(Click title above)
Comment by Dlanor at http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/11/time_for_mccain_to_step_up_to.html:
American Barracuda Party:
We need a new GOP, in the image of The American Dynamic (individual freedom, initiative, and responsibility), not in the image of Blueblood elitists or their billionaire socialist cousins.
We need an ideology-for-defending-American-style-free-markets-and-enterprise. This means we cannot abide media becoming monopolized in international pirates bent on abetting the raping and pillaging of marketplaces of products and ideas.
Rather, we need an ideology for defending American style borders --- physically, spiritually, economically, and environmentally. This does not mean isolationism. It means defending a well defined, competitive, involved America.
We will not be able to move towards a better America by making baneful common cause with McCain, Rockefeller, and Noonan style Republicans. Rather, they must be banished. What we need instead are American Individualists --- wherever we can find and inspire them. We need Saracuda leaders. Hell, we need an American Barracuda Party!
If we truly represent faith in fundamentally sound American values, we can inspire and recruit — even among conservative Democrats.
As the Republican party now stands, it ain’t mine, no more.
Comment by Dlanor at http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/11/time_for_mccain_to_step_up_to.html:
American Barracuda Party:
We need a new GOP, in the image of The American Dynamic (individual freedom, initiative, and responsibility), not in the image of Blueblood elitists or their billionaire socialist cousins.
We need an ideology-for-defending-American-style-free-markets-and-enterprise. This means we cannot abide media becoming monopolized in international pirates bent on abetting the raping and pillaging of marketplaces of products and ideas.
Rather, we need an ideology for defending American style borders --- physically, spiritually, economically, and environmentally. This does not mean isolationism. It means defending a well defined, competitive, involved America.
We will not be able to move towards a better America by making baneful common cause with McCain, Rockefeller, and Noonan style Republicans. Rather, they must be banished. What we need instead are American Individualists --- wherever we can find and inspire them. We need Saracuda leaders. Hell, we need an American Barracuda Party!
If we truly represent faith in fundamentally sound American values, we can inspire and recruit — even among conservative Democrats.
As the Republican party now stands, it ain’t mine, no more.
24 comments:
Re: Foreign hackers — see http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2931c542-ac35-11dd-bf71-000077b07658.html.
******
Re: Saracuda — see http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1083563/Republican-lawyers-head-Alaska-Palins-150-000-campaign-clothes.html.
******
Re: http://www.anncoulter.com/
THE REIGN OF LAME FALLS MAINLY ON MCCAIN
November 5, 2008
....
Have you ever noticed that whenever Democrats lose presidential elections, they always blame it on the personal qualities of their candidate? Kerry was a dork, Gore was a stiff, Dukakis was a bloodless android, Mondale was a sad sack.
This blame-the-messenger thesis allows Democrats to conclude that their message was fine -- nothing should be changed! The American people are clamoring for higher taxes, big government, a defeatist foreign policy, gay marriage, the whole magilla. It was just this particular candidate's personality.
Republicans lost this presidential election, and I don't blame the messenger; I blame the message. How could Republicans go after B. Hussein Obama (as he is now known) on planning to bankrupt the coal companies when McCain supports the exact same cap and trade policies and earnestly believes in global warming?
How could we go after Obama for his illegal alien aunt and for supporting driver's licenses for illegal aliens when McCain fanatically pushed amnesty along with his good friend Teddy Kennedy?
How could we go after Obama for Jeremiah Wright when McCain denounced any Republicans who did so?
How could we go after Obama for planning to hike taxes on the "rich," when McCain was the only Republican to vote against both of Bush's tax cuts on the grounds that they were tax cuts for the rich?
And why should Republican activists slave away working for McCain when he has personally, viciously attacked: John O'Neill and the Swift Boat Veterans, National Right to Life director Doug Johnson, evangelical pastors Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and John Hagee, various conservative talk radio hosts, the Tennessee Republican Party and on and on and on?
....
Indeed, the only good thing about McCain is that he gave us a genuine conservative, Sarah Palin. He's like one of those insects that lives just long enough to reproduce so that the species can survive. That's why a lot of us are referring to Sarah as "The One" these days.
Like Sarah Connor in "The Terminator," Sarah Palin is destined to give birth to a new movement. That's why the Democrats are trying to kill her. And Arnold Schwarzenegger is involved somehow, too. Good Lord, I'm tired.
BURY GOP; RAISE “AMERICAN BARRACUDA PARTY”:
REPUBLICAN STUPIDITY IN FAILING TO ADDRESS ECONOMIC CONCERNS OF MIDDLE CLASS, WIDENING GULF BETWEEN “HAVES” AND “HAVE NOTS,” AND MORAL LEGITIMACY OF PROGRESSIVENESS IN TAXATION SCHEMES IN ORDER TO FURTHER DECENCY IN HEALTH CARE AND INFRASTRUCTURE:
****************
Snippets from http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/07/opinion/07ponnuru.html?th&emc=th
How to Move the Middle
By RAMESH PONNURU
Published: November 7, 2008
....
Republicans have a history of moving right after defeats, embracing Ronald Reagan after Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford had failed, and Newt Gingrich after George H. W. Bush had. Each time the party thrived as conservative independents and Democrats joined it. Many conservatives think that the party will succeed again just as soon as it ditches the big-spending, soft-on-immigration George W. Bush. But Republicans succeeded on those previous occasions because they addressed the concerns of the day for the vast middle class; moving right alone was insufficient.
....
Based on the exit polls from 2004 and Tuesday, Republicans have lost more ground among self-described moderates than among conservatives. Even if Senator McCain had won the same percentage of conservatives that President Bush did in 2004, he would not have won. Moving right will work only if moderates are given a reason to move right too.
The way to court these moderates is NOT TO ABANDON SOCIAL CONSERVATISM, which would alienate many of the voters Republicans still have. The party needs to “move to the middle” less than it NEEDS TO MOVE TO THE MIDDLE-CLASS: to go back to representing the interests of voters in the middle of the income spectrum.
John McCain and movement conservatives, so often at odds, have been complicit in neglecting these voters. He somehow believed that he could win a presidential election WITHOUT A COHERENT MIDDLE-CLASS AGENDA, and conservatives never thought to demand one from him.
