2.17.2005
A Liberal Writer's 'Mea Culpa'
The NYT article: "When Good News Feels Bad". Writer Kurt Anderson confesses (for himself, most New Yorkers, and liberals in general) to what we conservatives have been saying since, oh, 9/12/01.
Seriously: The success of the elections poses a major intellectual-moral-political problem for people in this city. The cognitive dissonance is palpable.
New Yorkers think we are smarter than other Americans, that the richness and difficulty of life here give our intelligence a kind of hard-won depth and nuance and sensitivity to contradictions and ambiguity. We feel we are practically French. Most New Yorkers are also liberals. And most liberals, wherever they live, believe that they are smarter than most conservatives (particularly George W. Bush).
And finally, most liberals and New Yorkers suspect that we may be too smart for our own good. It is a form of self-flattery as self-criticism. During these past few years, I have heard it said again and again that liberals・ineffectiveness derives from their inability to see the world in the simple blacks and whites of the Limbaughs and Hannitys and Bushes. (Why else, the argument goes, did John Kerry lose?)
Read this piece, if for no other reason than to watch an earnest liberal mind grapple with the truth -- the 'black-and-white truth' -- of the issue at hand. Also, catch the jab Anderson is compelled to make at Kos (hehe).
The NYT article: "When Good News Feels Bad". Writer Kurt Anderson confesses (for himself, most New Yorkers, and liberals in general) to what we conservatives have been saying since, oh, 9/12/01.
Seriously: The success of the elections poses a major intellectual-moral-political problem for people in this city. The cognitive dissonance is palpable.
New Yorkers think we are smarter than other Americans, that the richness and difficulty of life here give our intelligence a kind of hard-won depth and nuance and sensitivity to contradictions and ambiguity. We feel we are practically French. Most New Yorkers are also liberals. And most liberals, wherever they live, believe that they are smarter than most conservatives (particularly George W. Bush).
And finally, most liberals and New Yorkers suspect that we may be too smart for our own good. It is a form of self-flattery as self-criticism. During these past few years, I have heard it said again and again that liberals・ineffectiveness derives from their inability to see the world in the simple blacks and whites of the Limbaughs and Hannitys and Bushes. (Why else, the argument goes, did John Kerry lose?)
Read this piece, if for no other reason than to watch an earnest liberal mind grapple with the truth -- the 'black-and-white truth' -- of the issue at hand. Also, catch the jab Anderson is compelled to make at Kos (hehe).
2.16.2005
Rolling on the Steyn Line
Mark Steyn, missed him! He's back. He's on track.
His latest, inimitable, concise article disses American Democrats, the UN, and the Eurobureaucracy in equal measures.
The Dems have no strategy other than to complain, whine, and complain.
The UN complains of US foreign policy, but rolls like a wet noodle in the face of murderous, genocidal catastropy on a scale of Stalin.
The European pension schemes are a sinking ship, dependent upon the very life force of Islam . . . oh, irony of ironies!
Thanks to Kellipundit for the general, 'Mark-is-back' heads-up.
But Carter and Kerry and Old Europe were wrong, and the absurd absolutist simpleton was right. Iraq is free not just because of the military skill of America and her allies but because of the political will of one man, who stuck to his guns against the opposition of the Eurocynics, the U.N. do-nothings, the Democratic Party weathervanes, the media doom-mongers, and the unreal realpolitik grandees of his own party -- the Scowcrofts and Eagleburgers.
Mark Steyn, missed him! He's back. He's on track.
His latest, inimitable, concise article disses American Democrats, the UN, and the Eurobureaucracy in equal measures.
The Dems have no strategy other than to complain, whine, and complain.
The UN complains of US foreign policy, but rolls like a wet noodle in the face of murderous, genocidal catastropy on a scale of Stalin.
The European pension schemes are a sinking ship, dependent upon the very life force of Islam . . . oh, irony of ironies!
Thanks to Kellipundit for the general, 'Mark-is-back' heads-up.
2.15.2005
Right Back At Ya!
Kudos to our majority-elected President! Thank you, W, for placing those choked-off, obstructed judicial nominees back into consideration. Force the up-or-down vote!
Kudos to our majority-elected President! Thank you, W, for placing those choked-off, obstructed judicial nominees back into consideration. Force the up-or-down vote!
"To replay this narrow and completed debate demonstrates the Bush administration's failure to craft a positive agenda for the American people," [Senate Minority Leader Harry] Reid said yesterday after the renominations were announced.
