction to Obama and an overwhelming sense of powerlessness and loss.

Simply put, it’s about fear-fueled anger. But anger is not an idea. It’s not a plan. And it’s not a vision for the future. It is, however, the second stage of grief, right after denial and before bargaining.

What baffles us about many on the Left is not that they aren’t down with the Tea Party movement, we’ve no problem with that, it’s that they evidently remain blind to what is driving the movement.

The record-breaking debts and deficits under which we are operating don’t even warrant a raised eyebrow. An atrocious piece of legislation that has been fashioned in the most cynical, opaque and outright corrupt of manners doesn’t elicit the slightest blanch. A stimulus bill that has done nothing for and in reality has probably hindered job recovery gets a shrug and the federal government’s brazen intervention into the private sector from financial institutions to auto manufacturing is cause for… slamming people who have never participated in a rally or protest in their lives but have so in the last calendar year because they possess an innate and principled belief that perhaps the government should not be operating in this manner.

Again, let’s look at what a liberal Thom Hartmann wrote back in 2004 in his book, "What Would Jefferson Do: A return to democracy" and which was a implicit critique of the Bush administration:

Beware: Tight control can look very good, at first…

When Germany faced the last depression, its government turned to a hand-in-glove partnership with corporations, (including some American corporations, as has been shown in recent years) to solidify its power over its own people and to wage wars on others.

Yes, the Bush administration fathered Bailout Nation and was criticized on these very pages for it, but Obama has, since Bush secured the beachhead, broke out of hedgerow country and done himself some Patton-like open field running, exploding the growth and influence of government in the private sector while radicalizing it as well.

But where are people like Meyerson, Blow and Hartmann now? Are they sticking to their liberal principles that warned of the economic fascism of public-private crony capitalism? Far from it. Not only are they not criticizing it, they are its fully-accepting and unquestioning cheerleaders who have the gall to ridicule those who oppose this naked Americanized fascism.

Given all that, one begins to wonder just who is being teabagged, here.

Great moments in the history of centrism Pt. III

From William M. Daley, chairman of Al Gore’s presidential campaign and brother of current Chicago mayor, Richard M. Daley:

The announcement by Alabama Rep. Parker Griffith that he is switching to the Republican Party is just the latest warning sign that the Democratic Party -- my lifelong political home -- has a critical decision to make: Either we plot a more moderate, centrist course or risk electoral disaster not just in the upcoming midterms but in many elections to come.

Just wondering what all that talk was about the Republicans being run into the ground by the "extremists"?

In his op-ed piece for the WaPo, Daley goes on to explain what we’ve been preaching all along: that recent Democrat victories in ’06 and ’08 weren’t a result of leaning left but rather capturing the center-right ground that the Republicans, drunk with power, had abandoned during the Bush years.

In a glorious re-enactment of history, the Democrats stand poised to repeat the same mistakes of the Republicans but with even more monumental displays of spending, statism and craven pork-barrel politics that Americans clearly don’t want.

Day of Reckoning

For our moderate and liberal friends who were had...



Harry Reid cravenly explained all the pork give-aways in Senatecare as being just business as usual and intimating that’s just how legislation was done. We’re sorry – we’re not buying because it was supposed to be different with this Congress and this administration, wasn’t it? That’s what we were promised, right?

Hope and Change.

It wasn’t going to be business as usual and there was going to be transparency and openness as well. And particularly for a bill that was supposed to be about “justice”, “morality” and “doing the right thing”, in the end all the backroom whoring seems to be a tad unseemly and tawdry, does it not?



Here is the abstract of The Heritage Foundation’s excellent breakdown of Senatecare:

The Senate health care bill would overhaul the entire health care sector of the U.S. economy by erecting massive federal controls over private health insurance, dictating the content of insurance benefit packages and the use of medical treatments, procedures, and medical devices. It would alter the relationship between the federal government and the states, transferring massive regulatory power to the federal government. The bill would also restrict the personal and economic freedom of American citizens by imposing controversial and unprecedented mandates on businesses and individuals, including an individual mandate to buy insurance.

Let’s go back to what a liberal said regarding corporatism in 1930s Germany and with respect to what he was warning against in America circa 2004:

When Germany faced the last depression, its government turned to a hand-in-glove partnership with corporations (including some American corporations, as has been shown in recent years) to solidify its power over its own people and to wage war on others.

(We want to be 100% crystal clear on one thing: we are in no way conflating the economic fascism of Germany with its Nazi ideology. Chase that thought from your head right now.)

How is the economic fascism of Germany and Italy where partnerships between the government and private industry were forged any different than what we have now with Obamacare where you will be forced to purchase a service, even if it’s against your will, from a private entity and where the federal government is a major stockholder of two American auto manufacturers as well as having ownership interests in this country’s financial sector? How is it different?

One of Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals is forcing the opposition to play by its own rules. As such, if liberals and independents were upset with the crony capitalism and the cozying-up to Big Business of the Bush administration then they should rightly be outraged by what they have seen thus far with the Obama administration. Yet, what we hear is tea bagger jokes.