Yes, Mr. McCain’s plans would have cut taxes more than Mr. Obama’s for a lot of middle-class families, but Republicans rarely bothered to point that out. Mr. McCain’s campaign smartly promised to double the tax exemption for children, but the candidate seemed unfamiliar with the idea, repeatedly describing it incorrectly. Likewise, he had an innovative health care plan, but he rarely explained how it would help the average voter.
For much of the year Senator McCain’s central economic message was that he would restrain federal spending, especially earmarks. At no point did Republicans suggest how these policies would lead to any tangible improvements for average Americans. He also promised to cut corporate tax rates. He had a strong case: We have higher rates than most countries yet raise less revenue. But good economic policies cannot prevail until a political majority for them is rebuilt — and that requires persuading average voters that markets can be made to work for them.
....
Republicans, as the party in the White House for the last eight years, were bound to take most of the blame for the financial crisis. But Mr. McCain would have been better prepared for it if middle-class voters already trusted him to look out for them. By the end of the campaign, 60 percent of voters did not think that he was “in touch with people like them” — and 79 percent of them voted against him. They thought other Republicans were out of touch, too. To recover, the party will have to prove them wrong, not just return to the conservative program of yesteryear.
*********
Issue of concern for “American Barracuda Party”:
Unreliable voting — see http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2008/11/022024.php.
Comment by Dlanor, at http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/11/how_to_get_your_hand_bitten.html:
NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND:
Apart from basic skills in math and grammar, what that is worthwhile is taught in grades K through 12? There seems no longer to be consensus around which to assimilate American secular moral values. So, apart from serving to indoctrinate children to mores of billionaires who own and run well springs of our media and academia, what is the point of education beyond, say, Grade 10? For that matter, what is the point of awarding masters or doctors degrees in non-scientific fields of study? For becoming well rounded and well read, are there not better sources on the internet and in libraries than in most colleges? So, why are taxpayers funding means by which monopolists and international socialists continue to indoctrinate each succeeding generation to their purposes?
CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM:
Why are bundlers, associations, and businesses allowed to make political contributions at all? Should not political contributions come only from citizens? And, to address inequities in financial access to politicians, should not such contributions be taxed, progressively, sort of like forms of individual political consumption taxes?
INCOME TAX:
Why is it thought constitutional for government to take one person’s income or wealth for the purpose of making direct redistribution to another person?
American Barracuda Party:
We need a new GOP, in the image of The American Dynamic (individual freedom, initiative, and responsibility), not in the image of Blueblood elitists or their billionaire socialist cousins.
We need an ideology-for-defending-American-style-free-markets-and-enterprise. This means we cannot abide media becoming monopolized in international pirates bent on abetting the raping and pillaging of marketplaces of products and ideas.
Rather, we need an ideology for defending American style borders --- physically, spiritually, economically, and environmentally. This does not mean isolationism. It means defending a well defined, competitive, involved America.
We will not be able to move towards a better America by making baneful common cause with McCain, Rockefeller, and Noonan style Republicans. Rather, they must be banished. What we need instead are American Individualists --- wherever we can find and inspire them. We need Saracuda leaders. Hell, we need an American Barracuda Party!
If we truly represent faith in fundamentally sound American values, we can inspire and recruit — even among conservative Democrats.
As the Republican party now stands, it ain’t mine, no more.
INTERNATIONAL PIRACY — REPUBLICAN MORAL BLINDNESS TO EVILS OF BROKEN BORDERS AND GLOBALIZATION:
See http://townhall.com/Columnists/PatrickJBuchanan/2008/11/07/an_unnecessary_defeat?page=2:
November 07, 2008
An Unnecessary Defeat?
by Patrick J. Buchanan
....
Economic insecurity is traceable to NAFTA-GATT globalization, under which it makes economic sense for U.S. companies to close factories here, build plants in China and export back to the United States. Manufacturing now accounts for less than 10 percent of all U.S. jobs.
Social insecurity is traceable to mass immigration, legal and illegal, which has brought in scores of millions who are altering the character of communities and competing with U.S. workers by offering their services for far less pay.
These are the twin causes of death of the Reagan coalition, and as long as the Republican Party is hooked on K Street cash, it will not address either, and thus pass, blissfully addicted, from this earth.
*******
UNVERIFIABLE LEGALITY OF POLITICAL CONTRIBUTIONS:
http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/obama_fundraisng/2008/11/05/148218.html?s=al&promo_code=708C-1
*******
LIBERTINE LEXICON:
http://townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2008/11/05/affirmative_action_and_gay_marriage
"American Barracuda Party" may be too narrow a name. "American Voyager Party" may be better.
For an "American Voyager Party" (AVP), the trick is to have assimilated a civilization of citizens who share an initial state of common values and aspirations. Thereafter, in respect of such a society, social science and history could not help measure that which is “objectively best.” However, studying history could facilitate insight for how best to pursue present aspirations. Social studies (or dialectical materialism) would not show that which is (scientifically) best in itself, but may improve insight about that which is derivatively best in relation to an assumed goal. Given a state of affairs, and assuming a presently shared aspiration, such as for inspiring a civilization that avails “freedom to pursue happiness,” social science studies could enhance insight for effective strategies. In that regard, an “American Voyager Party” would assume, respect, and pursue a goal of availing individual freedom to pursue happiness.
Jenny and Jackie,
Lately, various media have been having quite some fun at Sarah Palin’s expense, citing unnamed sources for laying out some stink bombs that smell like falsehoods.
I wish you would view the video clips at Malkin’s website:
http://hotair.com/archives/2008/11/07/palin-on-the-leakers-those-guys-are-jerks/.
From what I can gather, it appears Palin: well knows Africa is a continent; well knows which countries are in North America and NAFTA; did not even step foot in Saks or Nieman Marcus; was advised and assisted by RNC stylists and assistants, who brought the campaign clothes to her room and evidently did not mention price guidelines; and is on good terms with McCain.