Reid is just a Senator who was elected to his position after the fact. The debate was never completed. That would have happened ONLY had the nominations been placed on the Senate floor for an up-or-down vote. No, the issue is not Bush's 'positive agenda', it is the Dem's obstructionism. You think we can't see that?Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat and member of the Judiciary Committee, said, "The president looks like he is still more interested in picking fights than in picking judges."
Mr Kennedy, is the epitome of the pot calling the kettle black. His public existence has been reduced to obstructionism. He has offered nothing substantive in the way of a bridge-solution concerning this impasse. Golly, someone research what happened when FDR packed the court and changed America in the 30's please."The nuclear option (i.e., changing the Senate rules of procedure) is aptly named because it will blow up the Senate," said Sen. Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat. "We don't know if Senator Frist has 51 'yes' votes, but it would be a tragedy for the Senate and for the country if he does. It would reverse almost 200 years of history and dramatically change what the Senate has always been."
You spell the rest of "b.s."Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican and member of the Judiciary Committee, said that for 200 years, judges have passed on a straight majority vote, by which all of the filibustered nominees would be confirmed.
"It would make no sense to require Republicans to be elected by a 60 percent vote, while only requiring 51 percent of Democrats," he said. "The Senate should reject the double standard that Democrats have created for confirming President Bush's nominees and restore our constitutional and traditional standards."
Cut to the chase! We re-elected W, and put four more Republicans in the Senate. Give us an up-or-down vote on these nominees, and choke the obstructing whine.
Quotes from this Charles Hurt WaPo article.
2.14.2005
"I'm Google for Loco Puffs"
98% (about $203497) of all political donations by Google employees went to the Dem cause last year. That tells you alot. These sharp geeks spend their brain capital on a worthwhile endeavor, but the political end of the cranium is all mush. We common-sense types thank all Googlers for your technical know-how. But please, spend a little time and learn about the real world while you are at it! You are not spending your money wisely.
98% (about $203497) of all political donations by Google employees went to the Dem cause last year. That tells you alot. These sharp geeks spend their brain capital on a worthwhile endeavor, but the political end of the cranium is all mush. We common-sense types thank all Googlers for your technical know-how. But please, spend a little time and learn about the real world while you are at it! You are not spending your money wisely.
2.12.2005
Truth is multidirectional
~Dwight D. Eisenhower, speech, American Society of Newspaper Editors, 16 April 1953
So well put, General. I agree. I, too, have my little utopian shelf upon which like sentiments are placed, only to settle, agog, and to gather dust. But, I do hold out Hope. I think we all do, every one of us with a heart. My problem is this: for every gun made, warship launched, and every ordinance expended -- if those explosions are not answered in kind, then the blood they draw is lost in the mud of victim hell and grief.
Freedom comes with a price. And I know, dear hero, that most of those who use your quote in this day, are principally those who use it out of context. Thank you for your meritorious service, above and beyond the call of duty.
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.
~Dwight D. Eisenhower, speech, American Society of Newspaper Editors, 16 April 1953
So well put, General. I agree. I, too, have my little utopian shelf upon which like sentiments are placed, only to settle, agog, and to gather dust. But, I do hold out Hope. I think we all do, every one of us with a heart. My problem is this: for every gun made, warship launched, and every ordinance expended -- if those explosions are not answered in kind, then the blood they draw is lost in the mud of victim hell and grief.
Freedom comes with a price. And I know, dear hero, that most of those who use your quote in this day, are principally those who use it out of context. Thank you for your meritorious service, above and beyond the call of duty.
Bring them Lemmings on! (The Scream)
Thank you, Brent Bozelle!
Roll the muffin again. What? For the 50th time? Come on guys (i.e., MSM and Ward Churchillians), those cutesy, sapsy, vomitous, idealogic folks we know we won't hear a peep from over the erstwhile Vermont kingpin).
But then, having tasted their sour-mash (less the yeast) for this long, it does not matter. Bring Howard Dean on! Let the NPR cheerleaders and their guests sing his praises (the chorus line is STRAINED), because here is a guy to lead the yawying left, left. Ever outward!
One day (probably in most of our lifetimes), the old chain of national unity is gonna SNAP, and when it does, we'll just see who the 'Murc'ns are.
Saints preserve us (one more time).
So where are they now as the Democrats are set to name wild-eyed ultraliberal Howard Dean as the new chairman of the Democratic National Committee?
