Month: October 2010

A Tale of Two “Rallys”

Faith, Hope, Charity.[*1]

Hate, Envy, Greed.[*2]

I know which of those appeals to me. Do you? Are you supporting people who have your best interests AND the best interests of all of your neighbors and friends, or are you supporting people whose two favorite strategies are “divide and conquer” and “the ends justify the means?”

VDH: From the unthinkable to the Passe’

Victor Davis Hanson:[*1]

Whether hard communism or soft socialism, statism does not work. We all know why — it goes against human nature, rewarding mediocrity and punishing merit, professing egalitarianism for the masses, while the operators of the system, whether the old Soviet apparatchiks or the new crony EU Brussels bureaucrats, satisfy their appetites like capitalists.
. . .
Most of what we are told about universities is untrue. America’s reputation for higher learning excellence (in business, sciences, medicine, engineering, and finance) is despite not because of the humanities and social sciences. Current research in the liberal arts (the portfolio the English or sociology prof is tenured on) increasingly has almost no relevance to the general public or applicability to teaching or even scholarly merit.
. . .
I fly to an airport, have a minute, and access over 60 million words of the corpus of ancient Greek literature in between flights. Big deal?
The strange thing is that none of this has been quite factored into fossilized metrics that supposedly quantify the standard of living, poverty rates, GDP, etc. In the grocery line not long ago, two teens were chatting in Spanish to relatives by iPhone in distant Mexico. Are they impoverished or enjoying a privilege exclusive to royalty just forty years ago?
. . .
I cannot fathom how the Democratic Party became run by those who live lives nothing remotely similar to what they profess. Yes, I know the Roosevelt-Kennedy tradition of limousine liberals, but today’s chasm between word and deed is stunning — and never remarked on. Are we to believe that prep-schooled and Ivy Leagued millionaire Barack Obama is the blue-collar face of the Democratic Party, while one of twelve children John Boehner is some sort of J.P. Morgan insider rich man? No wonder that Obama must fake his cadences, bowl, and try to eat cabbage instead of arugula.
. . .

Yeah, it’s another “Read The Whole Thing” article. And yes, Victor Davis Hanson is a Democrat. In California.

The opposition to the Obama/Pelosi/Reid statist takeover of the United States is not a kneejerk thing. It is deep, principled, and based solidly in the foundational political traditions of this country. The Tea Parties will not go away. Calling them names makes them–us–stronger, more determined, more resolved.

This war against freedom is as old as mankind, and it is never truly won. But it is never truly lost, either.

We will be free.

And, if you’re rolling your eyes right now, be careful. While you’re aiming that gun of government power at us, your eye-roll will be all the opening we of the liberty movement will need to take that gun away from you, strip it down into pieces, and scatter them so that it will again take you centuries to put it back together again.

Because we know something you don’t. We know that you can’t help yourself–that you are compelled to put that gun together and point it at us. It’s part of what makes us all human. But we also know that there is a better way than pointing guns at each other.

Freedom. Liberty. Individual responsibility.

We invite you to join us.

The Dupes

Via Dan Collins[*1] , a series of articles underway at the Big Peace[*2] web site on the book Dupes: How America’s Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century[*3] by Dr. Paul Kangor.

Part one is linked above. Here is part two, on Teddy Kennedy.[*4]

If you want to continue to stick your fingers in your ears and say la-la-la-la-la and ignore the plain facts before you, then there’s little I can do for you. But if you’re interested in actually knowing the truth of what’s gone on in this world, and what is still going on, you’ll read these articles.

It is appalling how completely these people were used, and how naive and blind they were. And still are, judging from the policies of the Obama Administration and the Democratic majority in Congress.

You don’t have to be a dupe. Read, listen, study, be open to the truth, even when it makes you uncomfortable (like the recent revelation that the U.S. government under Truman intentionally infected Guatamalans with syphilis[*5] ). As Dr. Kangor notes, even some people on the right were dupes. Some learned. Others didn’t.

Obama wants “a break”

Obama: ‘I’d appreciate a little break’[*1]

According to the pool report, Obama thanked Phillips for the work he and his wife have done for Team Obama. Then the president mentioned that Phillips and Douglass have an opulent place in Italy and wondered why there had been no invitation to visit. “I’d appreciate a little break and some Tuscan sun,” the president said, according to the pool report. “Some pasta. I can use it.”

No problem, Barry. Hand in your resignation and take all the free time you want. A President Biden would be a disaster and a buffoon, but that would be preferable to what you have done to this country in less than two years.

Go. Your services are no longer required.

Rutgers, Religion, Washington, Wasilla

Kevin DuJan, of Hillbuzz[*1] and Conservatives4Palin[*2] , writes an intensely personal meditation[*3] on the recent tragic suicide of the Rutgers college student, life as a gay conservative, and what has happened and is still happening in this country:

You can get the facts of what happened anywhere, and all sorts of other sites are covering the legal issues involved, both for the students who betrayed their “friend” like this and for Rutgers, if any liability exists for the school at all. I’m not going to wade into all of this because none of that’s in my area of expertise, if I even have one of those. But, I can tell you what it’s like to be young and gay and attacked and betrayed and on the edge of cashing it all in because I just didn’t want to live another day.

Dotting that last period right there, I had a flash of “oh, not again” because whenever I write personally to you about anything — but most particularly about being gay and conservative — I get absolutely assaulted from all imaginable sides…like a skinny little kid in gym class playing dodgeball with sadists.

There’s a particularly malicious gay blog in New York run by a guy named Joe who likes linking here and making fun of anything we say supporting conservatism (because he’s of the mindset that all gays must be Leftists, and he’s taken on the personal mission to pound what he calls “quislings” into pulp…where I firmly believe he only knows that word because someone slipped a word-of-the-day calendar into a swag bag at some charity event he went to for the free buffet). I pray for him to find wisdom, peace, and purpose some day and will leave it at that.

The same Republicans who don’t like that I’m gay will leave their snarky bits in the spam filter, and then they’ll succumb to Clinton Derangement Syndrome and lash out with that for awhile too (because apparently we can take down Iran’s nuclear program with an ingenious computer virus but we can’t cure CDS in our lifetime).

. . .

It’s long, but read the whole thing.