Jerks who assisted with the McCain/Palin ticket, having lost their luster, are now looking ahead to 2012, hoping to be recruited by Romney, Huckabee, or whoever else may then be running. Because these jerks have been too cowardly to allow “reporters” to whom they have leaked to even cite their names, there is no way for Palin to confront them directly, to allow their credibility to be factored to evaluate the truth or falsity of their “inside-baseball” post-campaign wisecracks.
A couple of other interesting sites:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxXh6ZWfbDg;
http://sendables.jibjab.com/sendables/1191/time_for_some_campaignin#/teaser/1191.
Bottom line: Media and academia hirelings seem often to be becoming ever more untrustworthy. It becomes ever more important to consider who is sponsoring and paying the hirelings and what the wider motivations may be. It has become quite important to be alert to various sources and not to be too surprised when sources behave dishonorably.
No doubt, numerous stories about loss of civilizing decency could be recounted. At some point, ought not a person of basic decency seek to account for why it is that basic American manners and decency have taken such a nosedive?
See:
Loss of decency --- http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/decency-dying-a-painful-death-in-british-culture/;
Loss of decency in media --- http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081113/ap_en_tv/palin_hoax.
Liberty or Wimpery?
Social Leftists are wonderers, lost in the grip of their own chosen vise or paradox. With one side of their artificial vise grip, they proclaim that absolute determination of the morality of any concern is completely beyond objective or empirical verification, and, therefore (non-sequitur), completely without relevant value. With the other side of their self-vise, they herald the scientific method as savior-sufficient to lead us to “move on,” beyond old, sacred metaphors and values.
So, which is it: Are moral values irrelevant, or are we on the scent of better, newer values? Have social Leftists (i.e., Blueblood Republicans, Libertarians, Democrats, Liberals, and Libertines), as headless chickens, lost their heads in their own vise? Like chickens, have they been reduced by conditioning of media and academia to be easily led by any Big Government Controlling Demagogue with access to enough chicken feed (i.e., Mainstream Media Ministry of Truth)?
Suppose, instead of throwing tantrums because we are required to engage (our subjective free will) in moral choices, and instead of adolescently being unwilling to settle for anything less than a complete, perfect, and comforting explanation (or hijacking?) of the Mind of God, we instead listened receptively, using our God-given intuition to appreciate our history of experience. Then, ask: For offering freedom, dignity, autonomy, self-expression, self reliance, and pursuit of happiness, which nation’s fundamental values have served better than those of America? Ask: What have been the essential, sustaining values of America? Ask: Are we really ready to toss those values out? In trade for … what?
****
Patterns, such as for fads and values, compete, morph, evolve, and emerge. For a nation, the concern with patterns pertains not to whether mores and values should be cultivated, because VALUES WILL BE CULTIVATED. Rather, the concern pertains to how to cultivate the values we wish to engage.
Presently, we have social competition among (a) traditional family values, (b) governmentally sponsored (political correct, secular, or sharia) values, and (c) anarchic (anything goes) “values.” If social conservatives surrender on the issue of social values, the issue will not vanish. Rather, the issue will morph, to governmentally induced (often dictated) values.
Libertines are sorely misguided Pinocchio’s to expect that resisting family-based standards will further their “rights” to engage in “anything goes” behavior. And, Secular Humanists are misguided to expect that savaging Christianity will save them from Islamofascism.
No doubt, standards will change, but newly intrusive standards will simply and promptly fill any moral vacuum. Libertines are not unlike children, running from the embrace of their parents into the embrace of Big Government Intrusive Dictate.
After all, “it takes a village.” So, liberty-defilers (Leftists and fellow Jihadists) are urged, essentially, to “jihad in your face.” And Big Dictate knows best (at least, for the responsibility-surrendering, weak-minded, heavily-conditioned, and corrupt).
Bottom line: Will autonomous lovers of liberty wimp out, in surrender to secular Borg-dom and/or Dhimminitude?
Attacks on civilizing, family values --- see:
Homosexuality --- http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=647.
Sin / Sales / Consumption Taxes --- see http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/11/politicians_then_and_now.html.
GHOST IN THE MACHINE:
See http://www.ebonmusings.org/atheism/ghost.html:
Comment by Dlanor:
What about the "machine in the ghost?" Can we not reasonably suspect that the apparent or "particular physicality" of the machine is merely derivative of one set of mathematical functions (a locus of conscious observation) operating upon another (a machine), secondary to some essential non-local variable (Ghost?) that is hidden?
Comment by Dlanor, at http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/11/obama_is_hitler_hold_on_a_seco.html:
REGARDING JOE BIDEN’S WARNING:
Regarding long term, high expenditures by Russia and/or international cohorts of resources towards reshaping American academia, students, media, etc., see: http://www.dailymotion.com – Dailymotion – Yuri Bezmenov.
Among the steps of (1) demoralization, (2) destabilization, (3) crisis, and (4) socialist re-normalization, steps (1) and (2) have been going on in America for quite some time. Now, the tipping points, at (3) and (4), seem quite close upon us.
Against this, we cannot beat something with nothing. And, America, presently, has essentially nothing.
First, America does not do a good job of inculcating civic appreciation of American values. Rather, “education” from media and academia reinforces feminine, pie-in-sky, everybody-play-nice, code-pink, “multicultural values,” with little admiration extended to “American values” or to manly defense.
Second, American institutions and academia provide virtually nothing to encourage citizens or students to trust to traditional values, as contextualized in Judeo-Christian metaphors and sacred stories. Rather, traditional values are being rapidly undermined.
Again, America cannot beat something with nothing.
Even now, American leaders seem content and unready to offer resistance to the liberal fascism of Bush and Obama that is tipping us ever closer to catastrophe.
Apart from Reagan (and Palin?), from whom have we enjoyed any visionary (or real) leadership for defining and defending America, as America? Why do we blithely assume the Cold War is over and that American representative governance is safe? Are no signs yet shouting to us?