Consider this: If, on the cusp of the first President Bush losing the 1992 election, the Republican National Committee had united around the idea of having his conservative base-rousing primary challenger Pat Buchanan be the next party chairman, how would the media cover the story? You can bet the farm they would have shouted from the rooftops that the GOP had a death wish, that the lemmings were pouring over the cliff, that the Republicans were forsaking every American voter in the middle for the foam-flecked extremists.
Thank you, Brent Bozelle!
Roll the muffin again. What? For the 50th time? Come on guys (i.e., MSM and Ward Churchillians), those cutesy, sapsy, vomitous, idealogic folks we know we won't hear a peep from over the erstwhile Vermont kingpin).
But then, having tasted their sour-mash (less the yeast) for this long, it does not matter. Bring Howard Dean on! Let the NPR cheerleaders and their guests sing his praises (the chorus line is STRAINED), because here is a guy to lead the yawying left, left. Ever outward!
One day (probably in most of our lifetimes), the old chain of national unity is gonna SNAP, and when it does, we'll just see who the 'Murc'ns are.
Saints preserve us (one more time).
As bizarre as it might seem, liberal media bias is proving to be a boon for the GOP. In its complete Bush-era meltdown, the liberal media elite is applying absolutely no brakes to the Dean "revolution" taking over the DNC. They are moving further and further to the left, and the media are offering nothing but happy talk. The cliff is in sight, and the Pied Piper press is set to lead the party over the edge.
Ten Reasons for Democracy in the Middle East
As the debate between a largely neo-conservative 'red' America and a largely idealist-egalitarianist (i.e. UN-wishing) 'blue' America rages, prominent commentator Victor Davis Hanson offers up another of his superbly thought-out essays in support of the Bush administrations efforts in the Arab World.
Here are the reasons (Hanson's commentary on each of them is exceptionally valuable):
The article is worthy of a bookmark.
As the debate between a largely neo-conservative 'red' America and a largely idealist-egalitarianist (i.e. UN-wishing) 'blue' America rages, prominent commentator Victor Davis Hanson offers up another of his superbly thought-out essays in support of the Bush administrations efforts in the Arab World.
Here are the reasons (Hanson's commentary on each of them is exceptionally valuable):
1. It is widely said that democracies rarely attack other democracies. Thus the more that exist in the world — and at no time in history have there been more such governments than today — the less likely is war itself.
2. More often than not, democracies arise through violence — either by threat of force or after war with all the incumbent detritus of humiliation, impoverishment, and revolution.
3. Democracies are more likely to be internally stable, inasmuch as they allow people to take credit and accept blame for their own predicaments.
4. The democratic idea is contagious.
5. In the case of the Muslim world, there is nothing inherently incompatible between Islam and democracy.
6. Democracy brings moral clarity and cures deluded populaces of their false grievances and exaggerated hurts.
7. We fret rightly about the spread of weapons of mass destruction.
8. The promotion of democracy abroad by democracy at home is internally consistent and empowers rather than embarrasses a sponsoring consensual society.
9. By promoting democracies, Americans can at last come to a reckoning with the Cold War.
10. Like it or not, a growing consensus has emerged that consumer capitalism and democracy are the only ways to organize society.
The article is worthy of a bookmark.
Ayn Rand at 100
No other modern author has had such extravagant claims of greatness made on her behalf: Followers of her philosophy, Objectivism, regard her as the greatest thinker to have graced this earth since Aristotle and the greatest writer of all time. Mainstream intellectuals tend to dismiss her as a writer of glorified pulp fiction and a pseudo-philosophical quack with an appeal for impressionable teens. Politically, too, Rand is an outsider: Liberals shrink from her defiant pro-capitalist stance, conservatives from her militant atheism, and conservatives and liberals alike from her individualism.
Understanding this author may not be the easiest intellectual endeavor, but her ideas never fail to reach out and grab hold of your thought processes. As she would say, there are no contradictions, only misunderstandings of the baseline truths. The woman continues to amaze me by the sheer force and magnitude of her intellect.
There are a lot of testimonials and tributes out there. Start withthis one , by Cathy Young.
No other modern author has had such extravagant claims of greatness made on her behalf: Followers of her philosophy, Objectivism, regard her as the greatest thinker to have graced this earth since Aristotle and the greatest writer of all time. Mainstream intellectuals tend to dismiss her as a writer of glorified pulp fiction and a pseudo-philosophical quack with an appeal for impressionable teens. Politically, too, Rand is an outsider: Liberals shrink from her defiant pro-capitalist stance, conservatives from her militant atheism, and conservatives and liberals alike from her individualism.