It’s time to come forward. All will be forgiven, ye who fell under the spell of The One. Come forward now and confess of your transgressions, ye who chafed under 8 years of the power-grabbing Bush regime who now look like mere pikers when compared to the gangsters from Chicago who now reside in the White House.

We understand. We get it. Over a year ago, you had in Barack Obama, the pefect tonic for 8 years of war, triumphalism, moral certitude, faith over science and conservatism run amok. A black man who spoke in moderate tones that would accommodate squishy political ideology while soothing whatever racial guilt that may have been pent up within you represented the ultimate in personality over politics and ideology.

The gig is up. Time to come home.

Progressively ahead of their time

Crappy ideas from the liberal-Left: the gifts that keep giving.

Someone named Diane Francis writing for the Financial Post is calling for “mandatory conservation measures” in order to control global population growth which she believes is of more critical concern than global warming. Jonah Goldberg rightly ponders the amount and degree of outrage were there a call for a global ban on abortion. Keep your politics off my body, right?

How is this call for forced abor… err, “mandatory conservation measures” any different?

And who does she use as an example? Those progressives calling the one-child policy shots in China.

Ironically, China, despite its dirty coal plants, is the world's leader in terms of fashioning policy to combat environmental degradation, thanks to its one-child-only edict.

Leaving aside the fact that we’re not sure what is so ironic about two results of China’s command and control policies, Francis neglects to mention other progressives like Mao, Stalin and Pol Pot who also implemented very effective population control measures. Who knew they would be so out in front of this issue?

Alas, Ms. Francis is a married mother of two.

Quote of the day (UPDATED)

... and the meaning of words.

It would certainly be to correct language. If language is not correct, then what is said is not what is meant. If what is said is not what is meant, then what ought to be done remains undone. If this remains undone, then morals and acts deteriorate. If morals and acts deteriorate, justice will go astray. If justice goes astray, the people will stand about in helpless confusion. Hence, there must be no arbitrariness in what is said. This matters above everything.

That from Confucius when asked some 2,400 years ago what he would do if placed in charge of the Chinese government. (H/T: American Thinker via Foxfier)



George Orwell also had a big problem with the way language and terminology particularly in politics were twisted to the point of obfuscation, saying: “The decline of language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer.”

But decline it has in the 60 years since that Orwell quote. Mark Falcoff writing for NRO takes a look at some terms of which we are all familiar in the modern political and cultural arena and documents their respective devolutions and how they were made in Orwell’s words, “private definitions”.

Article here


(UPDATE #1): (Sorry about that false start, followers)

In short, there is no underlying moral code upon which you can call to slow down the purges, attacks, manipulations, lies and threats. When faced with Christian nuts going overboard, one could always draw from the Bible and bring forth hundreds of quotes from Jesus telling them to love their neighbors, forgive others and show kindness towards their opponents. The global warming fanatics have no such foundation and can continue to do whatever it takes to suppress, threaten and distort.

That from KT on his post here regarding how the faith-based AGW zealots bear no resemblance to the Spanish Inquisition zealots.

The logic of the Inquisition, if not the practice itself, could be countered by the rock solid moral underpinnings of the Scriptures (the language or original raw data, if you will) that had been meticulously maintained by men who devoted their entire lives to preserving its purity.

There is no such countering the logic of the faith-based AGW zealots who have observed no such strict code which the scientific method and the concept of peer review were supposed to maintain. With such moral relativism at their disposal, there is nothing from which to argue the faultiness of their claims. The advancement of their agenda instead of principle or moral code becomes sacrosant

Quickies

Jaw-dropping headline of the day (Huffington Post):

Actor Matthew Marsden Hides Right-Wing Political Views.

Bounce this against: Coming Out In Hollywood Not Always Easy… which, you may be shocked to find out, is not about right-wingers. Ah yes, how the liberal-Left really feels about tolerance and differing opinions.


Conserva-babe Michell Malkin catches NYT columnist Nicolas Kristoff peddling lies in and advocacy-journalism piece in support of Obamacare.


Deadspin breaks down some of the pros and cons of an 18-week NFL regular season schedule. Personally, we’re against it and think it’s a moot point anyway as the hurdles to make this happen are too high to overcome. By employing this logic, expect to see an 18-game schedule two CBAs from now.


More Ft. Hood good news. Andrew McCarthy, the man who prosecuted the Blind Sheikh and Zacarias Moussaoui has this:

Worse, last evening, Safi was apparently permitted to present a check (evidently on behalf of ISNA) to the families of the victims of last month's Fort Hood massacre. A military source told the blogger Barbarossa at the Jawa Report: "This is nothing short of blood money. This is criminal and the Ft. Hood base commander should be fired right now."

Hey, gang, believe it: Green really is the new Green. Bret Stephens follows the money trail and details just how much jack is being shelled out in the name of, uhh… climate change research.

We shall fight in the air, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields, we shall fight in the hills — for 18 months. Then we start packing for home.

Charles Krauthammer shares our concerns regarding a Commander-in-Chief who lacks a certain fire in the belly.


And finally, the L.A. Times has photo gallery here of their favorite Holiday beers. Remember, folks, stay away from the fruit.