Snakes Among Conservatives:
To be anything, a thing needs to have defining features. For example, “America” is a country of boundaries that are physical, political, moral, and aspirational. “Conservatives,” wishing to conserve America, defend borders, restrict in-comers to legal immigrants, extol an informed electorate, promote family values, and fight for individual liberty. International “Socialists,” wishing to see America torn to bits and fed to ravening primatives, defend no borders, advocate “rights” to cross borders, whip up, mislead, and indoctrinate electorates, cede responsibility for rearing children to the State, and seek the security of mobs of protesters.
So, many Conservatives, out of sense of human morality: oppose blanket amnesty for invaders; detest the enabling of voter fraud; want State’s to decide how to regulate abortions; defend the authority of parents; and do not seek to undermine efforts to conduct the nation’s defense.
Faux (elite?) Conservatives, while denigrating homage to any basis for morality as “oogedy boogedy,” mock such concerns and values, even going so far as to argue, illogically (albeit in cutesy language), that Conservatives reduce their electoral power by actually standing for such things.
And so, this last election cycle, we ran a “Republican” who actually acceded to most arguments of faux conservatives. Problem: Democrats already own the monopoly on voters who lack moral values (i.e., unwillingness to defend partially born babies, unwillingness to defend borders, willingness to gather in groups in order to expropriate the production of others).
A Republican cannot defeat a Democrat by trying to out-do the trashing of moral values. (Well, duh!)
Modern Democrats (and faux conservatives) spend little time discussing moral values, except to ridicule values of Conservatives. Values of Democrats are not moral, but selfish. Yet, Orwellian Democrats take taxing others in order to vote for handouts for themselves as “unselfish.” Remarkable! Democrats: give less to charities; want government to take from workers to redistribute to layabouts; want or claim “rights” and entitlements to free health care, free college education, and free equality in income (i.e., “free lunch”). When Conservatives advocate the contrary, faux conservatives (spineless snakes) spit poison in our eyes and complain of splitting and losing the base.
But nothing could be more fork-tongued. One does not defeat the free-lunch crowd by joining them. One defeats them by joining with the non-free-lunch crowd. Ayn Rand may have been a one trick pony, but at least she knew that much.
Comment by Dlanor, at http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-quest-for-conservatism-20/#comment-158503:
OOGEDY-BOOGEDY CONSERVATISM:
Our lives are not only about what is, but also about what should be. For that, Kathleen Parker’s “Oogedy-Boogedy” piece seemed to have been written as if non-social-conservatives are uneducable. But, for teaching proper values, it hardly ever matters (at least, to Conservatives) what your religion, political inclination, national origin, gender, or skin color may be.
A. AMERICAN MESSAGE: Rather, among social conservatives, there is a common, civilizing, “American Message,” to whit:
1) Communicating and experiencing meaningfulness necessitates a frame of reference, with coordinate definitions (modeling);
2) Definitions necessitate reference to BOUNDARIES;
3) Shaking boundaries loose in order to mix everything into a mush is often preceded by violent explosion, in respect of which little by way of meaningfulness crawls out;
4) Preserving boundaries in an unstable world implicates faith in a common direction or leader;
5) While the world’s peoples remain in disarray about their common direction, they may at least respect a de facto common leader (U.S.A., which, to large extent, had such responsibility foisted upon it);
6) Leadership that is meaningful to one’s sense of autonomous-self is guiding, not totalitarian;
7) Boundaries (physical, political, financial, cultural, and moral) of the U.S., as a non-dictatorial leader, should be respected and not, without careful reason, subjected to violent change; and
8) The preserving of identifiable parameters of America, as America, remains essential to worldwide confidence, faith, assurance, and meaningfulness.
B. EMBODIMENT OF MESSAGE: In seeking to embody such a Big Idea, America:
1) Nourishes respect for ideals of individual freedom, dignity, self reliance, initiative, creativity, self expression, and autonomy (i.e., pursuit of happiness);
2) Seeks continuously to re-normalize or regulate markets, such as markets of influence, of trade, of goods, and of ideas, in order to reduce the disproportionate trappings of monopolists, abusers, seditionists, enemies, psychopaths, and pirates;
3) Seeks to provide a practical social safety net, to preserve marketplaces of workers --- in respect of health, education, and population replenishment;
4) Resists faux messiahs’ Orwellian calls for forced economic equality (as opposed to economic opportunity);
5) Avails means for reducing Orwellian and monopolistic abuses of speech by governments, politicians, media, organized religion, private monopolies, and international pirates;
6) Seeks ways to minimize disproportionate leveraging of legislative influence;
7) Resists Big Government intrusion and dictation into people’s autonomy;
8) Stands against false prophecies of world peace based on surrender of initiative of individuals and nations to international controllers of world government; and
9) Mutually respects all spiritual models which themselves return respect for the seeking of moral guidance and the promotion of charitable works.
C. ORIGIN, RACE, GENDER, RELIGION: The American Idea about Conservatism neither favors nor disfavors anyone purely on account of national origin, race, gender, or religion, but instead cares about whether loyalty to the idea of conserving America as it engages with the world is returned in kind.
America should care when people try to undermine Essential Components of the American Idea by the monopolizing, precluding, or prescribing of:
1) The erasing and replacing of America, by Orwellian turning of America’s best values against itself (masked tolerance of the intolerable);
2) The politically correct collaring of free expression of ideas (masked totalitarianism);
3) The path for destroying those family values that are foundational to Western Civilization (anarchic hedonism);
4) The destruction of faith in any higher Source of meaningfulness (“oogedy-boogedy” psychopathic despair of the godless against empathy).
D. WILDERNESS: Neither Democrats nor Blueblood Republicans (and certainly not Libertarians or Libertines) are doing much at all to defend the Essential Components of the American Idea. So, Social Conservatives may need to go into the wilderness awhile, to summon inner strength, to reawaken and rejuvenate their message in respect of the American Idea. As they emerge, soon, they will need to remain much more wary of Social Liberals in Conservative Clothing.
E. SPECIFICS: The “Red Assed Moderate” wing of Social Conservatives wants:
1) Strong national defense of America;
2) Strong enforcement of borders and immigration policies;
3) Tax and service incentives, to coax environmentally responsible investment in American-based education and enterprise;
4) Some sort of decent, universal health care;
5) Creative destruction (i.e., progressive taxation on consumption?) of the disparities in income, wealth, and power that so disproportionately favor pirates of international finance and that so poisonously undermine market-based forces;
6) Respect for essential, civilizing, family values; and
7) Engaged cooperation with other nations, while defending the integrity of the American Idea.