Understanding this author may not be the easiest intellectual endeavor, but her ideas never fail to reach out and grab hold of your thought processes. As she would say, there are no contradictions, only misunderstandings of the baseline truths. The woman continues to amaze me by the sheer force and magnitude of her intellect.
There are a lot of testimonials and tributes out there. Start withthis one , by Cathy Young.
2.11.2005
Bash me some more
"'I hate America' is the world’s default position. Knocking America is a form of displacement. It helps non-Americans avoid focusing on their own big problems. In fact, strip it of its lacy hosiery and the world’s relationship with America is disgustingly Freudian."
So says Dominic Hilton, in an article for the website Open Democracy.
This long tome by Hilton is interesting. Particularly, I suppose, because he does his part to expose the vacuuous gibberish behind the 'hate America' juggernaut that has rolled for the better part of three years to...where?...nowhere substantive. But he tries to be fair about it.
To all of you Ward Churchill types, you leftist gend'armes, where do you seek to go with your rhetoric? To which utopia do you seek to deliver us?
"Some of America’s most sour critics preach their gospels in America’s palatial universities. A highly desirable standard of living is endowed on those who make their living attacking America’s highly desirable standard of living. Ditto its liberty."
Thank the good Lord Above, and stand fast, dear friends. To be on the right side of history is to trust in one's good, common sense.
"'I hate America' is the world’s default position. Knocking America is a form of displacement. It helps non-Americans avoid focusing on their own big problems. In fact, strip it of its lacy hosiery and the world’s relationship with America is disgustingly Freudian."
So says Dominic Hilton, in an article for the website Open Democracy.
This long tome by Hilton is interesting. Particularly, I suppose, because he does his part to expose the vacuuous gibberish behind the 'hate America' juggernaut that has rolled for the better part of three years to...where?...nowhere substantive. But he tries to be fair about it.
To all of you Ward Churchill types, you leftist gend'armes, where do you seek to go with your rhetoric? To which utopia do you seek to deliver us?
"Some of America’s most sour critics preach their gospels in America’s palatial universities. A highly desirable standard of living is endowed on those who make their living attacking America’s highly desirable standard of living. Ditto its liberty."
Thank the good Lord Above, and stand fast, dear friends. To be on the right side of history is to trust in one's good, common sense.
2.05.2005
On interminable hiatus
This exercise of posting into the ether is a strange experience indeed. I came to the conclusion that the only reason I became one of the 600,000 active blogs last year was because of the election. What an event that was! Politics is the high drama of human affairs.
I could have been a forum poster. I could have been a regular commenter on any number of inspired, well-written blogs. That didn't appeal. Vanity.
In any event, three days after the election, the air whooshed right out of this balloon. Everyone experiences passing interests, like bowling or golf, or dyeing one's hair purple. Sooner or later, if it doesn't fit, you take it off and put it away. Funny thing is, there hasn't been a single day I haven't thought of this website (as if it were important!). I have experienced a twinge of, dare I say, guilt. Vanity again.
Nothing I posted was unique or breaking. At best, it was anecdotally contributive. There are too many bright stars in the blogoverse. You need a Hubbell-type device to spot me...way off in the distance of the background radiation.
So there. I'll keep thinking. I'll keep reading and listening to talking heads. And when the 'itch' manifests, I'll man this post again, because as any blogger knows, it's fun in the groove.
For those few wander here from time to time, thank you.
This exercise of posting into the ether is a strange experience indeed. I came to the conclusion that the only reason I became one of the 600,000 active blogs last year was because of the election. What an event that was! Politics is the high drama of human affairs.
I could have been a forum poster. I could have been a regular commenter on any number of inspired, well-written blogs. That didn't appeal. Vanity.
In any event, three days after the election, the air whooshed right out of this balloon. Everyone experiences passing interests, like bowling or golf, or dyeing one's hair purple. Sooner or later, if it doesn't fit, you take it off and put it away. Funny thing is, there hasn't been a single day I haven't thought of this website (as if it were important!). I have experienced a twinge of, dare I say, guilt. Vanity again.
Nothing I posted was unique or breaking. At best, it was anecdotally contributive. There are too many bright stars in the blogoverse. You need a Hubbell-type device to spot me...way off in the distance of the background radiation.
So there. I'll keep thinking. I'll keep reading and listening to talking heads. And when the 'itch' manifests, I'll man this post again, because as any blogger knows, it's fun in the groove.
For those few wander here from time to time, thank you.