F. BOTTOM LINE: Kathleen Parker overstepped when she implied non-conservatives cannot or should not be exposed or educated to the worth of such values.
Comment by Dlanor, at http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/11/a_libertarian_defense_of_socia.html:
Jim in Syracuse,
Your argument consists in asking society to feel your pain and to relieve your inconvenience.
However, you fail to address why, using your argument, society should not feel the pain and relieve the inconvenience of polygamists. Indeed, polygamists could do quite as well with your public-accommodations argument.
You seem to believe a line could be enforced between gays and polygamists, but you provide neither logic nor empiricism in support for why such a line should be enforced. Regardless, given the demonstrated willingness of Gay activists to resort to “acting out” as their preferred form of “debate,” I doubt their sincerity or will to enforce any such line.
Do you really suppose polygamists are not waiting in line to adopt your same arguments, if successful? I think polygamists are just another important part of your rainbow coalition.
The reason marriage is between a man a woman is because that has been its definition for considerable time. That definition has been a significant part of the success of America. Erasing that definition appears to be a significant part of the problems of Europe.
Regarding “debate”: Advocates of gay marriage have lost every debate and every vote. They have “won” only by foul dealing (i.e., mob antics and usurping judicial activism, not unlike tactics resorted to by entities that seek more to undermine America than to face society in fair debate).
Simply put, you have not met my points, not produced evidence, and not by any stretch met any reasonable burden of proof before asking Americans to depart on some grand experiment.
Regarding fairness: With foresight, most concerns of gays can be met with appropriate legal documents. If gays put as much effort in teaching foresight as in acting out, most of their concerns about fairness would be better advanced. And that leads me to suspect their real concern is less with fairness than with forcing society to help them promote their lifestyle.
BTW --- I do not think ill of you. But I do think ill of your argument. And, to insist on debate beyond “acting out” is not to surrender the “moral high ground.” In any event, given your ease with redefining marriage, I would be interested in how you would define moral --- you know, to fit your sense of fairness and convenience?
For example, my concern with how society defines marriage and morality has more to do with what intuition, history, and empiricism suggest would best sustain a viable, meaningful civilization than with relatively minor individual pain or inconvenience. But, I suppose that is where the “acting out” comes in –- to convince everyone else that your pain and inconvenience is not minor. Sorry, but that sort of “debate” cuts no ice with me.
Comment by Dlanor, at http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/11/a_libertarian_defense_of_socia.html:
John Shuey ("Marriage simply does not require government sanction") --
Well, if voters, through their representatives, wish to afford tax incentives, such as deductions, rebates, parental loans, etc.), for coaxing parents to have children and to support and educate them, voters have that right, period.
It does not follow that voters must, in respect of some shape-shifting ideal of "equality,"afford the same recognition to every sort of social relationship, period.
If, subject to reasoned debate, voters wish to extend such incentives, they may.
But, it is hardly unfair, unreasonable, unconstitutional, mean, low brow, or oogedy-boogedy for them to insist on reasoned debate, rather than acting out.
Nor is it reasonable to expect social conservatives to give up their positions when the burden of proof has not been met.
Twenty years ago, most f0lks would have thought a person advocating gay marriage to be bonkers.
What has changed?
Well, millionaire hollywood homosexuals, liberal minds accustomed to confusing emotion with reason, and assorted bubble-bursting pirates of destabilization have "acted out," to the entertainment of "sophisticated" professors, for them to present gay marriage to impressionable students as a "no brainer." Period.
Libertarians whose minds are convinced by "acting out" have an alternative: side with the far out left. Groovy.
Comment by Dlanor, at http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/11/how_the_nyt_could_save_itself.html:
Re: Fascist Romance
Lee -- Missouri Ozarks ("This fascist romance of "Big Government" and "Giant Multi National Corporations" (the Mussilini Fascism model) was first aired by President Dwight D Eisenhower speaking of the then "Military-Industrial Complex). It is alive and well, take a good look at what has led up to, and what is going on, between the US government and big business.")
I agree. If we could recognize and restrain the real enemy (the "fascist romance"), we would be able to do more than shadow box. But, so long as MEDIA, academia, and government are in the tanks of fascist international corporatism, it will be far from easy to escape that crab tank. (Although, that just makes the challenge more interesting!)
Escape would entail: (1) Identifying the problem; (2) better educating the public (including college students)about the "American Idea"; and (3) progressively restoring control of the propagation of goods and ideas either to real MARKETS or to some more direct form of oversight by the people (maybe some sort of aggressively progressive, confiscatory tax on the consumption of political influence).
But, what could inspire such a new Great Awakening?
Until then, fascist international corporatism will continue to erode America until most of the world is reduced to whimpering milk cows.
Comment by Dlanor, at http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/11/a_libertarian_defense_of_socia.html:
Enjoyed The Article ("Adoption agencies would be free to give preference to heterosexual couples if they believed that was the best for the child"):
Well, you put much blind faith in mere law.
Without social mores and backbone to enforce law, law may as well be a pile of crap.
When we undermine the glue of social mores, the rule of law will be replaced not by the rule of Big Government, but by the Rule of Big Governors.
Once we allow Governors of the Fascist Romance to consolidate detailed power and fully undermine the authority of traditional families, our electing a President every 4 years may as well be cast as a charade.
When you roll for Gay Marriage, you may as well roll over for the rest of the agenda.
Don't deceive yourself that the Gay lobby would not then push liberal judges to find an equal right to require adoption agencies to require that children be adopted out to Gays.
Libertarians: Please, study history enough to reach an informed opinion, one that is good enough to meet a high burden of proof, before you conceit to think yourself wise enough to gamble on surrendering essential gluing traditions of American civilization.
Gay activists are practiced social bullies.
If you cannot bring yourself ever to say no, they will never stop pushing.
An unending rainbow coalition closely trails them.
America needs you.
Don't be the "girl who just can't say no."
See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHS2S_Y4fCA.
Comment by Dlanor, at http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/11/mein_kampus.html:
Kerem Oner ("we have too many so called RINOs masquareding as conservatives"):
Yes!
Stand for true principles. When they are unpopular, educate the opposition. Don't pander! Don't pander on the border. Don't pander on liberal judges. Don't pander to Rino's. Now that the record is clear (liberals were far more racist in their running and voting than conservatives), use the record to educate and recruit conservative Hispanics, Blacks, Jews, Catholics, and Women.
Begin a conservative coalition. Attack and expose socialist lies. Confront market destroying pirates. Educate to the value and importance of a strong, defensible America. Learn and teach how and when to say no, rather than how to lie and pander. Awaken. Call the media whoredom what it is! Call on Americans to reclaim the spirit of America.
Those who gave blood to give us the colors of the American flag did not run, and we owe the same duty to our coming generations. Burn the "for sale" sign of the globalists. Or run it up their behinds. Engage the world as America --- not as equally homogenized mush.
*****
Comment by Dlanor, at http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/11/mein_kampus.html:
Karen H ("Okay, we always hear that campuses are so liberal and that professors and so far left, but WHY are they like this? Why are all these educated, articulate people like this? Why does it seem the higher the education, the more left one is?"):
Education equips your mind to think; conditioning equips your mind to regurgitate. You are confusing education with conditioning. College conditioning is being funded and advanced by powerful forces. ("Luke, look to the force.")
The basis for real hope is that many American students remain basically energetic and smart enough to appreciate the USA. Many eventually come around. The challenge is to afford opportunity to expedite that process, so that the new generation can save the old (i.e., mind dead boomers).
*****
Tom Paine,
Well, Churchill (like your nom de plume, another Englishman, although half American) had this to say:
http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/churchill-hour.htm
I spoke the other day of the colossal military disaster which occurred when the French High Command failed to withdraw the northern Armies from Belgium at the moment when they knew that the French front was decisively broken at Sedan and on the Meuse. This delay entailed the loss of fifteen or sixteen French divisions and threw out of action for the critical period the whole of the British Expeditionary Force.
....
Of this I am quite sure, that if we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find that we have lost the future.
....
Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.'
******
http://www.presentationhelper.co.uk/winston_churchill_speech_fight_them_on_beaches.htm:
we shall fight on the beaches,
we shall fight on the landing grounds,
we shall fight in the fields and in the streets,
we shall fight in the hills;
we shall never surrender
******
So, let’s not kid ourselves. We have some advantage in respect of foresight based on history. Our young people have been only temporarily waylaid; many remain steeped in the American spirit and are far from stupid. Far too many love liberty for the USA to go down without a fight. One on one, socialists are cowards. Push come to shove, among fighters, conservatives are the strongest tribe. Because conservatives live here also, we know the terrain at least as well as the socialists. And, we ARE organizing. A sleeping giant will re-awaken.
Comment by Dlanor, at http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/12/hes_not_crazy_hes_stupid.html:
Re: "It's not about what you do. It's about being discrete about it. It's about maintaining the illusion of honest and well-meaning governance, even if such a thing really doesn't exist at all."
It's "Corporatism" (aka, Borg-dom). This situation does not apply just to politics. It's rife in the culture: education, media, business, government. It's about loyalty over competence, malleability over insight, being a happy face on a stick, a team player, a non-rocker of boats, a go along with the program and get along guy.
Merrily, we join hands and skip over a cliff. Jack falls down and breaks his crown and Jill comes tumbling after.
Capacity for independent action has been corralled in a morass of government and corporate regulations.
Next, capacity for expressing independent thought is to be hog tied.
We have become satisfied with the security that is offered by tying ourselves to those immediately around and above us. Boris is satisfied not to have a goat, so long as Ivan is without one also.
Now , we have flat management (corporatism), with gross disparities in approachability and power.
So, those making decisions are cut off from important feedback, concentrating instead on their golden parachutes.
We are not taught how to think, but what to think.
To try to engage in thought with those who are preferred not to think is quickly to be told to STFU.
So, we need more "Howard Beale" programs, to say, "Well, I'm not going to leave you alone."
We need to be re-introduced to better sense about listing what is truly admirable and worthwhile.
On that listing, corporate-parachutes and group-think are just not that high.
America needs to redeem her soul from hedonistic, mind-slaving, faux-socialist Fascists.
******
CORRUPTION — see http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/12/parties_of_corruption.html.
******
Snippet from http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/12/hes_not_crazy_hes_stupid.html:
“Nothing is free in politics, but there is some question as to when you pay the price. Obama has profited greatly from his interactions with the Chicago civic establishment. Now he is paying a price.”
******
Bailout and Ron Paul — see http://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/ron_paul_interview/2008/12/11/160795.html?s=al&promo_code=7440-1.
Comment from http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/12/worshipping_the_weather.html:
Charles Manning ("If one believes, based on rational analysis of evidence, that human influences are damaging the environment, then buying efficient light bulbs, driving less polluting cars, reprocessing waste, recycling, and favoring environmentally "friendly" businesses makes sense. The mere fact that a person does these things doesn't mean that he or she is performing religious rituals. Nor does the fact that people like Larrey don't feel constrained to take those measures make them evil.")
Well, Larrey may also be concerned that one believing (or being led out of gullibility to believe) that "human influences are damaging the environment", even in the absence of evidence enough to warrant drastic measures, may be inclined to unite with other believers to force by law those like Larrey to obey drastic measures, even when Larrey, and others like him, may believe the evidence is quite flimsy, less than probable, amenable of being used for nefarious purposes, or not enough to warrant the drastic measures sought to be enacted.
Given absence of reasonably convincing evidence, Larrey may feel environmental believers should be less want to impose their punishing regulations on others. Otherwise, there is no end to such regulations. We end up with environmentalists making reverse-Pascal-wagers, i.e.: "All this may be unnecessary, but in the unlikely event it is necessary, shouldn't we do all (all, all, all) we can, given the magnitude of the imagined danger?"
I think Larrey is saying, "not so fast."
In other words, feel free to practice (and even proselytize) your environmental beliefs, but don't be fascist about it, don't needlessly force your beliefs on others at point of police power, and don't claim scientific surety when your beliefs are not reasonably demonstrable. Because, when you do, you are not being scientific, but religiously chauvenistic.
GOODNESS:
Is “goodness” in a “gene of altruism” or is it in that which such gene physically expresses? Or is goodness in that which expresses both? May that which expresses both act both through the gene and in dimensions beyond such gene’s fathom? If goodness may reside in or be expressed in respect of Something more than any mere, particular gene, than by what label may we refer to IT? As Source, God, Father, The Beginning and The End, The Alpha and The Omega?
******
LEFTISTS’ FALLACY OF SAVING THE HYPOTHESIS VS. DOCTRINE OF INDEFINITE PERFECTIBILITY:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/12/whatever_happened_to_the_law_a.html:
Impedimenta ("The Rinos got control of the party and they aren't people with core convicions, just people who want power")
BINGO!
******
FEMINIZED CHRISTIANITY:
See http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/12/the_evil_of_good_deeds_and_goo.html:
“Being tough has come to mean cruel and, hence, evil. A feminized Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism and secularism can no longer conceive what courage, honor and pride of civilization even means. We relegate the military and police to some social corner to do the dirty work that we don't want to think about, but criticize.”
******
NEW AGE MOLLYPATHS:
New Agey Love And Peace Types (mollycoddlers) imagine evil will go away if we just put our heads under pillows and think happy thoughts. They lack real world experience to be able to identify or suspect sociopathy or to appreciate how much of history has been the story of irredeemable sociopaths. We must identify mollycoddlers for what they are and then not entrust our security or freedom to them any longer than can be avoided.
******
BE NICERS:
The "nice people" are those who are smart enough to appreciate police who eat donuts.
The "mean people" are those coppers who catch crooks.
The "nice people" are those who are smart enough to ask terrorists to please release our captured citizens.
The "mean people" are those who actually rescue our captured citizens.
The "nice people" are those who are smart enough compare Bush to Hitler.
The "mean people" are those who think about how many lives Bush may well have saved.
So, as a nice president, will Obama eat donuts while he asks terrorists to please give up their WMD and then blame Bush when they instead use their WMD on a major metropolitan area?
******
TBTL:
The "be nice philosophy" is handmaiden for our culture of p.c., entitlement theory, and religion of victim-mongering for equality. It leads us to be happy faces on sticks. It is bound to get a lot of people needlessly killed --- TBTL (thanks be to leftists).
******
LAST MAN STANDING:
America is the Last Man Standing --- see http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/022867.php#more.
******
AGENTS OF MOLLYCODDLING:
Comment at http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/12/bloodless_sunday.html:
To Agent of Chaos:
Please.
Like many other Agents of Mollycoddling, you're cherrypicking your facts to make a strained analogy.
If Saddam had been President for Life of America and had done here what he did in Iraq, he would have: continuously murdered his competition; run torture prisons (compare the mutilations imposed under Saddam with Gitmo “torture”); funded depredations of Chemical Ali; belligerantly resisted the no-fly-zone; financed widows of suicide bombers bent on undermining Western Civilization; and violated terms imposed for peace after Desert Storm.
In that case, were I lacking education in history, philosophy, and morality (IOW, were I a “mollypath”), and were I conditioned to be a beneficiary of totalitarian, Saddam-style government or to to believe it be “good,” then I may have taken the “shoe throwing” action you suggest.
Otherwise, no. But, if you want to help foster a world filled with Saddams, just keep being an enabling “mollypath” for psychopaths.
I do not know whether history should honor Bush for invading Iraq, yet second guess his subsequent prosecution of the invasion. But I expect more educated and thoughtful Iraqis appreciate that they now have a chance to make a better country than they did under Saddam.
The reverse, however, cannot very well be said were Saddam to have invaded and overthrown the U.S.
If you can equate Saddam’s Iraq with Bush’s U.S. , what can you not equate? If you can fall for that, what won’t you fall for? Stated another way: What, actually, can you stand for?
So far, you merely cherry-pick to imagine an equivalency that does not exist.
Be happy that, in Bush's U.S., you can do that.
Were we ruled by Saddam, I do not think you would be questioning any actions taken by Saddam --- ever.
******
HAPPY FACES ON STICKS:
Comment at http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/12/past_tense_pretense.html:
LDC:
"Bureaucracies don't usually confront by disputation, Ms. Feldman. They isolate."
OK. Don't rock the boat. Go along and get along. "KUSD" --- Kiss up, S*it down. Don't stand for anything. Be a happy face on a stick.
Is there a critical mass of people such that these tendencies begin to prevail, in all fields --- public and private?
Has this now become a cultural thing, brought on by our environment of litigation, entitlement, and p.c.?
Is p.c. killing our culture?
******
GOVERNMENT CREEP:
Comment from http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/12/what_is_american_business_afra.html:
HMHaanpaa ("Let the MSM do the best it can to tell us how bad this one individual is and how one person can do so much damage. The pols get up and scream for more regulation. The public buys the whole process and we start over again."):
QUITE WELL SAID!
Although I think there is some good in nearly everyone, the evil that confronts us tends to make addicts, quitters, or cowards of us. A cynic watches the ignorance and evil all around and soon begins to wonder: What is the point to resisting rather than joining? After all, look at our MSM, Government Dependent Academia, Big Collective Union Bosses, and Big Corporate Hogs. They are all united about one thing: More governmental regulation!
Why? Not to secure earth, or our progeny, or even to sustain civilization, but to "get before the gettings gone." Greed or ignorance --- either way, it ain't pretty.
Who can resist? It's not easy for a young couple just starting out. Not for a college kid needing to get decent grades from some ignorant or sold-out college instructor. Not for a corporate employee whose future depends on going along with whatever corporate president he may help advance.
So, who can stand up and call B.S. on this ignorance, short-sighted greed, corruption, and evil? Who can protect individual freedom of expression and enterprise from the ever-increasing encroachments of the Big Government that doles out to those who play along to get along? (Iacocca asks, where have our leaders gone? Indeed, I look around and mainly what I see in government, business, media, and academia are "happy faces on sticks.")
Those of us who are reasonably secure financially and who fail to call B.S. on these Big Government tendencies should be ashamed to face our children or to try to excuse what we have left for them.
It is not enlightened tolerance to tolerate governance that leads to the destruction of one's freedom and dignity; rather, it is stupid and weak.
The only good form of domestic government is that form which will not tolerate those forms of domestic government that try to undermine markets or some reasonable substitute therefor.
The only good form of religion is that form which will not tolerate those forms of faux religions that are intolerant of most other religions.
The only good form of academy is that form which will not tolerate those instructors who are intolerant of opposing viewpoints.
The only good form of media is that form which is not owned by persons using media to seek bubble-bursting opportunities elsewhere, rather than to seek profit in media's own sphere.
Ronald Reagan was right --- more often than not, Government is the problem.
Thanks for your insight --- I think you're dead on target!
******
OPENING DOORS FOR BIG GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION:
Comment at A.T.-- http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/12/climate_crisis_logic_crisis.html:
Taking a ride on Gore's environmental express by committing capitalistic suicide is beginning to look a lot like taking a ride on a comet by committing bodily suicide.
Larrey is right: Al is asking followers to slip the bonds of faith to rocket into full blown, Bull Goose Looneyism --- and Media are shilling for this.
Didn't Gore's family get its original foothold in wealth and power out of the tobacco scam ("like, its not really bad for you")? AlGore looks like an incorrigible, high-rent, time-share salesman. Is there a Nobel Prize category for that? Audacious? Indeed!
******
Comment at http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/12/climate_crisis_logic_crisis.html:
gmoney ("Al Gore ("inventor of the internet", which was merely a quote taken completely out of context) has developed a major worldwide conspiracy to promote global warming so that he could enrich himself? (and others?). "):
When one has self interests at stake, why suppose it to be any harder to delude oneself than to delude one's marks?
I would be hard pressed to say which kind of huckster was more dangerous.
Whether Gore is an intentional huckster or an opportunistic huckster, he is still a huckster.
There is a difference between wanting an opportunity to compete vs. wanting the government to tip or stack one's emerging opportunities (something that welfare Libs and corporate welfare Bluebloods have in common).
Compare what was said by the current Chicago Mayor's Pa, something to the effect of, "I saw my opportunities and I took them."
******
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/12/what_is_american_business_afra.html:
Raf from Florida (“I can’t help but believe that the Madoff scheme should be viewed as an example of what’s happening to our government and financial institutions”):
Hear hear! Well said.
If Madoff is the canary in the coal mine among Ponzi scammers, he is still just a little tweeter compared to Congress.
Given our Congress, we’re all Madoff investors now.
******
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/12/the_gop_needs_a_colincleansing.html:
durga:
("This present patchwork of massive amounts of tax dollars going to support outrageous and ineffective private health plans for the millions of government workers has to end and Obama should never get credit for doing this. Republicans in the prudent fiscal interests of the United States need to be the first to the plate.
I recommend the Republicans co-opt Michael Moore and bring him into the tent and get going on this before Obama steals your thunder one more time. He again is not showing leadership, he is just getting out in front of the crowd that is already moving and getting enough media hacks to keep him posing as the head of the pack.
Republicans, get in their faces on an issue of national importance, and get out of peoples bedrooms where you don't belong in the first place. McCain did lose many, many strategic advantages in this campaign. He nearly did it but he bogged down at the very end. He did deserve to lose but we did not deserve to be taken down with him.")
******
Ditto on health care, sans Michael Moore.
Re Bedrooms:
I'm not seeing Republicans in people's "bedrooms."
So I don't quite get what you're talking about.
If you mean roll over for "gay marriage": No.
If you mean "right to abort" by neglecting to care for babies born after botched abortions: No.
If you mean substituting the State for the civilizing role of traditional family values: No.
Government ought not idly stand by and let its laws be remade to undermine all that sustains civilization.
For my money, "let-the-good-times-roll" Libertine-Republicans are far too complacent and lacking in vision when it comes to appreciating how civilization easily slides into non-sustainability.
When riding high on social irresponsibility becomes one's main priority, one should team with the party for which that predilection is made to order --- Dems.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/12/proposition_8_speak_softly_and.html:
The Mike ("the fact is, the Govt should not be involved in "defining" marriage..Period."):
Well, while we are conscious, none of us can choose not to make choices, anymore than we can choose not to breathe. This is because declining to make a choice is to make a choice, i.e., a choice to allow events to emerge without one's express participation.
In that respect, is not Government like us? That is, how can Govt not be involved in our civic choices?
If Conservatives do not define marriage, Liberals will --- and likely through non-representative, carefully selected judges.
So I don't quite get the line of thinking that imagines some sort of non-existent "wall of separation" between government, religion, laws, and cultural norms. Rather, for Conservatives unilaterally to quit any field of controversy is merely to turn it over to never-ending encroachments of degenerates.
I agree government should be as small as can reasonably be fashioned, in deference to sustainable, competitive marketplaces.
But the keys are in what are "reasonable" and "sustainable." We need to think in terms of norms that are essential to reasonable, sustainable, decent civilization and that need to be protected, either by regulatory laws or by cultural and legal checks and balances.
As things stand, we have multi-culturated to the point of dis-assimilating many cultural checks and balances.
And our institutions for separating powers have been breached, so that our judiciary has become king for the day, maybe like the mad citizenry in France during The Terror.
So, until some sort of new champion for restoring checks and balances arrives upon the scene, what does the majority of persons with moral common sense have left, if not intrusion by governmental regulation?
BTW --- even that is crumbling. Else, why, notwithstanding the great majorities for protecting boundaries in respect of borders and moral codes, do Congress and the Judiciary and their special friends of influence so often spurn the public weal?
WFB was right: Social Conservatives must continue to stand athwart history and yell, "Stop!" Keep yelling until enough Libertarians and Bluebloods who still have brain cells to rub together and smidgens of decency finally feel the close burn of the light. Then we can restore balance against the degenerate, Zombie-Collective.
Post a Comment